Part 5

HALS, FRANS (1580?-1666), Dutch painter, was born at Antwerp according to the most recent authorities in 1580 or 1581, and died at Haarlem in 1666. As a portrait painter second only to Rembrandt in Holland, he displayed extraordinary talent and quickness in the exercise of his art coupled with improvidence in the use of the means which that art secured to him. At a time when the Dutch nation fought for independence and won it, Hals appears in the ranks of its military gilds. He was also a member of the Chamber of Rhetoric, and (1644) chairman of the Painters' Corporation at Haarlem. But as a man he had failings. He so ill-treated his first wife, Anneke Hermansz, that she died prematurely in 1616; and he barely saved the character of his second, Lysbeth Reyniers, by marrying her in 1617. Another defect was partiality to drink, which led him into low company. Still he brought up and supported a family of ten children with success till 1652, when the forced sale of his pictures and furniture, at the suit of a baker to whom he was indebted for bread and money, brought him to absolute penury. The inventory of the property seized on this occasion only mentions three mattresses and bolsters, an armoire, a table and five pictures. This humble list represents all his worldly possessions at the time of his bankruptcy. Subsequently to this he was reduced to still greater straits, and his rent and firing were paid by the municipality, which afterwards gave him (1664) an annuity of 200 florins. We may admire the spirit which enabled him to produce some of his most striking works in his unhappy circumstances: we find his widow seeking outdoor relief from the guardians of the poor, and dying obscurely in a hospital.

Hals's pictures illustrate the various strata of society into which his misfortunes led him. His banquets or meetings of officers, of sharpshooters, and gildsmen are the most interesting of his works. But they are not more characteristic than his low-life pictures of itinerant players and singers. His portraits of gentlefolk are true and noble, but hardly so expressive as those of fishwives and tavern heroes.

His first master at Antwerp was probably van Noort, as has been suggested by M. G. S. Davies, but on his removal to Haarlem Frans Hals entered the atelier of van Mander, the painter and historian, of whom he possessed some pictures which went to pay the debt of the baker already alluded to. But he soon improved upon the practice of the time, illustrated by J. van Schoreel and Antonio Moro, and, emancipating himself gradually from tradition, produced pictures remarkable for truth and dexterity of hand. We prize in Rembrandt the golden glow of effects based upon artificial contrasts of low light in immeasurable gloom. Hals was fond of daylight of silvery sheen. Both men were painters of touch, but of touch on different keys--Rembrandt was the bass, Hals the treble. The latter is perhaps more expressive than the former. He seizes with rare intuition a moment in the life of his sitters. What nature displays in that moment he reproduces thoroughly in a very delicate scale of colour, and with a perfect mastery over every form of expression. He becomes so clever at last that exact tone, light and shade, and modelling are all obtained with a few marked and fluid strokes of the brush.

In every form of his art we can distinguish his earlier style from that of later years. It is curious that we have no record of any work produced by him in the first decade of his independent activity, save an engraving by Jan van de Velde after a lost portrait of "The Minister Johannes Bogardus," who died in 1614. The earliest works by Frans Hals that have come down to us, "Two Boys Playing and Singing" in the gallery of Cassel, and a "Banquet of the officers of the 'St Joris Doele'" or Arquebusiers of St George (1616) in the museum of Haarlem, exhibit him as a careful draughtsman capable of great finish, yet spirited withal. His flesh, less clear than it afterwards becomes, is pastose and burnished. Later he becomes more effective, displays more freedom of hand, and a greater command of effect. At this period we note the beautiful full-length of "Madame van Beresteyn" at the Louvre in Paris, and a splendid full-length portrait of "Willem van Heythuysen" leaning on a sword in the Liechtenstein collection at Vienna. Both these pictures are equalled by the other "Banquet of the officers, of the Arquebusiers of St George" (with different portraits) and the "Banquet of the officers of the 'Cloveniers Doelen'" or Arquebusiers of St Andrew of 1627 and an "Assembly of the officers of the Arquebusiers of St Andrew" of 1633 in the Haarlem Museum. A picture of the same kind in the town hall of Amsterdam, with the date of 1637, suggests some study of the masterpieces of Rembrandt, and a similar influence is apparent in a picture of 1641 at Haarlem, representing the "Regents of the Company of St Elizabeth" and in the portrait of "Maria Voogt" at Amsterdam. But Rembrandt's example did not create a lasting impression on Hals. He gradually dropped more and more into grey and silvery harmonies of tone; and two of his canvases, executed in 1664, "The Regents and Regentesses of the Oudemannenhuis" at Haarlem, are masterpieces of colour, though in substance all but monochromes. In fact, ever since 1641 Hals had shown a tendency to restrict the gamut of his palette, and to suggest colour rather than express it. This is particularly noticeable in his flesh tints which from year to year became more grey, until finally the shadows were painted in almost absolute black, as in the "Tymane Oosdorp," of the Berlin Gallery. As this tendency coincides with the period of his poverty, it has been suggested that one of the reasons, if not the only reason, of his predilection for black and white pigment was the cheapness of these colours as compared with the costly lakes and carmines.

As a portrait painter Frans Hals had scarcely the psychological insight of a Rembrandt or Velazquez, though in a few works, like the "Admiral de Ruyter," in Earl Spencer's collection, the "Jacob Olycan" at the Hague Gallery, and the "Albert van der Meer" at Haarlem town hall, he reveals a searching analysis of character which has little in common with the instantaneous expression of his so-called "character" portraits. In these he generally sets upon the canvas the fleeting aspect of the various stages of merriment, from the subtle, half ironic smile that quivers round the lips of the curiously misnamed "Laughing Cavalier" in the Wallace Collection to the imbecile grin of the "Hille Bobbe" in the Berlin Museum. To this group of pictures belong Baron Gustav Rothschild's "Jester," the "_Bohemienne_" at the Louvre, and the "Fisher Boy" at Antwerp, whilst the "Portrait of the Artist with his second Wife" at the Ryks Museum in Amsterdam, and the somewhat confused group of the "Beresteyn Family" at the Louvre show a similar tendency. Far less scattered in arrangement than this Beresteyn group, and in every respect one of the most masterly of Frans Hals's achievements is the group called "The Painter and his Family" in the possession of Colonel Warde, which was almost unknown until it appeared at the winter exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1906.

Though a visit to Haarlem town hall, which contains the five enormous Doelen groups and the two Regenten pictures, is as necessary for the student of Hals's art as a visit to the Prado in Madrid is for the student of Velazquez, good examples of the Dutch master have found their way into most of the leading public and private collections. In the British Isles, besides the works already mentioned, portraits from his brush are to be found at the National Gallery, the Edinburgh Gallery, the Glasgow Corporation Gallery, Hampton Court, Buckingham Palace, Devonshire House, and the collections of Lord Northbrooke, Lord Ellesmere, Lord Iveagh and Lord Spencer.

At Amsterdam is the celebrated "Flute Player," once in the Dupper collection at Dort; at Brussels, the patrician "Heythuysen"; at the Louvre, "Descartes"; at Dresden, the painter "Van der Vinne." Hals's sitters were taken from every class of society--admirals, generals and burgomasters pairing with merchants, lawyers, clerks. To register all that we find in public galleries would involve much space. There are eight portraits at Berlin, six at Cassel, five at St Petersburg, six at the Louvre, two at Brussels, five at Dresden, two at Gotha. In private collections, chiefly in Paris, Haarlem and Vienna, we find an equally important number. Amongst the painter's most successful representations of fishwives and termagants we should distinguish the "Hille Bobbe" of the Berlin Museum, and the "Hille Bobbe with her Son" in the Dresden Gallery. Itinerant players are best illustrated in the Neville-Goldsmith collection at the Hague, and the Six collection at Amsterdam. Boys and girls singing, playing or laughing, or men drinking, are to be found in the gallery of Schwerin, in the Arenberg collection, and in the royal palace at Brussels.

For two centuries after his death Frans Hals was held in such poor esteem that some of his paintings, which are now among the proudest possessions of public galleries, were sold at auction for a few pounds or even shillings. The portrait of "Johannes Acronius," now at the Berlin Museum, realized five shillings at the Enschede sale in 1786. The splendid portrait of the man with the sword at the Liechtenstein gallery was sold in 1800 for L4, 5s. With his rehabilitation in public esteem came the enormous rise in values, and, at the Secretan sale in 1889, the portrait of "Pieter van de Broecke d'Anvers" was bid up to L4420, while in 1908 the National Gallery paid L25,000 for the large group from the collection of Lord Talbot de Malahide.

Of the master's numerous family none has left a name except FRANS HALS THE YOUNGER, born about 1622, who died in 1669. His pictures represent cottages and poultry; and the "Vanitas" at Berlin, a table laden with gold and silver dishes, cups, glasses and books, is one of his finest works and deserving of a passing glance.

Quite in another form, and with much of the freedom of the elder HALS, DIRK HALS, his brother (born at Haarlem, died 1656), is a painter of festivals and ball-rooms. But Dirk had too much of the freedom and too little of the skill in drawing which characterized his brother. He remains second on his own ground to Palamedes. A fair specimen of his art is a "Lady playing a Harpsichord to a Young Girl and her Lover" in the van der Hoop collection at Amsterdam, now in the Ryks Museum. More characteristic, but not better, is a large company of gentle-folk rising from dinner, in the Academy at Vienna.

LITERATURE.--See W. Bode, _Frans Hals und seine Schule_ (Leipzig, 1871); W. Unger and W. Vosmaer, _Etchings after Frans Hals_ (Leyden, 1873); Percy Rendell Head, _Sir Anthony Van Dyck and Frans Hals_ (London, 1879); D. Knackfuss, _Frans Hals_ (Leipzig, 1896); G. S. Davies, _Frans Hals_ (London, 1902). (P. G. K.)

HALSBURY, HARDINGE STANLEY GIFFARD, 1ST EARL OF (1825- ), English lord chancellor, son of Stanley Lees Giffard, LL.D., was born in London on the 3rd of September 1825. He was educated at Merton College, Oxford, and was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1850, joining the North Wales and Chester circuit. Afterwards he had a large practice at the central criminal court and the Middlesex sessions, and he was for several years junior prosecuting counsel to the treasury. He was engaged in most of the celebrated trials of his time, including the Overend and Gurney and the Tichborne cases. He became queen's counsel in 1865, and a bencher of the Inner Temple. Mr Giffard twice contested Cardiff in the Conservative interest, in 1868 and 1874, but he was still without a seat in the House of Commons when he was appointed solicitor-general by Disraeli in 1875 and received the honour of knighthood. In 1877 he succeeded in obtaining a seat, when he was returned for Launceston, which borough he continued to represent until his elevation to the peerage in 1885. He was then created Baron Halsbury and appointed lord chancellor, thus forming a remarkable exception to the rule that no criminal lawyer ever reaches the woolsack. Lord Halsbury resumed the position in 1886 and held it until 1892 and again from 1895 to 1905, his tenure of the office, broken only by the brief Liberal ministries of 1886 and 1892-1895, being longer than that of any lord chancellor since Lord Eldon. In 1898 he was created earl of Halsbury and Viscount Tiverton. Among Conservative lord chancellors Lord Halsbury must always hold a high place, his grasp of legal principles and mastery in applying them being pre-eminent among the judges of his day.

HALSTEAD, a market-town in the Maldon parliamentary division of Essex, England, on the Colne, 17 m. N.N.E. from Chelmsford; served by the Colne Valley railway from Chappel Junction on the Great Eastern railway. Pop. of urban district (1901), 6073. It lies on a hill in a pleasant wooded district. The church of St Andrew is mainly Perpendicular. It contains a monument supposed to commemorate Sir Robert Bourchier (d. 1349), lord chancellor to Edward III. The Lady Mary Ramsay grammar school dates from 1594. There are large silk and crape works. Two miles N. of Halstead is Little Maplestead, where the church is the latest in date of the four churches with round naves extant in England, being perhaps of 12th-century foundation, but showing early Decorated work in the main. The chancel, which is without aisles, terminates in an apse. Three miles N.W. from Halstead are the large villages of Sible Hedingham (pop. 1701) and Castle Hedingham (pop. 1097). At the second is the Norman keep of the de Veres, of whom Aubrey de Vere held the lordship from William I. The keep dates from the end of the 11th century, and exhibits much fine Norman work. The church of St Nicholas, Castle Hedingham, has fine Norman, Transitional and Early English details, and there is a black marble tomb of John de Vere, 15th earl of Oxford (d. 1540), with his countess.

There are signs of settlement at Halstead (Halsteda, Halgusted, Halsted) in the Bronze Age; but there is no evidence of the causes of its growth in historic times. Probably its situation on the river Colne made it to some extent a local centre. Throughout the middle ages Halstead was unimportant, and never rose to the rank of a borough.

HALT. (1) An adjective common to Teutonic languages and still appearing in Swedish and Danish, meaning lame, crippled. It is also used as a verb, meaning to limp, and as a substantive, especially in the term "string-halt" or "spring-halt," a nervous disorder affecting the muscles of the hind legs of horses. (2) A pause or stoppage made on a march or a journey. The word came into English in the form "to make alto" or "alt," and was taken from the French _faire alte_ or Italian _far alto_. The origin is a German military term, _Halt machen_, _Halt_ meaning "hold."

HALUNTIUM (Gr. [Greek: Alontion], mod. S. Marco d'Alunzio), an ancient city of Sicily, 6 m. from the north coast and 25 m. E.N.E. of Halaesa. It was probably of Sicel origin, though its foundation was ascribed to some of the companions of Aeneas. It appears first in Roman times as a place of some importance, and suffered considerably at the hands of Verres. The abandoned church of S. Mark, just outside the modern town, is built into the cella of an ancient Greek temple, which measures 62 ft. by 18. A number of ancient inscriptions have been found there.

HALYBURTON, JAMES (1518-1589), Scottish reformer, was born in 1518, and was educated at St Andrews, where he graduated M.A. in 1538. From 1553 to 1586 he was provost of St Andrews and a prominent figure in the national life. He was chosen as one of the lords of the congregation in 1557, and commanded the contingents sent by Forfar and Fife against the queen regent in 1559. He took part in the defence of Edinburgh, and in the battles of Langside (1568) and Restalrig (1571). He had stoutly opposed the marriage of Mary with Darnley, and when, after Restalrig, he was captured by the queen's troops, he narrowly escaped execution. He represented Morton at the conference of 1578, and was one of the royal commissioners to the General Assembly in 1582 and again in 1588. He died in February 1589.

HALYBURTON, THOMAS (1674-1712), Scottish divine, was born at Dupplin, near Perth, on the 25th of December 1674. His father, one of the ejected ministers, having died in 1682, he was taken by his mother in 1685 to Rotterdam to escape persecution, where he for some time attended the school founded by Erasmus. On his return to his native country in 1687 he completed his elementary education at Perth and Edinburgh, and in 1696 graduated at the university of St Andrews. In 1700 he was ordained minister of the parish of Ceres, and in 1710 he was recommended by the synod of Fife for the chair of theology in St Leonard's College, St Andrews, to which accordingly he was appointed by Queen Anne. After a brief term of active professorial life he died from the effects of overwork in 1712.

The works by which he continues to be known were all of them published after his death. Wesley and Whitefield were accustomed to commend them to their followers. They were published as follows: _Natural Religion Insufficient, and Revealed Religion Necessary, to Man's Happiness in his Present State_ (1714), an able statement of the orthodox Calvinistic criticism of the deism of Lord Herbert of Cherbury and Charles Blount; _Memoirs of the Life of Mr Thomas Halyburton_ (1715), three parts by his own hand, the fourth from his diary by another hand; _The Great Concern of Salvation_ (1721), with a word of commendation by I. Watts; _Ten Sermons Preached Before and After the Lord's Supper_ (1722); _The Unpardonable Sin Against the Holy Ghost_ (1784). See Halyburton's _Memoirs_ (1714).

HAM, in the Bible. (1) [Hebrew: Ham], _Ham_, in Gen. v. 32, vi. 10, vii. 13, ix. 18, x. 5, 1 Chron. i. 4, the _second_ son of Noah; in Gen. ix. 24, the _youngest_ son (but cf. below); and in Gen. x. 6, 1 Chron. i. 8, the father of Cush (Ethiopia), Mizraim (Egypt), Phut and Canaan. Genesis x. exhibits in the form of genealogies the political, racial and geographical relations of the peoples known to Israel; as it was compiled from various sources and has been more than once edited, it does not exactly represent the situation at any given date,[1] but Ham seems to stand roughly for the south-western division of the world as known to Israel, which division was regarded as the natural sphere of influence of Egypt. Ham is held to be the Egyptian word _Khem_ (black) which was the native name of Egypt; thus in Pss. lxxviii. 51, cv. 23, 27, cvi. 22, Ham = Egypt. In Gen. ix. 20-26 Canaan was originally the third son of Noah and the villain of the story. Ham is a later addition to harmonize with other passages.

(2) [Hebrew: Ham], _Ham_, 1 Chron. iv. 40, apparently the name of a place or tribe. It can hardly be identical with (1); nothing else is known of this second Ham, which may be a scribe's error; the Syriac version rejects the name.

(3) [Hebrew: Ham], _Ham_, Gen. xiv. 5; the place where Chedorlaomer defeated the Zuzim, apparently in eastern Palestine. The place is unknown, and the name may be a scribe's error, perhaps for Ammon. (W. H. Be.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] A. Jeremias, _Das A.T. im Lichte des alten Orients_, p. 145, holds that it represents the situation in the 8th century B.C.

HAM, a small town of northern France, in the department of Somme, 36 m. E.S.E. of Amiens on the Northern railway between that city and Laon. Pop. (1906), 2957. It stands on the Somme in a marshy district where market-gardening is carried on. From the 9th century onwards it appears as the seat of a lordship which, after the extinction of its hereditary line, passed in succession to the houses of Coucy, Enghien, Luxembourg, Rohan, Vendome and Navarre, and was finally united to the French crown on the accession of Henry IV. Notre-Dame, the church of an abbey of canons regular of St Augustin, dates from the 12th and 13th centuries, but in 1760 all the inflammable portions of the building were destroyed by a conflagration caused by lightning, and a process of restoration was subsequently carried out. Of special note are the bas-reliefs of the nave and choir, executed in the 17th and 18th centuries, and the crypt of the 12th century, which contains the sepulchral effigies of Odo IV. of Ham and his wife Isabella of Bethencourt. The castle, founded before the 10th century, was rebuilt early in the 13th, and extended in the 14th; its present appearance is mainly due to the constable Louis of Luxembourg, count of St Pol, who between 1436 and 1470 not only furnished it with outworks, but gave such a thickness to the towers and curtains, and more especially to the great tower or donjon which still bears his motto _Mon Myeulx_, that the great engineer and architect Viollet-le-Duc considered them, even in the 19th century, capable of resisting artillery. It forms a rectangle 395 ft. long by 263 ft. broad, with a round tower at each angle and two square towers protecting the curtains. The eastern and western sides are each defended by a demi-lune. The Constable's Tower, for so the great tower is usually called in memory of St Pol, has a height of about 100 ft., and the thickness of the walls is 36 ft.; the interior is occupied by three large hexagonal chambers in as many stories. The castle of Ham, which now serves as barracks, has frequently been used as a state prison both in ancient and modern times, and the list of those who have sojourned there is an interesting one, including as it does Joan of Arc, Louis of Bourbon, the ministers of Charles X., Louis Napoleon, and Generals Cavaignac and Lamoriciere. Louis Napoleon was there for six years, and at last effected his escape in the disguise of a workman. During 1870-1871 Ham was several times captured and recaptured by the belligerents. A statue commemorates the birth in the town of General Foy (1775-1825).

See J. G. Cappot, _Le Chateau de Ham_ (Paris, 1842); and Ch. Gomart, _Ham, son chateau et ses prisonniers_ (Ham, 1864).

HAMADAN, a province and town of Persia. The province is bounded N. by Gerrus and Khamseh, W. by Kermanshah, S. by Malayir and Irak, E. by Savah and Kazvin. It has many well-watered, fertile plains and more than four hundred flourishing villages producing much grain, and its population, estimated at 350,000--more than half being Turks of the Karaguzlu (black-eyed) and Shamlu (Syrian) tribes--supplies several battalions of infantry to the army, and pays, besides, a yearly revenue of about L18,000.