with a very antique porch and steeple. The old chapel near it is now converted into a schoolhouse. A salt-house was erected on an island in the harbour in queen Anne's reign, but it is now in ruins. It is said that one of the Welsh princes founded a college here about the year 580; but some suppose that it was not founded till the beginning of the twelfth century. The head of this college was called Pendas, and was one of the three spiritual lords of Anglesea. At the dissolution of the monasteries it became the property of the Gwynnes, till in 1648, it was settled by Thomas Gwynne, esq. on Jesus' College, Oxford, for the maintenance of two fellows and as many scholars. It has good inns, but no fresh water, except from the clouds, nor any bread but what comes from Ireland. A bath and assembly-room were erected in 1770. Under the mountains that overhang the town is a large cavern in the rock, supported by natural pillars, called the Parliament House, accessible only by boats, and the tide runs into it. The rocks abound with sea-ware, of which they make kelp. In the neighbourhood there is a large vein of white fullers' earth, and another of yellow. It lies nine miles south of the isle of Skerries, sixty east of Dublin, and 290 north-west of London. HOLY ISLAND, a small island on the coast of England, ten miles south-east of Berwick, in Northumberland. Bede calls it a semi-island, as being twice an island and twice continent in one day; for, at the flowing of the tide, it is encompassed by water; and, at the ebb, there is almost dry passage both for horses and carriages to and from the main land; from which, if measured on a straight line, it is about two miles east; but, on account of some quicksands, passengers are obliged to make so many detours that the length of the way is nearly doubled. The water over these flats at spring tides is only seven feet deep. This island was by the Britons called Inis Medicante, and Lindisfarn; and, from its becoming the habitation of some of the first monks in this country, it afterwards obtained its present name of Holy Island. It measures from east to west about two miles and a quarter, and from north to south nearly one mile and a half. At the north-west part runs out a spit of land of about a mile in length. The monastery is situated at the south extremity; and a little north of it stands the village, chiefly inhabited by fishermen. There is plenty of fish and fowls; but the air and soil are bad. The north and east coasts are formed of perpendicular rocks; the other sides sink by gradual slopes to the sands. There is a commodious harbour, defended by a block-house; which last was surprised and taken in 1715, but was soon retaken. Holy Island, though really part of Northumberland, belongs to Durham; and all civil disputes must be determined by the justices of that county. It was a very ancient episcopal seat, and had eighteen bishops till the removal of the see to Chester. The north and south walls of the church are standing; part of the west end remains, but the east is down. The columns of the nave are of four different kinds, twelve feet high and five feet diameter, massy and richer than those of Durham; the bases and capitals plain, supporting circular arches. Over each arch are large windows in pairs, separated by a short column: and over these are smaller single windows. In the north and south walls are some pointed arches. The length of the body is 138 feet, breadth eighteen feet, and with the two aisles thirty-six feet. Somewhat to the east is the base of a cross, and to the west the present parish church. HOLY-ROOD DAY, a festival observed by the Roman Catholics, in memory of the exaltation of our Saviour's cross. HOLY-ROOD HOUSE. See EDINBURGH. HOLYWELL, a town of North Wales, in Flintshire, chiefly celebrated for a spring, called St. Winifred's Well, from whence it takes its name. This well lies at the bottom of three high hills, and is covered by a small Gothic building, which is said to have been erected by the countess of Richmond, mother of Henry VII. The Gothic work on the outside of this building, which forms a canopy to the wall, is very handsome. The accommodations for bathing are very good; the water is very clear, and never freezes, boils up like a caldron, and discharges upwards of twenty-six tons of water in a minute. It now turns several mills erected for working copper, making brass wire, paper, and snuff, and winding cotton, &c. At the back of the town is a hill, in which lead ore is found. It is fifty-two miles N. N. W. of Shrewsbury, and 212 north-west of London. HOLZMINDEN, a town of Germany, in the states of Brunswick, principality of Wolfenbuttel, at the confluence of the Weser and the Holz, containing 3300 inhabitants. It has large iron works, and a brisk trade in wood. Three miles north-east of Corvey, and twenty west of Grubenhagen. HOM'AGE, n. s. & v. a. Fr. hommage; low HOM'AGER, n.s. Lat. homagium; Fr. hommager, from homo, a man, homage being the service of every man. Service paid and fealty professed to a sovereign, or a superior lord; obeisance; respect paid by external action. Bishops do homage before the king on appointment to their sees. For, sothly, he ne shuld have, than, in all his lif corage to sinne-but give his herte and body to the service of Jesu Crist, and thereof do him homage. Chaucer. The Persones Tale. Call my sovereign yours, Shakspeare. Is Cæsar's homager. His subjects, traytors, are received by the duke of Davies. His spear against her head he fiercely threw, A tuft of daisies on a flowery lay HOMBERG (William), a celebrated physician, chemist, and philosopher, born in Batavia, in the East Indies, in 1652. His father was a Saxon gentleman, who afterwards settling at Amsterdam, this son prosecuted his studies there; and thence removed to Jena, and to Leipsic. In 1642 he was made advocate at Magdeburg, where he studied experimental philosophy. Some time after he travelled into Italy; and studied medicine, anatomy, and botany, at Padua. He afterwards studied at Bologna, and at Rome. He at length travelled into France, England, and Holland; obtained the degree of M.D. at Wittemberg; travelled into Germany and the North; visited the mines of Saxony, Bohemia, Hungary, and Sweden; and returned to France, where M. Colbert made him such advantageous offers as induced him to fix his residence at Paris. M. Homberg, who was already well known for his discovery of phosphorus, for a pneumatic machine of his own invention, more perfect than that of Guericke, was received into the Academy of Sciences in 1691, and had the care of the laboratory. The duke of Orleans, afterwards regent, made him his chemist, presented him with a pension, and, in 1704, made him his first physician. He had abjured the Protestant religion in 1682, and died in 1715. There are many learned and curious pieces of his writing, in the memoirs of the Academy of Sciences, and in several journals. HOMBERG IN HESSE, a walled town of HesseCassel, Germany, on the Elze, with 2900 inhabitants, and manufactures of iron and glass. It consists of the old and new town; and has an ancient castle on a hill, remarkable for a well of the extraordinary depth of 480 feet. Twenty miles south of Cassel, and eleven S. S. E. of Fritzlar. HOMBURG on the Heighт, a town of Germany, the capital of the principality of HesseHomburg. It is situated on the Lahn, and has manufactures of watches, caps, stockings, and hats. Nine miles north of Frankfort. Population 3000. Goth. haim; Swed. heim; Dan. hiem; Sax. His ham; Scot. hame. HOME', n. s. & adj. HOME LILY, adv. HOME LINESS, n. s. Joan; Sust, a private HOME'LY, adj. & adv.. dwelling; his own country; place of constant residence: when united with a substantive it sig nifies of the same country. Home, to one's Alla the king cometh home, sone after this, Chaucer. The Man of Lawes Tale. Id. The Marchantes Tale. I'm now from home, and out of that provision Id. Id. Id. Like rich hangings in an homely house, Id. With his prepared sword he charges home A loyal sir To him thou followest: I will pay thy graces Home both in word and deed. Id. Tempest. Men of age object too much, adventure too little, and seldom drive business home to the full period; but content themselves with a mediocrity of success. Bacon. Let the exportation of home commodities be more in value than the importation of foreign. Id. That cometh up home to the business, and taketh Sanderson. off the objection clearly. Homely persons, the more they endeavour to adorn themselves, the more they expose the defects they want to hide. Clarendon. It is for homely features to keep home; Milton. But when such amity at home is showed, What then are their confederacies abroad. Marvell. Something like home that is not home is to be desired; it is found in the house of a friend. Temple. Home is the sacred refuge of our life, Secured from all approaches but a wife. When Hector went to see His virtuous wife, the fair Andromache, Dryden. He found her not at home; for she was gone. Id. the civil and the municipal law of his country, at Edinburgh, he attended for some time the chamber of a writer to the signet. The strength. and vivacity of his natural abilities, combined with unwearied application, soon raised him to be an ornament to the Scottish bar; and, on the 2d of February, 1752, he was advanced to the bench as one of the judges of the court of ses Those who have homes, when home they do repair, sion, under the title of lord Kames. Before this To a last lodging call their wandering friends. Thus, like the god his father, homely drest, He strides into the hall a horrid guest. Their homely fare dispatched, the hungry band Invade their trenchers next. Poison may be false; Id. Id. Id. Now Strephon daily entertains His Chloe in the homeliest strains. Swift. Where rolled the ocean thereon was his home, Id. Childe Harold. HOME (Henry), lord Kames, an eminent Scottish lawyer, and author, descended from an ancient family, was born in 1696, in Berwickshire. In early youth he was lively, and eager in the acquisition of knowledge. After studying period, however, notwithstanding the unavoidable labors of his profession, he had become the author of several works. In 1728 he published Remarkable Decisions of the Court of Session from 1716 to 1728 in 1 vol. folio.-In 1732 appeared Essays upon several subjects in Law, viz. Jus tertii; Beneficium Cedendarum Actionum; Vinco Vincentem; and Prescription; in 1 vol. 8vo. This was succeeded, in 1741, by Decisions of the Court of Session from its first institution to the year 1740, abridged and digested under proper heads, in form of a Dictionary, in 2 vols. folio: a very laborious work, and of the greatest utility to the practical lawyer. In 1747 appeared Essays upon several subjects concerning British Antiquities, viz. 1. Introduction of the feudal law into Scotland. 2. Constitution of parliament. 3. Honor, dignity. 4. Succession, or descent; with appendix upon hereditary and indefeasible right, composed in 1745, and published in 1747, in 1 vol. 8vo. It may be proper, though not in strict chronological order, to continue the list of his writings on law, before we mention his works on other subjects. In 1757 he published The Statute Law of Scotland abridged, with Historical Notes, in 1 vol. 8vo. In 1759 he produced a new work, entitled Historical Law Tracts, in 1 vol. 8vo. In 1760 he published in 1 vol. folio The Principles of Equity; a work which shows both the fertility of the author's genius and his indefatigable application. In 1766 he gave to the public another volume, in folio, of Remarkable Decisions of the Court of Session, from 1730 to 1752. In 1777 appeared his Elucidations respecting the Common and Statute Law of Scotland, in 1 vol. 8vo. In 1780 a volume in folio, of Select Decisions of the Court of Session, from 1752 to 1768. Lord Kames was much inclined to metaphysical disquisitions. In 1751 he published Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion, a small volume, which gave rise to much controversy. It contained, in the most explicit terms, the doctrine which then made so much noise, under the appellation of philosophical necessity. In 1761 he published an Introduction to the Art of Thinking, in 1 vol. 12mo. His Elements of Criticism appeared in 1762, in 3 vols. 8vo. A farther evidence of the various pursuits of his active mind was given in 1772, when he published a work in one volume 8vo, entitled The Gentleman Farmer, being an attempt to improve Agriculture by subjecting it to the test of Rational Principles. This book met with a very favorable reception in Scotland, where, as a practical farmer, its author gave many proofs of his skill. After he succeeded, in right of his lady, to the ample estate of Blair Drummond in Perthshire. he formed, and in part successfully ex ecuted, a plan for turning a large moss, consisting of at least 1500 acres into arable land. In 1773 lord Kames published Sketches of the History of Man, in 2 vols. 4to. His last work, entitled Loose Hints upon Education, chiefly concerning the Culture of the Heart, was published in 1781, in 1 vol. 8vo, when its venerable author was in his eighty-fifth year. Lord Kames published many temporary and fugitive pieces. He for a a great length of time had the principal management of all the societies and boards for promoting the trade, fisheries, and manufactures, in Scotland. He took likewise a chief lead in the distribution and application of the funds arising from the estates in Scotland, which had unfortunately been annexed to the crown. Nor was he less zealous in supporting, both with his writings and personal influence, various literary associations. Lord Kames died on the 27th day of December, 1782. As he had no disease but the debility necessarily resulting from extreme old age, a few days before his death he went to the court of session, addressed all the judges separately, told them he was speedily to depart, and took a solemn and an affectionate farewel. A life of lord Kames, with a view of his writings, was published by lord Woodhouselee. HOME (John), an eminent dramatic poet, born in the vicinity of Ancrum, in Roxburghshire, in 1724. It being the desire of his parents that he should enter the church, he attended the philosophical and theological classes of the university of Edinburgh for several years. But his studies were for a while suspended by the public commotions of the year 1745. Mr. Home was one of about twenty students of the university who offered their services as volunteers, to act against the common enemy. But intimidated by the number of their opponents, or adverse to the hardships of a military life, the college company soon disbanded. Mr. Home, however, retained his arms, and marched with a detachment of the royal army to Falkirk; where, in the battle fought in its neighbourhood, in which the rebels vanquished the king's troops, he was taken prisoner, and confined for some time in the castle of Doun. From this place of captivity he effected his escape; and, the battle of Cullo den having blasted all the hopes of the pretender's adherents, tranquillity and order were soon restored. Mr. Home resumed his studies, and was licensed to preach in 1747. Not long after he visited England; for it appears that he was introduced to Collins the poet, at Winchester, by a Mr. Barrow, who had been his fellow-student at the university. Collins addressed to him his Ode on the Superstition of the Highlanders, considered as the subject of poetry, composed in 1749, but not published till many years after his death. In 1750 he was settled minister of Athelstaneford, in East Lothian; but having been accustomed to the bustle of a city, and the society of men of letters, Mr. Home found himself rather disagreeably situated, in an obscure village, where he had no opportunity of distinguishing himself. It was about this period that, in his retirement, he began seriously to court the dramatic muse. The first tragedy he wrote was Agis, founded on a portion of the Lacedæmonian history. This being rejected by the London theatres, he next composed his celebrated Douglas. In presenting this to the London manager, he had the mortification of a second refusal; and Garrick said afterwards that no circumstance, in the course of his management, gave him so much concern as the rejection of this play. But the ardor of Home was not to be thus suppressed. Being acquainted with the leading characters in Scotland, a ready reception of his play at Edinburgh was secured, and at the first representation of it in the theatre in Canongate, on the 14th of December, 1756, Mr. Home and several of his clerical brethren were present. The hue and cry was immediately raised; that a clergyman should write a play, and that ministers of the gospel should witness its performance, were crimes unheard of in the annals of the church. The author was summoned to appear before the bar of the presbytery; his friends were peremptorily dragged before the same tribunal, some of them dismissed with censure, and others suspended from their office. While such was the state of affairs in Scotland, Douglas having been performed to crowded houses during the greater part of the season, and fully gratifying the most sanguine hopes of the author, was, through the interest of David Hume, brought forward on the London stage. Here it soon became a standard tragedy, and maintains its ground to the present day. The clamors of his enemies having not yet subsided in Scotland, Mr. Home preached his farewell sermon to his congregation on the 5th of June, 1757; and, to prevent further proceedings in the church courts against him, gave in the resignation of his charge to the presbytery of Haddington two days after. With his living, Mr. Home appears for a while to have abandoned his native land, for he now repaired to London, where he produced several other tragedies, under the patronage of Garrick. They are all, however, greatly inferior to his Douglas. Agis, the first of his dramatic pieces, was finely acted, and assisted by spectacle; otherwise, it is probable that it would not have been performed a second night. His third tragedy was founded on the cruel treatment which the two Setons, sons of the governor of Berwick, had experienced from the English. At Garrick's suggestion, the title was altered, from the siege of Berwick to the siege of Aquileia, and it was acted in 1759. Some of the passages are very fine, but upon the whole it is a tame performance. Mr. Home's last production, Alfred, lived only three nights. In the year 1760 Mr. Home published a volume of plays, containing Agis, Douglas, and the Siege of Aquileia, which he dedicated to his present majesty, then prince of Wales. Three other tragedies appeared some time after. The whole were collected and edited in two volumes at Edinburgh, in 1798, under the inspection of the late Mr. Woods. Mr. Home, at the advanced age of seventy-eight, published his longmeditated work, entitled The History of the Rebellion in Scotland, in 1745-6, in which he recorded the exploits and remarks of his youth, but the public were disappointed in it. For a considerable time prior to his death, Mr. Home's With homeborn lyes, or tales from foreign lands. HOME BRED, adj. Home and bred. God hath taken care to anticipate every man, to draw him early into his church, before other competitors, homebred lusts, or vicious customs of the world, should be able to pretend to him. Hammond. No homebred jars her quiet state controul, Nor watchful jealousy torments her soul. Gay. Not polished by travel; plain; rude; artless; uncultivated. Only to me two homebred youths belong. HOMER, n. s. three pints. A Hebrew measure of about HOMER, the prince of the Greek poets, flouvished, according to Dr. Blair, about 900 B. C.; according to Dr. Priestley, 850; according to the Arundelian marbles, 300 after the taking of Troy; and, agreeably to them all, above 400 years before Plato and Aristotle. Seven cities disputed the glory of having given him birth, which are enumerated in the following distich :Smyrna, Rhodes, Colophon, Salamis, Chios, Argos, Orbis de patria certat, Homere tua. Athenæ ; under the name of Herodotus, and is usually printed with his history: and though it is supposed to be spurious, yet, as it is ancient, was made use of by Strabo, and exhibits the idea which the later Greeks, and the Romans in the age of Augustus, entertained of Homer, we must content ourselves with it. Menalippus, a native of Magnesia, is said to have settled at Cumæ, where he married the daughter of a citizen called Homyres, and had by her a daughter, Critheis. The father and mother dying, the young woman was left under the tuition of Cleonax, her father's friend, by whom she was seduced, and who, on her proving with child, sent her to Smyrna, which was then building, to conceal the misfortune. This was eighteen years after the founding of Cumæ, and about 168 after the destruction of Troy. Critheis was here delivered of Homer, whom she called Melesigenes, because he was born on the banks of that river. Her good conduct afterwards induced Phemius, a schoolmaster, to marry her, and adopt her son After the death of Phemius and Critheis, Homer succeeded to his father-in-law's school; until a shipmaster named Mentes, who was a man of learning, persuaded him to travel with him. This brought him to Egypt; whence he brought into Greece the names of their gods, the chief ceremonies of their worship, and a more improved knowledge of the arts. He also visited other parts of Africa and Spain; in his return whence he touched at Ithaca, where he was first troubled with a disease of his eyes. Being recommended to Mentor, one of the chief men of Ithaca, he was here informed of many things relating to Ulysses, which he afterwards inserted in his Odyssey; and, after much time spent in visiting the coasts of Peloponnesus and the islands, arrived at Colophon, where he lost his sight. He now returned to Smyrna, and finished his Iliad. Some time after, the low state of his finances obliged him to go to Cuma, where his poems were highly applauded; but when he proposed to immortalise their town, if they would allow him a salary, he was answered, that there would be no end of maintaining all the 'Ounpo, or blind men: hence he is said to have obtained the name of Homer. He afterwards wandered through several places to Chios, where he married, and composed his Odyssey. Some time after, having produced various verses in praise of the cities of Greece, especially of Athens and Argos, he went to Samos, where he spent the winter reciting them. In the spring he proceeded to Io, one of the Sporades, intending to continue his voyage to Athens. Landing, however, at Chios by the way, he fell sick and died, and was buried on the sea shore. The principal works ascribed to Homer are the Iliad and Odyssey. The Batrachomyomachia, or battle of the frogs and mice, rody incompatible with the simplicity of the is rejected by almost all modern critics, as a paHomeric age. Of his Hymns some are acknowledged by Lucian and Pausanias; others are undoubtedly spurious. Of the Iliad and Odyssey, the editions are very numerous. best are those of Barnes, Clarke, and Heyne. The two leading English translations are those of Pope and Cowper, in rhyme and blank verse The |
