Chapter IX: Part 9

HOOKER, JOSEPH (1814-1879), American general, was born in Hadley, Massachusetts, on the 13th of November 1814. He was educated at the military academy at West Point (1833-1837), and on graduating entered the 1st U.S. Artillery. In the war with Mexico (1846-48) he served as a staff officer, and rose by successive brevets for meritorious services to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. In 1853 he left the service and bought a large farm near Sonoma, Cal., which he managed successfully till 1858, when he was made superintendent of military roads in Oregon. Upon the opening of hostilities in the Civil War of 1861-65, he sacrificed his fine estate and offered his sword to the Federal Government. He was commissioned brigadier-general of volunteers on the 17th of May 1861 and major-general on the 5th of May 1862. The engagement of Williamsburg (May 5th) brought him and his subordinate Hancock into prominence, and Hooker received the soubriquet of "Fighting Joe." He was engaged at the battle of Fair Oaks, and did splendid service to the Union army during the "Seven Days." In the campaign of Northern Virginia, under General Pope (August 1862), he led his division with fiery energy at Bristoe Station, Manassas and Chantilly. In the Maryland campaign (September) he was at the head of the I. corps, Army of the Potomac, forced the defile of South Mountain and opened the way for the advance of the army. The I. corps opened the great battle of the Antietam, and sustained a sanguinary fight with the Confederates under Stonewall Jackson. Hooker himself was severely wounded. He was commissioned brigadier-general in the United States army on the 20th of September 1862, and in the battle of Fredericksburg (q.v.), under Burnside, he commanded the centre grand division (III. and V. corps). He had protested against the useless slaughter of his men on that disastrous field, and when Burnside resigned the command Hooker succeeded him. The new leader effected a much-needed re-organization in the army, which had fought many battles without success. In this task, as in subordinate commands in battle, Hooker was excelled by few. But his grave defects as a commander-in-chief were soon to be obvious. By a well-planned and well-executed flanking movement, he placed himself on the enemy's flank, but at the decisive moment he checked the advance of his troops. Lee turned upon him, Jackson surprised and destroyed a whole army corps, and the battle of Chancellorsville (see WILDERNESS), in which Hooker was himself disabled, ended in a retreat to the old position. Yet Hooker had not entirely forfeited the confidence of his men, to whom he was still "Fighting Joe." The second advance of Lee into Union territory, which led to the battle of Gettysburg, was strenuously resisted by Hooker, who would have inflicted a heavy blow on Lee's scattered forces had he not been condemned to inaction by orders from Washington. Even then Hooker followed the Confederates a day only behind them, until, finding himself distrusted and forbidden to control the movements of troops within the sphere of operations, he resigned the command on the eve of the battle (June 28, 1863). Faults of temper and an excessive sense of responsibility made his continued occupation of the command impossible, but when after a signal defeat Rosecrans was besieged in Chattanooga, and Grant with all the forces of the West was hurried to the rescue, two corps of the Army of the Potomac were sent over by rail, and Hooker, who was at least one of the finest fighting generals of the service, went with them in command. He fought and won the "Battle above the Clouds" on Lookout Mountain which cleared the way for the crowning victory of the army of the Cumberland on Missionary Ridge (see CHATTANOOGA). And in command of the same corps (consolidated as the XX. corps) he took part in all the battles and combats of the Atlanta campaign of 1864. When General McPherson was killed before Atlanta, the command of Grant's old Army of the Tennessee fell vacant. Hooker, who, though only a corps commander, was senior to the other army commanders, Thomas and Schofield, was normally entitled to receive it, but General Sherman feared to commit a whole army to the guidance of a man of Hooker's peculiar temperament, and the place was given to Howard. Hooker thereupon left the army. He was commissioned brevet-major-general in the United States army on the 13th of March 1865, and retired from active service with the full rank of major-general on the 15th of October 1868, in consequence of a paralytic seizure. The last years of his life were passed in the neighbourhood of New York. He died at Garden City, Long Island, on the 31st of October 1879.

HOOKER, SIR JOSEPH DALTON (1817- ), English botanist and traveller, second son of the famous botanist Sir W. J. Hooker, was born on the 30th of June 1817, at Halesworth, Suffolk. He was educated at Glasgow University, and almost immediately after taking his M.D. degree there in 1839 joined Sir James Ross's Antarctic expedition, receiving a commission as assistant-surgeon on the "Erebus." The botanical fruits of the three years he thus spent in the Southern Seas were the _Flora Antarctica_, _Flora Novae Zelandiae_ and _Flora Tasmanica_, which he published on his return. His next expedition was to the northern frontiers of India (1847-1851), and the expenses in this case also were partially defrayed by the government. The party had its full share of adventure. Hooker and his friend Dr Campbell were detained in prison for some time by the raja of Sikkim, but nevertheless they were able to bring back important results, both geographical and botanical. Their survey of hitherto unexplored regions was published by the Calcutta Trigonometrical Survey Office, and their botanical observations formed the basis of elaborate works on the rhododendrons of the Sikkim Himalaya and on the flora of India. Among other journeys undertaken by Hooker may be mentioned those to Palestine (1860), Morocco (1871), and the United States (1877), all yielding valuable scientific information. In the midst of all this travelling in foreign countries he quickly built up for himself a high scientific reputation at home. In 1855 he was appointed assistant-director of Kew Gardens, and in 1865 he succeeded his father as full director, holding the post for twenty years. At the early age of thirty he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1873 he was chosen its president; he received three of its medals--a Royal in 1854, the Copley in 1887 and the Darwin in 1892. He acted as president of the British Association at its Norwich meeting of 1868, when his address was remarkable for its championship of Darwinian theories. Of Darwin, indeed, he was an early friend and supporter: it was he who, with Lyell, first induced Darwin to make his views public, and the author of _The Origin of Species_ has recorded his indebtedness to Hooker's wide knowledge and balanced judgment. Sir Joseph Hooker is the author of numerous scientific papers and monographs, and his larger books include, in addition to those already mentioned, a standard _Student's Flora of the British Isles_ and a monumental work, the _Genera plantarum_, based on the collections at Kew, in which he had the assistance of Bentham. On the publication of the last part of his _Flora of British India_ in 1897 he was created G.C.S.I., of which order he had been made a knight commander twenty years before; and twenty years later, on attaining the age of ninety, he was awarded the Order of Merit.

HOOKER, RICHARD (1553-1600), English writer, author of the _Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_, son of Richard Vowell or Hooker, was born at Heavitree, near the city of Exeter, about the end of 1553 or beginning of 1554. Vowell was the original name of the family, but was gradually dropped, and in the 15th century its members were known as Vowell _alias_ Hooker. At school, not only his facility in mastering his tasks, but his intellectual inquisitiveness and his fine moral qualities, attracted the special notice of his teacher, who strongly recommended his parents to educate him for the church. Though well connected, they were, however, somewhat straitened in their worldly circumstances, and Hooker was indebted for admission to the university to his uncle, John Hooker _alias_ Vowell, chamberlain of Exeter, and in his day a man of some literary repute, who induced Bishop Jewel to become his patron and to bestow on him a clerk's place in Corpus Christi College, Oxford. To this Hooker was admitted in 1568. Bishop Jewel died in September 1571, but Dr William Cole, president of the college, from the strong interest he felt in the young man, on account at once of his character and his abilities, spontaneously offered to take the bishop's place as his patron; and shortly afterwards Hooker, by his own labours as a tutor, became independent of gratuitous aid. Two of his pupils, and these his favourite ones, were Edwin Sandys, afterwards author of _Europae speculum_, and George Cranmer, grand-nephew of the archbishop. Hooker's reputation as a tutor soon became very high, for he had employed his five years at the university to such good purpose as not only to have acquired great proficiency in the learned languages, but to have joined to this a wide and varied culture which had delivered him from the bondage of learned pedantry; in addition to which he is said to have possessed a remarkable talent for communicating knowledge in a clear and interesting manner, and to have exercised a special influence over his pupils' intellectual and moral tendencies. In December 1573 he was elected scholar of his college; in July 1577 he proceeded to M.A., and in September of the same year he was admitted a fellow. In 1579 he was appointed by the chancellor of the university to read the public Hebrew lecture, a duty which he continued to discharge till he left Oxford. Not long after his admission into holy orders, about 1581, he was appointed to preach at St Paul's Cross; and, according to Walton, he was so kindly entertained by Mrs Churchman, who kept the Shunamite's house where the preachers were boarded, that he permitted her to choose him a wife, "promising upon a fair summons to return to London and accept of her choice." The lady selected by her was "her daughter Joan," who, says the same authority, "found him neither beauty nor portion; and for her conditions they were too like that wife's which is by Solomon compared to a dripping house." It is probable that Walton has exaggerated the simplicity and passiveness of Hooker in the matter, but though, as Keble observes with justice, his writings betray uncommon shrewdness and quickness of observation, as well as a vein of keenest humour, it would appear that either gratitude or some other impulse had on this occasion led his judgment astray. After his marriage he was, about the end of 1584, presented to the living of Drayton Beauchamp in Buckinghamshire. In the following year he received a visit from his two pupils, Edwin Sandys and George Cranmer, who found him with the _Odes_ of Horace in his hand, tending the sheep while the servant was at dinner, after which, when they on the return of the servant accompanied him to his house, "Richard was called to rock the cradle." Finding him so engrossed by worldly and domestic cares, "they stayed but till the next morning," and, greatly grieved at his narrow circumstances and unhappy domestic condition, "left him to the company of his wife Joan."

The visit had, however, results of the highest moment, not only in regard to the career of Hooker, but in regard to English literature and English philosophical thought. Sandys prevailed on his father, the archbishop of York, to recommend Hooker for presentation to the mastership of the Temple, and Hooker, though his "wish was rather to gain a better country living," having agreed after some hesitation to become a candidate, the patent conferring upon him the mastership was granted on the 17th of March 1584/5. The rival candidate was Walter Travers, a Presbyterian and evening lecturer in the same church. Being continued in the lectureship after the appointment of Hooker, Travers was in the habit of attempting a refutation in the evening of what Hooker had spoken in the morning, Hooker again replying on the following Sunday; so it was said "the forenoon sermon spake Canterbury, the afternoon Geneva." On account of the keen feeling displayed by the partisans of both, Archbishop Whitgift deemed it prudent to prohibit the preaching of Travers, whereupon he presented a petition to the council to have the prohibition recalled. Hooker published an _Answer to the Petition of Mr Travers_, and also printed several sermons bearing on special points of the controversy; but, feeling strongly the unsatisfactory nature of such an isolated and fragmentary discussion of separate points, he resolved to compose an elaborate and exhaustive treatise, exhibiting the fundamental principles by which the question in dispute must be decided. It is probable that the work was begun in the latter half of 1586, and he had made considerable progress with it before, with a view to its completion, he petitioned Whitgift to be removed to a country parsonage, in order that, as he said, "I may keep myself in peace and privacy, and behold God's blessing spring out of my mother earth, and eat my own bread without oppositions." His desire was granted in 1591 by a presentation to the rectory of Boscombe near Salisbury. There he completed the volume containing the first four of the proposed _Eight Books of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_. It was entered at Stationers' Hall on the 9th of March 1592, but was not published till 1593 or 1594. In July 1595 he was promoted by the crown to the rectory of Bishopsbourne near Canterbury, where he lived to see the completion of the fifth book in 1597. In the passage from London to Gravesend some time in 1600 he caught a severe cold from which he never recovered; but, notwithstanding great weakness and constant suffering, he "was solicitous in his study," his one desire being "to live to finish the three remaining books of _Polity_." His death took place on the 2nd of November of the same year. A volume professing to contain the sixth and eighth books of the _Polity_ was published at London in 1648, but the bulk of the sixth book, as has been shown by Keble, is an entire deviation from the subject on which Hooker proposed to treat, and doubtless the genuine copy, known to have been completed, has been lost. The seventh book, which was published in a new edition of the work by Gauden in 1662, and the eighth book, may be regarded as in substance the composition of Hooker; but, as, in addition to wanting his final revision, they have been very unskilfully edited, if they have not been manipulated for theological purposes, their statements in regard to doubtful matters must be received with due reserve, and no reliance can be placed on their testimony where their meaning contradicts that of other portions of the _Polity_.

The conception of Hooker in his later years, which we form from the various accessible sources, is that of a person of low stature and not immediately impressive appearance, much bent by the influence of sedentary and meditative habits, of quiet and retiring manners, and discoloured in complexion and worn and marked in feature from the hard mental toil which he had expended on his great work. There seems, however, exaggeration in Walton's statement as to the meanness of his dress; and Walton certainly misreads his character when he portrays him as a kind of ascetic mystic. Though he was unworldly and simple in his desires, and engrossed in the purpose to which he had devoted his life--the "completion of the _Polity_"--his writings indicate that he possessed a cheerful and healthy disposition, and that he was capable of discovering enjoyment in everyday pleasures, and of appreciating human life and character in a wide variety of aspects. He seems to have had a special delight in outward nature--as he expressed it, he loved "to see God's blessing spring out of his mother earth"; and he spent much of his spare time in visiting his parishioners, his deference towards them, if excessive, being yet mingled with a grave dignity which rendered unwarrantable liberties impossible. As a preacher, though singularly devoid of the qualities which win the applause of the multitude, he always excited the interest of the more intelligent, the breadth and finely balanced wisdom of his thoughts and the fascination of his composition greatly modifying the impression produced by his weak voice and ineffective manner. Partly, doubtless, on account of his dim-sightedness, he never removed his eye from his manuscript, and, according to Fuller, "he may be said to have made good music with his fiddle and stick alone, having neither pronunciation nor gesture to grace his matter."

To accede without explanation to the claim put forth for the
_Ecclesiastical Polity_ of Hooker, that it marks an epoch in English
prose literature and English thought, would both be to do some
injustice to writers previous to him, and, if not to overestimate his
influence, to misinterpret its character. By no means can his
excursions in English prose be regarded as chiefly those of a pioneer;
and not only is his intellectual position inferior to that of
Shakespeare, Spenser and Bacon,[1] who alone can be properly reckoned
as the master spirits of the age, but in reality what effect he may
have had upon the thought of his contemporaries was soon disregarded
and swept out of sight in the hand-to-hand struggle with Puritanism,
and his influence, so far from being immediate and confined to one
particular era, has since the reaction against Puritanism been slowly
and imperceptibly permeating and colouring English thought. His work
is, however, the earliest in English prose with enough of the
preserving salt of excellence to adapt it to the mental palate of
modern readers. Attempts more elaborate than those of the old
chroniclers had been made two centuries previously to employ English
prose both for narrative and for discussion; and, a few years before
him, Roger Ascham, Sir Thomas More, Latimer, Sir Philip Sidney, the
compilers of the prayer book, and various translators of the Bible,
had in widely different departments of literature brought to light
many samples of the rich wealth of expression that was latent in the
language; but Hooker's is the first independent work in English prose
of notable power and genius, and the vigour and grasp of its thought
are not more remarkable than the felicity of its literary style. Its
more usual and obvious excellences are clearness of expression,
notwithstanding occasionally complicated methods; great aptness and
conciseness in the formation of individual clauses, and such a fine
sense of proportion and rhythm in their arrangement as almost conceals
the difficulties of syntax by which he was hampered; finished
simplicity, notwithstanding a stateliness too uniform and unbroken; a
nice discrimination in the choice of words and phrases, so as both to
portray the exact shade of his meaning, and to express each of his
thoughts with that degree of emphasis appropriate to its place in his
composition. In regard to qualities more relating to the matter than
the manner we may note the subtle and partly hidden humour; the strong
enthusiasm underlying that seemingly calm and passionless exposition
of principles which continually led him away from the minutiae of
temporary disputes, and has earned for him the somewhat misleading
epithet of "judicious;" the solidity of learning, not ostentatiously
displayed, but indicated in the character and variety of his
illustrations and his comprehensive mastery of all that relates to his
subject; the breadth of his conceptions, and the sweep and ease of his
movements in the highest regions of thought; the fine poetical
descriptions occasionally introduced, in which his eloquence attains a
grave, rich and massive harmony that compares not unfavourably with
the finest prose of Milton. His manner is, of course, defective in the
flexibility and variety characteristic of the best models of English
prose literature after the language had been enriched and perfected by
long use, and his sentences, constructed too much according to Latin
usages, are often tautological and too protracted into long
concatenations of clauses; but if, when regarded superficially, his
style presents in some respects a stiff and antiquated aspect, it yet
possesses an original and innate charm that has retained its freshness
after the lapse of nearly three centuries.

The direct interest in the _Ecclesiastical Polity_ is now
philosophical and political rather than theological, for what
theological importance it possessed was rather in regard to the spirit
and method in which theology should be discussed than in regard to the
decision of strictly theological points. Hooker bases his reasoning on
principles which he discovered in Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, but
the intellectual atmosphere of his age was different from that which
surrounded them; he was acted upon by new and more various impulses
enabling him to imbibe more thoroughly the spirit of Greek thought
which was the source of their inspiration, and thus to reach a higher
and freer region than scholasticism, and in a sense to inaugurate
modern philosophy in England. It may be admitted that his principles
are only partially and in some degree capriciously wrought out--that
if he is not under the dominion of intellectual tendencies leading to
opposite results there are occasional blanks and gaps in his argument
where he seems sometimes to be groping after a meaning which he cannot
fully grasp; but he is often charged with obscurity simply because
readers of various theological schools, beholding in his principles
what seem the outline and justification of their own ideas, are
disappointed when they find that these outlines instead of acquiring
as they narrowly examine them the full and definite form of their
anticipations, widen out into a region beyond their notions and
sympathies, and therefore from their point of view enveloped in mist
and shade. It is the exposition of philosophical principles in the
first and second books of the _Polity_, and not the application of
these principles in the remaining books that gives the work its
standard place in English literature. It was intended to be an answer
to the attacks of the Presbyterians on the Episcopalian polity and
customs, but no attempt is made directly to oust Presbyterianism from
the place it then held in the Church of England. The work must rather
be regarded as a remonstrance against the narrow ground chosen by the
Presbyterians for their basis of attack, Hooker's exact position being
that "a necessity of polity and regiment may be held in all churches
without holding any form to be necessary."

The general purpose of his reasoning is to vindicate Episcopacy from
objections that had been urged against it, but he attains a result
which has other and wider consequences than this. The fundamental
principle on which he bases his reasoning is the unity and
all-embracing character of law--law "whose seat," he beautifully says,
"is the bosom of God, whose voice the harmony of the world." Law--as
operative in nature, as regulating each man's individual character and
actions, as seen in the formations of societies and governments--is
equally a manifestation and development of the divine order according
to which God Himself acts, is the expression in various forms of the
divine reason. He makes a distinction between natural and positive
laws, the one being eternal and immutable, the other varying according
to external necessity and expediency; and he includes all the forms of
government under laws that are positive and therefore alterable
according to circumstances. Their application is to be determined by
reason, reason enlightened and strengthened by every variety of
knowledge, discipline and experience. The leading feature in his
system is the high place assigned to reason, for, though affirming
that certain truths necessary to salvation could be made known only by
special divine revelation, he yet elevates reason into the criterion
by which these truths are to be judged, and the standard to determine
what in revelation is temporal and what eternal. "It is not the word
of God itself," he says, "which doth or possibly can assure us that we
do well to think it His word." At the same time he saves himself from
the dangers of abstract and rash theorizing by a deep and absolute
regard for facts, the diligent and accurate study of which he makes of
the first importance to the proper use of reason. "The general and
perpetual voice of men is," he says, "as the sentence of God Himself.
For that which all men have at all times learned, nature herself must
needs have taught; and, God being the author of nature, her voice is
but His instrument." Applying his principles to man individually, the
foundation of morality is, according to Hooker, immutable, and rests
"on that law which God from the beginning hath set Himself to do all
things by"; this law is to be discovered by reason; and the perfection
which reason teaches us to strive after is stated, with characteristic
breadth of conception and regard to the facts of human nature, to be
"a triple perfection: first a sensual, consisting in those things
which very life itself requireth, either as necessary supplements, or
as beauties or ornaments thereof; then an intellectual, consisting in
those things which none underneath man is either capable of or
acquainted with; lastly, a spiritual or divine, consisting in those
things whereunto we tend by supernatural means here, but cannot here
attain unto them." Applying his principles to man as a member of a
community, he assigns practically the same origin and sanctions to
ecclesiastical as to civil government. His theory of government forms
the basis of the _Treatise on Civil Government_ by Locke, although
Locke developed the theory in a way that Hooker would not have
sanctioned. The force and justification of government Hooker derives
from public approbation, either given directly by the parties
immediately concerned, or indirectly through inheritance from their
ancestors. "Sith men," he says, "naturally have no full and perfect
power to command whole politic multitudes of men, therefore utterly
without our consent we could in such sort be at no man's commandment
living. And to be commanded we do consent, when that society whereof
we are part hath at any time before consented, without revoking the
same after, by the like universal agreement." His theory as he stated
it is in various of its aspects and applications liable to objection;
but taken as a whole it is the first philosophical statement of the
principles which, though disregarded in the succeeding age, have since
regulated political progress in England and gradually modified its
constitution. One of the corollaries of his principles is his theory
of the relation of church and state, according to which, with the
qualifications implied in his theory of government, he asserts the
royal supremacy in matters of religion, and identifies the church and
commonwealth as but different aspects of the same government.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--A life of Hooker by Dr Gauden was published in his
edition of Hooker's works (London, 1662). To correct the errors in
this life Walton wrote another, which was published in the 2nd edition
of Hooker's works in 1666. The standard modern edition of Hooker's
works is that by Keble, which first appeared in 1836, and has since
been several times reprinted (1888 edition, revised by Dean Church and
Bishop Paget). The first book of the _Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_
was edited for the Clarendon Press by Dean R. W. Church (1868-1876).
(T. F. H.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] If Bacon was the author of _The Christian Paradoxes_, his
philosophical standpoint in reference to religion was not only less
advanced than that of Hooker, but in a sense directly opposed to it.

HOOKER, THOMAS (1586-1647), New England theologian, was born, probably on the 7th of July 1586, at Marfield, in the parish of Tilton, County of Leicester, England. He graduated B.A. in 1608 and M.A. in 1611 at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, the intellectual centre of Puritanism, remained there as a fellow for a few years, and then preached in the parish of Esher in Surrey. About 1626 he became lecturer to the church of St Mary at Chelmsford, Essex, delivering on market days and Sunday afternoons evangelical addresses which were notable for their moral fervour. In 1629 Archbishop Laud took measures to suppress church lectureships, which were an innovation of Puritanism. Hooker was placed under bond and retired to Little Baddow, 4 m. from Chelmsford. In 1630 he was cited to appear before the Court of High Commission, but he forfeited his bond and fled to Holland, whence in 1633 he emigrated to the Colony of Massachusetts Bay in America, and became pastor at Newtowne (now Cambridge), Mass., of a company of Puritans who had arrived from England in the previous year and in expectation of his joining them were called "Mr Hooker's Company." Hooker seems to have been a leader in the formation of that sentiment of discontent with the Massachusetts government which resulted in the founding of Connecticut. He publicly criticized the limitation of suffrage to church members, and, according to a contemporary historian, William Hubbard (_General History of New England_), "after Mr Hooker's coming over it was observed that many of the freemen grew to be very jealous of their liberties." He was a leader of the emigrants who in 1636 founded Hartford, Connecticut. In a sermon before the Connecticut General Court of 1638, he declared that "the choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God's own allowance" and that "they who have the power to appoint officers and magistrates, it is in their power, also, to set the bounds and limitations of the power and place unto which they call them." Though this theory was in advance of the age, Hooker had no idea of the separation of church and state--"the privilege of election, which belongs to the people," he said, must be exercised "according to the blessed will and law of God." He also defended the right of magistrates to convene synods, and in the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (1639), which he probably framed, the union of church and state is presupposed. Hooker was pastor of the Hartford church until his death on the 7th of July 1647. He was active in the negotiations which preceded the formation of the New England Confederation in 1643. In the same year he attended the meeting of Puritan ministers at Boston, whose object was to defend Congregationalism, and he wrote a _Survey of the Summe of Church Discipline_ (1648) in justification of the New England church system. His other works deal chiefly with the experimental phases of religion, especially the experience precedent to conversion. In _The Soule's Humiliation_ (1637), he assigns as a test of conversion a willingness of the convert to be damned if that be God's will, thus anticipating the doctrine of Samuel Hopkins in the following century.

See George L. Walker's _Thomas Hooker_ (New York, 1891); the appendix
of which contains a bibliography of Hooker's published works.

HOOKER, SIR WILLIAM JACKSON (1785-1865), English botanist, was born at Norwich on the 6th of July 1785. His father, Joseph Hooker of Exeter, a member of the same family as the celebrated Richard Hooker, devoted much of his time to the study of German literature and the cultivation of curious plants. The son was educated at the high school of Norwich, on leaving which his independent means enabled him to travel and to take up as a recreation the study of natural history, especially ornithology and entomology. He subsequently confined his attention to botany, on the recommendation of Sir James E. Smith, whom he had consulted respecting a rare moss. His first botanical expedition was made in Iceland, in the summer of 1809, at the suggestion of Sir Joseph Banks; but the natural history specimens which he collected, with his notes and drawings, were lost on the homeward voyage through the burning of the ship, and the young botanist himself had a narrow escape with his life. A good memory, however, aided him to publish an account of the island, and of its inhabitants and flora (_Tour in Iceland_, 1809), privately circulated in 1811, and reprinted in 1813. In 1810-1811 he made extensive preparations, and sacrifices which proved financially serious, with a view to accompany Sir R. Brownrigg to Ceylon, but the disturbed state of the island led to the abandonment of the projected expedition. In 1814 he spent nine months in botanizing excursions in France, Switzerland and northern Italy, and in the following year he married the eldest daughter of Mr Dawson Turner, banker, of Yarmouth. Settling at Halesworth, Suffolk, he devoted himself to the formation of his herbarium, which became of world-wide renown among botanists. In 1816 appeared the _British Jungermanniae_, his first scientific work, which was succeeded by a new edition of William Curtis's _Flora Londinensis_, for which he wrote the descriptions (1817-1828); by a description of the _Plantae cryptogamicae_ of A. von Humboldt and A. Bonpland; by the _Muscologia Britannica_, a very complete account of the mosses of Great Britain and Ireland, prepared in conjunction with Dr T. Taylor (1818); and by his _Musci exotici_ (2 vols., 1818-1820), devoted to new foreign mosses and other cryptogamic plants. In 1820 he accepted the regius professorship of botany in Glasgow University where he soon became popular as a lecturer, his style being both clear and ready. The following year he brought out the _Flora Scotica_, in which the natural method of arrangement of British plants was given with the artificial. Subsequently he prepared or edited many works, the more important being the following:--

_Botanical Illustrations_ (1822); _Exotic Flora_, indicating such of
the specimens as are deserving cultivation (3 vols., 1822-1827);
_Account of Sabine's Arctic Plants_ (1824); _Catalogue of Plants in
the Glasgow Botanic Garden_ (1825); the _Botany of Parry's Third
Voyage_ (1826); _The Botanical Magazine_ (38 vols., 1827-1865);
_Icones Filicum_, in concert with Dr R. K. Greville (2 vols.,
1829-1831); _British Flora_, of which several editions appeared,
undertaken with Dr G. A. W. Arnott, &c. (1830); _British Flora
Cryptogamia_ (1833); _Characters of Genera from the British Flora_
(1830); _Flora Boreali-Americana_ (2 vols., 1840), being the botany of
British North America collected in Sir J. Franklin's voyage; _The
Journal of Botany_ (4 vols., 1830-1842); _Companion to the Botanical
Magazine_ (2 vols., 1835-1836); _Icones plantarum_ (10 vols.,
1837-1854); the _Botany of Beechey's Voyage to the Pacific and
Behring's Straits_ (with Dr Arnott, 1841); the _Genera Filicum_
(1842), from the original coloured drawings of F. Bauer, with
additions and descriptive letterpress; _The London Journal of Botany_
(7 vols., 1842-1848); _Notes on the Botany of the Antarctic Voyage of
the Erebus and Terror_ (1843); _Species filicum_ (5 vols., 1846-1864),
the standard work on this subject; _A Century of Orchideae_ (1846);
_Journal of Botany and Kew Garden Miscellany_ (9 vols., 1849-1857);
_Niger Flora_ (1849); _Victoria Regia_ (1851); _Museums of Economic
Botany at Kew_ (1855); _Filices exoticae_ (1857-1859); _The British
Ferns_ (1861-1862); _A Century of Ferns_ (1854); _A Second Century of
Ferns_ (1860-1861).

It was mainly by Hooker's exertions that botanists were appointed to the government expeditions. While his works were in progress his herbarium received large and valuable additions from all parts of the globe, and his position as a botanist was thus vastly improved. He was made a knight of Hanover in 1836 and in 1841 he was appointed director of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, on the resignation of W. T. Aiton. Under his direction the gardens expanded from 11 to 75 acres, with an arboretum of 270 acres, many new glass-houses were erected, and a museum of economic botany was established. He was engaged on the _Synopsis filicum_ with J. G. Baker when he was attacked by a throat disease then epidemic at Kew, where he died on the 12th of August 1865.

HOOLE, JOHN (1727-1803), English translator and dramatist, son of a watchmaker and machinist, Samuel Hoole, was born at Moorfields, London, in December 1727. He was educated at a private school at Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, kept by James Bennet, who edited Ascham's English works. At the age of seventeen he became a clerk in the accountants' department of the East India House, and before 1767 became one of the auditors of Indian accounts. His leisure hours he devoted to the study of Latin and especially Italian, and began writing translations of the chief works of the Italian poets. He published translations of the _Jerusalem Delivered_ of Tasso in 1763, the _Orlando Furioso_ of Ariosto in 1773-1783, the _Dramas_ of Metastasio in 1767, and _Rinaldo_, an early work of Tasso, in 1792. Among his plays are: _Cyrus_ (1768), _Timanthes_ (1770) and _Cleonice, Princess of Bithynia_ (1775), none of which achieved success. The verses of Hoole were praised by Johnson, with whom he was on terms of intimacy, but, though correct, smooth and flowing, they cannot be commended for any other merit. His translation of the _Orlando Furioso_ was superseded by the version (1823-1831) of W. S. Rose. Hoole was also the friend of the Quaker poet John Scott of Amwell (1730-1783), whose life he wrote; it was prefixed to Scott's _Critical Essays_ (1785). In 1773 he was promoted to be chief auditor of Indian accounts, an office which he resigned in 1785. In 1786 he retired to the parsonage of Abinger, Surrey; and afterwards lived at Tenterden, Kent, dying at Dorking on the 2nd of April 1803.

See _Anecdotes of the Life of the late Mr John Hoole_, by his
surviving brother, Samuel Hoole (London, 1803). Some of his plays are
reprinted in J. Bell's _British Theatre_ (1797).

HOOLIGAN, the generally accepted modern term for a young street ruffian or rowdy. It seems to have been first applied to the young street ruffians of the South-East of London about 1890, but though popular in the district, did not attract general attention till later, when authentic information of its origin was lost, but it appears that the most probable source was a comic song which was popular in the lower-class music-hall in the late 'eighties or early 'nineties, which described the doings of a rowdy family named Hooligan (i.e. Irish Houlihan). A comic character with the same name also appears to have been the central figure in a series of adventures running through an obscure English comic paper of about the same date, and also in a similar New York paper, where his confrere in the adventures is a German named Schneider (see _Notes and Queries_, 9th series, vol. ii. pp. 227 and 316, 1898, and 10th series, vol. vii. p. 115, 1901). In other countries the "hooligan" finds his counterpart. The Parisian _Apache_, so self-styled after the North American Indian tribe, is a much more dangerous character; mere rowdyism, the characteristic of the English "hooligan," is replaced by murder, robbery and outrage. An equally dangerous class of young street ruffian is the "hoodlum" of the United States of America; this term arose in San Francisco in 1870, and thence spread. Many fanciful origins of the name have been given, for some of which see _Manchester (N.H.) Notes and Queries_, September 1883 (cited in the _New English Dictionary_). The "plug-ugly" of Baltimore is another name for the same class. More familiar is the Australian "larrikin," which apparently came into use about 1870 in Melbourne. The story that the word represents an Irish policeman's pronunciation of "larking" is a mere invention. It is probably only an adaptation of the Irish "Larry," short for Lawrence. Others suggest that it is a corruption of the slang _Leary Kinchen_, i.e. knowing, wide-awake child.

HOOPER, JOHN (d. 1555), bishop of Gloucester and Worcester and martyr, was born in Somerset about the end of the 15th century and graduated B.A. at Oxford in 1519. He is said to have then entered the Cistercian monastery at Gloucester; but in 1538 a John Hooper appears among the names of the Black friars at Gloucester and also among the White friars at Bristol who surrendered their houses to the king. A John Hooper was likewise canon of Wormesley priory in Herefordshire; but identification of any of these with the future bishop is doubtful. The _Greyfriars' Chronicle_ says that Hooper was "sometime a white monk"; and in the sentence pronounced against him by Gardiner he is described as "_olim monachus de Cliva Ordinis Cisterciensis_," i.e. of the Cistercian house at Cleeve in Somerset. On the other hand, at his deprivation he was not accused, like the other married bishops who had been monks or friars, of infidelity to the vow of chastity; and his own letters to Bullinger are curiously reticent on this part of his history. He there speaks of himself as being the only son and heir of his father and as fearing to be deprived of his inheritance if he adopted the reformed religion. Before 1546 he had secured employment in the household of Sir Thomas Arundell, a man of influential connexions. Hooper speaks of himself at this period as being "a courtier and living too much of a court life in the palace of our king." But he chanced upon some of Zwingli's works and Bullinger's commentaries on St Paul's epistles; and after some molestation in England and some correspondence with Bullinger on the lawfulness of complying against his conscience with the established religion, he determined to secure what property he could and take refuge on the continent. He had an adventurous journey, being twice imprisoned, driven about for three months on the sea, and reaching Strassburg in the midst of the Schmalkaldic war. There he married Anne de Tserclaes, and later on he proceeded by way of Basle to Zurich, where his Zwinglian convictions were confirmed by constant intercourse with Zwingli's successor, Bullinger.

It was not until May 1549, after he had published various works at Zurich, that Hooper again arrived in England. He at once became the principal champion of Swiss Protestantism against the Lutherans as well as the Catholics, and was appointed chaplain to Protector Somerset. Somerset's fall in the following October endangered Hooper's position, and for a time he was in hourly dread of imprisonment and martyrdom, more especially as he had taken a prominent part against Gardiner and Bonner, whose restoration to their sees was now anticipated. Warwick, afterwards duke of Northumberland, however, overcame the reactionaries in the Council, and early in 1550 the Reformation resumed its course. Hooper became Warwick's chaplain, and after a course of Lent lectures before the king he was offered the bishopric of Gloucester. This led to a prolonged controversy; Hooper had already denounced the "Aaronic vestments" and the oath by the saints prescribed in the new Ordinal; and he refused to be consecrated according to its rites. Cranmer, Ridley, Bucer and others urged him to submit in vain; confinement to his house by order of the Council proved equally ineffectual; and it was not until he had spent some weeks in the Fleet prison that the "father of nonconformity" consented to conform, and Hooper submitted to consecration with the legal ceremonies (March 8, 1551).

Once seated in his bishopric Hooper set about his episcopal duties with exemplary vigour. His visitation of his diocese (printed in _English Hist. Rev._ Jan. 1904, pp. 98-121) revealed a condition of almost incredible ignorance among his clergy. Fewer than half could say the Ten Commandments; some could not even repeat the Lord's Prayer in English. Hooper did his best in the time at his disposal; but in less than a year the bishopric of Gloucester was reduced to an archdeaconry and added to Worcester, of which Hooper was made bishop in succession to Nicholas Heath (q.v.). He was opposed to Northumberland's plot for the exclusion of Mary from the throne; but this did not save him from speedy imprisonment. He was sent to the Fleet on the 1st of September 1553 on a doubtful charge of debt to the queen; but the real cause was his stanchness to a religion which was still by law established. Edward VI.'s legislation was, however, repealed in the following month, and in March 1554 Hooper was deprived of his bishopric as a married man. There was still no statute by which he could be condemned to the stake, but Hooper was kept in prison; and the revival of the heresy acts in December 1554 was swiftly followed by execution. On the 29th of January 1555, Hooper, Rogers, Rowland Taylor and others were condemned by Gardiner and degraded by Bonner. Hooper was sent down to suffer at Gloucester, where he was burnt on the 9th of February, meeting his fate with steadfast courage and unshaken conviction.

Hooper was the first of the bishops to suffer because his Zwinglian views placed him further beyond the pale than Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer. He represented the extreme reforming party in England. While he expressed dissatisfaction with some of Calvin's earlier writings, he approved of the _Consensus Tigurinus_ negotiated in 1549 between the Zwinglians and Calvinists of Switzerland; and it was this form of religion that he laboured to spread in England against the wishes of Cranmer, Ridley, Bucer, Peter Martyr and other more conservative theologians. He would have reduced episcopacy to narrow limits; and his views had considerable influence on the Puritans of Elizabeth's reign, when many editions of Hooper's various works were published.

Two volumes of Hooper's writings are included in the Parker Society's
publications and another edition appeared at Oxford in 1855. See also
Gough's General Index to Parker Soc. Publ.; Strype's _Works_ (General
Index); Foxe's _Acts and Monuments_, ed. Townsend; _Acts of the Privy
Council; Cal. State Papers_, "Domestic" Series; Nichols's _Lit.
Remains of Edward VI._; Burner, Collier, Dixon, Froude and Gairdner's
histories; Pollard's _Cranmer; Dict. Nat. Biogr._ (A. F. P.)

HOOPOE (Fr. _Huppe_, Lat. _Upupa_, Gr. [Greek: epops]--all names bestowed apparently from its cry), a bird long celebrated in literature, and conspicuous by its variegated plumage and its large erectile crest,[1] the _Upupa epops_ of naturalists, which is the type of the very peculiar family _Upupidae_, placed by Huxley in his group _Coccygomorphae_, but considered by Dr Murie (_Ibis_, 1873, p. 208) to deserve separate rank as _Epopomorphae_. This species has an exceedingly wide range in the Old World, being a regular summer-visitant to the whole of Europe, in some parts of which it is abundant, as well as to Siberia, mostly retiring southwards in autumn to winter in equatorial Africa and India, though it would seem to be resident throughout the year in north-eastern Africa and in China. Its power of wing ordinarily seems to be feeble; but it is capable of very extended flight, as is testified by its wandering habits (for it occasionally makes its appearance in places very far removed from its usual haunts), and also by the fact that when pursued by a falcon it will rapidly mount to an extreme height and frequently effect its escape from the enemy. About the size of a thrush, with a long, pointed and slightly arched bill, its head and neck are of a golden-buff--the former adorned by the crest already mentioned, which begins to rise from the forehead and consists of broad feathers, gradually increasing in length, tipped with black and having a subterminal bar of yellowish-white. The upper part of the back is of a vinous-grey, and the scapulars and flight-feathers are black, broadly barred with white tinged in the former with buff. The tail is black with a white chevron, marking off about the distal third part of its length. The legs and feet are as well adapted for running or walking as for perching, and the scutellations are continued round the whole of the tarsi. Chiefly on account of this character, which is also possessed by the larks, Sundevall (_Tentamen_, pp. 53-55) united the _Upupidae_ and _Alaudidae_ in the same "cohors" _Holaspideae_. Comparative anatomy, however, forbids its being taken to signify any real affinity between these groups, and the resemblance on this point, which is by no means so striking as that displayed by the form of the bill and the coloration in certain larks (of the genus _Certhilauda_, for instance), must be ascribed to analogy merely.

Pleasing as is the appearance of the hoopoe as it fearlessly parades its showy plumage, some of its habits are much the reverse. All observers agree in stating that it delights to find its food among filth of the most abominable description, and this especially in its winter-quarters. But where it breeds, its nest, usually in the hole of a tree or of a wall, is not only partly composed of the foulest material, but its condition becomes worse as incubation proceeds, for the hen scarcely ever leaves her eggs, being assiduously fed by the cock as she sits; and when the young are hatched, their faeces are not removed by their parents,[2] as is the case with most birds, but are discharged in the immediate neighbourhood of the nest, the unsanitary condition of which can readily be imagined. Worms, grubs, and insects generally form the hoopoes' food, and upon it they get so fat in autumn that they are esteemed a delicate morsel in some of the countries of southern Europe, and especially by the Christian population of Constantinople.[3]

Not a year passes but the hoopoe makes its appearance in some part or other of the British Islands, most often in spring, and if unmolested would doubtless stop to breed in them, and a few instances are known in which it has done so. But its remarkable plumage always attracts attention, and it is generally shot down so soon as it is seen, and before it has time to begin a nest. Eight or nine so-called species of the genus have been described, but of them the existence of five only has been recognized by Sharpe and Dresser (_Birds of Europe_, pt. vii.). Besides the _Upupa epops_ above treated, these are _U. indica_, resident in India and Ceylon; _U. longirostris_, which seems to be the form of the Indo-Chinese countries; _U. marginata_, peculiar to Madagascar; and _U. africana_ or _U. minor_ of some writers, which inhabits South Africa to the Zambesi on the east and Benguela on the west coast. In habits and appearance they all resemble the best-known and most widely-spread species.[4] (A. N.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Hence the secondary meaning of the French word _huppe_--a crest
or tuft (cf. Littre, _Dict. francais_, i. 2067).

[2] This indeed is denied by Naumann, but by him alone, and the
statement in the text is confirmed by many eye-witnesses.

[3] Under the name of _Dukipath_, in the authorized version of the
Bible translated "lapwing" (Lev. xi. 19, Deut. xiv. 18), the hoopoe
was accounted unclean by the Jewish law. Arabs have a great reverence
for the bird, imparting to it marvellous medicinal and other
qualities, and making use of its head in all their charms (cf.
Tristram, _Nat. Hist. of the Bible_, pp. 208, 209).

[4] The genera _Rhinopomastus_ and _Irrisor_ are generally placed in
the Family _Upupidae_, but Dr Murie, after an exhaustive examination
of their osteology, regards them as forming a group of equal value.

HOORN, a seaport in the province of North Holland, Holland, on a bay of the Zuider Zee called the Hoornerhop, and a junction station 23(1/2) m. by rail N. by E. of Amsterdam, on the railway to Enkhuizen, with which it is also connected by steam tramway. Pop. (1900) 10,647. Hoorn is distinguished by its old-world air and the beauty and interest of its numerous gabled houses of the 16th and 17th centuries. Many of these are decorated with inscriptions and bas-reliefs, some of which commemorate the battle on the Zuider Zee in 1573, in which the Beggars defeated the Spaniards under Count Bossu. Walks and gardens now surround the town in the place of the old city walls, but a few towers and gateways adorned with various old coats of arms are still standing. The fine Gothic bastion tower overlooking the harbour was built in 1532; the East gate not later than 1578. Among the public buildings of special interest are the picturesque St John's hospital (1563), now used for military purposes; the old mint; the hospital for aged men and women (beginning of 17th century); the weigh-house (1609); the town hall, in which the states of West Friesland formerly met; and the old court-house, which dates from the beginning of the 17th century, though parts of it are older, containing a modern museum and some early portraits. There are also various charitable and educational institutions, Protestant and Roman Catholic churches and a synagogue. The extensive foreign commerce which Hoorn carried on in the 16th and 17th centuries has almost entirely vanished, but there is still a considerable trade with other parts of the Netherlands, especially in cheese and cattle. The chief industries include gold and silver work, and there are also tobacco factories, saw-mills and some small boat-building yards, a considerable number of vessels being engaged in the Zuider Zee fisheries.