Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 27.djvu/111

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

soned by the strong personality of the writer. It is dedicated to Brougham, who had undertaken to procure him a professorship at the new university of London, but the office was not established for want of funds. An intended but unspoken inaugural lecture was published in 1831. Hogg meanwhile united himself with Mrs. Williams and joined the circle grouped around the younger Mill, with whom he quarrelled for some unexplained reason. Peacock and Coulson were among his chief intimates; and Mary Shelley endeavoured to persuade Peacock to procure him an appointment at the India House, from which his breach with Mill would have excluded him, even had he not been entirely unfitted for such employment. In 1832 his reminiscences of Shelley at Oxford, subsequently incorporated with his biography of the poet, appeared in the ‘New Monthly Magazine,’ under Bulwer's auspices. In the following year Brougham made him a municipal corporation commissioner, and, after the expiration of the commission, he was appointed revising barrister for Northumberland and Berwick. In 1840 and 1841 several chapters of a nondescript performance entitled ‘Some Recollections of Childhood,’ and defined by the author as a novel, appeared in Bulwer's ‘Monthly Chronicle,’ so mercilessly ridiculed by Thackeray. In 1844 Hogg inherited 2,000l. under Shelley's will, and about 1855, furnished with documents by the Shelley family, he undertook the task of writing the poet's life, for which Mary Shelley had always declared him the only qualified person. The first two volumes, bringing Shelley's history down to the eve of his elopement with Mary Godwin, appeared in 1858, and were at first received with almost universal disfavour. The remarkable merit of his article on Shelley at Oxford, where Hogg's tendency to irrelevance and extravagance had been controlled by Bulwer's ‘able editorship,’ had raised excessive expectations. Instead of the anticipated model memoir appeared two thick volumes of inconsecutive rodomontade, rather autobiography than biography, with no sign of real insight into Shelley's works or character. It was also soon discovered that Hogg had taken most unwarrantable liberties with his materials. When the writer was at last accepted as an eccentric humorist, disburdening himself of anecdotes, reminiscences, and views on things in general, relevant and irrelevant, it became clear that the book was remarkable and probably unique. Hogg possessed one great qualification of the biographer—the art of conveying a vivid impression of persons and things. Clough said on the appearance of the book: ‘It is a great pleasure to see Shelley really alive and treading the vulgar earth—Hogg's transparent absurdity being the only intervening impediment.’ Shelley's representatives, however, fearing that the prosecution of the work would result in stereotyping a caricature not only of Shelley but of Mary Shelley, withdrew the materials on which Hogg had depended for continuing it. Whether it was nevertheless continued is not known; no sequel has hitherto been published. Hogg died on 27 Aug. 1862. In addition to the writings mentioned above, he contributed the articles ‘Alphabets’ and ‘Antiquities’ to the eighth edition of the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ and several essays to the ‘Edinburgh Review.’

[Hogg's Life of Shelley; Dowden's Life of Shelley; Dowden's Some Early Writings of Shelley, in Contemporary Review for September 1884; Gent. Mag. 1862; private information.]

HOGGARDE, MILES (fl. 1557). [See Huggarde.]

HOLBEACH or RANDS, HENRY (d. 1551), bishop of Lincoln, was a native of Holbeach, Lincolnshire. His surname was properly Rands, but on becoming a monk of Crowland he assumed the name of his birthplace. He entered Cambridge presumably as a student of the Benedictine house called Buckingham College, where, having taken the B.D. degree in 1527, and commenced D.D. in 1534, he became prior in 1535. By the king's command he was chosen prior of Worcester on 13 March 1536; his election, which was not according to custom, but by way of compromission, was confirmed on the 22nd. On 24 March 1538 he was consecrated suffragan, with the title of Bristol, to the see of Worcester, of which Latimer was bishop. He held the priory together with his new office. In October he assisted Latimer in testing the relic called the ‘blood of Hales.’ On the surrender of the priory of Worcester on 18 Jan. 1540 he was made the first dean of the cathedral church, being also the king's almoner; he resigned the deanery on being translated to the see of Rochester in June 1544, but held in commendam the rectory of Bromsgrove with the chapelry of King's Norton, Worcestershire, which had formerly belonged to the priory. In 1545 he was appointed a commissioner to assess the revenue of Eastbridge Hospital, Canterbury, and in February 1547 he attended the funeral of Henry VIII. He was in the same year translated to the see of Lincoln, being elected on 9 Aug., and receiving the temporalities on the 16th, and confirmation on the 20th. He conveyed to