HEARN, LAFCADIO (1850–1904), author of books about Japan, was born on the 27th of June 1850 in Leucadia (pronounced Lefcadia, whence his name, which was one adopted by himself), one of the Greek Ionian Islands. He was the son of Surgeon-major Charles Hearn, of King’s County, Ireland, who, during the English occupation of the Ionian Islands, was stationed there, and who married a Greek wife. Artistic and rather bohemian tastes were in Lafcadio Hearn’s blood. His father’s brother Richard was at one time a well-known member of the Barbizon set of artists, though he made no mark as a painter through his lack of energy. Young Hearn had rather a casual education, but was for a time (1865) at Ushaw Roman Catholic College, Durham. The religious faith in which he was brought up was, however, soon lost; and at nineteen, being thrown on his own resources, he went to America and at first picked up a living in the lower grades of newspaper work. The details are obscure, but he continued to occupy himself with journalism and with out-of-the-way observation and reading, and meanwhile his erratic, romantic and rather morbid idiosyncrasies developed. He was for some time in New Orleans, writing for the Times Democrat, and was sent by that paper for two years as correspondent to the West Indies, where he gathered material for his Two Years in the French West Indies (1890). At last, in 1891, he went to Japan with a commission as a newspaper correspondent, which was quickly broken off. But here he found his true sphere. The list of his books on Japanese subjects tells its own tale: Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (1894); Out of the East (1895); Kokoro (1896); Gleanings in Buddha Fields (1897); Exotics and Retrospections (1898); In Ghostly Japan (1899); Shadowings (1900); A Japanese Miscellany (1901); Kotto (1902); Japanese Fairy Tales and Kwaidan (1903), and (published just after his death) Japan, an Attempt at Interpretation (1904), a study full of knowledge and insight. He became a teacher of English at the University of Tokyo, and soon fell completely under the spell of Japanese ideas. He married a Japanese wife, became a naturalized Japanese under the name of Yakumo Koizumi, and adopted the Buddhist religion. For the last two years of his life (he died on the 26th of September 1904) his health was failing, and he was deprived of his lecturersbip at the University. But he had gradually become known to the world at large by the originality, power and literary charm of his writings. This wayward bohemian genius, who had seen life in so many climes, and turned from Roman Catholic to atheist and then to Buddhist, was curiously qualified, among all those who were “interpreting” the new and the old Japan to the Western world, to see it with unfettered understanding, and to express its life and thought with most intimate and most artistic sincerity. Lafcadio Hearn’s books were indeed unique for their day in the literature about Japan, in their combination of real knowledge with a literary art which is often exquisite.
See Elizabeth Bisland, The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn (2 vols., 1906); G. M. Gould, Concerning Lafcadio Hearn (1908).
HEARNE, SAMUEL (1745–1792), English explorer, was born
in London. In 1756 he entered the navy, and was some time
with Lord Hood; at the end of the Seven Years’ War (1763)
he took service with the Hudson’s Bay Company. In 1768 he
examined portions of the Hudson’s Bay coasts with a view to
improving the cod fishery, and in 1769–1772 he was employed
in north-western discovery, searching especially for certain
copper mines described by Indians. His first attempt (from
the 6th of November 1769) failed through the desertion of his
Indians; his second (from the 23rd of February 1770) through
the breaking of his quadrant; but in his third (December 1770
to June 1772) he was successful, not only discovering the copper
of the Coppermine river basin, but tracing this river to the
Arctic Ocean. He reappeared at Fort Prince of Wales on the
30th of June 1772. Becoming governor of this fort in 1775,
he was taken prisoner by the French under La Pérouse in 1782.
He returned to England in 1787 and died there in 1792.
See his posthumous Journey from Prince of Wales Fort in Hudson’s Bay to the Northern Ocean (London, 1795).
HEARNE, THOMAS (1678–1735), English antiquary, was
born in July 1678 at Littlefield Green in the parish of White
Waltham, Berkshire. Having received his early education from
his father, George Hearne, the parish clerk, he showed such taste
for study that a wealthy neighbour, Francis Cherry of Shottesbrooke
(c. 1665–1713), a celebrated nonjuror, interested himself
in the boy, and sent him to the school at Bray “on purpose to
learn the Latin tongue.” Soon Cherry took him into his own
house, and his education was continued at Bray until Easter
1696, when he matriculated at St Edmund Hall, Oxford. At
the university he attracted the attention of Dr John Mill (1645–1707),
the principal of St Edmund Hall, who employed him to
compare manuscripts and in other ways. Having taken the
degree of B.A. in 1699 he was made assistant keeper of the
Bodleian Library, where he worked on the catalogue of books,
and in 1712 he was appointed second keeper. In 1715 Hearne
was elected architypographus and esquire bedell in civil law
in the university, but objection having been made to his holding
this office together with that of second librarian, he resigned
it in the same year. As a nonjuror he refused to take the oaths
of allegiance to King George I., and early in 1716 he was deprived
of his librarianship. However he continued to reside in Oxford,
and occupied himself in editing the English chroniclers. Having
refused several important academical positions, including the
librarianship of the Bodleian and the Camden professorship of
ancient history, rather than take the oaths, he died on the 10th
of June 1735.
Hearne’s most important work was done as editor of many of the English chroniclers, and until the appearance of the “Rolls” series his editions were in many cases the only ones extant. Very carefully prepared, they were, and indeed are still, of the greatest value to historical students. Perhaps the most important of a long list are: Benedict of Peterborough’s (Benedictus Abbas) De vita et gestis Henrici II. et Ricardi I. (1735); John of Fordun’s Scotichronicon (1722); the monk of Evesham’s Historia vitae et regni Ricardi II. (1729); Robert Mannyng’s translation of Peter Langtoft’s Chronicle (1725); the work of Thomas Otterbourne and John Whethamstede as Duo rerum Anglicarum scriptores veteres (1732); Robert of Gloucester’s Chronicle (1724); J. Sprott’s Chronica (1719); the Vita et gesta Henrici V., wrongly attributed to Thomas Elmham (1727); Titus Livy’s Vita Henrici V. (1716); Walter of Hemingburgh’s Chronicon (1731); and William of Newburgh’s Historia rerum Anglicarum (1719). He also edited John Leland’s Itinerary (1710–1712) and the same author’s Collectanea (1715); W. Camden’s Annales rerum Anglicarum et Hibernicarum regnante Elizabetha (1717); Sir John Spelman’s Life of Alfred (1709); and W. Roper’s Life of Sir Thomas More (1716). He brought out an edition of Livy (1708); one of Pliny’s Epistolae et panegyricus (1703); and one of the Acts of the Apostles (1715). Among his other compilations may be mentioned: Ductor historicus, a Short System of Universal History (1704, 1705, 1714, 1724); A Collection of Curious Discourses by Eminent Antiquaries (1720); and Reliquiae Bodleianae (1703).
Hearne left his manuscripts to William Bedford, who sold them to Dr Richard Rawlinson, who in his turn bequeathed them to the Bodleian. Two volumes of extracts from his voluminous diary were published by Philip Bliss (Oxford, 1857), and afterwards an enlarged edition in three volumes appeared (London, 1869). A large part of his diary entitled Remarks and Collections, 1705–1714, edited by C. E. Doble and D. W. Rannie, has been published by the Oxford Historical Society (1885–1898). Bibliotheca Hearniana, excerpts from the catalogue of Hearne’s library, has been edited by B. Botfield (1848).
See Impartial Memorials of the Life and Writings of Thomas Hearne by several hands (1736); and W. D. Macray, Annals of the Bodleian Library (1890). Hearne’s autobiography is published in W. Huddesford’s Lives of Leland, Hearne and Wood (Oxford, 1772). T. Ouvry’s Letters addressed to Thomas Hearne has been privately printed (London, 1874).
HEARSE (an adaptation of Fr. herse, a harrow, from Lat.
hirpex, hirpicem, rake or harrow, Greek ἅρπαξ, a vehicle for
the conveyance of a dead body at a funeral. The most usual
shape is a four-wheeled car, with a roofed and enclosed body,
sometimes with glass panels, which contains the coffin. This is
the only current use of the word. In its earlier forms it is usually
found as “herse,” and meant, as the French word did, a harrow
(q.v.). It was then applied to other objects resembling a harrow,
following the French. It was then used of a portcullis, and thus
becomes a heraldic term, the “herse” being frequently borne
as a “charge,” as in the arms of the City of Westminster. The
