and Macaire at His Majesty’s on the 2nd of May 1901. Admiral Guinea also achieved stage performance. In the meantime Henley was active in the magazines and did notable editorial work for the publishers: the Lyra Heroica, 1891; A Book of English Prose (with Mr Charles Whibley), 1894; the centenary Burns (with Mr T. F. Henderson) in 1896–1897, in which Henley’s Essay (published separately 1898) roused considerable controversy. In 1892 he undertook for Mr Nutt the general editorship of the Tudor Translations; and in 1897 began for Mr Heinemann an edition of Byron, which did not proceed beyond one volume of letters. In 1898 he published a collection of his Poems in one volume, with the autobiographical “advertisement” above quoted; in 1899 London Types, Quatorzains to accompany Mr William Nicolson’s designs; and in 1900 during the Boer War, a patriotic poetical brochure, For England’s Sake. In 1901 he published a second volume of collected poetry with the title Hawthorn and Lavender, uniform with the volume of 1898. In 1902 he collected his various articles on painters and artists and published them as a companion volume of Views and Reviews: Art. These with “A Song of Speed” printed in May 1903 within two months of his death make up his tale of work. At the close of his life he was engaged upon his edition of the Authorized Version of the Bible for his series of Tudor Translations. There remained uncollected some of his scattered articles in periodicals and reviews, especially the series of literary articles contributed to the Pall Mall Magazine from 1899 until his death. These contain the most outspoken utterances of a critic never mealy-mouthed, and include the splenetic attack on the memory of his dead friend R. L. Stevenson, which aroused deep regret and resentment. In 1894 Henley lost his little six-year-old daughter Margaret; he had borne the “bludgeonings of chance” with “the unconquerable soul” of which he boasted, not unjustifiably, in a well-known poem; but this blow broke his heart. With the knowledge of this fact, some of these outbursts may be better understood; yet we have the evidence of a clear-eyed critic who knew Henley well, that he found him more generous, more sympathetic at the close of his life than he had been before. He died on the 11th of July 1903. In spite of his too boisterous mannerism and prejudices, he exercised by his originality, independence and fearlessness an inspiring and inspiriting influence on the higher class of journalism. This influence he exercised by word of mouth as well as by his pen, for he was a famous talker, and figures as “Burly” in Stevenson’s essay on Talk and Talkers. As critic he was a good hater and a good fighter. His virtue lay in his vital and vitalizing love of good literature, and the vivid and pictorial phrases he found to give it expression. But his fame must rest on his poetry. He excelled alike in his delicate experiments in complicated metres, and the strong impressionism of Hospital Sketches and London Voluntaries. The influence of Heine may be discerned in these “unrhymed rhythms”; but he was perhaps a truer and more successful disciple of Heine in his snatches of passionate song, the best of which should retain their place in English literature.
See also references in Stevenson’s Letters; Cornhill Magazine (1903) (Sidney Low); Fortnightly Review (August 1892) (Arthur Symons); and for bibliography, English Illustrated Magazine, vol. xxix. p. 548. (W. P. J.)
HENLEY-ON-THAMES, a market town and municipal
borough in the Henley parliamentary division of Oxfordshire,
England, on the left bank of the Thames, the terminus of a
branch of the Great Western railway, by which it is 3534 m. W.
of London, while it is 5712 m. by river. Pop. (1901) 5984. It
occupies one of the most beautiful situations on the Thames,
at the foot of the finely wooded Chiltern Hills. The river is
crossed by an elegant stone bridge of five arches, constructed
in 1786. The parish church (Decorated and Perpendicular)
possesses a lofty tower of intermingled flint and stone, attributed
to Cardinal Wolsey, but more probably erected by Bishop
Longland. The grammar school, founded in 1605, is incorporated
with a Blue Coat school. Henley is a favourite summer resort,
and is celebrated for the annual Henley Royal Regatta, the
principal gathering of amateur oarsmen in England, first held
in 1839 and usually taking place in July. Henley is governed
by a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 549 acres.
Henley-on-Thames (Hanlegang, Henle, Handley), not mentioned in Domesday, was a manor or ancient demesne of the crown and was granted (1337) to John de Molyns, whose family held it for about 250 years. It is said that members for Henley sat in parliaments of Edward I. and Edward III., but no writs have been found. Henry VIII. having granted the use of the titles “mayor” and “burgess,” the town was incorporated in 1570–1571 by the name of the warden, portreeves, burgesses and commonalty. Henley suffered from both parties in the Civil War. William III. on his march to London (1688) rested here and received a deputation from the Lords. The period of prosperity in the 17th and 18th centuries was due to manufactures of glass and malt, and to trade in corn and wool. The existing Thursday market was granted by a charter of John and the existing Corpus Christi fair by a charter of Henry VI.
See J. S. Burn, History of Henley-on-Thames (London, 1861).
HENNA, the Persian name for a small shrub found in India,
Persia, the Levant and along the African coasts of the Mediterranean,
where it is frequently cultivated. It is the Lawsonia
alba of botanists, and from the fact that young trees are spineless,
while older ones have the branchlets hardened into spines, it
has also received the names of Lawsonia inermis and L. spinosa.
It forms a slender shrubby plant of from 8 to 10 ft. high, with
opposite lance-shaped smooth leaves, which are entire at the
margins, and bears small white four-petalled sweet-scented
flowers disposed in panicles. Its Egyptian name is Khenna,
its Arabic name Al Khanna, its Indian name Mendee, while in
England it is called Egyptian privet, and in the West Indies,
where it is naturalized, Jamaica mignonette.
Henna or Henné is of ancient repute as a cosmetic. This consists of the leaves of the Lawsonia powdered and made up into a paste; this is employed by the Egyptian women, and also by the Mahommedan women in India, to dye their fingernails and other parts of their hands and feet of an orange-red colour, which is considered to add to their beauty. The colour lasts for three or four weeks, when it requires to be renewed. It is moreover used for dyeing the hair and beard, and even the manes of horses; and the same material is employed for dyeing skins and morocco-leather a reddish-yellow, but it contains no tannin. The practice of dyeing the nails was common amongst the Egyptians, and not to conform to it would have been considered indecent. It has descended from very remote ages, as is proved by the evidence afforded by Egyptian mummies, the nails of which are most commonly stained of a reddish hue. Henna is also said to have been held in repute amongst the Hebrews, being considered to be the plant referred to as camphire in the Bible (Song of Solomon i. 14, iv. 13). “The custom of dyeing the nails and palms of the hands and soles of the feet of an iron-rust colour with henna,” observes Dr J. Forbes Royle, “exists throughout the East from the Mediterranean to the Ganges, as well as in northern Africa. In some parts the practice is not confined to women and children, but is also followed by men, especially in Persia. In dyeing the beard the hair is turned to red by this application, which is then changed to black by a preparation of indigo. In dyeing the hair of children, and the tails and manes of horses and asses, the process is allowed to stop at the red colour which the henna produces.” Mahomet, it is said, used henna as a dye for his beard, and the fashion was adopted by the caliphs. “The use of henna,” remarks Lady Callcott in her Scripture Herbal, “is scarcely to be called a caprice in the East. There is a quality in the drug which gently restrains perspiration in the hands and feet, and produces an agreeable coolness equally conducive to health and comfort.” She further suggests that if the Jewish women were not in the habit of using this dye before the time of Solomon, it might probably have been introduced amongst them by his wife, the daughter of Pharaoh, and traces to this probability the allusion to “camphire” in the passages in Canticles above referred to.
The preparation of henna consists in reducing the leaves and young twigs to a fine powder, catechu or lucerne leaves
