HERVÁS Y PANDURO, LORENZO (1735–1809), Spanish philologist, was born at Horcajo (Cuenca) on the 10th of May 1735. He joined the Jesuits on the 29th of September 1745 and in course of time became successively professor of philosophy and humanities at the seminaries of Madrid and Murcia. When the Jesuit order was banished from Spain in 1767, Hervás settled at Forli, and devoted himself to the first part of his Idea dell’ Universo (22 vols., 1778–1792). Returning to Spain in 1798, he published his famous Catálogo de las lenguas de las naciones conocidas (6 vols., 1800–1805), in which he collected the philological peculiarities of three hundred languages and drew up grammars of forty languages. In 1802 he was appointed librarian of the Quirinal Palace in Rome, where he died on the 24th of August 1809. Max Müller credits him with having anticipated Humboldt, and with making “one of the most brilliant discoveries in the history of the science of language” by establishing the relation between the Malay and Polynesian family of speech.
HERVEY, JAMES (1714–1758), English divine, was born at
Hardingstone, near Northampton, on the 26th of February 1714,
and was educated at the grammar school of Northampton, and
at Lincoln College, Oxford. Here he came under the influence
of John Wesley and the Oxford methodists; ultimately, however,
while retaining his regard for the men and his sympathy with
their religious aims, he adopted a thoroughly Calvinistic creed,
and resolved to remain in the Anglican Church. Having taken
orders in 1737, he held several curacies, and in 1752 succeeded
his father in the family livings of Weston Favell and Collingtree.
He was never robust, but was a good parish priest and a zealous
writer. His style is often bombastic, but he displays a rare
appreciation of natural beauty, and his simple piety made him
many friends. His earliest work, Meditations and Contemplations,
said to have been modelled on Robert Boyle’s Occasional
Reflexions on various Subjects, within fourteen years passed
through as many editions. Theron and Aspasio, or a series of
Letters upon the most important and interesting Subjects, which
appeared in 1755, and was equally well received, called forth some
adverse criticism even from Calvinists, on account of tendencies
which were considered to lead to antinomianism, and was strongly
objected to by Wesley in his Preservative against unsettled Notions
in Religion. Besides carrying into England the theological
disputes to which the Marrow of Modern Divinity had given rise
in Scotland, it also led to what is known as the Sandemanian
controversy as to the nature of saving faith. Hervey died on
the 25th of December 1758.
A “new and complete” edition of his Works, with a memoir, appeared in 1797. See also Collection of the Letters of James Hervey, to which is prefixed an account of his Life and Death, by Dr Birch (1760).
HERVEY DE SAINT DENYS, MARIE JEAN LÉON, Marquis d’ (1823–1892), French Orientalist and man of letters, was born
in Paris in 1823. He devoted himself to the study of Chinese,
and in 1851 published his Recherches sur l’agriculture et l’horticulture
des Chinois, in which he dealt with the plants and animals
that might be acclimatized in the West. At the Paris Exhibition
of 1867 he acted as commissioner for the Chinese exhibits; in
1874 he succeeded Stanislas Julien in the chair of Chinese at
the Collège de France; and in 1878 he was elected a member of
the Académie des Inscriptions et de Belles-Lettres. His works
include Poésies de l’époque des T’ang (1862), translated from the
Chinese; Ethnographie des peuples étrangers à la Chine, translated
from Ma-Touan-Lin (1876–1883); Li-Sao (1870), from the
Chinese; Mémoires sur les doctrines religieuse; de Confucius
et de l’école des lettres (1887); and translations of some Chinese
stories not of classical interest but valuable for the light they
throw on oriental custom. Hervey de Saint Denys also translated
some works from the Spanish, and wrote a history of the
Spanish drama. He died in Paris on the 2nd of November 1892.
HERVEY OF ICKWORTH, JOHN HERVEY, Baron (1696–1743),
English statesman and writer, eldest son of John, 1st earl
of Bristol, by his second marriage, was born on the 13th of
October 1696. He was educated at Westminster school and at
Clare Hall, Cambridge, where he took his M.A. degree in 1715.
In 1716 his father sent him to Paris, and thence to Hanover to
pay his court to George I. He was a frequent visitor at the
court of the prince and princess of Wales at Richmond, and in
1720 he married Mary Lepell, who was one of the princess’s
ladies-in-waiting, and a great court beauty. In 1723 he received
the courtesy title of Lord Hervey on the death of his half-brother
Carr, and in 1725 he was elected M.P. for Bury St Edmunds. He
had been at one time on very friendly terms with Frederick,
prince of Wales, but from 1731 he quarrelled with him, apparently
because they were rivals in the favour of Anne Vane. These
differences probably account for the scathing picture he draws
of the prince’s callous conduct. Hervey had been hesitating
between William Pulteney (afterwards earl of Bath) and Walpole,
but in 1730 he definitely took sides with Walpole, of whom he
was thenceforward a faithful adherent. He was assumed by
Pulteney to be the author of Sedition and Defamation display’d
with a Dedication to the patrons of The Craftsman (1731). Pulteney,
who, up to this time, had been a firm friend of Hervey, replied
with A Proper Reply to a late Scurrilous Libel, and the quarrel
resulted in a duel from which Hervey narrowly escaped with his
life. Hervey is said to have denied the authorship of both the
pamphlet and its dedication, but a note on the MS. at Ickworth,
apparently in his own hand, states that he wrote the latter. He
was able to render valuable service to Walpole from his influence
over the queen. Through him the minister governed Queen
Caroline and indirectly George II. Hervey was vice-chamberlain
in the royal household and a member of the privy council. In
1733 he was called to the House of Lords by writ in virtue of his
father’s barony. In spite of repeated requests he received no
further preferment until after 1740, when he became lord privy
seal. After the fall of Sir Robert Walpole he was dismissed
(July 1742) from his office. An excellent political pamphlet,
Miscellaneous Thoughts on the present Posture of Foreign and
Domestic Affairs, shows that he still retained his mental vigour,
but he was liable to epilepsy, and his weak appearance and rigid
diet were a constant source of ridicule to his enemies. He
died on the 5th of August 1743. He predeceased his father, but
three of his sons became successively earls of Bristol.
Hervey wrote detailed and brutally frank memoirs of the court of George II. from 1727 to 1737. He gave a most unflattering account of the king, and of Frederick, prince of Wales, and their family squabbles. For the queen and her daughter, Princess Caroline, he had a genuine respect and attachment, and the princess’s affection for him was commonly said to be the reason for the close retirement in which she lived after his death. The MS. of Hervey’s memoirs was preserved by the family, but his son, Augustus John, 3rd earl of Bristol, left strict injunctions that they should not be published until after the death of George III. In 1848 they were published under the editorship of J. W. Croker, but the MS. had been subjected to a certain amount of mutilation before it came into his hands. Croker also softened in some cases the plainspokenness of the original. Hervey’s bitter account of court life and intrigues resembles in many points the memoirs of Horace Walpole, and the two books corroborate one another in many statements that might otherwise have been received with suspicion.
Until the publication of the Memoirs Hervey was chiefly known as the object of savage satire on the part of Pope, in whose works he figured as Lord Fanny, Sporus, Adonis and Narcissus. The quarrel is generally put down to Pope’s jealousy of Hervey’s friendship with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. In the first of the Imitations of Horace, addressed to William Fortescue, “Lord Fanny” and “Sappho” were generally identified with Hervey and Lady Mary, although Pope denied the personal intention. Hervey had already been attacked in the Dunciad and the Bathos, and he now retaliated. There is no doubt that he had a share in the Verses to the Imitator of Horace (1732) and it is possible that he was the sole author. In the Letter from a nobleman at Hampton Court to a Doctor of Divinity (1733), he scoffed at Pope’s deformity and humble birth. Pope’s reply was a Letter to a Noble Lord, dated November 1733, and the portrait of Sporus in the Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot (1735), which forms the prologue to
