Lewald said of Holtei that by the energy of his poetic conception and plastic force he brought his audience round to his own ideas; and he added, “an eloquence such as his I have never met with in any other German.”
Holtei was not only a stage-poet but a lyric-writer of great charm. Notable among such productions are Schlesische Gedichte (1830; 20th ed., 1893), Gedichte (5th ed., 1861), Stimmen des Waldes (2nd ed., 1854). Mention ought also to be made of Holtei’s interesting autobiography, Vierzig Jahre (8 vols., 1843–1850; 3rd ed., 1862) with the supplementary volume Noch ein Jahr in Schlesien (1864).
Holtei’s Theater appeared in 6 vols. (1867); his Erzählende Schriften, 39 vols. (1861–1866). See M. Kurnick, Karl von Holtei, ein Lebensbild (1880); F. Wehl, Zeit und Menschen (1889); O. Storch, K. von Holtei (1898).
HÖLTY, LUDWIG HEINRICH CHRISTOPH (1748–1776),
German poet, was born on the 21st of December 1748 at the
village of Mariensee in Hanover, where his father was pastor.
In 1769 he went to study theology at Göttingen. Here he formed
a close friendship with J. M. Miller, J. H. Voss, H. Boie, the
brothers Stolberg and others, and became one of the founders
of the famous society of young poets known as the Göttinger
Dichterbund or Hain. When in 1774 he left the university he
had abandoned all intention of becoming a clergyman; but he
was not destined to enter any other profession. He died of
consumption on the 1st of September 1776 at Hanover. Hölty
was the most gifted lyric poet of the Göttingen circle. He was
influenced both by Uz and Klopstock, but his love for the
Volkslied and his delight in nature preserved him from the
artificiality of the one poet and the unworldliness of the other.
A strain of melancholy runs through all his lyrics. His ballads
are the pioneers of the rich ballad literature on English models,
which sprang up in Germany during the next few years. Among
his most familiar poems may be mentioned Üb’ immer Treu’ und
Redlichkeit, Tanzt dem schönen Mai entgegen, Rosen auf dem
Weg gestreut, and Wer wollte sich mit Grillen plagen?
Hölty’s Gedichte were published by his friends Count Friedrich Leopold zu Stolberg and J. H. Voss (Hamburg, 1783); a new edition, enlarged by Voss, with a biography (1804); a more complete but still imperfect edition by F. Voigts (Hanover, 1857). The first complete edition was that of Karl Halm (Leipzig, 1870), who had access to MSS. not hitherto known. See H. Ruete, Hölty, sein Leben und Dichten (Guben, 1883), and A. Sauer, Der Göttinger Dichterbund, vol. ii. (Stuttgart, 1894), where an excellent selection of Hölty’s poetry will be found.
HOLTZENDORFF, JOACHIM WILHELM FRANZ PHILIPP VON
(1829–1889), German jurist, born at Vietmannsdorf, in
the Mark of Brandenburg, on the 14th of October 1829, was
descended from a family of the old nobility. He was educated
at Berlin and at Pforta, afterwards studying law at the universities
of Bonn, Heidelberg and Berlin. The struggles of
1848 inspired him with youthful enthusiasm, and he remained
for the rest of his life a strong advocate of political liberty.
In 1852 he graduated LL.D. at Berlin; in 1857 he became a
Privatdocent, and in 1860 he was nominated a professor extraordinary.
The predominant party in Prussia regarded his
political opinions with mistrust, and he was not offered an
ordinary professorship until February 1873, after he had decided
to accept a chair at the university of Munich. At Munich he
passed the last nineteen years of his life. During the thirty
years that he was professor he successively taught several
branches of jurisprudence, but he was chiefly distinguished as
an authority on criminal and international law. He was
especially well fitted for organizing collective work, and he has
associated his name with a series of publications of the first
value. While acting as editor he often reserved for himself,
among the independent monographs of which the work was
composed, only those on subjects distasteful to his collaborators
on account of their obscurity or lack of importance. Among
the compilations which he superintended may be mentioned
his Encyclopädie der Rechtswissenschaft (Leipzig, 1870–1871,
2 vols.); his Handbuch des deutschen Strafrechts (Berlin, 1871–1877,
4 vols.), and his Handbuch des Völkerrechts auf Grundlage
europäischer Staatspraxis (Berlin, 1885–1890, 4 vols.). Among
his many independent works may be mentioned: Das irische
Gefängnissystem (Leipzig, 1859), Französische Rechtszustände
(Leipzig, 1859), Die Deportation als Strafmittel (Leipzig, 1859),
Die Kürzungsfähigkeit der Freiheitsstrafen (Leipzig, 1861), Die
Reform der Staatsanwaltschaft in Deutschland (Berlin, 1864),
Die Umgestaltung der Staatsanwaltschaft (Berlin, 1865), Die
Principien der Politik (Berlin, 1869), Das Verbrechen des Mordes
und die Todesstrafe (Berlin, 1875), Rumäniens Uferrechte an
der Donau (Leipzig, 1883; French edition, 1884). He also
edited or assisted in editing a number of periodical publications
on legal subjects. From 1866 to the time of his death he was
associated with Rudolf Ludwig Carl Virchow in editing Sammlung
gemeinverständlicher wissenschaftlicher Vorträge (Berlin).
Von Holtzendorff died at Munich on the 4th of February 1889.
HOLTZMANN, HEINRICH JULIUS (1832– ), German
Protestant theologian, son of Karl Julius Holtzmann (1804–1877),
was born on the 17th of May 1832 at Karlsruhe, where
his father ultimately became prelate and counsellor to the supreme
consistory. He studied at Berlin, and eventually (1874) was
appointed professor ordinarius at Strassburg. A moderately
liberal theologian, he became best known as a New Testament
critic and exegete, being the author of the Commentary on the
Synoptics (1889; 3rd ed., 1901), the Johannine books (1890;
2nd ed., 1893), and the Acts of the Apostles (1901), in the series
Handkommentar zum Neuen Testament. On the question of
the relationship of the Synoptic Gospels, Holtzmann in his
early work, Die synoptischen Evangelien, ihr Ursprung und
geschichtlicher Charakter (1863), presents a view which has been
widely accepted, maintaining the priority of Mark, deriving
Matthew in its present form from Mark and from Matthew’s
earlier “collection of Sayings,” the Logia of Papias, and Luke
from Matthew and Mark in the form in which we have them.
Other noteworthy works are the Lehrbuch der histor.-kritischen Einleitung in das Neue Testament (1885, 3rd ed., 1892), and the Lehrbuch der neutestamentlichen Theologie (2 vols., 1896–1897). He also collaborated with R. Zöpffel in the preparation of a small Lexikon für Theologie und Kirchenwesen (1882; 3rd ed., 1895), and in 1893 became editor of the Theol. Jahresbericht.
HOLUB, EMIL (1847–1902), Bohemian traveller in south-central
Africa, was born at Holitz, eastern Bohemia, on the
7th of October 1847. He was educated at Prague University,
where he graduated M.D. In 1872 he went to the Kimberley
diamond-fields, and with the money earned by his practice
as a surgeon undertook expeditions into the northern Transvaal,
Mashonaland and through Bechuanaland to the Victoria
Falls, making extensive natural history collections, which he
brought to Europe in 1879 and distributed among over a hundred
museums and schools. In 1883 he went back to South Africa
with his wife, intending to cross the continent to Egypt. In
June 1886 the party crossed the Zambezi west of the Victoria
Falls, and explored the then almost unknown region between
that river and its tributary the Kafue. When beyond the
Kafue the camp was attacked by the Mashukulumbwe, and
Holub was obliged to retrace his steps. He returned to Austria
in 1887 with a collection of great scientific interest, of over
13,000 objects, now in various museums. Holub died at Vienna
on the 21st of February 1902.
His principal works are: Eine Culturskizze des Marutse-Mambunda-reichs (Vienna, 1879); Sieben Jahre in Südafrika, &c. (2 vols., Vienna, 1880–1881), of which an English translation appeared; Die Colonisation Afrikas (Vienna, 1882); and Von der Kapstadt ins Land der Maschukulumbe (2 vols., Vienna, 1818–1890).
HOLY, sacred, devoted or set apart for religious worship or
observance; a term characteristic of the attributes of perfection
and sinlessness of the Persons of the Trinity, as the objects of
human worship and reverence, and hence transferred to those
human persons who, either by their devotion to a spiritual
ascetic life or by their approximation to moral perfection,
are considered worthy of reverence. The word in Old English
was hálig, and is common to other Teutonic languages;
cf. Ger. and Dutch heilig, Swed. helig, Dan. hellig. It is
derived from hál, hale, whole, and cognate with “health.”
The New English Dictionary suggests that the sense-development
may be from “whole,” i.e. inviolate, from “health,
