on the ground that it had been obtained by “spiritual” influence. It was held that the burden of establishing the validity of the gift lay on Home, and as he failed to do so the case was decided against him. He continued, however, to give séances, mostly on the Continent, and in 1871 appeared before the tsar of Russia and two Russian scientists, who attested the phenomena evoked. Returning to England he submitted to a series of experiments designed to test his pretensions before Professor (subsequently Sir William) Crookes, which the latter declared to be thoroughly genuine; and Professor von Boutlerow, of the Russian Academy of Science, after witnessing a similar series of experiments, expressed the same opinion. Home published two volumes of Incidents of my Life and Lights and Shadows of Spiritualism. He married successively two well-connected Russian ladies. He died at Auteuil, France, on the 21st of June 1886.
HOME, JOHN (1722–1808), Scottish dramatic poet, was born
on the 22nd of September 1722 at Leith, where his father,
Alexander Home, who was distantly related to the earls of
Home, filled the office of town-clerk. He was educated at the
grammar school of his native town, and at the university of
Edinburgh, where he graduated M.A. in 1742. Though he
showed a fondness for the profession of arms, he studied divinity,
and was licensed by the presbytery of Edinburgh in 1745. In
the same year he joined as a volunteer against the Pretender,
and was taken prisoner at the battle of Falkirk (1746). With
many others he was carried to the castle of Doune in Perthshire,
but soon effected his escape. In July 1746 Home was presented
to the parish of Athelstaneford, Haddingtonshire, vacant by
the death of Robert Blair, the author of The Grave. He had
leisure to visit his friends and became especially intimate with
David Hume who belonged to the same family as himself. His
first play, Agis: a tragedy, founded on Plutarch’s narrative,
was finished in 1747. He took it to London and submitted it
to Garrick for representation at Drury Lane, but it was rejected
as unsuitable for the stage. The tragedy of Douglas was suggested
to him by hearing a lady sing the ballad of Gil Morrice
or Child Maurice (F. J. Child, Popular Ballads, ii. 263). The
ballad supplied him with the outline of a simple and striking
plot. After five years’ labour he completed his play, which
he took to London for Garrick’s opinion. It also was rejected,
but on his return to Edinburgh his friends resolved that it
should be brought out in that city. It was produced on the
14th of December 1756 with overwhelming success, in spite
of the opposition of the presbytery, who summoned Alexander
Carlyle to answer for having attended its representation. Home
wisely resigned his charge in 1757, after a visit to London, where
Douglas was brought out at Covent Garden on the 14th of March.
Peg Woffington played Lady Randolph, a part which found a
later exponent in Mrs Siddons. David Hume summed up his
admiration for Douglas by saying that his friend possessed
“the true theatric genius of Shakespeare and Otway, refined
from the unhappy barbarism of the one and licentiousness of
the other.” Gray, writing to Horace Walpole (August, 1757),
said that the author “seemed to have retrieved the true language
of the stage, which has been lost for these hundred years,” but
Samuel Johnson held aloof from the general enthusiasm, and
averred that there were not ten good lines in the whole play
(Boswell, Life, ed. Croker, 1848, p. 390). In 1758 Home became
private secretary to Lord Bute, then secretary of state, and was
appointed tutor to the prince of Wales; and in 1760 his patron’s
influence procured him a pension of £300 per annum and in
1763 a sinecure worth another £300. Garrick produced Agis
at Drury Lane on the 21st of February 1758. By dint of good
acting and powerful support, according to Genest (Short Account
&c., iv. 513 seq.), the piece kept the stage for eleven days, but
it was lamentably inferior to Douglas. In 1760 his tragedy,
The Siege of Aquileia, was put on the stage, Garrick taking the
part of Aemilius. In 1769 his tragedy of The Fatal Discovery
had a run of nine nights; Alonzo also (1773) had fair success
in the representation; but his last tragedy, Alfred (1778), was
so coolly received that he gave up writing for the stage. In
1778 he joined a regiment formed by the duke of Buccleuch.
He sustained severe injuries in a fall from horseback which
permanently affected his brain, and was persuaded by his
friends to retire. From 1767 he resided either at Edinburgh
or at a villa which he built at Kilduff near his former parish.
It was at this time that he wrote his History of the Rebellion of
1745, which appeared in 1802. Home died at Merchiston
Bank, near Edinburgh, on the 5th of September 1808, in his
eighty-sixth year.
The Works of John Home were collected and published by Henry Mackenzie in 1822 with “An Account of the Life and Writings of Mr John Home,” which also appeared separately in the same year, but several of his smaller poems seem to have escaped the editor’s observation. These are—“The Fate of Caesar,” “Verses upon Inveraray,” “Epistle to the Earl of Eglintoun,” “Prologue on the Birthday of the Prince of Wales, 1759” and several “Epigrams,” which are printed in vol. ii. of Original Poems by Scottish Gentlemen (1762). See also Sir W. Scott, “The Life and Works of John Home” in the Quarterly Review (June, 1827). Douglas is included in numerous collections of British drama. Voltaire published his Le Caffé, ou l’Écossaise (1760), Londres (really Geneva), as a translation from the work of Mr Hume, described as pasteur de l’église d’Édimbourg, but Home seems to have taken no notice of the mystification.
HOMEL, or Gomel, a town of Russia, in the government of
Mogilev, and 132 m. by rail S.S.E. of the town of Mogilev, on
the Sozh, a tributary of the Dnieper. Pop. (1900) 45,081,
nearly half of whom are Jews. It is an important junction of
the railways from Vilna to Odessa and from Orel to Poland,
and is in steamer communication with Kiev and Mogilev. In
front of Prince Paskevich’s castle stands an equestrian statue
of the Polish general Joseph Poniatowski, and in the cathedral
is the tomb of the chancellor Nikolai Petrovich Rumantsev,
by Canova. The town carries on a brisk trade in hops, corn
and timber; there are also paper-pulp mills and oil factories.
Homel was founded in the 12th century, and after changing
hands several times between Poles and Russians was annexed
to Russia in 1772. In 1648 it suffered at the hands of the Cossack
chieftain Bogdan Chmielnicki.
HOME OFFICE, a principal government department in the
United Kingdom, the creation of which dates from 1782, when
the conduct of foreign affairs, which had previously been divided
between the northern and southern secretaries, was handed
over to the northern department (see Foreign Office). The
home department retained control of Irish and colonial affairs,
and of war business until 1794, when an additional secretary
of state was re-appointed. In 1801 the colonial business was
transferred from the home department, which now attends only
to domestic affairs. The head of the department, the principal
secretary of state for home affairs, or home secretary, is a
member of the government for the time being, and of the cabinet,
receiving a salary of £5000 a year. He is the proper medium
of communication between the sovereign and the subject, and
receives petitions addressed to the crown. He is responsible
for the maintenance of the king’s peace and attends to the
administration of criminal justice, police and prisons, and
through him the sovereign exercises his prerogative of mercy.
Within his department is the supervision of lunatic asylums,
reformatories and industrial schools, and it is his duty to see
after the internal well-being of the country, to enforce the rules
made for the health or safety of the community generally,
and especially of those classes employed in special trades or
dangerous occupations. He is assisted by a permanent under-secretary,
a parliamentary secretary and several assistant
under-secretaries.
See Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution. (1907).
HOMER[1] (Ὃμηρος), the great epic poet of Greece. Many of the works once attributed to him are lost; those which remain are the two great epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, thirty-three Hymns, a mock epic (the Battle of the Frogs and Mice), and some pieces of a few lines each (the so-called Epigrams).
Ancient Accounts of Homer.—Of the date of Homer probably no record, real or pretended, ever existed. Herodotus (ii. 53) maintains that Hesiod and Homer lived not more than 400 years
- ↑ This article was thoroughly revised by Dr D. B. Monro before his death in 1905; a few points have since been added by Mr. T. W. Allen.
