556 



HARDWOOD TREES 



HARE 



(formerly by as many as 2,000,000). Hard war 

 is 1024 feet above the sea, and has a pop. of 4520. 

 See GANGES. 



Hardwood Trees are forest-trees of com- 

 paratively slow growth, producing compact, hard 

 timber, as oak, ash, elm, chestnut, walnut, beech, 

 birch, &c. From these willows, elders, poplars, 

 &c. are distinguished as soft-wooded trees. Neither 

 term is extended to firs, pines, cedars, or other 

 coniferous trees. 



Hardy, ALEXANDEE, a prolific French drama- 

 tist, born about 1570, in Paris, and from 1600 

 attached as playwright to the newly-started 

 Theatre du Marais, for which he wrote from five to 

 seven hundred pieces, of which but forty-one are ex- 

 tant. He died about 1630. His plays were closely 

 modelled on the Spanish examples before him, 

 from their merits down to their bombast and over- 

 entanglement of plot, but still preserved something 

 of classical form. The best is Mariamne. A late 

 edition is Stengel's (5 vols. Marburg, 1883-84). 



Hardy, SIR THOMAS DUFFUS, a distinguished 

 palaeographer, was born in 1804, in Jamaica, the 

 son of a major of artillery. At fifteen he became a 

 junior clerk in the Record Office in the Tower, and 

 here, under Mr Petrie's instructions, he quickly 

 became an expert in reading ancient MSS. His 

 earliest writings illustrating the reign of King 

 John appeared in Archceologia and the Excerpta 

 Historica. In 1861 he succeeded Sir Francis 

 Palgrave as deputy- keeper of the Public Records, 

 in which capacity his learning was equalled only 

 by his courtesy. He was knighted in 1870, and 

 died in London 15th June 1878. His most import- 

 ant works were two folio volumes of the early Close 

 Rolls (1833-44), one of the Patent Rolls (1835), 

 and others of the Norman Rolls ( 1835) and Charter 

 Rolls ( 1837) for the Record Commission ; William 

 of Malmesbury ( 1840) ; Catalogue of Lord Chancel- 

 lors, Keepers of Great Seal, Masters of Rolls, &c. 

 (1843); Modus tenendi Parliamentnm (1846); a 

 Descriptive Catalogue of MSS. relating to the 

 history of Great Britain and Ireland (3 vols. 1862- 

 71 ); Syllabus, in English, of Rymer's Fcedera ( 3 vols. 

 1869-85); Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense ; and 

 The Register of Richard de Kellawe, 1311-16 (4 vols. 

 1873-78). His brother, SIR WILLIAM HARDY, was 

 born 6th July 1807, became a clerk at the Record 

 Office in the Tower in 1830, was transferred to the 

 Duchy of Lancaster Office in 1838, thence, on the 

 removal, to the Public Record Office in 1868 as 

 assistant-keeper. On his brother's death in 1878 

 he succeeded as deputy-keeper, was knighted in 

 1883, and died 17th March 1887. He edited 

 Waurin's Receneil des Chroniques (4 vols. 1864-84). 



Hardy, SIR THOMAS MASTERTON (1769-1839), 

 born at Portisham in Dorsetshire, was closely 

 associated in his naval career with Nelson (q.v. ). 



Hardy, THOMAS, novelist, the son of a builder 

 at Upper Boghampton, near Dorchester, was born 

 June 2, 1840. He was brought up in that county 

 as an architect, and practised some time at Dor- 

 chester, next prosecuted his studies in design at 

 London, gaining such professional distinctions as 

 the prize and medal of the Institute of British 

 Architects, and Sir W. Tite's prize for architectural 

 design, both in 1863. His intention was now to 

 become an art-critic, but the experiment of a not 

 wholly unsuccessful work of fiction, Desperate 

 Remedies ( 1871 ; new ed. 1889), finally shaped his 

 destiny otherwise. His next novels, Under the 

 Greenwood Tree (1872) and A Pair of Blue Eyes 

 (1873), prepared the way for his first great work, 

 Far from the Madding Crowd, which was published 

 in the Cornhill Magazine in 1874. As a novel 

 it is unequal, and lacks refinement in style, 

 but possesses remarkable vigour and undeniable 



humour in the portrayal of Dorsetshire peasant- 

 life. Its immediate success secured its author an 

 audience for a series of succeeding novels : The 

 Hand of Ethelberta (1876), The Return of the 

 Native (1878), The Trumpet-major (1880), A 

 Laodicean (1881), Two on a Tower (1882), The 

 Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), The Woodlanders 

 (1887), Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891), a strong 

 story, Jude the Obscure (1895), a story even more sur- 

 charged by painful and pessimistic realism, and The 

 Well-beloved ( 1897 ). His Wessex Tales appeared in 

 1888, A Group of Noble Dames in 1891, and Life's 

 Little Ironies in 1894. The Three Wayfarers ( 1893 ) 

 was a play based on one of the Wessex Tales. 



Hardyng, or Harding, JOHN, a 15th-century 

 English rhyming chronicler, was born in 1378, and 

 was brought up in the household of Harry Percy, 

 the famous Hotspur, whom he saw fall on Shrews- 

 bury field in 1402. Pardoned for his treason, he 

 served under Sir Robert Umfraville, became con- 

 stable of Warkworth Castle, fought at Agincourt, 

 and served the crown in confidential and critical 

 missions to Scotland. His chronicle, composed in 

 limping stanzas, and treating the history of Eng- 

 land from the earliest times down to the flight of 

 Henry VI. into Scotland, he rewrote and presented 

 to Edward IV. just after his accession. It is poor 

 history and poorer poetry, but the account of the 

 Agincourt campaign has the interest of the eye- 

 witness. For his hostility to the Scots he had 

 apparently good grounds in his own experience. 

 Hardyng's Chronicle was continued by the printer 

 Richard Grafton down to the thirty-fourth year of 

 the reign of Henry VIII., but Graf ton's work was 

 little more than a recast of Hall. The best edition 

 of Hardyng's Chronicle and its continuation is that 

 by Sir Henry Ellis (1812). 



Hare, a term including all members of the 

 rodent family Leporidse, with the exception of the 

 rabbit. Its chief distinctive characters are as 

 follows : four incisor teeth in the upper jaw 

 (instead of two as in most Rodentia), two small 

 square teeth standing immediately behind the well- 

 known front teeth ; five or six molars in the upper 

 and five in the lower jaw, which are composed of 

 two flat plates disposed transversely ; lips thick, 

 with a deep median incision and very mobile, with 

 long bristles ; eyes large ; ears more or less long ; 

 head and body long and compressed ; hind-legs 

 long (except in Lagomys), five toes on the fore, 

 four on the hind legs ; tail short. The body is 

 covered by a thick, almost woolly coat, which is in 

 some demand for making hats. Two recent genera 

 only are included, Lepus and Lagomys. The Com- 

 mon Hare (Lepus timidus) is about 27 inches in 



The Common Hare (Lepus timidus). 



length of which only 3 inches belong to the tail 

 1 foot high, and weighs 13-20 Ib. The fur con- 

 sists of two kinds of hairs, one short, thick, and 



