594 



HAWKWEED 



HAWTHORNE 



Orange Hawkweed 

 (Hieracium aurantiacum). 



of Boyle, Papin, and Hooke, and as the first who 



used glass in the electrical machine. 



Hawkweed ( Hieracium ), a genus of plants of 



the natural order Coinpositte, sub-order Cichoracese. 



The species are 

 perennial herbs 

 of no popular 

 interest with 

 the exception 

 of the Orange 

 Hawkweed ( H. 

 aurantiacum), 

 a native of the 

 south of Eu- 

 rope, which on 

 account of its 

 handsome 

 orange flowers 

 is frequently 

 cultivated in 

 gardens. The 

 popular name 

 is founded on 

 an ancient be- 

 lief that birds 

 of prey used 

 the juice of 

 the species 

 to strengthen 

 their vision. 



The English name Hawkweed, the German 



Habichts-kraut, and the French fiperviere all 



testify to this curious belief having been formerly 



universally entertained. 



Hawkwood, SIR JOHN, Italianised L'Acuxo or 

 L'AGTJTO, an English captain who won great renown 

 and much riches as a condottiere in Italy in the 

 Avars of the 14th century, was the son of a well-to- 

 do tanner of Sible Hedingham, in Essex. Having 

 embraced the calling of arms, he distinguished 

 himself at the battles of Crecy and Poitiers, 

 thereby winning the favour of the Black Prince ; 

 he was knighted by Edward III. After peace 

 was signed at Bretigny (1360) he gathered a band 

 of mercenary soldiers and led them to Italy, where 

 he at first took service with Pisa against Florence. 

 Then, after fighting in most of the petty Italian 

 wars of the period, notably for the Visconti and for 

 Pope Gregory XL, he agreed to fight the battles 

 of Florence in return for an annual pension. His 

 last years were spent in the neighbourhood of 

 Florence, and there he died in 1394, and was 

 honoured with a magnificent public funeral. See 

 Nichol's Bibl. Topog. Brit., vol. vi. ; Temple Leader 

 and Marcotti's Lift (Eng. trans, by Mrs Leader 

 Scott, 1889); and 'Quarterly Review ( Jan. 1890). 



lluwortli. a moorland village in the West 

 Riding of Yorkshire, 4 miles SSW. of Keighley by 

 a branch-line. The old church has been ruthlessly 

 demolished, but in the churchyard are the graves 

 of Charlotte and Emily Bronte. Pop. 3816. See 

 Hcnvorth, Past and Present (Bradford, 1889). 



Hawse ( akin to Icel. hals, ' the neck ' ), part of 

 a vessel's bow, in which the hawse-holes are cut. 

 Through the hawse-holes the cables pass which hold 

 a vessel when she is moored with two anchors out 

 forward one on the starboard, the other on the 

 port bow. Hawser is a small cable or a large rope. 



Hawthorn (Crat&gus oxyacantha ; see CRA- 

 T^EGUS), a shrub or small tree, a native of Europe, 

 Siberia, and the north of Africa, common in 

 Britain, and much planted both for hedges and 

 for ornament. It varies in height from 6 or 8 

 to 20 or 25 feet. It has roundish obovate three- 

 to five-lobed deciduous leaves, and corymbs, gener- 

 ally of white, rose-coloured or sometimes deep 

 crimson flowers, succeeded by a small red fruit 



(haws) with yellow pulp, the central stony part 

 bearing a very large proportion to the pulp. There 

 are many varieties of hawthorn, and, curiously 

 enough, some have only one style, whilst some 

 have several. The variety called Glastonbury 

 Thorn because supposed to have originated at 

 Glastonbury (q.v.) is remarkable for its early 

 flowering, which often takes place in the middle 

 of winter, whilst the common Kind is not in flower 

 till May or June. The winter flowers of the 

 , Glastonbury variety are, however, not generally 

 followed by fruit, and a second flowering often 

 takes place in the same year. The common haw- 

 thorn is often popularly called May, from the 

 season of its flowering in England. It is also called 

 Whitethorn, in contradistinction to the Sloe or 

 Blackthorn. The perfume of the blossoms is 

 strong but delicious. The use of the hawthorn for 

 hedges is almost universal in Britain. It has also 

 sometimes been employed as a stock on which to 

 graft apples and other Pomacese. Several double- 

 flowered and select single-flowered varieties are 

 propagated by budding and grafting for the adorn- 

 ment of lawns and pleasure-grounds. A fermented 

 liquor, which is very intoxicating, is made from 

 the fruit in many parts of France. For the Cock- 

 spur Thorn of North America, and the Pvracanth 

 Thorn, see CRAT^GUS. 



The hawthorn is particularly valuable as a 

 hedge-plant, in consequence of its strong and 

 plentiful spines, its long life, and its ready adapta- 

 tion to very various soils. For this purpose it 

 is propagated by seed ; the haws are laia in a heap 

 to rot, with a mixture of sand or fine mould, and, 

 in a year or sixteen months after, the seeds are 

 sown in ground carefully prepared. The young 

 plants are kept clear of weeds, and often grow to 

 the height of a foot or two feet in the first season 

 (see HEDGE). Hawthorn hedges bear trimming 

 very well. Young hawthorn plants are called 

 quicks or quicksets, because used to make living 

 ( quick ) fences. 



An old English tradition regards Christ's crown 

 of thorns as made of hawthorn ; for the same reason 

 the French call it Tcpine noble.' In south Ger- 

 many the tradition pointed to blackthorn, as else- 

 where to some kind of buckthorn. Whitethorn 

 was much favoured by fairies as trysting-places. 



Hawthorne, NATHANIEL, one of the most dis- 

 tinguished of American romancers of the present 

 century born July 4 1804 at i Copvrlght 18ao> 1897> and 

 oalem, Mass. He was descended ioo in the u. s. by j. B. 

 from English Separatist stock, ' " PP inoott company. 

 and the character of his ancestry seems to have made 

 an early and enduring impression on his thoughts. 

 This impression did not lead him to follow out 

 and exemplify in his own career their modes of 

 action, but rather caused him to turn and reflect 

 upon the nature of his predecessors and the 

 conditions amid which they lived. Probably we 

 owe to this inclination the singular interest and 

 penetrating quality of vividness with which he im- 

 bued his scenes from early New England life ; and 

 the intensity of concentration which he applied in 

 dealing with moral problems in his romances 

 reveals in him the character of the modernised 

 Puritan. The first American Hawthorne (or, as 

 the name was then spelled, Hathorne) was 

 William, who migrated from England (Wiltshire?), 

 in 1630, to Salem in New England, where he 

 became a leader of the colonial soldiery and a 

 magistrate, distinguished for both bravery and 

 eloquence. ' The figure of that first ancestor,' 

 wrote Hawthorne, in his sketch of The Custom- 

 house, ' invested by family tradition with a dim 

 and dusky grandeur, was present to my boyish 

 imagination as far back as I can remember.' 

 William Hawthorne took part in the persecution 



