HOPE HOPITAL. 



791 



male flowers are green, consisting of a perianth, 

 deeply divided into five parts, and five stamens ; the 

 fruit is a sort of cone, composed of membraneous 

 scales, each of which envelopes a single seed. 

 These cones are the object for which it is so exten- 

 sively cultivated, and their principal use is to com- 

 municate to beer its strength and their agreeably- 

 aromatic bitter. The young shoots, however, are 

 sometimes boiled and eaten like asparagus ; the 

 fibres of the old stems make good cords ; and it is, 

 besides, employed in medicine as a tonic, sudorific, 

 and sedative. The cultivation of the hop is more 

 carefully attended to in England than in any other 

 country. A light and somewhat substantial soil 

 should be selected. The time of planting is in the 

 autumn, and that of harvesting about six weeks or 

 two months after the flowers are expanded ; if the 

 fruit is suffered to get too ripe, it loses many of its 

 good qualities. Other low plants may be cultivated 

 in the intervals between the hop-poles. The hops, 

 on being gathered, should be taken immediately to 

 the kiln for drying, and afterwards packed in bags, 

 the closer the better will they preserve their smell 

 and flavour. The whole process, from the time of 

 planting to the preparation for the purposes of com- 

 merce, requires much experience and many precau- 

 tions. The crops even are excessively variable, 

 often in a tenfold proportion in different seasons 

 and situations. The excellence of hops is tested by 

 the clammy feeling of the powder contained in the 

 cones. 



HOPE, THOMAS, an English gentleman of large 

 fortune, the nephew of a very opulent Amsterdam 

 merchant, published, in 1805, Household Furniture 

 and Internal Decorations (folio) ; subsequently, two 

 superb works on costumes The Costumes of the 

 Ancients (2 yols., royal 8vo, 1809), and Designs of 

 Modern Costume (folio, 1812). His Anastasius, or 

 Memoirs of a Modern Greek (London, 1819), holds a 

 distinguished rank among modern English works of 

 fiction. It was, for some time, supposed to be from 

 the pen of lord Byron. Mr Hope was a distinguished 

 patron of the fine arts. He died in 1831. 



HOP-HORNBEAM. See Iron-Wood. 



HOPITAL, MICHAEL DE L', an eminent chan- 

 cellor of France, was born in 1505, at Aigueperse, 

 in Auvergne. His father, who was physician and 

 chief manager of the affairs of the constable of Bour- 

 bon, sent him to study jurisprudence in the most 

 celebrated universities of France and Italy, where 

 he also distinguished himself by his acquirements in 

 polite literature. He quickly rose in his profession, 

 and, after obtaining the office of counsellor of parlia- 

 ment, was sent ambassador, by Henry II., to the 

 council of Trent. In 1554, he was made superin- 

 tendent of the royal finances, in which post, by his 

 ability, economy, and integrity, he restored the 

 exhausted treasury, and put an end to the dishonest 

 practices and the unjust emoluments of a horde of 

 rapacious court favourites, whose enmity he encoun- 

 tered with inflexible steadiness. On the death of 

 Henry II., he was introduced, by the Guises, into 

 the council of state, which post he gave up, to 

 accompany Margaret of Valois, duchess of Savoy, as 

 her chancellor. The confusion which followed in 

 France soon made it necessary to recall a minister 

 of so much talent, and he was advanced to the post 

 of chancellor. Although patronised by the house of 

 Guise, and obliged to acquiesce in many things which 

 he disapproved, to prevent a great deal that he dis- 

 approved more, he never ceased to advocate tolera- 

 tion, and was the principal author of the edict of 

 J562, which allowed freedom of worship to Protes- 

 tants. By this conduct he rendered himself exceed- 

 ingly odious to the court of Rome, which sought in 



vain to remove him, until the court came to the san- 

 guinary resolution of exterminating the reformed 

 religion by violence. Finding himself regarded with 

 suspicion and dislike, he anticipated his dismission 

 by a voluntary retreat to his country house, where, a 

 few days after, the seals were demanded from him, 

 which he resigned without regret, observing, that 

 the affairs of the world were becoming too corrupt 

 for him to take a part in them. In lettered ease, the 

 conversation of a few friends, and in the composition 

 of Latin poetry, in which he took much pleasure, he 

 enjoyed himself with great satisfaction, until the 

 atrocious day of St Bartholomew, in 1572. Upon 

 this event, his friends, fearing that he might be 

 made one of its victims, urged him to take measures 

 for his safety; but he not only disdained to seek 

 concealment, but, when a party of horsemen, whose 

 motive was unknown, advanced towards his house, 

 he refused to close his gates. They were, in fact, 

 despatched by the queen with express orders to save 

 him. On this occasion, he was told that the persons 

 who made the list of proscription pardoned him, 

 when he coolly observed, " I did not know that I 

 had done any thing to deserve either death or par- 

 don." This excellent magistrate and truly great 

 man survived that execrable event a few months 

 only, dying March 13, 1573, at the age of sixty- 

 eight. Distinguished by that firmness of mind, 

 without which the greatest talents are often useless, 

 no one was a more determined enemy to injustice ; 

 and the reform in legislation, produced by him, is 

 regarded by the president Henault and other enlight- 

 ened writers, as at once highly honourable to his 

 integrity and capacity, and of the greatest benefit to 

 France. It was comprised in various ordinances, 

 particularly that of Moalins, in 1566. His other 

 works are, Latin Poems, of a grave and masculine 

 character ; easy, energetic, but diffuse ; the best 

 edition of which is that of Amsterdam (1732) ; 

 Harangues before the Estates of Orleans, from which 

 he appears to have excelled less as an orator than as 

 a poet : Memoirs, containing treaties, state papers, 

 &c. : a Discourse in Favour of Peace ; and his Tes- 

 tament. The eulogy of L'Hopital was made a 

 prize subject by the French academy in 1777, and a 

 statue was erected to him by Louis XVI. An essay 

 on his life and writings was published by M . Ber- 

 nardi, in 1807. Charles Butler published an essay 

 on his life, drawn from this and other French works 

 (1814). It is not very valuable. 



HOPITAL, WILLIAM FRANCIS ANTHONY DE L', 

 marquis de St Mesme ; a celebrated French mathe- 

 matician of the seventeenth century. He was born 

 in 1661, his father being a lieutenant-general in the 

 army, and master of the horse to the duke of Orleans. 

 After being educated at home, under a private tutor, 

 he entered into the army ; but was obliged to quit the 

 service on account of the imperfection of his sight. 

 He then devoted himself exclusively to the study of 

 mathematics. At the age of thirty-two, he distin- 

 guished himself by solving problems proposed to the 

 lovers of mathematics by James Bernoulli ; and, in 

 1693, he was admitted an honorary member of the 

 academy of sciences at Paris. From that period he 

 published, in the French and foreign journals, solu- 

 tions of difficult questions, and other mathematical 

 communications. Such was his reputation, that 

 Huygens, profound as was his acquaintance with 

 science, did not disdain to apply to him for informa- 

 tion relative to the nature of the differential calculus. 

 This led to the publication of his treatise, entitled 

 Analyse des infiniment Petits (1696), the first French 

 work on the subject, of which a new edition was 

 published by Lefevre (Paris, 1781, 4to\ The 

 marquis de 1'Hopital continued his researches with 



