Ler Hylas. HYL HY M was ravished by the nymphs of a fountain as he was ta- [ Hygrome of the balance, and at the other a weight equal to 175 grains, or the weight of the stone when perfectly dry, loved. the nut in the groove shewed the excess of weight in grains when it and the chain were so adjusted that the balance stood in equilibrio. A particular apparatus on the same principles as a vernier, applied to the nut, shewed the excess of weight to ten parts of a grain. Lowitz remarked that this hygrometer in continued wet weather gave a moisture of more than 15 grains, and in a continued heat of 113 degrees of Fahrenheit only 1 degree of moisture. The hygrometer thus invented by Lowitz was, how- 1. Take a square bar of steel about two lines in For a description of Mr Leslie's Hygrometer, fig. 13. HYGROSCOPE. The same with HYGROMETER. HYLA, in Ancient Geography, a river of Mysia Minor, famous for Hylas the favourite boy of Hercules, who was carried down the stream and drowned. It is said to run by Prusa; whence it seems to be the same with the Rhyndacus, which runs north-west into the Propontis. HYLAS, in fabulous history, son of Theodamus, HYLOZOISTS, formed of van, matter, and Con, life, the name of a sect of atheists among the ancient Greek philosophers, who held matter to be animated; maintaining that matter had some natural perception, without animal sensation, or reflection in itself considered; but that this imperfect life occasioned that organization whence sensation and reflection afterwards arose. Of these, some held only one life, which they called a PLASTIC nature, presiding regularly and invariably over the whole corporeal universe, which they represented as a kind of large plant or vegetable; these were called the cosmoplastic and stoical atheists, because the Stoics held such a nature, though many of them supposed it to be the instrument of the Deity. Others thought that every particle of matter was endued with life, and made the mundane system to depend upon a certain mixture of chance and plastic or orderly nature united together. These were called the Stratonici, from Strato Lampsacenus, a disciple of Theophrastus, called also Physicus (Cicéro de Nat. Deor. lib. 1. cap. 13.), who was first a celebrated Peripatetic, and afterwards formed this new system of atheism for himself. Besides these two forms of atheism, some of the ancient philosophers were Hylopathians, or ANAXIMANDRIANS, deriving all things from dead and stupid matter, in the way of qualities and forms, generable and corruptible; and others again adopted the ATOMICAL or Democritical system, who ascribe the production of the universe to atoms and figures. See on this subject Cudworth's Intellectual System, book i. chap. 3. HYMEN, or HYMENÆUS, a fabulous divinity, the son of Bacchus and Venus Urania, was supposed by the ancients to preside over marriages; and accordingly was invoked in epithalamiums, and other matrimonial ceremonies, under the formala Hymen, or Hymenae! The poets generally crown this deity with a chaplet of roses; and represent him, as it were, dissolved and enervated with pleasures, dressed in a yellow robe and shoes of the same colour, with a torch in his hand. Catullus, in one of his epigrams, addresses him thus: Cinge tempora floribus It was for this reason, that the new married couple bore garlands of flowers on the wedding day which custom also obtained among the Hebrews, and even among Christians, during the first ages of the church, as appears from Tertullian, De corona militari, where he says, Coronant et nupte sponsos.-S. Chrysostom likewise mentions these crowns of flowers; and to this day the Greeks call marriage spavaμx, in respect of this crown or garland. HYMEN, 'Yun, in Anatomy, a thin membrane or skin, sometimes circular, of different breadths, more or less smooth, and sometimes semilunar, formed by the union of the internal membrane of the great canal with that on the inside of the alæ, resembling a piece of fine parchment. This membrane is supposed to be stretched in the neck of the wombs of virgins, below the nymphæ, leaving in some subjects a very small opening, B 2 in Hylas Hymen. Hymen. in others a larger, and in all rendering the external orifice narrower than the rest of the cavity, and to be broke when they are deflowered; an effusion of blood following the breach. The membranous circle may likewise suffer some disorder by too great a flux of the menses, by imprudence, levity, and other particular accidents. The hymen is generally looked upon as the test of vir, ginity; and when broke, or withdrawn, shows that the person is not in a state of innocence. This notion is very ancient. Among the Hebrews, it was the custom for the parents to save the blood shed on this occasion as a token of the virginity of their daughter, and to send the sheets next day to the husband's relations. And the like is said to be still practised in Portugal, and some other countries. And yet authors are not agreed as to the existence of such a membrane. Nothing, Dr Drake observes, has employed the curiosity of anatomists, in dissecting the organs of generation in women, more than this part they have differed not only as to its figure, substance, place, and perforation, but even its reality; some positively affirming, and others flatly denying it. De Graaf himself, the most accurate inquirer into the structure of these organs, confesses he always sought it in vain, though in the most unsuspected subjects and ages: all he could find was, a different degree of straitness or wideness, and different corrugations, which were greater or less according to the respective ages; the aperture being still the less, and the rugosities the greater, as the subject was younger and more untouched. The Dr Drake, on the other band, declares, that in all the subjects he had opportunity to examine, he does not remeraber to have missed the hymen so much as once, where he had reason to depend on finding it. fairest view he ever had of it was in a maid who died at thirty years of age; in this be found it a membrane of some strength, furnished with fleshy fibres, in figure round, and perforated in the middle with a small hole, capable of admitting the end of a woman's little finger, and situated a little above the orifice of the urinary passage, at the entrance of the vagina of the womb. In infants it is a fine thin membrane, not very conspicuous, because of the natural straitness of the passage itself, which does not admit of any great expansion in so little room; which might lead De Graaf into a notion of its being no more than a corrugation. This membrane, like most others, does probably grow more distinct, as well as firm, by age. That it not only exists, but is sometimes very strong and impervious, may be collected from the history of a case reported by Mr Cowper. In a married woman, twenty years of age, whose hymen was found altogether impervious, so as to detain the menses, and to be driven out by the pressure thereof beyond the labia of the pudendum, not unlike a prolapsus of the uterus; on dividing it, at least a gallon of grumous blood came forth. It seems the husband, being denied a passage that way, bad found another through the meatus urinarius; which was found very open, and its sides extended like the anus of a cock. Upon a rupture of the hymen, after the consummaion of marriage, and especially delivery, its parts, Hymen 0 shrinking up, are supposed to form those little fleshy knots, called CARUNCULE myrtiformes. HYMENÆA, the BASTARD LOCUST TREE; a Hyo-thy. genus of plants, belonging to the decandria class; and roides. in the natural method ranking under the 33d order, Lomentacea. See BOTANY Index. HYMENÆAL, something belonging to marriage; so called from HYMEN. HYMENOPTERA (derived from un, membrane, and rigor, wing), in the Linnæan system of natural history, is an order of insects, having four membranaceous wings, and the tails of the females are furnished with stings, which in some are used for instilling poison, and in others for merely piercing the bark and leaves of trees, and the bodies of other animals, in which they deposit their eggs. See ENTOMOLOGY Index. HYMETTUS, in Ancient Geography, a mountain of Attica near Athens, famous for its marble quarries, and for its excellent honey. Hymettius the epithet. Pliny says that the orator Crassus was the first who had marble columns from this place. HYMN, a song or ode in honour of God; or a poem, proper to be sung, composed in honour of some deity.-The word is Greek, ipvos, hymn, formed of the verb da, celebro, "I celebrate."-Isidore, on this word, remarks, that hymn is properly a song of joy, full of the praises of God; by which, according to him, it is distinguished from threna, which is a mourning song, full of lamentation. St Hilary, bishop of Poictiers, is said to have been the first that composed hymns to be sung in churches, and was followed by St Ambrose. Most of those in the Roman Breviary were composed by Prudentius. They have been translated into French verse by Messieurs de Port Royal.-In the Greek Liturgy there are four kinds of hymus; but the word is not taken in the sense of a praise offered in verse, but simply of a laud or praise. The angelic hymn, or Gloria in excelsis, makes the first kind; the trisagion the second; the Cherubic hymn, the third; and the hymn of victory and triumph, called six, the last. The hymns or odes of the ancients generally consisted of three sorts of stanzas; one of which, called strophe, was sung by the band as they walked from east to west; another, called antistrophe, was performed as they returned from west to east; the third part, or epode, was sung before the altar. The Jewish hymns were accompanied with trumpets, drums, and cymbals, to assist the voices of the Levites and people. HYOBANCHE, a genus of plants belonging to the didynamia class. See BOTANY Index. HYOIDES, in Anatomy, a bone placed at the root of the tongue. See ANATOMY, No 28. HYOSCYAMUS, HENBANE; a genus of plants belonging to the pentandria class, and in the natural method ranking under the 28th order, Lurida. See BOTANY and MATERIA MEDICA Index. HYOSERIS, a genus of plants belonging to the syngenesia class, and in the natural method ranking under the 49th order, Composite. See BOTANY Index. HYO-THYROIDES, in Anatomy, one of the muscles belonging to the os hyoides. See ANATOMY, Table of the Muscles. HYPALLAGE, Hypallage HYPALLAGE, among grammarians, a species of hyperbaton, consisting in a mutual permutation of one Hypatia. case for another. Thus Virgil says, Dare classibus austros, for dare classes austris; and again, Nec dum illis labra admovi, for nec dum illa labris admovi. HYPANTE, or HYPERPANTE, a name given by the Greeks to the feast of the presentation of Jesus in the temple. This word, which signifies lowly or humble meeting, was given to this feast from the meeting of old Simeon and Anna the prophetess in the temple when Jesus was brought thither. HYPATIA, a learned and beautiful lady of antiquity, the daughter of Theon a celebrated philosopher and mathematician, and president of the famous Alexandrian school, was born at Alexandria about the end of the fourth century. Her father, encouraged by her extraordinary genius, had her not only educated in all the ordinary qualifications of her sex, but instructed in the most abstruse sciences. She made such great progress in philosophy, geometry, astronomy, and the mathematics, that she passed for the most learned person of her time. At length she was thought worthy to succeed her father in that distinguished and important employment, the government of the school of Alexandria; and to teach out of that chair where Ammonius, Hierocles, and many other great men, had taught before; and this at a time too when men of great learning abounded both at Alexandria and in many other parts of the Roman empire. Her fame was so extensive, and her worth so universally acknowledged, that we cannot wonder if she had a crowded auditory. "She explained to her hearers (says Socrates) the several sciences that go under the general name of philosophy; for which reason there was a confluence to her from all parts of those who made philosophy their delight and study." One cannot represent to himself, without pleasure, the flower of all the youth of Europe, Asia, and Africa, sitting at the feet of a very beautiful lady (for such we are assured Hypatia was), all greedily swallowing instruction from her mouth, and many of them, doubtless, love from her eyes; though we are not sure that she ever listened to any solicitations, since Suidas, who talks of her marriage with Isiodorus, yet relates at the same time that she died a maid. Her scholars were as eminent as they were numerous; one of whom was the celebrated Synesius, who was afterwards bishop of Ptolemais. This ancient Christian Platonist everywhere bears the strongest, as well as the most grateful testimony of the virtue of his tutoress; and never mentions her without the most profound respect, and sometimes in terms of affection coming little short of adoration. But it was not Synesius only, and the disciples of the Alexandrian school, who admired Hypatia for her virtue and learning: never was woman more caressed by the public, and yet never woman had a more unspotted character. She was held as an oracle for her wisdom, which made her consulted by the magistrates in all important cases; and this frequently drew her amongst the greatest concourse of men, without the least censure of her manners. In a word, when Nicephorus intended to pass the highest compliment on the princess Eudocia, he thought he could not do it better than by calling her another Hypatia. N ton. While Hypatia thus reigned the brightest orna- Hypatia ment of Alexandria, Orestes was governor of the same place for the emperor Theodosius, and Cyril was bi- Hyperbashop or patriarch. Orestes having had a liberal education, could not but admire Hypatia; and as a wise governor frequently consulted her. This, together with an aversion which Cyril had against Orestes, proved fatal to the lady. About 500 monks assembling, attacked the governor one day, and would have killed him, had he not been rescued by the townsmen ; and the respect which Orestes had for Hypatia causing her to be traduced among the Christian multitude, they dragged her from her chair, tore her in pieces, and burned her limbs. Cyril is not clear from a suspicion of fomenting this tragedy. Cave indeed endeavours to remove the imputation of such an horrid action from the patriarch; and lays it upon the Alexandrian mob in general, whom he calls levissimum hominum genus; 66 a very trifling inconstant people." But though Cyril should be allowed neither to have been the perpetrator, nor even the contriver of it, yet it is much to be suspected that he did not discountenance it in the manner he ought to have done : which suspicion must needs be greatly confirmed by reflecting, that he was so far from blaming the outrage committed by the monks upon Orestes, that he afterwards received the dead body of Ammonius, one of the most forward in that outrage, who had grievously wounded the governor, and who was justly punished with death. Upon this riotous ruffian Cyril made a panegyric in the church where he was laid, in which he extolled his courage and constancy, as one that had contended for the truth; and changing his name to Thaumasius, or "the Admirable," ordered him to be considered as a martyr. "However, (continues Socrates), the wisest part of Christians did not approve the zeal which Cyril showed on this man's behalf, being convinced that Ammonius had justly suffered for his desperate attempt." HYPECOUM, WILD CUMIN, a genus of plants belonging to the tetrandria class; and in the natural method ranking under the 24th order, Corydales. See BOTANY Index. HYPER, a Greek preposition frequently used in composition, where it denotes excess; its literal signification being above or beyond. HYPERBATON, in Grammar, a figurative construction inverting the natural and proper order of words and sentences. The several species of the hyperbaton are, the anastrophe, the hysteron-proteron, the bypallage, synchysis, tmesis, parenthesis, and the hyperbaton strictly so called. See ANASTROPHE, &c. HYPERBATON, strictly so called, is a long retention of the verb which completes the sentence, as in the following example from Virgil: Interea Reges: ingenti mole Latinus HYPERBOLA, HYPERBOLE, in Rhetoric, a figure, whereby the truth and reality of things are excessively either enlarged or diminished. See ORATORY, No 58. An object uncommon with respect to size, either very great of its kind or very little, strikes us with surprise; and this emotion forces upon the mind a momentary conviction that the object is greater or less than it is in reality: the same effect precisely attends figurative grandeur or littleness; and hence the byperbole, which expresses this momentary conviction. A writer, taking advantage of this natural delusion, enriches his description greatly by the hyperbole and the reader, even in his coolest moments, relishes this figure, being sensible that it is the operation of nature upon a warm fancy. It cannot have escaped observation that a writer is generally more successful in magnifying by a hyperbole than in diminishing. The reason is, that a minute object contracts the mind, and fetters its powers of imagination; but that the mixd, dilated and inflamed with a grand object, moulds objects for its gratification with great facility. Longinus, with respect to a diminish ing hyperbole, cites the following ludicrous thought from a comic poet: "He was owner of a bit of ground not larger than a Lacedæmonian letter." But, for the reason now given, the hyperbole has by far the greater force in magnifying objects; of which take the following example: For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Gen. xiii. 15, 16. Illa vel intactæ segetis per summa volaret Eneid, vii. 808. Host against host with shadowy squadrons drew, Quintilian is sensible that this figure is natural : "For (says he), not contented with truth, we naturally incline to augment or diminish beyond it; and for that reason the hyperbole is familiar even among the vulgar and illiterate ;" and he adds, very justly, "That the hyperbole is then proper, when the object of itself exceeds the common measure." From these premises, one would not expect the following inference, the only reason he can find for justifying this figure of speech, Conceditur enim amplius dicere, quid dici quantum est, non potest: meliusque ultra quam citra stat oratio." (We are indulged to say more than enough, because we cannot say enough; and it is better to be above than under). In the name of wonder, why this slight and childish reasoning, when immediately before he had observed, that the hyperbole is founded on human nature? We could not resist this personal stroke of criticism; intended not against our author, for no human creature is exempt from error; but a gainst the blind veneration that is paid to the ancient classic writers, without distinguishing their blemishes from their beauties. Having examined the nature of this figure, and the principle on which it is erected, let us proceed to the rules by which it ought to be governed. And, in the first place, it is a capital fault to introduce an hy perbole in the description of an ordinary object or event; for in such a case, it is altogether unnatural, being destitute of surprise, its only foundation. Take the following instance, where the subject is extremely familiar, viz. swimming to gain the shore after a ship. wreck. I saw him beat the surges under him, And ride upon their backs: he trode the water; In the next place, it may be gathered from what is said, that an hyperbole can never suit the tone of any dispiriting passion: sorrow in particular will never prompt such a figure; and for that reason the following hyperboles must be condemned as unnatural: K. Rich. Aumerle, thou weep'st, my tender-heart- We'll make foul weather with despised tears: Julius Cæsar, act i. sc. I. Hyperbole Hype:hole. Thirdly, A writer, if he wish to succeed, ought always to have the reader in his eye: he ought, in particular, never to venture a bold thought or expression, till the reader be warmed and prepared. For this reason, an hyperbole in the beginning of a work can never be in its place. Example: Jam pauca aratro jugera regiæ Moles relinquent. Horat. Carm. lib. ii. ode 15. In the fourth place, The nicest point of all is, to ascertain the natural limits of an hyperbole, beyond which being overstrained, it has a bad effect. Longinus (chap. iii.), with great propriety of thought, enters a caveat against an hyperbole of this kind: he compares it to a bow-string, which relaxes by overstraining, and produceth an effect directly opposite to what is intended. To ascertain any precise boundary, would be difficult, if not impracticable. We shall therefore only give a specimen of what may be reckoned overstrained hyperboles. No fault is more common among writers of inferior rank; and instances are found even among those of the finest taste; witness the following hyperbole, too bold even for an Hotspur. Hotspur talking of Mortimer : In single opposition hand to hand, He did coufound the best part of an hour Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood; Who then affrighted with their bloody looks, Speaking of Henry V. England ne'er had a King until this time. His brandish'd sword did blind men with its beams: First Part Henry VI. act i. sc. I. Lastly, an hyperbole, after it is introduced with all advantages, ought to be comprehended within the fewest words possible: as it cannot be relished but in the harry and swelling of the mind, a leisurely view dissolves the charm, and discovers the description to be extravagant at least, and perhaps also ridiculous. This fault is palpable in a sonnet which passeth for one of the most complete in the French language: Phillis, in a long and florid description, is made as far to outshine the sun as he outshines the stars: Le silence regnoit sur la terre et sur l'onde, L'Aurore deployoit l'or de sa tresse blonde, There is in Chancer a thought expressed in a single line, which sets a young beauty in a more advantageous light than the whole of this much laboured poem: Up rose the and HYPERBOREAN, in the Ancient Geography. The ancients denominated those people and places Hyperborean which were to the northward of the Scythians. They had but very little acquaintance with these Hyperborean regions; and all they tell us of them is very precarious, much of it false. Diodorus Siculus says, the Hyperboreans were thus called by reason they dwelt beyond the wind Boreas; vg, signifying, "above or beyond," and Bogtas, Boreas, the "north wind." This etymology is very natural and plausible; nothwithstanding all that Rudbeck has said against it, who would have the word to be Gothic, and to signify nobility. Herodotus doubts whether or not there were any such nations as the Hyperborean. Strabo, who professes that he believes there are, does not take hyperborean to signify beyond Bareas or the north, as Herodotus understood it: the preposition, in this case, he supposes only to help to form a superlative; so that hyperborean, on his principles, means no more then most northern; by which it appears the ancients scarce knew themselves what the name meant. Most of our modern geopraphers, as Hoffman, Cellarius, &c. have placed the Hyperboreans in the northern parts of the European continent, among the Siberians and Samoieds: according to them, the Hyperboreans of the ancients were those in general who lived farthest to the north. The Hyperboreans of our days are those Russians who inhabit between the Volga and the White sea. According to Cluvier, the name Celtes was synonymous with that of Hyperboreans. HYPERCATALECTIC, in the Greek and Latin poetry, is applied to a verse that has one or two syllables too much, or beyond the regular and just mea sure; as, Musa sorores sunt Minerva : Also, Musa sorores Palladis lugent. HYPERCRITIC, an over-rigid censor or critic: one who will let nothing pass, but animadverts severely on the slightest fault. See CRITICISM. The word is compounded of insę, super, "over, above, beyond;" and gilos, of xgilns, judex, of xguw, judico, "I judge." HYPERDULIA, Hyperbole D Hypercritic. |