HALLEY, EDMUND, astronomer and mathematician, born near London; determined the rotation of the sun from the spots on its surface, and the position of 350 stars; discovered in 1680 the great comet called after his name, which appeared again in 1825; was entrusted with the publication of his “Principia” by Sir Isaac Newton; made researches on the orbits of comets, and was appointed in 1719 astronomer-royal (1656-1742).

HALLIWELL-PHILLIPPS, JAMES ORCHARD, a celebrated Shakespearian scholar and antiquary, born at Chelsea; studied at Cambridge; his love for literary antiquities manifested itself at an early age, and his research in ballad literature and folk-lore, &c., had gained him election as Fellow to the Royal and Antiquarian Societies at the early age of 19; devoting himself more particularly to Shakespeare, he in 1848 published his famous “Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare,” which has grown in fulness of detail with successive editions, and remains the most authoritative account of Shakespeare’s life we have; his “Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words” is also a work of wide scholarship; having succeeded in 1872 to the property of his father-in-law, Thomas Phillipps, he added Phillipps to his own surname (1820-1889).

HALL-MARK, an official mark or attestation of the genuineness of gold and silver articles.

HALLOWED FIRE, an expression of Carlyle’s in definition of Christianity “at its rise and spread” as sacred, and kindling what was sacred and divine in man’s soul, and burning up all that was not.

HALLOWE’EN, the eve of All Saints’ Day, 31st October, which it was customary, in Scotland particularly, to observe with ceremonies of a superstitious character, presumed to have the power of eliciting certain interesting secrets of fate from wizard spirits of the earth and air, allowed, as believed, in that brief space, to rove about and be accessible to the influence of the charms employed.

HALOGENS (i. e., salt producers), name given to the elementary bodies, chlorine, bromine, iodine, and fluorine as in composition with metals forming compounds similar to sea-salt.

HALS, FRANS, an eminent Dutch portrait-painter, born at Antwerp; is considered to be the founder of the Dutch school of genre-painting; his portraits are full of life and vigour; Vandyck alone among his contemporaries was considered his superior (1581-1666).

HALSBURY, HARDINGE STANLEY GIFFORD, LORD, Lord Chancellor of England, born in London; was called to the bar in 1850; he was Solicitor-General in the last Disraeli Government; entered Parliament in 1877, and in 1885 was raised to the peerage and made Lord-Chancellor, a position he has held in successive Conservative Governments; b. 1825.

HALYBURTON, THOMAS, Scottish divine, known as “Holy Halyburton,” born at Dupplin, near Perth; was minister of Ceres, in Fife, and from 1710 professor of Divinity in St. Andrews; was the author of several widely-read religious works (1674-1712).