OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau, Louis Michel

See also Louis-Michel le Peletier, marquis de Saint-Fargeau on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​LE PELETIER (or Lepelletier), DE SAINT-FARGEAU, LOUIS MICHEL (1760–1793), French politician, was born on the 29th of May 1760 at Paris. He belonged to a well-known family, his great-grandfather, Michel Robert Le Peletier des Forts, count of Saint-Fargeau, having been controller-general of finance. He inherited a great fortune, and soon became president of the parlement of Paris and in 1789 he was a deputy of the noblesse to the States-General. At this time he shared the conservative views of the majority of his class; but by slow degrees his ideas changed and became very advanced. On the 13th of July 1789 he demanded the recall of Necker, whose dismissal by the king had aroused great excitement in Paris; and in the Constituent Assembly he had moved the abolition of the penalty of death, of the galleys and of branding, and the substitution of beheading for hanging. This attitude won him great popularity, and on the 21st of June 1790 he was made president of the Constituent Assembly. During the existence of the Legislative Assembly, he was president of the general council for the department of the Yonne, and was afterwards elected by this department as a deputy to the Convention. Here he was in favour of the trial of Louis XVI. by the assembly and voted for the death of the king. This vote, together with his ideas in general, won him the hatred of the royalists, and on the 20th of January 1793, the eve of the execution of the king, he was assassinated in the Palais Royal at Paris by a member of the king’s body-guard. The Convention honoured Le Peletier by a magnificent funeral, and the painter J. L. David represented his death in a famous picture, which was later destroyed by his daughter. Towards the end of his life, Le Peletier had interested himself in the question of public education; he left fragments of a plan, the ideas contained in which were borrowed in later schemes. His assassin fled to Normandy, where, on the point of being discovered, he blew out his brains. Le Peletier had a brother, Félix (1769–1837), well known for his advanced ideas. His daughter, Suzanne Louise, was “adopted” by the French nation.
See Œuvres de M. le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau (Brussels, 1826) with a life by his brother Félix; E. Le Blant, “Le Peletier de St-Fargeau, et son meurtrier,” in the Correspondant review (1874); F. Clerembray, Épisodes de la Révolution (Rouen, 1891); Brette, “La Réforme de la législation universelle, et le plan de Lepelletier Saint-Fargeau,” in La Révolution française, xlii. (1902); and M. Tourneux, Bibliog. de l’hist. de Paris . . . (vol. i., 1890, Nos. 3896–3910, and vol. iv., 1906, s.v. Lepeletier).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hill, Rowland

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​HILL, ROWLAND (1744–1833), English preacher, sixth son of Sir Rowland Hill, Bart. (d. 1783), was born at Hawkstone, Shropshire, on the 23rd of August 1744. He was educated at Shrewsbury, Eton and St John’s College, Cambridge. Stimulated by George Whitefield’s example, he scandalized the university authorities and his own friends by preaching and visiting the sick before he had taken orders. In 1773 he was appointed to the parish of Kingston, Somersetshire, where he soon attracted great crowds to his open-air services. Having inherited considerable property, he built for his own use Surrey Chapel, in the Blackfriars Road, London (1783). Hill conducted his services in accordance with the forms of the Church of England, in whose communion he always remained. Both at Surrey Chapel and in his provincial “gospel tours” he had great success. His oratory was specially adapted for rude and uncultivated audiences. He possessed a voice of great power, and according to Southey “his manner” was “that of a performer as great in his own line as Kean or Kemble.” His earnest and pure purposes more than made up for his occasional lapses from good taste and the eccentricity of his wit. He helped to found the Religious Tract Society, the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the London Missionary Society, and was a stout advocate of vaccination. His best-known work is the Village Dialogues, which first appeared in 1810, and reached a 34th edition in 1839. He died on the 11th of April 1833.
See Life by E. Sidney (1833); Memoirs, by William Jones (1834); and Memorials, by Jas. Sherman (1857).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hillard, George Stillman

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​HILLARD, GEORGE STILLMAN (1808–1879), American lawyer and author, was born at Machias, Maine, on the 22nd of September 1808. After graduating at Harvard College in 1828, he taught in the Round Hill School at Northampton, Massachusetts. He graduated at the Harvard Law School in 1832, and in 1833 he was admitted to the bar in Boston, where he entered into partnership with Charles Sumner. He was a member of the state House of Representatives in 1836, of the state Senate in 1850, and of the state constitutional convention of 1853, and in 1866–70 was United States district attorney for Massachusetts. He devoted a large portion of his time to literature. He became a member of the editorial staff of the Christian Register, a Unitarian weekly, in 1833; in 1834 he became editor of The American Jurist (1829–1843), a legal journal to which Sumner, Simon Greenleaf and Theron Metcalf contributed; and from 1856 to 1861 he was an associate editor of the Boston Courier. His publications include an edition of Edmund Spenser’s works (in 5 vols., 1839); Selections from the Writings of Walter Savage Landor (1856); Six Months in Italy (2 vols., 1853); Life and Campaigns of George B. McClellan (1864); a part of the Life, Letters, and Journals of George Ticknor (1876); besides a series of school readers and many articles in periodicals and encyclopaedias. He died in Boston on the 21st of January 1879.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hill, Matthew Davenport

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​HILL, MATTHEW DAVENPORT (1792–1872), English lawyer and penologist, was born on the 6th of August 1792, at Birmingham, where his father, T. W. Hill, for long conducted a private school. He was a brother of Sir Rowland Hill. He early acted as assistant in his father’s school, but in 1819 was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn. He went the midland circuit. In 1832 he was elected one of the Liberal members for Kingston-upon-Hull, but he lost his seat at the next election in 1834. On the incorporation of Birmingham in 1839 he was chosen recorder; and in 1851 he was appointed commissioner in bankruptcy for the Bristol district. Having had his interest excited in questions relating to the treatment of criminal offenders, he ventilated in his charges to the grand juries, as well as in special pamphlets, opinions which were the means of introducing many important reforms in the methods of dealing with crime. One of his principal coadjutors in these reforms was his brother Frederick Hill (1803–1896), whose Amount, Causes and Remedies of Crime, the result of his experience as inspector of prisons for Scotland, marked an era in the methods of prison discipline. Hill was one of the chief promoters of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and the originator of the Penny Magazine. He died at Stapleton, near Bristol, on the 7th of June 1872.
His principal works are Practical Suggestions to the Founders of Reformatory Schools (1855); Suggestions for the Repression of Crime (1857), consisting of charges addressed to the grand juries of Birmingham; Mettray (1855); Papers on the Penal Servitude Acts (1864); Journal of a Third Visit to the Convict Gaols, Refuges and Reformatories of Dublin (1865); Addresses delivered at the Birmingham and Midland Institute (1867). See Memoir of Matthew Davenport Hill, by his daughters Rosamond and Florence Davenport Hill (1878).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hillah

See also Al Hillah on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer. Now part of Iraq.
​HILLAH, a town of Asiatic Turkey, in the pashalik of Bagdad, 60 m. S. of the city of Bagdad, in 32° 2′ 35″ N., 44° 48′ 401/2″ E., formerly the capital of a sanjak and the residence of a mutasserif, who in 1893 was transferred to Diwanieh. It is situated on both banks of the Euphrates, the two parts of the town being connected by a floating bridge, 450 ft. in length, in the midst of a very fertile district. The estimated population, which includes a large number of Jews, varies from 6000 to 12,000. The town has suffered much from the periodical breaking of the Hindieh dam and the consequent deflection of the waters of the Euphrates to the westward, as a result of which at times the Euphrates at this point has been entirely dry. This deflection of water has also seriously interfered with the palm groves, the cultivation of which constitutes a large part of the industry of the surrounding country along the river. The bazaars of Hillah are relatively large and well supplied. Many of the houses in the town are built of brick, not a few bearing an inscription of Nebuchadrezzar, obtained from the ruins of Babylon, which lie less than an hour away to the north.
Bibliography.—C. J. Rich, Babylon and Persepolis (1839); J. R. Peters, Nippur (1857); H. Rassam, Asshur and the Land of Nimrod (1897); H. V. Geere, By Nile and Euphrates (1904). (J. P. Pe.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hill, John

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​HILL, JOHN (c. 1716–1775), called from his Swedish honours, “Sir” John Hill, English author, son of the Rev. Theophilus Hill, is said to have been born in Peterborough in 1716. He was apprenticed to an apothecary and on the completion of his apprenticeship he set up in a small shop in St Martin’s Lane, Westminster. He also travelled over the country in search of rare herbs, with a view to publishing a hortus siccus, but the plan failed. His first publication was a translation of Theophrastus’s History of Stones (1746). From this time forward he was an indefatigable writer. He edited the British Magazine (1746–1750), and for two years (1751–1753) he wrote a daily letter, “The Inspector,” for the London Advertiser and Literary Gazette. He also produced novels, plays and scientific works, and was a large contributor to the supplement of Ephraim ​Chambers’s Cyclopaedia. His personal and scurrilous writings involved him in many quarrels. Henry Fielding attacked him in the Covent Garden Journal, Christopher Smart wrote a mock-epic, The Hilliad, against him, and David Garrick replied to his strictures against him by two epigrams, one of which runs:—
“For physics and farces, his equal there scarce is; His farces are physic, his physic a farce is.”
He had other literary passages-at-arms with John Rich, who accused him of plagiarizing his Orpheus, also with Samuel Foote and Henry Woodward. From 1759 to 1775 he was engaged on a huge botanical work—The Vegetable System (26 vols. fol.)—adorned by 1600 copperplate engravings. Hill’s botanical labours were undertaken at the request of his patron, Lord Bute, and he was rewarded by the order of Vasa from the king of Sweden in 1774. He had a medical degree from Edinburgh, and he now practised as a quack doctor, making considerable sums by the preparation of vegetable medicines. He died in London on the 21st of November 1775.
Of the seventy-six separate works with which he is credited in the Dictionary of National Biography, the most valuable are those that deal with botany. He is said to have been the author of the second part of The Oeconomy of Human Life (1751), the first part of which is by Lord Chesterfield, and Hannah Glasse’s famous manual of cookery was generally ascribed to him (see Boswell, ed. Hill, iii. 285). Dr Johnson said of him that he was “an ingenious man, but had no veracity.”
See a Short Account of the Life, Writings and Character of the late Sir John Hill (1779), which is chiefly occupied with a descriptive catalogue of his works; also Temple Bar (1872, xxxv. 261-266).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hill, Octavia and Miranda

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​HILL, OCTAVIA (1838–) and MIRANDA (1836–1910), English philanthropic workers, were born in London, being daughters of Mr James Hill and granddaughters of Dr Southwood Smith, the pioneer of sanitary reform. Miss Octavia Hill’s attention was early drawn to the evils of London housing, and the habits of indolence and lethargy induced in many of the lower classes by their degrading surroundings. She conceived the idea of trying to free a few poor people from such influences, and Mr Ruskin, who sympathized with her plans, supplied the money for starting the work. For £750 Miss Hill purchased the 56 years’ lease of three houses in one of the poorest courts of Marylebone. Another £78 was spent in building a large room at the back of her own house where she could meet the tenants. The houses were put in repair, and let out in sets of two rooms. At the end of eighteen months it was possible to pay 5% interest, to repay £48 of the capital, as well as meet all expenses for taxes, ground rent and insurance. What specially distinguished this scheme was that Miss Hill herself collected the rents, thus coming into contact with the tenants and helping to enforce regular and self-respecting habits. The success of her first attempt encouraged her to continue. Six more houses were bought and treated in a similar manner. A yearly sum was set aside for the repairs of each house, and whatever remained over was spent on such additional appliances as the tenants themselves desired. This encouraged them to keep their tenements in good repair. By the help of friends Miss Hill was now enabled to enlarge the scope of her work. In 1869 eleven more houses were bought. The plan was to set a visitor over a small court or block of buildings to do whatever work in the way of rent-collecting, visiting for the School Board, &c., was required. As years went on Miss Octavia Hill’s work was largely increased. Numbers of her friends bought and placed under her care small groups of houses, over which she fulfilled the duties of a conscientious landlord. Several large owners of tenement houses, notably the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, entrusted to her the management of such property, and consulted her about plans of rebuilding; and a number of fellow-workers were trained by her in the management of houses for the poor. The results in Southwark (where Red Cross Hall was established) and elsewhere were very beneficial. Both Miss Miranda and Miss Octavia Hill took an interest in the movement for bringing beauty into the homes of the poor, and the former was practically the founder of the Kyrle Society, the first suggestion of which was contained in a paper read to a small circle of friends. Both sisters worked for the preservation of open spaces, and helped to promote the work of the Charity Organization Society, and for several years Miss Miranda Hill (who died on the 31st of May 1910) did admirable work in Marylebone as a member of the Board of Guardians.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hill Tippera

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​HILL TIPPERA, or Tripura, a native state of India, adjoining the British district of Tippera, in Eastern Bengal and Assam. Area, 4086 sq. m.; pop, (1901) 173,325; estimated revenue, £55,000. Six parallel ranges of hill cross it from north to south, at an average distance of 12 m. apart. The hills are covered for the most part with bamboo jungle, while the low ground abounds with trees of various kinds, canebrakes and swamps. The principal crop and food staple is rice. The other articles of produce are cotton, chillies and vegetables. The chief exports are cotton, timber, oilseeds, bamboo canes, thatching-grass and firewood, on all of which tolls are levied. The chief rivers are the Gumti, Haora, Khoyai, Dulai, Manu and Fenny (Pheni). During the heavy rains the people in the plains use boats as almost the sole means of conveyance.
The history of the state includes two distinct periods—the traditional period described in the Rajmala, or “Chronicles of the Kings of Tippera,” and the period since A.D. 1407. The Rajmala is a history in Bengali verse, compiled by the Brahmans of the court of Tripura. In the early history of the state, the rajas were in a state of chronic feud with all the neighbouring countries. The worship of Siva was here, as elsewhere in India, associated with the practice of human sacrifice, and in no part of India were more victims offered. It was not until the beginning of the 17th century that the Moguls obtained any footing in this country. When the East India Company obtained the diwani or financial administration of Bengal in 1765, so much of Tippera as had been placed on the Mahommedan rent-roll came under British rule. Since 1808, each successive ruler has received investiture from the British government. In October 1905 the state was attached to the new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam. It has a chronological era of its own, adopted by Raja Birraj, from whom the present raja is 93rd in descent. The year 1875 corresponded with 1285 of the Tippera era.
Besides being the ruler of Hill Tippera, the raja holds an estate in the British district of Tippera, called chakla Roshnabad, which is far the most valuable of his possessions. The capital is Agartala (pop. 9513), where there is an Arts College. The raja’s palace and other public buildings were seriously damaged by the earthquake of the 12th of June 1897. The late raja, who died from the result of a motor-car accident in 1909, succeeded his father in 1896, but he had taken a large share in the administration of the state for some years previously. The principle of succession, which had often caused serious disputes, was defined in 1904, to the effect that the chief may nominate any male descendant through males from himself or from any male ancestor, but failing such nomination, then the rule of primogeniture applies.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hillebrand, Karl

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​HILLEBRAND, KARL (1829–1884), German author, was born at Giessen on the 17th of September 1829, his father Joseph Hillebrand (1788–1871) being a literary historian and writer on philosophic subjects. Karl Hillebrand became involved, as a student in Heidelberg, in the Baden revolutionary movement, and was imprisoned in Rastatt. He succeeded in escaping and lived for a time in Strassburg, Paris—where for several months he was Heine’s secretary—and Bordeaux. He continued his studies, and after obtaining the doctor’s degree at the Sorbonne, he was appointed teacher of German in the École militaire at St Cyr, and shortly afterwards, professor of foreign literatures at Douai. On the outbreak of the Franco-German War he resigned his professorship and acted for a time as correspondent to The Times in Italy. He then settled in Florence, where he died on the 19th of October 1884. Hillebrand wrote with facility and elegance in French, English and Italian, besides his own language. His essays, collected under the title Zeiten, Völker und Menschen (Berlin, 1874–1885), show clear discernment, a finely balanced cosmopolitan judgment and grace of style. He undertook to write the Geschichte Frankreichs von der Thronbesteigung Ludwig Philipps bis zum Fall Napoleons III., but only two volumes were completed (to 1848) (2nd ed., 1881–1882). In French he published Des conditions de la bonne comédie (1863), La Prusse contemporaine (1867), Études italiennes (1868), and a translation of O. Müller’s Griechische Literaturgeschichte (3rd ed., 1883). In English he published his Royal Institution Lectures on German Thought during the Last Two Hundred Years (1880). He also edited a collection of essays dealing with Italy, under the title Italia (4 vols., Leipzig, 1824–1877).
See H. Homberger, Karl Hillebrand (Berlin, 1884).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Grimaldi, Giovanni Francesco

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​GRIMALDI, GIOVANNI FRANCESCO (1606–1680), Italian architect and painter, named Il Bolognese from the place of his birth, was a relative of the Caracci family, under whom it is presumed he studied first. He was afterwards a pupil of Albani. He went to Rome, and was appointed architect to Pope Paul V., and was also patronized by succeeding popes. Towards 1648 he was invited to France by Cardinal Mazarin, and for about two years was employed in buildings for that minister and for Louis XIV., and in fresco-painting in the Louvre. His colour was strong, somewhat excessive in the use of green; his touch light. He painted history, portraits and landscapes—the last with predilection, especially in his advanced years—and executed engravings and etchings from his own landscapes and from those of Titian and the Caracci. Returning to Rome, he was made president of the Academy of St Luke; and in that city he died on the 28th of November 1680, in high repute not only for his artistic skill but for his upright and charitable deeds. His son Alessandro assisted him both in painting and in engraving. Paintings by Grimaldi are preserved in the Quirinal and Vatican palaces, and in the church of S. Martino a’Monti; there is also a series of his landscapes in the Colonna Gallery.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Grimaldi, Joseph

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​GRIMALDI, JOSEPH (1779–1837), the most celebrated of English clowns, was born in London on the 18th of December 1779, the son of an Italian actor. When less than two years old he was brought upon the stage at Drury Lane; at the age of three he began to appear at Sadler’s Wells; and he did not finally retire until 1828. As the clown of pantomime he was considered without an equal, his greatest success being in Mother Goose, at Covent Garden (1806 and often revived). Grimaldi died on the 31st of May 1837.
His Memoirs in two volumes (1838) were edited by Charles Dickens.