Chapter Heart of England to Heimdall of H by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Heart of England to Heimdall

Heart of England (The), Warwickshire, the Middle county.

That shire which we “The Heart of England” call.
   —Drayton: Polyolbion, xiii. (1613).

Heart of Midlothian, the old jail or tolbooth of Edinburgh, taken down in 1817.

Sir Walter Scott has a novel so called (1818), the plot of which is as follows:— Effie Deans, the daughter of a Scotch cow-feeder, is seduced by George Staunton, son of the rector of Willingham; and Jeanie is cited as a witness on the trial which ensues, by which Effie is sentenced to death for child-murder. Jeanie promises to go to London and ask the king to pardon her half-sister, and, after various perils, arrives at her destination. She lays her case before the duke of Argyll, who takes her in his carriage to Richmond, and obtains for her an interview with the queen, who promises to intercede with his majesty (George II.) on her sister’s behalf. In due time the royal pardon is sent to Edinburgh, Effie is released, and marries her seducer, now sir George Staunton; but soon after the marriage sir George is shot by a gipsy boy, who is in reality his illegitimate son. On the death of her husband, lady Staunton retires to a convent on the Continent. Jeanie marries Reuben Butler the presbyterian minister. The novel opens with the Porteous riots.

Heartall (Governor), an old bachelor, peppery in temper, but with a generous heart and unbounded benevolence. He is as simple-minded as a child, and loves his young nephew almost to adoration.

Frank Heartall, the governor’s nephew; impulsive, free-handed, and free-hearted, benevolent and frank. He falls in love with the Widow Cheerly, the daughter of colonel Woodley, whom he sees first at the opera. Ferret, a calumniating rascal, tries to do mischief, but is utterly foiled. —Cherry: The Soldier’s Daughter (1804).

Heartfree (Jack), a railer against women and against marriage. He falls half in love with lady Fanciful, on whom he rails, and marries Belinda.—Vanbrugh: The Provoked Wife (1693).

Hearth Tax (The), 1662, a tax of two shillings for every stove and fire-hearth, payable on the feast of St. Michael and the feast of “the Blessed Virgin Mary” (13, 14 Car. II. Cap. 20). Repealed in 1689 by William III.

Heartwell, Modely’s friend. He falls in love with Flora, a niece of old Farmer Freehold. They marry, and are happy.—J.P.Kemble: The Farm-house.

Heathen Chinee (The), a humorous poem by Bret Harte, an American humourist. It begins thus—

Which I wish to remark.—
And my language is plain,—
That for ways that are dark,
And for ways that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar.
Which the same I would rise to explain.
   —Bret Harte: The Heathen Chinee (1870).

Heatherblutter (John), gamekeeper of the baron of Bradwardine at Tully Veolan.—Sir W. Scott: Waverley (time, George II.).

Heaven, acc ording to Dantê, begins from the top of mount Purgatory, and rises upwards through the seven planetary spheres, the sphere of the fixed stars, the primum mobilê, and terminates with the empyreum, which is the seat of God. (See Paradise.) Milton preserves the same divisions. He says, “they who to be sure of paradise, dying put on the garb of monks”—

… pass the planets seven, and pass the “fixt,”
And that crystallin sphere whose balance weighs
The trepidation talked, and that first moved…and
now
At foot of heaven’s ascent they lift their feet, when to!
A violent cross wind … blows them…awry
Into the devious air.
   —Milton: Paradise Lost, iii. 481, etc.(1665).

Heaven and Earth (A Mystery), a dramatic poem by lord Byron (1822), founded on the text—