Chapter Ha-ha to Halberjects or Haubergots of H by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Ha-ha to Halberjects or Haubergots

Ha-ha (A). A ditch serving the purpose of a hedge without breaking the prospect. (Anglo-Saxon, hœh, a hole.)

Hahnemann (Samuel). A German physician, who set forth in his Organon of Medicine the system which he called "homœopathy" the principles of which are these: (1) that diseases are cured by those medicines which would produce the disease in healthy bodies; (2) that medicines are to be simple and not compounded; (3) that doses are to be exceedingly minute. (1755-1843).

Haidee (2 syl.). A beautiful Greek girl, who found Don Juan when he was cast ashore, and restored him to animation. "Her hair was auburn, and her eyes were black as death." Her mother, a Moorish woman from Fez, was dead, and her father, Lambro, a rich Greek pirate, was living on one of the Cyclades. She and Juan fell in love with each other during the absence of Lambro from the island. On his return Juan was arrested, placed in a galliot, and sent from the island. Haidee went mad and, after a lingering illness, died. (Byron: Don Juan, cantos ii. iii. iv.)

Hail Health, an exclamation of welcome, like the Latin Salve (Anglo-Saxon, hél, health; but hail=frozen rain is the Anglo-Saxon hægl.)

"All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Glamis." Shakespeare: Macbeth, i. 3.

Hail To call to.
   To hail a ship or an omnibus. To call to those on board.

Hail-fellow-well-met (A). One on easy, familiar terms. (See Jockey .)

"Hail fellow well met, all dirty and wet;
Find out, if you can, who's master, who's man."
Swift: My Lady's Lamentation.

Hair One single tuft is left on the shaven crown of a Mussulman, for Mahomet to grasp hold of when drawing the deceased to Paradise.

"And each scalp had a single long tuft of hair."
Byron: Siege of Corinth.

   The scalp-lock of the North American Indians, left on the otherwise bald head, is for a conquering enemy to seize when he tears off the scalp.

Hair (Absalom's) (2 Sam. xiv. 25). Absalom used to cut his hair once a year, and the clippings "weighed 200 shekels after the king's weight," i.e. 100 oz. avoirdupois. It would be a fine head of hair which weighed five ounces, but the mere clippings of Absalom's hair weighed 43,800 grains (more than 100 oz.). Paul says (1 Cor. xi. 14), "Doth not even nature itself teach you, that if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?"
   Mrs. Astley, the actress, could stand upright and cover her feet with her flaxen hair.

Hair, Hairs (Anglo-Saxon, har.)
   The greatest events are often drawn by hairs. Events of great pith and moment are often brought about by causes of apparently no importance.
   Sir John Hawkins's History of Music, a work of sixteen years labour, was plunged into long oblivion by a pun.
   The magnificent discovery of gravitation by Newton is ascribed to the fall of an apple from a tree under which he was musing.
   The dog Diamond, upsetting a lamp, destroyed the papers of Sir Isaac Newton, which had been the toil of his life. (See page 350).
   A spark from a candle falling on a cottage floor was the cause of the Great Fire of London.
   A ballad chanted by a fille-de-chambre undermined the colossal power of Albereni.
   A jest of the French king was the death of William the Conqueror.
   The destruction of Athens was brought about by a jest on Sulla. Some witty Athenian, struck with his pimply face, called him a "mulberry pudding."
   Rome was saved from capture by the Gauls by the cackling of some sacred geese.
   Benson, in his Sketches of Corsica, says that Napoleon's love for war was planted in his boyhood by the present of a small brass cannon.
   The life of Napoleon was saved from the "Infernal Machine" because General Rapp detained Josephine a minute or two to arrange her shawl after the manner of Egyptian women.
   The famous "Rye- house Plot" miscarried from the merest accident. The house in which Charles II. was staying happened to catch fire, and the king was obliged to leave for Newmarket a little sooner than he had intended.
   Lafitte, the great banker, was a pauper, and he always ascribed his rise in life to his picking up a pin in the streets of Paris.
   A single line of Frederick II., reflecting not on politics but on the poetry of a French minister, plunged France into the Seven Years' War.
   The invention of glass is ascribed to some Phœnician merchants lighting a fire on the sands of the seashore.
   The three hairs. When Reynard wanted to get talked about,