Chapter Howdah to Hull of H by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Howdah to Hull

Howdah A canopy, or seat fixed on the back of an elephant.

"Leading the array, three stately elephants marched, bearing the Woons in gilded howdahs under gold umbrellas." - J. W. Palmer: Up and Down the Irrawaddi, chap. xx. p. 169.

Howdie (2 syl.). A midwife.

Howitzers are guns used to fire buildings, to reach troops behind hills or parapets, to bound their shells along lines and against cavalry, to breach mud walls by exploding their shells in them, etc. They project common shells, common and spherical case-shot, carcasses, and, if necessary, round shot. In a mortar the trunnions are at the end; in howitzers they are in the middle.

"The howitzer was taken to pieces, and carried by the men to its destination." - Grant: Personal Memoirs, chap. xi. p. 158.

Howleglass (2 syl.). A clever rascal, the hero of an old German romance by Thomas Murner, popular in the eighteenth century.

Hrimfaxi (See Horse .)

Hub The nave of a wheel; a boss; also a skid. (Welsh, hob, a swelling, a protuberance; compare also a hwb.) The Americans call Boston, Massachusetts, "The hub [boss] of the solar system."

"Boston State-house is the hub of the solar system." - Holmes: Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, chap. vi. p. 143.

"Calcutta swaggers as if it were the hub of the universe." - Daily News, 1886.

Hubal An Arab idol brought from Bulka, in Syria, by Amir Ibn-Lohei, who asserted that it would procure rain when wanted. It was the statue of a man in red agate; one hand being lost, a golden one was supplied. He held in his hand seven arrows without wings or feathers, such as the Arabians use in divination. This idol was destroyed in the eighth year of "the flight."

Hubbard (Old Mother). The famous dame of nursery mythology, who went to the cupboard to fetch her poor dog a bone; but when she got there the cupboard was bare, so the poor dog had none.

Hubert (h silent), in Shakespeare's King John, is Hubert de Burgh, Justice of England, created Earl of Kent. He died 1243.
   St. Hubert. Patron saint of huntsmen. He was son of Bertrand, Duc d'Acquitaine, and cousin of King Pepin. Hubert was so fond of the chase that he neglected his religious duties for his favourite amusement, till one day a stag bearing a crucifix menaced him with eternal perdition unless he reformed. Upon this the merry huntsman entered a cloister, became in time Bishop of Liège, and the apostle of Ardennes and Brabant. Those who were descended of his race were supposed to possess the power of curing the bite of mad dogs.
   St. Hubert in Christian art is represented sometimes as a bishop with a miniature stag resting on the book in his hand, and sometimes as a noble huntsman kneeling to the miraculous crucifix borne by the stag.

Hudibras Said to be a caricature of Sir Samuel Luke, a patron of Samuel Butler. The Grub Street Journal (1731) maintains it was Colonel Rolle, of Devonshire, with whom the poet lodged for some time, and adds that the name is derived from Hugh de Bras, the patron saint of the county. He represents the Presbyterian party, and his squire the Independents.

" `Tis sung there is a valiant Mameluke,
In foreign land ycleped [Sir Samuel Luke]."
Butler: Hudibras, i. 1

   Sir Hudibras. The cavalier of Elissa of Parsimony. (Spenser: Faërie Queene, book. ii.)

Hudibrastic Verse A doggerel eight-syllable rhyming verse, after the style of Butler's Hudibras.

Hudson (Sir Jeffrey). The famous dwarf, at one time page to Queen Henrietta Maria. Sir Walter Scott has introduced him in his Peveril of the Peak, chap. xxxiv. Vandyke has immortalised him by his brush; and