ὄρνις, 2 Esdras i, 30; Matt. xxiii, 37; Luke xiii, 34. In these last two passages our Saviour exclaims, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” The metaphor here used is a very beautiful one. When the hen sees a bird of prey coming, she makes a noise to assemble her chickens, that she may cover them with her wings from the danger. The Roman eagle was about to fall upon the Jewish state; our Lord invited them to himself in order to guard them from threatened calamities: they disregarded his invitations and warnings, and fell a prey to their adversaries. The affection of the hen to her brood is so strong as to have become proverbial. There is a beautiful Greek epigram in the Anthologia, which affords a very fine illustration of the affection of this bird in another view. It has been thus translated:-- “Beneath her fostering wing the hen defends Her darling offspring, while the snow descends; And through the winter’s day unmoved defies The chilling fleeces and inclement skies; Till vanquish'd by the cold and piercing blast, True to her charge she perishes at last.” Plutarch, in his book _De Philostorgiâ_, represents this parental attachment and care in a very pleasing manner: “Do we not daily observe with what care the hen protects her chickens; giving some shelter under her wings, supporting others upon her back, calling them around her, and picking out their food; and if any animal approaches that terrifies them, driving it away with a courage and strength truly wonderful?”

HEN RY VI. (1421-1471), king of England, only son of Henry V. and Catherine of France, was born on December G, 1421, and was therefore only eight months old at his father’s death. He can hardly be said ever to have reigned, for his long minority passed into another kind of tutelage, during which the influence of his wife and favourites prepared the way for civil war. Ten years of anarchy culminated in his dethronement, and ten years more of wandering and imprisonment fill the interval between that event and his death. The chief interest of the first thirty years of his life lies in watching the decay of English power in France; that of the last twenty is to be found in the civil wars which resulted from the misgovernment of the preceding period. Although the English had lost some ground towards the end of Henry V.’s reign, their position, when the duke of Bedford undertook the task of continuing his brother’s work, was very favourable. They held the north and centre of France, while Burgundy held the eastern districts. The alliance with Duke Philip was strengthened by a marriage between his sister Anne and the duke of Bedford. The Scotch king, James I., was released from captivity, in order that England might be relieved from danger on that side. Thus strengthened, Bedford was able to apply himself vigorously to the conquest of France, towards which the battle of Verneuil (1424) was an important step. But the English cause had already received its first great blow in the marriage of the duke of Gloucester with Jacqueline of Hainault, which destroyed the good understanding between Burgundy and England. Bedford for the time managed to stave off the quarrel, and after renewing his union with Burgundy, laid siege to Orleans, the key of southern France. The capture of ...

HENBANE (in French, jusquiaume, from the Greek hyoscyamus, or hog’s-bean; in Italian, giusquiamo; and in German, Schwarzes Bilsenkraut, Hühnertod, Saubohne, and Zigeτvner-Korη or “gipsies’ corn ”) is the common name of the Hyoscyamus niger, a Solanaceous plant indigenous to Britain, found wild in waste places, on rubbish about villages and old castles, and cultivated for medical use at Mitcham and other places in Surrey, and in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Hereford. It occurs also in central and southern Europe and in western Asia, and has long been naturalized in the United States. There are two forms of the plant, an annual and a biennial, which spring indifferently from the same crop of seed,—the one growing on during summer to a height of from 1 to 2 feet, and flowering and perfecting seed; the other producing the first season only a tuft of radical leaves, which disappear in winter, leaving underground a thick fleshy root, from the crown of which arises in spring a branched flowering stem, usually much taller and more vigorous than the flowering stems of the annual plants. The biennial form is that which is considered officinal. The radical leaves of this biennial plant spread out flat on all sides from the crown of the root; they are ovate-oblong, acute, stalked, and more or less incisely-toothed, of a greyish-green colour, and covered with viscid hairs; these leaves perish at the approach of winter. The flowering stem pushes up from the root-crown in spring, ultimately reaching from 3 to 4 feet in height, and as it grows becoming branched, and furnished with alternate sessile leaves, which are stem-clasping, oblong, unequally-lobed, clothed with glandular clammy hairs, and of a dull grey-green, the whole plant having a powerful nauseous odour. ...

HENDERSON, Alexander (1583-1646), a celebrated Scottish ecclesiastic, was born in 1583. He was educated at the university of St Andrews, where he -was appointed professor of rhetoric and philosophy and questor of the faculty of arts in 1610. A year or two after this he was presented to the living of Leuchars by Archbishop Glad-stanes. As Henderson was forced upon his parish by an archbishop, and as he was known to sympathize with Episcopacy, his settlement was at first extremely unpopular; but he subsequently changed his views, and became a Presbyterian in doctrine and church government, and one of the most esteemed ministers in Scotland. He early made his mark as a church leader, and took an active part in petitioning against Episcopal innovations. On the 1st of March 1638 the public signing of the “National Covenant” began in Greyfriars Church, Edinburgh. Henderson is mainly responsible for this document; and he seems always to have been applied to when any manifesto of unusual ability was required. In July of the same year he proceeded to the north, to debate on the “Covenant” with the famous Aberdeen doctors; but he was not well received by them. “The voyd church was made fast, and the keys keeped by the magistrate,” says Baillie. Henderson’s next public appearance was in the famous Assembly which met in Glasgow on the 21st of November 1638. He was chosen moderator by acclamation, being, as Baillie says, “incomparablie the ablest man of us all for all things.” The marquis of Hamilton was the king’s commissioner; and, when the Assembly insisted on proceeding with the trial of the bishops, he formally dissolved the meeting under pain of treason. Nothing daunted, however, they sat till the 20th of December, deposed all the Scottish bishops, ...