[4] Ibid. vol. iii., c. xiii. (12th ed.) p. 12.
[5] Dicey, Law of the Constitution (6th ed.), p. 217.
[6] Dicey, Law of the Constitution (6th ed.), p. 195.
HABERDASHER, a name for a tradesman who sells by retail small articles used in the making or wearing of dress, such as sewing cottons or silks, tapes, buttons, pins and needles and the like. The sale of such articles is not generally carried on alone, and a “haberdashery counter” usually forms a department of drapers’ shops. The word, found in Chaucer, and even earlier (1311), is of obscure origin; the suggestion that it is connected with an Icelandic haprtask, “haversack,” is, according to the New English Dictionary, impossible. Haperlas occurs in an early Anglo-French customs list, which includes articles such as were sold by haberdashers, but this word may itself have been a misspelling of “haberdash.” The obscurity of origin has left room for many conjectures such as that of Minsheu that “haberdasher” was perhaps merely a corruption of the German Habt ihr das? “Have you that?” or Habe das, Herr, “Have that, sir,” used descriptively for a general dealer in miscellaneous wares. The Haberdashers’ Company is one of the greater Livery Companies of the City of London. Originally a branch of the mercers, the fraternity took over the selling of “small wares,” which included not only articles similar to those sold as “haberdashery” now, but such things as gloves, daggers, glass, pens, lanterns, mousetraps and the like. They were thus on this side connected with the Milliners. On the other hand there was early a fusion with the old gild of the “Hurers,” or cap makers, and the hatters, and by the reign of Henry VII. the amalgamation was complete. There were long recognized two branches of the haberdashers, the haberdashers of “small wares,” and the haberdashers of hats (see further [Livery Companies]). The haberdashers are named, side by side with the capellarii, in the White Book (Liber Albus) of the city of London (see Munimenta Gildhallae Londiniensis, ed. H. T. Riley, Rolls Series, 12, 1859-1862), and a haberdasher forms one of the company of pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales (Prologue, 361).
HABINGTON, WILLIAM (1605-1654), English poet, was born at Hendlip Hall, Worcestershire, on the 4th of November 1605. He belonged to a well-known Catholic family. His father, Thomas Habington (1560-1647), an antiquary and historical scholar, had been implicated in the plots on behalf of Mary queen of Scots; his uncle, Edward Habington, was hanged in 1586 on the charge of conspiring against Elizabeth in connexion with Anthony Babington; while to his mother, Mary Habington, was attributed the revelation of the Gunpowder Plot. The poet was sent to the college at St Omer, but, pressure being brought to bear on him to induce him to become a Jesuit, he removed to Paris. He married about 1632 Lucy, second daughter of Sir William Herbert, first Baron Powys. This lady he had addressed in the volume of lyrical poems arranged in two parts and entitled Castara, published anonymously in 1634. In 1635 appeared a second edition enlarged by three prose characters, fourteen new lyrics and eight touching elegies on his friend and kinsman, George Talbot. The third edition (1640) contains a third part consisting of a prose character of “A Holy Man” and twenty-two devotional poems. Habington’s lyrics are full of the far-fetched “conceits” which were fashionable at court, but his verse is quite free from the prevailing looseness of morals. Indeed his reiterated praises of Castara’s virtue grow wearisome. He is at his best in his reflective poems on the uncertainty of human life and kindred topics. He also wrote a Historie of Edward the Fourth (1640), based on notes provided by his father; a tragi-comedy, The Queene of Arragon (1640), published without his consent by his kinsman, the earl of Pembroke, and revived at the Restoration; and six essays on events in modern history, Observations upon History (1641). Anthony à Wood insinuated that during the Commonwealth the poet “did run with the times, and was not unknown to Oliver the usurper.” He died on the 30th of November 1654.
The works of Habington have not been collected. The Queene of Arragon was reprinted in Dodsley’s “Old Plays,” vol. ix. (1825); Castara was edited by Charles Elton (1812), and by E. Arber with a compact and comprehensive introduction (1870) for his “English Reprints.”
HABIT (through the French from Lat. habitus, from habere, to have, hold, or, in a reflective sense, to be in a certain condition; in many of the English senses the French use habitude, not habit), condition of body or mind, especially one that has become permanent or settled by custom or persistent repetition, hence custom, usage. In botany and zoology the term is used both in the above sense of instinctive action of animals and tendencies of plants, and also of the manner of growth or external appearance of a plant or animal. From the use of the word for external appearances comes its use for fashion in dress, and hence as a term for a lady’s riding dress and for the particular form of garment adopted by the members of a religious order, like “cowl” applied as the mark of a monk or nun.