Hamley was a clever and versatile writer. His principal work, The Operations of War, published in 1867, became a text-book of military instruction. He published some pamphlets on national defence, was a frequent contributor to magazines, and the author of several novels, of which perhaps the best known is Lady Lee’s Widowhood.
HAMLIN, HANNIBAL (1809-1891), vice-president of the United States (1861-1865), was born at Paris, Maine, on the 27th of August 1809. After studying in Hebron Academy, he conducted his father’s farm for a time, became schoolmaster, and later managed a weekly newspaper at Paris. He then studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1833, and rapidly acquired a reputation as an able lawyer and a good public speaker. Entering politics as an anti-slavery Democrat, he was a member of the state House of Representatives in 1836-1840, serving as its presiding officer during the last four years. He was a representative in Congress from 1843 to 1847, and was a member of the United States Senate from 1848 to 1856. From the very beginning of his service in Congress he was prominent as an opponent of the extension of slavery; he was a conspicuous supporter of the Wilmot Proviso, spoke against the Compromise Measures of 1850, and in 1856, chiefly because of the passage in 1854 of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, which repealed the Missouri Compromise, and his party’s endorsement of that repeal at the Cincinnati Convention two years later, he withdrew from the Democrats and joined the newly organized Republican party. The Republicans of Maine nominated him for governor in the same year, and having carried the election by a large majority he was inaugurated in this office on the 8th of January 1857. In the latter part of February, however, he resigned the governorship, and was again a member of the Senate from 1857 to January 1861. From 1861 to 1865, during the Civil War, he was Vice-President of the United States. While in this office he was one of the chief advisers of President Lincoln, and urged both the Emancipation Proclamation and the arming of the negroes. After the war he again served in the Senate (1869-1881), was minister to Spain (1881-1883), and then retired from public life. He died at Bangor, Maine, on the 4th of July 1891.
See Life and Times of Hannibal Hamlin (Cambridge, Mass., 1899), by C. E. Hamlin, his grandson.
HAMM, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Westphalia, on the Lippe, 19 m. by rail N.E. from Dortmund on the main line Cologne-Hanover. Pop. (1905) 38,430. It is surrounded by pleasant promenades occupying the site of the former engirdling fortifications. The principal buildings are four Roman Catholic and three Evangelical churches, several schools and an infirmary. The town is flourishing and rapidly increasing, and possesses very extensive wire factories (in connexion with which there are puddling and rolling works), machine works, and manufactories of gloves, baskets, leather, starch, chemicals, varnish, oil and beer. Near the town are some thermal baths.
Hamm, which became a town about the end of the 12th century, was originally the capital of the countship of Mark, and was fortified in 1226. It became a member of the Hanseatic League. In 1614 it was besieged by the Dutch, and it was several times taken and retaken during the Thirty Years’ War. In 1666 it came into the possession of Brandenburg. In 1761 and 1762 it was bombarded by the French, and in 1763 its fortifications were dismantled.
HAMMĀD AR-RĀWIYA [Abū-l-Qāsim Ḥammād ibn Abī Laila Sāpūr (or ibn Maisara)] (8th century A.D.), Arabic scholar, was of Dailamite descent, but was born in Kufa. The date of his birth is given by some as 694, by others as 714. He was reputed to be the most learned man of his time in regard to the “days of the Arabs” (i.e. their chief battles), their stories, poems, genealogies and dialects. He is said to have boasted that he could recite a hundred long qasīdas for each letter of the alphabet (i.e. rhyming in each letter) and these all from pre-Islamic times, apart from shorter pieces and later verses. Hence his name Hammad ar-Rawiya, “the reciter of verses from memory.” The Omayyad caliph Walīd is said to have tested him, the result being that he recited 2900 qasīdas of pre-Islamic date and Walīd gave him 100,000 dirhems. He was favoured by Yazīd II. and his successor Hishām, who brought him up from Irak to Damascus. Arabian critics, however, say that in spite of his learning he lacked a true insight into the genius of the Arabic language, and that he made more than thirty—some say three hundred—mistakes of pronunciation in reciting the Koran. To him is ascribed the collecting of the Mo‘allakāt (q.v.). No diwan of his is extant, though he composed verse of his own and probably a good deal of what he ascribed to earlier poets.
Biography in McG. de Slane’s trans. of Ibn Khallikān, vol. i. pp. 470-474, and many stories are told of him in the Kitāb ul-Aghāni, vol. v. pp. 164-175.