The Hebrew word luz, translated “hazel” in the authorized version of the English Bible (Gen. xxx. 37), is believed to signify “almond” (see Kitto, Cycl. of Bibl. Lit. ii. 869, and iii. 811, 1864). A belief in the efficacy of divining-rods of hazel for the discovery of concealed objects is probably of remote origin (cf. Hosea iv. 12). G. Agricola, in his treatise Vom Bergwerck (pp. xxix.-xxxi., Basel, 1557), gives an account, accompanied by a woodcut, of their employment in searching for mineral veins. By certain persons, who for different metals used rods of various materials, rods of hazel, he says, were held serviceable simply for silver lodes, and by the skilled miner, who trusted to natural signs of mineral veins, they were regarded as of no avail at all. The virtue of the hazel wand was supposed to be dependent on its having two forks; these were to be grasped in the fists, with the fingers uppermost, but with moderate firmness only, lest the free motion of the opposite end downwards towards the looked-for object should be interfered with. According to Cornish tradition, the divining or dowsing rod is guided to lodes by the pixies, the guardians of the treasures of the earth. By Vallemont, who wrote towards the end of the 17th century, the divining-rod of hazel, or “baguette divinatoire,” is described as instrumental in the pursuit of criminals. The Jesuit Vanière, who flourished in the early part of the 18th century, in the Praedium rusticum (pp. 12, 13, new ed., Toulouse, 1742) amusingly relates the manner in which he exposed the chicanery of one who pretended by the aid of a hazel divining-rod to point out hidden water-courses and gold. The burning of hazel nuts for the magical investigation of the future is alluded to by John Gay in Thursday, or the Spell, and by Burns in Halloween. The hazel is very frequently mentioned by the old French romance writers. Corylus rostrata and C. americana of North America have edible fruits like those of C. Avellana.
The witch hazel is quite a distinct plant, Hamamelis virginica, of the natural order Hamamalideae, the astringent bark of which is used in medicine. It is a hardy deciduous shrub, native of North America, which bears a profusion of rich yellow flowers in autumn and winter when the plant is leafless.
[1] It has been supposed that the origin is to be found in O. Eng. hæs, a behest, connected with hatan = Ger. heissen, to give orders: the hazel-wand was the sceptre of authority of the shepherd chieftain (ποιμὴν λαῶν) of olden times, see Grimm, Gesch. d. deutsch. Sprache, p. 1016, 1848. The root is kas-, cf. Lat. corulas, corylus; and the original meaning is unknown.
[2] On the expression “hazel eyes,” see Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. xii. 337, and 3rd ser. iii. 18, 39.
[3] For derivations of the word see Latham’s Johnson’s Dictionary.
HAZLETON, a city of Luzerne county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., about 25 m. S. of Wilkes-Barré. Pop. (1890) 11,872; (1900) 14,230, of whom 2732 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 25,452. It is served by the Lehigh Valley, the Pennsylvania (for freight), and the Wilkes-Barré & Hazleton (electric) railways. The city is built on a broad tableland on Nescopeck or Buck Mountain, a spur of the Blue Mountains, about 1620 ft. above sea-level. It has a park and a number of handsome residences; and its agreeable climate and picturesque situation make it attractive as a summer resort. The city has a public library. Hazleton is near the centre of one of the richest coal regions (the Lehigh or “Eastern Middle Coal Field”) of the state, and its principal industry is the mining and shipping of anthracite coal. It has silk mills, knitting mills, shirt factories, breweries, macaroni factories, lumber and planing mills, important iron works, a casket factory and a large electric power plant. The value of the city’s factory products increased from $998,823 in 1900 to $2,185,876 in 1905, or 118.8%, only three other cities in the state having a population of 8000 or more in 1900 showing a greater rate of increase. There is a state hospital here for the treatment of persons injured in mines. Hazleton was settled in 1820, was laid out in 1836, was incorporated as a borough in 1856 and received a city charter in 1891. The local coal industry dates from 1837.
HAZLITT, WILLIAM (1778-1830), British literary critic and essayist, was born on the 10th of April 1778 at Maidstone, where his father, William Hazlitt, was minister of a Unitarian congregation. The father took the side of the Americans in their struggle with the mother-country, and during a residence at Bandon, Co. Cork, interested himself in the welfare of some American prisoners at Kinsale. In 1783 he migrated with his family to America, but in the winter of 1786-1787 returned to England, and settled at Wem in Shropshire, where he ministered to a small congregation. There his son William went to school, till in 1793 he was sent to the Hackney theological college in the hope that he would become a dissenting minister. For this career, however, he had no inclination, and returned, probably in 1794, to Wem, where he led a desultory life until 1802, and then decided to become a portrait painter. His elder brother John was already established as a miniature painter in London. The monotony of life at Wem was broken in January 1798 by the visit of Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Shrewsbury, where young Hazlitt went to hear him preach. Coleridge encouraged William Hazlitt’s interest in metaphysics, and in the spring of the next year Hazlitt visited Coleridge at Nether Stowey and made the acquaintance of William Wordsworth. The circumstances of this early intercourse with Coleridge are related with inimitable skill in a paper in Hazlitt’s Literary Remains (1839). On visits to his brother in London he made many acquaintances, the most important being a friendship with Charles Lamb, said to have been founded on a remark of Lamb’s interpolated in a discussion between Coleridge, Godwin and Holcroft, “Give me man as he is not to be.” He also formed an acquaintance with John Stoddart, whose sister Sarah he married in 1808. In October 1802 he went to Paris to copy portraits in the Louvre, and spent four happy months in Paris. When he returned to London he undertook commissions for portraits, but soon found he was not likely to excel in his art; his last portrait, one of Charles Lamb as a Venetian senator (now in the National Portrait Gallery), was executed in 1805. In that year he published his first book, An Essay on the Principles of Human Action: being an argument in favour of the Natural Disinterestedness of the Human Mind, which had occupied him at intervals for six or seven years. It attracted little attention, but remained a favourite with its author. Other works belonging to this period are: Free Thoughts on Public Affairs (1806); An Abridgment of the Light of Nature Revealed, by Abraham Tucker ... (1807); The Eloquence of the British Senate ... (2 vols., 1807); A Reply to Malthus, on his Essay on Population (1807); A New and Improved Grammar of the English Tongue ... (1810).