HENRY, ROBERT (1718-1790), British historian, was the son of James Henry, a farmer of Muirton, near Stirling. Born on the 18th of February 1718 he was educated at the parish school of St Ninians, and at the grammar school of Stirling, and, after completing his course at Edinburgh University, became master of the grammar school at Annan. In 1746 he was licensed to preach, and in 1748 was chosen minister of a Presbyterian congregation at Carlisle, where he remained until 1760, when he removed to a similar charge at Berwick-on-Tweed. In 1768 he became minister of the New Greyfriars’ Church, Edinburgh, and having received the degree of D.D. from Edinburgh University in 1771, and served as moderator of the general assembly of the church of Scotland in 1774, he was appointed one of the ministers of the Old Greyfriars’ Church, Edinburgh, in 1776, remaining in this charge until his death on the 24th of November 1790. During his residence in Berwick, Henry commenced his History of Great Britain, written on a new plan; but, owing to the difficulty of consulting the original authorities, he did not make much progress with the work until his removal to Edinburgh in 1768. The first five volumes appeared between 1771 and 1785, and the sixth, edited and completed by Malcolm Laing, was published three years after the author’s death. A life of Henry was prefixed to this volume. The History covers the years between the Roman invasion and the death of Henry VIII., and the “new plan” is the combination of an account of the domestic life and commercial and social progress of the people with the narrative of the political events of each period. The work was virulently assailed by Dr Gilbert Stuart (1742-1786), who appeared anxious to damage the sale of the book; but the injury thus effected was only slight, as Henry received £3300 for the volumes published during his lifetime. In 1781, through the influence of the earl of Mansfield, he obtained a pension of £100 a year from the British government.
The History of Great Britain has been translated into French, and has passed into several English editions. An account of Stuart’s attack on Henry is given in Isaac D’Israeli’s Calamities of Authors.
HENRY, VICTOR (1850- ), French philologist, was born at Colmar in Alsace. Having held appointments at Douai and Lille, he was appointed professor of Sanskrit and comparative grammar in the university of Paris. A prolific and versatile writer, he is probably best known by the English translations of his Précis de Grammaire comparée de l’anglais et de l’allemand and Précis ... du Grec et du Latin. Important works by him on India and Indian languages are: Manuel pour étudier le Sanscrit vedique (with A. Bergaigne, 1890); Éléments de Sanscrit classique (1902); Précis de grammaire Pâlie (1904); Les Littératures de l’Inde: Sanscrit, Pâli, Prâcrit (1904); La Magie dans l’Inde antique (1904); Le Parsisme (1905); L’Agnistoma (1906). Obscure languages (such as Innok, Quichua, Greenland) and local dialects (Lexique étymologique du Breton moderne; Le Dialecte Alaman de Colmar) also claimed his attention. Le Langage Martien is a curious book. It contains a discussion of some 40 phrases (amounting to about 300 words), which a certain Mademoiselle Hélène Smith (a well-known spiritualist medium of Geneva), while on a hypnotic visit to the planet Mars, learnt and repeated and even wrote down during her trance as specimens of a language spoken there, explained to her by a disembodied interpreter.
HENRY, WILLIAM (1775-1836), English chemist, son of Thomas Henry (1734-1816), an apothecary and writer on chemistry, was born at Manchester on the 12th of December 1775. He began to study medicine at Edinburgh in 1795, taking his doctor’s degree in 1807, but ill-health interrupted his practice as a physician, and he devoted his time mainly to chemical research, especially in regard to gases. One of his best-known papers (Phil. Trans., 1803) describes experiments on the quantity of gases absorbed by water at different temperatures and under different pressures, the conclusion he reached (“Henry’s law”) being that “water takes up of gas condensed by one, two or more additional atmospheres, a quantity which, ordinarily compressed, would be equal to twice, thrice, &c. the volume absorbed under the common pressure of the atmosphere.” Others of his papers deal with gas-analysis, fire-damp, illuminating gas, the composition of hydrochloric acid and of ammonia, urinary and other morbid concretions, and the disinfecting powers of heat. His Elements of Experimental Chemistry (1799) enjoyed considerable vogue in its day, going through 11 editions in 30 years. He died at Pendlebury, near Manchester, on the 2nd of September 1836.
HENRYSON, ROBERT (c. 1425-c. 1500), Scottish poet, was born about 1425. It has been surmised that he was connected with the family of Henderson of Fordell, but of this there is no evidence. He is described, on the title-page of the 1570 edition of his Fables, as “scholemaister of Dunfermeling,” probably of the grammar-school of the Benedictine Abbey there. There is no record of his having studied at St Andrews, the only Scottish university at this time; but in 1462 a “Master Robert Henryson” is named among those incorporated in the recently founded university of Glasgow. It is therefore likely that his first studies were completed abroad, at Paris or Louvain. He would appear to have been in lower orders, if, in addition to being master of the grammar-school, he is the notary Robert Henryson who subscribes certain deeds in 1478. As Dunbar (q.v.) refers to him as deceased in his Lament for the Makaris, his death may be dated about 1500.
Efforts have been made to draw up a chronology of his poems; but every scheme of this kind, is, in a stronger sense than in the case of Dunbar, mere guess-work. There are no biographical or bibliographical facts to guide us, and the “internal evidence” is inconclusive.
Henryson’s longest, and in many respects his most original and effective work, is his Morall Fabillis of Esope, a collection of thirteen fables, chiefly based on the versions of Anonymus, Lydgate and Caxton. The outstanding merit of the work is its freshness of treatment. The old themes are retold with such vivacity, such fresh lights on human character, and with so much local “atmosphere,” that they deserve the credit of original productions. They are certainly unrivalled in English fabulistic literature. The earliest available texts are the Charteris text printed by Lekpreuik in Edinburgh in 1570 and the Harleian MS. No. 3865 in the British Museum.