EAD, 1.
Hamaker, Heinrich Arens, a Dutch Orientalist, was born at Amsterdam Feb. 25, 1789; became profess- or of Oriental languages in the Academy of Franeker in 181.5, assistant professor in 1817, and in 1822 profess- or ordinarius of the same in the University of Leyden, where he died Oct. 10, 1835. He was a man of great erudition, and was regarded as one of the first Oriental scholars of Holland. His works are not free from marks of negligence, due probablj' to hasty composition and
IIAMAX
44
HA^IANN
came a friend of John Christopher, son of a rich mer- chant named Berens, at whose house he met all the ce- lebrities of the day, and for whom, some years after- wards, he made a journey through Hamburg, Bremen, and Amsterdam, going so far as London to transact busi- ness. Before he set out on this journey, however, he lost his mother, which event deeply affected him. While in London he consulted a distinguished physician, hop- ing to have the obstruction in his speech removed ; dis- appointed in that hope, he spent some months in dissi- pation; and then, deep in debt, and disheartened, he retired to an obscure part of London, procured a Bible, and applied himself diligently to its study. His eyes were opened, and he beheld his past life in its true col- ors, of which he gives evidence in his Gedanken iiber meinen Lehmslauf (Thoughts on my Life), He then returned to Riga, where he resided with his friend Be- rens until family circumstances led to an estrangement between them, and in 1759 he returned to his parents' house. There he wrote his Soh-atische Denhwurdu/lcd- tei), which were severely criticised at their first appear- ance by the majority of the literati of the day, but which gained him the esteem and respect of such men as Clau- dius, Herder, and Moser, to which we must afterwards add Lavater, Jacobi, and Goethe. His writings did not suffice for his support, and he had to take other employ- ment, first as copyist, aftenvards as clerk in a public office. On the slender income derived from these two sources Hamann married in. 1763; but, unfortunatelj', this mar- riage cost him many of his friends, and shortly afterwards he lost his situation. In 1754 lie took a journej^ to Switz- erland in the hope of meeting his friend IMoser, who was to obtain him employment ; but, not meeting with him, we next find him again filling a small subaltern posi- tion. In 1707, his father having died, he inherited some property ; but having at the same time to assume the charge of an infirm brother, his worldh' position was not much improved thereby. Shortly afterwards, however, he obtained another situation, and in 1777 was appoint- ed to a good- position in the custom-house. From that period date his finest epistolarj- and miscellaneous writ- ings, among which we find his admirable Golgotha and Schehlimini — " Seat thee at my right." His prospects now brightened ; one of his admirers, Francis Buchholz, offered him a handsome fortune, with $1000 towards the education of each of his four children, on the condition of his adopting him. The well-knov/n princess Galit- zin having in 1784 become acquainted with his writ- ings, was brought over by them to a positive Christian belief. In 1787 he came to Miinster with his adopted son Buchholz, and became acquainted with the princess ; from thence he went to Pempelfort to the philosopher Jacobi, with whom he remained a short time. He in- tended to return there once more, but was prevented by his death, which occurred on the 20th of June, 1788. He was, by order of the princess Galitzin, interred in her garden, from whence, in 1851, his remains were trans- ferred to the cathedral at INIiinster.
Among the great men of his countrj', Hamann is wor- thy of a place alongside of Copernicus, Kant, Herder, and kindred intellects. Although he cannot be called a classical German writer — his ^\•eird, irregular style for- bids it^ — yet can he be classed among the patriarchs of the modern scliool, the uniting link between the old and the new German literatures. " Hamann is one of those men of whom it is cUfficidt to give an estimate correct and satisfactory in all respects. Our estimation of his character cannot be blended with our general opinion of the age, as may be done with many other men, be- cause he stood rugged and alone, like a rocky island in the midst of the waves of the siuromiding ocean. As Ave cannot wholly praise or blame that age, we shall not a<lmire, much less censure, all in Hamanii" (Hagenbach, Gcrmcin Rationalism, tr. by Gage, p. 268). Herder says : •■ The kernel of Hamann's ^vTitings contains man v germs tentu.n to teac-lung. After tcachmg for about eighteen of great truths, as weU as new observations, and" an cvi- nionths m Courland he returned to Biga, where he be- | dence of remarkable erudition; the shell thereof is a
the great variety of subjects treated. Among them may Ije named Oratio de relif/ione Muhammedica, mar/no rirliitis bellka apud oiienlalk incitamento (Leyd. 1817- 1«, 4to): — *V^"W-« Culaloffi Codicum MSS. Orienta- liiim hihliollacte Academice Luf)diino-Batav(e (Leyden, 18->0 4to; with valuable notes from Oriental MSS.— a jiew'cd.bv Uozv [Levd. 1848-52, 2 vols. 8vo] contains bibliographical I'lotes left in :MS. by Ilamaker) :—Incerh Auvtoris Liber de Expiajnatione .Ui-mpliidis et Alexan- di'iie, etc. (Leyden, 1825, 4to) :— 1/(.-f(//awa Phamaa (I^y'den, lH-2><') ■.—Commenfatio in lihro de Vitn et Morte Proplit tarn III, etc. (Amst. 1833, 4to) ■.—Miscellanea Sa- vuirilana, a posthumous work edited by Weyers. He i)ublished also various papers in Annalen of the miiver- sities of tiiittingen (1816-17) and Leyden (1823-24); in the Bibliotheca Sora of Leydsn, Magazin voor Weten- schappen of Van dcr Kampen, and in the Journal Asia- lifjiie of Paris. Others have been posthumously pub- lisiied in the Orientalia (Leyden), vol. i and ii.— Pierer, s V • IIoefer,.V')«c.5/o(7. GVflew/e, xxiii, 209; De Sacy, in Jvin: des Savants, 1820, 1827, 1829, 1834. (J. W. M.) Ha'man (Heb. Human', "jtiri, perh. from the Pers. homam, magnificent, or the Sanscr. heman, the planet Mercury ; Sept. 'A/ja'v), a favorite and chief mniister or vizier of the king of Persia, whose history is involved in that of Esther and Mordecai (Esther iii, 1 sq.), B.C. 473. See AiiAsi-ERi'S. He is called an Agagite ; andasAgag was a kind of title of the khigs of the Amalekites [see AciACi], it is supposed that Ilaman was descended from the royal family of that nation (see Gesenius, Thes. Heb. p. 20 ). He or his parents probably found their way to I'ersia as cajjtives or hostages; and that the foreign or- igin of Ilamau was no bar to his advancement at coiu-t is a circumstance quite in union with the most ancient and still subsisting usages of the East. Joseph, Daniel, and Mordecai afford other examples of the same kind. After the failure of his attempt to cut off all the Jews in the Persian empire, he was hanged on the gallows which he had erected for ^Mordecai. Most probably he is the same Aman who is mentioned as the oppressor of Achiacharus (Tobit xiv, 10). The Targum and Jose- phus (.\iit. xi, C, 5) interpret the description of him — the .Vgagite — as signifying that he was of Amalekitish descent ; l)ut he is called a JIacedonian by the Sept. in Esth. ix, 24 (comp. iii, 1), and a Persian by Sulpicius Sevcnis. Prideaux (Connexion, anno 453) computes the sum wliich he offered to pay into the royal treasury at more than 4:2,000,000 sterling. Modern Jews are said to Ih' in the hal)it of designating any Christian enemy by his name (Eiscnmcnger, /w(/. ./wf/. i, 721). The cir- cunistautial details of the height which he attained, and of Ids sudden downfall, afford, like all the rest of the book of Ivstlier, a most faithful picture of the customs of an ( tricntal court and government, and furnish invalu- nlile materials for a com|)arison between the regal usages of ancient and modern times. (See Kitto's Daili/ Bible I ItiiM. nil loc) — Kitto, 8. v.; Smith, s. v. See Estiikk,