the skin of beasts, but particularly applied to those of large cattle, as bullocks, cows, horses, &c.

Hides are either raw or green, just as taken off the carcase; salted or seasoned with salt, alum, and saltpetre, to prevent their spoiling; or curried and tanned. See Tanning.

Hide of land, was such a quantity of land as might be plowed with one plough within the compass of a year, or so much as would maintain a family; some call call it sixty, some eighty, and some an hundred acres.

**HIDE-BOUND.** See **FARRIERY**, p. 563.

**Hierachium**, hawkweed, in botany, genus of the syngenesia polygamia aquilis clas. The receptacle is naked; the calyx is oval and imbricated; and the pappus is simple and fleshy. There are 28 species, 8 of them natives of Britain. The leaves of the pilosella, or common creeping mouse-ear, are recommended as astringents.

**Hieracites**, in church-history, Christian heretics in the third century, so called from their leader Hierax, a philosopher of Egypt; who taught that Melchisedek was the Holy Ghost, denied the resurrection, and condemned marriage.

**Hierarchy**, among divines, denotes the subordination of angels.

Some of the rabbins reckon four, others ten, orders or ranks of angels; and give them different names, according to their different degrees of power and knowledge.

**Hierarchy** likewise denotes the subordination of the clergy, ecclesiastical polity, or the constitution and government of the Christian church considered as a society.

**Hieroglyphics**, in antiquity, mystical characters, or symbols, in use among the Egyptians, and that as well in their writings as inscriptions; being the figures of various animals, the parts of human bodies, and mechanical instruments.

But besides the hieroglyphics in common use among the people, the priests had certain mystical characters, in which they wrapped up and concealed their doctrines from the vulgar. It is said, that these something resembled the Chinese characters, and that they were the invention of Hermes. Sir John Marsham conjectures, that the use of these hieroglyphical figures of animals introduced the strange worship paid them by that nation: for as these figures were made choice of, according to the respective qualities of each animal, to express the qualities and dignity of the persons represented by them, who were generally their gods, princes and great men, and being placed in their temples, as the images of their deities; hence they came to pay a superstitious veneration to the animals themselves.

The meaning of a few of these hieroglyphics, has been preserved by ancient writers. Thus we are told they represented the supreme Deity by a serpent with the head of a hawk. The hawk itself was the hieroglyphic of Osiris; the river-horse, of Typhon; the dog, of Mercury; the cat, of the moon, or Diana; the beetle, of a courageous warrior; a new-born child, of the rising sun; and the like.

**Hierogrammatists**, i.e. holy registers, were an order of priests among the ancient Egyptians, who professed over learning and religion.

They had the care of the hieroglyphics, and were the expostors of religious doctrines and opinions. They were looked upon as a kind of prophets, and it is pretended that one of them predicted to an Egyptian king, that an Israelite, (meaning Moses) eminent for his qualifications and achievements, would lessen and depress the Egyptian monarchy.

**Hieromancy**, in antiquity, that part of divination which predicted future events from observing the various things offered in sacrifice. See **Divination** and **Sacrifice**.

**Heromemon**, the name of an officer in the Greek church, whose principal function it was to stand behind the patriarch at the sacraments and other ceremonies of the church, and to teach him the prayers, psalms, &c. in the order in which they were to be rehearsed.

**Hierophantes**, in Grecian antiquity, the name by which the Athenians called those priests and priestesses who were appointed by the state to have the supervisal of things sacred, and to take care of the sacrifices.

**Hierophylax**, an officer in the Greek church, who was guardian or keeper of the holy utensils, vestments, &c. answering to our sacrificer or vestry-keeper.

**Highway**, a free passage for the king's subjects, on which account it is called the king's highway, tho' the freehold of the soil belong to the owner of the land. Those ways that lead from one town to another, and such as are drift or cart-ways, and are for all travellers in great roads, or that communicate with them, are high-ways only; and as to their reparation, are under the care of surveyors.