Chapter 2

His pictures are very numerous, and almost uniformly good; but in his later creations he wants power, and though still amazingly careful, he becomes grey and woolly in touch. At Amsterdam the four regents in the Werkhuys (1650), four syndics in the gallery (1656), and four syndics in the town-hall (1657) are masterpieces, to which may be added a number of fine single portraits. Rotterdam, notwithstanding the fire of 1864, still boasts of three of van der Helst’s works. The Hague owns but one. St Petersburg, on the other hand, possesses ten or eleven, of various shades of excellence. The Louvre has three, Munich four. Other pieces are in the galleries of Berlin, Brunswick, Brussels, Carlsruhe, Cassel, Darmstadt, Dresden, Frankfort, Gotha, Stuttgart and Vienna.

HELSTON,a market town and municipal borough in the Truro parliamentary division of Cornwall, England, 11 m. by road W.S.W. of Falmouth, on a branch of the Great Western railway. Pop. (1901) 3088. It is pleasantly situated on rising ground above the small river Cober, which, a little below the town, expands into a picturesque estuary called Looe Pool, the water being banked up by the formation of Looe Bar at the mouth. Formerly, when floods resulted from this obstruction, the townsfolk of Helston acquired the right of clearing a passage through it by presenting leathern purses containing three halfpence to the lord of the manor. The mining industry on which the town formerly depended is extinct, but the district is agricultural and dairy farming is carried on, while the town has flour mills, tanneries and iron foundries. As Helston has the nearest railway station to the Lizard, with its magnificent coast-scenery, there is a considerable tourist traffic in summer. Some trade passes through the small port of Porthleven, 3 m. S.W., where the harbour admits vessels of 500 tons. On the 8th of May a holiday is still observed in Helston and known as Flora or Furry day. It has been regarded as a survival of the RomanFloralia, but its origin is believed by some to be Celtic. Flowers and branches were gathered, and dancing took place in the streets and through the houses, all being thrown open, while a pageant was also given and a special ancient folk-song chanted. This ceremony, after being almost forgotten, has been revived in modern times. The borough is under a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 309 acres.

Helston (Henliston, Haliston, Helleston), the capital of the Meneage district of Cornwall, was held by Earl Harold in the time of the Confessor and by King William at the Domesday Survey. At the latter date besides seventy-three villeins, bordars and serfs there were fortycervisarii, a species of unfree tenants who rendered their custom in the form of beer. King John (1201) constituted Helleston a free borough, established a gild merchant, and granted the burgesses freedom from toll and other similar dues throughout the realm, and the cognizance of all pleas within the borough except crown pleas. Richard, king of the Romans (1260), extended the boundaries of the borough and granted permission for the erection of an additional mill. Edward I. (1304) granted the pesage of tin, and Edward III. a Saturday market and four fairs. Of these the Saturday market and a fair on the feast of SS. Simon and Jude are still held, also five other fairs of uncertain origin. In 1585 Elizabeth granted a charter of incorporation under the name of the mayor and commonalty of Helston. This was confirmed in 1641, when it was also provided that the mayor and recorder should beipso factojustices of the peace. From 1294 to 1832 Helston returned two members to parliament. In 1774 the number of electors (which by usage had been restricted to the mayor, aldermen and freemen elected by them) had dwindled to six, and in 1790 to one person only, whose return of two members, however, was rejected and that of the general body of the freemen accepted. In 1832 Helston lost one of its members, and in 1885 it lost the other and became merged in the county.

HELVETIC CONFESSIONS,the name of two documents expressing the common belief of the reformed churches of Switzerland. The first, known also as the Second Confession of Basel, was drawn up at that city in 1536 by Bullinger and Leo Jud of Zürich, Megander of Bern, Oswald Myconius and Grynaeus of Basel, Bucer and Capito of Strassburg, with other representatives from Schaffhausen, St Gall, Mühlhausen and Biel. The first draft was in Latin and the Zürich delegates objected to its Lutheran phraseology.1Leo Jud’s German translation was, however, accepted by all, and after Myconius and Grynaeus had modified the Latin form, both versions were agreed to and adopted on the 26th of February 1536.

The Second Helvetic Confession was written by Bullinger in 1562 and revised in 1564 as a private exercise. It came to the notice of the elector palatine Friedrich III., who had it translated into German and published. It gained a favourable hold on the Swiss churches, who had found the First Confession too short and too Lutheran. It was adopted by the Reformed Church not only throughout Switzerland but in Scotland (1566), Hungary (1567), France (1571), Poland (1578), and next to the Heidelberg Catechism is the most generally recognized Confession of the Reformed Church.

See L. Thomas,La Confession helvétique(Geneva, 1853); P. Schaff,Creeds of Christendom, i. 390-420, iii. 234-306; Müller,Die Bekenntnisschriften der reformierten Kirche(Leipzig, 1903).

1Some of the delegates, especially Bucer, were anxious to effect a union of the Reformed and Lutheran Churches. There was also a desire to lay the Confession before the council summoned at Mantua by Pope Paul III.

HELVETII(Ἑλουήτιοι,Ἑλβήττιοι), a Celtic people, whose original home was the country between the Hercynian forest (probably the Rauhe Alp), the Rhine and the Main (Tacitus,Germania, 28). In Caesar’s time they appear to have been driven farther west, since, according to him (Bell. Gall.i. 2. 3) their boundaries were on the W. the Jura, on the S. the Rhone and the Lake of Geneva, on the N. and E. the Rhine as far as Lake Constance. They thus inhabited the western part of modern Switzerland. They were divided into four cantons (pagi), common affairs being managed by the cantonal assemblies. They possessed the elements of a higher civilization (gold coinage, the Greek alphabet), and, according to Caesar, were the bravest people of Gaul. The reports of gold and plunder spread by the Cimbri and Teutones on their way to southern Gaul induced the Helvetii to follow their example. In 107, under Divico, two of their tribes, the Tougeni and Tigurini, crossed the Jura and made their way as far as Aginnum (Agen on the Garonne), where they utterly defeated the Romans under L. Cassius Longinus, and forced them to pass under the yoke (Livy,Epit.65; according to a different reading, the battle took place near the Lake of Geneva). In 102 the Helvetii joined the Cimbri in the invasion of Italy, but after the defeat of the latter by Marius they returned home. In 58, hard pressed by the Germans and incited by one of their princes, Orgetorix, they resolved to found a hew home west of the Jura. Orgetorix was thrown into prison, being suspected of a design to make himself king, but the Helvetii themselves persisted in their plan. Joined by the Rauraci, Tulingi, Latobrigi and some of the Boii—according to their own reckoning 368,000 in all—they agreed to meet on the 28th ofMarch at Geneva and to advance through the territory of the Allobroges. They were overtaken, however, by Caesar at Bibracte, defeated and forced to submit. Those who survived were sent back home to defend the frontier of the Rhine against German invaders. During the civil wars and for some time after the death of Caesar little is heard of the Helvetii.

Under Augustus Helvetia (not so called till later times, earlierager Helvetiorum) proper was included under Gallia Belgica. Two Roman colonies had previously been founded at Noviodunum (Colonia Julia Equestris, mod.Nyon) and at Colonia Rauracorum (afterwards Augusta Rauracorum,Augstnear Basel) to keep watch over the inhabitants, who were treated with generosity by their conquerors. Under the name offoederatithey retained their original constitution and division into four cantons. They were under an obligation to furnish a contingent to the Roman army for foreign service, but were allowed to maintain garrisons of their own, and their magistrates had the right to call out a militia. Their religion was not interfered with; they managed their own local affairs and kept their own language, although Latin was used officially. Their chief towns were Aventicum (Avenches) and Vindonissa (Windisch). Under Tiberius the Helvetii were separated from Gallia Belgica and made part of Germania Superior. After the death of Galba (A.D.69), having refused submission to Vitellius, their land was devastated by Alienus Caecina, and only the eloquent appeal of one of their leaders named Claudius Cossus saved them from annihilation. Under Vespasian they attained the height of their prosperity. He greatly increased the importance of Aventicum, where his father had carried on business. Its inhabitants, with those of other towns, probably obtained theius Latinum, had a senate, a council ofdecuriones, a prefect of public works and flamens of Augustus. After the extension of the eastern frontier, the troops were withdrawn from the garrisons and fortresses, and Helvetia, free from warlike disturbances, gradually became completely romanized. Aventicum had an amphitheatre, a public gymnasium and an academy with Roman professors. Roads were made wherever possible, and commerce rapidly developed. The old Celtic religion was also supplanted by the Roman. The west of the country, however, was more susceptible to Roman influence, and hence preserved its independence against barbarian invaders longer than its eastern portion. During the reign of Gallienus (260-268) the Alamanni overran the country; and although Probus, Constantius Chlorus, Julian, Valentinian I. and Gratian to some extent checked the inroads of the barbarians, it never regained its former prosperity. In the subdivision of Gaul in the 4th century, Helvetia, with the territory of the Sequani and Rauraci, formed the Provincia Maxima Sequanorum, the chief town of which was Vesontio (Besançon). Under Honorius (395-423) it was probably definitely occupied by the Alamanni, except in the west, where the small portion remaining to the Romans was ceded in 436 by Aëtius to the Burgundians.

See L. von Haller,Helvetien unter den Römern(Bern, 1811); T. Mommsen,Die Schweiz in römischer Zeit(Zürich, 1854); J. Brosi,Die Kelten und Althelvetier(Solothurn, 1851); L. Hug and R. Stead, “Switzerland” inStory of the Nations, xxvi.; C. Dändliker,Geschichte der Schweiz(1892-1895), and English translation (of a shorter history by the same) by E. Salisbury (1899);Die Schweiz unter den Römern(anonymous) published by the Historischer Verein of St Gall (Scheitlin and Zollikofer, St Gall, 1862); and G. Wyss, “Über das römische Helvetien” inArchiv für schweizerische Geschichte, vii. (1851). For Caesar’s campaign against the Helvetii, see T. R. Holmes,Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul(1899) and Mommsen,Hist. of Rome(Eng. trans.), bk. v. ch. 7; ancient authorities in A. Holder,Altkeltischer Sprachschatz(1896),s.v.Elvetii.

HELVÉTIUS, CLAUDE ADRIEN(1715-1771), French philosopher and littérateur, was born in Paris in January 1715. He was descended from a family of physicians, whose original name was Schweitzer (latinized as Helvetius). His grandfather introduced the use of ipecacuanha; his father was first physician to Queen Marie Leczinska of France. Claude Adrien was trained for a financial career, but he occupied his spare time with writing verses. At the age of twenty-three, at the queen’s request, he was appointed farmer-general, a post of great responsibility and dignity worth a 100,000 crowns a year. Thus provided for, he proceeded to enjoy life to the utmost, with the help of his wealth and liberality, his literary and artistic tastes. As he grew older, however, his social successes ceased, and he began to dream of more lasting distinctions, stimulated by the success of Maupertuis as a mathematician, of Voltaire as a poet, of Montesquieu as a philosopher. The mathematical dream seems to have produced nothing; his poetical ambitions resulted in the poem calledLe Bonheur(published posthumously, with an account of Helvétius’s life and works, by C. F. de Saint-Lambert, 1773), in which he develops the idea that true happiness is only to be found in making the interest of one that of all; his philosophical studies ended in the production of his famous bookDe l’esprit. It was characteristic of the man that, as soon as he thought his fortune sufficient, he gave up his post of farmer-general, and retired to an estate in the country, where he employed his large means in the relief of the poor, the encouragement of agriculture and the development of industries.De l’esprit(Eng. trans. by W. Mudford, 1807), intended to be the rival of Montesquieu’sL’Esprit des lois, appeared in 1758. It attracted immediate attention and aroused the most formidable opposition, especially from the dauphin, son of Louis XV. The Sorbonne condemned the book, the priests persuaded the court that if was full of the most dangerous doctrines, and the author, terrified at the storm he had raised, wrote three separate retractations; yet, in spite of his protestations of orthodoxy, he had to give up his office at the court, and the book was publicly burned by the hangman. The virulence of the attacks upon the work, as much as its intrinsic merit, caused it to be widely read; it was translated into almost all the languages of Europe. Voltaire said that it was full of commonplaces, and that what was original was false or problematical; Rousseau declared that the very benevolence of the author gave the lie to his principles; Grimm thought that all the ideas in the book were borrowed from Diderot; according to Madame du Deffand, Helvétius had raised such a storm by saying openly what every one thought in secret; Madame de Graffigny averred that all the good things in the book had been picked up in her ownsalon. In 1764 Helvétius visited England, and the next year, on the invitation of Frederick II., he went to Berlin, where the king paid him marked attention. He then returned to his country estate and passed the remainder of his life in perfect tranquillity. He died on the 26th of December 1771.

His philosophy belongs to the utilitarian school. The four discussions of which his book consists have been thus summed up: (1) All man’s faculties may be reduced to physical sensation, even memory, comparison, judgment; our only difference from the lower animals lies in our external organization. (2) Self-interest, founded on the love of pleasure and the fear of pain, is the sole spring of judgment, action, affection; self-sacrifice is prompted by the fact that the sensation of pleasure outweighs the accompanying pain; it is thus the result of deliberate calculation; we have no liberty of choice between good and evil; there is no such thing as absolute right—ideas of justice and injustice change according to customs. (3) All intellects are equal; their apparent inequalities do not depend on a more or less perfect organization, but have their cause in the unequal desire for instruction, and this desire springs from passions, of which all men commonly well organized are susceptible to the same degree; and we can, therefore, all love glory with the same enthusiasm and we owe all to education. (4) In this discourse the author treats of the ideas which are attached to such words asgenius,imagination,talent,taste,good sense, &c. The only original ideas in his system are those of the natural equality of intelligences and the omnipotence of education, neither of which, however, is generally accepted, though both were prominent in the system of J. S. Mill. There is no doubt that his thinking was unsystematic; but many of his critics have entirely misrepresented him (e.g.Cairns in hisUnbelief in the Eighteenth Century). As J. M. Robertson (Short History of Free Thought) points out, he had great influence upon Bentham, and C. Beccaria states that he himself was largely inspired by Helvétius in his attempt to modify penal laws. The keynote of his thought wasthat public ethics has a utilitarian basis, and he insisted strongly on the importance of culture in national development.

A sort of supplement to theDe l’esprit, calledDe l’homme, de ses facultés intellectuelles et de son éducation(Eng. trans. by W. Hooper, 1777), found among his manuscripts, was published after his death, but created little interest. There is a complete edition of the works of Helvétius, published at Paris, 1818. For an estimate of his work and his place among the philosophers of the 18th century see Victor Cousin’sPhilosophie sensualiste(1863); P. L. Lezaud,Résumés philosophiques(1853); F. D. Maurice, in hisModern Philosophy(1862), pp. 537 seq.; J. Morley,Diderot and the Encyclopaedists(London, 1878); D. G. Mostratos,Die Pädagogik des Helvétius(Berlin, 1891); A. Guillois,Le Salon de Madame Helvétius(1894); A. Piazzi,Le Idee filosofiche specialmente pedagogiche de C. A. Helvétius(Milan, 1889); G. Plekhanov,Beiträge zur Geschichte des Materialismus(Stuttgart, 1896); L. Limentani,Le Teorie psicologiche di C. A. Helvétius(Verona, 1902); A. Keim,Helvétius, sa vie et son œuvre(1907).

HELVIDIUS PRISCUS,Stoic philosopher and statesman, lived during the reigns of Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian. Like his father-in-law, Thrasea Paetus, he was distinguished for his ardent and courageous republicanism. Although he repeatedly offended his rulers, he held several high offices. During Nero’s reign he was quaestor of Achaea and tribune of the plebs (A.D.56); he restored peace and order in Armenia, and gained the respect and confidence of the provincials. His declared sympathy with Brutus and Cassius occasioned his banishment in 66. Having been recalled to Rome by Galba in 68, he at once impeached Eprius Marcellus, the accuser of Thrasea Paetus, but dropped the charge, as the condemnation of Marcellus would have involved a number of senators. As praetor elect he ventured to oppose Vitellius in the senate (Tacitus,Hist.ii. 91), and as praetor (70) he maintained, in opposition to Vespasian, that the management of the finances ought to be left to the discretion of the senate; he proposed that the capitol, which had been destroyed in the Neronian conflagration, should be restored at the public expense; he saluted Vespasian by his private name, and did not recognize him as emperor in his praetorian edicts. At length he was banished a second time, and shortly afterwards was executed by Vespasian’s order. His life, in the form of a warm panegyric, written at his widow’s request by Herennius Senecio, caused its author’s death in the reign of Domitian.

Tacitus,Hist.iv. 5,Dialogus, 5; Dio Cassius lxvi. 12, lxvii. 13; Suetonius,Vespasian, 15; Pliny,Epp.vii. 19.

HELY-HUTCHINSON, JOHN(1724-1794), Irish lawyer, statesman, and provost of Trinity College, Dublin, son of Francis Hely, a gentleman of County Cork, was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and was called to the Irish bar in 1748. He took the additional name of Hutchinson on his marriage in 1751 with Christiana Nixon, heiress of her uncle, Richard Hutchinson. He was elected member of the Irish House of Commons for the borough of Lanesborough in 1759, but after 1761 he represented the city of Cork. He at first attached himself to the “patriotic” party in opposition to the government, and although he afterwards joined the administration he never abandoned his advocacy of popular measures. He was a man of brilliant and versatile ability, whom Lord Townshend, the lord lieutenant, described as “by far the most powerful man in parliament.” William Gerard Hamilton said of him that “Ireland never bred a more able, nor any country a more honest man.” Hely-Hutchinson was, however, an inveterate place-hunter, and there was point in Lord North’s witticism that “if you were to give him the whole of Great Britain and Ireland for an estate, he would ask the Isle of Man for a potato garden.” After a session or two in parliament he was made a privy councillor and prime serjeant-at-law; and from this time he gave a general, though by no means invariable, support to the government. In 1767 the ministry contemplated an increase of the army establishment in Ireland from 12,000 to 15,000 men, but the Augmentation Bill met with strenuous opposition, not only from Flood, Ponsonby and the habitual opponents of the government, but from the Undertakers, or proprietors of boroughs, on whom the government had hitherto relied to secure them a majority in the House of Commons. It therefore became necessary for Lord Townshend to turn to other methods for procuring support. Early In 1768 an English act was passed for the increase of the army, and a message from the king setting forth the necessity for the measure was laid before the House of Commons in Dublin. An address favourable to the government policy was, however, rejected; and Hely-Hutchinson, together with the speaker and the attorney-general, did their utmost both in public and private to obstruct the bill. Parliament was dissolved in May 1768, and the lord lieutenant set about the task of purchasing or otherwise securing a majority in the new parliament. Peerages, pensions and places were bestowed lavishly on those whose support could be thus secured; Hely-Hutchinson was won over by the concession that the Irish army should be established by the authority of an Irish act of parliament instead of an English one. The Augmentation Bill was carried in the session of 1769 by a large majority. Hely-Hutchinson’s support had been so valuable that he received as reward an addition of £1000 a year to the salary of his sinecure of Alnagar, a major’s commission in a cavalry regiment, and a promise of the secretaryship of state. He was at this time one of the most brilliant debaters in the Irish parliament, and he was enjoying an exceedingly lucrative practice at the bar. This income, however, together with his well-salaried sinecure, and his place as prime serjeant, he surrendered in 1774, to become provost of Trinity College, although the statute requiring the provost to be in holy orders had to be dispensed with in his favour.

For this great academic position Hely-Hutchinson was in no way qualified, and his appointment to it for purely political service to the government was justly criticized with much asperity. His conduct in using his position as provost to secure the parliamentary representation of the university for his eldest son brought him into conflict with Duigenan, who attacked him inLacrymae academicae, and involved him in a duel with a Mr Doyle; while a similar attempt on behalf of his second son in 1790 led to his being accused before a select committee of the House of Commons of impropriety as returning officer. But although without scholarship Hely-Hutchinson was an efficient provost, during whose rule material benefits were conferred on Trinity College. He continued to occupy a prominent place in parliament, where he advocated free trade, the relief of the Catholics from penal legislation, and the reform of parliament. He was one of the very earliest politicians to recognize the soundness of Adam Smith’s views on trade; and he quoted from theWealth of Nations, adopting some of its principles, in hisCommercial Restraints of Ireland, published in 1779, which Lecky pronounces “one of the best specimens of political literature produced in Ireland in the latter half of the 18th century.” In the same year, the economic condition of Ireland being the cause of great anxiety, the government solicited from several leading politicians their opinion on the state of the country with suggestions for a remedy. Hely-Hutchinson’s response was a remarkably able state paper (MS. in the Record Office), which also showed clear traces of the influence of Adam Smith. TheCommercial Restraints, condemned by the authorities as seditious, went far to restore Hely-Hutchinson’s popularity which had been damaged by his greed of office. Not less enlightened were his views on the Catholic question. In a speech in parliament on Catholic education in 1782 the provost declared that Catholic students were in fact to be found at Trinity College, but that he desired their presence there to be legalized on the largest scale. “My opinion,” he said, “is strongly against sending Roman Catholics abroad for education, nor would I establish Popish colleges at home. The advantage of being admitted into the university of Dublin will be very great to Catholics; they need not be obliged to attend the divinity professor, they may have one of their own; and I would have a part of the public money applied to their use, to the support of a number of poor lads as sizars, and to provide premiums for persons of merit, for I would have them go into examinations and make no distinction between them and the Protestants but such as merit might claim.” And after sketching a scheme for increasing the number of diocesan schools where Roman Catholics might receive free education, he went on tourge that “it is certainly a matter of importance that the education of their priests should be as perfect as possible, and that if they have any prejudices they should be prejudices in favour of their own country. The Roman Catholics should receive the best education in the established university at the public expense; but by no means should Popish colleges be allowed, for by them we should again have the press groaning with themes of controversy, and subjects of religious disputation that have long slept in oblivion would again awake, and awaken with them all the worst passions of the human mind.”1

In 1777 Hely-Hutchinson became secretary of state. When Grattan in 1782 moved an address to the king containing a declaration of Irish legislative independence, Hely-Hutchinson supported the attorney-general’s motion postponing the question; but on the 16th of April, after the Easter recess, he read a message from the lord lieutenant, the duke of Portland, giving the king’s permission for the House to take the matter into consideration, and he expressed his personal sympathy with the popular cause which Grattan on the same day brought to a triumphant issue (seeGrattan, Henry). Hely-Hutchinson supported the opposition on the regency question in 1788, and one of his last votes in the House was in favour of parliamentary reform. In 1790 he exchanged the constituency of Cork for that of Taghmon in County Wexford, for which borough he remained member till his death at Buxton on the 4th of September 1794.

In 1785 his wife had been created Baroness Donoughmore and on her death in 1788, his eldest son Richard (1756-1825) succeeded to the title. Lord Donoughmore was an ardent advocate of Catholic emancipation. In 1797 he was created Viscount Donoughmore,2and in 1800 (having voted for the Union, hoping to secure Catholic emancipation from the united parliament) he was further created earl of Donoughmore of Knocklofty, being succeeded first by his brother John Hely-Hutchinson (1757-1832) and then by his nephew John, 3rd earl (1787-1851), from whom the title descended.

See W. E. H. Lecky,Hist. of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century(5 vols., London, 1892); J. A. Froude,The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century(3 vols., London, 1872-1874); H. Grattan,Memoirs of the Life and Times of Henry Grattan(8 vols., London, 1839-1846);Baratariana, by various writers (Dublin, 1773).

(R. J. M.)

1Irish Parl. Debates, i. 309, 310.2It is generally supposed that the title conferred by this patent was that of Viscount Suirdale, and such is the courtesy title by which the heir apparent of the earls of Donoughmore is usually styled. This, however, appears to be an error. In all the three creations (barony 1783, viscountcy 1797, earldom 1800) the title is “Donoughmore of Knocklofty.” In 1821 the 1st earl was further created Viscount Hutchinson of Knocklofty in the peerage of the United Kingdom. The courtesy title of the earl’s eldest son should, therefore, apparently be either “Viscount Hutchinson” or “Viscount Knocklofty.” See G. E. C.Complete Peerage(London, 1890).

1Irish Parl. Debates, i. 309, 310.

2It is generally supposed that the title conferred by this patent was that of Viscount Suirdale, and such is the courtesy title by which the heir apparent of the earls of Donoughmore is usually styled. This, however, appears to be an error. In all the three creations (barony 1783, viscountcy 1797, earldom 1800) the title is “Donoughmore of Knocklofty.” In 1821 the 1st earl was further created Viscount Hutchinson of Knocklofty in the peerage of the United Kingdom. The courtesy title of the earl’s eldest son should, therefore, apparently be either “Viscount Hutchinson” or “Viscount Knocklofty.” See G. E. C.Complete Peerage(London, 1890).

HELYOT, PIERRE(1660-1716), Franciscan friar and historian, was born at Paris in January 1660, of supposed English ancestry. After spending his youth in study, he entered in his twenty-fourth year the convent of the third order of St Francis, founded at Picpus, near Paris, by his uncle Jérôme Helyot, canon of St Sepulchre. There he took the name of Père Hippolyte. Two journeys to Rome on monastic business afforded him the opportunity of travelling over most of Italy; and after his final return he saw much of France, while acting as secretary to various provincials of his order there. Both in Italy and France he was engaged in collecting materials for his great work, which occupied him about twenty-five years,L’Histoire des ordres monastiques, religieux, et militaires, et des congrégations séculières, de l’un et de l’autre sexe, qui ont été établies jusqu’à présent, published in 8 volumes in 1714-1721. Helyot died on the 5th of January 1716, before the fifth volume appeared, but his friend Maximilien Bullot completed the edition. Helyot’s only other noteworthy work isLe Chrétien mourant(1695).

TheHistoireis a work of first importance, being the great repertory of information for the general history of the religious orders up to the end of the 17th century. It is profusely illustrated by large plates exhibiting the dress of the various orders, and in the edition of 1792 the plates are coloured. It was translated into Italian (1737) and into German (1753). The material has been arranged in dictionary form in Migne’sEncyclopédie théologique, under the title “Dictionnaire des orders religieux” (4 vols., 1858).

HEMANS, FELICIA DOROTHEA(1793-1835), English poet, was born in Duke Street, Liverpool, on the 25th of September 1793. Her father, George Browne, of Irish extraction, was a merchant in Liverpool, and her mother, whose maiden name was Wagner, was the daughter of the Austrian and Tuscan consul at Liverpool. Felicia, the fifth of seven children, was scarcely seven years old when her father failed in business, and retired with his family to Gwrych, near Abergele, Denbighshire; and there the young poet and her brothers and sisters grew up in a romantic old house by the sea-shore, and in the very midst of the mountains and myths of Wales. Felicia’s education was desultory. Books of chronicle and romance, and every kind of poetry, she read with avidity; and she also studied Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and German. She played both harp and piano, and cared especially for the simple national melodies of Wales and Spain. In 1808, when she was only fourteen, a quarto volume of herJuvenile Poems, was published by subscription, and was harshly criticized in theMonthly Review. Two of her brothers were fighting in Spain under Sir John Moore; and Felicia, fired with military enthusiasm, wroteEngland and Spain, or Valour and Patriotism, a poem afterwards translated into Spanish. Her second volume,The Domestic Affections and other Poems, appeared in 1812, on the eve of her marriage to Captain Alfred Hemans. She lived for some time at Daventry, where her husband was adjutant of the Northamptonshire militia. About this time her father went to Quebec on business and died there; and, after the birth of her first son, she and her husband went to live with her mother at Bronwylfa, a house near St Asaph. Here during the next six years four more children—all boys—were born; but in spite of domestic cares arid failing health she still read and wrote indefatigably. Her poem entitledThe Restoration of Works of Art to Italywas published in 1816, herModern Greecein 1817, and in 1818Translations from Camoens and other Poets.

In 1818 Captain Hemans went to Rome, leaving his wife, shortly before the birth of their fifth child, with her mother at Bronwylfa. There seems to have been a tacit agreement, perhaps on account of their limited means, that they should separate. Letters were interchanged, and Captain Hemans was often consulted about his children; but the husband and wife never met again. Many friends—among them the bishop of St Asaph and Bishop Heber—gathered round Mrs Hemans and her children. In 1819 she publishedTales and Historic Scenes in Verse, and gained a prize of £50 offered for the best poem onThe Meeting of Wallace and Bruce on the Banks of the Carron. In 1820 appearedThe Sceptic and Stanzas to the Memory of the late King. In June 1821 she won the prize awarded by the Royal Society of Literature for the best poem on the subject ofDartmoor, and began her play,The Vespers of Palermo. She now applied herself to a course of German reading. Körner was her favourite German poet, and her lines on the grave of Körner were one of the first English tributes to the genius of the young soldier-poet. In the summer of 1823 a volume of her poems was published by Murray, containing “The Siege of Valencia,” “The Last Constantine” and “Belshazzar’s Feast.”The Vespers of Palermowas acted at Covent Garden, December 12, 1823, and Mrs Hemans received £200 for the copyright; but, though the leading parts were taken by Young and Charles Kemble, the play was a failure, and was withdrawn after the first performance. It was acted again in Edinburgh in the following April with greater success, when an epilogue, written for it by Sir Walter Scott at Joanna Baillie’s request, was spoken by Harriet Siddons. This was the beginning of a cordial friendship between Mrs Hemans and Scott. In the same year she wroteDe Chatillon, or the Crusaders; but the manuscript was lost, and the poem was published after her death, from a rough copy. In 1824 she began “The Forest Sanctuary,”which appeared a year later with the “Lays of Many Lands” and miscellaneous pieces collected from theNew Monthly Magazineand other periodicals.

In the spring of 1825 Mrs Hemans removed from Bronwylfa, which had been purchased by her brother, to Rhyllon, a house on an opposite height across the river Clwyd. The contrast between the two houses suggested herDramatic Scene between Bronwylfa and Rhyllon. The house itself was bare and unpicturesque, but the beauty of its surroundings has been celebrated in “The Hour of Romance,” “To the River Clwyd in North Wales,” “Our Lady’s Well” and “To a Distant Scene.” This time seems to have been the most tranquil in Mrs Hemans’s life. But the death of her mother in January 1827 was a second great breaking-point in her life. Her heart was affected, and she was from this time an acknowledged invalid. In the summer of 1828 theRecords of Womanwas published by Blackwood, and in the same year the home in Wales was finally broken up by the marriage of Mrs Hemans’s sister and the departure of her two elder boys to their father in Rome. Mrs Hemans removed to Wavertree, near Liverpool. But, although she had a few intimate friends there—among them her two subsequent biographers, Henry F. Chorley and Mrs Lawrence of Wavertree Hall—she was disappointed in her new home. She thought the people of Liverpool stupid and provincial; and they, on the other hand, found her uncommunicative and eccentric. In the following summer she travelled by sea to Scotland with two of her boys, to visit the Hamiltons of Chiefswood.

Here she enjoyed “constant, almost daily, intercourse” with Sir Walter Scott, with whom she and her boys afterwards stayed some time at Abbotsford. “There are some whom we meet, and should like ever after to claim as kith and kin; and you are one of those,” was Scott’s compliment to her at parting. One of the results of her Edinburgh visit was an article, full of praise, judiciously tempered with criticism, by Jeffrey himself for theEdinburgh Review. Mrs Hemans returned to Wavertree to write herSongs of the Affections, which were published early in 1830. In the following June, however, she again left home, this time to visit Wordsworth and the Lake country; and in August she paid a second visit to Scotland. In 1831 she removed to Dublin. Her poetry of this date is chiefly religious. Early in 1834 herHymns for Childhood, which had appeared some years before in America, were published in Dublin. At the same time appeared her collection ofNational Lyrics, and shortly afterwardsScenes and Hymns of Life. She was planning also a series of German studies, one of which, on Goethe’sTasso, was completed and published in theNew Monthly Magazinefor January 1834. In intervals of acute suffering she wrote the lyricDespondency and Aspiration, and dictated a series of sonnets calledThoughts during Sickness, the last of which, “Recovery,” was written when she fancied she was getting well. After three months spent at Redesdale, Archbishop Whately’s country seat, she was again brought into Dublin, where she lingered till spring. Her last poem, theSabbath Sonnet, was dedicated to her brother on Sunday April 26th, and she died in Dublin on the 16th of May 1835 at the age of forty-one.

Mrs Hemans’s poetry is the production of a fine imaginative and enthusiastic temperament, but not of a commanding intellect or very complex or subtle nature. It is the outcome of a beautiful but singularly circumscribed life, a life spent in romantic seclusion, without much worldly experience, and warped and saddened by domestic unhappiness and physical suffering. An undue preponderance of the emotional is its prevailing characteristic. Scott complained that it was “too poetical,” that it contained “too many flowers” and “too little fruit.” Many of her short poems, such as “The Treasures of the Deep,” “The Better Land,” “The Homes of England,” “Casabianca,” “The Palm Tree,” “The Graves of a Household,” “The Wreck,” “The Dying Improvisatore,” and “The Lost Pleiad,” have become standard English lyrics. It is on the strength of these that her reputation must rest.

Mrs Hemans’sPoetical Workswere collected in 1832; herMemorials&c., by H. F. Chorley (1836).

HEMEL HEMPSTEAD,a market-town and municipal borough in the Watford parliamentary division of Hertfordshire, England, 25 m. N.W. from London, with a station on a branch of the Midland railway from Harpenden, and near Boxmoor station on the London and North Western main line. Pop. (1891) 9678; (1901) 11,264. It is pleasantly situated in the steep-sided valley of the river Gade, immediately above its junction with the Bulbourne, near the Grand Junction canal. The church of St Mary is a very fine Norman building with Decorated additions. Industries include the manufacture of paper, iron founding, brewing and tanning. Boxmoor, within the parish, is a considerable township of modern growth. Hemel Hempstead is governed by a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. Area, 7184 acres.

Settlements in the neighbourhood of Hemel Hempstead (Hamalamstede,Hemel Hampsted) date from pre-Roman times, and a Roman villa has been discovered at Boxmoor. The manor, royal demesne in 1086, was granted by Edmund Plantagenet in 1285 to the house of Ashridge, and the town developed under monastic protection. In 1539 a charter incorporated the bailiff and inhabitants. A mayor, aldermen and councillors received governing power by a charter of 1898. The town has never had parliamentary representation. A market on Thursday and a fair on the feast of Corpus Christi were conferred in 1539. A statute fair, for long a hiring fair, originated in 1803.

HEMEROBAPTISTS,an ancient Jewish sect, so named from their observing a practice of daily ablution as an essential part of religion. Epiphanius (Panarion, i. 17), who mentions their doctrine as the fourth heresy among the Jews, classes the Hemerobaptists doctrinally with the Pharisees (q.v.) from whom they differed only in, like the Sadducees, denying the resurrection of the dead. The name has been sometimes given to the Mandaeans on account of their frequent ablutions; and in theClementine Homilies(ii. 23) St John the Baptist is spoken of as a Hemerobaptist. Mention of the sect is made by Hegesippus (see Euseb.Hist. Eccl.iv. 22) and by Justin Martyr in theDialogue with Trypho, § 80. They were probably a division of the Essenes.

HEMICHORDA,orHemichordata, a zoological term introduced by W. Bateson in 1884, without special definition, as equivalent to Enteropneusta, which then included the single genusBalanoglossus, and now generally employed to cover a group of marine worm-like animals believed by many zoologists to be related to the lower vertebrates and so to represent the invertebrate stock from which Vertebrates have been derived. Vertebrates, or as they are sometimes termed Chordates, are distinguished from other animals by several important features. The chief of these is the presence of an elastic rod, the notochord, which forms the longitudinal axis of the body, and which persists throughout life in some of the lowest forms, but which appears only in the embryo of the higher forms, being replaced by the jointed backbone or vertebral column. A second feature is the development of outgrowths of the pharynx which unite with the skin of the neck and form a series of perforations leading to the exterior. These structures are the gill-slits, which in fishes are lined with vascular tufts, but which in terrestrial breathing animals appear only in the embryo. The third feature of importance is the position of structure of the central nervous system, which in all the Chordates lies dorsally to the alimentary canal and is formed by the sinking in of a longitudinal media dorsal groove. Of these structures the Vertebrata or Craniata possess all three in a typical form; the Cephalochordata (see Amphioxus) also possess them, but the notochord extends throughout the whole length of the body to the extreme tip of the snout; the Urochordata (seeTunicata) possess them in a larval condition, but the notochord is present only in the tail, whilst in the adult the notochord disappears and the nervous system becomes profoundly modified; in the Hemichorda, the respiratory organs very closely resemble gill-slits, and structures comparable with the notochord and the tubular dorsal nervous system are present.

The Hemichorda include three orders, the Phoronidea (q.v.), the Pterobranchia (q.v.) and the Enteropneusta (seeBalanoglossus),but the relationship to the Chordata expressed in the designation Hemichordata cannot be regarded as more than an attractive theory with certain arguments in its favour.

(P. C. M.)

HEMICYCLE(Gr.ἡμι-, half, andκύκλος, circle), a semicircular recess of considerable size which formed one of the most conspicuous features in the Roman Thermae, where it was always covered with a hemispherical vault. A small example exists in Pompeii, in the street of tombs, with a seat round inside, where those who came to pay their respects to the departed could rest. An immense hemicycle was designed by Bramante for the Vatican, where it constitutes a fine architectural effect at the end of the great court.

HEMIMERUS,an Orthopterous or Dermapterous insect, the sole representative of the familyHemimeridae, which has affinities with both theForficulidae(earwigs) and theBlattidae(cockroaches). Only two species have been discovered, both from West Africa. The better known of these (H. hanseni) lives upon a large rat-like rodent (Cricetomys gambianus) feeding perhaps upon its external parasites, perhaps upon scurf and other dermal products. Like many epizoic or parasitic insects,Hemimerusis wingless, eyeless and has relatively short and strong legs. Correlated also with its mode of life is the curious fact that it is viviparous, the young being born in an advanced stage of growth.

HEMIMORPHITE,a mineral consisting of hydrous zinc silicate, H2Zn2SiO5, of importance as an ore of the metal, of which it contains 54.4%. It is interesting crystallographically by reason of the hemimorphic development of its orthorhombic crystals; these are prismatic in habit and are differently terminated at the two ends. In the figure, the faces at the upper end of the crystal are the basal planekand the domeso,p,l,m, whilst at the lower end there are only the four faces of the pyramid P. Connected with this polarity of the crystals is their pyroelectric character—when a crystal is subjected to changes of temperature it becomes positively electrified at one end and negatively at the opposite end. There are perfect cleavages parallel to the prism faces (din the figure). Crystals are usually colourless, sometimes yellowish or greenish, and transparent; they have vitreous lustre. The hardness is 5, and the specific gravity 3.45. The mineral also occurs as stalactitic or botryoidal masses with a fibrous structure, or in a massive, cellular or granular condition intermixed with calamine and clay. It is decomposed by hydrochloric acid with gelatinization; this property affords a ready means of distinguishing hemimorphite from calamine (zinc carbonate), these two minerals being, when not crystallized, very like each other in appearance. The water contained in hemimorphite is expelled only at a red heat, and the mineral must therefore be considered as a basic metasilicate, (ZnOH)2SiO3.

The name hemimorphite was given by G. A. Kenngott in 1853 because of the typical hemimorphic development of the crystals. The mineral had long been confused withcalamine(q.v.) and even now this name is often applied to it. On account of its pyroelectric properties, it was calledelectric calamineby J. Smithson in 1803.

Hemimorphite occurs with other ores of zinc (calamine and blende), forming veins and beds insedimentarylimestones. British localities are Matlock, Alston, Mendip Hills and Leadhills; at Roughten Gill, Caldbeck Fells, Cumberland, it occurs as mammillated incrustations of a sky-blue colour. Well-crystallized specimens have been found in the zinc mines at Altenberg near Aachen in Rhenish Prussia, Nerchinsk mining district in Siberia, and Elkhorn in Montana.

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