The Project Gutenberg eBook ofEncyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Helmont, Jean" to "Hernosand"

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofEncyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Helmont, Jean" to "Hernosand"This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Helmont, Jean" to "Hernosand"Author: VariousRelease date: April 12, 2012 [eBook #39435]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, 11TH EDITION, "HELMONT, JEAN" TO "HERNOSAND" ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Helmont, Jean" to "Hernosand"Author: VariousRelease date: April 12, 2012 [eBook #39435]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Helmont, Jean" to "Hernosand"

Author: Various

Release date: April 12, 2012 [eBook #39435]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, 11TH EDITION, "HELMONT, JEAN" TO "HERNOSAND" ***

Articles in This Slice

HELMONT, JEAN BAPTISTE VAN(1577-1644), Belgian chemist, physiologist and physician, a member of a noble family, was born at Brussels in 1577.1He was educated at Louvain, and after ranging restlessly from one science to another and finding satisfaction in none, turned to medicine, in which he took his doctor’s degree in 1599. The next few years he spent in travelling through Switzerland, Italy, France and England. Returning to his own country he was at Antwerp at the time ofthe great plague in 1605, and having contracted a rich marriage settled in 1609 at Vilvorde, near Brussels, where he occupied himself with chemical experiments and medical practice until his death on the 30th of December 1644. Van Helmont presents curious contradictions. On the one hand he was a disciple of Paracelsus (though he scornfully repudiates his errors was well as those of most other contemporary authorities), a mystic with strong leanings to the supernatural, an alchemist who believed that with a small piece of the philosopher’s stone he had transmuted 2000 times as much mercury into gold; on the other hand he was touched with the new learning that was producing men like Harvey, Galileo and Bacon, a careful observer of nature, and an exact experimenter who in some cases realized that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. As a chemist he deserves to be regarded as the founder of pneumatic chemistry, even though it made no substantial progress for a century after his time, and he was the first to understand that there are gases distinct in kind from atmospheric air. The very word “gas” he claims as his own invention, and he perceived that his “gas sylvestre” (our carbon dioxide) given off by burning charcoal is the same as that produced by fermenting must and that which sometimes renders the air of caves irrespirable. For him air and water are the two primitive elements of things. Fire he explicitly denies to be an element, and earth is not one because it can be reduced to water. That plants, for instance, are composed of water he sought to show by the ingenious quantitative experiment of planting a willow weighing 5 ℔ in 200 ℔ of dry soil and allowing it to grow for five years; at the end of that time it had become a tree weighing 169 ℔, and since it had received nothing but water and the soil weighed practically the same as at the beginning, he argued that the increased weight of wood, bark and roots had been formed from water alone. It was an old idea that the processes of the living body are fermentative in character, but he applied it more elaborately than any of his predecessors. For him digestion, nutrition and even movement are due to ferments, which convert dead food into living flesh in six stages. But having got so far with the application of chemical principles to physiological problems, he introduces a complicated system of supernatural agencies like thearcheiof Paracelsus, which preside over and direct the affairs of the body. A centralarcheuscontrols a number of subsidiaryarcheiwhich move through the ferments, and just as diseases are primarily caused by some affection (exorbitatio) of thearcheus, so remedies act by bringing it back to the normal. At the same time chemical principles guided him in the choice of medicines—undue acidity of the digestive juices, for example, was to be corrected by alkalies andvice versa; he was thus a forerunner of the iatrochemical school, and did good service to the art of medicine by applying chemical methods to the preparation of drugs. Over and above thearcheushe taught that there is the sensitive soul which is the husk or shell of the immortal mind. Before the Fall thearcheusobeyed the immortal mind and was directly controlled by it, but at the Fall men received also the sensitive soul and with it lost immortality, for when it perishes the immortal mind can no longer remain in the body. In addition to thearcheus, which he described as “aura vitalis seminum, vitae directrix,” Van Helmont had other governing agencies resembling thearcheusand not always clearly distinguished from it. From these he invented the termblas, defined as the “vis motus tam alterivi quam localis.” Ofblasthere were several kinds,e.g.blas humanumandblas meteoron; the heavens he said “constare gas materiâ et blas efficiente.” He was a faithful Catholic, but incurred the suspicion of the Church by his tractDe magnetica vulnerum curatione(1621), which was thought to derogate from some of the miracles. His works were collected and published at Amsterdam asOrtus medicinae, vel opera et opuscula omniain 1668 by his son Franz Mercurius (b. 1618 at Vilvorde, d. 1699 at Berlin), in whose own writings,e.g.Cabbalah Denudata(1677) andOpuscula philosophica(1690), mystical theosophy and alchemy appear in still wilder confusion.

See M. Foster,Lectures on the History of Physiology(1901); also Chevreul inJourn. des savants(Feb. and March 1850), and Cap inJourn. pharm. chim.(1852). Other authorities are Poultier d’Elmoth,Mémoire sur J. B. van Helmont(1817); Rixner and Sieber,Beiträge zur Geschichte der Physiologie(1819-1826), vol. ii.; Spiers,Helmont’s System der Medicin(1840); Melsens,Leçons sur van Helmont(1848); Rommelaere,Études sur J. B. van Helmont(1860).

1An alternative date for his birth is 1579 and for his death 1635 (seeBull. Roy. Acad. Belg., 1907, 7, p. 732).

HELMSTEDT,or more rarely Helmstädt, a town of Germany, in the duchy of Brunswick, 30 m. N.W. of Magdeburg on the main line of railway to Brunswick. Pop. (1905) 15,415. The principal buildings are the Juleum, the former university, built in the Renaissance style towards the close of the 16th century, and containing a library of 40,000 volumes; the fine Stephanskirche dating from the 12th century; the Walpurgiskirche restored in 1893-1894; the Marienberger Kirche, a beautiful church in the Roman style, and the Roman Catholic church. The Augustinian nunnery of Marienberg founded in 1176 is now a Lutheran school. The town contains the ruins of the Benedictine abbey of St Ludger, which was secularized in 1803. The educational institutions include several schools. The principal manufactures are furniture, yarn, soap, tobacco, sugar, vitriol and earthenware. Near the town is Bad Helmstedt, which has an iron mineral spring, and the Lübbensteine, two blocks of granite on which sacrifices to Woden are said to have been offered. Near Bad Helmstedt a monument has been erected to those who fell in the Franco-German War; in the town there is one to those killed at Waterloo. Helmstedt originated, according to legend, in connexion with the monastery founded by Ludger or Liudger (d. 809), the first bishop of Münster. There appears, however, little doubt that this tradition is mythical and that Helmstedt was not founded until about 900. It obtained civic rights in 1099 and, although destroyed by the archbishop of Magdeburg in 1199, it was soon rebuilt. In 1457 it joined the Hanseatic League, and in 1490 it came into the possession of Brunswick. In 1576 Julius, duke of Brunswick, founded a university here, and throughout the 17th century this was one of the chief seats of Protestant learning. It was closed by Jerome, king of Westphalia, in 1809.

See Ludewig,Geschichte und Beschreibung der Stadt Helmstedt(Helmstedt, 1821).

HELMUND,a river of Afghanistan, in length about 600 m. The Helmund, which is identical with the ancient Etymander, is the most important river in Afghanistan, next to the Kabul river, which it exceeds both in volume and length. It rises in the recesses of the Koh-i-Baba to the west of Kabul, its infant stream parting the Unai pass from the Irak, the two chief passes on the well-known road from Kabul to Bamian. For 50 m. from its source its course is ascertained, but beyond that point for the next 50 no European has followed it. About the parallel of 33° N. it enters the Zamindawar province which lies to the N.W. of Kandahar, and thenceforward it is a well-mapped river to its termination in the lake of Seistan. Till about 40 m. above Girishk the character of the Helmund is that of a mountain river, flowing through valleys which in summer are the resort of pastoral tribes. On leaving the hills it enters on a flat country, and extends over a gravelly bed. Here also it begins to be used in irrigation. At Girishk it is crossed by the principal route from Herat to Kandahar. Forty-five miles below Girishk the Helmund receives its greatest tributary, the Arghandab, from the high Ghilzai country beyond Kandahar, and becomes a very considerable river, with a width of 300 or 400 yds. and an occasional depth of 9 to 12 ft. Even in the dry season it is never without a plentiful supply of water. The course of the river is more or less south-west from its source till in Seistan it crosses meridian 62°, when it turns nearly north, and so flows for 70 or 80 m. till it falls into the Seistan hamuns, or swamps, by various mouths. In this latter part of its course it forms the boundary between Afghan and Persian Seistan, and owing to constant changes in its bed and the swampy nature of its borders it has been a fertile source of frontier squabbles. Persian Seistan was once highly cultivated by means of a great system of canal irrigation; but for centuries, since the country was devastated by Timur, it has been a barren, treeless waste of flat alluvial plain. In years of exceptional flood the Seistan lakes spread southwards into an overflow channel called theShelag which, running parallel to the northern course of the Helmund in the opposite direction, finally loses its waters in the Gaod-i-Zirreh swamp, which thus becomes the final bourne of the river. Throughout its course from its confluence with the Arghandab to the ford of Chahar Burjak, where it bends northward, the Helmund valley is a narrow green belt of fertility sunk in the midst of a wide alluvial desert, with many thriving villages interspersed amongst the remains of ancient cities, relics of Kaiani rule. The recent political mission to Seistan under Sir Henry McMahon (1904-1905) added much information respecting the ancient and modern channels of the lower Helmund, proving that river to have been constantly shifting its bed over a vast area, changing the level of the country by silt deposits, and in conjunction with the terrific action of Seistan winds actually altering its configuration.

(T. H. H.*)

HELM WIND,a wind that under certain conditions blows over the escarpment of the Pennines, near Cross Fell from the eastward, when a helm (helmet) cloud covers the summit. The helm bar is a roll of cloud that forms in front of it, to leeward.

See “Report on the Helm Wind Inquiry,” by W. Marriott,Quart. Journ. Roy. Met. Soc.xv. 103.

HELOTS(Gr.εἴλωτεςorεἱλῶται), the serfs of the ancient Spartans. The word was derived in antiquity from the town of Helos in Laconia, but is more probably connected withἕλος, a fen, or with the root ofἑλεῖν, to capture. Some scholars suppose them to have been of Achaean race, but they were more probably the aborigines of Laconia who had been enslaved by the Achaeans before the Dorian conquest. After the second Messenian war (seeSparta) the conquered Messenians were reduced to the status of helots, from which Epaminondas liberated them three centuries later after the battle of Leuctra (371B.C.). The helots were state slaves bound to the soil—adscripti glebae—and assigned to individual Spartiates to till their holdings (κλῆροι); their masters could neither emancipate them nor sell them off the land, and they were under an oath not to raise the rent payable yearly in kind by the helots. In time of war they served as light-armed troops or as rowers in the fleet; from the Peloponnesian War onwards they were occasionally employed as heavy infantry (ὁπλῖται), distinguished bravery being rewarded by emancipation. That the general attitude of the Spartans towards them was one of distrust and cruelty cannot be doubted. Aristotle says that the ephors of each year on entering office declared war on the helots so that they might be put to death at any time without violating religious scruple (Plutarch,Lycurgus28), and we have a well-attested record of 2000 helots being freed for service in war and then secretly assassinated (Thuc. iv. 80). But when we remember the value of the helots from a military and agricultural point of view we shall not readily believe that thecrypteiawas really, as some authors represent it, an organized system of massacre; we shall see in it “a good police training, inculcating hardihood and vigour in the young,” while at the same time getting rid of any helots who were found to be plotting against the state (see furtherCrypteia).

Intermediate between Helots and Spartiates were the two classes ofNeodamodesandMothones. The former were emancipated helots, or possibly their descendants, and were much used in war from the end of the 5th century; they served especially on foreign campaigns, as those of Thibron (400-399B.C.) and Agesilaus (396-394B.C.) in Asia Minor. Themothonesormothakeswere usually the sons of Spartiates and helot mothers; they were free men sharing the Spartan training, but were not full citizens, though they might become such in recognition of special merit.

See C. O. Müller,History and Antiquities of the Doric Race(Eng. trans.), bk. iii. ch. 3.; G. Gilbert,Greek Constitutional Antiquities(Eng. trans.), pp. 30-35; A. H. J. Greenidge,Handbook of Greek Constitutional History, pp. 83-85; G. Busolt,Die griech. Staats- u. Rechtsaltertümer, § 84;Griechische Geschichte, i.[2] 525-528; G. F. Schömann,Antiquities of Greece: The State(Eng. trans.) pp. 194 ff.

(M. N. T.)

HELPS, SIR ARTHUR(1813-1875), English writer and clerk of the Privy Council, youngest son of Thomas Helps, a London merchant, was born near London on the 10th of July 1813. He was educated at Eton and at Trinity College, Cambridge, coming out 31st wrangler in the mathematical tripos in 1835. He was recognized by the ablest of his contemporaries there as a man of superior gifts, and likely to make his mark in after life. As a member of the Conversazione Society, better known as the “Apostles,” a society established in 1820 for the purposes of discussion on social and literary questions by a few young men attracted to each other by a common taste for literature and speculation, he was associated with Charles Buller, Frederick Maurice, Richard Chenevix Trench, Monckton Milnes, Arthur Hallam and Alfred Tennyson. His first literary effort,Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd(1835), was a series of aphorisms upon life, character, politics and manners. Soon after leaving the university Arthur Helps became private secretary to Spring Rice (afterwards Lord Monteagle), then chancellor of the exchequer. This appointment he filled till 1839, when he went to Ireland as private secretary to Lord Morpeth (afterwards earl of Carlisle), chief secretary for Ireland. In the meanwhile (28th October 1836) Helps had married Bessy, daughter of Captain Edward Fuller. He was one of the commissioners for the settlement of certain Danish claims which dated so far back as the siege of Copenhagen; but with the fall of the Melbourne administration (1841) his official experience closed for a period of nearly twenty years. He was not, however, forgotten by his political friends. He possessed admirable tact and sagacity; his fitness for official life was unmistakable, and in 1860 he was appointed clerk of the Privy Council, on the recommendation of Lord Granville.

HisEssays written in the Intervals of Businesshad appeared in 1841, and hisClaims of Labour, an Essay on the Duties of the Employers to the Employed, in 1844. Two plays,King Henry the Second, an Historical Drama, andCatherine Douglas, a Tragedy, published in 1843, have no particular merit. Neither in these, nor in his only other dramatic effort,Oulita the Serf(1858) did he show any real qualifications as a playwright.

Helps possessed, however, enough dramatic power to give life and individuality to the dialogues with which he enlivened many of his other books. In hisFriends in Council, a Series of Readings and Discourse thereon(1847-1859), Helps varied his presentment of social and moral problems by dialogues between imaginary personages, who, under the names of Milverton, Ellesmere and Dunsford, grew to be almost as real to Helps’s readers as they certainly became to himself. The book was very popular, and the same expedient was resorted to inConversations on War and General Culture, published in 1871. The familiar speakers, with others added, also appeared in hisRealmah(1868) and in the best of its author’s later works,Talk about Animals and their Masters(1873).

A long essay on slavery in the first series ofFriends in Councilwas subsequently elaborated into a work in two volumes published in 1848 and 1852, calledThe Conquerors of the New World and their Bondsmen. Helps went to Spain in 1847 to examine the numerous MSS. bearing upon his subject at Madrid. The fruits of these researches were embodied in an historical work based upon hisConquerors of the New World, and calledThe Spanish Conquest in America, and its Relation to the History of Slavery and the Government of Colonies(4 vols., 1855-1857-1861). But in spite of his scrupulous efforts after accuracy, the success of the book was marred by its obtrusively moral purpose and its discursive character.

The Life of Las Casas, the Apostle of the Indians(1868),The Life of Columbus(1869),The Life of Pizarro(1869), andThe Life of Hernando Cortes(1871), when extracted from the work and published separately, proved successful. Besides the books which have been already mentioned he wrote:Organization in Daily Life, an Essay(1862),Casimir Maremma(1870),Brevia,Short Essays and Aphorisms(1871),Thoughts upon Government(1872),Life and Labours of Mr Thomas Brassey(1872),Ivan de Biron(1874),Social Pressure(1875).

His appointment as clerk of the Council brought him into personal communication with Queen Victoria and the PrinceConsort, both of whom came to regard him with confidence and respect. After the Prince’s death, the Queen early turned to Helps to prepare an appreciation of her husband’s life and character. In his introduction to the collection (1862) of the Prince Consort’s speeches and addresses Helps adequately fulfilled his task. Some years afterwards he edited and wrote a preface to the Queen’sLeaves from a Journal of our Life in the Highlands(1868). In 1864 he received the honorary degree of D.C.L. from the university of Oxford. He was made a C.B. in 1871 and K.C.B. in the following year. His later years were troubled by financial embarrassments, and he died on the 7th of March 1875.

HELSINGBORG,a seaport of Sweden in the district (län) of Malmöhus, 35 m. N. by E. of Copenhagen by rail and water. Pop. (1900), 24,670. It is beautifully situated at the narrowest part of Öresund, or the Sound, here only 3 m. wide, opposite Helsingör (Elsinore) in Denmark. Above the town the brick tower of a former castle crowns a hill, commanding a fine view over the Sound. On the outskirts are the Öresund Park, gardens containing iodide and bromide springs, and frequented sea-baths. On the coast to the north is the royalchâteauof Sofiero; to the south, the small spa of Ramlösa. A system of electric trams is maintained. North and east of Helsingborg lies the only coalfield in Sweden, extending into the lofty Kullen peninsula, which forms the northern part of the east shore of the Sound. Potter’s clay is also found. Helsingborg ranks among the first manufacturing towns of Sweden, having copper works, using ore from Sulitelma in Norway, india-rubber works and breweries. The artificial harbour has a depth of 24 ft., and there are extensive docks. The chief exports are timber, butter and iron. The town is the headquarters of the first army division.

The original site of the town is marked by the tower of the old fortress, which is first mentioned in 1135. In the 14th century it was several times besieged. From 1370 along with other towns in the province of Skåne, it was united for fifteen years with the Hanseatic League. The fortress was destroyed by fire in 1418, and about 1425 Eric XIII. built another near the sea, and caused the town to be transported thither, bestowing upon it important privileges. Until 1658 it belonged to Denmark, and it was again occupied by the Danes in 1676 and 1677. In 1684 its fortifications were dismantled. It was taken by Frederick IV. of Denmark in November 1709, but on the 28th of February 1710 the Danes were defeated in the neighbourhood, and the town came finally into the possession of Sweden, though in 1711 it was again bombarded by the Danes. A tablet on the quay commemorates the landing of Bernadotte after his election as successor to the throne in 1810.

HELSINGFORS(FinnishHelsinki), a seaport and the capital of Finland and of the province of Nyland, centre of the administrative, scientific, educational and industrial life of Finland. The fine harbour is divided into two parts by a promontory, and is protected at its entrance by a group of small islands, on one of which stands the fortress of Sveaborg. A third harbour is situated on the west side of the promontory, and all three have granite quays. The city, which in 1810 had only 4065 inhabitants, Åbo the then capital having 10,224, has increased with great rapidity, having 22,228 inhabitants in 1860, 61,530 in 1890 and 111,654 in 1904. It is the centre of an active shipping trade with the Baltic ports and with England, and of a railway system connecting it with all parts of the grand duchy and with St Petersburg. Helsingfors is handsome and well laid out with wide streets, parks, gardens and monuments. The principal square contains the cathedral of St Nicholas, the Senate House and the university, all striking buildings of considerable architectural distinction. In the centre is the statue of the Tsar Alexander II., who is looked upon as the protector of the liberties of Finland, the monument being annually decorated with wreaths and garlands. The university has a teaching staff of 141 with (1906) 1921 students, of whom 328 were women. The university is well provided with museums and laboratories and has a library of over 250,000 volumes. Other public institutions are the Athenaeum, with picture gallery, a Swedish theatre and opera house, a Finnish theatre, the Archives, the Senate House, the Nobles’ House (Riddarhuset) and the House of the Estates, the German (Lutheran) church and the Russian church. Some of the scientific societies of Helsingfors have a wide repute, such as the academy of sciences, the geographical, historical, Finno-Ugrian, biblical, medical, law, arts and forestry societies, as also societies for the spread of popular education and of arts and crafts. There are a polytechnic, ten high schools, navigation and trade schools, institutes for the blind and the mentally deficient, and numerous elementary schools. The general standard of education is high, the publication of books, reviews and newspapers being very active. The language of culture is Swedish, but owing to recent manufacturing developments the majority of the population is Finnish-speaking. Helsingfors displays great manufacturing and commercial activity, the imports being coal, machinery, sugar, grain and clothing. The manufactures of the city consist largely of tobacco, beer and spirits, carpets, machinery and sugar.

HELST, BARTHOLOMAEUS VAN DER,Dutch painter, was born in Holland at the opening of the 17th century, and died at Amsterdam in 1670. The date and place of his birth are uncertain; and it is equally difficult to confirm or to deny the time-honoured statement that he was born in 1613 at Amsterdam. It has been urged indeed by competent authority that Van der Helst was not a native of Amsterdam, because a family of that name lived as early as 1607 at Haarlem, and pictures are shown as works of Van der Helst in the Haarlem Museum which might tend to prove that he was in practice there before he acquired repute at Amsterdam. Unhappily Bartholomew has not been traced amongst the children of Severijn van der Helst, who married at Haarlem in 1607, and there is no proof that the pictures at Haarlem are really his; though if they were so they would show that he learnt his art from Frans Hals and became a skilled master as early as 1631. Scheltema, a very competent judge in matters of Dutch art chronology, supposes that Van der Heist was a resident at Amsterdam in 1636. His first great picture, representing a gathering of civic guards at a brewery, is variously assigned to 1639 and 1643, and still adorns the town-hall of Amsterdam. His noble portraits of the burgomaster Bicker and Andreas Bicker the younger, in the gallery of Amsterdam, of the same date no doubt as Bicker’s wife lately in the Ruhl collection at Cologne, were completed in 1642. From that time till his death there is no difficulty in tracing Van der Helst’s career at Amsterdam. He acquired and kept the position of a distinguished portrait-painter, producing indeed little or nothing besides portraits at any time, but founding, in conjunction with Nicolaes de Helt Stokade, the painters’ guild at Amsterdam in 1654. At some unknown date he married Constance Reynst, of a good patrician family in the Netherlands, bought himself a house in the Doelenstrasse and ended by earning a competence. His likeness of Paul Potter at the Hague, executed in 1654, and his partnership with Backhuysen, who laid in the backgrounds of some of his pictures in 1668, indicate a constant companionship with the best artists of the time. Wagen has said that his portrait of Admiral Kortenaar, in the gallery of Amsterdam, betrays the teaching of Frans Hals, and the statement need not be gainsaid; yet on the whole Van der Helst’s career as a painter was mainly a protest against the systems of Hals and Rembrandt. It is needless to dwell on the pictures which preceded that of 1648, called the Peace of Münster, in the gallery of Amsterdam. The Peace challenges comparison at once with the so-called Night Watch by Rembrandt and the less important but not less characteristic portraits of Hals and his wife in a neighbouring room. Sir Joshua Reynolds was disappointed by Rembrandt, whilst Van der Helst surpassed his expectation. But Bürger asked whether Reynolds had not already been struck with blindness when he ventured on this criticism. The question is still an open one. But certainly Van der Helst attracts by qualities entirely differing from those of Rembrandt and Frans Hals. Nothing can be more striking than the contrast between the strong concentrated light and the deep gloom of Rembrandt and the contempt of chiaroscuropeculiar to his rival, except the contrast between the rapid sketchy touch of Hals and the careful finish and rounding of van der Helst. “The Peace” is a meeting of guards to celebrate the signature of the treaty of Münster. The members of the Doele of St George meet to feast and congratulate each other not at a formal banquet but in a spot laid out for good cheer, where de Wit, the captain of his company, can shake hands with his lieutenant Waveren, yet hold in solemn state the great drinking-horn of St George. The rest of the company sit, stand or busy themselves around—some eating, others drinking, others carving or serving—an animated scene on a long canvas, with figures large as life. Well has Bürger said, the heads are full of life and the hands admirable. The dresses and subordinate parts are finished to a nicety without sacrifice of detail or loss of breadth in touch or impast. But the eye glides from shape to shape, arrested here by expressive features, there by a bright stretch of colours, nowhere at perfect rest because of the lack of a central thought in light and shade, harmonies or composition. Great as the qualities of van der Helst undoubtedly are, he remains below the line of demarcation which separates the second from the first-rate masters of art.

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