Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Hero" to "Hindu Chronology"
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Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Hero" to "Hindu Chronology"
Author: Various
Release date: April 2, 2012 [eBook #39353]
Language: English
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Transcriber's notes:
(1) Numbers following letters (without space) like C2 were originally
printed in subscript. Letter subscripts are preceded by an
underscore, like C_n.
(2) Characters following a carat (^) were printed in superscript.
(3) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective
paragraphs.
(4) Macrons and breves above letters and dots below letters were not
inserted.
(5) [root] stands for the root symbol; [alpha], [beta], etc. for greek
letters.
(6) The following typographical errors have been corrected:
ARTICLE HERO: "... Arthur's foster-brother and seneschal, the type
of the bluff and boastful warrior, and Bedivere (Bedwyr), ..."
'seneschal' amended from 'sensechal'.
ARTICLE HERWEGH, GEORG: "He next studied law, but having gained the
interest of August Lewald (1793-1871) by his literary ability, he
returned to Stuttgart, where Lewald obtained for him a journalistic
post." 'journalistic' amended from 'journalisitic'.
ARTICLE HESSE-CASSEL: "The regent, without his father's coarseness,
had a full share of his arbitrary and avaricious temper."
'arbitrary' amended from 'arbitary'.
ARTICLE HIEL, EMMANUEL: "... Jakoba van Beieren ('Jacqueline of
Bavaria,' a poetic drama, 1880); ..." 'Jacqueline' amended from
'Jacquelein'.
ARTICLE HILL, JOHN: "Hill's botanical labours were undertaken at
the request of his patron, Lord Bute, and he was rewarded by the
order of Vasa from the king of Sweden in 1774." 'undertaken'
amended from 'underaken'.
ARTICLE HILLEL: "The duty of considering oneself part of common
humanity, of not differing from others by any peculiarity of
behaviour, he sums up in the words:" 'common' amended from
'comman'.
ARTICLE HILLEL: "The almost mystical profundity of Hillel's
consciousness of God is shown in the words spoken by him on the
occasion of a feast in the Temple ..." 'consciousness' amended from
'conciousness'.
ARTICLE HINDOSTANI: "In the article Prakrit it is shown that the
same construction is obtained in that language." added 'is'.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA
A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE
AND GENERAL INFORMATION
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME XIII, SLICE IV
HERO to HINDU CHRONOLOGY
ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE:
HERO HIAWATHA
HERO AND LEANDER HIBBING
HERO OF ALEXANDRIA HIBERNACULUM
HERO (the Younger) HIBERNATION
HEROD HIBERNIA
HERODAS HICKERINGILL, EDMUND
HERODIANS HICKES, GEORGE
HERODIANUS HICKOK, LAURENS PERSEUS
HERODIANUS, AELIUS HICKORY
HERODOTUS HICKS, ELIAS
HEROET, ANTOINE HICKS, HENRY
HEROIC ROMANCES HICKS, WILLIAM
HEROIC VERSE HIDALGO (state of Mexico)
HEROLD, LOUIS JOSEPH FERDINAND HIDALGO (Spanish title)
HERON HIDALGO Y COSTILLA, MIGUEL
HERPES HIDDENITE
HERRERA, FERNANDO DE HIDE
HERRERA, FRANCISCO HIEL, EMMANUEL
HERRERA Y TORDESILLAS, ANTONIO DE HIEMPSAL
HERRICK, ROBERT HIERAPOLIS
HERRIES, JOHN CHARLES HIERARCHY
HERRIES, JOHN MAXWELL HIERATIC
HERRING HIERAX
HERRING-BONE HIERO
HERRINGS, BATTLE OF THE HIERO II.
HERRNHUT HIEROCLES
HERSCHEL, CAROLINE LUCRETIA HIEROCLES OF ALEXANDRIA
HERSCHEL, SIR FREDERICK WILLIAM HIEROGLYPHICS
HERSCHEL, SIR JOHN WILLIAM HIERONYMITES
HERSCHELL, FARRER HERSCHELL HIERONYMUS OF CARDIA
HERSENT, LOUIS HIERRO
HERSFELD HIGDON, RANULF
HERSTAL HIGGINS, MATTHEW JAMES
HERTFORD, EARLS AND MARQUESSES OF HIGGINSON, THOMAS WENTWORTH
HERTFORD (Hertfordshire, England) HIGHAM FERRERS
HERTFORDSHIRE HIGHGATE
HERTHA HIGHLANDS, THE
HERTZ, HEINRICH RUDOLF HIGHNESS
HERTZ, HENRIK HIGH PLACE
HERTZBERG, EWALD FRIEDRICH HIGH SEAS
HERTZEN, ALEXANDER HIGHWAY
HERULI HIGINBOTHAM, GEORGE
HERVAS Y PANDURO, LORENZO HILARION, ST
HERVEY, JAMES HILARIUS, ST (bishop of Pictavium)
HERVEY DE SAINT DENYS, JEAN LEON HILARIUS (bishop of Rome)
HERVEY OF ICKWORTH, JOHN HERVEY HILARIUS (Latin poet)
HERVIEU, PAUL HILARIUS, ST (bishop of Arles)
HERWARTH VON BITTENFELD, EBERHARD HILDA, ST
HERWEGH, GEORG HILDBURGHAUSEN
HERZBERG (town in Hanover) HILDEBERT
HERZBERG (town in Saxony) HILDEBRAND, LAY OF
HERZL, THEODOR HILDEBRANDT, EDUARD
HERZOG, HANS HILDEBRANDT, THEODOR
HERZOG, JOHANN JAKOB HILDEGARD, ST
HESEKIEL, JOHANN GEORG LUDWIG HILDEN
HESILRIGE, SIR ARTHUR HILDESHEIM
HESIOD HILDRETH, RICHARD
HESPERIDES HILGENFELD, ADOLF BERNHARD CHRISTOPH
HESPERUS HILL, AARON
HESS (family of German artists) HILL, AMBROSE POWELL
HESS, HEINRICH HERMANN JOSEF HILL, DANIEL HARVEY
HESSE HILL, DAVID BENNETT
HESSE-CASSEL HILL, GEORGE BIRKBECK NORMAN
HESSE-DARMSTADT HILL, JAMES J.
HESSE-HOMBURG HILL, JOHN
HESSE-NASSAU HILL, MATTHEW DAVENPORT
HESSE-ROTENBURG HILL, OCTAVIA and MIRANDA
HESSIAN HILL, ROWLAND
HESSUS, HELIUS EOBANUS HILL, SIR ROWLAND
HESTIA HILL, ROWLAND HILL
HESYCHASTS HILL (elevation)
HESYCHIUS (Alexandrian grammarian) HILLAH
HESYCHIUS OF MILETUS HILLARD, GEORGE STILLMAN
HETAERISM HILLEBRAND, KARL
HETEROKARYOTA HILLEL (Jewish rabbi)
HETERONOMY HILLER, FERDINAND
HETMAN HILLER, JOHANN ADAM
HETTNER, HERMANN THEODOR HILLIARD, LAWRENCE
HETTSTEDT HILLIARD, NICHOLAS
HEUGLIN, THEODOR VON HILLSDALE
HEULANDITE HILL TIPPERA
HEUSCH, WILLEM HILTON, JOHN
HEVELIUS, JOHANN HILTON, WILLIAM
HEWETT, SIR PRESCOTT GARDNER HILVERSUM
HEWITT, ABRAM STEVENS HIMALAYA
HEWLETT, MAURICE HENRY HIMERA
HEXAMETER HIMERIUS
HEXAPLA HIMLY (LOUIS), AUGUSTE
HEXAPODA HIMMEL, FREDERICK HENRY
HEXASTYLE HINCKLEY
HEXATEUCH HINCKS, EDWARD
HEXHAM HINCKS, SIR FRANCIS
HEYDEN, JAN VAN DER HINCMAR
HEYLYN, PETER HIND
HEYN, PIETER PIETERZOON HINDERSIN, GUSTAV EDUARD VON
HEYNE, CHRISTIAN GOTTLOB HINDI, EASTERN
HEYSE, PAUL JOHANN LUDWIG HINDI, WESTERN
HEYSHAM HINDKI
HEYWOOD, JOHN HINDLEY
HEYWOOD, THOMAS HINDOSTANI
HEYWOOD (Lancashire, England) HINDOSTANI LITERATURE
HEZEKIAH HINDU CHRONOLOGY
HIATUS
HERO (Gr. [Greek: heros]), a term specially applied to warriors of
extraordinary strength and courage, and generally to all who were
distinguished from their fellows by superior moral, physical or
intellectual qualities. No satisfactory derivation of the word has been
suggested.
_Ancient Greek Heroes._
In ancient Greece, the heroes were the object of a special cult, and as
such were intimately connected with its religious life. Various theories
have been put forward as to the nature of these heroes. According to
some authorities, they were idealized historical personages; according
to others, symbolical representations of the forces of nature. The view
most commonly held is that they were degraded or "depotentiated" gods,
occupying a position intermediate between gods and men. According to E.
Rohde (in _Psyche_) they are souls of the dead, which after separation
from the body enter upon a higher, eternal existence. But it is only a
select minority who attain to the rank of heroes after death, only the
distinguished men of the past. The worship of these heroes is in reality
an ancestor worship, which existed in pre-Homeric times, and was
preserved in local cults. Instances no doubt occur of gods being
degraded to the ranks of heroes, but these are not the real heroes, the
heroes who are the object of a cult. The cult-heroes were all persons
who had lived the life of man on earth, and it was necessary for the
degraded gods to pass through this stage. They did not at once become
cult-heroes, but only after they had undergone death like other mortals.
Only one who has been a man can become a hero. The heroes are spirits of
the dead, not demi-gods; their position is not intermediate between gods
and men, but by the side of these they exist as a separate class.
In Homer the term is applied especially to warrior princes, to kings and
kings' sons, even to distinguished persons of lower rank, and free men
generally. In Hesiod it is chiefly confined to those who fought before
Troy and Thebes; in view of their supposed divine origin, he calls them
demi-gods ([Greek: hemitheoi]). This name is also given them in an
interpolated passage in the _Iliad_ (xii. 23), which is quite at
variance with the general Homeric idea of the heroes, who are no more
than men, even if of divine origin and of superior strength and prowess.
But neither in Homer nor in Hesiod is there any trace of the idea that
the heroes after death had any power for good or evil over the lives of
those who survived them; and consequently, no cult. Nevertheless, traces
of an earlier ancestor worship appear, e.g. in funeral games in honour
of Patroclus and other heroes, while the Hesiodic account of the five
ages of man is a reminiscence of the belief in the continued existence
of souls in a higher life. This pre-historic worship and belief, for a
time obscured, were subsequently revived. According to Porphyry (_De
abstinentia_, iv. 22), Draco ordered the inhabitants of Attica to honour
the gods and heroes of their country "in accordance with the usage of
their fathers" with offerings of first fruits and sacrificial cakes
every year, thereby clearly pointing to a custom of high antiquity.
Solon also ordered that the tombs of the heroes should be treated with
the greatest respect, and Cleisthenes (q.v.) sought to create a
pan-Athenian enthusiasm by calling his new tribes after Attic heroes and
setting up their statues in the Agora. Heroic honours were at first
bestowed upon the founders of a colony or city, and the ancestors of
families; if their name was not known, one was adopted from legend. In
many cases these heroes were purely fictitious; such were the supposed
ancestors of the noble and priestly families of Attica and elsewhere
(Butadae at Athens, Branchidae at Miletus Ceryces at Eleusis), of the
eponymi of the tribes and demes. Again, side by side with gods of
superior rank, certain heroes were worshipped as protecting spirits of
the country or state; such were the Aeacidae amongst the Aeginetans,
Ajax son of Oileus amongst the Epizephyrian Locrians and Hector at
Thebes. Neglect of the worship of these heroes was held to be
responsible for pestilence, bad crops and other misfortunes, while, on
the other hand, if duly honoured, their influence was equally
beneficent. This belief was supported by the Delphic oracle, which was
largely instrumental in promoting hero-worship and keeping alive its due
observance. Special importance was attached to the grave of the hero and
to his bodily remains, with which the spirit of the departed was
inseparably connected. The grave was regarded as his place of abode,
from which he could only be absent for a brief period; hence his bones
were fetched from abroad (e.g. Cimon brought those of Theseus from
Scyros), or if they could not be procured, at least a cenotaph was
erected in his honour. Their relics also were carefully preserved: the
house of Cadmus at Thebes, the hut of Orestes at Tegea, the stone on
which Telamon had sat at Salamis (in Cyprus). Special shrines ([Greek:
heroa]) were also erected in their honour, usually over their graves. In
these shrines a complete set of armour was kept, in accordance with the
idea that the hero was essentially a warrior, who on occasion came forth
from his grave and fought at the head of his countrymen, putting the
enemy to flight as during his lifetime. Like the gods, the cult heroes
were supposed to exercise an influence on human affairs, though not to
the same extent, their sphere of action being confined to their own
localities. Amongst the earliest known historical examples of the
elevation of the dead to the rank of heroes are Timesius the founder of
Abdera, Miltiades, son of Cypselus, Harmodius and Aristogiton and
Brasidas, the victor of Amphipolis, who ousted the local Athenian hero
Hagnon. In course of time admission to the rank of a hero became far
more common, and was even accorded to the living, such as Lysimachus in
Samothrace and the tyrant Nicias of Cos. Antiochus of Commagene
instituted an order of priests to celebrate the anniversary of his birth
and coronation in a special sanctuary, and the kings of Pergamum claimed
divine honours for themselves and their wives during their lifetime. The
birthday of Eumenes was regularly kept, and every month sacrifice was
offered to him and games held in his honour. In addition to persons of
high rank, poets, legendary and others (Linus, Orpheus, Homer, Aeschylus
and Sophocles), legislators and physicians (Lycurgus, Hippocrates), the
patrons of various trades or handicrafts (artists, cooks, bakers,
potters), the heads of philosophical schools (Plato, Democritus,
Epicurus) received the honours of a cult. At Teos incense was offered
before the statue of a flute-player during his lifetime. In some
countries the honour became so general that every man after death was
described as a hero in his epitaph--in Thessaly even slaves.
The cult of the heroes exhibits points of resemblance with that of the
chthonian divinities and of the dead, but differs from that of the
ordinary gods, a further indication that they were not "depotentiated"
gods. Thus, sacrifice was offered to them at night or in the evening;
not on a high, but on a low altar ([Greek: eschara]), surrounded by a
trench to receive the blood of the victim, which was supposed to make
its way through the ground to the occupant of the grave; the victims
were black male animals, whose heads were turned downwards, not upwards;
their blood was allowed to trickle on the ground to appease the departed
([Greek: haimakouria]); the body was entirely consumed by fire and no
mortal was allowed to eat of it; the technical expression for the
sacrifice was not [Greek: thuein] but [Greek: enagizein] (less commonly
[Greek: entemnein]). The chthonian aspect of the hero is further shown
by his attribute the snake, and in many cases he appears under that form
himself. On special occasions a sacrificial meal of cooked food was set
out for the heroes, of which they were solemnly invited to partake. The
fullest description of such a festival is the account given by Plutarch
(_Aristides_, 21) of the festival celebrated by the Plataeans in honour
of their countrymen who had fallen at the battle of Plataea. On the 16th
of the month Maimacterion, a long procession, headed by a trumpeter
playing a warlike air, set out for the graves; wagons decked with myrtle
and garlands of flowers followed, young men (who must be of free birth)
carried jars of wine, milk, oil and perfumes; next came the black bull
destined for the sacrifice, the rear being brought up by the archon, who
wore the purple robe of the general, a naked sword in one hand, in the
other an urn. When he came near the tombs, he drew some water with
which he washed the gravestones, afterwards anointing them with perfume;
he then sacrificed the bull on the altar calling upon Zeus Chthonios and
Hermes Psychopompos, and inviting them in company with the heroes to the
festival of blood. Finally, he poured a libation of wine with the words:
"I drink to those who died for the freedom of the Hellenes."
See especially E. Rohde, _Psyche_ (1905) and in _Rheinisches Museum_,
li. (1895), 28; P. Stengel, _Die griechischen Kultusaltertumer_
(Munich, 1898), p. 124; G. F. Schomann, _Griechische Altertumer_, ii.
(1897), 159; J. Wassner, _De heroum apud Graecos cultu_ (Kiel, 1883);
article by F. Deneken in Roscher's _Lexikon der Mythologie_, in which
a large amount of material is accumulated; J. A. Hild, _Etude sur les
demons_ (1881) and article in Daremberg and Saglio's _Dictionnaire des
antiquites_.
_Teutonic Legend._
Many of the chief characteristics of the ancient Greek heroes are
reproduced in those of the Teutonic North, the parallel being in some
cases very striking; Siegfried, for instance, like Achilles, is
vulnerable only in one spot, and Wayland Smith, like Hephaestus, is
lame. Superhuman qualities and powers, too, are commonly ascribed to
both, an important difference, however, being that whatever worship may
have been paid to the Teutonic heroes never crystallized into a cult.
This applies equally to those who have a recognized historical origin
and to those who are regarded as purely mythical. Of the latter the
number has tended to diminish in the light of modern scholarship. The
fashion during the 19th century set strongly in the other direction, and
the "degraded gods" theory was applied not only to such conspicuous
heroes as Siegfried, Dietrich and Beowulf, but to a host of minor
characters, such as the good marquis Rudeger of the Nibelungenlied and
our own Robin Hood (both identified with Woden Hruodperaht). The
reaction from one extreme has, indeed, tended to lead to another, until
not only the heroes, but the very gods themselves, are being traced to
very human, not to say commonplace, origins. Thus M. Henri de Tourville,
in his_ Histoire de la formation particulariste_ (1903), basing his
argument on the _Ynglinga Saga_, interpreted in the light of "Social
Science," reveals Odin, "the traveller," as a great "caravan-leader" and
warrior, who, driven from Asgard--a trading city on the borders of the
steppes east of the Don--by "the blows that Pompey aimed at
Mithridates," brought to the north the arts and industries of the East.
The argument is developed with convincing ingenuity, but it may be
doubted whether it has permanently "rescued Odin from the misty
dreamland of mythology and restored him to history." It is now, however,
admitted that, whatever influence the one may have from time to time
exercised on the other, Teutonic myth and Teutonic heroic legend were
developed on independent lines. The Teutonic heroes are, in the main,
historical personages, never gods; though, like the Greek heroes, they
are sometimes endowed with semi-divine attributes or interpreted as
symbolical representations of natural forces.
The origin of Teutonic heroic saga, which may be regarded as including
that of the Germans, Goths, Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians, is to be
looked for in the period of the so-called migration of nations (A.D.
350-650). It consequently rests upon a distinct basis of fact, the saga
(in the older and wider sense of any story said or sung) being indeed
the oldest form of historical tradition; though this of course does not
exclude the probability of the accretion of mythical elements round
persons and episodes from the very first. As to the origin of the heroic
sagas as we now have them, Tacitus tells us that the deeds of Arminius
were still celebrated in song a hundred years after his death (_Annals_,
ii. 88) and in the _Germania_ he speaks of "old songs" as the only kind
of "annals" which the ancient Germans possessed; but, whatever relics of
the old songs may be embedded in the Teutonic sagas, they have left no
recognizable mark on the heroic poetry of the German peoples. The
attempt to identify Arminius with Siegfried is now generally abandoned.
Teutonic heroic saga, properly so-called, consists of the traditions
connected with the migration period, the earliest traces of which are
found in the works of historical writers such as Ammianus Marcellinus
and Cassiodorus. According to Jordanes (the epitomator of Cassiodorus's
_History of the Goths_) at the funeral of Attila his vassals, as they
rode round the corpse, sang of his glorious deeds. The next step in the
development of epic narrative was the single lay of an episodic
character, sung by a single individual, who was frequently a member of a
distinguished family, not merely a professional minstrel. Then, as
different stories grew up round the person of a particular hero, they
formed a connected cycle of legend, the centre of which was the person
of the hero (e.g. Dietrich of Bern). The most important figures of these
cycles are the following.
(1) Beowulf, king of the Geatas (Jutland), whose story in its present
form was probably brought from the continent by the Angles. It is an
amalgamation of the myth of Beowa, the slayer of the water-demon and the
dragon, with the historical legend of Beowulf, nephew and successor of
Hygelac (Chochilaicus), king of the Geatas, who was defeated and slain
(c. 520) while ravaging the Frisian coast. The water-demon Grendel and
the dragon (probably), by whom Beowulf is mortally wounded, have been
supposed to represent the powers of autumn and darkness, the floods
which at certain seasons overflow the low-lying countries on the coast
of the North Sea and sweep away all human habitations; Beowulf is the
hero of spring and light who, after overcoming the spirit of the raging
waters, finally succumbs to the dragon of approaching winter. Others
regard him as a wind-hero, who disperses the pestilential vapours of the
fens. Beowulf is also a culture-hero. His father Sceaf-Scyld (i.e. Scyld
Scefing, "the protector with the sheaf") lands on the Anglian or
Scandinavian coast when a child, in a rudderless ship, asleep on a sheaf
of grain, symbolical of the means whereby his kingdom shall become
great; the son indicates the blessings of a fixed habitation, secured
against the attacks of the sea. (2) Hildebrand, the hero of the oldest
German epic. A loyal supporter of Theodoric, he follows his master, when
threatened by Odoacer, to the court of Attila. After thirty years'
absence, he returns to his home In Italy; his son Hadubrand, believing
his father to be dead, suspects treachery and refuses to accept presents
offered by the father in token of good-will. A fight takes place, in
which the son is slain by the father. In a later version, recognition
and reconciliation take place. Well-known parallels are Odysseus and
Telegonis, Rustem and Sohrab. (3) Ermanaric, the king of the East Goths,
who according to Ammianus Marcellinus slew himself (c. 375) in terror at
the invasion of the Huns. With him is connected the old German Dioscuri
myth of the Harlungen. (4) Dietrich of Bern (Verona), the legendary name
of Theodoric the Great. Contrary to historical tradition, Italy is
supposed to have been his ancestral inheritance, of which he has been
deprived by Odoacer, or by Ermanaric, who in his altered character of a
typical tyrant appears as his uncle and contemporary. He takes refuge in
Hungary with Etzel (Attila), by whose aid he finally recovers his
kingdom. In the later middle ages he is represented as fighting with
giants, dragons and dwarfs, and finally disappears on a black horse.
Some attempts have been made to identify him as a kind of Donar or god
of thunder. (5) Siegfried (M.H. Ger. Sivrit), the hero of the
_Niebelungenlied_, the Sigurd of the related northern sagas, is usually
regarded as a purely mythical figure, a hero of light who is ultimately
overcome by the powers of darkness, the mist-people (Niebelungen). He
is, however, closely associated with historical characters and events,
e.g. with the Burgundian king Gundahari (Gunther, Gunnar) and the
overthrow of his house and nation by the Huns; the scholars have
exercised considerable ingenuity in attempting to identify him with
various historical figures. Theodor Abeling (_Das Nibelungenlied_,
Leipzig, 1907) traces the Nibelung sagas to three groups of Burgundian
legends, each based on fact: the Frankish-Burgundian tradition of the
murder of Segeric, son of the Burgundian king Sigimund, who was slain by
his father at the instigation of his stepmother; the Frankish-Burgundian
story, as told by Gregory of Tours (iii. 11), of the defeat of the
Burgundian kings Sigimund and Godomar, and the captivity and murder of
Sigimund, by the sons of Clovis, at the instigation of their mother
Chrothildis, in revenge for the murder of her father Chilperich and of
her mother, by Godomar; the Rhenish-Burgundian story of the ruin of
Gundahari's kingdom by Attila's Huns. Herr Abeling identifies Siegfried
(Sigurd) with Segeric, while--according to him--the heroine of the
Nibelung sagas, Kriemhild (Gudrun), represents a confusion of two
historical persons: Chrothildis, the wife of Clovis, and Ildico (Hilde),
the wife of Attila. (See also the articles KRIEMHILD, NIBELUNGENLIED).
(6) Hugdietrich, Wolfdietrich and Ortnit, whose legend, like that of
Siegfried, is of Frankish origin. It is preserved in four versions, the
best of which is the oldest, and has an historical foundation.
Hugdietrich is the "Frankish Dietrich" (= Hugo Theodoric), king of
Austrasia (d. 534), who like his son and successor Theodebert, was
illegitimate; both had to fight for their inheritance with relatives.
The transference of the scene to Constantinople is a reminiscence of the
events of the Crusades and Theodebert's projected campaign against that
city. The version in which Hugdietrich gains access to his future wife
by disguising himself as a woman has also a foundation in fact. As the
myth of the Harlungen is connected with Ermanaric, so another Dioscuri
myth (of the Hartungen) is combined with the Ortnit-Wolfdietrich legend.
The Hartungen are probably identical with the divine youths (mentioned
in Tacitus as worshipped by the Vandal Naharvali or Nahanarvali), from
whom the Vandal royal family, the Asdingi, claimed descent. Asdingi
([Greek: Astiggoi]) would be represented in Gothic by Hazdiggos, "men
with women's hair" (cf. _muliebri ornatu_ in Tacitus), and in middle
high German by Hartungen. (7) Rother, king of Lombardy. Desiring to wed
the daughter of Constantine, king of Constantinople, he sends twelve
envoys to ask her in marriage. They are arrested and thrown into prison
by the king. Rother, who appears under the name of Dietrich, sets out
with an army, liberates the envoys and carries off the princess. One
version places the scene in the land of the Huns. The character of
Constantine in many respects resembles that of Alexius Comnenus; the
slaying of a tame lion by one of the gigantic followers of Rother is
founded on an incident which actually took place at the court of Alexius
during the crusade of 1101 under duke Welf of Bavaria, when _King
Rother_ was composed about 1160 by a Rhenish minstrel. Rother may be the
Lombard king Rothari (636-650), transferred to the period of the
Crusades. (8) Walther of Aquitaine, chiefly known from the Latin poem
_Waltharius_, written by Ekkehard of St Gall at the beginning of the
10th century, and fragments of an 8th-century Anglo-Saxon Epic
_Waldere_. Walther is not an historical figure, although the legend
undoubtedly represents typical occurrences of the migration period, such
as the detention and flight of hostages of noble family from the court
of the Huns, and the rescue of captive maidens by abduction. (9) Wieland
(Volundr), Wayland the Smith, the only Teutonic hero (his original home
was lower Saxony) who firmly established himself in England. There is
absolutely no historical background for his legend. He is a fire-spirit,
who is pressed into man's service, and typifies the advance from the
stone age to a higher stage of civilization (working in metals). As the
lame smith he reminds us of Hephaestus, and in his flight with wings of
Daedalus escaping from Minos. (10) Hogni (Hagen) and Hedin (Hetel),
whose personalities are overshadowed by the heroines Hilde and Gudrun
(Kudrun, Kutrun). In one version occurs the incident of the never-ending
battle between the forces of Hagen and Hedin. Every night Hilde revives
the fallen, and "so will it continue till the twilight of the gods." The
battle represents the eternal conflict between light and darkness, the
alternation of day and night. Hilde here figures as a typical Valkyr
delighting in battle and bloodshed, who frustrates a reconciliation.
Hedin had sent a necklace as a peace-offering to Hagen, but Hilde
persuades her father that it is only a ruse. This necklace occurs in the
story of the goddess Freya (Frigg), who is said to have caused the
battle to conciliate the wrath of Odin at her infidelity, the price paid
by her for the possession of the necklace Brisnigamen; again, the light
god Heimdal is said to have fought with Loki for the necklace (the sun)
stolen by the latter. Hence the battle has been explained as the
necklace myth in epic form. The historical background is the raids of
the Teutonic maritime tribes on the coasts of England and Ireland.
Famous heroes who are specially connected with England are Alfred the
Great, Richard Coeur-de-Lion, King Horn, Havelok the Dane, Guy of
Warwick, Sir Bevis of Hampton (or Southampton), Robin Hood and his
companions.
_Celtic Heroes._
The Celtic heroic saga in the British islands may be divided into the
two principal groups of Gaelic (Irish) and Brython (Welsh), the first,
excluding the purely mythological, into the Ultonian (connected with
Ulster) and the Ossianic. The Ultonianis grouped round the names of King
Conchobar and the hero Cuchulainn, "the Irish Achilles," the defender of
Ulster against all Ireland, regarded by some as a solar hero. The second
cycle contains the epics of Finn (Fionn, Fingal) mac Cumhail, and his
son Oisin (Ossian), the bard and warrior, chiefly known from the
supposed Ossianic poems of Macpherson. (See CELT, sec. _Celtic
Literature_.)
Of Brython origin is the cycle of King Arthur (Artus), the adopted
national hero of the mixed nationalities of whom the "English" people
was composed. Here he appears as a chiefly mythical personality, who
slays monsters, such as the giant of St Michel, the boar Troit, the
demon cat, and goes down to the underworld. The original Welsh legend
was spread by British refugees in Brittany, and was thus celebrated by
both English and French Celts. From a literary point of view, however,
it is chiefly French and forms "the matter of Brittany." Arthur, the
leader (_comes Britanniae, dux bellorum_) of the Siluri or Dumnonii
against the Saxons, flourished at the beginning of the 6th century. He
is first spoken of in Nennius's _History of the Britons_ (9th century),
and at greater length in Geoffrey of Monmouth's _History of the Kings of
Britain_ (12th century), at the end of which the French Breton cycle
attained its fullest development in the poems of Chretien de Troyes and
others.
Speaking generally, the Celtic heroes are differentiated from the
Teutonic by the extreme exaggeration of their superhuman, or rather
extra-human, qualities. Teutonic legend does not lightly exaggerate, and
what to us seems incredible in it may be easily conceived as credible to
those by whom and for whom the tales were told; that Sigmund and his son
Sinfiotli turned themselves into wolves would be but a sign of
exceptional powers to those who believed in werewolves; Fafnir assuming
the form of a serpent would be no more incredible to the barbarous
Teuton than the similar transformation of Proteus to the Greek. But in
the characterization of their heroes the Celtic imagination runs riot,
and the quality of their persons and their acts becomes exaggerated
beyond the bounds of any conceivable probability. Take, for instance,
the description of some of Arthur's knights in the Welsh tale of
_Kilhwch and Olwen_ (in the _Mabinogion_). Along with Kai and Bedwyr
(Bedivere), Peredur (Perceval), Gwalchmai (Gawain), and many others, we
have such figures as Sgilti Yscandroed, whose way through the wood lay
along the tops of the trees, and whose tread was so light that no blade
of grass bent beneath his weight; Sol, who could stand all day upon one
leg; Sugyn the son of Sugnedydd, who was "broad-chested" to such a
degree that he could suck up the sea on which were three hundred ships
and leave nothing but dry land; Gweyyl, the son of Gwestad, who when he
was sad would let one of his lips drop beneath his waist and turn up the
other like a cap over his head; and Uchtry Varyf Draws, who spread his
red untrimmed beard over the eight-and-forty rafters of Arthur's hall.
Such figures as these make no human impression, and criticism has busied
itself in tracing them to one or other of the shadowy divinities of the
Celtic pantheon. However this may be, remnants of their primitive
superhuman qualities cling to the Celtic heroes long after they have
been transfigured, under the influence of Christianity and chivalry,
into the heroes of the medieval Arthurian romance, types--for the most
part--of the knightly virtues as these were conceived by the middle
ages; while shadowy memories of early myths live on, strangely
disguised, in certain of the episodes repeated uncritically by the
medieval poets. So Merlin preserves his diabolic origin; Arthur his
mystic coming and his mystic passing; while Gawain, and after him
Lancelot, journey across the river, as the Irish hero Bran had done
before them to the island of fair women--the Celtic vision of the realm
of death.
The chief heroes of the medieval Arthurian romances are the following.
Arthur himself, who tends however to become completely overshadowed by
his knights, who make his court the starting-point of their adventures.
Merlin (Myrddin), the famous wizard, bard and warrior, perhaps an
historical figure, first introduced by Geoffrey of Monmouth, originally
called Ambrose from the British leader Ambrosius Aurelianus, under whom
he is said to have first served. Perceval (Parzival, Parsifal), the
Welsh Peredur, "the seeker of the basin," the most intimately connected
with the quest of the Grail (q.v.). Tristan (Tristram), the ideal lover
of the middle ages, whose name is inseparably associated with that of
Iseult. Lancelot, son of Ban king of Brittany, a creation of chivalrous
romance, who only appears in Arthurian literature under French
influence, known chiefly from his amour with Guinevere, perhaps in
imitation of the story of Tristan and Iseult. Gawain (Welwain, Welsh
Gwalchmai), Arthur's nephew, who in medieval romance remains the type of
knightly courage and chivalry, until his character is degraded in order
to exalt that of Lancelot. Among less important, but still conspicuous,
figures may be mentioned Kay (the Kai of the _Mabinogion_), Arthur's
foster-brother and seneschal, the type of the bluff and boastful
warrior, and Bedivere (Bedwyr), the type of brave knight and faithful
retainer, who alone is with Arthur at his passing, and afterwards
becomes "a hermit and a holy man." (See ARTHUR, MERLIN, PERCEVAL,
TRISTAN, LANCELOT, GAWAIN.)
_Heroes of Romance._
Another series of heroes, forming the central figures of stories
variously derived but developed in Europe by the Latin-speaking peoples,
may be conveniently grouped under the heading of "romance." Of these the
most important are Alexander of Macedon and Charlemagne, while alongside
of them Priam and other heroes of the Trojan war appear during the
middle ages in strangely altered guise. Of all heroes of romance
Alexander has been the most widely celebrated. His name, in the form of
Iskander, is familiar in legend and story all over the East to this day;
to the West he was introduced through a Latin translation of the
original Greek romance (by the pseudo-Callisthenes) to which the
innumerable Oriental versions are likewise traceable (see ALEXANDER
III., KING OF MACEDON; sec. _The Romance of Alexander_). More important
in the West, however, was the cycle of legends gathering round the
figure of Charlemagne, forming what was known as "the matter of France."
The romances of this cycle, of Germanic (Frankish) origin and developed
probably in the north of France by the French (probably in the north of
France) contain reminiscences of the heroes of the Merovingian period,
and in their later development were influenced by the Arthurian cycle.
Just as Arthur was eclipsed by his companions, so Charlemagne's vassal
nobles, except in the _Chanson de Roland_, are exalted at the expense of
the emperor, probably the result of the changed relations between the
later emperors and their barons. The character of Charlemagne himself
undergoes a change; in the _Chanson de Roland_ he is a venerable figure,
mild and dignified, while later he appears as a cruel and typical tyrant
(as is also the case with Ermanaric). The basis of his legend is mainly
historical, although the story of his journey to Constantinople and the
East is mythical, and incidents have been transferred from the reign of
Charles Martel to his. Charlemagne is chiefly venerated as the champion
of Christianity against the heathen and the Saracens. (See CHARLEMAGNE,
_ad fin._ "The Charlemagne Legends.")
The most famous heroes who are associated with him are Roland, praefect
of the marches of Brittany, the Orlando of Ariosto, slain at Roncevaux
(Roncevalles) in the Pyrenees, and his friend and rival Oliver
(Olivier); Ogier the Dane, the Holger Danske of Hans Andersen, and Huon
of Bordeaux, probably both introduced from the Arthurian cycle; Renaud
(Rinaldo) of Montauban, one of the four sons of Aymon, to whom the
wonderful horse Bayard was presented by Charlemagne; the traitor Doon of
Mayence; Ganelon, responsible for the treachery that led to the death of
Roland; Archbishop Turpin, a typical specimen of muscular Christianity;
William Fierabras, William au court nez, William of Toulouse, and
William of Orange (all probably identical), and Vivien, the nephew of
the latter and the hero of Aliscans. The late Charlemagne romances
originated the legends, in English form, of _Sowdone of Babylone_, _Sir
Otnel_, _Sir Firumbras_ and _Huon of Bordeaux_ (in which Oberon, the
king of the fairies, the son of Julius Caesar and Morgan the Fay, was
first made known to England).
The chief remains of the Spanish heroic epic are some poems on the Cid,
on the seven Infantes of Lara, and on Fernan Gonzalez, count of Castile.
The legend of Charlemagne as told in the _Cronica general_ of Alfonso X.
created the desire for a national hero distinguished for his exploits
against the Moors, and Roland was thus supplanted by Bernardo del
Carpio. Another famous hero and centre of a 14th-century cycle of
romance was Amadis of Gaul; its earliest form is Spanish, although the
Portuguese have claimed it as a translation from their own language.
There is no trace of a French original.
_Slavonic Heroes._--The Slavonic heroic saga of Russia centres round
Vladimir of Kiev (980-1015), the first Christian ruler of that country,
whose personality is eclipsed by that of Ilya (Elias) of Mourom, the son
of a peasant, who was said to have saved the empire from the Tatars at
the urgent request of his emperor. It is not known whether he was an
historical personage; many of the achievements attributed to him border
on the miraculous. A much-discussed work is the _Tale of Igor_, the
oldest of the Russian medieval epics. Igor was the leader of a raid
against the heathen Polovtsi in 1185; at first successful, he was
afterwards defeated and taken prisoner, but finally managed to escape.
Although the Finns are not Slavs, on topographical grounds mention may
here be made of Wainamoinen, the great magician and hero of the Finnish
epic _Kalevala_ ("land of heroes"). The popular hero of the Servians and
Bulgarians is Marko Kralyevich (q.v.), son of Vukashin, characterized by
Goethe as a counterpart of the Greek Heracles and the Persian Rustem.
For the Persian, Indian, &c., heroes see the articles on the literature
and religions of the various countries.
AUTHORITIES.--On the subject generally, see J. G. T. Grasse, _Die
grossen Sagenkreise des Mittelalters_ (Dresden, 1842), forming part of
his _Lehrbuch einer Literargeschichte der beruhmtesten Volker des
Mittelalters_; W. P. Ker, _Epic and Romance_ (2nd ed., 1908).
TEUTONIC.--B. Symons, "Germanische Heldensage" in H. Paul's _Grundris
der germanischen Philologie_, iii. (Strassburg, 1900), 2nd revised
edition, separately printed (_ib._, 1905); W. Grimm, _Die deutsche
Heldensage_ (1829, 3rd ed., 1889), still one of the most important
works; W. Muller, _Mythologie der deutschen Heldensage_ (Heilbronn,
1886) and supplement, _Zur Mythologie der griechischen und deutschen
Heldensage_ (_ib._, 1889); O. L. Jiriczek, _Deutsche Heldensagen_, i.
(Strassburg, 1898) and _Die deutsche Heldensage_ (3rd revised edition,
Leipzig, 1906); Chantepie de la Saussaye, _The Religion of the
Teutons_ (Eng. tr., Boston, U.S.A., 1902); J. G. Robertson, _History
of German Literature_ (1902). See also HELDENBUCH.
CELTIC.--M. H. d'Arbois de Jubainville, _Cours de litterature
celtique_ (12 vols., 1883-1902), one vol. trans. into English by R. I.
Best, _The Irish Mythological Cycle and Celtic Mythology_ (1903); L.
Petit de Julleville, _Hist. de la langue et de la litt. francaise_, i.
_Moyen age_ (1896); C. Squire, _The Mythology of the British Isles: an
Introduction to Celtic Myth and Romance_ (1905); J. Rhys, _Celtic
Britain_ (3rd ed., 1904). SLAVONIC.--A. N. Rambaud, _La Russie epique_
(1876); W. Wollner, _Untersuchungen uber die Volksepik der
Grossrussen_ (1879); W. R. Morfill, _Slavonic Literature_ (1883).
HERO AND LEANDER, two lovers celebrated in antiquity. Hero, the
beautiful priestess of Aphrodite at Sestos, was seen by Leander, a youth
of Abydos, at the celebration of the festival of Aphrodite and Adonis.
He became deeply enamoured of her; but, as her position as priestess and
the opposition of her parents rendered their marriage impossible they
agreed to carry on a clandestine intercourse. Every night Hero placed a
lamp in the top of the tower where she dwelt by the sea, and Leander,
guided by it, swam across the dangerous Hellespont. One stormy night the
lamp was blown out and Leander perished. On finding his body next
morning on the shore, Hero flung herself into the waves. The story is
referred to by Virgil (_Georg._ iii. 258), Statius (_Theb._ vi. 535) and
Ovid (_Her._ xviii. and xix.). The beautiful little epic of Musaeus has
been frequently translated, and is expanded in the _Hero and Leander_ of
C. Marlowe and G. Chapman. It is also the subject of a ballad by
Schiller and a drama by F. Grillparzer.
See M. H. Jellinek, _Die Sage von Hero und Leander in der Dichtung_
(1890), and G. Knaack "Hero und Leander" in _Festgabe fur Franz
Susemihl_ (1898). A careful collection of materials will be found in
F. Koppner, _Die Sage von Hero und Leander in der Literatur und Kunst
des Altertums_ (1894).
HERO OF ALEXANDRIA, Greek geometer and writer on mechanical and physical
subjects, probably flourished in the second half of the 1st century.
This is the more modern view, in contrast to the earlier theory most
generally accepted, according to which he flourished about 100 B.C. The
earlier theory started from the superscription of one of his works,
[Greek: Heronos Ktesibiou belopoiika], from which it was inferred that
Hero was a pupil of Ctesibius. Martin, Hultsch and Cantor took this
Ctesibius to be a barber of that name who lived in the reign of Ptolemy
Euergetes II. (d. 117 B.C.) and is credited with having invented an
improved water-organ. But this identification is far from certain, as a
Ctesibius _mechanicus_ is mentioned by Athenaeus as having lived under
Ptolemy II. Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.). Nor can the relation of master
and pupil be certainly inferred from the superscription quoted (observe
the omission of any article), which really asserts no more than that
Hero re-edited an earlier treatise by Ctesibius, and implies nothing
about his being an _immediate_ predecessor. Further, it is certain that
Hero used physical and mathematical writings by Posidonius, the Stoic,
of Apamea, Cicero's teacher, who lived until about the middle of the 1st
century B.C. The positive arguments for the more modern view of Hero's
date are (1) the use by him of Latinisms from which Diels concluded that
the 1st century A.D. was the earliest possible date, (2) the description
in Hero's _Mechanics_ iii. of a small olive-press with one screw which
is alluded to by Pliny (_Nat. Hist._ viii.) as having been introduced
since A.D. 55, (3) an allusion by Plutarch (who died A.D. 120) to the
proposition that light is reflected from a surface at an angle equal to
the angle of incidence, which Hero proved in his _Catoptrica_, the words
used by Plutarch fitting well with the corresponding passage of that
work (as to which see below). Thus we arrive at the latter half of the
1st century A.D. as the approximate date of Hero's activity.
The geometrical treatises which have survived (though not interpolated)
in Greek are entitled respectively _Definitiones_, _Geometria_,
_Geodaesia_, _Stereometrica_ (i. and ii.), _Mensurae_, _Liber
Geoponicus_, to which must now be added the _Metrica_ recently
discovered by R. Schone in a MS. at Constantinople. These books, except
the _Definitiones_, mostly consist of directions for obtaining, from
given parts, the areas or volumes, and other parts, of plane or solid
figures. A remarkable feature is the bare statement of a number of very
close approximations to the square roots of numbers which are not
complete squares. Others occur in the _Metrica_ where also a method of
finding such approximate square, and even approximate cube, roots is
shown. Hero's expressions for the areas of regular polygons of from 5 to
12 sides in terms of the squares of the sides show interesting
approximations to the values of trigonometrical ratios. Akin to the
geometrical works is that _On the Dioptra_, a remarkable book on
land-surveying, so called from the instrument described in it, which was
used for the same purposes as the modern theodolite. It is in this book
that Hero proves the expression for the area of a triangle in terms of
its sides. The _Pneumatica_ in two books is also extant in Greek as is
also the _Automatopoietica_. In the former will be found such things as
siphons, "Hero's fountain," "penny-in-the-slot" machines, a fire-engine,
a water-organ, and arrangements employing the force of steam. Pappus
quotes from three books of _Mechanics_ and from a work called
_Barulcus_, both by Hero. The three books on _Mechanics_ survive in an
Arabic translation which, however, bears a title "On the lifting of
heavy objects." This corresponds exactly to _Barulcus_, and it is
probable that _Barulcus_ and _Mechanics_ were only alternative titles
for one and the same work. It is indeed not credible that Hero wrote
two separate treatises on the subject of the mechanical powers, which
are fully discussed in the _Mechanics_, ii., iii. The _Belopoiica_ (on
engines of war) is extant in Greek, and both this and the _Mechanics_
contain Hero's solution of the problem of the two mean proportionals.
Hero also wrote _Catoptrica_ (on reflecting surfaces), and it seems
certain that we possess this in a Latin work, probably translated from
the Greek by Wilhelm van Moerbeek, which was long thought to be a
fragment of Ptolemy's _Optics_, because it bore the title _Ptolemaei de
speculis_ in the MS. But the attribution to Ptolemy was shown to be
wrong as soon as it was made clear (especially by Martin) that another
translation by an Admiral Eugenius Siculus (12th century) of an optical
work from the Arabic was Ptolemy's _Optics_. Of other treatises by Hero
only fragments remain. One was four books on _Water Clocks_ ([Greek:
Peri hydrion horoskopeion]), of which Proclus (_Hypotyp. astron._, ed.
Halma) has preserved a fragment, and to which Pappus also refers.
Another work was a commentary on Euclid (referred to by the Arabs as
"the book of the resolution of doubts in Euclid") from which quotations
have survived in an-Nairizi's commentary.
The _Pneumatica_, _Automatopoietica_, _Belopoiica_ and
_Cheiroballistra_ of Hero were published in Greek and Latin in
Thevenot's _Veterum mathematicorum opera graece et latine pleraque
nunc primum edita_ (Paris, 1693); the first important critical
researches on Hero were G. B. Venturi's _Commentari sopra la storia e
la teoria dell'ottica_ (Bologna, 1814) and H. Martin's "Recherches sur
la vie et les ouvrages d'Heron d'Alexandrie disciple de Ctesibius et
sur tous les ouvrages mathematiques grecs conserves ou perdus, publies
ou inedits, qui ont ete attribues a un auteur nomme Heron" (_Mem.
presentes a l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres_, i. serie,
iv., 1854). The geometrical works (except of course the _Metrica_)
were edited (Greek only) by F. Hultsch (_Heronis Alexandrini
geometricorum et stereometricorum reliquiae_, 1864), the _Dioptra_ by
Vincent (_Extraits des manuscrits relatifs a la geometrie pratique des
Grecs, Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliotheque
Imperiale_, xix. 2, 1858), the treatises on _Engines of War_ by C.
Wescher (_Poliorcetique des Grecs_, Paris, 1867). The _Mechanics_ was
first published by Carra de Vaux in the _Journal asiatique_ (ix.
serie, ii., 1893). In 1899 began the publication in Teubner's series
of _Heronis Alexandrini opera quae supersunt omnia_. Vol. i. and
Supplement (by W. Schmidt) contains the _Pneumatica_ and _Automata_,
the fragment on _Water Clocks_, the _De ingeniis spiritualibus_ of
Philon of Byzantium and extracts on Pneumatics by Vitruvius. Vol. ii.
pt. i., by L. Nix and W. Schmidt, contains the _Mechanics_ in Arabic,
Greek fragments of the same, the _Catoptrica_ in Latin with appendices
of extracts from Olympiodorus, Vitruvius, Pliny, &c. Vol. iii. (by
Hermann Schone) contains the _Metrica_ (in three books) and the
_Dioptra_. A German translation is added throughout. The approximation
to square roots in Hero has been the subject of papers too numerous to
mention. But reference should be made to the exhaustive studies on
Hero's arithmetic by Paul Tannery, "L'Arithmetique des Grecs dans
Heron d'Alexandrie" (_Mem. de la Soc. des sciences phys. et math. de
Bordeaux_, ii. serie, iv., 1882), "La Stereometrie d'Heron
d'Alexandrie" and "Etudes Heroniennes" (_ibid._ v., 1883), "Questions
Heroniennes" (_Bulletin des sciences math._, ii. serie, viii., 1884),
"Un Fragment des Metriques d'Heron" (_Zeitschrift fur Math. und
Physik_, xxxix., 1894; _Bulletin des sciences math._, ii. serie,
xviii., 1894). A good account of Hero's works will be found in M.
Cantor's _Geschichte der Mathematik_, i.^2 (1894), chapters 18 and 19,
and in G. Loria's studies, _Le Scienze esatte nell' antica Grecia_,
especially libro iii. (Modena, 1900), pp. 103-128. (T. L. H.)
HERO, THE YOUNGER, the name given without any sufficient reason to a
Byzantine land-surveyor who wrote (about A.D. 938) a treatise on
land-surveying modelled on the works of Hero of Alexandria, especially
the _Dioptra_.
See "Geodesie de Heron de Byzance," published by Vincent in _Notices
et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliotheque Imperiale_, xix. 2
(Paris, 1858), and T. H. Martin in _Memoires presentes a l' Academie
des Inscriptions_, 1st series, iv. (Paris, 1854).
HEROD, the name borne by the princes of a dynasty which reigned in
Judaea from 40 B.C.
HEROD (surnamed THE GREAT), the son of Antipater, who supported Hyrcanus
II. against Aristobulus II. with the aid first of the Nabataean Arabs
and then of Rome. The family seems to have been of Idumaean origin, so
that its members were liable to the reproach of being half-Jews or even
foreigners. Justin Martyr has a tradition that they were originally
Philistines of Ascalon (_Dial._ c. 52), and on the other hand Nicolaus
of Damascus (_apud_ Jos. _Ant._ xiv. 1. 3) asserted that Herod, his
royal patron, was descended from the Jews who first returned from the
Babylonian Captivity. The tradition and the assertion are in all
probability equally fictitious and proceed respectively from the foes
and the friends of the Herodian dynasty.
Antipas (or Antipater), the father of Antipater, had been governor of
Idumaea under Alexander Jannaeus. His son allied himself by marriage
with the Arabian nobility and became the real ruler of Palestine under
Hyrcanus II. When Rome intervened in Asia in the person of Pompey, the
younger Antipater realized her inevitable predominance and secured the
friendship of her representative. After the capture of Jerusalem in 63
B.C. Pompey installed Hyrcanus, who was little better than a figurehead,
in the high-priesthood; and when in 55 B.C. the son of Aristobulus
renewed the civil war in Palestine, the Roman governor of Syria in the
exercise of his jurisdiction arranged a settlement "in accordance with
the wishes of Antipater" (Jos. _Ant._ xiv. 6. 4). To this policy of
dependence upon Rome Antipater adhered, and he succeeded in commending
himself to Mark Antony and Caesar in turn. After the battle of Pharsalia
Caesar made him procurator and a Roman citizen.
At this point Herod appears on the scene as ruler of Galilee (Jos.
_Ant._ xiv. 9. 2) appointed by his father at the age of fifteen or,
since he died at seventy, twenty-five. In spite of his youth he soon
found an opportunity of displaying his mettle; for he arrested Hezekiah
the arch-brigand, who had overrun the Syrian border, and put him to
death. The Jewish nobility at Jerusalem seized upon this high-handed
action as a pretext for satisfying their jealousy of their Idumaean
rulers. Herod was cited in the name of Hyrcanus to appear before the
Sanhedrin, whose prerogative he had usurped in executing Hezekiah. He
appeared with a bodyguard, and the Sanhedrin was overawed. Only Sameas,
a Pharisee, dared to insist upon the legal verdict of condemnation. But
the governor of Syria had sent a demand for Herod's acquittal, and so
Hyrcanus adjourned the trial and persuaded the accused to abscond. Herod
returned with an army, but his father prevailed upon him to depart to
Galilee without wreaking his vengeance upon his enemies. About this time
(47-46 B.C.) he was created _strategus_ of Coelesyria by the provincial
governor. The episode is important for the light which it throws upon
Herod's relations with Rome and with the Jews.
In 44 B.C. Cassius arrived in Syria for the purpose of filling his
war-chest: Antipater and Herod collected the sum of money at which the
Jews of Palestine had been assessed. In 43 B.C. Antipater was poisoned
at the instigation of one Malichus, who was perhaps a Jewish patriot
animated by hatred of the Herods and their Roman patrons.
With the connivance of Cassius Herod had Malichus assassinated; but the
country was in a state of anarchy, thanks to the extortions of Cassius
and the encroachments of neighbouring powers. Antony, who became master
of the East after Philippi, was ready to support the sons of his friend
Antipater; but he was absent in Egypt when the Parthians invaded
Palestine to restore Antigonus to the throne of his father Aristobulus
(40 B.C.). Herod escaped to Rome: the Arabians, his mother's people, had
repudiated him. Antony had made him tetrarch, and now with the assent of
Octavian persuaded the Senate to declare him king of Judaea.
In 39 B.C. Herod returned to Palestine and, when the presence of Antony
put the reluctant Roman troops entirely at his disposal, he was able to
lay siege to Jerusalem two years later. Secure of the support of Rome he
was concerned also to legitimize his position in the eyes of the Jews by
taking, for love as well as policy, the Hasmonaean princess Mariamne to
be his second wife. Jerusalem was taken by storm; the Roman troops
withdrew to behead Antigonus the usurper at Antioch. In 37 B.C. Herod
was king of Judaea, being the client of Antony and the husband of
Mariamne.
The Pharisees, who dominated the bulk of the Jews, were content to
accept Herod's rule as a judgment of God. Hyrcanus returned from his
prison: mutilated, he could no longer hold office as high-priest; but
his mutilation probably gave him the prestige of a martyr, and his
influence--whatever it was worth--seems to have been favourable to the
new dynasty. On the other hand Herod's marriage with Mariamne brought
some of his enemies into his own household. He had scotched the faction
of Hasmonaean sympathizers by killing forty-five members of the
Sanhedrin and confiscating their possessions. But so long as there were
representatives of the family alive, there was always a possible
pretender to the throne which he occupied; and the people had not lost
their affection for their former deliverers. Mariamne's mother used her
position to further her plots for the overthrow of her son-in-law; and
she found an ally in Cleopatra of Egypt, who was unwilling to be spurned
by him, even if she was not weary of his patron, Antony.
The events of Herod's reign indicate the temporary triumphs of his
different adversaries. His high-priest, a Babylonian, was deposed in
order that Aristobulus III., Mariamne's brother, might hold the place to
which he had some ancestral right. But the enthusiasm with which the
people received him at the Feast of Tabernacles convinced Herod of the
danger; and the youth was drowned by order of the king at Jericho.
Cleopatra had obtained from Antony a grant of territory adjacent to
Herod's domain and even part of it. She required Herod to collect
arrears of tribute. So it fell out that, when Octavian and the Senate
declared war against Antony and Cleopatra, Herod was preoccupied in
obedience to her commands and was thus prevented from fighting against
the future emperor of Rome.
After the battle of Actium (31 B.C.) Herod executed Hyrcanus and
proceeded to wait upon the victorious Octavian at Rhodes. His position
was confirmed and his territories were restored. On his return he took
in hand to heal with the Hasmonaeans, and in 25 B.C. the old intriguers,
their victims like Mariamne, and all pretenders were dead. From this
time onwards Herod was free to govern Palestine, as a client-prince of
the Roman Empire should govern his kingdom. In order to put down the
brigands who still infested the country and to check the raids of the
Arabs on the frontier, he built or rebuilt fortresses, which were of
material assistance to the Jews in the great revolt against Rome. Within
and without Judaea he erected magnificent buildings and founded cities.
He established games in honour of the emperor after the ancient Greek
model in Caesarea and Jerusalem and revived the splendour of the Olympic
games. At Athens and elsewhere he was commemorated as a benefactor; and
as Jew and king of the Jews he restored the temple at Jerusalem. The
emperor recognized his successful government by putting the districts of
Ulatha and Panias under him in 20 B.C.
But Herod found new enemies among the members of his household. His
brother Pheroras and sister Salome plotted for their own advantage and
against the two sons of Mariamne. The people still cherished a loyalty
to the Hasmonaean lineage, although the young princes were also the sons
of Herod. The enthusiasm with which they were received fed the
suspicion, which their uncle instilled into their father's mind, and
they were strangled at Sebaste. On his deathbed Herod discovered that
his eldest son, Antipater, whom Josephus calls a "monster of iniquity,"
had been plotting against him. He proceeded to accuse him before the
governor of Syria and obtained leave from Augustus to put him to death.
The father died five days after his son in 4 B.C. He had done much for
the Jews, thanks to the favour he had won and kept in spite of all from
the successive heads of the Roman state; he had observed the Law
publicly--in fact, as the traditional epigram of Augustus says, "it was
better to be Herod's _swine_ than a _son_ of Herod."
Josephus, _Ant._ xv., xvi., xvii. 1-8, _B.J._ i. 18-33; Schurer,
_Gesch. d. jud. Volk._, 4th ed., i. pp. 360-418.
HEROD ANTIPAS, son of Herod the Great by the Samaritan Malthace, and
full brother of Archelaus, received as his share of his father's
dominions the provinces of Galilee and Peraea, with the title of
tetrarch. Like his father, Antipas had a turn for architecture: he
rebuilt and fortified the town of Sepphoris in Galilee; he also
fortified Betharamptha in Peraea, and called it Julias after the wife of
the emperor. Above all he founded the important town of Tiberias on the
west shore of the Sea of Galilee, with institutions of a distinctly
Greek character. He reigned 4 B.C.-A.D. 39. In the gospels he is
mentioned as Herod. He it was who was called a "fox" by Christ (Luke
xiii. 32). He is erroneously spoken of as a king in Mark vi. 14. It was
to him that Jesus was sent by Pilate to be tried. But it is in connexion
with his wife Herodias that he is best known, and it was through her
that his misfortunes arose. He was married first of all to a daughter of
Aretas, the Arabian king; but, making the acquaintance of Herodias, the
wife of his brother Philip (not the tetrarch), during a visit to Rome,
he was fascinated by her and arranged to marry her. Meantime his Arabian
wife discovered the plan and escaped to her father, who made war on
Herod, and completely defeated his army. John the Baptist condemned his
marriage with Herodias, and in consequence was put to death in the way
described in the gospels and in Josephus. When Herodias's brother
Agrippa was appointed king by Caligula, she was determined to see her
husband attain to an equal eminence, and persuaded him, though naturally
of a quiet and unambitious temperament, to make the journey to Rome to
crave a crown from the emperor. Agrippa, however, managed to influence
Caligula against him. Antipas was deprived of his dominions and banished
to Lyons, Herodias voluntarily sharing his exile.
HEROD PHILIP, son of Herod the Great by Cleopatra of Jerusalem, received
the tetrarchate of Ituraea and other districts to E. and N.E. of the
Lake of Galilee, the poorest part of his father's kingdom. His subjects
were mainly Greeks or Syrians, and his coins bear the image of Augustus
or Tiberius. He is described as an excellent ruler, who loved peace and
was careful to maintain justice, and spent his time in his own
territories. He was also a builder of cities, one of which was Caesarea
Philippi, and another was Bethsaida, which he called Julias. He died
after a reign of thirty-seven years (4 B.C.-A.D. 34); and his dominions
were incorporated in the province of Syria. (J. H. A. H.)
HERODAS (Gr. [Greek: Herodas]), or HERONDAS (the name is spelt
differently in the few places where he is mentioned), Greek poet, the
author of short humorous dramatic scenes in verse, written under the
Alexandrian empire in the 3rd century B.C. Apart from the intrinsic
merit of these pieces, they are interesting in the history of Greek
literature as being a new species, illustrating Alexandrian methods.
They are called [Greek: Mimiamboi], "Mimeiambics." Mimes were the Dorian
product of South Italy and Sicily, and the most famous of them--from
which Plato is said to have studied the drawing of character--were the
work of Sophron. These were scenes in popular life, written in the
language of the people, vigorous with racy proverbs such as we get in
other reflections of that region--in Petronius and the _Pentamerone_.
Two of the best known and the most vital among the _Idylls_ of
Theocritus, the 2nd and the 15th, we know to have been derived from
mimes of Sophron. What Theocritus is doing there, Herodas, his younger
contemporary, is doing in another manner--casting old material into
novel form, upon a small scale, under strict conditions of technique.
The method is entirely Alexandrian: Sophron had written in a peculiar
kind of rhythmical prose; Theocritus uses the hexameter and Doric,
Herodas the _scazon_ or "lame" iambic (with a dragging spondee at the
end) and the old Ionic dialect with which that curious metre was
associated. That, however, hardly goes beyond the choice and form of
words; the structure of the sentences is close-knit Attic. But the
grumbling metre and quaint language suit the tone of common life which
Herodas aims at realizing; for, as Theocritus may be called idealist,
Herodas is a realist unflinching. His persons talk in vehement
exclamations and emphatic turns of speech, with proverbs and fixed
phrases; and occasionally, where it is designed as proper to the part,
with the most naked coarseness of expression.
The scene of the second and the fourth is laid at Cos, and the speaking
characters in each are never more than three. In Mime I. the old nurse,
now the professional go-between or bawd, calls on Metriche, whose
husband has been long away in Egypt, and endeavours to excite her
interest in a most desirable young man, fallen deeply in love with her
at first sight. After hearing all the arguments Metriche declines with
dignity, but consoles the old woman with an ample glass of wine, this
kind being always represented with the taste of Mrs Gamp. II. is a
monologue by the [Greek: Pornoboskos] ("Whoremonger") prosecuting a
merchant-trader for breaking into his establishment at night and
attempting to carry off one of the inmates, who is produced in court.
The vulgar blackguard, who is a stranger to any sort of shame, remarking
that he has no evidence to call, proceeds to a peroration in the regular
oratorical style, appealing to the Coan judges not to be unworthy of
their traditional glories. In fact, the whole oration is also a
burlesque in every detail of an Attic speech at law; and in this case we
have the material from which to estimate the excellence of the parody.
In III. a desperate mother brings to the schoolmaster a truant urchin,
with whom neither she nor his incapable old father can do anything. In a
voluble stream of interminable sentences she narrates his misdeeds and
implores the schoolmaster to flog him. The boy accordingly is hoisted on
another's back and flogged; but his spirit does not appear to be
subdued, and the mother resorts to the old man after all. IV. is a visit
of two poor women with an offering to the temple of Asclepius at Cos.
While the humble cock is being sacrificed, they turn, like the women in
the _Ion_ of Euripides, to admire the works of art; among them a small
boy strangling a vulpanser--doubtless the work of Boethus that we
know--and a sacrificial procession by Apelles, "the Ephesian," of whom
we have an interesting piece of contemporary eulogy. The oily sacristan
is admirably painted in a few slight strokes. V. brings us very close to
some unpleasant facts of ancient life. The jealous woman accuses one of
her slaves, whom she has made her favourite, of infidelity; has him
bound and sent degraded through the town to receive 2000 lashes; no
sooner is he out of sight than she recalls him to be branded "at one
job." The only pleasing person in the piece is the little
maidservant--permitted liberties as a _verna_ brought up in the
house--whose ready tact suggests to her mistress an excuse for
postponing execution of a threat made in ungovernable fury. VI. is a
friendly chat or a private conversation. The subject is an ugly one, but
the dialogue is as clever and amusing as the rest, with some delicious
touches. Our interest is engaged here in a certain Kerdon, the artistic
shoemaker, to whom we are introduced in VII. (the name had already
become generic for the shoemaker as the typical representative of retail
trade), a little bald man with a fluent tongue, complaining of hard
times, who bluffs and wheedles by turns. VII. opens with a mistress
waking up her maids to listen to her dream; but we have only the
beginning, and the other fragments are very short.
Within the limits of 100 lines or less Herodas presents us with a highly
entertaining scene and with characters definitely drawn. Some of these
had been perfected no doubt upon the Attic stage, where the tendency in
the 4th century had been gradually to evolve accepted types--not
individuals, but generalizations from a class, an art in which
Menander's was esteemed the master-hand. The [Greek: Pornoboskos] and
the [Greek: Mastropos] we can piece together from succeeding literature,
and see how skilfully the established traits are indicated here. This is
achieved by true dramatic means, with touches never wasted and the more
delightful often because they do not clamour for attention. The
execution has the qualities of first-rate Alexandrian work in miniature,
such as the epigrams of Asclepiades possess, the finish and firm
outlines; and these little pictures bear the test of all artistic
work--they do not lose their freshness with familiarity, and gain in
interest as one learns to appreciate their subtle points.
The papyrus MS., obtained from the Fayum, is in the possession of the
British Museum, and was first printed by F. G. Kenyon in 1891.
Editions by O. Crusius (1905, text only, in Teubner series) and J. A.
Nairn (1904), with introduction, notes and bibliography. There is an
English verse translation of the mimes by H. Sharpley (1906) under the
title _A Realist of the Aegean_. (W. G. H.)
HERODIANS ([Greek: Herodianoi]), a sect or party mentioned in Scripture
as having on two occasions--once in Galilee, and again in
Jerusalem--manifested an unfriendly disposition towards Jesus (Mark iii.
6, xii. 13; Matt. xxii. 6; cf. also Mark viii. 15). In each of these
cases their name is coupled with that of the Pharisees. According to
many interpreters the courtiers or soldiers of Herod Antipas ("Milites
Herodis," Jerome) are intended; but more probably the Herodians were a
public political party, who distinguished themselves from the two great
historical parties of post-exilian Judaism by the fact that they were
and had been sincerely friendly to Herod the Great and to his dynasty
(cf. such formations as "Caesariani," "Pompeiani"). It is possible that,
to gain adherents, the Herodian party may have been in the habit of
representing that the establishment of a Herodian dynasty would be
favourable to the realization of the theocracy; and this in turn may
account for Tertullian's (_De praescr._) allegation that the Herodians
regarded Herod himself as the Messiah. The sect was called by the Rabbis
Boethusians as being friendly to the family of Boethus, whose daughter
Mariamne was one of Herod the Great's wives. (J. H. A. H.)
HERODIANUS, Greek historian, flourished during the third century A.D. He
is supposed to have been a Syrian Greek. In 203 he was in Rome, where he
held some minor posts. He does not appear to have attained high official
rank; the statement that he was imperial procurator and legate of the
Sicilian provinces rests upon conjecture only. His historical work
([Greek: Herodianou tes meta Markon basileias historion biblia okto])
narrates the events of the fifty-eight years between the death of Marcus
Aurelius and the proclamation of Gordianus III. (180-238). The narrative
is of special value as supplementing Dion Cassius, whose history ends
with Alexander Severus. His work has the value that attaches to a record
written by one chronicling the events of his own times, gifted with
ordinary powers of observation, indubitable candour and independence of
view. But while he gives a lively account of external events--such as
the death of Commodus and the assassination of Pertinax--the barbarian
invasions, the spread of Christianity, the extension of the franchise by
Caracalla are unnoticed. The dates are often wrong, and little attention
is paid to geographical details, which makes the narrative of military
expeditions beyond the borders of the empire difficult to understand.
Herodian has been accused of prejudice against Alexander Severus. His
style, modelled on that of Thucydides and unreservedly praised by
Photius, is on the whole pure, though somewhat rhetorical and showing a
fondness for Latinisms.
Extensive use has been made of Herodianus by later chroniclers,
especially the "Scriptores historiae Augustae" and John of Antioch.
His history was first translated into Latin at the end of the 15th
century by Politian. The most complete edition is by G. W. Irmisch
(1789-1805), with elaborate indices, but the notes are very diffuse;
critical editions by I. Bekker (1855), L. Mendelssohn (1883); see also
C. Dandliker.
HERODIANUS, AELIUS, called [Greek: ho technikos], Alexandrian
grammarian, flourished in the 2nd century A.D. He early took up his
residence at Rome, where he enjoyed the patronage of Marcus Aurelius
(161-180), to whom he dedicated his great treatise on prosody. This work
in twenty-one books ([Greek: Katholike prosodia]) included also an
account of the etymological part of grammar. The work itself is lost,
but several epitomes of it have been preserved. His [Greek:
Hepimerismoi] dealt with difficult words and peculiar forms in Homer.
Herodianus also wrote numerous grammatical treatises, of which only one
has come down to us in a complete form ([Greek: Peri monerous lexeos],
on peculiar style), articles on exceptional or anomalous words. Numerous
quotations and fragments still exist, chiefly in the Homeric scholiasts
and Stephanus of Byzantium. Herodianus enjoyed a great reputation as a
grammarian, and Priscian styles him "maximus auctor artis grammaticae."
The best edition is by A. Lentz, _Herodiani. Technici reliquiae_
(1867-1870); a supplementary volume is included in Uhling's _Corpus
grammaticorum Graecorum_; for further bibliographical information see
W. Christ, _Geschichte der griechischen Literatur_ (1898).
HERODOTUS (c. 484-425 B.C.), Greek historian, called the Father of
History, was born at Halicarnassus in Asia Minor, then dependent upon
the Persians, in or about the year 484 B.C. Herodotus was thus born a
Persian subject, and such he continued until he was thirty or
five-and-thirty years of age. At the time of his birth Halicarnassus was
under the rule of a queen Artemisia (q.v.). The year of her death is
unknown; but she left her crown to her son Pisindelis (born about 498
B.C.), who was succeeded upon the throne by his son Lygdamis about the
time that Herodotus grew to manhood. The family of Herodotus belonged to
the upper rank of the citizens. His father was named Lyxes, and his
mother Rhaeo, or Dryo. He had a brother Theodore, and an uncle or cousin
Panyasis (q.v.), the epic poet, a personage of so much importance that
the tyrant Lygdamis, suspecting him of treasonable projects, put him to
death. It is probable that Herodotus shared his relative's political
opinions, and either was exiled from Halicarnassus or quitted it
voluntarily at the time of his execution.
Of the education of Herodotus no more can be said than that it was
thoroughly Greek, and embraced no doubt the three subjects essential to
a Greek liberal education--grammar, gymnastic training and music. His
studies would be regarded as completed when he attained the age of
eighteen, and took rank among the _ephebi_ or _eirenes_ of his native
city. In a free Greek state he would at once have begun his duties as a
citizen, and found therein sufficient employment for his growing
energies. But in a city ruled by a tyrant this outlet was wanting; no
political life worthy of the name existed. Herodotus may thus have had
his thoughts turned to literature as furnishing a not unsatisfactory
career, and may well have been encouraged in his choice by the example
of Panyasis, who had already gained a reputation by his writings when
Herodotus was still an infant. At any rate it is clear from the extant
work of Herodotus that he must have devoted himself early to the
literary life, and commenced that extensive course of reading which
renders him one of the most instructive as well as one of the most
charming of ancient writers. The poetical literature of Greece was
already large; the prose literature was more extensive than is generally
supposed; yet Herodotus shows an intimate acquaintance with the whole of
it. The _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ are as familiar to him as Shakespeare
to the educated Englishman. He is acquainted with the poems of the epic
cycle, the _Cypria_, the _Epigoni_, &c. He quotes or otherwise shows
familiarity with the writings of Hesiod, Olen, Musaeus, Bacis,
Lysistratus, Archilochus of Paros, Alcaeus, Sappho, Solon, Aesop,
Aristeas of Proconnesus, Simonides of Ceos, Phrynichus, Aeschylus and
Pindar. He quotes and criticizes Hecataeus, the best of the prose
writers who had preceded him, and makes numerous allusions to other
authors of the same class.
It must not, however, be supposed that he was at any time a mere
student. It is probable that from an early age his inquiring disposition
led him to engage in travels, both in Greece and in foreign countries.
He traversed Asia Minor and European Greece probably more than once; he
visited all the most important islands of the Archipelago--Rhodes,
Cyprus, Delos, Paros, Thasos, Samothrace, Crete, Samos, Cythera and
Aegina. He undertook the long and perilous journey from Sardis to the
Persian capital Susa, visited Babylon, Colchis, and the western shores
of the Black Sea as far as the estuary of the Dnieper; he travelled in
Scythia and in Thrace, visited Zante and Magna Graecia, explored the
antiquities of Tyre, coasted along the shores of Palestine, saw Gaza,
and made a long stay in Egypt. At the most moderate estimate, his
travels covered a space of thirty-one degrees of longitude, or 1700
miles, and twenty-four of latitude, or nearly the same distance. At all
the more interesting sites he took up his abode for a time; he examined,
he inquired, he made measurements, he accumulated materials. Having in
his mind the scheme of his great work, he gave ample time to the
elaboration of all its parts, and took care to obtain by personal
observation a full knowledge of the various countries.
The travels of Herodotus seem to have been chiefly accomplished between
his twentieth and his thirty-seventh year (464-447 B.C.).[1] It was
probably in his early manhood that as a Persian subject he visited Susa
and Babylon, taking advantage of the Persian system of posts which he
describes in his fifth book. His residence in Egypt must, on the other
hand, have been subsequent to 460 B.C., since he saw the skulls of the
Persians slain by Inarus in that year. Skulls are rarely visible on a
battlefield for more than two or three seasons after the fight, and we
may therefore presume that it was during the reign of Inarus (460-454
B.C.),[2] when the Athenians had great authority in Egypt, that he
visited the country, making himself known as a learned Greek, and
therefore receiving favour and attention on the part of the Egyptians,
who were so much beholden to his countrymen (see ATHENS, CIMON,
PERICLES). On his return from Egypt, as he proceeded along the Syrian
shore, he seems to have landed at Tyre, and from thence to have gone to
Thasos. His Scythian travels are thought to have taken place prior to
450 B.C.
It is a question of some interest from what centre or centres these
various expeditions were made. Up to the time of the execution of
Panyasis, which is placed by chronologists in or about the year 457
B.C., there is every reason to believe that Herodotus lived at
Halicarnassus. His travels in Asia Minor, in European Greece, and among
the islands of the Aegean, probably belong to this period, as also his
journey to Susa and Babylon. We are told that when he quitted
Halicarnassus on account of the tyranny of Lygdamis, in or about the
year 457 B.C., he took up his abode in Samos. That island was an
important member of the Athenian confederacy, and in making it his home
Herodotus would have put himself under the protection of Athens. The
fact that Egypt was then largely under Athenian influence (see CIMON,
PERICLES) may have induced him to proceed, in 457 or 456 B.C., to that
country. The stories that he had heard in Egypt of Sesostris may then
have stimulated him to make voyages from Samos to Colchis, Scythia and
Thrace. He was thus acquainted with almost all the regions which were to
be the scene of his projected history.
After Herodotus had resided for some seven or eight years in Samos,
events occurred in his native city which induced him to return thither.
The tyranny of Lygdamis had gone from bad to worse, and at last he was
expelled. According to Suidas, Herodotus was himself an actor, and
indeed the chief actor, in the rebellion against him; but no other
author confirms this statement, which is intrinsically improbable. It is
certain, however, that Halicarnassus became henceforward a voluntary
member of the Athenian confederacy. Herodotus would now naturally return
to his native city, and enter upon the enjoyment of those rights of free
citizenship on which every Greek set a high value. He would also, if he
had by this time composed his history, or any considerable portion of
it, begin to make it known by recitation among his friends. There is
reason to believe that these first attempts were not received with much
favour, and that it was in chagrin at his failure that he precipitately
withdrew from his native town, and sought a refuge in Greece proper
(about 447 B.C.).[3] We learn that Athens was the place to which he
went, and that he appealed from the verdict of his countrymen to
Athenian taste and judgment. His work won such approval that in the year
445 B.C., on the proposition of a certain Anytus, he was voted a sum of
ten talents (L2400) by decree of the people. At one of the recitations,
it was said, the future historian Thucydides was present with his
father, Olorus, and was so moved that he burst into tears, whereupon
Herodotus remarked to the father--"Olorus, your son has a natural
enthusiasm for letters."[4]
Athens was at this time the centre of intellectual life, and could boast
an almost unique galaxy of talent--Pericles, Thucydides the son of
Melesias, Aspasia, Antiphon, the musician Damon, Pheidias, Protagoras,
Zeno, Cratinus, Crates, Euripides and Sophocles. Accepted into this
brilliant society, on familiar terms with all probably, as he certainly
was with Olorus, Thucydides and Sophocles, he must have been tempted,
like many another foreigner, to make Athens his permanent home. It is to
his credit that he did not yield to this temptation. At Athens he must
have been a dilettante, an idler, without political rights or duties. As
such he would have soon ceased to be respected in a society where
literature was not recognized as a separate profession, where a Socrates
served in the infantry, a Sophocles commanded fleets, a Thucydides was
general of an army, and an Antiphon was for a time at the head of the
state. Men were not men according to Greek notions unless they were
citizens; and Herodotus, aware of this, probably sharing in the feeling,
was anxious, having lost his political status at Halicarnassus, to
obtain such status elsewhere. At Athens the franchise, jealously guarded
at this period, was not to be attained without great expense and
difficulty. Accordingly, in the spring of the following year he sailed
from Athens with the colonists who went out to found the colony of
Thurii (see PERICLES), and became a citizen of the new town.
From this point of his career, when he had reached the age of forty, we
lose sight of him almost wholly. He seems to have made but few journeys,
one to Crotona, one to Metapontum, and one to Athens (about 430 B.C.)
being all that his work indicates.[5] No doubt he was employed mainly,
as Pliny testifies, in retouching and elaborating his general history.
He may also have composed at Thurii that special work on the history of
Assyria to which he twice refers in his first book, and which is quoted
by Aristotle. It has been supposed by many that he lived to a great age,
and argued that "the never-to-be-mistaken fundamental tone of his
performance is the quiet talkativeness of a highly cultivated, tolerant,
intelligent, _old_ man" (Dahlmann). But the indications derived from the
later touches added to his work, which form the sole evidence on the
subject, would rather lead to the conclusion that his life was not very
prolonged. There is nothing in the nine books which may not have been
written as early as 430 B.C.; there is no touch which, even probably,
points to a later date than 424 B.C. As the author was evidently engaged
in polishing his work to the last, and even promises touches which he
does not give, we may assume that he did not much outlive the date last
mentioned, or in other words, that he died at about the age of sixty.
The predominant voice of antiquity tells us that he died at Thurii,
where his tomb was shown in later ages.
_The History._--In estimating the great work of Herodotus, and his
genius as its author, it is above all things necessary to conceive
aright what that work was intended to be. It has been called "a
universal history," "a history of the wars between the Greeks and the
barbarians," and "a history of the struggle between Greece and Persia."
But these titles are all of them too comprehensive. Herodotus, who omits
wholly the histories of Phoenicia, Carthage and Etruria, three of the
most important among the states existing in his day, cannot have
intended to compose a "universal history," the very idea of which
belongs to a later age. He speaks in places as if his object was to
record the wars between the Greeks and the barbarians; but as he omits
the Trojan war, in which he fully believes, the expedition of the
Teucrians and Mysians against Thrace and Thessaly, the wars connected
with the Ionian colonization of Asia Minor and others, it is evident
that he does not really aim at embracing in his narrative all the wars
between Greeks and barbarians with which he was acquainted. Nor does it
even seem to have been his object to give an account of the entire
struggle between Greece and Persia. That struggle was not terminated by
the battle of Mycale and the capture of Sestos in 479 B.C. It continued
for thirty years longer, to the peace of Callias (but see CALLIAS and
CIMON). The fact that Herodotus ends his history where he does shows
distinctly that his intention was, not to give an account of the entire
long contest between the two countries, but to write the history of a
particular war--the great Persian war of invasion. His aim was as
definite as that of Thucydides, or Schiller, or Napier or any other
writer who has made his subject a particular war; only he determined to
treat it in a certain way. Every partial history requires an
"introduction"; Herodotus, untrammelled by examples, resolved to give
his history a magnificent introduction. Thucydides is content with a
single introductory book, forming little more than one-eighth of his
work; Herodotus has six such books, forming two-thirds of the entire
composition.
By this arrangement he is enabled to treat his subject in the _grand_
way, which is so characteristic of him. Making it his main object in his
"introduction" to set before his readers the previous history of the two
nations who were the actors in the great war, he is able in tracing
their history to bring into his narrative some account of almost all the
nations of the known world, and has room to expatiate freely upon their
geography, antiquities, manners and customs and the like, thus giving
his work a "universal" character, and securing for it, without trenching
upon unity, that variety, richness and fulness which are a principal
charm of the best histories, and of none more than his. In tracing the
growth of Persia from a petty subject kingdom to a vast dominant empire,
he has occasion to set out the histories of Lydia, Media, Assyria,
Babylon, Egypt, Scythia, Thrace, and to describe the countries and the
peoples inhabiting them, their natural productions, climate,
geographical position, monuments, &c.; while, in noting the
contemporaneous changes in Greece, he is led to tell of the various
migrations of the Greek race, their colonies, commerce, progress in the
arts, revolutions, internal struggles, wars with one another,
legislation, religious tenets and the like. The greatest variety of
episodical matter is thus introduced; but the propriety of the occasion
and the mode of introduction are such that no complaint can be made; the
episodes never entangle, encumber or even unpleasantly interrupt the
main narrative.
It has been questioned, both in ancient and in modern times, whether the
history of Herodotus possesses the essential requisite of
trustworthiness. Several ancient writers accuse him of intentional
untruthfulness. Moderns generally acquit him of this charge; but his
severer critics still urge that, from the inherent defects of his
character, his credulity, his love of effect and his loose and
inaccurate habits of thought, he was unfitted for the historian's
office, and has produced a work of but small historical value. Perhaps
it may be sufficient to remark that the defects in question certainly
exist, and detract to some extent from the authority of the work, more
especially of those parts of it which deal with remoter periods, and
were taken by Herodotus on trust from his informants, but that they only
slightly affect the portions which treat of later times and form the
special subject of his history. In confirmation of this view, it may be
noted that the authority of Herodotus for the circumstances of the great
Persian war, and for all local and other details which come under his
immediate notice, is accepted by even the most sceptical of modern
historians, and forms the basis of their narratives.
Among the merits of Herodotus as an historian, the most prominent are
the diligence with which he collected his materials, the candour and
impartiality with which he has placed his facts before the reader, the
absence of party bias and undue national vanity, and the breadth of his
conception of the historian's office. On the other hand, he has no claim
to rank as a critical historian; he has no conception of the philosophy
of history, no insight into the real causes that underlie political
changes, no power of penetrating below the surface, or even of grasping
the real interconnexion of the events which he describes. He belongs
distinctly to the romantic school; his forte is vivid and picturesque
description, the lively presentation of scenes and actions, characters
and states of society, not the subtle analysis of motives, the power of
detecting the undercurrents or the generalizing faculty.
But it is as a writer that the merits of Herodotus are most
conspicuous. "O that I were in a condition," says Lucian, "to resemble
Herodotus, if only in some measure! I by no means say in all his gifts,
but only in some single point; as, for instance, the beauty of his
language, or its harmony, or the natural and peculiar grace of the Ionic
dialect, or his fulness of thought, or by whatever name those thousand
beauties are called which to the despair of his imitator are united in
him." Cicero calls his style "copious and polished," Quintilian, "sweet,
pure and flowing"; Longinus says he was "the most Homeric of
historians"; Dionysius, his countryman, prefers him to Thucydides, and
regards him as combining in an extraordinary degree the excellences of
sublimity, beauty and the true historical method of composition. Modern
writers are almost equally complimentary. "The style of Herodotus," says
one, "is universally allowed to be remarkable for its harmony and
sweetness." "The charm of his style," argues another, "has so dazzled
men as to make them blind to his defects." Various attempts have been
made to analyse the charm which is so universally felt; but it may be
doubted whether any of them are very successful. All, however, seem to
agree that among the qualities for which the style of Herodotus is to be
admired are simplicity, freshness, naturalness and harmony of rhythm.
Master of a form of language peculiarly sweet and euphonical, and
possessed of a delicate ear which instinctively suggested the most
musical arrangement possible, he gives his sentences, without art or
effort, the most agreeable flow, is never abrupt, never too diffuse,
much less prolix or wearisome, and being himself simple, fresh, _naif_
(if we may use the word), honest and somewhat quaint, he delights us by
combining with this melody of sound simple, clear and fresh thoughts,
perspicuously expressed, often accompanied by happy turns of phrase, and
always manifestly the spontaneous growth of his own fresh and
unsophisticated mind. Reminding us in some respects of the quaint
medieval writers, Froissart and Philippe de Comines, he greatly excels
them, at once in the beauty of his language and the art with which he
has combined his heterogeneous materials into a single perfect
harmonious whole. See also GREECE, section _History_, "Authorities."
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The history of Herodotus has been translated by many
persons and into many languages. About 1450, at the time of the
revival of learning, a Latin version was made and published by
Laurentius Valla. This was revised in 1537 by Heusbach, and
accompanies the Greek text of Herodotus in many editions. The first
complete translation into a modern language was the English one of
Littlebury, published in 1737. This was followed In 1786 by the French
translation of Larcher, a valuable work, accompanied by copious notes
and essays. Beloe, the second English translator, based his work on
that of Larcher. His first edition, in 1791, was confessedly very
defective; the second, in 1806, still left much to be desired. A good
German translation, but without note or comment, was brought out by
Friedrich Lange at Berlin in 1811. Andrea Mustoxidi, a native of
Corfu, published an Italian version in 1820. In 1822 Auguste Miot
endeavoured to improve on Larcher; and in 1828-1832 Dr Adolf Scholl
brought out a German translation with copious notes (new ed., 1855),
which has to some extent superseded the work of Lange. About the same
time a new English version was made by Isaac Taylor (London, 1829). In
1858-1860, the history of Herodotus was translated by Canon G.
Rawlinson, assisted in the copious notes and appendices accompanying
the work by Sir Gardner Wilkinson and Sir Henry Rawlinson. More
recently we have translations in English by G. C. Macaulay (2 vols.,
1890); in German by Bahr (Stuttgart, 1867) and Stein (Oldenburg,
1875); in French by Giguet (1857) and Talbot (1864); in Italian by
Ricci (Turin, 1871-1876), Grandi (Asti, 1872) and Bertini (Naples,
1871-1872). A Swedish translation by F. Carlstadt was published at
Stockholm in 1871.
The best of the older editions of the Greek text are the
following:--_Herodoti historiae_, ed. Schweighauser (5 vols.,
Strassburg, 1816); _Herodoti Halicarnassei historiarum libri IX._ (ed.
Gaisford, Oxford, 1840); _Herodotus, with a Commentary_, by J. W.
Blakesley (2 vols. London, 1854); _Herodoti musae_ (ed. Bahr, 4 vols.,
Leipzig, 1856-1861, 2nd ed.); and _Herodoti historiae_ (ed. Abicht,
Leipzig, 1869).
The most recent editions of the text, or of portions of it, with and
without commentaries are the following:--H. Stein, _Herodoti
Historiae_ (ed. Major, 2 vols., Berlin, 1869-1871, with _apparatus
criticus_; still the best edition of the text); H. Kellenberg,
_Historiarum libri IX._ (2 vols., Leipzig, 1887); van Herwerden,
[Greek: Historiai] (Leiden, 1885); H. Stein, _Herodotus, erklart_
(Berlin, 1856-1861, and several editions since; the best short
commentary and introduction); A. H. Sayce, _The Ancient Empires of the
East, Herodotus I.-III., with introductions and appendices_ (1883; an
attempt to prove the unveracity of Herodotus, especially in regard to
the extent of his travels, which has found little support amongst more
recent English or German writers); R. W. Macan, _Herodotus IV.-VI._ (2
vols., 1895) and _Herodotus VII.-IX._ (2 vols., 1908), with exhaustive
introduction, appendices and notes; the only scientific edition of
these books in English; E. Abbott, _Herodotus V. and VI._ (Oxford,
1893); A. Wiedemann, _Herodots zweites Buch mit sachlichen
Bemerkungen_ (Leipzig, 1890; the best and fullest commentary on book
ii.).
Among works of value illustrative of Herodotus may be mentioned
Bouhier, _Recherches sur Herodote_ (Dijon, 1746); Rennell, _Geography
of Herodotus_ (London, 1800); Niebuhr, _Geography of Herodotus and
Scythia_ (Eng. trans., Oxford, 1830); Dahlmann, _Herodot, aus seinem
Buche sein Leben_ (Altona, 1823); Eltz, _Quaestiones Herodoteae_
(Leipzig, 1841); Kenrick, _Egypt of Herodotus_ (London, 1841); Mure,
_Literature of Greece_, vol. iv. (London, 1852); Abicht, _Ubersicht
uber den Herodoteischen Dialekt_ (Leipzig, 1869, 3rd ed., 1874), and
_De codicum Herodoti fide ac auctoritate_ (Naumburg, 1869); Melander,
_De anacoluthis Herodoteis_ (Lund, 1869); Matzat, "Uber die
Glaubenswurdigkeit der geograph. Angaben Herodots uber Asien," in
_Hermes_, vi.; Budinger, _Zur agyptischen Forschung Herodots_ (Vienna,
1873, reprinted from the _Sitzungsber._ of the Vienna Acad.);
Merzdorf, _Quaestiones grammaticae de dialecto Herodotea_ (Leipzig,
1875); A. Kirchhoff, _Uber die Entstehungszeit des Herodotischen
Geschichtswerkes_ (Berlin, 1878); Adolf Bauer, _Herodots Biographie_
(Vienna, 1878); H. Delbruck, _Perser und Burgunderkriege_ (Berlin,
1887; of great importance for the criticism of the Persian Wars); N.
Wecklein, _Uber die Tradition der Perserkriege_ (Munich, 1876); A.
Hauvette-Besnault, _Herodote historien des guerres mediques_ (Paris,
1894); J. A. R. Munro, _Some Observations on the Persian Wars_ (in
various vols. of the _Journal of Hellenic Studies_; acute and
suggestive); G. B. Grundy, _The Great Persian War_ (London, 1901); J.
P. Mahaffy, _History of Greek Classical Literature_, ii. 16 ff.
(London, 1880); E. Meyer, _Forschungen zur alten Geschichte_, i. 151
ff., and ii. 196 ff. (Halle, 1892-1899); Busolt, _Griechische
Geschichte_, ii. 602 ff. (2nd ed., Gotha, 1895); J. B. Bury, _Ancient
Greek Historians_ (1908), lecture 2. For notices of current literature
see Bursian's _Jahresbericht_. Students of the original may also
consult with advantage the lexicons of Aemilius Portus (Oxford, 1817)
and of Schweighauser (London, 1824). On Herodotus' debt to Hecataeus
see Wells, in _Journ. Hell. Stud._, 1909, pt. i. (G. R.; E. M. W.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The date of his travels is difficult to determine. E. Meyer
inclines to put all the longer journeys, except the Scythian, between
440 and 430 B.C. The journey to Susa and Babylon is put by C. F.
Lehmann c. 450 B.C., and by H. Stein before 450.
[2] Most recent critics (e.g. Stein, Meyer, Busolt) put the visit to
Egypt after the suppression of the revolt under Inarus and Amyrtaeus
(i.e. after 449 B.C.), on the strength of Herod. 2. 30, which implies
the restoration of Persian authority.
[3] Stein, Meyer, Busolt, and other recent writers attribute his
departure from Halicarnassus to political causes, e.g. the ascendancy
of the anti-Athenian party in the state.
[4] This story is on chronological grounds rejected by all recent
critics.
[5] Opinion is divided as to this visit to Athens after his
settlement at Thurii. Stein, Meyer and Busolt hold that much of his
work (especially the later books) was composed at Athens soon after
430 B.C. See further Wachsmuth, _Rheinisches Museum_, lvi. (1901)
215-218. Macan, _Herodotus_ VII.-IX. (_Introduction_, pp.
xlv.-lxvi.), seeks to prove that the last three books were the first
part of the _Histories_ to be composed. He is followed in this view
by Bury.
HEROET, ANTOINE, surnamed LA MAISON-NEUVE (d. 1568), French poet, was
born in Paris of a family connected with the famous chancellor, Francois
Olivier. His poetry belongs to his early years, for after he had taken
orders he ceased to write profane poetry, no doubt because he considered
it out of keeping with his calling, in which he attained the dignity of
bishop of Digue. His chief work is _La Parfaicte Amye_ (Lyons, 1542) in
which he developed the idea of a purely spiritual love, based chiefly on
the reading of the Italian Neo-Platonists. The book aroused great
controversy. La Borderie replied in _L'Amye de cour_ with a description
of a very much more human woman, and Charles Fontaine contributed a
_Contr' amye de cour_ to the dispute. Heroet, in addition to some
translations from the classics, wrote the _Complainte d'une dame
nouvellement surprise d'amour_, an _Epistre a Francois I^er_, and some
pieces included in the now very rare _Opuscules d'amour par Heroet, La
Borderie et autres divins poetes_ (Lyons, 1547). Heroet belongs to the
Lyonnese school of which Maurice Sceve may be regarded as the leader.
Clement Marot praises him, and Ronsard was careful to exempt him with
one or two others from the scorn he poured on his immediate
predecessors.
See H. F. Cary, _The Early French Poets_ (1846).
HEROIC ROMANCES, the name by which is distinguished a class of
imaginative literature which flourished in the 17th century, principally
in France. The beginnings of modern fiction in that country took a
pseudo-bucolic form, and the celebrated _Astree_ (1610) of Honore d'Urfe
(1568-1625), which is the earliest French novel, is properly styled a
pastoral. But this ingenious and diffuse production, in which all is
artificial, was the source of a vast literature, which took many and
diverse forms. Although its action was, in the main, languid and
sentimental, there was a side of the _Astree_ which encouraged that
extravagant love of glory, that spirit of "panache," which was now
rising to its height in France. That spirit it was which animated Marin
le Roy, sieur de Gomberville (1600-1674), who was the inventor of what
have since been known as the Heroical Romances. In these there was
experienced a violent recrudescence of the old medieval elements of
romance, the impossible valour devoted to a pursuit of the impossible
beauty, but the whole clothed in the language and feeling and atmosphere
of the age in which the books were written. In order to give point to
the chivalrous actions of the heroes, it was always hinted that they
were well-known public characters of the day in a romantic disguise.
In the _Astree_ of Honore d'Urfe, which was a pure pastoral, in the
religious romances of Pierre Camus (1582-1653), in the comic _Francion_
of Charles Sorel, piquancy had been given to the recital by this belief
that real personages could be recognized under the disguises. But in the
_Carithee_ of Gomberville (1621) we have a pastoral which is already
beginning to be a heroic romance, and a book in which, under a travesty
of Roman history, an appeal is made to an extravagantly chivalrous
enthusiasm. A further development was seen in the _Polyxene_ (1623) of
Francois de Moliere, and the _Endymion_ (1624) of Gombauld; in the
latter the elderly queen, Marie de' Medici, was celebrated under the
disguise of Diana, for whom a beautiful shepherd of Caria (the author
himself) nourishes a hopeless passion. The earliest of the Heroic
Romances, pure and simple, is, however, the celebrated _Polexandre_
(1629) of Gomberville. The author began by intending his hero to
represent Louis XIII., but he changed his mind, and drew a portrait of
Cardinal Richelieu. In this novel, for the first time, the romantic
character proper to this class of books is seen undiluted; there is no
intrusion of a personage who is not celebrated for his birth, his beauty
or his exploits. The story deals with the adventures of a hero who
visits all the sea-coasts of the world, the most remote as well as the
most fabulous, in search of an ineffable princess, Alcidiane. This
absurd and pretentious, yet very original piece of invention enjoyed an
immense success, and historical romances of a similar class competed for
the favour of the public. There was an equal amount of geography and
more of ancient history in the _Ariane_ (1632) of Desmarets de
Saint-Sorlin (1595-1676), a book which, long neglected, has in late
years been rediscovered, and which has been greeted by M. Paul Morillot
as the most readable and the least tiresome of all the Heroic Romances.
The type of that class of literature, however, has always been found in
the highly elaborate writings of Gauthier de Coste de la Calprenede
(1609-1663), which enjoyed for a time a prodigious celebrity, and were
read and imitated all over Europe. La Calprenede was a Gascon soldier,
imbued with all the extravagance of his race, and in full sympathy with
the audacity and violence of the aristocratic society of France in his
day. His _Cassandre_, which appeared in ten volumes between 1642 and
1645, is perhaps the most characteristic of all the Heroic Romances. It
deals with a highly romantic epoch of ancient history, the decline of
the empire of Alexander the Great. The wars of the Persians and of the
Scythians are introduced, and among the characters are discovered such
personages as Artaxerxes, Roxana and Ephestion. It must not be supposed,
however, that la Calprenede makes the smallest effort to deal with the
subject accurately or realistically. The figures are those of his own
day; they are seigneurs and great ladies of the court of Louis XIII.,
masquerading in Macedonian raiment. The passion of love is dominant
throughout, and it is treated in the most exalted and hyperbolical
spirit. The central heroes of the story, Oroondate and Lysimachus, are
dignified, eloquent and amorous; they undergo unexampled privations in
the quest of incomparable ladies whose beauty and whose nobility is only
equalled by their magnificent loyalty. These books were written with an
aim that was partly didactic. Their object was to entertain the ladies
and to gratify a taste for endlessly wire-drawn sentimentality, but it
was also to teach fortitude and grandeur of soul and to inculcate
lessons of practical chivalry. La Calprenede followed up the success of
his _Cassandre_ with a _Cleopatre_ (1647) in twelve volumes, and a
_Faramond_ (1661) which he did not live to finish. He became more
extravagant, more rhapsodical as he proceeded, and he lost all the
little hold on history which he had ever held. _Cleopatre_,
nevertheless, enjoyed a prodigious popularity, and it became the fashion
to emulate as far as possible the prowess of its magnificent hero, the
proud Artaban. It should be said that la Calprenede objected to his
books being styled romances, and insisted that they were specimens of
"history embellished with certain inventions." He may, in opposition to
his wishes, claim the doubtful praise of being, in reality, the creator
of the modern historical novel. He was immediately imitated or
accompanied by a large number of authors, of whom two have achieved a
certain immortality, which, unhappily, must be confessed to be partly of
ridicule. The vogue of the historical romance was carried to its height
by a brother and a sister, Georges de Scudery (1601-1667) and Madeleine
de Scudery (1608-1701), who represented in their own persons all the
extravagant, tempestuous and absurd elements of the age, and whose
elephantine romances remain as portents in the history of literature.
These novels--there are five of them--were signed by Georges de Scudery,
but it is believed that all were in the main written by Madeleine. The
earliest was _Ibrahim, ou l'Illustre Bassa_ (1641); it was followed by
_Le Grand Cyrus_ (1648-1653) and the final, and most preposterous member
of the series was _Clelie_ (1649-1654). The romances of Mlle de Scudery
(for to her we may safely attribute them) are much inferior in style to
those of la Calprenede. They are pretentious, affected and sickly. The
author abuses the element of analysis, and pushes a psychology, which
was beyond the age in penetration, to a wearisome and excessive extent.
Nothing, it is probable, in the whole evolution of the Historical
Romances has attracted so much attention as the "Carte de Tendre" which
occurs in the opening book of _Clelie_. This celebrated map, drawn by
the heroine in order to show the route from New Friendship to Tender,
and a geographical symbol, therefore, of the progress of love, with its
city of Tender-upon-Esteem, its sea of Enmity, its river of Inclination,
its rock-built citadel of Pride, its cold lake of Indifference, is a
miracle of elaborate and incongruous ingenuity. But, amusing as it is,
it shows into what depths of puerility the amorous casuistry of these
romances had fallen. These novels formed the chief topic of conversation
and of correspondence in the literary society which gathered at and
around the Hotel de Rambouillet, and in the personages of Mlle de
Scudery's romances could be recognized all the famous leaders of that
society. The mawkish love-making and the false heroism of these
monstrous novels went rapidly out of fashion in France soon after 1660,
when the epoch of the Heroic Romance came to an end. In England the
Heroic Romance had a period of flourishing popularity. All the principal
French examples were very promptly translated, and "he was not to be
admitted into the academy of wit who had not read _Astrea_ and _The
Grand Cyrus_." The great vogue of these books in England lasted from
about 1645 to 1660. It led, of course, to the composition of original
works in imitation of the French. The most remarkable and successful of
these was _Parthenissa_, published in 1654 by Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill
and afterwards Earl of Orrery (1621-1679), which was greatly admired by
Dorothy Osborne and her correspondents. Addison speaks in the
"Spectator" of the popularity of all these huge books, "the _Grand
Cyrus_, with a pin stuck in one of the middle leaves, _Clelie_, which
opened of itself in the place that describes two lovers in a bower."
When the drama, and in particular tragedy, was reinstituted in England,
sentimental readers found a field for their emotions on the stage, and
the heroic romances immediately began to go out of fashion. They
lingered, however, for a quarter of a century more, and M. Jusserand has
analysed what may be considered the very latest of the race, _Pandion
and Amphigenia_, published in 1665 by the dramatist, John Crowne.
See Gordon de Percel, _De l'usage des romans_ (1734); Andre Le Breton,
_Le Roman au XVII^e siecle_ (1890); Paul Morillot, _Le Roman en France
depuis 1610_ (1894); J. J. Jusserand, _Le Roman anglais au XVII^e
siecle_ (1888). (E. G.)
HEROIC VERSE, a term exclusively used in English to Indicate the rhymed
iambic line or HEROIC COUPLET. In ancient literature, the heroic verse,
[Greek: heroikon metron], was synonymous with the dactylic hexameter. It
was in this measure that those typically heroic poems, the _Iliad_ and
_Odyssey_ and the _Aeneid_ were written. In English, however, it was
not enough to designate a single iambic line of five beats as heroic
verse, because it was necessary to distinguish blank verse from the
distich, which was formed by the heroic couplet. This had escaped the
notice of Dryden, when he wrote "The English Verse, which we call
Heroic, consists of no more than ten syllables." If that were the case,
then _Paradise Lost_ would be written in heroic verse, which is not
true. What Dryden should have said is "consists of two rhymed lines,
each of ten syllables." In French the alexandrine has always been
regarded as the heroic measure of that language. The dactylic movement
of the heroic line in ancient Greek, the famous [Greek: rhythmos heroos]
of Homer, is expressed in modern Europe by the iambic movement. The
consequence is that much of the rush and energy of the antique verse,
which at vigorous moments was like the charge of a battalion, is lost.
It is owing to this, in part, that the heroic couplet is so often
required to give, in translation, the full value of a single Homeric
hexameter. It is important to insist that it is the couplet, not the
single line, which constitutes heroic verse. It is interesting to note
that the Latin poet Ennius, as reported by Cicero, called the heroic
metre of one line _versum longum_, to distinguish it from the brevity of
lyrical measures. The current form of English heroic verse appears to be
the invention of Chaucer, who used it in his _Legend of Good Women_ and
afterwards, with still greater freedom, in the _Canterbury Tales_. Here
is an example of it in its earliest development:--
"And thus the longe day in fight they spend,
Till, at the last, as everything hath end,
Anton is shent, and put him to the flight,
And all his folk to go, as best go might."
This way of writing was misunderstood and neglected by Chaucer's English
disciples, but was followed nearly a century later by the Scottish poet,
called Blind Harry (_c._ 1475), whose _Wallace_ holds an important place
in the history of versification as having passed on the tradition of the
heroic couplet. Another Scottish poet, Gavin Douglas, selected heroic
verse for his translation of the _Aeneid_ (1513), and displayed, in such
examples as the following, a skill which left little room for
improvement at the hands of later poets:--
"One sang, 'The ship sails over the salt foam,
Will bring the merchants and my leman home';
Some other sings, 'I will be blithe and light,
Mine heart is leant upon so goodly wight.'"
The verse so successfully mastered was, however, not very generally used
for heroic purposes in Tudor literature. The early poets of the revival,
and Spenser and Shakespeare after them, greatly preferred stanzaic
forms. For dramatic purposes blank verse was almost exclusively used,
although the French had adopted the rhymed alexandrine for their plays.
In the earlier half of the 17th century, heroic verse was often put to
somewhat unheroic purposes, mainly in prologues and epilogues, or other
short poems of occasion; but it was nobly redeemed by Marlowe in his
_Hero and Leander_ and respectably by Browne in his _Britannia's
Pastorals_. It is to be noted, however, that those Elizabethans who,
like Chapman, Warner and Drayton, aimed at producing a warlike and
Homeric effect, did so in shambling fourteen-syllable couplets. The one
heroic poem of that age written at considerable length in the
appropriate national metre is the _Bosworth Field_ of Sir John Beaumont
(1582-1628). Since the middle of the 17th century, when heroic verse
became the typical and for a while almost the solitary form in which
serious English poetry was written, its history has known many
vicissitudes. After having been the principal instrument of Dryden and
Pope, it was almost entirely rejected by Wordsworth and Coleridge, but
revised, with various modifications, by Byron, Shelley (in _Julian and
Maddalo_) and Keats (in _Lamia_). In the second half of the 19th century
its prestige was restored by the brilliant work of Swinburne in
_Tristram_ and elsewhere. (E. G.)
HEROLD, LOUIS JOSEPH FERDINAND (1791-1833), French musician, the son of
Francois Joseph Herold, an accomplished pianist, was born in Paris, on
the 28th of January 1791. It was not till after his father's death that
Herold in 1806 entered the Paris conservatoire, where he studied under
Catal and Mehul. In 1812 he gained the grand prix de Rome with the
cantata _La Duchesse de la Valliere_, and started for Italy, where he
remained till 1815 and composed a symphony, a cantata and several pieces
of chamber music. During his stay in Italy also Herold for the first
time ventured on the stage with the opera _La Gioventu di Enrico V._,
first performed at Naples in 1815 with moderate success. During a short
stay in Vienna he was much in the society of Salieri. Returning to Paris
he was invited by Boieldieu to collaborate with him on an opera called
_Charles de France_, performed in 1816, and soon followed by Herold's
first French opera, _Les Rosieres_ (1817), which was received very
favourably. Herold produced numerous dramatic works for the next fifteen
years in rapid succession. Only the names of some of the more important
need here be mentioned:--_La Clochette_ (1817), _L'Auteur mort et
vivant_ (1820), _Marie_ (1826), and the ballets _La Fille mal gardee_
(1828) and _La Belle au bois dormant_ (1829). Herold also wrote a vast
quantity of pianoforte music, in spite of his time being much occupied
by his duties as accompanist at the Italian opera in Paris. In 1831 he
produced the romantic opera _Zampa_, and in the following year _Le Pre
aux clercs_ (first performance December 15, 1832), in which French
_esprit_ and French chivalry find their most perfect embodiment. These
two operas secured immortality for the name of the composer, who died on
the 18th of January 1833, of the lung disease from which he had suffered
for many years, and the effects of which he had accelerated by incessant
work. Herold's incomplete opera _Ludovic_ was afterwards printed by J.
F. F. Halevy.
HERON (Fr. _heron_; Ital. _aghirone_, _airone_; Lat. _ardea_; Gr.
[Greek: erodios]: A.-S. _hragra_; Icelandic, _hegre_; Swed. _hager_;
Dan. _heire_; Ger. _Heiger_, _Reiher_, _Heergans_; Dutch, _reiger_), a
long-necked, long-winged and long-legged bird, the typical
representative of the group _Ardeidae_. It is difficult or even
impossible to estimate with any accuracy the number of species of
_Ardeidae_ which exist. Professor Hermann Schlegel in 1863 enumerated
61, besides 5 of what he terms "conspecies," as contained in the
collection at Leyden (_Mus. des Pays-Bas_, Ardeae, 64 pp.),--on the
other hand, G. R. Gray in 1871 (_Handlist_, &c. iii. 26-34) admitted
above 90, while Dr Anton Reichenow (_Journ. fur Ornithologie_, 1877, pp.
232-275) recognizes 67 as known, besides 15 "subspecies" and 3
varieties, arranging them in 3 genera, _Nycticorax_, _Botaurus_ and
_Ardea_, with 17 sub-genera. But it is difficult to separate the family,
with any satisfactory result, into genera, if structural characters have
to be found for these groups, for in many cases they run almost
insensibly into each other--though in common language it is easy to
speak of herons, egrets, bitterns, night-herons and boatbills. With the
exception of the last, Professor Schlegel retains all in the genus
_Ardea_, dividing it into _eight_ sections, the names of which may
perhaps be Englished--great herons, small herons, egrets, semi-egrets,
rail-like herons, little bitterns, bitterns and night-herons.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Heron.]
The common heron of Europe, _Ardea cinerea_ of Linnaeus, is universally
allowed to be the type of the family, and it may also be regarded as
that of Professor Schlegel's first section. The species inhabits
suitable localities throughout the whole of Europe, Africa and Asia,
reaching Japan, many of the islands of the Indian Archipelago and even
Australia. Though by no means so numerous as formerly in Britain, it is
still sufficiently common,[1] and there must be few persons who have not
seen it rising slowly from some river-side or marshy flat, or passing
overhead in its lofty and leisurely flight on its way to or from its
daily haunts; while they are many who have been entertained by watching
it as it sought its food, consisting chiefly of fishes (especially eels
and flounders) and amphibians--though young birds and small mammals come
not amiss--wading midleg in the shallows, swimming occasionally when out
of its depth, or standing motionless to strike its prey with its
formidable and sure beak. When sufficiently numerous the heron breeds in
societies, known as heronries, which of old time were protected both by
law and custom in nearly all European countries, on account of the sport
their tenants afforded to the falconer. Of late years, partly owing to
the withdrawal of the protection they had enjoyed, and still more, it
would seem, from agricultural improvement, which, by draining meres,
fens and marshes, has abolished the feeding-places of a great population
of herons, many of the larger heronries have broken up--the birds
composing them dispersing to neighbouring localities and forming smaller
settlements, most of which are hardly to be dignified by the name of
heronry, though commonly accounted such. Thus the number of so-called
heronries in the United Kingdom, and especially in England and Wales,
has become far greater than formerly, but no one can doubt that the
number of herons has dwindled. The sites chosen by the heron for its
nest vary greatly. It is generally built in the top of a lofty tree, but
not unfrequently (and this seems to have been much more usual in former
days) near or on the ground among rough vegetation, on an island in a
lake, or again on a rocky cliff of the coast. It commonly consists of a
huge mass of sticks, often the accumulation of years, lined with twigs,
and in it are laid from four to six sea-green eggs. The young are
clothed in soft flax-coloured down, and remain in the nest for a
considerable time, therein differing remarkably from the "pipers" of the
crane, which are able to run almost as soon as they are hatched. The
first feathers assumed by young herons in a general way resemble those
of the adult, but the pure white breast, the black throat-streaks and
especially the long pendent plumes, which characterize only the very old
birds, and are most beautiful in the cocks, are subsequently acquired.
The heron measures about 3 ft. from the bill to the tail, and the
expanse of its wings is sometimes not less than 6 ft., yet it weighs
only between 3 and 4 lb.
Large as is the common heron of Europe, it is exceeded in size by the
great blue heron of America (_Ardea herodias_), which generally
resembles it in appearance and habits, and both are smaller than the _A.
sumatrana_ or _A. typhon_ of India and the Malay Archipelago, while the
_A. goliath_, of wide distribution in Africa and Asia, is the largest of
all. The purple heron, _A. purpurea_, as a well-known European species
having a great range over the Old World, also deserves mention here. The
species included in Professor Schlegel's second section inhabit the
tropical parts of Africa, Australasia and America. The egrets, forming
his third group, require more notice, distinguished as they are by their
pure white plumage, and, when in breeding-dress, by the beautiful
dorsal tufts of decomposed feathers that ordinarily droop over the tail,
and are so highly esteemed as ornaments by Oriental magnates. The
largest species is _A. occidentalis_, only known apparently from Florida
and Cuba; but one not much less, the great egret (_A. alba_), belongs to
the Old World, breeding regularly in south-eastern Europe, and
occasionally straying to Britain. A third, _A. egretta_, represents it
in America, while much the same may be said of two smaller species, _A.
garzetta_, the little egret of English authors, and _A. candidissima_;
and a sixth, _A. intermedia_, is common in India, China and Japan,
besides occurring in Australia. The group of semi-egrets, containing
some nine or ten forms, among which the buff-backed heron (_A.
bubulcus_), is the only species that is known to have occurred in
Europe, is hardly to be distinguished from the last section except by
their plumage being at certain seasons varied in some species with
slaty-blue and in others with rufous. The rail-like herons form
Professor Schlegel's next section, but it can scarcely be satisfactorily
differentiated, and the epithet is misleading, for its members have no
rail-like affinities, though the typical species, which inhabits the
south of Europe, and occasionally finds its way to England, has long
been known as _A. ralloides_.[2] Nearly all these birds are tropical or
subtropical. Then there is the somewhat better defined group of little
bitterns, containing about a dozen species--the smallest of the whole
family. One of them, _A. minuta_, though very local in its distribution,
is a native of the greater part of Europe, and has bred in England. It
has a close counterpart in the _A. exilis_ of North America, and is
represented by three or four forms in other parts of the world, the _A.
pusilla_ of Australia especially differing very slightly from it. Ranged
by Professor Schlegel with these birds, which are all remarkable for
their skulking habits, but more resembling the true herons in their
nature, are the common green bittern of America (_A. virescens_) and its
very near ally the African _A. atricapilla_, from which last it is
almost impossible to distinguish the _A. javanica_, of wide range
throughout Asia and its islands, while other species, less closely
related, occur elsewhere as _A. flavicollis_--one form of which, _A.
gouldi_, inhabits Australia.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Bittern.]
The true bitterns, forming the genus _Botaurus_ of most authors, seem to
be fairly separable, but more perhaps on account of their wholly
nocturnal habits and correspondingly adapted plumage than on strictly
structural grounds, though some differences of proportion are
observable. The common bittern (q.v.) of Europe (_B. stellaris_), is
widely distributed over the eastern hemisphere.[3] Australia and New
Zealand have a kindred species, _B. poeciloptilus_, and North America a
third, _B. mugitans_[4] or _B. lentiginosus_. Nine other species from
various parts of the world are admitted by Professor Schlegel, but some
of them should perhaps be excluded from the genus _Botaurus_.
Of the night-herons the same author recognizes six species, all of which
may be reasonably placed in the genus _Nycticorax_, characterized by a
shorter beak and a few other peculiarities, among which the large eyes
deserve mention. The first is _N. griseus_, a bird widely spread over
the Old World, and not unfrequently visiting England, where it would
undoubtedly breed if permitted. Professor Schlegel unites with it the
common night-heron of America; but this, though very closely allied, is
generally deemed distinct, and is the _N. naevius_ or _N. gardeni_ of
most writers. A clearly different American species, with a more southern
habitat, is the _N. violaceus_ or _N. cayennensis_, while others are
found in South America, Australia, some of the Asiatic Islands and in
West Africa. The Galapagos have a peculiar species, _N. pauper_, and
another, so far as is known, peculiar to Rodriguez, _N. megacephalus_,
existed in that island at the time of its being first colonized, but is
now extinct.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Boatbill.]
The boatbill, of which only one species is known, seems to be merely a
night-heron with an exaggerated bill,--so much widened as to suggest its
English name,--but has always been allowed generic rank. This curious
bird, the _Cancroma cochlearia_ of most authors, is a native of tropical
America, and what is known of its habits shows that they are essentially
those of a _Nycticorax_.[5]
Bones of the common heron and bittern are not uncommon in the peat of
the East-Anglian fens. Remains from Sansan and Langy in France have been
referred by Alphonse Milne-Edwards to herons under the names of _Ardea
perplexa_ and _A. formosa_; a tibia from the Miocene of Steinheim am
Albuch by Dr Fraas to an _A. similis_, while Sir R. Owen recognized a
portion of a sternum from the London Clay as most nearly approaching
this family.
It remains to say that the herons form part of Huxley's section
_Pelargomorphae_, belonging to his larger group _Desmognathae_, and to
draw attention to the singular development of the patches of
"powder-down" which in the family _Ardeidae_ attain a magnitude hardly
to be found elsewhere. Their use is utterly unknown. (A. N.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] In many parts of England it is generally called a
"hernser"--being a corruption of "heronsewe," which, as Professor
Skeat states (_Etymol. Dictionary_, p. 264), is a perfectly distinct
word from "heronshaw," commonly confounded with it. The further
corruption of "hernser" into "handsaw," as in the well-known proverb,
was easy in the mouth of men to whom hawking the heronsewe was
unfamiliar.
[2] It is the "Squacco-Heron" of modern British authors--the
distinctive name, given "Sguacco" by Willughby and Ray from
Aldrovandus, having been misspelt by Latham.
[3] The last-recorded instance of the bittern breeding in England was
in 1868, as mentioned by Stevenson (_Birds of Norfolk_, ii. 164).
[4] Richardson, a most accurate observer, asserts (_Fauna
Boreali-Americana_, ii. 374) that its booming (whence the epithet)
exactly resembles that of its Old-World congener, but American
ornithologists seem only to have heard the croaking note it makes
when disturbed.
[5] The very wonderful shoe-bird (_Balaeniceps_) has been regarded by
many authorities as allied to _Cancroma_; but there can be little
doubt that it is more nearly related to the genus _Scopus_ belonging
to the storks. The sun-bittern (_Eurypyga_) forms a family of itself,
allied to the rails and cranes.
HERPES (from the Gr. [Greek: herpein], to creep) an inflammation of the
true skin resulting from a lesion of the underlying nerve or its
ganglion, attended with the formation of isolated or grouped vesicles of
various sizes upon a reddened base. They contain a clear fluid, and
either rupture or dry up. Two well-marked varieties of herpes are
frequently met with. (a) In _herpes labialis et nasalis_ the eruption
occurs about the lips and nose. It is seen in cases of certain acute
febrile ailments, such as fevers, inflammation of the lungs or even in a
severe cold. It soon passes off. (b) In the _herpes zoster, zona_ or
"shingles" the eruption occurs in the course of one or more cutaneous
nerves, often on one side of the trunk, but it may be on the face, limbs
or other parts. It may occur at any age, but is probably more frequently
met with in elderly people. The appearance of the eruption is usually
preceded by severe stinging neuralgic pains for several days, and, not
only during the continuance of the herpetic spots, but long after they
have dried up and disappeared, these pains sometimes continue and give
rise to great suffering. The disease seldom recurs. The most that can be
done for its relief is to protect the parts with cotton wool or some
dusting powder, while the pain may be allayed by opiates or bromide of
potassium. Quinine internally is often of service.
HERRERA, FERNANDO DE (c. 1534-1597), Spanish lyrical poet, was born at
Seville. Although in minor orders, he addressed many impassioned poems
to the countess of Gelves, wife of Alvaro Colon de Portugal; but it is
suggested that these should be regarded as Platonic literary exercises
in the manner of Petrarch. As is shown by his _Anotaciones a las obras
de Garcilaso de la Vega_ (1580), Herrera had a boundless admiration for
the Italian poets, and continued the work of Boscan in naturalizing the
Italian metrical system in Spain. His commentary on Garcilaso involved
him in a series of literary polemics, and his verbal innovations laid
him open to attack. But, even if his amatory sonnets are condemned as
insincere in sentiment, their workmanship is admirable, while his odes
on the battle of Lepanto, on Don John of Austria, and the elegy on King
Sebastian of Portugal entitle him to rank as the greatest of Andalusian
poets and as the most important of the followers of Garcilaso de la Vega
(see VEGA). His poems were published in 1582, and reprinted with
additions in 1619; they are reissued in the _Biblioteca de autores
espanoles_, vol. xxxii. Of Herrera's prose works only the _Vida y muerta
de Tomas Moro_ (1592) survives; it is a translation of the life in
Thomas Stapleton's _Tres Thomae_ (1588).
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--E. Bourciez, "Les Sonnets de Fernando de Herrera,"
_Annales de la Faculte des Lettres de Bordeaux_ (1891); _Fernando de
Herrera, controversia sobre sus anotaciones a les obras de Garcilaso
de la Vega_ (Seville, 1870); A. Morel-Fatio, _L'Hymne sur Lepante_
(Paris, 1893).
HERRERA, FRANCISCO (1576-1656), surnamed el Viejo (the old), Spanish
historical and fresco painter, studied under Luis Fernandez in Seville,
his native city, where he spent most of his life. Although so rough and
coarse in manners that neither scholar nor child could remain with him,
the great talents of Herrera, and the promptitude with which he used
them, brought him abundant commissions. He was also a skilful worker in
bronze, an accomplishment that led to his being charged with coining
base money. From this accusation, whether true or false, he sought
sanctuary in the Jesuit college of San Hermenegildo, which he adorned
with a fine picture of its patron saint. Philip IV., on his visit to
Seville in 1624, having seen this picture, and learned the position of
the artist, pardoned him at once, warning him, however, that such powers
as his should not be degraded. In 1650 Herrera removed to Madrid, where
he lived in great honour till his death in 1656. Herrera was the first
to relinquish the timid Italian manner of the old Spanish school of
painting, and to initiate the free, vigorous touch and style which
reached such perfection in Velazquez, who had been for a short time his
pupil. His pictures are marked by an energy of design and freedom of
execution quite in keeping with his bold, rough character. He is said to
have used very long brushes in his painting; and it is also said that,
when pupils failed, his servant used to dash the colours on the canvas
with a broom under his directions, and that he worked them up into his
designs before they dried. The drawing in his pictures is correct, and
the colouring original and skilfully managed, so that the figures stand
out in striking relief. What has been considered his best easel-work,
the "Last Judgment," in the church of San Bernardo at Seville, is an
original and striking composition, showing in its treatment of the nude
how ill-founded the common belief was that Spanish painters, through
ignorance of anatomy, understood only the draped figure. Perhaps his
best fresco is that on the dome of the church of San Buenaventura; but
many of his frescoes have perished, some by the effects of the weather
and others by the artist's own carelessness in preparing his surfaces.
He has, however, preserved several of his own designs in etchings. For
his easel-works Herrera often chose such humble subjects as fairs,
carnivals, ale-houses and the like.
His son FRANCISCO HERRARA (1622-1685), surnamed el Mozo (the young), was
also an historical and fresco painter. Unable to endure his father's
cruelty, the younger Herrera, seizing what money he could find, fled
from Seville to Rome. There, instead of devoting himself to the
antiquities and the works of the old Italian masters, he gave himself up
to the study of architecture and perspective, with the view of becoming
a fresco-painter. He did not altogether neglect easel-work, but became
renowned for his pictures of still-life, flowers and fruit, and from his
skill in painting fish was called by the Italians _Lo Spagnuolo degli
pesci_. In later life he painted portraits with great success. He
returned to Seville on hearing of his father's death, and in 1660 was
appointed subdirector of the new academy there under Murillo. His
vanity, however, brooked the superiority of no one; and throwing up his
appointment he went to Madrid. There he was employed to paint a San
Hermenegildo for the barefooted Carmelites, and to decorate in fresco
the roof of the choir of San Felipe el Real. The success of this last
work procured for him a commission from Philip IV. to paint in fresco
the roof of the Atocha church. He chose as his subject for this the
Assumption of the Virgin. Soon afterwards he was rewarded with the title
of painter to the king, and was appointed superintendent of the royal
buildings. He died at Madrid in 1685. Herrera el Mozo was of a somewhat
similar temperament to his father, and offended many people by his
inordinate vanity and suspicious jealousy. His pictures are inferior to
the older Herrera's both in design and in execution; but in some of them
traces of the vigour of his father, who was his first teacher, are
visible. He was by no means an unskilful colourist, and was especially
master of the effects of chiaroscuro. As his best picture Sir Edmund
Head in his _Handbook_ names his "San Francisco," in Seville Cathedral.
An elder brother, known as Herrera el Rubio (the ruddy), who died very
young, gave great promise as a painter.
HERRERA Y TORDESILLAS, ANTONIO DE (1549-1625), Spanish historian, was
born at Cuellar, in the province of Segovia in Spain. His father,
Roderigo de Tordesillas, and his mother, Agnes de Herrera, were both of
good family. After studying for some time in his native country, Herrera
proceeded to Italy, and there became secretary to Vespasian Gonzago,
with whom, on his appointment as viceroy of Navarre, he returned to
Spain. Gonzago, sensible of his secretary's abilities, commended him to
Philip II. of Spain; and that monarch appointed Herrera first
historiographer of the Indies, and one of the historiographers of
Castile. Placed thus in the enjoyment of an ample salary, Herrera
devoted the rest of his life to the pursuit of literature, retaining his
offices until the reign of Philip IV., by whom he was appointed
secretary of state very shortly before his death, which took place at
Madrid on the 29th of March 1625. Of Herrera's writings, the most
valuable is his _Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos en
las islas y tierra firme del Mar Oceano_ (Madrid, 1601-1615, 4 vols.), a
work which relates the history of the Spanish-American colonies from
1492 to 1554. The author's official position gave him access to the
state papers and to other authentic sources not attainable by other
writers, while he did not scruple to borrow largely from other MSS.,
especially from that of Bartolome de Las Casas. He used his facilities
carefully and judiciously; and the result is a work on the whole
accurate and unprejudiced, and quite indispensable to the student either
of the history of the early colonies, or of the institutions and
customs of the aboriginal American peoples. Although it is written in
the form of annals, mistakes are not wanting, and several glaring
anachronisms have been pointed out by M. J. Quintana. "If," to quote Dr
Robertson, "by attempting to relate the various occurrences in the New
World in a strict chronological order, the arrangement of events in his
work had not been rendered so perplexed, disconnected and obscure that
it is an unpleasant task to collect from different parts of his book and
piece together the detached shreds of a story, he might justly have been
ranked among the most eminent historians of his country." This work was
republished in 1730, and has been translated into English by J. Stevens
(London, 1740), and into other European languages.
Herrera's other works are the following: _Historia de lo sucedido en
Escocia e Inglaterra en quarenta y quatro anos que vivio la reyna
Maria Estuarda_ (Madrid, 1589); _Cinco libros de la historia de
Portugal, y conquista de las islas de los Acores, 1582-1583_ (Madrid,
1591); _Historia de lo sucedido en Francia, 1585-1594_ (Madrid, 1598);
_Historia general del mundo del tiempo del rey Felipe II, desde 1559
hasta su muerte_ (Madrid, 1601-1612, 3 vols.); _Tratado, relacion, y
discurso historico de los movimientos de Aragon_ (Madrid, 1612);
_Comentarios de los hechos de los Espanoles, Franceses, y Venecianos
en Italia, &c., 1281-1559_ (Madrid, 1624, seq.). See W. H. Prescott,
_History of the Conquest of Mexico_, vol. ii.
HERRICK, ROBERT (1591-1674), English poet, was born at Cheapside,
London, and baptized on the 24th of August 1591. He belonged to an old
Leicestershire family which had settled in London. He was the seventh
child of Nicholas Herrick, goldsmith, of the city of London, who died in
1592, under suspicion of suicide. The children were brought up by their
uncle, Sir William Herrick, one of the richest goldsmiths of the day, to
whom in 1607 Robert was bound apprentice. He had probably been educated
at Westminster school, and in 1614 he proceeded to Cambridge; and it was
no doubt during his apprenticeship that the young poet was introduced to
that circle of wits which he was afterwards to adorn. He seems to have
been present at the first performance of _The Alchemist_ in 1610, and it
was probably about this time that Ben Jonson adopted him as his poetical
"son." He entered the university as fellow-commoner of St John's
College, and he remained there until, in 1616, upon taking his degree,
he removed to Trinity Hall. A lively series of fourteen letters to his
uncle, mainly begging for money, exists at Beaumanoir, and shows that
Herrick suffered much from poverty at the university. He took his B.A.
in 1617, and in 1620 he became master of arts. From this date until 1627
we entirely lose sight of him; it has been variously conjectured that he
spent these years preparing for the ministry at Cambridge, or in much
looser pursuits in London. In 1629 (September 30) he was presented by
the king to the vicarage of Dean Prior, not far from Totnes in
Devonshire. At Dean Prior he resided quietly until 1648, when he was
ejected by the Puritans. The solitude there oppressed him at first; the
village was dull and remote, and he felt very bitterly that he was cut
off from all literary and social associations; but soon the quiet
existence in Devonshire soothed and delighted him. He was pleased with
the rural and semi-pagan customs that survived in the village, and in
some of his most charming verses he has immortalized the morris-dances,
wakes and quintains, the Christmas mummers and the Twelfth Night
revellings, that diversified the quiet of Dean Prior. Herrick never
married, but lived at the vicarage surrounded by a happy family of pets,
and tended by an excellent old servant named Prudence Baldwin. His first
appearance in print was in some verses he contributed to _A Description
of the King and Queen of Fairies_, in 1635. In 1650 a volume of _Wit's
Recreations_ contained sixty-two small poems afterwards acknowledged by
Herrick in the _Hesperides_, and one not reprinted until our own day.
These partial appearances make it probable that he visited London from
time to time. We have few hints of his life as a clergyman. Anthony Wood
says that Herricks's sermons were florid and witty, and that he was
"beloved by the neighbouring gentry." A very aged woman, one Dorothy
King, stated that the poet once threw his sermon at his congregation,
cursing them for their inattention. The same old woman recollected his
favourite pig, which he taught to drink out of a tankard. He was a
devotedly loyal supporter of the king during the Civil War, and
immediately upon his ejection in 1648 he published his celebrated
collection of lyrical poems, entitled _Hesperides; or the Works both
Human and Divine of Robert Herrick_. The "divine works" bore the title
of _Noble Numbers_ and the date 1647. That he was reduced to great
poverty in London has been stated, but there is no evidence of the fact.
In August 1662 Herrick returned to Dean Prior, supplanting his own
supplanter, Dr John Syms. He died in his eighty-fourth year, and was
buried at Dean Prior, October 15, 1674. A monument was erected to his
memory in the parish church in 1857, by Mr Perry Herrick, a descendant
of a collateral branch of the family. The _Hesperides_ (and _Noble
Numbers_) is the only volume which Herrick published, but he contributed
poems to _Lachrymae Musarum_ (1649) and to _Wit's Recreations_.
As a pastoral lyrist Herrick stands first among English poets. His
genius is limited in scope, and comparatively unambitious, but in its
own field it is unrivalled. His tiny poems--and of the thirteen hundred
that he has left behind him not one is long--are like jewels of various
value, heaped together in a casket. Some are of the purest water,
radiant with light and colour, some were originally set in false metal
that has tarnished, some were rude and repulsive from the first. Out of
the unarranged, heterogeneous mass the student has to select what is not
worth reading, but, after he has cast aside all the rubbish, he is
astonished at the amount of excellent and exquisite work that remains.
Herrick has himself summed up, very correctly, the themes of his sylvan
muse when he says:--
"I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds and bowers,
Of April, May, of June and July flowers,
I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes,
Of bridegrooms, brides and of their bridal-cakes."
He saw the picturesqueness of English homely life as no one before him
had seen it, and he described it in his verse with a certain purple glow
of Arcadian romance over it, in tones of immortal vigour and freshness.
His love poems are still more beautiful; the best of them have an ardour
and tender sweetness which give them a place in the forefront of modern
lyrical poetry, and remind us of what was best in Horace and in the
poets of the Greek anthology.
After suffering complete extinction for more than a century, the fame
of Herrick was revived by John Nichols, who introduced his poems to
the readers of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ of 1796 and 1797. Dr Drake
followed in 1798 with considerable enthusiasm. By 1810 interest had so
far revived in the forgotten poet that Dr Nott ventured to print a
selection from his poems, which attracted the favourable notice of the
_Quarterly Review_. In 1823 the _Hesperides_ and the _Noble Numbers_
were for the first time edited by Mr T. Maitland, afterwards Lord
Dundrennan. Since then the reprints of Herrick's have been too
numerous to be mentioned here; there are few English poets of the 17th
century whose writings are now more accessible. See F. W. Moorman,
_Robert Herrick_ (1910). (E. G.)
HERRIES, JOHN CHARLES (1778-1855), English politician, son of a London
merchant, began his career as a junior clerk in the treasury, and became
known for his financial abilities as private secretary to successive
ministers. He was appointed commissary-in-chief (1811), and, on the
abolition of that office (1816), auditor of the civil list. In 1823 he
entered parliament as secretary to the treasury, and in 1827 became
chancellor of the exchequer under Lord Goderich; but in consequence of
internal differences, arising partly out of a slight put upon Herries,
the ministry was broken up, and in 1828 he was appointed master of the
mint. In 1830 he became president of the board of trade, and for the
earlier months of 1835 he was secretary at war. From 1841 to 1847 he was
out of parliament, but during 1852 he was president of the board of
control under Lord Derby. He was a consistent and upright Tory of the
old school, who carried weight as an authority on financial subjects.
His eldest son, SIR CHARLES JOHN HERRIES (1815-1882), was chairman of
the board of inland revenue.
See the _Life_ by his younger son, Edward Herries (1880).
HERRIES, JOHN MAXWELL, 4TH LORD (c. 1512-1583), Scottish politician, was
the second son of Robert Maxwell, 4th Lord Maxwell (d. 1546). In 1547 he
married Agnes (d. 1594), daughter of William Herries, 3rd Lord Herries
(d. 1543), a grandson of Herbert Herries (d. c. 1500) of Terregles,
Kirkcudbrightshire, who was created a lord of the Scottish parliament
about 1490, and in 1567 he obtained the title of Lord Herries. But
before this event Maxwell had become prominent among the men who rallied
round Mary queen of Scots, although during the earlier part of his
public life he had been associated with the religious reformers and had
been imprisoned by the regent, Mary of Lorraine. He was, moreover--at
least until 1563--very friendly with John Knox, who calls him "a man
zealous and stout in God's cause." But the transition from one party to
the other was gradually accomplished, and from March 1566, when Maxwell
joined Mary at Dunbar after the murder of David Rizzio and her escape
from Holyrood, he remained one of her staunchest friends, although he
disliked her marriage with Bothwell. He led her cavalry at Langside, and
after this battle she committed herself to his care. Herries rode with
the queen into England in May 1568, and he and John Lesley, bishop of
Ross, were her chief commissioners at the conferences at York. He
continued to labour in Mary's cause after returning to Scotland, and was
imprisoned by the regent Murray; he also incurred Elizabeth's
displeasure by harbouring the rebel Leonard Dacres, but he soon made his
peace with the English queen. He showed himself in general hostile to
the regent Morton, but he was among the supporters of the regent Lennox
until his death on the 20th of January 1583. His son William, 5th Lord
Herries (d. 1604), was, like his father, warden of the west marches.
William's grandson John, 7th Lord Herries (d. 1677), became 3rd earl of
Nithsdale in succession to his cousin Robert Maxwell, the 2nd earl, in
1667. John's grandson was William, 5th earl of Nithsdale, the Jacobite
(see NITHSDALE). William was deprived of his honours in 1716, but in
1858 the House of Lords decided that his descendant William
Constable-Maxwell (1804-1876) was rightly Lord Herries of Terregles. In
1876 William's son Marmaduke Constable-Maxwell (b. 1837) became 12th
Lord Herries, and in 1884 he was created a baron of the United Kingdom.
HERRING (_Clupea harengus_, _Haring_ in German, _le hareng_ in French,
_sill_ in Swedish), a fish belonging to the genus _Clupea_, of which
more than sixty different species are known in various parts of the
globe. The sprat, pilchard or sardine and shad are species of the same
genus. Of all sea-fishes _Clupeae_ are the most abundant; for although
other genera may comprise a greater variety of species, they are far
surpassed by _Clupea_ with regard to the number of individuals. The
majority of the species of _Clupea_ are of greater or less utility to
man; it is only a few tropical species that acquire, probably from their
food, highly poisonous properties, so as to be dangerous to persons
eating them. But no other species equals the common herring in
importance as an article of food or commerce. It inhabits in incredible
numbers the North Sea, the northern parts of the Atlantic and the seas
north of Asia. The herring inhabiting the corresponding latitudes of the
North Pacific is another species, but most closely allied to that of the
eastern hemisphere. Formerly it was the general belief that the herring
inhabits the open ocean close to the Arctic Circle, and that it migrates
at certain seasons towards the northern coasts of Europe and America.
This view has been proved to be erroneous, and we know now that this
fish lives throughout the year in the vicinity of our shores, but at a
greater depth, and at a greater distance from the coast, than at the
time when it approaches land for the purpose of spawning.
Herrings are readily recognized and distinguished from the other species
of _Clupea_ by having an ovate patch of very small teeth on the vomer
(that is, the centre of the palate). In the dorsal fin they have from 17
to 20 rays, and in the anal fin from 16 to 18; there are from 53 to 59
scales in the lateral line and 54 to 56 vertebrae in the vertebral
column. They have a smooth gill-cover, without those radiating ridges of
bone which are so conspicuous in the pilchard and other _Clupeae_. The
sprat cannot be confounded with the herring, as it has no teeth on the
vomer and only 47 or 48 scales in the lateral line.
The spawn of the herring is adhesive, and is deposited on rough
gravelly ground at varying distances from the coast and always in
comparatively shallow water. The season of spawning is different in
different places, and even in the same district, e.g. the east coast of
Scotland, there are herrings spawning in spring and others in autumn.
These are not the same fish but different races. Those which breed in
winter or spring deposit their spawn near the coast at the mouths of
estuaries, and ascend the estuaries to a considerable distance at
certain times, as in the Firths of Forth and Clyde, while those which
spawn in summer or autumn belong more to the open sea, e.g. the great
shoals that visit the North Sea annually.
Herrings grow very rapidly; according to H. A. Meyer's observations,
they attain a length of from 17 to 18 mm. during the first month after
hatching, 34 to 36 mm. during the second, 45 to 50 mm. during the third,
55 to 61 mm. during the fourth, and 65 to 72 mm. during the fifth. The
size which they finally attain and their general condition depend
chiefly on the abundance of food (which consists of crustaceans and
other small marine animals), on the temperature of the water, on the
season at which they have been hatched, &c. Their usual size is about 12
in., but in some particularly suitable localities they grow to a length
of 15 in., and instances of specimens measuring 17 in. are on record. In
the Baltic, where the water is gradually losing its saline constituents,
thus becoming less adapted for the development of marine species, the
herring continues to exist in large numbers, but as a dwarfed form, not
growing either to the size or to the condition of the North-Sea herring.
The herring of the American side of the Atlantic is specifically
identical with that of Europe. A second species (_Clupea leachii_) has
been supposed to exist on the British coast; but it comprises only
individuals of a smaller size, the produce of an early or late spawn.
Also the so-called "white-bait" is not a distinct species, but consists
chiefly of the fry or the young of herrings and sprats, and is obtained
"in perfection" at localities where these small fishes find an abundance
of food, as in the estuary of the Thames.
Several excellent accounts of the herring have been published, as by
Valenciennes in the 20th vol. of the _Histoire naturelle des
poissons_, and more especially by Mr J. M. Mitchell, _The Herring, its
Natural History and National Importance_ (Edinburgh, 1864). Recent
investigations are described in the Reports of the Fishery _Board for
Scotland_, and in the reports of the German _Kommission zur
Untersuchung der Deutschen Meere_ (published at Kiel). (J. T. C.)
HERRING-BONE, a term in architecture applied to alternate courses of
bricks or stone, which are laid diagonally with binding courses above
and below: this is said to give a better bond to the wall, especially
when the stone employed is stratified, such as Stonefield stone, and too
thin to be laid in horizontal courses. Although it is only occasionally
found in modern buildings, it was a type of construction constantly
employed in Roman, Byzantine and Romanesque work, and in the latter is
regarded as a test of very early date. It is frequently found in the
Byzantine walls in Asia Minor, and in Byzantine churches was employed
decoratively to give variety to the wall surface. Sometimes the diagonal
courses are reversed one above the other. Examples in France exist in
the churches at Querqueville in Normandy and St Christophe at Suevres
(Loir et Cher), both dating from the 10th century, and in England
herring-bone masonry is found in the walls of castles, such as at
Guildford, Colchester and Tamworth. The term is also applied to the
paving of stable yards with bricks laid flat diagonally and alternating
so that the head of one brick butts against the side of another; and the
effect is more pleasing than when laid in parallel courses.
HERRINGS, BATTLE OF THE, the name applied to the action of Rouvray,
fought in 1429 between the French (and Scots) and the English, who,
under Sir John Falstolfe (or Falstaff), were convoying Lenten
provisions, chiefly herrings, to the besiegers of Orleans. (See ORLEANS
and HUNDRED YEARS' WAR.)
HERRNHUT, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Saxony, 18 m. S.E. of
Bautzen, and situated on the Lobau-Zittau railway. Pop. 1200. It is
chiefly known as the principal seat of the Moravian or Bohemian
brotherhood, the members of which are called _Herrnhuter_. A colony of
these people, fleeing from persecution in Moravia, settled at Herrnhut
in 1722 on a site presented by Count Zinzendorf. The buildings of the
society include a church, a school and houses for the brethren, the
sisters and the widowed of both sexes, while it possesses an
ethnographical museum and other collections of interest. The town is
remarkable for its ordered, regular life and its scrupulous cleanliness.
Linen, paper (to varieties of which Herrnhut gives its name), tobacco
and various minor articles are manufactured. The Hutberg, at the foot of
which the town lies, commands a pleasant view. Berthelsdorf, a village
about a mile distant, has been the seat of the directorate of the
community since about 1789.
HERSCHEL, CAROLINE LUCRETIA (1750-1848), English astronomer, sister of
Sir William Herschel, the eighth child and fourth daughter of her
parents, was born at Hanover on the 16th of March 1750. On account of
the prejudices of her mother, who did not desire her to know more than
was necessary for being useful in the family, she received, in youth
only the first elements of education. After the death of her father in
1767 she obtained permission to learn millinery and dressmaking with a
view to earning her bread, but continued to assist her mother in the
management of the household until the autumn of 1772, when she joined
her brother William, who had established himself as a teacher of music
at Bath. At once she became a valuable co-operator with him both in his
professional duties and in the astronomical researches to which he had
already begun to devote all his spare time. She was the principal singer
at his oratorio concerts, and acquired such a reputation as a vocalist
that she was offered an engagement for the Birmingham festival, which,
however, she declined. When her brother accepted the office of
astronomer to George III., she became his constant assistant in his
observations, and also executed the laborious calculations which were
connected with them. For these services she received from the king in
1787 a salary of L50 a year. Her chief amusement during her leisure
hours was sweeping the heavens with a small Newtonian telescope. By this
means she detected in 1783 three remarkable nebulae, and during the
eleven years 1786-1797 eight comets, five of them with unquestioned
priority. In 1797 she presented to the Royal Society an Index to
Flamsteed's observations, together with a catalogue of 561 stars
accidentally omitted from the "British Catalogue," and a list of the
errata in that publication. Though she returned to Hanover in 1822 she
did not abandon her astronomical studies, and in 1828 she completed the
reduction, to January 1800, of 2500 nebulae discovered by her brother.
In 1828 the Astronomical Society, to mark their sense of the benefits
conferred on science by such a series of laborious exertions,
unanimously resolved to present her with their gold medal, and in 1835
elected her an honorary member of the society. In 1846 she received a
gold medal from the king of Prussia. She died on the 9th of January
1848.
See _The Memoir and Correspondence of Caroline Herschel_, by Mrs John
Herschel (1876).
HERSCHEL, SIR FREDERICK WILLIAM (1738-1822), generally known as Sir
William Herschel, English astronomer, was born at Hanover on the 15th of
November 1738. His father was a musician employed as hautboy player in
the Hanoverian guard. The family had quitted Moravia for Saxony in the
early part of the 17th century on account of religious troubles, they
themselves being Protestants. Herschel's earlier education was
necessarily of a very limited character, chiefly owing to the warlike
commotions of his country; but being at all times an indomitable
student, he, by his own exertions, more than repaired this deficiency.
He became a very skilful musician, both theoretical and practical; while
his attainments as a self-taught mathematician were fully adequate to
the prosecution of those branches of astronomy which he so eminently
advanced and adorned. Whatever he did he did methodically and
thoroughly; and in this methodical thoroughness lay the secret of what
Arago very properly termed his astonishing scientific success.
In 1752, at the age of fourteen, he joined the band of the Hanoverian
guard, and with his detachment visited England in 1755, accompanied by
his father and eldest brother; in the following year he returned to his
native country; but the hardships of campaigning during the Seven Years'
War imperilling his health, his parents privately removed him from the
regiment, and on the 26th of July 1757 despatched him to England. There,
as might have been expected, the earlier part of his career was attended
with formidable difficulties and much privation. We find him engaged in
several towns in the north of England as organist and teacher of music,
which were not lucrative occupations. But the tide of his fortunes began
to flow when he obtained in 1766 the appointment of organist to the
Octagon chapel in Bath, at that time the resort of the wealth and
fashion of the city.
During the next five or six years he became the leading musical
authority, and the director of all the chief public musical
entertainments at Bath. His circumstances having thus become easier, he
revisited Hanover for the purpose of bringing back with him his sister
Caroline, whose services he much needed in his multifarious
undertakings. She arrived in Bath in August 1772, being at that time in
her twenty-third year. She thus describes her brother's life soon after
her arrival: "He used to retire to bed with a bason of milk or a glass
of water, with Smith's _Harmonics_ and Ferguson's _Astronomy_, &c., and
so went to sleep buried under his favourite authors; and his first
thoughts on waking were how to obtain instruments for viewing those
objects himself of which he had been reading." It is not without
significance that we find him thus reading Smith's _Harmonics_; to that
study loyalty to his profession would impel him; as a reward for his
thoroughness this led him to Smith's _Optics_; and this, by a natural
sequence, again led him to astronomy, for the purposes of which the
chief optical instruments were devised. It was in this way that he was
introduced to the writings of Ferguson and Keill, and subsequently to
those of Lalande, whereby he educated himself to become an astronomer of
undying fame. In those days telescopes were very rare, very expensive
and not very efficient, for the Dollonds had not as yet perfected even
their beautiful little achromatics of 2(3/4) in. aperture. So Herschel
was obliged to content himself with hiring a small Gregorian reflector
of about 2 in. aperture, which he had seen exposed for loan in a
tradesman's shop. Not satisfied with this implement, he procured a small
lens of about 18 ft. focal length, and set his sister to work on a
pasteboard tube to match it, so as to make him a telescope. This
unsatisfactory material was soon replaced by tin, and thus a sorry sort
of vision was obtained of Jupiter, Saturn and the moon. He then sought
in London for a reflector of much larger dimensions; but no such
instrument was on sale; and the terms demanded for the construction of a
reflecting telescope of 5 or 6 ft. focal length he regarded as too
exorbitant even for the gratification of such desires as his own. So he
was driven to the only alternative that remained; he must himself build
a large telescope. His first step in this direction was to purchase the
debris of an amateur's implements for grinding and polishing small
mirrors; and thus, by slow degrees, and by indomitable perseverance, he
in 1774 had, as he says, the satisfaction of viewing the heavens with a
Newtonian telescope of 6 ft. focal length made by his own hands. But he
was not contented to be a mere star-gazer; on the contrary, he had from
the very first conceived the gigantic project of surveying the entire
heavens, and, if possible, of ascertaining the plan of their general
structure by a settled mode of procedure, if only he could provide
himself with adequate instrumental means. For this purpose he, his
brother and his sister toiled for many years at the grinding and
polishing of hundreds of specula, always retaining the best and
recasting the others, until the most perfect of the earlier products had
been surpassed. This was the work of the daylight in those seasons of
the year when the fashionable visitors of Bath had quitted the place,
and had thus freed the family from professional duties. After 1774 every
available hour of the night was devoted to the long-hoped-for scrutiny
of the skies. In those days no machinery had been invented for the
construction of telescopic mirrors; the man who had the hardihood to
undertake polishing them doomed himself to walk leisurely and uniformly
round an upright post for many hours, without removing his hands from
the mirror, until his work was done. On these occasions Herschel
received his food from the hands of his faithful sister. But his reward
was nigh.
In May 1780 his first two papers containing some results of his
observations on the variable star "Mira" and the mountains of the moon
were communicated to the Royal Society through the influential
introduction of Dr William Watson. Herschel had made his acquaintance in
a characteristic manner. In order to obtain a sight of the moon the
astronomer had taken his telescope into the street opposite his house;
the celebrated physician happening to pass at the time, and seeing his
eye removed for a moment from the instrument, requested permission to
take his place. The mutual courtesies and intelligent conversation which
ensued soon ripened this casual acquaintance into a solid and enduring
regard.
The phenomena of variable stars were examined by Herschel as a guide to
what might be occurring in our own sun. The sun, he knew, rotated on its
axis, and he knew that dark spots often exist on its photosphere; the
questions that he put to himself were--Are there dark spots also on
variable stars? Do the stars also rotate on their axes? or are they
sometimes partially eclipsed by the intervention of opaque bodies? And
he went on to enquire, What are these singular spots upon the sun? and
have they any practical relation to the inhabitants of this planet? To
these questions he applied his telescopes and his thoughts; and he
communicated the results to the Royal Society in no less than six
memoirs, occupying very many pages in the _Philosophical Transactions_,
and extending in date from 1780 to 1801. It was in the latter year that
these remarkable papers culminated in the inquiry whether any relation
could be traced in the recurrence of sun-spots, regarded as evidences of
solar activity, and the varying seasons of our planet, as exhibited by
the varying price of corn. Herschel's reply was inconclusive; nor has a
final solution of the related problems yet been obtained.
In 1781 he communicated to the Royal Society the first of a series of
papers on the rotation of the planets and of their several satellites.
The object which he had in view was not so much to ascertain the times
of their rotation as to discover whether those rotations are strictly
uniform. From the result he expected to gather, by analogy, the
probability of an alteration in the length of our own day. These
inquiries occupy the greater part of seven memoirs extending from 1781
to 1797. While engaged on them he noticed the curious appearance of a
white spot near to each of the poles of the planet Mars. On
investigating the inclination of its axis to the plane of its orbit, and
finding that it differed little from that of the earth, he concluded
that its changes of climate also would resemble our own, and that these
white patches were probably polar snow. Modern researches have confirmed
his conclusion. He also discovered that, as far as his observations
extended, the times of the rotations of the various satellites round
their axes conform to the analogy of our moon by equalling the times of
their revolution round their primaries. Here again we perceive that his
discoveries arose out of the systematic and comprehensive nature of his
investigation. Nothing with such a man is accidental.
In the same year (1781) Herschel made a discovery which completely
altered the character of his professional life. In the course of a
methodical review of the heavens he lighted on an object which at first
he supposed to be a comet, but which, by its subsequent motions and
appearance, averred itself to be a new planet, moving outside the orbit
of Saturn. The name of Georgium Sidus was by him assigned to it, but has
by general consent been laid aside in favour of Uranus. The object was
detected with a 7-ft. reflector having an aperture of 6(1/2) in.;
subsequently, when he had provided himself with a much more powerful
telescope, of 20 ft. focal length, he discovered, as he believed, no
less than six Uranian satellites. Modern observations, while abolishing
four of these supposed attendants, have added two others apparently not
observed by Herschel. Seven memoirs on the subject were communicated by
him to the Royal Society, extending from the date of the discovery in
1781 to 1815. A noteworthy peculiarity in Herschel's mode of observation
led to the discovery of this planet. He had observed that the spurious
diameters of stars are not much affected by increasing the magnifying
powers, but that the case is different with other celestial objects;
hence if anything in his telescopic field struck him as unusual in
aspect, he immediately varied the magnifying power in order to decide
its nature. Thus Uranus was discovered; and had a similar method been
applied to Neptune, that planet would have been found at Cambridge some
months before it was recognized at Berlin.
We now come to the beginning of Herschel's most important series of
observations, culminating in what ought probably to be regarded as his
capital discovery. A material part of the task which he had set himself
embraced the determination of the relative distances of the stars from
our sun and from each other. Now, in the course of his scrutiny of the
heavens, he had observed many stars in apparently very close contiguity,
but often differing greatly in relative brightness. He concluded that,
on the average, the brighter star would be the nearer to us, the smaller
enormously more distant; and considering that an astronomer on the
earth, in consequence of its immense orbital displacement of some 180
millions of miles every six months, would see such a pair of stars under
different perspective aspects, he perceived that the measurement of
these changes should lead to an approximate determination of the stars'
relative distances. He therefore mapped down the places and aspects of
all the double stars that he met with, and communicated in 1782 and 1785
very extensive catalogues of the results. Indeed, his very last
scientific memoir, sent to the Royal Astronomical Society in the year
1822, when he was its first president and already in the eighty-fourth
year of his age, related to these investigations. In the memoir of 1782
he threw out the hint that these apparently contiguous stars might be
genuine pairs in mutual revolution; but he significantly added that the
time had not yet arrived for settling the question. Eleven years
afterwards (1793), he remeasured the relative positions of many such
couples, and we may conceive what his feelings must have been at finding
his prediction verified. For he ascertained that some of these stars
circulated round each other, after the manner required by the laws of
gravitation, and thus demonstrated the action among the distant members
of the starry firmament of the same mechanical laws which bind together
the harmonious motions of our solar system. This sublime discovery,
announced in 1802, would of itself suffice to immortalize his memory. If
only he had lived long enough to learn the approximate distances of some
of these binary combinations, he would at once have been able to
calculate their masses relative to that of our own sun; and the
quantities being, as we now know, strictly comparable, he would have
found another of his analogical conjectures realized.
In the year 1782 Herschel was invited to Windsor by George III., and
accepted the king's offer to become his private astronomer, and
henceforth devote himself wholly to a scientific career. His salary was
fixed at L200 per annum, to which an addition of L50 per annum was
subsequently made for the astronomical assistance of his sister. Dr
Watson, to whom alone the amount was mentioned, made the natural remark,
"Never before was honour purchased by a monarch at so cheap a rate." In
this way the great astronomer removed from Bath, first to Datchet and
soon afterwards permanently to Slough, within easy access of his royal
patron at Windsor.
The old pursuits at Bath were soon resumed at Slough, but with renewed
vigour and without the former professional interruptions. The greater
part, in fact, of the papers already referred to are dated from Datchet
and Slough; for the magnificent astronomical speculations in which he
was engaged, though for the most part conceived in the earlier portion
of his philosophical career, required years of patient observation
before they could be fully examined and realized.
It was at Slough in 1783 that he wrote his first memorable paper on the
"Motion of the Solar System in Space,"--a sublime speculation, yet
through his genius realized by considerations of the utmost simplicity.
He returned to the same subject with fuller details in 1805. It was also
after his removal to Slough that he published his first memoir on the
construction of the heavens, which from the first had been the inspiring
idea of his varied toils. In a long series of remarkable papers,
addressed as usual to the Royal Society, and extending from the year
1784 to 1818, when he was eighty years of age, he demonstrated the fact
that our sun is a star situated not far from the bifurcation of the
Milky Way, and that all the stars visible to us lie more or less in
clusters scattered throughout a comparatively thin, but immensely
extended stratum. At one time he imagined that his powerful instruments
had pierced through this stellar stratum, and that he had approximately
determined the form of some of its boundaries. In the last of his
memoirs, having convinced himself of his error, he admitted that to his
telescopes the Milky Way was "fathomless." On either side of this
assemblage of stars, presumably in ceaseless motion round their common
centre of gravity, Herschel discovered a canopy of discrete nebulous
masses, such as those from the condensation of which he supposed the
whole stellar universe to have been formed,--a magnificent conception,
pursued with a force of genius and put to the practical test of
observation with an industry almost incredible.
Hitherto we have said nothing about the great reflecting telescope, of
40 ft. focal length and 4 ft. aperture, the construction of which is
often, though mistakenly, regarded as his chief performance. The full
description of this celebrated instrument will be found in the 85th
volume of the _Transactions_ of the Royal Society. On the day that it
was finished (August 28, 1789) Herschel saw at the first view, in a
grandeur not witnessed before, the Saturnian system with six satellites,
five of which had been discovered long before by C. Huygens and G. D.
Cassini, while the sixth, subsequently named Enceladus, he had, two
years before, sighted by glimpses in his exquisite little telescope of
6(1/2) in. aperture, but now saw in unmistakable brightness with the
towering giant he had just completed. On the 17th of September he
discovered a seventh, which proved to be the nearest to the globe of
Saturn. It has since received the name of Mimas. It is somewhat
remarkable that, notwithstanding his long and repeated scrutinies of
this planet, the eighth satellite, Hyperion, and the crape ring should
have escaped him.
Herschel married, on the 8th of May 1788, the widow of Mr John Pitt, a
wealthy London merchant, by whom he had an only son, John Frederick
William. The prince regent conferred a Hanoverian knighthood upon him in
1816. But a far more valued and less tardy distinction was the Copley
medal assigned to him by his associates in the Royal Society in 1781.
He died at Slough on the 25th of August 1822, in the eighty-fourth year
of his age, and was buried under the tower of St Laurence's Church,
Upton, within a few hundred yards of the old site of the 40-ft.
telescope. A mural tablet on the wall of the church bears a Latin
inscription from the pen of the late Dr Goodall, provost of Eton
College.
See Mrs John Herschel, _Memoir of Caroline Herschel_ (1876); E. S.
Holden, _Herschel, his Life and Works_ (1881); A. M. Clerke, _The
Herschels and Modern Astronomy_ (1895); E. S. Holden and C. S.
Hastings, _Synopsis of the Scientific Writings of Sir William
Herschel_ (Washington, 1881); Baron Laurier, _Eloge historique_, Paris
Memoirs (1823), p. lxi.; F. Arago, _Analyse historique, Annuaire du
Bureau des Longitudes_ (1842), p. 249; Arago, _Biographies of
Scientific Men_, p. 167; Madame d'Arblay's _Diary, passim; Public
Characters_ (1798-1799), p. 384 (with portrait); J. Sime, _William
Herschel and his Work_ (1900). Herschel's photometric Star Catalogues
were discussed and reduced by E. C. Pickering in _Harvard Annals_,
vols. xiv. p. 345, xxiii. p. 185, and xxiv. (C. P.; A. M. C.)
HERSCHEL, SIR JOHN FREDERICK WILLIAM, BART. (1792-1871), English
astronomer, the only son of Sir William Herschel, was born at Slough,
Bucks, on the 7th of March 1792. His scholastic education commenced at
Eton, but maternal fears or prejudices soon removed him to the house of
a private tutor. Thence, at the early age of seventeen, he was sent to
St John's College, Cambridge, and the form and method of the
mathematical instruction he there received exercised a material
influence on the whole complexion of his scientific career. In due time
the young student won the highest academical distinction of his year,
graduating as senior wrangler in 1813. It was during his
undergraduateship that he and two of his fellow-students who
subsequently attained to very high eminence, Dean Peacock and Charles
Babbage, entered into a compact that they would "do their best to leave
the world wiser than they found it,"--a compact loyally and successfully
carried out by all three to the end. As a commencement of this laudable
attempt we find Herschel associated with these two friends in the
production of a work on the differential calculus, and on cognate
branches of mathematical science, which changed the style and aspect of
mathematical learning in England, and brought it up to the level of the
Continental methods. Two or three memoirs communicated to the Royal
Society on new applications of mathematical analysis at once placed him
in the front rank of the cultivators of this branch of knowledge. Of
these his father had the gratification of introducing the first, but the
others were presented in his own right as a fellow.
With the intention of being called to the bar, he entered his name at
Lincoln's Inn on the 24th of January 1814, and placed himself under the
guidance of an eminent special pleader. Probably this temporary choice
of a profession was inspired by the extraordinary success in legal
pursuits which had attended the efforts of some noted Cambridge
mathematicians. Be that as it may, an early acquaintance with Dr
Wollaston in London soon changed the direction of his studies. He
experimented in physical optics; took up astronomy in 1816; and in 1820,
assisted by his father, he completed for a reflecting telescope a mirror
of 18 in. diameter and 20 ft. focal length. This, subsequently improved
by his own hands, became the instrument which enabled him to effect the
astronomical observations forming the chief basis of his fame. In
1821-1823 we find him associated with Sir James South in the
re-examination of his father's double stars, by the aid of two excellent
refractors, of 7 and 5 ft. focal length respectively. For this work he
was presented in 1826 with the Astronomical Society's gold medal; and
with the Lalande medal of the French Institute in 1825; while the Royal
Society had in 1821 bestowed upon him the Copley medal for his
mathematical contributions to their _Transactions_. From 1824 to 1827 he
held the responsible post of secretary to that society; and was in 1827
elected to the chair of the Astronomical Society, which office he also
filled on two subsequent occasions. In the discharge of his duties to
the last-named society he delivered presidential addresses and wrote
obituary notices of deceased fellows, memorable for their combination of
eloquence and wisdom. In 1831 the honour of knighthood was conferred on
him by William IV., and two years later he again received the
recognition of the Royal Society by the award of one of their medals for
his memoir "On the Investigation of the Orbits of Revolving Double
Stars." The award significantly commemorated his completion of his
father's discovery of gravitational stellar systems by the invention of
a graphical method whereby the eye could as it were see the two
component stars of the binary system revolving under the prescription of
the Newtonian law.
Before the end of the year 1833, being then about forty years of age,
Sir John Herschel had re-examined all his father's double stars and
nebulae, and had added many similar bodies to his own lists; thus
accomplishing, under the conditions then prevailing, the full work of a
lifetime. For it should be remembered that astronomers were not as yet
provided with those valuable automatic contrivances which at present
materially abridge the labour and increase the accuracy of their
determinations. Equatorially mounted instruments actuated by clockwork,
electrical chronographs for recording the times of the phenomena
observed, were not available to Sir John Herschel; and he had no
assistant.
His scientific life now entered upon another and very characteristic
phase. The bias of his mind, as he subsequently was wont to declare, was
towards chemistry and the phenomena of light, rather than towards
astronomy. Indeed, very shortly after taking his degree at Cambridge, he
proposed himself as a candidate for the vacant chair of chemistry in
that university; but, as he said with some humour, the result of the
election was to leave him in a glorious minority of one. In fact
Herschel had become an astronomer from a sense of duty, and it was by
filial loyalty to his father's memory that he was now impelled to
undertake the completion of the work nobly begun at Slough. William
Herschel had searched the northern heavens; John Herschel determined to
explore the southern, besides re-exploring northern skies. "I resolved,"
he said, "to attempt the completion of a survey of the whole surface of
the heavens; and for this purpose to transport into the other hemisphere
the same instrument which had been employed in this, so as to give a
unity to the results of both portions of the survey, and to render them
comparable with each other." In accordance with this resolution, he and
his family embarked for the Cape on the 13th November 1833; they arrived
in Table Bay on the 15th January 1834; and proceedings, he says, "were
pushed forward with such effect that on the 22nd of February I was
enabled to gratify my curiosity by a view of [kappa] Crucis, the nebula
about [eta] Argus, and some other remarkable objects in the 20-ft.
reflector, and on the night of the 4th of March to commence a regular
course of sweeping."
To give an adequate description of the vast mass of labour completed
during the next four busy years of his life at Feldhausen would
require the transcription of a considerable portion of the _Cape
Observations_, a volume of unsurpassed interest and importance;
although it might perhaps be equalled by a judicious selection from
Sir William's "Memoirs," now scattered through some thirty volumes of
the _Philosophical Transactions_. It was published, at the sole
expense of the late duke of Northumberland, but not till 1847, nine
years after the author's return to England, for the cogent reason,
that as he said, "The whole of the observations, as well as the entire
work of reducing, arranging and preparing them for the press, have
been executed by myself." There are 164 pages of catalogues of
southern nebulae and clusters of stars. There are then careful and
elaborate drawings of the great nebula in Orion, and of the region
surrounding the remarkable star in Argo. The labour and the thought
bestowed upon some of these objects are almost incredible; several
months were spent upon a minute spot in the heavens containing 1216
stars, but which an ordinary spangle, held at a distance of an arm's
length, would eclipse. These catalogues and charts being completed, he
proceeded to discuss their significance. He confirmed his father's
hypothesis that these wonderful masses of glowing vapours are not
irregularly scattered over the visible heavens, but are collected in a
sort of canopy, whose vertex is at the pole of that vast stratum of
stars in which our solar system finds itself buried, as Herschel
supposed, at a depth not greater than that of the average distance
from us of an eleventh magnitude star. Then follows his catalogue of
the relative positions and magnitudes of the southern double stars, to
one of which, [gamma] Virginis, he applied the beautiful method of
orbital determination invented by himself, and he had the satisfaction
of witnessing the fulfilment of his prediction that the components
would, in the course of their revolution, appear to close up into a
single star, inseparable by any telescopic power. In the next chapter
he proceeded to describe his observations on the varying and relative
brightness of the stars. It has been already detailed how his father
began his scientific career by similar observations on stellar
light-fluctuations, and how his remarks culminated years afterwards in
the question whether the radiative changes of our sun, due to the
presence or absence of sun-spots, affected our harvests and the price
of corn. Sir John carried speculation still farther, pointing out that
variations to the extent of half a magnitude in the sun's brightness
would account for those strange alternations of semi-arctic and
semi-tropical climates which geological researches show to have
occurred in various regions of our globe.
Herschel returned to his English home in the spring of 1838. As was
natural and right, he was welcomed with an enthusiastic greeting. By the
queen at her coronation he was created a baronet; and, what to him was
better than all such rewards, other men caught the contagion of his
example, and laboured in fields similar to his own, with an adequate
portion of his success.
Herschel was a highly accomplished chemist. His discovery in 1819 of the
solvent power of hyposulphite of soda on the otherwise insoluble salts
of silver was the prelude to its use as a fixing agent in photography;
and he invented in 1839, independently of Fox Talbot, the process of
photography on sensitized paper. He was the first person to apply the
now well-known terms _positive_ and _negative_ to photographic images,
and to imprint them upon glass prepared by the deposit of a sensitive
film. He also paved the way for Sir George Stokes's discovery of
fluorescence, by his addition of the lavender rays to the spectrum, and
by his announcement in 1845 of "epipolic dispersion," as exhibited by
sulphate of quinine. Several other important researches connected with
the undulatory theory of light are embodied in his treatise on "Light"
published in the _Encyclopaedia metropolitana_.
Perhaps no man can become a truly great mathematician or philosopher if
devoid of imaginative power. John Herschel possessed this endowment to a
large extent; and he solaced his declining years with the translation of
the _Iliad_ into verse, having earlier executed a similar version of
Schiller's _Walk_. But the main work of his later life was the
collection of all his father's catalogues of nebulae and double stars
combined with his own observations and those of other astronomers each
into a single volume. He lived to complete the former, to present it to
the Royal Society, and to see it published in a separate form in the
_Philosophical Transactions_, vol. cliv. The latter work he left
unfinished, bequeathing it, in its imperfect form, to the Astronomical
Society. That society printed a portion of it, which serves as an index
to the observations of various astronomers on double stars up to the
year 1866.
A complete list of his contributions to learned societies will be found
in the Royal Society's great catalogue, and from them may be gathered
most of the records of his busy scientific life. Sir John Herschel met
with an amount of public recognition which was unusual in the time of
his illustrious father. Naturally he was a member of almost every
important learned society in both hemispheres. For five years he held
the same office of master of the mint, which more than a century before
had belonged to Sir Isaac Newton; his friends also offered to propose
him as president of the Royal Society and again as member of parliament
for the university of Cambridge, but neither position was desired by
him.
In private life Sir John Herschel was a firm and most active friend; he
had no jealousies; he avoided all scientific feuds; he gladly lent a
helping hand to those who consulted him in scientific difficulties; he
never discouraged, and still less disparaged, men younger than or
inferior to himself; he was pleased by appreciation of his work without
being solicitous for applause; it was said of him by a discriminating
critic, and without extravagance, that "his was a life full of serenity
of the sage and the docile innocence of a child."
He died at Collingwood, his residence near Hawkhurst in Kent, on the
11th of May 1871, in the seventy-ninth year of his age, and his remains
are interred in Westminster Abbey close to the grave of Sir Isaac
Newton.
Besides the laborious _Cape Observations_, Sir John Herschel was the
author of several books, one of which at least, _On the Study of
Natural Philosophy_ (1830), possesses an interest which no future
advances of the subjects on which he wrote can obliterate. In 1849
came the _Outlines of Astronomy_, a volume still replete with charm
and instruction. His articles, "Meteorology," "Physical Geography,"
and "Telescope," contributed to the 8th edition of the _Encyclopaedia
Britannica_, were afterwards published separately. When he was at the
Cape he was more than once assisted in the attempts there made to
diffuse a love of knowledge among men not engaged in literary
pursuits; and with the same purpose he, on his return to England,
published, in _Good Words_ and elsewhere, a series of papers on
interesting points of natural philosophy, subsequently collected in a
volume called _Familiar Lectures on Scientific Subjects_. Another less
widely known volume is his _Collected Addresses_, in which he is seen
in his happiest and most instructive mood.
See also Mrs John Herschel, "Memoir of Caroline Herschel," _Month.
Notices Roy. Astr. Society_, xxxii. 122 (C. Pritchard); _Proceedings
Roy. Society_, xx. p. xvii. (T. Romney Robinson); _Proceedings Roy.
Society of Edinburgh_ vii. 543 (P. G. Tait); _Nature_ iv. 69; E.
Dunkin, _Obituary Notices_, p. 47; _Report Brit. Association_ (1871),
p. lxxxv. (Lord Kelvin); _The Times_. (May 13, 1871); R. Grant,
_History of Phys. Astronomy_; A. M. Clerke, _Popular Hist. of
Astronomy_; A. M. Clerke, _The Herschels and Modern Astronomy_; J. H.
Madler, _Geschichte der Himmelskunde_, Bd. ii.; _Memoires de la
Societe Physique de Geneve_, xxi. 586 (E. Gautier). Reductions, based
on standard magnitudes of 919 southern stars, observed by Herschel in
sequences of relative brightness, were published by W. Doberck in the
_Astrophysical Journal_, xi. 192, 270, and in _Harvard Annals_, vol.
xli., No. viii. (C. P.; A. M. C.)
HERSCHELL, FARRER HERSCHELL, 1ST BARON (1837-1899), lord chancellor of
England, was born on the 2nd of November 1837. His father was the Rev.
Ridley Haim Herschell, a native of Strzelno, in Prussian Poland, who,
when a young man, exchanged the Jewish faith for Christianity, took a
leading part in founding the British Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel among the Jews, and, after many journeyings, settled down to the
charge of a Nonconformist chapel near the Edgware Road, in London, where
he ministered to a large congregation. His mother was a daughter of
William Mowbray, a merchant of Leith. He was educated at a private
school and at University College, London. In 1857 he took his B.A.
degree at the University of London. He was reckoned the best speaker in
the school debating society, and he displayed there the same command of
language and lucidity of thought which were his characteristics during
his official life. The reputation which Herschell enjoyed during his
school days was maintained after he became a law-student at Lincoln's
Inn. In 1858 he entered the chambers of Thomas Chitty, the famous common
law pleader, father of the late Lord Justice Chitty. His fellow pupils,
amongst whom were A. L. Smith, afterwards master of the rolls, and
Arthur Charles, afterwards judge of the queen's bench division, gave him
the sobriquet of "the chief baron" in recognition of his superiority. He
subsequently read with James Hannen, afterwards Lord Hannen. In 1860 he
was called to the bar and joined the northern circuit, then in its palmy
days of undividedness. For four or five years he did not obtain much
work. Fortunately, he was never a poor man, and so was not forced into
journalism, or other paths of literature, in order to earn a living. Two
of his contemporaries, each of whom achieved great eminence, found
themselves in like case. One of these, Charles Russell, became lord
chief justice of England; the other, William Court Gully, speaker of the
House of Commons. It is said that these three friends, dining together
during a Liverpool assize some years after they had been called, agreed
that their prospects were anything but cheerful. Certain it is that
about this time Herschell meditated quitting England for Shanghai and
practising in the consular courts there. Herschell, however, soon made
himself useful to Edward James, the then leader of the northern circuit,
and to John Richard Quain, the leading stuff-gownsman. For the latter he
was content to note briefs and draft opinions, and when, in 1866, Quain
donned "silk," it was on Herschell that a large portion of his mantle
descended.
In 1872 Herschell was made a queen's counsel. He had all the necessary
qualifications for a leader--a clear, though not resonant voice; a calm,
logical mind; a sound knowledge of legal principles; and (greatest gift
of all) an abundance of common sense. He never wearied the judges by
arguing at undue length, and he knew how to retire with dignity from a
hopeless cause. His only weak point was cross-examination. In handling a
hostile witness he had neither the insidious persuasiveness of a Hawkins
nor the compelling, dominating power of a Russell. But he made up for
all by his speech to the jury, marshalling such facts as told in his
client's favour with the most consummate skill. He very seldom made use
of notes, but trusted to his memory, which he had carefully trained. By
this means he was able to conceal his art, and to appear less as a paid
advocate than as an outsider interested in the case anxious to assist
the jury in arriving at the truth. By 1874 Herschell's business had
become so good that he turned his thoughts to parliament. In February of
that year there was a general election, with the result that the
Conservative party came into power with a majority of fifty. The usual
crop of petitions followed. The two Radicals (Thompson and Henderson)
who had been returned for Durham city were unseated, and an attack was
then made on the seats of two other Radicals (Bell and Palmer) who had
been returned for Durham county. For one of these last Herschell was
briefed. He made so excellent an impression on the local Radical leaders
that they asked him to stand for Durham city; and after a fortnight's
electioneering, he was elected as junior member. Between 1874 and 1880
Herschell was most assiduous in his attendance in the House of Commons.
He was not a frequent speaker, but a few great efforts sufficed in his
case to gain for him a reputation as a debater. The best examples of his
style as a private member will be found in _Hansard_ under the dates
18th February 1876, 23rd May 1878, 6th May 1879. On the last occ
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