Part 18

HEBBEL, CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH (1813-1863), German poet and dramatist, was born at Wesselburen in Ditmarschen, Holstein, on the 18th of March 1813. Though only the son of a poor bricklayer, he early showed a talent for poetry, which was first displayed to the world by the publication, in the Hamburg _Modezeitung_, of verses which he had sent to Amalie Schoppe (1791-1858), a then popular journalist and author of nursery tales. Through the kindness of this lady, who interested several of her friends on his behalf, he was enabled to go to Hamburg and there prepare himself for the university. A year later he went to Heidelberg to study law, but finding this uncongenial he passed on to the university of Munich, where he devoted himself to philosophy, history and literature. In 1839 Hebbel left Munich and wandered back to Hamburg on foot, where he resumed his relations with Elsie Lensing, whose self-sacrificing assistance had helped him over the darkest days in Munich. In the same year he wrote his first tragedy _Judith_ (published 1841), which in the following year was performed in Hamburg and Berlin and made his name known throughout Germany. In 1840 he wrote the tragedy _Genoveva_, and the following year finished a comedy, _Der Diamant_, which he had begun at Munich. In 1842 he visited Copenhagen, where he obtained from the king of Denmark a small travelling studentship, which enabled him to spend some time in Paris and two years (1844-1846) in Italy. In Paris he wrote his fine "tragedy of common life," _Maria Magdalene_ (1844). On his return from Italy Hebbel met at Vienna two Polish noblemen, the brothers Zerboni di Sposetti, who in their enthusiasm for his genius urged him to remain, and supplied him with the means to mingle in the best intellectual society of the Austrian capital. The unwonted life of ease had its effect. The old precarious existence became a horror to him, he made a deliberate breach with it by marrying (in 1846) the beautiful and wealthy actress Christine Enghaus, ruthlessly sacrificing the girl who had given up all for him and who remained faithful till her death, on the ground that "a man's first duty is to the most powerful force within him, that which alone can give him happiness and be of service to the world": in his case the poetical faculty, which would have perished "in the miserable struggle for existence." This "deadly sin," which, "if peace of conscience be the test of action," was, he considered, the best act of his life, established his fortunes. Elise, however, still provided useful inspiration for his art. As late as 1855, shortly after her death, he wrote the little epic _Mutter und Kind_, intended to show that the relation of parent and child is the essential factor which makes the quality of happiness among all classes and under all conditions equal. Long before this Hebbel had become famous. German sovereigns bestowed decorations upon him; and in foreign capitals he was feted as the greatest of living German dramatists. From the grand-duke of Saxe-Weimar he received a flattering invitation to take up his residence at Weimar, where several of his plays were first performed. He remained, however, at Vienna until his death on the 13th of December 1863.

Besides the works already mentioned, Hebbel's principal tragedies are _Herodes und Mariamne_ (1850); _Julia_ (1851); _Michel Angelo_ (1851); _Agnes Bernauer_ (1855); _Gyges und sein Ring_ (1856), and the magnificently conceived trilogy _Die Nibelungen_ (1862), his last work (consisting of a prologue, _Der gehornte Siegfried_, and the tragedies, _Siegfrieds Tod_ and _Kriemhilds Rache_), which won for the author the Schiller prize. Of his comedies _Der Diamant_ (1847), _Der Rubin_ (1850), and the tragi-comedy _Ein Trauerspiel in Sizilien_ (1845), are the more important, but they are heavy and hardly rise above mediocrity. All his dramatic productions, however, exhibit skill in characterization, great glow of passion, and a true feeling for dramatic situation; but their poetic effect is frequently marred by extravagances which border on the grotesque, and by the introduction of incidents the unpleasant character of which is not sufficiently relieved. In many of his lyric poems, and especially in _Mutter und Kind_, published in 1859, Hebbel showed that his poetic gifts were not restricted to the drama.

His collected works were first published by E. Kuh (12 vols., Hamburg, 1866-1868); revised by H. Krumm (12 vols., Hamburg, 1892). The best critical edition is that by R. M. Werner (12 vols., 1901-1903), to which have been added Hebbel's Diaries (4 vols.) and Correspondence (6 vols.). Hebbel's _Briefwechsel mit Freunden und beruhmten Zeitgenossen_ was issued by F. Bamberg (1890-1892). The chief biographies of Hebbel are those by E. Kuh (1877) and R. M. Werner (1905). See also L. A. Frankl, _Zur Biographie F. Hebbels_ (1884); T. Poppe, _F. Hebbel und sein Drama_ (1900); A. Scheunert, _Der Pantragismus als System der Weltanschauung und Asthetik Hebbels_ (1903); E. A. Georgy, _Die Tragodie F. Hebbels nach ihrem Ideengehalt_ (1904).

HEBBURN, an urban district in the Jarrow parliamentary division of Durham, England, on the right bank of the Tyne, 4(1/2) m. below Newcastle, and on a branch of the North-Eastern railway. Pop. (1881), 11,802; (1901), 20,901. It has extensive shipbuilding and engineering works, rope and sail factories, chemical, colour and cement works, and collieries.

HEBDEN BRIDGE, an urban district in the Sowerby parliamentary division of the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, on the Calder and Hebden rivers, 7 m. W. by N. of Halifax by the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway. Pop. (1901), 7536. The town has cotton factories, dye-works, foundries and manufactories of shuttles. The upper Calder valley, between Halifax and Todmorden, is walled with bold hills, the summits of which consist of wild moorland. The vale itself is densely populated, but its beauty is not destroyed, and the contrast with its desolate surroundings is remarkable.

HEBE, in Greek mythology, daughter of Zeus and Hera, the goddess of youth. In the Homeric poems she is the female counterpart of Ganymede, and acts as cupbearer to the gods (_Iliad_, iv. 2). She was the special attendant of her mother, whose horses she harnessed (_Iliad_, v. 722). When Heracles was received amongst the gods, Hebe was bestowed upon him in marriage (_Odyssey_, xi. 603). When the custom of the heroic age, which permitted female cupbearers, fell into disuse, Hebe was replaced by Ganymede in the popular mythology. To account for her retirement from her office, it was said that she fell down in the presence of the gods while handing the wine, and was so ashamed that she refused to appear before them again. Hebe exhibits many striking points of resemblance with the pure Greek goddess Aphrodite. She is the daughter of Zeus and Hera, Aphrodite of Zeus and Dione; but Dione and Hera are often identified. Hebe is called Dia, a regular epithet of Aphrodite; at Phlius, a festival called [Greek: Kissotomoi] (the days of ivy-cutting) was annually celebrated in her honour (Pausanias, ii. 13); and ivy was sacred also to Aphrodite. The apotheosis of Heracles and his marriage with Hebe became a favourite subject with poets and painters, and many instances occur on vases. In later art she is often represented, like Ganymede, caressing the eagle.

See R. Kekule, _Hebe_ (1867), mainly dealing with the representations of Hebe in art; and P. Decharme in Daremberg and Saglio's _Dictionnaire des antiquites_.

The meaning of the word Hebe tended to transform the goddess into a mere personification of the eternal youth that belongs to the gods, and this conception is frequently met with. Then she becomes identical with the Roman Juventas, who is simply an abstraction of an attribute of Jupiter Juventus, the god of increase and blessing and youth. To Juventas, as personifying the eternal youth of the Roman state, a chapel was dedicated in very early times in the _cella_ of Minerva in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. With this temple is connected the legend of Juventas and Terminus, who alone of all the gods refused to give way when it was being built--an indication of the eternal solidity and youth of Rome. The cult of Juventas did not, however, become firmly established until the time of the second Punic war. In 218 the Sibylline books ordered a lectisternium in honour of Juventas and a supplicatio in honour of Hercules, and in 191 a temple was dedicated in her honour in the Circus Maximus. In later times Juventas became the personification, not of the Roman youth, but of the emperor, who assumed the attributes of a god (Livy v. 54, xxi. 62, xxxvi. 36; Dion. Halic. iii. 69; G. Wissowa in Roscher's _Lexikon der Mythologie_).

HEBEL, JOHANN PETER (1760-1826), German poet and popular writer, was born at Basel on the 10th of May 1760. The father dying when the child was little over a year old, he was brought up amidst poverty-stricken conditions in the village of Hausen in the Wiesental, where he received his earliest education. Being of brilliant promise, he found friends who enabled him to complete his school education and to study theology (1778-1780) at Erlangen. At the end of his university course he was for a time a private tutor, then became teacher at the Gymnasium in Karlsruhe, and in 1808 was appointed director of the school. He was subsequently appointed member of the Consistory and "evangelical prelate." He died at Schwetzingen, near Heidelberg, on the 22nd of September 1826. Hebel is one of the most widely read of all German popular poets and writers. His poetical narratives and lyric poems, written in the "Alemanic" dialect, are "popular" in the best sense. His _Allemannische Gedichte_ (1803) "bucolicize," in the words of Goethe, "the whole world in the most attractive manner" (_verbauert das ganze Universum auf die anmutigste Weise_). Indeed, few modern German poets surpass him in fidelity, _naivete_, humour, and in the freshness and vigour of his descriptions. His poem, _Die Wiese_, has been described by Johannes Scherr as the "pearl of German idyllic poetry"; while his prose writings, especially the narratives and essays contained in the _Schatzkastlein des rheinischen Hausfreundes_ (Tubingen, 1811; new edition, Stuttg. 1869, 1888), belong to the best class of German stories, and according to August Friedrich Christian Vilmar (1800-1868) in his _Geschichte der deutschen Literatur_ are "worth more than a cartload of novels" (_wiegen ein ganzes Fuder Romane auf_). Memorials have been erected to him at Karlsruhe, Basel and Schwetzingen.

A complete edition of Hebel's works--_Samtliche Werke_--was first published at Stuttgart in 8 vols. (1832-1834); subsequent editions appeared in 1847 (3 vols.), 1868 (2 vols.), 1873 (edited by G. Wendt, 2 vols.), 1883-1885 (edited by O. Behaghel, 2 vols.) and 1905 (edited by E. Keller, 5 vols.), as well as innumerable reprints. Hebel's correspondence has been edited by O. Behaghel (1883). See G. Langin, _J. P. Hebel, ein Lebensbild_ (1894), and the introduction to Behaghel's edition.

HEBER, REGINALD (1783-1826), English bishop and hymn-writer, was born at Malpas in Cheshire on the 21st of April 1783. His father, who belonged to an old Yorkshire family, held a moiety of the living of Malpas. Reginald Heber early showed remarkable promise, and was entered in November 1800 at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he proved a distinguished student, carrying off prizes for a Latin poem entitled _Carmen seculare_, an English poem on _Palestine_, and a prose essay on _The Sense of Honour_. In November 1804 he was elected a fellow of All Souls College; and, after finishing his distinguished university career, he made a long tour in Europe. He was admitted to holy orders in 1807, and was then presented to the family living of Hodnet in Shropshire. In 1809 Heber married Amelia, daughter of Dr Shipley, dean of St Asaph. He was made prebendary of St Asaph in 1812, appointed Bampton lecturer for 1815, preacher at Lincoln's Inn in 1822, and bishop of Calcutta in January 1823. Before sailing for India he received the degree of D.D. from the university of Oxford. In India Bishop Heber laboured indefatigably, not only for the good of his own diocese, but for the spread of Christianity throughout the East. He undertook numerous tours in India, consecrating churches, founding schools and discharging other Christian duties. His devotion to his work in a trying climate told severely on his health. At Trichinopoly he was seized with an apoplectic fit when in his bath, and died on the 3rd of April 1826. A statue of him, by Chantrey, was erected at Calcutta.

Heber was a pious man of profound learning, literary taste and great practical energy. His fame rests mainly on his hymns, which rank among the best in the English language. The following may be instanced: "Lord of mercy and of might"; "Brightest and best of the sons of the morning"; "By cool Siloam's shady rill"; "God, that madest earth and heaven"; "The Lord of might from Sinai's brow"; "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty"; "From Greenland's icy mountains"; "The Lord will come, the earth shall quake"; "The Son of God goes forth to war." Heber's hymns and other poems are distinguished by finish of style, pathos and soaring aspiration; but they lack originality, and are rather rhetorical than poetical in the strict sense.

Among Heber's works are: _Palestine: a Poem, to which is added the Passage of the Red Sea_ (1809); _Europe: Lines on the Present War_ (1809); a volume of poems in 1812; _The Personality and Office of the Christian Comforter asserted and explained_ (being the Bampton Lectures for 1815); _The Whole Works of Bishop Jeremy Taylor, with a Life of the Author, and a Critical Examination of his Writings_ (1822); _Hymns written and adapted to the Weekly Church Service of the Year, principally by Bishop Heber_ (1827); _A Journey through India_ (1828); _Sermons preached in England_, and _Sermons preached in India_ (1829); _Sermons on the Lessons, the Gospel, or the Epistle for every Sunday in the Year_ (1837). _The Poetical Works of Reginald Heber_ were collected in 1841.

See the _Life of Reginald Heber, D.D. ..._, by his widow, Amelia Heber (1830), which also contains a number of Heber's miscellaneous writings; _The Last Days of Bishop Heber_, by Thomas Robinson, A.M., archdeacon of Madras (1830); T. S. Smyth, The Character and Religious Doctrine of Bishop Heber (1831), and _Memorials of a Quiet Life_, by Augustus J. C. Hare (1874).

HEBER, RICHARD (1773-1833), English book-collector, the half-brother of Reginald Heber, was born in London on the 5th of January 1773. As an undergraduate at Brasenose College, Oxford, he began to collect a purely classical library, but his taste broadening, he became interested in early English drama and literature, and began his wonderful collection of rare books in these departments. He attended continental book-sales, purchasing sometimes single volumes, sometimes whole libraries. Sir Walter Scott, whose intimate friend he was, and who dedicated to him the sixth canto of _Marmion_, classed Heber's library as "superior to all others in the world"; Campbell described him as "the fiercest and strongest of all the bibliomaniacs." He did not confine himself to the purchase of a single copy of a work which took his fancy. "No gentleman," he remarked, "can be without three copies of a book, one for show, one for use, and one for borrowers." To such a size did his library grow that it over-ran eight houses, some in England, some on the Continent. It is estimated to have cost over L100,000, and after his death the sale of that part of his collection stored in England realized more than L56,000. He is known to have owned 150,000 volumes, and probably many more. He possessed extensive landed property in Shropshire and Yorkshire, and was sheriff of the former county in 1821, was member of Parliament for Oxford University from 1821-1826, and in 1822 was made a D.C.L. of that University. He was one of the founders of the Athenaeum Club, London. He died in London on the 4th of October 1833.

HEBERDEN, WILLIAM (1710-1801), English physician, was born in London in 1710. In the end of 1724 he was sent to St John's College, Cambridge, where he obtained a fellowship about 1730, became master of arts in 1732, and took the degree of M.D. in 1739. He remained at Cambridge nearly ten years longer practising medicine, and gave an annual course of lectures on materia medica. In 1746 he became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in London; and two years later he settled in London, where he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1749, and enjoyed an extensive medical practice for more than thirty years. At the age of seventy-two he partially retired, spending his summers at a house which he had taken at Windsor, but he continued to practise in London during the winter for some years longer. In 1778 he was made an honorary member of the Paris Royal Society of Medicine. He died in London on the 17th of May 1801. Heberden, who was a good classical scholar, published several papers in the Phil. Trans. of the Royal Society, and among his noteworthy contributions to the _Medical Transactions_ (issued, largely at his suggestion, by the College of Physicians) were papers on chicken-pox (1767) and angina pectoris (1768). His _Commentarii de morborum historia et curatione_, the result of careful notes made in his pocket-book at the bedside of his patients, were published in 1802; in the following year an English translation appeared, believed to be from the pen of his son, William Heberden (1767-1845), also a distinguished scholar and physician, who attended King George III. in his last illness.

HEBERT, EDMOND (1812-1890), French geologist, was born at Villefargau, Yonne, on the 12th of June 1812. He was educated at the College de Meaux, Auxerre, and at the Ecole Normale in Paris. In 1836 he became professor at Meaux, in 1838 demonstrator in chemistry and physics at the Ecole Normale, and in 1841 sub-director of studies at that school and lecturer on geology. In 1857 the degree of D. es Sc. was conferred upon him, and he was appointed professor of geology at the Sorbonne. There he was eminently successful as a teacher, and worked with great zeal in the field, adding much to the knowledge of the Jurassic and older strata. He devoted, however, special attention to the subdivisions of the Cretaceous and Tertiary formations in France, and to their correlation with the strata in England and in southern Europe. To him we owe the first definite arrangement of the Chalk into palaeontological zones (see Table in _Geol. Mag._, 1869, p. 200). During his later years he was regarded as the leading geologist in France. He was elected a member of the Institute in 1877, Commander of the Legion of Honour in 1885, and he was three times president of the Geological Society of France. He died in Paris on the 4th of April 1890.

HEBERT, JACQUES RENE (1757-1794), French Revolutionist, called "Pere Duchesne," from the newspaper he edited, was born at Alencon, on the 15th of November 1757, where his father, who kept a goldsmith's shop, had held some municipal office. His family was ruined, however, by a lawsuit while he was still young, and Hebert came to Paris, where in his struggle against poverty he endured great hardships; the accusations of theft directed against him later by Camille Desmoulins were, however, without foundation. In 1790 he attracted attention by some pamphlets, and became a prominent member of the club of the Cordeliers in 1791. On the 10th of August 1792 he was a member of the revolutionary Commune of Paris, and became second substitute of the _procureur_ of the Commune on the 2nd of December 1792. His violent attacks on the Girondists led to his arrest on the 24th of May 1793, but he was released owing to the threatening attitude of the mob. Henceforth very popular, Hebert organized with P. G. Chaumette (q.v.) the "worship of Reason," in opposition to the theistic cult inaugurated by Robespierre, against whom he tried to excite a popular movement. The failure of this brought about the arrest of the Hebertists, or _enrages_, as his partisans were called. Hebert was guillotined on the 24th of March 1794. His wife, who had been a nun, was executed twenty days later. Hebert's influence was mainly due to his articles in his journal _Le Pere Duchesne_,[1] which appeared from 1790 to 1794. These articles, while not lacking in a certain cleverness, were violent and abusive, and purposely couched in foul language in order to appeal to the mob.

See Louis Duval, "Hebert chez lui," in _La Revolution Francaise, revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine_, t. xii. and t. xiii.; D. Mater, _J. R. Hebert, l'auteur du Pere Duchesne avant la journee du 10 aout 1792_ (Bourges, Comm. Hist. du Cher, 1888); F. A. Aulard, _Le Culte de la raison et de l'etre supreme_ (Paris, 1892).

FOOTNOTE:

[1] There were several journals of this name, the best known of the others being that edited by Lemaire.

HEBREW LANGUAGE. The name "Hebrew" is derived, through the Greek [Greek: Hebraios], from _'ibhray_, the Aramaic equivalent of the Old Testament word _'ibhri_, denoting the people who commonly spoke of themselves as Israel or Children of Israel from the name of their common ancestor (see JEWS). The later derivative _Yisra'eli_, Israelite, from Yisra'el, is not found in the Old Testament.[1] Other names used for the language of Israel are _speech of Canaan_ (Isa. xix. 18) and _Yehudhith_, Jewish, (2 Kings xviii. 26). In later times it was called the _holy tongue_. The real meaning of the word _'ibhri_ must ultimately be sought in the root _'abhar_, to pass across, to go beyond, from which is derived the noun _'ebher_, meaning the "farther bank" of a river. The usual explanation of the term is that of Jewish tradition that _'ibhri_ means the man "from the other side," i.e. either of the Euphrates or the Jordan. Hence the Septuagint in Gen. xiv. 13 render Abram _ha-'ibhri_ by [Greek: ho perates], the "crosser," and Aquila, following the same tradition, has [Greek: ho peraites], the man "from beyond." This view of course implies that the term was originally applied to Abram or his descendants by a people living on the west of the Euphrates or of the Jordan. It has been suggested that the root _'abhar_ is to be taken in the sense of "travelling," and that Abram the wandering Aramaean (Deut. xxvi. 5) was called _ha-'ibhri_ because he travelled about for trading purposes, his language, _'ibhri_, being the _lingua franca_ of Eastern trade. The use of the term [Greek: hebraisti] for biblical Hebrew is first found in the Greek prologue to Ecclesiasticus (c. 130 B.C.). In the New Testament it denotes the native language of Palestine (Aramaic and Hebrew being popularly confused) as opposed to Greek. In modern usage the name Hebrew is applied to that branch of the northern part of the Semitic family of languages which was used by the Israelites during most of the time of their national existence in Palestine, and in which nearly all their sacred writings are composed. As to its characteristics and relation to other languages of the same stock, see SEMITIC LANGUAGES. It also includes the later forms of the same language as used by Jewish writers after the close of the Canon throughout the middle ages (Rabbinical Hebrew) and to the present day (New Hebrew).