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 berühmten 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
Ästhetik Hebbels (1903); E. A. Georgy, Die Tragödie 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,
412 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 Κισσοτόμοι (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. Kekulé, Hebe (1867), mainly dealing with the representations of Hebe in art; and P. Decharme in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquités.
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, naïveté, 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 Schatzkästlein des rheinischen
Hausfreundes (Tübingen, 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—Sämtliche 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. Längin, 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”;
