“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 £100,000, and after his death the sale of that part of his collection stored in England realized more than £56,000. 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.
HÉBERT, EDMOND (1812–1890), French geologist, was
born at Villefargau, Yonne, on the 12th of June 1812. He was
educated at the Collège de Meaux, Auxerre, and at the École
Normale in Paris. In 1836 he became professor at Meaux,
in 1838 demonstrator in chemistry and physics at the École
Normale, and in 1841 sub-director of studies at that school and
lecturer on geology. In 1857 the degree of D. ès 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.
HÉBERT, JACQUES RENÉ (1757–1794), French Revolutionist,
called “Père Duchesne,” from the newspaper he edited, was
born at Alençon, 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 Hébert 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, Hébert 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 Hébertists, or enragés, as his partisans were called.
Hébert was guillotined on the 24th of March 1794. His wife,
who had been a nun, was executed twenty days later. Hébert’s
influence was mainly due to his articles in his journal Le Père
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, “Hébert chez lui,” in La Révolution Française, revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, t. xii. and t. xiii.; D. Mater, J. R. Hébert, l’auteur du Père Duchesne avant la journée du 10 août 1792 (Bourges, Comm. Hist. du Cher, 1888); F. A. Aulard, Le Culte de la raison et de l’être suprême (Paris, 1892).
HEBREW LANGUAGE. The name “Hebrew” is derived, through the Greek Ἑβραῖος, from ʽibhray, the Aramaic equivalent of the Old Testament word ʽibhrī, 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’elī, Israelite, from Yisra’el, is not found in the Old Testament.[2] Other names used for the language of Israel are speech of Canaan (Isa. xix. 18) and Yehūdhīth, Jewish, (2 Kings xviii. 26). In later times it was called the holy tongue. The real meaning of the word ʽibhrī must ultimately be sought in the root ʽabhar, to pass across, to go beyond, from which is derived the noun ʽebher, meaning the “farther bank” of a river. The usual explanation of the term is that of Jewish tradition
