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HES
892
HES

and in 1552 he was made superintendent and pastor primarius of Goslar, and in the following year a doctor of theology. These early promotions stimulated to excess his innate self-confidence and arrogance, and in consequence his whole life was a succession of troubles and storms. In nine different provinces of protestant Germany he received appointments to high ecclesiastical academic offices; but in none of them did he continue for more than a few years, and from almost all of them he was driven out into ignominious exile. He was eventually made bishop of Sameland in Prussia, where he fell out with Wigand himself; and, last of all, professor of theology in the university of Helmstadt, where he died in 1588. His writings were numerous, but almost all violently polemical.—P. L.

HESIOD, a Greek poet of very early date, respecting whose age and life very little is certainly known, but of whose works some valuable remains have come down to us. In one of these, the "Works and Days," he informs us that his father emigrated from Cuma in Æolis, and settled near Helicon at the miserable village of Ascra in Bœotia, where he appears to have been born. He states that he never crossed the sea, except from Aulis to Eubœa, when the Greeks collected a great army for Troy; and adds that in Chalcis he gained a tripod as a prize for his poetry, and consecrated it to the muses of Helicon. He describes himself as feeding flocks near Helicon, from which, and other circumstances, it is inferred that he occupied an inferior station in life. Herodotus makes him a contemporary of Homer, and four hundred years earlier than himself, which would fix his birth at about 884 b.c. According to the Parian Chronicle Hesiod was born about 994 b.c., and Homer his junior by eighty-seven years. Pliny, however, places Homer in about 920 b.c., and Hesiod one hundred and twenty years later. Hesiod had a brother named Perses, whom he frequently names, and it is inferred from a fragment of Pindar that he removed from Ascra to Orchomenos, where he died, and his tomb was afterwards shown. Plutarch mentions a tradition to the effect that Homer contended with Hesiod at Chalcis, and that Hesiod carried off the prize. The compositions which bear the name of Hesiod are but few. The first is the "Works and Days," a purely didactic poem. According to Pausanias, the Bœotians who lived near Helicon had a tradition that Hesiod left no work to posterity except this, which they regarded as interpolated. This opinion is partly correct, and modern critics do not think it either a single composition or entirely the work of Hesiod, but made up of different poems, some older than Hesiod, some more recent, and others his own. It is plain and simple in its style, and exhibits no power of imagination. Its precepts relate to morals and politics, to seafaring men and to domestic life. Its references to agriculture and household matters furnish curious illustrations of the manners of ancient Greece. Hesiod's other chief poem is his "Theogony," in which he treats of the origin of the world and of the gods. This poem, also, must be regarded as in part at least spurious; and Pausanias, whom we have already referred to, did not think it the production of Hesiod at all, but foisted in the place of one he wrote upon the same subject, now lost (Pausan. viii. 18; ix. 27, 31, 35). The opinion of Pausanias is strongly held by some critics. Whoever wrote it, it has long been ascribed to Hesiod, whom Herodotus couples with Homer as the father of the Grecian theogony. As we said it narrates the origin of the world, of the gods, and of heroes. Except in its dialect it differs materially from the "Works and Days." Another piece, the "Shield of Hercules," appears to contain a fragment of a poem by Hesiod at the commencement, but (he substance of it is certainly not his. The titles of several other poems ascribed to Hesiod are to be met with in ancient authors, and various fragments of some of them are extant. These fragments are to be found in different editions, as in that of Didot, edited by F. S. Lehrs. Notwithstanding the homely simplicity of the Hesiodic poems, they were much read by the ancients, and deserve the attention of all who are interested in the subjects of which they treat. As Quintilian says, Hesiod never rises, but says many things useful for the conduct of life and bears the palm among those who wrote in a style of mediocrity. These poems were first printed in 1493.—B. H. C.

HESS, Heinrich, Baron von, an eminent Austrian general, was born at Vienna in 1788, and entered the army in 1805. He distinguished himself in the campaign of 1809, especially at Wagram and again in that of 1814. He rose steadily in military rank, and 1848 found him quarter-master-general of the Austrian army in Italy. He took a leading part in the preparation and execution of the strategic plans which restored the Austrian domination in Italy, and Radetzky always frankly declared that his own successes were chiefly due to his quarter-master-general. At the close of the war he was created a baron, and appointed feldzeugmeister (master of the ordnance) and chief of the general staff. In 1854 he commanded the two Austrian corps d'armée massed in Gallicia and Transylvania to watch the development of the war between the Western powers and Russia. After the peace of Paris he was appointed quarter-master-general of the Austrian army.—F. E.

* HESS, Heinrich Maria, the distinguished German fresco painter, born at Düsseldorf, April 19, 1798, was the son of an engraver of that town, but was educated at Munich, and devoted himself at first to oil-painting. His earliest taste was for religious art, and he distinguished himself by a picture of the "Entombment" in his nineteenth year. Through this and other similar works he attracted the notice of the King Maximilian Joseph, who sent Hess in 1821 to Italy to complete his studies, and he remained there five years. At Rome he painted some good portraits, among them one of Thorwaldsen; and he executed for his patron the king of Bavaria a large picture of "Apollo and the Muses on Mount Parnassus." On his return Hess was appointed professor of painting in the Royal Academy of Munich; and it was now that, by the example of Cornelius, and with the opportunities offered by the new glyptothek constructed under the auspices of the crown prince of Bavaria, that he turned his attention to fresco-painting, the branch of art in which he is most distinguished. He made also for King Ludwig in 1827 some of the designs and cartoons for the new windows of the cathedral of Regensburg; the others were done under his direction. Hess' chief works, however, are those executed for the king, Ludwig I.; the first of which was the extensive series of frescoes, executed on gold grounds, in the church of All Saints (Allerheiligen-Kirche), attached to the palace. It is a complete Bible history, executed, however, in the formal taste of mediæval Byzantine art, stiff and symmetrical in composition, but richly coloured. These extensive works were completed in 1837, having occupied five years; and the painter was created by the king a knight of the order of St. Michael, and was further honoured with the very important commission of painting in fresco the new and large basilica of St. Boniface, in which he has executed his greatest works. These frescoes from the life of the saint, are so large and so numerous that Hess was obliged to have recourse to the aid of several assistants, of whom J. C. Koch and Johann Schraudolf are the principal. The whole series consists of twenty-two pictures from the life of St. Boniface—twelve of very large dimensions, besides a species of liturgy or triumph of the apostolic church on the east wall, and many smaller compositions in other parts, on gold grounds, illustrating the progress of the church in Germany, terminating with the coronation of Charlemagne as emperor by the pope, at Rome, in the year 800. The style of these works is in a much larger taste than those of the Allerheiligen-Kirche, and they are equally well coloured, though they have much more of the simplicity of the early fresco paintings of Italy, both in composition and execution, than will accord with the general taste of the schools of England or France. They are much after the taste of Overbeck. Of the larger series, the departure of Boniface from England is a noble composition. These works were completed in 1845. Hess is now director of the Royal galleries of Munich.—(Söltl, Bildende Kunst in München.)—R. N. W.

HESS, Karl Adolf Heinrich, a distinguished German painter, was born at Dresden in 1769; studied under Kloss; travelled in Russia, Hungary, and Turkey; and settled in Vienna, where he was appointed teacher in the art academy, and in the neighbourhood of which city he died, July 3, 1849.—J. T—e.

HESS, Karl Ernst Christoph, a celebrated German engraver, was born at Darmstadt, January 22, 1755. In 1776 he went to Augsburg, where his success was so marked that he was in 1780 made a member, and in 1782 professor in the art academy, and about the same time named court engraver. In 1786 he went to Italy, where he stayed some time. On the removal of the Düsseldorf gallery and academy to Munich in 1806, Hess settled in the latter city where he died, July 25, 1828. A list of his plates will be found in Nagler.—J. T—e.

HESS, Ludwig, landscape painter and engraver, was born at Zurich in 1760. The son of a butcher, he was intended for