HELSINGO'R fors. It is now called the Alexander university, and has four faculties, more than 50 professors, and about 500 students. In the senate house is a large and valuable library. The town con- tains a military academy with about 140 stu- its, a Finnish society of art and one of sci- HELVETIUS 627 ice, fine museums of mineralogy and zoolo- gy, botanical gardens, an observatory, and sev- eral journals. There are manufactories of lin- en, sail cloth, and tobacco. The exports are fish, iron, timber, and grain. The trade in grain and in naval stores is active during summer. IIELSINGOR, See ELSINOEE. HELST, Bartholomew van der, a Dutch por- trait painter, born in Haarlem in 1613, died in Amsterdam about 1670. His picture in the town house at Amsterdam, representing 30 full-length figures of a train band, with the Spanish ambassador in the midst, was called by Sir Joshua Reynolds "the first picture of por- raits in the world." He occasionally painted listorical pictures, but his reputation rests Imost exclusively upon his portraits, which numerous in the Netherlands. HELVELLYN, a mountain of Cumberland, igland, between Keswick and Ambleside. It one of the highest mountains in England, its imit being 3,313 ft. above the sea. HELVETII, an ancient people of Celtic origin, o in historical times occupied the country tween the Rhine, the lake of Constance, the i6ne, the lake of Geneva, and the Jura; that somewhat less than the territory of modern ^ ritzerland (Helvetia). They first appear in istory toward the close of the 2d century B. ., when one of their divisions, the so-called Tigurinus, joined the Cimbri on their larch to invade Italy, and defeated the Roman consul Lucius Cassius (107). After the de- feat of the Cimbri and Teutons by Marius, they retired to their territory, where they num- 12 towns and 400 villages. They left it again at the time of the first triumvirate, in- vading Gaul, which had been assigned as a prov- ince to Caesar, under the command of Orgeto- rix, one of their chiefs. Caesar routed them at Bibracte (Autun in Burgundy), and the survi- vors returned beyond the Jura. Numerous Roman castles and col- onies were now planted in their land, which was known as Ager Helve- tiorum, until it was attached to Transalpine Gaul. Having refused to acknowledge Vitel- lius as emperor, they were rigorously chas- tised by his generals. After that the Helvetii almost disappear. Their territory was occupied by the Alemanni, and in its S. W. part by the Burgundians during the last period of the West Roman empire. (See SWITZEELAND.) HELVETII S, Claude idrlen, a French philoso- pher, born in Paris in January, 1715, died Dec. 26, 1771. He was of German descent, and his name was a translation of Schweitzer. His father was physician to Queen Maria Lecsz- czynska of France. When scarcely 23 years old, he was appointed farmer general with an annual revenue of about $60,000. He became the patron of philosophers, wits, and men of letters, and associated with Voltaire, Montes- quieu, and Buffon. In order to devote himself exclusively to study, he resigned his office in 1750, married a few months later the countess de Ligniville, and led a retired life, mostly at his country seat of Vore, in the province of Perche. Here, while engaged in the composi- tion of his philosophical works, he labored to improve the condition of the peasantry. In 1758 he published anonymously, under the title De V esprit, a free and bold exposition of mate- rialism, the last word, as an eminent French his- torian designates it, of the philosophical move- ment of his age, which was translated into the principal foreign languages. The work was proscribed by the pope, the Sorbonne, and the parliament, and burned by the common hang- man ; but Helv6tius lost nothing of his popu- larity at home, where his private life and char- acter offset his doctrine. When he visited England and Germany, princes, nobles, and literary men vied with each other to wel- come him ; he was treated with special dis- tinction by Frederick II., who received him in his own palace. On his return to Vore, he com- pleted a poem, Le "bonheur, in six cantos, and a philosophical treatise, De thomme, de sesfacul- tes intellectuelles et de son education, both of which were published after his death, the latter
