HEBBEL, Friedrich (1813–1863), a German poet and dramatist, was born of peasant parents at Wesselburen, in Schleswig-Holstein, 18th March 1813. In his fourteenth year he obtained a humble clerkship in his native parish, but already his ambition was souring towards higher things. At an early period he began to practise poetical composition, and several of his poems published in the Modezettung at Hamburg awakened such interest that several gentlemen procured him in his twenty-second year the meuns of preparing himself in Hamburg for the uni- versity. He afterwards studied philosophy and history at Heidelberg and Munich. In 1841 he returned to Ham- burg, where he published his first tragedy, Judith. Ina journey which he made to Copenhagen in 1842 he formed the acquaintance of Thorwaldsen and Oehlenschliiger, and acquired the more substantial advantage of a travelling annuity from the king of Denmark. He accordingly visited Paris, after which he went to Italy, where he re- mained several years, staying principally at Rome, Pisa, and Palermo. Having in the spring of 1846 stopped at Vienna on his way home to Germany, he made the acquaintance of the actress Christine Engehaus, whom he married in May of the same year. His marriage led him to take up his permanent residence in Vienna, and probibly deepened his interest in dramatic composition, which from that time chiefly occupied his attention. He died in 1863. His principal dramas are Genoveva, 1843 ; Maria Magdalena, 1844; Julia, 1851; Agnes Bernauer, 1855; and Die Nibelungen, 1862. They exhibit con- siderable skill in the portraiture of character, great glow of passion, and a true feeling for dramatic situations, but their poetic effect is marred by frequent extrava- gances which border on the grotesque, and by the intro- duction of incidents the unpleasant character of which is not sufficiently relieved. In many of his smaller poems his undoubted poetic gifts found a truer and more artistic utterance.
His collected works appeared at Hamburg in 12 vols. (1865-68). His biography by Emil Kuh was published at Vienna in 1877.
HEBE, in Greek mythology, is a personification of the blooming freshness and youth of nature. Originally she appears almost identical with the pure Greek Aphrodite (as distinguished from the Oriental goddess). Hebe is the daughter of Zeus and Hera, as Aphrodite of Zeus and Dione; but Dione and Hera are only two names for the same goddess. Like Aphrodite, Hebe is called the most beautiful of the gods (Pind., V., 10, 17). In Sicyon and Phlius Hebe is called Dia, a regular epithet of Aphrodite. In Phlius, where Hebe was worshipped on the citadel in a temple where no image of her was allowed and to which right of asylum was attached, a festival called xeccordépot was celebrated to her every year; and ivy was sacred also to Aphrodite. It is in accordance with the close resem- blance between Aphrodite and Core that Hebe also has many points of analogy with the latter, to whom she is compared by Gerhard and Welcker (Gr. Gétt., i. 369). According to the custom for the unmarried daughters of a family, Hebe acts in the Homeric poems as a sort of attendant to the gods and especially to her own mother Hera. She offers the cup to the gods, just as on earth the women, and especially the youngest daughter, did to guests and to warriors departing or returning. She bathes Ares (77., v. 905), as Polycaste does Telemachus. She harnesses the horses for Hera (f7., v. 722). She appears very often in connexion with the worship of Hera. A statue of her by Naucydes stood beside the Hera of Polyclitus in the Hereeum at Argos. Praxiteles placed statues of her and Athene beside that of Hera in the temple at Mantinea, and Kekulé (Hebe) maintains that the artistic conception of Hebe which prevailed in the finest period of Greek art was a slight modification of that of Hera, and he believes that a bust, now in private possession, is the single remain- ing example of its kind. Welcker’s opinion that the so- called Farnese Flora is really a Hebe has not been generally accepted. In later art she is often represented, like Gany- medes, caressing the eagle; and it is possible that the epithet Ganymeda, by which she was called in Phlius, is not really ancient, but arises from the supposed analogy of her office with that of Ganymedes. 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. By a most transparent allegory it was said that Juventas and Terminus alone of all the gods refused to give way when the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus was being built. Perhaps the most interesting point about Hebe is her connexion with Heracles, When he was received among the gods and re- conciled to Hera, Hebe was given him in marriage. This legend appears only in a doubtful line of Homer (Od., xi. 603) ; but Hesiod (7h., 950) and Pindar (W., 10, 17) also know it. They were worshipped together in the Cynosarges at Athens, and represented side by side on the Amyclean throne. The apotheosis of Heracles and his marriage with Hebe became a favourite subject with poets and painters. Many instances occur on vases, though several of those enumerated by Kekulé are otherwise explained by other writers on art.
HEBER, Reginald (1783–1826), a distinguished prelate and hymn-writer, was born at Malpas in Cheshire in 1783. He 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 on the Continent. 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 appointed Bampton lecturer for 1815, prebendary of St Asaph in 1817, 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 indefutigably, not only for the good of his own diocese, but for the spread of Christianity throughout the East. Animated by apostolic zeal, he undertook numerous tours in India, consecrating churches, founding schools, and discharging other Christian duties. Such 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 expired on 3d April 1826.
taste, and great practical energy. His Christian character manifested all the beauty and simplicity of the days of the early church. As a poet he has attained a high place. His Palestine is generally considered the best prize poem ever written at Oxford. Heber’s fame rests mainly on his hymns, which, as literary compositions, rank among the best in the English language. Those beginning as follows 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 Green-
land’s icy mountains”; “The Lord will come, the earth