Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VIII.djvu/722

 704 HERZEGOVINA IIESIOD 22, 1847. She was a daughter of Dr. Lemos, a physician of Portuguese-Jewish origin, and was barely 16 when she married Dr. Markus Herz, an elderly and wealthy gentleman. Through her extraordinary beauty and intel- ligence she acquired great social influence. Schleierraacher was her most intimate friend, and conspicuous among her many other asso- ciates were William and Alexander von Hum- boldt. After the death of her husband in 1803 she continued to exercise the same com- manding and beneficent influence in society, but her means were reduced, and in 1808 she was obliged for some time to accept the hos- pitality of friends in Riigen. On her mothers death in 1817 she embraced Christianity, and during the rest of her life, mostly spent in Ber- lin, she kept up her relations with distinguished people, with whom she maintained an active correspondence, but late in life she destroyed most of her letters. See Henriette Herz, ihr Leben und ihre Erinnerungen, by Fiirst (Berlin, 1850), and Brief e desjungen Borne an Henriette Herz (Leipsic, 1861). Borne lived for a con- siderable time in her house. HERZEGOVINA, or Hersek, a province of Euro- pean Turkey, forming the S. W. part of the vila- yet of Bosnia, bounded N". by Turkish Croatia, W. by Dalmatia, S. by Montenegro and the gulf of Cattaro, and E. by Bosnia proper ; area, 6,420 sq. m. ; pop. about 290,000, of whom 180,000 belong to the Greek church, 48,000 are Catho- lics, and 62,000 Mohammedans, many of whom are renegades. They are chiefly of the Slavic race, and speak a Slavic dialect kindred to that of Dalmatia and Croatia. The province is covered by a branch of the Dinaric Alps, and slopes toward the Adriatic. It is traversed by the Narenta and its tributaries, which flow into the Adriatic. The products are tobacco of a very fine quality, rice, millet, and grapes. The most notable manufactures are hydromel or mead, a favorite popular beverage, and sword blades. The province formerly belonged to the kingdom of Croatia, and was often called the country of Chulm, and by the Venetians the duchy of St. Saba, in honor of that saint. Annexed to Bosnia in the early part of the 14th century, it was -wrested from it by the emperor Frederick III. (about 1450), who dis- posed of it in favor of Stefan Hranitch and his descendants, as an independent duchy. Hence the name of Herzegovina, the title of Herzog (duke) having been borne by its princes before the Ottoman conquest, which took place in 1467 under Mohammed II. After various contests, the Turks were confirmed in its possession by the treaty of Carlovitz (Jan. 26, 1699), excepting the former capital, the fortified town of Castelnuovo, in the gulf of Cattaro, and a small territory which had been held by the Venetians since 1682, and which now forms part of Dalmatia. Capital, Mostar. HERZEN. See HKRTZEN. HESIOD (Gr. 'TLaiodor), one of the earliest Greek poets, of whose life nothing is known ex- cept that he dwelt at Ascra, on Mt. Helicon, whither his father had removed from Cyme, on the ^Eolic coast of Asia Minor. The most gen- eral opinion of the ancients assigned Homer and Hesiod to the same period, which Herodotus fix- es at about 850 B. C. ; the higher antiquity of Hesiod is maintained by Ephorus of Cyme. K. O. Milller opposes the common opinion that the epic language was first formed in Asia Minor, whence it was borrowed and transferred to other subjects by Hesiod. He supposes this poetical dialect had already come into use in the mother country before the Ionic colonies were founded, and that the phrases, epithets, and proverbial expressions common to the two schools of poetry were derived from a com- mon and more ancient source. The Hesiodic and Homeric poetry resemble each other only in dialect and form, and are completely unlike in their genius and subjects. E. Curtius says " that with Hesiod life on earth appears utter- ly stripped of the joyous brilliancy which the Homeric poems spread out over it ; that with him it is a sunken and fallen state, a school of adversity through which man has to pass in the exercise of virtue, under the observation and support of beatified spirits. In a form of expression perfectly cognate to the Delphic sayings, the poems united under the name of Hesiod give circumstantial precepts for the different classes of human society, for knights and for peasants, and concerning both private and public life." The logographers related numerous stories of Hesiod, of his descent from Orpheus, his gift of prophecy, and his contest with Homer, which show that an early connection was conceived to have existed be- tween the priests and bards of Thrace and Boeotia, out of which grew the elements of his poetry. The Hesiodic poetry flourished chiefly in Boaotia, Phocis, and Eubcea, and the emi- nence of Hesiod caused a great variety of works to be attributed to him. The " Works and Days" ("Epya nai q/uEpat), the only poem which his countrymen considered genuine, is perhaps the most ancient specimen of didac- tic poetry, and consists of ethical, political, and minute economical precepts. It is in a homely and unimaginative style, but is im- pressed throughout with a lofty and solemn feeling, founded on the idea that the gods have ordained justice among men, have made labor the only road to prosperity, and have so or- dered the year that every work has its ap- pointed season, the sign of which may bo dis- cerned. The "Theogony" is an attempt to form the Greek legends concerning the gods into a complete and harmonious picture of their origin and powers, and into a sort of re- ligious code. Beginning with Chaos, out of which rose first the Earth and Eros (love), the fairest of the immortal divinities, it completes the formation of the world, and relates the genealogies and wars of the gods and heroes, and the triumph of Zeus and the Olympians over the Titans. The Greeks considered it