HELENA 



HELIGOLAND 



im- 



of Venus. ' Hundreds of yearn later,' Bays 

 Nli Lang, ' Helen found a worthier poet in Quintus 

 Sni\ niii-us, wlio in a later age sang the swan-song 

 D| Creek epic minstrelsy.' As the personification 

 of all feminine loveline-N, -lie was conjured up to 

 |ila\ a part in the dream of Faust, whose words of 

 wonder at the, vision of her Iniauty in Marlowe's 

 .dy an- almost worthy of their theme : 



Was thU the face that launched a tliousand ships, 

 Ami burnt the toplenn towers of Ilium ! . . . 

 oil, tin in art fairer than the evening air 

 Clad in the beauty of a t In mxuiu I stars. 



Tin- loves of Faustus and Helen in the second part 

 of '. ;<>ethe's Faust typify the union of the classical 

 and romantic spirit. She is its spiritual heroine 

 throughout, and by his union with her in the fourth 

 art K;iu>t is raised infinitely rather than degraded in 

 character, L:ist among the greater poets who have 

 felt across the centuries the spell of Helen's loveli- 

 ness are Walter Savage Landor and Tennyson ; 

 the former in some of the finest lines in his Hellenics 

 commemorates the power of her beauty to disarm 

 the anger of Menelaus ; the latter has painted for 

 us this 'daughter of the gods, divinely tall and 

 most divinely fair,' in his splendid poem, A Dream 

 of Fnir l\'iinn'H. Poets and poetasters since have 

 touched the theme, but deserve not even to be 

 named together with these. 



Helen will remain to posterity what she is in the 

 Iliad, one of the most splendid creations in the 

 whole world of art a queen of beauty supreme 

 over the human imagination, as she was when she 

 went at the summons of Iris, all draped in silvery 

 white, with her three maidens, to the walls of Troy. 

 There above the gate sat the venerable King 

 Priam among his counsellors, and all marvelled 

 greatly at her beauty. ' No marvel is it that 

 Trojans and Achseans suffer long and weary toils 

 for such a woman, so wondrous like to the im- 

 mortal goddesses' (Iliad, iii. 156-158). 



See the delightful essay appended to Andrew 

 Lang's fine poem, Helen of Troy (1882). 



Helena (usually pronounced in the United States 

 with the accent on the first syllable, thus, Hel'e-nah), 

 the capital of Montana, is situated among foot-hills 

 in the Prickly Pear Valley, about 14 miles from 

 the Missouri River, with the Rocky Mountains 

 rising Ireland the city to the south. It is the 

 commercial and railway centre of the state, con- 

 nected with the Manitoba and Northern Pacific 

 railways, and by branch-lines with several mining 

 camps. Many of the streets are wide and straight, 

 shaded with rows of cottonwood-trees, and faced 

 with handsome residences and business premises ; 

 and the city has now electric lights and horse- 

 tramways. The most prominent building is the 

 county court-house, containing the Montana govern- 

 ment offices ; there are also a government assay 

 otliee, several churches, schools, and libraries, anil 

 a Catholic academy and convent, hospital, and 

 asylum for the insane., liesides quartz, Hour, and 

 lumber mills. A board of trade was organised in 

 1887. Gold was found here in July 1864, the first 

 log-cabins were erected in September, and the 

 camp was known as Last Chance Gulch until 

 December, when it received its present name. 

 Pop. (1880) 3624; (1890) 13,834; (1900) 10,770. 

 There is another Helena, in Arkansas -. pop. 5550. 



Hel'ena* the name of several female saints of 

 the Catholic Church, the most celebrated of whom 

 is the Empress Helena, wife of Constantius Chlorus, 

 and mother of Constantine the Great. Whether 

 born in Bithynia, Britain, or at Treves, she became 

 a Christian during the youth of Constantine, but it 

 was not till after the defeat of Maxentius that she 

 formally received baptism. The few remaining 

 years of her life she gave to works of benevolence. 



In 326, according to almost contemporary tradi- 

 tion, hlie \i-it.-.l Jerusalem, and there, with Bishop 

 MacariiiH, discovered the Holy Sepulchre and the 

 cross of Our Lord. Along with it were the croMex 

 of the two thieves, but which was the true crow 

 wits shown by it- touch restoring a sick lady to 

 health. St Helena died, it is said, a nun, at the life 

 of eighty. Her festival falls on 18th August. See 

 Citoss, and works cited there. Two other women 

 of the same name are honoured as saints. The 

 first, whose cult is confined to the Russian 

 Church, was the wife of the Grand-duke Igor, and 

 at her baptism in Constantinople (955) changed 

 her original name, Olga, into Helena ; the ottier 

 was a native of West Gothland, and lived in the 

 12th century. 



Helcnsburgh, a favourite watering-place of 

 Scotland, in the county of Dumbarton, is pleasantly 

 situated on the right bank of the Firth of Clyde, 

 at the entrance to the Gareloch, 4 miles N". of 

 Greenock by water, and 23 miles NW. of Glasgow 

 by a railway opened in 1858. It was founded in 

 1777 by Sir James Colquhoun, and named after his 

 wife Helen. There is an oltelisk to Henry Bell 

 (q.v. ). Pop. (1871)5975; (1881) 7693; (1891)8405: 

 but in summer the numbers are nearly double. 



Heliac, Heliacal (from (Jr. htlios, 'the sun'), 

 emerging from the light of the sun or passing into 

 it. The heliacal rising of a star is when it rises 

 just before the sun. 



Heliand* the name of an Old Saxon poem, 

 dating from the 9th century. Ite subject is the 

 life and work of Christ, constructed as a harmony 

 of the four gospels. The poem is written in alli- 

 terative verse, in the spirit of the old Low German 

 popular poetry. Besides being the most important 

 relic of the Old Saxon dialect, it is not without 

 intrinsic literary merit. Of two extant MSS. one 

 is in the British Museum ; the other is at Munich. 

 Heyne has issued a critical edition of the text (3d 

 ed. 1883), and there is a translation into modern 

 High German by Simrock (3d ed. 1882). 



Helianthus. See JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE, 

 and SUNFLOWER. 



( Gr. helix, ' a spiral ' ), a large family 

 of terrestrial air-breathing (pulmonate) gastero- 

 pods, of which Snails (q.v.) are familiar examples. 



Helicon* a mountain-range (5736 feet) in the 

 south-west of Breotia, in ancient Greece, was cele- 

 brated as the favourite seat of the Muses. At the 

 foot of the range stood the village of Ascra, the 

 residence of Hesiod, and the seat of the earliest 

 school of poetry in Greece. On the slopes were the 

 famous fountains of Aganippe and Hipp_ocrene, 

 whose waters were reputed to give poetic inspira- 

 tion. 



Heligoland (Ger. Helgoland; native name, 

 det Lunn, ' the Land '), a small island in the North 

 Sea, formerly belonging to Great Britain, but ac- 

 quired by Germany in 1890, is situated about 36 

 miles NW. of the mouth of the Elbe. It is about 

 a mile long from north to south, and one-third of a 

 mile from east to west, and three-fourths of a square 

 mile in superficial area. The Oberland is a rock 206 

 feet in height, on which stands a town of 400 houses, 

 and jiccess to which is obtained by 192 steps or by 

 a steam-lift; while the Unterland is a patch of 

 shore with 70 houses south-east of the cliff. The 

 resident population was in 1860 2172, and in 1890 

 2086; though in the bathing season Heligoland 

 is visited by upwards of 12,000 summer visitors 

 attracted by the admirable bathing facilities offered, 

 not by Heligoland itself, but by the 'Sandy 

 Island,' or Dune, a small sandbank with scrubby 

 vegetation, separated from the main island by a 

 channel about a mile wide. Sandy Island was 



