HERBERT, SIR THOMAS. 



HERDER, JOHA.NN GOTTFRIED VON. 



391 



China. In the autumn of 1S41 the late Sir Robert Peel came into 

 power, and shortly afterwards began to entertain and to avow a 

 conviction that the existing corn-laws were wrong in principle. Mr. 

 Herbert followed Sir Robert Peel in this modification of his views, 

 though he had opposed the measure of the Whig government to 

 substitute for the sliding scale an eight-shilling fixed duty on the 

 importation of foreign corn, as well as Lord John Russell's proposal 

 for a reduction of the duties on foreign sugar. On the accession of 

 Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Herbert became secretary to the Admiralty, 

 which post he held till 1845, when he accepted the office of secretary- 

 at-\var with a seat in the cabinet. In 1846 he supported the commercial 

 and financial reforms, introduced by Sir Robert Peel, in order to pave 

 the way for the repeal of the corn-laws and the introduction of the 

 free-trade principle in our commercial legislation. Ill March 1845, 

 when Mr. Cobden moved for a select committee on the corn-laws, Mr. 

 Herbert was selected to expound the views of his political leader, 

 which he unfolded more completely, iu January 1846, on the motion 

 of .Sir Robert Peel for a committee of the whole house on the Customs 

 and Corn Importation Acts. Having remained in opposition during 

 the prernierships of Lord John Russell and Lord Derby, on the accession 

 of Lord Aberdeen to power in December 1852, Mr. Herbert, who had 

 been sworn a privy councillor, resumed the post of secretary-at-war, 

 which he resigned in the early part of 1855, upon a re-construction of 

 the cabinet, consequent on the retirement of the Duke of Newcastle, 

 and held the secretaryship of the colonies for a few weeks under the 

 administration of Lord Palmerstou. This post however he relinquished, 

 retiring from the government, in conjunction with one or two other 

 members of the Peelite party, on account of the censure on the 

 Aberdeen cabinet, which ho considered to be implied in the appoint- 

 ment of the committee of inquiry into the state of the army before 

 SebastopoL Since that time he has kept aloof from the political world, 

 devoting much of his time, talents, and attention to the organisation 

 of schemes of social benevolence and general utility. Mr. Herbert has 

 i;rected at Wilton, near Salisbury, a beautiful church in the Romanesque 

 or Lombard ic style, which is perhaps the finest specimen of Italian 

 ecclesiastical architecture in this country. In 1846 he married a 

 daughter of General A'Court, and niece of Lord Heytesbury. 



HEP.BERT, SIR THOMAS, was born at York about 1606, and 

 entered Jesus College, Oxford, in 1621, whence he removed to Trinity 

 College, Cambridge. In 1626 he went abroad in the suite of Sir 

 Dodmore Cotton, ambassador from Charles I. to the Shah of Persia, 

 through the interest and at the expense of his kinsman, William 

 Herbert, earl of Pembroke, a man of cultivated and elegant talents, 

 and a generous encourager of learning. He soiled to Surat, theuce to 

 Ormus, traversed Persia northward to the Caspian Sea, and returned 

 by Ispahan and Baghdad, down tho Tigris ; then proceeded to the 

 coast of India, near Surat; visited (or at least described) the Straits 

 of Malacca, Java, Pegu, the Molucca Ulauda, Sic. ; and returned to 

 England after four years' absence. In 1631 he published his 'Some 

 Yearei Travels into Africa and Asia the Great,' &c. (revised aud 

 enlarged by the author in 1633), which is an accurate and trustworthy 

 work, and the best account of Persia anterior to that of Chardin. It 

 contains a great many curious facto which the reader will hardly find 

 anywhere else. The work was translated into Dutch by Van Vliet, 

 and re-translated into French by Wicquefort. The English edition is 

 ornamented with a great many cuts. [CilABDix, SIR Joan.] Herbert 

 espoused the cause of the parliament, and iu 1647 was one of ttie 

 commissioners appointed to receive the king from the Scots at New- 

 castle. Iu that capacity he attended the king to Holdenly Castle, and 

 was selected by him, on the dismissal of his former attendants, to be 

 about his person. Though, being a Presbyterian, he was opposed in 

 religion as well aa politics to the opinions of Charles, still the respectful 

 propriety of his behaviour won the regard of the royal prisoner, towards 

 whom Herbert in hia turn appears to have conceived a strong vene- 

 ration and affection. He attended him to the. hist ; and after the 

 restoration his faithful service waa rewarded by Charles II. with the 

 title of baronet. In 1678 he published 'Threnodia Carolina,' an 

 historical account of the two last years of the life of King Charles I., 

 by Sir Thomas Herbert and others, reprinted by Nicol iu 1813. He 

 died at York in 1682. (Athena; Oxoniema, where there is an original 

 account of the last days and burial of Charles I., communicated to 

 Wood by Herbert himself.) 



HK'KCULES (in Greek, Heracles), a celebrated hero of Greek 

 mythology, the offspring of Zeus by Alcmena, daughter of Electryon, 

 a son of Perseus, and lung of Mycenae. His reputed father was 

 Amphitryon (son of Alcaeiu, another of the children of Perseus), who 

 having accidentally killed his father-in-law Electryou, was compelled 

 to leave Mycenae, and take refuge in Thebes : here Hercules was born 

 and educated, and here his early feats of strength and valour were 

 done, such as slaying the lion of Cithacron, delivering Thebes from 

 the tribute to Erginus, king of Orchomenoa, and taking in marriage 

 the daughter of Creon. 



Being fated to serve Enrystheus, king of Mycenae, he performed 

 what are called his labours, in obedience to the commands of his 

 master. They are so well known that we need only enumerate them : 

 the first was to bring the skin of the Nemean lion ; the second, to 

 destroy the Hydra; the third, to catch tho hind of Artemis; the 

 fourth, to bring to Eurjstheua the Erytnanthiau boar alive ; the fifth, 



to cleanse the stables of Augeas ; the sixth, to drive away the water- 

 fowl of Lake Styrnphalis ; the seventh, to fetch the Cretan bull ; the 

 eighth, to bring to Mycenae the mares of Diomedes ; the ninth, to 

 obtain the girdle of Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons ; the tenth, to 

 bring the oxen of Geryon from the island of ErytUia ; the eleventh, 

 to bring the apples of the Hesperides; the twelfth, to conduct Cerberus 

 from tha under world. Many other exploits did he perform, such as 

 the taking of Troy, which are all related by the mythologists, Apollo- 

 dorua aud others. But we have already gone into somewhat unneces- 

 sary detail, as our object will rather be to point out the classes to 

 which these traditions belong, than to give our readers information 

 with which they cau supply themselves elsewhere. 



There are then three distinct kinds of tradition relating to Hercules : 

 the first consisting of stories drawn from some eastern or other religion 

 and applied to the Theban hero. Such are his wanderings round the 

 coasts of Greece, which exhibit iu a mythical form the establishmeut 

 of the worship of a wandering god of the Phoenicians. Such also is 

 his voluntary death on Mount O3ta ; and, according to Miiller 

 ('Dorians,' i. 444), his murdering his children. Another, and the 

 second class of traditions, are those which represent him performing 

 labours such as would naturally be those of a young community, 

 (Pausan., viii. 14.) A third class exhibits him in the light of a con- 

 queror and destroyer of tyrants, and here the awkwardness of 

 ascribing the deeds of the Peloponnesiau hero to the Thebau Hercules 

 is moat striking ; for while on the one hand he ia serving Eurystheus 

 as a slave, on the other he appears as one who forms alliances and 

 disposes of kingdoms. 



But this is all legendary; his connection with biography and 

 hiatory consists in hia being the assumed ancestor of the Heraclidce. 

 According to tradition, after the death of Hercules his children took 

 refuge in Attica, in order to escape the persecution of Eurystheus. 

 They were hospitably received by Theseus, and with the assistance of 

 the Athenians defeated Eurystheus. After the battle the Heraclidsa 

 are said to have obtained possession of the whole of the Peloponnesus ; 

 but they had not remained in the country long before a pestilence 

 again drove them back to Attica. They attempted aoon afterwards to 

 march again into the Peloponnesus, but were met at the Isthmus by 

 an army consisting of Arcadians, lonians, and Achaeans. In a single 

 battle with Echemus, king of Tegea, Hyllus, the eldest sou of 

 Hercules, was slain, and the Heraclidx promised not to invade the 

 Peloponnesus for a hundred years from that time. (Herod., ix. 26 ; 

 Pausan., i. 41.) They did not however observe their engagement, for 

 both Cleodaeus, son of Hyllus, and his grandson Aristomaohus, 

 renewed the attempt, but without success. The Heraclidoe retreated 

 to Doris, where they obtained a considerable army to assist them iu 

 the recovery of their dominions. With the aid of an /EtolUn chief 

 named Oxylus, they crossed from Naupactus to the southern side of 

 the Corinthian Gulf eighty years after the Trojan war. (Thucyd., 

 i. 12.) A battle took place between the Dorians under the command 

 of the sons of Aristomachus and the Peloponnesiana under that of 

 Tisamenus, the grandson of Agamemnon, iu which the latter were 

 defeated, aud all the Peloponnesus, except Arcadia and Achaea, fell 

 into the hands of the Heraclida;. Elis waa assigned to Oxylus, and 

 the rest of the Peloponnesus was divided between the three sona of 

 Aristomachus : Temenus obtained possession of Argoa ; Cresphoutes 

 of Messenia ; and Aristodemus, or his sons Eurysthenes and Procles 

 (for according to the general tradition Aristodemus did not live to 

 enter the Peloponnesus), of Lacedicmon. The land of the conquered 

 country was divided among the Dorians, and the old inhabitants were 

 obliged to emigrate, or were reduced to an inferior caste. (Pausan., 

 ii. 18; Ui. 1; iv. 3.) 



Such is the traditional account of that important event iu Grecian 

 history, usually called ' the return of the Heraclida!,' by which the 

 Dorians obtained possession of the greater part of the Peloponnesus. 

 It is asserted by the universal tradition of autiquity that the Dorians 

 were led to this conquest by Achaean chiefs ; but this fact has 

 been doubted by many modern writers, who have considered it impro- 

 bable that the Dorians should have been commanded by foreign chiefs. 

 It has been supposed that the Heraclida; were the hereditary princes 

 of the Doric race, who were descended from a Dorian Hercules ; and 

 that the story of the Heraolidso being descended from the Argive 

 Hercules, who performed the commands of Eurystheus, was not 

 invented till after the conquest of the Peloponnesus. (Miiller, 

 ' Dorians,' vol. i. p. 57, Eng. Trans.) Though the general tradition 

 assigned the complete conquest of the Peloponnesus to the sons of 

 Aristomachus, it appears probable from other traditions that the 

 greater part of the Peloponnesus was not reduced by the Dorians till 

 long afterwards. 



(Thirlwall, Ilistory of Greece, vol. i. pp. 262-273.) 



HERDER, JOHANN GOTTFRIED VON, was bora iu 1744, at 

 Morungen, in East Prussia, where his father kept a little girls'-school. 

 The only books he was allowed to read were a Bible and Hymn-book, 

 though he secretly turned his attention to other worka. A preacher 

 named Trescho engaged him as a writer, and aa he observed iu him 

 germs of talent, he allowed him to remain with, his sons while he 

 gave them instruction in Latin aud Greek. A complaint in the eyes, 

 with which he was afflicted, was the means of his becoming acquainted, 

 with a Russian surgeon, who was so pleased with him that he offered 



