HE R 
«HERODOTUS, the oldeft of all the Greck hifto-’ 
rians whofe works are 
univerfal applaufe, and gave him a laftin celebrity through 
the Grecian ftates. | " “ 
by his contemporaries, that the names of the nine mufes 
. 
mence- 
ment about 713 years B. C. and its termination at the year 
9 B.C. it includes a period of about 23. years, 
and it contains, belides the tranfaétions between Perfia and 
Greece, a fketch o 
acedonians, 
by his pen. 
to he too fond of the marvellous. Many fabulous things 
are inferted in his hiftory, though not without fufficient in- 
timations of his own difbelief, -or fufpicion of them. An 
it is an argument 
that his chronology requires lefs correétion, according to 
ewton’s canons, than that of any fubfequent Greek hiflo- 
fu 
ans. The greateit inconvenience attending the perufal of 
his hiftory refults from his method, which is the moft irre- 
gular 
and difcurfive that can be conceived ; fome entire hif-’ 
tories being introduced, as it were, by 
the bodies of others. 
oth rare a alt It is cer- 
tain that he relates many things os Pt, remote times and 
-eountries which have all the air of fable ; but there is reafon 
a eee 
airs of other nations, as the: 
Herodotus, as an hittorian, is generally thought: 
reatly in favour of this ancient writer, - 
HER 
Lempriere. 
Gen. Biog. Moreri. . 
HEROIC, fomething belonging to a hero or heroine. 
Thus we fay, heroic aétions, heroic virtue, heroic ftyle, 
heroic verfe, heroic poet, heroic age, &c 
Heroic dge is that age or period of the world, wherein 
the heroes, or thofe called by the poets the children of the 
gods, are f{uppofed to have lived, 
ieroic age coincides with the fabulous age. See 
GE. 
Heroic Poem is that which undertakes to defcribe fome 
extraordinary action, or enterprife. eae ek 
omer, Virgil, Statius, Lucan, T'affo, Camoens, Milton, 
aud Voltaire, have compofed heroic poems. 
In this fenfe, heroic poem coincides with epic poem. See 
Epic Poem and Hero. » ; 
Heroic Verfe is that wherein heroic poems are ufually 
compofed; or, it is that proper for fuch poems. In the 
Greek and Latin, hexameter verfes are peculiarly denominated 
heroic verfes, as being alone ufed by Homer, Virgil, &c. 
Alexandrine verfes of twelve fyllables were former. called 
heroic verfes, as being fuppofed the only verfes proper for, 
- heroic poetry; but later writers ufe verfes of ten fyllables. 
HEROINE, Herorna, or Herois, a woman that has 
the qualities and virtue of a- hero, or that has done fome 
heroic aétion. as - : 
HE RON, in Geography, a town of France, in the de 
f place of a canton, in the 
e place contains 698, and the canton 
linear ; tongue fharp; feet four-toed and cleft ; 
toes connected at the bafe. ¥ “ad 
into four families, the firft comprifing thofe with the hea 
crefted, and the bill hardly longer than d : 
have ead bald, and are the grues or cranes; the hich 
have the orbits naked, and are the ftorks ; and the laft, waic® 
is by far the moft extenfive family, comprehends the herons, 
or thofe birds of the ardea tribe which have the middle toe 
ferrated. 3 : pi = 
The French adopt the word heron in the fame pe 
they coniider it as including the whele of the ardea eC fo 
which they divide into four families ; the Aérons, aoa oe 
eee 
