814 & E ft 
HERMESI'ANAX, an elegiac poet of Colophon, 
fon of Agoneus ; who, for his writings, was publicly 
honoured with a ftatue. Pavfahms. 
HERME'SIAS,/. in botany. See Browsea. 
HERMETIC, or HermeI-'iCAL, adj. [from Hermes 
Trifmeoijt'us, the imagined inventor of chemidry ; kerme- 
tique, Fr.] Chemical.—An kemetical feal, or to feal any 
thing hermetically,-is to heat the neck of a glafs bottle 
or jar till it is.jud ready to melt, and then with a pair 
•of hot pincers twill it clofe together. Quincy. 
HERMETICALLY, adv. According to the herme- 
tical or chemical art.—He fuffered thofe things to pu- 
trify in hermetically* fealed glades, ; and veflTels clofe co¬ 
vered. Bentley. ' 
HERME'TRA, one of the fmaller wedern iflands ot 
Scotland, a little to the north-eaft of North Vid. 
HER'MEVILLE, a town of France', in the depart- 
iVient of the Meufe, and chief place of a canton, in the 
dillriet of Eliain : two leagues and a half from Verdun, 
and three-quarters fouth-Wed from Edain. 
HERMIA'NI, or Hkr'mianites, a fell of heretics 
in the fecOnd century, thus called from their leader 
Hermias. They were alfo denominated Seleuciani , or 
Seleucians. 
HER'MT AS, the founder of the fell called Hermiamtcs, 
and fometinses Seleucians, after Seleuciis, who taught the 
fame opinions. Hermias concurred with Herntogenes 
concerning the eternity of matter; maintained that God 
himfelf is material, in the fame feiiife with the doics ; 
and with them he alfo agreed in opinion concerning the ■ 
nature of the foul. He renounced the ufe of water in 
baptifm ; and denied the .doCtrine of the refurreClion, 
in the fenfe received by Clvriftians in general, holding 
that the fuceeflion of one generation to another, by the 
entrance of liurhSn beings into the wofld, is the only 
refurreClion, See. . • • 
HER'MIAS, a Chridian philofopher, who lived at 
an early age of the church ; but in what country, and at 
what precife time, cannot now be afeertained. Some 
have thought him a writer of the fourth or fifth century; 
and Lambecius has advanced the eonjeClure, that he 
was the Tame perfon with Hermias Sozomen, the eccle.- 
fiaftical hiftorian, who flouriflied‘under the reign of the 
younger Theodofius. Cave, Dupin, and Lardner, have 
placed him in the lad year of the fecond century; which 
is certainly the mod rational conje&ure. The work 
Which has tranfmitted his name to poderity, is entitled 
Hermias’s Ridicule of the Gentile Philofophers. It con¬ 
tains no inelegant compendium of the Greek philofophy, 
and expofes, with great ability, the difeordant opinions 
of the philofophers, concerning God, the foul, &c. It 
was fird printed in Greek and Latin, at Bafil, in 1553, 
and was inferted by Fronton du Due, in the fird volume 
of his Auttuarium. The bed edition of it was publifiied 
by William Worth, at Oxford, in 1700, 8vo. together 
with Tatian’s Oration to the Greeks, and illudrated with 
notes by the editor, as well as thofe of the learned Dr; 
Thomas Gale-. 
HERMIN'IUM,/. in botany. See Ophrys Mo¬ 
no rc his. 
HERMIN'IUS, a man’s name; the name of feveral 
illudrious men of antiquity. 
HERMl'ONE, a conliderable city of Argolis. It 
was in ruins in the time of Paufanias; who fays that 
the new city was at the didance of four dadia fr.om the 
promontory on which the temple of Neptune dood. It 
► gave name to the Sinus Hermionicus, a part of the Sinus 
Argolicus. 
HERMl'ONE, in mythology, the daughter of Mar's 
'and Venus, who married Cadmus. The -gods, except 
JunO, honoured her nuptials with their prefence; and 
die received, as a prefeilt, a rich veil and a fplendid 
necklace'which had been made by Vulcan. She was 
changed into a ferpent with her hudsand Cadmus, and 
placed in the Elyfian fields. Ovid.— Alio the name of a 
HER 
daughter of Menelaus and Helen. She was privately 
proiuifed in marriage to Oredes the fon of Agamemnon; 
but her father, ignorant of this pre-engagement, gave 
her hand to Pyrrhus tlie fori of Achilles, whofe fervices 
he had experienced in the Trojan War. Pyrrhus, at his 
return fromi'Troy, carried home Hentiioiie and married 
her; but Hermione, tenderly attached to her coufirt 
Oredes, looked upon Pyrrhus with horror and indigna¬ 
tion. According to others, however, Hermione received 
the addreffes of Pyrrhus with pleafure, and even re¬ 
proached Andromache, Iris concubine, with dealing his 
affeCtions from her. Her jealoufy of AndromaChe, ac¬ 
cording to fome, induced her to unite herfelf to Oredes, 
and to dedroy Pyrrhus. She gave herfelf to Oredes 
after this murde'r, and received the kirtgdom of Sparta 
as her dower. Homer. 
HERMIO'NIAi, in ancient geography, a city near 
the Riphsean mountains. 
HERMION'ICUS Sl'NUS, a bay on the coad of Ar¬ 
golis, near the city of Hermione. 
HERMIP'PUS, a freed-man, difciple of Philo, in the 
reign of Adrian, by whom he was greatly edeemed. He 
was the author of five books upon dreams. 
HER'MIT, f. [kermite , Fr. contracted from eremite, 
egjj/*iT'/K> Gr.J Afolitary; an anchoret; one who retires 
from fociety for'contemplation and devotion : 
A Wither’d hermit, fivefcore winters worn. 
Might drake off fifty, looking in her* eye. Shake/peare. 
A beadfman; one bound to pray for another. Improper : 
For thofe of old, 
And the late dignities heap’d up to them, 
We red your hermits. Shake/peare. 
Paul the Egyptian, furnamed the Hermit, is faid to 
have been the fird who thus fecluded himfelf from the 
fociety of his fellow men. The caufe is thus dated by 
Milner, in his Hidory of the Church of Chrid:—“ In 
the Lower Thebais, during the perfecution of Decius, 
there was a young man named Paul, to whom, at fifteen 
years of age, his parents left a great edate. He was a 
perfon of much learning, of a mild temper, and full of 
the love of God. He had a married fider, with whom 
he lived. Her luiiband was bafe enough to defign an 
information againd him, in order to obtain his ellate. 
Paul, having notice of this, retired to the defert moun¬ 
tains, where he waited till the perfecution ceafed. Habit 
at length made folitude agreeable to him; he found a 
pleafant retreat, and lived there fourfeoreand ten,years. 
He was at the time of his retirement twenty-three, and 
lived to be 113 years pld. This is the/ird didinCt ac¬ 
count of an hermit in the Chrillian church.”—Such 
feems to have been the circumdance which in fubfe- 
quent times gave rife to the various orders and congre¬ 
gations of religious didinguiflied by the title of hermits ; 
as, the hermits of St. Paul, of St. Augudine, of St. John 
the Baptid, of St. Jerome, &c. all of whom had hermi¬ 
tages erelted inreclufe fituations, annexed to fome large 
abbey, and of which the fuperior was called kermita. 
HER'MIT’s BAY, a bay of the ifland of St. Chrido- 
pher, on the north coad, a little to the fouth of Ma¬ 
rian’s Point. 
HER'MIT’s ISLANDS, a cluder of Email iflands on 
the fouth coad of the ifland of T err a del Fuego. 
HER'MITAGE, f. [hermitage, Fr.] The cell or ha¬ 
bitation of a hermit.—About two leagues from Fribourg 
we went to fee a hermitage: it lies in the prettied folitude 
imaginable, among woods and rocks. Addifon on Italy. 
Then may at lad my weary age 
Find out,the peaceful hermitage ; 
The hairy gown and mo fly cell, 
Where I may fit and nightly fpell 
Of every flar that heaven doth fliew, 
And every herb that ftps the dew. Milton. 
HER'MITAGE, a town of Wed Florida, on the 
