litterateur, was born in Paris in January 1715. He was descended from a
family of physicians, whose original name was Schweitzer (latinized as
Helvetius). His grandfather introduced the use of ipecacuanha; his
father was first physician to Queen Marie Leczinska of France. Claude
Adrien was trained for a financial career, but he occupied his spare
time with writing verses. At the age of twenty-three, at the queen's
request, he was appointed farmer-general, a post of great responsibility
and dignity worth a 100,000 crowns a year. Thus provided for, he
proceeded to enjoy life to the utmost, with the help of his wealth and
liberality, his literary and artistic tastes. As he grew older, however,
his social successes ceased, and he began to dream of more lasting
distinctions, stimulated by the success of Maupertuis as a
mathematician, of Voltaire as a poet, of Montesquieu as a philosopher.
The mathematical dream seems to have produced nothing; his poetical
ambitions resulted in the poem called _Le Bonheur_ (published
posthumously, with an account of Helvetius's life and works, by C. F. de
Saint-Lambert, 1773), in which he develops the idea that true happiness
is only to be found in making the interest of one that of all; his
philosophical studies ended in the production of his famous book _De
l'esprit_. It was characteristic of the man that, as soon as he thought
his fortune sufficient, he gave up his post of farmer-general, and
retired to an estate in the country, where he employed his large means
in the relief of the poor, the encouragement of agriculture and the
development of industries. _De l'esprit_ (Eng. trans. by W. Mudford,
1807), intended to be the rival of Montesquieu's _L'Esprit des lois_,
appeared in 1758. It attracted immediate attention and aroused the most
formidable opposition, especially from the dauphin, son of Louis XV. The
Sorbonne condemned the book, the priests persuaded the court that if was
full of the most dangerous doctrines, and the author, terrified at the
storm he had raised, wrote three separate retractations; yet, in spite
of his protestations of orthodoxy, he had to give up his office at the
court, and the book was publicly burned by the hangman. The virulence of
the attacks upon the work, as much as its intrinsic merit, caused it to
be widely read; it was translated into almost all the languages of
Europe. Voltaire said that it was full of commonplaces, and that what
was original was false or problematical; Rousseau declared that the very
benevolence of the author gave the lie to his principles; Grimm thought
that all the ideas in the book were borrowed from Diderot; according to
Madame du Deffand, Helvetius had raised such a storm by saying openly
what every one thought in secret; Madame de Graffigny averred that all
the good things in the book had been picked up in her own _salon_. In
1764 Helvetius visited England, and the next year, on the invitation of
Frederick II., he went to Berlin, where the king paid him marked
attention. He then returned to his country estate and passed the
remainder of his life in perfect tranquillity. He died on the 26th of
December 1771.
His philosophy belongs to the utilitarian school. The four discussions
of which his book consists have been thus summed up: (1) All man's
faculties may be reduced to physical sensation, even memory, comparison,
judgment; our only difference from the lower animals lies in our
external organization. (2) Self-interest, founded on the love of
pleasure and the fear of pain, is the sole spring of judgment, action,
affection; self-sacrifice is prompted by the fact that the sensation of
pleasure outweighs the accompanying pain; it is thus the result of
deliberate calculation; we have no liberty of choice between good and
evil; there is no such thing as absolute right--ideas of justice and
injustice change according to customs. (3) All intellects are equal;
their apparent inequalities do not depend on a more or less perfect
organization, but have their cause in the unequal desire for
instruction, and this desire springs from passions, of which all men
commonly well organized are susceptible to the same degree; and we can,
therefore, all love glory with the same enthusiasm and we owe all to
education. (4) In this discourse the author treats of the ideas which
are attached to such words as _genius_, _imagination_, _talent_,
_taste_, _good sense_, &c. The only original ideas in his system are
those of the natural equality of intelligences and the omnipotence of
education, neither of which, however, is generally accepted, though both
were prominent in the system of J. S. Mill. There is no doubt that his
thinking was unsystematic; but many of his critics have entirely
misrepresented him (e.g. Cairns in his _Unbelief in the Eighteenth
Century_). As J. M. Robertson (_Short History of Free Thought_) points
out, he had great influence upon Bentham, and C. Beccaria states that he
himself was largely inspired by Helvetius in his attempt to modify penal
laws. The keynote of his thought was that public ethics has a
utilitarian basis, and he insisted strongly on the importance of culture
in national development.
A sort of supplement to the _De l'esprit_, called _De l'homme, de ses
facultes intellectuelles et de son education_ (Eng. trans. by W.
Hooper, 1777), found among his manuscripts, was published after his
death, but created little interest. There is a complete edition of the
works of Helvetius, published at Paris, 1818. For an estimate of his
work and his place among the philosophers of the 18th century see
Victor Cousin's _Philosophie sensualiste_ (1863); P. L. Lezaud,
_Resumes philosophiques_ (1853); F. D. Maurice, in his _Modern
Philosophy_ (1862), pp. 537 seq.; J. Morley, _Diderot and the
Encyclopaedists_ (London, 1878); D. G. Mostratos, _Die Padagogik des
Helvetius_ (Berlin, 1891); A. Guillois, _Le Salon de Madame Helvetius_
(1894); A. Piazzi, _Le Idee filosofiche specialmente pedagogiche de C.
A. Helvetius_ (Milan, 1889); G. Plekhanov, _Beitrage zur Geschichte
des Materialismus_ (Stuttgart, 1896); L. Limentani, _Le Teorie
psicologiche di C. A. Helvetius_ (Verona, 1902); A. Keim, _Helvetius,
sa vie et son oeuvre_ (1907).
HELVIDIUS PRISCUS, Stoic philosopher and statesman, lived during the
reigns of Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian. Like his
father-in-law, Thrasea Paetus, he was distinguished for his ardent and
courageous republicanism. Although he repeatedly offended his rulers, he
held several high offices. During Nero's reign he was quaestor of Achaea
and tribune of the plebs (A.D. 56); he restored peace and order in
Armenia, and gained the respect and confidence of the provincials. His
declared sympathy with Brutus and Cassius occasioned his banishment in
66. Having been recalled to Rome by Galba in 68, he at once impeached
Eprius Marcellus, the accuser of Thrasea Paetus, but dropped the charge,
as the condemnation of Marcellus would have involved a number of
senators. As praetor elect he ventured to oppose Vitellius in the senate
(Tacitus, _Hist._ ii. 91), and as praetor (70) he maintained, in
opposition to Vespasian, that the management of the finances ought to be
left to the discretion of the senate; he proposed that the capitol,
which had been destroyed in the Neronian conflagration, should be
restored at the public expense; he saluted Vespasian by his private
name, and did not recognize him as emperor in his praetorian edicts. At
length he was banished a second time, and shortly afterwards was
executed by Vespasian's order. His life, in the form of a warm
panegyric, written at his widow's request by Herennius Senecio, caused
its author's death in the reign of Domitian.
Tacitus, _Hist._ iv. 5, _Dialogus_, 5; Dio Cassius lxvi. 12, lxvii.
13; Suetonius, _Vespasian_, 15; Pliny, _Epp._ vii. 19.
HELY-HUTCHINSON, JOHN (1724-1794), Irish lawyer, statesman, and provost
of Trinity College, Dublin, son of Francis Hely, a gentleman of County
Cork, was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and was called to the
Irish bar in 1748. He took the additional name of Hutchinson on his
marriage in 1751 with Christiana Nixon, heiress of her uncle, Richard
Hutchinson. He was elected member of the Irish House of Commons for the
borough of Lanesborough in 1759, but after 1761 he represented the city
of Cork. He at first attached himself to the "patriotic" party in
opposition to the government, and although he afterwards joined the
administration he never abandoned his advocacy of popular measures. He
was a man of brilliant and versatile ability, whom Lord Townshend, the
lord lieutenant, described as "by far the most powerful man in
parliament." William Gerard Hamilton said of him that "Ireland never
bred a more able, nor any country a more honest man." Hely-Hutchinson
was, however, an inveterate place-hunter, and there was point in Lord
North's witticism that "if you were to give him the whole of Great
Britain and Ireland for an estate, he would ask the Isle of Man for a
potato garden." After a session or two in parliament he was made a privy
councillor and prime serjeant-at-law; and from this time he gave a
general, though by no means invariable, support to the government. In
1767 the ministry contemplated an increase of the army establishment in
Ireland from 12,000 to 15,000 men, but the Augmentation Bill met with
strenuous opposition, not only from Flood, Ponsonby and the habitual
opponents of the government, but from the Undertakers, or proprietors of
boroughs, on whom the government had hitherto relied to secure them a
majority in the House of Commons. It therefore became necessary for
Lord Townshend to turn to other methods for procuring support. Early In
1768 an English act was passed for the increase of the army, and a
message from the king setting forth the necessity for the measure was
laid before the House of Commons in Dublin. An address favourable to the
government policy was, however, rejected; and Hely-Hutchinson, together
with the speaker and the attorney-general, did their utmost both in
public and private to obstruct the bill. Parliament was dissolved in May
1768, and the lord lieutenant set about the task of purchasing or
otherwise securing a majority in the new parliament. Peerages, pensions
and places were bestowed lavishly on those whose support could be thus
secured; Hely-Hutchinson was won over by the concession that the Irish
army should be established by the authority of an Irish act of
parliament instead of an English one. The Augmentation Bill was carried
in the session of 1769 by a large majority. Hely-Hutchinson's support
had been so valuable that he received as reward an addition of L1000 a
year to the salary of his sinecure of Alnagar, a major's commission in a
cavalry regiment, and a promise of the secretaryship of state. He was at
this time one of the most brilliant debaters in the Irish parliament,
and he was enjoying an exceedingly lucrative practice at the bar. This
income, however, together with his well-salaried sinecure, and his place
as prime serjeant, he surrendered in 1774, to become provost of Trinity
College, although the statute requiring the provost to be in holy orders
had to be dispensed with in his favour.
For this great academic position Hely-Hutchinson was in no way
qualified, and his appointment to it for purely political service to the
government was justly criticized with much asperity. His conduct in
using his position as provost to secure the parliamentary representation
of the university for his eldest son brought him into conflict with
Duigenan, who attacked him in _Lacrymae academicae_, and involved him in
a duel with a Mr Doyle; while a similar attempt on behalf of his second
son in 1790 led to his being accused before a select committee of the
House of Commons of impropriety as returning officer. But although
without scholarship Hely-Hutchinson was an efficient provost, during
whose rule material benefits were conferred on Trinity College. He
continued to occupy a prominent place in parliament, where he advocated
free trade, the relief of the Catholics from penal legislation, and the
reform of parliament. He was one of the very earliest politicians to
recognize the soundness of Adam Smith's views on trade; and he quoted
from the _Wealth of Nations_, adopting some of its principles, in his
_Commercial Restraints of Ireland_, published in 1779, which Lecky
pronounces "one of the best specimens of political literature produced
in Ireland in the latter half of the 18th century." In the same year,
the economic condition of Ireland being the cause of great anxiety, the
government solicited from several leading politicians their opinion on
the state of the country with suggestions for a remedy.
Hely-Hutchinson's response was a remarkably able state paper (MS. in the
Record Office), which also showed clear traces of the influence of Adam
Smith. The _Commercial Restraints_, condemned by the authorities as
seditious, went far to restore Hely-Hutchinson's popularity which had
been damaged by his greed of office. Not less enlightened were his views
on the Catholic question. In a speech in parliament on Catholic
education in 1782 the provost declared that Catholic students were in
fact to be found at Trinity College, but that he desired their presence
there to be legalized on the largest scale. "My opinion," he said, "is
strongly against sending Roman Catholics abroad for education, nor would
I establish Popish colleges at home. The advantage of being admitted
into the university of Dublin will be very great to Catholics; they need
not be obliged to attend the divinity professor, they may have one of
their own; and I would have a part of the public money applied to their
use, to the support of a number of poor lads as sizars, and to provide
premiums for persons of merit, for I would have them go into
examinations and make no distinction between them and the Protestants
but such as merit might claim." And after sketching a scheme for
increasing the number of diocesan schools where Roman Catholics might
receive free education, he went on to urge that "it is certainly a
matter of importance that the education of their priests should be as
perfect as possible, and that if they have any prejudices they should be
prejudices in favour of their own country. The Roman Catholics should
receive the best education in the established university at the public
expense; but by no means should Popish colleges be allowed, for by them
we should again have the press groaning with themes of controversy, and
subjects of religious disputation that have long slept in oblivion would
again awake, and awaken with them all the worst passions of the human
mind."[1]
In 1777 Hely-Hutchinson became secretary of state. When Grattan in 1782
moved an address to the king containing a declaration of Irish
legislative independence, Hely-Hutchinson supported the
attorney-general's motion postponing the question; but on the 16th of
April, after the Easter recess, he read a message from the lord
lieutenant, the duke of Portland, giving the king's permission for the
House to take the matter into consideration, and he expressed his
personal sympathy with the popular cause which Grattan on the same day
brought to a triumphant issue (see GRATTAN, HENRY). Hely-Hutchinson
supported the opposition on the regency question in 1788, and one of his
last votes in the House was in favour of parliamentary reform. In 1790
he exchanged the constituency of Cork for that of Taghmon in County
Wexford, for which borough he remained member till his death at Buxton
on the 4th of September 1794.
In 1785 his wife had been created Baroness Donoughmore and on her death
in 1788, his eldest son Richard (1756-1825) succeeded to the title. Lord
Donoughmore was an ardent advocate of Catholic emancipation. In 1797 he
was created Viscount Donoughmore,[2] and in 1800 (having voted for the
Union, hoping to secure Catholic emancipation from the united
parliament) he was further created earl of Donoughmore of Knocklofty,
being succeeded first by his brother John Hely-Hutchinson (1757-1832)
and then by his nephew John, 3rd earl (1787-1851), from whom the title
descended.
See W. E. H. Lecky, _Hist. of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century_ (5
vols., London, 1892); J. A. Froude, _The English in Ireland in the
Eighteenth Century_ (3 vols., London, 1872-1874); H. Grattan, _Memoirs
of the Life and Times of Henry Grattan_ (8 vols., London, 1839-1846);
_Baratariana_, by various writers (Dublin, 1773). (R. J. M.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Irish Parl. Debates_, i. 309, 310.
[2] It is generally supposed that the title conferred by this patent
was that of Viscount Suirdale, and such is the courtesy title by
which the heir apparent of the earls of Donoughmore is usually
styled. This, however, appears to be an error. In all the three
creations (barony 1783, viscountcy 1797, earldom 1800) the title is
"Donoughmore of Knocklofty." In 1821 the 1st earl was further created
Viscount Hutchinson of Knocklofty in the peerage of the United
Kingdom. The courtesy title of the earl's eldest son should,
therefore, apparently be either "Viscount Hutchinson" or "Viscount
Knocklofty." See G. E. C. _Complete Peerage_ (London, 1890).
HELYOT, PIERRE (1660-1716), Franciscan friar and historian, was born at
Paris in January 1660, of supposed English ancestry. After spending his
youth in study, he entered in his twenty-fourth year the convent of the
third order of St Francis, founded at Picpus, near Paris, by his uncle
Jerome Helyot, canon of St Sepulchre. There he took the name of Pere
Hippolyte. Two journeys to Rome on monastic business afforded him the
opportunity of travelling over most of Italy; and after his final return
he saw much of France, while acting as secretary to various provincials
of his order there. Both in Italy and France he was engaged in
collecting materials for his great work, which occupied him about
twenty-five years, _L'Histoire des ordres monastiques, religieux, et
militaires, et des congregations seculieres, de l'un et de l'autre sexe,
qui ont ete etablies jusqu'a present_, published in 8 volumes in
1714-1721. Helyot died on the 5th of January 1716, before the fifth
volume appeared, but his friend Maximilien Bullot completed the edition.
Helyot's only other noteworthy work is _Le Chretien mourant_ (1695).
The _Histoire_ is a work of first importance, being the great
repertory of information for the general history of the religious
orders up to the end of the 17th century. It is profusely illustrated
by large plates exhibiting the dress of the various orders, and in
the edition of 1792 the plates are coloured. It was translated into
Italian (1737) and into German (1753). The material has been arranged
in dictionary form in Migne's _Encyclopedie theologique_, under the
title "Dictionnaire des orders religieux" (4 vols., 1858).
HEMANS, FELICIA DOROTHEA (1793-1835), English poet, was born in Duke
Street, Liverpool, on the 25th of September 1793. Her father, George
Browne, of Irish extraction, was a merchant in Liverpool, and her
mother, whose maiden name was Wagner, was the daughter of the Austrian
and Tuscan consul at Liverpool. Felicia, the fifth of seven children,
was scarcely seven years old when her father failed in business, and
retired with his family to Gwrych, near Abergele, Denbighshire; and
there the young poet and her brothers and sisters grew up in a romantic
old house by the sea-shore, and in the very midst of the mountains and
myths of Wales. Felicia's education was desultory. Books of chronicle
and romance, and every kind of poetry, she read with avidity; and she
also studied Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and German. She played both
harp and piano, and cared especially for the simple national melodies of
Wales and Spain. In 1808, when she was only fourteen, a quarto volume of
her _Juvenile Poems_, was published by subscription, and was harshly
criticized in the _Monthly Review_. Two of her brothers were fighting in
Spain under Sir John Moore; and Felicia, fired with military enthusiasm,
wrote _England and Spain, or Valour and Patriotism_, a poem afterwards
translated into Spanish. Her second volume, _The Domestic Affections and
other Poems_, appeared in 1812, on the eve of her marriage to Captain
Alfred Hemans. She lived for some time at Daventry, where her husband
was adjutant of the Northamptonshire militia. About this time her father
went to Quebec on business and died there; and, after the birth of her
first son, she and her husband went to live with her mother at
Bronwylfa, a house near St Asaph. Here during the next six years four
more children--all boys--were born; but in spite of domestic cares arid
failing health she still read and wrote indefatigably. Her poem entitled
_The Restoration of Works of Art to Italy_ was published in 1816, her
_Modern Greece_ in 1817, and in 1818 _Translations from Camoens and
other Poets_.
In 1818 Captain Hemans went to Rome, leaving his wife, shortly before
the birth of their fifth child, with her mother at Bronwylfa. There
seems to have been a tacit agreement, perhaps on account of their
limited means, that they should separate. Letters were interchanged, and
Captain Hemans was often consulted about his children; but the husband
and wife never met again. Many friends--among them the bishop of St
Asaph and Bishop Heber--gathered round Mrs Hemans and her children. In
1819 she published _Tales and Historic Scenes in Verse_, and gained a
prize of L50 offered for the best poem on _The Meeting of Wallace and
Bruce on the Banks of the Carron_. In 1820 appeared _The Sceptic and
Stanzas to the Memory of the late King_. In June 1821 she won the prize
awarded by the Royal Society of Literature for the best poem on the
subject of _Dartmoor_, and began her play, _The Vespers of Palermo_. She
now applied herself to a course of German reading. Korner was her
favourite German poet, and her lines on the grave of Korner were one of
the first English tributes to the genius of the young soldier-poet. In
the summer of 1823 a volume of her poems was published by Murray,
containing "The Siege of Valencia," "The Last Constantine" and
"Belshazzar's Feast." _The Vespers of Palermo_ was acted at Covent
Garden, December 12, 1823, and Mrs Hemans received L200 for the
copyright; but, though the leading parts were taken by Young and Charles
Kemble, the play was a failure, and was withdrawn after the first
performance. It was acted again in Edinburgh in the following April with
greater success, when an epilogue, written for it by Sir Walter Scott at
Joanna Baillie's request, was spoken by Harriet Siddons. This was the
beginning of a cordial friendship between Mrs Hemans and Scott. In the
same year she wrote _De Chatillon, or the Crusaders_; but the manuscript
was lost, and the poem was published after her death, from a rough copy.
In 1824 she began "The Forest Sanctuary," which appeared a year later
with the "Lays of Many Lands" and miscellaneous pieces collected from
the _New Monthly Magazine_ and other periodicals.
In the spring of 1825 Mrs Hemans removed from Bronwylfa, which had been
purchased by her brother, to Rhyllon, a house on an opposite height
across the river Clwyd. The contrast between the two houses suggested
her _Dramatic Scene between Bronwylfa and Rhyllon_. The house itself was
bare and unpicturesque, but the beauty of its surroundings has been
celebrated in "The Hour of Romance," "To the River Clwyd in North
Wales," "Our Lady's Well" and "To a Distant Scene." This time seems to
have been the most tranquil in Mrs Hemans's life. But the death of her
mother in January 1827 was a second great breaking-point in her life.
Her heart was affected, and she was from this time an acknowledged
invalid. In the summer of 1828 the _Records of Woman_ was published by
Blackwood, and in the same year the home in Wales was finally broken up
by the marriage of Mrs Hemans's sister and the departure of her two
elder boys to their father in Rome. Mrs Hemans removed to Wavertree,
near Liverpool. But, although she had a few intimate friends
there--among them her two subsequent biographers, Henry F. Chorley and
Mrs Lawrence of Wavertree Hall--she was disappointed in her new home.
She thought the people of Liverpool stupid and provincial; and they, on
the other hand, found her uncommunicative and eccentric. In the
following summer she travelled by sea to Scotland with two of her boys,
to visit the Hamiltons of Chiefswood.