Chapter Hero and Leander to Hexameter Verse of H by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Herring-bone (in building). Courses of stone laid angularly, thus: Also applied to strutting placed between thin joists to increase their strength.
   Also a peculiar stitch in needlework, chiefly used in working flannel.

Herring-pond (The). The British Channel; the Atlantic, which separates America from the British Isles; the sea between Australasia and the United Kingdom, are all so called.

"He'll plague you now he's come over the herring-pond." - Sir W. Scott: Guy Mannering. chap. xxxiv.

Hertford (Anglo-Saxon, heort-ford, the hart's ford). The arms of the city are "a hart couchant in water."
   Hertford, invoked by Thomson in his Spring, was Frances Thynne, who married Algernon Seymour, Earl of Hertford, afterwards Duke of Somerset.

Hertha Mother earth. Worshipped by all the Scandinavian tribes with orgies and mysterious rites, celebrated in the dark. Her veiled statue was transported from district to district by cows which no hand but the priest's was allowed to touch. Tacitus calls this goddess Cybele.

Hesione (4 syl.). Daughter of Laomedon, King of Troy, exposed to a sea-monster, but rescued by Hercules. (See Andromeda.)

Hesperia Italy was so called by the Greeks, because it was to them the "Western Land;" and afterwards the Romans, for a similar reason, transferred the name to Spain.

Hesperides (4 syl.). Three sisters who guarded the golden apples which Hera (Juno) received as a marriage gift. They were assisted by the dragon Ladon. Many English poets call the place where these golden apples grew the "garden of the Hesperides." Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost, iv. 3) speaks of climbing trees in the Hesperides." (See Comus, lines 402-406.)

"Show thee the tree, leafed with refinëd gold,
Whereon the fearful dragon held his seat.
That watched the garden called Hesperides."
Robert Grene: Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay. (1508.)

Hesperus The evening star.

"Ere twice in murk and occidental damp,
Moist Hesperus hath quenched his sleepy lamp."
Shakespeare: All's Well that Ends Well, ii. 1.

Hesychasts (pron. He'-se-kasts). The "Quietists" of the East in the fourteenth century. The placed perfection in contemplation. (Greek, hesuchia, quiet.) (See Gibbon, Roman Empire, lxiii.) Milton well expresses their belief in his Comus: -

"Till oft converse with heavenly habitants
Begin to cast a beam on the outward shape,
And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence,
Till all be made immortal." (470-474.)

Hetærism (3 syl.). Prostitution.
   The Greek hetaira (a concubine). According to Plato, "Meretrix, specioso nomine rem odiosam denotante." (Plut. et Athen.)

Hetman The chief of the Cossacks of the Don used to be so called. He was elected by the people, and the mode of choice was thus: The voters threw their fur caps at the candidate they voted for, and he who had the largest number of caps at his feet was the successful candidate. The last Hetman was Count Platoff (1812-1814).
   A general or commander-in-chief. (German, hauptmann, chief man.)

"After the peace, all Europe hailed their hetman, Platoff, as the hero of the war." - J. S. Mosby: War Reminiscences, chap. xi. p. 146.

Heu-monat or Heg-monath. Hay-month, the Anglo-Saxon name for July.

Hewson Old Hewson the cobbler. Colonel John Hewson, who (as Hume says) "rose from the profession of a cobbler to a high rank in Cromwell's army."

Hexameron (The). The six days of creation; any six days taken as one continuous period.

"`Every winged fowl' was produced on the fourth day of the Hexameron." - W. E. Gladstone: Nineteenth Century, January, 1866.

Hexameter and Pentameter An alternate metre; often called elegiac verse. Hexameter as described below. Pentameter verse is divided into two parts, each of which ends with an