peculiar to his rival, except the contrast between the rapid sketchy touch of Hals and the careful finish and rounding of van der Helst. “The Peace” is a meeting of guards to celebrate the signature of the treaty of Münster. The members of the Doele of St George meet to feast and congratulate each other not at a formal banquet but in a spot laid out for good cheer, where de Wit, the captain of his company, can shake hands with his lieutenant Waveren, yet hold in solemn state the great drinking-horn of St George. The rest of the company sit, stand or busy themselves around—some eating, others drinking, others carving or serving—an animated scene on a long canvas, with figures large as life. Well has Bürger said, the heads are full of life and the hands admirable. The dresses and subordinate parts are finished to a nicety without sacrifice of detail or loss of breadth in touch or impast. But the eye glides from shape to shape, arrested here by expressive features, there by a bright stretch of colours, nowhere at perfect rest because of the lack of a central thought in light and shade, harmonies or composition. Great as the qualities of van der Helst undoubtedly are, he remains below the line of demarcation which separates the second from the first-rate masters of art.
His pictures are very numerous, and almost uniformly good; but in his later creations he wants power, and though still amazingly careful, he becomes grey and woolly in touch. At Amsterdam the four regents in the Werkhuys (1650), four syndics in the gallery (1656), and four syndics in the town-hall (1657) are masterpieces, to which may be added a number of fine single portraits. Rotterdam, notwithstanding the fire of 1864, still boasts of three of van der Helst’s works. The Hague owns but one. St Petersburg, on the other hand, possesses ten or eleven, of various shades of excellence. The Louvre has three, Munich four. Other pieces are in the galleries of Berlin, Brunswick, Brussels, Carlsruhe, Cassel, Darmstadt, Dresden, Frankfort, Gotha, Stuttgart and Vienna.
HELSTON, a market town and municipal borough in the
Truro parliamentary division of Cornwall, England, 11 m. by
road W.S.W. of Falmouth, on a branch of the Great Western
railway. Pop. (1901) 3088. It is pleasantly situated on rising
ground above the small river Cober, which, a little below the
town, expands into a picturesque estuary called Looe Pool, the
water being banked up by the formation of Looe Bar at the
mouth. Formerly, when floods resulted from this obstruction,
the townsfolk of Helston acquired the right of clearing a passage
through it by presenting leathern purses containing three
halfpence to the lord of the manor. The mining industry on
which the town formerly depended is extinct, but the district
is agricultural and dairy farming is carried on, while the town
has flour mills, tanneries and iron foundries. As Helston has
the nearest railway station to the Lizard, with its magnificent
coast-scenery, there is a considerable tourist traffic in summer.
Some trade passes through the small port of Porthleven, 3 m.
S.W., where the harbour admits vessels of 500 tons. On the
8th of May a holiday is still observed in Helston and known as
Flora or Furry day. It has been regarded as a survival of the
Roman Floralia, but its origin is believed by some to be Celtic.
Flowers and branches were gathered, and dancing took place in
the streets and through the houses, all being thrown open, while
a pageant was also given and a special ancient folk-song chanted.
This ceremony, after being almost forgotten, has been revived
in modern times. The borough is under a mayor, 4 aldermen
and 12 councillors. Area, 309 acres.
Helston (Henliston, Haliston, Helleston), the capital of the Meneage district of Cornwall, was held by Earl Harold in the time of the Confessor and by King William at the Domesday Survey. At the latter date besides seventy-three villeins, bordars and serfs there were forty cervisarii, a species of unfree tenants who rendered their custom in the form of beer. King John (1201) constituted Helleston a free borough, established a gild merchant, and granted the burgesses freedom from toll and other similar dues throughout the realm, and the cognizance of all pleas within the borough except crown pleas. Richard, king of the Romans (1260), extended the boundaries of the borough and granted permission for the erection of an additional mill. Edward I. (1304) granted the pesage of tin, and Edward III. a Saturday market and four fairs. Of these the Saturday market and a fair on the feast of SS. Simon and Jude are still held, also five other fairs of uncertain origin. In 1585 Elizabeth granted a charter of incorporation under the name of the mayor and commonalty of Helston. This was confirmed in 1641, when it was also provided that the mayor and recorder should be ipso facto justices of the peace. From 1294 to 1832 Helston returned two members to parliament. In 1774 the number of electors (which by usage had been restricted to the mayor, aldermen and freemen elected by them) had dwindled to six, and in 1790 to one person only, whose return of two members, however, was rejected and that of the general body of the freemen accepted. In 1832 Helston lost one of its members, and in 1885 it lost the other and became merged in the county.
HELVETIC CONFESSIONS, the name of two documents
expressing the common belief of the reformed churches of
Switzerland. The first, known also as the Second Confession of
Basel, was drawn up at that city in 1536 by Bullinger and Leo
Jud of Zürich, Megander of Bern, Oswald Myconius and Grynaeus
of Basel, Bucer and Capito of Strassburg, with other representatives
from Schaffhausen, St Gall, Mühlhausen and Biel. The
first draft was in Latin and the Zürich delegates objected to its
Lutheran phraseology.[1] Leo Jud’s German translation was,
however, accepted by all, and after Myconius and Grynaeus
had modified the Latin form, both versions were agreed to and
adopted on the 26th of February 1536.
The Second Helvetic Confession was written by Bullinger in 1562 and revised in 1564 as a private exercise. It came to the notice of the elector palatine Friedrich III., who had it translated into German and published. It gained a favourable hold on the Swiss churches, who had found the First Confession too short and too Lutheran. It was adopted by the Reformed Church not only throughout Switzerland but in Scotland (1566), Hungary (1567), France (1571), Poland (1578), and next to the Heidelberg Catechism is the most generally recognized Confession of the Reformed Church.
See L. Thomas, La Confession helvétique (Geneva, 1853); P. Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, i. 390-420, iii. 234-306; Müller, Die Bekenntnisschriften der reformierten Kirche (Leipzig, 1903).
HELVETII (Ἑλουήτιοι, Ἑλβήττιοι), a Celtic people, whose
original home was the country between the Hercynian forest
(probably the Rauhe Alp), the Rhine and the Main (Tacitus,
Germania, 28). In Caesar’s time they appear to have been
driven farther west, since, according to him (Bell. Gall. i. 2. 3)
their boundaries were on the W. the Jura, on the S. the Rhone
and the Lake of Geneva, on the N. and E. the Rhine as far as
Lake Constance. They thus inhabited the western part of
modern Switzerland. They were divided into four cantons
(pagi), common affairs being managed by the cantonal assemblies.
They possessed the elements of a higher civilization (gold coinage,
the Greek alphabet), and, according to Caesar, were the bravest
people of Gaul. The reports of gold and plunder spread by the
Cimbri and Teutones on their way to southern Gaul induced
the Helvetii to follow their example. In 107, under Divico, two
of their tribes, the Tougeni and Tigurini, crossed the Jura and
made their way as far as Aginnum (Agen on the Garonne),
where they utterly defeated the Romans under L. Cassius
Longinus, and forced them to pass under the yoke (Livy, Epit.
65; according to a different reading, the battle took place near
the Lake of Geneva). In 102 the Helvetii joined the Cimbri in
the invasion of Italy, but after the defeat of the latter by Marius
they returned home. In 58, hard pressed by the Germans and
incited by one of their princes, Orgetorix, they resolved to found
a hew home west of the Jura. Orgetorix was thrown into prison,
being suspected of a design to make himself king, but the Helvetii
themselves persisted in their plan. Joined by the Rauraci,
Tulingi, Latobrigi and some of the Boii—according to their own
reckoning 368,000 in all—they agreed to meet on the 28th of
- ↑ Some of the delegates, especially Bucer, were anxious to effect a union of the Reformed and Lutheran Churches. There was also a desire to lay the Confession before the council summoned at Mantua by Pope Paul III.
