a spade foot which often became the “spider leg” that characterized much of the late 18th-century furniture; this form of leg was indeed not confined to chairs but was used also for tables and sideboards. Of the dainty drawing-room grace of the style there can be no question. The great majority of modern chairs are of Hepplewhite inspiration, while he, or those who worked with him, appears to have a clear claim to have originated, or at all events popularized, the winged easy-chair, in which the sides are continued to the same height as the back. This is probably the most comfortable type of chair that has ever been made. The backs of Hepplewhite chairs were often adorned with galleries and festoons of wheat-ears or pointed fern leaves, and not infrequently with the prince of Wales’s feathers in some more or less decorative form. The frequency with which this badge was used has led to the suggestion either that A. Hepplewhite & Co. were employed by George IV. when prince of Wales, or that the feathers were used as a political emblem. The former suggestion is obviously the more feasible, but there is little doubt that the feathers were used by other makers working in the same style. It has been objected as an artistic flaw in Hepplewhite’s chairs that they have the appearance of fragility. They are, however, constructionally sound as a rule. The painted and japanned work has been criticized on safer grounds. This delicate type of furniture, often made of satinwood, and painted with wreaths and festoons, with amorini and musical instruments or floral motives, is the most elegant and pleasing that can be imagined. It has, however, no elements of decorative permanence. With comparatively little use the paintings wear off and have to be renewed. A piece of untouched painted satinwood is almost unknown, and one of the essential charms of old furniture as of all other antiques is that it should retain the patina of time. A large proportion of Hepplewhite furniture is inlaid with the exotic woods which had come into high favour by the third quarter of the 18th century. While the decorative use upon furniture of so evanescent a medium as paint is always open to criticism, any form of marquetry is obviously legitimate, and, if inlaid furniture be less ravishing to the eye, its beauty is but enhanced by time. It was not in chairs alone that the Hepplewhite manner excelled. It acquired, for instance, a speciality of seats for the tall, narrow Georgian sash windows, which in the Hepplewhite period had almost entirely superseded the more picturesque forms of an earlier time. These window-seats had ends rolling over outwards, and no backs, and despite their skimpiness their elegant simplicity is decidedly pleasing. Elegance, in fact, was the note of a style which on the whole was more distinctly English than that which preceded or immediately followed it. The smaller Hepplewhite pieces are much prized by collectors. Among these may be included urn-shaped knife-boxes in mahogany and satinwood, charming in form and decorative in the extreme; inlaid tea-caddies, varying greatly in shape and material, but always appropriate and coquet; delicate little fire-screens with shaped poles; painted work-tables, and inlaid stands. Hepplewhite’s bedsteads with carved and fluted pillars were very handsome and attractive. The evolution of the dining-room sideboard made rapid progress towards the end of the 18th century, but neither Hepplewhite nor those who worked in his style did much to advance it. Indeed they somewhat retarded its development by causing it to revert to little more than that side-table which had been its original form. It was, however, a very delightful table with its undulating front, its many elegant spade-footed legs and its delicate carving. If we were dealing with a less elusive personality it would be just to say that Hepplewhite’s work varies from the extreme of elegance and the most delicious simplicity to an unimaginative commonplace, and sometimes to actual ugliness. As it is, this summary may well be applied to the style as a whole—a style which was assuredly not the creation of any one man, but owed much alike of excellence and of defect to a school of cabinet-makers who were under the influence of conflicting tastes and changing ideals. At its best the taste was so fine and so full of distinction, so simple, modest and sufficient, that it amounted to genius. On its lower planes it was clearly influenced by commercialism and the desire to make what tasteless people preferred. Yet this is no more than to say that the Hepplewhite style succumbed sometimes, perhaps very often, to the eternal enemy of all art—the uninspired banality of the average man. (J. P.-B.)
HEPTARCHY (Gr. ἑπτά, seven, and ἀρχή, rule), a word
which is frequently used to designate the period of English
history between the coming of the Anglo-Saxons in 449 and the
union of the kingdoms under Ecgbert in 828. It was first used
during the 16th century because of the belief held by Camden
and other older historians, that during this period there were
exactly seven kingdoms in England, these being Northumbria,
Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex and Wessex. This
belief is erroneous, as the number of kingdoms varied considerably
from time to time; nevertheless the word still serves a
useful purpose to denote the period.
HERA, in Greek mythology, the sister and wife of Zeus and
queen of the Olympian gods; she was identified by the Romans
with Juno. The derivation of the name is obscure, but there
is no reason to doubt that she was a genuine Greek deity. There
are no signs of Oriental influence in her cults, except at Corinth,
where she seems to have been identified with Astarte. It is
probable that she was originally a personification of some department
of nature; but the traces of her primitive significance are
vague, and have been interpreted to suit various theories. Some
of the ancients connected her with the earth; Plato, followed
by the Stoics, derived her name from ἀήρ, the air. Both theories
have been revived in modern times, the former notably by F. G.
Welcker, the latter by L. Preller. A third view, that Hera is
the moon, is held by W. H. Roscher and others. Of these
explanations, that advanced by Preller has little to commend it,
even if, with O. Gruppe, we understand the air-goddess as a
storm deity; some of the arguments in support of the two other
theories will be examined in this article.
Whatever may have been the origin of Hera, to the historic Greeks (except a few poets or philosophers) she was a purely anthropomorphic goddess, and had no close relation to any province of nature. In literature, from the times of Homer and Hesiod, she played an important part, appearing most frequently as the jealous and resentful wife of Zeus. In this character she pursues with vindictive hatred the heroines, such as Alcmene, Leto and Semele, who were beloved by Zeus. She visits his sins upon the children born of his intrigues, and is thus the constant enemy of Heracles and Dionysus. This character of the offended wife was borrowed by later poets from the Greek epic; but it belongs to literature rather than to cult, in which the dignity and power of the goddess is naturally more emphasized.
The worship of Hera is found, in different degrees of prominence, throughout the Greek world. It was especially important in the ancient Achaean centres, Argos, Mycenae and Sparta, which she claims in the Iliad (iv. 51) as her three dearest cities. Whether Hera was also worshipped by the early Dorians is uncertain; after the Dorian invasion she remained the chief deity of Argos, but her cult at Sparta was not so conspicuous. She received honour, however, in other parts of the Peloponnese, particularly in Olympia, where her temple was the oldest, and in Arcadia. In several Boeotian cities she seems to have been one of the principal objects of worship, while the neighbouring island of Euboea probably derived its name from a title of Hera, who was “rich in cows” (Εὔβοια). Among the islands of the Aegean, Samos was celebrated for the cult of Hera; according to the local tradition, she was born in the island. As Hera Lacinia (from her Lacinian temple near Croton) she was extensively worshipped in Magna Graecia.
The connexion of Zeus and Hera was probably not primitive, since Dione seems to have preceded Hera as the wife of Zeus at Dodona. The origin of the connexion may possibly be due to the fusion of two “Pelasgic” tribes, worshipping Zeus and Hera respectively; but speculation on the earliest cult of the goddess, before she became the wife of Zeus, must be largely conjectural. The close relation of the two deities appears in a
