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HERTFORD, the county of Hertfordshire . In the begin-ning of the heptarchy it was considered as one of the principal ci-ties of the East Saxons. It is 21 miles N. of London .

Hertford, a county and town of North. Carolina, in Edentondistrict.

HEREFORDSHIRE, or HERTS , a county of England,bounded on the north by Cambridgeshire, on the east by Essex ,on the north west bv Bedfordshire , on the west by Bucks, and onthe south by Middlesex. It is 36 miles long from north to south,and 28 broad from east to west. It is divided into eight hundreds,w hich contain nineteen market-towns, and a hundred and seventy-four parishes. Flint-stones are scattered in great profusion over it,and beds of chalk are frequently met with. It is, however, withproper culture, extremely favourable to wheat and barley, whichcome to as great perfection here as in any part of the kingdom.

HKRTilA, ox HERTHUS, in mythology, a goddess worship-ped by the ancient Germans. She is mentioned by Tacitus , inhis hook I)e Moribns Gennanorum, cap. 40. Vossius supposesthat this goddess was Cybele: but she was more properly 1 erra,or the Earth; for the Germans still use her for the earth, w hencealso the English word earth.

' IlERTZBERG, a considerable town of Saxony , 24 miles S.E.of Wittenberg, and 35 N.W. of Dresden .

H ERVORDEN, or HERWAR DEN, a town in Westphalia ,J7 miles S.W. ofMinden.

H ESD IN, a strong town of France , in the department of theStraights ol Calais , and late county of Aortis, 25 miles S.S.W. olSt. Omer, and 105 N. of Paris .

HESIOD, a very ancient Greek poet; but whether contem-porary with Homer , or a little older or vounger, is not agreedamong the learned. His father, as he tells us in his Opera elDies, was an inhabitant of Cumx, one of the Eolian ides, nowcalled TaioNova; and removed from thence to Asrra, a littlevillage of Boiotia, at the foot of mount Helicon , where Hesiodwas probably born, and called, as he often is, Ascrams, fromif. Of what quality his father was it is no w here said ; but that hewas driven by misfortunes from Cumx to Ascra Hesiod himselfinforms us. His father seems to have prospered better at Ascra ,than he did in his own country ; yet Hesiod could arrive at nohigher fortune than keeping sheep on the top of mount Helicon .Here the Muses met with hint, and entered him into their service,•;ts he boasts in his Generatio Deorum :

Erewhile as they the shepherd swain behold,

Feeding beneath the sacred mount his fold,

With love of charming song, his breast they lir’d:

There me the heav’nlv muses first inspir'd ;

There, when the maids of Jove the silence broke,

To Hesiod thus the shepherd swain they spoke, &c.

On the death of the father, an estate was left which ought to havebetn equally divided between Hesiod and bis brother Perses; butPerses defrauded him in the division, by corrupting the judges.Hesiod was so far from resenting this injustice, that he expressesa concern for iho-e mistaken mortals who place their happiness inriches only, even at the expence of their virtue. He let us know,that he was not only above want, but capable of assisting bis bro-ther in time of need, which he often did, though he had been soill used by him. The last circumstance he mentions relating tohimself is his conquest in a poetical contention. Archidamus, kingof Euboea , had instituted funeral-games in honour of his own me-mory, which his sons afterwards took care to have performed.Here Hesiod was a competitor for the prize in poetry ; and won atripod, which he consecrated to the muses. When he was grownold (for it is agreed by all that he lived to a very great age), heremoved to Eocris, a town about the same distance from mountParnassus as Ascra was from Helicon . His death was tragical.The man with whom he lived at Locris , a Milesian horn, ravisheda maid in the same house ; and though Ilesiod was entirely igno-rant of the fact, yet being maliciously accused to her brothers asan accomplice, he was unjustly slain with the ravisher, and throwninto the sea. The Theogony, and his Works and Days , are theonly undoubted pieces of this poet now extant; but it is supposedthat even these have not come to us complete. A good editionof Hesiod’s works was published by Mr. Le Clerc, at Amsterdam in 1701.

IIESIONE, in fabulous history, the daughter of Igtoipedon,king ef Troy, and sister of king Priam >

II ESPER, or HESPERUS, [‘Eo-Fcur,] in astronomy, the even-ing-star ; an appellation given to Venus when she follows or setaafter the sun. See JlEsrEiius.

HESPERIA, or HESPERIA MAGNA, an ancient name ofItalv ; so called by the Greeks from its western situation.

Ii ESPERI DE.E, in botany, from the llesperitie.s; golden,or precious fruit: the nineteenth order in Limmis’s Natural Me-thod. See Botany.

H ESPER IDES, in ancient mythology, the grand-daughters ofHesperus, the brother of Allas. According to Diodmus, thesebrothers possessed great riches in the we-lern parts of Africa .He-perus had a daughter called Hesperia, who married her uncleAtlas, and from this marriage proceeded seven daughters, .calledIlesperides from the name of their mother, and Allantid.es frontthat of their father. According to the poets, the i lesperides werethree in number, iEgle, Arethusa, and Hesperetlmsa. Ilesiod, inhis Theogony , makes them the daughters of Nox, Night, andseats them in the same place with the Gorgons , viz. at the ex-tremities of the west near mount Atlas ; because the sun sets there.

Hesferides, Gardens ok the, in ancient geography, are>Iaced by some authors at Earaei), a city of Fez ; hv others, atlernich, a city of Barca, which 1 accords belter with the table.Others take the province of Susa in Morocco for the bland where-in the garden was seated.

HESPERIS, Rockf.t, Dame’s Violet, or Queen’s Go.-li flow er ; a genus of the siliquosa onier, and tetradynaniia classof plants; natural order, Siliquosa’. Petals turned obliquely;glandule within the shorter stamina; siliqua almost upright; stigmaforked at the base, coimiveut, or closing at the top; calyx close,There are seven species cultivated, on account of the great fra-granev of the llowers.

llESPERUS, in the mythology, the brother of Atlas, andgrandfather of the Tlcsperides. Diodorus, lib. iii. relates that Hes-perus, having ascended to the top of mount Atlas , the better toobserve the stars, never returned ; and hence he was fabled to havebeen changed into the evening-star.

HESSE, a country in the late circle of the Upper Rhine , inGermany , hounded on the north by the bishopric of Paderhornand duchy of Brunswick ; on the east hy Thuringia ; on the southby the territory of Euldc and Weteravia ; and on the west by diecounties of Nassau, Wilgenstein, Ilarlzteldt, and Waldeck. '1 nehouse of Hesse is divided into four branches, namely, Hesse*Cassol, Honiberg, Darmstadt , and Khinefeldt, each of which hasthe title ofdandgrave, and takes its name from one of the fourprincipal towns.

HESSIAN ELY, a very mischievous insect,native of the Land-gravate Hesse, whence it lias received its name. This insect isparticularly destructive to wheat-corn, in which it deposits its eggsclose to the ground, while growing. When the young vermin arehatched, they continue for some lime in a worm-state, feeding onthe tender part of the stalk, the growth of which is thus effectuallychecked. The Hessian fly committed great depredations in theeastern counties of England, several years since; and, in the year1787,did incalculable damage in the provinces of Pennsylvania andMaryland, in America . Several remedies against this destructiveinsect have been proposed ; the only efficacious one hitherto dis-covered, consists in facilitating the vigorous growth of the plants,by properly manuring and cultivating the soil. In order to pre-vent the depredations of this insect, it Ins been recommended tomix three pounds of turnip-seed with one ounce of Hour of sul-phur in a glazed earthen-pot, which should he closely covered .after standing twenty-four hours, another ounce of sulphur shouldhe added, and the same quantity after forty-eight hours, so as toemploy three ounces of this powder to three pounds of seed, care-fully stirring the whole every time the vessel is opened, witli asmooth piece of wood or ladle, tiiat the seed may be thoroughlyimpregnated with the sulphur. It is then to he sown on an acre ofpround, in the usual manner, where it will effectually keep off theinsect till the third or fourth seeding-leaf is formed, which will ac-quire a bitterish taste, and thus be secured from the depredationsofthelly. Another remedy is, to strew tobacco-dust over theland ; and in some counties the seeds are steeped in soot and wa-ter for several hours previously to being sown, by which they ac-quire such a degree of bitterness, as to screen them completelyagain t the ravages of this noxious insect.

HEjsYCI}It'S, the most celebrated of HI ti e ancient Greek

grammarians,