HEILSBRONN, a Bavarian market-town, 16 m.  SW. of Nueremberg; is celebrated for its Cistercian monastery, now suppressed, but whose church still contains monuments and art relics of great historic interest.

HEINE, HEINRICH, a German lyric poet, born at Duesseldorf, of Jewish parents; was bred to law, but devoted himself to literature, and mingled with literary people, and associated in particular with the Varnhagen von Ense circle; first became notable by the publication of his “Reisebilder” and his “Buch der Lieder,” the appearance of which created a wide-spread enthusiasm in Germany in 1825 he abandoned the Jewish faith and professed the Christian, but the creed he adopted was that of a sceptic, and he indulged in a cynicism that outraged all propriety, and even common decency; in 1830 he quitted Germany and settled in Paris, and there a few years afterwards married a rich lady, who alleviated the sufferings of his last years; an attack of paralysis in 1847 left him only one eye, and in the following year he lost the other, but under these privations and much bodily pain he bore up with a singular fortitude, and continued his literary labours to the last; in his songs he was at his best, and by these alone it is believed he will be chiefly remembered (1797-1856).

HEINECCIUS, JOHANN GOTTLIEB, a celebrated German jurist, born at Eisenberg; was successively professor of Philosophy and subsequently of Law at several universities of Germany; he wrote several learned works in law treated from a philosophical standpoint; mention may be made of his “Historia Juris Civilis Romani” and “Elementa Juris Naturae Gentium” (1681-1741).

HEINSIUS, ANTHONY, a noted Dutch statesman, born at Delft; became Grand Pensionary of Holland; was the intimate friend and correspondent of William III. of England, who left the guidance of Dutch affairs largely in his hands (1641-1720).

HEIR APPARENT, one whose right of succession is sure if he survive the present holder.

HEIR PRESUMPTIVE, one whose right of succession is sure if not barred by the birth of one nearer.

HEJAZ, EL, the holy land of the Moslems, a district of Arabia Felix, and so called by containing the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina.

HEJIRA or HEJRA (Arabic, “going away"), a word applied to Mahomet’s flight from Mecca to Medina in A.D. 622; Calif Omar, 17 years later, adopted this date as the starting-point of a new Mohammedan calendar.

HEL or HELA, in Scandinavian mythology an inexorable divinity, the death-goddess who presides over the icy realm of the dead; her maw was insatiable and her heart pitiless.

HELDENBUCH, a collection of German heroic poems relating heroic deeds and events connected with the inroads of the barbarians on the empire.

HELDER, THE (25), a strongly fortified and flourishing seaport in North Holland, on the Marsdiep, at the N. end of the North Holland Canal, 51 m.  NW. of Amsterdam; is an important naval centre, and has an excellent harbour.