HELMONT, JEAN BAPTIST VAN, a celebrated German chemist, the father of chemistry, born at Brussels; his early years were divided between the study of medicine and the practice of a religious mysticism; the works of Paracelsus stimulated his interest in chemistry and physics, and having married a noble Brabant lady, he settled down on the family estate near Vilvorde, where he devoted himself to scientific research; mixed up a good deal of mysticism and alchemy with his scientific discoveries, and made a special study of gases; he was the first to prove the indestructibility of matter in chemical changes by utilising the balance in analysis; he invented the word gas, first used the melting-point of ice and the boiling-point of water as limits of a thermometric scale, and his physiological speculations led him to regard the stomach as the seat of the soul! (1577-1644).

HELOISE, niece of Canon Fulbert, born at Paris; celebrated for her amour with ABELARD (q. v.); became prioress of the convent of Argenteuil and abbess of the Paraclete, where she founded a new convent and lived a pious life (1101-1164).

HELOISE, NOUVELLE, a romance by Rousseau.

HELOTS, slaves who formed the lowest grade of the population of Sparta, were descendants of the original inhabitants of Laconia, or prisoners of war; they were slaves belonging to the State, from the State alone could they receive manumission; they were employed as tillers of the ground, waited at meals, filled various menial offices for private individuals, and were treated with the utmost harshness; were whipped annually to remind them of their servile position; slaughtered when their numbers increased too much, and were forced to exhibit themselves under intoxication as a warning to the Spartan youth.

HELPS, SIR ARTHUR, essayist and historian, born in Surrey; for a time held official posts in connection with the government of the day, and finally that of Clerk to the Privy Council, in which capacity he was brought into connection with the Queen, which led to his being appointed editor of the “Principal Speeches and Addresses of the late Prince Consort” and Her Majesty’s “Leaves from a Journal of our Life in the Highlands”; he is the author of “Friends in Council,” published one series in 1847 and a second in 1859, which dealt with a variety of subjects, and was, along with “Companions of my Solitude,” very popular; he did also plays and romances as well as historical sketches (1817-1875).

HELSINGFORS (77), a strongly fortified seaport and capital of Finland, is in a commanding position placed on a rocky peninsula in the Gulf of Finland, 191 m.  W. of St. Petersburg; the numerous islands and islets at the entrance of the harbour are strongly fortified; the town is handsomely laid out, and has a flourishing university (student roll, 1703), and does a good Baltic trade.

HELST, BARTHOLOMAEUS VAN DER, one of the greatest of the Dutch portrait-painters, born at Haarlem, but spent his life in Amsterdam; he enjoyed a great reputation in his day, and many of his pictures are to be found in European galleries; his “Muster of the Burgher Guard” was considered by Sir Joshua Reynolds to be “the first picture of portraits in the world” (1613-1670).