HECUBA (the Latin form of the Greek IIekabe), wife of Priam, is in Homer daughter of the Phrygian king Dymas, who dwelt on the bank of the Sangarius ; but according to Euripides, Virgil, 47c., her father was named Cisseus. According to Homer she was mother of nineteen of Priam's fifty sons: When Troy was captured and Priam slain, she was made prisoner by the Greeks. Her fate is told in various ways, most of which connect her with the promontory Cynossema, on the Thracian shore of the Hellespont. According to Euripides (Ilekabe), her youngest son Polydorus was placed during the siege under the care of Polymestor, king of Thrace. When the Greeks came to the Thracian Chersonese on their way home Hecuba discovered that her son Polydorus had been murdered, and in revenge she contrived to put out the eyes of Polymestor and murder his two sons. She was acquitted by Agamemnon ; but, as Polymestor foretold, she was turned into a dog, and her grave became a mark for ships. Other tales about her may be found in Ovid (Met., xiii. 4231) and Dictys. It is obvious from the tales of Hecuba's transformation and death that she is a form of some goddess to whom dogs were sacred ; and the analogy with Scylla is striking.

IlED A, WILLEM CLAASZ, Dutch painter, born at Haarlem it is said iu 1591, and still living there in 1668, was one of the earliest Dutchmen who devoted himself exclusively to the painting of still life. He was the contemporary and comrade of Dirk Hals, with whom he had in common pictorial touch and technical execution. But Heda was more careful and finished than Hals, and showed considerable skill and not a little taste in arranging and colouring chased cups and beakers and tankards of precious and inferior metals. Nothing is so appetizing as his "luncheon," with rare comestibles set out upon rich plate, oysters, - seldom without the cut lemon, - bread, champagne, olives, and pastry. Even the commoner " refection " is also not without charm, as it comprises a cut ham, bread, walnuts, and beer. One of Heda's early masterpieces, dated 1623, in the Munich Pinakothek is as homely as a later one of 1651 in the Lichtenstein Gallery at Vienna. A more luxurious repast is a Luncheon in the Augsburg Gallery, dated 164-1. Most of Heda's pictures are on the Continent, notably in the galleries of Paris, Parma, Ghent, Darmstadt, Gotha, Munich, and Vienna. He was a man of repute in his native city, and filled all the offices of dignity and trust in the guild of Haarlem. He seems to have had considerable influence in forming the younger Frans Hals.