Melancholy. See MELENCOLIA. Meleager. A celebrated Greek statue of Meleager with boar's head and dog, now in the Vatican, Rome. It was found near the Porta Portese in a nearly perfect state, the left hand, which is supposed to have held a spear, being alone wanting.

"This is simply a body, but one of the finest I ever saw. The head, almost square, modelled in solid sections, like that of Napoleon, has only a mediocre brow, and the expres sion seems to be that of an obstinate man. The beauty of the figure con sists in a powerful neck and a torso admirably continued by the thigh. He is a hunter and nothing more."

Taine, Trans. Melencolia. A celebrated print by Albert Dürer (1471-1528), the German painter and engraver.

"In the seated figure of this grand winged woman, absorbed in thought, he has expressed, in a highly original and intellectual manner, the insufficiency of the human reason, either to explore the secrets of life, fortune, and science, or to unravel those of the past. Symbolical allu. sions of various kinds lie around, in the shape of the sphere, the book, the crystal polygon, the crucible, the bell, the hour-glass, etc., with many imple ments of human activity, such as the plane, the hammer, and the rule. The intention of the plate is greatly enhanced by the grandly melancholy character of the landscape background."

Kugler's Handbook of Painting. Mellifont. A beautiful ruined monastery on the river Mattock, near the banks of the Boyne, on the borders of Meath County, Ireland, regarded as one of the finest architectural remains in the island.

Melon-Eaters, The.

A picture by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1618-1682). In the Pinakothek, Munich, Bavaria.

Melrose Abbey. A beautiful and far-famed ruined monastery in the little town of the same name in Scotland. The existing ruin is the relic of the third building which has occupied the site. I

There is probably no part of the present structure older than the year 1400. It is greatly admired for its picturesque beauty, and the fine tracery of its windows. This venerable building is similar, in the stone of which it is built, and in the style of its architecture and ornament, to Strasburg Cathedral. It has been twice rebuilt, once by Robert Bruce. In the chancel is an exquisitely beautiful window, which Sir Walter Scott thus describes,

"The moon on the east oriel shone Through slender shafts of shapely stone, By foliaged tracery combined; Thou wouldst have thought some fairy's hand

Twixt poplars straight the osier wand In many a freakish knot had twined; Then framed a spell when the work was

done,

And changed the willow wreaths to stone."

The scene of Scott's novel of "The Monastery" is laid at Melrose Abbey, in the sixteenth century.

"The most beautiful not only of the Scottish Second Pointed churches, but of all the northern fanes of whatever age. The splendor of middle-age romance which Scott has thrown around the place has almost obliterated its older and holier renown, when it was described by Bede as the home of the meek Eata, the prophetic Boisil, the austere Cuthbert; when . . . it was the lamp of that Anglo-Saxon Lothian, which, deriving its own faith from Iona, sped the glad gift to many an English province, and even sent a missionary across the seas to become the apostle of the Austrasian tribes on the Meuse, the Waal, and the Rhine."

Quarterly Review.

shops, and you know perfectly well that all your raptures are spoken for and expected at the door, and your going off in ecstacy is a regular part of the programme: and yet, after all, the sad, wild, sweet beauty of the thing comes down on one like a cloud; even for the sake of being original you could not in conscience declare you did not admire it." Mrs. H. B. Stowe.

Oh, the monks of Melrose, they made good kal

On Fridays when they fasted; They never wanted beef or ale

As long as their neighbors' lasted.

Ballad.

So perished Albion's "glammarye." With him in Melrose Abbey sleeping, His charmed torch beside his knee, That even the dead himself might see The magic scroll within his keeping. Whittier. Member of the Humane Society. See DISTINGUISHED MEMBER OF THE HUMANE SOCIETY. Memnon. This celebrated vocal statue at Thebes, in Egypt, is of great antiquity, and is supposed to have uttered at sunrise a sound like a metallic ring or the_breaking of a harp-string. greatly shattered, probably by Cambyses or by the earthquake of 27 B.C., but has been repaired. This and the companion colossus (called "The Pair") are about 60 feet in height, sitting with their hands on their knees, apparently looking across the river. They are inexpressibly grand and impressive.

It was

"No record exists of the sound which made the statue so famous having been heard while it was entire. Strabo, who visited it with Elius Gallus, the governor of Egypt, speaks of the upper part' having been broken and hurled down,' as he was told, by the shock of an earthquake,' and says that he heard the sound, but could not affirm whether it proceeded from the pedestal or from the statue itself, or

even from some of those who stood near its base;' and it appears, from his not mentioning the name of Memnon, that it was not yet supposed to be the statue of that doubtful personage. But it was not long before the Roman visitors ascribed it to the Son of Tithonus,' and a multitude of inscriptions, the earliest in the reign of Nero, and the most recent in the reign of Septimius Severus, testify to his miraculous powers, and the credulity of the writers. Pliny calls it the statue of Memnon; and Juvenal thus refers to it.

'Dimidio magicæ resonant ubi Memnone chordæ.'

Various opinions exist among modern critics as to whether the sound this statue was said to emit, and which is described as resembling either the breaking of a harp-string or the ring of metal, was the result of a natural phenomenon or of priestly craft. Some

say that the action of the rising sun upon the cracks in the stone moist with dew caused the peculiar sound produced; while others declare that it was a trick of the priests, one of whom hid himself in the statue, and struck a metallicsounding stone there concealed. The chief arguments in favor of this last view are, that such a stone still exists in the lap of the statue, with a recess cut in the block immediately behind it, capable of holding a person completely screened from view below; and, above all, the suspicious circumstance that the sound was heard twice or thrice by important personages, like the Emperor Hadrian, Χαιρων και τρίτον αχον in,' rejoicing (at the presence of the emperor), it uttered a sound a third time,' while ordinary people only heard it once, and that sometimes not until after two or three visits."

Murray's Handbook for Egypt.

"And next appeared — and my heart stood still at the sight - the Pair. There they sat, together yet apart, in the midst of the plain, serene and vigi lant, still keeping their untired watch over the lapse of ages and the eclipse of Egypt. I can never believe that any thing else so majestic as this Pair has been conceived of by the imagination of Art. Nothing even in nature certainly ever affected me so unspeakably; no thunder-storm in my childhood, nor any aspect of Niagara, or the Great Lakes of America, or the Alps, or the Desert, in my later years."

Miss Martineau.

"The impression of sublime tranquillity which they convey when seen from distant points is confirmed by

surface resembles that of "a sea which has become suddenly frozen, not in the moment of a tempest, but at the instant when the wind has calmed, and the waves, although very high, have become blunted and rounded." There are other seas of ice among the Alps, but this is the Mer de Glace par eminence. Merceria. A street of busy traffic in Venice, Italy, leading out of the Piazza of S. Mark.

"Hence I passed thro' the Merceria, which is one of the most delicious streets in the world for the sweetnesse of it, and is all the way on both sides tapistred as it were with cloth of gold, rich damasks and other silks, which the shops expose and hang before their houses from the first floore, and with that varietie that for neere halfe the yeare spente chiefly in this Citty, I hardly remember to have seen the same piece twice exposed; to this add the perfumes, the apothe caries' shops, and innumerable cages of nightingales which they keepe that entertaine you with their melodie, so that shutting your eyes you would im. agine yourselfe in the countrie, when indeed you are in the middle of the Sea. This street paved with brick and exceedingly cleane brought us thro' an arch into the famous piazza of St. Mark." John Evelyn, 1645. Mercers' Hall. A building situated in Cheapside, London, belonging to the Company of Mercers, the oldest of the great City guilds or companies.

Merchant Taylors' Hall. In Threadneedle Street, London, built after the Great Fire. It is the largest of the companies' halls. The Merchant Taylors' Company, the great Tory company, was incorporated in 1466, and has counted among its members several kings of England, and many of the nobility. Merchants' Tables. A celebrated dolmen or burial grotto at Lochmariaker, in the little island of Gavrinnis, France. Upon the stones the form of a hatchet or mason's trowel can still be distinctly traced. This was a very common symbol in ancient times, intended to indicate that the

monument was still under the trowel, that is, devoted to the purposes of a tomb; this device, it is supposed, being had recourse to in order to protect the empty tombs from mutilation.

Mercury. A well-known and admired statue by Giovanni da Bologna, called Il Fiammingo (1524– 1608). In the Bargello, Florence, Italy.

"Who does not know the Mercury of Gian Bologna, that airy youth with winged feet and cap, who, with the caduceus in his hand, and borne aloft upon a head of Eolus, seems bound upon some Jove-commissioned errand? Who has not admired its lightness and truth of momentary action, since, Mercury-like, it has winged its way to the museums and houses of every quarter of the globe?" Perkins's Tuscan Sculptors.

"The unrivalled Mercury of John of Bologna- aërial, spirited, designing, full of art and purpose-quick in intellect, invention, and rare device -it is Hermes himself, the winged messenger of the gods. His foot rests on the head of a Zephyra beautiful, poetic thought. This exquisite

statue is excelled only by a few masterpieces of ancient art." Eaton.

"The first object that attracted us was John of Bologna's Mercury, poising himself on tiptoe, and looking not merely buoyant enough to float, but as if he possessed more than the eagle's power of lofty flight.. No bolder work was ever achieved; nothing so full of life has been done since." Hawthorne.

Merlin's Hill. A noted eminence near Caermarthen, Wales. Upon it is a natural seat called Merlin's Chair, where the famous prophet is reputed to have sat when he uttered his prophecies.

Mermaid, The. (Tavern and Club.) A celebrated tavern formerly situated in Bread Street, London, the favorite resort of actors and literary men in the time of Elizabeth. The famous Mermaid Club, said to have been founded by Sir Walter Raleigh, and including as members Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden, Carew, Donne, and probably Shakespeare, met here for social and convivial enjoyment. Fuller makes this tavern the scene of the wit combats between Shakespeare and Jonson; although there is no positive evidence that Shakespeare was one of the club, or that he frequented the Mermaid, our confidence that this was the case resting, as has been said, "upon the moral impossibility that he should have been absent." Knight remarks, that the circumstance that Fuller was only eight years old when Shakespeare died appears to have been forgotten by some who have written of these matters. Mr. Burn, in reference to the situation of the Mermaid Tavern (destroyed in the Great Fire), where the meetings of this famous club were held, says, "The Mermaid in Bread Street, the Mermaid in Friday Street, and the Mermaid in Cheap, were all one and the same. The tavern, situated behind, had a way to it from these thoroughfares, but was nearer to Bread Street than Friday Street." Ben Jonson also writes,

At Bread-street's Mermaid having dined and merry, Proposed to go to Holborn in a wherry.

The origin of the Mermaid Club is traditionally ascribed to Sir Walter Raleigh. Gifford says: "Sir Walter Raleigh, previously to his unfortunate engagement otched Cobham and tuted a meeting The Mermaid, a

celebrated tavern in Friday Street. Of this club, which combined more talent and genius than ever met together before or since, our author [Jonson] was a member; and here for many years he regularly repaired, with Shakespeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden, Cotton, Carew, Martin, Donne, and many others, whose names, even at this distant period, call up a mingled feeling of reverence and respect." But whether Raleigh really founded the club must be considered a matter of doubt.

What things have we seen Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been

So nimble, and so full of subtle flame,
As if that every one from whom they

came

Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And had resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life.

Beaumont, Letter to Ben Jonson.
Souls of poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
Have ye tippled drink more fine
Than mine host's canary wine?
Or are fruits of Paradise
Sweeter than those dainty pies
Of venison?

Keats, Lines on the Mermaid Tavern. The poet only is not bound, when it is inconvenient, to what may be called the accidents of facts. It was enough for Shakespeare to know that Prince Hal in his youth had lived among loose companions, and the tavern in Eastcheap came in to fill out his picture; although Mrs. Quickly and Falstaff and Poins and Bardolph were more likely to have been fallen in with by Shakespeare himself at the Mermaid than to have been comrades of the Froude. true Prince Henry.

There were other Mermaid Taverns, one in Cheapside and another in Cornhill.

Merode Castle. An ancient, now ruined, stronghold in Rhenish Prussia, once the residence of a family one of whose members is said to have been conspicuous in the Thirty Years' War as a freebooter, and interesting from the fact that this circumstance, together with the name of the castle, has, according to some authorities, given to our language the terin marauder. There are, however, other etymologies of the word.