us 



MEI.AXCHTHuX, PHILIP. 



MKLENDEZ VALDES, JUAN. 



1M 



M iisuslislnl by four gnat inlcU of the OOMU, of which the Medi- 

 tamasan. the Red SMI, and the Persian Uulf wen three : the fourth 

 was the Caspian See. The singular error M to the Capian U the 

 mot* remarkable when contrasted with the fct that Herodotus knew 

 UM Caspian to be a lake. (Herod, i. 805 ; 8tnbo,p.l21; Mela, L 1 j 

 HLt 



The best edrtinos of MeU are by Gronovius, Leaden, 1685, frequently 

 reprinted ; by Tnchucke, 7 Tola. 8ro, Leip., 1807 ; and the Bipont, 

 1800. Mela hai been translated into English, by Arthur Golding, 

 Load, 1585 and 1590; Into Italian, tf Porraochi, Yen., 1557; into 

 German, by DieU, 1774 ; and into French, by Fradin, 3 TO!*., STO, 

 ML Ul i" 



MKLAXCHTHOX, PHILIP (or MELANTHON, M he himself wu 

 moet aeoostomei to write the name, according to Christ. Saxius, 



OnomasC iii. 589), wai born in the small town of Brettcn or 

 Bretheim, in the Palatinate of the Rhine, or Lower Palatinate, as it 

 used to be celled, the dominion of the elector palatine. His father 

 was Ororge Schwanerde, or Schwarzerdt, and is called by Melchior 

 Adam, the earlieat authority, Magistcr Armorum, a description which 

 bee given rise to eome cootroTeny. It appears that whatever was the 

 original condition of Melaochthon's father, he was a man of remark- 

 able ingenuity in hie profession, and bad worked his way up to a 

 sit oat ion of tome distinction, that of principal engineer to the elector, 

 before the birth of his sou. According to Joachim Camorarius (in 



Vit. Ph. Melan.'), he was a native of Heidelberg, and came to take 

 up hie residence at Brettcn upon marrying the daughter of John 

 Reaterus, a person who had been mayor of that town. Routerus, who 

 lived till his grandson was eleven yean old, has the credit of having 

 bean the chief superintendent of bis earliest training. On the death 

 of his grandfather, which was followed within a fortnight by that of 

 bis father, be was sent to the college of Pfortaheim, where the remark- 

 able progress he had already made in his studies was continued at an 

 answerable or an accelerated rate. At Pfortaheim he lodged in the 

 houee of a sister of the celebrated Greek scholar John Reuchlin, who 

 was his relation, and it wag from Reuchlin, who had translated his 

 own Teutonic surname into the Greek formation Capnio, on the sup- 

 position of its connection with Rauch (smoke), that the young 

 Scbwanerde, a compound, mesning, in English, 'black earth,' received 

 the more melodious Grecieed appellation of Melanclithon (quasi 

 "*"* X**)i intended to signify the same thing ; by which alone he 

 is now known. 



After spending about two yean at Pfortaheim, Melanchthon wag 

 removed in 1 SOU to the University of Heidelberg, which however ho 

 quitted in 1512 for that of Tubingen, where he remained till, on the 

 recommendation of his friend Ueucblin, he was in 1518 appointed, by 

 t elector Frederick of Saxony, professor of Greek in the newly- 

 established University of Wittemberg. This situation he held as long 

 m he Uvad. It wsa at Wittemberg that Melnnchthon became 

 acquainted with Luther, then occupying the chair of theology in that 

 nniTenity. In his yooog colleague the great reformer found, along 

 with a ready deposition to imbibe his opinions in religion, a piety as 

 mean at hi* own, and an erudition greatly superior; while, if 

 M.UnchUon wanted the fiery energy and boldnets, and the large 

 heart of Lather, be was free also from some of the defect* apt to 

 attend upon such endowment* of strength and passion, and, by the 

 ealmnesa, moderation, and gentleness of his whole nature, was formed 

 both to temper the impetuosity of his friend, and to win admittance 

 tor their common views into minds of a certain class, and thst by no 

 Deans the lowest, which all the powcn of the other might havo 



Thus attached by the characteristics in which they were contrasted, 



Mwell as by thoao in which they resembled each other, they soon 



became th. i most intimate of associates and fellow-workers. After 



that of Luther, Melanohtbon's is the most distinguished name in the 



^u , L , OOD * Uon ln r ">ny; and die remainder of big 



la oniefly the detail of his various labours in the promotion 



of feat great cause. In 1519 he accompanied Luther to Leipzig, to 



a '-P. oUUoc on the divine original of the papal authority with 



Ksms or tckiu., one of the ablest of the Roman Catholic champions 



** age. For some years after this he was actively employed 



jstoal, mwrrnn, book, in dWance of th. reformed doctrine^ U?t 



JowMUa, school, and college*, fa, visiting churches, and in other 



me kind, undertaken at the command of the elector. 

 la 1630 be was ppoiuted by th. genial bod, of the reformers to 



to the emperor at 



[land, wen desirous of obtaining the 

 ""."TT "? '""'.'T'Wousnforms, but circumstances 

 i*" 1 *""" ither country. In 1640 and 

 d another gnat disputation with Eccius, which 

 fisjs Dt|UA at Worms, and after wards transferred to ItAtin) 



After.hToti.^^r fsJ.i.tvScS 2 ^ 



f l.uUier. Melanchthon le>tn i,,],,J! i n , bitter 



the emperor in 1548, and after- 



wards known by the name of the Interim, an approval in which, 

 whether the circumstance is to be held honourable to him or the 

 reverse, it must be admitted that he stood nearly alone among the 

 distinguished men of both sides. He died at Wittemberg on the I'.'th 

 of April 1560, leaving two song and two daughters by his wife, the 

 daughter of a burgomaster of that town, whom he had married in 

 1520, and who died in 1657. His numerous works, consisting of 

 theological treatise*, commentaries on several of the Greek and Latin 

 classics, Latin poems, and some historical and philosophical writing*, 

 were published in a collected form in 5 vola. foL, at Basel, in 1544, 

 and in 4 vols. foL, at Wittemberg, in 1564, again in 1580, and again 

 in 1601. 



Melanchthon principally contributed to the diffusion of the Aris- 

 totelian philosophy in Germany, both by his teaching and his writings, 

 among which were big ' Elements of Logic and Ethics.' [ AKISTOTLB, 

 vol. L ooL 329-330.] 



MELENDEZ VALDES, JUAN, a Spanish poet of the highest 

 reputation, and of great influence on Uie literature of his country, was 

 born at the town of La Kibcra del Fresno, in Estremadura, on the 

 llth of March 1754, of parents in easy circumstances. After studying 

 philosophy at Madrid, " or what was then taught as such," says his 

 friend and biographer Quintana, ho pursued the study of the law at 

 the university of Salamanca, where he formed an intimate friendship 

 with Cadalso the poet, then residing there, who was probably the 

 first to call MB attention to English literature, in which ho became a 

 proficient. Cadalso, who was an officer in the army, was BO well 

 acquainted with the English language, that he is said to have turned 

 it to account at the siege of Almeida, by entering into conversation 

 with an English officer, who mistook him for a countryman, thus 

 becoming possessed of the enemy's secrets. His life was finally cut 

 short by an KnglUh grenade at the siege of Gibraltar in 1782. 

 Melendcr was, in later life, accustomed to Bay of himself that it was 

 from ' Locke's Essay on the Understanding ' he had first learned to 

 reason, and he was so warm an admirer of Pope's ' Essay 0:1 Man,' 

 that he declared any four lines of that poem exceeded in value all that 

 he ever wrote. Young and Thomson were also Ms especial favourites, 

 and he imitated in passages the manner of both. Before he left the 

 university he had composed a number of Anacreontics, many of them 

 while he was on a diet ordered by his physicians, and some descriptive 

 poetry, in which the influence of both Thomson and Gesaner was 

 discernible. In 1780 the Spanish Academy awarded a prize to his 

 idyl of 'Batilo;' soon afterwards the academy of Sail Fernando 

 awarded him another for a Pindaric ode on the Fine Arts; and in 1784, 

 on the occasion of the conclusion of peace witli England, when there 

 were fifty-seven competitors for two prizes for a drama on the occasion, 

 Melendez and another were the two successful dramatists. Tins play 

 of ' Las Bodas de Camaoho,' ' The Wedding of (Jauiacho,' founded on 

 an episode of Don Quixote, has however long sunk into neglect, while 

 the poems which have been mentioned are still at the head of Spanish 

 literature as models in their peculiar lino. Fur grace and harmony of 

 language, and for exquisite felicity of idiom, they are pronounced by the 

 best native critics to bo unrivalled by any other Spanish poems of the 

 eighteenth century ; but it has been justly remarked that their 

 beauties are precisely of the kind which are certain to be brushed 

 away by the hand of any translator however tender, and that to appre- 

 ciate Melendez it is absolutely necessary to read him iii the original. 

 A volume of his collected poems appeared at Madrid in 1725, and 

 had an unexampled success. " Four editions, one genuine and the 

 others pirated, were exhausted," says Quintana, " at once," Ueluudv/. 

 was generally acknowledged as the leading poet of his tiuie, and a kuot 

 of young poets who clustered around him, Moratin the younger, 

 Cienfuegos, Quintana, and others, were regarded as forming ' the 

 school of Melcnde/.." He bad been appointed a year or two before to 

 the professorship of polite literature at Salamanca, he was happily 

 married, and in possession of a fine library in which he took great 

 pleasure, being always curious in books, and he passed his time 

 in the cultivation of literature, partly at Salamanca and partly at 

 Madrid, where like our own Auacreon of some twenty years later at 

 London, he was, says Quintans, the "spoilt child of society uud the 

 Muses." His friends were therefore surprised to find that iu 17M>, 

 seized with the ambition of being something more than a poet, lie 

 relinquished all these advantages to follow the profession of the law, 

 in which however he was remarkably successful, and became one of 

 the most distinguished ornaments of the Spanish bar. He held several 

 high legal offices at Valladolid and elsewhere, and was noted for his 

 , imdinfos and diligence in dictating official papers as fast as they cuuM 

 ' be written. 



In 1 71*7 appeared at Valladolid a fresh collection of his poems, now 

 augmented to three volume.', but the additional pieces, which wore 

 chit-fly of a graver and more philosophical character than his earlier 

 oues, were far from equalling them in merit. The whole coll -utiou 

 was dedicated to Godoy, the then all-powerful favourite, anil in 

 a poetical epistle to Godoy and another to Jovellauos, who had beeu 

 the intimate friend of Meleudez from early days in Salamanca. At that 

 time, when Melcndez was in favour with tne favourite, and Jovellauos 

 was minister of justice, it was generally considered that he was certain 

 of attaining, as soon as opportunity olleu-.l, to the highest judicial 

 posts. In fact, in March 17U8, he wu appointed " Fiscal of the House 



