MEREDITH 



MERIDA 



141 



1855 1>y The Shaving of Shagpat: an Arabian 

 Entertainment, a lazily original tale, in burlesque 

 imitation of the manner of the Eastern story-teller. 

 It shows a rich and brilliant imagination, and 

 abounds in passages of tender feeling as well as of 

 boisterous humour, but the incidents are involved 

 and the machinery complicated, and reading is 

 also made difficult by tantalising suggestions 

 of hidden meanings which constantly elude one's 

 grasp. In 1857 appeared Farina: a Legend of 

 Cologne, a short story, reflecting the influence of 

 German romance, which it partly imitates and 

 partly parodies. The series of Mr Meredith's 

 greater and more characteristic works began in 

 1859 with The Ordeal of Richard Feverel : A History 

 of a Father and a Son, a tragic romance, dealing with 

 tne larger problems of education, especially in its 

 ethical aspects. The novel of Evan Harrington, 

 an amusing comedy of social ambitions, followed in 

 1861. Modern Love, and Poems of the English 

 Roadside, with Poems and Ballads, was published 

 in 1862, ' Modern Love' being the title of a sequence 

 of fifty sonnet-like poems which tell their story in 

 a somewhat dark and fragmentary manner, but 

 with great truth of oliservation and strength of 

 pathos. Emilia in England ( 1864), now known as 

 Saiulra Sellout, has for its subject one of Meredith's 

 most fascinating and original characters ; it is con- 

 tinned in Viltoria ( 1866), the scene of which is laid 

 in Italy at the time of the political risings of 1848. 

 In 1865 had appeared Khoda Fleming, like Richard 

 Feeerel a tragedy ; the romantic Adventures of 

 Harry Richmond, followed in 1871. Beauchamp's 

 Career (1875) is perhaps the most perfectly con- 

 structed of all the series. '/'/( Enotit (1879) is a 

 searching and remorseless study of a single aspect 

 of refined selfishness. The Tragic Comedians 

 ( 1881 ), originally published in the Fortnightly 

 Review, is a somewhat close rendering of the well- 

 known painful story of Lassalle's tragic end, 

 founded upon the reminiscences 'of the Countess 

 Rarowitza. Diana of the Crussvxiys ( 1885) is also 

 based on actual history. Other novels are One 

 of our Conquerors (18!) I), Lnril Ormont and his 

 A in i nt a (1894), and The Amazing Marriage (1895). 

 Mr Meredith, who was literary render for Chapman 

 & Hull for over thirty years, liegan to issue a 

 re.viso.il edition of his novels in 1896. He is LL.D. 

 of St Andrews (18!>2). Three volumes of poetry 

 are Poems aiul Lyrics of the Joy of Earth ( 1883 ), 

 Ballads and Poems of Tragic Life (1887), and A 

 Sauting of Earth (1888). 



Though it lie admitted that Meredith is the fore- 

 most novelist of the day, and one of the most 

 invigorating and stimulative thinkers of his genera- 

 tion, it can by no means l>e said that he is the 

 most widely read. This distinction he has, that 

 'among the crowd of persons of taste and under- 

 standing who agree to crown Meredith a royal 

 writer, his most resolute partisans are those of his 

 own household journalists, poets, and novelists, 

 students of the art of fiction and practitioners of 

 the noble English tongue.' Among the elements 

 of his power may be enumerated nis wide, accu- 

 rate, and sympathetic observation both of nature 

 and of life, liis inventive resource, his analytic 

 and synthetic power, and his mastery of words. 

 Hii dflwriptknu of scenery are varied, vivid, and 

 full of poetry, his delineations of phases of feel- 

 ing, and especially of tender feeling, those of a 

 master. Few writers have created so many char- 

 acters of ideal lieanty, who are at the same time 

 so thoroughly human and marked by the strong- 

 est individuality real, breathing, talking person- 

 alities, whom the reader feels it a joy to have 

 known. Among the 'defects of his qualities' 

 may be mentioned a certain intricacy of plot, or 

 rather perhaps want of clearness in working it out, 



arising from an exaggerated reticence ; also a fre- 

 quent over-elaboration of style and strainedness of 

 wit that fatigues rather than exhilarates. And, 

 though he is never 'sensational,' there is often a 

 certain disregard of probability in the situations he 

 invents. It is believed that Mr Meredith is, for the 

 present at least, more extensively read by men 

 than by women ; and this, if a fact, may perhaps 

 be partly accounted for by the purpose which he 

 luts so deliberately expressed, and so consistently 

 carried out, of bringing philosophy into the domain 

 of fiction. Much of his writing deals more or less 

 directly, in a serious manner, with the most import- 

 ant problems of politics, sociology, and ethics. It 

 is in his poetry that his deepest views of life really 

 find their directest and most elementary expres- 

 sion. There is a study by Le Gallienne, George 

 Meredith: some Characteristics, with a biblio- 

 graphy by John Lane ( 1890). 



MergHnser (Mergus), a genus of birds of the 

 family Anatid;e, having a long, ratlier slender, 

 straight bill hooked at the tip and notched at the 

 edges. The genus embraces six species, nearly all 

 inhabitants of the seas and coasts, and distributed 

 over the northern regions of the Old and New 

 World, and in Brazil and the Auckland Islands. 

 The Goosander (q.v.) is the largest and best-known 

 British species. The Ked-breastcd Merganser (M. 

 serrator) is resident in Scotland, where it breeds 

 hot only on the coasts of Ross, Sutherland, and 

 the Hebrides, where it is abundant, but also on 

 inland lochs and rivers. Its migrations extend 

 southward to the lakes of Algeria and to Egypt. 

 The Hooded Merganser (M. ciicullatus), a smaller 

 species, is a very rare visitor of Britain. It is 

 found in North America, from the St Lawrence to 

 Alaska, where it migrates as far south as Mexico, 

 Cuba, Bermudas, and the Carolinas. The Nun or 

 Smew (M. albellns) is a smaller species, passing 

 the summer in the northern parts of the Old and 

 New World, and ranging in winter as far south as 

 India. Another species (M. australin) has as yet 

 been found only in the Auckland Islands. 



MTglli, a seajiort of Burma, on an island in 

 the Tenasserim Kiver, 2 miles from its mouth, with 

 a harbour admitting vessels drawing 18 feet of 

 water. Its trade is worth altogether close upon 

 100,000 a year. Exports, rice, timber, dried fish ; 

 imports, cotton goods, silk, and tea. Pop. 9737. 

 The district of Mergui, 200 miles long by 40 

 wide, is the southernmost in Burma. Area, 7810 

 sq. m. ; pop. about 60,000. 



Mrrglli Archipelago, a group of islands in 

 the Gulf of Bengal, lying off the southern pro- 

 vinces of Burma ; they are mountainous, some 

 rising to 3000 feet, of picturesque l>eauty, and 

 sparsely inhabited by a race called the Sellings, 

 who barter edible birds'-nests with the Burmese 

 and Malays for rice and spirits. Caoutchouc 

 abounds. Snakes and tigers, rhinoceros, deer, &c. 

 are plentiful. 



MT'iIa (anc. Augusta Emertta), a decayed 

 town of Spain, on the right bank of the Guadiana, 

 36 miles by rail E. of Badajoz. It is remarkable 

 for its Roman remains, which include a bridge of 

 81 arches, 2575 feet long and 26 feet broad, erected 

 by Trajan ; the ruins of half a dozen temples, of 

 an aqueduct, a circus, a theatre, a naumachia, a 

 castle, and the Arch of Santiago, 44 feet high, 

 built by Trajan. There is also an old Moorish 

 palace. Meridawas built in 23 B.C., and flourished 

 in great splendour as the capital of Lusitania. In 

 713 it was taken by the Moors, who lost it to the 

 Spaniards in 1229. Pop. 7390. 



IHerida, (1) capital of the Mexican state of 

 Yucatan, is situated on a barren plain, 25 miles 

 S. of Progreso, on the Gulf of Mexiao, and 95 miles 



