7GO 



MEIBOMIUS MELAMPUS. 



where he was born in 1590. After travelling in 

 Italy, and taking his doctor's degree at Basil, lie re- 

 turned home, aiid occupied a medical chair in the 

 university of Helmstadt. In 1626, he was appointed 

 physician of Lubeck, where he died in 16;>5. His 

 works are Attrelii Cassiodori Formula Comitis Archi- 

 alrorum ( 1668, 4to) ; De Usu Flagrorum in Re 

 medico et venerea ; Jusjurandum Hippocratis, dr. el 

 Lat., with commentaries relative to the history of 

 Hippocrates, his disciples, &c. After his death 

 appeared his treatise De Cerevisiis, Potibusque et 

 Ebriaminikus extra J'~inum aliis. 



His son, Henry Meibom,aho a physician, was born 

 at Lnbeck in 1638, and became professor of medicine 

 in the university of Helmstadt. In 1678, he was 

 made professor of poetry and history. He was the 

 author of numerous medical and anatomical disserta- 

 tions, and distinguished himself by his investigation 

 of the sebaceous glands and ducts in the eyelids, the 

 valves of the veins, and the papillae of the tongue. 

 His principal historical publication, Rerum Germani- 

 carum Tomi tres, is a collection of writers on Ger- 

 man history. He also wrote many pieces concerning 

 the dukes of Brunswick and Lunenberg, and, in 1687, 

 he published Ad Scuronice inferioris Historiam Intro- 

 ductio. Henry Meibom died in 1700. 



MEIBOMIUS, MARCUS, a learned philologist, 

 born at Tonningen, in the duchy of Holstein, in 1630. 

 Settling at Stockholm, he acquired the favour of 

 queen Christina, whom he inspired with much of the 

 same enthusiasm, with respect to the ancients, which 

 possessed himself. Having prevailed upon his royal 

 mistress to be present at a concert, which he pro- 

 posed to conduct entirely upon the plan of the ancient 

 Greeks, and at which professor Naudaus was to dance 

 a Greek dance, the ridicule of some of the courtiers 

 at the absurdity of the performance, excited his anger 

 so violently, that, forgetful of the presence of the 

 sovereign, he struck M. Bourdelot, a physician, who, 

 as he fancied, encouraged it, a violent blow in the 

 face. This indiscretion induced him to quit Sweden 

 for Denmark, where he obtained a professorship in 

 the college established for the education of the young 

 nobility at Sora, was eventually advanced to the rank 

 of a royal counsellor, and made president of the cus- 

 toms. His inattention to the duties of his post soon 

 caused his removal, on which he removed to Amster- 

 dam, and became historical professor there, but lost 

 this appointment, also, by his petulance in refusing 

 to give lessons to the son of one of the principal bur- 

 gomasters. After visiting France and England, Mei- 

 bomius returned to Amsterdam, and died there, in 

 1711. His principal work is an edition of the seven 

 Greek musical writers Aristoxenus, Euclid, Nicoma- 

 chus, Alypius, Gaudentius, Bacchius, and Aristides 

 Quintilianus, with an appendix, containing the De 

 Musica of Martianus Felix. His other writings are 

 Dialogues on Proportions, On the Construction of 

 the Trireme Galleys of the Ancients, and an edition 

 of Diogenes Laertius (2 vols., 4to). 



MEINAU; a charming island in the beautiful lake 

 of Constance, belonging to Constance, with fifty in- 

 habitants and an ancient castle. It is much resorted 

 to by travellers in Switzerland. 



MEINERS, CHRISTOPHER, born at Ottendorf, king- 

 dom of Hanover, in 1747, studied at Gottingen from 

 1767, and afterwards became one of the most valuable 

 teachers there. His works are very numerous, on 

 various subjects, and of unequal merit. As an aca- 

 demical teacher, his activity in organizing and pro- 

 moting the prosperity of his university was untiring, 

 and it is much to be regretted that his history of the 

 university was left incomplete. His favourite study 

 was the history of human civilization, and particularly 

 of religion, to which some of his earliest writings, 



among them his Historia Doctrina de Deo vero, 

 relate. I Us latest work on this subject, Allgenieint 

 AritiscAe Geschichte der Religion, (Hanover, 1806, 2 

 vols.), is, however, more defective in acuteness of 

 criticism and clearness of arrangement than his pre- 

 vious writings. Some of his earlier treatises bear 

 the impress of a judicious, calm, and independent 

 thinker. From his writings on the middle ages, and 

 particularly from his learned lives of the restorers 

 of learning in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, 

 a new Bayle may find materials for attack and 

 defence. A French translation of his history of 

 the Origin, Progress, and Decline of Learning in 

 Greece and Rome procured his election into the 

 national institute. He died in 1810. 



MEININGEN, SAKE (in German, Sachsen-Mein- 

 ingcn-Hildburghauseri); a duchy in the German con- 

 federation, belonging to the ducal house of Saxe- 

 Meiningen, of the Gotha branch of the Ernestine 

 line. (See Saxony.) The population of the duchy 

 is 130,500, on an area of 870 square miles, about 

 one half of which was acquired in 1826, by the 

 extinction of the male Saxe-Gotha line. The duke, 

 in conjunction with the other princes of the Saxon 

 Ernestine line, has the twelfth vote in the diet, and 

 has by himself one vote in the plenum. The religion 

 is Lutheran. In 1824, a new constitution was 

 granted by the duke to the part of the present duchy 

 then under his government, admitting the peasants 

 to the ducal diet as a third estate. The contingent 

 to the army of the confederacy is 1150 men; income, 

 750,000 guilders ; debt, 2,500,000. The capital is 

 Meiningen, with 4500 inhabitants, containing a large 

 and handsome ducal palace, with a library of 24,000 

 volumes and the state archives. (See Germany.) 

 Long. 10 24' E.; lat. 50 35' N. 



MEIONITE. See Scapolite. 



MEISSEN, the oldest city in the kingdom of 

 Saxony, was built by the emperor Henry I., in 922 

 as a bulwark against the incursions of the Sclavo- 

 nians. It lies on the left bank of the Elbe; popula- 

 tion, 4100. In the vicinity is a school, established 

 by the elector Maurice, in 1543, in the building of 

 the ancient Afra monastery. Lon. 13 27' E.; lat. 

 51 19' N. The cathedral, an old monument of 

 German art, is a remarkable building. The porce- 

 lain manufacture has been carried on here since 1710. 



MEISSNER, AUGUSTUS GOTTLIEB, born at Baut- 

 zen, in 1753, studied law and the belles-lettres at 

 Leipsic and Wittenberg from 1773 to 1776, and died 

 at Fulda, where he was director of the high semi- 

 naries of education, in 1807. He was also, for some 

 time, professor of assthetics and classical literature at 

 Prague. His works were, at one period, very popu 

 lar in Germany. A glowing imagination, an easy 

 style, grace, wit, and a brilliant manner, united with 

 a delicate tone of gallantry, were the causes of his 

 success. His principal productions are comic operas, 

 in the French style ; Sketches, a miscellaneous col- 

 lection of anecdotes, tales, &c.; several historical 

 romances, as Alcibiades, Bianca Capello, &c. He 

 also translated Hume's History of England. 



MELA, POMPONIUS; a geographer, who nourished 

 during the first century of the Christian era. Little 

 more is known of him than that he was a native ot 

 Spain, and the author of a treatise, in three books, in 

 the Latin language, De Situ Orbis, containing a con- 

 cise view of the state of the world, so far as it was 

 known to the ancient Romans. Among the latest 

 and best editions of this work are that of Abr. Gro- 

 novius, (Lug-d. Bat. 1782, 8vo), and the very com- 

 plete one of C. H. Tzschuckius (Leipsic, 1807, 7 

 vols., 8vo.), and the more compendious one by Wei- 

 chert (Leipsic, 1816). 



MELAMPUS; the son of Amythaon andldomenea, 



