7C4 



MELLITE MELODY. 



way mi tin- i>l;md of Melita. This has generally 

 been considered to be the island of Malta, the ancient 

 name of which was Melita; but some critics have 

 attempted to prove that it was an island on the coast 

 of Dalmalia, in the Adriatic. See Paul, Meleila,&nd 



MELLITE, or HONEY-STONE, in mineralogy, 

 takes its name from its yellow colour, like that of 

 honey. Its primitive figure is an octahedron. The 

 crystals are small ; their surface is commonly smooth 

 nnd shining. Internally, it is splendent. It is trans- 

 parent, passing into the opaque, and possesses double 

 refraction. It is softer than amber, and brittle. 

 Specific gravity 1-5. to 1-7. It becomes electric by 

 friction. It occurs on bituminous wood and earthy 

 coal, at a single locality in Thuringia. It consists of 

 46 mellitic acid, 16 alumine, and .18 water. 



MELLIT1C ACID ; discovered by Klaproth in the 

 mellite, or honey stone. It is procured by reducing 

 the mellite to powder, and boiling it with about 

 seventy-two times its weight of water ; the alumine 

 is precipitated in the form of flakes, and the acid 

 combines with the water. By filtration and evapora- 

 tion, crystals are deposited, in the form of fine needles. 

 or in small, short prisms. It is composed of carbon, 

 hydrogen and oxygen. In combination with the 

 earthy alkalies and metallic oxides, it forms com- 

 pounds called mellates. 



MELMOTH, WILLIAM, son of an eminent advo- 

 cate, author of a work entitled The Great Importance 

 of a Religious Life, was born in 1710, and received a 

 liberal education, but does not appear to have studied 

 at either of the universities. He was bred to the law, 

 and, in 1756, received the appointment of commis- 

 sioner of bankrupts, but passed the chief part of his life 

 in literary retirement at Shrewsbury and Bath. He 

 first appeared as a writer about 1742, in a volume of 

 Letters, under the name of Filzosborne, which have 

 been much admired for the elegance of their style, 

 and their calm and liberal remarks on various topics, 

 moral and literary. In 1757, this production was 

 followed by a translation of the Letters of Pliny the 

 younger (in 2 vols. 8vo), which has been regarded as 

 one of the happiest versions of a Latin author in the 

 English language, although somewhat enfeebled by a 

 desire to obliterate every trace of a Latin style. He 

 was, also, the translator of Cicero's treatises De 

 Amicitia and De Senectute. These he enriched with 

 remarks, literary and philosophical, in refutation of 

 the opposing opinions of lord Shaftesbury and Soame 

 Jenyns, the first of whom maintained that the non- 

 existence of any precept in favour of friendship was 

 a defect in the Christian system, while the second 

 held that very circumstance to form a proof of its 

 divine origin. His last work was memoirs of his 

 father, under the title of Memoirs of a late eminent 

 Advocate and Member of Lincoln's Inn. Mr Mel- 

 moth died at Bath, in 1799, at the age of eighty- 

 nine. 



MELO-DRAMA (from the Greek fates, song, and 

 \a.fi.a^ ; & short, half-musical drama, or that species 

 of drama in which the declamation of certain pas- 

 sages is interrupted by music. It is called monodrama 

 if but one person acts, duodrama if two act. It 

 differs from the opera and operetta in this, that the 

 persons do not sing, but declaim, and the music only 

 fills the pauses, either preparing or continuing the 

 feelings expressed by the actors. Generally, the sub- 

 ject is grave or passionate. The German melo-drama 

 is of a lyrical character, with comparatively little 

 action. Objections have been made to it on this 

 ground, that it affords too little variety; that the 

 music only renders it more monotonous, because it 

 expresses only the feeling or passion already expres- 

 sed in words; that the course of feeling is interrupted 



by the music ; and that the actor is embarrassed dur- 

 ing the music, being obliged to fill the pause in his 

 recitation by pantomimic action. The first idea of a 

 melo-drama was given by J. J. Rousseau, in his 

 Pygmalion. The proper inventor of the German 

 melo-dramas, however, was a German actor named 

 Brandes, who wished to prepare a brilliant part for 

 his wife, who excelled in the declamation of lyric 

 poetry. Brandes arranged a cantate of Gerstenberg, 

 after the fashion of Pygmalion. G. Benda (q. v.) 

 composed the music for it. This kind of performance 

 met with great applause, and Goller wrote his 

 Medea ; others followed. But the interest in these 

 pieces was not of long continuance, because of the 

 want of action. In modern times, some ballads, (for 

 instance, of Schiller) have been set to music, in a 

 melo-dramatic way. Parts of operas have been, like- 

 wise, composed in this way, as, for instance, the 

 scene of incantation in Weber's Freischiitz, and some 

 scenes in the Preciosa, by the same. Schlegel, in 

 his Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature, says, 

 " Under melo-drama, the French do not understand, 

 like the Germans, a play, in which monologues al- 

 ternate with instrumental music in the pauses, but a 

 drama in high-flown prose, representing some strange, 

 romantic scene, with suitable decorations and ma- 

 chinery." Such was its character from 1790 to 1820, 

 and this sort of exhibition became popular, also, in 

 other countries. On the inclination for it something 

 better might be built, for most melo-dramas are taste- 

 less and extravagant. The new melo-dramas, which 

 have proceeded from the boulevards in Paris, are 

 rude dramas, in which music is interspersed, now 

 and then, in order to heighten the effect. 



MELODY; in the most general sense of the word, 

 any successive connexion or series of tones ; in a 

 more narrow sense, a series of tones which please the 

 ear by their succession and variety ; and, in a still 

 narrower sense, the particular air or tune of a musi- 

 cal piece. By melody, in its general, musical sense, 

 the composer strives to express particular states of 

 feeling or disposition, which, in pieces of several 

 voices, is chiefly effected by the principal melody, or 

 chief voice, to which the other voices, with their 

 melodies, are subordinate.* The elements by which 

 the composer is enabled to express a beautiful variety 

 of sentiments and feelings, by means of the melodious 

 connexion of tones, are the variety of tones in them- 

 selves, and the variety of transitions from one tone to 

 another, to which is still to be added the variety of 

 the movements in which music proceeds (rhythm). 

 Melody and rhythm are the true means to awaken 

 delight, and where they are wanting, the greatest 

 purity of harmony remains without effect. The pro- 

 per essence of melody consists in expression. It has 

 always to express some internal emotion, and every 

 one who hears it, and is able to understand the 

 language, must understand the feeling expressed. 

 But as melody, in the hands of the composer, is a 

 work of art and taste, it is necessary that, like every 

 other work of art, it should form a whole, in which 

 the various means are combined to produce one 



* In regard to the relative importance of melody and har- 

 mony, we may observe, that it is in vain to talk of such things 

 as harmony and melody as more or less important, wnce an 

 impartial judgment acknowledges the necessity of both, 

 though Rousseau, in the beginning of the contest between the 

 melodists and harmonists, declared harmony the invention of 

 Gothic barbarism, necessary only for dull northern ears. Ono 

 of the most scientific musicians of France says, " Melody is, for 



.niicio (i'li ',t t twu 1 1. hf i w I'm- niinfrv (ir ilriivl'ilnr for IJiillltlMir 1 



of its rests at the end of phrases, and, above all, by the stes 

 ness which it alone can give to intonation, is the first and es- 

 sential requisite uf the enjoyments of the sense of hearing, is 

 the logic of the ait of music." 



