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 MEISSNER

MENDELSSOHN

P. B. Shelley (2 vols., 1847). D. Aug. 2, 1869.

MEISSNER, Alfred, M.D., German poet. B. Oct. 15, 1822. Having graduated in medicine, he went to live at Paris, but returned to Germany after the Eevolution of 1848. In 1850 he retired to Prague, and devoted himself entirely to poetry. His Poems (1845), Zisha (1846), and other volumes of verse, fiction, and drama were of so high a character that Heine called him &quot; the heir apparent of Schiller.&quot; He wrote Souvenirs de la vie de H. Heine (1856), and was not less heterodox than his friend. D. May 29, 1888.

MEISTER, Jean Henri, Swiss writer. B. Aug. 6, 1700. In 1744 he became a Lutheran pastor and ministered at various places in Germany until 1757, when he quitted the Church. Expelled from Zurich, he went to Paris, and became intimate with the great Rationalists there. For a time he was Grimm s secretary. The chief of his Rationalist works is Jugement sitr rhistoire de la religion chretienne (2 vols., 1768-69). His Origine des principes reli- gieux (1768) was publicly burned at Zurich. D. 1781.

MELBOURNE, Lord. See LAMB, William.

MELINE, Felix Jules, French states man. B. May 20, 1838. He was a lawyer at Paris when the war and political troubles of 1870-71 broke out, and he then entered politics as a Radical leader. He was returned to the National Assembly in 1872, and to the Chambro in 1876, working with the anti-clerical Gambettists. M. Meline was Ministerof Agriculture 1883-85, President of the Chambre 1888-89, and Premier and Minister of Agriculture 1896-98. He quitted the Chambre, where he had loyally supported all measures against the Church, for the Senate in 1903. He is an Officer of the Legion of Honour.

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MELVILLE, Herman, American writer. B. Aug. 1, 1819. His early years were spent at sea, gathering the experiences for his later stories of adventure. From 1866 to 1885 he was engaged in the New York Custom House, but the novels by which he had won the esteem of many distin guished American writers had already been published. Typec appeared in 1848, and its great success was sustained by the sequel, Omoo. Melville was in later years an intimate friend of Hawthorne, and his Rationalism is often noted in Hawthorne s Diary and letters. Mr. H. S. Salt has prefixed a short sketch of his life to the 1893 edition of Omoo. D. Sop. 28, 1891.

MENARD, Louis Nicolas, D. es L.,

French painter and writer. B. Oct. 19, 1822. Ed. Lycee Louis le Grand and Ecole Normale. Menard devoted himself at first to chemistry, and made various discoveries ; but the revolution of 1848 drew him into advanced politics. He was compelled in 1849 to fly from France, and at his return he deserted politics for poetry, painting, and the study of religion. It was then that he graduated in letters (I860). He was a very versatile and elegant writer, and a very pronounced Rationalist. His views are best expressed in his Etudes sur les origines du chris- tianisme (1867) and his Beveries d un paien mystique (1876). D. Feb. 12, 1901.

MENDELSSOHN, Moses, Jewish philo sophical writer. B. Sep. 6, 1729. He was the son of poor parents, but he studied diligently, and the reading of Maimonides, Locke, and Shaftesbury soon detached his faith from the Bible and Talmud. In 1750 he was engaged as private tutor by a Berlin merchant, and he was later taken into partnership. In 1775 he collaborated with Lessing in a work on Pope, and from that time onward he issued various notable works. His Abhandlungen (1763) was crowned by the Berlin Academy ; and his Phadon (1767), Morgenstunden (1785), etc., sustained his high repute. In his later

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