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in 1846. In 1854 he was appointed Director General of the Geological Survey. He had the Wollaston medal of the Geo logical Society, the Copley medal of the Royal Society, the Brisbane medal of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the French Prix Cuvier, and the orders of St. Anne and of Stanislaus of Russia. He was created K.C.B. in 1863, and Baronet three years later. Sir A. Geikie, who was ortho dox, is not very candid about his religious opinions in his Life of Sir JR. J. Murchison (2 vols., 1875), but he includes a letter to him from his pious colleague Sedgwick, written near the close of his life, trusting that God will give him Christian faith and hope which he obviously lacks (ii, 338). D. Oct. 22, 1871.

MURGER, Henri, French poet and dramatist. B. 1822. Murger was the son of a Parisian tailor, and he got little schooling. He secured the position of secretary to Count Tolstoi, of the Russian Embassy, and he began to write poems and dramas of an advanced character. His father disowned him, and, living and struggling for recognition in a poor attic, he became one of the leading Bohemians of Paris (see his Scenes de la vie de Boheme, 1851, which made him very popular). His realistic novels and his comedies were from that date much appreciated, but Murger had ruined his health and died prematurely. &quot; Reponds lui que j ai lu Voltaire,&quot; he replies to an imaginary character who suggests that he should see a priest (in his poem Le Testament). D. Jan. 28, 1861.

MURRAY, Professor George Gilbert Aime, M.A., LL.D., D.Litt., F.B.A., F.R.S.L., Hellenist. B. Jan. 2, 1866 (Australia), son of Sir T. A. Murray, President of the Legislative Council of New South Wales. Ed. Merchant Taylors School, London, and Oxford (St. John s College). In 1888 he was elected Fellow of New College, and from 1889 to 1899 he was professor of Greek at Glasgow Univer-

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sity. Since 1908 he has been Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford, and he has been a Trustee of the British Museum from 1914. Since the publication of his first work, A History of Ancient Greek Litera ture, in 1897, Professor Murray has not only reached the front rank in the academic world, but has helped and charmed a much wider circle of readers by his superb trans lations of Euripides (1901, etc.). His Agnostic philosophy is best expounded in his JKeligio Grammatici (1918), his presi dential address to the Classical Association. His religion relates to &quot;the great unknown purpose which the eternal spirit of man seems to be working out upon the earth &quot; (p. 44). He contributed to the E.P.A. Annual for 1918, 1919, and 1921.

MUSSET, Louis Charles Alfred de,

French poet and dramatist. B. Nov. 11, 1810. Ed. College Henri IV. De Musset graduated with honours, and in 1830 pub lished his first volume of verse, Conies d Espagne et d ltalie. This was followed by his Poesies diverses (1831) and Le spectacle dans tin fauteuil (1832) ; and critics began to speak of him as &quot; the Byron of France.&quot; The sceptical note was dominant from the first. He con tinued to produce poetry and comedies until 1833, when his association with George Sand and the painful rupture which followed spoiled his work for a few years. It was while De Musset was in this morbid mood that he wrote his Espoir en Dieu. Its &quot; banal religiosity &quot; (Lanson, Histoire de la litterature francaise, p. 951) does not represent his normal mind or art, and in the later years, when he became himself again, he was plainly Agnostic as to a future life and far removed from Christian doctrines, though always a Theist. His works were collected in ten volumes in 1865. With firmer character De Musset would have been, perhaps, the greatest poet of his time. As it is, the exquisite art of his verse, stories, and literary plays puts him very high in French literature. D. May 2, 1857.

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