Page:Cousins's Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature.djvu/280

 268 Dictionary of English Literature

the result that links in the chain of thought are not seldom omitted and left for the careful reader to supply. There is also a tendency to adopt unusual words and forms of expression where plainness and simplicity would have served as well, and these features taken to gether give reason for the charges of obscurity and affectation so often made. Moreover, the discussion of motive and feeling is often out of proportion to the narrative of the events and circum stances to which they stand related. But to compensate us for these defects he offers humour, often, indeed, whimsical, but keen and sparkling, close observation of and exquisite feeling for na ture, a marvellous power of word-painting, the most delicate and penetrating analysis of character, and an invincible optimism which, while not blind to the darker aspects of life, triumphs over the depression which they might induce in a weaker nature. In matters of faith and dogma his standpoint was distinctly negative.

MERES, FRANCIS (1565-1647). Miscellaneous author,

was of a Lincolnshire family, studied at Camb. and Oxf., and became Rector of Wing in Rutland. He pub. in 1 598 Palladis Tamia : Wit's Treasury, containing a comparison of English poets with Greek, Latin, and Italian.

MERIVALE, CHARLES (1808-1893). Historian, s. of John

Herman M., a translator and minor poet, b. in London, ed. at Harrow, Hail ey bury, and Camb., he took orders, and among other pre ferments held those of chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons, 1863-69, and Dean of Ely. From his college days he was a keen student of Roman history, and between 1850 and 1864 he pub. his History of the Romans under the Empire, an able and scholarly work, though considered by some critics to be too favourable to the Emperors, and the imperial idea. An uxlier work was The Fall of the Roman Republic (1853).

MERRIMAN, H. SETON (See SCOTT, H. S.).

MESTON, WILLIAM (1688 P-I745). S. of a blacksmith, was

ed. at Marischal Coll., Aberdeen, took part in the '15, and had to go into hiding. His Knight of the Kirk (1723) is an imitation of Hudibras. It has little merit.

MICKLE, WILLIAM JULIUS (1735-1788). Poet, s. of the

minister of Langholm, Dumfriesshire, was for some time a brewer in Edin., but failed. He went to Oxf., where he was corrector for the Clarendon Press. After various literary failures and minor successes he produced his translation of the Lusiad, from the Portuguese of Camoens, which brought him both fame and money. In 1777 he went to Portugal, where he was received with distinction. In 1784 he pub. the ballad of Cumnor Hall, which suggested to Scott the writing of Kenilworth. He is perhaps best remembered, however, by the beautiful lyric, There's nae luck aboot the Hoose, which, although claimed by others, is almost certainly his.

MIDDLETON, CONYERS (1683-1750). Divine and scholar, b. at Richmond, Yorkshire, and ed. at Camb. He was the author of several latitudinarian treatises on miracles, etc., which brought him into controversy with Waterland (q.v.) and others, and of a Life of