Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/636

 several of Meredith's friends, among them Mr. Clodd, Mr. Lionel Robinson, Mr. F. Jameson, Dr. Plimmer, and Mr. Kyllmann; and on Meredith's Collected Letters (1912, 2 vols.), kindly put at the writer's disposal before publication by Mr. W. M. Meredith. Of the many books about Meredith J. A. Hammerton's George Meredith in Anecdote and Criticism, 1909, and C. Photiades's George Meredith, Paris, 1910, will probably be found most useful for biographical purposes. In 1890 appeared the rhapsodical medley on G. Meredith: Some Characteristics, by R. Le Gallienne, which has gone through five editions, and this was rapidly followed by Hannah Lynch's George Meredith, 1891; Walter Jerrold's George Meredith: an Essay towards Appreciation, 1902; Richard Curie's Aspects of George Meredith, 1908; Thomson's George Meredith, Prose Poet, 1909; Sydney Short's On Some of the Characteristics of Meredith's Prose Writing, Birmingham, 1907; A. Henderson's Interpreters of Life and the Modern Spirit: Meredith, 1911; J. W. Beach's The Comic Spirit in George Meredith, an Appreciation, 1911; Von Eugen Frey's Die Dichtungen George Meredith, Zurich, 1910; Ernst Dick's George Meredith, Drei Versuche, 1910. Among the critical interpretations the first place is held by George Meredith, Some Early Appreciations, 1909 (a most useful collection); George Meredith, by Mrs. Sturge Henderson, 1907; The Poetry and Philosophy of George Meredith, by G. M. Trevelyan, 1906; and George Meredith, a Primer to the Novels, by James Moffatt, 1909. The bibliography by John Lane appended to Le Gallienne's book and revised in the fifth edition of 1900, though incomplete after 1892, is still most useful (it includes personalia, portraits, articles, dedications, appreciations, translations and parodies) and is supplemented now by the Bibliography of the Writings in Prose and Verse by Mr. Arundel Esdaile, 1907, and the bibliog. (or chronology) of works in full appended to the Memorial Edition, vol. xxvii. (1911) by the same compiler. Other books of service are Van Doren's Life of Peacock, 1911; The Pilgrim's Scrip, or Wit and Wisdom of George Meredith, with Selections from his Poetry and an Introduction (by Mrs. Gilman), Boston, 1888; Hyndman's Reminiscences, 1911, 46-92; Tinsley's Random Recollections, 1-137; Maitland's Life of Leslie Stephen; Gleeson White's English Illustration; 'The Sixties,' 25, 42-3; Grant Duffs Notes from a Diary; Janet Ross's The Fourth Generation, 1912, and Three Generations of Englishwomen, 1888; Marcel Schwob's Spicilege, 1894; Firmin Roz's Le Roman Anglais Contemporain, 1912; Mme. Daudet's Notes sur la Vie; Daily News, 12 Feb. 1908; New Princeton Rev., March, April 1887 (Flora Shaw); Bookbuyer, Jan. 1889 (home life); Bookman, Jan. 1905; Rev. des Deux Mondes, 15 June 1867, Feb. 1908; Westminster Rev., July 1864; Fortnightly Rev., Nov. 1883, June 1890, Feb. 1891 (Wilde), June 1886, March 1892, Nov. 1897; Contemp. Rev., Oct. 1888 (J. M. Barrie); Henley's Views and Reviews, 1890; New Review, March 1893; Edin. Rev., Jan. 1895; Free Rev., Sept. 1896; Sat. Rev., 27 Mar. 1897 (G. B. Shaw); Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1895 (Traill); Longman's Mag., Nov. 1882 (R. L. S.); Independ. Rev., 1904-5, and Dec. 1906 (important articles on the Poems); Canadian Mag., July 1905 (MacFall); Atlantic Mo., June 1902; Rev. Germanique, March-April 1906; Athen., 29 May 1909; Quarterly Rev., July 1897, July 1901; Tribune, 7 Jan. 1906 (Elton); Engl. Illustr., Feb.-March 1904; Pall Mall Mag., May 1904; Acad., Jan. 1891 (Arthur Symons); The Times, 24 Oct. 1909, 13 Feb. 1908.]

 MERIVALE, HERMAN CHARLES (1839–1906), playwright and novelist, born in London on 27 Jan. 1839, was only son of, permanent under-secretary of the India office [q. v.]. Herman was educated first at a preparatory school and then at Harrow, where C. J. Vaughan, the headmaster, became much attached to him. He gives a full account of his schooldays in 'Bar, Stage, and Platform' (1902; of. pp. 168-214). On leaving school in 1857 Merivale entered Balliol College, Oxford, where Swinburne and Charles Bowen were his contemporaries. He graduated B.A. in 1861, with a first class in classical moderations and a second in the final classical school. From early youth Merivale had been devoted to the drama, and was a good amateur actor, but his endeavour to found a dramatic club at Oxford, as Sir F. C. Burnand did at Cambridge, was foiled by the opposition of the dons. He was called to the bar of the Inner Temple on 26 Jan. 1864; he went the western circuit, and also the Norfolk circuit, where Matthew Arnold was his companion. Later he was through his father's influence junior counsel for the government on Indian appeals, and in 1867 boundary commissioner for North Wales under the Reform Act. From 1870 to 1880 he edited the 'Annual Register.' At his father's house he met many distinguished men, including Lord Robert Cecil, afterwards Lord Salisbury, who was a lifelong friend.

After his father's death in 1874 Merivale gave up the law, and, following his real tastes, devoted himself to literature and the drama. As early as 1867 he had written, under the pseudonym of Felix Dale, a farce, 'He's a Lunatic,' in which [q. v.] played the chief part, 