Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 37.djvu/192

 Chelsea catholic church on the 25th (Gent. Mag. 1844, p. 322).

Besides the stage-pieces mentioned above, Mazzinghi published between seventy and eighty pianoforte sonatas; upwards of two hundred airs, &c., for pianoforte, and as many for harp and other instruments; thirty-five or more vocal trios, of which ‘The Wreath’ is still remembered; and a number of songs. A full list of his music is given in the ‘Dictionary of Musicians,’ 1827. Much of this mass of work, produced with apparent ease, was musicianly; but the flowing melodies were seldom strikingly original. 

MEAD or MEDE, JOSEPH (1586–1638), biblical scholar, was born at Berden, Essex, in October 1586. His father, a kinsman of Sir John Mede of Lofts Hall, Essex, died about 1596; his mother married Gower of Nazeing, Essex. Mead was at school at Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, and Wethersfield, Essex. As a schoolboy his uncle, Richard Mede, a merchant, offered to adopt him; but he preferred study. On a visit to London he bought a copy of Bellarmin's ‘Institutiones Linguæ Hebraicæ,’ and, though discouraged by his schoolmaster, persisted in teaching himself Hebrew. He was admitted in 1602 at Christ's College, Cambridge; his tutors were Daniel Rogers, B.D., afterwards a noted nonconformist, and William Addison. He graduated M.A. in 1610, and was elected fellow in 1613, through the influence of Lancelot Andrewes [q. v.], then bishop of Ely. More than once he had been passed over, owing to a ‘very causeless’ suspicion on the part of the master, Valentine Cary [q. v.], that he ‘looked too much towards Geneva.’ Soon afterwards he was appointed to the Greek lectureship founded by Sir Walter Mildmay, which he held along with his fellowship till his death. In 1618 he proceeded B.D.

By the time he took his master's degree Mead was already a man of encyclopedic information. To his attainments in philology and history he had added mathematics and physics. He was an enthusiastic botanist and a practical anatomist, frequenting the dissections at Caius College. He was fond of astrology, and this took him to Egyptology and kindred topics, including the origin of Semitic religions. His philosophical reading had led him towards pyrrhonism; but he got no comfort from the doctrine that the mind has no cognisance of realities, dealing only with ideas of an external world which may be illusory. From ‘these troublesome labyrinths’ he escaped by an effort of will, and turned to physics as a reassuring study. But the earlier conflict left its traces on his mental development, and is accountable for some mystical elements which appear in his sacramental and millennial doctrines. Fuller calls him ‘most learned in mystical divinity.’ His method with his pupils was the encouragement of independent and private study. His powerful memory enabled him largely to dispense with notebooks. He laboured under a difficulty of utterance. Fuller says that ‘in private discourse he often smiled out his stammering into silence.’ But he preached ‘without any considerable hesitation.’

His character was singularly void of ambition. He declined the post of domestic chaplain to Andrewes, and twice refused the provostship of Trinity College, Dublin, for which Ussher was anxious to secure him, in March 1627 and in April 1630. Maintaining a constant converse with men as well as with books, he kept up an extensive correspondence, and he had a keen curiosity for ‘foreign intelligence,’ paying for weekly letters with news from abroad of the state of learning and religion. One of his agents in this matter seems to have been Samuel Hartlib [q. v.] The extracts from his own letters, printed by Heywood and Wright, are full of university gossip. Other letters, unprinted, show that he made digests of his foreign news for the use of friends. His literary friendships were catholic; his closest intimate was William Chappell [q. v.], a fellow of Christ's and afterwards bishop of Cork; Sir William Boswell [q. v.] introduced his writings to continental scholars. A communicative, he was never an assertive scholar, and declined mere controversy with pertinacious critics like Thomas Hayne [q. v.] His judgments of others were characteristically generous. A tenth of his income went in unostentatious charity.

Mead was no party man. ‘I never,’ he says, ‘found myself prone to change my hearty affections to any one for mere difference in opinion.’ His openness of mind is expressed in the maxim, ‘I cannot believe that truth can be prejudiced by the discovery of truth.’ But his loyal attachment to anglican doctrine and usage, as representing ‘the catholick consent of the church in her first ages,’ was disturbed by no scruples. On 6 Feb. 1636 he writes strongly to Hartlib against a puritan book, which is evidently one of the Latin treatises of John Bastwick, M.D. [q. v.] Against the presbyterian discipline, the institution of ‘lay-elders,’ and the use of the term ‘mini-