Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/871

Rh M EL- M E L 83&amp;lt;J country. From the time of his retirement from office he took little interest in politics. He died at Melbourne House, Derbyshire, 24th November 1848. Lord Melbourne was without even the elementary qualification of diligent attention to details, which in the absence of higher endow ments sometimes confers on a statesman the greater part of his success. Nor can it be said that in public he ever displayed any of those specious and brilliant talents which are often found an acceptable substitute for more solid acquirements. Though he pos sessed a fine and flexible voice, his manner as a speaker was ineffec tive, and his speeches were generally ill-arranged and destitute of oratorical point, notwithstanding his occasional indulgence in in elegant flights of rhetoric. Indeed his political advancement was wholly due to his personal popularity. He had a thorough know ledge of the private and indirect motives which influence politicians, and his genial attractive manner, easy temper, and vivacious, if j occasionally coarse, wit helped to confer on him a social distinction which for a time led many to take for granted his eminence as a ! statesman. The most notable and estimable feature of his political I conduct is his relation to Queen Victoria, whom he initiated into the duties of sovereign with the most delicate tact and the most friendly and conscientious care. MELCHIADE3, or MILTIADES (other forms of the name I being Meltiades, Melciades, Milciades, and Miltides), was pope from July 2, 310, to January 10 or 11, 314. He appears to hive been an African by birth, but of his personal history nothing is known. The toleration edicts of Galerius and of Constantine and Licinius were published during his pontificate, which was also marked by the hold ing of the Lateran synod in Rome (313), at which Ccecilianus was acquitted of the charges brought against him, and Donatus condemned. Melchiades was preceded and followed by Eusebius and Sylvester I. respectively. MELCHITES. The name of Melchites (Syriac, Malkaye ; Arabic, Malaldya, or in the vulgar pronunciation MilJdya) means etymologically the royal party, and so is currently applied in the East to Syrian and Egyptian Christians of the Orthodox Greek Church, adherents of the creed supported by the authority of the king, that is, of the Byzantine emperor. The Melchites therefore are those who accept the decrees of Ephesus and Chalcedon as distinguished from the Nestorians and Jacobites, and the name reflects in an interesting manner the way in which the doctrinal controversies that agitated the Eastern empire associated themselves with national feelings of antagonism to the imperial rule. MELCHIZEDEK (p^3?p, &quot;king of righteousness &quot;), king of Salem and priest of &quot;supreme El&quot; (El elyon], brought forth bread and wine to Abram, on his return from the expedition against Chedorlaomer, and blessed him in the name of the supreme God, possessor (or maker) of heaven and earth. And Abram gave him tithes of all his booty (Gen. xiv. 18-20). The Bible history tells us no thing more about Melchizedek (comp. Hebrews vii. 3) ; but the majestic figure of the king- priest, prior to the priesthood of the law, to whom even the father of all Israel paid tithes, suggested a figurative or typical application, first in Psalm ex. to the vicegerent of Jehovah, seated on the throne of Zion, the king of Israel who is also priest after the order of Melchizedek, and then, after the gospel had confirmed the Messianic interpretation of the Psalm (Matt. xxii. 42 sy.), to the kingly priesthood of Jesus, as that idea is worked out at length in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The theological interest which attaches to the idea of the pre- Aaronic king-priest in these typical applications is practically in dependent of the historical questions suggested by the narrative of Gn. xiv. It is generally recognized that this chapter holds quite an isolated place in the Pentateuchal history ; it is the only passage which presents Abraham in the character of a warrior, and connects him with historical names and political movements, and there are no clear marks by which it can be assigned to any one of the docu ments of which Genesis is made up. Thus, while one school of interpreters finds in the chapter the earliest fragment of the politi cal history of western Asia, some even holding with Ewald that the narrative is probably based on old Canaanite records, other critics, as Noldeke, regard the whole as unhistorical and comparatively late in origin. On the latter view, which finds its main support in the intrinsic difficulties of the narrative, it is scarcely possible to avoid the conclusion that the chapter is one of the latest additions to the Pentateuch (Wellhausen). The historical arguments pro and con maybe seen at length in recent commentaries, but especially in Tuch s essay (Z. D. M. G., i. 161 sq., reprinted in the second edition of his Genesis), which was long viewed as decisive in favour of the narrative, and in Nbldeke s Untcrsuchiingcn, 1869, p. 156 sq., with which compare Wellhausen in Jahrb. f. D. Th., 1876, p. 414 sq The Assyrian monuments offer no decisive evidence, but are held to confirm the historical possibility of the proper names (Schrader, Kl. und AT., p. 46 sq. ; Delitzsch, Paradies, p. 224). Here ve can only speak of the episode of Melchizedek, which, though connected with the main narrative by the epithets given to Jehovah in verse 22, seems to break the natural connexion of verses 17 and 21, and may perhaps have come originally from a separate source. As the narrative now stands Salem must be sought in the vicinity of &quot; the king s dale,&quot; which from 1 Sam. xviii. 18 probably but not necessarily lay near Jerusalem. That Salem is Jerusalem, as in I salm Ixxvi. 2, is the ancient and common view, and is necessarily followed by those who view Melchizedek as a late creation. Those who hold the opposite view now lean to the identification with the 2aA./^ of John iii. 23, 8 miles south of Bethshean, which Jerome (Ep. Ixxiii. ad Evangclium) confirms by a worthless tradition. In a genuine record of extreme antiquity the union of king and priest in one person, the worship of El as the supreme deity by a Canaanite, 1 and the widespread practice of the consecration of a tithe of booty can present no difficulty; but, if the historical character of the narrative is denied, the origin of the conception must be placed as late as the rise of the temporal authority of the high priests after the exile. An ancient legend identifies Melchizedek with Shem (Palestinian Targum, Jerome on Isa. xli., Ephraem Syrus in loco). MELCOMBE EEGIS. See WEYMOUTH. MELENDEZ VALDES, JUAN (1754-1817), minor poet of Spain, was born at Ribera del Fresno, Badajoz, on March 11, 1754. He was destined by his parents, who were in good circumstances, for an official career ; and accordingly, after having completed his preliminary education at Madrid and Segovia, he went to Salamanca, and duly graduated in laws. At an early age he had begun to writo verses in imitation of the then much admired though now justly forgotten Eugenio Lobo ; but at Salamanca he came under the influence of the purer literary taste of the elder Moratin, while to the friendship of the cultivated and well-read Cadahalso he owed his introduction to the writings of recent English poets. At the age of twenty-six Melendez obtained the prize of the Spanish Academy for the best eclogue, one of the unsuccessful competitors being the well-known Iriarte; the poem (Batilo : egloga en alabanza de lavida del campo, 1780) continues to be highly spoken of by native critics, who echo in various forms the remark of one of the adjudicators, that it was &quot;redolent of the wild thyme.&quot; In 1781 Melendez went to Madrid, where Jovellanos became his friend, and obtained for him in 1783 the appointment of professor of the humanities at Salamanca. In 1784, in competition for a prize offered by the city of Madrid, he produced his longest poem, a &quot;dramatic eclogue&quot; entitled Las JBodas de Camacho (&quot;Carnacho s Wedding&quot;), which secured the vote of the judges, but did not add to his reputation, and soon fell into neglect. His genius does not seem to have been at all dramatic ; at any rate he was unfortunate in his choice of a subject so little capable of dramatic treatment as tho well-known episode in Don Quixote. In the following year, at the age of thirty-one, he published a little volume of lyrics and pastorals which gave him the first place ho still hulds among Spanish poets of the 18th century. Several editions were exhausted in a single year. With poetical fame came professional advancement, and in 1789 the &quot;Restorer of Parnassus&quot; (Restaurador dtl Parnaso), as Melendez is sometimes pedantically called by his countrymen, received a judicial appointment at Saragossa, which in 1791 he exchanged for a chancery 1 On the other hand it is not correct to .appeal to the Posnulusot Plautus for the epithet elyon.