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MEY attraction in London did not equal that of its predecessors. In April, 1859, "Le Pardon de Ploërmel" was given at the same theatre in Paris, and was immediately transplanted to London, whither Meyerbeer came to direct the rehearsals of the recitatives, which, as in the previous instance, he had to supply for the Italian version, and where it was produced under the title of "Dinorah," its original name, that had been changed for the production at Paris. Meyerbeer wrote some music for the Paris celebration of the centenary of Schiller's birth in 1859, and furnished marches for the marriage ceremonies of the king of Bavaria with the princess of Prussia in 1847, of the Princesses Anne and Charlotte of Prussia in 1853, and of Prince Frederick William with our Princess Royal in 1858. More important than these occasional pieces, are his setting of the ninety-first psalm and of the Lord's prayer, both for unaccompanied chorus, besides which he produced several other detached pieces of sacred music. He published a great number of single songs, a collection of forty vocal melodies, and several smaller collections, and in this class of writing some of his most genial efforts are to be found. He left several important works in MS., the chief of which are the grand opera of "L'Africaine," named above, and the choruses of one of the tragedies of Æschylus. Rendered by his ample fortune independent of pecuniary consideration, he could afford to delay the production of a work until all circumstances convened to render this effective; the same success may, therefore, be supposed to await the pieces which he thus reserved, that attended all those which have appeared since he first wrote for the French stage, and first asserted his speciality as a composer. Meyerbeer died on the 1st of May, 1864.—G. A. M.  MEYRICK,, the historian of ancient armour, was born in August, 1783. He was the son of a gentleman of fortune, and received his later education at Oxford. In 1803 he married a Welsh lady of good family, but in opposition to the wishes of his father, who disinherited him. The son by this marriage, Mr. Llewelyn Meyrick, seems, however, to have inherited his father's. antiquarian tastes—becoming a fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries—and with the fortune left him by his grandfather, to 'have aided his father in making the large collection of ancient armour which, in Sir Samuel's work, is always referred to as that of "Llewelyn Meyrick, Esq." Mr. Llewelyn Meyrick became equerry to the duke of Sussex and died unmarried in 1837, when his property appears to have reverted to his father. In 1810 Sir Samuel Meyrick published "The History and Antiquities of the County of Cardigan," and co-operated with Captain Charles Hamilton Smith in the work on "The Costume of the Original Inhabitants of the British Islands," published in 1814. It was in 1824 that appeared his original and laborious performance which forms an era in the literature of the subject, "A Critical Inquiry into Ancient Armour, with special reference to England from the Norman Conquest to the time of Charles II." It abounds in curious and precise information, and throws much light on the details of military history in England and elsewhere, and on the military amusements of our ancestors, tournaments, &c. Not the least of its services was, that it for the first time furnished correct and ascertained data for costume in historical painting.—(See Edinburgh Review for July, 1824.) The Edinburgh Review had pointed attention to the neglected state of the armoury at the Tower, and suggested a rearrangement of its contents under Meyrick's supervision. He undertook the task in 1826, and in 1828 received a similar commission from George IV. to arrange the armoury at Windsor. In recognition of his services he was made a K.H. by William IV. in 1832, and became Sir Samuel Meyrick. He built Goodrich court on the Wye in 1828 and following years, fitting up in it his or his son's collection of armour. As Dr. Meyrick he practised for many years in the admiralty and ecclesiastical courts. He died in 1848. He was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. For a list of his contributions to the Archæologia, and for a full account of his writings and collections, reference may be made to the obituary notice of him in the Gentleman's Magazine.—F. E.  MEZERAY,, a French historian, born in 1610; died at Paris 10th July, 1683. He was the son of a surgeon named Eudes, but afterwards took the name of Mezeray. He made two campaigns in Flanders in 1635 and 1636, and then retired to the college of Saint Barbe, where he collected the materials for his history. His first publication was a translation of Grotius' De Veritate. In 1643 the first volume of his "History of France" appeared. A "History of the Turks" was also published with his name; but in all probability he did not write it. Another work, which obtained great success, was his "Abregé Chronologique," of which sixteen editions were issued. He also published a "History of France before Clovis."—P. E. D.  MEZZOFANTI,, Cardinal, a celebrated linguist, was born at Bologna, 17th September, 1774, the son of a humble carpenter. He was educated at a charity school, and employed for a short time in his father's business. His work-bench stood underneath the windows of a priest named Respighi, who gave instructions to private pupils in Greek and Latin. So great was the boy's natural facility for acquiring languages, that he obtained an extensive knowledge of Greek and Latin words from what he overheard of the good father's lessons. Respighi being made acquainted with this singular aptitude, undertook to instruct the lad, and prepare him for a professional career. He chose the clerical profession, and was admitted to priest's orders in 1797, in which year also he was appointed professor of Arabic at the university. In the following year, however, on his refusing to take the oaths required by the Cisalpine republic, he was deprived of his chair. Until his restoration in 1804, he eked out a scanty subsistence by private tuition. In 1808 he was again deprived of his professorship for his fidelity to the pope, while he declined the brilliant offers by which Napoleon endeavoured to draw him to Paris. In 1812 he was appointed assistant librarian at Bologna, and on the return from exile of Pope Pius VII. in 1814, Mezzofanti's merits were rewarded with the office of chief librarian and regent of the university. His simple love for his native city made him decline the most tempting proposals from Pope Pius, the Emperor Francis, the grand duke of Tuscany, and Murat king of Naples, and he continued to reside in Bologna until the accession of Gregory XVI. in 1831. It was during these years that he acquired the largest proportion of his unprecedented knowledge of languages. His singularly tenacious memory, and a certain instinct of acquisitiveness, enabled him to become what Lord Byron has called "a monster of languages, the Briareus of parts of speech, a walking polyglot, and more, who ought to have existed at the time of the tower of Babel as universal interpreter." During the war he found many opportunities of learning a language in his priestly ministrations among the soldiers in the hospitals of Bologna. The armies of Austria and Russia, especially, included several natives of many and various countries. In preparing his foreign penitents for shrift, he would gather from their repetition of the Lord's prayer, the Creed, or the Ten Commandments, a knowledge of their language sufficient to enable him to proceed in an intelligible conversation with them. The hotel-keepers also were accustomed to apprise him of the arrival of all strangers at Bologna, and when anything was to be learned he would introduce himself to the travellers, and beg for information, and catch the pronunciation of their language. He became in his turn an object of curiosity, a lion of Bologna, whom travellers went out of their way to see. The extent of his learning and accomplishments was not limited by any exclusive attention to languages, yet his only known publication is a eulogium of Father Aponte, a Spanish jesuit, who taught him Greek. It was contributed to a periodical printed in Bologna. In 1832 he yielded to Pope Gregory's pressing invitations to go and reside in Rome. There he received several appointments in succession, and on the removal of Cardinal Mai from the post of librarian to the Vatican, Mezzofanti was installed in his place. In 1840 he was raised to the cardinalate. His marvellous faculty often found useful exercise among the converts assembled at the Propaganda. On the occasion of his elevation, forty-three foreign bishops offered him congratulations each in his own tongue, and the new cardinal replied well and courteously to them all in their several languages He was pious, charitable, modest, and unassuming He died at Rome the 15th March, 1849.—(See Quarterly Review, vol. ci. p. 23, and Philol. Soc. Proceedings, January, 1852.) In 1857 Mr. Russell published a life of the Cardinal Mezzofanti, with comparative memoirs of other eminent linguists, ancient and modern, 8vo, London.—R. H.  MICAL, ______, Abbé, a French ecclesiastic and mechanician, was born about 1730, and died about 1790. He acquired extraordinary skill in making automatons, some of which played on musical instruments, and others spoke, pronouncing, as it is alleged, the French language very distinctly when set in action by means of keys like those of a pianoforte.—W. J. M. R. 