MEREDITH, GEORGE, poet and novelist, born in Hampshire; began his literary career 1851 as a poet, in which capacity he has since distinguished himself and given expression to his deepest personal convictions, but it is chiefly as a novelist he is most widely known and is generally judged of; as a novel-writer he occupies a supreme place, and is reckoned superior in that department to all his contemporaries in the same line by the unanimous consent of one and all of them; his novels, however, appeal only to a select few, but by them they are regarded with unbounded admiration, some giving preference to this and others to that of the series; “The Ordeal of Richard Feveril,” published in 1859, is by many considered his best, though it is over “The Egoist” that Louis Stevenson breaks out into raptures; Meredith has most sympathetic insights into nature and life, has a marvellous power in analysing and construing character, and shows himself alive to all the great immediate interests of humanity; b. 1828.

MEREDITH, OWEN, the nom de plume assumed by Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton, from his descent from a Welsh noble of the name.

MERGUI, a small seaport near the mouth of the Tenasserim, British Burma, which exports birds’ nests to China.

MERIDIAN, an imaginary great circle passing through the poles at right angles to the equator.

MERIMEE, PROSPER, a great French writer, born in Paris; abandoned law, to which he was bred, for literature; became under Louis Philippe inspector-general of historical documents, and travelled in that capacity in the S. and W. of France, publishing from time to time the fruits of his researches; he wrote in exquisite style stories, historical dissertations, and travels, among other works “Guzla,” “Chronicles of Charles IX.,” the “History of Don Pedro, King of Castile,” “Letters to an Unknown”; he was a man of singularly enigmatic character (1802-1870).

MERIO`NETH (49), a mountainous county of North Wales, abutting on Cardigan Bay, between Carnarvon and Cardigan; lofty peaks, Aran Mowddy, Cader Idris, and Aran Benllyn; rivers, Dee and Dovey, and Lake Bala afford picturesque scenery; the soil is fit only for sheep-grazing; but there are slate and limestone quarries, manganese and gold mines; the county town, Dolgelly (2), on the Wnion, has woollen and tweed manufactures.

MERIVALE, CHARLES, dean of Ely, born at Exeter; held a succession of appointments as lecturer; wrote a history of Rome from its foundation in 753 to the fall of Augustus in 476, but his chief work is the “History of the Romans under the Empire,” indispensable as an Introduction to Gibbon (1808-1893).

MERLE D’AUBIGNE, JEAN-HENRI.  See D’AUBIGNE, MERLE.

MERLIN, a legendary Welsh prophet and magician, child of a wizard and a princess, who lived in the 5th century, and was subsequently a prominent personage at King Arthur’s’ court; prophecies attributed to him existed as far back as the 14th century; Tennyson represents him as bewitched by Vivian; legend also tells of a Clydesdale Merlin of the 6th century; his prophecies, published in 1615, include the former; both legends are based on Armorican materials.