Merivale, JOHN HERMAN

Merivale, JOHN HERMAN, an English scholar and translator, was born at Exeter in 1779, the grandson of Samuel Merivale (1715-71), a worthy Presbyterian minister at Tavistock. He was sent to St John's College, Cambridge, and was called to the bar in 1805. He contributed largely to Bland's Collections from the Greek Anthology (1813), and brought out a second edition himself in 1833. From 1831 to his death in 1844 he held the office of Commissioner of Bankruptcy. Works of no little merit were his Poems, Original and Translated (1841), and Minor Poems of Schiller (1844).—CHARLES, son of the preceding, was born in 1808, and educated at Harrow, Haileybury, and St John's College, Cambridge, where he took his degree in 1830, and became in due course fellow and tutor. He was successively select preacher at Cambridge (1838-40) and at Whitehall (1839-41), Hulsean lecturer (1861), and Boyle lecturer (1864-65). From 1848 to 1869 rector of Lawford in Essex, he was chaplain to the Speaker from 1863 to 1869. He was dean of Ely from 1869 till his death, 26th December 1893. His Fall of the Roman Republic (1853) is a brilliant sketch, marred by its over-indulgence to imperialism, the sole fault of his admirably learned and eloquent History of the Roman Empire (7 vols. 1850-62). Later books are History of Rome (1875), Early Church History (1879), and Contrast between Pagan and Christian Society (1880). See his Autobiography and Letters (1899).—Another son, HERMAN, born in 1806, was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Oxford, elected Fellow of Balliol, called to the bar in 1832, and appointed professor of Political Economy at Oxford in 1837, and, later, permanent Under-secretary of State first for the colonies, next for India. In 1859 he was made C.B. He died on February 8, 1874.—His son, HERMAN CHARLES, born in 1839, has written a number of successful plays, including Forget-Me-Not, The Butler and The Don, and The Master of Ravenswood. Besides a novel, Faunt of Balliol (1882; in its stage form, The Cynic), he has published The White Pilgrim and other Poems (1883), and other works. See the privately printed Family Memorials, compiled by Anna W. Merivale (1884).