Medley-Melancholy.

155

Their buildings are for the most part of tymber, for the mediterranean countreys have almost no stone.-The Kyngdome of Japonia, p. 6.

An old man, full of days, and living still in your mediterranean city, Coventry.-HENRY HOLLAND, Preface to Holland's Cyropedia.

It [Arabia] hath store of cities as well mediterranean as maritime.-HOLLAND, Ammianus.

MEDLEY. It is plain from the frequent use of the French 'mêlée' in the description of battles that we feel the want of a corresponding English word. There have been attempts, though hardly successful ones, to naturalize 'mêlée,' and as ' volée' has become in English volley,' that so 'mêlée' should become 'melley.' Perhaps, as Tennyson has sanctioned these, employing 'mellay' in his Princess, they may now succeed. But there would have been no need of this, nor yet of borrowing a foreign word, if 'medley' had been allowed to keep this more passionate use, which once it possessed.

The consul for his part forslowed not to come to hand-fight. The medley continued above three hours, and the hope of victory hung in equal balance.-HOLLAND, Livy, p. 1119.

Now began the conflict for the winning and defending of that old castle, which proved a medley of twelve hours long.-Swedish Intelligencer, vol. ii. p. 41.

MELANCHOLY. This has now ceased, nearly or altogether, to designate a particular form of moody madness, the German 'Tiefsinn,' which was ascribed by the old physicians to a predominance of black bile mingling with the blood. It was not, it is true, always restrained to this peculiar form of mental unsoundness; thus Burton's Anatomy of Melan

choly' has not to do with this one form of madness, but with all. This, however, was its prevailing use, and here is to be found the link of connexion between its present use, as a deep pensiveness or sadness, and its past.

That property of melancholy, whereby men become to be delirious in some one point, their judgment standing untouched in others.-H. MORE, A Brief Discourse of Enthusiasm, sect. xiv. ન

Luther's conference with the devil might be, for ought I know, nothing but a melancholy dream.—Chillingworth, The Religion of Protestants, Preface.

Though I am persuaded that none but the devil and this melancholy miscreant were in the plot [the Duke of Buckingham's murder], yet in foro Dei many were guilty of this blood, that rejoiced it was spilt.-HACKET, Life of Archbishop Williams, part ii. p. 80.

Some melancholy men have believed that elephants and birds and other creatures have a language whereby they discourse with one another.-REYNOLDS, Passions and Faculties of the Soul, c. 39.

MERE,

There is a good note on these words, and MERELY. on the changes of meaning which they have undergone, in Craik's English of Shakespeare, p. 80. He there says: 'Merely (from the Latin merus and mere) means purely, only. It separates that which it designates and qualifies from everything else. But in so doing the chief or most emphatic reference may be made either to that which is included, or to that which is excluded. In modern English it is always to the latter. In Shakespeare's day the other reference was more common, that namely to what was included.'

With them all the people of Mounster went out, and many other of them which were mere English, thenceforth joined them

selves with the Irish against the king, and termed themselves very Irish.-SPENSER, View of the State of Ireland.

Our wine is here mingled with water and with myrrh; there [in heaven] it is mere and unmixed.-J. TAYLOR, The Worthy Communicant.

The great winding-sheets, that bury all things in oblivion, are two, deluges and earthquakes. As for conflagrations and great droughts, they do not merely dispeople and destroy. Phaethon's car went but a day; and the three years' drought, in the time of Elias, was but particular, and left people alive.-BACON, Essays, 58.

Fye on't; O fye! 'tis an unweeded garden,

That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely.

SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet, act i. sc 2.

MESS. This used continually to be applied to a quaternion, or group of four persons or things. Probably in the distribution of food to large numbers, it was found most convenient to arrange them in fours, and hence this application of the word. A 'mess at the Inns of Court still consists of four. A phrasebook published in London in 1617 bears this title, 'Janua Linguarum Quadrilinguis, or A Messe of Tongues, Latine, English, French, and Spanish.'

There lacks a fourth thing to make up the mess.-LATIMER, Sermon 5.

Where are your messt of sons to back you now? SHAKESPEARE, 3 Henry VI., act i. sc. 4. Amongst whom [converted Jews] we meet with a mess of most

* A recent editor of Bacon, I need hardly say not the most recent, has made a hopeless confusion by changing this 'and' into but,' evidently from not understanding the old use of ' merely.'

Edward, George, Richard, and Edmund.

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Metal-Methodist.

eminent men; Nicolaus Lyra, that grand commentator on the Bible; Hieronymus de Sanctâ Fide, turned Christian about anno 1412; Ludovicus Carettus, living in Paris anno 1553; and the never sufficiently to be praised Emmanuel Tremellius.—FULLER, A Pisgah Sight of Palestine, part ii. b. 5.

METAL. The Latin metallum' signified a mine before it signified the metal which was found in the mine; and Jeremy Taylor uses 'metal' in this sense of mine. This may be a latinism peculiar to him, as he has of such not a few; in which case it would scarcely have a right to a place in this little volume, which does not propose to note the peculiarities of single writers, but the general course of the language. I, however, insert it, counting it more probable that my limited reading hinders me from furnishing an example of this use from some other author, than that such does not somewhere exist.

It was impossible to live without our king, but as slaves live, that is, such who are civilly dead, and persons condemned to metals.—J. TAYLOR, Ductor Dubitantium, Epistle Dedicatory.

METHODIST. This term is restricted at present to the followers of John Wesley; but it was once applied to those who followed a certain method' in philosophical speculation, or in the ethical treatment of themselves or others.

The finest methodists, according to Aristotle's golden rule of artificial bounds, condemn geometrical precepts in arithmetic, or arithmetical precepts in geometry, as irregular and abusive.— G. HARVEY, Pierce's Supererogation, p. 117.

For physick, search into the writings of Hippocrates, Galen and the methodists.-SANDERSON, Sermons, vol. ii. p. 135.

All of us have some or other tender parts of our souls, which we cannot endure should be ungently touched; every man must

Militia-Minion.

159

be his own methodist to find them out.-JACKSON, Justifying Faith, b. iv. c. 5.

MILITIA. By this name, as the contests between Charles I. and his Parliament have made us all to know, the entire military force of the nation, and not a part of it only, was designated in the seventeenth century. It is true indeed that this force did much more nearly resemble our militia than our standing army, but it was never used for that to the exclusion of this.

It was a small thing to contend with the Parliament about the sole power of the militia, when we see him doing little less than laying hands on the weapons of God Himself, which are his judgements, to wield and manage them by the sway and bent of his own frail cogitations.—MILTON, Iconoclastes, c. 26.

The king's captains and soldiers fight his battles, and yet he is summus imperator, and the power of the militia is his.J. TAYLOR, Ductor Dubitantium, iii. 3, 7.

Ye are of his flock and his militia; ye are now to fight his battles, and therefore to put on his armour.-Id., On Preparation for Confirmation, § 7.

MINION. Once no more than darling or dearling (mignon). It is quite a superaddition of later times that the minion' is an unworthy object, on whom an excessive fondness is bestowed.

Map now an Adam in thy memory,

By God's own hand made with great majesty;
No idiot fool, not drunk with vain opinion,

But God's disciple, and his dearest minion.

SYLVESTER, Du Bartas' Weeks, The Imposture.

Whoso to marry a minion wife

Hath had good chance and hap,

Must love her and cherish her all his life,

And dandle her in his lap.

Old Song.