whole course of my practice, taken or demanded any the least fee from any clergyinan. But since you have been pleased, contrary to what I have met with in any other gentleman of your profession, to prescribe to me, rather than to follow my prescriptions, when you had committed the care of your recovery to my skill and trust, you must not take it amiss, nor will, I hope, think it unfair, if I demand ten guineas of you." The money, though not perhaps without some little reluctance, was paid down. The doctor at the same time told Leake, "You may come to me again, before you quit London." He did so; and Mead returned to him six guineas out of the ten which he had received.'

MEADOWCOURT (RICHARD), an English critic, was born in Staffordshire in 1697, and was educated at Mertoncollege in Oxford, of which he became a fellow. In 1732, he published notes on Milton's Paradise Regained, and in the following year was promoted to a canonry in the church of Worcester. He was author of several small tracts, containing critical remarks on the English poets; and his notes were not neglected by the late bishop Newton, in publishing his edition of Milton. He was greatly esteemed by the learned in general, and died at Worcester in 1769, aged 72. Dr. Newton thus speaks of him in his preface to the Paradise Regained. After enumerating the assistance given by friends, he adds, "I had the honour of all these for my associates and assistants before, but I have been farther strengthened by some new recruits, which were the more unexpected, as they were sent me by gentlemen with whom I never had the pleasure of a personal acquaintThe Rev. Mr. Meadowcourt, canon of Worcester, in 1732 published a critical dissertation, with notes, upon the Paradise Regained, a second edition of which was published in 1748; and he likewise transmitted to me a sheet of his manuscript remarks, wherein he hath happily explained a most difficult passage in Lycidas, better than any man had done before him." The passage alluded to is the 160th line of that poem, in which Mr. Meadowcourt explained the words " Belle us," and "Bayona's hoid." He was author also of eleven printed sermons, which are enumerated in Cooke's Preacher's Assistant.

ance.

1 Life by Dr. Maty, 1755, 8vo, and that prefixed to his works.-Biog. Brit. -Hawkins's Life of Johnson.-Nichols's Bowyer, vol. I. p. 266,—and vol. VI. p. 212.-Dibdin's Bibliomania, p. 485.

2 Nichols's Poems.

MEARA (DERMOD O, or DERMITIUS), an Irish physician and poet, was born at Ormond, about the close of the sixteenth century, in the county of Tipperary, and educated at Oxford. Wood doubts this, because he could find no record of his matriculation or degrees; but in one of his writings he styles himself "lately a member of the university of Oxford," and it is probable that he took his medical degrees there, as immediately on his leaving Oxford, he settled in his own country, and soon attained the highest eminence in his profession. He was living in 1620, but the time of his death is not specified in our authorities. He wrote a heroic poem, in Latin, on the earl of Ormond and Ossory, entitled "Ormonius, sive illust. herois et Domini D. Thomæ Butler, &c. prosapia, &c." printed at London in 1615, 8vo, with an English version by William Roberts, Ulster king at arms. He wrote also some medical treatises, of which one only was published, on hereditary disorders, "Pathologia hereditaria generalis, &c." Dublin, 1619, 12mo. It was afterwards reprinted with the works of his son Edmund Meara, London, 1665, and Amsterdam, 1666, 12mo. This son, a graduate of Oxford, practised both in Ireland and England, was a member of the college of physicians of London, and resided for some time at Bristol. He died about 1680, and had a short controversy with Dr. Lower, occasioned by Meara's publishing an "Examen Diatriba Thomæ Willisii, de Febribus," London, 1665, 8vo. Lower answered it by a "Vindicatio Diatriba Willisii," written with much controversial bitterness.1

MECHAIN (PETER FRANCIS ANDREW), a very able French mathematician and astronomer, was born at Laon in 1744, where his father was an architect, and at one time a man of considerable property. At an early age he discovered a strong inclination for mathematical pursuits, and while he was under the instruction of his tutors, corresponded with Lalande, whom he was desirous of assisting in his labours. In 1772, Mechain was invited to Paris, where he was employed at the depôt of the marine, and assisted M. Darquier in correcting his observations. Here his merit brought him acquainted with M. Doisy, director of the depôt, who gave him a more advantageous situation at Versailles. At this place he diligently observed the

1 Harris's Ware's Ireland.-Ath. Ox. vol. I.-Eloy, Dict. Hist. de Medicine.

heavens, and, in 1774, sent to the Royal Academy of Sciences "A Memoir relative to an Eclipse of Aldebaran," observed by him on the 15th of April. He calculated the orbit of the comet of 1774, and discovered that of 1781. In 1782, he gained the prize of the academy on the subject of the comet of 1661, the return of which was eagerly expected in 1790; and in the same year he was admitted a member of the academy, and soon selected for the superintenuance of the Connoissance des Tems.

In 1790, M. Mechain discovered his eighth comet, and communicated to the academy his observations on it, together with his calculations of its orbit. In 1792 he undertook, conjointly with M. Delambre, the labour of measuring the degrees of the meridian, for the purpose of more accurately determining the magnitude of the earth and the length of a metre. In the month of June 1792, M. Mechain set out to measure the triangles between Perpignan and Barcelona; and notwithstanding that the war occasioned a temporary suspension of his labours, he was enabled to resume and complete them during the following year. He died on the 20th of September 1805, at Castellon de la Plana, in the sixty-second year of his age. Lalande deplores his loss as that of not only one of the best French astronomers, but one of the most laborious, the most courageous, and the most robust. His last observations and calculations of the eclipse of the sun on the 11th of February, are inserted in the Connoissance des Tems for the year 15; and he also published a great many in the Ephemerides of M. Bode, of Berlin, which he preferred to a former work after Lalande became its editor. A more extensive memoir of his labours may be seen in Baron von Zach's Journal for July 1800, and Lalande's History of Astronomy for 1804.'

MEDE, or MEAD (JOSEPH), a learned English divine, was born in 1586, of a good family, at Berden, in Essex. When he was about ten years old, both he and his father fell sick of the small pox; which proving mortal to the father, the son fell under the care of a Mr. Gower, to whom his mother was soon after married. He was sent to school first to Hoddesdon, in Hertfordshire, and then to Wethersfield, in Essex. While he was at this last school, going to London upon some occasion, he bought "Bellarmine's Hebrew Grammar;" and though his master, who had no

1 Rees's Cyclopædia.

skill in that language, told him it was a book not fit for him, yet he studied it with so much eagerness, that in a little time he attained considerable skill in Hebrew. In 1602, he was sent to Christ's-college, in Cambridge; where, although he had an uncommon impediment in his speech, which would not suffer him to shew himself to advantage, he was soon distinguished for his abilities and learning. Not long after his entrance upon philosophical studies, he became disquieted with scepticism: for, meeting with a book in a fellow-student's chamber, either "Sextus Empiricus," or some other of the Pyrrhonic school, he began, upon the perusal of it, to move strange questions to himself, and even to doubt whether the To Ilav, the whole frame of things, as it appears to us, were any thing thore than a mere phantasm, or imagination; and, till bis principles were settled, his life, as he professed, was utterly without comfort.

By the time he had taken the degree of master of arts, which was in 1610, he had made such progress in all kinds of academical study, that he was universally esteemed an accomplished scholar. He was an acute logician, an accurate philosopher, a skilful mathematician, an excellent anatomist, a great philologer, a master of many languages, and a good proficient in history and chronology. His first public effort was an address that he made to bishop Andrews, in a Latin tract "De sanctitate relativa;" which, in his maturer years, he censured as a juvenile performance, and therefore never published it. That great prelate, however, who was a good judge and patron of learning, liked it so well, that he not only was the author's firm friend upon an occasion that offered soon after, but also then desired him to be his domestic chaplain. This Mede very civilly refused; valuing the liberty of his studies above any hopes of preferment, and esteeming that freedom which he enjoyed in his cell, so he used to call it, as the haven of all his wishes. These thoughts, indeed, had possessed him betimes: for, when he was a school-boy, he was invited by his uncle, Mr. Richard Mede, a merchant, who, being then without children, offered to adopt him for his son, if he would live with him: but he refused the offer, preferring, as it should seem, a life of study to a life of gain.

He was not chosen fellow of his college till after he was master of arts, and then not without the assistance of his

tures.

friend bishop Andrews: for he had been passed over at several elections, on account of a groundless suspicion which Dr Cary, then master of the college, afterwards bishop of Exeter, had conceived of him, that "he looked too much towards Geneva;" that is, was inclined to the tenets of that church. Being made feliow, he became an eminent and faithful tutor. After he had weli grounded his pupils in classics, logic, and philosophy, his custom was to set every one his daily task; which he rather chose, than to confine himself and them to precise hours for lecIn the evening they all came to his chamber; and the first question he put to each was, "Quid dubitas? What doubts have you met with in your studies to-day?" For he supposed, that to doubt nothing and to understand nothing was the same thing. By this method he taught the young men to exercise their reasoning powers, and not acquiesce in what they learn mechanically, with an indolence of spirit, which prepares them to receive implicitly whatever is offered them. In the mean time he was appointed reader of the Greek lecture of Sir Walter Mildmay's foundation; an office which he held during the remainder of his life. While at college, he was so entirely devoted to study that he made even the time he spent in his amusements serviceable to his purpose. He allowed himself little or no exercise but walking; and often, in the fields or college garden, would take occasion to speak of the beauty, distinctions, virtues, or properties, of the plants then in view: for he was a curious florist, an accurate herbalist, and thoroughly versed in the book of nature. The chief delight he took in company was to discourse with learned friends; and he used to spend much time with his worthy friend Mr. William Chappel, afterwards provost of Trinity-college, Dublin, and bishop of Cork and Ross, a man of great learning, and who had a high regard for Mr. Mede.

He was a curious inquirer into the most abstruse parts of learning, and earnestly pursued the knowledge of those things which are most remote from the vulgar track. Among other things, he spent no small pains and time in sounding the depths of astrology, and consumed much paper in calculating the nativities of his near relations and fellow-students but this was in his juvenile years, and he afterwards discovered the absurdity of such employment. He applied himself to the more useful study of history and