MELVILL, D.D. , 1800-71; b. at Pendennis castle, Cornwall, England; educated at St. Peter's coRege, Cambridge, where he took his degree in 1821: After taking orders he became the incumbent of the parish of Camden chapel, in London; and filled successively the offices of principal of the East India college, chaplain of the Tower of London, chaplain to the queen, 1853, canon of St. Paul's, 1856; and in 1863 became rector of Barnes, and a rural dean. His reputation, both as a finished and ele gant writer and as a pulpit orator of power and eloquence, gave him a very high position among the English clergy. In 1848 he was elected incumbent of what is known as the golden lectureship of St. Margaret's. A great number of his .lectures and sermons have been published in England and republished in this country. Of these the Golden Lectures and a number of others were printed without his consent. In 1847 a New York house published in two volumes 68 sermons, printed with the consent of the author. We may
also note Voices of the Year; Golden Counseb4 (1857); and _Persuasions to et Christian Life, as among the best of his witings. Melville is described by the author of Random Recollections as " certainly the greatest rhetorician among our metropolitan preachers. He clothes the most commonplace Ideas in language which is so rich in the ornaments of rhetoric that they are often mistaken for conceptions of the most brilliant character. He is exceedingly partial to the use of analogy in addressing his hearers. And his analo gies are often exceedingly happy; at times they are particularly striking He arrests the Im.orer's attention the instant he begins, and carries him with hint, a will ing captive, to the close of his sermon." A severe taste will sometimes consider his analogies extreme in their range.