Mechi was the author of:
- ‘Letters on Agriculture,’ 1844.
- ‘A Series of Letters on Agricultural Improvement,’ 1845.
- ‘On the Principles which ensure Success in Trade,’ 1850; another edition 1856.
- ‘How to Farm Profitably, particularly on Stiff Heavy Clays,’ 1857; several editions.
- ‘On the Sewerage of Towns as it affects British Agriculture,’ 1860.
- ‘Mr. Mechi's Farm Balance Sheets, also his Lectures and Papers on Farming,’ 1867.
- ‘Profitable Farming: Mr. Mechi's Latest Agricultural Sayings and Doings, with Balance Sheets,’ 1869.
- ‘Profitable Farming: Being the Second Series of the Sayings and Doings of J.J. Mechi,’ 1872.
- ‘How to Farm Profitably: Third Series,’ 1876.
- ‘Mr. Mechi's Statement to his Visitors on Agricultural Improvements,’ 1878. Some of Mechi's statements were replied to in publications by W. W. Good in 1851 and 1852, and by R. Rolton in 1853.
The ‘Tiptree Hall Farm Visitors’ Book from 1846 to 1878' is preserved at the British Museum (Add. MS. 30015). It contains the names of persons, including numerous foreigners, who came to visit the farm, and in many cases their notes and observations.
[Times, 28 Dec. 1880, p. 9; City Press, 29 Dec. 1880, p. 5; Men of the Time, 1879, pp. 700-1; Insurance Guardian, 24 Jan. 1881, p. 6; Illustrated London News, 1857 xxx. 337, with portrait, 1857 xxxi. 317, 1881 lxxviii. 37, with portrait; Pictorial World, 29 Jan. 1881, pp. 355, 361, with portrait.]
MEDBOURNE, MATTHEW (d. 1679), actor and dramatist, was a distinguished member of the company at the Duke's Theatre. He published (1667) 'St. Cecilie, or the Converted Twins,' a tragedy, dedicated to the queen consort, and (1670, reprinted 1707) 'Tartuffe, or the French Puritan, a Comedy, lately acted at the Theatre Royal, written in French by Molière, and rendered into English with much Addition and Advantage.' The first piece is said on the title-page to have been 'written by E. M.,' but according to Gildon it was supposed to have been the work of Medbourne, and a comparison of the two plays leaves no doubt as to their common origin. An epilogue to 'Tartuffe' by Lord Buckhurst (published in a 'Miscellany' of 1672) was spoken by Medbourne himself. According to an epilogue by Lord Buckhurst, written for the revival of Jonson's 'Every Man in his Humour,' it would appear that Medbourne was the author of ten plays, but no trace of the others remains. Medbourne was a Roman catholic, and his excessive zeal for his religion laid him under suspicion. He was arrested 26 Nov. 1678, upon the information of Titus Oates, and committed to Newgate, where he died 19 March 1679.
[Langbaine's Account of Dram. Poets, p. 366; Baker's Biog. Dram. i. 506.]
MEDE, JOSEPH (1586–1638), biblical scholar. [See Mead.]
MEDHURST, GEORGE (1759–1827), engineer and projector of the atmospheric railway, born at Shoreham, Kent, where he was baptised on 11 Feb. 1759, was son of George and Anne Medhurst. He was brought up as a clockmaker, and carried on business for a time in Pleasant Row, Clerkenwell; but the imposition of a duty on clocks in 1797 inflicted great injury upon his trade, and about 1799 he started as an engineer at Battle Bridge. In the year last mentioned he obtained a patent (No. 2299) for 'a windmill and pumps for compressing air for obtaining motive power.' The sails of the windmill were arranged in the manner now generally followed in the construction of small windmills for pumping water. The pumping machinery shows great ingenuity, a governor being attached to vary the length of stroke of the pump, according to the strength of the wind and the pressure of the air in the reservoir. Medhurst's idea was to avail himself of the wind, whenever it served, to compress large bodies of air for use when required, and he worked steadily at the subject to the end of his life. The specification also contains a description of a small rotary engine to be worked by compressed air. In the following year he patented his Æolian engine' (No. 2431), in which he describes other machinery for compressing air, and shows how carriages may be driven upon common roads by compressed air contained in a reservoir underneath the vehicle. He contemplated the establishment of regular lines of coaches, with pumping stations at the end of each stage for replenishing the reservoirs. He also describes an engine worked by gas produced by the explosion in the cylinder of small quantities of gunpowder at regular intervals. He endeavoured to form a company, with a capital of 50,000l., to work this invention, and published a pamphlet 'On the Properties, Power, and Applications of the Æolian Engine, with a Plan of the Particulars for carrying it into Execution,' London, n.d., 8vo, pp. 19. He calculated that a vessel of sixteen cubic feet capacity, containing compressed air of sixteen atmospheres, would suffice to do the work of one horse for an hour.
In 1801 he patented a 'compound crank' for converting rotary into rectilinear motion. It is not quite certain whether the George
