Austrian minister at Turin, at St Petersburg, and in 1766 at Paris, where his first work was to strengthen the alliance between France and Austria, which was cemented in 1770 by the marriage of the dauphin, afterwards Louis XVI., with Marie Antoinette, daughter of the empress Maria Theresa. When four years later Louis and Marie Antoinette ascended the throne, Mercy-Argenteau became one of the most powerful personages at the French court. He was in Paris during the turbulent years which heralded the Revolution, and his powerful aid was given first to Loménie de Brienne, and then to Necker. In 1792 he became governor-general of the Belgian provinces, which had just been reduced to obedience by Austria, and here his ability and experience made him a very successful ruler. Although at first in favour of moderate courses, Mercy-Argenteau supported the action of Austria in making war upon his former ally after the outbreak of the Revolution, and in July 1794 he was appointed Austrian ambassador to Great Britain, but he died a few days after his arrival in London.
See T. Juste, Le Comte de Mercy-Argenteau (Brussels 1863); A. von Arneth and A. Geoffroy, Correspondances secrètes de Marie Thérèse avec le comte de Mercy (Paris 1874); and A. von Arneth and J. Flammermont, Correspondance secrète de Mercy avec Joseph II. et Kaunitz (Paris 1889–1891). Mercy-Argenteau’s Correspondances secrètes de Marie Thérèse has been condensed and translated into English by Lilian Smythe under the title of A Guardian of Marie Antoinette (2 vols., London 1902).
MERE. 1. (From Lat. merus, pure, unmixed; O. Fr. mier),
an adjective primarily indicating something pure and unmixed;
thus “mere wine” implied pure and unadulterated wine, as
“mere folly” expressed folly pure and simple. Modern usage
has, however, given both to the adjective “mere” and the
adverb “merely” a deprecatory and disparaging idea, so that
expressions like “the mere truth,” a “mere statement of fact,”
&c., often convey the impression that they are far from being
“mere” in the sense of “entire” or “absolute,” but are, on the
contrary, fragmentary and incomplete. The earlier idea of the
word is retained in some legal phrases, especially in the phrase
“mere motion,” that is, of one’s own initiative without help or
suggestion from the outside. Another legal phrase is “mere
right” (law Latin jus merum), i.e. right without possession.
2. A word which appears in various forms in several Teutonic and other languages; cf. Dutch and Ger. Meer. From the cognate Lat. mare are derived the Romanic forms, e.g. Fr. mer, Span. mar, &c.; the word appears also in the derivative “marsh” for “marish”; the ultimate origin has been taken to be an Indo-European root, meaning “to die,” i.e. to lie waste; cf. Sansk. maru, desert), an arm of the sea or estuary; also the name given to lakes, pools and shallow stretches of water inland. In the Fen countries a mere signifies a marsh or a district nearly always under water.
3. (Derived from an O. Eng. source, maere, a wall or boundary; cognate with Lat. murus, a wall), a landmark or boundary, also an object indicating the extent of a property without actually enclosing it. A special meaning is that of a road, which forms a dividing line between two places. A “meresman” is an official appointed by parochial authorities to ascertain the exact boundaries of a parish and to report upon the condition of the roads, bridges, waterways, &c., within them. In the mining districts of Derbyshire a mere is a certain measurement of land in which lead-ore is found.
MEREDITH, GEORGE (1828–1909), British novelist and
poet, was born at Portsmouth, Hampshire, on the 12th of February 1828; the parish church register records his baptism on the 9th of April. About his early life few details are recorded, but there is a good deal of quasi-autobiography, derived apparently from early associations and possibly antipathies, in some of his own novels, notably Evan Harrington and Harry Richmond, as to which the judicious may speculate. He had, as he used to boast, both Welsh (from his father) and Irish blood (from his mother) in his veins. His father, Augustus Armstrong Meredith, was a naval outfitter at Portsmouth (mentioned as such in Marryat’s Peter Simple); and his grandfather, Melchisedek Meredith, clearly suggested the “Old Mel” of Evan Harrington. Melchisedek was 35 when in 1796 he was initiated as a Freemason at Portsmouth; and he appears to have been known locally as “the count,” because of a romantic story as to an adventure he once had at Bath; he was churchwarden in 1801 and 1804; and some of the church plate still bears his name.
Meredith’s mother died when he was three years old, and he was made a ward in chancery. He was sent to school at Neuwied on the Rhine, and remained in Germany till he was sixteen. During these impressionable years he imbibed a good deal of the German spirit; and German influence, especially through the media of poetry and music, can often be traced in the cast of his thought and sentiment, as well as in some of the intricacies of his literary style. Returning to England he was at first articled to a solicitor in London, but he had little inclination for the law, and soon abandoned it for the more congenial sphere of letters, of which he had become an eager student. At the age of twenty-one he began to contribute poetry to the magazines, and he eked out a livelihood for some years by journalism, for the Daily News and other London papers, and for the Ipswich Journal, for which he wrote leaders; a certain number of his more characteristic fugitive writings are collected in the memorial edition of his works (1910). In London he became one of the leading spirits in the group of young philosophical and positivistic Radicals, among whom were John (afterwards Lord) Morley, Frederic Harrison, Cotter Morison and Admiral Maxse. But during the years when he was producing his finest novels he was practically unknown to the public. In 1849 he married Mrs Nicholls, daughter of Thomas Love Peacock, the novelist, a widow, eight years his senior, whose husband had been accidentally drowned a few months after her first marriage (1844), and who had one child, a daughter; but their married life was broken by separation; she died in 1861, and in 1864 Meredith married Miss Vulliamy, by whom he had a son and daughter. His second wife died in 1885. Up to that time there is little to record in the incidents of his life; he had not been “discovered” except by an “honourable minority” of readers and critics. It must suffice to note that during the Austro-Italian War of 1866 he acted as special correspondent for the Morning Post; and though. he saw no actual fighting, he enjoyed, particularly at Venice, opportunities for a study of the Italian people which he turned to account in several of his novels. Towards the close of 1867, when his friend John Morley paid a visit to America, Meredith undertook in his absence the editorship of the Fortnightly Review for Messrs Chapman & Hall. They were not only the publishers of his books, but he acted for many years as their literary adviser, in which capacity he left a reputation for being not only eminently wise in his selection of the books to be published, but both critical and encouraging to authors of promise Whose works he found himself obliged to reject. Thomas Hardy and George Gissing were among those who expressed their grateful sense of his assistance. He was indeed one of the last of the old school of “publishers’ readers.” In his early married life he lived near Weybridge, and later at Copsham between Esher and Leatherhead, while soon after his second marriage he settled at Flint Cottage, Mickleham, near Dorking, where he remained for the rest of his life.
Meredith’s first appearance in print was in the character of a poet, and his first published poem “Chillian Wallah,” may be found in Chambers’s Journal for the 7th of July 1849. Two years later he put forth a small volume of Poems (1851), which was at least fortunate in eliciting the praise of two judges whose opinion was of the first importance to a beginner. Tennyson was at once struck by the individual flavour of the verse, and declared of one poem, “Love in the Valley,” that he could not get the lines out of his head. Charles Kingsley’s eulogy was at once more public and more particular. In Fraser’s Magazine he subjected the volume to careful consideration, praising it for richness and quaintness of tone that reminded him of Herrick, for completeness and coherence in each separate poem, and for the animating sweetness and health of the general atmosphere. At the same time he censured the laxity of rhythm, the occasional lack of polish, and the tendency to
