at the same time that they should be independent of the Germans, the two brothers went to his capital (its site is unknown), and, besides establishing a seminary for the education of priests, successfully occupied themselves in preaching in the vernacular and in diffusing their translations of Scripture lessons and liturgical offices. Some conflict with the German priests, who used the Latin liturgy, led to their visiting Pope Nicholas I., who had just been engaged in his still extant correspondence with the newly converted Bulgarian king; his death (in 867) occurred before their arrival, but they were kindly received by his successor Hadrian II. Constantine died in Rome (in 869), but Methodius, after satisfying the pope of his orthodoxy and obedience, went back to his labours in “Moravia” as archbishop of Syrmia (Sirmium) in Pannonia. His province appears to have been, roughly speaking, co-extensive with the basins of the Raab, Drave and Save, and thus to have included parts of what had previously belonged to the provinces of Salzburg and Passau. In 871 complaints on this account were made at Rome, nominally on behalf of the archbishop of Salzburg, but really in the interests of the German king and his Germanizing ally Swatopluk, Rastislav’s successor; they were not, however, immediately successful. In 879, however, Methodius was again summoned to Rome by Pope John VIII., after having declined to give up the practice of celebrating mass in the Slavonic tongue; but, owing to the peculiar delicacy of the relations of Rome with Constantinople, and with the young church of Bulgaria, the pope, contrary to all expectation, ultimately decided in favour of a Slavonic liturgy, and sent Methodius (880) back to his diocese with a suffragan bishop of Neitra, and with a letter of recommendation to Swatopluk. This suffragan, a German named Wiching, unfortunately proved the reverse of helpful to his metropolitan, and through his agency, especially after the death of John VIII. in 882, the closing years of the life of Methodius were embittered by continual ecclesiastical disputes, in the course of which he is said to have laid Swatopluk and his supporters under the ban, and the realm under interdict. The most trustworthy tradition says that Methodius died at Hardisch on the March, on the 6th of April 885. He was buried at Welehrad (probably Stuhlweissenburg). The Greek Church commemorates St Cyril on February 14 and St Methodius on May 11; in the Roman Church both are commemorated on March 9. Their canonization (by Leo XIII. in 1881) is noteworthy, in view of the fact that Gregory VII. and several other popes condemned them as Arians. After the death of Methodius much of his work was undone; his successor Gosrad, a Slav, was expelled, with all the Slav priests, and the Latin language and liturgy supplanted the vernacular. On the 5th of July 1863 a millennial celebration of the two brother apostles was held by the people of Bohemia and Moravia.
See Schafarik’s Slawische Alterthümer; L. K. Götz, Geschichte der Slavenapostel Konstantinus und Methodius (Gotha, 1897); N. Bonwetsch, Cyrill und Methodius, die Lehrer der Slaven (Erlangen, 1885), and art. in Hauck-Herzog’s Realencyk. für prot. Theol. iv. 384, where the literature is cited; G. F. Maclear, Conversion of the Slavs (London, 1879).
METHUEN, BARONY OF. The English title of Baron
Methuen of Corsham (Wilts) was created in 1838 for Paul
Methuen (1779–1849), who had been a Tory member of parliament for Wilts from 1812 to 1819, and then sat as a Whig for North Wilts from 1833 to 1838. His father, Paul Methuen, was the cousin and heir of the wealthy Sir Paul Methuen (1672–1757), a well-known politician, courtier, diplomatist and patron of art and literature, who was the son of John Methuen (c. 1650–1706), Lord Chancellor of Ireland (1697–1703) and ambassador to Portugal. It was the last-named who in 1703 negotiated the famous “Methuen Treaty,” which, in return for the admission of English woollens into Portugal, granted differential duties favouring the importation of Portuguese wines into England to the disadvantage of French, and thus displaced the drinking of Burgundy by that of port. He and his son were both buried in Westminster Abbey. The 1st baron was succeeded in the title by his son Frederick Henry Paul Methuen (1818–1891), and the latter by his son Paul, 3rd baron (b. 1845), a distinguished soldier, who became a major-general in 1890, and general commanding-in-chief in South Africa in 1907. The 3rd baron joined the Scots Guards in 1864, served in the Ashanti War of 1874 and the Egyptian War of 1882, and commanded Methuen’s Horse in Bechuanaland in 1884–85, and the first division of the 1st Army Corps in the South African War of 1899–1902. (See Transvaal.)
METHUSELAH, in the Old Testament, the seventh in descent from Adam, and father of Lamech. According to Genesis v. 21 he lived 969 years (see Bible: Old Testament, § 5, “Chronology”). The name itself has been much discussed. Holzinger interprets
it as “man of the javelin”: Hommel prefers “man of Selah,”
Selah being the Hebraized form of the Babylonian Sarrahu (i.e.
the god Sin), and identifies it with the Ἀμέμψινος of Berossus.
The form Methushael, used by the author of Gen. iv. 18 and by
some commentators preferred for Gen. v. 21, is variously explained
as meaning “man of El” (Ball), or as a transcription
(Sayce) of the Babylonian Mutu-ṣa-ili (possibly, “man of the
goddess”).
METHVEN, a village and parish of Perthshire, Scotland, 734 m.
W. by N. of Perth by the Caledonian Railway. Pop. of parish
(1901), 1699. Only an aisle remains of the collegiate church
founded in 1433 by Walter Stewart, earl of Atholl (d. 1437).
One mile east of the village, Methven Castle, dating partly from
1680, occupies a fine situation in a park in which stands the
Pepperwell oak, 18 ft. in circumference. At Dronach Haugh
near the banks of the Almond, which bounds the parish on the
N., the earl of Pembroke defeated Robert Bruce in 1306. At
Lynedoch, his estate on the Almond, Thomas Graham (1748–1843),
the Peninsular general, afterwards Lord Lynedoch,
carried on many experiments in. farming and stock-breeding.
He formerly owned Balgowan House, about 3 m. south-west
of Methven, where many years after his death the proprietor
discovered, during certain alterations, the portrait of Lord
Lynedoch’s wife, the Hon. Mrs Graham (a daughter of the
9th Lord Cathcart), one of Gainsborough’s masterpieces, now
in the National Gallery in Edinburgh; 412 m. north-west of
Methven, occupying a beautiful position in Glenalmond, is
Trinity College, a public school on the English model, the first
of its kind in Scotland, founded in 1841 through the efforts of
W. E. Gladstone, J. R. Hope-Scott, Dean Ramsay and others,
and opened in 1847. In 1851 Charles Wordsworth, the first
warden, afterwards bishop of St Andrews, added the chapel. At
Tibbermore, or Tippermuir, about 3 m. south-east of Methven,
Montrose won the first of a series of battles over the Covenanters
on the 1st of September 1644.
METHYL ALCOHOL (CH3OH), the simplest aliphatic alcohol;
an impure form is known in commerce as wood-spirit, being
produced in the destructive distillation of wood. The name
methyl, from Gr. μέθυ, wine, ὕλη wood, explains its origin.
Discovered by Boyle in 1661, it was first carefully studied by
Dumas and Péligot in 1831; its synthesis from its elements
(through methane and methyl chloride) was effected by Berthelot
in 1858. It is manufactured by distilling wood in iron retorts
at about 500° C., when an aqueous distillate, containing methyl
alcohol, acetone, acetic acid and methyl acetic ester, is obtained.
This is neutralized with lime and redistilled in order to remove
the acetic acid. The distillate is treated with anhydrous calcium
chloride, the crystalline compound formed with the alcohol
being separated and decomposed by redistilling with water.
The aqueous product is then dehydrated with potash or lime.
To obtain it perfectly pure the crude alcohol is combined with
oxalic, benzoic or acetic acid, and the resulting ester separated,
purified, and finally decomposed with potash. Methyl alcohol is
also obtained in the dry distillation of molasses. The amount
of methyl alcohol present in wood spirit is determined by converting
it into methyl iodide by acting with phosphorus iodide;
and the acetone by converting it into iodoform by boiling with an
alkaline solution of iodine in potassium iodide; ethyl alcohol is
detected by giving acetylene on heating with concentrated
sulphuric acid, methyl alcohol, under the same circumstances,
giving methyl ether.
Pure methyl alcohol is a colourless mobile liquid, boiling at
