English author, son of William Melmoth (1666–1743); born in 1710. He was bred to the law, and appointed a commissioner of bankrupts in 1756; but the greater part of his life was spent in retirement, partly at Shrewsbury and partly at Bath, where he was distinguished alike for integrity of conduct and for scholarly culture and an elegant taste. He first appeared as a writer in 1742, when, under the name of Sir Thomas Fitzosborne, he published two volumes of Letters on Several Subjects, which have been much admired for the just and liberal remarks with which they abound on various topics, moral and literary. In 1747 he published a translation of the Letters of Pliny, in 2 vols. 8vo, which, for elegance, precision, and correctness, is one of the best versions of a Latin author that has appeared in our language. In 1753 he published a translation of Cicero’s Letters, in 3 vols., which were followed up in 1773 and 1779 by richly annotated translations of the treatises De Amicitia and De Senectute. In his remarks on the treatise De Amicitia he combated the opinion of Lord Shaftesbury, who had imputed it to Christianity as a defect, that it contained no precepts in favour of friendship; and also that of Soame Jenyns, who had represented this very omission as a proof of its divine origin. The concluding work of Mr. Melmoth consisted of memoirs of his father, published in 1796. He died at Bath on the 15th of March 1799, at the age of eighty-nine.
