Born, in London, 8 March 1808. At Harrow, Jan. 1818 to Dec. 1824; at Haileybury College, 1825–26. Intention of entering H. E. I. C.’s service given up. Scholar, St. John’s Coll., Camb., 1826; Browne Medalist, 1829; B.A., 1830; M.A., 1833; B.D., 1840; D.D., 1870. Fellow, St. John’s Coll., 1833–48; Hon. Fellow, 1874. Ordained Deacon, 1833; Priest, 1834. Select Preacher, Camb., 1838. Whitehall Preacher, 1840. Rector of Lawford, 1848–70. Married Judith Mary Sophia Frere, 2 July 1850. Hulsean Lecturer, Camb., 1862. Chaplain to Speaker, 1863–69. Boyle Lecturer, 1864–65. Hon. D.C.L., Oxford, 13 June 1866. Dean of Ely, 1869. D.D., Durham, 1883. Hon. LL.D., Edinburgh, 1884. Died, at Ely, 27 Dec. 1893. Works: “The Church of England a Faithful Witness,” 1839; “Sermons Preached in the Chapel Royal, Whitehall,” 1841; “History of the Romans under the Empire” (7 vols.), 1850–62; “The Fall of the Roman Republic,” 1853; “Open Fellowships,” 1858; “The Conversion of the Roman Empire,” 1864; “The Conversion of the Northern Nations,” 1866 [1865]; “The Contrast between Pagan and Christian Society,” 1872; “General History of Rome,” 1875; “Four Lectures on Some Epochs of Early Church History,” 1879; “Herman Merivale, C.B.” [1884]. [Also several separate sermons]. He translated: Keats’ “Hyperion” (into Latin), 1863; Homer’s “Iliad,” 1869; and edited: Sallust’s “Catilina et Jugurtha,” 1852; translation of Abeken’s “Account of the Life and Letters of Cicero,” 1854.
Personal
Merivale is married! to a daughter of George Frere’s, a lawyer in London. I have not heard of M. since this fatal event: but I stayed two days with him, in his Essex parsonage just before it. He is grown very fat—an Archdeacon, if ever there were one—and tries to screw himself down to village teaching, etc. He does all he can, I dare say: but what use is an historical Fellow of a college in a Country parish? It is all against the grain with him, and with his people.
It is worthy of note that when Charles Merivale was but six years old he took delight in playing with his brother Herman, aged seven, a game which they called “Roman history.” It was played in Queen’s Square, the northern end of which they named “Italy,” and the northeast corner “Rome.” The trundling of hoops was a leading feature of the game, the career of each consul being typified by the course which the player’s hoop chanced to take. “The straight line of public virtue was the narrow path of the kerbstone, and few magistrates kept it to the end.” In his school days at Harrow the future historian of the Roman Empire committed to memory, for his own amusement, all but a few hundred lines of Lucan’s “Pharsalia,” when his sudden removal to Haileybury interrupted the task. That largeness of view and generosity of sentiment which characterize Merivale’s writings may, it seems not improbably, be largely owing to the variety of scene and of personal intercourse which he enjoyed in his youth.
General
Mr. Merivale has told this part of the Roman story in a way that leaves little to be desired. His work is not a compilation, but an original history, the fruit of careful and prolonged investigation. If it does not possess the splendor of Gibbon, or the vigorous grasp of Arnold, it is yet admirable as a work of art, and worthy to hold a place between these two great masters, and to form with them the continuous story of Roman affairs.
Is a scholarly, calm, and unprejudiced representation of the period of Roman history which lies between the establishment of the first Triumvirate and the last of the Cæsars. This work is written with great care, and exhibits marked opulence of scholarship and thorough comprehension of the subject. The author is a profound rather than brilliant historian, and is especially to be praised for his accuracy and fulness.
Its worst defect is that the author is not quite equal to his subject. Merivale was a respectable historian, but the successful treatment of the Romans under the Empire demanded a great one.
