pany of the elector, and was a party to the famous protest which gave a distinctive name to the reformers; and the same year he attended the sacramentarian conference with Zuingle at Marburg. Melancthon's notions were not so decided and dogmatic as those of Luther; yet he could say, "Malim mori"—"I would rather die than that the Zuinglian notions should infect our churches." It would seem, however, that he greatly modified this opinion in his later years. But a more important work now devolved on him. The emperor was about to hold a diet at Augsburg, and the protestant princes wished to lay before him a confession of their faith. What are called the articles of Schwabach and Torgau had already been prepared—The first doctrinal, and the second expository of abuses. But a new work combining both was demanded, and Melancthon was commissioned to the task. Assiduously did he set himself to the work; and so tearfully and nervously did he proceed that Luther warned him not to commit suicide, but take care of his frail, little body—corpusculi tui. When the work was finished, and it presents the reformed doctrines not in their most antagonistic form, it received the approbation of Luther. In some private interviews with Valdez and others, Melancthon is said to have narrowed the points of controversy; and his concessions alarmed the Zuinglian party. Harassed on all sides and distracted by a thousand anxieties, he tells Luther that he spends his time in perpetual tears. The confession, consisting of twenty-one articles, was at length on the 25th of June, 1530, read before the emperor, and occupied two hours in the reading. Even after this, Melancthon was so wrought upon, as for the sake of peace to hint at a minimum, and asked the elector to demand only the two kinds in the eucharist, and the marriage of the priests. But a mightier voice behind him shouted in surrender. The result of the diet is matter of history.
Such were the reports of Melancthon's learning, mild manners, and pacific disposition, that Francis I. invited him to France, and but for the elector's prohibition he would have complied with the invitation. Henry VIII. pressed him to come over to England; and on being presented with a copy of his "Commentary on Romans" sent him two hundred crowns. Melancthon in the following years attended various conferences, as at Smalkald, Frankfort, Worms, and Ratisbon; but conciliation became more and more impossible. In 1546 Luther died, and Melancthon, at the end of a friendship of twenty-seven years, pronounced the funeral oration. Placed now in the front rank, troubles fell thick and heavy upon him. In the month of November that year the university was broken up, and he repaired for a season to Zerbst—refusing an invitation to professorships at Jena, Tübingen, and Frankfort. The adoption of the Interim became a subject of keen and prolonged discussion, and Melancthon attended no less than seven conferences on the subject. Out of these meetings sprang the Adiaphoristic controversy. Melancthon was ever ready to make concessions which he thought did not involve his conscience or imperil evangelical truth. "We are indifferent," he wrote in answer to the Interim, "whether we eat fish or flesh. Private masses, processions, and prayers to the saints are needless and dangerous, even if they admit of extenuation or apology." This reply was translated into English, with a preface vindicating Melancthon, by John Rogers, the same probably who printed the Bible in 1537, known as Matthew's Bible, and who was afterwards martyred, Melancthon's enemies, however, bitterly accused him of betraying the truth. He was not made of the stern stuff that finds pleasure in the fray, and his soul was often cast down amidst envenomed and calumnious attacks. His virulent antagonist Matthias Flacius, with Amsdorf, Wigand, and others, were unsparing in their denunciations. "Absolute falsehoods," does he call their charges. In January, 1551, he set out for the council of Trent; but left his journey unfinished—the elector having meanwhile declared war against the emperor. The controversy between two such extreme men as Osiander and Stancarus on the nature of Christ's righteousness brought him as mediator into the field, and his reply was quiet, learned, and conclusive. But the controversies referred to spread on all hands, and the clamour of his enemies made him weary of life. In 1557 he had a last discussion with popish antagonists at Worms—the question of debate being, The rule of judgment in religious matters. In 1558 he published the first part of his "Chronicon." His health, never robust, now began to fail; and after a period of increasing weakness, he died on the 19th of April, 1560, in the sixty-fourth year of his age. His remains were interred beside those of Luther.
Melancthon was the scholar of the Reformation, though he was also an expert dialectician. His quiet and gentle nature found its fitting place by the side of Luther, on whom he could rest for advice and encouragement, though he was occasionally provoked by his colleague's imperial will and rough, resistless energy. His moderation was therefore of service to Luther and the Reformation, as he poured oil on the troubled billows. He created less personal antagonism than Luther, and was sometimes heard in places from which Luther's stormy accents were resentfully excluded: the "still small voice" reaches farther sometimes than the peal of thunder. Of himself he would probably have failed to do a reformer's bold and iconoclastic work, for he was by constitution timid and conservative; fonder of the art of persuasion than that of assault; more disposed to winning words than to the terrific declamation which was needed to vibrate in a nation's ear, till, its heart was stirred to decision and religious revolution. Yet from the impulse and courage of religious conviction how far he outstripped Erasmus, the man of mere learning and wit! Melancthon loved "all things, both great and small;" the law of kindness was in his heart. A French visitor on one occasion found him with a book in the one hand, and rocking a cradle with the other. As may be seen in his letters on his domestic sufferings and trials, his tenderness extended to his domestics, over the grave of one of whom—his man-servant John, who had been thirty years in his household—he delivered an oration, and for whose tombstone he wrote a touching epitaph. He often said happy things in conversation, as when he replied to an Italian, many of whose countrymen were accused of atheism—"How is it that you Italians will have a God in the sacramental bread—you—who do not believe there is a God in heaven?" His saying is well known, which was based on his disappointment that the arguments which induced him to renounce popery had so little effect on others—"Old Adam was too strong for young Melancthon." He shared, however, in the general opinions of his age, and vindicated the burning of Servetus at Geneva. There was in feet considerable truth in Luther's jeu d'esprit—"Res et verba Philippus, verba sine rebus Erasmus, res sine verbis Lutherus, nee res nee verba Carolostadius:" Melancthon is substance and words; Erasmus, words without substance; Luther, substance without words; Carlstadt, neither substance nor words. Melancthon's meek and quiet spirit was nourished by spiritual truth and hope. His last words were in unison with his life. When asked on the morning of his death, after some cordials were given him, if he would have anything else, his reply was— Aliud nihil nisi cœlum: Nothing else but heaven. Various editions of Melancthon's works have appeared, the best by his son-in-law, Peucer, in four folios, Wittemberg, 1562-64. A new and correct edition in quarto is in course of publication in Germany, under the general title, "Corpus Reformatorum," twenty-five volumes of which have appeared. His life has been often written.—J. E.
MELANDER, Daniel (or Melanderhjelm, being the name which he assumed on becoming a nobleman), an eminent Swedish mathematician, and astronomer, was born on the 29th of October, 1726, and died at Stockholm in January, 1810. In 1757 he was appointed assistant to Strœmer, professor of astronomy at Upsal, on whose death in 1761 he succeeded to the chair, and held it for nearly forty years, when he retired and became perpetual secretary to the Academy of Sciences of Stockholm. He was raised to the rank of nobility in 1778, and made a knight of the polar star in 1789.—W. J. M. R.
MELANTHIUS, a celebrated Greek painter in the time of Philip and Alexander the Great, and like his master Pamphilus, says Quintilian, distinguished for his powers in composition He was the fellow pupil of Apelles, and, according to Pliny, paid an attic talent, about £220, for a course of instruction in the school of Pamphilus at Sicyon, which extended over a period of ten years—that is, a pupil who paid this fee, had the use of the school for that time. Even Apelles yielded to Melanthius in composition. Though the works of this painter were in high esteem among the ancients, and Aratus of Sicyon, says Plutarch, sent some as presents to Ptolemy III. of Egypt to induce him to join the Achæan league; we know of only one by its title—"Aristratus, tyrant of Sicyon, standing by the chariot of Victory"—painted by Melanthius and his scholars. Aratus,
