at the Austrian capital that he composed those works that have acquired for him imperishable renown. He led thenceforward a purely literary life until his decease, which occurred on the 12th April, 1782, when he had attained the advanced age of eighty-four. Metastasio has written twenty-eight grand operas, besides a multitude of other pieces more or less operatic in their character. His genius has been estimated too highly, as we think, by some, Sismondi among the rest; and Schlegel in his lectures on dramatic literature takes a calmer and juster view of his poetical endowments. Metastasio's writings are utterly destitute of genuine dramatic power and of the deeper life of poetry; yet, as regards the element of form, they are unsurpassed in any language. The flexible Italian tongue was never wielded with such skill and witchery; and the snatches of song with which his different characters make their exit at the close of the scenes, are vocal with the tenderest and sweetest word-music. The art of Metastasio truly laps us in Elysium; but withal it is the Elysium of the Sybarite, not that of the hero. Pre-eminently a court-poet, his strains are rife with the voluptuousness of the palace; and after we have been satiated with his matchless grace of language, we turn in weariness from the shallow and imperfect creations it adorns.—J. J.
METCALF, John, the blind carrier and roadmaker, was born at Knaresborough of poor parents in 1717. When he was only seven years of age his sight was totally destroyed by virulent small-pox; but he grew up strong and healthy, and was remarkable for his activity, acuteness of sense, and expertness in climbing trees, running, riding, and swimming. He became a skilful player upon the violin, and supported himself for some time by playing dance music at country parties. He was a bold and dexterous rider—rode and won several races—and one of his greatest pleasures was to follow the hounds. He was also an adept in athletic sports, and many stories are told of his great strength and robustness. When the jacobite rebellion broke out in 1745, Blind Jack, as he was called, assisted in raising a company of volunteers, and along with them served in the north of England and in Scotland under Generals Wade, Hawley, and the duke of Cumberland, and was present at the battles of Falkirk and Culloden. On the termination of the war he returned home, and commenced a profitable business in trading in articles of clothing manufactured in Aberdeen. He also carried on a considerable trade in buying and selling horses in Yorkshire and in Scotland. He next began the business of a common carrier between York and Knaresborough, and finally became one of the greatest road-makers and bridge-builders of his age. His first undertaking of this sort was about the year 1765, when he made three miles of a turnpike road between Harrogate and Boroughbridge; and during the succeeding twenty-seven years he constructed, in the most satisfactory manner, one hundred and eighty-five miles of road, together with a large number of bridges, retaining walls, and culverts. He personally surveyed and laid out many of the most important roads, which he constructed in difficult and mountainous parts of Yorkshire and Lancashire. With the assistance only of a long staff he traversed the country, ascending steep and rugged heights, exploring valleys, and investigating their extent, form, and situation. Perhaps his most remarkable exploit was his construction of a road over some deep marshy ground, in which, with great ingenuity, he followed the precise plan which George Stephenson afterwards adopted in constructing a railway across Chat moss. The last four years of the life of this extraordinary man were spent at his farm at Spofforth, near Wetherby, where he died in 1810 in the ninety-third year of his age, leaving behind him four children, twenty grand-children, and ninety great grand-children. Metcalf was possessed of a strong, daring, manly, and affectionate nature, with extraordinary activity and spirit of enterprise, and was altogether a most remarkable and able man.—(See the Life of John Metcalf, by himself, and Smiles' Lives of the Engineers.)—J. T.
METCALFE, Charles Theophilus, Baron Metcalfe, an eminent Anglo-Indian statesman and colonial governor, was born at Calcutta on the 30th of January, 1785. He was the second son of a major in the Bengal army, who returning to England when the future Lord Metcalfe was a child, became a director in the East India Company, and destined his son for its service. Educated at Eton, where he read largely beyond the sphere of the studies of the place, Metcalfe received a writership, and landed in India on the first day of the present century. He was the first student appointed to Lord Wellesley's college of Fort William, where he made good progress in the study of Oriental languages, and, both intelligent and amiable, attracted the notice of the governor-general. His first appointment was to assist the resident at the court of Scindiah, from which he was speedily removed to be an assistant in the office of the chief secretary to government, and in 1803 he was transferred in the same capacity to the office of the governor-general, where he worked under the eye and influence of the discerning and energetic Lord Wellesley. In the war with Holkar (1804-6) Metcalfe was commissioned by Lord Wellesley to act as political agent with Lord Lake's army, and at the siege of the fortress of Deeg the young civilian, as a volunteer, gained military laurels. At the close of the war he became first assistant to the resident at Delhi; and a new governor-general. Lord Minto, recognizing his merits, appointed him to the mission at Lahore (1808-9). French intrigue was active in Persia, and Metcalfe's was one of the missions created to secure the north-western frontier. The young diplomatist proved more than a match for Runjeet Singh himself, and negotiated with that wily potentate the treaty of Umritsur (25th April, 1809), which for thirty years remained the basis of the relations between the Anglo-Indian government and the Sikhs. After holding some other appointments, Metcalfe, at the age of twenty-six, was promoted to the important post of resident at Delhi, where he distinguished himself by his successful zeal for the improvement of the territory under his charge. In 1819 he was appointed at once private and political secretary to the governor-general. Lord Hastings, and during 1820-25 was resident at Hyderabad. By the death of his elder brother in 1823 he became a baronet, and at last, in 1827, he received a seat in the supreme council of India. Some of the minutes which he wrote while a member of council have been published, and form a storehouse of useful hints and suggestions, anticipating the recent movement for the European colonization of India, and advocating the transfer of the government of India from the hands of the company to the crown. Governor of Agra in 1833, he assumed early in 1835 the provisional governor-generalship of India, to which he had been nominated by the authorities at home, on the contingency of Lord William Bentinck's death or resignation. While provisional governor-general, he freed, by his own authority, the Anglo-Indian press from its old shackles (15th September, 1835)—an offence in the eyes of the home government of India. Receiving the order of the bath after the arrival of Lord Auckland, and appointed lieutenant-governor of the north-western provinces, he was not made governor of Madras, the post to which he thought himself entitled; and conceiving that he had incurred the displeasure of the East India Company, he resigned, and at the close of 1837 returned to England. The reputation which he had gained in India, however, was such that he was not long permitted to remain inactive. In 1839 he was appointed by the whigs governor of Jamaica, where the strife between planter and negro, capital and labour—the result of the emancipation of the slaves—had reached its acme. By a policy of conciliation and fair dealing Metcalfe contrived, in his governorship of Jamaica, to secure the affections of both planters and people, and to supersede the war of classes by something like harmony. Having, as he thought, fulfilled his mission, and suffering severely from an ulcerous affection of the face, he resigned, and returned home in July, 1842. Sir Robert Peel was now in office; but though a whig, and something more, Metcalfe had scarcely been six months at home when he was pressed by the conservative ministry to undertake the governor-generalship of Canada, still agitated by the animosities which a few years before had issued in rebellion. It was during the years of his Canadian administration (1843-45) that Sir Charles Metcalfe displayed most conspicuously the higher qualities of his character. Though an advanced liberal, he was resolved not to dwindle into a mere tool of a parliamentary majority and of an executive council dependent upon it, and yet he knew that "responsible government" was indispensable. Tiding over patiently the serious embarrassments of his position, he had managed by tact and conciliation, without manœuvring and intrigue, to secure a small governmental majority in the Canadian parliament, when the serious progress of his disease forced him to think of returning home. The ministry had strengthened his hands by recommending his elevation to the peerage, a recommendation to which her majesty at once gave effect, graciously saying of Metcalfe in a letter to Sir Robert Peel, "He has shown such a desire to do his duty in the midst of so many
