difficulties, and such extreme disinterestedness, that he richly deserves this mark of the queen's entire approbation and favour." It was as a peer, but a dying man, that Lord Metcalfe returned to England towards the close of 1845. He retired to a quiet country seat in the neighbourhood of Basingstoke, where he was released from his sufferings on the 6th of September, 1846. Lord Macaulay wrote his epitaph, and an ample biographical memoir of him remains in Mr. J. W. Kaye's Life and Correspondence of Charles Lord Metcalfe, London, 1854.—F. E.
METELLUS, Quintus Cæcilius, surnamed Numidicus, a distinguished Roman general, descended from one of the most illustrious families of the Roman nobility. Metellus entered public life as a member of the aristocratic party, and during all his career he was an unwavering supporter of that faction, of which he ultimately became one of the leaders. Cicero repeatedly speaks of the honourable character he bore, and tells that when a charge of extortion was brought against him, there was not one of his judges who would examine the accounts produced in court, lest he might appear to doubt the honesty of Metellus. In 109 b.c., he was elected consul, and took the command of the army in Numidia. During this and the following year he obtained a series of victories over Jugurtha, who had previously been able to keep the field chiefly by bribing the venal generals who had been sent to oppose him. But his enemies at home succeeded in persuading the people that Metellus was unnecessarily protracting the war, and he was superseded by Marius before he could strike a decisive blow at Jugurtha. Before his return, however, the popular opinion had changed, and he was received with every mark of distinction. A triumph was decreed to him, and he received the surname of Numidicus. In 100 b.c., when Saturuinus proposed and carried his agrarian law, Metellus was the only one of the senators who refused to take the oath of obedience to its provisions, and he retired into exile, willing to quit his country rather than to abandon his convictions. He was recalled the following year. He died in 91 b.c. of poison, administered by Q Varius, the unscrupulous leader of the popular faction—D. M.
METHODIUS, (Saint) a Greek ecclesiastical writer belonging to the second half of the third century, was first bishop of Olympus in Lycia, then of Tyre. He suffered martyrdom in the persecution of Diocletian. Methodius appeared as one of the most violent opponents of Origen's doctrine. Few of his writings are extant. The most important is his "Banquet of the Ten Virgins," in eleven conversations, containing an encomium on celibacy, and interspersed with many allegorical interpretations. His relation to Origen is best seen from the fragments of his treatises, "De Resurrectione" and "De Creaturis," in which he shows no speculative ability, and even misapprehends Origen's opinions. All that remains of his writings is given most fully in Galland's Bibliotheca, vol. iii., along with which the reader should consult Mai's Scriptorum veterum nova collectio vii.—S. D.
METHODIUS, called the Confessor, was born at Syracuse about the end of the eighth century, went to Constantinople, and became a monk there. Nicephorus the patriarch sent him as ambassador to Pope Pashalis, the latter of whom gave him a letter to Michael the emperor respecting the treatment of the orthodox. Offended by the letter, the emperor ordered Methodius to be whipped and thrown into a dungeon in an island of the Propontis, where he remained for years till recalled by Theophilus, Michael's successor. His orthodoxy led to another flogging and imprisonment. He reluctantly accompanied Theophilus in his campaigns against the Arabs. Methodius was chosen patriarch of Constantinople in 842 by the influence of Theodora, and held the office till his death, June 14, 846. He was very zealous in defence of image-worship and against the iconoclasts. His works, which are neither numerous nor important, chiefly consist of orations and penitential canons. They appeared in the Antwerp edition of the Opera of St. Dionysius the Areopagite, 1634, folio, Greek and Latin.—S. D.
METHODIUS and CYRILLUS. See Cyril.
METIUS, Adrian, a Dutch mathematician, astronomer, and military engineer, son of Anton Metius, was born at Alkmaer on the 9th of December, 1571, and died at Franeker on the 26th of September, 1635. In 1598 he was appointed professor of mathematics in the university of Franeker, which post he held until his death. He made considerable improvements in the astronomical instruments of his time, and wrote several mathematical works.—W. J. M. R.
METIUS, Anton, a Dutch military engineer of the sixteenth century, is said to have first found the approximate value, 113:355, of the ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference. He constructed and repaired many fortresses in Holland with great skill, and distinguished himself at the defence of Alkmaer in 1573.—W. J. M. R.
METIUS, Jacob, younger son of Anton Metius, is one of the persons for whom the invention of the refracting telescope is claimed. He is alleged to have discovered its principle by the accidental combination of a concave and a convex lens in 1609, and to have kept it secret from all except one of his brothers, called Anton, and Prince Maurice of Nassau, until he was on the point of death, when he revealed it to his confessor.—(See Lippersheim and Galileo.)—W. J. M. R.
METON, an Athenian astronomer, who lived in the fifth century b.c., was the discoverer of the important fact that two hundred and thirty-five lunations are almost exactly equal to nineteen solar years. This period is called from his name the Metonic cycle.—W. J. M. R.
METTENLEITER, Johann Michael, a celebrated German engraver and lithographer, was born at Grosskuchen in 1765. He learnt engraving of his elder brother Jacob (an engraver of some ability, born 1750 at Grosskuchen; died 1825 at St. Petersburg), with whom he went to Rome in 1775. He returned to Germany in 1782, and settled in Munich, where he engraved numerous book-plates, religious subjects, and portraits. The promise held out by the newly-discovered art of lithography of a more rapid means of multiplying designs than the ordinary method of engraving, attracted the attention of Mettenleiter, who made innumerable experiments before he acquired a knowledge of the process of Senefelder. Eventually he adopted a process differing in many respects from that of the inventor of lithography. Mettenleiter was the first to bring the art to a practical bearing for artistic purposes, and he founded an important lithographic establishment at Munich. He also organized for the Emperor Alexander a lithographic office in connection with the military department, Warsaw. Mettenleiter was a member of the Munich Art Academy and court engraver. He died in 1845.—J. T—e.
METTERNICH, Clemens Wenzel Nepemuk Lothar, Prince, Duke of Portella, a celebrated Austrian statesman, was born at Coblentz on the 15th of May, 1773. His father was an Austrian nobleman, high in the diplomatic service of his country, and the young Metternich with his talents and fascinating manners entered public life under the best auspices. At twenty-eight he was appointed Austrian minister at Dresden, whence, after the lapse of two years, he was sent to represent Austria at the court of Prussia, then vacillating between peace and war with France. He had given such proofs of capacity that, after Austerlitz, he was made ambassador at Paris. "You are very young," said Napoleon to him, according to M. Capefigue, "to represent so powerful a monarchy." "Your majesty," replied Metternich characteristically, "was not older at Austerlitz." Metternich was appreciated at Paris and enjoyed his residence there, nor among the statesmen of Europe was there one perhaps who felt less bitterly towards France and its sovereign. When the war of 1809 broke out between France and Austria, Metternich returned to Vienna, and in the crisis of Austrian affairs after the terrible defeat at Wagram, was made prime minister. To secure peace with France and procure breathing time for the rescue of Austria, political and financial, he negotiated the marriage of the Archduchess Maria Louisa with Napoleon, nor did he easily forget the obligations which this alliance imposed, although not willing to sacrifice everything to it. After the retreat from Russia and the rising of Germany, Metternich plied Napoleon with the best advice; but the emperor would not consent to reasonable terms, and Metternich prepared for war. In the summer of 1813 he offered Napoleon the frontiers of the Alps and the Rhine, the retention of Italy and Holland, and it was only when these terms remained unaccepted that Austria joined the coalition against France. Even after Leipsic, when he was created a prince of the empire, Metternich offered the frontier of the Alps and the Rhine, though this time, naturally, without Holland and Italy; and so late as the congress of Chatillon he was for a peace that would not, or need not, humiliate France. When Napoleon had fallen the first time, it was Metternich who secured for Vienna the honour of being the scene of the congress which was to organize a European peace, and he joined Talleyrand and Lord Castlereagh in resisting
