Melville, Andrew, 1545-1622, Scottish religious reformer and scholar. He studied abroad, came under the influence of Theodore Beza, and was a professor at Geneva. He was principal (1574-80) of the Univ. of Glasgow; in 1580 he became principal of St. Mary's College, St. Andrews, and in 1590 he was made rector of St. Andrews. He reorganized the Scottish universities and greatly broadened their educational scope. However, Melville's greater task was the molding of the Scottish church; upon him fell the mantle of John Knox. He was entrusted (1575) with drawing up The Second Book of Discipline and was largely responsible for the introduction of a presbyterian system into the somewhat tentative church organization developed by Knox. A foe of prelacy and of royal supremacy, Melville asserted the independence of the church, which brought him into conflict with the court party of James VI (later James I of England). He was called before the privy council on a charge of treason in 1584 and fled to England, but shortly returned to Scotland. He was several times moderator of the general assembly. Melville's struggle to protect the independence of the Scottish church continued. In 1606 he and other clergymen were summoned to confer with James I, but no settlement was reached. Melville offended the court by his harsh criticism of the king and particularly by a Latin epigram directed against Anglican practices. In 1607 he was committed to the Tower of London, where he remained for four years. On his release he was allowed to teach at Sedan, France, a leading Calvinist center. Melville wrote a number of Latin poems of some merit. The standard biography is that of Thomas McCrie (1819).

Melville, Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount, 1742-1811, British lawyer and politician. He was solicitor general for Scotland (1766-75), entered Parliament in 1774, and became lord advocate in 1775. During the American Revolution he favored harsh punishment of the colonists and considered Lord North much too conciliatory. A close friend and lieutenant of William Pitt the younger, he displayed remarkable administrative talents as treasurer of the navy (1783-1800), member of the board of control for India (1784-1801), home secretary (1791-94), secretary for war during the early Napoleonic Wars (1794-1801), and first lord of the admiralty (1804-5). He was impeached (1806), charged with mismanagement of navy funds, and despite acquittal he never returned to office.

Melville, Herman, 1819-91, American author, b. New York City, considered one of the great American writers and a major figure in world literature.

Early Life and Works

Born into an impoverished family of distinguished Dutch and English colonial descent, Melville was 12 when his father died. He left school at 15, worked at a variety of jobs, and in 1839 signed on as a cabin boy on a ship bound for Liverpool, an experience reflected in his romance Redburn. In 1841-42 he spent 18 months on a whaler, but intolerable hardships on board caused him and a companion to escape from the ship at the Marquesas Islands. The two were captured by a tribe of cannibals, by whom they were well treated. After being rescued by an Australian whaler, Melville spent some time in Tahiti and other Pacific islands before shipping home in 1844.

The immediate results of his experiences were Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846), Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas (1847), as well as Redburn (1849), all fresh, exuberant, and immensely popular romances. In 1847, Melville married Elizabeth Shaw, the daughter of Lemuel Shaw, Chief Justice of Massachusetts. The popularity of his books brought him prosperity, business trips to Europe, and admission to literary circles in New York City. In 1850 he bought a farm near Pittsfield, Mass., and became friends with his neighbor Nathaniel Hawthorne. The allegorical implications evident in his romances Mardi: and a Voyage Thither (1849) and White-Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War (1850) reached full development in Melville's masterpiece, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (1851).

Moby-Dick

The story of a deranged whaling captain's obsessive voyage to find and destroy the great white whale that had ripped off his leg, the novel is at once an exciting sea story, a sociological critique of various American class and racial prejudices, a repository of information about whales and whaling, and a philosophical inquiry into the nature of good and evil, of man and his fate. The novel is heavily symbolic, and many critical formulations have been made as to the meaning of its central symbol, the great white whale Moby-Dick himself. Moby-Dick is greatly enhanced by Melville's rhythmic, rhetorical prose style. Although it is now considered one of the greatest of all novels, Moby-Dick was misunderstood and ill-received in its time. Readers were confused by the book's symbolism, and they failed to grasp Melville's complex view of the world.

Later Works and Life

Like Moby-Dick, Pierre; or, The Ambiguities (1852), a psychological study of guilt and frustrated good, was disregarded by the public. Disheartened by debts, ill health, and the failure to win an audience, Melville became absorbed in mysticism. He was unable to accept the optimism of transcendentalism, for he was always able to see the cruel as well as the beautiful in nature. Although he searched for a faith that would satisfy his yearning for the Absolute, he never found one. Melville continued to produce important works in The Piazza Tales (1856), a collection which includes "Benito Cereno" and "Bartleby the Scrivener," and The Confidence Man: His Masquerade (1857), a pessimistic satire on materialism.

Melville was forced to sell his farm, and in 1866 he secured a poorly paying position in New York City as a district inspector of customs, a job he held for 19 years. His late works include the volumes of poetry Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866) and John Marr and Other Sailors (1888) and the long poem Clarel (1876). However, he wrote no more fiction until his last years when he composed the posthumously published novella Billy Budd, Foretopman (1924), the tragedy of an innocent. Melville died in poverty and obscurity. Although neglected for many years, he was rediscovered around 1920 and has been enthusiastically studied by critics and scholars ever since. Many of his unpublished works were issued posthumously, notably The Apple Tree Table (1922), a collection of magazine sketches; Journal of a Visit to London and the Continent (1948); and Journal of a Visit to Europe and the Levant (1955).

Melville, Sir James, 1535-1617, Scottish diplomat. He was a page to Mary Queen of Scots in France and, after her return to Scotland, was employed as Mary's representative at the court of Elizabeth I of England. He later performed important diplomatic missions for James VI. His memoirs, written after James's accession (1603) to the English throne (as James I) and first published in 1683, are one of the principal sources for the history of the period.

Melville, Lake, saltwater lake, 1,133 sq mi (2,934 sq km), SE Labrador, N.L., Canada, extending c.120 mi (190 km) inland from Hamilton Inlet, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean. It receives the Churchill River in Goose Bay, its southwest arm, and the Naskaupi River. Rigolet, a Hudson's Bay Company post, is on the lake.

formerly Melville Sound

Body of water, northern Canada. Located in the Arctic Archipelago, between Melville and Victoria islands, the sound is 250 mi (400 km) long and 100 mi (160 km) wide. Its discovery, when reached from the east (1819–20) by William E. Parry and from the west (1850–54) by Robert McClure, proved the existence of the Northwest Passage. The sound is navigable only under favourable weather conditions.

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orig. Herman Melvill

(born Aug. 1, 1819, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died Sept. 28, 1891, New York City) U.S. writer. Born to a wealthy New York family that suffered great financial losses, Melville had little formal schooling and began a period of wanderings at sea in 1839. In 1841 he sailed on a whaler bound for the South Seas; the next year he jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands. His adventures in Polynesia were the basis of his successful first novels, Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847). After his allegorical fantasy Mardi (1849) failed, he quickly wrote Redburn (1849) and White-Jacket (1850), about the rough life of sailors. Moby-Dick (1851), his masterpiece, is both an intense whaling narrative and a symbolic examination of the problems and possibilities of American democracy; it brought him neither acclaim nor reward when published. Increasingly reclusive and despairing, he wrote Pierre (1852), which, intended as a piece of domestic “ladies” fiction, became a parody of that popular genre, Israel Potter (1855), The Confidence-Man (1857), and magazine stories, including “Bartleby the Scrivener” (1853) and “Benito Cereno” (1855). After 1857 he wrote verse. In 1866 a customs-inspector position finally brought him a secure income. He returned to prose for his last work, the novel Billy Budd, Foretopman, which remained unpublished until 1924. Neglected for much of his career, Melville came to be regarded by modern critics as one of the greatest American writers.

Learn more about Melville, Herman with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Feb. 11, 1833, Augusta, Me., U.S.—died July 4, 1910, Sorrento) U.S. jurist. After graduating from Bowdoin College and Harvard Law School, he built a major legal practice in Chicago (from 1856), where he became prominent in Democratic Party politics. Although unknown nationally, he was appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1888 by Pres. Grover Cleveland; he would remain on the Court until his death. His colleagues included Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and John Marshall Harlan. He wrote the Court's opinion in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Co., which declared a federal income tax unconstitutional. He also served on the Hague Court of International Arbitration (1900–10).

Learn more about Fuller, Melville (Weston) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Dec. 10, 1851, Adams Center, N.Y., U.S.—died Dec. 26, 1931, Lake Placid, Fla.) U.S. librarian. He graduated from Amherst College in 1874, whereupon he became acting librarian there. In 1876 he published A Classification and Subject Index for Cataloguing and Arranging the Books and Pamphlets of a Library, in which he outlined the Dewey Decimal Classification system. He was one of the founders of the American Library Association and of Library Journal (both 1876). He set up the School of Library Economy, the first U.S. institution for training librarians. He also reorganized the N.Y. State Library (1889–1906) and established the system of traveling libraries and picture collections. A cofounder of the Spelling Reform Assn., he respelled his own name.

Learn more about Dewey, Melvil(le Louis Kossuth) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Island in the Timor Sea, off the coast of Northern Territory, Australia. It is 80 mi (130 km) long and 55 mi (88 km) wide, with an area of 2,240 sq mi (5,800 sq km). It was sighted by the Dutch navigator Abel Janszoon Tasman in 1644; the British built Fort Dundas there in 1824. Melville Island, known to Aborigines as Yermalner, is one of the few areas in Australia still occupied by its original Aboriginal peoples, the Tiwi, and in 1978 ownership of the island passed from the Australian government to the Tiwi Land Council.

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orig. Herman Melvill

(born Aug. 1, 1819, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died Sept. 28, 1891, New York City) U.S. writer. Born to a wealthy New York family that suffered great financial losses, Melville had little formal schooling and began a period of wanderings at sea in 1839. In 1841 he sailed on a whaler bound for the South Seas; the next year he jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands. His adventures in Polynesia were the basis of his successful first novels, Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847). After his allegorical fantasy Mardi (1849) failed, he quickly wrote Redburn (1849) and White-Jacket (1850), about the rough life of sailors. Moby-Dick (1851), his masterpiece, is both an intense whaling narrative and a symbolic examination of the problems and possibilities of American democracy; it brought him neither acclaim nor reward when published. Increasingly reclusive and despairing, he wrote Pierre (1852), which, intended as a piece of domestic “ladies” fiction, became a parody of that popular genre, Israel Potter (1855), The Confidence-Man (1857), and magazine stories, including “Bartleby the Scrivener” (1853) and “Benito Cereno” (1855). After 1857 he wrote verse. In 1866 a customs-inspector position finally brought him a secure income. He returned to prose for his last work, the novel Billy Budd, Foretopman, which remained unpublished until 1924. Neglected for much of his career, Melville came to be regarded by modern critics as one of the greatest American writers.

Learn more about Melville, Herman with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Feb. 11, 1833, Augusta, Me., U.S.—died July 4, 1910, Sorrento) U.S. jurist. After graduating from Bowdoin College and Harvard Law School, he built a major legal practice in Chicago (from 1856), where he became prominent in Democratic Party politics. Although unknown nationally, he was appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1888 by Pres. Grover Cleveland; he would remain on the Court until his death. His colleagues included Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and John Marshall Harlan. He wrote the Court's opinion in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Co., which declared a federal income tax unconstitutional. He also served on the Hague Court of International Arbitration (1900–10).

Learn more about Fuller, Melville (Weston) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Melville is a town in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 1,376 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Opelousas–Eunice Micropolitan Statistical Area.

Geography

Melville is located at (30.693351, -91.745506).

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 1.3 square miles (3.3 km²), of which, 1.2 square miles (3.2 km²) of it is land and 0.04 square miles (0.1 km²) of it (2.34%) is water.

It is mostly flat land surrounded by a ring levee to protect it from flooding from the Atchafalaya River.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there were 1,376 people, 542 households, and 363 families residing in the town. The population density was 1,097.6 people per square mile (425.0/km²). There were 648 housing units at an average density of 516.9/sq mi (200.2/km²). The racial makeup of the town was 52.47% White, 45.78% African American, 0.87% Asian, and 0.87% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.74% of the population.

There were 542 households out of which 32.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 40.6% were married couples living together, 20.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 33.0% were non-families. 31.0% of all households were made up of individuals and 15.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.54 and the average family size was 3.17.

In the town the population was spread out with 29.9% under the age of 18, 8.9% from 18 to 24, 24.3% from 25 to 44, 23.2% from 45 to 64, and 13.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females there were 83.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 76.2 males.

The median income for a household in the town was $18,487, and the median income for a family was $20,625. Males had a median income of $22,083 versus $15,833 for females. The per capita income for the town was $8,881. About 35.6% of families and 40.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 47.2% of those under age 18 and 37.7% of those age 65 or over.

References

External links

• Melville, Louisiana. City-data.com. Retrieved on 2006-07-08..