Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Melmoth, William (1666-1743)
MELMOTH, WILLIAM, the elder (1666–1743), religious writer and lawyer, born in 1666, was called to the bar on 29 May 1693. His temperament, even in early life, was meditative and introspective (Memoir, pp. 2–3), with a leaning to casuistry, which finds curious expression in some letters which he addressed to his friend John Norris (1657–1711) [q. v.], rector of Bemerton, Wiltshire, when it became necessary to take the oaths to William III (March–May 1693). On 5 June 1699 he was admitted a member of Lincoln's Inn (Addit. MS. Brit. Mus. 8127, f. 2). The theology of the government seems to have convinced him of its legitimacy, and about 1705 he entered into an anonymous correspondence with Archbishop Tenison, urging the closing of all theatres as the sole remedy for the depraved stage. He wrote in a similar strain to Defoe, then engaged with his ‘Review.’ His increasing celebrity as an advocate, however, gradually robbed him of leisure, and, according to his son's statement, he wrote ‘The Great Importance of a Religious Life,’ his chief work, on Sundays ‘in the intervals wrested from the offices of the day.’ The remarkable success of this pamphlet was due in a measure to its style, but chiefly to its unaffected hedonistic piety, the whole forming a graceful and ingenious amplification of the theme, ‘Man was made for happiness: belief promises this; therefore, belief is best.’ He published it anonymously in 1711, and shortly afterwards a collection of prayers and a brief essay on the sacrament. In the edition of 1713 these are added as an appendix to the ‘Importance.’ The authorship remained a secret during his life, nor did the short character by his son, prefixed to the editions after his death, guide curiosity. John Perceval, first earl of Egmont [q. v.], was generally regarded as the author. Walpole assigned it to him unquestioningly (Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors, 1806, v. 251). Nichols in his edition of Swift (1779) follows Walpole, but corrects the error in 1782 in his ‘Anecdotes of Bowyer.’ Forty-two thousand copies of the work were sold between 1766 and 1784. It has been often reprinted and translated into French and Welsh.
In June 1719 Melmoth was made a bencher of Lincoln's Inn, and on the death of Thomas Vernon [q. v.] in 1726, he was entrusted, along with Peere-Williams, with the editing of his ‘Reports.’ In 1730 he was treasurer for the year at Lincoln's Inn. The intended publication of his own ‘Reports’ he never carried into effect. They are now among the Additional MSS. in the British Museum (8127). Melmoth died on 6 April 1743, and on the 14th was buried in the cloister under the chapel, Lincoln's Inn. After the death of his first wife, whose maiden name was Sambroke, and who seems to have left him some property, he married Catherine, daughter of Samuel Rolt of Bedford, and granddaughter on her mother's side of Dr. Thomas Coxe [q. v.] His son William [q. v.], by his second wife, is noticed separately.
A portrait, designed by Richardson, is prefixed to the first edition of the ‘Great Importance of a Religious Life,’ 1711 (Bromley, Cat.), and another, by Schiavonetti, to the ‘Memoir’ written by the son.
[The chief authority for Melmoth's life is the memoir by his son, Memoir of a late eminent Advocate, London, 1796. It contains what is left of his correspondence with Norris, Tenison, and Defoe, and a fragment of a diary. The date of his death is, however, wrongly given as 1748. Later biographies simply follow the Memoir with more or less accuracy. See also Fitzosborne's Letters, 1805; Letters, xi. and lxvii.; Gent. Mag. 1797, pt. i. 586–7; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. 1812, iii. 38–9; Supplement to Swift, ii. 442; Anecdotes of Bowyer, 1782, pp. 381–2; Cooper's edition of the Importance, 1849, Pref. pp. viii, 176; Noble's Continuation of Granger, 1806, iii. 320–1.]