MUEGEB
MUSSET
in 1846. In 1854 he was appointed
Director General of the Geological Survey.
He had the Wollaston medal of the Geo
logical Society, the Copley medal of the
Royal Society, the Brisbane medal of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh, the French
Prix Cuvier, and the orders of St. Anne
and of Stanislaus of Russia. He was
created K.C.B. in 1863, and Baronet three
years later. Sir A. Geikie, who was ortho
dox, is not very candid about his religious
opinions in his Life of Sir JR. J. Murchison
(2 vols., 1875), but he includes a letter to
him from his pious colleague Sedgwick,
written near the close of his life, trusting
that God will give him Christian faith and
hope which he obviously lacks (ii, 338).
D. Oct. 22, 1871.
MURGER, Henri, French poet and dramatist. B. 1822. Murger was the son of a Parisian tailor, and he got little schooling. He secured the position of secretary to Count Tolstoi, of the Russian Embassy, and he began to write poems and dramas of an advanced character. His father disowned him, and, living and struggling for recognition in a poor attic, he became one of the leading Bohemians of Paris (see his Scenes de la vie de Boheme, 1851, which made him very popular). His realistic novels and his comedies were from that date much appreciated, but Murger had ruined his health and died prematurely. " Reponds lui que j ai lu Voltaire," he replies to an imaginary character who suggests that he should see a priest (in his poem Le Testament). D. Jan. 28, 1861.
MURRAY, Professor George Gilbert Aime, M.A., LL.D., D.Litt., F.B.A., F.R.S.L., Hellenist. B. Jan. 2, 1866 (Australia), son of Sir T. A. Murray, President of the Legislative Council of New South Wales. Ed. Merchant Taylors School, London, and Oxford (St. John s College). In 1888 he was elected Fellow of New College, and from 1889 to 1899 he was professor of Greek at Glasgow Univer-
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sity. Since 1908 he has been Regius
Professor of Greek at Oxford, and he has
been a Trustee of the British Museum from
1914. Since the publication of his first
work, A History of Ancient Greek Litera
ture, in 1897, Professor Murray has not
only reached the front rank in the academic
world, but has helped and charmed a much
wider circle of readers by his superb trans
lations of Euripides (1901, etc.). His
Agnostic philosophy is best expounded in
his JKeligio Grammatici (1918), his presi
dential address to the Classical Association.
His religion relates to "the great unknown
purpose which the eternal spirit of man
seems to be working out upon the earth "
(p. 44). He contributed to the E.P.A.
Annual for 1918, 1919, and 1921.
MUSSET, Louis Charles Alfred de,
French poet and dramatist. B. Nov. 11, 1810. Ed. College Henri IV. De Musset graduated with honours, and in 1830 pub lished his first volume of verse, Conies d Espagne et d ltalie. This was followed by his Poesies diverses (1831) and Le spectacle dans tin fauteuil (1832) ; and critics began to speak of him as " the Byron of France." The sceptical note was dominant from the first. He con tinued to produce poetry and comedies until 1833, when his association with George Sand and the painful rupture which followed spoiled his work for a few years. It was while De Musset was in this morbid mood that he wrote his Espoir en Dieu. Its " banal religiosity " (Lanson, Histoire de la litterature francaise, p. 951) does not represent his normal mind or art, and in the later years, when he became himself again, he was plainly Agnostic as to a future life and far removed from Christian doctrines, though always a Theist. His works were collected in ten volumes in 1865. With firmer character De Musset would have been, perhaps, the greatest poet of his time. As it is, the exquisite art of his verse, stories, and literary plays puts him very high in French literature. D. May 2, 1857.
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