an athlete nor a diligent scholar. In 1833 he entered as a commoner at University College, Oxford, but shortly gained an open scholarship on Sir Simon Bennet's foundation. He took a second class in literæ humaniores in 1836, and graduated B.A. on 26 Jan. 1837, and M.A. on 24 Oct. 1839. He was a good speaker at the Union, as he had been at the debating society at Eton, but obtained less distinction in the schools than his talents seemed to merit. He became an honorary fellow of his college in 1872, and received the honorary degree of D.C.L. 17 June 1874.
Mellish was admitted a student of the Inner Temple 6 Nov. 1837, and read in the chambers of Spencer Walpole, John Unthank, and Crompton. For eight years he practised as a special pleader, and on 9 June 1848 he was called to the bar and joined the northern circuit. He rapidly obtained a good mercantile business, became a queen's counsel in 1861, and quitted the lead of his circuit after a few years to devote himself to a very heavy leading practice in London. Neither the bent of his mind nor the state of his health fitted him for the strain of nisi prius work, though he appeared for one of the defendants in the prosecution of Overend, Gurney & Co. His forte lay in arguments in banco, in chancery, and in the House of Lords. More than once he refused a puisne judgeship, but in 1870, on the death of Sir George Giffard, he was appointed a lord justice of appeal in chancery, was knighted, and sworn of the privy council. The experiment of appointing a common-law practitioner to so important a post in chancery was bold, but it was justified by its success, and the court, which consisted of him and Lord Justice James, continued for some years to give judgments of the highest importance and value. All his life, however, he had suffered from gout, and in spite of his great fortitude under severe pain in court, he was frequently disabled from work. He died unmarried at his house, 33 Lowndes Square, London, on 15 June 1877. His chief judicial fault was an eager habit of controversially interrupting the arguments of counsel, but his learning was profound, his intellect logical and clear, and his character impartial and amiable.
[For a lengthy estimate of his character by Lord Selborne see Law Mag. and Rev. 4th ser. iii. 62–4. See also G. K. Richards in Law. Mag. 4th ser. iii. 55; Solicitors' Journal, 23 June 1877.]
MELLITUS (d. 624), first bishop of London and third archbishop of Canterbury, was leader of the second band of missionaries sent by Pope Gregory the Great to reinforce Augustine at Canterbury in 601. According to Bæda he was of noble birth (Hist. Eccles. lib. ii. cap. 7), and he was styled abbot in Pope Gregory's letters (Ep. lib. xi. cap. 54, &c.) It has been suggested that he was abbot either of St. Andrew's on the Cælian Hill, an office previously held by Augustine, or of the church in the Lateran assigned to the Benedictines (Stubbs, Dict. Christian Biog.); but the title may merely designate his relation to the band of monks who accompanied him to England (Ep. lib. xi. 54, 59, &c.) Extant commendatory letters from the pope, written on behalf of Mellitus and his associates, serve to mark the route which they followed. Gregory's epistles are addressed to the bishops of Vienne, Arles, Lyons, Gap, Toulon, Marseilles, Chalons on the Saone, Metz, Paris, Rouen, Angers, to the kings of the Franks, Theodoric, Theodebert, and Clothair, and to Queen Brunichild (ib. lib. xi. 54–62). Those of Mellitus's companions whose names are preserved were Laurentius, who had already been in Britain, Justus, Paulinus, and Rufinianus, who came for the first time. By their hands Gregory sent ‘all things necessary for divine worship and the service of the church, namely sacred vessels and altar-cloths, ornaments for the churches, and vestments for the priests and clerks, likewise relics of the holy apostles and martyrs and many books’ (Hist. Eccles. i. 29). Elmham, writing in the fifteenth century, gives a list of these gifts and books (Hist. Mon. S. Aug. Cant. ed. Hardwick, pp. 96 sqq.) Tradition affirms that two copies of the ‘Gospels,’ one at Corpus College, Cambridge, the other at the Bodleian Library, and a psalter in ‘Cott. MS. Vesp.’ A. L. (Wanley in Hickes's Thesaurus, ii. 172; Bosworth, A.-S. Gospels, Pref. p. xi), were brought by Mellitus; but all these manuscripts belong to a later date (Palæog. Soc. Facsimiles, vol. ii. pl. 19, p. 33; Macray, Annals of the Bodleian, p. 24). Mellitus was further charged with the delivery of a number of letters to Augustine and others of Gregory's friends in Britain. Gregory did not hear from Mellitus as soon as he expected, and he wrote another letter (Hist. Eccles. i. 30) asking for news of his journey and giving an answer to Augustine's question on the propriety of using the temples of idols for divine worship. This letter is wrongly dated 17 June; Mellitus did not leave Rome till 22 June (Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 38).
Augustine consecrated Mellitus and Justus bishops (Hist. Eccles. ii. 3) between 601 and 604, the year of Augustine's death. Before his consecration Mellitus probably joined
