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MEEIVALE MERLIN 409 persons obtain constant employment. Lime- stone is also quarried. Oats, barley, and pota- toes are the chief crops. Capital, Dolgelly. MERIVALE. I. John Herman, an English au- thor, born in Exeter, Aug. 5, 1779, died April 25, 1844. He studied at St. John's college, Cambridge, but took no degree, on account of his being a Presbyterian. He practised in the court of chancery, was commissioner in bank- ruptcy from 1831, and published several vol- umes of chancery reports, and a poem, " Or- lando in Eoncesvalles." A collection of his " Poems, Original and Translated," appeared in 1841. II. Herman, an English author, son of the preceding, born in Devonshire in 1806, died in London, Feb. 9, 1874. He was called to the bar in 1832, and subsequently appoint- ed professor of political economy in Oxford university. He was made under-secretary of state for the colonies in 1848, and for India in 1859. He has published " Lectures on Colo- nization and Colonies" (2 vols., 1841-'2; new ed., 1861), " Historical Studies" (1865), and, in conjunction with Sir H. B. Edwardes, a "Life of Sir Henry Lawrence " (London, 1873). III. Charles, an English author, brother of the pre- ceding, born in 1808. He graduated at Cam- bridge in 1830, was select preacher before the university in 1838-'40, Hulsean lecturer in 1861, and Boyle lecturer in 1864-'5. In 1848 he became rector of Lawford, Essex, and in 1869 dean of Ely. He has published " Fall of the Roman Republic " (1853) ; " History of the Romans under the Empire " (7 vols., 1850-'62) ; "The Conversion of the Roman Empire" and "The Conversion of the Northern Nations" (Boyle lectures for 1864 and 1865); and a " Translation of Homer's Iliad " into English rhymed verse (2 vols. 8vo, 1869). MERIWETHER, a W. county of Georgia, bounded E. by Flint river, and drained by sev- eral creeks; area, 525 sq. in.; pop. in 1870, 13,756, of whom 7,369 were colored. The county is noted for its medicinal springs. The Warm Springs discharge 1,400 gallons a minute at a temperature of 90. The chief produc- tions in 1870 were 33,098 bushels of wheat, 200,830 of Indian corn, 23,776 of oats, 27,648 of sweet p.otatoes, 83,480 Ibs. of butter, and 8,230 bales of cotton. There were 994 horses, 1,763 mules and asses, 7,058 cattle, 3,220 sheep, and 10,835 swine ; 13 flour mills, and 2 lum- ber mills. Capital, Greenville. MERLE D'AIBIGNE, Jean Henri, a Swiss clergy- man and historian, born at Eaux Vives, near Geneva, Aug. 16, 1794, died in Geneva, Oct. 21, 1872. He was descended from a distin- guished Huguenot family which was driven out of France by the revocation of the edict of Nantes. He was educated in Geneva, and attended Neander's lectures in Berlin. In 1817 he was ordained, and for six years following was pastor of the French Calvinist church in Hamburg. In 1823 he removed to Brussels, where for seven years he was pastor of a Prot- estant congregation, and court preacher to the king of the Netherlands during his stays in that city. After the revolution of 1830 he returned to Geneva and took the chair of ecclesiastical history, and the general direction of a new theological institution founded by the evan- gelical society of that city. Some years later he began his principal work, Histoire de la re- formation au XVl e siecle (5 vols., Paris, 1835- '53). More than 200,000 copies of the English translation of this work have been sold in Great Britain, and at least twice that number in the United States. His supplementary His- toire de la reformation au temps de Calvin (5 vols., Paris, 1862-'8) was to have extended to seven volumes, but was not completed at his death. He also published Le protecteur, on la republique d? Angleterre aux jours de Cromwell (Paris, 1848) ; " Germany, England, and Scot- land, or Recollections of a Swiss Minister" (London, 1848) ; Trois siecles de luttes en Ecosse, ou deux rois et deuxroyaumes (1850) ; and sev- eral discourses, and papers in the Archives du Christianisme, most of which have been trans- lated into English. In 1870 he published a pamphlet entitled Le concile et Vinfaillibilite. MERLIN, a European falcon, of the genus hy- potriorchis (Boie), which differs from the genus falco (Linn.) chiefly in the more lengthened and slender tarsi, and long slender toes. This bird (H. cesalon, Gmel.) is about a foot long, with an extent of wings of 29 in., the male being a little smaller ; it is the smallest of the British falcons, of pleasing colors, compact and graceful in form, with large head and short strong bill, the closed wings about 1^ in. short- er than the tail. In the male, the upper parts are deep grayish blue, each feather with a black Merlin (Hypotriorchis sesalon). central line, the tail barred with black, and the lower parts light reddish yellow with oblong blackish brown spots ; in the female, the upper parts are grayish brown with darker shafts, the tail barred with pale reddish, and the lower parts yellowish white with large longitudinal