Herman Charles Merivale
Encyclopedia
Herman Merivale
Herman Merivale CB was an English civil servant and historian. He was the elder brother of Charles Merivale, and father of the poet Herman Charles Merivale....
. He also used the pun
Pun
The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...
ning pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
Felix Dale.
A barrister
Barrister
A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...
, writer, and civil servant who was Permanent Under-Secretary of the India Office
India Office
The India Office was a British government department created in 1858 to oversee the colonial administration of India, i.e. the modern-day nations of Bangladesh, Burma, India, and Pakistan, as well as territories in South-east and Central Asia, the Middle East, and parts of the east coast of Africa...
, he was educated at Harrow School
Harrow School
Harrow School, commonly known simply as "Harrow", is an English independent school for boys situated in the town of Harrow, in north-west London.. The school is of worldwide renown. There is some evidence that there has been a school on the site since 1243 but the Harrow School we know today was...
and Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College , founded in 1263, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England but founded by a family with strong Scottish connections....
, where Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He invented the roundel form, wrote several novels, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica...
and Charles Bowen
Charles Bowen, Baron Bowen
Charles Synge Christopher Bowen, Baron Bowen QC, PC was an English judge.-Biography:He was born at Woolaston in Gloucestershire, his father, the Rev. Christopher Bowen, originally of Hollymount, County Mayo, being then curate of the parish...
were his contemporaries. He graduated BA
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in 1861. At his father's home he met many distinguished men, including Lord Robert Cecil (afterwards Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
Lord Salisbury
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, KG, GCVO, PC , styled Lord Robert Cecil before 1865 and Viscount Cranborne from June 1865 until April 1868, was a British Conservative statesman and thrice Prime Minister, serving for a total of over 13 years...
), who became a lifelong friend. His friends in literary and dramatic circles included William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist of the 19th century. He was famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society.-Biography:...
, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator...
, Anthony Trollope
Anthony Trollope
Anthony Trollope was one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of his best-loved works, collectively known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire...
, W. S. Gilbert
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...
, Arthur Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
, Edmund Yates
Edmund Yates
Edmund Hodgson Yates was a British novelist and dramatist. He was born in Edinburgh to the actor and theatre manager Frederick Henry Yates and held an appointment for a period of time in the General Post Office as an adult...
, Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
and others.
Following his father's death in 1874 he gave up the law in favour of literature and the theatre. Merivale wrote many farces and burlesques. For John Hollingshead
John Hollingshead
John Hollingshead was an English theatrical impresario, journalist and writer during the latter half of the 19th century. He is best remembered as the first manager of the Gaiety Theatre, London...
he produced The Lady of Lyons Married and Settled performed at the Gaiety Theatre
Gaiety Theatre, London
The Gaiety Theatre, London was a West End theatre in London, located on Aldwych at the eastern end of the Strand. The theatre was established as the Strand Musick Hall , in 1864 on the former site of the Lyceum Theatre. It was rebuilt several times, but closed from the beginning of World War II...
(5 October 1878), and Called There and Back (15 October 1884). The Butler (1886) and The Don (1888) were both written for the actor J. L. Toole. In writing The Don, and other works, Merivale was assisted by his wife, Elizabeth, the daughter of John Pittman, whom he married in London on 13 May 1878.
Suffering from depression for many years, following a breakdown in 1879 he went to Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
on the advice of his physician, and then returned with his health recovered, only to discover that the power of attorney he had left with a defaulting solicitor had cost him his entire fortune.
A few years before his death Merivale became a Roman Catholic. He died suddenly of heart failure on 14 January 1906 at 69 Woodstock Road, Acton
Acton, London
Acton is a district of west London, England, located in the London Borough of Ealing. It is situated west of Charing Cross.At the time of the 2001 census, Acton, comprising the wards of East Acton, Acton Central, South Acton and Southfield, had a population of 53,689 people...
, Middlesex
Middlesex
Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...
, and was buried in his father's grave in Brompton Cemetery
Brompton Cemetery
Brompton Cemetery is located near Earl's Court in South West London, England . It is managed by The Royal Parks and is one of the Magnificent Seven...
. He had no children and his widow was granted a civil-list pension of £50 in 1906.
Works
- A Husband in Clover (1873), farce
- All For Her (1875), drama
- Forget Me Not (1879), drama (with Florence Crauford GroveFlorence Crauford GroveFlorence Crauford Grove was an English mountaineer and author, sometimes known as F. Crauford Grove.-Mountaineer:Grove became an experienced alpinist in the late 1850s and joined the Alpine Club of London soon after it was formed in 1857, later serving as its President from 1884 to 1886...
) - My Experience in a Lunatic Asylum, by a Sane Patient. London: Chatto and Windus (1879)
- Faucit Of Balliol (1882), novel
- The White Pilgrim (1883), drama
- Binko's Blues (1884)
- Florien (1884), drama
- The Butler (1886), drama
- The Don (1888)
- A Life of Thackeray (1891) biography, with Frank T. Marzials
- The Lady of Lyons, drama
- Peacock's Holiday, farce
- A Son of the Soil, drama
- Bar, Stage and Platform, autobiographical memories (1902)