MELGAR, Mariano (mel-gar'), Peruvian poet, born in Arequipa in 1791; died in Cuzco, 12 March, 1815. From his childhood he gave proofs of great talent, and at eight years of age he had mastered Latin, and became teacher of his own schoohnates. His parents destined him for the church, but, deciding to study law, he went to Lima, was graduated, and began to practise. Not-withstandinghis good prospects in that city, he returned to Arequipa, having conceived an attachment for a young lady there, but, on being disappointed in love, he sought consolation in poetry, which he had cultivated since his childhood. He related his misfortunes in his celebrated " Quejas," and translated Ovid's "Art of Forgetting." While Melgar was in the country near Chuquibamba in 1814, the revolution of Cuzco began, and he immediately joined the patriot forces. He left Arequipa with the army, entered Cuzco with General Pumacahua, and, after gathering all the, revolutionary forces, they met General Juan Ramirez near Umachiri, 11 March, 1815, and were totally defeated. Melgar fought as chief of artillery, was taken prisoner, and shot the next day. Before his death his confessor offered him pardon if he would denounce his accomplices, but he refused indignantly, and, after smoking a cigarette, gave the order to fire. His poems were numerous, but the greater part have been lost, as they were preserved only by tradition, till they were published successively in the "Republicano" of Arequipa from 1840 to 1845. In 1878 a collection of his compositions was printed in Arequipa. The ladies of that town still sing his plaintive "Despedidas."