The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 308

MENSCHIKOFF, ALEXANDER DANILOVITCH, Russian soldier and statesman, born in humble life at Moscow; became servant to Lefort, on whose death he succeeded him as favourite of Peter the Great, whom he accompanied to Holland and England; in the Swedish War (1702-1713) he won renown, and was created field-marshal on the field of Pultowa; he introduced to the Czar Catharine, afterwards czarina, whom he captured at Marienburg, and when Peter died secured the throne for her; during her reign and her successor's he governed Russia, but his ambition led the n.o.bles to banish him to Siberia 1727 (1672-1729).

MENSCHIKOFF, ALEXANDER SERGEIEVITCH, general, great-grandson of the former, served in the wars of 1812-15, in the Turkish campaign of 1828, was amba.s.sador to the Porte in 1853, and largely responsible for the Crimean War, in which he commanded at Alma, Inkermann, and Sebastopol (1789-1869).

MENTEITH, LAKE OF, a small beautiful loch in Perths.h.i.+re, 13 m. W. of Stirling, with three islets, on one of which stood a priory where, as a child, Mary Stuart spent 1547-48; on another stood the stronghold of the earls.

MENTHOL, a crystalline substance obtained from the oil of peppermint, used in nervous affections, such as neuralgia, as a counter-irritant.

MENTONE (8), town and seaport in France, on the Mediterranean, 1 m.

from the Italian border; was under the princes of Monaco till 1848, when it subjected itself to Sardinia, which afterwards handed it over to France; protected by the Alps, the climate is delightful, and renders it a favourite health resort in winter and spring; it exports olive-oil and fruit.

MENTOR, a friend of Ulysses, and the tutor of his son Telemachus, whose form and voice Athena a.s.sumed in order to persuade his pupil to retain and maintain the courage and astuteness of his father.

MENZEL, ADOLF, German painter, born at Breslau, professor at Berlin; best known for his historical pictures and drawings; _b_. 1815.

MENZEL, WOLFGANG, German author and critic, born in Silesia; wrote on German history, literature, and poetry, as well as general history, and maintained a vigorous polemic against all who by their writings or their politics sought to subvert the Christian religion or the orthodox policy of the German monarchies (1789-1873).

MEPHISTOPHELES, the impersonation in Goethe's "Faust" of the modern devil, the incarnation of the spirit of universal scepticism and scoffing, who can see not only no beauty in goodness but no deforming in iniquity, alike without reverence for G.o.d and fear of his adversary, blind as a mole to all worth and all unworth throughout the universe, yet knowing and boastful of knowledge, by means of which he sees only "the ridiculous, the unsuitable, the bad, but for the solemn, the n.o.ble, the worthy is blind as his ancient mother."

MERCATOR, a celebrated Dutch geographer who has given name to a projection of the earth's surface on a plane (1512-1592).

MERCENARIES, originally hired soldiers as distinguished from feudal levies, now bodies of foreign troops in the service of the State; the Scots Guards in France from the 15th to 18th centuries were famous, and Swiss auxiliaries once belonged to most European armies; William III. had Dutch mercenaries in England; under the Georges, German were hired and were used in the American War, the Irish rebellion, and the Napoleonic struggle; in the Crimean War German, Swiss, and Italian were enrolled.

MERCIA, one of the three chief kingdoms of early England; founded by Anglian settlers in the Upper Trent Valley (now South Staffords.h.i.+re) In the 6th century; it rose to greatness under Penda 626-655, subsequently succeeded Northumberland in the supremacy, but after the death of Cenwulf 819, waned in turn before Wess.e.x and the Danes.

MERCURY, the Roman name for the Greek Hermes, the son of Jupiter and Maia, the messenger of the G.o.ds, the patron of merchants and travellers, and the conductor of the souls of the dead to the nether world.

MERCURY, an interior planet of the Solar system, whose orbit is nearest the sun, the greatest distance being nearly 43,000,000 m. and the least over 28,000,000, is one-seventeenth the size of the earth, but is of greater density, and accomplishes its revolution in about 84 days; it is visible just before the sun rises and after it sets, but that very seldom owing to the sun's neighbourhood.

MER-DE-GLACE, the great glacier of the Alps near Chamouni, was the subject of the experiments of Professor J. D. Forbes of Edinburgh about 1843, and on which the movement of the glaciers was first observed.

MEREDITH, GEORGE, poet and novelist, born in Hamps.h.i.+re; began his literary career 1851 as a poet, in which capacity he has since distinguished himself and given expression to his deepest personal convictions, but it is chiefly as a novelist he is most widely known and is generally judged of; as a novel-writer he occupies a supreme place, and is reckoned superior in that department to all his contemporaries in the same line by the unanimous consent of one and all of them; his novels, however, appeal only to a select few, but by them they are regarded with unbounded admiration, some giving preference to this and others to that of the series; "The Ordeal of Richard Feveril," published in 1859, is by many considered his best, though it is over "The Egoist"

that Louis Stevenson breaks out into raptures; Meredith has most sympathetic insights into nature and life, has a marvellous power in a.n.a.lysing and construing character, and shows himself alive to all the great immediate interests of humanity; _b_. 1828.

MEREDITH, OWEN, the _nom de plume_ a.s.sumed by Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton, from his descent from a Welsh n.o.ble of the name.

MERGUI, a small seaport near the mouth of the Tena.s.serim, British Burma, which exports birds' nests to China.

MERIDIAN, an imaginary great circle pa.s.sing through the poles at right angles to the equator.

MeRIMeE, PROSPER, a great French writer, born in Paris; abandoned law, to which he was bred, for literature; became under Louis Philippe inspector-general of historical doc.u.ments, and travelled in that capacity in the S. and W. of France, publis.h.i.+ng from time to time the fruits of his researches; he wrote in exquisite style stories, historical dissertations, and travels, among other works "Guzla," "Chronicles of Charles IX.," the "History of Don Pedro, King of Castile," "Letters to an Unknown"; he was a man of singularly enigmatic character (1802-1870).

MERIO'NETH (49), a mountainous county of North Wales, ab.u.t.ting on Cardigan Bay, between Carnarvon and Cardigan; lofty peaks, Aran Mowddy, Cader Idris, and Aran Benllyn; rivers, Dee and Dovey, and Lake Bala afford picturesque scenery; the soil is fit only for sheep-grazing; but there are slate and limestone quarries, manganese and gold mines; the county town, Dolgelly (2), on the Wnion, has woollen and tweed manufactures.

MERIVALE, CHARLES, dean of Ely, born at Exeter; held a succession of appointments as lecturer; wrote a history of Rome from its foundation in 753 to the fall of Augustus in 476, but his chief work is the "History of the Romans under the Empire," indispensable as an Introduction to Gibbon (1808-1893).

MERLE D'AUBIGNe, JEAN-HENRI. See D'AUBIGNe, MERLE.

MERLIN, a legendary Welsh prophet and magician, child of a wizard and a princess, who lived in the 5th century, and was subsequently a prominent personage at King Arthur's' court; prophecies attributed to him existed as far back as the 14th century; Tennyson represents him as bewitched by Vivian; legend also tells of a Clydesdale Merlin of the 6th century; his prophecies, published in 1615, include the former; both legends are based on Armorican materials.

MERMAIDS and MERMEN (i. e. sea-maids and sea-men), a cla.s.s of beings fabled to inhabit the sea, with a human body as far as the waist, ending in the tail of a fish; the females of them represented above the surface of the sea combing their long hair with one hand and holding a mirror with the other; they are supposed to be endowed with the gift of prophecy, and are of an amorous temper.

MEROVINGIANS, a name given to the first dynasty that ruled over France, and which derives its name from Merovig, the founder of the family.

MERRILEES, MEG, a half-crazy Border gipsy; one of the characters in Scott's "Guy Mannering."

MERRY MONARCH, a t.i.tle by which Charles II. of England was at one time familiarly known.

MERSEY, river rising in NW. Derbys.h.i.+re, flows westward 70 m. between Lancas.h.i.+re and Ches.h.i.+re to the Irish Sea; is of great commercial importance, having Liverpool on its estuary; its chief tributary is the Irwell, on which stands Manchester.

MERTHYR-TYDVIL (58), industrial town in Glamorgans.h.i.+re, on the Taff, 15 m. NW. of Cardiff; is the centre of great coal-fields and of enormous iron and steel works, which const.i.tute the only industry.

MERV (500), an oasis in Turkestan, belonging to Russia, being conquered in 1883, 60 m. long by 40 broad, producing cereals, cotton, silk, &c.; breeds horses, camels, sheep, with a capital of the same name, on the Transcaspian railway.

MERYON, CHARLES, etcher of street scenes, born at Paris; son of English doctor; died insane (18211868).