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MENGS, ANTON RAFAEL. 



MERCATOR, NICHOLAS. 



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the credit of two very remarkable propositions which appear in Mene- 

 laus, and which have been much used by Carnot and others in the 

 modern extensions of geometry. These are the well-known proposi- 

 tions relating to a transversal which cuts the three sides of a triangle, 

 plane, or spherical. There ara other propositions of great ingenuity ; 

 so that Menelaus, who must be looked on as the successor of Hipparchus 

 and TheoJosius in the school of Greek geometers who treated of the 

 doctrine of the sphere, must also be considered as having gone 

 considerably beyond his predecessors. 



MENGS, ANTON RAFAEL, one of the most distinguished artists 

 of the eighteenth century, was born at Aussig in Bohemia, in 1728. He 

 was scarcely BIX years old when his father, who was himself a painter, 

 though one of very moderate ability, being determined to bring him 

 up to the same profession, whether he had talent or not, adopted a 

 course of education for him more calculated to inspire him with a 

 disgust than with a true relish for it. Being of a most harsh and 

 tyrannical disposition, he compelled the boy to employ himself in 

 drawing the whole day long, allowing him neither recreation nor 

 relaxation from his tasks. In course of time Rafael was instructed by 

 his father in oil-painting, and miniature and enamel-painting, but was 

 still tasked in the same rigorous manner, and frequently received severe 

 chastisement, if he had not completed within the time allotted him 

 which was generally short enough what he had been set to do. In 

 1741 his father quitted Dresden, whither he had been called by 

 Augustus III. (for he was a native of Denmark), and went to Rome, 

 taking young Slengs with him. On his arrival in that city, his father 

 useil to take him every morning to the Vatican, in order that he might 

 there study the productions of Kaflaelle, and would make him remain 

 there the whole day, without other refreshment than a bottle of water 

 and piece of bread, uutil he came to fetch him back in the evening ; 

 nor was he even then allowed to recruit himself from his fatigue, but 

 compelled to revise and finish up the studies he had brought home. 

 This excessive drudgery did not however disgust him with the profes- 

 sion to which he was thus in a manner yoked : still the mode of life 

 it occasioned was prejudicial, inasmuch as it prevented his acquiring 

 other knowledge, and tended to render him shy of all society. In 

 1744 he returned with his father to Dresden, where his talents obtained 

 for him the notice of Augustus, who appointed him court-painter; but 

 according to a stipulation he had previously made, he was permitted 

 to return to Rome, and his father accompanied him. After continuing 

 his -tudies some time louger, he began to distinguish himself by his 

 original compositions, among the rest by a ' Holy Family,' in which 

 the Virgin was painted from a beautiful peasant girl, of whom he 

 became BO enamoured, that he turned Roman Catholic for her sake 

 and married her. After that event he again returned to Dresden, 

 where his pension was raised to a thousand dollars, and he was commis- 

 sioned by the king to paint a large altar for a new chapel ; which he 

 wished to execute at Hume. But on his arrival there, other commis- 

 sions (among which was a copy of Kofiaelle's ' School of Athens,' for 

 Lord Percy, afterwards Duke of Northumberland), and the Seven 

 Years' War, which caused the stoppage of his pension, interfered with 

 the prosecution of the work. In 1757 ho made his first attempt in 

 fresco, a ceiling-piece in St. Kusebio, which was in too simple a style to 

 satisfy the taste of that day. His ' Apollo and the Muses,' another 

 work of the same class, in the Villa Albani, obtained for him much 

 greater renown, and was by his contemporaries regarded as one that 

 would bear comparison with those by the greatest Italian masters. 

 About thia time he became acquainted with Webb, to whom he. com- 

 municated his ideas on art, which the other has been charged with 

 having passed off as his own in his ' Remarks on Poetry and Painting.' 

 MengVs reputation was greatly increased by the numerous works he 

 executed for Charles III. of Spain, by whom he was invited to Madrid 

 in 1761, and remained in that country till 1775, with the exception of 

 an interim of three years, in the course of which he painted the 

 wiling of the Camera de' Papiri at Rome. His pencil was employed 

 in decorating the royal palaces of Spain ; and the Apotheosis of 

 Trajan, in that of Madrid, is considered his chef d'ccuvre. 



After a marriage of the utmost domestic harmony, Mengs lost his 

 wife in 1778. From that time his health began to decline, nor was it 

 long before he followed her to the tomb : he died on the 29th of June 

 in the following year, and was buried by her side in the church of 

 San Michele Grande at Rome. Notwithstanding the great sums he 

 had Deceived during his life, about 250,000 livres, instead of amass- 

 ing money he left scarcely sufficient to defray the expenses of his 

 funeral; but the 'king of Spain bestowed pensions on his two sons, 

 and provided also for his five daughters. Although Mengs's reputation 

 at an artint does not now stand so high as in the last century, he 

 undoubtedly possessed many excellences, and, compared with his 

 immediate contemporaries, deserved the applause showered upon him. 

 Refined taste, much nobleness of idea, correctness of drawing, finished 

 execution, and studied grace are merits of a high rank, which he 

 possessed in an eminent degree ; but though most carefully studied, 

 and in conformity with the principles he laid down for the art, his 

 worki display few of those loftier qualities of mind which the higher 

 branch of historical painting demands. He is in fact a favourable 

 example of a carefully trained painter, whose works are produced in 

 tuilious imitation of those of certain great masters of au earlier age, 

 and he it no more. His writings, which were published after his death 



by the Cavalier d'Azara, contain many excellent precepts, and both 

 practical and critical observations, and have accordingly been translated 

 into the principal modern languages. 



MENNO, SIMON, the founder of the MENNONITBS, a religious sect 

 which sprung up in Holland and Germany about the time of the 

 Reformation, and which is identified by many writers with the sect 

 of the Anabaptists, with whom the Mennonites held several leading 

 doctrines in common. 



Simon Menuo was born at Witmarsum, a village in Friesland, in the 

 year 1505. In 1536 he left the Roman Catholic Church, in which he 

 was a priest, and joined the Anabaptists, among whom he became a 

 teacher in the next year. During the remainder of his life, Menno 

 travelled with his family and preached his doctrines throughout a 

 great part of Germany and Holland, where he gained many proselytes, 

 chiefly from among the Anabaptists. He died in 1561, in the duchy 

 of Holstein. His works were published in one volume folio, at 

 Amsterdam, in 1651. Though he is said to have been a notorious 

 profligate when young, his character after he came forward as a 

 religious teacher was unimpeachable ; and he was possessed of con- 

 siderable genius, some learning, and a persuasive eloquence. His 

 doctrines were free from the anti-social and licentious tenets and the 

 pretensions to inspiration which are ascribed to the Anabaptists ; but 

 he agreed with them in condemning the baptism of infants, in expecting 

 a personal reign of Christ on earth for a thousand years at the Mileo- 

 nium, in excluding magistrates from the Christian Church, and in 

 maintaining that all war was unlawful, that the taking of oaths was 

 prohibited by Christ, and that human science is useless and pernicious 

 to a Christian. But these tenets were so explained and modified by 

 Menno, as to differ very little from the doctrines generally held by 

 the reformed churches. He insisted upon the strictest attention to 

 moral duties, and exercised a most severe discipline upon offenders. 



The followers of Menno very soon split into two sects, the Flemings 

 and the Waterlandians, so called from the countries in which they 

 arose. The latter somewhat relaxed the severe discipline of Menno 

 towards offending members, which the former maintained in all its 

 rigour. The Flemings divided again, on the subject of the treatment 

 of excommunicated persons, into Flandrians and Frieslanders ; and 

 there also arose a third division called Germans. In process of time 

 the greater part of these sects joined the Waterlandians. 



The Mennonites put forth several confessions in the 17th century, 

 the earliest of which is one drawn up by the Waterlandians. By these 

 confessions it appears that their doctrines were nearly the same with 

 those mentioned above as held by Menno. According to Mosheiui, 

 their fundamental principle was that " the kingdom which Christ 

 established upon earth is a visible church, or community, into which 

 the holy and the just are alone to be admitted, and which is conse- 

 quently exempt from all those institutions and rules of discipline that 

 have been invented by human wisdom for the correction and 

 reformation of the wicked." 



In the 17th century the Meunonites obtained toleration in Holland, 

 Germany, and England. In the year 1630 a considerable part of them 

 arranged their differences in a conference at Amsterdam, and formed a 

 union, which was renewed in 1649. 



Further information respecting this sect may be found in Herman 

 Schyn's ' Historic Meunonitarum pleuior Deductio,' which is a defence 

 of the Menuonites, and in which the author protests against their being 

 confounded with the Anabaptists; and also in Mosheim's 'Keck:-. 

 Hist.,' cent xvi., sect, iii., part ii., c. 3 ; and cent, xvii., sect, ii., purt ii., 

 c. 5. It is to be wished that Mosheim had written the history of this 

 sect in a spirit of greater candour. 



MERCA'TOR, GERARD (whose real name was KAUFFMAN, of which 

 Mercator is the Latin equivalent), was born at Rupelmonde, in East 

 Flanders, in the year 1512. He applied himself with great industry 

 to the sciences of geography and mathematics, and was patronised by 

 the Emperor Charles V., and appointed in Ic59 cosmographer to the 

 Duke of Juliers. He gave his name to the method of geographical 

 projection now usually employed in the construction of nautical maps, 

 in consequence of his having first represented the meridians by equi- 

 distant parallel lines, and the parallels of latitude by straight lines at 

 right angles to the meridian, but he did not know the distance which 

 ought to separate these parallels. Nicholas Mercator is said to have 

 discovered the law which regulates these distances ; but the English 

 mathematicians having refused to pay for the promulgation of his 

 discovery by accepting a pecuniary challenge which he is said to have 

 proposed to them, he died without communicating it even to hia 

 friends. The credit of first investigating the principles of that pro- 

 jection, and applying them to the purposes of navigation, appears to 

 be due to Edward Wright. Geiard Mercator died at Doesburg, 

 December 2, 1594. His published works are entitled ' De Usu Annuli 

 Astronomic!,' Louvain, 1552; ' Chronologia,' fol., Cologne, 1568; 

 'Tabula Geographies,' foL, Cologne, 1578; ' Harmonia Evangelis- 

 tarum,' 4to, Doeaburg, 1692. His maps were collected in 1 vol. 4to 

 in 1694 ; and another edition was published in 1623, containing 

 156 maps. (Huttou, Mathematical dictionary; Montucla, Ifistoire 

 des Mathematiyues ; Robertson, Dissertation on the Jiiae and Progress 

 of Navigation.) 



MEKCATOK, NICHOLAS (whoso real name was NICHOLAS KAUFF- 

 MAN), was born at Holstein, in Denmark, in 1640. At an early age 



