225 



MICHAUX, FRANCOIS-ANDRE. 



MICKIEWICZ, ADAM. 



228 



' Flora Boreali-Americana,' which appeared in 1803, in 2 vols. Svo. 

 Of the latter work he is said to have been less the author than the 

 late Professor Louis Claude Richard. 



MICHAUX, FRANCOIS-ANDRE, eon of Andre", was employed by 

 the French government to explore the forests of North America, with 

 a view to the introduction into Europe of the valuable timber-trees 

 of that country. For this purpose he made three voyages to the 

 United States, during which he succeeded in sending to France large 

 quantities of seeds. His principal work is the ' Histoire des Arbres 

 forestiers de 1'Amerique Septentrionale,' in 3 vols. large Svo, Paris, 

 1810-13 ; thia is an excellent account of the principal North American 

 forest-trees, abounding in valuable information as to their geographical 

 distribution and botanical distinctions, and the uses and qualities of 

 their timber. Besides these, he published a treatise 'On the Natu- 

 ralisation of Forest-Trees in France," 8vo, Paris, 1805; 'Journey to 

 the West of the Alleghany Mountains,' 8vo, Paris, 1804; and 'A 

 Notice of the Bermudas,' 4to, Paris, 1S06. 



MICHEL ANGELO. [BrjONARom, MICHEL ANUELO.] 



* MICHELET, JULES, one of the most eminent of modern French 

 historians, was born at Paris on the 21st of August 1798. After 

 completing his own studies, he began active life in 1821 in the pro- 

 fessiou of a teacher in public seminaries. From the first his favourite 

 studies had been in history and in departments relating to it ; and 

 in 1S26 he became teacher of history and languages in the College 

 Rollin. His first efforts as an author were in the production of works 

 to assist pupils in the study of history. Of this kind were his 

 ' Tableau Chronologique de 1'Histoire moderne depuia 1453 jusqu'h. 

 17S9,' originally published in 1825, and his 'Tableaux synchroniques 

 de 1'IIUtuire moderne,' originally published ill 1826. These have 

 passed through many editions, as also have some later works of a 

 similar educational order his 'Pre'cis de 1'Histoire moderne,' 1831; 

 his ' Introduction a 1'Histoire universelle," 1834, and his ' Pre'cis de 

 1'Histoiro de France jusqu'a la Revolution Franchise,' 3rd edit. 1838. 

 In 1830, shortly after the revolution of July, M. Michelet, whose 

 reputation for historical research had been established by some of 

 the above works, was appointed chief of the historical department of 

 the archives of France ; and at the same time he was chosen by 

 Guizut, who was then diverted from literature into politics, to con- 

 tinue his course of lectures in history to the Faculty of Literature in 

 Paris. In 1838 he succeeded Daunun in the chair of history and 

 moral science in the College of France, and in the same year he was 

 elected to the Institute as a member of the class of moral and political 

 sciences. Meanwhile he had published various works, characterised 

 not only, as his former had been, by research, but by that tendency 

 to philosophic generalisation and that warmth and colour of style, 

 which have since distinguished almost all that he has written. Among 

 these, besides an abridged translation of Vico's ' Scienza Nuova,' or 

 ' Philosophy of History,' were his ' Histoire Romaine ' (the Republican 

 Period), 2nd edit 1833; the early volumes of his 'Histoire de France' 

 (begun in 1833, and the seventh volume of which, leaving the work 

 still far from complete, was published iu 1855) ; and bis ' Origiues du 

 Droit Frangois cherchues dang les Symboles et Formules du Droit 

 Universe!,' 1837. During the latter part of Louis-Philippe's reign 

 Michelet distinguished himself by his vehement interest in contem- 

 porary social and religious questions, and, above all, by his antagonism 

 to the Jesuits and their influence. His little treatises, 'Du Pretre, de 

 la Feuime, et de la Famille,' and ' Le Peuple,' both well known in 

 English translations, were published, the first in 1845, the other in 

 1846; and his 'Life of Luther,' which has also been translated, was 

 published in 1846. In consequence of these writings aud his anti- 

 eccleeiastical spirit generally, his lectures were interdicted by the 

 government of Guizot ; and his public influence, and bis popularity with 

 the liberal party correspondingly increased. In 1848 he published 

 his ' Cours profe-be" au College de France, 1847-48.' In the previous 

 year he began his ' Histoire de la Re'volntion Francaise;' on which 

 great work, together with his ' Histoire de France,' he has continued 

 to labour since, issuing a volume of the one or the other at intervals. 

 Both have been translated as far as published. At the revolution of 

 1848 Michelet's high popularity would have secured him an important 

 place in the new system, had he not preferred to act still only through 

 hi* lectures and books. Since the accession of Louis-Napoleon he has 

 again been in opposition to the ruling powers, and has been subject 

 to various impediments in consequence. His last writings, besides 

 the recent volumes of Ms two histories, have been, one on ' The 

 Martyrs of Russia,' published in 1851, and one entitled 'L'Oiseau,' 

 published in 1853. M. Michelet writes in a fervid, poetical spirit, 

 and though his generalisations and sentiments ore often wild and 

 hurried, they are always suggestive. 



MICHELOZZI, MICHELOZZO, an eminent Florentine sculptor and 

 architect of the 16th century, was a pupil of Douatello, and was 

 patroui-eil by Cosmo de' Medici, to whom he was so attached, that 

 on the latter being banished, in 1433, be chose to follow him. It 

 was for Cosmo that he erected the edifice since denominated the 

 Palazzo Riccardi at Florence, a noble monument of the older Florentine 

 tjlo, simple even to severity, yet possessing an air not only of 

 grandeur, but of magnificence. The facade consists of a lofty rusti- 

 cated basement, with comparatively small apertures, above which are 

 two ranges of large arched windows, seventeen on a floor, and each 

 BIOO. DIV. VOL. IV, 



divided into two lesser arches resting on a central column. The 

 whole is crowned by a very rich cornicione. The interior court has 

 upper and lower porticos or galleries, with arches resting upon 

 columns, and with an enriched frieze between the first and second 

 arcades. He also greatly improved the court of the Palazzo Vecchio, 

 originally built by Arnolfo, and which is in a rich, though somewhat 

 fanciful style inclining to Gothic. Among Ms other works at Florence 

 is the Palazzo Tornabuoni, now Corsi ; and in the neighbourhood of 

 that city the villas Cafaggiuolo aud Carregi ; also a palace at Fiesole, 

 for Giovanni de' Medici, son of Cosmo I. During his residence at 

 Venice he made designs for many public and private buildings in that 

 city, and erected there the celebrated library in the convent of San 

 Giorgio. He was likewise employed by his patron Cosmo in enlarging 

 and embellishing a palace at Milan, bestowed on him by Ludovico 

 Sforza. His last work was designing and superintending the execution 

 of the monumental chapel of the Annunciation, erected by Piero de' 

 Medici in honour of Cosmo, in the Chiesa dei Servi, at Florence. 

 Michelozzo died at the age of sixty-eight, but the precise time of his 

 decease is not known probably it was about 1470. 



MICIPSA. [JUGOKTHA.] 



MICKIEWICZ, ADAM, the greatest poet that Poland has ever 

 produced, was born in the year 1798 at Nowogrodek, a small town in 

 Lithuania, one of the few in the environs of which the ancient Lithua- 

 nian language is still spoken. It is certainly remarkable that a 

 man, the chief effort of whose life was to prevent the language, the 

 nationality, aud the religion of Poland from being overpowered by 

 those of Russia, should be the native of a country which had lost its 

 language, its nationality, and its religion by its union with Poland. 

 His father, by birth a noble, was by profession an advocate, and an 

 unsuccessful one, and his brother afterwards became a legal writer of 

 some reputation. Mickiewicz himself had so little respect for the 

 nobility of his family, that in his poem of ' Pan Tadeusz," in which tho 

 scene is laid in Lithuania in the year 1812, he introduces his family 

 name as that of a dissipated and illiterate brawler in a pothouse. It 

 is singular that Pushkin, who acquired the name of the Russian Byron 

 as Mickiewicz did that of tho Polish Byron, takes occasion in his play 

 of ' Boris Godunov,' to introduce one of his own ancestors in an odious 

 and contemptible light The feeling of the two poets in this respect 

 was very different from that of their English prototype. 



Mickiewicz after receiving his preliminary education at Nowogrodek 

 and the grammar-school of Minsk, was sent when a youth of seventeen 

 to the University of Wilna, where his uncle, an ex-Jesuit, was one of 

 the professors. The university under the auspices of Sniadecki the 

 mathematician, and the patronage of Prince Czartoryski, then minister 

 of public instruction, was at that time in the full tide of prosperity, the 

 chief feat of learning for eleven millions of the population of Russian 

 Poland, and celebrated for the success with which the exact and natural 

 sciences were taught Almost the first person whom Mickiewicz saw 

 at Wilna was Thomas Zon, a celebrated Polish patriot, who was 

 occupied with gettiug up secret societies among the students, of which 

 Mickiewicz at once became a member. The professor of history, 

 Lelewel [LELEWEL], was another determined opponent of the Russian 

 government, and to him Mickiewicz addressed the first poem he pub- 

 lished. While at Wilna he fell deeply in love with the sister of a 

 fellow student, Maria Wereszczakowna, by whom his addresses were 

 finally rejected for those of a richer suitor. When he left the univer- 

 sity where he had first been noted for his devotion to chemistry and 

 afterwards to poetry, he was appointed professor of classical literature 

 in a college at Kowuo, and it was while residing there in 1822 that 

 two small volumes of poems from his pen were published at Wilna. 

 Like those of Burns and Byron, they at one blow made their author 

 famous. 



These poems not only at once placed their author at the head of the 

 Polish literature of his own time, but above every other serious poet 

 who had ever appeared in the language. The 'Ballads' they contain, 

 several of which are imitated from the Lithuanian, are of very various 

 degrees of merit, some of them spirited, others pleasing, and others 

 again poor and commonplace. But two poems of the set, 'Grazyna' 

 and ' Dziady,' are of a very high class. In ' Grazyna,' in which the 

 poet takes for his scene the old castle of Nowogrodek, the ruins of 

 which are still remaining near his native town, he tells in a tersely 

 classical, and sculpturesque style, which reminds the reader of the 

 happiest effusions of Tennyson, the story of a Lithuanian heroine, who 

 to save the honour of her husband assumes his armour, and meets 

 death on the field of battle. It became the favourite poem of a real 

 Lithuanian heroine, Emilia Plates, who eight years afterwards fought 

 in the Polish ranks in the insurrection of 1830, and to whose memory 

 Mickiewicz devoted a poem. The 'Dziady,' or 'Ancestors,' is a 

 poem of a new kind, an autobiographical drama, in which the poet 

 appears as one of his own characters. In it the poet relates, with this 

 slight veil, the story of his love for ' Maria,' the ' Mary Chaworth ' of 

 his life, and except in Byron's 'Dream,' which Mickiewicz afterwards 

 rendered into Polish, it would be dillicult to find a love-tale more 

 tenderly aud delicately told. 



The natue of Mickiewicz became at once popular among his country- 

 men. A valley near Kowno, which he was fond of visiting, aud 

 where he wrote some of his verses, received tho name, which it btill 

 retain?, of ' Mickiewicz's Valley.' The enthusiasm of the Poles was 



