MICKLE, WILLIAM. 



MIDDLETON, CONYEHS. 



2)0 



Towianski had inspired. The English language possesses one only of 

 his larger poems in two translations the ' Wallenrod,' in prose by 

 Leon Jablouski, Edinburgh, 1841, and in verse by Cattley, London, 

 1842. An article of some length on Mickiewicz appeared in the 

 London ' Metropolitan,' at the outset of his career, and another in the 

 ' Athenaeum ' for 1856, on the occasion of his death. 



The name of ' the Polish Byron," which has been generally assigned 

 to Mickiewicz, conveys as correct a notion of the nature arid the extent 

 of his genius as any single epithet could possibly do. The most 

 striking point of dissimilarity between the two is the vehement j 

 patriotism of the Pole, and the indifference to his country which was 

 professed by the Englishman, but a great deal of this was probably 

 owing to the different position of the two countries, one at the foot of 

 a foreign sovereign, and the other in the most prosperous period of its 

 history. It may be remarked that in 'Pan Tadeusz,' where Mickiewicz 

 hag occasion to delineate tha character of his countrymen, he depicts 

 them, not consciously perhaps on his own part, as arrogant, ignorant, 

 prejudiced, spiteful, and headstrong, with scarcely any good qualities 

 to balance. There is an obtuseue.-s in Mickiewicz's own moral per- 

 ceptions which it is often painful to observe. His poem of 'Wallenrod' 

 is devoted from the first line to the last to the inculcation of a spirit 

 of systematic treachery, and in one remarkable passage he delineates 

 his youpg hero in the palace of hia foe aa descending to the meanest 

 spite 



" I remember how oft in the castle 



I secretly sharpened my knife, and with what a rapture of vengeance 

 I cot the carpets of \Vinrych, and ruined his glittering mirrors." 



It is said that at the time of the appearance of this passage in ' Wal- 

 lenrod,' the Poles in tie palace of the Grand Duke Constantino at 

 Warsaw carried out the idea. The gross anachronism of the carpets 

 and the mirrors in a story of the 14th century is only one of many 

 which abound in tha works of Mickiewicz, and it is unsafe to rely on 

 his authority for facts in literary or other history, where his views and 

 theories were concerned. He tells us, for instance, in one of his Napo- 

 leonic lectures that the genius of Byron was undoubtedly kindled by a 

 ray from that of Napoleon, and inquires how such a poet could other- 

 wise have ai ten in a literature so decrepit and almost dead aa that of 

 England, which had as it were come to a close with Thomson and his 

 followers. This general inaccuracy and untrustworthiness must, in 

 fairness to the Russians, be remembered by the readers of the thrilling 

 delineations of their cruelty which abound in the ' Dziady.' Whatever 

 may be the judgment pronounced on Mickiewicz as a writer, a politician, 

 and an historian, nothing can ever erase from Polish literature the 

 name of the poet of ' Graiyna.' 



MICKLE, WILLIAM (or, as he sometimes celled himself, WILLIAM 

 JULIUS MICKLE), was boru in 1734 at Langholm, in Dumfriesshire, 

 where his father was a Presbyterian minister. At the age of sixteen 

 he was sent to the counting-house of a relation who was a brewer, and 

 remained there five years. He afterwards set up in business on his 

 own account, but failed, it is said, because he devoted those hours to 

 bis poetical studies which should have been dedicated to business. 

 He subsequently became corrector of the Clarendon Press in Oxford, 

 and though several of his juvenile poems had been printed, his name 

 remained unknown to the public till the publication of an elegiac ode, 

 called 'Pollio,' in 1765. This was followed in 1767 by a poem in 

 imitation of Spenser called ' The Concubine,' published with many 

 corrections and additions teu years afterwards under the title of. 'Sir 

 Martyn.' He also wrote, besides several other poems, a ' Letter to 

 Dr. Harwood,' against the Arian views ; an attack on deism, called 

 'Voltaire in the Shades;' and a tragedy entitled the 'Siege of Mar- 

 seilles,' which was refused by Uai rick, Harris, and Sheridan in succession, 

 and never produced. In 1775 came out his translation of Camoens's 

 ' Lusiad,' which had occupied him five years. Governor Johnstone, 

 his patron, having been appointed commander of the Romney man-of- 

 war, took him out to Lisbon, where he was appointed joint-agent for 

 the prizes that might be taken in an expected cruise. His translation 

 procured him much respect among the Portuguese, and he was 

 admitted a member of the Royal Academy, of which Prince Don John 

 of Ilraganza was president. A poem called ' Almada Hill 'was the 

 result of his residence at Lisbon. After -Vickie's return to London 

 with Governor Johnstone he wrote several pieces both in pros') and 

 Terse, the last of which was ' Efkdale Braes,' a ballad. He died at 

 Whea'tly, in Oxfordshire, in 1789. 



Mickle's translation of the ' Lusiad ' has been severely censured on 

 account of the liberties taken with the original, and the unwarranted 

 diffureness of the translation. His poems as a whole are worth little, 

 indeed so little, that we may wonder how they acquired the small 

 celebrity which they have attained. A ballad by Mickle entitled 

 ' Cumcor Hall' is not without merit; it furnished the idea of Sir VV. 

 Scott's ' Kenilworth," and is f Tinted in the introduction to that work 

 in the complete editions of Scott's Novels. 



M1CON (MlKuv or JiHiKtor), a distinguished Greek painter and 

 sculptor, waa the eon of Puanochua of Athens, and was one of the 

 most celebnted of the Greek painters for painting horses. He lived 

 bout the middle of the 5th century B.C., and was the contemporary 

 of Phidias and Polygnotni. 



The history of Micon is less known than that of many others of 



the eminent artists of aucient Greece. He was however one of the 

 painters chosen by the Athenians to perpetuate their great victories 

 iu the Colonnades of tlie Cerauiicus, which was enlarged or rebuilt 

 by Cimon after his victories over the Persians ; and he was also 

 appointed to paint the walls of the temple of Theseus at Athens ; 

 an honourable distinction, indicating the highest eminence in hia art. 



Micon painted the battle of the Atcazous and the Athenians under 

 Theseus, iu the gallery of the Cerauiicus, which was culled subse- 

 quently, in consequence of this and other pictures, the variegated 

 gallery, or the Poecile (q iroiiciAti 2roi). He appears also to have 

 assisted Panasnua in the picture of the battle of Marathon, in the 

 same gallery, for it is said that he was fined thirty ruinse, or half a 

 talent, for painting the Barbarians larger than the Greeks, in that 

 picture. In the temple of Theseus he painted another battle of the 

 Amazons and Athenians ; and opposite to it the battle of the Centaurs 

 and the La; itlue. A third wall also was painted by Micon iu this 

 temple, but the picture was so much defaced through age, that 

 Pausanias could not discover the subject of it. Micon also painted, 

 together with Polygnotus, the temple of the Dioscuri; he painted 

 there the return of the Argonauts to Thessaly with Medea and 

 ^Esteropea and Antinoe, the daughters of Pelias ; they were so called 

 according to this picture, on which their names were inscribed. 

 This circumstance is noticad by Pausanias, who remarks also that the 

 best part of thesa paintings was Acastus and his horses. It is 

 observable that all Micon's pictures were of such subjects as admit 

 of the introduction of horses, and some of them were the best subjects 

 that could be cho en for the display of the painter's skill iu painting 

 these animals, as the battles of the Amazons and the Centaurs. 

 Micon, as already mentioned, was one of the most celebrated of the 

 Greek painters in this respect, yet he was not altogether perfect iu 

 his horses, for he gave tome of them lashes to their under eyelids, 

 which horses have not. His horses were objected to on this account 

 by Simon, an Athenian well skilled iu such matters, and who, accord- 

 ing to Pliny, was the first writer on Equitation : a statue by a 

 sculptor of the name of Demetrius was erected to Simon's memory 

 at Athens. This nicety of criticism tends rather to establish Micon's 

 reputation than otherwise, as this was the only error detected by 

 so able a critic. According to another account, it was a fault that 

 was found with some of the horses of Apelles. Great excellence 

 however, in the drawing of the horse, is riot at all inconsistent with 

 the state of the art at the time that Micon lived, for we have actual 

 remains of that very period in the beautiful horses of the frieze of 

 the Parthenon, now in the British Museum, executed under tho 

 superintendence of Phidias, who waa the uncla of Panseuus, with 

 whom Mioon worked in the Poodle. 



A figure in one of Alieon's battles of a certain Butes waa the origin 

 of an Athenian proverb : Butes was paiuted concealed or crushed by 

 a stone, and all that appeared of him was his head and eyes, which 

 seemed to the Athenians so very expeditious a method of painting a 

 warrior, especially one it was necessary to give a name to, that 

 " Micon painted Butes," and "quicker than Butes," became sayings 

 for expressing anything that was quickly done. Varro speaks of ttie 

 style of Micon as crude and unfinished when compared with the 

 works of Apelles and later artists. This is very probable, and the 

 same might be said of many of the works of Michel Angelo aud 

 RaQ'aelle compared with those of almost any of the scholars of the 

 Caracci ; yet the difference is a mere matter of execution, and is not 

 at all essential, nor does it in the least interfere with, the higher 

 qualities of art, as form, expression, or composition. 



Micon was also a sculptor : he executed, according to Pausanias, 

 the statue of Callias, the Athenian paucratiast, at Olympia. 



Micon appears to have been not au uncommon name among Greek 

 artists. The father of Onatas of ^gina waa Micon; and Pliny 

 mentions Timsjete, herself a painter, aa the daughter of a painter 

 of the name of Micon. 



There was also a Syracusau sculptor of the name of Micou ; he 

 waa the son of Niceratus, and made the two statues of Hiero II., 

 which were placed by the sous of Hiero at Olympia. 



(Pliny, Nat. Hit., xxxiv. 19 ; xxxv. 35 ; Varro, Lingua, Latino,, viii. ; 

 Pausanias, i. 15-18; vi. 6; viii. 11; ^Elian, Hist. Animal., iv. 50; 

 Sopator, Ret. Grcec., p. 340, ed.- Aid. ; Bottiger, Ideen zur Anluiuloyie 

 dcr Mahlerei ; Sillig, Oatalogui Artificium.) 



MIDDLETON, COiNYEHS, was the son of William Middletoii, 

 rector of Hinderwell, near Whhby in Yorkshire, where he was born 

 in 1683. At the age of seventeen he was sent to Trinity College, 

 Cambridge, of which college ho was two years afterwards chosen a 

 scholar. He took his degree of B.A. in 1702, and was shortly after 

 ordained deacon. Iu 1706 he was elected a fellow of Trinity College, 

 and in 1708, joined with other fellows of his college in a petition to 

 the Bishop of Ely, aa the vi-itor of tho college, against lientley thd 

 master. Middleton, who was then a young man, did not take a pro- 

 minent part in this proceeding; but the feelings of hostility to the 

 master originated by these disputes sank deep into his mind, aud made 

 him subsequently the most determined and dangerous of his enemies. 

 Middleton married soon afterwards, and resided for a short time in 

 the Isle of Ely on a small living in the gift of his wife, but the 

 unhealthiness of the situation induced him to return to Cambridge at 

 the end of a year. 



