MISTRAL 



MITFORD 



237 



a dangerous tumult among the waters of the 

 Mediterranean. The mistral blows, at intervals, 

 with its greatest force from the end of autumn to 

 the beginning of spring. 



1listr;il, FREDERICK, Provencal poet, was born 

 a peasant's son near Maillaune (dept. Bouches- 

 du- Rhone), on 8th Septeml>er 1830, and studied 

 law at Avignon ; but for law he had no liking and 

 went home to work on the land and write poetry, 

 as Burns did before him. In 1859 he published the 

 epic Mireio ( 7th ed. 1884; Eng. trans. 1890), written 

 in his native Provencal dialect. This charming 

 representation of life in southern France made 

 Mistral's name famous throughout the country, 

 and gained for him the poet's prize of the French 

 Academy and the cross of the Legion of Honour. 

 It also led to the formation of the society called 

 Lou Felibrige, which set itself to create a modern 

 Provencal literature. In 1867 Mistral published a 

 second epic, Calendou, and in 1876 a volume of 

 poems entitled Lit Iselo cfOr ('Golden Islands'), 

 songs steeped in the golden sunshine of the Mediter- 

 ranean and its vine-clad shores. Since then he has 

 written a novel, Nerto (2d ed. 1884), and issued a 

 dictionary of the Provencal dialect ( 2 vols. 1878-86 ), 

 the preparation of which occupied him many years. 

 See an article by A. Daudet in the Century (1885). 



Mistretta, a town of Sicily, near the north 

 coast, half-way between Palermo and Messina. 

 Pop. 12,235. 



Milan, the capital of the Russian government 

 of Courland, on the right bank of the Aa, 27 miles 

 by rail SW. of Riga. Founded in 1271 by the 

 grand-master of the Teutonic Knights, and annexed 

 to- Russia in 1795, it has a castle, begun by Birnn 

 in 1738, and now the seat of the governor of the 

 province, six churches, a museum, &c., with some 

 very important manufactures, and a trade in 

 grain and timber. From 1798 to 1807 Mitau 

 offered an asylum to Louis XVIII. Pop. 29,615, 

 of whom more than one-half are Germans, and 

 nearly a fourth Jews. 



Mitcllilin. a village of Surrey, 8J miles by rail 

 8W. of Victoria Station, London, and half-way 

 between Wimbledon and Croydon (3 miles from 

 each), lies in the centre of a district in which 

 flowers and aromatic herbs ( roses, lavender, camo- 

 mile, &c. ) are extensively grown. Pop. 8960. 



Mitchel, JOHN, an Irish patriot, was born the 

 son of a Presbyterian minister at Dungiven in 

 County Deny, 3d November 1815. He studied at 

 Trinity College, Dublin, and practised several years 

 as an attorney at Banhridge. Soon after the for- 

 mation of the Young Ireland party, and the start- 

 ing of the Nation in 1842, Mitchel began to con- 

 tribute, and after the death of Thomas Davis in 

 IM.'i lie became assistant-editor. But his language 

 was too violent for the paper, and three years later 

 lie started the United Irishman, for his articles in 

 which he was tried on a charge of 'treason-felony' 

 and sentenced to fourteen years' transportation. 

 He was sent to Bermuda, and next to Van Diemen's 

 Land, whence he made his escape to the United 

 States in the summer of 1853. In New York he 

 published his Jail Journal, or Five Years in British 

 Prisons (1854). Next followed a series of short- 

 lived newspapers, the Citizen, the Southern Citizen, 

 the Richmond Inquirer, and the Irish Citizen, which 

 cost him the confidence of many of his American 

 friends by its enthusiastic defence of slavery and 

 the South. In 1874 he returned unmolested to 

 Ireland, and was elected to parliament for Tip- 

 perary, but declared ineligible. Again elected, he 

 died at Cork, 20th March 1875. 



Of his books may be mentioned a Life of Hugh 

 ffffeiU, Prince of Ulster (1845); and Hillary of Ireland 

 from tkf Treaty of Limerick (1868); besides editions of 



the poems of Thomas Davis ( 1856 ) and James C. Mangan 

 1 1859). See the Life of him by William Dillon (2 vols. 

 1888). 



Mitchell, capital of Davison county, South 

 Dakota, 70 miles by rail W. of Sioux Falls, has a 

 foundry and machine-shop, flour-mills, packing- 

 house, &c. Pop. 4055. 



Mitchell, DONALD GRANT, an American 

 author, many of whose works have appeared under 

 the pen-name of ' Ik Marvel,' was born in Norwich, 

 Connecticut, 12th April 1822, was in 1853 appointed 

 consul at Venice, in 1868-69 editor of the Atlantic 

 Monthly, but is better known as the proprietor of 

 a farm Edgewood near New Haven, about which 

 he has written several delightful books. Among 

 his other works are Reveries of a Bachelor and 

 Dream Life ( 1850-51 ; new eds. 1889) ; a novel, Dr 

 Johns (1866); and English Lands, Letters, and 

 Kings, from Celt to Tudor (1889). 



Mitchelstown, a market-town of County Cork, 

 Ireland, 11 miles N. of Fermoy, became for a time a 

 familiar name in the political war-cry ' Remember 

 Mitehelstown.' On 9th September 1887, at a 

 Nationalist meeting, the people refused to allow 

 the government shorthand-writer to approach the 

 speakers. The police endeavoured to make a way 

 for him, but were resisted by the crowd. A riot 

 ensued, on which the police fired, and two men 

 were shot dead. In the immediate vicinity of 

 the town is Mitehelstown Castle, the mansion of 

 the Earls of Kingston, and 7i miles to the north- 

 east there are extensive stalactite caves, discovered 

 in 185a Pop. 2367. 



Mite. See ACARINA, CHEESE-MITE. 



Mitforil, MARY RUSSELL, born at Alresford, 

 Hants, 16th Deceml>er 1787, was the only child of 

 a physician, a selfish, extravagant man, who spent 

 several fortunes, and was always in debt. A few 

 years after his marriage he moved to Lyme Regis, 

 and thence to London. On Mary's tenth birthday 

 he took her to a lottery office, and bought her a 

 ticket. She chose a particular number which drew 

 a prize of 20,000. While this money lasted she 

 was sent to a good school in Chelsea, and Dr 

 Mitford built himself a large house near Reading. 

 Here Mary returned when she was fifteen, a clever, 

 accomplished girl, devoted to her parents, a great 

 reader, and fond of gardening. Her first volume of 

 poems appeared in 1810, and was followed in 1811 

 and 1812 by two other jHjems. In 1820, as the 

 family became more and more impoverished, they 

 were obliged to move to a cottage at Three Mile 

 Cross, near Reading, and at length the need came 

 for Miss Mitford to write to earn money. She 

 wrote for magazines, and plays for the stage. Four 

 of her tragedies, Julian, The Foscari, Etenzi, and 

 Charles I., were acted ; the three first met with 

 success, but they have not kept the stage. Her 

 true line was describing what she saw around her 

 in a series of sketches of country manners, scenery, 

 and character. These little essays were rejected 

 by several London editors, but at length found a 

 place in the London Magazine, and were published 

 in a collected form in 1824 under the name of Our 

 Village, the series of five volumes being completed 

 in 1832. Few would think, as they read this ' play- 

 ful prose,' with what toil and anxiety it was 

 written. Dr Mitford died in 1842, leaving his affairs 

 in such a state that a subscription was started to 

 enable his daughter to pay his debts ; which was 

 soon followed by a pension from the -crown. In 

 1851 Miss Mitford moved to a cottage in Swallow- 

 field, a village close by, where she spent the rest 

 of her life. In 1852 she published Recollections of 

 a Literary Life, and in 1854 a novel, Atherton, 

 and other Tales. She died 10th January 1855, and 

 was buried at Swallowfield. Her sketches ar 



