786 



M ESSEN I US MET A L. 



royal family, offered liis own daughter as the victim. 

 Her Inver, to save her life, declared her to be preg- 

 .laiu by himself, and Aristodemus, to prove herhmo- 

 <-:irr, st;il)l)-il her with his own hand, and caused her 

 1. 1 1 u- opened and sacrificed. The Messenians, though 

 for some time successful.were finally obliged to submit 

 by the loss of Ithome. About forty years after, they 

 again rose ; and thus commenced the second Mes- 

 M'iiian war (685 B. C.), which ended in their subju- 

 gation. (See siristomenes.) A part of the Messe- 

 nians are said to have emigrated to Sicily, and there 

 to hove founded Messana (see Messina), on the site 

 of tlje ancient Zancle (668 B. C.) After 200 years 

 of servitude, the Helots (q. v.) and Messenians took 

 up arms. This third Messenian war lasted ten years 

 (465455 B. C.), and resulted in the expulsion of 

 the Messenians from the Peloponnesus. Epaminondas 

 iv^ored them. They rebuilt Messene (369 B. C.), 

 and maintained their independence till the country 

 was conquered by the Romans. The Messenians 

 remained true to their customs, manners, and lan- 

 guage, through all changes of fortune. Delavigne 

 has called his elegies Messeniennes. In modern 

 Greece as organized since the revolution, two of the 

 seven departments of the Morea, in the south-western 

 part of the peninsula, have received the names of 

 Upper Messenia and Lower Messenia. 



MESSENIUS, JOHN, born at Wadstena, in East 

 Gothland, in 1584, was a Swedish historian. He 

 \vas in the confidence of the great Gustavus Adol- 

 phus, and became professor of law and politics at 

 Upsal. His fame exposed him to envy, and his 

 enemies accused him, in 1615, of corresponding 

 secretly with the German emperor Sigismond, on 

 which he was sentenced to imprisonment for life. 

 He died in confinement, in 1637. Of his writings, 

 the principal is Joan. Messenii Scondia (not Scandia) 

 illustrata, seu Chronologia de Rebus Scondice, hoc est 

 Stiecice, Danice, Norwegiee, &c., (Stockholm, 1710, 

 14 vols., folio). His son Arnold was executed in 

 1651, on account of a libel against the queen and 

 the senate. This libel was written by John, son of A r- 

 nold, who was then but seventeen years old. The 

 father, however, had been accessary to it John 

 shared his fate. 



MESSIAH ; a Hebrew word, signifying the 

 anointed; in the Greek translation g/3-<ra, whence 

 Christ. In the Old Testament, the word is applied 

 to the whole Jewish people, to the priests, to the 

 kings ("the Lord's anointed" in the original, 

 "Messiah"), and even to Gentile kings. In the 

 books of the prophets, however, it began to be ap- 

 plied, by way of eminence, to the Saviour and Re- 

 deemer of the Jewish nation, and, in this sense, is 

 used in the New Testament, with the extension of its 

 meaning so as to signify the Saviour of all men. 

 The Jews deny that the Messiah is yet come, and still 

 expect the restoration of their state and nation from 

 his arrival. See Jews, and Jesus. 



MESSIER, CHARLES, an astronomer, born at Ba- 

 'onviller, in Lorraine, in 1739, went to Paris at the 

 age of twenty, and was employed by the astronomer 

 Delille, in copying and drawing maps. Delille, who 

 was struck with his zeal in the study of astronomy, 

 obtained a situation for him, and, in 1758, the obser- 

 vation of the comet, which then occupied the atten- 

 tion of astronomers, was intrusted to him. He was 

 one of the first to discover the comet whose return 

 Halley had predicted in 1759; and he carefully ob- 

 served the newly discovered planet Uranus. A 

 telescope, a quadrant, and a pendulum, were his only 

 instruments. His sight was remarkably keen, and 

 enabled him to discover objects of search before other 

 observers. The revolution deprived him of his former 

 appointments, but he continued his observations 



through the reign of terror, and was afterwards ap- 

 pointed a member of the institute, of the board of 

 longitude, and of the legion of honour. He died in 

 1817, at the age of eighty-six. His observations are 

 contained in the Memoires of the academy, and in 

 the Connaissance des Temps. 



MESSINA (anciently Messana); a city on the 

 eastern coast of Sicily, lying on the strait called the 

 Pharos of Messina, with a safe and commodious har- 

 bour ; lat. 38 11' N. ; Ion. 15 34' E. It is the see 

 of an archbishop. The streets are broad, well laid 

 out, and paved with lava, cut into blocks two feet 

 square. Since the earthquake of 1783, the houses 

 have been rebuilt, of fewer stories. The population 

 is 55,000 ; thirty convents and about sixty churches, 

 four seminaries of education, several asylums for the 

 poor, hospitals, and monti di pietd, a senate-house, a 

 royal and an episcopal palace, are among the public 

 buildings. It has an extensive transit trade between 

 Italy and the Levant, and exports silks, wines, oil, 

 fruits, wool, &c. The cathedral is dedicated to the 

 virgin, who is the patroness of the city, under the 

 title of Madonna della Lettera, and contains a letter 

 in the hand-writing of the virgin to the Messinians, a 

 lock of her hair, an arm of St Paul, and the skull of 

 Mary Magdalen ! The city was ravaged by the 

 plague in 1743, and almost entirely destroyed by an 

 earthquake in 1783. See Sicily. 



MESTIZOS, or METIS (Spanish, mixed). In 

 countries where Spanish Europeans have settled ami 

 intermingled with the natives, the descendants are 

 called Mestizos. In Mexico the European Spaniards 

 were called C/iapetones, or Gachupines. The pure 

 descendants of Europeans are called Creoles (q. v.), 

 in similar countries. The Mestizo is described 

 as having a transparent skin, a thin beard, small 

 hands and feet, and a certain obliquity of the eyes. 

 If a Metis marry with a white, the fruit of the union 

 differs but slightly from a European. 



MESTO (Italian}', a term significative of a pathetic 

 and melancholy style of performance. 



MESTRE DE CAMP ; formerly the title of the 

 commanding officer of a regiment of cavali7 in 

 the French service. He was distinguished by this ap- 

 pellation on account of there being a colonel-general 

 in the cavalry. The chief of a regiment of infantry 

 was alo formerly so called. 



MESUE; a name given to the author of several 

 ancient Arabic works on medicine, which were early 

 translated into Latin. They are founded on the prin- 

 ciples of Galen, and enjoyed great authority for a 

 time, in the middle ages, and were commented upon 

 down to the sixteenth century. There is much un- 

 certainty respecting the name itself, and the life of 

 the author. It seems necessary to suppose the ex- 

 istence of two physicians of this name, an elder one, 

 who was body physician to the famous caliph Haroun, 

 al Rashid (q. v.), and to several other caliphs, ami 

 died at Bagdad about A. D. 851. Haroun al Ra- 

 shid, and his successor, Almamon. employed him to 

 translate several works from the Greek. The 

 younger Mesue was born in the eleventh century. 

 He is said to have been a Christian, and a pupil of 

 Avicenna. His works on medicine, translated into 

 Latin, were common text-books in the medical 

 schools of the middle ages, and were commented upon 

 as late as the seventh century. 



MESURADO, CAPE. See Liberia. 



META ; a Greek preposition (pint) of a great 

 variety of meanings. It is used in numerous com- 

 pound words, which have been adopted in English, 

 and, in this case, generally means with, over, beyond, 

 after. 



METAL ; the most numerous class of umlecom- 

 founded chemical bodies, distinguished by the fol- 



