14 
MED 
Diflembling fleep, and watchful to betray. 
With inward rage he meditates his prey. Dryden. 
To think on ; to revolve in the mind.—Blefled is -the 
man that doth meditate good things in wifdom, and that 
re a Tone th of holy things. Ecclus. xiv. 20. 
Them among 
There fet a man of ripe and perfect age, 
Who did them meditate all his life long. Fairy Queen. 
To MED'ITATE, v.n. To think ; to mufe ; to con¬ 
template ; to dwell on with intenfe thought. It is com¬ 
monly ufed of pious contemplation.—To worftiip God, 
to fludy his will, to meditate upon him, and to love him ; 
all thefe bring pleafure and peace. Tillotfcn. 
MEDITATING, f. The aft of contemplating. 
MEDITA'TION, f. Deep thought ; clofe attention ; 
contrivance; contemplation.—I left the meditations wherein 
I was, and fpake to her in anger. 2 Efd. x. 5. 
’Tis mod true, 
That niufing meditation mod affefts 
The penfive lecrefy of defert cell. Milton. 
Thought employed upon facred ohjefts : 
Thy thoughts to nobler meditations give. 
And Itudy how to die, not how to live. Granville. 
A feries of thoughts, occafiotied by any objeft or occur¬ 
rence. In this fenfe are books of meditations. 
Mydic divines make a great difference between medita¬ 
tion and contemplation. Meditation confifts in difeurfive 
afts of the foul, confidering methodically and with atten¬ 
tion the myfteries of faith and the precepts of morality ; 
and is performed by reflections and reafonings, which 
leave behind them manifeft impreffions on the brain ; but 
the pure contemplative have no need of meditation, as 
feeing all things in God at a glance, and without any 
reflection. When a man, therefore, has once quitted me¬ 
ditation, and is arrived at contemplation, he returns no more; 
and, according to Alvarez, never refumes the oar of me¬ 
ditation, except when the wind of contemplation is too 
weak to fill his fails. 
MED'ITATIVE, adj. Addifted to meditation. Ainf- 
worth. —Exprefling intention or defign. 
MEDITERRA'NE, or Mediterra'nean, adj. [from 
tnedius terra, Lat.] Encircled with land.—In all that part 
that lieth on the north fide of the mediterranean fea, it is 
thought not to be the vulgar tongue. Brerewood. 
MEDITERRA'NEAN, the name of a department of 
France, forming a part of the Tufcan dates, (or kingdom 
of Hetruria,) which, by a decree of the 24th of May, 1808, 
were declared united with the French empire. See He¬ 
truria, vol. ix. 
MEDITERRANEAN SE'A, a large gulf or lake of the 
Atlantic Ocean, bounded on the north by Europe and 
Afia, on the eaft by Afia, and on the fouth by Africa ; to¬ 
wards the wed it joins the Atlantic by a narrow paflage, 
called the Straits of Gibraltar. It therefore divides Europe 
and Afia Minor from Africa ; and receives its name from 
its fituation, medio terra, fituate “ in the middle of the land.” 
It has a communication with the Atlantic by the Columns 
of Hercules, and with the Euxine through the ,/Egean. 
The word Mediterraneum does not occur in the Claflics ; 
but it is fometimes called Internum Nojlrum or Medius Liquor. 
The fird naval power that ever obtained the command of 
it, as recorded in the fabulous epochs of the writer Caflor, 
is Crete under Minos. Afterwards it pafled into the 
hands of the Lydians, B. C. 1179 ; of the Pelafgi, 1058 ; 
of the Thracians, 1000 ; of the Rhodians, 916 ; of the 
Phrygians, 893 ; of the Cyprians, 868 ; of the Phoenicians, 
826; of the Egyptians, 787; of the Milefians, 753; of 
the Carians, 734; and of the Lefbians, 676; which they 
retained for fixty-nine years. 
The Mediterranean was anciently called the Grecian 
Sea, and in Scripture the Great Sea. It is now cantoned 
MED 
out into feveral divifions, which bear feveral names. To 
the weft of Italy it is called the Liguftic or Tufcan Sea ; 
near Venice, the Adriatic ; towards Greece, the Ionic and 
-ffigean of the ancients, now the Gulf of Archipelago. 
From this laft a (trait, called the Hellefpont, conducts to 
the Sea of Marmora, the ancient Propontis; and another, 
now denominated the Strait of Conftantinople, the ancient 
Bofphorus, leads to the Euxine, or Black Sea ; which to the 
north prefents the (hallow Palus Mseptis, or Sea of Azof, 
the utmoft maritime limit of Europe in that quarter. The 
breadth of this fea is very various, from 80 to 500 miles; 
and its length is about 2000 miles to its fartheft extremity 
in Syria. This wideexpanfe of fea is beautifully fprinkled 
with iflands, and environed with opulent coalts. Tides 
are not perceivable, except in the narrowed ftraits; but, 
according to phyfiologilts, there is a current along the 
Italian (bore from weft to eaft, and towards the African 
coaft in an oppofite direftion. In the Adriatic the cur¬ 
rent runs north-weft along Dalmatia, and returns by the 
oppofite fliore of Italy. 
According to Buffon, the Mediterranean Sea was ori¬ 
ginally a lake of fmall extent, and had received, in remote 
ages, a fudden or prodigious increafe, at the time when the 
Black Sea opened a paflage foritfelf through the Bofphorus, 
and at that period when the finking of the land which 
united Europe to Africa, in the part that is now the 
Straits of Gibraltar, permitted the water of the ocean to 
rulh in. It was alfo his opinion, that moft of the iflands 
of the Mediterranean made a part of the continents, before 
the great convulfions that have taken place in this quarter 
of the world. Sonnini, at his requeft, and with a view of 
afeertaining his opinion, founded the depth of the fea be¬ 
tween Sicily and Malta ; and he found the depth from 
25 to 30 fathoms, and in the middle of the channel, where 
the water is deep^ft, never exceeding 100. On the other 
hand, between the ifland of Malta and Cape Bon in 
Africa, there is (fill lefs water, the lead indicating no more 
than from 25 to 30 fathoms throughout the whole breadth 
of the channel which leparates the two lands. 
The Britifh trade carried on by means of the Mediter¬ 
ranean Sea is of great confequence to Great Britain 5 and 
the permanent preservation of it depends on the pofleflion 
of the town and fortifications of Gibraltar. 
The counterfeiting of Mediterranean paflfes, for (hips to 
the coaft of Barbary, &c. or the feal of the admiralty-office 
to fuch pafies, is felony, without benefit of clergy. 4 Geo. II. 
c. 18. 
MEDITERRA'NEOUS, adj. Inland ; remote from the 
fea.—It is found in mountains and mediterraneous parts ; 
and fo it is a fat and unftuous fublimation of the earth. 
Brown. —We have taken a lefs height of the mountains 
than is requifite, if we refpeft the mediterraneous moun¬ 
tains, or thofe that are at a great diftance from the fea. 
Burnet. 
MEDITRI'NA, in heathen mythology, a goddefs who 
was fuppofed to render food or phyfic wholelome. 
MEDITRINA'LIA, a Roman feftival in honour of the 
goddefs Meditrina, kept on the 30th of September. Both 
the deity and the feftival were fo called a medendo, becaufe 
on this day they began to drink new wine mixed with old 
by way of medicine. 
MEDITUL'LIUM, /. [Latin.] A term ufed by ana- 
tomifts for that fpongy fubltance between the two plates 
of the cranium, and in the interftices of all laminated 
bones. 
ME'DIUM,y. [Latin.] Anything intervening.—-See¬ 
ing requires light and a free medium, and a right line to the 
objefts ; we can hear in the dark immured, and by curve 
lines. Holder. —He, who looks upon the foul through its 
outward actions, often fees it through a deceitful medium, 
which is apt to difcolour the objeft. Addifon's SpeElator .— 
The parts of bodies on which their colours depend, are 
denfer than the medium which pervades their interftices. 
Newton. 
I muft 
