104 • MEN 
glafs of uncommon dimenfions was made to cover it. 
At Rome he was employed by pope Clement XIV. in a 
confiderable work; and it was not till after an abode 
there of three years that he reluctantly returned to Ma¬ 
drid. He there compofed the Apotheofis of Trajan for 
the ceiling of the great faloon of the palace in Madrid; 
but his incefl'ant application again injured his health, 
and he obtained a final difmiflion from his generous 
mailer, who continued to him a very liberal penfion. 
He took up his refidence for the laft time at Rome, but 
it was embittered to him by the lofs of his beloved wife. 
Grief haftened the decline of a fluttered conftitution, 
and the noftrums of an empiric precipitated the termi¬ 
nation of his life, which took place in 1779, in the fifty- 
fecond year of his age. The academy of St. Luke aflifted 
at his interment; and his friend the chevalier d’Azara 
placed his bull in bronze in the Pantheon, next to that 
of Raphael, with an honourable infcription, in which he 
is entitled Piclor Phi/ofvphvs. The private character of 
Mengs was marked with melancholy and referve, with 
purity of manners, and ftriCl regard to veracity. He had 
little knowledge of the world, and feemed under con- 
ftraint in company; yet he fometimes delivered his fen- 
timents with a blunt freedom that partook of harflmefs, 
and gave offence. He was however fundamentally kind 
and benignant; and was fo difinterefted or negligent in 
money-concerns, that, notwithftanding the large emolu¬ 
ments of his latter years, he fcarcely left enough to defray 
the expenfes of his funeral. The year after his death, 
the chevalier d’Azara publilhed “ Opere di Antonio 
Raftaele Mengs,” in 2 vols. 4to. Thefe confift of various 
treatifes on fubje&s relative to the principles of painting, 
and on the characters of the greateft mailers of the art, 
particularly Raphael, Corregio, and Titian. D’Azara 
alfo informs us, that all the technical parts of Winkel- 
man’s Hiftory of the Arts are written by Mengs. 
Of Meng’s merit as an arlift, very different opinions 
have been entertained. If his name and qualifications 
had not been fo extravagantly exalted by his friend and 
commentator Azara, and by Winkelmann, it is moil 
likely his memory would have been in more efteem with 
the world than it now is. But when they reforted, in 
fpealdng of his talents, to fuch a degree of abfurdity as 
to place him above all competitors, either ancient or 
modern ; to fpeak of him as the man for whom it was 
referved to tmite all the excellencies of art 5 criticifm is 
excited, and a more fcrupulous and lefs prejudiced exa¬ 
mination induced, which bellows upon our artill a far 
lefs exalted rank among thofe great men with whom he 
has been compared, and even to whom he has been pre¬ 
ferred, than his partial and prejudiced friends allotted to 
him. Mengs, though a veiy ingenious and extraordinary 
man, is but a tame and rather unintereftihg artill. Mr. 
Cumberland, in his Account of Spanilh Painters, has 
given a very excellent and juft critique upon his merits, 
•which we fliall here tranferibe. “ Mengs was an artill that 
had leen much and invented little ; he difpenfes neither 
life nor death to his figures, excites no terror, roufes no 
paflions, and rilks no flights; by Undying to avoid par¬ 
ticular defeats, he incurs general ones, and paints with 
tamenefs and fervility; the contrafted fcale and idea of 
miniature-painting, to which he was brought up, is to 
be traced in all or moll of his compofitions, in which a 
tinilhed delicacy of pencil exhibits the hand of the artiji, 
but gives no emanation of the foul of a majier; if it is 
beauty, it does not warm ; if it is forrow, it excites no 
pity.” The pi&ure of our Saviour’s appearing to Mary 
Magdalen in the garden, known by the name of The 
Noli me tangere, which is in the chapel of All Souls’ col¬ 
lege, Oxford, will enable our readers to judge how far 
thefe remarks are founded in truth. 
As a critic, Mengs has a more fair claim to attention. 
He certainly entertained fublime ideas of the capabilities 
of art, and therefore infpires them in the minds of his 
leaders. There is, however, too great a mixture of me- 
M E N 
taphyfici and fubtle difquifition in his writings, to be 
generally ufeful. His explanations of beauty and tafte 
are extremely vague. The former is built entirely upon 
the Platonic fyftem of the beauty of goodnefs. On this, 
however, he propofes material leleClion from various 
objects of the lame kind, to produce the beautiful of each 
Ipecies, and this choice he completely confounds with 
tajte. He carried his admiration of the ancients beyond 
almoft any of his cotemporaries, except his intimate friend 
theabbe Winckelmann; and, notwithftanding his exalted 
idea of the perfections of Raphael, (whom of all artifts 
he moll imitated,) he imagined that the painters of an¬ 
tiquity were his fuperiors. Notwithftanding thefe defeCts, 
his waitings convey much ufeful matter, and prefent many 
important points for the confideration of an artift; as they 
embrace all the eflential principles of the art of painting. 
MENHA'IA, a town of Fez, in the province of Chaus, 
inhabited by Arabs. 
MENHU'SA, a town of Africa, in the country of Barca: 
160 miles fouth-weft of Tolometa. 
ME'NI, [Hebrew.] The goddefs Meni is the moon. 
Jeremiah (vii. 18. xliv. 17, 18.) fpeaks of her by the title 
of the Queen of Heaven ; in which place, and in Ifaiah 
Ixv. ii. the Hebrew word is Meni. Her worfhip was fre¬ 
quent in Palelline, and among the Hebrews. Meni is 
probably Aftarte, honoured among the Phoenicians and 
Carthaginians. From the Phoenicians or Canaanites, 
Ifrael learned the worfhip of this falfe deity. Ifaiah re¬ 
proaches them with fetting a table to Gad (the Sun), and 
of making libations to Meni, or the Moon: for in this 
manner the verfe ought to be tranflated. Jeremiah fays, 
that, in honour of the Queen of Heaven, the fathers 
light the fire, the mothers knead the cakes, and the chil¬ 
dren gather the wood to bake them. Elfewhere the If- 
raelites declare to Jeremiah, that, notwithftanding his 
remonllrances, they would continue to honour the queen 
of heaven, by oblations, as their fathers had done before 
them ; for that, ever fince they had left off to facrifice to 
the queen of heaven, they had been confumed by the 
fword and by famine. Strabo allures us, that men, the 
month, or moon, had feveral temples in Alia Minor and 
in Perfia. Calmet's Did. of the Bible. 
ME'NIAL, adj. [from meiny or many.'] Belonging to 
the retinue, or train of fervants: 
Two menial dogs before their mailer prefs’d 5 
Thus clad, and guarded thus, he feeks his kingly gueft. 
Dryden's /Ends. 
Swift feems not to have known the meaning of this word. 
—The women attendants perform only the moil menial 
offices. Gulliver's Travels. 
ME'NIAL,/ [from mehia, Lat. the walls of a houfe or 
caftle.] One of the train of fervants.— Menials are thofe 
fervants which live within their mailer’s walls. Tcrmes 
de la Ley. 
MENIB'- See Miniet. 
ME'NIF, or Menuf, a town of Egypt, and chief place 
of a diftritt : twenty-eight miles north of Cairo. 
MENIGOU'TE, a town of France, in the department 
of the Tw'o Severes: eight miles north-eail of St. 
Maixent, and eleven fouth-louth-eaft of Partenay. 
MENIL', a town of the Arabian Irak, on the Tigris : 
j 10 miles fouth-eaft of Bagdad. 
MENIL' FRE'MANTEL, a towm of France, in the 
department of the Calvados : four miles call-fouth-eaft of 
Caen, and eighteen weft of Lifieux. 
MEN'ILITE, f. in mineralogy. See Opalus vilior. 
MENIL'LES, a town of France, in the department of 
the Eure : nine miles weft of Evreux. 
MEN'IMEN, a town of Afiatic Turkey, in Natolia, 
from which Smyrna is chiefly fupported with fruits and 
provilions. 
MENIN', a town of Flanders, confifting of little more 
than one llreet, with one parilh-church, fituated on the 
Lysj in the cjiatellany of Courtray j firft furrounded with 
walls 
