MIRABILITE. danceratic revolution, he had a difficult part to sustain, bat be sustained it with unfaltering intrepidity and connate skill. In the autumn of 1789 the court opened tiations with him, and though his counsels were reted he continued in confidential relations with the queen ter most trusted advisers until his death. For the court rew up many admirable memoirs and state papers, which Sve abundant evidence of his political sagacity, and he caid in return some liberal payments of money, which ked him to free himself from his encumbrance of debt. ach suspected he still maintained his power over the Ably, and in February, 1791, was elected its president; at before this he had arrived at the knowledge that his was near. The irregularities of his life had underis great physical strength. He was anxious to live, le believed that he was the only man that could save country from a terrible upheaval, and he declared ully that he was paying dearly for the sins of his ya. His friend, the celebrated physician and chemist Cans, did all that could be done to help him; but after - prolonged sufferings he died on the 2nd April, 1791. pularity, which had been under a cloud, returned in And food when it became known he was dying, and when passed away all France seemed suddenly aware that in a tad gone the only man of his time who understood whats of his country and appreciated the exigencies of crisis. He was interred with extraordinary pomp in Pantheon, but his body was afterwards removed to A room for that of Marat. A rear thinker, a powerful speaker, and a far-seeing man, he made a free use of other men's work, and many friends who were glad to labour for him and him to take credit for what they had prepared. His Los in this respect have been more clearly established ever by the labours of recent biographers, but his erity of mind and character is fully established by fact that others were so willing to contribute to his rasi influence. the monks providing the players with dresses and all that was needful. Now as this Geoffrey was made lord abbot in 1119, the play was in all probability produced not long after 1100. Matthew tells of it, because Geoffrey was then directing the subpriory of Dunstable, and the various copes and vestments which had been brought over there from the chief monastery at St. Alban's were all burned, together with Geoffrey's books, in a fire which broke out and destroyed the intended stage. We have no plays actually preserved of as early a date as this, but the date of our oldest plays is not more than half a century later. Two miracle-plays and one mystery still exist, which are the work of a monk Hilarius, written in France towards the close of Stephen's reign, or about the year 1150. In one of the former the famous miracle of the image of St. Nicholas is recounted, as it was acted on the saint's day in the Church of St. Nicholas. The image of the saint being removed an actor, dressed like the image, took his place on the pedestal. At the point of the service where ordinarily the miracle would have been recited a heathen man entered and laid treasure at the feet of the saint for protection. Then came thieves and stole it. The man returning, and finding his treasure gone, beat the (supposed) image with many blows. Whereupon the statue descended, sought out the robbers, and so worked upon their feelings that they restored all, after which it retired to its niche, and the heathen fell on his knees and was converted to the true faith. The service then continued to its close. This authentic piece is a very good specimen of the earliest and simplest miracle-plays, and the effect on ignorant peasants, while yet the drama was unborn, must have been stupendous. In the town library of Tours is another set of three Anglo-Norman miracle-plays, nearly as old as those of Hilarius, in a MS. of the twelfth century; and here we get the first indication of the removal of the stage from the chancel to the outside of the great church-door, where a scaffolding was built, and all the people could assemble in the square and profit by the lesson. As complaints were made about the desecration of the graves, trampled by those who crowded the churchyard to get closer, the scaffold was erected away from the church altogether in the next century, though priests and monks still remained the actors, and the play was still regarded as a religious ceremony. In its nature a miracle-play was a production of one special church on its saint's day, and remained, therefore, always limited and serious in its tone; but the attempt to dramatize the Scriptures and the holy mysteries in general led to the far more important MYSTERY-PLAYS, which are fully described under their own heading. The best recent treatment of this deeply interesting subject is in the "Shakspeare's Predecessors in the English Drama" of J. Addington Symonds (London, 1884). Ls Lumerous works are most completely collected in -äitin published at Paris in 1825-27 in nine vols. an account of his life see "Mémoires Biographiques ires et Politiques de Mirabeau," issued by his natural M. Lucas de Montigny, in eight vols. (Paris, 1834; edition, 1841). See also Dumont's "Souvenirs Vrawau" (1832); the letters between Mirabeau and Corate de la March, published in 1851; and H. ReyMirabeau et la Constituante" (1873). MIRABILITE is the hydrous sulphate of soda. It and in efflorescent crusts, especially about hot springs, Certain volcanic districts, notably at Kailua in the SandLies. It is soluble in water, and many medicinal 3 contain a small proportion of it. It crystallizes in linic system, the lamellae being flexible but not MIRAGE, an optical illusion occasioned by the refrac- Lese crystals quickly effloresce or become anhy- tion of light through contiguous masses of air of different an exposure and fall to powder. The artificial sub-density. The illusions of the mirage differ according to glauber salts is prepared in large quantities from circumstances, but they may all be arranged under one or * salt in the manufacture of carbonate of soda; it other of the three following classes-vertical reflection, ted as a medicine, and known as salts. suspension, and lateral reflection. MIRACLE-PLAYS. In the so-called Dark Ages, the universal wreck of culture, when it was well-nigh ble to make common folk understand anything the few ideas needed for their daily drudgery, it red to the good priests to dramatize events of the and so to bring them home to the people. Thus the miracle-plays, parents of our tragedy, and MYSTERY-PLAYS and MORALITIES, parents of our Of these, although the mysteries were earlier abroad, the miracle-plays came first into England, sar as we at present know, for we hear of them soon after the Conquest. A play on the miracles of St. Katharso Matthew of Paris tells us in his chronicle, was en by Geoffrey of Gorham, sub-prior of St. Alban's, In the rertical reflection the mirage presents the appearance of a sheet of water in which objects are reflected. It is this kind which is observed in Egypt, and which so cruelly tantalized the parched throats of the French soldiers during the campaign of Napoleon in that then almost unknown country. After the soil has become heated by the presence of the sun the prospect seems bounded by a general inundation. The villages beyond appear as islands in the midst of a great lake. Under each village its inverted image is seen as it would be if reflected from the surface of a sheet of water. On approaching, however, the deceptive inundation recedes and the reflected image vanishes, to be succeeded by another as some more distant object comes in sight. MIRAGE. mi suspension is equally remarkable. 2-1 Mader exactly opposite circumstances fre Perhaps the most celebrated eximped tus à le cast described by Captain Scoresby, in while ke 1 luthers ship, the Fame, by its inverted midt suspertet i the atmosphere, at a time when it was mies detam and consequently beneath the horiz Sometimes the albue image is seen, as în £z 3. A 5. The above the horizon the inverted a UNDS 1. In it and the direct image disappears. Itcis để tus pastomenar is explained in the next paraTeams Fata Morgana, visible at E VLICI DE METT centuries astonished the ignorant and proTHESPE TILJANI 2278, is another instance of the same sort : Mbet the sul's rays are thrown upon for Tonic si Cerrees-the surface of the wate Dell perfect - stil, and the tile at its be int—a spertat E JUT. I LI Smiley in the city, with his back to the sm 471 5 Tar . the sea and to the In Litlas of Missin berund 11, on a snäver be wiser 1am berarss series xć plasters, arches, castis, elEZIA LITT LIVES, sipert palubes with balties and winds eztvodki alets of tres, beautiful plains with ai ter is sol duas, armies of men en fxt d VI DUTWDANK, And Insumerable other objects, all SUCCESSCE Lcoz the surface of the sea. If the lower stratum of air be denser than the strua above it, the rays which diverge from it, in such dinstuts MLER TRİTMYOod fryn their direct course as tier enter the Jess detom Vilniaus strata of air; so that, tubing at first a fireeina mard to the horizon, they are, by the continually legant....gaujas in posed toon them by the strata as these berute driver at i denver, at last so torped in their os arse as ultimately to be bent upwards and made to reach the spec-nsion. The wide may be included in one explanation tators eye at E. The spectator, therefore, sees the objet by a diet set of rays ▲ E, and by a set of refracted rays, denoted by I.k, L, M. 3.0; but as the eye takes no eognizance of curvature, it deems the rays to proceed in right lines, as B. E, which should be represented as tangents to their corresponding curves. And, moreover, as the i rays from that part of the heavens upon the background of the object are refracted in the same manner, the sky is reversed as well as the oject, and presents the appearauce of a sheet of water. If the conditions of rarefaction. are such that DMT is the greatest and DMS the least caustic curve of total refraction, then all images between 1 and s (figs. 2 and 4) will be seen double (vertically direct, and inverted refracted), but objects above T will be seen | simple, and objects below is will be invisible. In this way a man walking away from the observer into the affected strata of air successively appears as in a to g (fig. 5). This is the sum of the explanation given by Monge, on the occasion of the phenomenon being observed. That it is correct may be proved by a very simple experiment. Suppose we make a bar of iron-a thick poker-red-hot, and look along its surface at some object (say a letter or a word printed on a card, as in fig. 9), there will be seen an inverted image as well as the object itself; thus showing that the strata of air over the heated surface of the iron are affected in the same manner as the air cumbent upon the hot sandy plains of Egypt. A still better example is afforded by looking over the boiler of a locomotive on a cold still day. Something analogous is also observed in the tremulous appearance of the objects of a landscape, in a very clear warm day in our own latitude, although the phenomenon perhaps never attains so decisive a character aa to warrant our classing it with the mirage of Egypt. E as to pass obliquely into the strata of changing dewa tct the rays sm and Pd meet with such variation of Cesity as to make them cross each other at x; whereby Pa is uppermost by the time they reach the spectator's ere, and their tangents consequently give the inverted ps. The state of the air may be such as to give or one such image or many, and that whether the object is above or below the horizon. The elevation of coasts, recatains, and in fact all the phenomena which, when seen er a surface of the sea, we call looming, are instances of fraction comprehended in the explanation, and may con Welaston invented an ingenious experiment for proginirage effects. Filling a vial (fig. 6) with succesLayers of clear syrup, soft water, and rectified spirit we, the effects shown are produced so soon as the 1. begin partially to mix at their surfaces, in layers of apy changing density, thus imitating the natural causes of the mirage. Writing on a card seen through the mixtv at different levels becomes affected by the mirage distrt, the effect being reversed as regards the spirit and the syrup. The appearances last for several hours. An eline seen through such media becomes bent into rms of figs. 7 and 8. Wen vertical masses of air, instead of horizontal strata, are affected so as to produce different densities we have what is termed lateral mirage. It is by this lateral mirthat the French coast has been seen to approach almost ontact with our own; and that Dover Castle has ught over and placed on the Ramsgate side of the This kind of mirage is by no means of rare occur An example is shown in fig. 10, observed by Soret and I on the Lake of Geneva at 10 a.m. in September, 1*1*, and well described by them. Here a b c is the shore of the lake, a being at Belle Rive; P is a small vessel opposite Eve, the observers being about 6 miles off. As the attacked to the positions Q, R, 8 successively, a series of rly inverted images accompanied the motion at q', R', s', the images removing further to the left of the line PG as tebrat moved further to the right of it. Whenever the bone brightly the mirage became very distinct. The Pra was easily discovered. The air to the right of GP ad been as usual in the shade during the morning, while that to the left of it had been heated by the sun, a nearly etal plane separating the two for a short distance above, water. MISHNAH. edition is that of 1601. They consist of poems and classical and theological treatises, of a very curious and elaborate kind. His nephew, Giovanni Francesco Pico (1469-1533), was the friend and biographer of Savonarola. The MIRZAPUR', the municipal city and administrative headquarters of Mirzapur district, North-western Provinces, British India. It is situated on the right bank of the Ganges, 56 miles below Allahabad, and 45 miles (by railway) above Benares. Up to quite recent years Mirzapur was the largest mart in Hindustan for grain and cotton; but of late its commercial importance has rapidly decreased, owing to the establishment of through railway communication with Bombay via Jabalpur, and the rise of Cawnpore to the position of a mercantile centre. town has a handsome river front, lined with stone ghats or flights of stairs, and exhibiting numerous mosques, Hindu temples, and dwelling-houses of the wealthier merchants, with highly decorated façades and richly carved balconies and door-frames. The interior of the town, however, does not keep up the promise of the river-side, being mainly composed of mud huts. Large wells, of tasteful architecture, occur in the principal streets. The manufacture of shellac gives employment to about 4000 persons; brass-ware and carpets are also made. The population is about 70,000. The phenomena of the Enchanted Island, the Flying Detman, and other such inexplicable appearances which d the superstitions of our forefathers, are of course e to varieties of mirage. MIRAN DOLA, GIOVANNI PICO DELLA, Count Place of Concordia, a very famous classical scholar int poet of the Italian Renaissance, was born in 4, at Mirandola, in Modena, the youngest son of Gio*** Francesco Pico, Prince of Mirandola. He early lost fatim, but his mother took every care of his education, 2. by fourteen he was entered a student of canon law at Hence he travelled to all the universities of Pay and France (1477-84). In 1484 he went to bing at this time the best Greek scholar of his day, te of the few who had really mastered Hebrew and Reining Oriental tongues. Here he propounded 900 nes for pullie disputation. No one dared meet him, and ***Familiated literati, in a mean desire for revenge, induced Inocent VIII. to censure him for the heretical leaning of this host of questions. He was deeply wounded, aft Bome for Florence (1487). Here he was received ry by the learned Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnitwo presented Lim with an estate near the city, in oriengoy his society. He was still there when Lorenzo 142), and outlived him only two years. His te works were at once printed (1496), but the best, VOL IX. MISDEMEAN'OUR, in English and Irish law, is the name given to such crimes and offences as do not amount to a FELONY. It includes nevertheless some crimes of a grave character, such as frauds, assaults, perjuries, and libels, for which the punishment may be as heavy as that awarded to some felonies. The division of crimes into felonies and misdemeanours is unknown in Scottish law, but it is practically recognized in the distinction between graver and minor offences. MISH'NAH (Heb., learning, from shanah, to learn, to repeat), the name given to the oral or second law of the Jews. In the interval between the redaction of the sacred writings by Ezra and the scribes who followed him, and the first centuries of the Christian era, the studies of the rabbis in the Mosaic law resulted in the growth of a vast collection of traditional interpretations and of legal decisions based upon the written text. These were not reduced to writing, but were carefully committed to memory. and, like some of the sacred books of the East, were in this way handed down through several generations. It is generally supposed that these interpretations and decisions, already known as the Mishnah, were first completely compiled and written down by Rabbi Jehudah the Holy, a Jew of great learning and influence who flourished in the second century of the Christian era, and was patriarch of Tiberias for over thirty years. Some modern scholars, however, while admitting that Rabbi Jehudah was one of the first and the best of the editors of the Mishnah, believe that the work itself was not committed to writing until a subsequent period, and that while it contains decisions of the rabbis given earlier than the Christian era, it contains also some that reach at least to the end of the third century. The language of the Mishnah is that of the later Hebrew, very purely written, and though it contains many words of Aramaic, Greek, and Latin origin, these have been very skilfully Hebraized by the rabbis, so as to harmonize with the remainder. It is divided into six great divisions, termed Sedarim or orders, each of which contains a number of connected treatises, Massekhtoth, which are again subdivided into Perakim or chapters, and the smaller sections or paragraphs called Mishnoth. The six Sedarim run as follows:-(1) Zera'im. of agrarian laws, preceded by a treatise on thanksgivings. In this section the various tithes and donations due to the priests, Levites, and the poor from the produce of the land; the mixtures of plants, animals, and garments; the year of release and sundry minor matters, are dealt with. (2) Mo'ed, of sabbaths, 19 The second part of the Missal is the "Proper of the Saints," following the days of the month all through the year from 29th November. The third is the "Common of the Saints," or masses appropriate to each class of holy personages, when no special mass is appointed for the ecurring feast. At the end of this common are masses for particular occasions-public supplication or thanksgiving, matrimony, the dedication of a church, &c., and asses for the dead. Then follow collects, secrets, and post-communion prayers for every kind of public or private Led. Add to these general divisions a supplement auterized by the Holy See for each of the countries of Carstendom, with masses for national solemnities and cal saints. A like supplement is allowed for each Lucese, and for the saints of religious orders. The most arcient of these, Augustinians, Basilians, Benedictines, &c., have missals of their own, with some liturgical forms cerived from the remote past. Such, in brief, is the Roman Missal. Of the most ment missals in use in national churches in communion Rome, all were authorized forms, involving no docal difference, no substantial deviation from the orthodox rgy, but claiming ancient possession, and testifying to the liberty enjoyed by bishops to modify, in their respective Gases, the accessories of public worship, while respect# the essentials. The ancient Gallican Missal, like the ient uses or missals of Great Britain and Ireland, has ben altogether discontinued. The Ambrosian rite in the se of Milan, and the Mozzarabic in Toledo, are still orized. The Eastern churches in communion with E me are strictly obliged to preserve inviolate their ancient .gies. It was natural that Christian society should embellish with artistic tracery and painting the manuscript copies of the Scriptures and the liturgical books of every description. Most beautiful specimens of this early art of illumination are found in the Book of Kells, for instance. Later copies of sacramentaries, lectionaries, evangelaries, &c., are illumiated in a style of more advanced art. These are found all continental countries, Italy being especially rich in This exquisite artistic ornamentation extended to the lay missals and books of devotion belonging to the laty, as well as to choral books of every kind. The art Laminating, like Christian painting and sculpture, was k and fostered in the sanctuary. MIS SEL THRUSH (Turdus viscivorus) is a wellBritish bird of the thrush family (Turdida). The el thrush is one of the largest of the British species of thrush, being about 11 inches in length. The upper face of the body and the wings are varying tints of brown; the under surface is white tinged with yellow, and exered with numerous black spots, which are round in e except on the throat, where they are triangular. Tessel thrush is generally met with in small woods, oretards, and hedgerows; its food consists of insects, worms, and sings, and in autumn and winter of fruits and berries, g those of the mistletoe, whence it derives its comLame. The song of this thrush is far inferior to that of the song thrush, and somewhat resembles that of the akhird; it is often heard before storms of wind and rain, Lete the bird is sometimes called the stormcock. The at is built about April in the forked branch of a tree, is composed externally of moss, grass, and lichens, and ted with a coating of mud, within which there is a layer ffe grass. The eggs are greenish-white, with reddishbrown spots; there are usually four or five of them in the best. The missel thrush is a shy bird, but during the being season both the male and female exhibit a bold and quarrelsome demeanour. Two broods are produced in the ses. This bird is a permanent inhabitant of Britain sad mest parts of Europe, and extends its range into Asia MISSIONS. MISSIONS. In the history of the religious systems of the world we find that, while many of them, like ancient Judaism, have been regarded by their adherents as limited and national possessions, there have been others which have overleaped the bounds of nation and race, and have aimed at universal supremacy. Among the systems of the latter kind that of BUDDHISM occupies a foremost place, and in its origin and subsequent history we have a wonderful illustration of the influence of missionary zeal in the spread of religious ideas and practices. In the once powerful but now extinct system of MANICHEISM, and in the still active system of MOHAMMEDANISM, missionary labours are found as one of the prominent causes of their success; but as these subjects are treated elsewhere the present article deals only with the missions of the Christian Church. From the book of the Acts of the Apostles we find that although the church at the outset limited its efforts to the Jews, and aimed only at the conversion of that people and the proselytes they had made, it had not been established many years before it had increased in the extent of its influence, and had made numerous converts from among people of other races. Some of these became at the same time proselytes to Judaism, and submitted to its initiatory rite, but after a somewhat prolonged contention within the church the latter conditions were dispensed with and the Christian converts were allowed to remain distinct from the Jews. This all-important victory opened the way for the preaching of Christianity throughout the world, and though in the books of the New Testament we have but few glimpses of the labours of the apostles, with the exception of the great apostle of the Gentiles, there is every reason to believe that they were all more or less missionaries of Christianity to many of the countries of Asia and Europe. As they passed away their work must have been continued by a band of zealous successors, for by the middle of the second century the influence of Christianity was felt throughout Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, Southern Gaul, and Northern Africa, and this influence continued to increase, until in 325 Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire. The period immediately following that event found the church busily engaged in consolidating its position, in refuting heresies within itself, and in the establishment of defined systems of doctrine and practice; but there also arose within its bosom many illustrious men who sought to emulate the zeal of the apostles, and continue the work of propagating Christianity in the earth. In the early part of the fourth century Ulphilas, a converted Goth, afterwards consecrated a Christian bishop, laboured with much success among his countrymen, one result of his labours being the preparation of the MosoGothic version of the Scriptures. In the year 404 Chrysostom founded at Constantinople a missionary college for the training of Goths for work among their own people, and about the same time Honoratus sent a baud of enthusiastic missionaries to the shores of southern and western Gaul. During the fifth and three succeeding centuries, when the countless hordes of the Teutonic tribes poured forth from their forests and steppes, and overwhelmed the worn out Roman Empire, the primitive missionary spirit of the church revived, and numbers of devoted men, burning with apostolic zeal, came out of their lonely cells and cloistered monasteries to preach the doctrines of the cross to these rude and fierce barbarians. The contest between the heathenism of Europe and Christianity was obstinate and prolonged, and even as late as the ninth century, when the Christian peoples were assailed by the Hungarians on the east, the Scandinavians on the north, and the Saracens on the south-west, the victory remained doubtful. Christianity is said to have been introduced into Ireland by St. Palladius and St. Patrick (Patricius) about 430-40, and thence missions were sent to Alban, and St. Columba founded |