went down to Cambridge, where, as may be seen from the subscription list prefixed to the ‘Guide into the Tongues,’ he made many friends. At Oxford he passed some months, with ‘his company of strangers and scholars,’ revising his ‘Guide,’ but although the vice-chancellor gave him in 1610 a certificate signed by himself and several heads of houses to the effect that the ‘Dictionary’ or ‘Guide’ was worthy of publication, Oxford did not furnish any subscribers. He seems to have been a laborious student, lighting the candle, as he says, for others and burning out himself. Ben Jonson describes him as a ‘rogue’ (Conversations with Drummond, ed. Laing, p. 4).
Minsheu wrote: 1. ‘A Dictionarie in Spanish and English,’ London, 1599, fol. 2. ‘A Spanish Grammar,’ London, 1599, fol. Minsheu's ‘Dictionary’ and ‘Grammar’ were both founded on the works of Richard Percival [q. v.] He also about this time seems to have published another shorter Spanish dictionary, more in the nature of an encyclopædia (cf. Arber, Stationers' Registers, iii. 145-6). 3. ‘Vocabularium Hispanico-Latinum et Anglicum copiosissimum. … A most copious Spanish Dictionarie with Latine and English (and sometime other Languages),’ London, 1617 (?) fol. 4. 'Ηγεμών είς τάς γλώσσας, id est Ductor in Linguas, the Guide into Tongues,’ London, 1617, fol., containing equivalents in eleven languages (2nd edit. 1626, in nine languages and much altered). This great lexicon is of great value as a dictionary of Elizabethan English; it is also in all probability the first English book printed by subscription, or at all events the first which contains a list of the subscribers. Minsheu obtained a license (granted to John Minshon) for the sole printing of the ‘Glosson’ for twenty-one years on 20 Feb. 1611. It seems that Bishop Wren had annotated a copy of the second edition with a view to republishing it himself.
[Works; Gent. Mag. 1786 ii. 1073, 1787 i. 16, 121; H. B. Wheatley's Chron. Notices of the Dictionaries of the English Language in Proc. of Philol. Soc. 1865, p. 230; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. viii. 269, ix. 447, xi. 422; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1611-18, p. 10.]
MINSHULL or MYNSHUL, GEFFRAY (1594?-1668), author, son of Edward Minshull of Nantwich, Cheshire, and his wife Margaret, daughter of Thomas Mainwaring, was born about 1594, and admitted at Gray's Inn on 11 March 1611–12. In 1617 he was imprisoned for debt in the King's Bench prison, and while there occupied himself by writing a series of ‘characters,’ which he sent to his uncle Matthew Mainwaring [q. v.], who generously helped him out of his difficulties. These experiences of prison life were published in 1618, with the title of ‘Essayes and Characters of a Prison and Prisoners. Written by G. M. of Grayes-Inn, Gent.’ (small quarto). The volume was reissued without alteration in 1638; the title-page bears the inscription ‘with some new additions,’ but the contents are precisely the same as those of the 1618 edition; it was reprinted at Edinburgh in 1821. To this last edition, of which only 150 copies were printed, an introductory notice was prefixed by the anonymous editor. All these editions are in the British Museum Library. Minshull died in 1668 at Nantwich, where he was buried on 1 Nov.
[Brit. Mus. Cat.; Hall's Hist. of Nantwich, 1883, pp. 469, 471; Gray's Inn Admission Register (Foster), p. 129.]
MINTO, Earls of. [See Elliot, Sir Gilbert, 1751–1814, first Earl; Elliot, Gilbert, 1782–1859, second Earl.]
MINTO, Lords. [See Elliot, Sir Gilbert, 1651–1718, first Lord; Elliot, Sir Gilbert, 1693–1766, second Lord.]
MINTO, WILLIAM (1845–1893), critic, born 10 Oct. 1845, near Alford, Aberdeenshire, was son of James Minto, by his wife Barbara Copland. Gaining a bursary, he entered Aberdeen University in 1861. Here he steadily outdistanced competitors, until on graduating M.A. in 1865 he carried off the leading money prizes and took honours in three departments classics, mathematics, and philosophy—a feat unprecedented and still unique. In 1866 he went to Merton College, Oxford, but left next year without taking a degree. Returning to Aberdeen he became assistant to the professor of logic and English literature, Dr. Alexander Bain. It was while thus engaged that he turned his mind towards the study of English literature, and planned his ‘Manual of English Prose Literature, Biographical and Critical,’ which he published in 1872.
In 1873 he moved to London and engaged in literary work, contributing to the now extinct ‘Examiner,’ of which paper he was editor for four years, 1874–8. Subsequently he was on the leader-writing staff of the ‘Daily News’ and ‘Pall Mall Gazette.’ In 1874 he published his ‘Characteristics of English Poets from Chaucer to Shirley,’ and in 1879 a monograph on Defoe for the ‘English Men of Letters’ series. Besides contributing to the leading reviews he wrote for the ‘Encyclopaedia Britannica’ a number of important articles on literary subjects.
