or pensive cast to elegiac verse, and was hence sometimes considered as the father of elegy. The instability of human happiness, the helplessness of man, the cares and miseries to which life is exposed, the brief season that man has to enjoy himself in, the wretchedness of old age, are plaintively dwelt upon by him, while love is held up as the only consolation that men possess; life not being worth having when it can no longer be enjoyed. "His fragments," says Mr. Grote, "present a vein of passion and tender sentiment, illustrated by appropriate matter of legend, such as would be cast into poetry in all ages."—G.
MINA, Francisco Espoz y, a Spanish general and guerilla chief, was born at Idozin in Navarre. 17th June, 1781. His father was a respectable farmer; and it was not until the French war that he left his agricultural pursuits and enlisted as a private soldier in Doyle's battalion. Soon afterwards he joined the guerilla band collected by his nephew, Xavier Mina; and when the latter was taken prisoner by the French, Francisco Mina was called to the command, and soon absorbed all the guerilla bands around him, so that, according to a hostile account, he had six thousand men in 1811 and ten thousand in 1812. In the latter year he was appointed by the government at Cadiz to the supreme command in Navarre. He states in his memoirs that during this war he was engaged in one hundred and forty-three battles, and that he was never surprised, although at one time eighteen French generals were engaged in baffling his movements. He kept at bay for fifty-three days twenty-six thousand men, who would otherwise have taken part in the battle of Salamanca; and in the same way he assisted in winning the battle of Vittoria. In 1813 he was promoted to the rank of captain-general of the province. Soon after the return of Ferdinand VII. he repaired to Madrid; but, dissatisfied with the political prospects, he attempted, 25th September, 1814, an attack on Pampeluna, with a view to proclaim the constitution, in conjunction with his nephew and other officers. The failure of this operation compelled him to seek refuge in France, where he refused a command offered him by Napoleon during the Hundred Days, and probably aided the various conspiracies which were formed during the succeeding years. The revolution of Cadiz in 1820 recalled him to his country. He was speedily installed as captain-general of Navarre. Subsequently he was appointed generalissimo, to act with twenty thousand men against the "army of the faith," and wreaked a terrible vengeance for the cruelties of the absolutists. The town of Castel Follit was sacked and razed to the ground, and a pillar erected on its site with the inscription, "Here stood Castel Follit." On the invasion of the French in 1823 Mina defended Catalonia with success; but finally concluded an honourable capitulation and took refuge in England. In 1830 he attempted another insurrection in Navarre, which failed through want of unity among the constitutionalists, and he returned to England. In 1834 (22nd September) he was appointed to the command of an army acting against the Carlist general, Zumala-Carregui. He was successful; but ill health obliged him to resign the command in April following, and he died at Barcelona in 1836. His nephew, mentioned above, after the unsuccessful attempt on Pampeluna, headed an expedition for the liberation of Mexico; but was captured and shot after a mock trial in 1817.—F. M. W.
MINDERER, Raymond, a celebrated German physician, the discoverer of the acetate of ammonia, was born at Augsburg in 1570, and died there in 1621.—D. W. R.
MINDERHOUT, Henry van, an excellent marine painter, born at Rotterdam in 1632. He was admitted as master into the guild of painters at Bruges in 1662, and died at Antwerp, July 22, 1696. There is a capital view of the basin of Bruges, with shipping, in the gallery of the academy there, painted in 1653.—His son, William Augustin (1680-1752), followed the same branch of art.—(Catalogues of the Académie de Bruges and the Musée d'Anvers.)—R. N. W.
* MINIÉ, Claude Etienne, the introducer of the once famous Minié rifle, was born in Paris in 1810. He entered the army at a very early age, made several campaigns in Africa, and attained the rank of captain of chasseurs. The French troops being unable with their smooth-bore muskets to compete in range with the more powerful pieces of the Arabs, it was considered necessary to produce some change in the French arms. Captain Minié, encouraged by the duke of Montpensier, made an extensive course of experiments, and presented to the French artillery committee a new pattern rifle and a new bullet, which gave results far exceeding the practice of the service musket. The great peculiarity of his system was the use of an elongated bullet having a cup or capsule of iron in the end next the powder, so as to expand the lead and make the bullet take the rifling. The system was not perfect on account of the iron cups being occasionally blown through the bullets, leaving a ring of lead in the barrel; but it was the first great step towards the introduction of the rifle into the armies of Europe, and to the production of the Enfield rifle with which the British troops are armed. It would be unjust to Captain Minié to deprive him of the merit of bringing the modern rifle into efficient use; but as regards the invention there can be little doubt that Captain Norton of Rosherville at an earlier period had used the system known as the Minié system. Large offers on the part of Russia are said to have been made to and rejected by the gallant French officer, who gave to his own country the whole benefit of his labour, and did not even take a patent which could scarcely have failed to be valuable. From the Emperor Napoleon III. he received a moderate indemnity, and was appointed to conduct the school of musketry at Vincennes, with unattached rank as "chef de bataillon." As the question of invention has been vehemently discussed, it may he proper to observe that the Minié system applies not to the rifle barrel, but to the bullet exclusively.—P. E. D.
MINOT, Laurence, an English poet of the fourteenth century, is the author of some fine martial lyrics, celebrating the exploits of Edward III. in France between the years 1333 and 1352. The poems are ten in number, composed in the common romance stave of six lines, and were written, in Professor Craik's opinion, contemporaneously with the events they describe. They were discovered by Tyrrhwitt in 1775, among the Cottonian MSS., having been erroneously catalogued as a work of Chaucer's, and were published by Ritson, with notes and introductory dissertations, in 1796. Nothing is known of Minot's history, but it is presumable that he was an ecclesiastic, and his diction renders it probable that he was from the north of England.—T. A.
MINTO, Gilbert Elliot. See Elliot.
MINUZIANO, Alessandro, scholar, born at Toulouse, 1520, and died at Castra, 1587. He studied at Paris law, medicine, philosophy, and theology, and has left works in each of these sciences. Minut was connected with the most illustrious men of his time, among others with Julius Scaliger.—W. J. P.
MINUTIUS, Felix. See Felix.
MINUZIANO, Alessandro (Minutianus), editor and printer, was born at San Severo in Puglia about 1450; died not before 1521. He studied under Giorgio Merula, and succeeded Francesco Pozzuolo (Puteolanus) in the palatine schools of Milan. For the benefit of his pupils he projected a complete edition, the first published, of Cicero's works; and in due course set up on his own premises a printing-press for its production. He subsequently issued numerous classic and other works—all his editions being characterized by beauty of type and accuracy of text. His publication of the Annals of Tacitus, 1516, does him, however, but little credit, and subjected him to the displeasure of Leo X., as it was fraudulently copied from a like work which was being issued at Rome by the pope himself—C. G. R.
MINZOCCHI, Francesco, surnamed San Bernardo, an Italian painter, was born at Forli about 1513. While very young he drew from the paintings of Palmigiano in his native place; afterwards studied the works of Pordenone; and later became scholar and assistant to G. Genga. Minzocchi's principal works are two large frescoes of the "Sacrifice of Melchisedec," and the "Gift of Manna," in the cathedral at Loretto; a series of the History of Christ, in the chapel of the Conception; a fresco of the Trinity, on the ceiling of Sta. Maria della Grata; and several in other of the churches of Forli. Minzocchi's colouring is considered good, his execution manly and vigorous, and his principal figures have a certain air of nobleness; but he introduced mean and irrelevant matters into his sacred subjects, and the general impression is unsatisfactory. He died in 1574. His sons, Pietro Paolo and Sebastiano, both very inferior to their father, also painted sacred and secular history.—J. T—e.
MINZONI, Onofrio, poet, born in Ferrara, 25th January, 1734; died in the same city, 30th May, 1817. A disciple of the jesuits, he took holy orders, obtained great success as a preacher, and discharged the office of canon penitentiary in his native city. In 1783 a medal was struck in his honour, and a volume of his sonnets, first published in 1794, attained its thirteenth edition in 1821.—C. G. R.
