the literary profession for a maintenance; and, accompanied by a female, who was to pass. for the comtesse de Mirabeau, he went to London, where he published some volumes of a work called "Le Conservateur," in which an analysis was given of the most valuable current publications. Meeting with small encouragement in England, he returned to Paris, and wrote some pamphlets on the topic of public finance. In 1786 he went to Berlin, not in any avowed public capacity, bu with the secret orders, as supposed, of the minister Calonne, to observe the politics of that court. He was admitted to a conversation with the great Frederic, then in his last illness; and he wrote two very free and important letters of advice, or memorials, to the next king on his accession. If he had any expectations of being employed in the new reign, they were frustrated by his licentious character and his op 'n profession of atheism; and he seems chiefly to have occupied himself at Berlin with laying in materials for his statistical account of the Prussian and Saxon states, and for his secret and satirical history of the court of Prussia. It is affirmed that during his residence at Berlin he became a member of the famous society of Illuminati, and important consequences of a connexion formed by his means between that society and the clubs of revolutionists in France, are traced by writers who have distinguished themselves for their sagacity in hunting plots and conspiracies throughout Europe. The real history of the French revolution, however, gives little countenance to such surmises. Mirabeau published an "Essay on the Sect of the Illuminés," which, appearing to disclose its secrets, is said to mix with them so many absurd fictions as to involve the whole in ridicule.

When the financial difficulties of the French government had produced the resolution of assembling the notables, he returned to Paris, and immediately endeavoured to attract notice by a pamphlet against stock-jobbing, which was read with great interest. The freedom of its remarks, however, offended the administration so much that an order was issued for his apprehension, which he evaded by a temporary concealment near Liege. He was soon permitted to return to Paris, and ingratiated himself with the minister Brienne, by writing against Necker. He visited Berlin in this summer, 1787, where his friend Mauvillon (see his article) was employed in conjunction with him in preparing for the press the work

entitled, "Histoire de la Monarchie Prussienne." This was published in 1788 in four volumes, quarto, and eight volumes, octavo, and obtained for the author a high reputation for political and statistical knowledge. In the next year appeared the "Histoire secrete de la Cour de Berlin," in which the reigning king of Prussia and several great personages in his court were treated with so much disrespect, that the work was ordered by the parliament of Paris to be burned by the common hangman. It was disowned by Mirabeau, though no one doubted that the greater part of it, at least, was his composition.

The assembly of the States-general could not fail of exciting the highest expectations in one of Mirabeau's ardour of mind and self-confidence; and he viewed the approaching troubles of the kingdom as pregnant with events in which his abilities would enable him to take a leading part. No man of the time, indeed, was equally qualified to shine in political warfare. Possessed of a fluent and forcible eloquence, capable of bearing all before it in popular debate, and of a presence of mind which no emergency could disconcert, versed in all the arts of intrigue, and habituated to the closest application, accustomed to lead the opinions of the public, and deriving more popularity from the boldness of his writings than he lost by the dissoluteness of his morals, he was perfectly fitted to act on the tumultuous theatre of revolutionary politics The total want of principle which he had hitherto displayed must exclude him from the list of real patriots; yet it cannot be doubted that he was upon conviction a friend to those public rights upon which all just and enlightened government is founded. At the time of the elections he went to Provence with the hope of being chosen one of the deputies of the noblesse for that province; but being rejected as not possessing a fief in it, he opened a grocer's shop at Aix, put on an apron and sold his wares, and rendered himself so popular that he was elected, with the greatest acclamations, deputy of the tiers-etat of that city. On the meeting of the States he took a step well calculated to support his consequence in the eyes of the public. He set up a daily paper which he entitled, "Lettres de Mirabe, u à ses Commettans," which gave such an account of the debates as might serve the inter sts of the popular party. The government in vain attempted to suppress it, and its circulation became very extensive. He soon distinguished.

himself as the most eloquent of the few extemporaneous speakers, and took a leading part in those disputes between the different orders, which ended in the assumption of the character of national assembly by the tiers-etat. When, after the royal sitting in June, 1789, the deputies had been ordered by the king to depart, and the order was repeated by M. de Brézé, grand master of the ceremonies, Mirabeau rose, and addressing Brézé in authoritative language, bid him go and acquaint those who sent him, that they were assembled by the will of the people, and that nothing but the bayonet should separate them. This bold speech confirmed the tiers-etat in their resistance to the royal authority; and Mirabeau followed it by a decree declaring the inviolability of the persons of the members.

It is not easy to trace the plan of his political conduct, which seems to have varied according to the fluctuations of parties and events. He is confidently affirmed to have at first devoted himself to the duke of Orleans, and to have participated in his most criminal views; though the experience of that chief's total incapacity to carry into effect any bold and decisive scheme, led him in the end to withdraw himself from his counsels. His motions were sometimes of a popular kind, sometimes tending to the support of authority; particularly, he was a strenuous advocate for the royal veto. Though apparently a friend of order, he was thought secretly to have been the instigator of the violences committed by the mob, over whom he possessed a greater influence than any other individual. The death of his father in 1790 was of no immediate advantage to his fortune, on account of the embarrassment in which he had left his affairs; yet he found means to pay off large debts, and to live in a splendid style, which was attributed to the donations of the duke of Orleans. In the infancy of the Jacobin club he was a constant attender upon its meetings; but when he became acquainted with the extent of their subversive designs, he deserted and opposed them. In May, 1790, he was a warm advocate for the right of peace and war as inherent in the executive power, and from that period it is generally supposed that he had sold himself to the court. This opinion was so prevalent, that a pamphlet was hawked about the streets, proelaiming "The grand treason of the Count de Mirabeau;" and his popularity was for some time much impaired. By versatile politics and his usual arts he recovered his influence, still,

however, retaining his enmity to the Jacobins, whom he treated with great contempt. It is supposed that he was engaged in a plan to procure the dissolution of the national assembly, and the liberty of the king, by means of an appeal to the nation, when he was attacked by a violent disease which proved fatal. Examples have rarely occurred in which the danger of a private individual has excited such a general alarm. All Paris crowded round his door, with enquiries, and the king himself sent messages to learn the state of his health. His disease. appears to have been an inflammation of the bowels; and though poison was strongly suspected by the public to have been the cause, no ground for the suspicion appeared upon dissection. He died on April 2, 1791, at the age of 42. The honours paid to his memory were almost unprecedented. All public spectacles were suspended till his funeral, which was attended by all the ministers and deputies, and a vast number of other persons, to the Pantheon, or church of St. Genevieve, where his body was deposited by the side of that of Descartes. His bust was placed in the halls of most of the municipalities of the kingdom, and funeral services were performed for him in several of the provincial capitals. Yet, such were the mutations of the public mind during the revolutionary period! in the very next year, when republicanism was triumphant, his busts were destroyed, and his remains were taken up and dissipated. What would have been the future career of such a man it is difficult to conjecture; but his death was at the time a public evil, since it made way for the influence of men more violent, equally unprincipled, and certainly less endowed with political wisdom. Besides his works above-mentioned, and a variety of pamphlets, there have been published his "Original Letters," written from the pri son of Vincennes, in which the eloquence of passion and sentiment is scarcely exceeded by the Julie of Rousseau. In person, Mirabeau was gross and repulsive; in manners, when not under controul, passionate and brutal: his courage has been called in question on account of his declining some challenges; but it never seems to have failed him in the momentous occurrences of his political life. He was unquestionably the most splendid figure in the earlier scenes of the French revolution, but like a meteor, he dazzled and disappeared without leaving any lasting traces of his existence,

The Viscount de Mirabeau, brother of the preceding, a military man of reputation; was

deputy from the nobility of Limosin to the States-general, and always acted warmly on the royal party. He emigrated, and served under the prince of Condé at the head of a legion levied by himself. He died at Friburg, in 1792. The viscount was a man of wit and courage, extraordinarily bulky, and addicted to intemperance, whence he was called Mirabeau Tonneau. He wrote several satirical songs on the changes at the beginning of the revolution. Adolphus's Biogr. Mem. of the Fr. Revolut. Diction. des Hommes Marquans. Nouv. Dict. Hist.-A.

MIRANDULA. See Pico.

MIRE, AUBERT LE (MIRAUS) a minous writer in civil and ecclesiastical history, was born at Brussels in 1573. He was nephew to John Le Mire, bishop of Antwerp, by whose interest he obtained a canonry of that church in 1598. His uncle sent him in 1610 into Holland, and afterwards into France, on affairs relative to the catholic religion; and the archduke Albert nominated him his first almoner and librarian. In 1624 he was made dean of Antwerp; and he was also grandvicar of that diocese. After a life spent in learned and ecclesiastical labours, he died at Antwerp in 1640, and was interred in the cathedral. The principal works of Le Mire are the following. "Elogia illustrium Belgii Scriptorum," quarto, 1609: "Vita Justi Lipsii," octavo, 1609: "Origines Monasteriorum Benedictinorum, Cartusianorum, Augustinnanorum," &c.; after he had published sepirately these accounts of the origin of the monastic orders, he printed them collectively, under the title of "Originum Monasticarum, lib. v." 1620: "Biblotheca Ecclesiastica," two volumes, folio. This is said to be chiefly transcribed from Bellarmin, with a few additions, not free from errors; a new edition of it was published by John Albert Fabricius in 1718: "Opera Historica & Diplomatica;" this is an useful collection of charters and diplomas relative to the Low Countries; its best edition is that of Foppens, with many notes and augmentations, in two volumes, folio, 1724; two supplemental volumes were afterwards added: Rerum Belgicarum Chronicon:" "De Rebus Bohemicis." Le Mire deserves the praise of great activity and labour of research, but is defective in judgment and accuracy. Moreri Nouv. Dict. Hist. -A.

MIREVELT, MICHAEL-JANSEN, an eminent painter, was born at Delft in 1568. His

father, a goldsmith by trade, caused him at an early age to be taught drawing and engraving, and then placed him with the painter, Antony Blochland. His first works were in historypainting, and he finished some altar-pieces, by which he acquired reputation. He also painted subjects in common life, kitchens with their furniture, and the like. At length he confined himself to portrait, as the most gainful branch of the art; and no one in his time obtained more employment in that line, or was more admired. His pictures were exact copies of nature, were highly finished, with a neat touch, and an admirable tone of colouring. The number of his portraits has been estimated at ten thousand, but Houbraken, with more probability, states them at half the number, among which were those of many of the most eminent characters of the Low Countries. His fame reached England, and procured him an invitation from Charles I., which was prevented from taking effect by the plague of London at that period. One of his principal patrons was the archduke Albert, who gave him a considerable pension, with the free exercise of his religion, which was that of the sect of Mennonites. He finally fixed his abode at Delft, where he died in 1641. Mirevelt was a man of mild and polished manners, an eloquent speaker, and well received in all companies. He frequently went to the Hague to take the portraits of the Nassau family, by whom he was much esteemed. Above fifty of his heads have been engraved. D'Argenville, Pilkington.-A.

MISSON, MAXIMILIAN, a French writer, was a counsellor in the parliament of Paris at the time of the revocation of the edict of Nantes, which event occasioned him, as a Protestant, to quit his country and retire to England. In 1687 and 16 8 he travelled to Italy with an English gentleman, to whom he was governor; and on his return he published the fruits of his observations in a work entitled, "Nouveau Voyage ditalie," three volumes, 12mo. of which the best edition is that of the Hague in 1702. These travels were looked upon as a faithful and lively picture of the countries described; but the Catholics took offence at the representations given of the ceremonies and popular superstitions prevalent among them, which they charge with exaggeration and unfaithfulness. Addison, in the preface to his travels, says of Mis on, that "his account of Italy in general is more correct than that of any writer before him, as he

particularly excels in the plan of the country, which he has given in true and lively colours." Misson wrote also "Memoires d'un Voyageur en Angleterre," 12mo. 1698; and "Le Théatre sacré des Cévennes, ou Recit des Prodiges arrivés dans cette partie du Languedoc, et des petits Prophétes," octavo, 1707: in this last work he is said to have displayed extreme credulity and a spirit of fanaticism. He died in an advanced age at London, in 1721. Mareri. Addison's Travels.-A.

MITHRIDATES, king of Pontus, surnamed Eupator, and the Great, was the son of Mithridates VI. the first king of that country who entered into an alliance with the Romans. At the death of his father, B. C. 123, he succeeded to the crown at the age of 11 or 13. He was early accustomed to martial exercises and the toils of the chace, by which his body was rendered hardy and agile. His mind displayed from youth the characters of turbulence and ferocity, to which was joined a wariness and suspicion that are said to have preserved him from several attempts on his life, made by his guardians. His mother had been appointed co-heir with him in the kingdom; but he not only deprived her of all power, but kept her under close confinement, in which she ended her days. When arrived at majority, he took to wife his sister Laodice, according to the common practice of the eastern kings. After the birth of a son he made a progress through all the neighbouring Asiatic states, with a view to observe their strength and policy. He was absent three years from his capital, during which his queen entered into a criminal connexion with one of the lords of her court; and on his return he was welcomed by her with a draught of poison, which failed of its effect. The discovery of her unfaithfulness occasioned her death, with that of all her accomplices.

Mithridates now began openly to pursue those ambitious plans in which his whole life was spent. He overran the neighbouring kingdom of Paphlagonia, which he divided with his ally Nicomedes king of Bithynia, disregard ing the remonstrances of the Romans, who had declared it a free state. He then reduced Galatia, though also under the protection of Rome. The next object of his cupidity was Cappadocia, then possessed by his brother-inlaw and friend Ariarathes. Not daring openly to attack him, he privately procured his assassination by one Gordius, upon which event the kingdom was seized by the Bithynian king,

Nicomedes, who married the widow. Mithridates, under the pretence of securing the crown for his nephew, drove out Nicomedes, and seated the young prince on the throne. He soon after, however, found a pretext to quarrel with him; and the two kings met on the frontiers at the head of powerful armies. Distrusting the effect of force, Mithridates determined to employ treachery; and proposing a conference with his nephew, he stabbed him with a concealed dagger in sight of both armies. The Cappadocians, struck with horror at the deed, threw down their arms, and suffered Mithridates to take possession of all the fortresses of the kingdom. He placed on the throne a minor son of his own, under the guardianship of his wicked instrument Gordius. The Cappadocians revolted against his government, and declared in favour of the brother of their late king; but he was soon after expelled by Mithridates, and died of a broken heart; and with him terminated the royal line of Pharnaces.

The jealousy of Nicomedes now induced him to bring on the stage a pretended third son of Ariarathes, who was sent to Rome to lay his complaints before the senate, and implore its assistance to seat him on the throne of his fathers. Mithridates sent deputies to apprize the senate of the imposture; and in conclusion, both kings were commanded to relinquish their claims, and the crown of Cappadocia was conferred on Ariobarzanes. Sylla first, and afterwards Manius Aquilius, settled this prince on his throne; and the latter also restored Nicomedes, the son of Nicomedes king of Bithynia, to the inheritance of that kingdom, which had been seized by Mithridates for his own brother. The Roman commanders, according to their usual practice, endeavoured to excite hostilities among the Asiatic kings, that they might have a pretence to interfere in their disputes. Mithridates bore in silence the attacks made upon him, till he had collected a numerous and well-disciplined army, when he suddenly invaded Cappadocia, and expelled the new king Ariobarzanes. Soon after, in order to make the Romans believe that he was inclined to pacific measures, he sent ambassadors to Rome with complaints against the hostilities committed on his dominions by king Nicomedes of Bithynia; but they were ordered immediately to depart from the city. From this time, B. C. 90, open war may be considered as prevailing between the Roman republic and Mithridates, which was

extinguished only by the death of that prince. He began by forming a league with several of the neighbouring states, and his first action was a complete victory over Nicomedes, followed by another over Aquilius the Roman legate. This success inspired him with the design of freeing all Asia from the Roman yoke; and he overran in an uninterrupted career all the countries in their alliance and possession, being every where received by the people as their deliverer. He took pains to ingratiate himself by the most popular behaviour, and by restoring, without ransom, all the Asiatic prisoners who had fallen into his hands. Even the free cities of Asia opened their gates to him, and took pleasure in demolishing all the monuments erected by the Romans. Oppius, governor of Pamphylia, and Manius Aquilius the legate, were delivered up to him. The latter, whom he regarded as the chief instigator of the war, he treated with great indignity and cruelty, and at length put him to death by pouring melted gold down his throat, as the due punishment of Roman avarice. Determined upon irreconcileable enmity to that people, and wishing to involve the Asiatics in the same extremity, he sent to the magistrates throughout the cities in which any Roman citizens had established themselves, directing, that on a certain day a general massacre should be perpetrated on all of Italian birth or origin, not excepting women and children. This horrid deed took place with every circumstance of barbarity, and to such an extent, that, by the lowest computation, eighty thousand Roman citizens lost their lives on the occasion, while some accounts raise the number to a hundred and fifty thousand.

Mithridates, now master of almost the whole of Lesser Asia, proceeded to the conquest of the neighbouring islands, several of which he reduced. At Cos he took possession of a large sum of money deposited there by the Asiatic Jews, and intended for the temple of Jerusalem. He made an attempt upon Rhodes, where many of the Romans had taken refuge; but the brave mariners of that island defeated his fleet, and in the action he himself incurred so much danger, that he ever after felt an abhorrence of the sea. Archelaus, one of his generals, crossing over to Greece, made him self master of Athens; whilst his own son, Ariarathes, conquered Macedonia and Thrace. He was now at the summit of his power, and is said to have received the homage of twentyfive different nations. It is also asserted, as a

VOL. VII.

proof of his strength of memory and talent for the acquisition of languages, that he could converse with the natives of all of them without the aid of an interpreter. The Romans, however, were not a people to suffer the aggrandizement of a hostile king, or to forget the injuries they had received from him. Sylla, whose party was now prevalent at Rome, procured the chief command against Mithridates, and sailing to Greece, recovered Athens, B. C. 86. He afterwards defeated with great slaughter the troops of Archelaus at Charonea; and by two other victories he entirely put an end to the war in Greece. The consul Flaccus, meantime, entered Asia with a Roman army, and was joined by those tribes which still remained in alliance with the republic. He was soon after dispossessed of his authority and put to death by his lieutenant Fimbria, who then assumed the supreme command in Asia, and carried on the war with vigour. He took many towns, which he treated with the utmost severity, and defeated the royal generals in a considerable engagement. He pursued Mithridates himself from Pergamus to Pitane, which last place he invested, and would have taken the king in it, had not Lucullus, from party animosity, refused to bring his fleet to cut off his retreat. Mithridates escaped to Mitylene, and being disheartened by this career of ill success, enjoined Archelaus to enter into a treaty of peace with Sylla. That leader, who regarded Fimbria as not less his enemy than Mithridates, and was impatient to return to Rome, where the Marian faction had resumed the superiority, was not unwilling to listen to proposals; and after a personal interview with the king at Dardanus in the Troad, conditions were agreed upon. Their substance was, that Mithridates should resign all his conquests, and confine himself within his paternal dominions of Pontus; that he should release his captives without ransom, pay a large sum of money, deliver up the greatest part of his fleet, and practise no hostilities against those who had revolted from him and taken part with the Romans.

Mithridates acquiesced in these hard conditions only through the pressure of present difficulties, resolving to break them as soon as he should have recruited his strength. On his return to Pontus, he began with reducing to obedience the revolted Colchi; and he put to death a son of his own name through jealousy of that nation's attachment to him. He aug. mented his forces, and refused to restore to

R