Chapter Mincius to Mirabella of M by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Mincius to Mirabella

Mincius, a Venetian river which falls into the Po. Virgil was born at Andês, on the banks of this river.

Thou honoured flood,
Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds.
   —Milton: Lycidas, 85 (1638).

Minerva Press (The), Leadenhall Street, London, noted for its trashy literature, in the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth centuries.

Miniature Painters (British).

(1) Nicholas Hilliard (time, queen Elizabeth), Isaac and Peter Oliver, Samuel Cooper.

(2) John Hoskyns, Richard Cosway (eighteenth century), Ozias Humphrey, Andrew Robertson, sir William Ross.

(3) Henry C. Heath, Henry Edridge, Charles Turrell, Thorburn, Edward Taylor, Edward Moira.

Minikin (Lord), married to a cousin of sir John Trotley, but, according to bon ton, he flirts with Miss Tittup; and Miss Tittup, who is engaged to colonel Tivy, flirts with a married man.

Lady Minikin, wife of lord Minikin. According to bon ton, she hates her husband, and flirts with colonel Tivy; and colonel Tivy, who is engaged to Miss Tittup, flirts with a married woman. It is bon ton to do so.—Garrick: Bon Ton (1760).

Minjekahwun, Hiawatha’s mittens, made of deer-skin. When Hiawatha had his mittens on, he could smite the hardest rocks asunder.

He [Hiawatha] had mittens, Minjekahwum,
Magic mittens made of deer-skin;
When upon his hands he wore them,
He could smite the rocks asunder.
   —Longfellow: Hiawatha, iv. (1855).

Minna and Brenda, two beautiful girls, the daughters of Magnus Troil the old udaller of Zetland. Minna was stately in form, with dark eyes and raven locks; credulous and vain, but not giddy; enthusiastic, talented, and warmhearted. She loved captain Clement Cleveland; but Cleveland was killed in an encounter on the Spanish main. Brenda had golden hair, a bloom on her cheeks, a fairy form, and a serene, cheerful disposition. She was less the heroine than her sister, but more the loving and confiding woman. She married Mordaunt Mertoun (ch. iii.).—Sir W. Scott: The Pirate (time, William III.).

Minnehaha [“the laughing water”], daughter of the arrow-maker of Dacotah, and wife of Hiawatha. She was called Minnehaha from the waterfall of that name between St. Anthony and Fort Snelling.

From the waterfall, he named her,
Minnehaha, Laughing Water.
   —Longfellow: Hiawatha, iv. (1855).

Minnesingers, the troubadours of Germany during the Hohenstaufen period (1138–1294). The word minnesingers means “love-singers,” and these minstrels were so called because their usual subject was love, either of woman or nature. The names of about three hundred are known, the most famous being Dietmar von Aist, Ulrich von Lichtenstein, Heinrich von Frauenlob, and above all Walther von der Vogelweide (1168–1230). Wolfram von Eschenbach, Gottfried von Strasburg, Heinrich von Offerdingen, and Hartmann von der Aue are also classed among the minnesingers, but their fame rests on metrical romance rather than on love-songs.

Minns and his Cousin (Mr.), the first of the Sketches by Boz. It was published in the Old Monthly Magazine (1836).

My first effusion, dropped stealthily one evening at twilight, with fear and trembling, into a dark letterbox, in a dusk office, up a dark court in Fleet Street.—Dickens.

Minona, a Gaelic bard, “the soft-blushing daughter of Torman.”