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

Of Richard I., Blondel.

Miolner , Thor’s hammer. (See Mjolner.)

This is my hammer, Miölner the mighty;
Giants and sorcerers cannot withstand it.
   —Sœmund Sigfusson: Edda (1130).

Miquelets (Les), soldiers of the Pyrenees, sent to co-operate with the dragoons of the Grand Monarque against the Camisards of the Cevennes.

Mirabel, the “wild goose,” a travelled Monsieur, who loves women in a loose way, but abhors matrimony, and especially dislikes Oriana; but Oriana “chases” the “wild goose” with her woman’s wiles, and catches him.—John Fletcher: The Wild-goose Chase (1652).

Mirabel (Old). He adores his son, and wishes him t o marry Oriana. As the young man shilly-shallies, the father enters into several schemes to entrap him into a declaration of love; but all his schemes are abortive.

Young Mirabel, the son, called “the inconstant.” A handsome, dashing young rake, who loves Oriana, but does not wish to marry. Whenever Oriana seems lost to him, the ardour of his love revives; but immediately his path is made plain, he holds off. However, he ultimately marries her.—Farquhar: The Inconstant (1702).

Mirabell (Edward), in love with Millamant. He liked her, “with all her faults; nay, liked her for her faults,…which were so natural that (in his opinion) they became her.”—Congreve: The Way of the World (1700).

Not all that Drury Lane affords
Can paint the rakish “Charles” so well,
Or give such life to “Mirabell”
   —[As Montague Talbot, 1778–1831]. Crofton Croker.

Mirabella, “a maiden fair, clad in mourning weeds, upon a mangy jade, unmeetly set with a lewd fool called Disdain” (canto 6). Timias and Serena, after quitting the hermit’s cell, met her. Though so sorely clad and mounted, the maiden was “a lady of great dignity and honour, but scornful and proud.” Many a wretch did languish for her through a long life. Being summoned to Cupid’s judgment-hall, the sentence passed on her was that she should “ride on a mangy jade, accompanied by a fool, till she had saved as many lovers as she had slain” (canto 7). Mirabella was also doomed to carry a leaky bottle which she was to fill with tears, and a torn wallet which she was to fill with repentance; but her tears and her repentance dropped out as fast as they were put in, and were trampled under foot by Scorn (canto 8).—Spenser: Faërie Queene, vi. 6–8 (1596).

(“Mirabella” is supposed to be meant for Rosalind, who jilted Spenser, and who is called by the poet “a widow’s daughter of the glen, and poor.”)