Chapter Misnar to Moath of M by Brewer's Readers Handbook

The great house at Malsanger, near Basingstoke, also in Hampshire, has a similar tradition connected with it.

Mistresses of Men of Note. (See Lovers, p. 633.)

Mita, sister of Aude. She married sir Miton de Rennes, and became the mother of Mitaine. (See next article.)—Croquemitaine, xv.

Mitaine, daughter of Mita and Miton, and godchild of Charlemagne. She went in search of Fear Fortress, and found that it existed only in the imagination; for as she boldly advanced towards it, the castle gradually faded into thin air. Charlemagne made Mitaine, for this achievement, Roland’s ’squire, and she fell with him in the memorable attack at Roncesvallês. (See previous article.)—Croquemitaine, iii.

Mite (Sir Matthew), a returned East Indian merchant, dissolute, dogmatical, ashamed of his former acquaintances, hating the aristocracy, yet longing to be acknowledged by them. He squanders his wealth on toadies, dresses his livery servants most gorgeously, and gives his chairmen the most costly exotics to wear in their coats. Sir Matthew is for ever astonishing weak minds with his talk about rupees, lacs, jaghires, and so on.—Foote: The Nabob (1772).

Lady Oldham says, “He comes amongst us preceded by all the pomp of Asia, profusely scattering the spoils of conquered provinces, corrupting the virtue and alienating the affections of all the old friends of the family.”

Sir John Malcolm gives us a letter worthy of sir Matthew Mite, in which Clive orders “200 shirts, the best and finest that can be got for love or money.”—Macaulay.

Mithra or Mithras, a supreme divinity of the ancient Persians, confounded by the Greeks and Romans with the sun. He is the personification of Ormuzd, representing fecundity and perpetual renovation. Mithra is represented as a young man with a Phrygian cap, a tunic, a mantle on his left shoulder, and lunging a sword into the neck of a bull. Scaliger says the word means “greatest” or “supreme.” Mithra is the middle of the triplasian deity: the Mediator, Eternal Intellect, and Architect of the world.

Her towers, where Mithra once had burned,
To Moslem shrines—oh, shame!—were turned;
Where slaves, coaverted by the sword,
Their mean apostate worship poured,
And cursed the faith their sires adored.
   —Moore: Lalla Rookh (“The Fire-Worshippers,” 1817).

Mithridate , a medicinal confectio n, invented by Damocratês, physician to Mithridatês king of Pontus, and supposed to be an antidote to all poisons and contagion. It contained seventy-two ingredients. Any panacea is called a “mithridate.”

Their kinsman garlic bring, the poor man’s mithridate.
   —Drayton: Polyolbion, xx. (1622).

Mithridate , a tragedy by Racine (1673). “Monime” , in this drama, was one of Mlle. Rachel’s great characters.

Mithridates , surnamed “the Great.” Being conquered by the Romans, he tried to poison himself, but poison had no effect on him, and he was slain by a Gaul. Mithridatês was active, intrepid, indefatigable, and fruitful in resources; but he had to oppose such generals as Sulla, Lucullus, and Pompey. His ferocity was unbounded, his perfidy was even grand.

(Racine has written a French tragedy on the subject, called Mithridate (1673); and N. Lee brought out his Mithridatês in English about the same time.)

Mitra, the Persian sun-god, whom they worship in a cave. His statue has a lion’s head crowned with a tiara, and he holds with his two hands a struggling heifer. Statius refers to him when Adrastus asks