Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 13.djvu/497

MICKIEWICZ. the noble death of a princess of that name, who dons the armor of her husband, and thus dis- guised leads his army against the Teutonic Knights.

In 1824 Mickiewicz was arrested in Vilna on suspicion of revolutionary plotting, and was sent to Saint Petersburg. In the capital he formed a warm friendship with Pushkin, but soon went to Odessa (1825) as instructor in the Richelieu Lycexmi. After nine months he visited the Cri- mea, and this was a turning point in his career. The Crimean Boyineis recording his impressions are glowing with Oriental color and graceful in form. In December, 182.5, he obtained a position in the office of the Governor-General, Prince Go- litzin, at Moscow. In 1828 he returned to Saint Petersburg, and there published his second epic, Wallenrod, descriptive of the struggle of the Lithuanians against the Teutonic Knights. In 1829 the poet was given permission to travel in Italy, Germany, and France. In Weimar he met Goethe, who became greatly interested in him. After staying for a time in Rome, where he met James Fenimore Cooper, he started for Poland on hearing of the uprising of 1830, but, imable to cross the strictly guarded frontier, he went to Dresden, after lingering in Posen for a while, rnd soon settled in Paris. In 18.32 he published the third part of his D.~ia(h/. In poverty and dis- tress, he published his masterpiece, (S'iV Thaddeus (Pan Tadeusz). in 1834. In 1839 he was called to the chair of Latin literature at Lausanne, and in the year following he was appointed the first incumbent of the newly founded chair of Slavic literatures at the College de France. But after a year or two he began to intermingle his lectures with irrelevant discussions on politics, religion, and mysticism, and the French Gov- ernment was forced to stop his lectures in 1844. In 1848 he went to Italy, and there undertook to form Polish regiments against Austria. Then, in 1849, he edited at Paris the Tribune des Peuples, which was soon stopped by the French Govern- ment. In 1852 he was appointed a librarian in the Arsenal, and on the outbreak of the Crimean War Louis Napoleon sent him to Constantinople to organize Polish regiments against Russia. Here he died shortly afterwards. He was buried in Paris; in 1890 his body was transferred to Cracow.

Tlie best edition of Mickiewicz's works is that of 1838, in eight volumes, published in Paris, under the poet's personal supervision ; and the latest by Dr. Biegeleisen, in four volumes (Lem- berg. 1893). They have been translated into most European languages. His ballads and son- nets are to be foimd, in German, in Reclam's Universal Bihliothek ; Dzindij (Ahnefeier), in German by Lipiner (Leipzig, 1887) ; Grazyna, in German by Nitschmann in Iris (Leipzig, 1880); ^yallenrod, by Weiss (Bremen, 1871); Berr Thaddaus, by Weiss (Leipzig, 1882) and Lipiner (Leipzig, 1883). Conrad iW/Z/oirof/ was translated into English by Leo Jablonski, and a poetical version of it by Cattley appeared in London in 1840. The best biography in French is by his son, WTadislaw Mickiewicz (Paris, 1888) ; revised and enlarged in Polish (Posen, 1890-94). His (Eurres complets appeared in eleven volumes in Paris, 1860.

MICKLE, William Julius (1735-88). A Scottish poet, born at Langholm, Dumfries- shire. Mickle failed as a brewer, settled in

London as a writer, and became corrector to the Clarendon Press, Oxford (1765). In 1767 he published a narrative poem called The Con- cubine, reissued in 1778, as Bir Martyn. Ex- cepting Thomson's Castle of Indolence, it is the best of the eighteenth century imitations of Spenser's Faerie Queene. Retiring to a farm near Oxford, Mickle made a free version of the Lusiads of Caraoens (1775). To Evans's Old Ballads (1777-84) he contributed the fine ballad Cumnor Hall, which suggested Scott's Kenilicorth. He may also have written the exquisite Scotch song There's nae Luck About the House (ascribed also to Jean Adams). In 1779 Mickle went to Lis- bon as secretary in the Bomney man-of-war. He was most hospitably received and made a mem- ber of the Royal Academy of Portugal. He died at Forest Hill, near Oxford. Consult his Poetical Works, with biography, ed. by Sim (London, 1807).

MICMAC. An important Algonquian tribe of Canada, occupying all of Nova Scotia, Cape Breton Island, and Prince Edward Island, with large portions of New Brunswick, Quebec, and Newfoundland. The name is of uncertain etjTnol- ogy. In all the colonial wars the Micmac sided with the French, those of Southern Nova Scotia especially making a reputation by their inroads vipon the New England settlements. They are now all civilized, fairly industrious as hunters, fishers, guides, and basket and curio makers, but without any appreciable desire to advance their condition ; moral, sober, and law-abiding, and al- most solidly Catholic through the effort of early French missionaries and their successors. They number in all about 4000, and are divided approxi- mately as follows : Nova Scotia ( including Cape Breton Island), 2050; New Brunswick, 950; Quebec, 630; Prince Edward Island, 320; New- foundland (not reported) — perhaps 50. Their language and traditions have been investigated by the missionary Rand.

MFCON (Lat., from Gk. MUuv, Mikon) .^ An Athenian painter and sculptor, who flourished about the middle of the fifth century B.C. He painted three of the walls of the temple of Theseus at Athens, and is said to have had a hand in the great picture of the battle of Mara- thon in the Poikile. He was especially skillful in the painting of horses.

MICKOBE. A microscopic organism ; espe- cially applied to bacteria. Various infectious dis- eases are caused by their presence. See Bacteria.

MrCROCLINE (from Gk. iJ.iKp6s, mikros, small + k\Iv€iv, klinein, to incline). A potas- sium-aluminum silicate that crystallizes in the triclinic system, and is near oi'thoclase in its properties, being a member of the triclinic group of feldspars. It has a vitreous lustre and is white to cream-yellow in color, and sometimes red or green. The green varieties are known as Amazon stone. The ordinary microcline, which is found both as crj'stals and in masses in gra- nitic rocks, is of common occurrence; excellent specimens are found at Magnet Cove, Ark.

MICROCOCCI. See Bacteria.

MI'CROCON'ODON (Neo-Lat., from Gk. fitKpSi, miki-os, small -+- Kuvoi, konos, cone + (55oi5j, odous, tooth). A small fossil jaw of un- certain affinities found in the Triassic rocks. It has been considered by some American authors