His lyric poems, chiefly in the Portuguese language, are in the older forms, but correct and dignified in style. He also wrote two comedies and several poetical epistles.—F. M. W.
MIRANDOLA. See Pico.
MIRBEL, Charles François Brisseau de, a celebrated French botanist, was born at Paris, 27th March, 1776, and died at Neuilly, 12th September, 1854. He devoted his attention early to botany, and was a pupil in the Paris museum. In 1797 he accompanied Ramond to Mont Perdu and the Pyrenees. He was appointed director of the garden at Malmaison, in which the Empress Josephine had a fine collection of plants. He acted as private secretary to Napoleon in Holland; and he was afterwards nominated director of the Dutch school of painting at Paris and at Rome. In 1808 he was chosen a member of the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of France; and he became professor-adjoint of botany and vegetable physiology. Subsequently he was a member of the council of state, and was named secretary-general of the department of police. He mingled in public affairs for some years, and then resigned office. In 1829 he became professor of culture at the Museum d'Histoire Naturèlle. He was chosen a foreign member of the Royal and Linnæan Societies of London. He was a distinguished vegetable anatomist and physiologist, and has done much to advance our knowledge of the structure and functions of plants. Among his writings may be enumerated the following—"Elemens de Physiologic Vegetale et de Botanique;" essays on the geographical distribution of coniferæ; anatomical and physiological researches on Marchantia polymorpha; notes on Cambium; on the structure and development of the vegetable ovule; on the formation of wood and bark in dicotyledons; history of vegetable embryogeny; on the structure of some monocotyledons.—J. H. B.
MITCHELL, Sir Andrew, a Scottish statesman and ambassador, was the son of the Rev. William Mitchell, one of the ministers of St. Giles' church, Edinburgh, and a member of the family of Mitchell of Thainston, Aberdeenshire. He was educated at the university of his native city, where he studied mathematics under the celebrated Colin Maclaurin. He began his public career as secretary to the marquis of Tweeddale, who in 1741 was appointed secretary of state for Ireland. In consequence of the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 the marquis resigned his office; but the activity and zeal which Mitchell displayed during that critical period recommended him to the favour of the government, and after the suppression of the rebellion he was in 1747 returned to the house of commons as member for the Elgin district of burghs. In 1751 he was appointed British minister at Brussels. Two years later he was created a knight of the bath, and appointed ambassador-extraordinary and plenipotentiary at the court of Frederick the Great of Prussia. He acquired extraordinary influence over the mind of that monarch, and was celebrated for the plain and strong censures which he often levelled against Frederick's acts of cruelty and oppression. He seems to have borne Mitchell's remonstrances and epigrammatic sarcasms with equanimity, from a regard both to his high character and to the strenuous support which he received from him amidst his greatest difficulties. The zealous and courageous ambassador was constantly at the king's side in every emergency, cheering and helping him. He accompanied him in several campaigns, was repeatedly under fire, on one occasion made a narrow escape from capture, and cheerfully endured all the hardships of a soldier's life in his eagerness to promote the interests of his sovereign ally. Sir Andrew died in 1771. The Prussian monarch is said to have wept as he saw the funeral procession of his honest and courageous friend pass.—(Memoirs and Papers of Sir Andrew Mitchell, by Andrew Bisset, 2 vols.)—J. T.
* MITCHELL, G. Donald, an American writer, better known by his assumed name of Ik. Marvel, was born in 1812 at Norwich, Connecticut, and studied at Yale college, where he took his degrees in 1841. After travelling eighteen months in Europe, he returned to study law in New York. The impressions made upon him during his travels were published in 1847, under the title of "Fresh Gleanings." In the following year he made a second journey to Europe, and resided for some time in Paris, whence he contributed to a New York journal letters descriptive of the Revolution, which were afterwards published in a volume entitled "The Battle Summer." His next publication, "The Lorgnette," consists of clever sketches of New York society, which is likewise the character of his "Fudge Doings." His reputation was greatly extended by his "Reveries of a Bachelor," 1851, and "Dream Life," 1852. He was consul at Venice in 1853, and since his return to America has been engaged on a history of Venice.—R. H.
MITCHELL, John, the first professor of biblical literature to the United Secession church, Scotland, was born at Beith, 15th October, 1768, his father being the Secession minister of that place. After his term of academic and theological study had been concluded, he was licensed as a preacher by the presbytery of Perth in 1792. Immediately afterwards he was called by the congregation of Whithorn and by that of Anderston, then a suburb of Glasgow. The synod decreed him to Anderston, and he was ordained on the 1st of August, 1793. A long and useful ministry was spent by him, and his congregation so grew that it removed at length to a larger and more handsome edifice, now the United Presbyterian church, Wellington Street. In September, 1825, he was chosen by the synod professor of biblical literature, and entered on the duties of his office the following year. In 1804 Dr. Claudius Buchanan gave the university of Glasgow £100 to be awarded as a prize for the best essay on the "Civilization of the subjects of the British empire in India," and Dr. Mitchell gained it. The Essay was at once published, and its graceful style and able discussions made it popular. It deals in a masterly way with the successive points taken up, and always in a benign, christian spirit. Nay, sage-like, it anticipates the dangers and difficulties of such a crisis as late years have brought into painful prominence. So impressed was Dr. Buchanan with the Essay that he asked its author to become chaplain of the army in India, offering to procure that situation for him. Dr. Mitchell for a variety of reasons declined, and laboured on in Glasgow to a numerous and attached flock till his pastorate numbered more than fifty years. His discourses were scriptural in contents, graceful in style and delivery, and very devout in tone and spirit—for his lips had been touched with fire from off the altar. He presided in his theological class with great acceptance; his students, besides being benefited, were charmed into attention by his courtesy and blandness—his venerable appearance reminding them of Samuel in the school of the prophets. None of his lectures have been published, though the publication was anticipated. He received the degree of D.D. from the college of Princeton in 1815, and from that of Glasgow in 1837. Full of years and honour Dr. Mitchell died 25th January, 1844. In addition to his learned gifts and acquirements, Dr. Mitchell was remarkable for his sympathy and gentleness, which showed themselves also in the soft and silvery tones of his voice. His smile was a benediction. He possessed in a rare degree the "ornament of a meek and quiet spirit," which rejoiced to strew the fruits of its beneficence along its daily walk, without courting observation or inviting human applause. He was the model of a working pastor and a christian gentleman. In short, he was one of the truest, kindest men "that ere wore earth about him."—J. E.
MITCHELL, Thomas, an eminent Greek scholar, was born in London in 1783, the son of a riding-master. He was educated at the Blue-coat school, which sent him to Pembroke college, Cambridge. Though the promising "Grecian" of Christ's hospital distinguished himself highly at Cambridge, he was unfortunate in his academic career. A new regulation prevented him from obtaining the fellowship of Pembroke which he had a right to expect; and though he gained, on competition, an "open" fellowship at Sidney Sussex college, he had to vacate it after a term, being reluctant to take holy orders from the same honourable scruples which made the orthodox Johnson unwilling to enter the church. Another form of the same conscientiousness led him to decline the Greek professorship in a Scotch university where, as a condition precedent, he would have been obliged to subscribe the Confession of Faith. This invitation was given after the appearance of the striking essays on Aristophanes which he began to contribute to the Quarterly Review in 1813. Their success led him to attempt the translation of five plays of Aristophanes into English verse, which was published in 1820-22, with a most amusing and interesting preliminary dissertation, perhaps a little disfigured, however, by the intrusion of the author's dislike of democracy in general, and of the Athenian democracy in particular. Mitchell's rendering of Aristophanes is wonderful in its spirit and vigour; and in his imitation of the trochaics and anapæsts of the original, he displayed a singular mastery of English metre. Obliged for a living
