388 MENES MENHADEN the king appointed him to command a fleet destined against the Low Countries. While pushing forward the preparations he died. MKXES. See EGYPT, vol. vi., p. 459. MENGS, Anton Rafael, a German painter, born at Aussig, Bohemia, March 12, 1728, died in Rome, June 29, 1779. His father, a minia- ture painter, took him when a child to Dres- den, and compelled him to pursue his art stud- ies without relaxation. Young Mengs throve so well under this severe treatment, that in his eighth year he designed a subject from the ^Eneid, and at 14 was a skilful painter. In 1741 his father took him to Rome, and com- pelled him to devote nearly his whole time to the study of the works of Raphael and the old masters in the Vatican, of which he made several copies in miniature for Augustus III. of Poland and Saxony. Returning to Dresden at the end of three years, he was appointed court painter, with permission to return to Rome, where he established his reputation by a holy family, the figure of the Virgin in which was painted from a beautiful peasant girl, whom he subsequently married. In 1749 he was again in Dresden, but in 1751 obtained the permission of the elector to return to Rome. Here he undertook the direction of the new academy of art. Among the works which he executed in the next few years were a copy of Raphael's "School of Athens" -for Lord Percy, afterward duke of Northumber- land, the frescoes in the church of San Euse- bio (1757), and those of "Apollo and the Mu- ses on Parnassus " in the villa Albani, which were engraved by Raphael Morghen. The king of Naples, on succeeding to the throne of Spain as Charles III., invited him in 1761 to Madrid, where he executed a number of works in the royal palace, including his "Aurora." In 1770 he again went to Italy, where he executed a great allegorical screen painting. After three years he returned to Madrid, and produced several works, including his master- piece, the "Apotheosis of Trajan." On a visit to Monaco he painted his picture of the " Nativity." In 1776 he returned to Rome for the last time. His merits have been much ex- aggerated by his friends, and quite as much underrated by others. As a theorist and wri- ter on art he is still a standard authority, and his remarks on the antique and criticisms of the works of the old masters were highly es- teemed by the artists of his own age as well as by Winckelmann, Lanzi, and other eminent critics and historians of art. His writings were published under the title Opere di An- tonio Raffaelle Menga (Parma, 1780), and have been translated into Spanish, German, Eng- lish, and French. MENIFEE, an E. county of Kentucky, bound- ed N. E. by Licking river and S. by Red river, a tributary of the Kentucky ; area, about 450 sq. m.; pop. in 1870, 1,986, of whom 16 were colored. The surface is hilly and broken ; the soil is generally productive. The chief pro- ductions in 1870 were 1,760 bushels of wheat, 73,725 of Indian corn, 10,662 of oats, and 4,111 of potatoes. There were 384 horses, 467 milch cows, 667 other cattle, 2,116 sheep, and 2,130 swine. Capital, Frenchburg. MENINGITIS. See BRAIN, DISEASES OF THE, vol. iii., p. 200. MEN1PPPS, a cynic philosopher, originally a slave, a native of Gadara in Syria, lived toward the close of the 4th, or, according to others, about the middle of the 1st century B. C. He amassed great wealth by usury, but was cheat- ed out of it, .and committed suicide in despair. He was the author of 13 treatises, all of which are lost. His works contained nothing seri- ous, but abounded in jests and sarcasms. Lu- cian, in his "Dialogues of the Dead," makes Diogenes describe him as an old bald-headed man in a tattered cloak, incessantly ridiculing the pedantry of his brother philosophers. MENHADEN, a North American fish of the herring family, and genus alosa (Cuv.), which differs from the herrings (duped) in having a deep notch in the centre of the upper jaw. This fish (A. menhaden, Storer), called also Menhaden (Alosa menhaden) hardhead and mossbunker by fishermen, varies in length from 8 to 14 in. ; the color above is greenish brown, darkest on the top of the head and at the snout; upper part of sides roseate with indistinct bluish mottlings, disap- pearing after death; abdomen silvery, gill covers cupreous, a black spot upon the shoul- ders, and the whole surface iridescent. The body is elongated and compressed, the gill covers very large, eyes moderate, gape large, and lower jaw the shorter. This species comes into Massachusetts bay in May, and de- parts in November ; great quantities are taken in nets around the outer islands of Boston harbor during the night; sometimes 100 bar- rels are taken at one haul, and such as are not ground up for bait are sold for food at about half a cent each; being rather oily, they are not very palatable, but make excellent ma- nure. A single menhaden of common size is considered equal in richness to a shovelful of barnyard manure ; in some parts of Cape Cod they are sold at $1 a thousand, and 2,500 are considered sufficient for an acre of land ; tho odor arising from their decomposing bodies is almost unendurable. They are found from the British provinces to the coast of New Jer- sey, swimming in countless numbers near the surface, and attended by sharks, bluefish, gulls, and other predaceous species. They are never
