Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/409

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MENTZ MENZEL 397 thought to be a monument of Drusus, and the pillars of an aqueduct and the piers of a bridge supposed to have been built by him. A remarkable fragment of Roman statuary was found here in March, 1874. The site of the house of Gutenberg is occupied by the ca- sino, or reading room, and the rooms of a lit- erary association. The house in which he was born is still standing, and that also which contained his first printing press. The trade up and down the Rhine and the Main, and by the railway, is increasing continually. The manufactures are not very important; they consist mostly of leather, tobacco, soap, piano- fortes, hats, glue, and vinegar. The city was a place of importance under the Romans, and was destroyed by the barbarians in 406. It was rebuilt by the Frankish kings, and enlarged by Charlemagne. Under St. Boniface it became the seat of an archbishop. Under the German empire the archbishop of Mentz ranked first among the three ecclesiastical electors, and held the dignity of arch-chancellor. The elec- torate, which originally did not embrace the city of Mentz, had extensive possessions on both sides of the Rhine, eventually including Erfurt and Eichfeld. In the 13th century Mentz stood at the head of the league of the Rhenish towns. Through Gutenberg it be- came the centre of bookmaking. In 1486 it was annexed to the electorate. During the thirty years' war, it was taken by the Swedes in 1631, by the imperialists in 1635, and by the French in 1644. After the peace of Westphalia it was restored to the elector John Philip, who strengthened the fortifications; but it was again taken by the French in 1688, and retaken by the Saxons and Bavarians in 1689. It was betrayed to the French general Custine in 1792, but was reduced by the Prussians under Kalk- reuth in 1793. By the peace of Luneville (1801), which dissolved the electorate (see DALBERG), Mentz was allotted to France, but by the congress of Vienna (1814) to the grand duke of Hesse-Darmstadt, as a fortress of the German confederation, to be garrisoned by a mixed force of Austrians, Prussians, and Hes- sians, the offices being divided between Austria and Prussia. In the spring of 1848 distur- bances among the people led to a riotous and bloody strife, May 21, between the citizens and the Prussian soldiers ; but the difficulties were adjusted by a commission from the German na- tional assembly. On Nov. 18, 1857, a military magazine blew up, destroying an entire street, with many lives and much property. On the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian war in 1866, the Austrians and Prussians left the fortress, which was garrisoned by the Hessian troops alone. After the conclusion of peace the Prus- sia,ns returned, and secured the sole right of garrison. In 1871 it became one of the fortress- es of the German empire. It has a garrison of 8,000 men. In February, 1873, it was proposed to remodel the fortifications. Mentz is one of the chief centres of the Catholic societies of Germany, and in June, 1874, it was made the permanent seat of the Catholic association, whose object is the support of the pope and the bishops against the imperial government. MENU, or Mann. See BEAHMA. MENZEL, Adolf Friedrieh Erdmaim, a German painter, born in Breslau, Dec. 8, 1815. He assisted his father as a lithographer, illus- trated Kugler's popular history of Frederick the Great (1839-'42), and prepared designs for Frederick's writings (1846-'57). In 1850 he exhibited his first oil painting, " Frede- rick the Great and his Friends." In 1865 he finished his " Coronation of King William I. at Konigsberg." Many of his genre pictures appeared in 1870, and also his "Departure of the King for the Seat of War in France." MENZEL, Karl Adolf, a German historian, born in Grilnberg, Silesia, Dec. 7, 1784, died in Breslau, Aug. 19, 1855. He studied at Breslau and Halle, and officiated for many years as pro- fessor at Breslau. He wrote Topographische Chronik von Breslau (2 vols., Breslau, 1805-'7) ; Geschicht^ Schlesiens (3 vols., 1807-10) ; Die Geschichte der Deutschen (8 vols., 1815-'23) ; Geschichte unserer Zeit seit dem lode Fried- richs II. (2 vols., 1824-'5) ; Neuere GescJiicJite der Deutschen von der Reformation Ms zur Bundesacte (16 vols., 1826-'56); and Staats- und Religions- Geschichte der Konigreiche Is- rael und Juda (Breslau, 1853). MENZEL, Wolfgang, a German author, born at Waldenburg, Silesia, June 21, 1798, died in Stuttgart, April 23, 1873. He began his stud- ies at Breslau, served as a volunteer in the war of 1815, and subsequently studied at Jena and Bonn. In 1820 he went to Switzerland, and engaged in teaching. About this time he be- came known as a writer of poems and literary criticisms. His first publication was his Streck- verse (Heidelberg, 1823). In 1825 he estab- lished himself at Stuttgart. After the revolu- tion of 1830 he zealously opposed French po- litical and literary influence in Germany, and was repeatedly elected to the Wtirtemberg diet. Borne satirized him in his Menzel der Fran- zosenfresser. He edited for many years the Literaturllatt of Stuttgart, gave it up in 1848, but revived it in 1852, and made it an or- gan of reactionary policy in civil and eccle- siastical affairs. Besides the writings men- tioned above, he published Geschichte der Deutschen (3 vols., Zurich, 1824-'5; translated into English by G. Horrocks, London, 1849) ; Die deutsche Literatur (Stuttgart, 1828 ; trans- lated into English by C. C. Felton, in Rip- ley's " Specimens of Foreign Literature," Bos- ton, 1840) ; ' Eubezahl (1829) ; Narcissus (1830) ; Reise nach Oesterreich (1831) ; Reise nach Ita- lien (1835) ; Taschenbuch der neuesten Geschich- te (5 vols., 1829-'33); Geist der Geschichte (1835) ; Europa im Jahre 1840 (1839) ; Mytho- logische Forschungen und Sammlungen (1842) ; Die Gesangeder F<5^r(1851); Furore, a novel descriptive of scenes of the thirty years' war (Leipsic, 1851) ; Geschichte Europas von 1789-