Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama Part 11

=Mentz= (_Baron von_), a Heidelberg bully, whose humiliation at the hands of the fellow-student he has insulted is the theme of an exciting chapter in Theodore S. Fay's novel, _Norman Leslie_ (1835).

=Menteith= (_the earl of_), a kinsman of the earl of Montrose.--Sir W.

Scott, _Legend of Montrose_ (time, Charles I.).

=Mentor=, a wise and faithful adviser or guide. So called from Mentor, a friend of Ulysses, whose form Minerva a.s.sumed when she accompanied Telemachus in his search for his father.--Fenelon, _Telemaque_ (1700).

=Mephistoph'eles= (5 _syl._), the sneering, jeering, leering attendant demon of Faust in Goethe's drama of _Faust_, and Gounod's opera of the same name. Marlowe calls the name "Mephostophilis" in his drama ent.i.tled _Dr. Faustus_. Shakespeare, in his _Merry Wives of Windsor_ writes the name "Mephostophilus;" and in the opera he is called "Mefistofele" (5 _syl._). In the old demonology, Mephistopheles was one of the seven chief devils, and second of the fallen archangels.

=Mephostophilis=, the attendant demon of Faustus, in Marlowe's tragedy of _Dr. Faustus_ (1589).

There is an awful melancholy about Marlowe's "Mephostophilis,"

perhaps more expressive than the malignant mirth of that fiend in the renowned work of Goethe.--Hallam.

=Mephostophilus=, the spirit or familiar of Sir John Faustus or [Dr.] John Faust (Shakespeare, _Merry Wives of Windsor_, 1596). Subsequently it became a term of reproach, about equal to "imp of the devil."

=Mercedes=, Spanish woman, who, to disarm suspicion, drinks the wine poisoned for the French soldiery who have invaded the town. She is forced to let her baby drink it, also, and gives no sign of perturbation until the invaders, twenty in number, have partaken of the wine, and the baby grows livid and expires before their eyes.--Thomas Bailey Aldrich, _Mercedes_ (drama, 1883).

=Mercer= (_Major_), at the presidency of Madras.--Sir W. Scott, _The Surgeon's Daughter_ (time, George II.).

=Merchant of Venice= (_The_), Antonio, who borrowed 3000 ducats for three months of Shylock, a Jew. The money was borrowed to lend to a friend named Ba.s.sanio, and the Jew, "in merry sport," instead of interest, agreed to lend the money on these conditions: If Antonio paid it within three months, he should pay only the princ.i.p.al; if he did not pay it back within that time, the merchant should forfeit a pound of his own flesh, from any part of his body the Jew might choose to cut it off. As Antonio's ships were delayed by contrary winds, he could not pay the money, and the Jew demanded the forfeiture. On the trial which ensued, Portia, in the dress of a law doctor, conducted the case, and, when the Jew was going to take the forfeiture, stopped him by saying that the bond stated "a pound of flesh," and that, therefore, he was to shed no drop of blood, and he must cut neither more nor less than an exact pound, on forfeit of his life. As these conditions were practically impossible, the Jew was nonsuited and fined for seeking the life of a citizen.--Shakespeare, _Merchant of Venice_ (1598).

The story is in the _Gesta Romanorum_, the tale of the bond being ch.

xlviii., and that of the caskets ch. xcix.; but Shakespeare took his plot from a Florentine novelette called _Il Pecorone_, written in the fourteenth century, but not published till the sixteenth.

There is a ballad on the subject, the date of which has not been determined. The bargain runs thus:

"No penny for the loan of it, For one year shall you pay-- You may do me a good turn Before my dying day; But we will have a merry jest, For to be talked long; You shall make me a bond," quoth he, "That shall be large or strong."

=Merchant's Tale= (_The_), in Chaucer, is substantially the same as the first Latin metrical tale of Adolphus, and is not unlike a Latin prose tale given in the appendix of T. Wright's edition of aesop's fables. The tale is this:

A girl named May married January, an old Lombard baron, 60 years of age, but entertained the love of Damyan, a young squire. She was detected in familiar intercourse with Damyan, but persuaded her husband that his eyes had deceived him, and he believed her.--Chaucer, _Canterbury Tales_ (1388).

=Mercian Laws.= (See MARTIAN.)

=Mercilla=, a "maiden queen of great power and majesty, famous through all the world, and honored far and nigh." Her kingdom was disturbed by a soldan, her powerful neighbor, stirred up by his wife Adicia. The "maiden queen" is Elizabeth; the "soldan," Philip of Spain, and "Adicia"

is injustice, presumption, or the bigotry of popery.--Spenser, _Faery Queen_, v. (1596).

=Mercu'tio=, kinsman of Prince Escalus, and Romeo's friend. An airy, sprightly, elegant young n.o.bleman, so full of wit and fancy that Dryden says Shakespeare was obliged to kill him in the third act, lest the poet himself should have been killed by Mercutio.--Shakespeare, _Romeo and Juliet_ (1598).

=Mercutio of Actors= (_The_), William Lewis (1748-1811).

=Mercy=, a young pilgrim, who accompanied Christiana in her walk to Zion.

When Mercy got to the Wicket Gate, she swooned from fear of being refused admittance. Mr. Brisk proposed to her, but being told that she was poor, left her, and she was afterwards married to Matthew, the eldest son of Christian.--Bunyan, _Pilgrim's Progress_, ii. (1684).

=Merdle= (_Mr._), banker, a skit on the directors of the Royal British bank, and on Mr. Hudson, "the railway king." Mr. Merdle, of Harley Street, was called the "Master Mind of the Age." He became insolvent, and committed suicide. Mr. Merdle was a heavily made man, with an obtuse head, and coa.r.s.e, mean, common features. His chief butler said of him, "Mr. Merdle never was a gentleman, and no ungentlemanly act on Mr.

Merdle's part would surprise me." The great banker was "the greatest forger and greatest thief that ever cheated the gallows."

Lord Decimus [_Barnacle_] began waving Mr. Merdle about ... as Gigantic Enterprise. The wealth of England, Credit, Capital, Prosperity, and all manner of blessings.--Bk. ii. 24.

_Mrs. Merdle_, wife of the bank swindler. After the death of her husband, society decreed that Mrs. Merdle should still be admitted among the sacred few; so Mrs. Merdle was still received and patted on the back by the upper ten.--C. d.i.c.kens, _Little Dorrit_ (1857).

=Meredith= (_Mr._), one of the conspirators with Redgauntlet.--Sir W.

Scott, _Redgauntlet_ (time, George III.).

_Meredith_ (_Mr. Michael_), "the man of mirth," in the managing committee of the Spa hotel.--Sir. W. Scott, _St. Ronan's Well_. (time, George III.).

_Meredith_ (_Sir_), a Welsh knight.--Sir W. Scott, _Castle Dangerous_ (time, Henry I.).

_Meredith_ (_Owen_), pseudonym of the Hon. Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton (Lord Lytton), author of _The Wanderer_ (1859), etc. This son of Lord Bulwer Lytton, poet and novelist, succeeded to the peerage in 1873.

=Me'rida= (_Marchioness_), betrothed to Count Valantia.--Mrs. Inchbald, _Child of Nature_.

=Meridarpax=, the pride of mice.

Now n.o.bly towering o'er the rest, appears A gallant prince that far transcends his years; Pride of his sire, and glory of his house, And more a Mars in combat than a mouse; His action bold, robust his ample frame, And Meridarpax his resounding name.

Parnell, _The Battle of the Frogs and Mice_, iii. (about 1712).

=Merid'ies= or "Noonday Sun," one of the four brothers who kept the pa.s.sages of Castle Perilous. So Tennyson has named him; but in the _History of Prince Arthur_, he is called "Sir Permones, the Red Knight."--Tennyson, _Idylls_ ("Gareth and Lynette"); Sir T. Malory, _History of Prince Arthur_, i. 129 (1470).

=Merion= (_James_), New York lawyer, who plays the lover to three women, honestly believing himself enamoured of each.--Ellen Olney Kirke, _A Daughter of Eve_ (1889).

=Merle= (_Madame_), a plausible woman with an ambition to be thought the incarnation of propriety, who carries with her the knowledge that she is the mistress of a man who has a wife, and that Madame Merle's illegitimate daughter is brought up by the step-mother, who knows nothing of the shameful story.--Henry James, _The Portrait of a Lady_ (1881).

=Merlin= (_Ambrose_), prince of enchanters. His mother was Matilda, a nun, who was seduced by a "guileful sprite," or incubus, "half angel and half man, dwelling in mid-air betwixt the earth and moon." Some say his mother was the daughter of Pubidius, lord of Math-traval, in Wales; and others make her a princess, daughter of Demetius, king of Demet'ia.

Blaise baptized the infant, and thus rescued it from the powers of darkness.