Mitaine, daughter of Mita and Miton, and godchild of Charlemagne. She went in search of Fear Fortress, and found that it existed only in the imagination, for as she boldly advanced towards it, the castle gradually faded into thin air. Charlemagne made Mitaine, for this achievement, Roland’s squire, and she fell with him in the memorable attack at Roncesvallês. (See [previous art.])—Croquemitaine, iii.
Mite (Sir Matthew), a returned East Indian merchant, dissolute, dogmatical, ashamed of his former acquaintances, hating the aristocracy, yet longing to be acknowledged by them. He squanders his wealth on toadies, dresses his livery servants most gorgeously, and gives his chairmen the most costly exotics to wear in their coats. Sir Matthew is forever astonishing weak minds with his talk about rupees, lacs, jaghires, and so on.—S. Foote, The Nabob.
Mithra or Mithras, a supreme divinity of the ancient Persians, confounded by the Greeks and Romans with the sun. He is the personification of Ormuzd, representing fecundity and perpetual renovation. Mithra is represented as a young man with a Phrygian cap, a tunic, a mantle on his left shoulder, and plunging a sword into the neck of a bull. Scaliger says the word means “greatest” or “supreme.” Mithra is the middle of the triplasian deity: the Mediator, Eternal Intellect, and Architect of the world.
Her towers, where Mithra once had burned,
To Moslem shrines—oh shame!—were turned;
Where slaves, converted by the sword,
Their mean apostate worship poured,
And cursed the faith their sires adored.
Moore, Lalla Rookh (“The Fire-Worshippers,” 1817).
Mithridate (3 syl.), a medicinal confection, invented by Damoc´ratês, physician to Mithrida´tês, king of Pontus, and supposed to be an antidote to all poisons and contagion. It contained seventy-two ingredients. Any panacea is called a “mithridate.”
Their kinsman garlic bring, the poor man’s mithridate.
Drayton, Polyolbion, xx. (1622).
Mithridate (3 syl.), a tragedy by Racine, (1673). “Monime” (2 syl.), in this drama, was one of Mdlle. Rachel’s great characters.
Mithrida´tes (4 syl.), surnamed “the Great.” Being conquered by the Romans, he tried to poison himself, but poison had no effect on him, and he was slain by a Gaul. Mithridatês was active, intrepid, indefatigable, and fruitful in resources; but he had to oppose such generals as Sulla, Lucullus, and Pompey. His ferocity was unbounded, his perfidy was even grand.
*** Racine has written a French tragedy on the subject, called Mithridate (1673); and N. Lee brought out his Mithridatês in English about the same time.
Mixit (Dr.), the apothecary at the Black Bear inn at Darlington.—Sir W. Scott, Rob Roy (time, George I.).