MIRABEAU, VICTOR RIQUETTI, MARQUIS DE, “crabbed old friend of men,” born at Pertuis, in Provence, claimed to be of Florentine descent; “could never make the world go to his mind,” and set about reforming it by coercing a family as self-willed as himself, to the driving of his celebrated son to desperate courses and reckless excesses; advocated the doctrines of the French economists in a series of writings instinct with a certain theoretical philanthropy (1716-1783).

MIRACLE PLAYS were strictly speaking dramas founded on legends of the saints, as distinct from mysteries founded on scriptural subjects, but the name came to cover all those religious representations for the instruction of the people fostered by the Church of the Middle Ages, performed first in churches, afterwards in public places; they were common in England from the 12th century, but latterly became corrupt through the introduction of grotesque indecorous comicalities; the rise of the drama led to their abandonment; on the Continent ecclesiastical action was taken against them, not by the Reformers, but by the Church itself in the 18th century, and everywhere they have all but disappeared; the Passion Play acted every 10 years at Oberammergau, Bavaria, is the only important survival.

MIRANDA, the beautiful daughter of the magician Prospero in Shakespeare’s “Tempest.”

MIRANDA, FRANCESCO DE, a Portuguese poet; wrote sonnets and epistles in verse; was predecessor of Camoens (1495-1558).

MISERERE, a carved bracket on the under side of the stall seats in mediaeval churches, which, when the seat was turned up during the standing portion of the service, afforded support to the older clergy.  Miserere, the Catholic name for the 51st Psalm.

MISHNA, the oral law of the Jews, which is divided into six parts, and constitutes the text of the Talmud, of which the Gemara is the commentary.

MISPRISION, a high offence under, but close upon, the degree of a capital one; misprision of treason being a concealment of a felony without consenting to it.

MISSAL, a book containing the service of the mass for the entire year, such as is now in almost universal use throughout the Catholic world.

MISSISSIPPI (1,290), an American State on the E. bank of the Lower Mississippi, abutting on the Gulf of Mexico, between Louisiana and Alabama; has a hilly surface, traversed by numerous rivers, the Yazoo, a tributary of the Mississippi, forming a great fertile delta; the climate is free from extremes; the chief industry is agriculture; the best crops are grown in the N., and on the alluvial bottom lands; in the centre and NE. are good grazing farms; cotton, corn, oats, and fruits are the chief crops; virgin forests of hardwood cover much of the delta; valuable deposits of pipe and ochre clays and of lignite are found; cotton is manufactured, and there is trade in lumber; more than half the population is coloured, and the races are kept distinct in the State schools; the State university is at Oxford, and there are many other colleges; Jackson (6), the capital, is the chief railway centre, Meridian (10) has iron manufactures, Vicksburg (13) and Natchez (10) are the chief riverports; Mississippi was colonised by the French in 1699, ceded to Britain 1763, admitted to the Union 1817, joined the South in 1861, but was readmitted to the Union in 1869.