positive line-etching throughout the work, thus shortening the
labour of scraping the details, and fortifying the darks with lines
sunk below the surface of the plate. The harmony of line and tone
in some of the prints in this style by S. W. Reynolds and Charles
Turner, after Sir Joshua, Hoppner and their contemporaries, was
more convincing than the later “mixed style” of Samuel Cousins,
because there was a certain artistic significance in the etched line
itself apart from the mezzotint tone, but every touch of line in a
mezzotint does something to destroy the painter-like quality, and
a decadence was in progress.
The same mixed method on copper was used by J. W. M. Turner in his Liber Studiorum series of landscape plates, his object being to rival the pen-and-wash drawings of Claude’s Liber Veritatis. Turner, however, was not so practised in etching or mezzotint as the engravers before mentioned, and the etched foundation of the Liber plates was too strong for the mezzotint tone, destroying the breadth of the light, the richness of the darks, and the artistic “keeping” of the whole effect. It is the grand design of Turner reflected in the plates, rather than any quality of mezzotint or etching in them, which appeals to the artist and the connoisseur. Perhaps the greatest success in harmonizing line and tone in one plate was achieved by David Lucas in his “English Landscape” series of mezzotint after John Constable, in which he sharpened his details with the roulette, or with a slight line put in with the point of the scraper as scraping proceeded, retaining the pure “burr” in his darks. Lucas, like Samuel Cousins and his contemporaries, was handicapped by being compelled to work on the steel plates introduced in 1823, and this was the cause of the chief defect of his plates, the excessive opposition of black and white. The warm general tone which assisted the picturesqueness of the 18th century mezzotints was lost by the use of steel, because the ink did not cling to it as it does to the more porous copper. Steel being harder than copper, the rocking-tool penetrated less deeply, raising less “burr,” and the consequent loss of force in the darks necessitated the scraping up of the lights to a higher key to force contrast of effect, which was also enhanced by the use of very white paper and a coarse black ink. It was soon found that the unfortified “burr,” even on steel, would not yield the constantly increasing numbers of impressions demanded. The labour of scraping sharp lights was greatly enhanced, and though some pure mezzotints were engraved on steel, painter-like touch was practically unattainable on it, and the general effect was cold and uninteresting.
The early work of Samuel Cousins after Lawrence in the comparatively pure method, and the final development of the “mixed style” on steel in his later plates after Reynolds, Millais and Landseer, are referred to in the article on Samuel Cousins.
For nearly forty years pure mezzotint ceased to be practised altogether, and the revival of it, which began in 1880, was led up to by the invention of steel-facing. The competition of photogravure, which steel-facing made a commercial possibility, for a time checked the new movement, but a photogravure, despite a mere surface resemblance to a mezzotint, is a photograph manipulated to imitate an engraving, entirely devoid of artistic individuality. In 1898 for the first time a Society of Mezzotint Engravers was formed to foster the art.
Authorities.—British Mezzotinto Portraits, by John Challoner Smith (London, 1878), a standard book of reference, contains a long list of others at p. xiv., pt. i. See also Lectures on Etching and Mezzotint, by Hubert von Herkomer, R.A. (London, 1890), the most useful work on the technique. Etching, Engraving and other Methods of Printing Pictures, by H. W. Singer and William Strang (London, 1897); On the Making of Etchings, by Frank Short (London, 1898), containing a slight reference to mezzotint technique; Art of Engraving, by T. H. Fielding (London, 1854); Alfred Whitman, Masters of Mezzotint (London, 1898), Valentine Green (1902), Samuel William Reynolds (1903), Samuel Cousins (1904), Charles Turner (1907); Gordon Gordain, James McArdell (1903), Thomas Watson, James Watson, Elizabeth Judkins (1904); W. G. Rawlinson, Turner’s Liber Studiorum, a Description and a Catalogue (2nd ed., 1906); F. Wedmore’s catalogue of the David Lucas mezzotints. A little anonymous book, A History of the Art of Engraving in Mezzotinto, from Its Origin to the Present Times [by Dr James Chelsum] (Winchester, 1786), is of considerable interest. Works or the technique are somewhat elementary, and no complete history of the art exists. (G. P. R.)
MFUMBIRO, or Kirunga, general names for a chain of
volcanic mountains extending across the Central African, or
Albertine, rift-valley immediately north of Lake Kivu. The
range, the result probably of recent geological changes,
completely blocks the valley at this point, forming a divide between
the rivers flowing north to the Nile and the waters of Lake Kivu
connected through Tanganyika with the Congo system. The
chain consists of two groups of mountains, surrounded by a vast
lava field. The western group lies directly north of Lake Kivu.
and contains two active volcanoes, Kirunga-cha-gongo, the
nearest to the lake (11,194 ft. high), and Kirunga-namlagira
9711 ft.), some 10 m. further north. The eastern group contains
several higher peaks some rising to needle-like points, others
being truncated cones. The most lofty, Karissimbi (14,683 ft.),
lies in 29° 27′ 20″ E., 1° 30′ 20″ S. Mikeno, a few miles north
and west of Karissimbi, is 14,385 ft. high. The most easterly
of the peaks, Muhavuru (13,562 ft.), in 29° 40′ 30″ E., 1° 23′ S.,
is an isolated sugarloaf-shaped mass with a crater filled with
water on its summit. This is the mountain to which the names
Mfumbiro and Kirunga were originally applied. Some 6 m. west
and a little north of Muhavuru is Sabyino (Sabinjo), 11,881 ft.
high. The eastern peaks are snowclad for a part of the year.
North of these high mountains is a district, extending towards
Albert Edward Nyanza, containing hundreds of low peaks and
extinct volcanoes. It is to this region that the name Umfumbira
or Mfumbiro is said properly to belong.
Mfumbiro, i.e. Muhavuru, was first seen by a white man in 1861, J. H. Speke, in his journey to discover the source of the Nile, obtaining a distant view of the cone, which was also seen by H. M. Stanley in 1876. By its Baganda name of Mfumbiro (cook-house mountains) it figured on the maps somewhat east of its true position, first ascertained by Franz Stuhlmann in 1891. In 1894 Count von Götzen travelled through the volcanic region, and the range was subsequently explored by E. S. Grogan, Major St Hill Gibbons, Captain Herrmann, Dr R. Kandt and others, the principal heights being determined in 1903. In 1907–1908 the range was geologically and topographically examined by the duke of Mecklenberg’s expedition. By the Anglo-German agreement of the 1st of July 1890 “Mount Mfumbiro” was included in the British sphere in East Africa.
See Captain Herrmann, “Vulkangebiet des zentralafrikanischen Grabens,” in Mitteil. v. Forsch. u. Gelehrten a. d. deutschen Schutzgebieten, vol. xvii. (Berlin, 1904), and Adolf Friedrich, duke of Mecklenburg, Ins Innerste Afrika (Leipzig, 1909); both give maps.
MHOW, a town of Central India, with British military cantonment, within the native state of Indore, on the Malwa branch of the Rajputana railway, 13 m. S. of Indore. Pop. (1901), 36,039. It is the headquarters of the 5th division of the southern army, and one of the chief military stations of India. There are two high schools, a Zoroastrian and a Canadian mission, the Dorabji Pestonji dispensary, and a gaol.
MIAGAO, a town on the southern coast of the province of Iloilo, island of Panay, Philippine Islands, about 25 m. W.S.W. of the town of Iloilo, the capital. Pop. (1903), 20,656; in the same year the neighbouring town of San Joaquin (pop. 1903, 14,333) was incorporated with Miagao. It has a cool and healthful climate. The neighbouring country is hilly and sterile, but produces sibucao in considerable quantities. The weaving of fabrics of abacá (Musa textilis), or Manila hemp, and pineapple fibre is the most important local industry. The language is Panay-Visayan.
MIALL, EDWARD (1809–1881), English Nonconformist
divine and journalist, was born at Portsmouth on the 8th of
May 1809. He was Congregational minister at Ware (1831) and
Leicester (1834), and in, 1841 founded the Nonconformist, a
weekly newspaper in which he advocated the cause of
disestablishment. Miall saw that if the programme of Nonconformity
was to be carried through it must have more effective
representation in Parliament. One of the firstfruits of his work
was the entrance of John Bright into parliamentary life; and by
1852 forty Dissenters were members of the House of Commons.
This was due largely to the efforts of the Anti-State Church
Association, afterwards known as the Liberation Society, which
Miall had founded in 1844. The long fight for the abolition of compulsory church-rates was finally successful in 1868, and then in 1870 Miall was prominent in the discussions aroused by the Education Bill. He was at this time M.P. for Bradford (1860–1874), having previously (1852–1867) sat for Rochdale. In 1874 he retired from public life, and received from his admirers a present of ten thousand guineas. He died at Sevenoaks on the 29th of April 1881.
See the Life, by A. Miall (1884).
