M I N M I N 479 area is under crops, the average yield being 1,600,000 quarters of corn and 1,170,000 quarters of potatoes. Cattle-breeding is very imperfectly developed, the meadows being marshy throughout the lowlands. Hunting and bee-keeping are sources of income in the Polyesie, and iishing gives occupation to about twenty thousand persons. The chief source of income for the inhabitants of the low- lauds is the timber trade. Timber is floated down the rivers, and tar, pitch, various products of bark, potash, charcoal, and numerous sorts of timber- ware (wooden dishes, &c.)are manufactured in villages to a great extent ; and shipbuilding is carried on along the Dnieper, 1 ripet, and Niemen. Shipping is also an important source of income, owing to the traffic on the canals and rivers of the province. In 1877 560 boats and 1120 rafts with 170,000 cwts. of cargo left the banks of the Berezina and Pripet ; and the traffic on the Dnieper and Niemen was nearly as great. The industrial arts are almost entirely undeveloped. There arc, however, several distilleries and tanneries ; and woollen -stuffs, candles, tobacco, and sugar are manu factured to a limited extent. Corn is exported from the western districts, but imported to the same amount into the southern parts ; the chief export trade is in produce of forest industries. The pro vince is crossed by two important railways, one of which connects Poland with Moscow, and the other Libau and Vilna with the provinces of Little Russia ; the great highway from Warsaw to Moscow crosses the province in the south, and its passage through the Berezina is protected by the first-class fortress of Bobruisk. Minsk is divided into nine districts, of which the capitals are Minsk (43,500 inhabitants), Bobruisk (26,850), Borisoff (5650), close by the place where Napoleon I. crossed the Berezina on his retreat from Moscow, Igumen (2200), Mozyr (4200), Novogrodek (9000), Pinsk (18,000), Ryechitsa (4300), and Slutsk (17,200). The pro vince is well provided with secondary schools, but primary edu cation, especially in the Polyesie, is-iu a very backward state. The country now occupied by the province of Minsk was, as far as historical records extend, an abode of Slavonians. That portion of it which was occupied by the Krivichi became part of the Polotsk principality and so of " White Russia " ; the other portion, occu pied by the Dregovichi and Drevlans, became part of the " Black Russia " ; whilst the south-western portion of it was occupied by Yatvyags or Lithuanians. During the 12th, 13th, and 14th cen turies it was divided among several principalities, which were in corporated with the great principality of Lithuania, and later were annexed to Poland. Russia took possession of this country in 1793. In 1812 it was invaded by the army of Napoleon I. MINSK, the capital of the above province, is situated on the Svisloch, a tributary of the Berezina, at the junction of the Moscow and Warsaw and the Libau and Kharkoff railways, 465 miles by rail west from Moscow. It has 43,500 inhabitants, of whom one-third are Jews of the poorest class ; the others are White Russians, Poles, and Tartars (about 700). The manufac tures are few and insignificant. Since the introduction of railways the commercial importance of the place, which formerly was slight, has begun to increase. Minsk is mentioned in Russian annals in the llth century under the name of Myen sk or Menesk. In 1066 and 1096 it was devas tated, first by Izyaslav and afterwards by Vladimir. It changed rulers many times until the 13th century, when it became a Lithu anian fief. In the 15th century it became part of Poland, but as late as 1505 it was ravaged by Tartars, and in 1508 by Russians. In the 18th century it was taken several times by Swedes and Russians. Russia annexed it in 1793. Napoleon I. took it in 1812. MINSTREL. The "minstrels," according to Bishop Percy, " were an order of men in the Middle Ages who united the arts of poetry and music, and sang verses to the harp of their own composing, who appear to have accom panied their songs with mimicry and action, and to have practised such various means of diverting as were much admired in those rude times, and supplied the want of more refined entertainments." This conception of the "minstrel " has been generally accepted in England ever since Percy published his Reliques of Ancient Poetry, which he gave to the world as the products of the genius of these anonymous popular poets and harpers. The name has been fixed in the language by the usage of romantic poets and novelists ; Scott s " last minstrel " and Moore s " minstrel boy " were minstrels in Percy s sense of the word. The imagination was fascinated by this romantic figure, and the laborious and soured antiquary Ritson argued in vain that nobody before Bishop Percy had ever applied the word minstrel to such an order of men, that no such order of men ever did exist in mediaeval England, and that the historical English "minstrels," so-called, were a much less gifted and respect able class, being really instrumental musicians, either retainers or strollers. The dispute between Ritson and Percy was partly a dis pute about a word, and partly a dispute about historical facts; and there can be little doubt that Ritson was substan tially right in both respects. The romantic bishop trans ferred to the mediae val English minstrel the social status and brilliant gifts of the Anglo-Saxon gleoman or scop, and the French troubadour in the flourishing period of Provencal poetry. That the gleemen sang to the harp verses of their own composing, that some of them travelled from court to court as honoured guests, while others were important attached court officials, and all received costly presents, is a well attested historical fact. The household bard at Heorot in the poem of Beowulf, a man who bore many things in mind and found skilfully linked words to express them, was one of King Hrothgar s thanes ; the gleeman of the Traveller s Sony had visited all the tribal chiefs of Europe, and received many precious gifts, rings and bracelets of gold. The incidents in these poems may not be historic, but they furnish indubitable testimony to the social position of the gleeman in those days ; a successful gleeman was as much honoured as a modern poet-laureate, and as richly rewarded as a fashionable prima donna. Further, the strolling glee man of a humbler class seems to have been respected as a non-combatant ; this much we may infer from the stories about Alfred and Anlaff having penetrated an enemy s camp in the disguise of gleemen, whether these stories are true or not, for otherwise they would not have been invented. The position of poets and singers in Provence from the llth to the 13th century is still clearer. The classification of them by King Alphonso of Castile in 1273, by which time honourable designations were getting mixed,, may help to determine the exact position of the English "minstrel." There was first the lowest class, the bufos, who strolled among the common people, singing ribald songs, playing on instruments, showing feats of skill and strength, exhibiting learned dogs and goats, and so forth ; then the joglars or joculatores, who played, sang, recited, conjured, men of versatile powers of entertainment, who performed at the houses of the nobility, and were liberally remunerated ; then the trobadors, or inventores, whose dis tinction it was to compose verses, whether or not they had sufficient executive faculty to sing or recite them. If we compare these distinctions with Percy s definition of the minstrel, we see that his minstrel would have corre sponded with the joglar, who also wrote his own songs and recitations. Now in the palmy days of Provengal song there were many professional joglars, such as Arnaut Daniel or Perdigo, who stood high among the most brilliant troubadours, and visited on terms of social equality with nobles and princes. But long before English became the court language the fashion had disappeared, and a new division of functions had been developed. In Chaucer s time the poet of society no longer sang his verses to harp or fiddle, or amused his patrons with feats of legerdemain ; the king s gestour (teller of gestes) discharged the profes sional duty of amusing with witty stories ; and the social position of the joglar had very much sunk. Ritson was perfectly right in saying that no English poet of any social position was a professional reciter to the harp of verses of his own composing. The Provencal joglar, travelling from court to court, combined our modern functions of poet, society journalist, entertainer, and musician. But about the time when the word " minstrel " came to be applied to him the English joglar was rapidly sinking or had already sunk to the social position of the modern strolling mounte
bank, travelling showman, or music-hall singer. And the