MINNESOTA-MINOR. or watch-songs, in which the lover was represented as expostulating with the watchman, who kept guard at the gate of the castle within which his lady-love was imprisoned, and trying to persuade him to grant him admittance to her presence. These songs and odes were recited by the composer, to his own accompaniment on the viol; and as few of the M. could write, their compositions were preserved mostly by verbal tradition only, and carried by wandering minstrels from castle to castle throughout Germany, and even beyond its borders. As the variety of rhythm and complicated forms of versification affected by the M., more especially towards the decline of their art, rendered it difficult | River, and their branches, and has more than 1500 to retain by memory the mass of Minnesong which had been gradually accumulated, these itinerant musicians finally made use of written collections, a practice to which alone we are indebted for the many beautiful specimens of early German lyrical poetry which we yet possess. The glory of the M. may be said to have perished with the downfall of the Swabian dynasty, under which greater liberty of thought and word was allowed among Germans than they again enjoyed for many ages; and in proportion as the church succeeded in re-asserting its sway over the minds of men, which it had lost under the rule of the chivalric Fredericks, free-feet perpendicular, and a cavern, explored to the dom of speech and action was trammelled, and song and poetry contemned. Paraphrases of Scripture, hymns, and monkish legends, took the place of the chivalric songs of the nobly born M., and German poetry was for a time almost annihilated. In the 14th c., the art of Minnesong was partially revived, although under a rude and clumsily elaborated form, by the Master-singers; a body of men belonging to the burgher and peasant classes, who, in accordance with their artisan habits, formed themselves into guilds or companies, which bound themselves to observe certain arbitrary laws of rhythm. Nuremberg was the focus of their guilds, which rapidly spread over the whole of Germany, and gained so firm a footing in the land, that the last of them was not dissolved at Ulm till 1839. As the title of Master was only awarded to a member who invented a new form of verse, and the companies consisted almost exclusively of uneducated persons of the working-classes, it may easily be conceived that extravagances and absurdities of every kind speedily formed a leading characteristic of their modes of versification; attention to quantity was, moreover, not deemed necessary, regard being had merely to the number of the syllables, and the relative position and order of the verses and rhymes. Their songs were lyrical, and sung to music; and although, as before remarked, each master was bound to devise a special stole or order of rhymes for each of his compositions, these stoles were subjected to a severe code of criticism, enacted by the Tabulatur, or rules of the song. schools. Among the few Masters who exhibited any genuine poetic feeling, the most noted were Heinrich Mügeln, Michael Behaim, and the Nuremberg shoemaker, Hans Sachs, who prided himself on having composed 4275 Bar or Master Songs. See Tieck's Minnelieder aus dem Schwabeschen Zeitalter (Berl. 1803), and Taylor's Lays of the Minne and Master Singers (Lond. 1825). MINNESOTA, one of the United States of America, lies in lat. 43° 30'-49° N., and long. 89° 29'-97° 5′ W. It is 380 miles in extreme length from north to south, and from 183 to 337 from east to west, containing an area of 81,259 square miles. It is bounded on the N. by the British possessions, from which it is separated by the chain of lakes and rivers connecting the Lake of the Woods with Lake Superior, and by the 49th parallel of latitude; E. by Lake Superior The MINNESOTA, or ST PETER'S RIVER, rises United States of America, runs south-east 300 miles, near the eastern boundary of Dakota Territory, to South Bend, then north-east 120 miles, and falls into the Mississippi at Mendota. It is navigable for 40 miles by steam-boats. MI'NNOW (Leuciscus phoxinus), a small fish of the same genus with the roach, dace, chub, &c., of a more rounded form than most of its congeners, a common native of streams with gravelly bottoms in most parts of Britain. It seldom exceeds three inches in length, the head and back of a dusky olive colour, the sides lighter and mottled, the belly white, or, in summer, pink. Minnows swim in shoals, feed readily either on animal or vegetable substances, if sufficiently soft, and are said to be very destructive to the spawn of salmon and of trout. Very young anglers generally begin their sport by catching minnow. The M. is a fish of very pleasant flavour. A casting-net affords the means of taking it in sufficient abundance. It is a favourite bait for pike and large trout or perch. MINOR, a term used in Music. 1. In the nomenclature of intervals. The interval between any note and another is named according to the number of degrees between them on the scale, both notes included. The interval between C and E is called a third; that between E and G is also a third; but these intervals are unequal, the one consisting of four semitones, the other of three; the former is therefore distinguished as a major, the latter as a minor interval. 2. The term is also MINOR-MINSK. applied to one of the two modes in which a musical passage may be composed. The scale of the minor mode differs from that of the major mode in the third of its key-note being a minor instead of a major third. See MUSIC, MODE. MINOR is, in Scotch Law, the term describing a person who, if a male, is between the ages of 14 and 21; and if a female, is between 12 and 21. In the preceding period, he or she is called a Pupil. In England, the technical term is an Infant (q. V.), which includes all persons, male and female, under the age of 21. In Scotland, a minor is for many purposes sui juris, and can marry without anybody's consent, and can also make a will of movable property. For the purposes, however, of managing his real property and making contracts, curators are often necessary. See INFANT, RESTITUTION, CURATOR. MINOR BARONS. The word baron, in the earliest period of feudalism, signified one who held lands of a superior by military tenure. The superior might be the sovereign, or he might be an earl or other eminent person, who held of the sovereign. According as he was the one or the other, the baron was, in the earliest sense of the distinction, a greater or lesser baron. At the Conquest, a large part of the soil of England was parcelled by William the Norman among his military retainers, who were bound in return to perform services, to do homage, and to assist in administering justice, and in transacting the other business done in the court of the king. 400 of these tenants-in-chief of the crown are enumerated in Domesday (q. v.), including among them vicecomites' and comites,' who together constituted the body of men called the Barons of England. As the sovereign was entitled to demand from the barons military service, homage, and attendance in the courts, so, many of the principal barons, particularly such of them as were earls, had military tenants, from whom they in turn received homage and assistance in administering justice in their baronial courts. These tenants were barons of the barons, or, in the earliest sense, minor barons; but by the usage of England, from the Conquest downwards, they were seldom called barons, that term having been generally restricted to the former class, the holders of land direct from the crown, who were next to the king in dignity; formed his army and his legislative assembly, and obtained the Great Charter from King John. The subinfeudation which produced the minor barons was checked by a statute of Edward I., directing that all persons acquiring lands from a subject should hold, not of that subject, but of his superior. They were the king's advisers, witnessed his charters, and possessed a civil and criminal jurisdiction. All had to give attendance in the Scottish parliament, which consisted of the earls and barons sitting together. After the reign of James I., some of the more powerful barons appear more exclusively as lords of parliament, those whose incomes were below attendance: yet all possessed a right to attend a certain amount obtaining a dispensation from parliament till 1587, when the barons not specially created lords of parliament were required, in place of personally attending, to send representatives of their order from each sheriffdom. The term baron, however, still continued in Scotland to be applied to the whole body of tenants in capite, such of them as and the others minor barons; but all continuing up were lords of parliament being distinctively major, to 1747 to possess an extensive civil jurisdiction, and a criminal jurisdiction, from which only treason and the four pleas of the crown were excluded. The representative minor barons sat in the same House with the major barons, and their votes continued down to the union to be recorded as those of the Small Barrounis.' MINO'RCA, the largest of the Balearic Isles (q. v.), after Majorca, from which it is distant 25 miles north-east. It is 31 miles long, and 13 miles in greatest breadth, with an area of about 300 square miles. Pop. 31,443. Its coast, broken into numerous bays and inlets, is fringed with islets and shoals, and its surface, less mountainous than that of Majorca, is undulating, rising to its highest point in Mount Toro, 4793 feet above sea-level. Its productions are similar to those of the larger island, although it is neither so fertile in soil nor so well watered as Majorca. The chief towns are Port Mahon, the capital (q. v.), and Ciudadela, the former capital, with a pop. of about 4000. MI'NORITES, a name of the Franciscan order (q. v.), derived from the original later denomination adopted by their founder, Fratres Minores. This name has left its trace in the popular designation of several localities both in English and foreign cities. Crete. The first is said to have been the son of MI'NOS, the name of two mythological kings of Jupiter and Europa, the brother of Rhadamanthus, the father of Deucalion and Ariadne, and, after his death, a judge in the infernal regions. The second of the same name was grandson of the former, and son of Lycastus and Ida. To him the celebrated have received instruction from Jupiter. He was the Laws of Minos are ascribed, in which he is said to husband of that Pasiphae who gave birth to the Minotaur (q. v.) Homer and Hesiod know of only one Minos, the king of Cnossus, and son and friend of Jupiter. MI'NOTAUR (i. e., the Bull of Minos), one of the most repulsive conceptions of Grecian Mythology, is represented as the son of Pasiphaë and a bull, for which she had conceived a passion. It was halfman half-bull, a man with a bull's head. Minos, the husband of Pasiphaë, shut him up in the Cnossian Labyrinth, and there fed him with youths and maidens, whom Athens was obliged to supply as an annual tribute, till Theseus, with the help of Ariadne, slew the monster. The M. is, with some probability, regarded as a symbol of the Phoenician Out of the commune concilium' of the king, at which all his barons were bound to attend, arose the parliament. It is not till the close of Henry III.'s, or beginning of Edward I.'s reign that we find a select number instead of the whole barons attending. The exact period of the change, and the way in which it was made, are still among the obscure points of English history; it has been thought that after the rebellion which was crushed at the battle of Evesham, Henry III. summoned only those barons who were most devoted to his interest. From this period, a new distinction between major and minor barons arose, the latter term being no longer applied to the barons of the barons, but to those barons of the crown who were no longer sum-sun-god. moned by writ to parliament. The word baron was more and more used in the restricted sense of a baron of parliament, and the right or duty of attendance came in process of time to be founded, not on the tenure, but on the writ. In Scotland, the barons (or lairds) were such persons as held their lands directly of the crown. MINSK, a government and province of Western or White Russia, lies south-east of Wilna, and contains 33,987 square miles, with a population of 986,471, composed chiefly of Russians, Lithuanians, Poles, and Jews, with a small percentage of Tartars and gipsies. Five-sevenths of the population profess the Greek religion. The chief articles of export 479 MINSK-MINT. are timber, salt, and corn, which are brought by river-carriage to the Baltic and Black Sea ports. The principal manufactures are fine cloths, linen, and sugar. The soil is not fertile, and is covered to a large extent with woods and marshes, while in many other places it is a sandy waste, but in general the native products suffice for the wants of the inhabitants. The climate is very severe in winter. Cattle and sheep breeding are pursued with tolerable success. The inhabitants of the south or marshy portion of the province are subject to that dreadful disease, the Plica Polonica (q. v.). MINSK, the chief town of the government of the same name, is situated on the Svislocz, an affluent of the Beresina. It is mostly built of wood, but has many handsome stone edifices, among which are the Greek and Roman Catholic cathedrals and seminaries, the church of St Catharine, a number of educational and philanthropic establishments, a public library, and a theatre. The chief manufactures are woollen cloth and leather. Pop. 27,063, many of whom are Jews. MINT (Mentha), a genus of plants, of the natural order Labiata; with small, funnel-shaped, 4-fid, generally red corolla, and four straight stamens. The species are perennial herbaceous plants, varying considerably in appearance, but all with creeping root-stocks. The flowers are whorled, the whorls often grouped in spikes or heads. The species are widely distributed over the world. Some of them are very common in Britain, as WATER M. (M. aquatica), which grow in wet grounds and ditches, and CORN M. (M. arvensis), which abounds as a weed in cornfields and gardens. These and most of the other species have erect stems. All the species contain an aromatic essential oil, in virtue of which they are more or less medicinal. The most important species are SPEARMINT, PEPPERMINT, and PENNY-ROYAL.-SPEARMINT or GREEN M. (M. viridis), is a native of almost all the temperate parts of the globe; it has erect smooth stems, from one foot to two feet high, with the whorls of flowers in loose cylindrical or oblong spikes at the top; the leaves lanceolate, acute, smooth, serrated, destitute of stalk, or nearly so. It has a very agreeable odour. PEPPERMINT (M. piperita), a plant of equally wide distribution in the temperate parts of the world, is very similar to spearmint, but has the leaves stalked, and the flowers in short spikes, the lower whorls somewhat distant from the rest. It is very readily recognised by the peculiar pungency of its odour and of its taste.-PENNY-ROYAL (M. pulegium), also very cosmopolitan, has a much-branched prostrate stem, which sends down new roots as it extends in length; the leaves ovate, stalked; the flowers in distant globose whorls. Its smell resembles that of the other mints.-All these species, in a wild state, grow in ditches or wet places. All of them are cultivated in gardens; and peppermint largely for medicinal use and for flavouring lozenges. Mint Sauce is generally made of spearmint; which is also used for flavouring soups, &c. A kind of M. with lemon-scented leaves, called BERGAMOT M. (M. citrata), is found in some parts of Europe, and is cultivated in gardens. Varieties of peppermint and horse-mint (M. sylvestris), with crisped or inflato-rugose leaves, are much cultivated in Germany under the name of CURLED M. (Krause-minze); the leaves being dried and used as a domestic medicine, and in poultices and baths. All kinds of M. are easily propagated by parting the roots or by cuttings. It is said that mice have a great aversion to M., and that a few leaves of it will keep them at a distance. Peppermint, Penny-royal, and Spearmint, are used in medicine. The pharmacopoeias contain an aqua, spiritus, and oleum of each of thein; the officinal part being the herb, which should be collected when in flower. Peppermint is a powerful diffusible stimulant, and, as such, is antispasmodic and stomachic, and is much employed in the treatment of gastrodynia and flatulent colic. It is also extensively used in mixtures, for covering the taste of drugs. Penny-royal and spearmint are similar in their action, but inferior for all purposes to peppermint. The ordinary doses are from one to two ounces of the aqua, a drachm of the spiritus (in a wine-glassful of water), and from three to five drops of the oleum (on a lump of sugar). MINT (Lat. moneta), an establishment for making coins or metallic money (see MONEY). The early history of the art being traced under the head NUMISMATICS, the present article is mostly confined to a sketch of the constitution of the British mint, and of the modern processes of coining as there followed. The earliest regulations regarding the English mint belong to Anglo-Saxon times. An officer called a reeve is referred to in the laws of Canute as having some jurisdiction over it, and certain names which, in addition to that of the sovereign, appear on the Anglo-Saxon coins, seem to have been those of the moneyers, or principal officers of the mint, till recently, an important class of functionaries, who were responsible for the integrity of the coin. Besides the sovereign, barons, bishops, and the greater monasteries had their respective mints, where they exercised the right of coinage, a privilege enjoyed by the archbishops of Canterbury as late as the reign of Henry VIII., and by Wolsey as Bishop of Durham, and Archbishop of York. After the Norman Conquest, the officers of the royal mint became to a certain extent subject to the authority of the exchequer. Both in Saxon and Norman times, there existed, under control of the principal mint in London, a number of provincial mints in different towns of England; there were no fewer than 38 in the time of Ethelred, and the last of them were only done away with in the reign of William III. The officers of the mint were formed into a corporation by a charter of Edward II.; they consisted of the warden, master, comptroller, assay-master, workers, coiners, and subordinates. The seignorage for coining at one time formed no inconsiderable item in the revenues of the crown. It was a deduction made from the bullion coined, and comprehended both a charge for defraying the expense of coinage, and the sovereign's profit in virtue of his prerogative. In the reign of Henry VI., the seignorage amounted to 6d. in the pound; in the reign of Edward I., 18. 2d. By 18 Car. II. c. 5, the seignorage on gold was abolished, and has never since been exacted. The shere, or remedy, as it is now called, was an allowance for the unavoidable imperfection of the coin. The function of the mint is in theory to receive gold in ingots from individuals, and return an equal weight in sovereigns; but, in point of fact, gold is now exclusively coined for the Bank of England; for, though any one has still the right to coin gold at the mint, the merchant or dealer has ceased to obtain any profit for so doing, as the Bank is compelled to purchase all gold tendered to it at the fixed price of £3, 178. 9d. an ounce. The increment on the Assay (q. v.), or on the fineness of the metal, which augments the standard weight, and therefore the value of the gold, is a more considerable source of profit to the importer of gold. The ordinary trade assay, on which the importer purchases the bullion, does not by usage come closer than th of a carat grain or 74 grains per lb. troy. Before being coined, the gold is subjected to a second and more delicate assay at the mint, and the importer receives the benefit of the difference, amounting to about 1th of a carat grain = 3 troy grains, or nearly 8d. per lb. weight. Silver, which was formerly, concurrently with gold, a legal tender to any amount, has, by 56 Geo. III. c. 68, ceased to be so. There is a seignorage on both silver and copper money, amounting in silver to 20 per cent., when the price of silver is 58. per ounce, which, however, from the tear and wear of the coin, brings small profit to the crown. On the copper coinage, the seignorage is no less than 100 per cent. on the average price of copper. The profits of the seignorage, formerly retained by the master of the mint, to defray the expense of coinage, have, since 1837, been paid into the Bank, to the credit of the Consolidated Fund. A new mint was erected on Towerhill in 1810. In 1815, some alterations were made in its constitution; and in 1851 a complete change was introduced in the whole system of administration. The control of the mint is now vested, subject to the instructions of the Treasury, in a master and a deputy-master, and comptroller. The mastership, which had, in the early part of the present century, become a political appointment, held by an adherent of the government, has been restored to the position of a permanent office, the master being the ostensible executive head of the establishment. The operative department is intrusted to the assayer, the melter, and the refiner. The moneyers, who from early times till a very recent period were in the enjoyment of extensive corporate privileges and exemptions, were contractors with the crown for the execution of the coinage. Their office was abolished with the recent change of system; and the contracts with the crown are now entered into by the master of the mint, who also makes subordinate contracts for the actual manufacture of the coin. Other contracts are taken by the medallists of Birmingham, where one firm especially, that of Ralph Heaton & Co., whose machinery is said to excel that of the Royal Mint in efficiency, not only manufactures coin for our own, but also takes large contracts from foreign governments both in copper and silver. Another firm assisted in making the bronze coinage of this country lately issued. These firms have no special privileges, but tender for the government contracts when offered in the usual way, and give the necessary securities. Processes of coining.-Down to the middle of the 16th c., little or no improvement seems to have been made in the art of coining from the time of its invention. The metal was simply hammered into slips, which were afterwards cut up into squares of one size, and then forged round. The required impression was given to these by placing them in turn between two dies, and striking them with a hammer. As it was not easy by this method to place the dies exactly above each other, or to apply proper force, coins so made were always faulty, and had the edges unfinished, which rendered them liable to be clipped. The first great step was the application of the screw, invented in 1553 by a French engraver of the name of Brucher. The plan was found expensive at first, and it was not till 1662 that it altogether superseded the hammer in the English mint. The chief steps in coining as now practised are as follows: The gold or silver to be coined is sent to the mint in the form of ingots (Ger. eingiessen, Du. ingieten, to pour in, to cast), or castings; those of gold weighing each about 180 oz., while the silver ingots are much larger. Before melting, each ingot is tested as to its purity by Assaying (q. v.), and then weighed, and the results carefully recorded. For melting the gold, pots or crucibles of plumbago are used, made to contain each about 1200 oz. The pots being heated white, in furnaces, the charge of gold is introduced along with the proper amount of copper (depending upon the state of purity of the gold as ascertained by the assay), to bring it to the standard, which is 22 parts of pure gold to 2 of copper (see ALLOY). The metal when melted is poured into iron moulds, which form it into bars 21 inches long, 1 inch broad, and 1 inch thick, if for sovereigns; and somewhat narrower, if for half-sovereigns. For melting silver (the alloy of which is adjusted to the standard of 222 parts of silver to 18 of copper), malleable iron pots are used, and the metal is cast into bars similar to those of gold. The new copper, or rather bronze coinage, issued in 1860, is an alloy consisting of 95 parts of copper, 4 of tin, and 1 of zinc. The coins are only about half the weight of their old copper representatives. The processes of casting and coining the bronze are essentially the same as in the case of gold and silver. The operation of rolling follows that of casting. It consists in repeatedly passing the bars between pairs of rollers with hardened steel surfaces, driven by steam-power; the rollers being brought closer and closer as the thickness becomes reduced. At a certain stage, as the bars become longer, they are cut into several lengths; and to remove the hardness induced by the pressure, they are annealed. The finishing rollers are so exquisitely adjusted that the fillets (as the thinned bars are called) do not vary in thickness in any part more than the tenthousandth part of an inch. The slips are still further reduced in the British mint at what is called the 'draw-bench,' where they are drawn between steel dies, as in wire-drawing, and are then exactly of the necessary thickness for the coin intended. The fillets thus prepared are passed to the tryer, who, with a hand-punch, cuts a trial-blank from each, and weighs it in a balance; and if it vary more than th of a grain, the whole fillet is rejected. For cutting out the blanks of which the coins are to be made, there are in the British mint twelve presses arranged in a circle, so that one wheel with driving cams, placed in the centre, works the whole. The punches descend by pneumatic pressure, and the fillets are fed into the presses by boys, each punch cutting out about 60 blanks a minute. The scrap left after the blanks are cut out, called scissel, is sent back to be remelted. Each blank is afterwards weighed by the automaton balance-a beautiful and most accurate instrument, which was added to the mint about ten years ago. It weighs 23 blanks per minute, and each to the 001 of a grain. The standard weight of a sovereign is 123-274 grains, but the mint can issue them above or below this to the extent of 0-2568 of a grain, which is called the remedy. Blanks which come within this limit are dropped by the machine into a 'medium' box, and pass on to be coined. Those below the required weight are pushed into another box to be remelted, but those above it into another, and are reduced by filing. The correct blanks are afterwards rung on a sounding iron, and those which do not give a clear sound are rejected as dumb. To insure their being properly milled on the edge, the blanks are pressed edgeways in a machine between two circular steel-plates, which raises the edges, and at the same time secures their being perfectly round. After this they are annealed to soften them, before they can be struck with dies; they are also put into a boiling pot of dilute sulphuric acid, to remove any oxide of copper from the 481 MINT-MINUTE. there are eight of them in all, ranged in a row upon a strong foundation of masonry. CCB is the massive iron frame into which the screw D works, the upper part B being perforated to receive it. On the bottom of this screw the upper steel die is fixed by a box, the lower die being fixed in another box attached to the base of the press. The dies have, of course, the obverse and reverse of the coin upon them. See DIE-SINKING. The blank coin is placed on the lower die, and receives the impression when the screw is turned round so as to press the two dies forcibly towards each other. A steel ring or collar contains the coin while it is being stamped, which preserves its circular form, and also effects the milling on the edge. In cases where letters are put on the edge of a coin, a collar divided into segments working on centre-pins, is used. On the proper 482 pressure being applied, the segments close round, and impress the letters on the edge of the coin. The screw of the press is put in motion by means of the piece A, which is worked by machinery driven by steam-power, and situated in an apartment above the coining-room. The steam-engine exhausts an air-chamber, and from the vacuum produced, an air-engine works a series of air-pumps, which communicate a more exact and regular motion to the machinery of the stamping-presses than by the ordinary condensing engine. The loaded arms RR strike against blocks of wood, whereby they are prevented from moving too far, and run the risk of breaking the hard steel dies by bringing them in contact. The press brings down the die on the coin with a twisting motion, but if it were to rise up in the same way, it would abrade the coin; there is, in consequence, an arrangement which, by means of a wide notch in the ring 3, allows the die to be raised up a certain distance before it begins to turn round with the screw. On the left side of the figure, the arrangement for feeding the blanks and removing the coins as they are stamped, is shewn. A lever HIK, moving on a fulcrum I, is supported by a bar Q, fixed to the side of the press. The top of this lever is guided by a sector 7 fixed upon the screw D. In this sector there is a spiral groove, which, as the screw turns round, moves the end H of the lever to or from the screw, the other end K being moved at the same time either towards or away from the centre of the press. The lower end of the lever moves a slider L, which is directed exactly to the centre of the press, and on a level with the upper surface of the die. The slider is a thin steel-plate in two pieces united by a joint, and having a circular cavity at the end, which, when its limbs are shut, grasps a piece of coin by the edge. This piece drops out on the limbs separating. There is a tube at K which an attendant keeps filled with blank pieces; it is open at the bottom, so that the pieces rest on the slider. When the press is screwed down, the slider is drawn back to its furthest extent, and its circular end comes exactly beneath the tube. A blank piece of coin now drops in, and is carried, when the screw rises, to the collar which fits over the lower die. The slider then returns for another blank, while the upper die descends to give the impression to the coin. Each time the slider brings a new blank to the die, it at the same time pushes off the piece last struck. An arrangement of springs lifts the milled collar to enclose the coin while it is being struck. It is found on examining the coins that about 1 in 200 is imperfectly finished; these being rejected, the rest are finally weighed into bags, and subjected to the process of pixing. This consists in taking from each bag a certain number of sovereigns or other coins, and subjecting them to a final examination by weight and assay, before they are delivered to the public. originally from Poitou, in France. It is performed MI'NUET, the air of a most graceful dance, in a slow tempo. The first minuet is said to have been composed by Lully the Elder, and was danced The music of the minuet is in time, and is still by Louis XIV. in 1653 at Versailles with his mistress. well known in England by the celebrated Minuet de la Cour, which is frequently introduced in stage performances. MI'NUTE, a rough draft of any proceeding or instrument; so called from being taken down shortly and in minute or small writing, to be afterwards ingrossed. See INGROSS.-MINUTE, in Law, is a memorandum or record of some act of a court or of parties; in the latter sense, it is used chiefly in |