OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Levy, Amy

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​LEVY, AMY (1861–1889), English poetess and novelist, second daughter of Lewis Levy, was born at Clapham on the 10th of November 1861, and was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge. She showed a precocious aptitude for writing verse of exceptional merit, and in 1884 she published a volume of poems, A Minor Poet and Other Verse, some of the pieces in which had already been printed at Cambridge with the title Xantippe and Other Poems. The high level of this first publication was maintained in A London Plane Tree and Other Poems, a collection of lyrics published in 1889, in which the prevailing pessimism of the writer’s temperament was conspicuous. She had already in 1888 tried her hand at prose fiction in The Romance of a Shop, which was followed by Reuben Sachs, a powerful novel. She committed suicide on the 10th of September 1889.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lewald, Fanny

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​LEWALD, FANNY (1811–1889), German author, was born at Königsberg in East Prussia on the 24th of March 1811, of Jewish parentage. When seventeen years of age she embraced Christianity, and after travelling in Germany, France and Italy, settled in 1845 at Berlin. Here, in 1854, she married the author, Adolf Wilhelm Theodor Stahr (1805–1876), and removed after his death in 1876 to Dresden, where she resided, engaged in literary work, until her death on the 5th of August 1889. Fanny Lewald is less remarkable for her writings, which are mostly sober, matter-of-fact works, though displaying considerable talent and culture, than for her championship of “women’s rights,” a question which she was practically the first German woman to take up, and for her scathing satire on the sentimentalism of the Gräfin Hahn Hahn. This authoress she ruthlessly attacked in the exquisite parody (Diogena, Roman von Iduna Gräfin H . . . . H. . . . (2nd ed., 1847). Among the best known of her novels are Klementine (1842); Prinz Louis Ferdinand (1849; 2nd ed., 1859); Das Mädchen von Hela (1860); Von Geschlecht zu Geschlecht (8 vols., 1863–1865); Benvenuto (1875), and Stella (1883; English by B. Marshall, 1884). Of her writings in defence of the emancipation of women Osterbriefe für die Frauen (1863) and Für und wider die Frauen (1870) are conspicuous. Her autobiography, Meine Lebensgeschichte (6 vols., 1861–1862), is brightly written and affords interesting glimpses of the literary life of her time.
A selection of her works was published under the title Gesammelte Schriften in 12 vols. (1870–1874). Cf. K. Frenzel, Erinnerungen und Strömungen (1890).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Middelburg (South Africa)

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​MIDDELBURG, a town of the Transvaal, 98 m. E. by rail of Pretoria, and 251 m. W. of Lourenco Marques. Pop. (1904), 5085—of whom 2343 were whites. It is prettily situated on the high veld, 5090 ft. above the sea, on one of the head streams of the Olifants River. Middelburg is the chief town of an administrative division of the same name, and is a trading centre for a large district. It is also the centre of one of the richest coalfields in South Africa. From some of the adjacent collieries excellent steam coal is obtained. Copper and cobalt are found in the neighbourhood.
Middelburg was chosen in 1901 as the place of conference for peace negotiations between the British and the Boers. After the occupation of Pretoria in June 1900 by Lord Roberts the Boer forces had been reduced to guerilla warfare, and Lord Kitchener, learning that the Transvaal commandants were despondent, invited General Botha to enter into negotiations, on the basis of the recognition of British sovereignty. The conference between Lord Kitchener and General Botha was opened on the 28th of February and the negotiations, which ended in failure, were protracted until the 16th of March (see Transvaal: History, § The War of 1899–1902).
Middelburg is also the name of a town in the Cape Province, South Africa, 250 m. N. by W. of Port Elizabeth. Pop. (1904), 6137.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Middleboro

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​MIDDLEBORO, a township of Plymouth county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., in the S.E. part of the state, bounded on the N.W. by the Taunton river. Pop. (1890), 6065; (1900), 6885-of whom 920 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 8214. Area, about 70 sq. m. The principal village also is named Middleboro; it is 35 m. S. of Boston, is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad and by electric lines connecting with Taunton, Boston, New Bedford and Cape Cod, and has a townhouse, a soldiers’ monument, and a public library housed in a building erected from a fund (part of which is used as a permanent endowment) bequeathed by Thomas Sprout Peirce (1823–1901), a merchant of the township, who, in addition, bequeathed about $500,000 as a special trust-fund for the use and benefit of the town of Middleboro; the income has been spent largely in the construction of macadam roads, the erection of an almshouse and the installation of special courses in the high school. The village, a place of considerable natural beauty, is a summer resort, and has various manufactures. Other villages in the township are North, East and South Middleboro, and Rock. The township had important herring fisheries in early times and manufactured straw hats (from 1828) and ladies’ dress goods. Middleboro was settled about 1662 under the Indian name Nemasket; became a part of the township of Plymouth in 1663; and in 1669 was incorporated as a separate township, taking its name probably from Middlesbrough, North Riding, York.
See Thomas Weston, History of the Town of Middleboro, Massachusetts (Boston, 1906).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Middlebury

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​MIDDLEBURY, a village and the county-seat of Addison county, Vermont, U.S.A., in Middlebury township, on Otter Creek, about 31 m. N.N.W. of Rutland. Pop. of the village (1890), 1762; (1900), 1897 (221 foreign-born); (1910), 1866; of the township, (1900), 3045; (1910), 2848. Middlebury is served by the Rutland railroad. It is picturesquely situated near the Green Mountain range, and is the seat of Middlebury College (chartered, 1800; co-educational since 1883), which offers a classical course and a Latin-scientific course, and had in 1907–1908 12 instructors and 203 students (84 of whom were women), and a library of 35,000 volumes. The Sheldon art museum and a public library are among the public institutions of the village, and the principal buildings include the court-house and the opera-house. The principal industrial establishments are marble quarries, “Italian” marble works, iron foundries, lime-kilns, flour-mills, and door, sash and lumber mills. About 1 m. north of the village, in the township of Weybridge, there is a large United States government breeding station for Morgan horses; and merino sheep are raised in the vicinity.
The township of Middlebury was incorporated in 1761, and the first settlement on the site of the present village was made in 1773. At the outbreak of the War of Independence the settlement was deserted, and all except two or three of the houses were destroyed by British troops; but the settlers returned soon after the close of the war, and the township was formally organized and sent a member to the state assembly in 1788. Middlebury was incorporated as a borough in 1813, and as a village in 1832.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Middelburg (Holland)

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​MIDDELBURG, the ancient capital of the province of Zeeland, Holland, in the middle of the island of Walcheren, 4 m. by rail N. by E. of Flushing, with which it is also connected by steam tramway and by ship canal (1873), which continues to Veere on the N.E. coast, with a branch eastward to Arnemuiden. Pop. (1903), 19,002. Middelburg contains many splendid old houses, which recall the prosperity which distinguished it until the end of the 18th century. The beautiful town-hall, built by Anton Keldermans about 1512, with a square tower 180 ft. high, and a façade adorned with statues of the counts and countesses of Zeeland and Holland, contains the valuable city archives and antiquarian and historical collections. The old abbey of St Nicholas, founded in 1150, and now occupied by the provincial council, has some fine old tapestry of the end of the 16th century. The building was added to in the 14th and 15th centuries, and partly rebuilt after a fire in 1492. It was the scene in 1505 of a meeting of the knights of the Golden Fleece, and was frequently the residence of royal visitors, including Maximilian, Philip the Fair and Charles V. The abbot of Middelburg formerly possessed a vote of his own in the Provincial States. What was formerly the nave of the abbey church is now the New Church, and the ancient choir constitutes the Choir Church. These churches are interesting for the monuments of William II., count of Holland, king of the Romans (d. 1256), the 16th century scholar Hadrian Junius, and Jan Pieterszoon; and the tombs of Jan and Cornelius Evertsen, who fell in the naval war against England in 1666. The high tower (280 ft.), known as de lange Jan, standing apart from the church contains a good chime of bells. The corn exchange, the hof St Joris and the hof St Sebastian (formerly buildings belonging to the gilds of archers, and now places of amusement) also deserve mention. The museum of antiquities belonging to the Zeeland Society of Arts and Sciences (founded at Flushing in 1769, and transferred to Middelburg in 1801) contains a complete collection of the fauna and flora of the province, many maps, plans and drawings relating to Zeeland, the first telescope made by Hans Lippershey and Zacharias Jansen in Middelburg in 1608, and some provincial Roman antiquities.
The extensive trade which Middelburg formerly carried on with the East and West Indies and with England and Flanders, was ruined by the war with England and the French occupation. But the construction of the railway in 1872, followed by the opening of the ship canal and the large dock (1876), as well as the establishment, by the aid of the chamber of commerce, of certain manufacturing industries (iron, machinery, furniture, oil and cigars), lifted it out of its isolation.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Midas

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​MIDAS, the name of several Phrygian kings. The first of these was said to have been the son of Gordius and Cybele, whose first priest he was, and in whose honour he founded a temple at Pessinus. Having taken the drunken Silenus back to his youthful charge Dionysus, he was rewarded by the god with the power of transforming everything he touched into gold. Finding himself in danger of starvation, even his food and drink being changed by his touch, Midas entreated Dionysus to take back the gift. By the command of the god he bathed in the river Pactolus, which henceforth became auriferous (Ovid, Metam. xi. 85–145; Hyginus, Fab. 191). Another story connects him with the musical contest between Apollo and Marsyas (or Pan). Having decided against the god, his ears were changed into those of an ass. He concealed them under a Phrygian cap; but the secret was discovered by his barber, who, being unable to keep it, dug a hole in the ground and whispered into it “Midas has the ears of an ass.” He then filled up the hole, thinking his secret safe; but the reeds which grew up over the spot proclaimed it to all the world. Midas with the ass’s ears was a frequent subject of the Attic satyr-drama. There is no doubt that Midas was the name of one or more real persons around whom religious legends have grown up. The name “Midas the king” occurs on a very ancient tomb in the valley of the Sangarius, the legendary seat of the Phrygian kingdom. The Phrygian monarchy was destroyed by the Cimmerians about 670 B.C., and the name Midas became in Greek tradition the representative of this ancient dynasty.
On the connexion between Midas and the Attic story see J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, ii. 134.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Middlesbrough

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​MIDDLESBROUGH, a municipal, county and parliamentary borough and seaport in the North Riding of Yorkshire, England, 238 1/2 m. N. by W. from London, on the North Eastern railway. Pop. (1891), 75,532; (1901), 91,302. It lies on the south bank of the Tees, 5 m. from its mouth in the North Sea, and is the centre of one of the most important iron-working districts in the world. It is wholly of modern growth, having been incorporated in 1853. Its chief buildings are a fine town-hall with lofty clock-tower and spire (1889), containing the municipal offices, free library, &c.; the exchange, county court, Dorman memorial museum and Roman Catholic cathedral. Besides iron and steel works, the first of which was that of Messrs Bolckow, Vaughan & Co., there are rolling-mills, tube works, wire-mills, engineering works, oil works, chemical works, salt works and a considerable shipbuilding industry. The district abounds in blast furnaces. The docks are accessible to large vessels, the entrance having a depth of 32 ft. Extensive dredging operations are carried on in the river. The accommodation for shipping includes two graving docks, two patent slips, &c. The entrance to the river is protected by two breakwaters named respectively the North Gare and South Gare. The furnaces within the port produce some ​2,500,000 tons of pig iron annually. Middlesbrough is the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop. The parliamentary borough falling within the Cleveland division of the county, returns one member. The county borough was created in 1888. The town is governed by a mayor, ten aldermen and thirty councillors. Area, 2823 acres.
The earlier history of the place is meagre. Where Middlesbrough now stands there were at one time a small chapel and priory founded by Robert de Brus of Skelton Castle. These were dedicated to St Hilda, and with some lands were given by de Brus to the abbey of St Hilda at Whitby in 1130. The priory fell into ruins at the time of the Reformation, and no trace now remains beyond some stones built into the wall of a brewery. The Oak Chair in the town-hall also is made from a fragment. In 1801 there were upon the site of Middlesbrough only four farmhouses. In 1829 a company styling itself the Middlesbrough Owners bought 500 acres of land, and began building in the town. In 1830 the Stockton & Darlington railway was extended to Middlesbrough; four years later the town was lighted with gas; and after six years more a public market was established. The census of 1831 showed the population to be 154; that of 1841 showed 5709. In 1842 the opening of the docks gave additional importance to the town; From the year 1851, when John Vaughan discovered the presence of ironstone in the Eston hills, the town advanced rapidly.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Steibelt, Daniel

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​STEIBELT, DANIEL (c. 1764–1823), German pianist and composer, was born at the earliest in 1764 or 1765 in Berlin. He was indebted to the crown prince Frederick William for his musical education. Very little is known of his artistic life before 1790, when he settled in Paris and attained great popu- larity as a virtuoso by means of a pianoforte sonata called La Coquette, which he composed for Queen Marie Antoinette; his dramatic opera entitled Roméo et Juliette, produced at the Th6atre Feydeau in 1793, was equally successful. In 1796 Steibelt removed to London, where his pianoforte-playing attracted great attention. In 1798 he produced his concerto (No. 3, in E flat) containing the famous “Storm Rondo”—a work that ensured his popularity. In the following year Steibelt started on a professional tour in Germany; and, after playing with some success in Hamburg. Dresden, Prague and Berlin, he arrived in May 1800 at Vienna, where he challenged Beethoven to a trial of skill. His discomfiture was complete and he retired to Paris. During the next eight years he lived alternately in that city and in London. In 1808 he was invited by the emperor Alexander to St Petersburg, succeeding Boieldieu as director of the royal opera in 1811. Here he resided in the enjoyment of a lucrative appointment until his death on the 20th of September 1823.
Besides his dramatic music, Steibelt left behind him an enormous number of compositions for the pianoforte. His playing, though brilliant, was wanting in the higher qualities which characterized that of his contemporaries, John Cramer and Muzio Clementi; but he was gifted with talents of a high order; and the reputation he enjoyed was fully deserved.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Stein, Charlotte von

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​STEIN, CHARLOTTE VON (1742–1827), the friend of Goethe, was born at Weimar on the 25th of December 1742, the eldest daughter of the Hofmarschall (master of the ceremonies) von Schardt. She became in her sixteenth year lady-in-waiting to the duchess Anna Amalia, the accomplished mother of Duke Karl August of Saxe-Weimar. In 1764 she married Freiherr Friedrich von Stein, master of the horse to the duke, and seven children were the issue of the union. Goethe, who arrived in Weimar in 1775, was soon captivated by the charm of this lady, his senior by seven years, and the Seelenbund (union of souls) they formed exercised a furthering and ennobling influence upon Goethe’s life and work. For more than ten years Charlotte von Stein was his constant companion, and by her bright and genial nature and friendship she stimulated his efforts and assuaged his cares. On Goethe’s return from Italy in 1788 the previous intimate ​relations between them were relaxed, and the poet’s connexion with Christiane Vulpius still further estranged them. Charlotte’s jealousy and indignation at first knew no bounds, and it was only by slow degrees that friendship was restored. Charlotte von Stein was also intimate with Schiller and his wife, and numerous interesting letters from her are to be found in Charlotte von Schiller und ihre Freunde (vol. ii., 1862). She became a widow in 1793, but continued to live at Weimar until her death there on the 6th of January 1827.
Goethe’s letters to Frau von Stein form one of the most interesting volumes of the poet’s correspondence. Her own letters addressed to him were returned to her at her request and destroyed shortly before her death. A prose tragedy, Dido, written by her in 1792 (published 1867), is of little poetical value.
Goethe’s Briefe an Frau von Stein aus den Jahren 1776–1820 were edited by A. Schöll (3 vols., 1848–1851; 2nd ed. by W. Fielitz, 1883–1885; 3rd ed., by J. Wahle, 1900). See H. Düntzer, Charlotte von Stein (2 vols., 1874); id., Charlotte von Stein und Corona Schröter (1876); G. H. Calvert, Charlotte von Stein (Boston and New York, 1877); and A. Sauer, Frauenbilder aus der Blütezeit der deutschen Literatur (1885); W. Bode, Charlotte von Stein (1910).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Steevens, George Warrington

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​STEEVENS, GEORGE WARRINGTON (1860–1900), English journalist, was born at Sydenham, near London, on the 10th of December 1869, and was educated at the City of London School and Balliol College, Oxford, of which he was a scholar. He first began to write in undergraduate periodicals. In 1893 he was elected a fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, and in the same year spent some time at Cambridge, editing a weekly periodical, the Cambridge Observer, and becoming a contributor to the National Observer, then edited by Mr W. E. Henley. He then married and went to London, and joined the staff of the Pall Mall Gazette, contributing also to the New Review and Blackwood’s Magazine. Some of his articles were reprinted in Monologues of the Dead. In 1896 he joined the staff of the London Daily Mail, then just started, and went on various special missions for that paper, which resulted in more than one series of articles, afterwards turned into books. In this way he published The Land of the Dollar (1897), With the Conquering Turk (1897), Egypt in 1898, and With Kitchener to Khartoum (1899). In September 1899 he went to South Africa and joined Sir George White’s force in Natal as war-correspondent, being subsequently besieged in Ladysmith. He died during the siege, of enteric fever, on the 15th of January 1900. The articles he had sent home from South Africa were published posthumously in a volume called From Capetown to Ladysmith. Steevens had a remarkable gift of seizing the salient facts and principal characteristics in anything he wished to describe, and putting them in a vivid and readable way. His early death removed an interesting personality in English journalism.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Stefanie

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​STEFANIE, Basso Naebor, or Chuwaha, a lake of East Africa, lying in 37° E., between 4° 25′ and 5° N., and measuring some 40 m. by 15. It is the southernmost and lowest (1880 ft.) of a series of lakes which lie in what appears to be a north-easterly continuation of the great East African rift valley, although this loses its clearly marked character in about 3° N. There is, however, a well defined watershed extending from the hills east of Stefanie to the Harrar range. The character of the lake, which has no outlet, varies greatly according to the amount of water brought down by its principal feeder, the Dulei, which enters at its north end, being there a fairly rapid stream 50 yds. wide and 3½ ft. deep. At low water the western part of the lake is dry. The Dulei, which rises north of 6° N., is joined in about 36° 55′ E., 5° 8′ N. by the Galana Sagan or Galana Amara. The Sagan in times of flood receives the overflow of the next lake in the series, Chambo or Ganjule, which lies, at a height of 3460 ft., 70 m. north-north-east of Stefanie. Chambo in turn receives the waters of a larger lake—Abai, Abaya, Pagade or Regina Margherita—through the river Walo, across a plain only 2 m. wide. Abai lies 4200 ft. above the sea, is 45 m. long and 18 m. across at its greatest width. It is cut by 38° E. There are a number of islands on the lake. All the lakes of the series are shut in by high mountains, those surrounding Lake Abai, together with the islands with which its surface is broken, being clothed with luxuriant vegetation. The chief feeder of Abai, the Bilate, rises in about 8° N. North-east of Abai are several smaller lakes unconnected with the more southerly system.
Lake Stefanie was discovered by Count Samuel Teleki in 1881, and has since, with others of the series, been explored by Donaldson Smith, V. Bottego, M. S. Welby, Oscar Neumann and others. J. J. Harrison in 1899 found the lake quite dried up, and two years later Count Wickenburg found water only in the northern part. An agreement of 1907 with Great Britain recognized the lake as within the Abyssinian Empire.
See Geographical Journal (Sept. 1896, Sept. and Dec. 1900, Sept. 1901, Oct. 1902). L. von Höhnel, Discovery of Lakes Rudolf and Stefanie (London, 1894); L. Vannutelli and C. Citerni, L’Omo (Milan, 1899) ; British War Office map, Africa, sheet 79.