New River, by which a great part of London is amply supplied

with pure water to this day. Myddelton first proposed that undertaking about 1608, at a time when London had far outgrown its existing means of water-supply. An act had been passed to empower the corporation to bring water to the northern part of the city from the sources of the River Lea in Hertfordshire; but no one could be found skilful and bold enough to undertake the planning and execution of the necessary works, until Myddelton came forward and offered to do so. The corporation readily agreed to transfer to him the powers which they had obtained, on condition of his finishing the undertaking within four years from the spring of 1609. In May of that year he commenced the work and carried it on vigorously in the face of much selfish and ignorant opposition, through which, however, the time and cost of execution were so much increased, that in the course of the third year Myddelton found it advisable to apply to the corporation for an extension of the stipulated time (which was granted), and to King James I. for assistance in raising the capital. The king, with a promptitude and liberality which did him great honour, at once agreed to Myddelton's proposal, undertaking to pay half the whole cost of the work, both past and future, upon condition of receiving half the profit; and without reserving to the crown any share in the management of the work, except that of appointing a commissioner to examine the accounts, and receive payment of the royal share of the profit. On Michaelmas day, 1613, the work was complete; and the entrance of the New River water into London was celebrated by a public ceremony, presided over by the lord-mayor, Thomas Myddelton, the projector's elder brother. Hugh Myddelton received from the king the honour of knighthood. The New River, as originally executed, was a canal of ten feet wide, and probably about four feet deep. It drew its supply of water from the Chadwell and Amwell springs, near Ware, and followed a very winding course of nearly forty miles, with a very slight fall, to Islington, where it discharged its water into a reservoir called the New River Head. In more recent times its channel has been widened, shortened, and otherwise improved; larger reservoirs have been constructed; and a great additional supply of water has been obtained from the River Lea; but the general course and site of the works are nearly the same as in the time of Sir Hugh Myddelton. In 1620 he undertook another work of improvement, the reclaiming from the sea of a flooded district in the Isle of Wight, called Brading Haven. This undertaking was for a time successful; but about 1624 Myddelton's connection with it ceased, and the works fell into neglect, and were destroyed by the sea. In 1617 he took a lease of some lead and silver mines in Wales, in the district about Plymlimmon, between the Dovey and the Ystwith, which had been unsuccessfully worked by former adventurers, and were flooded with water. He fully succeeded in clearing the mines of water, and in obtaining a large profit by working them. In 1622 he was created a baronet, with remission of the customary fees. He continued to be actively engaged in business and in works of public benefit, until near the time of his death at the age of seventy-six.—(Smiles' Lives of the Engineers.)—W. J. M. R. MYDORGE, Claude, a French mathematician, was born at Paris in 1595, and died in July, 1647. He was a member of an eminent legal family and possessed a considerable fortune, which he spent liberally in experiments for the advancement of optics. He was the intimate friend of Descartes.—W. J. M. R. MYRON, one of the most famous of the Greek sculptors, was born at Eleutheræ in Bœotia about 480 b.c. He was the pupil of Agelades, and settled in Athens. He belonged to what is now termed the naturalist school of sculptors, deviating from the generic style of Phidias and his contemporaries, and studiously imitating nature in all his works, except in the human face and beard, in treating which he adhered as a rule to the conventional type; hence he as willingly devoted himself to animals as to man. He obtained undying renown by a brazen heifer or cow lowing, and according to some, suckling a calf. On this cow there are no less than thirty-six epigrams in the Greek Anthology The following is Curl's translation of one attributed to Anacreon:—

The novelty of this bronze animal constituted probably the chief source of its attraction; it was still in a public place at Athens in Cicero's time, but was in the time of Procopius removed to Rome and placed in the Temple of Peace, which was a kind of art-museum. The Emperor Augustus placed also four oxen by Myron in the portico of the temple of Apollo, on the Palatine mount. Among his many figure pieces was a group of "Perseus killing Medusa;" and another colossal group of great celebrity of "Jupiter, Minerva, and Hercules," originally in the Heræum at Samos, which contained one of the most celebrated art collections of antiquity. Marcus Antonius had it carried to Rome, but Augustus restored the Minerva and Hercules to Samos, keeping the Jupiter for the capitol. He executed also a famous "Bacchus," and he was particularly distinguished for his athletes. The most celebrated of all his figures was the "Discobolus, or Quoit-thrower," often copied in marble; there is one of these reputed copies in the Townley collection of the British Museum. That it is really a copy, however, is by no means certain. On the contrary, the bent figure throwing the quoit in the Townley collection does not agree with the description of the figure of Myron described by Lucian and Quintilian. A marble quoit-thrower in the Villa Massimi at Rome, with the head turned slightly back, is in accordance with Lucian's description: the two marbles are similar in other respects. All the above mentioned works were made of bronze of Delos. Polycletus used the bronze of Ægina. Myron was, however, a sculptor in marble, and a carver in wood, as well as a metal founder; he was likewise an engraver of metals.—(See Pliny, Pausanias, the Dictionaries of Ancient Artists by Junius and Sillig, and the more copious notice by the writer of this article in the supplement to the Penny Cyclopædia.)—R. N. W. MYTENS, Daniel, a very distinguished Dutch portrait painter, was born at the Hague about 1590, and came over to this country in the reign of James I. He obtained the notice of Charles I., who in 1625 appointed him his painter, with a salary of £20 a year, and until the arrival of Vandyck in England in 1632 Mytens was the principal painter at the English court; he executed many portraits of the nobility, and some of Charles and his Queen Henrietta; there are two such with the dwarf Sir Jeffrey Hudson introduced into them; one at Dunmore Park, near Falkirk, and another at Serlby, Nottinghamshire. This dwarf when seven years old was served up in a cold pie, at an entertainment given by the duke of Buckingham at Burghley to Charles I. and his queen, and presented to the latter by the duchess of Buckingham. He was then, it is asserted, only eighteen inches high. Some portraits by Mytens are also at Hampton Court, of which James, the first marquis of Hamilton, is an excellent picture. After the arrival of Vandyck, Mytens feeling the change in his position, solicited permission to return to his own country; he was still living at the Hague in 1656. His portrait is among the Centum Icones engraved after Vandyck by Pontius.—R. N. W.