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Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Matter" to
"Mecklenburg"

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THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA

A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES,
LITERATURE AND GENERAL
INFORMATION
ELEVENTH EDITION

VOLUME XVII SLICE VIII

Matter to Mecklenburg

Articles in This Slice

MATTER MAX MÜLLER, FRIEDRICH
MATTERHORN MAXWELL
MATTEUCCI, CARLO MAXWELL, JAMES CLERK
MATTHEW, ST MAXWELLTOWN
MATTHEW, TOBIAS MAY, PHIL
MATTHEW, GOSPEL OF ST MAY, THOMAS
MATTHEW CANTACUZENUS MAY, WILLIAM
MATTHEW OF PARIS MAY (month)

MATTHEW OF WESTMINSTER MAY, ISLE OF
MATTHEWS, STANLEY MAYA
MATTHIAE, AUGUST HEINRICH MAYAGUEZ
MATTHIAS (disciple) MAYAVARAM
MATTHIAS (Roman emperor) MAYBOLE
MATTHIAS I., HUNYADI MAYEN
MATTHISSON, FRIEDRICH VON MAYENNE, CHARLES OF
LORRAINE
MATTING MAYENNE (department of France)
MATTOCK MAYENNE (town of France)
MATTO GROSSO MAYER, JOHANN TOBIAS
MATTOON MAYER, JULIUS ROBERT
MATTRESS MAYFLOWER
MATURIN, CHARLES ROBERT MAY-FLY
MATVYEEV, ARTAMON MAYHEM
SERGYEEVICH
MAUBEUGE MAYHEW, HENRY
MAUCH CHUNK MAYHEW, JONATHAN
MAUCHLINE MAYHEW, THOMAS
MAUDE, CYRIL MAYMYO
MAULE MAYNARD, FRANÇOIS DE
MAULÉON, SAVARI DE MAYNE, JASPER
MAULSTICK MAYNOOTH
MAUNDY THURSDAY MAYO, RICHARD SOUTHWELL
BOURKE
MAUPASSANT, HENRI RENÉ ALBERT MAYO
GUY DE
MAUPEOU, RENÉ NICOLAS MAYOR, JOHN EYTON
CHARLES AUGUSTIN BICKERSTETH
MAUPERTUIS, PIERRE LOUIS MAYOR
MOREAU DE
MAU RANIPUR MAYOR OF THE PALACE
MAUREL, ABDIAS MAYORUNA
MAUREL, VICTOR MAYO-SMITH, RICHMOND

MAURENBRECHER, KARL PETER MAYOTTE
WILHELM
MAUREPAS, JEAN FRÉDÉRIC MAYOW, JOHN
PHÉLYPEAUX
MAURER, GEORG LUDWIG VON MAYSVILLE
MAURETANIA MAZAGAN
MAURIAC MAZAMET
MAURICE, ST MAZANDARAN
MAURICE (Roman emperor) MAZARIN, JULES
MAURICE (elector of Saxony) MAZAR-I-SHARIF
MAURICE, JOHN FREDERICK MAZARRÓN
DENISON
MAURICE OF NASSAU MAZATLÁN
MAURISTS MAZE
MAURITIUS MAZEPA-KOLEDINSKY, IVAN
STEPANOVICH
MAURY, JEAN SIFFREIN MAZER
MAURY, LOUIS FERDINAND ALFRED MAZURKA
MAURY, MATTHEW FONTAINE MAZZARA DEL VALLO
MAUSOLEUM MAZZINI, GIUSEPPE
MAUSOLUS MAZZONI, GIACOMO
MAUVE, ANTON MAZZONI, GUIDO
MAVROCORDATO MEAD, LARKIN GOLDSMITH
MAWKMAI MEAD, RICHARD
MAXENTIUS, MARCUS AURELIUS MEAD
VALERIUS
MAXIM, SIR HIRAM STEVENS MEADE, GEORGE GORDON
MAXIMA AND MINIMA MEADE, WILLIAM
MAXIMIANUS MEADVILLE
MAXIMIANUS, MARCUS AURELIUS MEAGHER, THOMAS FRANCIS
VALERIUS
MAXIMILIAN I. (elector of Bavaria) MEAL
MAXIMILIAN I. (king of Bavaria) MEALIE
MAXIMILIAN II. (king of Bavaria) MEAN

MAXIMILIAN I. (Roman emperor) MEASLES
MAXIMILIAN II. (Roman emperor) MEAT
MAXIMILIAN (emperor of Mexico) MEATH
MAXIMINUS, GAIUS JULIUS VERUS MEAUX
MAXIMINUS, GALERIUS VALERIUS MECCA
MAXIMS, LEGAL MECHANICS
MAXIMUS MECHANICVILLE
MAXIMUS, ST MECHITHARISTS
MAXIMUS OF SMYRNA MECKLENBURG
MAXIMUS OF TYRE

MATTER. Our conceptions of the nature and structure of matter
have been profoundly influenced in recent years by investigations on the
Conduction of Electricity through Gases (see Conduction, Electric) and on
Radio-activity (q.v.). These researches and the ideas which they have
suggested have already thrown much light on some of the most fundamental
questions connected with matter; they have, too, furnished us with far more
powerful methods for investigating many problems connected with the
structure of matter than those hitherto available. There is thus every reason
to believe that our knowledge of the structure of matter will soon become
far more precise and complete than it is at present, for now we have the
means of settling by testing directly many points which are still doubtful,
but which formerly seemed far beyond the reach of experiment.

The Molecular Theory of Matter—the only theory ever seriously
advocated—supposes that all visible forms of matter are collocations of
simpler and smaller portions. There has been a continuous tendency as
science has advanced to reduce further and further the number of the
different kinds of things of which all matter is supposed to be built up. First
came the molecular theory teaching us to regard matter as made up of an
enormous number of small particles, each kind of matter having its
characteristic particle, thus the particles of water were supposed to be
different from those of air and indeed from those of any other substance.
Then came Dalton’s Atomic Theory which taught that these molecules, in
spite of their almost infinite variety, were all built up of still smaller bodies,
the atoms of the chemical elements, and that the number of different types
of these smaller bodies was limited to the sixty or seventy types which
represent the atoms of the substance regarded by chemists as elements.

In 1815 Prout suggested that the atoms of the heavier chemical elements
were themselves composite and that they were all built up of atoms of the
lightest element, hydrogen, so that all the different forms of matter are
edifices built of the same material—the atom of hydrogen. If the atoms of
hydrogen do not alter in weight when they combine to form atoms of other
elements the atomic weights of all elements would be multiples of that of
hydrogen; though the number of elements whose atomic weights are
multiples or very nearly so of hydrogen is very striking, there are several
which are universally admitted to have atomic weights differing largely
from whole numbers. We do not know enough about gravity to say whether
this is due to the change of weight of the hydrogen atoms when they
combine to form other atoms, or whether the primordial form from which
all matter is built up is something other than the hydrogen atom. Whatever
may be the nature of this primordial form, the tendency of all recent
discoveries has been to emphasize the truth of the conception of a common
basis of matter of all kinds. That the atoms of the different elements have a

common basis, that they behave as if they consisted of different numbers of
small particles of the same kind, is proved to most minds by the Periodic
Law of Mendeléeff and Newlands (see Element). This law shows that the
physical and chemical properties of the different elements are determined
by their atomic weights, or to use the language of mathematics, the
properties of an element are functions of its atomic weight. Now if we
constructed models of the atoms out of different materials, the atomic
weight would be but one factor out of many which would influence the
physical and chemical properties of the model, we should require to know
more than the atomic weight to fix its behaviour. If we were to plot a curve
representing the variation of some property of the substance with the atomic
weight we should not expect the curve to be a smooth one, for instance two
atoms might have the same atomic weight and yet if they were made of
different materials have no other property in common. The influence of the
atomic weight on the properties of the elements is nowhere more strikingly
shown than in the recent developments of physics connected with the
discharge of electricity through gases and with radio-activity. The
transparency of bodies to Röntgen rays, to cathode rays, to the rays emitted
by radio-active substances, the quality of the secondary radiation emitted by
the different elements are all determined by the atomic weight of the
element. So much is this the case that the behaviour of the element with
respect to these rays has been used to determine its atomic weight, when as
in the case of Indium, uncertainty as to the valency of the element makes
the result of ordinary chemical methods ambiguous.

The radio-active elements indeed furnish us with direct evidence of this
unity of composition of matter, for not only does one element uranium,
produce another, radium, but all the radio-active substances give rise to
helium, so that the substance of the atoms of this gas must be contained in
the atoms of the radio-active elements.

It is not radio-active atoms alone that contain a common constituent, for
it has been found that all bodies can by suitable treatment, such as raising
them to incandescence or exposing them to ultra-violet light, be made to
emit negatively electrified particles, and that these particles are the same
from whatever source they may be derived. These particles all carry the
same charge of negative electricity and all have the same mass, this mass is
exceedingly small even when compared with the mass of an atom of
hydrogen, which until the discovery of these particles was the smallest mass
known to science. These particles are called corpuscles or electrons; their
mass according to the most recent determinations is only about 1⁄1700 of that
of an atom of hydrogen, and their radius is only about one hundred-
thousandth part of the radius of the hydrogen atom. As corpuscles of this
kind can be obtained from all substances, we infer that they form a
constituent of the atoms of all bodies. The atoms of the different elements
do not all contain the same number of corpuscles—there are more
corpuscles in the atoms of the heavier elements than in the atoms of the
lighter ones; in fact, many different considerations point to the conclusion
that the number of corpuscles in the atom of any element is proportional to
the atomic weight of the element. Different methods of estimating the exact
number of corpuscles in the atom have all led to the conclusion that this
number is of the same order as the atomic weight; that, for instance, the
number of corpuscles in the atom of oxygen is not a large multiple of 16.
Some methods indicate that the number of corpuscles in the atom is equal to
the atomic weight, while the maximum value obtained by any method is
only about four times the atomic weight. This is one of the points on which
further experiments will enable us to speak with greater precision. Thus one
of the constituents of all atoms is the negatively charged corpuscle; since
the atoms are electrically neutral, this negative charge must be accompanied
by an equal positive one, so that on this view the atoms must contain a
charge of positive electricity proportional to the atomic weight; the way in

which this positive electricity is arranged is a matter of great importance in
the consideration of the constitution of matter. The question naturally arises,
is the positive electricity done up into definite units like the negative, or
does it merely indicate a property acquired by an atom when one or more
corpuscles leave it? It is very remarkable that we have up to the present
(1910), in spite of many investigations on this point, no direct evidence of
the existence of positively charged particles with a mass comparable with
that of a corpuscle; the smallest positive particle of which we have any
direct indication has a mass equal to the mass of an atom of hydrogen, and
it is a most remarkable fact that we get positively charged particles having
this mass when we send the electric discharge through gases at low
pressures, whatever be the kind of gas. It is no doubt exceedingly difficult
to get rid of traces of hydrogen in vessels containing gases at low pressures
through which an electric discharge is passing, but the circumstances under
which the positively electrified particles just alluded to appear, and the way
in which they remain unaltered in spite of all efforts to clear out any traces
of hydrogen, all seem to indicate that these positively electrified particles,
whose mass is equal to that of an atom of hydrogen, do not come from
minute traces of hydrogen present as an impurity but from the oxygen,
nitrogen, or helium, or whatever may be the gas through which the
discharge passes. If this is so, then the most natural conclusion we can come
to is that these positively electrified particles with the mass of the atom of
hydrogen are the natural units of positive electricity, just as the corpuscles
are those of negative, and that these positive particles form a part of all
atoms.

Thus in this way we are led to an electrical view of the constitution of the
atom. We regard the atom as built up of units of negative electricity and of
an equal number of units of positive electricity; these two units are of very
different mass, the mass of the negative unit being only 1⁄1700 of that of the
positive. The number of units of either kind is proportional to the atomic

weight of the element and of the same order as this quantity. Whether this is
anything besides the positive and negative electricity in the atom we do not
know. In the present state of our knowledge of the properties of matter it is
unnecessary to postulate the existence of anything besides these positive
and negative units.

The atom of a chemical element on this view of the constitution of matter
is a system formed by n corpuscles and n units of positive electricity which
is in equilibrium or in a state of steady motion under the electrical forces
which the charged 2n constituents exert upon each other. Sir J. J. Thomson
(Phil. Mag., March 1904, “Corpuscular Theory of Matter”) has investigated
the systems in steady motion which can be formed by various numbers of
negatively electrified particles immersed in a sphere of uniform positive
electrification, a case, which in consequence of the enormous volume of the
units of positive electricity in comparison with that of the negative has
much in common with the problem under consideration, and has shown that
some of the properties of n systems of corpuscles vary in a periodic way
suggestive of the Periodic Law in Chemistry as n is continually increased.

Mass on the Electrical Theory of Matter.—One of the most characteristic
things about matter is the possession of mass. When we take the electrical
theory of matter the idea of mass takes new and interesting forms. This
point may be illustrated by the case of a single electrified particle; when this
moves it produces in the region around it a magnetic field, the magnetic
force being proportional to the velocity of the electrified particle.1 In a
magnetic field, however, there is energy, and the amount of energy per unit
volume at any place is proportional to the square of the magnetic force at
that place. Thus there will be energy distributed through the space around
the moving particle, and when the velocity of the particle is small compared
with that of light we can easily show that the energy in the region around
the charged particle is μe2/3a, when v is the velocity of the particle, e its

charge, a its radius, and μ the magnetic permeability of the region round the
particle. If m is the ordinary mass of the particle, the part of the kinetic
energy due to the motion of this mass is 1⁄2 mv2, thus the total kinetic energy
is 1⁄2 (m + 2⁄3μe2/a). Thus the electric charge on the particle makes it behave
as if its mass were increased by 2⁄3μe2/a. Since this increase in mass is due
to the energy in the region outside the charged particle, it is natural to look
to that region for this additional mass. This region is traversed by the tubes
of force which start from the electrified body and move with it, and a very
simple calculation shows that we should get the increase in the mass which
is due to the electrification if we suppose that these tubes of force as they
move carry with them a certain amount of the ether, and that this ether had
mass. The mass of ether thus carried along must be such that the amount of
it in unit volume at any part of the field is such that if this were to move
with the velocity of light its kinetic energy would be equal to the potential
energy of the electric field in the unit volume under consideration. When a
tube moves this mass of ether only participates in the motion at right angles
to the tube, it is not set in motion by a movement of the tube along its
length. We may compare the mass which a charged body acquires in virtue
of its charge with the additional mass which a ball apparently acquires when
it is placed in water; a ball placed in water behaves as if its mass were
greater than its mass when moving in vacuo; we can easily understand why
this should be the case, because when the ball in the water moves the water
around it must move as well; so that when a force acting on the ball sets it
in motion it has to move some of the water as well as the ball, and thus the
ball behaves as if its mass were increased. Similarly in the case of the
electrified particle, which when it moves carries with it its lines of force,
which grip the ether and carry some of it along with them. When the
electrified particle is moved a mass of ether has to be moved too, and thus
the apparent mass of the particle is increased. The mass of the electrified
particle is thus resident in every part of space reached by its lines of force;

in this sense an electrified body may be said to extend to an infinite
distance; the amount of the mass of the ether attached to the particle
diminishes so rapidly as we recede from it that the contributions of regions
remote from the particle are quite insignificant, and in the case of a particle
as small as a corpuscle not one millionth part of its mass will be farther
away from it than the radius of an atom.

The increase in the mass of a particle due to given charges varies as we
have seen inversely as the radius of the particle; thus the smaller the particle
the greater the increase in the mass. For bodies of appreciable size or even
for those as small as ordinary atoms the effect of any realizable electric
charge is quite insignificant, on the other hand for the smallest bodies
known, the corpuscle, there is evidence that the whole of the mass is due to
the electric charge. This result has been deduced by the help of an
extremely interesting property of the mass due to a charge of electricity,
which is that this mass is not constant but varies with the velocity. This
comes about in the following way. When the charged particle, which for
simplicity we shall suppose to be spherical, is at rest or moving very slowly
the lines of electric force are distributed uniformly around it in all
directions; when the sphere moves, however, magnetic forces are produced
in the region around it, while these, in consequence of electro-magnetic
induction in a moving magnetic field, give rise to electric forces which
displace the tubes of electric force in such a way as to make them set
themselves so as to be more at right angles to the direction in which they
are moving than they were before. Thus if the charged sphere were moving
along the line AB, the tubes of force would, when the sphere was in motion,
tend to leave the region near AB and crowd towards a plane through the
centre of the sphere and at right angles to AB, where they would be moving
more nearly at right angles to themselves. This crowding of the lines of
force increases, however, the potential energy of the electric field, and since
the mass of the ether carried along by the lines of force is proportional to

the potential energy, the mass of the charged particle will also be increased.
The amount of variation of the mass with the velocity depends to some
extent on the assumptions we make as to the shape of the corpuscle and the
way in which it is electrified. The simplest expression connecting the mass
with the velocity is that when the velocity is v the mass is equal to 2⁄3μe2/a
[1/(1 − v2/c2)1/2] where c is the velocity of light. We see from this that the
variation of mass with velocity is very small unless the velocity of the body
approaches that of light, but when, as in the case of the β particles emitted
by radium, the velocity is only a few per cent less than that of light, the
effect of velocity on the mass becomes very considerable; the formula
indicates that if the particles were moving with a velocity equal to that of
light they would behave as if their mass were infinite. By observing the
variation in the mass of a corpuscle as its velocity changes we can
determine how much of the mass depends upon the electric charge and how
much is independent of it. For since the latter part of the mass is
independent of the velocity, if it predominates the variation with velocity of
the mass of a corpuscle will be small; if on the other hand it is negligible
the variation in mass with velocity will be that indicated by theory given
above. The experiment of Kaufmann (Göttingen Nach., Nov. 8, 1901),
Bucherer (Ann. der Physik., xxviii. 513, 1909) on the masses of the β
particles shot out by radium, as well as those by Hupka (Berichte der
deutsch. physik. Gesell., 1909, p. 249) on the masses of the corpuscle in
cathode rays are in agreement with the view that the whole of the mass of
these particles is due to their electric charge.

The alteration in the mass of a moving charge with its velocity is
primarily due to the increase in the potential energy which accompanies the
increase in velocity. The connexion between potential energy and mass is
general and holds for any arrangement of electrified particles; thus if we
assume the electrical constitution of matter, there will be a part of the mass
of any system dependent upon the potential energy and in fact proportional

to it. Thus every change in potential energy, such for example as occurs
when two elements combine with evolution or absorption of heat, must be
attended by a change in mass. The amount of this change can be calculated
by the rule that if a mass equal to the change in mass were to move with the
velocity of light its kinetic energy would equal the change in the potential
energy. If we apply this result to the case of the combination of hydrogen
and oxygen, where the evolution of heat, about 1.6 × 1011 ergs per gramme
of water, is greater than in any other known case of chemical combination,
we see that the change in mass would only amount to one part in 3000
million, which is far beyond the reach of experiment. The evolution of
energy by radio-active substances is enormously larger than in ordinary
chemical transformations; thus one gramme of radium emits per day about
as much energy as is evolved in the formation of one gramme of water, and
goes on doing this for thousands of years. We see, however, that even in this
case it would require hundreds of years before the changes in mass became
appreciable.

The evolution of energy from the gaseous emanation given off by radium
is more rapid than that from radium itself, since according to the
experiments of Rutherford (Rutherford, Radio-activity, p. 432) a gramme of
the emanation would evolve about 2.1 × 1016 ergs in four days; this by the
rule given above would diminish the mass by about one part in 20,000; but
since only very small quantities of the emanation could be used the
detection of the change of mass does not seem feasible even in this case.

On the view we have been discussing the existence of potential energy
due to an electric field is always associated with mass; wherever there is
potential energy there is mass. On the electro-magnetic theory of light,
however, a wave of light is accompanied by electric forces, and therefore by
potential energy; thus waves of light must behave as if they possessed mass.
It may be shown that it follows from the same principles that they must also

possess momentum, the direction of the momentum being the direction
along which the light is travelling; when the light is absorbed by an opaque
substance the momentum in the light is communicated to the substance,
which therefore behaves as if the light pressed upon it. The pressure exerted
by light was shown by Maxwell (Electricity and Magnetism, 3rd ed., p.
440) to be a consequence of his electro-magnetic theory, its existence has
been established by the experiment of Lebedew, of Nichols and Hull, and of
Poynting.

We have hitherto been considering mass from the point of view that the
constitution of matter is electrical; we shall proceed to consider the question
of weight from the same point of view. The relation between mass and
weight is, while the simplest in expression, perhaps the
Weight. most fundamental and mysterious property possessed by
matter. The weight of a body is proportional to its mass,
that is if the weights of a number of substances are equal the masses will be
equal, whatever the substances may be. This result was verified to a
considerable degree of approximation by Newton by means of experiments
with pendulums; later, in 1830 Bessel by a very extensive and accurate
series of experiments, also made on pendulums, showed that the ratio of
mass to weight was certainly to one part in 60,000 the same for all the
substances examined by him, these included brass, silver, iron, lead, copper,
ivory, water.

The constancy of this ratio acquires new interest when looked at from the
point of view of the electrical constitution of matter. We have seen that the
atoms of all bodies contain corpuscles, that the mass of a corpuscle is only
1⁄1700 of the mass of an atom of hydrogen, that it carries a constant charge of

negative electricity, and that its mass is entirely due to this charge, and can
be regarded as arising from ether gripped by the lines of force starting from
the electrical charge. The question at once suggests itself, Is this kind of

mass ponderable? does it add to the weight of the body? and, if so, is the
proportion between mass and weight the same as for ordinary bodies? Let
us suppose for a moment that this mass is not ponderable, so that the
corpuscles increase the mass but not the weight of an atom. Then, since the
mass of a corpuscle is 1⁄1700 that of an atom of hydrogen, the addition or
removal of one corpuscle would in the case of an atom of atomic weight x
alter the mass by one part in 1700 x, without altering the weight, this would
produce an effect of the same magnitude on the ratio of mass to weight and
would in the case of the atoms of the lighter elements be easily measurable
in experiments of the same order of accuracy as those made by Bessel. If
the number of corpuscles in the atom were proportional to the atomic
weight, then the ratio of mass to weight would be constant whether the
corpuscles were ponderable or not. If the number were not proportional
there would be greater discrepancies in the ratio of mass to weight than is
consistent with Bessel’s experiments if the corpuscles had no weight. We
have seen there are other grounds for concluding that the number of
corpuscles in an atom is proportional to the atom weight, so that the
constancy of the ratio of mass to weight for a large number of substances
does not enable us to determine whether or not mass due to charges of
electricity is ponderable or not.

There seems some hope that the determination of this ratio for radio-
active substances may throw some light on this point. The enormous
amount of heat evolved by these bodies may indicate that they possess
much greater stores of potential energy than other substances. If we suppose
that the heat developed by one gramme of a radio-active substance in the
transformations which it undergoes before it reaches the non-radio-active
stage is a measure of the excess of the potential energy in a gramme of this
substance above that in a gramme of non-radio-active substance, it would
follow that a larger part of the mass was due to electric charges in radio-
active than in non-radio-active substances; in the case of uranium this

difference would amount to at least one part in 20,000 of the total mass. If
this extra mass had no weight the ratio of mass to weight for uranium would
differ from the normal amount by more than one part in 20,000, a quantity
quite within the range of pendulum experiments. It thus appears very
desirable to make experiments on the ratio of mass to weight for radio-
active substances. Sir J. J. Thomson, by swinging a small pendulum whose
bob was made of radium bromide, has shown that this ratio for radium does
not differ from the normal by one part in 2000. The small quantity of
radium available prevented the attainment of greater accuracy. Experiments
just completed (1910) by Southerns at the Cavendish Laboratory on this
ratio for uranium show that it is normal to an accuracy of one part in
200,000; indicating that in non-radio-active, as in radio-active, substances
the electrical mass is proportional to the atomic weight.

Though but few experiments have been made in recent years on the value
of the ratio of mass to weight, many important investigations have been
made on the effect of alterations in the chemical and physical conditions on
the weight of bodies. These have all led to the conclusion that no change
which can be detected by our present means of investigation occurs in the
weight of a body in consequence of any physical or chemical changes yet
investigated. Thus Landolt, who devoted a great number of years to the
question whether any change in weight occurs during chemical
combination, came finally to the conclusion that in no case out of the many
he investigated did any measurable change of weight occur during chemical
combination. Poynting and Phillips (Proc. Roy. Soc., 76, p. 445), as well as
Southerns (78, p. 392), have shown that change in temperature produces no
change in the weight of a body; and Poynting has also shown that neither
the weight of a crystal nor the attraction between two crystals depends at all
upon the direction in which the axis of the crystal points. The result of these
laborious and very carefully made experiments has been to strengthen the
conviction that the weight of a given portion of matter is absolutely

independent of its physical condition or state of chemical combinations. It
should, however, be noticed that we have as yet no accurate investigation as
to whether or not any changes of weight occur during radio-active
transformations, such for example as the emanation from radium undergoes
when the atoms themselves of the substance are disrupted.

It is a matter of some interest in connexion with a discussion of any
views of the constitution of matter to consider the theories of gravitation
which have been put forward to explain that apparently invariable property
of matter—its weight. It would be impossible to consider in detail the
numerous theories which have been put forward to account for gravitation;
a concise summary of many of these has been given by Drude (Wied. Ann.
62, p. 1);2 there is no dearth of theories as to the cause of gravitation, what
is lacking is the means of putting any of them to a decisive test.

There are, however, two theories of gravitation, both old, which seem to
be especially closely connected with the idea of the electrical constitution of
matter. The first of these is the theory, associated with the two fluid theory
of electricity, that gravity is a kind of residual electrical effect, due to the
attraction between the units of positive and negative electricity being a little
greater than the repulsion between the units of electricity of the same kind.
Thus on this view two charges of equal magnitude, but of opposite sign,
would exert an attraction varying inversely as the square of the distance on
a charge of electricity of either sign, and therefore an attraction on a system
consisting of two charges equal in magnitude but opposite in sign forming
an electrically neutral system. Thus if we had two neutral systems, A and B,
A consisting of m positive units of electricity and an equal number of
negative, while B has n units of each kind, then the gravitational attraction
between A and B would be inversely proportional to the square of the
distance and proportional to n m. The connexion between this view of
gravity and that of the electrical constitution of matter is evidently very

close, for if gravity arose in this way the weight of a body would only
depend upon the number of units of electricity in the body. On the view that
the constitution of matter is electrical, the fundamental units which build up
matter are the units of electric charge, and as the magnitude of these charges
does not change, whatever chemical or physical vicissitudes matter, the
weight of matter ought not to be affected by such changes. There is one
result of this theory which might possibly afford a means of testing it: since
the charge on a corpuscle is equal to that on a positive unit, the weights of
the two are equal; but the mass of the corpuscle is only 1⁄1700 of that of the
positive unit, so that the acceleration of the corpuscle under gravity will be
1700 times that of the positive unit, which we should expect to be the same
as that for ponderable matter or 981.

The acceleration of the corpuscle under gravity on this view would be 1.6
× 106. It does not seem altogether impossible that with methods slightly
more powerful than those we now possess we might measure the effect of
gravity on a corpuscle if the acceleration were as large as this.

The other theory of gravitation to which we call attention is that due to
Le Sage of Geneva and published in 1818. Le Sage supposed that the
universe was thronged with exceedingly small particles moving with very
great velocities. These particles he called ultra-mundane corpuscles,
because they came to us from regions far beyond the solar system. He
assumed that these were so penetrating that they could pass through masses
as large as the sun or the earth without being absorbed to more than a very
small extent. There is, however, some absorption, and if bodies are made up
of the same kind of atoms, whose dimensions are small compared with the
distances between them, the absorption will be proportional to the mass of
the body. So that as the ultra-mundane corpuscles stream through the body a
small fraction, proportional to the mass of the body, of their momentum is
communicated to it. If the direction of the ultra-mundane corpuscles passing

through the body were uniformly distributed, the momentum communicated
by them to the body would not tend to move it in one direction rather than
in another, so that a body, A, alone in the universe and exposed to
bombardment by the ultra-mundane corpuscles would remain at rest. If,
however, there were a second body, B, in the neighbourhood of A, B will
shield A from some of the corpuscles moving in the direction BA; thus A
will not receive as much momentum in this direction as when it was alone;
but in this case it only received just enough to keep it in equilibrium, so that
when B is present the momentum in the opposite direction will get the
upper hand and A will move in the direction AB, and will thus be attracted
by B. Similarly, we see that B will be attracted by A. Le Sage proved that
the rate at which momentum was being communicated to A or B by the
passage through them of his corpuscles was proportional to the product of
the masses of A and B, and if the distance between A and B was large
compared with their dimensions, inversely proportional to the square of the
distance between them; in fact, that the forces acting on them would obey
the same laws as the gravitational attraction between them. Clerk Maxwell
(article “Atom,” Ency. Brit., 9th ed.) pointed out that this transference of
momentum from the ultra-mundane corpuscles to the body through which
they passed involved the loss of kinetic energy by the corpuscles, and if the
loss of momentum were large enough to account for the gravitational
attraction, the loss of kinetic energy would be so large that if converted into
heat it would be sufficient to keep the body white hot. We need not,
however, suppose that this energy is converted into heat; it might, as in the
case where Röntgen rays are produced by the passage of electrified
corpuscles through matter, be transformed into the energy of a still more
penetrating form of radiation, which might escape from the gravitating body
without heating it. It is a very interesting result of recent discoveries that the
machinery which Le Sage introduced for the purpose of his theory has a
very close analogy with things for which we have now direct experimental

evidence. We know that small particles moving with very high speeds do
exist, that they possess considerable powers of penetrating solids, though
not, as far as we know at present, to an extent comparable with that
postulated by Le Sage; and we know that the energy lost by them as they
pass through a solid is to a large extent converted into a still more
penetrating form of radiation, Röntgen rays. In Le Sage’s theory the only
function of the corpuscles is to act as carriers of momentum, any systems
which possessed momentum, moved with a high velocity and had the power
of penetrating solids, might be substituted for them; now waves of electric
and magnetic force, such as light waves or Röntgen rays, possess
momentum, move with a high velocity, and the latter at any rate possess
considerable powers of penetration; so that we might formulate a theory in
which penetrating Röntgen rays replaced Le Sage’s corpuscles. Röntgen
rays, however, when absorbed do not, as far as we know, give rise to more
penetrating Röntgen rays as they should to explain attraction, but either to
less penetrating rays or to rays of the same kind.

We have confined our attention in this article to the view that the
constitution of matter is electrical; we have done so because this view is
more closely in touch with experiment than any other yet advanced. The
units of which matter is built up on this theory have been isolated and
detected in the laboratory, and we may hope to discover more and more of
their properties. By seeing whether the properties of matter are or are not
such as would arise from a collection of units having these properties, we
can apply to this theory tests of a much more definite and rigorous character
than we can apply to any other theory of matter.
(J. J. T.)

1 We may measure this velocity with reference to any axes, provided we refer the
motion of all the bodies which come into consideration to the same axes.

2 A theory published after Drude’s paper in that of Professor Osborne Reynolds, given
in his Rede lecture “On an Inversion of Ideas as to the Structure of the Universe.”

MATTERHORN, one of the best known mountains (14,782 ft.) in
the Alps. It rises S.W. of the village of Zermatt, and on the frontier between
Switzerland (canton of the Valais) and Italy. Though on the Swiss side it
appears to be an isolated obelisk, it is really but the butt end of a ridge,
while the Swiss slope is not nearly as steep or difficult as the grand terraced
walls of the Italian slope. It was first conquered, after a number of attempts
chiefly on the Italian side, on the 14th of July 1865, by Mr E. Whymper’s
party, three members of which (Lord Francis Douglas, the Rev. C. Hudson
and Mr Hadow) with the guide, Michel Croz, perished by a slip on the
descent. Three days later it was scaled from the Italian side by a party of
men from Val Tournanche. Nowadays it is frequently ascended in summer,
especially from Zermatt.

MATTEUCCI, CARLO (1811-1868), Italian physicist, was
born at Forlì on the 20th of June 1811. After attending the École
Polytechnique at Paris, he became professor of physics successively at
Bologna (1832), Ravenna (1837) and Pisa (1840). From 1847 he took an

active part in politics, and in 1860 was chosen an Italian senator, at the
same time becoming inspector-general of the Italian telegraph lines. Two
years later he was minister of education. He died near Leghorn on the 25th
of June 1868.

He was the author of four scientific treatises: Lezioni di fisica (2
vols., Pisa, 1841), Lezioni sui fenomeni fisicochimici dei corpi viventi
(Pisa, 1844), Manuale di telegrafia elettrica (Pisa, 1850) and Cours
spécial sur l’induction, le magnetisme de rotation, &c. (Paris, 1854).
His numerous papers were published in the Annales de chimie et de
physique (1829-1858); and most of them also appeared at the time in
the Italian scientific journals. They relate almost entirely to electrical
phenomena, such as the magnetic rotation of light, the action of gas
batteries, the effects of torsion on magnetism, the polarization of
electrodes, &c., sufficiently complete accounts of which are given in
Wiedemann’s Galvanismus. Nine memoirs, entitled “Electro-
Physiological Researches,” were published in the Philosophical
Transactions, 1845-1860. See Bianchi’s Carlo Matteucci e l’Italia del
suo tempo (Rome, 1874).

MATTHEW, ST (Μαθθαῖος or Ματθαῖος, probably a shortened
form of the Hebrew equivalent to Theodorus), one of the twelve apostles,
and the traditional author of the First Gospel, where he is described as
having been a tax-gatherer or customs-officer (τελώνης, x. 3), in the

service of the tetrarch Herod. The circumstances of his call to become a
follower of Jesus, received as he sat in the “customs house” in one of the
towns by the Sea of Galilee—apparently Capernaum (Mark ii. 1, 13), are
briefly related in ix. 9. We should gather from the parallel narrative in Mark
ii. 14, Luke v. 27, that he was at the time known as “Levi the son of
Alphaeus” (compare Simon Cephas, Joseph Barnabas): if so, “James the
son of Alphaeus” may have been his brother. Possibly “Matthew”
(Yahweh’s gift) was his Christian surname, since two native names, neither
being a patronymic, is contrary to Jewish usage. It must be noted, however,
that Matthew and Levi were sometimes distinguished in early times, as by
Heracleon (c. 170 a.d.), and more dubiously by Origen (c. Celsum, i. 62),
also apparently in the Syriac Didascalia (sec. iii.), V. xiv. 14. It has
generally been supposed, on the strength of Luke’s account (v. 29), that
Matthew gave a feast in Jesus’ honour (like Zacchaeus, Luke xix. 6 seq.).
But Mark (ii. 15), followed by Matthew (ix. 10), may mean that the meal in
question was one in Jesus’ own home at Capernaum (cf. v. 1). In the lists of
the Apostles given in the Synoptic Gospels and in Acts, Matthew ranks third
or fourth in the second group of four—a fair index of his relative
importance in the apostolic age. The only other facts related of Matthew on
good authority concern him as Evangelist. Eusebius (H.E. iii. 24) says that
he, like John, wrote only at the spur of necessity. “For Matthew, after
preaching to Hebrews, when about to go also to others, committed to
writing in his native tongue the Gospel that bears his name; and so by his
writing supplied, for those whom he was leaving, the loss of his presence.”
The value of this tradition, which may be based on Papias, who certainly
reported that “Matthew compiled the Oracles (of the Lord) in Hebrew,” can
be estimated only in connexion with the study of the Gospel itself (see
below). No historical use can be made of the artificial story, in Sanhedrin
43a, that Matthew was condemned to death by a Jewish court (see Laihle,
Christ in the Talmud, 71 seq.). According to the Gnostic Heracleon, quoted

by Clement of Alexandria (Strom. iv. 9), Matthew died a natural death. The
tradition as to his ascetic diet (in Clem. Alex. Paedag. ii. 16) maybe due to
confusion with Matthias (cf. Mart. Matthaei, i.). The earliest legend as to
his later labours, one of Syrian origin, places them in the Parthian kingdom,
where it represents him as dying a natural death at Hierapolis (= Mabog on
the Euphrates). This agrees with his legend as known to Ambrose and
Paulinus of Nola, and is the most probable in itself. The legends which
make him work with Andrew among the Anthropophagi near the Black Sea,
or again in Ethiopia (Rufinus, and Socrates, H.E. i. 19), are due to
confusion with Matthias, who from the first was associated in his Acts with
Andrew (see M. Bonnet, Acta Apost. apocr., 1808, II. i. 65). Another
legend, his Martyrium, makes him labour and suffer in Mysore. He is
commemorated as a martyr by the Greek Church on the 16th of November,
and by the Roman on the 21st of September, the scene of his martyrdom
being placed in Ethiopia. The Latin Breviary also affirms that his body was
afterwards translated to Salerno, where it is said to lie in the church built by
Robert Guiscard. In Christian art (following Jerome) the Evangelist
Matthew is generally symbolized by the “man” in the imagery of Ezek. i.
10, Rev. iv. 7.

For the historical Matthew, see Ency. Bibl. and Zahn, Introd. to New
Test., ii. 506 seq., 522 seq. For his legends, as under Mark.
(J. V. B.)

MATTHEW, TOBIAS, or Tobie (1546-1628), archbishop of
York, was the son of Sir John Matthew of Ross in Herefordshire, and of his
wife Eleanor Crofton of Ludlow. He was born at Bristol in 1546. He was
educated at Wells, and then in succession at University College and Christ
Church, Oxford. He proceeded B.A. in 1564, and M.A. in 1566. He
attracted the favourable notice of Queen Elizabeth, and his rise was steady
though not very rapid. He was public orator in 1569, president of St John’s
College, Oxford, in 1572, dean of Christ Church in 1576, vice-chancellor of
the university in 1579, dean of Durham in 1583, bishop of Durham in 1595,
and archbishop of York in 1606. In 1581 he had a controversy with the
Jesuit Edmund Campion, and published at Oxford his arguments in 1638
under the title, Piissimi et eminentissimi viri Tobiae Matthew, archiepiscopi
olim Eboracencis concio apologetica adversus Campianam. While in the
north he was active in forcing the recusants to conform to the Church of
England, preaching hundreds of sermons and carrying out thorough
visitations. During his later years he was to some extent in opposition to the
administration of James I. He was exempted from attendance in the
parliament of 1625 on the ground of age and infirmities, and died on the
29th of March 1628. His wife, Frances, was the daughter of William
Barlow, bishop of Chichester.

His son, Sir Tobias, or Tobie, Matthew (1577-1655), is remembered as
the correspondent and friend of Francis Bacon. He was educated at Christ
Church, and was early attached to the court, serving in the embassy at Paris.
His debts and dissipations were a great source of sorrow to his father, from
whom he is known to have received at different times £14,000, the modern
equivalent of which is much larger. He was chosen member for Newport in
Cornwall in the parliament of 1601, and member for St Albans in 1604.
Before this time he had become the intimate friend of Bacon, whom he
replaced as member for St Albans. When peace was made with Spain, on
the accession of James I., he wished to travel abroad. His family, who

feared his conversion to Roman Catholicism, opposed his wish, but he
promised not to go beyond France. When once safe out of England he broke
his word and went to Italy. The persuasion of some of his countrymen in
Florence, one of whom is said to have been the Jesuit Robert Parsons, and a
story he heard of the miraculous liquefaction of the blood of San Januarius
at Naples, led to his conversion in 1606. When he returned to England he
was imprisoned, and many efforts were made to obtain his reconversion
without success. He would not take the oath of allegiance to the king. In
1608 he was exiled, and remained out of England for ten years, mostly in
Flanders and Spain. He returned in 1617, but went abroad again in 1619.
His friends obtained his leave to return in 1621. At home he was known as
the intimate friend of Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador. In 1623 he was
sent to join Prince Charles, afterwards Charles I., at Madrid, and was
knighted on the 23rd of October of that year. He remained in England till
1640, when he was finally driven abroad by the parliament, which looked
upon him as an agent of the pope. He died in the English college in Ghent
on the 13th of October 1655. In 1618 he published an Italian translation of
Bacon’s essays. The “Essay on Friendship” was written for him. He was
also the author of a translation of The Confessions of the Incomparable
Doctor St Augustine, which led him into controversy. His correspondence
was published in London in 1660.

For the father, see John Le Neve’s Fasti ecclesiae anglicanae
(London, 1716), and Anthony Wood’s Athenae oxonienses. For the son,
the notice in Athenae oxonienses, an abridgment of his
autobiographical Historical Relation of his own life, published by
Alban Butler in 1795, and A. H. Matthew and A. Calthrop, Life of Sir
Tobie Matthew (London, 1907).

MATTHEW, GOSPEL OF ST, the first of the four canonical
Gospels of the Christian Church. The indications of the use of this Gospel
in the two or three generations following the Apostolic Age (see Gospel) are
more plentiful than of any of the others. Throughout the history of the
Church, also, it has held a place second to none of the Gospels alike in
public instruction and in the private reading of Christians. The reasons for
its having impressed itself in this way and become thus familiar are in large
part to be found in the characteristics noticed below. But in addition there
has been from an early time the belief that it was the work of one of those
publicans whose heart Jesus touched and of whose call to follow Him the
three Synoptics contain an interesting account, but who is identified as
Matthew (q.v.) only in this one (Matt. ix. 9-13 = Mark ii. 13-17 = Luke v.
27-32).

1. The Connexion of our Greek Gospel of Matthew with the Apostle
whose name it bears.—The earliest reference to a writing by Matthew
occurs in a fragment taken by Eusebius from the same work of Papias from
which he has given an account of the composition of a record by Mark
(Euseb. Hist. Eccl. iii. 39; see Mark, Gospel of St). The statement about
Matthew is much briefer and is harder to interpret. In spite of much
controversy, the same measure of agreement as to its meaning cannot be
said to have been attained. This is the fragment: “Matthew, however, put
together and wrote down the Oracles (τὰ λόγια συνέγραψεν) in the
Hebrew language, and each man interpreted them as he was able.” Whether

“the elder” referred to in the passage on Mark, or some other like authority,
was the source of this statement also does not appear; but it is probable that
this was the case from the context in which Eusebius gives it. Conservative
writers on the Gospels have frequently maintained that the writing here
referred to was virtually the Hebrew original of our Greek Gospel which
bears his name. And it is indeed likely that Papias himself closely
associated the latter with the Hebrew (or Aramaic) work by Matthew, of
which he had been told, since the traditional connexion of this Greek
Gospel with Matthew can hardly have begun later than this time. It is
reasonable also to suppose that there was some ground for it. The
description, however, of what Matthew did suits better the making of a
collection of Christ’s discourses and sayings than the composition of a work
corresponding in form and character to our Gospel of Matthew.

The next reference in Christian literature to a Gospel-record by Matthew
is that of Irenaeus in his famous passage on the four Gospels (Adv. haer. iii.
i. r). He says that it was written in Hebrew; but in all probability he
regarded the Greek Gospel, which stood first in his, as it does in our,
enumeration, as in the strict sense a translation of the Apostle’s work; and
this was the view of it universally taken till the 16th century, when some of
the scholars of the Reformation maintained that the Greek Gospel itself was
by Matthew.

The actual phenomena, however, of this Gospel, and of its relation to
sources that have been used in it, cannot be explained consistently with
either of the two views just mentioned. It is a composite work in which two
chief sources, known in Greek to the author of our present Gospel, have,
together with some other matter, been combined. It is inconceivable that
one of the Twelve should have proceeded in this way in giving an account
of Christ’s ministry. One of the chief documents, however, here referred to
seems to correspond in character with the description given in Papias’

fragment of a record of the compilation of “the divine utterances” made by
Matthew; and the use made of it in our first Gospel may explain the
connexion of this Apostle’s name with it. In the Gospel of Luke also, it is
true, this same source has been used for the teaching of Jesus. But the
original Aramaic Logian document may have been more largely reproduced
in our Greek Matthew. Indeed, in the case of one important passage (v. 17-
48) this is suggested by a comparison with Luke itself, and there are one or
two others where from the character of the matter it seems not improbable,
especially vi. 1-18 and xxiii. 1-5, 7b-10, 15-22. On the whole, as will be
seen below, what appears to be a Palestinian form of the Gospel-tradition is
most fully represented in this Gospel; but in many instances at least this
may well be due to some other cause than the use of the original Logian
document.

2. The Plan on which the Contents is arranged.—In two respects the
arrangement of the book itself is significant.

(a) As to the general outline in the first half of the account of the
Galilean ministry (iv. 23-xi. 30). Immediately after relating the call of
the first four disciples (iv. 18-22) the evangelist gives in iv. 23 a
comprehensive summary of Christ’s work in Galilee under its two chief
aspects, teaching and healing. In the sequel both these are illustrated.
First, he gives in the Sermon on the Mount (v.-vii.) a considerable body
of teaching, of the kind required by the disciples of Jesus generally, and
a large portion of which probably also stood not far from the beginning
of the Logian document. After this he turns to the other aspect. Up to
this point he has mentioned no miracle. He now describes a number in
succession, introducing all but the first of those told between Mark i.
23 and ii. 12, and also four specially remarkable ones, which occurred
a good deal later according to Mark’s order (Matt. viii. 23-34 = Mark
iv. 35-v. 20; Matt. ix. 18-26 = Mark v. 21-43); and he also adds some

derived from another source, or other sources (viii. 5-13; ix. 27-34).
Then, after another general description at ix. 35, similar to that at iv.
23, he brings strikingly before us the needs of the masses of the people
and Christ’s compassion for them, and so introduces the mission of the
Twelve (which again occurs later according to Mark’s order, viz. at vi.
7 seq.), whereby the ministry both of teaching and of healing was
further extended (ix. 36-x. 42). Finally, the message of John the
Baptist, and the reply of Jesus, and the reflections that follow (xi.),
bring out the significance of the preceding narrative. It should be
observed that examples have been given of every kind of mighty work
referred to in the reply of Jesus to the messengers of the Baptist; and
that in the discourse which follows their departure the perversity and
unbelief of the people generally are condemned, and the faith of the
humble-minded is contrasted therewith. The greater part of the matter
from ix. 37 to end of xi. is taken from the Logian document. After this
point, i.e. from xii. 1 onwards, the first evangelist follows Mark almost
step by step down to the point (Mark xvi. 8), after which Mark’s
Gospel breaks off, and another ending has been supplied; and gives in
substance almost the whole of Mark’s contents, with the exception that
he passes over the few narratives that he has (as we have seen) placed
earlier. At the same time he brings in additional matter in connexion
with most of the Marcan sections.

(b) With the accounts of the words of Jesus spoken on certain
occasions, which our first evangelist found given in one or another of
his sources, he has combined other pieces, taken from other parts of the
same source or from different sources, which seemed to him connected
in subject, e.g. into the discourse spoken on a mountain, when crowds
from all parts were present, given in the Logian document, he has
introduced some pieces which, as we infer from Luke, stood separately
in that document (cf. Matt. vi. 19-21 with Luke xii. 33, 34; Matt. vi. 22,

23 with Luke xi. 34-36; Matt. vi. 24 with Luke xvi. 13; Matt. vi. 25-34
with Luke xii. 22-32; Matt. vii. 7-11 with Luke xi. 9-13). Again, the
address to the Twelve in Mark vi. 7-11, which in Matthew is combined
with an address to disciples, from the Logian document, is connected
by Luke with the sending out of seventy disciples (Luke x. 1-16). Our
first evangelist has also added here various other sayings (Matt. x. 17-
39, 42). Again, with the Marcan account of the charge of collusion with
Satan and Christ’s reply (Mark iii. 22-30), the first evangelist (xii. 24-
45) combines the parallel account in the Logian document and adds
Christ’s reply to another attack (Luke xi. 14-16, 17-26, 29-32). These
are some examples. He has in all in this manner constructed eight
discourses or collections of sayings, into which the greater part of
Christ’s teaching is gathered: (1) On the character of the heirs of the
kingdom (v.-vii.); (2) The Mission address (x.); (3) Teaching suggested
by the message of John the Baptist (xi.); (4) The reply to an accusation
and a challenge (xii. 22-45); (5) The teaching by parables (xiii.); (6) On
offences (xviii.); (7) Concerning the Scribes and Pharisees (xxiii.); (8)
On the Last Things (xxiv., xxv.). In this arrangement of his material the
writer has in many instances disregarded chronological considerations.
But his documents also gave only very imperfect indications of the
occasions of many of the utterances; and the result of his method of
procedure has been to give us an exceedingly effective representation
of the teaching of Jesus.

In the concluding verses of the Gospel, where the original Marcan
parallel is wanting, the evangelist may still have followed in part that
document while making additions as before. The account of the
silencing of the Roman guard by the chief priests is the sequel to the
setting of this guard and their presence at the Resurrection, which at an
earlier point arc peculiar to Matthew (xxvii. 62-66, xxviii. 4). And,
further, this matter seems to belong to the same cycle of tradition as the

story of Pilate’s wife and his throwing the guilt of the Crucifixion of
Jesus upon the Jews, and the testimony borne by the Roman guard (as
well as the centurion) who kept watch by the cross (xxvii. 15-26, 54),
all which also are peculiar to this Gospel. It cannot but seem probable
that these are legendary additions which had arisen through the desire
to commend the Gospel to the Romans.

On the other hand, the meeting of Jesus with the disciples in Galilee
(Matt. xxviii. 16 seq.) is the natural sequel to the message to them
related in Mark xvi. 7, as well as in Matt, xxviii. 7. Again, the
commission to them to preach throughout the world is supported by
Luke xxiv. 47, and by the present ending of Mark (xvi. 15), though
neither of these mention Galilee as the place where it was given. The
baptismal formula in Matt. xxviii. 19, is, however, peculiar, and in
view of its non-occurrence in the Acts and Epistles of the New
Testament must be regarded as probably an addition in accordance with
Church usage at the time the Gospel was written.

3. The Palestinian Element.—Teaching is preserved in this Gospel which
would have peculiar interest and be specially required in the home of
Judaism. The best examples of this are the passages already referred to near
end of § 1, as probably derived from the Logian document. There are,
besides, a good many turns of expression and sayings peculiar to this
Gospel which have a Semitic cast, or which suggest a point of view that
would be natural to Palestinian Christians, e.g. “kingdom of heaven”
frequently for “kingdom of God”; xiii. 52 (“every scribe”); xxiv. 20
(“neither on a Sabbath”). See also v. 35 and xix. 9; x. 5, 23. Again, several
of the quotations which are peculiar to this Gospel are not taken from the
LXX., as those in the other Gospels and in the corresponding contexts in
this Gospel commonly are, but are wholly or partly independent renderings
from the Hebrew (ii. 6, 15, 18; viii. 17, xii. 17-21, &c.). Once more, there is

somewhat more parallelism between the fragments of the Gospel according
to the Hebrews and this Gospel than is the case with Luke, not to say Mark.

4. Doctrinal Character.—In this Gospel, more decidedly than in either of
the other two Synoptics, there is a doctrinal point of view from which the
whole history is regarded. Certain aspects which are of profound
significance are dwelt upon, and this without there being any great
difference between this Gospel and the two other Synoptics in respect to the
facts recorded or the beliefs implied. The effect is produced partly by the
comments of the evangelist, which especially take the form of citations
from the Old Testament; partly by the frequency with which certain
expressions are used, and the prominence that is given in this and other
ways to particular traits and topics.

He sets forth the restriction of the mission of Jesus during His life on
earth to the people of Israel in a way which suggests at first sight a spirit of
Jewish exclusiveness. But there are various indications that this is not the
true explanation. In particular the evangelist brings out more strongly than
either Mark or Luke the national rejection of Jesus, while the Gospel ends
with the commission of Jesus to His disciples after His resurrection to
“make disciples of all the peoples.” One may divine in all this an intention
to “justify the ways of God” to the Jew, by proving that God in His
faithfulness to His ancient people had given them the first opportunity of
salvation through Christ, but that now their national privilege had been
rightly forfeited. He was also specially concerned to show that prophecy is
fulfilled in the life and work of Jesus, but the conception of this fulfilment
which is presented to us is a large one; it is to be seen not merely in
particular events or features of Christ’s ministry, but in the whole new
dispensation, new relations between God and men, and new rules of
conduct which Christ has introduced. The divine meaning of the work of

Jesus is thus made apparent, while of the majesty and glory of His person a
peculiarly strong impression is conveyed.

Some illustrations in detail of these points are subjoined. Where there are
parallels in the other Gospels they should be compared and the words in
Matthew noted which in many instances serve to emphasize the points in
question.

(a) The Ministry of Jesus among the Jewish People as their promised
Messiah, their rejection of Him, and the extension of the Gospel to the
Gentiles. The mission to Israel: Matt. i. 21; iv. 23 (note in these
passages the use of ὁ λαός, which here, as generally in Matthew,
denotes the chosen nation), ix. 33, 35, xv. 31. For the rule limiting the
work of Jesus while on earth see xv. 24 (and note ἰξελθοῦσα in verse
22, which implies that Jesus had not himself entered the heathen
borders), and for a similar rule prescribed to the disciples, x. 5, 6 and
23.

The rejection of Jesus by the people in Galilee, xi. 21; xiii. 13-15,
and by the heads of “the nation,” xxvi. 3, 47 and by “the whole nation,”
xxvii. 25; their condemnation xxiii. 38.

Mercy to the Gentiles and the punishment of “the sons of the
kingdom” is foretold viii. 11, 12. The commission to go and convert
Gentile peoples (ἔθνη) is given after Christ’s resurrection (xxviii. 19).

(b) The Fulfilment of Prophecy.—In the birth and childhood of Jesus,
i. 23; ii. 6, 15, 18, 23. By these citations attention is drawn to the
lowliness of the beginnings of the Saviour’s life, the unexpected and
secret manner of His appearing, the dangers to which from the first He
was exposed and from which He escaped.

The ministry of Christ’s forerunner, iii. 3. (The same prophecy, Isa.
xl. 3, is also quoted in the other Gospels.)

The ministry of Jesus. The quotations serve to bring out the
significance of important events, especially such as were turning-
points, and also to mark the broad features of Christ’s life and work, iv.
15, 16; viii. 17; xii. 18 seq.; xiii. 35; xxi. 5; xxvii. 9.

(c) The Teaching on the Kingdom of God.—Note the collection of
parables “of the Kingdom” in xiii.; also the use of ἡ βασιλεία (“the
Kingdom”) without further definition as a term the reference of which
could not be misunderstood, especially in the following phrases
peculiar to this Gospel: τὁ εὐαγγέλιον τῆς βασιλείας (“the Gospel of
the Kingdom”) iv. 23, ix. 35, xxiv. 14; and ὁ λόγος τῆς βασιλείας
(“the word of the kingdom”) xiii. 19. The following descriptions of the
kingdom, peculiar to this Gospel, are also interesting ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ
πατρὁς αὐτῶν (“the kingdom of their father”) xiii. 43 and τοῦ
πατρός μου(“of my father”) xxvi. 29.

(d) The Relation of the New Law to the Old.—Verses 17-48, cf. also,
addition at xxii. 40 and xix. 19b. Further, his use of δικαιοσύνη
(“righteousness”) and δίκαιος(“righteous”) (specially frequent in this
Gospel) is such as to connect the New with the Old; the standard in
mind is the law which “fulfilled” that previously given.

(e) The Christian Ecclesia.—Chap. xvi. 18, xviii. 17.

(f) The Messianic Dignity and Glory of Jesus.—The narrative in i.
and ii. show the royalty of the new-born child. The title “Son of David”
occurs with special frequency in this Gospel. The following instances
are without parallels in the other Gospels: ix. 27; xii. 23; xv. 22; xxi. 9;
xxi. 15. The title “Son of God” is also used with somewhat greater

frequency than in Mark and Luke: ii. 15; xiv. 33; xvi. 16; xxii. 2 seq.
(where it is implied); xxvii. 40, 43.

The thought of the future coming of Christ, and in particular of the
judgment to be executed by Him then, is much more prominent in this
Gospel than in the others. Some of the following predictions are
peculiar to it, while in several others there are additional touches: vii.
22, 23; x. 23, 32, 33; xiii. 39-43; xvi. 27, 28; xix. 28; xxiv. 3, 27, 30,
31, 37, 39; xxv. 31-46; xxvi. 64.

The majesty of Christ is also impressed upon us by the signs at His
crucifixion, some of which are related only in this Gospel, xxvii. 51-53,
and by the sublime vision of the Risen Christ at the close, xxviii. 16-
20.

(5) Time of Composition and Readers addressed.—The signs of dogmatic
reflection in this Gospel point to its having been composed somewhat late
in the 1st century, probably after Luke’s Gospel, and this is in accord with
the conclusion that some insertions had been made in the Marcan document
used by this evangelist which were not in that used by Luke (see Luke,
Gospel of St). We may assign a.d. 80-100 as a probable time for the
composition.

The author was in all probability a Jew by race, and he would seem to
have addressed himself especially to Jewish readers; but they were Jews of
the Dispersion. For although he was in specially close touch with Palestine,
either personally or through the sources at his command, or both, his book
was composed in Greek by the aid of Greek documents.

See commentaries by Th. Zahn (1903) and W. C. Allen (in the series
of International Critical Commentaries, 1907); also books on the Four
Gospels or the Synoptic Gospels cited at the end of Gospel.
(V. H. S.)

MATTHEW CANTACUZENUS, Byzantine emperor, was
the son of John VI. Cantacuzenus (q.v.). In return for the support he gave to
his father during his struggle with John V. he was allowed to annex part of
Thrace under his own dominion and in 1353 was proclaimed joint emperor.
From his Thracian principality he levied several wars against the Servians.
An attack which he prepared in 1350 was frustrated by the defection of his
Turkish auxiliaries. In 1357 he was captured by his enemies, who delivered
him to the rival emperor, John V. Compelled to abdicate, he withdrew to a
monastery, where he busied himself with writing commentaries on the
Scriptures.

MATTHEW OF PARIS (d. 1259), English monk and chronicler
known to us only through his voluminous writings. In spite of his surname,
and of his knowledge of the French language, his attitude towards
foreigners attests that he was of English birth. He may have studied at Paris
in his youth, but the earliest fact which he records of himself is his
admission as a monk at St Albans in the year 1217. His life was mainly

spent in this religious house. In 1248, however, he was sent to Norway as
the bearer of a message from Louis IX. of France to Haakon VI.; he made
himself so agreeable to the Norwegian sovereign that he was invited, a little
later, to superintend the reformation of the Benedictine monastery of St
Benet Holme at Trondhjem. Apart from these missions, his activities were
devoted to the composition of history, a pursuit for which the monks of St
Albans had long been famous. Matthew edited anew the works of Abbot
John de Cella and Roger of Wendover, which in their altered form
constitute the first part of his most important work, the Chronica majora.
From 1235, the point at which Wendover dropped his pen, Matthew
continued the history on the plan which his predecessors had followed. He
derived much of his information from the letters of important personages,
which he sometimes inserts, but much more from conversation with the
eye-witnesses of events. Among his informants were Earl Richard of
Cornwall and Henry III. With the latter he appears to have been on terms of
intimacy. The king knew that Matthew was writing a history, and showed
some anxiety that it should be as exact as possible. In 1257, in the course of
a week’s visit to St Albans, Henry kept the chronicler beside him night and
day, “and guided my pen,” says Paris, “with much good will and diligence.”
It is therefore curious that the Chronica majora should give so unfavourable
an account of the king’s policy. Luard supposes that Matthew never
intended his work to see the light in its present form, and many passages of
the autograph have against them the note offendiculum, which shows that
the writer understood the danger which he ran. On the other hand,
unexpurgated copies were made in Matthew’s lifetime; though the
offending passages are duly omitted or softened in his abridgment of his
longer work, the Historia Anglorum (written about 1253), the real
sentiments of the author must have been an open secret. In any case there is
no ground for the old theory that he was an official historiographer.

Matthew Paris was unfortunate in living at a time when English
politics were peculiarly involved and tedious. His talent is for narrative
and description. Though he took a keen interest in the personal side of
politics he has no claim to be considered a judge of character. His
appreciations of his contemporaries throw more light on his own
prejudices than on their aims and ideas. His work is always vigorous,
but he imputes motives in the spirit of a partisan who never pauses to
weigh the evidence or to take a comprehensive view of the situation.
His redeeming feature is his generous admiration for strength of
character, even when it goes along with a policy of which he
disapproves. Thus he praises Grosseteste, while he denounces
Grosseteste’s scheme of monastic reform. Matthew is a vehement
supporter of the monastic orders against their rivals, the secular clergy
and the mendicant friars. He is violently opposed to the court and the
foreign favourites. He despises the king as a statesman, though for the
man he has some kindly feeling. The frankness with which he attacks
the court of Rome for its exactions is remarkable; so, too, is the intense
nationalism which he displays in dealing with this topic. His faults of
presentment are more often due to carelessness and narrow views than
to deliberate purpose. But he is sometimes guilty of inserting rhetorical
speeches which are not only fictitious, but also misleading as an
account of the speaker’s sentiments. In other cases he tampers with the
documents which he inserts (as, for instance, with the text of Magna
Carta). His chronology is, for a contemporary, inexact; and he
occasionally inserts duplicate versions of the same incident in different
places. Hence he must always be rigorously checked where other
authorities exist and used with caution where he is our sole informant.
None the less, he gives a more vivid impression of his age than any
other English chronicler; and it is a matter for regret that his great

history breaks off in 1259, on the eve of the crowning struggle between
Henry III and the baronage.

Authorities.—The relation of Matthew Paris’s work to those of John
de Cella and Roger of Wendover may best be studied in H. R. Luard’s
edition of the Chronica majora (7 vols., Rolls series, 1872-1883),
which contains valuable prefaces. The Historia Anglorum sive historia
minor (1067-1253) has been edited by F. Madden (3 vols., Rolls series,
1866-1869). Matthew Paris is often confused with “Matthew of
Westminster,” the reputed author of the Flores historiarum edited by H.
R. Luard (3 vols., Rolls series, 1890). This work, compiled by various
hands, is an edition of Matthew Paris, with continuations extending to
1326. Matthew Paris also wrote a life of Edmund Rich (q.v.), which is
probably the work printed in W. Wallace’s St Edmund of Canterbury
(London, 1893) pp. 543-588, though this is attributed by the editor to
the monk Eustace; Vitae abbatum S Albani (up to 1225) which have
been edited by W. Watts (1640, &c.); and (possibly) the Abbreviatio
chronicorum (1000-1255), edited by F. Madden, in the third volume of
the Historia Anglorum. On the value of Matthew as an historian see F.
Liebermann in G. H. Pertz’s Scriptores xxviii. pp. 74-106; A. Jessopp’s
Studies by a Recluse (London, 1893); H. Plehn’s Politische Character
Matheus Parisiensis (Leipzig, 1897). (H. W. C. D.)

MATTHEW OF WESTMINSTER, the name of an
imaginary person who was long regarded as the author of the Flores

Historiarum. The error was first discovered in 1826 by Sir F. Palgrave, who
said that Matthew was “a phantom who never existed,” and later the truth of
this statement was completely proved by H. R. Luard. The name appears to
have been taken from that of Matthew of Paris, from whose Chronica
majora the earlier part of the work was mainly copied, and from
Westminster, the abbey in which the work was partially written.

The Flores historiarum is a Latin chronicle dealing with English
history from the creation to 1326, although some of the earlier
manuscripts end at 1306; it was compiled by various persons, and
written partly at St Albans and partly at Westminster. The part from
1306 to 1326 was written by Robert of Reading (d. 1325) and another
Westminster monk. Except for parts dealing with the reign of Edward I.
its value is not great. It was first printed by Matthew Parker, archbishop
of Canterbury, in 1567, and the best edition is the one edited with
introduction by H. R. Luard for the Rolls series (London, 1890). It has
been translated into English by C. D. Yonge (London, 1853). See
Luard’s introduction, and C. Bémont in the Revue critique d’histoire
(Paris, 1891).

MATTHEWS, STANLEY (1824-1889), American jurist, was
born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on the 21st of July 1824. He graduated from
Kenyon College in 1840, studied law, and in 1842 was admitted to the bar
of Maury county, Tennessee. In 1844 he became assistant prosecuting

attorney of Hamilton county, Ohio; and in 1846-1849 edited a short-lived
anti-slavery paper, the Cincinnati Herald. He was clerk of the Ohio House
of Representatives in 1848-1849, a judge of common pleas of Hamilton
county in 1850-1853, state senator in 1856-1858, and U.S. district-attorney
for the southern district of Ohio in 1858-1861. First a Whig and then a Free-
Soiler, he joined the Republican party in 1861. After the outbreak of the
Civil War he was commissioned a lieutenant of the 23rd Ohio, of which
Rutherford B. Hayes was major; but saw service only with the 57th Ohio, of
which he was colonel, and with a brigade which he commanded in the
Army of the Cumberland. He resigned from the army in 1863, and was
judge of the Cincinnati superior court in 1863-1864. He was a Republican
presidential elector in 1864 and 1868. In 1872 he joined the Liberal
Republican movement, and was temporary chairman of the Cincinnati
convention which nominated Horace Greeley for the presidency, but in the
campaign he supported Grant. In 1877, as counsel before the Electoral
Commission, he opened the argument for the Republican electors of Florida
and made the principal argument for the Republican electors of Oregon. In
March of the same year he succeeded John Sherman as senator from Ohio,
and served until March 1879. In 1881 President Hayes nominated him as
associate justice of the Supreme Court, to succeed Noah H. Swayne; there
was much opposition, especially in the press, to this appointment, because
Matthews had been a prominent railway and corporation lawyer and had
been one of the Republican “visiting statesmen” who witnessed the canvass
of the vote of Louisiana1 in 1876; and the nomination had not been
approved when the session of Congress expired. Matthews was
renominated by President Garfield on the 15th of March, and the
nomination was confirmed by the Senate (22 for, 21 against) on the 12th of
May. He was an honest, impartial and conscientious judge. He died in
Washington, on the 22nd of March 1889.

1 It seems certain that Matthews and Charles Foster of Ohio gave their written promise
that Hayes, if elected, would recognize the Democratic governors in Louisiana and South
Carolina.

MATTHIAE, AUGUST HEINRICH (1769-1835),
German classical scholar, was born at Göttingen, on the 25th of December
1769, and educated at the university. He then spent some years as a tutor in
Amsterdam. In 1798 he returned to Germany, and in 1802 was appointed
director of the Friedrichsgymnasium at Altenburg, which post he held till
his death, on the 6th of January 1835. Of his numerous important works the
best-known are his Greek Grammar (3rd ed., 1835), translated into English
by E. V. Blomfield (5th ed., by J. Kenrick, 1832), his edition of Euripides (9
vols., 1813-1829), Grundriss der Geschichte der griechischen und
römischen Litteratur (3rd ed., 1834, Eng. trans., Oxford, 1841) Lehrbuch
für den ersten Unterricht in der Philosophie (3rd ed., 1833), Encyklopädie
und Methodologie der Philologie (1835). His Life was written by his son
Constantin (1845).

His brother, Friedrich Christian Matthiae (1763-1822), rector of the
Frankfort gymnasium, published valuable editions of Seneca’s Letters,
Aratus, and Dionysius Periegetes.

MATTHIAS, the disciple elected by the primitive Christian
community to fill the place in the Twelve vacated by Judas Iscariot (Acts i.
21-26). Nothing further is recorded of him in the New Testament. Eusebius
(Hist. Eccl., I. xii.) says he was, like his competitor, Barsabas Justus, one of
the seventy, and the Syriac version of Eusebius calls him throughout not
Matthias but Tolmai, i.e. Bartholomew, without confusing him with the
Bartholomew who was originally one of the Twelve, and is often identified
with the Nathanael mentioned in the Fourth Gospel (Expository Times, ix.
566). Clement of Alexandria says some identified him with Zacchaeus, the
Clementine Recognitions identify him with Barnabas, Hilgenfeld thinks he
is the same as Nathanael.

Various works—a Gospel, Traditions and Apocryphal Words—were
ascribed to him; and there is also extant The Acts of Andrew and
Matthias, which places his activity in “the city of the cannibals” in
Ethiopia. Clement of Alexandria quotes two sayings from the
Traditions: (1) Wonder at the things before you (suggesting, like Plato,
that wonder is the first step to new knowledge); (2) If an elect man’s
neighbour sin, the elect man has sinned.

MATTHIAS (1557-1619), Roman emperor, son of the emperor
Maximilian II. and Maria, daughter of the emperor Charles V., was born in
Vienna, on the 24th of February 1557. Educated by the diplomatist O. G. de
Busbecq, he began his public life in 1577, soon after his father’s death,
when he was invited to assume the governorship of the Netherlands, then in
the midst of the long struggle with Spain. He eagerly accepted this
invitation, although it involved a definite breach with his Spanish kinsman,
Philip II., and entering Brussels in January 1578 was named governor-
general; but he was merely a cipher, and only held the position for about
three years, returning to Germany in October 1581. Matthias was appointed
governor of Austria in 1593 by his brother, the emperor Rudolph II.; and
two years later, when another brother, the archduke Ernest, died, he became
a person of more importance as the eldest surviving brother of the
unmarried emperor. As governor of Austria Matthias continued the policy of
crushing the Protestants, although personally he appears to have been
inclined to religious tolerance; and he dealt with the rising of the peasants in
1595, in addition to representing Rudolph at the imperial diets, and gaining
some fame as a soldier during the Turkish War. A few years later the
discontent felt by the members of the Habsburg family at the incompetence
of the emperor became very acute, and the lead was taken by Matthias.
Obtaining in May 1605 a reluctant consent from his brother, he took over
the conduct of affairs in Hungary, where a revolt had broken out, and was
formally recognized by the Habsburgs as their head in April 1606, and was

promised the succession to the Empire. In June 1606 he concluded the
peace of Vienna with the rebellious Hungarians, and was thus in a better
position to treat with the sultan, with whom peace was made in November.
This pacific policy was displeasing to Rudolph, who prepared to renew the
Turkish War; but having secured the support of the national party in
Hungary and gathered an army, Matthias forced his brother to cede to him
this kingdom, together with Austria and Moravia, both of which had thrown
in their lot with Hungary (1608). The king of Hungary, as Matthias now
became, was reluctantly compelled to grant religious liberty to the
inhabitants of Austria. The strained relations which had arisen between
Rudolph and Matthias as a result of these proceedings were temporarily
improved, and a formal reconciliation took place in 1610; but affairs in
Bohemia soon destroyed this fraternal peace. In spite of the letter of majesty
(Majestätsbrief) which the Bohemians had extorted from Rudolph, they
were very dissatisfied with their ruler, whose troops were ravaging their
land; and in 1611 they invited Matthias to come to their aid. Accepting this
invitation, he inflicted another humiliation upon his brother, and was
crowned king of Bohemia in May 1611. Rudolph, however, was successful
in preventing the election of Matthias as German king, or king of the
Romans, and when he died, in January 1612, no provision had been made
for a successor. Already king of Hungary and Bohemia, however, Matthias
obtained the remaining hereditary dominions of the Habsburgs, and in June
1612 was crowned emperor, although the ecclesiastical electors favoured
his younger brother, the archduke Albert (1559-1621).

The short reign of the new emperor was troubled by the religious
dissensions of Germany. His health became impaired and his indolence
increased, and he fell completely under the influence of Melchior Klesl
(q.v.), who practically conducted the imperial business. By Klesl’s advice he
took up an attitude of moderation and sought to reconcile the contending
religious parties; but the proceedings at the diet of Regensburg in 1613

proved the hopelessness of these attempts, while their author was regarded
with general distrust. Meanwhile the younger Habsburgs, led by the
emperor’s brother, the archduke Maximilian, and his cousin, Ferdinand,
archduke of Styria, afterwards the emperor Ferdinand II., disliking the
peaceful policy of Klesl, had allied themselves with the unyielding Roman
Catholics, while the question of the imperial succession was forcing its way
to the front. In 1611 Matthias had married his cousin Anna (d. 1618),
daughter of the archduke Ferdinand (d. 1595), but he was old and childless
and the Habsburgs were anxious to retain his extensive possessions in the
family. Klesl, on the one hand, wished the settlement of the religious
difficulties to precede any arrangement about the imperial succession; the
Habsburgs, on the other, regarded the question of the succession as urgent
and vital. Meanwhile the disputed succession to the duchies of Cleves and
Jülich again threatened a European war; the imperial commands were
flouted in Cologne and Aix-la-Chapelle, and the Bohemians were again
becoming troublesome. Having decided that Ferdinand should succeed
Matthias as emperor, the Habsburgs had secured his election as king of
Bohemia in June 1617, but were unable to stem the rising tide of disorder in
that country. Matthias and Klesl were in favour of concessions, but
Ferdinand and Maximilian met this move by seizing and imprisoning Klesl.
Ferdinand had just secured his coronation as king of Hungary when there
broke out in Bohemia those struggles which heralded the Thirty Years’ War;
and on the 20th of March 1619 the emperor died at Vienna.

For the life and reign of Matthias the following works may be
consulted: J. Heling, Die Wahl des römischen Königs Matthias
(Belgrade, 1892); A. Gindely, Rudolf II. und seine Zeit (Prague, 1862-
1868); F. Stieve, Die Verhandlungen über die Nachfolge Kaisers
Rudolf II. (Munich, 1880); P. von Chlumecky, Karl von Zierotin und
seine Zeit (Brünn, 1862-1879); A. Kerschbaumer, Kardinal Klesel
(Vienna, 1865); M. Ritter, Quellenbeiträge zur Geschichte des Kaisers

Rudolf II. (Munich, 1872); Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der
Gegenreformation und des dreissigjährigen Krieges (Stuttgart, 1887,
seq.); and the article on Matthias in the Allgemeine deutsche
Biographie, Bd. XX. (Leipzig, 1884); L. von Ranke, Zur deutschen
Geschichte vom Religionsfrieden bis zum 30-jährigen Kriege (Leipzig,
1888); and J. Janssen, Geschichte des deutschen Volks seit dem
Ausgang des Mittelalters (Freiburg, 1878 seq.), Eng. trans. by M. A.
Mitchell and A. M. Christie (London, 1896, seq.).

MATTHIAS I., HUNYADI (1440-1490), king of Hungary,
also known as Matthias Corvinus, a surname which he received from the
raven (corvus) on his escutcheon, second son of János Hunyadi and
Elizabeth Szilágyi, was born at Kolozsvár, probably on

the 23rd of February 1440. His tutors were the learned János Vitéz,
bishop of Nagyvárad, whom he subsequently raised to the primacy, and the
Polish humanist Gregory Sanocki. The precocious lad quickly mastered the
German, Latin and principal Slavonic languages, frequently acting as his
father’s interpreter at the reception of ambassadors. His military training
proceeded under the eye of his father, whom he began to follow on his
campaigns when only twelve years of age. In 1453 he was created count of
Bistercze, and was knighted at the siege of Belgrade in 1454. The same care
for his welfare led his father to choose him a bride in the powerful Cilli
family, but the young Elizabeth died before the marriage was consummated,
leaving Matthias a widower at the age of fifteen. On the death of his father

he was inveigled to Buda by the enemies of his house, and, on the pretext of
being concerned in a purely imaginary conspiracy against Ladislaus V., was
condemned to decapitation, but was spared on account of his youth, and on
the king’s death fell into the hands of George Poděbrad, governor of
Bohemia, the friend of the Hunyadis, in whose interests it was that a
national king should sit on the Magyar throne. Poděbrad treated Matthias
hospitably and affianced him with his daughter Catherine, but still detained
him, for safety’s sake, in Prague, even after a Magyar deputation had
hastened thither to offer the youth the crown. Matthias was the elect of the
Hungarian people, gratefully mindful of his father’s services to the state and
inimical to all foreign candidates; and though an influential section of the
magnates, headed by the palatine László Garai and the voivode of
Transylvania, Miklós Ujlaki, who had been concerned in the judicial
murder of Matthias’s brother László, and hated the Hunyadis as semi-
foreign upstarts, were fiercely opposed to Matthias’s election, they were not
strong enough to resist the manifest wish of the nation, supported as it was
by Matthias’s uncle Mihály Szilágyi at the head of 15,000 veterans. On the
24th of January 1458, 40,000 Hungarian noblemen, assembled on the ice of
the frozen Danube, unanimously elected Matthias Hunyadi king of
Hungary, and on the 14th of February the new king made his state entry into
Buda.

The realm at this time was environed by perils. The Turks and the
Venetians threatened it from the south, the emperor Frederick III. from the
west, and Casimir IV. of Poland from the north, both Frederick and Casimir
claiming the throne. The Czech mercenaries under Giszkra held the
northern counties and from thence plundered those in the centre. Meanwhile
Matthias’s friends had only pacified the hostile dignitaries by engaging to
marry the daughter of the palatine Garai to their nominee, whereas Matthias
not unnaturally refused to marry into the family of one of his brother’s
murderers, and on the 9th of February confirmed his previous nuptial

contract with the daughter of George Poděbrad, who shortly afterwards was
elected king of Bohemia (March 2, 1458). Throughout 1458 the struggle
between the young king and the magnates, reinforced by Matthias’s own
uncle and guardian Szilágyi, was acute. But Matthias, who began by
deposing Garai and dismissing Szilágyi, and then proceeded to levy a tax,
without the consent of the Diet, in order to hire mercenaries, easily
prevailed. Nor did these complications prevent him from recovering the
fortress of Galamboc from the Turks, successfully invading Servia, and
reasserting the suzerainty of the Hungarian crown over Bosnia. In the
following year there was a fresh rebellion, when the emperor Frederick was
actually crowned king by the malcontents at Vienna-Neustadt (March 4,
1459); but Matthias drove him out, and Pope Pius II. intervened so as to
leave Matthias free to engage in a projected crusade against the Turks,
which subsequent political complications, however, rendered impossible.
From 1461 to 1465 the career of Matthias was a perpetual struggle
punctuated by truces. Having come to an understanding with his father-in-
law Poděbrad, he was able to turn his arms against the emperor Frederick,
and in April 1462 Frederick restored the holy crown for 60,000 ducats and
was allowed to retain certain Hungarian counties with the title of king; in
return for which concessions, extorted from Matthias by the necessity of
coping with a simultaneous rebellion of the Magyar noble in league with
Poděbrad’s son Victorinus, the emperor recognized Matthias as the actual
sovereign of Hungary. Only now was Matthias able to turn against the
Turks, who were again threatening the southern provinces. He began by
defeating Ali Pasha, and then penetrated into Bosnia, and captured the
newly built fortress of Jajce after a long and obstinate defence (Dec. 1463).
On returning home he was crowned with the holy crown on the 29th of
March 1464, and, after driving the Czechs out of his northern counties,
turned southwards again, this time recovering all the parts of Bosnia which
still remained in Turkish hands.

A political event of the first importance now riveted his attention upon
the north. Poděbrad, who had gained the throne of Bohemia with the aid of
the Hussites and Utraquists, had long been in ill odour at Rome, and in
1465 Pope Paul II. determined to depose the semi-Catholic monarch. All the
neighbouring princes, the emperor, Casimir IV. of Poland and Matthias,
were commanded in turn to execute the papal decree of deposition, and
Matthias gladly placed his army at the disposal of the Holy See. The war
began on the 31st of May 1468, but, as early as the 27th of February 1469,
Matthias anticipated an alliance between George and Frederick by himself
concluding an armistice with the former. On the 3rd of May the Czech
Catholics elected Matthias king of Bohemia, but this was contrary to the
wishes of both pope and emperor, who preferred to partition Bohemia. But
now George discomfited all his enemies by suddenly excluding his own son
from the throne in favour of Ladislaus, the eldest son of Casimir IV., thus
skilfully enlisting Poland on his side. The sudden death of Poděbrad on the
22nd of March 1471 led to fresh complications. At the very moment when
Matthias was about to profit by the disappearance of his most capable rival,
another dangerous rebellion, headed by the primate and the chief dignitaries
of the state, with the object of placing Casimir, son of Casimir IV., on the
throne, paralysed Matthias’s foreign policy during the critical years 1470-
1471. He suppressed this domestic rebellion indeed, but in the meantime the
Poles had invaded the Bohemian domains with 60,000 men, and when in
1474 Matthias was at last able to take the field against them in order to raise
the siege of Breslau, he was obliged to fortify himself in an entrenched
camp, whence he so skilfully harried the enemy that the Poles, impatient to
return to their own country, made peace at Breslau (Feb. 1475) on an uti
possidetis basis, a peace subsequently confirmed by the congress of Olmütz
(July 1479). During the interval between these peaces, Matthias, in self-
defence, again made war on the emperor, reducing Frederick to such
extremities that he was glad to accept peace on any terms. By the final

arrangement made between the contending princes, Matthias recognized
Ladislaus as king of Bohemia proper in return for the surrender of Moravia,
Silesia and Upper and Lower Lusatia, hitherto component parts of the
Czech monarchy, till he should have redeemed them for 400,000 florins.
The emperor promised to pay Matthias 100,000 florins as a war indemnity,
and recognized him as the legitimate king of Hungary on the understanding
that he should succeed him if he died without male issue, a contingency at
this time somewhat improbable, as Matthias, only three years previously
(Dec. 15, 1476), had married his third wife, Beatrice of Naples, daughter of
Ferdinand of Aragon.

The endless tergiversations and depredations of the emperor speedily
induced Matthias to declare war against him for the third time (1481), the
Magyar king conquering all the fortresses in Frederick’s hereditary
domains. Finally, on the 1st of June 1485, at the head of 8000 veterans, he
made his triumphal entry into Vienna, which he henceforth made his
capital. Styria, Carinthia and Carniola were next subdued, and Trieste was
only saved by the intervention of the Venetians. Matthias consolidated his
position by alliances with the dukes of Saxony and Bavaria, with the Swiss
Confederation, and the archbishop of Salzburg, and was henceforth the
greatest potentate in central Europe. His far-reaching hand even extended to
Italy. Thus, in 1480, when a Turkish fleet seized Otranto, Matthias, at the
earnest solicitation of the pope, sent Balasz Magyar to recover the fortress,
which surrendered to him on the 10th of May 1481. Again in 1488,
Matthias took Ancona under his protection for a time and occupied it with a
Hungarian garrison.

Though Matthias’s policy was so predominantly occidental that he soon
abandoned his youthful idea of driving the Turks out of Europe, he at least
succeeded in making them respect Hungarian territory. Thus in 1479 a huge
Turkish army, on its return home from ravaging Transylvania, was

annihilated at Szászváros (Oct. 13), and in 1480 Matthias recaptured Jajce,
drove the Turks from Servia and erected two new military banates, Jajce
and Srebernik, out of reconquered Bosnian territory. On the death of
Mahommed II. in 1481, a unique opportunity for the intervention of Europe
in Turkish affairs presented itself. A civil war ensued in Turkey between his
sons Bayezid and Jem, and the latter, being worsted, fled to the knights of
Rhodes, by whom he was kept in custody in France (see Bayezid II.).
Matthias, as the next-door neighbour of the Turks, claimed the custody of
so valuable a hostage, and would have used him as a means of extorting
concessions from Bayezid. But neither the pope nor the Venetians would
hear of such a transfer, and the negotiations on this subject greatly
embittered Matthias against the Curia. The last days of Matthias were
occupied in endeavouring to secure the succession to the throne for his
illegitimate son János (see Corvinus, János); but Queen Beatrice, though
childless, fiercely and openly opposed the idea and the matter was still
pending when Matthias, who had long been crippled by gout, expired very
suddenly on Palm Sunday, the 4th of April 1490.

Matthias Hunyadi was indisputably the greatest man of his day, and one
of the greatest monarchs who ever reigned. The precocity and universality
of his genius impress one the most. Like Napoleon, with whom he has often
been compared, he was equally illustrious as a soldier, a statesman, an
orator, a legislator and an administrator. But in all moral qualities the
brilliant adventurer of the 15th was infinitely superior to the brilliant
adventurer of the 19th century. Though naturally passionate, Matthias’s
self-control was almost superhuman, and throughout his stormy life, with
his innumerable experiences of ingratitude and treachery, he never was
guilty of a single cruel or vindictive action. His capacity for work was
inexhaustible. Frequently half his nights were spent in reading, after the
labour of his most strenuous days. There was no branch of knowledge in
which he did not take an absorbing interest, no polite art which he did not

cultivate and encourage. His camp was a school of chivalry, his court a
nursery of poets and artists. Matthias was a middle-sized, broad-shouldered
man of martial bearing, with a large fleshy nose, hair reaching to his heels,
and the clean-shaven, heavy chinned face of an early Roman emperor.

See Vilmós Fraknói, King Matthias Hunyadi (Hung., Budapest,
1890, German ed., Freiburg, 1891); Ignácz Acsády, History of the
Hungarian Realm (Hung. vol. i., Budapest, 1904); József Teleki, The
Age of the Hunyadis in Hungary (Hung., vols. 3-5, Budapest, 1852-
1890); V. Fraknói, Life of János Vitéz (Hung. Budapest 1879); Karl
Schober, Die Eroberung Niederösterreichs durch Matthias Corvinus
(Vienna, 1879); János Huszár, Matthias’s Black Army (Hung. Budapest,
1890); Antonio Bonfini, Rerum hungaricarum decades (7th ed.,
Leipzig, 1771); Aeneas Sylvius, Opera (Frankfort, 1707); The
Correspondence of King Matthias (Hung. and Lat., Budapest, 1893); V.
Fraknói, The Embassies of Cardinal Carvajal to Hungary (Hung.,
Budapest, 1889); Marzio Galeotti, De egregie sapienter et jocose,
dictis ac factis Matthiae regis (Script. reg. hung. I.) (Vienna, 1746). Of
the above the first is the best general sketch and is rich in notes; the
second somewhat chauvinistic but excellently written; the third the best
work for scholars; the seventh, eighth and eleventh are valuable as
being by contemporaries.
(R. N. B.)

MATTHISSON, FRIEDRICH VON (1761-1831), German
poet, was born at Hohendodeleben near Magdeburg, the son of the village
pastor, on the 23rd of January 1761. After studying theology and philology
at the university of Halle, he was appointed in 1781 master at the classical
school Philanthropin in Dessau. This once famous seminary was, however,
then rapidly decaying in public favour, and in 1784 Matthisson was glad to
accept a travelling tutorship. He lived for two years with the Swiss author
Bonstetten at Nyon on the lake of Geneva. In 1794 he was appointed reader
and travelling companion to the princess Louisa of Anhalt-Dessau. In 1812
he entered the service of the king of Württemberg, was ennobled, created
counsellor of legation, appointed intendant of the court theatre and chief
librarian of the royal library at Stuttgart. In 1828 he retired and settled at
Wörlitz near Dessau, where he died on the 12th of March 1831. Matthisson
enjoyed for a time a great popularity on account of his poems, Gedichte
(1787; 15th ed., 1851; new ed., 1876), which Schiller extravagantly praised
for their melancholy sweetness and their fine descriptions of scenery. The
verse is melodious and the language musical, but the thought and
sentiments they express are too often artificial and insincere. His Adelaide
has been rendered famous owing to Beethoven’s setting of the song. Of his
elegies, Die Elegie in den Ruinen eines alten Bergschlosses is still a
favourite. His reminiscences, Erinnerungen (5 vols., 1810-1816), contain
interesting accounts of his travels.

Matthisson’s Schriften appeared in eight volumes (1825-1829), of
which the first contains his poems, the remainder his Erinnerungen; a
ninth volume was added in 1833 containing his biography by H.
Döring. His Literarischer Nachlass, with a selection from his
correspondence, was published in four volumes by F. R. Schoch in
1832.

MATTING, a general term embracing many coarse woven or plaited
fibrous materials used for covering floors or furniture, for hanging as
screens, for wrapping up heavy merchandise and for other miscellaneous
purposes. In the United Kingdom, under the name of “coir” matting, a large
amount of a coarse kind of carpet is made from coco-nut fibre; and the
same material, as well as strips of cane, Manila hemp, various grasses and
rushes, is largely employed in various forms for making door mats. Large
quantities of the coco-nut fibre are woven in heavy looms, then cut up into
various sizes, and finally bound round the edges by a kind of rope made
from the same material. The mats may be of one colour only, or they may
be made of different colours and in different designs. Sometimes the names
of institutions are introduced into the mats. Another type of mat is made
exclusively from the above-mentioned rope by arranging alternate layers in
sinuous and straight paths, and then stitching the parts together. It is also
largely used for the outer covering of ships’ fenders. Perforated and
otherwise prepared rubber, as well as wire-woven material, are also largely
utilized for door and floor mats. Matting of various kinds is very
extensively employed throughout India for floor coverings, the bottoms of
bedsteads, fans and fly-flaps, &c.; and a considerable export trade in such
manufactures is carried on. The materials used are numerous; but the
principal substances are straw, the bulrushes Typha elephantina and T.
angustifolia, leaves of the date palm (Phoenix sylvestris), of the dwarf palm
(Chamaerops Ritchiana), of the Palmyra palm (Borassus flabelliformis), of

the coco-nut palm (Cocos nucifera) and of the screw pine (Pandanus
odoratissimus), the munja or munj grass (Saccharum Munja) and allied
grasses, and the mat grasses Cyperus textilis and C. Pangorei, from the last
of which the well-known Palghat mats of the Madras Presidency are made.
Many of these Indian grass-mats are admirable examples of elegant design,
and the colours in which they are woven are rich, harmonious and effective
in the highest degree. Several useful household articles are made from the
different kinds of grasses. The grasses are dyed in all shades and plaited to
form attractive designs suitable for the purposes to which they are to be
applied. This class of work obtains in India, Japan and other Eastern
countries. Vast quantities of coarse matting used for packing furniture,
heavy and coarse goods, flax and other plants, &c., are made in Russia from
the bast or inner bark of the lime tree. This industry centres in the great
forest governments of Viatka, Nizhniy-Novgorod, Kostroma, Kazan, Perm
and Simbirsk.

MATTOCK (O.E. mattuc, of uncertain origin), a tool having a
double iron head, of which one end is shaped like an adze, and the other
like a pickaxe. The head has a socket in the centre in which the handle is
inserted transversely to the blades. It is used chiefly for grubbing and
rooting among tree stumps in plantations and copses, where the roots are
too close for the use of a spade, or for loosening hard soil.

MATTO GROSSO, an inland state of Brazil, bounded N. by
Amazonas and Pará, E. by Goyaz, Minas Geraes, São Paulo and Paraná, S.
by Paraguay and S.W. and W. by Bolivia. It ranks next to Amazonas in size,
its area, which is largely unsettled and unexplored, being 532,370 sq. m.,
and its population only 92,827 in 1890 and 118,025 in 1900. No satisfactory
estimate of its Indian population can be made. The greater part of the state
belongs to the western extension of the Brazilian plateau, across which,
between the 14th and 16th parallels, runs the watershed which separates the
drainage basins of the Amazon and La Plata. This elevated region is known
as the plateau of Matto Grosso, and its elevations so far as known rarely
exceed 3000 ft. The northern slope of this great plateau is drained by the
Araguaya-Tocantins, Xingú, Tapajos and Guaporé-Mamoré-Madeira, which
flow northward, and, except the first, empty into the Amazon; the southern
slope drains southward through a multitude of streams flowing into the
Paraná and Paraguay. The general elevation in the south part of the state is
much lower, and large areas bordering the Paraguay are swampy, partially
submerged plains which the sluggish rivers are unable to drain. The lowland
elevations in this part of the state range from 300 to 400 ft. above sea-level,
the climate is hot, humid and unhealthy, and the conditions for permanent
settlement are apparently unfavourable. On the highlands, however, which
contain extensive open campos, the climate, though dry and hot, is
considered healthy. The basins of the Paraná and Paraguay are separated by
low mountain ranges extending north from the sierras of Paraguay. In the

north, however, the ranges which separate the river valleys are apparently
the remains of the table-land through which deep valleys have been eroded.
The resources of Matto Grosso are practically undeveloped, owing to the
isolated situation of the state, the costs of transportation and the small
population.

The first industry was that of mining, gold having been discovered in the
river valleys on the southern slopes of the plateau, and diamonds on the
head-waters of the Paraguay, about Diamantino and in two or three other
districts. Gold is found chiefly in placers, and in colonial times the output
was large, but the deposits were long ago exhausted and the industry is now
comparatively unimportant. As to other minerals little is definitely known.
Agriculture exists only for the supply of local needs, though tobacco of a
superior quality is grown. Cattle-raising, however, has received some
attention and is the principal industry of the landowners. The forest
products of the state include fine woods, rubber, ipecacuanha, sarsaparilla,
jaborandi, vanilla and copaiba. There is little export, however, the only
means of communication being down the Paraguay and Paraná rivers by
means of subsidized steamers. The capital of the state is Cuyabá, and the
chief commercial town is Corumbá at the head of navigation for the larger
river boats, and 1986 m. from the mouth of the La Plata. Communication
between these two towns is maintained by a line of smaller boats, the
distance being 517 m.

The first permanent settlements in Matto Grosso seem to have been made
in 1718 and 1719, in the first year at Forquilha and in the second at or near
the site of Cuyabá, where rich placer mines had been found. At this time all
this inland region was considered a part of São Paulo, but in 1748 it was
made a separate capitania and was named Matto Grosso (“great woods”).
In 1752 its capital was situated on the right bank of the Guaporé river and
was named Villa Bella da Santissima Trindade de Matto Grosso, but in

1820 the seat of government was removed to Cuyabá and Villa Bella has
fallen into decay. In 1822 Matto Grosso became a province of the empire
and in 1889 a republican state. It was invaded by the Paraguayans in the
war of 1860-65.

MATTOON, a city of Coles county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the east
central part of the state, about 12 m. south-east of Peoria. Pop. (1890),
6833; (1900), 9622, of whom 430 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 11,456.
It is served by the Illinois Central and Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St
Louis railways, which have repair shops here, and by inter-urban electric
lines. The city has a public library, a Methodist Episcopal Hospital, and an
Old Folks’ Home, the last supported by the Independent Order of Odd
Fellows. Mattoon is an important shipping point for Indian corn and broom
corn, extensively grown in the vicinity, and for fruit and livestock. Among
its manufactures are foundry and machine shop products, stoves and bricks;
in 1905 the factory product was valued at $1,308,781, an increase of 71.2%
over that in 1900. The municipality owns the waterworks and an electric
lighting plant. Mattoon was first settled about 1855, was named in honour
of William Mattoon, an early landowner, was first chartered as a city in
1857, and was reorganized under a general state law in 1879.

MATTRESS (O.Fr. materas, mod. matelas; the origin is the Arab.
al-materah, cushion, whence Span. and Port. almadraque, Ital. materasso),
the padded foundation of a bed, formed of canvas or other stout material
stuffed with wool, hair, flock or straw; in the last case it is properly known
as a “palliasse” (Fr. paille, straw; Lat. palea); but this term is often applied
to an under-mattress stuffed with substances other than straw. The padded
mattress on which lay the feather-bed has been replaced by the “wire-
mattress,” a network of wire stretched on a light wooden or iron frame,
which is either a separate structure or a component part of the bedstead
itself. The “wire-mattress” has taken the place of the “spring mattress,” in
which spiral springs support the stuffing. The term “mattress” is used in
engineering for a mat of brushwood, faggots, &c., corded together and used
as a foundation or as surface in the construction of dams, jetties, dikes, &c.

MATURIN, CHARLES ROBERT (1782-1824), Irish
novelist and dramatist, was born in Dublin in 1782. His grandfather, Gabriel
Jasper Maturin, had been Swift’s successor in the deanery of St Patrick.

Charles Maturin was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and became
curate of Loughrea and then of St Peter’s, Dublin. His first novels, The
Fatal Revenge; or, the Family of Montorio (1807), The Wild Irish Boy
(1808), The Milesian Chief (1812), were issued under the pseudonym of
“Dennis Jasper Murphy.” All these were mercilessly ridiculed, but the
irregular power displayed in them attracted the notice of Sir Walter Scott,
who recommended the author to Byron. Through their influence Maturin’s
tragedy of Bertram was produced at Drury Lane in 1816, with Kean and
Miss Kelly in the leading parts. A French version by Charles Nodier and
Baron Taylor was produced in Paris at the Théâtre Favart. Two more
tragedies, Manuel (1817) and Fredolfo (1819), were failures, and his poem
The Universe (1821) fell flat. He wrote three more novels, Women (1818),
Melmoth, the Wanderer (1820), and The Albigenses (1824). Melmoth, which
forms its author’s title to remembrance, is the best of them, and has for hero
a kind of “Wandering Jew.” Honoré de Balzac wrote a sequel to it under the
title of Melmoth réconcilié à l’église (1835). Maturin died in Dublin on the
30th of October 1824.

MATVYEEV, ARTAMON SERGYEEVICH
( -1682), Russian statesman and reformer, was one of the greatest of the
precursors of Peter the Great. His parentage and the date of his birth are
uncertain. Apparently his birth was humble, but when the obscure figure of
the young Artamon emerges into the light of history we find him equipped
at all points with the newest ideas, absolutely free from the worst prejudices

of his age, a ripe scholar, and even an author of some distinction. In 1671
the tsar Alexius and Artamon were already on intimate terms, and on the
retirement of Orduin-Nashchokin Matvyeev became the tsar’s chief
counsellor. It was at his house, full of all the wondrous, half-forbidden
novelties of the west, that Alexius, after the death of his first consort,
Martha, met Matvyeev’s favourite pupil, the beautiful Natalia Naruishkina,
whom he married on the 21st of January 1672. At the end of the year
Matvyeev was raised to the rank of okolnichy, and on the 1st of September
1674 attained the still higher dignity of boyar. Matvyeev remained
paramount to the end of the reign and introduced play-acting and all sorts of
refining western novelties into Muscovy. The deplorable physical condition
of Alexius’s immediate successor, Theodore III. suggested to Matvyeev the
desirability of elevating to the throne the sturdy little tsarevich Peter, then in
his fourth year. He purchased the allegiance of the stryeltsi, or musketeers,
and then, summoning the boyars of the council, earnestly represented to
them that Theodore, scarce able to live, was surely unable to reign, and
urged the substitution of little Peter. But the reactionary boyars, among
whom were the near kinsmen of Theodore, proclaimed him tsar and
Matvyeev was banished to Pustozersk, in northern Russia, where he
remained till Theodore’s death (April 27, 1682). Immediately afterwards
Peter was proclaimed tsar by the patriarch, and the first ukaz issued in
Peter’s name summoned Matvyeev to return to the capital and act as chief
adviser to the tsaritsa Natalia. He reached Moscow on the 15th of May,
prepared “to lay down his life for the tsar,” and at once proceeded to the
head of the Red Staircase to meet and argue with the assembled stryeltsi,
who had been instigated to rebel by the anti-Petrine faction. He had already
succeeded in partially pacifying them, when one of their colonels began to
abuse the still hesitating and suspicious musketeers. Infuriated, they seized
and flung Matvyeev into the square below, where he was hacked to pieces
by their comrades.

See R. Nisbet Bain, The First Romanovs (London, 1905); M. P.
Pogodin, The First Seventeen Years of the Life of Peter the Great
(Rus.), (Moscow, 1875); S. M. Solovev, History of Russia (Rus.), (vols.
12, 13, (St Petersburg, 1895, &c.); L. Shehepotev, A. S. Matvyeev as an
Educational and Political Reformer (Rus.), (St Petersburg, 1906).
(R. N. B.)

MAUBEUGE, a town of northern France, in the department of
Nord, situated on both banks of the Sambre, here canalized, 231⁄2 m. by rail
E. by S. of Valenciennes, and about 2 m. from the Belgian frontier. Pop.
(1906), town 13,569, commune 21,520. As a fortress Maubeuge has an old
enceinte of bastion trace which serves as the centre of an important
entrenched camp of 18 m. perimeter, constructed for the most part after the
war of 1870, but since modernized and augmented. The town has a board of
trade arbitration, a communal college, a commercial and industrial school;
and there are important foundries, forges and blast-furnaces, together with
manufactures of machine-tools, porcelain, &c. It is united by electric
tramway with Hautmont (pop. 12,473), also an important metallurgical
centre.

Maubeuge (Malbodium) owes its origin to a double monastery, for men
and women, founded in the 7th century by St Aldegonde relics of whom are
preserved in the church. It subsequently belonged to the territory of
Hainault. It was burnt by Louis XI., by Francis I., and by Henry II., and was

finally assigned to France by the Treaty of Nijmwegen. It was fortified at
Vauban by the command of Louis XIV., who under Turenne first saw
military service there. Besieged in 1793 by Prince Josias of Coburg, it was
relieved by the victory of Wattignies, which is commemorated by a
monument in the town. It was unsuccessfully besieged in 1814, but was
compelled to capitulate, after a vigorous resistance, in the Hundred Days.

MAUCH CHUNK, a borough and the county-seat of Carbon
county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the W. bank of the Lehigh river and on the
Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company’s Canal, 46 m. by rail W.N.W. of
Easton. Pop. (1800), 4101; (1900), 4029 (571 foreign-born); (1910), 3952.
Mauch Chunk is served by the Central of New Jersey railway and, at East
Mauch Chunk, across the river, connected by electric railway, by the Lehigh
Valley railway. The borough lies in the valley of the Lehigh river, along
which runs one of its few streets and in another deeply cut valley at right
angles to the river; through this second valley east and west runs the main
street, on which is an electric railway; parallel to it on the south is High
Street, formerly an Irish settlement; half way up the steep hill, and on the
north at the top of the opposite hill is the ward of Upper Mauch Chunk,
reached by the electric railway. An incline railway, originally used to
transport coal from the mines to the river and named the “Switch-Back,”
now carries tourists up the steep slopes of Mount Pisgah and Mount
Jefferson, to Summit Hill, a rich anthracite coal region, with a famous
“burning mine,” which has been on fire since 1832, and then back. An

electric railway to the top of Flagstaff Mountain, built in 1900, was
completed in 1901 to Lehighton, 4 m. south-east of Mauch Chunk, where
coal is mined and silk and stoves are manufactured, and which had a
population in 1900 of 4629, and in 1910 of 5316. Immediately above
Mauch Chunk the river forms a horseshoe; on the opposite side, connected
by a bridge, is the borough of East Mauch Chunk (pop. 1900, 3458; 1910,
3548); and 2 m. up the river is Glen Onoko, with fine falls and cascades.
The principal buildings in Mauch Chunk are the county court house, a
county gaol, a Young Men’s Christian Association building, and the
Dimmick Memorial Library (1890). The borough was long a famous
shipping point for coal. It now has ironworks and foundries, and in East
Mauch Chunk there are silk mills. The name is Indian and means “Bear
Mountain,” this English name being used for a mountain on the east side of
the river. The borough was founded by the Lehigh Coal and Navigation
Company in 1818. This company began in 1827 the operation of the
“Switch-Back,” probably the first railway in the country to be used for
transporting coal. In 1831 the town was opened to individual enterprise, and
in 1850 it was incorporated as a borough. Mauch Chunk was for many
years the home of Asa Packer, the projector and builder of the Lehigh
Valley railroad from Mauch Chunk to Easton.

MAUCHLINE, a town in the division of Kyle, Ayrshire, Scotland.
Pop. (1901), 1767. It lies 8 m. E.S.E. of Kilmarnock and 11 m. E. by N. of
Ayr by the Glasgow and South-Western railway. It is situated on a gentle

slope about 1 m. from the river Ayr, which flows through the south of the
parish of Mauchline. It is noted for its manufacture of snuff-boxes and
knick-knacks in wood, and of curling-stones. There is also some cabinet-
making, besides spinning and weaving, and its horse fairs and cattle
markets have more than local celebrity. The parish church, dating from
1829, stands in the middle of the village, and on the green a monument,
erected in 1830, marks the spot where five Covenanters were killed in 1685.
Robert Burns lived with his brother Gilbert on the farm of Mossgiel, about
a mile to the north, from 1784 to 1788. Mauchline kirkyard was the scene
of the “Holy Fair”; at “Poosie Nansie’s” (Agnes Gibson’s)—still, though
much altered, a popular inn—the “Jolly Beggars” held their high jinks; near
the church (in the poet’s day an old, barn-like structure) was the Whiteford
Arms inn, where on a pane of glass Burns wrote the epitaph on John Dove,
the landlord; “auld Nanse Tinnock’s” house, with the date of 1744 above
the door, nearly faces the entrance to the churchyard; the Rev. William Auld
was minister of Mauchline, and “Holy Willie,” whom the poet scourged in
the celebrated “Prayer,” was one of “Daddy Auld’s” elders; behind the
kirkyard stands the house of Gavin Hamilton, the lawyer and firm friend of
Burns, in which the poet was married. The braes of Ballochmyle, where he
met the heroine of his song, “The Lass o’ Ballochmyle,” lie about a mile to
the south-east. Adjoining them is the considerable manufacturing town of
Catrine (pop. 2340), with cotton factories, bleach fields and brewery, where
Dr Matthew Stewart (1717-1785), the father of Dugald Stewart—had a
mansion, and where there is a big water-wheel said to be inferior in size
only to that of Laxey in the Isle of Man. Barskimming House, 2 m. south by
west of Mauchline, the seat of Lord-President Miller (1717-1789), was
burned down in 1882. Near the confluence of the Fail and the Ayr was the
scene of Burns’s parting with Highland Mary.

MAUDE, CYRIL (1862- ), English actor, was born in
London and educated at Charterhouse. He began his career as an actor in
1883 in America, and from 1896 to 1905 was co-manager with F. Harrison
of the Haymarket Theatre, London. There he became distinguished for his
quietly humorous acting in many parts. In 1906 he went into management
on his own account, and in 1907 opened his new theatre The Playhouse. In
1888 he married the actress Winifred Emery (b. 1862), who had made her
London début as a child in 1875, and acted with Irving at the Lyceum
between 1881 and 1887. She was a daughter of Samuel Anderson Emery
(1817-1881) and granddaughter of John Emery (1777-1822), both well-
known actors in their day.

MAULE, a coast province of central Chile, bounded N. by Talea, E.
by Linares and Nuble, and S. by Concepción, and lying between the rivers
Maule and Itata, which form its northern and southern boundaries. Pop.
(1895), 119,791; area, 2475 sq. m. Maule is traversed from north to south
by the coast range and its surfaces are much broken. The Buchupureo river

flows westward across the province. The climate is mild and healthy.
Agriculture and stock-raising are the principal occupations, and hides,
cattle, wheat and timber are exported. Transport facilities are afforded by
the Maule and the Itata, which are navigable, and by a branch of the
government railway from Cauquenes to Parral, an important town of
southern Linares. The provincial capital, Cauquenes (pop., in 1895, 8574;
1902 estimate, 9895), is centrally situated on the Buchupureo river, on the
eastern slopes of the coast cordilleras. The town and port of Constitución
(pop., in 1900, about 7000) on the south bank of the Maule, one mile above
its mouth, was formerly the capital of the province. The port suffers from a
dangerous bar at the mouth of the river, but is connected with Talca by rail
and has a considerable trade.

The Maule river, from which the province takes its name, is of historic
interest because it is said to have marked the southern limits of the Inca
Empire. It rises in the Laguna del Maule, an Andean lake near the Argentine
frontier, 7218 ft. above sea-level, and flows westward about 140 m. to the
Pacific, into which it discharges in 35° 18′ S. The upper part of its drainage
basin, to which the Anuario Hydrografico gives an area of 8000 sq. m.,
contains the volcanoes of San Pedro (11,800 ft.), the Descabezado (12,795
ft.), and others of the same group of lower elevations. The upper course and
tributaries of the Maule, principally in the province of Linares, are largely
used for irrigation.

MAULÉON, SAVARI DE (d. 1236), French soldier, was the
son of Raoul de Mauléon, vicomte de Thouars and lord of Mauléon (now
Châtillon-sur-Sèvre). Having espoused the cause of Arthur of Brittany, he
was captured at Mirebeau (1202), and imprisoned in the château of Corfe.
But John set him at liberty in 1204, gained him to his side and named him
seneschal of Poitou (1205). In 1211 Savari de Mauléon assisted Raymond
VI. count of Toulouse, and with him besieged Simon de Montfort in
Castelnaudary. Philip Augustus bought his services in 1212 and gave him
command of a fleet which was destroyed in the Flemish port of Damme.
Then Mauléon returned to John, whom he aided in his struggle with the
barons in 1215. He was one of those whom John designated on his deathbed
for a council of regency (1216). Then he went to Egypt (1219), and was
present at the taking of Damietta. Returning to Poitou he was a second time
seneschal for the king of England. He defended Saintonge against Louis
VIII. in 1224, but was accused of having given La Rochelle up to the king
of France, and the suspicions of the English again threw him back upon the
French. Louis VIII. then turned over to him the defence of La Rochelle and
the coast of Saintonge. In 1227 he took part in the rising of the barons of
Poitiers and Anjou against the young Louis IX. He enjoyed a certain
reputation for his poems in the langue d’oc.

See Chilhaud-Dumaine, “Savari de Mauléon,” in Positions des
Thèses des élèves de l’École des Chartes (1877); Histoire littéraire de
la France, xviii. 671-682.

MAULSTICK, or Mahlstick, a stick with a soft leather or padded
head, used by painters to support the hand that holds the brush. The word is
an adaptation of the Dutch maalstok, i.e. the painter’s stick, from malen, to
paint.

MAUNDY THURSDAY (through O.Fr. mandé from Lat.
mandatum, commandment, in allusion to Christ’s words: “A new
commandment give I unto you,” after he had washed the disciples’ feet at
the Last Supper), the Thursday before Easter. Maundy Thursday is
sometimes known as Sheer or Chare Thursday, either in allusion, it is
thought, to the “shearing” of heads and beards in preparation for Easter, or
more probably in the word’s Middle English sense of “pure,” in allusion to
the ablutions of the day. The chief ceremony, as kept from the early middle
ages onwards—the washing of the feet of twelve or more poor men or
beggars—was in the early Church almost unknown. Of Chrysostom and St
Augustine, who both speak of Maundy Thursday as being marked by a
solemn celebration of the Sacrament, the former does not mention the foot-
washing, and the latter merely alludes to it. Perhaps an indication of it may
be discerned as early as the 4th century in a custom, current in Spain,
northern Italy and elsewhere, of washing the feet of the catechumens
towards the end of Lent before their baptism. It was not, however,
universal, and in the 48th canon of the synod of Elvira (a.d. 306) it is
expressly prohibited (cf. Corp. Jur. Can., c. 104, caus. i. qu. 1). From the
4th century ceremonial foot-washing became yearly more common, till it

was regarded as a necessary rite, to be performed by the pope, all Catholic
sovereigns, prelates, priests and nobles. In England the king washed the feet
of as many poor men as he was years old, and then distributed to them
meat, money and clothes. At Durham Cathedral, until the 16th century,
every charity-boy had a monk to wash his feet. At Peterborough Abbey, in
1530, Wolsey made “his maund in Our Lady’s Chapel, having fifty-nine
poor men whose feet he washed and kissed; and after he had wiped them he
gave every of the said poor men twelve pence in money, three ells of good
canvas to make them shirts, a pair of new shoes, a cast of red herrings and
three white herrings.” Queen Elizabeth performed the ceremony, the
paupers’ feet, however, being first washed by the yeomen of the laundry
with warm water and sweet herbs. James II. was the last English monarch to
perform the rite. William III. delegated the washing to his almoner, and this
was usual until the middle of the 18th century. Since 1754 the foot-washing
has been abandoned, and the ceremony now consists of the presentation of
Maundy money, officially called Maundy Pennies. These were first coined
in the reign of Charles II. They come straight from the Mint, and have their
edges unmilled. The service which formerly took place in the Chapel Royal,
Whitehall, is now held in Westminster Abbey. A procession is formed in the
nave, consisting of the lord high almoner representing the sovereign, the
clergy and the yeomen of the guard, the latter carrying white and red purses
in baskets. The clothes formerly given are now commuted for in cash. The
full ritual is gone through by the Roman Catholic archbishop of
Westminster, and abroad it survives in all Catholic countries, a notable
example being that of the Austrian emperor. In the Greek Church the rite
survives notably at Moscow, St Petersburg and Constantinople. It is on
Maundy Thursday that in the Church of Rome the sacred oil is blessed, and
the chrism prepared according to an elaborate ritual which is given in the
Pontificale.

MAUPASSANT, HENRI RENÉ ALBERT GUY
DE (1850-1893), French novelist and poet, was born at the Château of
Miromesnil in the department of Seine-Inférieure on the 5th August 1850.
His grandfather, a landed proprietor of a good Lorraine family, owned an
estate at Neuville-Champ-d’Oisel near Rouen, and bequeathed a moderate
fortune to his son, a Paris stockbroker, who married Mademoiselle Laure
Lepoitevin. Maupassant was educated at Yvetot and at the Rouen lycée. A
copy of verses entitled Le Dieu créateur, written during his year of
philosophy, has been preserved and printed. He entered the ministry of
marine, and was promoted by M. Bardoux to the Cabinet de l’Instruction
publique. A pleasant legend says that, in a report by his official chief,
Maupassant is mentioned as not reaching the standard of the department in
the matter of style. He may very well have been an unsatisfactory clerk, as
he divided his time between rowing expeditions and attending the literary
gatherings at the house of Gustave Flaubert, who was not, as he is often
alleged to be, connected with Maupassant by any blood tie. Flaubert was
not his uncle, nor his cousin, nor even his godfather, but merely an old
friend of Madame de Maupassant, whom he had known from childhood. At
the literary meetings Maupassant seldom shared in the conversation. Upon
those who met him—Tourgenieff, Alphonse Daudet, Catulle Mendès, José-
Maria de Heredia and Émile Zola—he left the impression of a simple young
athlete. Even Flaubert, to whom Maupassant submitted some sketches, was
not greatly struck by their talent, though he encouraged the youth to

persevere. Maupassant’s first essay was a dramatic piece twice given at
Étretat in 1873 before an audience which included Tourgenieff, Flaubert
and Meilhac. In this indecorous performance, of which nothing more is
heard, Maupassant played the part of a woman. During the next seven years
he served a severe apprenticeship to Flaubert, who by this time realized his
pupil’s exceptional gifts. In 1880 Maupassant published a volume of poems,
Des Vers, against which the public prosecutor of Etampes took proceedings
that were finally withdrawn through the influence of the senator Cordier.
From Flaubert, who had himself been prosecuted for his first book,
Madame Bovary, there came a letter congratulating the poet on the
similarity between their first literary experiences. Des Vers is an extremely
interesting experiment, which shows Maupassant to us still hesitating in his
choice of a medium; but he recognized that it was not wholly satisfactory,
and that its chief deficiency—the absence of verbal melody—was fatal.
Later in the same year he contributed to the Soirées de Médan, a collection
of short stories by MM. Zola, J.-K. Huysmans, Henry Céard, Léon
Hennique and Paul Alexis; and in Boule de suif the young unknown author
revealed himself to his amazed collaborators and to the public as an
admirable writer of prose and a consummate master of the conte. There is
perhaps no other instance in modern literary history of a writer beginning,
as a fully equipped artist, with a genuine masterpiece. This early success
was quickly followed by another. The volume entitled La Maison Tellier
(1881) confirmed the first impression, and vanquished even those who were
repelled by the author’s choice of subjects. In Mademoiselle Fifi (1883) he
repeated his previous triumphs as a conteur, and in this same year he, for
the first time, attempted to write on a larger scale. Choosing to portray the
life of a blameless girl, unfortunate in her marriage, unfortunate in her son,
consistently unfortunate in every circumstance of existence, he leaves her,
ruined and prematurely old, clinging to the tragic hope, which time, as one
feels, will belie, that she may find happiness in her grandson. This picture

of an average woman undergoing the constant agony of disillusion
Maupassant calls Une Vie (1883), and as in modern literature there is no
finer example of cruel observation, so there is no sadder book than this,
while the effect of extreme truthfulness which it conveys justifies its sub-
title—L’Humble vérité. Certain passages of Une Vie are of such a character
that the sale of the volume at railway bookstalls was forbidden throughout
France. The matter was brought before the chamber of deputies, with the
result of drawing still more attention to the book, and of advertising the
Contes de la bécasse (1883), a collection of stories as improper as they are
clever. Au soleil (1884), a book of travels which has the eminent qualities of
lucid observation and exact description, was less read than Clair de lune,
Miss Harriet, Les Sœurs Rondoli and Yvette, all published in 1883-1884
when Maupassant’s powers were at their highest level. Three further
collections of short tales, entitled Contes et nouvelles, Monsieur Parent, and
Contes du jour et de la nuit, issued in 1885, proved that while the author’s
vision was as incomparable as ever, his fecundity had not improved his
impeccable form. To 1885 also belongs an elaborate novel, Bel-ami, the
cynical history of a particularly detestable, brutal scoundrel who makes his
way in the world by means of his handsome face. Maupassant is here no
less vivid in realizing his literary men, financiers and frivolous women than
in dealing with his favourite peasants, boors and servants, to whom he
returned in Toine (1886) and in La Petite roque (1886). About this time
appeared the first symptoms of the malady which destroyed him; he wrote
less, and though the novel Mont-Oriol (1887) shows him apparently in
undiminished possession of his faculty, Le Horla (1887) suggests that he
was already subject to alarming hallucinations. Restored to some extent by
a sea-voyage, recorded in Sur l’eau (1888), he went back to short stories in
Le Rosier de Madame Husson (1888), a burst of Rabelaisian humour equal
to anything he had ever written. His novels Pierre et Jean (1888), Fort
comme la mort (1889), and Notre cœur (1890) are penetrating studies

touched with a profounder sympathy than had hitherto distinguished him;
and this softening into pity for the tragedy of life is deepened in some of the
tales included in Inutile beauté (1890). One of these, Le Champ d’Oliviers,
is an unsurpassable example of poignant, emotional narrative. With La Vie
errante (1890), a volume of travels, Maupassant’s career practically closed.
Musotte, a theatrical piece written in collaboration with M. Jacques
Normand, was published in 1891. By this time inherited nervous maladies,
aggravated by excessive physical exercises and by the imprudent use of
drugs, had undermined his constitution. He began to take an interest in
religious problems, and for a while made the Imitation his handbook; but
his misanthropy deepened, and he suffered from curious delusions as to his
wealth and rank. A victim of general paralysis, of which La Folie des
grandeurs was one of the symptoms, he drank the waters at Aix-les-Bains
during the summer of 1891, and retired to Cannes, where he purposed
passing the winter. The singularities of conduct which had been observed at
Aix-les-Bains grew more and more marked. Maupassant’s reason slowly
gave way. On the 6th of January 1892 he attempted suicide, and was
removed to Paris, where he died in the most painful circumstances on the
6th of July 1893. He is buried in the cemetery of Montparnasse. The
opening chapters of two projected novels, L’Angélus and L’Ame étrangère,
were found among his papers; these, with La Paix du ménage, a comedy in
two acts, and two collections of tales, Le Père Milon (1898) and Le
Colporteur (1899), have been published posthumously. A correspondence,
called Amitié amoureuse (1897), and dedicated to his mother, is probably
unauthentic. Among the prefaces which he wrote for the works of others,
only one—an introduction to a French prose version of Mr Swinburne’s
Poems and Ballads—is likely to interest English readers.

Maupassant began as a follower of Flaubert and of M. Zola, but,
whatever the masters may have called themselves, they both remained
essentially romantiques. The pupil is the last of the “naturalists”: he even

destroyed naturalism, since he did all that can be done in that direction. He
had no psychology, no theories of art, no moral or strong social prejudices,
no disturbing imagination, no wealth of perplexing ideas. It is no paradox to
say that his marked limitations made him the incomparable artist that he
was. Undisturbed by any external influence, his marvellous vision enabled
him to become a supreme observer, and, given his literary sense, the rest
was simple. He prided himself in having no invention; he described nothing
that he had not seen. The peasants whom he had known as a boy figure in a
score of tales; what he saw in Government offices is set down in
L’Héritage; from Algiers he gathers the material for Maroca; he drinks the
waters and builds up Mont-Oriol; he enters journalism, constructs Bel-ami,
and, for the sake of precision, makes his brother, Hervé de Maupassant, sit
for the infamous hero’s portrait; he sees fashionable society, and, though it
wearied him intensely, he transcribes its life in Fort comme la mort and
Notre cœur. Fundamentally he finds all men alike. In every grade he finds
the same ferocious, cunning, animal instincts at work: it is not a gay world,
but he knows no other; he is possessed by the dread of growing old, of
ceasing to enjoy; the horror of death haunts him like a spectre. It is an
extremely simple outlook. Maupassant does not prefer good to bad, one
man to another; he never pauses to argue about the meaning of life, a
senseless thing which has the one advantage of yielding materials for art;
his one aim is to discover the hidden aspect of visible things, to relate what
he has observed, to give an objective rendering of it, and he has seen so
intensely and so serenely that he is the most exact transcriber in literature.
And as the substance is, so is the form: his style is exceedingly simple and
exceedingly strong; he uses no rare or superfluous word, and is content to
use the humblest word if only it conveys the exact picture of the thing seen.
In ten years he produced some thirty volumes. With the exception of Pierre
et Jean, his novels, excellent as they are, scarcely represent him at his best,
and of over two hundred contes a proportion must be rejected. But enough

will remain to vindicate his claim to a permanent place in literature as an
unmatched observer and the most perfect master of the short story.

See also F. Brunetière, Le Roman naturaliste (1883); T. Lemaître,
Les Contemporains (vols. i. v. vi.); R. Doumic, Ecrivains d’aujourd’hui
(1894); an introduction by Henry James to The Odd Number ... (1891);
a critical preface by the earl of Crewe to Pierre and Jean (1902); A.
Symons, Studies in Prose and Verse (1904). There are many references
to Maupassant in the Journal des Goncourt, and some correspondence
with Marie Bashkirtseff was printed with Further Memoirs of that lady
in 1901.
(J. F. K.)

MAUPEOU, RENÉ NICOLAS CHARLES
AUGUSTIN (1714-1792), chancellor of France, was born on the 25th
of February 1714, being the eldest son of René Charles de Maupeou (1688-
1775), who was president of the parlement of Paris from 1743 to 1757. He
married in 1744 a rich heiress, Anne de Roncherolles, a cousin of Madame
d’Épinay. Entering public life, he was his father’s right hand in the conflicts
between the parlement and Christophe de Beaumont, archbishop of Paris,
who was supported by the court. Between 1763 and 1768, dates which
cover the revision of the case of Jean Calas and the trial of the comte de
Lally, Maupeou was himself president of the parlement. In 1768, through
the protection of Choiseul, whose fall two years later was in large measure
his work, he became chancellor in succession to his father, who had held the

office for a few days only. He determined to support the royal authority
against the parlement, which in league with the provincial magistratures
was seeking to arrogate to itself the functions of the states-general. He
allied himself with the duc d’Aiguillon and Madame du Barry, and secured
for a creature of his own, the Abbé Terrai, the office of comptroller-general.
The struggle came over the trial of the case of the duc d’Aiguillon, ex-
governor of Brittany, and of La Chalotais, procureur-général of the
province, who had been imprisoned by the governor for accusations against
his administration. When the parlement showed signs of hostility against
Aiguillon, Maupeou read letters patent from Louis XV. annulling the
proceedings. Louis replied to remonstrances from the parlement by a lit de
justice, in which he demanded the surrender of the minutes of procedure.
On the 27th of November 1770 appeared the Édit de règlement et de
discipline, which was promulgated by the chancellor, forbidding the union
of the various branches of the parlement and correspondence with the
provincial magistratures. It also made a strike on the part of the parlement
punishable by confiscation of goods, and forbade further obstruction to the
registration of royal decrees after the royal reply had been given to a first
remonstrance. This edict the magistrates refused to register, and it was
registered in a lit de justice held at Versailles on the 7th of December,
whereupon the parlement suspended its functions. After five summonses to
return to their duties, the magistrates were surprised individually on the
night of the 19th of January 1771 by musketeers, who required them to sign
yes or no to a further request to return. Thirty-eight magistrates gave an
affirmative answer, but on the exile of their former colleagues by lettres de
cachet they retracted, and were also exiled. Maupeou installed the council
of state to administer justice pending the establishment of six superior
courts in the provinces, and of a new parlement in Paris. The cour des aides
was next suppressed.

Voltaire praised this revolution, applauding the suppression of the old
hereditary magistrature, but in general Maupeou’s policy was regarded as
the triumph of tyranny. The remonstrances of the princes, of the nobles, and
of the minor courts, were met by exile and suppression, but by the end of
1771 the new system was established, and the Bar, which had offered a
passive resistance, recommenced to plead. But the death of Louis XV. in
May 1774 ruined the chancellor. The restoration of the parlements was
followed by a renewal of the quarrels between the new king and the
magistrature. Maupeou and Terrai were replaced by Malesherbes and
Turgot. Maupeou lived in retreat until his death at Thuit on the 29th of July
1792, having lived to see the overthrow of the ancien régime. His work, in
so far as it was directed towards the separation of the judicial and political
functions and to the reform of the abuses attaching to a hereditary
magistrature, was subsequently endorsed by the Revolution; but no
justification of his violent methods or defence of his intriguing and
avaricious character is possible. He aimed at securing absolute power for
Louis XV., but his action was in reality a serious blow to the monarchy.

The chief authority for the administration of Maupeou is the compte
rendu in his own justification presented by him to Louis XVI. in 1789,
which included a dossier of his speeches and edicts, and is preserved in
the Bibliothèque nationale. These documents, in the hands of his
former secretary, C. F. Lebrun, duc de Plaisance, formed the basis of
the judicial system of France as established under the consulate (cf. C.
F. Lebrun, Opinions, rapports et choix d’écrits politiques, published
posthumously in 1829). See further Maupeouana (6 vols., Paris, 1775),
which contains the pamphlets directed against him; Journal hist. de la
révolution opérée ... par M. de Maupeou (7 vols., 1775); the official
correspondence of Mercy-Argenteau, the letters of Mme d’Épinay; and
Jules Flammermont, Le Chancelier Maupeou et les parlements (1883).

MAUPERTUIS, PIERRE LOUIS MOREAU DE
(1698-1759), French mathematician and astronomer, was born at St Malo
on the 17th of July 1698. When twenty years of age he entered the army,
becoming lieutenant in a regiment of cavalry, and employing his leisure on
mathematical studies. After five years he quitted the army and was admitted
in 1723 a member of the Academy of Sciences. In 1728 he visited London,
and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1736 he acted as chief of
the expedition sent by Louis XV. into Lapland to measure the length of a
degree of the meridian (see Earth, Figure of), and on his return home he
became a member of almost all the scientific societies of Europe. In 1740
Maupertuis went to Berlin on the invitation of the king of Prussia, and took
part in the battle of Mollwitz, where he was taken prisoner by the Austrians.
On his release he returned to Berlin, and thence to Paris, where he was
elected director of the Academy of Sciences in 1742, and in the following
year was admitted into the Academy. Returning to Berlin in 1744, at the
desire of Frederick II., he was chosen president of the Royal Academy of
Sciences in 1746. Finding his health declining, he repaired in 1757 to the
south of France, but went in 1758 to Basel, where he died on the 27th of
July 1759. Maupertuis was unquestionably a man of considerable ability as
a mathematician, but his restless, gloomy disposition involved him in
constant quarrels, of which his controversies with König and Voltaire
during the latter part of his life furnish examples.

The following are his most important works: Sur la figure de la terre
(Paris, 1738); Discours sur la parallaxe de la lune (Paris, 1741);
Discours sur la figure des astres (Paris, 1742); Éléments de la
géographie (Paris, 1742); Lettre sur la comète de 1742 (Paris, 1742);
Astronomie nautique (Paris, 1745 and 1746); Vénus physique (Paris,
1745); Essai de cosmologie (Amsterdam, 1750). His Œuvres were
published in 1752 at Dresden and in 1756 at Lyons.

MAU RANIPUR, a town of British India in Jahnsi district, in the
United Provinces. Pop. (1901), 17,231. It contains a large community of
wealthy merchants and bankers. A special variety of red cotton cloth,
known as kharua, is manufactured and exported to all parts of India. Trees
line many of the streets, and handsome temples ornament the town.

MAUREL, ABDIAS (d. 1705), Camisard leader, became a
cavalry officer in the French army and gained distinction in Italy; here he
served under Marshal Catinat, and on this account he himself is sometimes

known as Catinat. In 1702, when the revolt in the Cévennes broke out, he
became one of the Camisard leaders, and in this capacity his name was soon
known and feared. He refused to accept the peace made by Jean Cavalier in
1704, and after passing a few weeks in Switzerland he returned to France
and became one of the chiefs of those Camisards who were still in arms. He
was deeply concerned in a plot to capture some French towns, a scheme
which, it was hoped, would be helped by England and Holland. But it
failed; Maurel was betrayed, and with three other leaders of the movement
was burned to death at Nîmes on the 22nd of April 1705. He was a man of
great physical strength; but he was very cruel, and boasted he had killed
200 Roman Catholics with his own hands.

MAUREL, VICTOR (1848- ), French singer, was born at
Marseilles, and educated in music at the Paris Conservatoire. He made his
début in opera at Paris in 1868, and in London in 1873, and from that time
onwards his admirable acting and vocal method established his reputation
as one of the finest of operatic baritones. He created the leading part in
Verdi’s Otello, and was equally fine in Wagnerian and Italian opera.

MAURENBRECHER, KARL PETER WILHELM
(1838-1892), German historian, was born at Bonn on the 21st of December,
1838, and studied in Berlin and Munich under Ranke and Von Sybel, being
especially influenced by the latter historian. After doing some research
work at Simancas in Spain, he became professor of history at the university
of Dorpat in 1867; and was then in turn professor at Königsberg, Bonn and
Leipzig. He died at Leipzig on the 6th of November, 1892.

Many of Maurenbrecher’s works are concerned with the
Reformation, among them being England im Reformationszeitalter
(Düsseldorf, 1866); Karl V. und die deutschen Protestanten
(Düsseldorf, 1865); Studien und Skizzen zur Geschichte der
Reformationszeit (Leipzig, 1874); and the incomplete Geschichte der
Katholischen Reformation (Nördlingen, 1880). He also wrote Don
Karlos (Berlin, 1876); Gründung des deutschen Reiches 1859-1871
(Leipzig, 1892, and again 1902); and Geschichte der deutschen
Königswahlen (Leipzig, 1889). See G. Wolf, Wilhelm Maurenbrecher
(Berlin, 1893).

MAUREPAS, JEAN FRÉDÉRIC PHÉLYPEAUX,
Comte de (1701-1781), French statesman, was born on the 9th of July 1701
at Versailles, being the son of Jérôme de Pontchartrain, secretary of state for
the marine and the royal household. Maurepas succeeded to his father’s
charge at fourteen, and began his functions in the royal household at
seventeen, while in 1725 he undertook the actual administration of the navy.
Although essentially light and frivolous in character, Maurepas was
seriously interested in scientific matters, and he used the best brains of
France to apply science to questions of navigation and of naval
construction. He was disgraced in 1749, and exiled from Paris for an
epigram against Madame de Pompadour. On the accession of Louis XVI.,
twenty-five years later, he became a minister of state and Louis XVI.’s chief
adviser. He gave Turgot the direction of finance, placed Lamoignon-
Malesherbes over the royal household and made Vergennes minister for
foreign affairs. At the outset of his new career he showed his weakness by
recalling to their functions, in deference to popular clamour, the members of
the old parlement ousted by Maupeou, thus reconstituting the most
dangerous enemy of the royal power. This step, and his intervention on
behalf of the American states, helped to pave the way for the French
revolution. Jealous of his personal ascendancy over Louis XVI., he
intrigued against Turgot, whose disgrace in 1776 was followed after six
months of disorder by the appointment of Necker. In 1781 Maurepas

deserted Necker as he had done Turgot, and he died at Versailles on the 21st
of November 1781.

Maurepas is credited with contributions to the collection of facetiae
known as the Étrennes de la Saint Jean (2nd ed., 1742). Four volumes
of Mémoires de Maurepas, purporting to be collected by his secretary
and edited by J. L. G. Soulavie in 1792, must be regarded as
apocryphal. Some of his letters were published in 1896 by the Soc. de
l’hist. de Paris. His éloge in the Academy of Sciences was pronounced
by Condorcet.

MAURER, GEORG LUDWIG VON (1790-1872),
German statesman and historian, son of a Protestant pastor, was born at
Erpolzheim, near Dürkheim, in the Rhenish Palatinate, on the 2nd of
November 1790. Educated at Heidelberg, he went in 1812 to reside in Paris,
where he entered upon a systematic study of the ancient legal institutions of
the Germans. Returning to Germany in 1814, he received an appointment
under the Bavarian government, and afterwards filled several important
official positions. In 1824 he published at Heidelberg his Geschichte des
altgermanischen und namentlich altbayrischen öffentlich-mündlichen
Gerichtsverfahrens, which obtained the first prize of the academy of
Munich, and in 1826 he became professor in the university of Munich. In
1829 he returned to official life, and was soon offered an important post. In
1832, when Otto (Otho), son of Louis I., king of Bavaria, was chosen to fill

the throne of Greece, a council of regency was nominated during his
minority, and Maurer was appointed a member. He applied himself
energetically to the task of creating institutions adapted to the requirements
of a modern civilized community; but grave difficulties soon arose and
Maurer was recalled in 1834, when he returned to Munich. This loss was a
serious one for Greece. Maurer was the ablest, most energetic and most
liberal-minded member of the council, and it was through his enlightened
efforts that Greece obtained a revised penal code, regular tribunals and an
improved system of civil procedure. Soon after his recall he published Das
griechische Volk in öffentlicher, kirchlicher, und privatrechtlicher Beziehung
vor und nach dem Freiheitskampfe bis zum 31 Juli 1834 (Heidelberg, 1835-
1836), a useful source of information for the history of Greece before Otto
ascended the throne, and also for the labours of the council of regency to
the time of the author’s recall. After the fall of the ministry of Karl von Abel
(1788-1859) in 1847, he became chief Bavarian minister and head of the
departments of foreign affairs and of justice, but was overthrown in the
same year. He died at Munich on the 9th of May 1872. His only son,
Conrad von Maurer (1823-1902), was a Scandinavian scholar of some
repute, and like his father was a professor at the university of Munich.

Maurer’s most important contribution to history is a series of books
on the early institutions of the Germans. These are: Einleitung zur
Geschichte der Mark-, Hof-, Dorf-, und Stadtverfassung und der
öffentlichen Gewalt (Munich, 1854); Geschichte der Markenverfassung
in Deutschland (Erlangen, 1856); Geschichte der Fronhöfe, der
Bauernhöfe, und der Hofverfassung in Deutschland (Erlangen, 1862-
1863); Geschichte der Dorfverfassung in Deutschland (Erlangen,
1865-1866); and Geschichte der Slädteverfassung in Deutschland
(Erlangen, 1869-1871). These works are still important authorities for
the early history of the Germans. Among other works are, Das Stadt-
und Landrechtsbuch Ruprechts von Freising, ein Beitrag zur

Geschichte des Schwabenspiegels (Stuttgart, 1839); Über die
Freipflege (plegium liberale), und die Entstehung der grossen und
kleinen Jury in England (Munich, 1848); and Über die deutsche
Reichsterritorial- und Rechtsgeschichte (1830).

Sec K. T. von Heigel, Denkwürdigkeiten des bayrischen Staatsrats
G. L. von Maurer (Munich, 1903).

MAURETANIA, the ancient name of the north-western angle of
the African continent, and under the Roman Empire also of a large territory
eastward of that angle. The name had different significations at different
times; but before the Roman occupation, Mauretania comprised a
considerable part of the modern Morocco i.e. the northern portion bounded
on the east by Algiers. Towards the south we may suppose it bounded by
the Atlas range, and it seems to have been regarded by geographers as
extending along the coast to the Atlantic as far as the point where that chain
descends to the sea, in about 30 N. lat. (Strabo, p. 825). The magnificent
plateau in which the city of Morocco is situated seems to have been
unknown to ancient geographers, and was certainly never included in the
Roman Empire. On the other hand, the Gaetulians to the south of the Atlas
range, on the date-producing slopes towards the Sahara, seem to have
owned a precarious subjection to the kings of Mauretania, as afterwards to
the Roman government. A large part of the country is of great natural
fertility, and in ancient times produced large quantities of corn, while the
slopes of Atlas were clothed with forests, which, besides other kinds of

timber, produced the celebrated ornamental wood called citrum (Plin. Hist.
Nat. 13-96), for tables of which the Romans gave fabulous prices. (For
physical geography, see Morocco.)

Mauretania, or Maurusia as it was called by Greek writers, signified
the land of the Mauri, a term still retained in the modern name of
Moors (q.v.). The origin and ethnical affinities of the race are uncertain;
but it is probable that all the inhabitants of this northern tract of Africa
were kindred races belonging to the great Berber family, possibly with
an intermingled fair-skinned race from Europe (see Tissot, Géographie
comparée de la province romaine d’Afrique, i. 400 seq.; also Berbers).
They first appear in history at the time of the Jugurthine War (110-106
b.c.), when Mauretania was under the government of Bocchus and

seems to have been recognized as organized state (Sallust, Jugurtha,
19). To this Bocchus was given, after the war, the western part of
Jugurtha’s kingdom of Numidia, perhaps as far east as Saldae (Bougie).
Sixty years later, at the time of the dictator Caesar, we find two
Mauretanian kingdoms, one to the west of the river Mulucha under
Bogud, and the other to the east under a Bocchus; as to the date or
cause of the division we are ignorant. Both these kings took Caesar’s
part in the civil wars, and had their territory enlarged by him (Appian,
b.c. 4, 54). In 25 b.c., after their deaths, Augustus gave the two

kingdoms to Juba II. of Numidia (see under Juba), with the river
Ampsaga as the eastern frontier (Plin. 5. 22; Ptol. 4. 3. 1). Juba and his
son Ptolemaeus after him reigned till a.d. 40, when the latter was put to
death by Caligula, and shortly afterwards Claudius incorporated the
kingdom into the Roman state as two provinces, viz. Mauretania
Tingitana to the west of the Mulucha and M. Caesariensis to the east of
that river, the latter taking its name from the city Caesarea (formerly
Iol), which Juba had thus named and adopted as his capital. Thus the
dividing line between the two provinces was the same as that which

had originally separated Mauretania from Numidia (q.v.). These
provinces were governed until the time of Diocletian by imperial
procurators, and were occasionally united for military purposes. Under
and after Diocletian M. Tingitana was attached administratively to the
dioicesis of Spain, with which it was in all respects closely connected;
while M. Caesariensis was divided by making its eastern part into a
separate government, which was called M. Sitifensis from the Roman
colony Sitifis.

In the two provinces of Mauretania there were at the time of Pliny a
number of towns, including seven (possibly eight) Roman colonies in
M. Tingitana and eleven in M. Caesariensis; others were added later.
These were mostly military foundations, and served the purpose of
securing civilization against the inroads of the natives, who were not in
a condition to be used as material for town-life as in Gaul and Spain,
but were under the immediate government of the procurators, retaining
their own clan organization. Of these colonies the most important,
beginning from the west, were Lixus on the Atlantic, Tingis (Tangier),
Rusaddir (Melila, Melilla), Cartenna (Tenes), Iol or Caesarea
(Cherchel), Icosium (Algiers), Saldae (Bougie), Igilgili (Jijelli) and
Sitifis (Setif). All these were on the coast but the last, which was some
distance inland. Besides these there were many municipia or oppida
civium romanorum (Plin. 5. 19 seq.), but, as has been made clear by
French archaeologists who have explored these regions, Roman
settlements are less frequent the farther we go west, and M. Tingitana
has as yet yielded but scanty evidence of Roman civilization. On the
whole Mauretania was in a flourishing condition down to the irruption
of the Vandals in a.d. 429; in the Notitia nearly a hundred and seventy
episcopal sees are enumerated here, but we must remember that
numbers of these were mere villages.

In 1904 the term Mauretania was revived as an official designation
by the French government, and applied to the territory north of the
lower Senegal under French protection (see Senegal).

To the authorities quoted under Africa, Roman, may be added here
Göbel, Die West-küste Afrikas im Alterthum. (W. W. F.*)

MAURIAC, a town of central France, capital of an arrondissement
in the department of Cantal, 39 m. N.N.W. of Aurillac by rail. Pop. (1906),
2558. Mauriac, built on the slope of a volcanic hill, has a church of the 12th
century, and the buildings of an old abbey now used as public offices and
dwellings; the town owes its origin to the abbey, founded during the 6th
century. It is the seat of a sub-prefect and has a tribunal of first instance and
a communal college. There are marble quarries in the vicinity.

MAURICE [or Mauritius], ST (d. c. 286), an early Christian
martyr, who, with his companions, is commemorated by the Roman
Catholic Church on the 22nd of September. The oldest form of his story is

found in the Passio ascribed to Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, c. 450, who
relates how the “Theban” legion commanded by Mauritius was sent to north
Italy to reinforce the army of Maximinian. Maximinian wished to use them
in persecuting the Christians, but as they themselves were of this faith, they
refused, and for this, after having been twice decimated, the legion was
exterminated at Octodurum (Martigny) near Geneva. In late versions this
legend was expanded and varied, the martyrdom was connected with a
refusal to take part in a great sacrifice ordered at Octodurum and the name
of Exsuperius was added to that of Mauritius. Gregory of Tours (c. 539-
593) speaks of a company of the same legion which suffered at Cologne.

The Magdeburg Centuries, in spite of Mauritius being the patron
saint of Magdeburg, declared the whole legend fictitious; J. A. du
Bordien La Légion thébéenne (Amsterdam, 1705); J. J. Hottinger in
Helvetische Kirchengeschichte (Zürich, 1708); and F. W. Rettberg,
Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands (Göttingen, 1845-1848) have also
demonstrated its untrustworthiness, while the Bollandists, De Rivaz
and Joh. Friedrich uphold it. Apart from the a priori improbability of a
whole legion being martyred, the difficulties are that in 286 Christians
everywhere throughout the empire were not molested, that at no later
date have we evidence of the presence of Maximinian in the Valais, and
that none of the writers nearest to the event (Eusebius, Lactantius,
Orosius, Sulpicius Severus) know anything of it. It is of course quite
possible that isolated cases of officers being put to death for their faith
occurred during Maximinian’s reign, and on some such cases the
legend may have grown up during the century and a half between
Maximinian and Eucherius. The cult of St Maurice and the Theban
legion is found in Switzerland (where two places bear the name in
Valais, besides St Moritz in Grisons), along the Rhine, and in north
Italy. The foundation of the abbey of St Maurice (Agaunum) in the

Valais is usually ascribed to Sigismund of Burgundy (515). Relics of
the saint are preserved here and at Brieg and Turin.

MAURICE (Mauricius Flavius Tiberius) (c. 539-602), East Roman
emperor from 582 to 602, was of Roman descent, but a native of Arabissus
in Cappadocia. He spent his youth at the court of Justin II., and, having
joined the army, fought with distinction in the Persian War (578-581). At
the age of forty-three he was declared Caesar by the dying emperor Tiberius
II., who bestowed upon him the hand of his daughter Constantina. Maurice
brought the Persian War to a successful close by the restoration of Chosroes
II. to the throne (591). On the northern frontier he at first bought off the
Avars by payments which compelled him to exercise strict economy in his
general administration, but after 595 inflicted several defeats upon them
through his general Crispus. By his strict discipline and his refusal to
ransom a captive corps he provoked to mutiny the army on the Danube. The
revolt spread to the popular factions in Constantinople, and Maurice
consented to abdicate. He withdrew to Chalcedon, but was hunted down
and put to death after witnessing the slaughter of his five sons.

The work on military art (στρατηγικά) ascribed to him is a
contemporary work of unknown authorship (ed. Scheffer, Arriani
tactica et Mauricii ars militaris, Upsala, 1664; see Max Jähns, Gesch.
d. Kriegswissensch., i. 152-156).

See Theophylactus Simocatta, Vita Mauricii (ed. de Boor, 1887); E.
Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (ed. Bury, London,
1896, v. 19-21, 57); J. B. Bury, The Later Roman Empire (London,
1889, ii. 83-94); G. Finlay, History of Greece (ed. 1877, Oxford, i. 299-
306).

MAURICE (1521-1553), elector of Saxony, elder son of Henry,
duke of Saxony, belonging to the Albertine branch of the Wettin family, was
born at Freiberg on the 21st of March 1521. In January 1541 he married
Agnes, daughter of Philip, landgrave of Hesse. In that year he became duke
of Saxony by his father’s death, and he continued Henry’s work in
forwarding the progress of the Reformation. Duke Henry had decreed that
his lands should be divided between his two sons, but as a partition was
regarded as undesirable the whole of the duchy came to his elder son.
Maurice, however, made generous provision for his brother Augustus, and
the desire to compensate him still further was one of the minor threads of
his subsequent policy. In 1542 he assisted the emperor Charles V. against
the Turks, in 1543 against William, duke of Cleves, and in 1544 against the
French; but his ambition soon took a wider range. The harmonious relations
which subsisted between the two branches of the Wettins were disturbed by
the interference of Maurice in Cleves, a proceeding distasteful to the Saxon
elector, John Frederick; and a dispute over the bishopric of Meissen having
widened the breach, war was only averted by the mediation of Philip of
Hesse and Luther. About this time Maurice seized the idea of securing for

himself the electoral dignity held by John Frederick, and his opportunity
came when Charles was preparing to attack the league of Schmalkalden.
Although educated as a Lutheran, religious questions had never seriously
appealed to Maurice. As a youth he had joined the league of Schmalkalden,
but this adhesion, as well as his subsequent declaration to stand by the
confession of Augsburg, cannot be regarded as the decision of his maturer
years. In June 1546 he took a decided step by making a secret agreement
with Charles at Regensburg. Maurice was promised some rights over the
archbishopric of Magdeburg and the bishopric of Halberstadt; immunity, in
part at least, for his subjects from the Tridentine decrees; and the question
of transferring the electoral dignity was discussed. In return the duke
probably agreed to aid Charles in his proposed attack on the league as soon
as he could gain the consent of the Saxon estates, or at all events to remain
neutral during the impending war. The struggle began in July 1546, and in
October Maurice declared war against John Frederick. He secured the
formal consent of Charles to the transfer of the electoral dignity and took
the field in November. He had gained a few successes when John Frederick
hastened from south Germany to defend his dominions. Maurice’s ally,
Albert Alcibiades, prince of Bayreuth, was taken prisoner at Rochlitz; and
the duke, driven from electoral Saxony, was unable to prevent his own
lands from being overrun. Salvation, however, was at hand. Marching
against John Frederick, Charles V., aided by Maurice, gained a decisive
victory at Mühlberg in April 1547, after which by the capitulation of
Wittenberg John Frederick renounced the electoral dignity in favour of
Maurice, who also obtained a large part of his kinsman’s lands. The formal
investiture of the new elector took place at Augsburg in February 1548.

The plans of Maurice soon took a form less agreeable to the emperor. The
continued imprisonment of his father-in-law, Philip of Hesse, whom he had
induced to surrender to Charles and whose freedom he had guaranteed, was
neither his greatest nor his only cause of complaint. The emperor had

refused to complete the humiliation of the family of John Frederick; he had
embarked upon a course of action which boded danger to the elector’s
Lutheran subjects, and his increased power was a menace to the position of
Maurice. Assuring Charles of his continued loyalty, the elector entered into
negotiations with the discontented Protestant princes. An event happened
which gave him a base of operations, and enabled him to mask his schemes
against the emperor. In 1550 he had been entrusted with the execution of
the imperial ban against the city of Magdeburg, and under cover of these
operations he was able to collect troops and to concert measures with his
allies. Favourable terms were granted to Magdeburg, which surrendered and
remained in the power of Maurice, and in January 1552 a treaty was
concluded with Henry II. of France at Chambord. Meanwhile Maurice had
refused to recognize the Interim issued from Augsburg in May 1548 as
binding on Saxony; but a compromise was arranged on the basis of which
the Leipzig Interim was drawn up for his lands. It is uncertain how far
Charles was ignorant of the elector’s preparations, but certainly he was
unprepared for the attack made by Maurice and his allies in March 1552.
Augsburg was taken, the pass of Ehrenberg was forced, and in a few days
the emperor left Innsbruck as a fugitive. Ferdinand undertook to make
peace, and the Treaty of Passau, signed in August 1552, was the result.
Maurice obtained a general amnesty and freedom for Philip of Hesse, but
was unable to obtain a perpetual religious peace for the Lutherans. Charles
stubbornly insisted that this question must be referred to the Diet, and
Maurice was obliged to give way. He then fought against the Turks, and
renewed his communications with Henry of France. Returning from
Hungary the elector placed himself at the head of the princes who were
seeking to check the career of his former ally, Albert Alcibiades, whose
depredations were making him a curse to Germany. The rival armies met at
Sievershausen on the 9th of July 1553, where after a fierce encounter Albert

was defeated. The victor, however, was wounded during the fight and died
two days later.

Maurice was a friend to learning, and devoted some of the secularized
church property to the advancement of education. Very different estimates
have been formed of his character. He has been represented as the saviour
of German Protestantism on the one hand, and on the other as a traitor to his
faith and country. In all probability he was neither the one nor the other, but
a man of great ambition who, indifferent to religious considerations, made
good use of the exigencies of the time. He was generous and enlightened, a
good soldier and a clever diplomatist. He left an only daughter Anna (d.
1577), who became the second wife of William the Silent, prince of Orange.

The elector’s Politische Korrespondenz has been edited by E.
Brandenburg (Leipzig, 1900-1904); and a sketch of him is given by
Roger Ascham in A Report and Discourse of the Affairs and State of
Germany (London, 1864-1865). See also F. A. von Langenn, Moritz
Herzog und Churfürst zu Sachsen (Leipzig, 1841); G. Voigt, Moritz
von Sachsen (Leipzig, 1876); E. Brandenburg, Moritz von Sachsen
(Leipzig, 1898); S. Issleib, Moritz von Sachsen als protestantischer
Fürst (Hamburg, 1898); J. Witter, Die Beziehung und der Verkehr des
Kurfürsten Moritz mit König Ferdinand (Jena, 1886); L. von Ranke,
Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation, Bde. IV. and V.
(Leipzig, 1882); and W. Maurenbrecher in the Allgemeine deutsche
Biographie, Bd. XXII. (Leipzig, 1885). For bibliography see
Maurenbrecher; and The Cambridge Modern History, vol. ii.
(Cambridge, 1903).

MAURICE, JOHN FREDERICK DENISON (1805-
1872), English theologian, was born at Normanston, Suffolk, on the 29th of
August, 1805. He was the son of a Unitarian minister, and entered Trinity
College, Cambridge, in 1823, though it was then impossible for any but
members of the Established Church to obtain a degree. Together with John
Sterling (with whom he founded the Apostles’ Club) he migrated to Trinity
Hall, whence he obtained a first class in civil law in 1827; he then came to
London, and gave himself to literary work, writing a novel, Eustace
Conyers, and editing the London Literary Chronicle until 1830, and also for
a short time the Athenaeum. At this time he was much perplexed as to his
religious opinions, and he ultimately found relief in a decision to take a
further university course and to seek Anglican orders. Entering Exeter
College, Oxford, he took a second class in classics in 1831. He was
ordained in 1834, and after a short curacy at Bubbenhall in Warwickshire
was appointed chaplain of Guy’s Hospital, and became thenceforward a
sensible factor in the intellectual and social life of London. From 1839 to
1841 Maurice was editor of the Education Magazine. In 1840 he was
appointed professor of English history and literature in King’s College, and
to this post in 1846 was added the chair of divinity. In 1845 he was Boyle
lecturer and Warburton lecturer. These chairs he held till 1853. In that year
he published Theological Essays, wherein were stated opinions which
savoured to the principal, Dr R. W. Jelf, and to the council, of unsound
theology in regard to eternal punishment. He had previously been called on

to clear himself from charges of heterodoxy brought against him in the
Quarterly Review (1851), and had been acquitted by a committee of inquiry.
Now again he maintained with great warmth of conviction that his views
were in close accordance with Scripture and the Anglican standards, but the
council, without specifying any distinct “heresy” and declining to submit
the case to the judgment of competent theologians, ruled otherwise, and he
was deprived of his professorships. He held at the same time the chaplaincy
of Lincoln’s Inn, for which he had resigned Guy’s (1846-1860), but when
he offered to resign this the benchers refused. Nor was he assailed in the
incumbency of St. Peter’s, Vere Street, which he held for nine years (1860-
1869), and where he drew round him a circle of thoughtful people. During
the early years of this period he was engaged in a hot and bitter controversy
with H. L. Mansel (afterwards dean of St Paul’s), arising out of the latter’s
Bampton lecture upon reason and revelation.

During his residence in London Maurice was specially identified with
two important movements for education. He helped to found Queen’s
College for the education of women (1848), and the Working Men’s
College (1854), of which he was the first principal. He strongly advocated
the abolition of university tests (1853), and threw himself with great energy
into all that affected the social life of the people. Certain abortive attempts
at co-operation among working men, and the movement known as Christian
Socialism, were the immediate outcome of his teaching. In 1866 Maurice
was appointed professor of moral philosophy at Cambridge, and from 1870
to 1872 was incumbent of St Edward’s in that city. He died on the 1st of
April 1872.

He was twice married, first to Anna Barton, a sister of John Sterling’s
wife, secondly to a half-sister of his friend Archdeacon Hare. His son
Major-General Sir J. Frederick Maurice (b. 1841), became a distinguished
soldier and one of the most prominent military writers of his time.

Those who knew Maurice best were deeply impressed with the
spirituality of his character. “Whenever he woke in the night,” says his wife,
“he was always praying.” Charles Kingsley called him “the most beautiful
human soul whom God has ever allowed me to meet with.” As regards his
intellectual attainments we may set Julius Hare’s verdict “the greatest mind
since Plato” over against Ruskin’s “by nature puzzle-headed and indeed
wrong-headed.” Such contradictory impressions bespeak a life made up of
contradictory elements. Maurice was a man of peace, yet his life was spent
in a series of conflicts; of deep humility, yet so polemical that he often
seemed biased; of large charity, yet bitter in his attack upon the religious
press of his time; a loyal churchman who detested the label “Broad,” yet
poured out criticism upon the leaders of the Church. With an intense
capacity for visualizing the unseen, and a kindly dignity, he combined a
large sense of humour. While most of the “Broad Churchmen” were
influenced by ethical and emotional considerations in their repudiation of
the dogma of everlasting torment, he was swayed by purely intellectual and
theological arguments, and in questions of a more general liberty he often
opposed the proposed Liberal theologians, though he as often took their
side if he saw them hard pressed. He had a wide metaphysical and
philosophical knowledge which he applied to the history of theology. He
was a strenuous advocate of ecclesiastical control in elementary education,
and an opponent of the new school of higher biblical criticism, though so
far an evolutionist as to believe in growth and development as applied to the
history of nations.

As a preacher, his message was apparently simple; his two great
convictions were the fatherhood of God, and that all religious systems
which had any stability lasted because of a portion of truth which had
to be disentangled from the error differentiating them from the
doctrines of the Church of England as understood by himself. His love
to God as his Father was a passionate adoration which filled his whole

heart. The prophetic, even apocalyptic, note of his preaching was
particularly impressive. He prophesied in London as Isaiah prophesied
to the little towns of Palestine and Syria, “often with dark foreboding,
but seeing through all unrest and convulsion the working out of a sure
divine purpose.” Both at King’s College and at Cambridge Maurice
gathered round him a band of earnest students, to whom he directly
taught much that was valuable drawn from wide stores of his own
reading, wide rather than deep, for he never was, strictly speaking, a
learned man. Still more did he encourage the habit of inquiry and
research, more valuable than his direct teaching. In his Socratic power
of convincing his pupils of their ignorance he did more than perhaps
any other man of his time to awaken in those who came under his sway
the desire for knowledge and the process of independent thought.

As a social reformer, Maurice was before his time, and gave his
eager support to schemes for which the world was not ready. From an
early period of his life in London the condition of the poor pressed
upon him with consuming force; the enormous magnitude of the social
questions involved was a burden which he could hardly bear. For many
years he was the clergyman whom working men of all opinions seemed
to trust even if their faith in other religious men and all religious
systems had faded, and he had a marvellous power of attracting the
zealot and the outcast.

His works cover nearly 40 volumes, often obscure, often
tautological, and with no great distinction of style. But their high
purpose and philosophical outlook give his writings a permanent place
in the history of the thought of his time. The following are the more
important works—some of them were rewritten and in a measure
recast, and the date given is not necessarily that of the first appearance
of the book, but of its more complete and abiding form: Eustace

Conway, or the Brother and Sister, a novel (1834); The Kingdom of
Christ (1842); Christmas Day and Other Sermons (1843); The Unity of
the New Testament (1844); The Epistle to the Hebrews (1846); The
Religions of the World (1847); Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy (at
first an article in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, 1848); The Church
a Family (1850); The Old Testament (1851); Theological Essays
(1853); The Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament (1853); Lectures
on Ecclesiastical History (1854); The Doctrine of Sacrifice (1854); The
Patriarchs and Lawgivers of the Old Testament (1855); The Epistles of
St John (1857); The Commandments as Instruments of National
Reformation (1866); On the Gospel of St Luke (1868); The Conscience:
Lectures on Casuistry (1868); The Lord’s Prayer, a Manual (1870). The
greater part of these works were first delivered as sermons or lectures.
Maurice also contributed many prefaces and introductions to the works
of friends, as to Archdeacon Hare’s Charges, Kingsley’s Saint’s
Tragedy, &c.

See Life by his son (2 vols., London, 1884), and a monograph by C.
F. G. Masterman (1907) in “Leader of the Church” series; W. E. Collins
in Typical English Churchmen, pp. 327-360 (1902), and T. Hughes in
The Friendship of Books (1873).

MAURICE OF NASSAU, prince of Orange (1567-1625), the
second son of William the Silent, by Anna, only daughter of the famous
Maurice, elector of Saxony, was born at Dillenburg. At the time of his

father’s assassination in 1584 he was being educated at the university of
Leiden, at the expense of the states of Holland and Zeeland. Despite his
youth he was made stadtholder of those two provinces and president of the
council of state. During the period of Leicester’s governorship he remained
in the background, engaged in acquiring a thorough knowledge of the
military art, and in 1586 the States of Holland conferred upon him the title
of prince. On the withdrawal of Leicester from the Netherlands in August
1587, Johan van Oldenbarneveldt, the advocate of Holland, became the
leading statesman of the country, a position which he retained for upwards
of thirty years. He had been a devoted adherent of William the Silent and he
now used his influence to forward the interests of Maurice. In 1588 he was
appointed by the States-General captain and admiral-general of the Union,
in 1590 he was elected stadtholder of Utrecht and Overysel, and in 1591 of
Gelderland. From this time forward, Oldenbarneveldt at the head of the
civil government and Maurice in command of the armed forces of the
republic worked together in the task of rescuing the United Netherlands
from Spanish domination (for details see Holland). Maurice soon showed
himself to be a general second in skill to none of his contemporaries. He
was especially famed for his consummate knowledge of the science of
sieges. The twelve years’ truce on the 9th of April 1609 brought to an end
the cordial relations between Maurice and Oldenbarneveldt. Maurice was
opposed to the truce, but the advocate’s policy triumphed and henceforward
there was enmity between them. The theological disputes between the
Remonstrants and contra-Remonstrants found them on different sides; and
the theological quarrel soon became a political one. Oldenbarneveldt,
supported by the states of Holland, came forward as the champion of
provincial sovereignty against that of the states-general; Maurice threw the
weight of his sword on the side of the union. The struggle was a short one,
for the army obeyed the general who had so often led them to victory.
Oldenbarneveldt perished on the scaffold, and the share which Maurice had

in securing the illegal condemnation by a packed court of judges of the aged
patriot must ever remain a stain upon his memory.

Maurice, who had on the death of his elder brother Philip William, in
February 1618, become prince of Orange, was now supreme in the state, but
during the remainder of his life he sorely missed the wise counsels of the
experienced Oldenbarneveldt. War broke out again in 1621, but success had
ceased to accompany him on his campaigns. His health gave way, and he
died, a prematurely aged man, at the Hague on the 4th of April 1625. He
was buried by his father’s side at Delft.

Bibliography.—I. Commelin, Wilhelm en Maurits v. Nassau, pr. v.
Orangien, haer leven en bedrijf (Amsterdam, 1651); G. Groen van
Prinsterer, Archives ou correspondance de la maison d’Orange-
Nassau, 1e série, 9 vols. (Leiden, 1841-1861); G. Groen van Prinsterer,
Maurice et Barneveldt (Utrecht, 1875); J. L. Motley, Life and Death of
John of Barneveldt (2 vols., The Hague, 1894); C. M. Kemp, v.d.
Maurits v. Nassau, prins v. Oranje in zijn leven en verdiensten (4 vols.,
Rotterdam, 1845); M. O. Nutting, The Days of Prince Maurice (Boston
and Chicago, 1894).

MAURISTS, a congregation of French Benedictines called after St
Maurus (d. 565), a disciple of St Benedict and the legendary introducer of
the Benedictine rule and life into Gaul.1 At the end of the 16th century the
Benedictine monasteries of France had fallen into a state of disorganization

and relaxation. In the abbey of St Vaune near Verdun a reform was initiated
by Dom Didier de la Cour, which spread to other houses in Lorraine, and in
1604 the reformed congregation of St Vaune was established, the most
distinguished members of which were Ceillier and Calmet. A number of
French houses joined the new congregation; but as Lorraine was still
independent of the French crown, it was considered desirable to form on the
same lines a separate congregation for France. Thus in 1621 was established
the famous French congregation of St Maur. Most of the Benedictine
monasteries of France, except those belonging to Cluny, gradually joined
the new congregation, which eventually embraced nearly two hundred
houses. The chief house was Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris, the residence
of the superior-general and centre of the literary activity of the
congregation. The primary idea of the movement was not the undertaking of
literary and historical work, but the return to a strict monastic régime and
the faithful carrying out of Benedictine life; and throughout the most
glorious period of Maurist history the literary work was not allowed to
interfere with the due performance of the choral office and the other duties
of the monastic life. Towards the end of the 18th century a tendency crept
in, in some quarters, to relax the monastic observances in favour of study;
but the constitutions of 1770 show that a strict monastic régime was
maintained until the end. The course of Maurist history and work was
checkered by the ecclesiastical controversies that distracted the French
Church during the 17th and 18th centuries. Some of the members identified
themselves with the Jansenist cause; but the bulk, including nearly all the
greatest names, pursued a middle path, opposing the lax moral theology
condemned in 1679 by Pope Innocent XI., and adhering to those strong
views on grace and predestination associated with the Augustinian and
Thomist schools of Catholic theology; and like all the theological faculties
and schools on French soil, they were bound to teach the four Gallican
articles. It seems that towards the end of the 18th century a rationalistic and

free-thinking spirit invaded some of the houses. The congregation was
suppressed and the monks scattered at the revolution, the last superior-
general with forty of his monks dying on the scaffold in Paris. The present
French congregation of Benedictines initiated by Dom Guéranger in 1833 is
a new creation and has no continuity with the congregation of St Maur.

The great claim of the Maurists to the gratitude and admiration of
posterity is their historical and critical school, which stands quite alone in
history, and produced an extraordinary number of colossal works of
erudition which still are of permanent value. The foundations of this school
were laid by Dom Tarisse, the first superior-general, who in 1632 issued
instructions to the superiors of the monasteries to train the young monks in
the habits of research and of organized work. The pioneers in production
were Ménard and d’Achery.

The following tables give, divided into groups, the most important
Maurist works, along with such information as may be useful to
students. All works are folio when not otherwise noted:—

I.—The Editions of the Fathers
Epistle of Barnabas Ménard 1645 1 in
(editio princeps) 4to
Lanfranc d’Achery 1648 1
Guibert of Nogent d’Achery 1651 1
Robert Pulleyn and Peter Mathou 1655 1
of Poitiers
Bernard Mabillon 1667 2
Anselm Gerberon 1675 1
Cassiodorus Garet 1679 1

Augustine (see Kukula, Delfau, Blampin, 1681- 11
Die Mauriner- Coustant, 1700
Ausgabe des Guesnie
Augustinus, 1898)
Ambrose du Frische 1686- 2
1690
Acta martyrum sincera Ruinart 1689 1
Hilary Coustant 1693 1
Jerome Martianay 1693- 5
1706
Athanasius Loppin and 1698 3
Montfaucon
Gregory of Tours Ruinart 1699 1
Gregory the Great Sainte-Marthe 1705 4
Hildebert of Tours Beaugendre 1708 1
Irenaeus Massuet 1710 1
Chrysostom Montfaucon 1718- 13
1738
Cyril of Jerusalem Touttée and 1720 1
Maran
Epistolae romanorum Coustant 1721 1
pontificum2
Basil Garnier and 1721- 3
Maran 1730
Cyprian (Baluze, not a 1726 1
Maurist)
finished by
Maran
Origen Ch. de la Rue (1, 1733- 4
2, 3) V. de la 1759

Rue (4)
Justin and the Apologists Maran 1742 1
Gregory Nazianzen3 Maran and 1778 1
Clémencet

II.—Biblical Works
St Jerome’s Latin Bible Martianay 1693 1
Origen’s Hexapla Montfaucon 1713 2
Old Latin versions Sabbathier 1743- 3
1749

III.—Great Collections of Documents
Spicilegium d’Achery 1655- 13
1677 in
4to
Veterae analecta Mabillon 1675- 4 in
1685 8vo
Musaeum italicum Mabillon 1687- 2 in
1689 4to
Collectio nova patrum Montfaucon 1706 2
graecorum
Thesaurus novus Martène and 1717 5
anecdotorum Durand
Veterum scriptorum Martène and 1724- 9
collectio Durand 1733
De antiquis Martène 1690-
ecclesiaeritibus 1706
(Final form) 1736- 4
1738

IV.—Monastic History
Acta of the Benedictine d’Achery, 1668- 9
Saints Mabillon and 1701
Ruinart
Benedictine Annals (to Mabillon (1-4), 1703- 6
1157) Massuet (5), 1739
Martène (6)

V.—Ecclesiastical History and Antiquities of France

A.—General.
Gallia Christiana (3 other Sainte-Marthe (1, 1715- 13
vols. were published 2, 3) 1785
1856-1865)
Monuments de la Montfaucon 1729- 5
monarchie française 1733
Histoire littéraire de la Rivet, 1733- 12
France (16 other vols. Clémencet, 1763 in
were published 1814- Clément 4to
1881)
Recueil des historiens de Bouquet (1-8), 1738- 19
la France (4 other Brial (12-19) 1833
vols. were published
1840-1876)
Concilia Galliae (the Labbat 1789 1
printing of vol. ii.
was interrupted by
the Revolution; there

were to have been 8
vols.)

B.—Histories of the Provinces.
Bretagne Lobineau 1707 2
Paris Félibien and 1725 5
Lobineau
Languedoc Vaissette and de 1730- 5
Vic 1745
Bourgogne Plancher (1-3), 1739- 4
Merle (4) 1748,
1781
Bretagne Morice 1742- 5
1756

VI.—Miscellaneous Works of Technical Erudition
De re diplomatica Mabillon 1681 1
Ditto Supplement Mabillon 1704 1
Nouveau traité de Toustain and 1750- 6 in
diplomatique Tassin 1765 4to
Paleographia graeca Montfaucon 1708 1
Bibliotheca coisliniana Montfaucon 1715 1
Bibliotheca Montfaucon 1739 2
bibliothecarum
manuscriptorum nova
L’Antiquité expliqué Montfaucon 1719- 15
1724
New ed. of Du Cange’s Dantine and 1733- 6
glossarium Carpentier 1736
Ditto Supplement Carpentier 1766 4

Apparatus ad le Nourry 1703 2
bibliothecam
maximam patrum
L’Art de vérifier les dates Dantine, Durand, 1750 1 in
Clémencet 4to
Ed. 2 Clément 1770 1
Ed. 3 Clément 1783- 3
1787

The 58 works in the above list comprise 199 great folio volumes and
39 in 4to or 8vo. The full Maurist bibliography contains the names of
some 220 writers and more than 700 works. The lesser works in large
measure cover the same fields as those in the list, but the number of
works of purely religious character, of piety, devotion and edification,
is very striking. Perhaps the most wonderful phenomenon of Maurist
work is that what was produced was only a portion of what was
contemplated and prepared for. The French Revolution cut short many
gigantic undertakings, the collected materials for which fill hundreds of
manuscript volumes in the Bibliothèque nationale of Paris and other
libraries of France. There are at Paris 31 volumes of Berthereau’s
materials for the Historians of the Crusades, not only in Latin and
Greek, but in the oriental tongues; from them have been taken in great
measure the Recueil des historiens des croisades, whereof 15 folio
volumes have been published by the Académie des Inscriptions. There
exist also the preparations for an edition of Rufinus and one of
Eusebius, and for the continuation of the Papal Letters and of the
Concilia Galliae. Dom Caffiaux and Dom Villevielle left 236 volumes
of materials for a Trésor généalogique. There are Benedictine
Antiquities (37 vols.), a Monasticon Gallicanum and a Monasticon

Benedictinum (54 vols.). Of the Histories of the Provinces of France
barely half a dozen were printed, but all were in hand, and the
collections for the others fill 800 volumes of MSS. The materials for a
geography of Gaul and France in 50 volumes perished in a fire during
the Revolution.

When these figures were considered, and when one contemplates the
vastness of the works in progress during any decade of the century
1680-1780; and still more, when not only the quantity but the quality of
the work, and the abiding value of most of it is realized, it will be
recognized that the output was prodigious and unique in the history of
letters, as coming from a single society. The qualities that have made
Maurist work proverbial for sound learning are its fine critical tact and
its thoroughness.

The chief source of information on the Maurists and their work is
Dom Tassin’s Histoire littéraire de la congregation de Saint-Maur
(1770); it has been reduced to a bare bibliography and completed by de
Lama, Bibliothèque des écrivains de la congr. de S.-M. (1882). The two
works of de Broglie, Mabillon (2 vols., 1888) and Montfaucon (2 vols.,
1891), give a charming picture of the inner life of the great Maurists of
the earlier generation in the midst of their work and their friends.
Sketches of the lives of a few of the chief Maurists will be found in
McCarthy’s Principal Writers of the Congr. of S. M. (1868). Useful
information about their literary undertakings will be found in De
Lisle’s Cabinet des MSS. de la Bibl. Nat. Fonds St Germain-des-Prés.
General information will be found in the standard authorities: Helyot,
Hist. des ordres religieux (1718), vi. c. 37; Heimbucher, Orden und
Kongregationen (1907) i. § 36; Wetzer und Welte, Kirchenlexicon (ed.
2) and Herzog-Hauck’s Realencyklopädie (ed. 3), the latter an

interesting appreciation by the Protestant historian Otto Zöckler of the
spirit and the merits of the work of the Maurists. (E. C. B.)

1 His festival is kept on the 15th of January. He founded the monastery of Glanfeuil or
St Maur-sur-Loire.

2 14 vols. of materials collected for the continuation are at Paris.

3 The printing of vol. ii. was impeded by the Revolution.

MAURITIUS, an island and British colony in the Indian Ocean
(known whilst a French possession as the Île de France). It lies between 57°
18′ and 57° 49′ E., and 19° 58′ and 20° 32′ S., 550 m. E. of Madagascar,
2300 m. from the Cape of Good Hope, and 9500 m. from England via Suez.
The island is irregularly elliptical—somewhat triangular—in shape, and is
36 m. long from N.N.E. to S.S.W., and about 23 m. broad. It is 130 m. in
circumference, and its total area is about 710 sq. m. (For map see
Madagascar.) The island is surrounded by coral reefs, so that the ports are
difficult of access.

From its mountainous character Mauritius is a most picturesque island,
and its scenery is very varied and beautiful. It has been admirably described
by Bernardin de St Pierre, who lived in the island towards the close of the
18th century, in Paul et Virginie. The most level portions of the coast
districts are the north and north-east, all the rest being broken by hills,
which vary from 500 to 2700 ft. in height. The principal mountain masses

are the north-western or Pouce range, in the district of Port Louis; the
south-western, in the districts of Rivière Noire and Savanne; and the south-
eastern range, in the Grand Port district. In the first of these, which consists
of one principal ridge with several lateral spurs, overlooking Port Louis, are
the singular peak of the Pouce (2650 ft.), so called from its supposed
resemblance to the human thumb; and the still loftier Pieter Botte (2685 ft.),
a tall obelisk of bare rock, crowned with a globular mass of stone. The
highest summit in the island is in the south-western mass of hills, the Piton
de la Rivière Noire, which is 2711 ft. above the sea. The south-eastern
group of hills consists of the Montagne du Bambou, with several spurs
running down to the sea. In the interior are extensive fertile plains, some
1200 ft. in height, forming the districts of Moka, Vacois, and Plaines
Wilhelms; and from nearly the centre of the island an abrupt peak, the Piton
du Milieu de l’Île rises to a height of 1932 ft. Other prominent summits are
the Trois Mamelles, the Montagne du Corps de Garde, the Signal Mountain,
near Port Louis, and the Morne Brabant, at the south-west corner of the
island.

The rivers are small, and none is navigable beyond a few hundred yards
from the sea. In the dry season little more than brooks, they become raging
torrents in the wet season. The principal stream is the Grande Rivière, with
a course of about 10 m. There is a remarkable and very deep lake, called
Grand Bassin, in the south of the island, it is probably the extinct crater of
an ancient volcano; similar lakes are the Mare aux Vacois and the Mare aux
Joncs, and there are other deep hollows which have a like origin.

Geology.—The island is of volcanic origin, but has ceased to show
signs of volcanic activity. All the rocks are of basalt and greyish-tinted
lavas, excepting some beds of upraised coral. Columnar basalt is seen
in several places. The remains of ancient craters can be distinguished,
but their outlines have been greatly destroyed by denudation. There are

many caverns and steep ravines, and from the character of the rocks the
ascents are rugged and precipitous. The island has few minerals,
although iron, lead and copper in very small quantities have in former
times been obtained. The greater part of the surface is composed of a
volcanic breccia, with here and there lava-streams exposed in ravines,
and sometimes on the surface. The commonest lavas are dolerites. In at
least two places sedimentary rocks are found at considerable
elevations. In the Black River Mountains, at a height of about 1200 ft.,
there is a clay-slate; and near Midlands, in the Grand Port group of
mountains, a chloritic schist occurs about 1700 ft. above the sea,
forming the hill of La Selle. This schist is much contorted, but seems to
have a general dip to the south or south-east. Evidence of recent
elevation of the island is furnished by masses of coral reef and beach
coral rock standing at heights of 40 ft. above sea-level in the south, 12
ft. in the north and 7 ft. on the islands situated on the bank extending to
the north-east.1

Climate.—The climate is pleasant during the cool season of the year,
but oppressively hot in summer (December to April), except in the
elevated plains of the interior, where the thermometer ranges from 70°
to 80° F., while in Port Louis and on the coast generally it ranges from
90° to 96°. The mean temperature for the year at Port Louis is 78.6°.
There are two seasons, the cool and comparatively dry season, from
April to November, and the hotter season, during the rest of the year.
The climate is now less healthy than it was, severe epidemics of
malarial fever having frequently occurred, so that malaria now appears
to be endemic among the non-European population. The rainfall varies
greatly in different parts of the island. Cluny in the Grand Port (south-
eastern) district has a mean annual rainfall of 145 in.; Albion on the
west coast is the driest station, with a mean annual rainfall of 31 in.
The mean monthly rainfall for the whole island varies from 12 in. in

March to 2.6 in. in September and October. The Royal Alfred
Observatory is situated at Pamplemousses, on the north-west or dry
side of the island. From January to the middle of April, Mauritius, in
common with the neighbouring islands and the surrounding ocean from
8° to 30° of southern latitude is subject to severe cyclones,
accompanied by torrents of rain, which often cause great destruction to
houses and plantations. These hurricanes generally last about eight
hours, but they appear to be less frequent and violent than in former
times, owing, it is thought, to the destruction of the ancient forests and
the consequent drier condition of the atmosphere.

Fauna and Flora.—Mauritius being an oceanic island of small size,
its present fauna is very limited in extent. When first seen by
Europeans it contained no mammals except a large fruit-eating bat
(Pteropus vulgaris), which is plentiful in the woods; but several
mammals have been introduced, and are now numerous in the
uncultivated region. Among these are two monkeys of the genera
Macacus and Cercopithecus, a stag (Cervus hippelaphus), a small hare,
a shrew-mouse, and the ubiquitous rat. A lemur and one of the curious
hedgehog-like Insectivora of Madagascar (Centetes ecaudatus) have
probably both been brought from the larger island. The avifauna
resembles that of Madagascar; there are species of a peculiar genus of
caterpillar shrikes (Campephagidae), as well as of the genera
Pratincola, Hypsipetes, Phedina, Tchitrea, Zosterops, Foudia,
Collocalia and Coracopsis, and peculiar forms of doves and parakeets.
The living reptiles are small and few in number. The surrounding seas
contain great numbers of fish; the coral reefs abound with a great
variety of molluscs; and there are numerous land-shells. The extinct
fauna of Mauritius has considerable interest. In common with the other
Mascarene islands, it was the home of the dodo (Didus ineptus); there
were also Aphanapteryx, a species of rail, and a short-winged heron

(Ardea megacephala), which probably seldom flew. The defenceless
condition of these birds led to their extinction after the island was
colonized. Considerable quantities of the bones of the dodo and other
extinct birds—a rail (Aphanapteryx), and a short-winged heron—have
been discovered in the beds of some of the ancient lakes (see Dodo).
Several species of large fossil tortoises have also been discovered; they
are quite different from the living ones of Aldabra, in the same
zoological region.

Owing to the destruction of the primeval forests for the formation of
sugar plantations, the indigenous flora is only seen in parts of the
interior plains, in the river valleys and on the hills; and it is not now
easy to distinguish between what is native and what has come from
abroad. The principal timber tree is the ebony (Diospyros ebeneum),
which grows to a considerable size. Besides this there are bois de
cannelle, olive-tree, benzoin (Croton Benzoe), colophane (Colophonia),
and iron-wood, all of which arc useful in carpentry; the coco-nut palm,
an importation, but a tree which has been so extensively planted during
the last hundred years that it is extremely plentiful; the palmiste (Palma
dactylifera latifolia), the latanier (Corypha umbraculifera) and the
date-palm. The vacoa or vacois, (Pandanus utilis) is largely grown, the
long tough leaves being manufactured into bags for the export of sugar,
and the roots being also made of use; and in the few remnants of the
original forests the traveller’s tree (Urania speciosa), grows
abundantly. A species of bamboo is very plentiful in the river valleys
and in marshy situations. A large variety of fruit is produced, including
the tamarind, mango, banana, pine-apple, guava, shaddock, fig,
avocado-pear, litchi, custard-apple and the mabolo (Diospyros
discolor), a fruit of exquisite flavour, but very disagreeable odour.
Many of the roots and vegetables of Europe have been introduced, as
well as some of those peculiar to the tropics, including maize, millet,

yams, manioc, dhol, gram, &c. Small quantities of tea, rice and sago,
have been grown, as well as many of the spices (cloves, nutmeg,
ginger, pepper and allspice), and also cotton, indigo, betel, camphor,
turmeric and vanilla. The Royal Botanical Gardens at Pamplemousses,
which date from the French occupation of the island, contain a rich
collection of tropical and extra-tropical species.

Inhabitants.—The inhabitants consist of two great divisions, those of
European blood, chiefly French and British, together with numerous half-
caste people, and those of Asiatic or African blood. The population of
European blood, which calls itself Creole, is greater than that of any other
tropical colony; many of the inhabitants trace their descent from ancient
French families, and the higher and middle classes are distinguished for
their intellectual culture. French is more commonly spoken than English.
The Creole class is, however, diminishing, though slowly, and the most
numerous section of the population is of Indian blood.

The introduction of Indian coolies to work the sugar plantations
dates from the period of the emancipation of the slaves in 1834-1839.
At that time the negroes who showed great unwillingness to work on
their late masters’ estates, numbered about 66,000. Immigration from
India began in 1834, and at a census taken in 1846, when the total
population was 158,462, there were already 56,245 Indians in the
island. In 1851 the total population had increased to 180,823, while in
1861 it was 310,050. This great increase was almost entirely due to
Indian immigration, the Indian population, 77,996 in 1851, being
192,634 in 1861. From that year the increase in the Indian population
has been more gradual but steady, while the non-Indian population has
decreased. From 102,827 in 1851 it rose to 117,416 in 1861 to sink to
99,784 in 1871. The figures for the three following census years were:
—

1881. 1891. 1901.
Indians 248,993 255,920 259,086
Others 110,881 114,668 111,937
——— ——— ———
Total 359,874 370,588 371,023
——— ——— ———

Including the military and crews of ships in harbour, the total
population in 1901 was 373,336.2 This total included 198,958 Indo-
Mauritians, i.e. persons of Indian descent born in Mauritius, and 62,022
other Indians. There were 3,509 Chinese, while the remaining 108,847
included persons of European, African or mixed descent, Malagasy,
Malays and Sinhalese. The Indian female population increased from
51,019 in 1861 to 115,986 in 1901. In the same period the non-Indian
female population but slightly varied, being 56,070 in 1861 and 55,485
in 1901. The Indo-Mauritians are now dominant in commercial,
agricultural and domestic callings, and much town and agricultural
land has been transferred from the Creole planters to Indians and
Chinese. The tendency to an Indian peasant proprietorship is marked.
Since 1864 real property to the value of over £1,250,000 has been
acquired by Asiatics. Between 1881 and 1901 the number of sugar
estates decreased from 171 to 115, those sold being held in small
parcels by Indians. The average death-rate for the period 1873-1901
was 32.6 per 1000. The average birth-rate in the Indian community is
37 per 1000; in the non-Indian community 34 per 1000. Many
Mauritian Creoles have emigrated to South Africa. The great increase
in the population since 1851 has made Mauritius one of the most
densely peopled regions of the world, having over 520 persons per
square mile.

Chief Towns.—The capital and seat of government, the city of Port
Louis, is on the north-western side of the island, in 20° 10′ S., 57° 30′
E. at the head of an excellent harbour, a deep inlet about a mile long,
available for ships of the deepest draught. This is protected by Fort
William and Fort George, as well as by the citadel (Fort Adelaide), and
it has three graving-docks connected with the inner harbour, the depths
alongside quays and berths being from 12 to 28 ft. The trade of the
island passes almost entirely through the port. Government House is a
three-storeyed structure with broad verandas, of no particular style of
architecture, while the Protestant cathedral was formerly a powder
magazine, to which a tower and spire have been added. The Roman
Catholic cathedral is more pretentious in style, but is tawdry in its
interior. There are, besides the town-hall, Royal College, public offices
and theatre, large barracks and military stores. Port Louis, which is
governed by an elective municipal council, is surrounded by lofty hills
and its unhealthy situation is aggravated by the difficulty of effective
drainage owing to the small amount of tide in the harbour. Though
much has been done to make the town sanitary, including the provision
of a good water-supply, the death-rate is generally over 44 per 1000.
Consequently all those who can make their homes in the cooler uplands
of the interior. As a result the population of the city decreased from
about 70,000 in 1891 to 53,000 in 1901. The favourite residential town
is Curepipe, where the climate resembles that of the south of France. It
is built on the central plateau about 20 m. distant from Port Louis by
rail and 1800 ft. above the sea. Curepipe was incorporated in 1888 and
had a population (1901) of 13,000. On the railway between Port Louis
and Curepipe are other residential towns—Beau Bassin, Rose Hill and
Quatre Bornes. Mahébourg, pop. (1901), 4810, is a town on the shores
of Grand Port on the south-east side of the island, Souillac a small
town on the south coast.

Industries.—The Sugar Plantations: The soil of the island is of
considerable fertility; it is a ferruginous red clay, but so largely mingled
with stones of all sizes that no plough can be used, and the hoe has to
be employed to prepare the ground for cultivation. The greater portion
of the plains is now a vast sugar plantation. The bright green of the
sugar fields is a striking feature in a view of Mauritius from the sea,
and gives a peculiar beauty and freshness to the prospect. The soil is
suitable for the cultivation of almost all kinds of tropical produce, and
it is to be regretted that the prosperity of the colony depends almost
entirely on one article of production, for the consequences are serious
when there is a failure, more or less, of the sugar crop. Guano is
extensively imported as a manure, and by its use the natural fertility of
the soil has been increased to a wonderful extent. Since the beginning
of the 20th century some attention has been paid to the cultivation of
tea and cotton, with encouraging results. Of the exports, sugar amounts
on an average to about 95% of the total. The quantity of sugar exported
rose from 102,000 tons in 1854 to 189,164 tons in 1877. The
competition of beet-sugar and the effect of bounties granted by various
countries then began to tell on the production in Mauritius, the average
crop for the seven years ending 1900-1901 being only 150,449 tons.
The Brussels Sugar Convention of 1902 led to an increase in
production, the average annual weight of sugar exported for the three
years 1904-1906 being 182,000 tons. The value of the crop was
likewise seriously affected by the causes mentioned, and by various
diseases which attacked the canes. Thus in 1878 the value of the sugar
exported was £3,408,000; in 1888 it had sunk to £1,911,000, and in
1898 to £1,632,000. In 1900 the value was £1,922,000, and in 1905 it
had risen to £2,172,000. India and the South African colonies between
them take some two-thirds of the total produce. The remainder is taken
chiefly by Great Britain, Canada and Hong-Kong. Next to sugar, aloe-

fibre is the most important export, the average annual export for the
five years ending 1906 being 1840 tons. In addition, a considerable
quantity of molasses and smaller quantities of rum, vanilla and coco-
nut oil are exported. The imports are mainly rice, wheat, cotton goods,
wine, coal, hardware and haberdashery, and guano. The rice comes
principally from India and Madagascar; cattle are imported from
Madagascar, sheep from South Africa and Australia, and frozen meat
from Australia. The average annual value of the exports for the ten
years 1896-1905 was £2,153,159; the average annual value of the
imports for the same period £1,453,089. These figures when compared
with those in years before the beet and bounty-fed sugar had entered
into severe competition with cane sugar, show how greatly the island
had thereby suffered. In 1864 the exports were valued at £2,249,000; in
1868 at £2,339,000; in 1877 at £4,201,000 and in 1880 at £3,634,000.
And in each of the years named the imports exceeded £2,000,000 in
value. Nearly all the aloe-fibre exported is taken by Great Britain, and
France, while the molasses goes to India. Among the minor exports is
that of bambara or sea-slugs, which are sent to Hong-Kong and
Singapore. This industry is chiefly in Chinese hands. The great
majority of the imports are from Great Britain or British possessions.

The currency of Mauritius is rupees and cents of a rupee, the Indian
rupee (= 16d.) being the standard unit. The metric system of weights
and measures has been in force since 1878.

Communications.—There is a regular fortnightly steamship service
between Marseilles and Port Louis by the Messageries Maritimes, a
four-weekly service with Southampton via Cape Town by the Union
Castle, and a four-weekly service with Colombo direct by the British
India Co.’s boats. There is also frequent communication with
Madagascar, Réunion and Natal. The average annual tonnage of ships

entering Port Louis is about 750,000 of which five-sevenths is British.
Cable communication with Europe, via the Seychelles, Zanzibar and
Aden, was established in 1893, and the Mauritius section of the Cape-
Australian cable, via Rodriguez, was completed in 1902.

Railways connect all the principal places and sugar estates on the
island, that known as the Midland line, 36 miles long, beginning at Port
Louis crosses the island to Mahébourg, passing through Curepipe,
where it is 1822 ft. above the sea. There are in all over 120 miles of
railway, all owned and worked by the government. The first railway
was opened in 1864. The roads are well kept and there is an extensive
system of tramways for bringing produce from the sugar estates to the
railway lines. Traction engines are also largely used. There is a
complete telegraphic and telephonic service.

Government and Revenue.—Mauritius is a crown colony. The governor
is assisted by an executive council of five official and two elected members,
and a legislative council of 27 members, 8 sitting ex officio, 9 being
nominated by the governor and 10 elected on a moderate franchise. Two of
the elected members represent St Louis, the 8 rural districts into which the
island is divided electing each one member. At least one-third of the
nominated members must be persons not holding any public office. The
number of registered electors in 1908 was 6186. The legislative session
usually lasts from April to December. Members may speak either in French
or English. The average annual revenue of the colony for the ten years
1896-1905, was £608,245, the average annual expenditure during the same
period £663,606. Up to 1854 there was a surplus in hand, but since that time
expenditure has on many occasions exceeded income, and the public debt in
1908 was £1,305,000, mainly incurred however on reproductive works.

The island has largely retained the old French laws, the codes civil, de
procédure, du commerce, and d’instruction criminelle being still in force,

except so far as altered by colonial ordinances. A supreme court of civil and
criminal justice was established in 1831 under a chief judge and three
puisne judges.

Religion and Education.—The majority of the European inhabitants
belong to the Roman Catholic faith. They numbered at the 1901 census
117,102, and the Protestants 6644. Anglicans, Roman Catholics and the
Church of Scotland are helped by state grants. At the head of the
Anglican community is the bishop of Mauritius; the chief Romanist
dignitary is styled bishop of Port Louis. The Mahommedans number
over 30,000, but the majority of the Indian coolies are Hindus.

The educational system, as brought into force in 1900, is under a
director of public instruction assisted by an advisory committee, and
consists of two branches (1) superior or secondary instruction, (2)
primary instruction. For primary instruction there are government
schools and schools maintained by the Roman Catholics, Protestants
and other faiths, to which the government gives grants in aid. In 1908
there were 67 government schools with 8400 scholars and 90 grant
schools with 10,200 scholars, besides Hindu schools receiving no
grant. The Roman Catholic scholars number 67.72%; the Protestants
3.80%; Mahommedans 8.37%; and Hindus and others 20.11%.
Secondary and higher education is given in the Royal College and
associated schools at Port Louis and Curepipe.

Defence.—Mauritius occupies an important strategic position on the
route between South Africa and India and in relation to Madagascar
and East Africa, while in Port Louis it possesses one of the finest
harbours in the Indian Ocean. A permanent garrison of some 3000 men
is maintained in the island at a cost of about £180,000 per annum. To
the cost of the troops Mauritius contributes 51⁄2% of its annual revenue
—about £30,000.

History.—Mauritius appears to have been unknown to European nations,
if not to all other peoples, until the year 1505, when it was discovered by
Mascarenhas, a Portuguese navigator. It had then no inhabitants, and there
seem to be no traces of a previous occupation by any people. The island
was retained for most of the 16th century by its discoverers, but they made
no settlements in it. In 1598 the Dutch took possession, and named the
island “Mauritius,” in honour of their stadtholder, Count Maurice of
Nassau. It had been previously called by the Portuguese “Ilha do Cerné,”
from the belief that it was the island so named by Pliny. But though the
Dutch built a fort at Grand Port and introduced a number of slaves and
convicts, they made no permanent settlement in Mauritius, finally
abandoning the island in 1710. From 1715 to 1767 (when the French
government assumed direct control) the island was held by agents of the
French East India Company, by whom its name was again changed to “Île
de France.” The Company was fortunate in having several able men as
governors of its colony, especially the celebrated Mahé de Labourdonnais
(q.v.), who made sugar planting the main industry of the inhabitants.3 Under
his direction roads were made, forts built, and considerable portions of the
forest were cleared, and the present capital, Port Louis, was founded.
Labourdonnais also promoted the planting of cotton and indigo, and is
remembered as the most enlightened and best of all the French governors.
He also put down the maroons or runaway slaves who had long been the
pest of the island. The colony continued to rise in value during the time it
was held by the French crown, and to one of the intendants,4 Pierre Poivre,
was due the introduction of the clove, nutmeg and other spices. Another
governor was D’Entrecasteaux, whose name is kept in remembrance by a
group of islands east of New Guinea.

During the long war between France and England, at the commencement
of the 19th century, Mauritius was a continual source of much mischief to
English Indiamen and other merchant vessels; and at length the British

government determined upon an expedition for its capture. This was
effected in 1810; and upon the restoration of peace in 1814 the possession
of the island was confirmed to Britain by the Treaty of Paris. By the eighth
article of capitulation it was agreed that the inhabitants should retain their
own laws, customs, and religion; and thus the island is still largely French
in language, habits, and predilections; but its name has again been changed
to that given by the Dutch. One of the most distinguished of the British
governors was Sir Robert Farquhar (1810-1823), who did much to abolish
the Malagasy slave trade and to establish friendly relations with the rising
power of the Hova sovereign of Madagascar. Later governors of note were
Sir Henry Barkly (1863-1871), and Sir J. Pope Hennessy (1883-1886 and
1888).

The history of the colony since its acquisition by Great Britain has been
one of social and political evolution. At first all power was concentrated in
the hands of the governor, but in 1832 a legislative council was constituted
on which non-official nominated members served. In 1884-1885 this
council was transformed into a partly elected body. Of more importance
than the constitutional changes were the economic results which followed
the freeing of the slaves (1834-1839)—for the loss of whose labour the
planters received over £2,000,000 compensation. Coolies were introduced
to supply the place of the negroes, immigration being definitely sanctioned
by the government of India in 1842. Though under government control the
system of coolie labour led to many abuses. A royal commission
investigated the matter in 1871 and since that time the evils which were
attendant on the system have been gradually remedied. One result of the
introduction of free labour has been to reduce the descendants of the slave
population to a small and unimportant class—Mauritius in this respect
offering a striking contrast to the British colonies in the West Indies. The
last half of the 19th century was, however, chiefly notable in Mauritius for
the number of calamities which overtook the island. In 1854 cholera caused

the death of 17,000 persons; in 1867 over 30,000 people died of malarial
fever; in 1892 a hurricane of terrific violence caused immense destruction
of property and serious loss of life; in 1893 a great part of Port Louis was
destroyed by fire. There were in addition several epidemics of small-pox
and plague, and from about 1880 onward the continual decline in the price
of sugar seriously affected the islanders, especially the Creole population.
During 1902-1905 an outbreak of surra, which caused great mortality
among draught animals, further tried the sugar planters and necessitated
government help. Notwithstanding all these calamities the Mauritians,
especially the Indo-Mauritians, have succeeded in maintaining the position
of the colony as an important sugar-producing country.

Dependencies.—Dependent upon Mauritius and forming part of the
colony are a number of small islands scattered over a large extent of
the Indian Ocean. Of these the chief is Rodriguez (q.v.), 375 m. east of
Mauritius. Considerably north-east of Rodriguez lie the Oil Islands or
Chagos archipelago, of which the chief is Diego Garcia (see Chagos).
The Cargados, Carayos or St Brandon islets, deeps and shoals, lie at the
south end of the Nazareth Bank about 250 m. N.N.E. of Mauritius.
Until 1903 the Seychelles, Amirantes, Aldabra and other islands lying
north of Madagascar were also part of the colony of Mauritius. In the
year named they were formed into a separate colony (see Seychelles).
Two islands, Farquhar and Coetivy, though geographically within the
Seychelles area, remained dependent on Mauritius, being owned by
residents in that island. In 1908, however, Coetivy was transferred to
the Seychelles administration. Amsterdam and St Paul, uninhabited
islands in the South Indian Ocean, included in an official list of the
dependencies of Mauritius drawn up in 1880, were in 1893 annexed by
France. The total population of the dependencies of Mauritius was
estimated in 1905 at 5400.

Authorities.—F. Leguat, Voyages et aventures en deux isles désertes
des Indes orientales (Eng. trans., A New Voyage to the East Indies;
London, 1708); Prudham, “England’s Colonial Empire,” vol. i., The
Mauritius and its Dependencies (1846); C. P. Lucas, A Historical
Geography of the British Colonies, vol. i. (Oxford, 1888); Ch. Grant,
History of Mauritius, or the Isle of France and Neighbouring Islands
(1801); J. Milbert, Voyage pittoresque à l’Île-de-France, &c., 4 vols.
(1812); Aug. Billiard, Voyage aux colonies orientales (1822); P.
Beaton, Creoles and Coolies, or Five Years in Mauritius (1859); Paul
Chasteau, Histoire et description de l’île Maurice (1860); F. P.
Flemyng, Mauritius, or the Isle of France (1862); Ch. J. Boyle, Far
Away, or Sketches of Scenery and Society in Mauritius (1867); L.
Simonin, Les Pays lointains, notes de voyage (Maurice, &c.) (1867);
N. Pike, Sub-Tropical Rambles in the Land of the Aphanapteryx
(1873); A. R. Wallace. “The Mascarene Islands,” in ch. xi. vol. i. of The
Geographical Distribution of Animals (1876); K. Möbius, F. Richter
and E. von Martens, Beiträge zur Meeresfauna der Insel Mauritius und
der Seychellen (Berlin, 1880); G. Clark, A Brief Notice of the Fauna of
Mauritius (1881); A. d’Épinay, Renseignements pour servir à l’histoire
de l’Île de France jusqu’à 1810 (Mauritius, 1890); N. Decotter,
Geography of Mauritius and its Dependencies (Mauritius, 1892); H. de
Haga Haig, “The Physical Features and Geology of Mauritius” in vol.
li., Q. J. Geol. Soc. (1895); the Annual Reports on Mauritius issued by
the Colonial Office, London; The Mauritius Almanack published yearly
at Port Louis. A map of the island in six sheets on the scale of one inch
to a mile was issued by the War Office in 1905. (J. Si.*)

1 See Geog. Journ. (June 1895), p. 597.

2 The total population of the colony (including dependencies) on the 1st of January
1907 was estimated at 383,206.

3 Labourdonnais is credited by several writers with the introduction of the sugar cane
into the island. Leguat, however, mentions it as being cultivated during the Dutch
occupation.

4 The régime introduced in 1767 divided the administration between a governor,
primarily charged with military matters, and an intendant.

MAURY, JEAN SIFFREIN (1746-1817), French cardinal and
archbishop of Paris, the son of a poor cobbler, was born on the 26th of June
1746 at Valréas in the Comtat-Venaissin, the district in France which
belonged to the pope. His acuteness was observed by the priests of the
seminary at Avignon, where he was educated and took orders. He tried his
fortune by writing éloges of famous persons, then a favourite practice; and
in 1771 his éloge on Fénelon was pronounced next best to Laharpe’s by the
Academy. The real foundation of his fortunes was the success of a
panegyric on St Louis delivered before the Academy in 1772, which caused
him to be recommended for an abbacy. In 1777 he published under the title
of Discours choisis his panegyrics on Saint Louis, Saint Augustine and
Fénelon, his remarks on Bossuet and his Essai sur l’éloquence de la chaire,
a volume which contains much good criticism, and remains a French
classic. The book was often reprinted as Principes de l’éloquence. He
became a favourite preacher in Paris, and was Lent preacher at court in
1781, when King Louis XVI. said of his sermon: “If the abbé had only said
a few words on religion he would have discussed every possible subject.” In
1781 he obtained the rich priory of Lyons, near Péronne, and in 1785 he
was elected to the Academy, as successor of Lefranc de Pompignan. His

morals were as loose as those of his great rival Mirabeau, but he was famed
in Paris for his wit and gaiety. In 1789 he was elected a member of the
states-general by the clergy of the bailliage of Péronne, and from the first
proved to be the most able and persevering defender of the ancien régime,
although he had drawn up the greater part of the cahier of the clergy of
Péronne, which contained a considerable programme of reform. It is said
that he attempted to emigrate both in July and in October 1789; but after
that time he held firmly to his place, when almost universally deserted by
his friends. In the Constituent Assembly he took an active part in every
important debate, combating with especial vigour the alienation of the
property of the clergy. His life was often in danger, but his ready wit always
saved it, and it was said that one bon mot would preserve him for a month.
When he did emigrate in 1792 he found himself regarded as a martyr to the
church and the king, and was at once named archbishop in partibus, and
extra nuncio to the diet at Frankfort, and in 1794 cardinal. He was finally
made bishop of Montefiascone, and settled down in that little Italian town
—but not for long, for in 1798 the French drove him from his retreat, and
he sought refuge in Venice and St Petersburg. Next year he returned to
Rome as ambassador of the exiled Louis XVIII. at the papal court. In 1804
he began to prepare his return to France by a well-turned letter to Napoleon,
congratulating him on restoring religion to France once more. In 1806 he
did return; in 1807 he was again received into the Academy; and in 1810,
on the refusal of Cardinal Fesch, was made archbishop of Paris. He was
presently ordered by the pope to surrender his functions as archbishop of
Paris. This he refused to do. On the restoration of the Bourbons he was
summarily expelled from the Academy and from the archiepiscopal palace.
He retired to Rome, where he was imprisoned in the castle of St Angelo for
six months for his disobedience to the papal orders, and died in 1817, a year
or two after his release, of disease contracted in prison and of chagrin. As a
critic he was a very able writer, and Sainte-Beuve gives him the credit of

discovering Father Jacques Bridayne, and of giving Bossuet his rightful
place as a preacher above Massillon; as a politician, his wit and eloquence
make him a worthy rival of Mirabeau. He sacrificed too much to personal
ambition, yet it would have been a graceful act if Louis XVIII. had
remembered the courageous supporter of Louis XVI., and the pope the one
intrepid defender of the Church in the states-general.

The Œuvres choisies du Cardinal Maury (5 vols., 1827) contain
what is worth preserving. Mgr Ricard has published Maury’s
Correspondance diplomatique (2 vols., Lille, 1891). For his life and
character see Vie du Cardinal Maury, by Louis Siffrein Maury, his
nephew (1828); J. J. F. Poujoulat, Cardinal Maury, sa vie et ses œuvres
(1855); Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi (vol. iv.); Mgr Ricard,
L’Abbé Maury (1746-1791), L’Abbé Maury avant 1789, L’Abbé Maury
et Mirabeau (1887); G. Bonet-Maury, Le Cardinal Maury d’après ses
mémoires et sa correspondance inédits (Paris, 1892); A. Aulard, Les
Orateurs de la constituante (Paris, 1882). Of the many libels written
against him during the Revolution the most noteworthy are the Petit
carême de l’abbé Maury, with a supplement called the Seconde année
(1790), and the Vie privée de l’abbé Maury (1790), claimed by J. R.
Hébert, but attributed by some writers to Restif de la Bretonne. For
further bibliographical details see J. M. Quérard, La France littéraire,
vol. v. (1833).

MAURY, LOUIS FERDINAND ALFRED (1817-
1892), French scholar, was born at Meaux on the 23rd of March 1817. In
1836, having completed his education, he entered the Bibliothèque
Nationale, and afterwards the Bibliothèque de l’Institut (1844), where he
devoted himself to the study of archaeology, ancient and modern languages,
medicine and law. Gifted with a great capacity for work, a remarkable
memory and an unbiassed and critical mind, he produced without great
effort a number of learned pamphlets and books on the most varied
subjects. He rendered great service to the Académie des Inscriptions et
Belles Lettres, of which he had been elected a member in 1857. Napoleon
III. employed him in research work connected with the Histoire de César,
and he was rewarded, proportionately to his active, if modest, part in this
work, with the positions of librarian of the Tuileries (1860), professor at the
College of France (1862) and director-general of the Archives (1868). It
was not, however, to the imperial favour that he owed these high positions.
He used his influence for the advancement of science and higher education,
and with Victor Duruy was one of the founders of the École des Hautes
Études. He died at Paris four years after his retirement from the last post, on
the 11th of February 1892.

Bibliography.—His works are numerous: Les Fées au moyen âge
and Histoire des légendes pieuses au moyen âge; two books filled with
ingenious ideas, which were published in 1843, and reprinted after the
death of the author, with numerous additions under the title Croyances
et légendes du moyen âge (1896); Histoire des grandes forêts de la
Gaule et de l’ancienne France (1850, a 3rd ed. revised appeared in
1867 under the title Les Forêts de la Gaule et de l’ancienne France);
La Terre et l’homme, a general historical sketch of geology, geography
and ethnology, being the introduction to the Histoire universelle, by
Victor Duruy (1854); Histoire des religions de la Grèce antique, (3
vols., 1857-1859); La Magie et l’astrologie dans l’antiquité et dans le

moyen âge (1863); Histoire de l’ancienne académie des sciences
(1864); Histoire de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres
(1865); a learned paper on the reports of French archaeology, written
on the occasion of the universal exhibition (1867); a number of articles
in the Encyclopédie moderne (1846-1851), in Michaud’s Biographie
universelle (1858 and seq.), in the Journal des savants in the Revue des
deux mondes (1873, 1877, 1879-1880, &c.). A detailed bibliography of
his works has been placed by Auguste Longnon at the beginning of the
volume Les Croyances et légendes du moyen âge.

MAURY, MATTHEW FONTAINE (1806-1873),
American naval officer and hydrographer, was born near Fredericksburg in
Spottsylvania county, Virginia, on the 24th of January 1806. He was
educated at Harpeth academy, and in 1825 entered the navy as midshipman,
circumnavigating the globe in the “Vincennes,” during a cruise of four
years (1826-1830). In 1831 he was appointed master of the sloop
“Falmouth” on the Pacific station, and subsequently served in other vessels
before returning home in 1834, when he married his cousin, Ann Herndon.
In 1835-1836 he was actively engaged in producing for publication a
treatise on navigation, a remarkable achievement at so early a stage in his
career; he was at this time made lieutenant, and gazetted astronomer to a
South Sea exploring expedition, but resigned this position and was
appointed to the survey of southern harbours. In 1839 he met with an
accident which resulted in permanent lameness, and unfitted him for active

service. In the same year, however, he began to write a series of articles on
naval reform and other subjects, under the title of Scraps from the Lucky-
Bag, which attracted much attention; and in 1841 he was placed in charge
of the Dépôt of Charts and Instruments, out of which grew the United States
Naval Observatory and the Hydrographie Office. He laboured assiduously
to obtain observations as to the winds and currents by distributing to
captains of vessels specially prepared log-books; and in the course of nine
years he had collected a sufficient number of logs to make two hundred
manuscript volumes, each with about two thousand five hundred days’
observations. One result was to show the necessity for combined action on
the part of maritime nations in regard to ocean meteorology. This led to an
international conference at Brussels in 1853, which produced the greatest
benefit to navigation as well as indirectly to meteorology. Maury attempted
to organize co-operative meteorological work on land, but the government
did not at this time take any steps in this direction. His oceanographical
work, however, received recognition in all parts of the civilized world, and
in 1855 it was proposed in the senate to remunerate him, but in the same
year the Naval Retiring Board, erected under an act to promote the
efficiency of the navy, placed him on the retired list. This action aroused
wide opposition, and in 1858 he was reinstated with the rank of commander
as from 1855. In 1853 Maury had published his Letters on the Amazon and
Atlantic Slopes of South America, and the most widely popular of his works,
the Physical Geography of the Sea, was published in London in 1855, and
in New York in 1856; it was translated into several European languages. On
the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, Maury threw in his lot with
the South, and became head of coast, harbour and river defences. He
invented an electric torpedo for harbour defence, and in 1862 was ordered
to England to purchase torpedo material, &c. Here he took active part in
organizing a petition for peace to the American people, which was
unsuccessful. Afterwards he became imperial commissioner of emigration

to the emperor Maximilian of Mexico, and attempted to form a Virginian
colony in that country. Incidentally he introduced there the cultivation of
cinchona. The scheme of colonization was abandoned by the emperor
(1866), and Maury, who had lost nearly his all during the war, settled for a
while in England, where he was presented with a testimonial raised by
public subscription, and among other honours received the degree of LL.D.
of Cambridge University (1868). In the same year, a general amnesty
admitting of his return to America, he accepted the professorship of
meteorology in the Virginia Military Institute, and settled at Lexington,
Virginia, where he died on the 1st of February 1873.

Among works published by Maury, in addition to those mentioned,
are the papers contributed by him to the Astronomical Observations of
the United States Observatory, Letter concerning Lanes for Steamers
crossing the Atlantic (1855); Physical Geography (1864) and Manual
of Geography (1871). In 1859 he began the publication of a series of
Nautical Monographs.

See Diana Fontaine Maury Corbin (his daughter), Life of Matthew
Fontaine Maury (London, 1888).

MAUSOLEUM, the term given to a monument erected to receive
the remains of a deceased person, which may sometimes take the form of a
sepulchral chapel. The term cenotaph (κενός, empty, τάφος, tomb) is
employed for a similar monument where the body is not buried in the

structure. The term “mausoleum” originated with the magnificent
monument erected by Queen Artemisia in 353 b.c. in memory of her
husband King Mausolus, of which the remains were brought to England in
1859 by Sir Charles Newton and placed in the British Museum. The tombs
of Augustus and of Hadrian in Rome are perhaps the largest monuments of
the kind ever erected.

MAUSOLUS (more correctly Maussollus), satrap and practically
ruler of Caria (377-353 b.c.). The part he took in the revolt against
Artaxerxes Mnemon, his conquest of a great part of Lycia, Ionia and of
several of the Greek islands, his co-operation with the Rhodians and their
allies in the war against Athens, and the removal of his capital from Mylasa,
the ancient seat of the Carian kings, to Halicarnassus are the leading facts of
his history. He is best known from the tomb erected for him by his widow
Artemisia. The architects Satyrus and Pythis, and the sculptors Scopas,
Leochares, Bryaxis and Timotheus, finished the work after her death. (See
Halicarnassus.) An inscription discovered at Mylasa (Böckh, Inscr. gr. ii.
2691 c.) details the punishment of certain conspirators who had made an
attempt upon his life at a festival in a temple at Labranda in 353.

See Diod. Sic. xv. 90, 3, xvi. 7, 4, 36, 2; Demosthenes, De
Rhodiorum libertate; J. B. Bury, Hist. of Greece (1902), ii. 271; W.
Judeich, Kleinasiatische Studien (Marburg, 1892), pp. 226-256, and
authorities under Halicarnassus.

MAUVE, ANTON (1838-1888), Dutch landscape painter, was
born at Zaandam, the son of a Baptist minister. Much against the wish of his
parents he took up the study of art and entered the studio of Van Os, whose
dry academic manner had, however, but little attraction for him. He
benefited far more by his intimacy with his friends Jozef Israels and W.
Maris. Encouraged by their example he abandoned his early tight and
highly finished manner for a freer, looser method of painting, and the
brilliant palette of his youthful work for a tender lyric harmony which is
generally restricted to delicate greys, greens, and light blue. He excelled in
rendering the soft hazy atmosphere that lingers over the green meadows of
Holland, and devoted himself almost exclusively to depicting the peaceful
rural life of the fields and country lanes of Holland—especially of the
districts near Oosterbeck and Wolfhezen, the sand dunes of the coast at
Scheveningen, and the country near Laren, where he spent the last years of
his life. A little sad and melancholy, his pastoral scenes are nevertheless
conceived in a peaceful soothing lyrical mood, which is in marked contrast
to the epic power and almost tragic intensity of J. F. Millet. There are
fourteen of Mauve’s pictures at the Mesdag Museum at the Hague, and two
(“Milking Time” and “A Fishing Boat putting to Sea”) at the Ryks Museum
in Amsterdam. The Glasgow Corporation Gallery owns his painting of “A
Flock of Sheep.” The finest and most representative private collection of
pictures by Mauve was made by Mr J. C. J. Drucker, London.

MAVROCORDATO, Mavrocordat or Mavrogordato, the name
of a family of Phanariot Greeks, distinguished in the history of Turkey,
Rumania and modern Greece. The family was founded by a merchant of
Chios, whose son Alexander Mavrocordato (c. 1636-1709), a doctor of
philosophy and medicine of Bologna, became dragoman to the sultan in
1673, and was much employed in negotiations with Austria. It was he who
drew up the treaty of Karlowitz (1699). He became a secretary of state, and
was created a count of the Holy Roman Empire. His authority, with that of
Hussein Kupruli and Rami Pasha, was supreme at the court of Mustapha II.,
and he did much to ameliorate the condition of the Christians in Turkey. He
was disgraced in 1703, but was recalled to court by Sultan Ahmed III. He
left some historical, grammatical, &c. treatises of little value.

His son Nicholas Mavrocordato (1670-1730) was grand dragoman to
the Divan (1697), and in 1708 was appointed hospodar (prince) of
Moldavia. Deposed, owing to the sultan’s suspicions, in favour of
Demetrius Cantacuzene, he was restored in 1711, and soon afterwards
became hospodar of Walachia. In 1716 he was deposed by the Austrians,
but was restored after the peace of Passarowitz. He was the first Greek set
to rule the Danubian principalities, and was responsible for establishing the
system which for a hundred years was to make the name of Greek hateful to
the Rumanians. He introduced Greek manners, the Greek language and
Greek costume, and set up a splendid court on the Byzantine model. For the
rest he was a man of enlightenment, founded libraries and was himself the
author of a curious work entitled Περὶ καθήκοντων (Bucharest, 1719). He
was succeeded as grand dragoman (1709) by his son John (Ioannes), who
was for a short while hospodar of Moldavia, and died in 1720.

Nicholas Mavrocordato was succeeded as prince of Walachia in 1730 by
his son Constantine. He was deprived in the same year, but again ruled the
principality from 1735 to 1741 and from 1744 to 1748; he was prince of

Moldavia from 1741 to 1744 and from 1748 to 1749. His rule was
distinguished by numerous tentative reforms in the fiscal and administrative
systems. He was wounded and taken prisoner in the affair of Galati during
the Russo-Turkish War, on the 5th of November 1769, and died in captivity.

Prince Alexander Mavrocordato (1791-1865), Greek statesman, a
descendant of the hospodars, was born at Constantinople on the 11th of
February 1791. In 1812 he went to the court of his uncle Ioannes Caradja,
hospodar of Walachia, with whom he passed into exile in Russia and Italy
(1817). He was a member of the Hetairia Philike and was among the
Phanariot Greeks who hastened to the Morea on the outbreak of the War of
Independence in 1821. He was active in endeavouring to establish a regular
government, and in January 1822 presided over the first Greek national
assembly at Epidaurus. He commanded the advance of the Greeks into
western Hellas the same year, and suffered a defeat at Peta on the 16th of
July, but retrieved this disaster somewhat by his successful resistance to the
first siege of Missolonghi (Nov. 1822 to Jan. 1823). His English sympathies
brought him, in the subsequent strife of factions, into opposition to the
“Russian” party headed by Demetrius Ypsilanti and Kolokotrones; and
though he held the portfolio of foreign affairs for a short while under the
presidency of Petrobey (Petros Mavromichales), he was compelled to
withdraw from affairs until February 1825, when he again became a
secretary of state. The landing of Ibrahim Pasha followed, and
Mavrocordato again joined the army, only escaping capture in the disaster
at Sphagia (Spakteria), on the 9th of May 1815, by swimming to Navarino.
After the fall of Missolonghi (April 22, 1826) he went into retirement, until
President Capo d’Istria made him a member of the committee for the
administration of war material, a position he resigned in 1828. After Capo
d’Istria’s murder (Oct. 9, 1831) and the resignation of his brother and
successor, Agostino Capo d’Istria (April 13, 1832), Mavrocordato became
minister of finance. He was vice-president of the National Assembly at

Argos (July, 1832), and was appointed by King Otto minister of finance,
and in 1833 premier. From 1834 onwards he was Greek envoy at Munich,
Berlin, London and—after a short interlude as premier in Greece in 1841—
Constantinople. In 1843, after the revolution of September, he returned to
Athens as minister without portfolio in the Metaxas cabinet, and from April
to August 1844 was head of the government formed after the fall of the
“Russian” party. Going into opposition, he distinguished himself by his
violent attacks on the Kolettis government. In 1854-1855 he was again head
of the government for a few months. He died in Aegina on the 18th of
August 1865.

See E. Legrand, Genealogie des Mavrocordato (Paris, 1886).

MAWKMAI (Burmese Maukmè), one of the largest states in the
eastern division of the southern Shan States of Burma. It lies approximately
between 19° 30′ and 20° 30′ N. and 97° 30′ and 98° 15′ E., and has an area
of 2,787 sq. m. The central portion of the state consists of a wide plain well
watered and under rice cultivation. The rest is chiefly hills in ranges
running north and south. There is a good deal of teak in the state, but it has
been ruinously worked. The sawbwa now works as contractor for
government, which takes one-third of the net profits. Rice is the chief crop,
but much tobacco of good quality is grown in the Langkö district on the
Têng river. There is also a great deal of cattle-breeding. The population in
1901 was 29,454, over two-thirds of whom were Shans and the remainder

Taungthu, Burmese, Yangsek and Red Karens. The capital, Mawkmai,
stands in a fine rice plain in 20° 9′ N. and 97° 25′ E. It had about 150
houses when it first submitted in 1887, but was burnt out by the Red Karens
in the following year. It has since recovered. There are very fine orange
groves a few miles south of the town at Kantu-awn, called Kadugate by the
Burmese.

MAXENTIUS, MARCUS AURELIUS
VALERIUS, Roman emperor from a.d. 306 to 312, was the son of
Maximianus Herculius, and the son-in-law of Galerius. Owing to his vices
and incapacity he was left out of account in the division of the empire
which took place in 305. A variety of causes, however, had produced strong
dissatisfaction at Rome with many of the arrangements established by
Diocletian, and on the 28th of October 306, the public discontent found
expression in the massacre of those magistrates who remained loyal to
Flavius Valerius Severus and in the election of Maxentius to the imperial
dignity. With the help of his father, Maxentius was enabled to put Severus
to death and to repel the invasion of Galerius; his next steps were first to
banish Maximianus, and then, after achieving a military success in Africa
against the rebellious governor, L. Domitius Alexander, to declare war
against Constantine as having brought about the death of his father
Maximianus. His intention of carrying the war into Gaul was anticipated by
Constantine, who marched into Italy. Maxentius was defeated at Saxa
Rubra near Rome and drowned in the Tiber while attempting to make his

way across the Milvian bridge into Rome. He was a man of brutal and
worthless character; but although Gibbon’s statement that he was “just,
humane and even partial towards the afflicted Christians” may be
exaggerated, it is probable that he never exhibited any special hostility
towards them.

See De Broglie, L’Église et l’empire Romain au quatrième siècle
(1856-1866), and on the attitude of the Romans towards Christianity
generally, app. 8 in vol. ii. of J. B. Bury’s edition of Gibbon (Zosimus
ii. 9-18; Zonaras xii. 33, xiii. 1; Aurelius Victor, Epit. 40; Eutropius, x.
2).

MAXIM, SIR HIRAM STEVENS (1840- ), Anglo-
American engineer and inventor, was born at Sangerville, Maine, U.S.A.,
on the 5th of February 1840. After serving an apprenticeship with a
coachbuilder, he entered the machine works of his uncle, Levi Stevens, at
Fitchburg, Massachusetts, in 1864, and four years later he became a
draughtsman in the Novelty Iron Works and Shipbuilding Company in New
York City. About this period he produced several inventions connected with
illumination by gas; and from 1877 he was one of the numerous inventors
who were trying to solve the problem of making an efficient and durable
incandescent electric lamp, in this connexion introducing the widely-used
process of treating the carbon filaments by heating them in an atmosphere
of hydrocarbon vapour. In 1880 he came to Europe, and soon began to

devote himself to the construction of a machine-gun which should be
automatically loaded and fired by the energy of the recoil (see Machine-
Gun). In order to realize the full usefulness of the weapon, which was first
exhibited in an underground range at Hatton Garden, London, in 1884, he
felt the necessity of employing a smokeless powder, and accordingly he
devised maximite, a mixture of trinitrocellulose, nitroglycerine and castor
oil, which was patented in 1889. He also undertook to make a flying
machine, and after numerous preliminary experiments constructed an
apparatus which was tried at Bexley Heath, Kent, in 1894. (See Flight.)
Having been naturalized as a British subject, he was knighted in 1901. His
younger brother, Hudson Maxim (b. 1853), took out numerous patents in
connexion with explosives.

MAXIMA AND MINIMA, in mathematics. By the maximum
or minimum value of an expression or quantity is meant primarily the
“greatest” or “least” value that it can receive. In general, however, there are
points at which its value ceases to increase and begins to decrease; its value
at such a point is called a maximum. So there are points at which its value
ceases to decrease and begins to increase; such a value is called a minimum.
There may be several maxima or minima, and a minimum is not necessarily
less than a maximum. For instance, the expression (x2 + x + 2)/(x − 1) can
take all values from −∞ to −1 and from +7 to +∞, but has, so long as x is
real, no value between -1 and +7. Here −1 is a maximum value, and +7 is a

minimum value of the expression, though it can be made greater or less
than any assignable quantity.

The first general method of investigating maxima and minima seems to
have been published in a.d. 1629 by Pierre Fermat. Particular cases had
been discussed. Thus Euclid in book III. of the Elements finds the greatest
and least straight lines that can be drawn from a point to the circumference
of a circle, and in book VI. (in a proposition generally omitted from editions
of his works) finds the parallelogram of greatest area with a given
perimeter. Apollonius investigated the greatest and least distances of a point
from the perimeter of a conic section, and discovered them to be the
normals, and that their feet were the intersections of the conic with a
rectangular hyperbola. Some remarkable theorems on maximum areas are
attributed to Zenodorus, and preserved by Pappus and Theon of Alexandria.
The most noteworthy of them are the following:—

1. Of polygons of n sides with a given perimeter the regular polygon
encloses the greatest area.

2. Of two regular polygons of the same perimeter, that with the
greater number of sides encloses the greater area.

3. The circle encloses a greater area than any polygon of the same
perimeter.

4. The sum of the areas of two isosceles triangles on given bases, the
sum of whose perimeters is given, is greatest when the triangles are
similar.

5. Of segments of a circle of given perimeter, the semicircle encloses
the greatest area.

6. The sphere is the surface of given area which encloses the greatest
volume.

Serenus of Antissa investigated the somewhat trifling problem of finding
the triangle of greatest area whose sides are formed by the intersections
with the base and curved surface of a right circular cone of a plane drawn
through its vertex.

The next problem on maxima and minima of which there appears to be
any record occurs in a letter from Regiomontanus to Roder (July 4, 1471),
and is a particular numerical example of the problem of finding the point on
a given straight line at which two given points subtend a maximum angle.
N. Tartaglia in his General trattato de numeri et mesuri (c. 1556) gives,
without proof, a rule for dividing a number into two parts such that the
continued product of the numbers and their difference is a maximum.

Fermat investigated maxima and minima by means of the principle that
in the neighbourhood of a maximum or minimum the differences of the
values of a function are insensible, a method virtually the same as that of
the differential calculus, and of great use in dealing with geometrical
maxima and minima. His method was developed by Huygens, Leibnitz,
Newton and others, and in particular by John Hudde, who investigated
maxima and minima of functions of more than one independent variable,
and made some attempt to discriminate between maxima and minima, a
question first definitely settled, so far as one variable is concerned, by Colin
Maclaurin in his Treatise on Fluxions (1742). The method of the differential
calculus was perfected by Euler and Lagrange.

John Bernoulli’s famous problem of the “brachistochrone,” or curve of
quickest descent from one point to another under the action of gravity,
proposed in 1696, gave rise to a new kind of maximum and minimum
problem in which we have to find a curve and not points on a given curve.
From these problems arose the “Calculus of Variations.” (See Variations,
Calculus of.)

The only general methods of attacking problems on maxima and minima
are those of the differential calculus or, in geometrical problems, what is
practically Fermat’s method. Some problems may be solved by algebra;
thus if y = ƒ(x) ÷ φ(x), where ƒ(x) and φ(x) are polynomials in x, the limits
to the values of yφ may be found from the consideration that the equation
yφ(x) − ƒ(x) = 0 must have real roots. This is a useful method in the case in
which φ(x) and ƒ(x) are quadratics, but scarcely ever in any other case. The
problem of finding the maximum product of n positive quantities whose
sum is given may also be found, algebraically, thus. If a and b are any two
real unequal quantities whatever {1⁄2(a + b)}2 > ab, so that we can increase
the product leaving the sum unaltered by replacing any two terms by half
their sum, and so long as any two of the quantities are unequal we can
increase the product. Now, the quantities being all positive, the product
cannot be increased without limit and must somewhere attain a maximum,
and no other form of the product than that in which they are all equal can be
the maximum, so that the product is a maximum when they are all equal. Its
minimum value is obviously zero. If the restriction that all the quantities
shall be positive is removed, the product can be made equal to any quantity,
positive or negative. So other theorems of algebra, which are stated as
theorems on inequalities, may be regarded as algebraic solutions of
problems on maxima and minima.

For purely geometrical questions the only general method available is
practically that employed by Fermat. If a quantity depends on the position
of some point P on a curve, and if its value is equal at two neighbouring
points P and P′, then at some position between P and P′ it attains a
maximum or minimum, and this position may be found by making P and P′
approach each other indefinitely. Take for instance the problem of
Regiomontanus “to find a point on a given straight line which subtends a
maximum angle at two given points A and B.” Let P and P′ be two near
points on the given straight line such that the angles APB and AP′B are

equal. Then ABPP′ lie on a circle. By making P and P′ approach each other
we see that for a maximum or minimum value of the angle APB, P is a
point in which a circle drawn through AB touches the given straight line.
There are two such points, and unless the given straight line is at right
angles to AB the two angles obtained are not the same. It is easily seen that
both angles are maxima, one for points on the given straight line on one
side of its intersection with AB, the other for points on the other side. For
further examples of this method together with most other geometrical
problems on maxima and minima of any interest or importance the reader
may consult such a book as J. W. Russell’s A Sequel lo Elementary
Geometry (Oxford, 1907).

The method of the differential calculus is theoretically very simple.
Let u be a function of several variables x1, x2, x3 ... xn, supposed for the
present independent; if u is a maximum or minimum for the set of
values x1, x2, x3, ... xn, and u becomes u + δu, when x1, x2, x3 ... xn
receive small increments δx1, δx2, ... δxn; then δu must have the same
sign for all possible values of δx1, δ2 ... δxn.

Now

δu δ2u δ2u
δu = Σ
δx1 δx1 + 1⁄2 { Σ δx12 δx12 + 2Σ
δx1δx2 δx1δx2 ... } + ....
The sign of this expression in general is that of Σ(δu/δx1)δx1, which
cannot be one-signed when x1, x2, ... xn can take all possible values, for
a set of increments δx1, δx2 ... δxn, will give an opposite sign to the set
−δx1, −δx2, ... −δxn. Hence Σ(δu/δx1)δx1 must vanish for all sets of
increments δx1, ... δxn, and since these are independent, we must have
δu/δx1 = 0, δu/δx2 = 0, ... δu/δxn = 0. A value of u given by a set of

solutions of these equations is called a “critical value” of u. The value
of δu now becomes

δ2u δ2u
⁄
12 { Σ δx12 δx12 + 2 Σ
δx1δx2 δx1δx2 + ... };
for u to be a maximum or minimum this must have always the same
sign. For the case of a single variable x, corresponding to a value of x
given by the equation du/dx = 0, u is a maximum or minimum as
d2u/dx2 is negative or positive. If d2u/dx2 vanishes, then there is no
maximum or minimum unless d2u/dx2 vanishes, and there is a
maximum or minimum according as d4u/dx4 is negative or positive.
Generally, if the first differential coefficient which does not vanish is
even, there is a maximum or minimum according as this is negative or
positive. If it is odd, there is no maximum or minimum.

In the case of several variables, the quadratic

δ2u δ 2u
Σ δx12 + 2 Σ δx1δx2 + ...
δx12 δx1δx2

must be one-signed. The condition for this is that the series of
discriminants

a11 , a11 a12 , a11 a12 a13 , ...
a21 a22 a21 a22 a23
a31 a32 a33

where apq denotes δ2u/δapδaq should be all positive, if the quadratic is
always positive, and alternately negative and positive, if the quadratic
is always negative. If the first condition is satisfied the critical value is

a minimum, if the second it is a maximum. For the case of two
variables the conditions are

δ2u δ2u δ 2u
δx12
·
δx22 > ( δx1δx2 )2
for a maximum or minimum at all and δ2u/δx12 and δ2u/δx22 both
negative for a maximum, and both positive for a minimum. It is
important to notice that by the quadratic being one-signed is meant that
it cannot be made to vanish except when δx1, δx2, ... δxn all vanish. If,
in the case of two variables,

δ2u δ2u δ 2u
δx12
·
δx22 = ( δx1δx2 )2
then the quadratic is one-signed unless it vanishes, but the value of u is
not necessarily a maximum or minimum, and the terms of the third and
possibly fourth order must be taken account of.

Take for instance the function u = x2 − xy2 + y2. Here the values x =
0, y = 0 satisfy the equations δu/δx = 0, δu/δy = 0, so that zero is a
critical value of u, but it is neither a maximum nor a minimum
although the terms of the second order are (δx)2, and are never
negative. Here δu = δx2 − δxδy2 + δy2, and by putting δx = 0 or an
infinitesimal of the same order as δy2, we can make the sign of δu
depend on that of δy2, and so be positive or negative as we please. On
the other hand, if we take the function u = x2 − xy2 + y4, x = 0, y = 0
make zero a critical value of u, and here δu = δx2 − δxδy2 + δy4, which
is always positive, because we can write it as the sum of two squares,
viz. (δx − 1⁄2δy2)2 + 3⁄4δy4; so that in this case zero is a minimum value
of u.

A critical value usually gives a maximum or minimum in the case of
a function of one variable, and often in the case of several independent
variables, but all maxima and minima, particularly absolutely greatest
and least values, are not necessarily critical values. If, for example, x is
restricted to lie between the values a and b and φ′(x) = 0 has no roots in
this interval, it follows that φ′(x) is one-signed as x increases from a to
b, so that φ(x) is increasing or diminishing all the time, and the greatest
and least values of φ(x) are φ(a) and φ(b), though neither of them is a
critical value. Consider the following example: A person in a boat a
miles from the nearest point of the beach wishes to reach as quickly as
possible a point b miles from that point along the shore. The ratio of his
rate of walking to his rate of rowing is cosec α. Where should he land?

Here let AB be the direction of the beach, A the nearest point to the
boat O, and B the point he wishes to reach. Clearly he must land, if at
all, between A and B. Suppose he lands at P. Let the angle AOP be θ, so
that OP = a secθ, and PB = b − a tan θ. If his rate of rowing is V miles
an hour his time will be a sec θ/V + (b − a tan θ) sin α/V hours. Call
this T. Then to the first power of δθ, δT = (a/V) sec2θ (sin θ − sin α)δθ,
so that if AOB > α, δT and δθ have opposite signs from θ = 0 to θ = α,
and the same signs from θ = α to θ = AOB. So that when AOB is > α, T
decreases from θ = 0 to θ = α, and then increases, so that he should
land at a point distant a tan α from A, unless a tan α > b. When this is
the case, δT and δθ have opposite signs throughout the whole range of
θ, so that T decreases as θ increases, and he should row direct to B. In
the first case the minimum value of T is also a critical value; in the
second case it is not.

The greatest and least values of the bending moments of loaded rods
are often at the extremities of the divisions of the rods and not at points
given by critical values.

In the case of a function of several variables, X1, x2, ... xn, not
independent but connected by m functional relations u1 = 0, u2 = 0, ...,
um = 0, we might proceed to eliminate m of the variables; but
Lagrange’s “Method of undetermined Multipliers” is more elegant and
generally more useful.

We have δu1 = 0, δu2 = 0, ..., δum = 0. Consider instead of δu, what
is the same thing, viz., δu + λ1δu1 + λ2δu2 + ... + λmδum, where λ1, λ2,
... λm, are arbitrary multipliers. The terms of the first order in this
expression are

δu δu1 δum
Σ δx1 + λ1 Σ δx1 + ... + λm Σ δx1.
δx1 δx1 δx1

We can choose λ1, ... λm, to make the coefficients of δx1, δx2, ... δxm,
vanish, and the remaining δxm+1 to δxn may be regarded as
independent, so that, when u has a critical value, their coefficients must
also vanish. So that we put

δu δu1 δum
+ + ... + λm =0
δxr δxr δxr

for all values of r. These equations with the equations u1 = 0, ..., um = 0
are exactly enough to determine λ1, ..., λm, x1 x2, ..., xn, so that we find
critical values of u, and examine the terms of the second order to
decide whether we obtain a maximum or minimum.

To take a very simple illustration; consider the problem of
determining the maximum and minimum radii vectors of the ellipsoid
x2/a2 + y2/b2 + z2/c2 = 1, where a2 > b2 > c2. Here we require the
maximum and minimum values of x2 + y2 + z2 where x2/a2 + y2/b2 +
z2/c2 = 1.

We have

λ λ λ
δu = 2xδx ( 1 + a2 ) + 2yδy ( b2 ) + 2zδz ( c2 )
λ λ λ
+ δx2 ( 1 + a2 ) + δy2 ( b2 ) + δz2 ( c2 ).
To make the terms of the first order disappear, we have the three
equations:—

x (1 + λ/a2) = 0, y (1 + λ/b2) = 0, z (1 + λ/c2) = 0.

These have three sets of solutions consistent with the conditions x2/a2 +
y2/b2 + z2/c2 = 1, a2 > b2 > c2, viz.:—

(1) y = 0, z = 0, λ = −a2; (2) z = 0, x = 0, λ = −b2;
(3) x = 0, y = 0, λ = −c2.

In the case of (1) δu = δy2 (1 − a2/b2) + δz2 (1 − a2/c2), which is
always negative, so that u = a2 gives a maximum.

In the case of (3) δu = δx2 (1 − c2/a2) + δy2 (1 − c2/b2), which is
always positive, so that u = c2 gives a minimum.

In the case of (2) δu = δx2 (1 − b2/a2) − δz2(b2/c2 − 1), which can be
made either positive or negative, or even zero if we move in the planes
x2 (1 − b2/a2) = z2 (b2/c2 − 1), which are well known to be the central
planes of circular section. So that u = b2, though a critical value, is
neither a maximum nor minimum, and the central planes of circular
section divide the ellipsoid into four portions in two of which a2 > r2 >
b2, and in the other two b2 > r2 > c2. (A. E. J.)

MAXIMIANUS, a Latin elegiac poet who flourished during the
6th century a.d. He was an Etruscan by birth, and spent his youth at Rome,
where he enjoyed a great reputation as an orator. At an advanced age he was
sent on an important mission to the East, perhaps by Theodoric, if he is the
Maximianus to whom that monarch addressed a letter preserved in
Cassiodorus (Variarum, i. 21). The six elegies extant under his name,
written in old age, in which he laments the loss of his youth, contain
descriptions of various amours. They show the author’s familiarity with the
best writers of the Augustan age.

Editions by J. C. Wernsdorf, Poetae latini minores, vi.; E. Bährens,
Poetae latini minores, v.; M. Petschenig (1890), in C. F. Ascherson’s
Berliner Studien, xi.; R. Webster (Princeton, 1901; see Classical
Review, Oct. 1901), with introduction and commentary; see also
Robinson Ellis in American Journal of Philology, v. (1884) and
Teuffel-Schwabe, Hist. of Roman Literature (Eng. trans.), § 490. There
is an English version (as from Cornelius Gallus), by Hovenden Walker
(1689), under the title of The Impotent Lover.

MAXIMIANUS, MARCUS AURELIUS
VALERIUS, surnamed Herculius, Roman emperor from a.d. 286 to
305, was born of humble parents at Sirmium in Pannonia. He achieved
distinction during long service in the army, and having been made Caesar
by Diocletian in 285, received the title of Augustus in the following year
(April 1, 286). In 287 he suppressed the rising of the peasants (Bagaudae) in
Gaul, but in 289, after a three years’ struggle, his colleague and he were
compelled to acquiesce in the assumption by his lieutenant Carausius (who
had crossed over to Britain) of the title of Augustus. After 293 Maximianus
left the care of the Rhine frontier to Constantius Chlorus, who had been
designated Caesar in that year, but in 297 his arms achieved a rapid and
decisive victory over the barbarians of Mauretania, and in 302 he shared at
Rome the triumph of Diocletian, the last pageant of the kind ever witnessed
by that city. On the 1st of May 305, the day of Diocletian’s abdication, he
also, but without his colleague’s sincerity, divested himself of the imperial
dignity at Mediolanum (Milan), which had been his capital, and retired to a
villa in Lucania; in the following year, however, he was induced by his son
Maxentius to reassume the purple. In 307 he brought the emperor Flavius
Valerius Severus a captive to Rome, and also compelled Galerius to retreat,
but in 308 he was himself driven by Maxentius from Italy into Illyricum,
whence again he was compelled to seek refuge at Arelate (Arles), the court
of his son-in-law, Constantine. Here a false report was received, or
invented, of the death of Constantine, at that time absent on the Rhine.

Maximianus at once grasped at the succession, but was soon driven to
Massilia (Marseilles), where, having been delivered up to his pursuers, he
strangled himself.

See Zosimus ii. 7-11; Zonaras xii. 31-33; Eutropius ix. 20, x. 2, 3;
Aurelius Victor p. 39. For the emperor Galerius Valerius Maximianus
see Galerius.

MAXIMILIAN I. (1573-1651), called “the Great,” elector and
duke of Bavaria, eldest son of William V. of Bavaria, was born at Munich
on the 17th of April 1573. He was educated by the Jesuits at the university
of Ingolstadt, and began to take part in the government in 1591. He married
in 1595 his cousin, Elizabeth, daughter of Charles II., duke of Lorraine, and
became duke of Bavaria upon his father’s abdication in 1597. He refrained
from any interference in German politics until 1607, when he was entrusted
with the duty of executing the imperial ban against the free city of
Donauwörth, a Protestant stronghold. In December 1607 his troops
occupied the city, and vigorous steps were taken to restore the supremacy of
the older faith. Some Protestant princes, alarmed at this action, formed a
union to defend their interests, which was answered in 1609 by the
establishment of a league, in the formation of which Maximilian took an
important part. Under his leadership an army was set on foot, but his policy
was strictly defensive and he refused to allow the league to become a tool in
the hands of the house of Habsburg. Dissensions among his colleagues led

the duke to resign his office in 1616, but the approach of trouble brought
about his return to the league about two years later.

Having refused to become a candidate for the imperial throne in 1619,
Maximilian was faced with the complications arising from the outbreak of
war in Bohemia. After some delay he made a treaty with the emperor
Ferdinand II. in October 1619, and in return for large concessions placed
the forces of the league at the emperor’s service. Anxious to curtail the area
of the struggle, he made a treaty of neutrality with the Protestant Union, and
occupied Upper Austria as security for the expenses of the campaign. On
the 8th of November 1620 his troops under Count Tilly defeated the forces
of Frederick, king of Bohemia and count palatine of the Rhine, at the White
Hill near Prague. In spite of the arrangement with the union Tilly then
devastated the Rhenish Palatinate, and in February 1623 Maximilian was
formally invested with the electoral dignity and the attendant office of
imperial steward, which had been enjoyed since 1356 by the counts palatine
of the Rhine. After receiving the Upper Palatinate and restoring Upper
Austria to Ferdinand, Maximilian became leader of the party which sought
to bring about Wallenstein’s dismissal from the imperial service. At the diet
of Regensburg in 1630 Ferdinand was compelled to assent to this demand,
but the sequel was disastrous both for Bavaria and its ruler. Early in 1632
the Swedes marched into the duchy and occupied Munich, and Maximilian
could only obtain the assistance of the imperialists by placing himself under
the orders of Wallenstein, now restored to the command of the emperor’s
forces. The ravages of the Swedes and their French allies induced the
elector to enter into negotiations for peace with Gustavus Adolphus and
Cardinal Richelieu. He also proposed to disarm the Protestants by
modifying the Restitution edict of 1629; but these efforts were abortive. In
March 1647 he concluded an armistice with France and Sweden at Ulm, but
the entreaties of the emperor Ferdinand III. led him to disregard his
undertaking. Bavaria was again ravaged, and the elector’s forces defeated in

May 1648 at Zusmarshausen. But the peace of Westphalia soon put an end
to the struggle. By this treaty it was agreed that Maximilian should retain
the electoral dignity, which was made hereditary in his family; and the
Upper Palatinate was incorporated with Bavaria. The elector died at
Ingolstadt on the 27th of September 1651. By his second wife, Maria Anne,
daughter of the emperor Ferdinand II., he left two sons, Ferdinand Maria,
who succeeded him, and Maximilian Philip. In 1839 a statue was erected to
his memory at Munich by Louis I., king of Bavaria. Weak in health and
feeble in frame, Maximilian had high ambitions both for himself and his
duchy, and was tenacious and resourceful in prosecuting his designs. As the
ablest prince of his age he sought to prevent Germany from becoming the
battleground of Europe, and although a rigid adherent of the Catholic faith,
was not always subservient to the priest.

See P. P. Wolf, Geschichte Kurfürst Maximilians I. und seiner Zeit
(Munich, 1807-1809); C. M. Freiherr von Aretin, Geschichte des
bayerschen Herzogs und Kurfürsten Maximilian des Ersten (Passau,
1842); M. Lossen, Die Reichstadt Donauwörth und Herzog Maximilian
(Munich, 1866); F. Stieve, Kurfürst Maximilian I. von Bayern (Munich,
1882); F. A. W. Schreiber, Maximilian I. der Katholische Kurfürst von
Bayern, und der dreissigjährige Krieg (Munich, 1868); M. Högl, Die
Bekehrung der Oberpfalz durch Kurfürst Maximilian I. (Regensburg,
1903).

MAXIMILIAN I. (Maximilian Joseph) (1756-1825), king of
Bavaria, was the son of the count palatine Frederick of Zweibrücken-
Birkenfeld, and was born on the 27th of May 1756. He was carefully
educated under the supervision of his uncle, Duke Christian IV. of
Zweibrücken, took service in 1777 as a colonel in the French army, and rose
rapidly to the rank of major-general. From 1782 to 1789 he was stationed at
Strassburg, but at the outbreak of the revolution he exchanged the French
for the Austrian service, taking part in the opening campaigns of the
revolutionary wars. On the 1st of April 1795 he succeeded his brother,
Charles II., as duke of Zweibrücken, and on the 16th of February 1799
became elector of Bavaria on the extinction of the Sulzbach line with the
death of the elector Charles Theodore.

The sympathy with France and with French ideas of enlightenment which
characterized his reign was at once manifested. In the newly organized
ministry Count Max Josef von Montgelas (q.v.), who, after falling into
disfavour with Charles Theodore, had acted for a time as Maximilian
Joseph’s private secretary, was the most potent influence, an influence
wholly “enlightened” and French. Agriculture and commerce were fostered,
the laws were ameliorated, a new criminal code drawn up, taxes and
imposts equalized without regard to traditional privileges, while a number
of religious houses were suppressed and their revenues used for educational
and other useful purposes. In foreign politics Maximilian Joseph’s attitude
was from the German point of view less commendable. With the growing
sentiment of German nationality he had from first to last no sympathy, and
his attitude throughout was dictated by wholly dynastic, or at least
Bavarian, considerations. Until 1813 he was the most faithful of Napoleon’s
German allies, the relation being cemented by the marriage of his daughter
to Eugène Beauharnais. His reward came with the treaty of Pressburg (Dec.
26, 1805), by the terms of which he was to receive the royal title and

important territorial acquisitions in Swabia and Franconia to round off his
kingdom. The style of king he actually assumed on the 1st of January 1806.

The new king of Bavaria was the most important of the princes belonging
to the Confederation of the Rhine, and remained Napoleon’s ally until the
eve of the battle of Leipzig, when by the convention of Ried (Oct. 8, 1813)
he made the guarantee of the integrity of his kingdom the price of his
joining the Allies. By the first treaty of Paris (June 3, 1814), however, he
ceded Tirol to Austria in exchange for the former duchy of Würzburg. At
the congress of Vienna, too, which he attended in person, Maximilian had to
make further concessions to Austria, ceding the quarters of the Inn and
Hausruck in return for a part of the old Palatinate. The king fought hard to
maintain the contiguity of the Bavarian territories as guaranteed at Ried; but
the most he could obtain was an assurance from Metternich in the matter of
the Baden succession, in which he was also doomed to be disappointed (see
Baden: History, iii. 506).

At Vienna and afterwards Maximilian sturdily opposed any reconstitution
of Germany which should endanger the independence of Bavaria, and it
was his insistence on the principle of full sovereignty being left to the
German reigning princes that largely contributed to the loose and weak
organization of the new German Confederation. The Federal Act of the
Vienna congress was proclaimed in Bavaria, not as a law but as an
international treaty. It was partly to secure popular support in his resistance
to any interference of the federal diet in the internal affairs of Bavaria,
partly to give unity to his somewhat heterogeneous territories, that
Maximilian on the 26th of May 1818 granted a liberal constitution to his
people. Montgelas, who had opposed this concession, had fallen in the
previous year, and Maximilian had also reversed his ecclesiastical policy,
signing on the 24th of October 1817 a concordat with Rome by which the
powers of the clergy, largely curtailed under Montgelas’s administration,

were restored. The new parliament proved so intractable that in 1819
Maximilian was driven to appeal to the powers against his own creation;
but his Bavarian “particularism” and his genuine popular sympathies
prevented him from allowing the Carlsbad decrees to be strictly enforced
within his dominions. The suspects arrested by order of the Mainz
Commission he was accustomed to examine himself, with the result that in
many cases the whole proceedings were quashed, and in not a few the
accused dismissed with a present of money. Maximilian died on the 13th of
October 1825 and was succeeded by his son Louis I.

In private life Maximilian was kindly and simple. He loved to play the
part of Landesvater, walking about the streets of his capital en bourgeois
and entering into conversation with all ranks of his subjects, by whom he
was regarded with great affection. He was twice married: (1) in 1785 to
Princess Wilhelmine Auguste of Hesse-Darmstadt, (2) in 1797 to Princess
Caroline Friederike of Baden.

See G. Freiherr von Lerchenfeld, Gesch. Bayerns unter König
Maximilian Joseph I. (Berlin, 1854); J. M. Söltl, Max Joseph, König
von Bayern (Stuttgart, 1837); L. von Kobell, Unter den vier ersten
Königen Bayerns. Nach Briefen und eigenen Erinnerungen (Munich,
1894).

MAXIMILIAN II. (1811-1864), king of Bavaria, son of king
Louis I. and of his consort Theresa of Saxe-Hildburghausen, was born on

the 28th of November 1811. After studying at Göttingen and Berlin and
travelling in Germany, Italy and Greece, he was introduced by his father
into the council of state (1836). From the first he showed a studious
disposition, declaring on one occasion that had he not been born in a royal
cradle his choice would have been to become a professor. As crown prince,
in the château of Hohenschwangau near Füssen, which he had rebuilt with
excellent taste, he gathered about him an intimate society of artists and men
of learning, and devoted his time to scientific and historical study. When the
abdication of Louis I. (March 28, 1848) called him suddenly to the throne,
his choice of ministers promised a liberal régime. The progress of the
revolution, however, gave him pause. He strenuously opposed the unionist
plans of the Frankfort parliament, refused to recognize the imperial
constitution devised by it, and assisted Austria in restoring the federal diet
and in carrying out the federal execution in Hesse and Holstein. Although,
however, from 1850 onwards his government tended in the direction of
absolutism, he refused to become the tool of the clerical reaction, and even
incurred the bitter criticism of the Ultramontanes by inviting a number of
celebrated men of learning and science (e.g. Liebig and Sybel) to Munich,
regardless of their religious views. Finally, in 1859, he dismissed the
reactionary ministry of von der Pfordten, and met the wishes of his people
for a moderate constitutional government. In his German policy he was
guided by the desire to maintain the union of the princes, and hoped to
attain this as against the perilous rivalry of Austria and Prussia by the
creation of a league of the “middle” and small states—the so-called Trias.
In 1863, however, seeing what he thought to be a better way, he supported
the project of reform proposed by Austria at the Fürstentag of Frankfort.
The failure of this proposal, and the attitude of Austria towards the
Confederation and in the Schleswig-Holstein question, undeceived him; but
before he could deal with the new situation created by the outbreak of the
war with Denmark he died suddenly at Munich, on the 10th of March 1864.

Maximilian was a man of amiable qualities and of intellectual
attainments far above the average, but as a king he was hampered by
constant ill-health, which compelled him to be often abroad, and when at
home to live much in the country. By his wife, Maria Hedwig, daughter of
Prince William of Prussia, whom he married in 1842, he had two sons,
Louis II., king of Bavaria, and Otto, king of Bavaria, both of whom lost
their reason.

See J. M. Söltl, Max der Zweite, König von Bayern (Munich, 1865);
biography by G. K. Heigel in Allgem. Deutsche Biographie, vol. xxi.
(Leipzig, 1885). Maximilian’s correspondence with Schlegel was
published at Stuttgart in 1890.

MAXIMILIAN I. (1459-1519), Roman emperor, son of the
emperor Frederick III. and Leonora, daughter of Edward, king of Portugal,
was born at Vienna Neustadt on the 22nd of March 1459. On the 18th of
August 1477, by his marriage at Ghent to Mary, who had just inherited
Burgundy and the Netherlands from her father Charles the Bold, duke of
Burgundy, he effected a union of great importance in the history of the
house of Habsburg. He at once undertook the defence of his wife’s
dominions from an attack by Louis XI., king of France, and defeated the
French forces at Guinegatte, the modern Enguinegatte, on the 7th of August
1479. But Maximilian was regarded with suspicion by the states of
Netherlands, and after suppressing a rising in Gelderland his position was

further weakened by the death of his wife on the 27th of March 1482. He
claimed to be recognized as guardian of his young son Philip and as regent
of the Netherlands, but some of the states refused to agree to his demands
and disorder was general. Maximilian was compelled to assent to the treaty
of Arras in 1482 between the states of the Netherlands and Louis XI. This
treaty provided that Maximilian’s daughter Margaret should marry Charles,
the dauphin of France, and have for her dowry Artois and Franche-Comté,
two of the provinces in dispute, while the claim of Louis on the duchy of
Burgundy was tacitly admitted. Maximilian did not, however, abandon the
struggle in the Netherlands. Having crushed a rebellion at Utrecht, he
compelled the burghers of Ghent to restore Philip to him in 1485, and
returning to Germany was chosen king of the Romans, or German king, at
Frankfort on the 16th of February 1486, and crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle on
the 9th of the following April. Again in the Netherlands, he made a treaty
with Francis II., duke of Brittany, whose independence was threatened by
the French regent, Anne of Beaujeu, and the struggle with France was soon
renewed. This war was very unpopular with the trading cities of the
Netherlands, and early in 1488 Maximilian, having entered Bruges, was
detained there as a prisoner for nearly three months, and only set at liberty
on the approach of his father with a large force. On his release he had
promised he would maintain the treaty of Arras and withdraw from the
Netherlands; but he delayed his departure for nearly a year and took part in
a punitive campaign against his captors and their allies. On his return to
Germany he made peace with France at Frankfort in July 1489, and in
October several of the states of the Netherlands recognized him as their
ruler and as guardian of his son. In March 1490 the county of Tirol was
added to his possessions through the abdication of his kinsman, Count
Sigismund, and this district soon became his favourite residence.

Meanwhile the king had formed an alliance with Henry VII. king of
England, and Ferdinand II., king of Aragon, to defend the possessions of the

duchess Anne, daughter and successor of Francis, duke of Brittany. Early in
1490 he took a further step and was betrothed to the duchess, and later in
the same year the marriage was celebrated by proxy; but Brittany was still
occupied by French troops, and Maximilian was unable to go to the
assistance of his bride. The sequel was startling. In December 1491 Anne
was married to Charles VIII., king of France, and Maximilian’s daughter
Margaret, who had resided in France since her betrothal, was sent back to
her father. The inaction of Maximilian at this time is explained by the
condition of affairs in Hungary, where the death of king Matthias Corvinus
had brought about a struggle for this throne. The Roman king, who was an
unsuccessful candidate, took up arms, drove the Hungarians from Austria,
and regained Vienna, which had been in the possession of Matthias since
1485; but he was compelled by want of money to retreat, and on the 7th of
November 1491 signed the treaty of Pressburg with Ladislaus, king of
Bohemia, who had obtained the Hungarian throne. By this treaty it was
agreed that Maximilian should succeed to the crown in case Ladislaus left
no legitimate male issue. Having defeated the invading Turks at Villach in
1492, the king was eager to take revenge upon the king of France; but the
states of the Netherlands would afford him no assistance. The German diet
was indifferent, and in May 1493 he agreed to the peace of Senlis and
regained Artois and Franche-Comté.

In August 1493 the death of the emperor left Maximilian sole ruler of
Germany and head of the house of Habsburg; and on the 16th of March
1494 he married at Innsbruck Bianca Maria Sforza, daughter of Galeazzo
Sforza, duke of Milan (d. 1476). At this time Bianca’s uncle, Ludovico
Sforza, was invested with the duchy of Milan in return for the substantial
dowry which his niece brought to the king. Maximilian harboured the idea
of driving the Turks from Europe; but his appeal to all Christian sovereigns
was ineffectual. In 1494 he was again in the Netherlands, where he led an
expedition against the rebels of Gelderland, assisted Perkin Warbeck to

make a descent upon England, and formally handed over the government of
the Low Countries to Philip. His attention was next turned to Italy, and,
alarmed at the progress of Charles VIII. in the peninsula, he signed the
league of Venice in March 1495, and about the same time arranged a
marriage between his son Philip and Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand and
Isabella, king and queen of Castile and Aragon. The need for help to
prosecute the war in Italy caused the king to call the diet to Worms in
March 1495, when he urged the necessity of checking the progress of
Charles. As during his father’s lifetime Maximilian had favoured the
reforming party among the princes, proposals for the better government of
the empire were brought forward at Worms as a necessary preliminary to
financial and military support. Some reforms were adopted, the public
peace was proclaimed without any limitation of time and a general tax was
levied. The three succeeding years were mainly occupied with quarrels with
the diet, with two invasions of France, and a war in Gelderland against
Charles, count of Egmont, who claimed that duchy, and was supported by
French troops. The reforms of 1495 were rendered abortive by the refusal of
Maximilian to attend the diets or to take any part in the working of the new
constitution, and in 1497 he strengthened his own authority by establishing
an Aulic Council (Reichshofrath), which he declared was competent to deal
with all business of the empire, and about the same time set up a court to
centralize the financial administration of Germany.

In February 1499 the king became involved in a war with the Swiss, who
had refused to pay the imperial taxes or to furnish a contribution for the
Italian expedition. Aided by France they defeated the German troops, and
the peace of Basel in September 1499 recognized them as virtually
independent of the empire. About this time Maximilian’s ally, Ludovico of
Milan, was taken prisoner by Louis XII., king of France, and Maximilian
was again compelled to ask the diet for help. An elaborate scheme for
raising an army was agreed to, and in return a council of regency

(Reichsregiment) was established, which amounted, in the words of a
Venetian envoy, to a deposition of the king. The relations were now very
strained between the reforming princes and Maximilian, who, unable to
raise an army, refused to attend the meetings of the council at Nuremberg,
while both parties treated for peace with France. The hostility of the king
rendered the council impotent. He was successful in winning the support of
many of the younger princes, and in establishing a new court of justice, the
members of which were named by himself. The negotiations with France
ended in the treaty of Blois, signed in September 1504, when Maximilian’s
grandson Charles was betrothed to Claude, daughter of Louis XII., and
Louis, invested with the duchy of Milan, agreed to aid the king of the
Romans to secure the imperial crown. A succession difficulty in Bavaria-
Landshut was only decided after Maximilian had taken up arms and
narrowly escaped with his life at Regensburg. In the settlement of this
question, made in 1505, he secured a considerable increase of territory, and
when the king met the diet at Cologne in 1505 he was at the height of his
power. His enemies at home were crushed, and their leader, Berthold,
elector of Mainz, was dead; while the outlook abroad was more favourable
than it had been since his accession.

It is at this period that Ranke believes Maximilian to have entertained the
idea of a universal monarchy; but whatever hopes he may have had were
shattered by the death of his son Philip and the rupture of the treaty of
Blois. The diet of Cologne discussed the question of reform in a halting
fashion, but afforded the king supplies for an expedition into Hungary, to
aid his ally Ladislaus, and to uphold his own influence in the East. Having
established his daughter Margaret as regent for Charles in the Netherlands,
Maximilian met the diet at Constance in 1507, when the imperial chamber
(Reichskammergericht) was revised and took a more permanent form, and
help was granted for an expedition to Italy. The king set out for Rome to
secure his coronation, but Venice refused to let him pass through her

territories; and at Trant, on the 4th of February 1508, he took the important
step of assuming the title of Roman Emperor Elect, to which he soon
received the assent of pope Julius II. He attacked the Venetians, but finding
the war unpopular with the trading cities of southern Germany, made a truce
with the republic for three years. The treaty of Blois had contained a secret
article providing for an attack on Venice, and this ripened into the league of
Cambray, which was joined by the emperor in December 1509. He soon
took the field, but after his failure to capture Padua the league broke up; and
his sole ally, the French king, joined him in calling a general council at Pisa
to discuss the question of Church reform. A breach with pope Julius
followed, and at this time Maximilian appears to have entertained, perhaps
quite seriously, the idea of seating himself in the chair of St Peter. After a
period of vacillation he deserted Louis and joined the Holy League, which
had been formed to expel the French from Italy; but unable to raise troops,
he served with the English forces as a volunteer and shared in the victory
gained over the French at the battle of the Spurs near Thérouanne on the
16th of August 1513. In 1500 the diet had divided Germany into six circles,
for the maintenance of peace, to which the emperor at the diet of Cologne in
1512 added four others. Having made an alliance with Christian II., king of
Denmark, and interfered to protect the Teutonic Order against Sigismund I.,
king of Poland, Maximilian was again in Italy early in 1516 fighting the
French who had overrun Milan. His want of success compelled him on the
4th of December 1516 to sign the treaty of Brussels, which left Milan in the
hands of the French king, while Verona was soon afterwards transferred to
Venice. He attempted in vain to secure the election of his grandson Charles
as king of the Romans, and in spite of increasing infirmity was eager to lead
the imperial troops against the Turks. At the diet of Augsburg in 1518 the
emperor heard warnings of the Reformation in the shape of complaints
against papal exactions, and a repetition of the complaints preferred at the
diet of Mainz in 1517 about the administration of Germany. Leaving the

diet, he travelled to Wels in Upper Austria, where he died on the 12th of
January 1519. He was buried in the church of St George in Vienna
Neustadt, and a superb monument, which may still be seen, was raised to
his memory at Innsbruck.

Maximilian had many excellent personal qualities. He was not
handsome, but of a robust and well-proportioned frame. Simple in his
habits, conciliatory in his bearing, and catholic in his tastes, he enjoyed
great popularity and rarely made a personal enemy. He was a skilled
knight and a daring huntsman, and although not a great general, was
intrepid on the field of battle. His mental interests were extensive. He
knew something of six languages, and could discuss art, music,
literature or theology. He reorganized the university of Vienna and
encouraged the development of the universities of Ingolstadt and
Freiburg. He was the friend and patron of scholars, caused manuscripts
to be copied and medieval poems to be collected. He was the author of
military reforms, which included the establishment of standing troops,
called Landsknechte, the improvement of artillery by making cannon
portable, and some changes in the equipment of the cavalry. He was
continually devising plans for the better government of Austria, and
although they ended in failure, he established the unity of the Austrian
dominions. Maximilian has been called the second founder of the
house of Habsburg, and certainly by bringing about marriages between
Charles and Joanna and between his grandson Ferdinand and Anna,
daughter of Ladislaus, king of Hungary and Bohemia, he paved the
way for the vast empire of Charles V. and for the influence of the
Habsburgs in eastern Europe. But he had many qualities less desirable.
He was reckless and unstable, resorting often to lying and deceit, and
never pausing to count the cost of an enterprise or troubling to adapt
means to ends. For absurd and impracticable schemes in Italy and
elsewhere he neglected Germany, and sought to involve its princes in

wars undertaken solely for private aggrandizement or personal
jealousy. Ignoring his responsibilities as ruler of Germany, he only
considered the question of its government when in need of money and
support from the princes. As the “last of the knights” he could not see
that the old order of society was passing away and a new order arising,
while he was fascinated by the glitter of the medieval empire and spent
the better part of his life in vague schemes for its revival. As “a gifted
amateur in politics” he increased the disorder of Germany and Italy and
exposed himself and the empire to the jeers of Europe.

Maximilian was also a writer of books, and his writings display his
inordinate vanity. His Geheimes Jagdbuch, containing about 2500
words, is a treatise purporting to teach his grandsons the art of hunting.
He inspired the production of The Dangers and Adventures of the
Famous Hero and Knight Sir Teuerdank, an allegorical poem
describing his adventures on his journey to marry Mary of Burgundy.
The emperor’s share in the work is not clear, but it seems certain that
the general scheme and many of the incidents are due to him. It was
first published at Nuremberg by Melchior Pfintzing in 1517, and was
adorned with woodcuts by Hans Leonhard Schäufelein. The Weisskunig
was long regarded as the work of the emperor’s secretary, Marx
Treitzsaurwein, but it is now believed that the greater part of the book
at least is the work of the emperor himself. It is an unfinished
autobiography containing an account of the achievements of
Maximilian, who is called “the young white king.” It was first
published at Vienna in 1775. He also is responsible for Freydal, an
allegorical account of the tournaments in which he took part during his
wooing of Mary of Burgundy; Ehrenpforten, Triumphwagen and Der
weisen könige Stammbaum, books concerning his own history and that
of the house of Habsburg, and works on various subjects, as Das
Stahlbuch, Die Baumeisterei and Die Gärtnerei. These works are all

profusely illustrated, some by Albrecht Dürer, and in the preparation of
the woodcuts Maximilian himself took the liveliest interest. A facsimile
of the original editions of Maximilian’s autobiographical and semi-
autobiographical works has been published in nine volumes in the
Jahrbücher der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Kaiserhauses
(Vienna, 1880-1888). For this edition S. Laschitzer wrote an
introduction to Sir Teuerdank, Q. von Leitner to Freydal, and N. A. von
Schultz to Der Weisskunig. The Holbein society issued a facsimile of
Sir Teuerdank (London, 1884) and Triumphwagen (London, 1883).

See Correspondance de l’empereur Maximilien I. et de Marguerite
d’Autriche, 1507-1519, edited by A. G. le Glay (Paris, 1839);
Maximilians I. vertraulicher Briefwechsel mit Sigmund Prüschenk,
edited by V. von Kraus (Innsbruck, 1875); J. Chmel, Urkunden, Briefe
und Aktenstücke zur Geschichte Maximilians I. und seiner Zeit.
(Stuttgart, 1845) and Aktenstücke und Briefe zur Geschichte des
Hauses Habsburg im Zeitalter Maximilians I. (Vienna, 1854-1858); K.
Klüpfel, Kaiser Maximilian I. (Berlin, 1864); H. Ulmann, Kaiser
Maximilian I. (Stuttgart, 1884); L. P. Gachard, Lettres inédites de
Maximilien I. sur les affaires des Pays Bas (Brussels, 1851-1852); L.
von Ranke, Geschichte der romanischen und germanischen Völker,
1494-1514 (Leipzig, 1874); R. W. S. Watson, Maximilian I. (London,
1902); A. Jäger, Über Kaiser Maximilians I. Verhältnis zum Papstthum
(Vienna, 1854); H. Ulmann, Kaiser Maximilians I. Absichten auf das
Papstthum (Stuttgart, 1888), and A. Schulte, Kaiser Maximilian I. als
Kandidat für den päpstlichen Stuhl (Leipzig, 1906). (A. W. H.*)

MAXIMILIAN II. (1527-1576), Roman emperor, was the eldest
son of the emperor Ferdinand I. by his wife Anne, daughter of Ladislaus,
king of Hungary and Bohemia, and was born in Vienna on the 31st of July
1527. Educated principally in Spain, he gained some experience of warfare
during the campaign of Charles V. against France in 1544, and also during
the war of the league of Schmalkalden, and soon began to take part in
imperial business. Having in September 1548 married his cousin Maria,
daughter of Charles V., he acted as the emperor’s representative in Spain
from 1548 to 1550, returning to Germany in December 1550 in order to
take part in the discussion over the imperial succession. Charles V. wished
his son Philip (afterwards king of Spain) to succeed him as emperor, but his
brother Ferdinand, who had already been designated as the next occupant of
the imperial throne, and Maximilian objected to this proposal. At length a
compromise was reached. Philip was to succeed Ferdinand, but during the
former’s reign Maximilian, as king of the Romans, was to govern Germany.
This arrangement was not carried out, and is only important because the
insistence of the emperor seriously disturbed the harmonious relations
which had hitherto existed between the two branches of the Habsburg
family; and the estrangement went so far that an illness which befell
Maximilian in 1552 was attributed to poison given to him in the interests of
his cousin and brother-in-law, Philip of Spain. About this time he took up
his residence in Vienna, and was engaged mainly in the government of the
Austrian dominions and in defending them against the Turks. The religious

views of the king of Bohemia, as Maximilian had been called since his
recognition as the future ruler of that country in 1549, had always been
somewhat uncertain, and he had probably learned something of
Lutheranism in his youth; but his amicable relations with several Protestant
princes, which began about the time of the discussion over the succession,
were probably due more to political than to religious considerations.
However, in Vienna he became very intimate with Sebastian Pfauser (1520-
1569), a court preacher with strong leanings towards Lutheranism, and his
religious attitude caused some uneasiness to his father. Fears were freely
expressed that he would definitely leave the Catholic Church, and when
Ferdinand became emperor in 1558 he was prepared to assure Pope Paul IV.
that his son should not succeed him if he took this step. Eventually
Maximilian remained nominally an adherent of the older faith, although his
views were tinged with Lutheranism until the end of his life. After several
refusals he consented in 1560 to the banishment of Pfauser, and began again
to attend the services of the Catholic Church. This uneasiness having been
dispelled, in November 1562 Maximilian was chosen king of the Romans,
or German king, at Frankfort, where he was crowned a few days later, after
assuring the Catholic electors of his fidelity to their faith, and promising the
Protestant electors that he would publicly accept the confession of
Augsburg when he became emperor. He also took the usual oath to protect
the Church, and his election was afterwards confirmed by the papacy. In
September 1563 he was crowned king of Hungary, and on his father’s
death, in July 1564, succeeded to the empire and to the kingdoms of
Hungary and Bohemia.

The new emperor had already shown that he believed in the necessity for
a thorough reform of the Church. He was unable, however, to obtain the
consent of Pope Pius IV. to the marriage of the clergy, and in 1568 the
concession of communion in both kinds to the laity was withdrawn. On his
part Maximilian granted religious liberty to the Lutheran nobles and knights

in Austria, and refused to allow the publication of the decrees of the council
of Trent. Amid general expectations on the part of the Protestants he met his
first Diet at Augsburg in March 1566. He refused to accede to the demands
of the Lutheran princes; on the other hand, although the increase of
sectarianism was discussed, no decisive steps were taken to suppress it, and
the only result of the meeting was a grant of assistance for the Turkish War,
which had just been renewed. Collecting a large and splendid army
Maximilian marched to defend his territories; but no decisive engagement
had taken place when a truce was made in 1568, and the emperor continued
to pay tribute to the sultan for Hungary. Meanwhile the relations between
Maximilian and Philip of Spain had improved; and the emperor’s
increasingly cautious and moderate attitude in religious matters was
doubtless due to the fact that the death of Philip’s son, Don Carlos, had
opened the way for the succession of Maximilian, or of one of his sons, to
the Spanish throne. Evidence of this friendly feeling was given in 1570,
when the emperor’s daughter, Anne, became the fourth wife of Philip; but
Maximilian was unable to moderate the harsh proceedings of the Spanish
king against the revolting inhabitants of the Netherlands. In 1570 the
emperor met the diet at Spires and asked for aid to place his eastern borders
in a state of defence, and also for power to repress the disorder caused by
troops in the service of foreign powers passing through Germany. He
proposed that his consent should be necessary before any soldiers for
foreign service were recruited in the empire; but the estates were unwilling
to strengthen the imperial authority, the Protestant princes regarded the
suggestion as an attempt to prevent them from assisting their coreligionists
in France and the Netherlands, and nothing was done in this direction,
although some assistance was voted for the defence of Austria. The
religious demands of the Protestants were still unsatisfied, while the policy
of toleration had failed to give peace to Austria. Maximilian’s power was
very limited; it was inability rather than unwillingness that prevented him

from yielding to the entreaties of Pope Pius V. to join in an attack on the
Turks both before and after the victory of Lepanto in 1571; and he remained
inert while the authority of the empire in north-eastern Europe was
threatened. His last important act was to make a bid for the throne of
Poland, either for himself or for his son Ernest. In December 1575 he was
elected by a powerful faction, but the diet which met at Regensburg was
loath to assist; and on the 12th of October 1576 the emperor died, refusing
on his deathbed to receive the last sacraments of the Church.

By his wife Maria he had a family of nine sons and six daughters. He was
succeeded by his eldest surviving son, Rudolph, who had been chosen king
of the Romans in October 1575. Another of his sons, Matthias, also became
emperor; three others, Ernest, Albert and Maximilian, took some part in the
government of the Habsburg territories or of the Netherlands, and a
daughter, Elizabeth, married Charles IX. king of France.

The religious attitude of Maximilian has given rise to much
discussion, and on this subject the writings of W. Maurenbrecher, W.
Goetz and E. Reimann in the Historische Zeitschrift, Bände VII., XV.,
XXXII. and LXXVII. (Munich, 1870 fol.) should be consulted, and
also O. H. Hopfen, Maximilian II. und der Kompromisskatholizismus
(Munich, 1895); C. Haupt, Melanchthons und seiner Lehrer Einfluss
auf Maximilian II. (Wittenberg, 1897); F. Walter, Die Wahl
Maximilians II. (Heidelberg, 1892); W. Goetz, Maximilians II. Wahl
zum römischen Könige (Würzburg, 1891), and T. J. Scherg, Über die
religiöse Entwickelung Kaiser Maximilians II. bis zu seiner Wahl zum
römischen Könige (Würzburg, 1903). For a more general account of his
life and work see Briefe und Akten zur Geschichte Maximilians II.,
edited by W. E. Schwarz (Paderborn, 1889-1891); M. Koch, Quellen
zur Geschichte des Kaisers Maximilian II. in Archiven gesammelt
(Leipzig, 1857-1861); R. Holtzmann, Kaiser Maximilian II. bis zu

seiner Thronbesteigung (Berlin, 1903); E. Wertheimer, Zur Geschichte
der Türkenkriege Maximilians II. (Vienna, 1875); L. von Ranke, Über
die Zeiten Ferdinands I. und Maximilians II. in Band VII. of his
Sämmtliche Werke (Leipzig, 1874), and J. Janssen, Geschichte des
deutschen Volkes seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters, Bände IV. to VIII.
(Freiburg, 1885-1894), English translation by M. A. Mitchell and A. M.
Christie (London, 1896 fol.).

MAXIMILIAN (1832-1867), emperor of Mexico, second son of
the archduke Francis Charles of Austria, was born in the palace of
Schönbrunn, on the 6th of July 1832. He was a particularly clever boy,
showed considerable taste for the arts, and early displayed an interest in
science, especially botany. He was trained for the navy, and threw himself
into this career with so much zeal that he quickly rose to high command,
and was mainly instrumental in creating the naval port of Trieste and the
fleet with which Tegethoff won his victories in the Italian War. He had some
reputation as a Liberal, and this led, in February 1857, to his appointment as
viceroy of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom; in the same year he married
the Princess Charlotte, daughter of Leopold I., king of the Belgians. On the
outbreak of the war of 1859 he retired into private life, chiefly at Trieste,
near which he built the beautiful chateau of Miramar. In this same year he
was first approached by Mexican exiles with the proposal to become the
candidate for the throne of Mexico. He did not at first accept, but sought to
satisfy his restless desire for adventure by a botanical expedition to the

tropical forests of Brazil. In 1863, however, under pressure from Napoleon
III., and after General Forey’s capture of the city of Mexico and the
plebiscite which confirmed his proclamation of the empire, he consented to
accept the crown. This decision was contrary to the advice of his brother,
the emperor Francis Joseph, and involved the loss of all his rights in
Austria. Maximilian landed at Vera Cruz on the 28th of May 1864; but from
the very outset he found himself involved in difficulties of the most serious
kind, which in 1866 made apparent to almost every one outside of Mexico
the necessity for his abdicating. Though urged to this course by Napoleon
himself, whose withdrawal from Mexico was the final blow to his cause,
Maximilian refused to desert his followers. Withdrawing, in February 1867,
to Querétaro, he there sustained a siege for several weeks, but on the 15th
of May resolved to attempt an escape through the enemy’s lines. He was,
however, arrested before he could carry out this resolution, and after trial by
court-martial was condemned to death. The sentence was carried out on the
19th of June 1867. His remains were conveyed to Vienna, where they were
buried in the imperial vault early in the following year. (See Mexico.)

Maximilian’s papers were published at Leipzig in 1867, in seven
volumes, under the title Aus meinem Leben, Reiseskizzen, Aphorismen,
Gedichte. See Pierre de la Gorce, Hist. du Second Empire, IV., liv. xxv.
ii. (Paris, 1904); article by von Hoffinger in Allgemeine Deutsche
Biographie, xxi. 70, where authorities are cited.

MAXIMINUS, GAIUS JULIUS VERUS, Roman
emperor from a.d. 235 to 238, was born in a village on the confines of
Thrace. He was of barbarian parentage and was brought up as a shepherd.
His immense stature and enormous feats of strength attracted the attention
of the emperor Septimius Severus. He entered the army, and under
Caracalla rose to the rank of centurion. He carefully absented himself from
court during the reign of Heliogabalus, but under his successor Alexander
Severus, was appointed supreme commander of the Roman armies. After
the murder of Alexander in Gaul, hastened, it is said, by his instigation,
Maximinus was proclaimed emperor by the soldiers on the 19th of March
235. The three years of his reign, which were spent wholly in the camp,
were marked by great cruelty and oppression; the widespread discontent
thus produced culminated in a revolt in Africa and the assumption of the
purple by Gordian (q.v.). Maximinus, who was in Pannonia at the time,
marched against Rome, and passing over the Julian Alps descended on
Aquileia; while detained before that city he and his son were murdered in
their tent by a body of praetorians. Their heads were cut off and despatched
to Rome, where they were burnt on the Campus Martius by the exultant
crowd.

Capitolinus, Maximini duo; Herodian vi. 8, vii., viii. 1-5; Zosimus i.
13-15.

MAXIMINUS [Maximin], GALERIUS VALERIUS,
Roman emperor from a.d. 308 to 314, was originally an Illyrian shepherd
named Daia. He rose to high distinction after he had joined the army, and in
305 he was raised by his uncle, Galerius, to the rank of Caesar, with the
government of Syria and Egypt. In 308, after the elevation of Licinius, he
insisted on receiving the title of Augustus; on the death of Galerius, in 311,
he succeeded to the supreme command of the provinces of Asia, and when
Licinius and Constantine began to make common cause with one another
Maximinus entered into a secret alliance with Maxentius. He came to an
open rupture with Licinius in 313, sustained a crushing defeat in the
neighbourhood of Heraclea Pontica on the 30th of April, and fled, first to
Nicomedia and afterwards to Tarsus, where he died in August following.
His death was variously ascribed “to despair, to poison, and to the divine
justice.” Maximinus has a bad name in Christian annals, as having renewed
persecution after the publication of the toleration edict of Galerius, but it is
probable that he has been judged too harshly.

See Maxentius; Zosimus ii. 8; Aurelius Victor, Epit. 40.

MAXIMS, LEGAL. A maxim is an established principle or
proposition. The Latin term maxima is not to be found in Roman law with
any meaning exactly analogous to that of a legal maxim in the modern
sense of the word, but the treatises of many of the Roman jurists on Regulae
definitiones, and Sententiae juris are, in some measure, collections of

maxims (see an article on “Latin Maxims in English Law” in Law Mag. and
Rev. xx. 285); Fortescue (De laudibus, c. 8) and Du Cange treat maxima and
regula as identical. The attitude of early English commentators towards the
maxims of the law was one of unmingled adulation. In Doctor and Student
(p. 26) they are described as “of the same strength and effect in the law as
statutes be.” Coke (Co. Litt. 11 A) says that a maxim is so called “Quia
maxima est ejus dignitas et certissima auctoritas, atque quod maxime
omnibus probetur.” “Not only,” observes Bacon in the Preface to his
Collection of Maxims, “will the use of maxims be in deciding doubt and
helping soundness of judgment, but, further, in gracing argument, in
correcting unprofitable subtlety, and reducing the same to a more sound and
substantial sense of law, in reclaiming vulgar errors, and, generally, in the
amendment in some measure of the very nature and complexion of the
whole law.” A similar note was sounded in Scotland; and it has been well
observed that “a glance at the pages of Morrison’s Dictionary or at other
early reports will show how frequently in the older Scots law questions
respecting the rights, remedies and liabilities of individuals were
determined by an immediate reference to legal maxims” (J. M. Irving,
Encyclo. Scots Law, s.v. “Maxims”). In later times less value has been
attached to the maxims of the law, as the development of civilization and
the increasing complexity of business relations have shown the necessity of
qualifying the propositions which they enunciate (see Stephen, Hist. Crim.
Law, ii. 94 n: Yarmouth v. France, 1887, 19 Q.B.D., per Lord Esher, at p.
653, and American authorities collected in Bouvier’s Law Dict. s.v.
“Maxim”). But both historically and practically they must always possess
interest and value.

A brief reference need only be made here, with examples by way of
illustration, to the field which the maxims of the law cover.

Commencing with rules founded on public policy, we may note the
famous principle—Salus populi suprema lex (xii. Tables: Bacon,
Maxims, reg. 12)—“the public welfare is the highest law.” It is on this
maxim that the coercive action of the State towards individual liberty
in a hundred matters is based. To the same category belong the maxims
—Summa ratio est quae pro religione facit (Co. Litt. 341 a)—“the best
rule is that which advances religion”—a maxim which finds its
application when the enforcement of foreign laws or judgments
supposed to violate our own laws or the principles of natural justice is
in question; and Dies dominicus non est juridicus, which exempts
Sunday from the lawful days for juridical acts. Among the maxims
relating to the crown, the most important are Rex non potest peccare (2
Rolle R. 304)—“The King can do no wrong”—which enshrines the
principle of ministerial responsibility, and Nullum tempus occurrit regi
(2 Co. Inst. 273)—“lapse of time does not bar the crown,” a maxim
qualified by various enactments in modern times. Passing to the
judicial office and the administration of justice, we may refer to the
rules—Audi alteram partem—a proposition too familiar to need either
translation or comment; Nemo debet esse judex in propriâ suâ causâ
(12 Co. Rep. 114)—“no man ought to be judge in his own cause”—a
maxim which French law, and the legal systems based upon or allied to
it, have embodied in an elaborate network of rules for judicial
challenge; and the maxim which defines the relative functions of judge
and jury, Ad quaestionem facti non respondent judices, ad quaestionem
legis non respondent juratores (8 Co. Rep. 155). The maxim Boni
judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem (Ch. Prec. 329) is certainly
erroneous as it stands, as a judge has no right to “extend his
jurisdiction.” If justitiam is substituted for jurisdictionem, as Lord
Mansfield said it should be (1 Burr. 304), the maxim is near the truth. A
group of maxims supposed to embody certain fundamental principles

of legal right and obligations may next be referred to: (a) Ubi jus ibi
remedium (see Co. Litt. 197 b)—a maxim to which the evolution of the
flexible “action on the case,” by which wrongs unknown to the
“original writs” were dealt with, was historically due, but which must
be taken with the gloss Damnum absque injuria—“there are forms of
actual damage which do not constitute legal injury” for which the law
supplies no remedy; (b) Actus Dei nemini facit injuriam (2 Blackstone,
122)—and its allied maxim, Lex non cogit ad impossibilia (Co. Litt.
231 b)—on which the whole doctrine of vis major (force majeure) and
impossible conditions in the law of contract has been built up. In this
category may also be classed Volenti non fit injuria (Wingate, Maxims),
out of which sprang the theory—now profoundly modified by statute—
of “common employment” in the law of employers’ liability; see Smith
v. Baker, 1891, A.C. 325. Other maxims deal with rights of property—
Qui prior est tempore, potior est jure (Co. Litt. 14 a), which
consecrates the position of the beati possidentes alike in municipal and
in international law; Sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas (9 Co. Rep.
59), which has played its part in the determination of the rights of
adjacent owners; and Domus sua cuique est tutissimum refugium (5 Co.
Rep. 92)—“a man’s house is his castle,” a doctrine which has imposed
limitations on the rights of execution creditors (see Execution). In the
laws of family relations there are the maxims Consensus non
concubitus facit matrimonium (Co. Litt. 33 a)—the canon law of
Europe prior to the council of Trent, and still law in Scotland, though
modified by legislation in England; and Pater is est quem nuptiae
demonstrant (see Co. Litt. 7 b), on which, in most civilized countries,
the presumption of legitimacy depends. In the interpretation of written
instruments, the maxim Noscitur a sociis (3 Term Reports, 87), which
proclaims the importance of the context, still applies. So do the rules
Expressio unius est exclusio alterius (Co. Litt. 210 a), and

Contemporanea expositio est optima et fortissima in lege (2 Co. Inst.
11), which lets in evidence of contemporaneous user as an aid to the
interpretation of statutes or documents; see Van Diemen’s Land Co. v.
Table Cape Marine Board, 1906, A.C. 92, 98. We may conclude this
sketch with a miscellaneous summary: Caveat emptor (Hob. 99)—“let
the purchaser beware”; Qui facit per alium facile per se, which affirms
the principal’s liability for the acts of his agent; Ignorantia juris
neminem excusat, on which rests the ordinary citizen’s obligation to
know the law; and Vigilantibus non dormientibus jura subveniunt (2
Co. Inst. 690), one of the maxims in accordance with which courts of
equity administer relief. Among other “maxims of equity” come the
rules that “he that seeks equity must do equity,” i.e. must act fairly, and
that “equity looks upon that as done which ought to be done”—a
principle from which the “conversion” into money of land directed to
be sold, and of money directed to be invested in the purchase of land, is
derived.

The principal collections of legal maxims are: English Law: Bacon,
Collection of Some Principal Rules and Maxims of the Common Law
(1630); Noy, Treatise of the principal Grounds and Maxims of the Law
of England (1641, 8th ed., 1824); Wingate, Maxims of Reason (1728);
Francis, Grounds and Rudiments of Law and Equity (2nd ed. 1751);
Lofft (annexed to his Reports, 1776); Broom, Legal Maxims (7th ed.
London, 1900). Scots Law: Lord Trayner, Latin Maxims and Phrases
(2nd ed., 1876); Stair, Institutions of the Law of Scotland, with Index
by More (Edinburgh, 1832). American Treatises: A. I. Morgan, English
Version of Legal Maxims (Cincinnati, 1878); S. S. Peloubet, Legal
Maxims in Law and Equity (New York, 1880). (A. W. R.)

MAXIMUS, the name of four Roman emperors.
I. M. Clodius Pupienus Maximus, joint emperor with D. Caelius Calvinus
Balbinus during a few months of the year a.d. 238. Pupienus was a
distinguished soldier, who had been proconsul of Bithynia, Achaea, and
Gallia Narbonensis. At the advanced age of seventy-four, he was chosen by
the senate with Balbinus to resist the barbarian Maximinus. Their complete
equality is shown by the fact that each assumed the titles of pontifex
maximus and princeps senatus. It was arranged that Pupienus should take
the field against Maximinus, while Balbinus remained at Rome to maintain
order, a task in which he signally failed. A revolt of the praetorians was not
repressed till much blood had been shed and a considerable part of the city
reduced to ashes. On his march, Pupienus, having received the news that
Maximinus had been assassinated by his own troops, returned in triumph to
Rome. Shortly afterwards, when both emperors were on the point of leaving
the city on an expedition—Pupienus against the Persians and Balbinus
against the Goths—the praetorians, who had always resented the
appointment of the senatorial emperors and cherished the memory of the
soldier-emperor Maximinus, seized the opportunity of revenge. When most
of the people were at the Capitoline games, they forced their way into the
palace, dragged Balbinus and Pupienus through the streets, and put them to
death.

See Capitolinus, Life of Maximus and Balbinus; Herodian vii. 10,
viii. 6; Zonaras xii. 16; Orosius vii. 19; Eutropius ix. 2; Zosimus i. 14;
Aurelius Victor, Caesares, 26, epit. 26; H. Schiller, Geschichte der
römischen Kaiserzeit, i. 2; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. 7 and (for the
chronology) appendix 12 (Bury’s edition).

II. Magnus Maximus, a native of Spain, who had accompanied
Theodosius on several expeditions and from 368 held high military rank in
Britain. The disaffected troops having proclaimed Maximus emperor, he
crossed over to Gaul, attacked Gratian (q.v.), and drove him from Paris to
Lyons, where he was murdered by a partisan of Maximus. Theodosius being
unable to avenge the death of his colleague, an agreement was made (384 or
385) by which Maximus was recognized as Augustus and sole emperor in
Gaul, Spain and Britain, while Valentinian II. was to remain unmolested in
Italy and Illyricum, Theodosius retaining his sovereignty in the East. In 387
Maximus crossed the Alps, Valentinian was speedily put to flight, while the
invader established himself in Milan and for the time became master of
Italy. Theodosius now took vigorous measures. Advancing with a powerful
army, he twice defeated the troops of Maximus—at Siscia on the Save, and
at Poetovio on the Danube. He then hurried on to Aquileia, where Maximus
had shut himself up, and had him beheaded. Under the name of Maxen
Wledig, Maximus appears in the list of Welsh royal heroes (see R.
Williams, Biog. Dict. of Eminent Welshmen, 1852; “The Dream of Maxen
Wledig,” in the Mabinogion).

Full account with classical references in H. Richter, Das
weströmische Reich, besonders unter den Kaisern Gratian, Valentinian
II. und Maximus (1865); see also H. Schiller, Geschichte der römischen
Kaiserzeit, ii. (1887); Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. 27; Tillemont,
Hist. des empereurs, v.

III. Maximus Tyrannus, made emperor in Spain by the Roman general,
Gerontius, who had rebelled against the usurper Constantine in 408. After
the defeat of Gerontius at Arelate (Arles) and his death in 411 Maximus
renounced the imperial title and was permitted by Constantine to retire into
private life. About 418 he rebelled again, but, failing in his attempt, was
seized, carried into Italy, and put to death at Ravenna in 422.

See Orosius vii. 42; Zosimus vi. 5; Sozomen ix. 3; E. A. Freeman,
“The Tyrants of Britain, Gaul and Spain, a.d. 406-411,” in English
Historical Review, i. (1886).

IV. Petronius Maximus, a member of the higher Roman nobility, had held
several court and public offices, including those of praefectus Romae (420)
and Italiae (439-441 and 445), and consul (433, 443). He was one of the
intimate associates of Valentinian III., whom he assisted in the palace
intrigues which led to the death of Aëtius in 454; but an outrage committed
on the wife of Maximus by the emperor turned his friendship into hatred.
Maximus was proclaimed emperor immediately after Valentinian’s murder
(March 16, 455), but after reigning less than three months, he was murdered
by some Burgundian mercenaries as he was fleeing before the troops of
Genseric, who, invited by Eudoxia, the widow of Valentinian, had landed at
the mouth of the Tiber (May or June 455).

See Procopius, Vand. i. 4; Sidonius Apollinaris, Panegyr. Aviti, ep. ii.
13; the various Chronicles; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chs. 35, 36;
Tillemont, Hist. des empereurs, vi.

MAXIMUS, ST (c. 580-662), abbot of Chrysopolis, known as “the
Confessor” from his orthodox zeal in the Monothelite (q.v.) controversy, or
as “the monk,” was born of noble parentage at Constantinople about the
year 580. Educated with great care, he early became distinguished by his
talents and acquirements, and some time after the accession of the emperor
Heraclius in 610 was made his private secretary. In 630 he abandoned the
secular life and entered the monastery of Chrysopolis (Scutari), actuated, it
was believed, less by any longing for the life of a recluse than by the
dissatisfaction he felt with the Monothelite leanings of his master. The date
of his promotion to the abbacy is uncertain. In 633 he was one of the party
of Sophronius of Jerusalem (the chief original opponent of the
Monothelites) at the council of Alexandria; and in 645 he was again in
Africa, when he held in presence of the governor and a number of bishops
the disputation with Pyrrhus, the deposed and banished patriarch of
Constantinople, which resulted in the (temporary) conversion of his
interlocutor to the Dyothelite view. In the following year several African
synods, held under the influence of Maximus, declared for orthodoxy. In
649, after the accession of Martin I., he went to Rome, and did much to fan
the zeal of the new pope, who in October of that year held the (first)
Lateran synod, by which not only the Monothelite doctrine but also the
moderating ecthesis of Heraclius and typus of Constans II. were
anathematized. About 653 Maximus, for the part he had taken against the
latter document especially, was apprehended (together with the pope) by

order of Constans and carried a prisoner to Constantinople. In 655, after
repeated examinations, in which he maintained his theological opinions
with memorable constancy, he was banished to Byzia in Thrace, and
afterwards to Perberis. In 662 he was again brought to Constantinople and
was condemned by a synod to be scourged, to have his tongue cut out by
the root, and to have his right hand chopped off. After this sentence had
been carried out he was again banished to Lazica, where he died on the 13th
of August 662. He is venerated as a saint both in the Greek and in the Latin
Churches. Maximus was not only a leader in the Monothelite struggle but a
mystic who zealously followed and advocated the system of Pseudo-
Dionysius, while adding to it an ethical element in the conception of the
freedom of the will. His works had considerable influence in shaping the
system of John Scotus Erigena.

The most important of the works of Maximus will be found in
Migne, Patrologia graeca, xc. xci., together with an anonymous life;
an exhaustive list in Wagenmann’s article in vol. xii. (1903) of Hauck-
Herzog’s Realencyklopädie where the following classification is
adopted: (a) exegetical, (b) scholia on the Fathers, (c) dogmatic and
controversial, (d) ethical and ascetic, (e) miscellaneous. The details of
the disputation with Pyrrhus and of the martyrdom are given very fully
and clearly in Hefele’s Conciliengeschichte, iii. For further literature
see H. Gelzer in C. Krumbacher’s Geschichte der byzantinischen
Litteratur (1897).

MAXIMUS OF SMYRNA, a Greek philosopher of the Neo-
platonist school, who lived towards the end of the 4th century a.d. He was
perhaps the most important of the followers of Iamblichus. He is said to
have been of a rich and noble family, and exercised great influence over the
emperor Julian, who was commended to him by Aedesius. He pandered to
the emperor’s love of magic and theurgy, and by judicious administration of
the omens won a high position at court. His overbearing manner made him
numerous enemies, and, after being imprisoned on the death of Julian, he
was put to death by Valens. He is a representative of the least attractive side
of Neoplatonism. Attaching no value to logical proof and argument, he
enlarged on the wonders and mysteries of nature, and maintained his
position by the working of miracles. In logic he is reported to have agreed
with Eusebius, Iamblichus and Porphyry in asserting the validity of the
second and third figures of the syllogism.

MAXIMUS OF TYRE (Cassius Maximus Tyrius), a Greek
rhetorician and philosopher who flourished in the time of the Antonines and
Commodus (2nd century a.d.). After the manner of the sophists of his age,
he travelled extensively, delivering lectures on the way. His writings contain
many allusions to the history of Greece, while there is little reference to
Rome; hence it is inferred that he lived longer in Greece, perhaps as a
professor at Athens. Although nominally a Platonist, he is really an Eclectic
and one of the precursors of Neoplatonism. There are still extant by him
forty-one essays or discourses (διαλέξεις) on theological, ethical, and other

philosophical commonplaces. With him God is the supreme being, one and
indivisible though called by many names, accessible to reason alone; but as
animals form the intermediate stage between plants and human beings, so
there exist intermediaries between God and man, viz. daemons, who dwell
on the confines of heaven and earth. The soul in many ways bears a great
resemblance to the divinity; it is partly mortal, partly immortal, and, when
freed from the fetters of the body, becomes a daemon. Life is the sleep of
the soul, from which it awakes at death. The style of Maximus is superior to
that of the ordinary sophistical rhetorician, but scholars differ widely as to
the merits of the essays themselves.

Maximus of Tyre must be distinguished from the Stoic Maximus, tutor of
Marcus Aurelius.

Editions by J. Davies, revised with valuable notes by J. Markland
(1740); J. J. Reiske (1774); F. Dübner (1840, with Theophrastus, &c.,
in the Didot series). Monographs by R. Rohdich (Beuthen, 1879); H.
Hobein, De Maximo Tyrio quaestiones philol. (Jena, 1895). There is an
English translation (1804) by Thomas Taylor, the Platonist.

MAX MÜLLER, FRIEDRICH (1823-1900), Anglo-German
orientalist and comparative philologist, was born at Dessau on the 6th of
December 1823, being the son of Wilhelm Müller (1794-1827), the German
poet, celebrated for his phil-Hellenic lyrics, who was ducal librarian at
Dessau. The elder Müller had endeared himself to the most intellectual

circles in Germany by his amiable character and his genuine poetic gift; his
songs had been utilized by musical composers, notably Schubert; and it was
his son’s good fortune to meet in his youth with a succession of eminent
friends, who, already interested in him for his father’s sake, and charmed by
the qualities which they discovered in the young man himself, powerfully
aided him by advice and patronage. Mendelssohn, who was his godfather,
dissuaded him from indulging his natural bent to the study of music;
Professor Brockhaus of the University of Leipzig, where Max Müller
matriculated in 1841, induced him to take up Sanskrit; Bopp, at the
University of Berlin (1844), made the Sanskrit student a scientific
comparative philologist; Schelling at the same university, inspired him with
a love for metaphysical speculation, though failing to attract him to his own
philosophy; Burnouf, at Paris in the following year, by teaching him Zend,
started him on the track of inquiry into the science of comparative religion,
and impelled him to edit the Rig Veda; and when, in 1846, Max Müller
came to England upon this errand, Bunsen, in conjunction with Professor H.
H. Wilson, prevailed upon the East India Company to undertake the
expense of publication. Up to this time Max Müller had lived the life of a
poor student, supporting himself partly by copying manuscripts, but
Bunsen’s introductions to Queen Victoria and the prince consort, and to
Oxford University, laid the foundation for him of fame and fortune. In 1848
the printing of his Rig Veda at the University Press obliged him to settle in
Oxford, a step which decided his future career. He arrived at a favourable
conjuncture: the Tractarian strife, which had so long thrust learning into the
background, was just over, and Oxford was becoming accessible to modern
ideas. The young German excited curiosity and interest, and it was soon
discovered that, although a genuine scholar, he was no mere bookworm.
Part of his social success was due to his readiness to exert his musical
talents at private parties. Max Müller was speedily subjugated by the genius
loci. He was appointed deputy Taylorian professor of modern languages in

1850, and the German government failed to tempt him back to Strassburg.
In the following year he was made M.A. and honorary fellow of Christ
Church, and in 1858 he was elected a fellow of All Souls. In 1854 the
Crimean War gave him the opportunity of utilizing his oriental learning in
vocabularies and schemes of transliteration. In 1857 he successfully
essayed another kind of literature in his beautiful story Deutsche Liebe,
written both in German and English. He had by this time become an
extensive contributor to English periodical literature, and had written
several of the essays subsequently collected as Chips from a German
Workshop. The most important of them was the fascinating essay on
“Comparative Mythology” in the Oxford Essays for 1856. His valuable
History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, so far as it illustrates the primitive
religion of the Brahmans (and hence the Vedic period only), was published
in 1850.

Though Max Müller’s reputation was that of a comparative philologist
and orientalist, his professional duties at Oxford were long confined to
lecturing on modern languages, or at least their medieval forms. In 1860 the
death of Horace Hayman Wilson, professor of Sanskrit, seemed to open a
more congenial sphere to him. His claims to the succession seemed
incontestable, for his opponent, Monier Williams, though well qualified as a
Sanskritist, lacked Max Müller’s brilliant versatility, and although educated
at Oxford, had held no University office. But Max Müller was a Liberal,
and the friend of Liberals in university matters, in politics, and in theology,
and this consideration united with his foreign birth to bring the country
clergy in such hosts to the poll that the voice of resident Oxford was
overborne, and Monier Williams was elected by a large majority. It was the
one great disappointment of Max Müller’s life, and made a lasting
impression upon him. It was, nevertheless, serviceable to his influence and
reputation by permitting him to enter upon a wider field of subjects than
would have been possible otherwise. Directly, Sanskrit philology received

little more from him, except in connexion with his later undertaking of The
Sacred Books of the East; but indirectly he exalted it more than any
predecessor by proclaiming its commanding position in the history of the
human intellect by his Science of Language, two courses of lectures
delivered at the Royal Institution in 1861 and 1863. Max Müller ought not
to be described as “the introducer of comparative philology into England.”
Prichard had proved the Aryan affinities of the Celtic languages by the
methods of comparative philology so long before as 1831; Winning’s
Manual of Comparative Philology had been published in 1838; the
discoveries of Bopp and Pott and Pictet had been recognized in brilliant
articles in the Quarterly Review, and had guided the researches of
Rawlinson. But Max Müller undoubtedly did far more to popularize the
subject than had been done, or could have been done, by any predecessor.
He was on less sure ground in another department of the study of language
—the problem of its origin. He wrote upon it as a disciple of Kant, whose
Critique of Pure Reason he translated. His essays on mythology are among
the most delightful of his writings, but their value is somewhat impaired by
a too uncompromising adherence to the seductive generalization of the solar
myth.

Max Müller’s studies in mythology led him to another field of activity in
which his influence was more durable and extensive, that of the
comparative science of religions. Here, so far as Great Britain is concerned,
he does deserve the fame of an originator, and his Introduction to the
Science of Religion (1873: the same year in which he lectured on the
subject, at Dean Stanley’s invitation, in Westminster Abbey, this being the
only occasion on which a layman had given an address there) marks an
epoch. It was followed by other works of importance, especially the four
volumes of Gifford lectures, delivered between 1888 and 1892; but the most
tangible result of the impulse he had given was the publication under his
editorship, from 1875 onwards, of The Sacred Books of the East, in fifty-

one volumes, including indexes, all but three of which appeared under his
superintendence during his lifetime. These comprise translations by the
most competent scholars of all the really important non-Christian scriptures
of Oriental nations, which can now be appreciated without a knowledge of
the original languages. Max Müller also wrote on Indian philosophy in his
latter years, and his exertions to stimulate search for Oriental manuscripts
and inscriptions were rewarded with important discoveries of early
Buddhist scriptures, in their Indian form, made in Japan. He was on
particularly friendly terms with native Japanese scholars, and after his death
his library was purchased by the university of Tôkyô.

In 1868 Max Müller had been indemnified for his disappointment over
the Sanskrit professorship by the establishment of a chair of Comparative
Philology to be filled by him. He retired, however, from the actual duties of
the post in 1875, when entering upon the editorship of The Sacred Books of
the East. The most remarkable external events of his latter years were his
delivery of lectures at the restored university of Strassburg in 1872, when
he devoted his honorarium to the endowment of a Sanskrit lectureship, and
his presidency over the International Congress of Orientalists in 1892. But
his days, if uneventful, were busy. He participated in every movement at
Oxford of which he could approve, and was intimate with nearly all its men
of light and leading; he was a curator of the Bodleian Library, and a
delegate of the University Press. He was acquainted with most of the
crowned heads

of Europe, and was an especial favourite with the English royal family.
His hospitality was ample, especially to visitors from India, where he was
far better known than any other European Orientalist. His distinctions,
conferred by foreign governments and learned societies, were innumerable,
and, having been naturalized shortly after his arrival in England, he
received the high honour of being made a privy councillor. In 1898 and

1899 he published autobiographical reminiscences under the title of Auld
Lang Syne. He was writing a more detailed autobiography when overtaken
by death on the 28th of October 1900. Max Müller married in 1859
Georgiana Adelaide Grenfell, sister of the wives of Charles Kingsley and J.
A. Froude. One of his daughters, Mrs Conybeare, distinguished herself by a
translation of Scherer’s History of German Literature.

Though undoubtedly a great scholar, Max Müller did not so much
represent scholarship pure and simple as her hybrid types—the scholar-
author and the scholar-courtier. In the former capacity, though manifesting
little of the originality of genius, he rendered vast service by popularizing
high truths among high minds. In his public and social character he
represented Oriental studies with a brilliancy, and conferred upon them a
distinction, which they had not previously enjoyed in Great Britain. There
were drawbacks in both respects: the author was too prone to build upon
insecure foundations, and the man of the world incurred censure for failings
which may perhaps be best indicated by the remark that he seemed too
much of a diplomatist. But the sum of foibles seems insignificant in
comparison with the life of intense labour dedicated to the service of culture
and humanity.

Max Müller’s Collected Works were published in 1903.
(R. G.)

MAXWELL, the name of a Scottish family, members of which
have held the titles of earl of Morton, earl of Nithsdale, Lord Maxwell, and

Lord Herries. The name is taken probably from Maccuswell, or Maxwell,
near Kelso, whither the family migrated from England about 1100. Sir
Herbert Maxwell won great fame by defending his castle of Carlaverock
against Edward I. in 1300; another Sir Herbert was made a lord of the
Scottish parliament before 1445; and his great-grandson John, 3rd Lord
Maxwell, was killed at Flodden in 1513. John’s son Robert, the 4th lord (d.
1546), was a member of the royal council under James V.; he was also an
extraordinary lord of session, high admiral, and warden of the west
marches, and was taken prisoner by the English at the rout of Solway Moss
in 1542. Robert’s grandson John, 7th Lord Maxwell (1553-1593), was the
second son of Robert, the 5th lord (d. 1552), and his wife Beatrix, daughter
of James Douglas, 3rd earl of Morton. After the execution of the regent
Morton, the 4th earl, in 1581 this earldom was bestowed upon Maxwell, but
in 1586 the attainder of the late earl was reversed and he was deprived of
his new title. He had helped in 1585 to drive the royal favourite James
Stewart, earl of Arran, from power, and he made active preparations to
assist the invading Spaniards in 1588. His son John, the 8th lord (c. 1586-
1613), was at feud with the Johnstones, who had killed his father in a
skirmish, and with the Douglases over the earldom of Morton, which he
regarded as his inheritance. After a life of exceptional and continuous
lawlessness he escaped from Scotland and in his absence was sentenced to
death; having returned to his native country he was seized and was
beheaded in Edinburgh. In 1618 John’s brother and heir Robert (d. 1646)
was restored to the lordship of Maxwell, and in 1620 was created earl of
Nithsdale, surrendering at this time his claim to the earldom of Morton. He
and his son Robert, afterwards the 2nd earl, fought under Montrose for
Charles I. during the Civil War. Robert died without sons in October 1667,
when a cousin John Maxwell, 7th Lord Herries (d. 1677), became third earl.

William, 5th earl of Nithsdale (1676-1744), a grandson of the third earl,
was like his ancestor a Roman Catholic and was attached to the cause of the

exiled house of Stuart. In 1715 he joined the Jacobite insurgents, being
taken prisoner at the battle of Preston and sentenced to death. He escaped,
however, from the Tower of London through the courage and devotion of
his wife Winifred (d. 1749), daughter of William Herbert, 1st marquess of
Powis. He was attainted in 1716 and his titles became extinct, but his
estates passed to his son William (d. 1776), whose descendant, William
Constable-Maxwell, regained the title of Lord Herries in 1858. The
countess of Nithsdale wrote an account of her husband’s escape, which is
published in vol. i. of the Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of
Scotland.

A few words may be added about other prominent members of the
Maxwell family. John Maxwell (c. 1590-1647), archbishop of Tuam,
was a Scottish ecclesiastic who took a leading part in helping
Archbishop Laud in his futile attempt to restore the liturgy in Scotland.
He was bishop of Ross from 1633 until 1638, when he was deposed by
the General Assembly; then crossing over to Ireland he was bishop of
Killala and Achonry from 1640 to 1645, and archbishop of Tuam from
1645 until his death. James Maxwell of Kirkconnell (c. 1708-1762), the
Jacobite, wrote the Narrative of Charles Prince of Wales’s Expedition
to Scotland in 1745, which was printed for the Maitland Club in 1841.
Robert Maxwell (1695-1765) was the author of Select Transactions of
the Society of Improvers and was a great benefactor to Scottish
agriculture. Sir Murray Maxwell (1775-1831), a naval officer, gained
much fame by his conduct when his ship the “Alceste” was wrecked in
Gaspar Strait in 1817. William Hamilton Maxwell (1792-1850), the
Irish novelist, wrote, in addition to several novels, a Life of the Duke of
Wellington (1839-1841 and again 1883), and a History of the Irish
Rebellion in 1798 (1845 and 1891). Sir Herbert Maxwell, 7th bart. (b.
1845), member of parliament for Wigtownshire from 1880 to 1906, and
president of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, became well

known as a writer, his works including Life and Times of the Right
Hon. W. H. Smith (1893); Life of the Duke of Wellington (1899); The
House of Douglas (1902); Robert the Bruce (1897) and A Duke of
Britain (1895).

MAXWELL, JAMES CLERK (1831-1879), British
physicist, was the last representative of a younger branch of the well-known
Scottish family of Clerk of Penicuik, and was born at Edinburgh on the 13th
of November 1831. He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy (1840-
1847) and the university of Edinburgh (1847-1850). Entering at Cambridge
in 1850, he spent a term or two at Peterhouse, but afterwards migrated to
Trinity. In 1854 he took his degree as second wrangler, and was declared
equal with the senior wrangler of his year (E. J. Routh, q.v.) in the higher
ordeal of the Smith’s prize examination. He held the chair of Natural
Philosophy in Marischal College, Aberdeen, from 1856 till the fusion of the
two colleges there in 1860. For eight years subsequently he held the chair of
Physics and Astronomy in King’s College, London, but resigned in 1868
and retired to his estate of Glenlair in Kirkcudbrightshire. He was
summoned from his seclusion in 1871 to become the first holder of the
newly founded professorship of Experimental Physics in Cambridge; and it
was under his direction that the plans of the Cavendish Laboratory were
prepared. He superintended every step of the progress of the building and of
the purchase of the very valuable collection of apparatus with which it was
equipped at the expense of its munificent founder the seventh duke of

Devonshire (chancellor of the university, and one of its most distinguished
alumni). He died at Cambridge on the 5th of November 1879.

For more than half of his brief life he held a prominent position in the
very foremost rank of natural philosophers. His contributions to scientific
societies began in his fifteenth year, when Professor J. D. Forbes
communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh a short paper of his on a
mechanical method of tracing Cartesian ovals. In his eighteenth year, while
still a student in Edinburgh, he contributed two valuable papers to the
Transactions of the same society—one of which, “On the Equilibrium of
Elastic Solids,” is remarkable, not only on account of its intrinsic power and
the youth of its author, but also because in it he laid the foundation of one
of the most singular discoveries of his later life, the temporary double
refraction produced in viscous liquids by shearing stress. Immediately after
taking his degree, he read to the Cambridge Philosophical Society a very
novel memoir, “On the Transformation of Surfaces by Bending.” This is
one of the few purely mathematical papers he published, and it exhibited at
once to experts the full genius of its author. About the same time appeared
his elaborate memoir, “On Faraday’s Lines of Force,” in which he gave the
first indication of some of those extraordinary electrical investigations
which culminated in the greatest work of his life. He obtained in 1859 the
Adams prize in Cambridge for a very original and powerful essay, “On the
Stability of Saturn’s Rings.” From 1855 to 1872 he published at intervals a
series of valuable investigations connected with the “Perception of Colour”
and “Colour-Blindness,” for the earlier of which he received the Rumford
medal from the Royal Society in 1860. The instruments which he devised
for these investigations were simple and convenient, but could not have
been thought of for the purpose except by a man whose knowledge was co-
extensive with his ingenuity. One of his greatest investigations bore on the
“Kinetic Theory of Gases.” Originating with D. Bernoulli, this theory was
advanced by the successive labours of John Herapath, J. P. Joule, and

particularly R. Clausius, to such an extent as to put its general accuracy
beyond a doubt; but it received enormous developments from Maxwell,
who in this field appeared as an experimenter (on the laws of gaseous
friction) as well as a mathematician. He wrote an admirable textbook of the
Theory of Heat (1871), and a very excellent elementary treatise on Matter
and Motion (1876).

But the great work of his life was devoted to electricity. He began by
reading, with the most profound admiration and attention, the whole of
Faraday’s extraordinary self-revelations, and proceeded to translate the
ideas of that master into the succinct and expressive notation of the
mathematicians. A considerable part of this translation was accomplished
during his career as an undergraduate in Cambridge. The writer had the
opportunity of perusing the MS. of “On Faraday’s Lines of Force,” in a
form little different from the final one, a year before Maxwell took his
degree. His great object, as it was also the great object of Faraday, was to
overturn the idea of action at a distance. The splendid researches of S. D.
Poisson and K. F. Gauss had shown how to reduce all the phenomena of
statical electricity to mere attractions and repulsions exerted at a distance by
particles of an imponderable on one another. Lord Kelvin (Sir W. Thomson)
had, in 1846, shown that a totally different assumption, based upon other
analogies, led (by its own special mathematical methods) to precisely the
same results. He treated the resultant electric force at any point as
analogous to the flux of heat from sources distributed in the same manner as
the supposed electric particles. This paper of Thomson’s, whose ideas
Maxwell afterwards developed in an extraordinary manner, seems to have
given the first hint that there are at least two perfectly distinct methods of
arriving at the known formulae of statical electricity. The step to magnetic
phenomena was comparatively simple; but it was otherwise as regards
electro-magnetic phenomena, where current electricity is essentially
involved. An exceedingly ingenious, but highly artificial, theory had been

devised by W. E. Weber, which was found capable of explaining all the
phenomena investigated by Ampère as well as the induction currents of
Faraday. But this was based upon the assumption of a distance-action
between electric particles, the intensity of which depended on their relative
motion as well as on their position. This was, of course, even more
repugnant to Maxwell’s mind than the statical distance-action developed by
Poisson. The first paper of Maxwell’s in which an attempt at an admissible
physical theory of electromagnetism was made was communicated to the
Royal Society in 1867. But the theory, in a fully developed form, first
appeared in 1873 in his great treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. This
work was one of the most splendid monuments ever raised by the genius of
a single individual. Availing himself of the admirable generalized co-
ordinate system of Lagrange, Maxwell showed how to reduce all electric
and magnetic phenomena to stresses and motions of a material medium,
and, as one preliminary, but excessively severe, test of the truth of his
theory, he pointed out that (if the electro-magnetic medium be that which is
required for the explanation of the phenomena of light) the velocity of light
in vacuo should be numerically the same as the ratio of the electro-magnetic
and electrostatic units. In fact, the means of the best determinations of each
of these quantities separately agree with one another more closely than do
the various values of either.

One of Maxwell’s last great contributions to science was the editing (with
copious original notes) of the Electrical Researches of the Hon. Henry
Cavendish, from which it appeared that Cavendish, already famous by
many other researches (such as the mean density of the earth, the
composition of water, &c.), must be looked on as, in his day, a man of
Maxwell’s own stamp as a theorist and an experimenter of the very first
rank.

In private life Clerk Maxwell was one of the most lovable of men, a
sincere and unostentatious Christian. Though perfectly free from any trace
of envy or ill-will, he yet showed on fit occasion his contempt for that
pseudo-science which seeks for the applause of the ignorant by professing
to reduce the whole system of the universe to a fortuitous sequence of
uncaused events.

His collected works, including the series of articles on the properties
of matter, such as “Atom,” “Attraction,” “Capillary Action,”
“Diffusion,” “Ether,” &c., which he contributed to the 9th edition of
this encyclopaedia, were issued in two volumes by the Cambridge
University Press in 1890; and an extended biography, by his former
schoolfellow and lifelong friend Professor Lewis Campbell, was
published in 1882.
(P. G. T.)

MAXWELLTOWN, a burgh of barony and police burgh of
Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901), 5796. It lies on the Nith,
opposite to Dumfries, with which it is connected by three bridges, being
united with it for parliamentary purposes. It has a station on the Glasgow &
South-Western line from Dumfries to Kirkcudbright. Its public buildings
include a court-house, the prison for the south-west of Scotland, and an
observatory and museum, housed in a disused windmill. The chief
manufactures are woollens and hosiery, besides dyeworks and sawmills. It
was a hamlet known as Bridgend up till 1810, in which year it was erected

into a burgh of barony under its present name. To the north-west lies the
parish of Terregles, said to be a corruption of Tir-eglwys (terra ecclesia,
that is, “Kirk land”). The parish contains the beautiful ruin of Lincluden
Abbey (see Dumfries), and Terregles House, once the seat of William
Maxwell, last earl of Nithsdale. In the parish of Lochrutton, a few miles
south-west of Maxwelltown, there is a good example of a stone circle, the
“Seven Grey Sisters,” and an old peel-tower in the Mains of Hills.

MAY, PHIL (1864-1903), English caricaturist, was born at Wortley,
near Leeds, on the 22nd of April 1864, the son of an engineer. His father
died when the child was nine years old, and at twelve he had begun to earn
his living. Before he was fifteen he had acted as time-keeper at a foundry,
had tried to become a jockey, and had been on the stage at Scarborough and
Leeds. When he was about seventeen he went to London with a sovereign
in his pocket. He suffered extreme want, sleeping out in the parks and
streets, until he obtained employment as designer to a theatrical costumier.
He also drew posters and cartoons, and for about two years worked for the
St Stephen’s Review, until he was advised to go to Australia for his health.
During the three years he spent there he was attached to the Sydney
Bulletin, for which many of his best drawings were made. On his return to
Europe he went to Paris by way of Rome, where he worked hard for some
time before he appeared in 1892 in London to resume his interrupted
connexion with the St Stephen’s Review. His studies of the London
“guttersnipe” and the coster-girl rapidly made him famous. His overflowing

sense of fun, his genuine sympathy with his subjects, and his kindly wit
were on a par with his artistic ability. It was often said that the extraordinary
economy of line which was a characteristic feature of his drawings had
been forced upon him by the deficiencies of the printing machines of the
Sydney Bulletin. It was in fact the result of a laborious process which
involved a number of preliminary sketches, and of a carefully considered
system of elimination. His later work included some excellent political
portraits. He became a regular member of the staff of Punch in 1896, and in
his later years his services were retained exclusively for Punch and the
Graphic. He died on the 5th of August 1903.

There was an exhibition of his drawings at the Fine Arts Society in
1895, and another at the Leicester Galleries in 1903. A selection of his
drawings contributed to the periodical press and from Phil May’s
Annual and Phil May’s Sketch Books, with a portrait and biography of
the artist, entitled The Phil May Folio, appeared in 1903.

MAY, THOMAS (1595-1650), English poet and historian, son of
Sir Thomas May of Mayfield, Sussex, was born in 1595. He entered Sidney
Sussex College, Cambridge, in 1609, and took his B.A. degree three years
later. His father having lost his fortune and sold the family estate, Thomas
May, who was hampered by an impediment in his speech, made literature
his profession. In 1620 he produced The Heir, an ingeniously constructed
comedy, and, probably about the same time, The Old Couple, which was

not printed until 1658. His other dramatic works are classical tragedies on
the subjects of Antigone, Cleopatra, and Agrippina. F. G. Fleay has
suggested that the more famous anonymous tragedy of Nero (printed 1624,
reprints in A. H. Bullen’s Old English Plays and the Mermaid Series)
should also be assigned to May. But his most important work in the
department of pure literature was his translation (1627) into heroic couplets
of the Pharsalia of Lucan. Its success led May to write a continuation of
Lucan’s narrative down to the death of Caesar. Charles I. became his patron,
and commanded him to write metrical histories of Henry II. and Edward
III., which were completed in 1635. When the earl of Pembroke, then lord
chamberlain, broke his staff across May’s shoulders at a masque, the king
took him under his protection as “my poet,” and Pembroke made him an
apology accompanied with a gift of £50. These marks of the royal favour
seem to have led May to expect the posts of poet-laureate and city
chronologer when they fell vacant on the death of Ben Jonson in 1637, but
he was disappointed, and he forsook the court and attached himself to the
party of the Parliament. In 1646 he is styled one of the “secretaries” of the
Parliament, and in 1647 he published his best known work, The History of
the Long Parliament. In this official apology for the moderate or
Presbyterian party, he professes to give an impartial statement of facts,
unaccompanied by any expression of party or personal opinion. If he
refrained from actual invective, he accomplished his purpose, according to
Guizot, by “omission, palliation and dissimulation.” Accusations of this
kind were foreseen by May, who says in his preface that if he gives more
information about the Parliament men than their opponents it is that he was
more conversant with them and their affairs. In 1650 he followed this with
another work written with a more definite bias, a Breviary of the History of
the Parliament of England, in Latin and English, in which he defended the
position of the Independents. He stopped short of the catastrophe of the
king’s execution, and it seems likely that his subservience to Cromwell was

not quite voluntary. In February 1650 he was brought to London from
Weymouth under a strong guard for having spread false reports of the
Parliament and of Cromwell. He died on the 13th of November in the same
year, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, but after the Restoration his
remains were exhumed and buried in a pit in the yard of St Margaret’s,
Westminster. May’s change of side made him many bitter enemies, and he
is the object of scathing condemnation from many of his contemporaries.

There is a long notice of May in the Biographia Britannica. See also
W. J. Courthope, Hist. of Eng. Poetry, vol. 3; and Guizot, Études
biographiques sur la révolution d’Angleterre (pp. 403-426, ed. 1851).

MAY, or Mey(e), WILLIAM (d. 1560), English divine, was the
brother of John May, bishop of Carlisle. He was educated at Cambridge,
where he was a fellow of Trinity Hall, and in 1537, president of Queen’s
College. May heartily supported the Reformation, signed the Ten Articles in
1536, and helped in the production of The Institution of a Christian Man.
He had close connexion with the diocese of Ely, being successively
chancellor, vicar-general and prebendary. In 1545 he was made a
prebendary of St Paul’s, and in the following year dean. His favourable
report on the Cambridge colleges saved them from dissolution. He was
dispossessed during the reign of Mary, but restored to the deanery on
Elizabeth’s accession. He died on the day of his election to the
archbishopric of York.

MAY, the fifth month of our modern year, the third of the old Roman
calendar. The origin of the name is disputed; the derivation from Maia, the
mother of Mercury, to whom the Romans were accustomed to sacrifice on
the first day of this month, is usually accepted. The ancient Romans used on
May Day to go in procession to the grotto of Egeria. From the 28th of April
to the 2nd of May was kept the festival in honour of Flora, goddess of
flowers. By the Romans the month was regarded as unlucky for marriages,
owing to the celebration on the 9th, 11th and 13th of the Lemuria, the
festival of the unhappy dead. This superstition has survived to the present
day.

In medieval and Tudor England, May Day was a great public holiday. All
classes of the people, young and old alike, were up with the dawn, and went
“a-Maying” in the woods. Branches of trees and flowers were borne back in
triumph to the towns and villages, the centre of the procession being
occupied by those who shouldered the maypole, glorious with ribbons and
wreaths. The maypole was usually of birch, and set up for the day only; but
in London and the larger towns the poles were of durable wood and
permanently erected. They were special eyesores to the Puritans. John
Stubbes in his Anatomy of Abuses (1583) speaks of them as those
“stinckyng idols,” about which the people “leape and daunce, as the heathen
did.” Maypoles were forbidden by the parliament in 1644, but came once
more into favour at the Restoration, the last to be erected in London being
that set up in 1661. This pole, which was of cedar, 134 ft. high, was set up

by twelve British sailors under the personal supervision of James II., then
duke of York and lord high admiral, in the Strand on or about the site of the
present church of St Mary’s-in-the-Strand. Taken down in 1717, it was
conveyed to Wanstead Park in Essex, where it was fixed by Sir Isaac
Newton as part of the support of a large telescope, presented to the Royal
Society by a French astronomer.

For an account of the May Day survivals in rural England see P. H.
Ditchfield, Old English Customs extant at Present Times (1897).

MAY, ISLE OF, an island belonging to Fifeshire, Scotland, at the
entrance to the Firth of Forth, 5 m. S.E. of Crail and Anstruther. It has a
N.W. to S.E. trend, is more than 1 m. long, and measures at its widest about
1⁄3 m. St Adrian, who had settled here, was martyred by the Danes about the

middle of the 9th century. The ruins of the small chapel dedicated to him,
which was a favourite place of pilgrimage, still exist. The place where the
pilgrims—of whom James IV. was often one—landed is yet known as
Pilgrims’ Haven, and traces may yet be seen of the various wells of St
Andrew, St John, Our Lady, and the Pilgrims, though their waters have
become brackish. In 1499 Sir Andrew Wood of Largo, with the “Yellow
Carvel” and “Mayflower,” captured the English seaman Stephen Bull, and
three ships, after a fierce fight which took place between the island and the
Bass Rock. In 1636 a coal beacon was lighted on the May and maintained

by Alexander Cunningham of Barns. The oil light substituted for it in 1816
was replaced in 1888 by an electric light.

MAYA, an important tribe and stock of American Indians, the
dominant race of Yucatan and other states of Mexico and part of Central
America at the time of the Spanish conquest. They were then divided into
many nations, chief among them being the Maya proper, the Huastecs, the
Tzental, the Pokom, the Mame and the Cakchiquel and Quiché. They were
spread over Yucatan, Vera Cruz, Tabasco, Campeche, and Chiapas in
Mexico, and over the greater part of Guatemala and Salvador. In civilization
the Mayan peoples rivalled the Aztecs. Their traditions give as their place of
origin the extreme north; thence a migration took place, perhaps at the
beginning of the Christian era. They appear to have reached Yucatan as
early as the 5th century. From the evidence of the Quiché chronicles, which
are said to date back to about a.d. 700, Guatemala was shortly afterwards
overrun. Physically the Mayans are a dark-skinned, round-headed, short and
sturdy type. Although they were already decadent when the Spaniards
arrived they made a fierce resistance. They still form the bulk of the
inhabitants of Yucatan. For their culture, ruined cities, &c. see Central
America and Mexico.

MAYAGUEZ, the third largest city of Porto Rico, a seaport, and
the seat of government of the department of Mayaguez, on the west coast, at
the mouth of Rio Yaguez, about 72 m. W. by S. of San Juan. Pop. of the city
(1899), 15,187, including 1381 negroes and 4711 of mixed races; (1910),
16,591; of the municipal district, 35,700 (1899), of whom 2687 were
negroes and 9933 were of mixed races. Mayaguez is connected by the
American railroad of Porto Rico with San Juan and Ponce, and it is served
regularly by steamboats from San Juan, Ponce and New York, although its
harbour is not accessible to vessels drawing more than 16 ft. of water. It is
situated at the foot of Las Mesas mountains and commands picturesque
views. The climate is healthy and good water is obtained from the mountain
region. From the shipping district along the water-front a thoroughfare leads
to the main portion of the city, about 1 m. distant. There are four public
squares, in one of which is a statue of Columbus. Prominent among the
public buildings are the City Hall (containing a public library), San Antonio
Hospital, Roman Catholic churches, a Presbyterian church, the court-house
and a theatre. The United States has an agricultural experiment station here,
and the Insular Reform School is 1 m. south of the city. Coffee, sugar-cane
and tropical fruits are grown in the surrounding country; and the business of
the city consists chiefly in their export and the import of flour. Among the
manufactures are sugar, tobacco and chocolate. Mayaguez was founded
about the middle of the 18th century on the site of a hamlet which was first

settled about 1680. It was incorporated as a town in 1836, and became a
city in 1873. In 1841 it was nearly all destroyed by fire.

MAYAVARAM, a town of British India, in the Tanjore district of
Madras, on the Cauvery river; junction on the South Indian railway, 174 m.
S.W. of Madras. Pop. (1901), 24,276. It possesses a speciality of fine cotton
and silk cloth, known as Kornad from the suburb in which the weavers live.
During October and November the town is the scene of a great pilgrimage
to the holy waters of the Cauvery.

MAYBOLE, a burgh of barony and police burgh of Ayrshire,
Scotland. Pop. (1901), 5892. It is situated 9 m. S. of Ayr and 501⁄4 m. S.W.
of Glasgow by the Glasgow & South-Western railway. It is an ancient place,
having received a charter from Duncan II. in 1193. In 1516 it was made a
burgh of regality, but for generations it remained under the subjection of the
Kennedys, afterwards earls of Cassillis and marquesses of Ailsa, the most
powerful family in Ayrshire. Of old Maybole was the capital of the district

of Carrick, and for long its characteristic feature was the family mansions of
the barons of Carrick. The castle of the earls of Cassillis still remains. The
public buildings include the town-hall, the Ashgrove and the Lumsden
fresh-air fortnightly homes, and the Maybole combination poorhouse. The
leading manufactures are of boots and shoes and agricultural implements.
Two miles to the south-west are the ruins of Crossraguel (Cross of St
Regulus) Abbey, founded about 1240. Kirkoswald, where Burns spent his
seventeenth year, learning land-surveying, lies a little farther west. In the
parish churchyard lie “Tam o’ Shanter” (Douglas Graham) and “Souter
Johnnie” (John Davidson). Four miles to the west of Maybole on the coast
is Culzean Castle, the chief seat of the marquess of Ailsa, dating from 1777;
it stands on a basaltic cliff, beneath which are the Coves of Culzean, once
the retreat of outlaws and a resort of the fairies. Farther south are the ruins
of Turnberry Castle, where Robert Bruce is said to have been born. A few
miles to the north of Culzean are the ruins of Dunure Castle, an ancient
stronghold of the Kennedys.

MAYEN, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, on the
northern declivity of the Eifel range, 16 m. W. from Coblenz, on the railway
Andernach-Gerolstein. Pop. (1905), 13,435. It is still partly surrounded by
medieval walls, and the ruins of a castle rise above the town. There are
some small industries, embracing textile manufactures, oil mills and
tanneries, and a trade in wine, while near the town are extensive quarries of

basalt. Having been a Roman settlement, Mayen became a town in 1291. In
1689 it was destroyed by the French.

MAYENNE, CHARLES OF LORRAINE, Duke of
(1554-1611), second son of Francis of Lorraine, second duke of Guise, was
born on the 26th of March 1554. He was absent from France at the time of
the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, but took part in the siege of La
Rochelle in the following year, when he was created duke and peer of
France. He went with Henry of Valois, duke of Anjou (afterwards Henry
III.), on his election as king of Poland, but soon returned to France to
become the energetic supporter and lieutenant of his brother, the 3rd duke
of Guise. In 1577 he gained conspicuous successes over the Huguenot
forces in Poitou. As governor of Burgundy he raised his province in the
cause of the League in 1585. The assassination of his brothers at Blois on
the 23rd and 24th of December 1588 left him at the head of the Catholic
party. The Venetian ambassador, Mocenigo, states that Mayenne had
warned Henry III. that there was a plot afoot to seize his person and to send
him by force to Paris. At the time of the murder he was at Lyons, where he
received a letter from the king saying that he had acted on his warning, and
ordering him to retire to his government. Mayenne professed obedience, but
immediately made preparations for marching on Paris. After a vain attempt
to recover the persons of those of his relatives who had been arrested at
Blois he proceeded to recruit troops in his government of Burgundy and in
Champagne. Paris was devoted to the house of Guise and had been roused

to fury by the news of the murder. When Mayenne entered the city in
February 1589 he found it dominated by representatives of the sixteen
quarters of Paris, all fanatics of the League. He formed a council general to
direct the affairs of the city and to maintain relations with the other towns
faithful to the League. To this council each quarter sent four representatives,
and Mayenne added representatives of the various trades and professions of
Paris in order to counterbalance this revolutionary element. He constituted
himself “lieutenant-general of the state and crown of France,” taking his
oath before the parlement of Paris. In April he advanced on Tours. Henry
III. in his extremity sought an alliance with Henry of Navarre, and the allied
forces drove the leaguers back, and had laid siege to Paris, when the murder
of Henry III. by a Dominican fanatic changed the face of affairs and gave
new strength to the Catholic party.

Mayenne was urged to claim the crown for himself, but he was faithful to
the official programme of the League and proclaimed Charles, cardinal of
Bourbon, at that time a prisoner in the hands of Henry IV., as Charles X.
Henry IV. retired to Dieppe, followed by Mayenne, who joined his forces
with those of his cousin Charles, duke of Aumale, and Charles de Cossé,
comte de Brissac, and engaged the royal forces in a succession of fights in
the neighbourhood of Arques (September 1589). He was defeated and out-
marched by Henry IV., who moved on Paris, but retreated before Mayenne’s
forces. In 1590 Mayenne received additions to his army from the Spanish
Netherlands, and took the field again, only to suffer complete defeat at Ivry
(March 14, 1590). He then escaped to Mantes, and in September collected a
fresh army at Meaux, and with the assistance of Alexander Farnese, prince
of Parma, sent by Philip II., raised the siege of Paris, which was about to
surrender to Henry IV. Mayenne feared with reason the designs of Philip II.,
and his difficulties were increased by the death of Charles X., the “king of
the league.” The extreme section of the party, represented by the Sixteen,
urged him to proceed to the election of a Catholic king and to accept the

help and the claims of their Spanish allies. But Mayenne, who had not the
popular gifts of his brother, the duke of Guise, had no sympathy with the
demagogues, and himself inclined to the moderate side of his party, which
began to urge reconciliation with Henry IV. He maintained the ancient
forms of the constitution against the revolutionary policy of the Sixteen,
who during his absence from Paris took the law into their own hands and in
November 1591 executed one of the leaders of the more moderate party,
Barnabé Brisson, president of the parlement. He returned to Paris and
executed four of the chief malcontents. The power of the Sixteen
diminished from that time, but with it the strength of the League.1

Mayenne entered into negotiations with Henry IV. while he was still
appearing to consider with Philip II. the succession to the French crown of
the Infanta Elizabeth, granddaughter, through her mother Elizabeth of
Valois, of Henry II. He demanded that Henry IV. should accomplish his
conversion to Catholicism before he was recognized by the leaguers. He
also desired the continuation to himself of the high offices which had
accumulated in his family and the reservation of their provinces to his
relatives among the leaguers. In 1593 he summoned the States General to
Paris and placed before them the claims of the Infanta, but they protested
against foreign intervention. Mayenne signed a truce at La Villette on the
31st of July 1593. The internal dissensions of the league continued to
increase, and the principal chiefs submitted. Mayenne finally made his
peace only in October 1595. Henry IV. allowed him the possession of
Chalon-sur-Saône, of Seurre and Soissons for three years, made him
governor of the Isle of France and paid a large indemnity. Mayenne died at
Soissons on the 3rd of October 1611.

A Histoire de la vie et de la mort du duc de Mayenne appeared at
Lyons in 1618. See also J. B. H. Capefigue, Hist. de la Réforme, de la

ligue et du règne de Henri IV. (8 vols., 1834-1835) and the literature
dealing with the house of Guise (q.v.).

1 The estates of the League in 1593 were the occasion of the famous Satire Ménippée,
circulated in MS. in that year, but only printed at Tours in 1594. It was the work of a circle
of men of letters who belonged to the politiques or party of the centre and ridiculed the
League. The authors were Pierre Le Roy, Jean Passerat, Florent Chrestien, Nicolas Rapin
and Pierre Pithou. It opened with “La vertu du catholicon,” in which a Spanish quack (the
cardinal of Plaisance) vaunts the virtues of his drug “catholicon composé,” manufactured in
the Escurial, while a Lorrainer rival (the cardinal of Pellevé) tries to sell a rival cure. A
mock account of the estates, with harangues delivered by Mayenne and the other chiefs of
the League, followed. Mayenne’s discourse is said to have been written by the jurist Pithou.

MAYENNE, a department of north-western France, three-fourths of
which formerly belonged to Lower Maine and the remainder to Anjou,
bounded on the N. by Manche and Orne, E. by Sarthe, S. by Maine-et-Loire
and W. by Ille-et-Vilaine. Area, 2012 sq. m. Pop. (1906), 305,457. Its
ancient geological formations connect it with Brittany. The surface is
agreeably undulating; forests are numerous, and the beauty of the cultivated
portions is enhanced by the hedgerows and lines of trees by which the farms
are divided. The highest point of the department, and indeed of the whole
north-west of France, is the Mont des Avaloirs (1368 ft.). Hydrographically
Mayenne belongs to the basins of the Loire, the Vilaine and the Sélune, the
first mentioned draining by far the larger part of the entire area. The
principal stream is the Mayenne, which passes successively from north to
south through Mayenne, Laval and Château-Gontier; by means of weirs and

sluices it is navigable below Mayenne, but traffic is inconsiderable. The
chief affluents are the Jouanne on the left, and on the right the Colmont, the
Ernée and the Oudon. A small area in the east of the department drains by
the Erve into the Sarthe; the Vilaine rises in the west, and in the north-west
two small rivers flow into the Sélune. The climate of Mayenne is generally
healthy except in the neighbourhood of the numerous marshes. The
temperature is lower and the moisture of the atmosphere greater than in the
neighbouring departments; the rainfall (about 32 in. annually) is above the
average for France.

Agriculture and stock-raising are prosperous. A large number of
horned cattle are reared, and in no other French department are so
many horses found within the same area; the breed, that of Craon, is
famed for its strength. Craon has also given its name to the most prized
breed of pigs in western France. Mayenne produces excellent butter
and poultry and a large quantity of honey. The cultivation of the vine is
very limited, and the most common beverage is cider. Wheat, oats,
barley and buckwheat, in the order named, are the most important
crops, and a large quantity of flax and hemp is produced. Game is
abundant. The timber grown is chiefly beech, oak, birch, elm and
chestnut. The department produces antimony, auriferous quartz and
coal. Marble, slate and other stone are quarried. There are several
chalybeate springs. The industries include flour-milling, brick and tile
making, brewing, cotton and wool spinning, and the production of
various textile fabrics (especially ticking) for which Laval and
Château-Gontier are the centres, agricultural implement making, wood
and marble sawing, tanning and dyeing. The exports include
agricultural produce, live-stock, stone and textiles; the chief imports
are coal, brandy, wine, furniture and clothing. The department is served
by the Western railway. It forms part of the circumscriptions of the IV.
army corps, the académie (educational division) of Rennes, and the

court of appeal of Angers. It comprises three arrondissements (Laval,
Château-Gontier and Mayenne), with 27 cantons and 276 communes.
Laval, the capital, is the seat of a bishopric of the province of Tours.
The other principal towns are Château-Gontier and Mayenne, which
are treated under separate headings. The following places are also of
interest: Evron, which has a church of the 12th and 13th centuries;
Jublains, with a Roman fort and other Roman remains; Lassay, with a
fine château of the 14th and 16th centuries; and Ste Suzanne, which has
remains of medieval ramparts and a fortress with a keep of the
Romanesque period.

MAYENNE, a town of north-western France, capital of an
arrondissement in the department of Mayenne, 19 m. N.N.E. of Laval by
rail. Pop., town 7003, commune 10,020. Mayenne is an old feudal town,
irregularly built on hills on both sides of the river Mayenne. Of the old
castle overlooking the river several towers remain, one of which has
retained its conical roof; the vaulted chambers and chapel are ornamented in
the style of the 13th century; the building is now used as a prison. The
church of Notre-Dame, beside which there is a statue of Joan of Arc, dates
partly from the 12th century; the choir was rebuilt in the 19th century. In the
Place de Cheverus is a statue, by David of Angers, to Cardinal Jean de
Cheverus (1768-1836), who was born in Mayenne. Mayenne has a
subprefecture, tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a chamber of arts
and manufactures, and a board of trade-arbitration. There is a school of

agriculture in the vicinity. The chief industry of the place is the manufacture
of tickings, linen, handkerchiefs and calicoes.

Mayenne had its origin in the castle built here by Juhel, baron of
Mayenne, the son of Geoffrey of Maine, in the beginning of the 11th
century. It was taken by the English in 1424, and several times suffered
capture by the opposing parties in the wars of religion and the Vendée. At
the beginning of the 16th century the territory passed to the family of Guise,
and in 1573 was made a duchy in favour of Charles of Mayenne, leader of
the League.

MAYER, JOHANN TOBIAS (1723-1762), German
astronomer, was born at Marbach, in Würtemberg, on the 17th of February
1723, and brought up at Esslingen in poor circumstances. A self-taught
mathematician, he had already published two original geometrical works
when, in 1746, he entered J. B. Homann’s cartographic establishment at
Nuremberg. Here he introduced many improvements in map-making, and
gained a scientific reputation which led (in 1751) to his election to the chair
of economy and mathematics in the university of Göttingen. In 1754 he
became superintendent of the observatory, where he laboured with great
zeal and success until his death, on the 20th of February 1762. His first
important astronomical work was a careful investigation of the libration of
the moon (Kosmographische Nachrichten, Nuremberg, 1750), and his chart
of the full moon (published in 1775) was unsurpassed for half a century.

But his fame rests chiefly on his lunar tables, communicated in 1752, with
new solar tables, to the Royal Society of Göttingen, and published in their
Transactions (vol. ii.). In 1755 he submitted to the English government an
amended body of MS. tables, which James Bradley compared with the
Greenwich observations, and found to be sufficiently accurate to determine
the moon’s place to 75″, and consequently the longitude at sea to about half
a degree. An improved set was afterwards published in London (1770), as
also the theory (Theoria lunae juxta systema Newtonianum, 1767) upon
which the tables are based. His widow, by whom they were sent to England,
received in consideration from the British government a grant of £3000.
Appended to the London edition of the solar and lunar tables are two short
tracts—the one on determining longitude by lunar distances, together with a
description of the repeating circle (invented by Mayer in 1752), the other on
a formula for atmospheric refraction, which applies a remarkably accurate
correction for temperature.

Mayer left behind him a considerable quantity of manuscript, part of
which was collected by G. C. Lichtenberg and published in one volume
(Opera inedita, Göttingen, 1775). It contains an easy and accurate method
for calculating eclipses; an essay on colour, in which three primary colours
are recognized; a catalogue of 998 zodiacal stars; and a memoir, the earliest
of any real value, on the proper motion of eighty stars, originally
communicated to the Göttingen Royal Society in 1760. The manuscript
residue includes papers on atmospheric refraction (dated 1755), on the
motion of Mars as affected by the perturbations of Jupiter and the Earth
(1756), and on terrestrial magnetism (1760 and 1762). In these last Mayer
sought to explain the magnetic action of the earth by a modification of
Euler’s hypothesis, and made the first really definite attempt to establish a
mathematical theory of magnetic action (C. Hansteen, Magnetismus der
Erde, i. 283). E. Klinkerfuss published in 1881 photo-lithographic
reproductions of Mayer’s local charts and general map of the moon; and his

star-catalogue was re-edited by F. Baily in 1830 (Memoirs Roy. Astr. Soc. iv.
391) and by G. F. J. A. Auvers in 1894.

Authorities.—A. G. Kästner, Elogium Tobiae Mayeri (Göttingen,
1762); Connaissance des temps, 1767, p. 187 (J. Lalande); Monatliche
Correspondenz viii. 257, ix. 45, 415, 487, xi. 462; Allg. Geographische
Ephemeriden iii. 116, 1799 (portrait); Berliner Astr. Jahrbuch, Suppl.
Bd. iii. 209, 1797 (A. G. Kästner); J. B. J. Delambre, Hist. de l’Astr. au
XVIIIe siècle, p. 429; R. Grant, Hist. of Phys. Astr. pp. 46, 488, 555; A.
Berry, Short Hist. of Astr. p. 282; J. S. Pütter, Geschichte von der
Universität zu Göttingen, i. 68; J. Gehler, Physik. Wörterbuch neu
bearbeitet, vi. 746, 1039; Allg. Deutsche Biographie (S. Günther).
(A. M. C.)

MAYER, JULIUS ROBERT (1814-1878), German physicist,
was born at Heilbronn on the 25th of November 1814, studied medicine at
Tübingen, Munich and Paris, and after a journey to Java in 1840 as surgeon
of a Dutch vessel obtained a medical post in his native town. He claims
recognition as an independent a priori propounder of the “First Law of
Thermodynamics,” but more especially as having early and ably applied
that law to the explanation of many remarkable phenomena, both cosmical
and terrestrial. His first little paper on the subject, “Bemerkungen über die
Kräfte der unbelebten Natur,” appeared in 1842 in Liebig’s Annalen, five
years after the republication, in the same journal, of an extract from K. F.

Mohr’s paper on the nature of heat, and three years later he published Die
organische Bewegung in ihren Zusammenhange mit dem Stoffwechsel.

It has been repeatedly claimed for Mayer that he calculated the value
of the dynamical equivalent of heat, indirectly, no doubt, but in a
manner altogether free from error, and with a result according almost
exactly with that obtained by J. P. Joule after years of patient labour in
direct experimenting. This claim on Mayer’s behalf was first shown to
be baseless by W. Thomson (Lord Kelvin) and P. G. Tait in an article
on “Energy,” published in Good Words in 1862, which gave rise to a
long but lively discussion. A calm and judicial annihilation of the claim
is to be found in a brief article by Sir G. G. Stokes, Proc. Roy. Soc.,
1871, p. 54. See also Maxwell’s Theory of Heat, chap. xiii. Mayer
entirely ignored the grand fundamental principle laid down by Sadi
Carnot—that nothing can be concluded as to the relation between heat
and work from an experiment in which the working substance is left at
the end of an operation in a different physical state from that in which
it was at the commencement. Mayer has also been styled the discoverer
of the fact that heat consists in (the energy of) motion, a matter settled
at the very end of the 18th century by Count Rumford and Sir H. Davy;
but in the teeth of this statement we have Mayer’s own words, “We
might much rather assume the contrary—that in order to become heat
motion must cease to be motion.”

Mayer’s real merit consists in the fact that, having for himself made
out, on inadequate and even questionable grounds, the conservation of
energy, and having obtained (though by inaccurate reasoning) a
numerical result correct so far as his data permitted, he applied the
principle with great power and insight to the explanation of numerous
physical phenomena. His papers, which were republished in a single
volume with the title Die Mechanik der Wärme (3rd ed., 1893), are of

unequal merit. But some, especially those on Celestial Dynamics and
Organic Motion, are admirable examples of what really valuable work
may be effected by a man of high intellectual powers, in spite of
imperfect information and defective logic.

Different, and it would appear exaggerated, estimates of Mayer are
given in John Tyndall’s papers in the Phil. Mag., 1863-1864 (whose
avowed object was “to raise a noble and a suffering man to the position
which his labours entitled him to occupy”), and in E. Dühring’s Robert
Mayer, der Galilei des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, Chemnitz, 1880.
Some of the simpler facts of the case are summarized by Tait in the
Phil. Mag., 1864, ii. 289.

MAYFLOWER, the vessel which carried from Southampton,
England, to Plymouth, Massachusetts, the Pilgrims who established the first
permanent colony in New England. It was of about 180 tons burden, and in
company with the “Speedwell” sailed from Southampton on the 5th of
August 1620, the two having on board 120 Pilgrims. After two trials the
“Speedwell” was pronounced unseaworthy, and the “Mayflower” sailed
alone from Plymouth, England, on the 6th of September with the 100 (or
102) passengers, some 41 of whom on the 11th of November (O.S.) signed
the famous “Mayflower Compact” in Provincetown Harbor, and a small
party of whom, including William Bradford, sent to choose a place for
settlement, landed at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts, on the 11th of
December (21st N.S.), an event which is celebrated, as Forefathers’ Day, on

the 22nd of December. A “General Society of Mayflower Descendants” was
organized in 1894 by lineal descendants of passengers of the “Mayflower”
to “preserve their memory, their records, their history, and all facts relating
to them, their ancestors and their posterity.” Every lineal descendant, over
eighteen years of age, of any passenger of the “Mayflower” is eligible to
membership. Branch societies have since been organized in several of the
states and in the District of Columbia, and a triennial congress is held in
Plymouth.

See Azel Ames, The May-Flower and Her Log (Boston, 1901);
Blanche McManus, The Voyage of the Mayflower (New York, 1897);
The General Society of Mayflower: Meetings, Officers and Members,
arranged in State Societies, Ancestors and their Descendants (New
York, 1901). Also the articles Plymouth, Mass.; Massachusetts, §
History; Pilgrim; and Provincetown, Mass.

MAY-FLY. The Mayflies belong to the Ephemeridae, a remarkable
family of winged insects, included by Linnaeus in his order Neuroptera,
which derive their scientific name from ἐφήμερος, in allusion to their very
short lives. In some species it is possible that they have scarcely more than
one day’s existence, but others are far longer lived, though the extreme limit
is probably rarely more than a week. The family has very sharply defined
characters, which separate its members at once from all other neuropterous
(or pseudo-neuropterous) groups.

These insects are universally aquatic in their preparatory states. The eggs
are dropped into the water by the female in large masses, resembling, in
some species, bunches of grapes in miniature. Probably several months
elapse before the young larvae are excluded. The sub-aquatic condition lasts
a considerable time: in Cloeon, a genus of small and delicate species, Sir J.
Lubbock (Lord Avebury) proved it to extend over more than six months; but
in larger and more robust genera (e.g. Palingenia) there appears reason to
believe that the greater part of three years is occupied in preparatory
conditions.

The larva is elongate and campodeiform. The head is rather large,
and is furnished at first with five simple eyes of nearly equal size; but
as it increases in size the homologues of the facetted eyes of the imago
become larger, whereas those equivalent to the ocelli remain small. The
antennae are long and thread-like, composed at first of few joints, but
the number of these latter apparently increases at each moult. The
mouth parts are well developed, consisting of an upper lip, powerful
mandibles, maxillae with three-jointed palpi, and a deeply quadrifid
labium or lower lip with three-jointed labial palpi. Distinct and
conspicuous maxillulae are associated with the tongue or hypopharynx.
There are three distinct and large thoracic segments, whereof the
prothorax is narrower than the others; the legs are much shorter and
stouter than in the winged insect, with monomerous tarsi terminated by
a single claw. The abdomen consists of ten segments, the tenth
furnished with long and slender multi-articulate tails, which appear to
be only two in number at first, but an intermediate one gradually
develops itself (though this latter is often lost in the winged insect).
Respiration is effected by means of external gills placed along both
sides of the dorsum of the abdomen and hinder segments of the thorax.
These vary in form: in some species they are entire plates, in others
they are cut up into numerous divisions, in all cases traversed by

numerous tracheal ramifications. According to the researches of
Lubbock and of E. Joly, the very young larvae have no breathing
organs, and respiration is effected through the skin. Lubbock traced at
least twenty moults in Cloeon; at about the tenth rudiments of the
wing-cases began to appear. These gradually become larger, and when
so the creature may be said to have entered its “nymph” stage; but there
is no condition analogous to the pupa-stage of insects with complete
metamorphoses.

There may be said to be three or four different modes of life in these
larvae: some are fossorial, and form tubes in the mud or clay in which
they live; others are found on or beneath stones; while others again
swim and crawl freely among water plants. It is probable that some are
carnivorous, either attacking other larvae or subsisting on more minute
forms of animal life; but others perhaps feed more exclusively on
vegetable matters of a low type, such as diatoms.

The most aberrant type of larva is that of the genus Prosopistoma,
which was originally described as an entomostracous crustacean on
account of the presence of a large carapace overlapping the greater part
of the body. The dorsal skeletal elements of the thorax and of the
anterior six abdominal segments unite with the wing-cases to form a
large respiratory chamber, containing five pairs of tracheal gills, with
lateral slits for the inflow and a posterior orifice for the outflow of
water. Species of this genus occur in Europe, Africa and Madagascar.

When the aquatic insect has reached its full growth it emerges from the
water or seeks its surface; the thorax splits down the back and the winged
form appears. But this is not yet perfect, although it has all the form of a
perfect insect and is capable of flight; it is what is variously termed a
“pseud-imago,” “sub-imago” or “pro-imago.” Contrary to the habits of all
other insects, there yet remains a pellicle that has to be shed, covering every

part of the body. This final moult is effected soon after the insect’s
appearance in the winged form; the creature seeks a temporary resting-
place, the pellicle splits down the back, and the now perfect insect comes
forth, often differing very greatly in colours and markings from the
condition in which it was only a few moments before. If the observer takes
up a suitable position near water, his coat is often seen to be covered with
the cast sub-imaginal skins of these insects, which had chosen him as a
convenient object upon which to undergo their final change. In some few
genera of very low type it appears probable that, at any rate in the female,
this final change is never effected and that the creature dies a sub-imago.

The winged insect differs considerably in form from its sub-aquatic
condition. The head is smaller, often occupied almost entirely above in
the male by the very large eyes, which in some species are curiously
double in that sex, one portion being pillared, and forming what is
termed a “turban,” the mouth parts are aborted, for the creature is now
incapable of taking nutriment either solid or fluid; the antennae are
mere short bristles, consisting of two rather large basal joints and a
multi-articulate thread. The prothorax is much narrowed, whereas the
other segments (especially the mesothorax) are greatly enlarged; the
legs long and slender, the anterior pair often very much longer in the
male than in the female; the tarsi four- or five-jointed; but in some
genera (e.g. Oligoneuria and allies) the legs are aborted, and the
creatures are driven helplessly about by the wind. The wings are
carried erect: the anterior pair large, with numerous longitudinal
nervures, and usually abundant transverse reticulation; the posterior
pair very much smaller, often lanceolate, and frequently wanting
absolutely. The abdomen consists of ten segments; at the end are either
two or three long multi-articulate tails; in the male the ninth joint bears
forcipated appendages; in the female the oviducts terminate at the
junction of the seventh and eighth ventral segments. The independent

opening of the genital ducts and the absence of an ectodermal vagina
and ejaculatory duct are remarkable archaic features of these insects, as
has been pointed out by J. A. Palmén. The sexual act takes place in the
air, and is of very short duration, but is apparently repeated several
times, at any rate in some cases.

Ephemeridae are found all over the world, even up to high northern
latitudes. F. J. Pictet, A. E. Eaton and others have given us valuable works
or monographs on the family; but the subject still remains little understood,
partly owing to the great difficulty of preserving such delicate insects; and it
appears probable they can only be satisfactorily investigated as moist
preparations. The number of described species is less than 200, spread over
many genera.

From the earliest times attention has been drawn to the enormous
abundance of species of the family in certain localities. Johann Anton
Scopoli, writing in the 18th century, speaks of them as so abundant in one
place in Carniola that in June twenty cartloads were carried away for
manure! Polymitarcys virgo, which, though not found in England, occurs in
many parts of Europe (and is common at Paris), emerges from the water
soon after sunset, and continues for several hours in such myriads as to
resemble snow showers, putting out lights, and causing inconvenience to
man, and annoyance to horses by entering their nostrils. In other parts of the
world they have been recorded in multitudes that obscured passers-by on
the other side of the street. And similar records might be multiplied almost
to any extent. In Britain, although they are often very abundant, we have
scarcely anything analogous.

Fish, as is well known, devour them greedily, and enjoy a veritable feast
during the short period in which any particular species appears. By anglers
the common English species of Ephemera (vulgata and danica, but more
especially the latter, which is more abundant) is known as the “may-fly,”

but the terms “green drake” and “bastard drake” are applied to conditions of
the same species. Useful information on this point will be found in
Ronalds’s Fly-Fisher’s Entomology, edited by Westwood.

Ephemeridae belong to a very ancient type of insects, and fossil imprints
of allied forms occur even in the Devonian and Carboniferous formations.

There is much to be said in favour of the view entertained by some
entomologists that the structural and developmental characteristics of may-
flies are sufficiently peculiar to warrant the formation for them of a special
order of insects, for which the names Agnatha, Plectoptera and
Ephemeroptera have been proposed. (See Hexapoda, Neuroptera.)

Bibliography.—Of especial value to students of these insects are A.
E. Eaton’s monograph (Trans. Linn. Soc. (2) iii. 1883-1885) and A.
Vayssière’s “Recherches sur l’organisation des larves” (Ann. Sci. Nat.
Zool. (6) xiii. 1882 (7) ix. 1890). J. A. Palmén’s memoirs Zur
Morphologie des Tracheensystems (Leipzig, 1877) and Über paarige
Ausführungsgänge der Geschlechtsorgane bei Insekten (Helsingfors,
1884), contain important observations on may-flies. See also L. C.
Miall, Nat. Hist. Aquatic Insects (London, 1895); J. G. Needham and
others (New York State Museum, Bull. 86, 1905).
(R. M’L.; G. H. C.)

MAYHEM (for derivation see Maiming), an old Anglo-French term
of the law signifying an assault whereby the injured person is deprived of a

member proper for his defence in fight, e.g. an arm, a leg, a fore tooth, &c.
The loss of an ear, jaw tooth, &c., was not mayhem. The most ancient
punishment in English law was retaliative—membrum pro membro, but
ultimately at common law fine and imprisonment. Various statutes were
passed aimed at the offence of maiming and disfiguring, which is now dealt
with by section 18 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861. Mayhem
may also be the ground of a civil action, which had this peculiarity that the
court on sight of the wound might increase the damages awarded by the
jury.

MAYHEW, HENRY (1812-1887), English author and journalist,
son of a London solicitor, was born in 1812. He was sent to Westminster
school, but ran away to sea. He sailed to India, and on his return studied law
for a short time under his father. He began his journalistic career by
founding, with Gilbert à Beckett, in 1831, a weekly paper, Figaro in
London. This was followed in 1832 by a short-lived paper called The Thief;
and he produced one or two successful farces. His brothers Horace (1816-
1872) and Augustus Septimus (1826-1875) were also journalists, and with
them Henry occasionally collaborated, notably with the younger in The
Greatest Plague of Life (1847) and in Acting Charades (1850). In 1841
Henry Mayhew was one of the leading spirits in the foundation of Punch, of
which he was for the first two years joint-editor with Mark Lemon. He
afterwards wrote on all kinds of subjects, and published a number of
volumes of no permanent reputation—humorous stories, travel and practical

handbooks. He is credited with being the first to “write up” the poverty side
of London life from a philanthropic point of view; with the collaboration of
John Binny and others he published London Labour and London Poor
(1851; completed 1864) and other works on social and economic questions.
He died in London, on the 25th of July 1887. Horace Mayhew was for some
years sub-editor of Punch, and was the author of several humorous
publications and plays. The books of Horace and Augustus Mayhew owe
their survival chiefly to Cruikshank’s illustrations.

MAYHEW, JONATHAN (1720-1766), American clergyman,
was born at Martha’s Vineyard on the 8th of October 1720, being fifth in
descent from Thomas Mayhew (1592-1682), an early settler and the grantee
(1641) of Martha’s Vineyard. Thomas Mayhew (c. 1616-1657), the
younger, his son John (d. 1689) and John’s son, Experience (1673-1758),
were active missionaries among the Indians of Martha’s Vineyard and the
vicinity. Jonathan, the son of Experience, graduated at Harvard in 1744. So
liberal were his theological views that when he was to be ordained minister
of the West Church in Boston in 1747 only two ministers attended the first
council called for the ordination, and it was necessary to summon a second
council. Mayhew’s preaching made his church practically the first
“Unitarian” Congregational church in New England, though it was never
officially Unitarian. In 1763 he published Observations on the Charter and
Conduct of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, an
attack on the policy of the society in sending missionaries to New England

contrary to its original purpose of “Maintaining Ministers of the Gospel” in
places “wholly destitute and unprovided with means for the maintenance of
ministers and for the public worship of God;” the Observations marked him
as a leader among those in New England who feared, as Mayhew said
(1762), “that there is a scheme forming for sending a bishop into this part of
the country, and that our Governor,1 a true churchman, is deeply in the
plot.” To an American reply to the Observations, entitled A Candid
Examination (1763), Mayhew wrote a Defense; and after the publication of
an Answer, anonymously published in London in 1764 and written by
Thomas Seeker, archbishop of Canterbury, he wrote a Second Defense. He
bitterly opposed the Stamp Act, and urged the necessity of colonial union
(or “communion”) to secure colonial liberties. He died on the 9th of July
1766. Mayhew was Dudleian lecturer at Harvard in 1765, and in 1749 had
received the degree of D.D. from the University of Aberdeen.

See Alden Bradford, Memoir of the Life and Writings of Rev.
Jonathan Mayhew (Boston, 1838), and “An Early Pulpit Champion of
Colonial Rights,” chapter vi., in vol. i. of M. C. Tyler’s Literary
History of the American Revolution (2 vols., New York, 1897).

1 Francis Bernard, whose project for a college at Northampton seemed to Mayhew and
others a move to strengthen Anglicanism.

MAYHEW, THOMAS, English 18th century cabinet-maker.
Mayhew was the less distinguished partner of William Ince (q.v.). The chief

source of information as to his work is supplied by his own drawings in the
volume of designs, The universal system of household furniture, which he
published in collaboration with his partner. The name of the firm appears to
have been Mayhew and Ince, but on the title page of this book the names
are reversed, perhaps as an indication that Ince was the more extensive
contributor. In the main Mayhew’s designs are heavy and clumsy, and often
downright extravagant, but he had a certain lightness of accomplishment in
his applications of the bizarre Chinese style. Of original talent he possessed
little, yet it is certain that much of his Chinese work has been attributed to
Chippendale. It is indeed often only by reference to books of design that the
respective work of the English cabinet-makers of the second half of the
18th century can be correctly attributed.

MAYMYO, a hill sanatorium in India, in the Mandalay district of
Upper Burma, 3500 ft. above the sea, with a station on the Mandalay-
Lashio railway 422 m. from Rangoon. Pop. (1901), 6223. It consists of an
undulating plateau, surrounded by hills, which are covered with thin oak
forest and bracken. Though not entirely free from malaria, it has been
chosen for the summer residence of the lieutenant-governor; and it is also
the permanent headquarters of the lieutenant-general commanding the
Burma division, and of other officials.

MAYNARD, FRANÇOIS DE (1582-1646), French poet,
was born at Toulouse in 1582. His father was conseiller in the parlement of
the town, and François was also trained for the law, becoming eventually
president of Aurillac. He became secretary to Margaret of Valois, wife of
Henry IV., for whom his early poems are written. He was a disciple of
Malherbe, who said that in the workmanship of his lines he excelled Racan,
but lacked his rival’s energy. In 1634 he accompanied the Cardinal de
Noailles to Rome and spent about two years in Italy. On his return to France
he made many unsuccessful efforts to obtain the favour of Richelieu, but
was obliged to retire to Toulouse. He never ceased to lament his exile from
Paris and his inability to be present at the meetings of the Academy, of
which he was one of the earliest members. The best of his poems is in
imitation of Horace, “Alcippe, reviens dans nos bois.” He died at Toulouse
on the 23rd of December 1646.

His works consist of odes, epigrams, songs and letters, and were
published in 1646 by Marin le Roy de Gomberville.

MAYNE, JASPER (1604-1672), English author, was baptized at
Hatherleigh, Devonshire, on the 23rd of November 1604. He was educated
at Westminster School and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he had a
distinguished career. He was presented to two college livings in
Oxfordshire, and was made D.D. in 1646. During the Commonwealth he
was dispossessed, and became chaplain to the duke of Devonshire. At the
Restoration he was made canon of Christ Church, archdeacon of Chichester
and chaplain in ordinary to the king. He wrote a farcical domestic comedy,
The City Match (1639), which is reprinted in vol. xiii. of Hazlitt’s edition of
Dodsley’s Old Plays, and a fantastic tragi-comedy entitled The Amorous
War (printed 1648). After receiving ecclesiastical preferment he gave up
poetry as unbefitting his profession. His other works comprise some
occasional gems, a translation of Lucian’s Dialogues (printed 1664) and a
number of sermons. He died on the 6th of December 1672 at Oxford.

MAYNOOTH, a small town of county Kildare, Ireland, on the
Midland Great Western railway and the Royal Canal, 15 m. W. by N. of
Dublin. Pop. (1901), 948. The Royal Catholic College of Maynooth,
founded by an Act of the Irish parliament in 1795, is the chief seminary for
the education of the Roman Catholic clergy of Ireland. The building is a
fine Gothic structure by A. W. Pugin, erected by a parliamentary grant
obtained in 1846. The chapel, with fine oak choir-stalls, mosaic pavements,
marble altars and stained glass, and with adjoining cloisters, was dedicated
in 1890. The average number of students is about 500—the number

specified under the act of 1845—and the full course of instruction is eight
years. Near the college stand the ruins of Maynooth Castle, probably built
in 1176, but subsequently extended, and formerly the residence of the
Fitzgerald family. It was besieged in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward
VI., and during the Cromwellian Wars, when it was demolished. The
beautiful mansion of Carton is about a mile from the town.

MAYO, RICHARD SOUTHWELL BOURKE, 6th
Earl of (1822-1872), British statesman, son of Robert Bourke, the 5th earl
(1797-1867), was born in Dublin on the 21st of February, 1822, and was
educated at Trinity College, Dublin. After travelling in Russia he entered
parliament, and sat successively for Kildare, Coleraine and Cockermouth.
He was chief secretary for Ireland in three administrations, in 1852, 1858
and 1866, and was appointed viceroy of India in January 1869. He
consolidated the frontiers of India and met Shere Ali, amir of Afghanistan,
in durbar at Umballa in March 1869. His reorganization of the finances of
the country put India on a paying basis; and he did much to promote
irrigation, railways, forests and other useful public works. Visiting the
convict settlement at Port Blair in the Andaman Islands, for the purpose of
inspection, the viceroy was assassinated by a convict on the 8th of February
1872. His successor was his son, Dermot Robert Wyndham Bourke (b.
1851) who became 7th earl of Mayo.

See Sir W. W. Hunter, Life of the Earl of Mayo, (1876), and The Earl
of Mayo in the Rulers of India Series (1891).

MAYO, a western county of Ireland, in the province of Connaught,
bounded N. and W. by the Atlantic Ocean, N.E. by Sligo, E. by
Roscommon, S.E. and S. by Galway. The area is 1,380,390 acres, or about
2157 sq. m., the county being the largest in Ireland after Cork and Galway.
About two-thirds of the boundary of Mayo is formed by sea, and the coast
is very much indented, and abounds in picturesque scenery. The principal
inlets are Killary Harbour between Mayo and Galway; Clew Bay, in which
are the harbours of Westport and Newport; Blacksod Bay and Broad Haven,
which form the peninsula of the Mullet; and Killala Bay between Mayo and
Sligo. The islands are very numerous, the principal being Inishturk, near
Killary Harbour; Clare Island, at the mouth of Clew Bay, where there are
many islets, all formed of drift; and Achill, the largest island off Ireland.
The coast scenery is not surpassed by that of Donegal northward and
Connemara southward, and there are several small coast-towns, among
which may be named Killala on the north coast, Belmullet on the isthmus
between Blacksod Bay and Broad Haven, Newport and Westport on Clew
Bay, with the watering-place of Mallaranny. The majestic cliffs of the north
coast, however, which reach an extreme height in Benwee Head (892 ft.),
are difficult of access and rarely visited. In the eastern half of the county the
surface is comparatively level, with occasional hills; the western half is
mountainous. Mweelrea (2688 ft.) is included in a mountain range lying

between Killary Harbour and Lough Mask. The next highest summits are
Nephin (2646 ft.), to the west of Lough Conn, and Croagh Patrick (2510
ft.), to the south of Clew Bay. The river Moy flows northwards, forming
part of the boundary of the county with Sligo, and falls into Killala Bay.
The courses of the other streams are short, and except when swollen by
rains their volume is small. The principal lakes are Lough Mask and Lough
Corrib, on the borders of the county with Galway, and Loughs Conn in the
east, Carrowmore in the north-west, Beltra in the west, and Carra adjoining
Lough Mask. These loughs and the smaller loughs, with the streams
generally, afford admirable sport with salmon, sea-trout and brown trout,
and Ballina is a favourite centre.

Geology.—The wild and barren west of this county, including the
great hills on Achill Island, is formed of “Dalradian” rocks, schists and
quartzites, highly folded and metamorphosed, with intrusions of granite
near Belmullet. At Blacksod Bay the granite has been quarried as an
ornamental stone. Nephin Beg, Nephin and Croagh Patrick are typical
quartzite summits, the last named belonging possibly to a Silurian
horizon but rising from a metamorphosed area on the south side of
Clew Bay. The schists and gneisses of the Ox Mountain axis also enter
the county north of Castlebar. The Muilrea and Ben Gorm range,
bounding the fine fjord of Killary Harbour, is formed of terraced
Silurian rocks, from Bala to Ludlow age. These beds, with intercalated
lavas, form the mountainous west shore of Lough Mask, the east, like
that of Lough Corrib, being formed of low Carboniferous Limestone
ground. Silurian rocks, with Old Red Sandstone over them, come out at
the west end of the Curlew range at Ballaghaderreen. Clew Bay, with
its islets capped by glacial drift, is a submerged part of a synclinal of
Carboniferous strata, and Old Red Sandstone comes out on the north
side of this, from near Achill to Lough Conn. The country from Lough

Conn northward to the sea is a lowland of Carboniferous Limestone,
with L. Carboniferous Sandstone against the Dalradian on the west.

Industries.—There are some very fertile regions in the level portions
of the county, but in the mountainous districts the soil is poor, the
holdings are subdivided beyond the possibility of affording proper
sustenance to their occupiers, and, except where fishing is combined
with agricultural operations, the circumstances of the peasantry are
among the most wretched of any district of Ireland. The proportion of
tillage to pasturage is roughly as 1 to 31⁄2. Oats and potatoes are the
principal crops. Cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry are reared. Coarse linen
and woollen cloths are manufactured to a small extent. At Foxford
woollen-mills are established at a nunnery, in connexion with a scheme
of technical instruction. Keel, Belmullet and Ballycastle are the
headquarters of sea and coast fishing districts, and Ballina of a salmon-
fishing district, and these fisheries are of some value to the poor
inhabitants. A branch of the Midland Great Western railway enters the
county from Athlone, in the south-east, and runs north to Ballina and
Killala on the coast, branches diverging from Claremorris to
Ballinrobe, and from Manulla to Westport and Achill on the west coast.
The Limerick and Sligo line of the Great Southern and Western passes
from south to north-east by way of Claremorris.

Population and Administration.—The population was 218,698 in 1891,
and 199,166 in 1901. The decrease of population and the number of
emigrants are slightly below the average of the Irish counties. Of the total
population about 97% are rural, and about the same percentage are Roman
Catholics. The chief towns are Ballina (pop. 4505), Westport (3892) and
Castlebar (3585), the county town. Ballaghaderreen, Claremorris (Clare),
Crossmolina and Swineford are lesser market towns; and Newport and
Westport are small seaports on Clew Bay. The county includes nine

baronies. Assizes are held at Castlebar, and quarter sessions at Ballina,
Ballinrobe, Belmullet, Castlebar, Claremorris, Swineford and Westport. In
the Irish parliament two members were returned for the county, and two for
the borough of Castlebar, but at the union Castlebar was disfranchised. The
division since 1885 is into north, south, east and west parliamentary
divisions, each returning one member. The county is in the Protestant
diocese of Tuam and the Roman Catholic dioceses of Taum, Achonry,
Galway and Kilmacduagh, and Killala.

History and Antiquities.—Erris in Mayo was the scene of the landing of
the chief colony of the Firbolgs, and the battle which is said to have resulted
in the overthrow and almost annihilation of this tribe took place also in this
county, at Moytura near Cong. At the close of the 12th century what is now
the county of Mayo was granted, with other lands, by king John to William,
brother of Hubert de Burgh. After the murder of William de Burgh, 3rd earl
of Ulster (1333), the Bourkes (de Burghs) of the collateral male line,
rejecting the claim of William’s heiress (the wife of Lionel, son of King
Edward III.) to the succession, succeeded in holding the bulk of the De
Burgh possessions, what is now Mayo falling to the branch known by the
name of “MacWilliam Oughter,” who maintained their virtual independence
till the time of Elizabeth. Sir Henry Sydney, during his first viceroyalty,
after making efforts to improve communications between Dublin and
Connaught in 1566, arranged for the shiring of that province, and Mayo was
made shire ground, taking its name from the monastery of Maio or Mageo,
which was the seat of a bishop. Even after this period the MacWilliams
continued to exercise very great authority, which was regularized in 1603,
when “the MacWilliam Oughter,” Theobald Bourke, surrendered his lands
and received them back, to hold them by English tenure, with the title of
Viscount Mayo (see Burgh, De). Large confiscations of the estates in the
county were made in 1586, and on the termination of the wars of 1641; and
in 1666 the restoration of his estates to the 4th Viscount Mayo involved

another confiscation, at the expense of Cromwell’s settlers. Killala was the
scene of the landing of a French squadron in connexion with the rebellion
of 1798. In 1879 the village of Knock in the south-east acquired notoriety
from a story that the Virgin Mary had appeared in the church, which
became the resort of many pilgrims.

There are round towers at Killala, Turlough, Meelick and Balla, and an
imperfect one at Aughagower. Killala was formerly a bishopric. The
monasteries were numerous, and many of them of considerable importance:
the principal being those at Mayo, Ballyhaunis, Cong, Ballinrobe,
Ballintober, Burrishoole, Cross or Holycross in the peninsula of Mullet,
Moyne, Roserk or Rosserick and Templemore or Strade. Of the old castles
the most notable are Carrigahooly near Newport, said to have been built by
the celebrated Grace O’Malley, and Deel Castle near Ballina, at one time
the residence of the earls of Arran.

See Hubert Thomas Knox, History of the County of Mayo (1908).

MAYOR, JOHN EYTON BICKERSTETH
(1825- ), English classical scholar, was born at Baddegama, Ceylon, on
the 28th of January 1825, and educated in England at Shrewsbury School
and St John’s College, Cambridge. From 1863 to 1867 he was librarian of
the university, and in 1872 succeeded H. A. J. Munro in the professorship of
Latin. His best-known work, an edition of thirteen satires of Juvenal, is
marked by an extraordinary wealth of illustrative quotations. His

Bibliographical Clue to Latin Literature (1873), based on E. Hübner’s
Grundriss zu Vorlesungen über die römische Litteraturgeschichte is a
valuable aid to the student, and his edition of Cicero’s Second Philippic is
widely used. He also edited the English works of J. Fisher, bishop of
Rochester, i. (1876); Thomas Baker’s History of St John’s College,
Cambridge (1869); Richard of Cirencester’s Speculum historiale de gestis
regum Angliae 447-1066 (1863-1869); Roger Ascham’s Schoolmaster (new
ed., 1883); the Latin Heptateuch (1889); and the Journal of Philology.

His brother, Joseph Bickersteth Mayor (1828- ), classical scholar
and theologian, was educated at Rugby and St John’s College, Cambridge,
and from 1870 to 1879 was professor of classics at King’s College, London.
His most important classical works are an edition of Cicero’s De natura
deorum (3 vols., 1880-1885) and Guide to the Choice of Classical Books
(3rd ed., 1885, with supplement, 1896). He also devoted attention to
theological literature and edited the epistles of St James (2nd ed., 1892), St
Jude and St Peter (1907), and the Miscellanies of Clement of Alexandria
(with F. J. A. Hort, 1902). From 1887 to 1893 he was editor of the Classical
Review. His Chapters on English Metre (1886) reached a second edition in
1901.

MAYOR (Lat. major, greater), in modern times the title of a
municipal officer who discharges judicial and administrative functions. The
French form of the word is maire. In Germany the corresponding title is

Bürgermeister, in Italy sindico, and in Spain alcalde. “Mayor” had
originally a much wider significance. Among the nations which arose on the
ruins of the Roman empire of the West, and which made use of the Latin
spoken by their “Roman” subjects as their official and legal language,
major and the Low Latin feminine majorissa were found to be very
convenient terms to describe important officials of both sexes who had the
superintendence of others. Any female servant or slave in the household of
a barbarian, whose business it was to overlook other female servants or
slaves, would be quite naturally called a majorissa. So the male officer who
governed the king’s household would be the major domus. In the
households of the Frankish kings of the Merovingian line, the major domus,
who was also variously known as the gubernator, rector, moderator or
praefectus palatii, was so great an officer that he ended by evicting his
master. He was the “mayor of the palace” (q.v.). The fact that his office
became hereditary in the family of Pippin of Heristal made the fortune of
the Carolingian line. But besides the major domus (the major-domo), there
were other officers who were majores, the major cubiculi, mayor of the
bedchamber, and major equorum, mayor of the horse. In fact a word which
could be applied so easily and with accuracy in so many circumstances was
certain to be widely used by itself, or in its derivatives. The post-Augustine
majorinus, “one of the larger kind,” was the origin of the medieval Spanish
merinus, who in Castillian is the merino, and sometimes the merino mayor,
or chief merino. He was a judicial and administrative officer of the king’s.
The gregum merinus was the superintendent of the flocks of the corporation
of sheep-owners called the mesta. From him the sheep, and then the wool,
have come to be known as merinos—a word identical in origin with the
municipal title of mayor. The latter came directly from the heads of gilds,
and other associations of freemen, who had their banner and formed a group
on the populations of the towns, the majores baneriae or vexilli.

In England the major is the modern representative of the lord’s bailiff or
reeve (see Borough). We find the chief magistrate of London bearing the
title of portreeve for considerably more than a century after the Conquest.
This official was elected by popular choice, a privilege secured from king
John. By the beginning of the 11th century the title of portreeve1 gave way
to that of mayor as the designation of the chief officer of London,2 and the
adoption of the title by other boroughs followed at various intervals.

A mayor is now in England and America the official head of a
municipal government. In the United Kingdom the Municipal
Corporations Act, 1882, s. 15, regulates the election of mayors. He is to
be a fit person elected annually on the 9th of November by the council
of the borough from among the aldermen or councillors or persons
qualified to be such. His term of office is one year, but he is eligible for
re-election. He may appoint a deputy to act during illness or absence,
and such deputy must be either an alderman or councillor. A mayor
who is absent from the borough for more than two months becomes
disqualified and vacates his office. A mayor is ex officio during his year
of office and the next year a justice of the peace for the borough. He
receives such remuneration as the council thinks reasonable. The office
of mayor in an English borough does not entail any important
administrative duties. It is generally regarded as an honour conferred
for past services. The mayor is expected to devote much of his time to
ornamental functions and to preside over meetings which have for their
object the advancement of the public welfare. His administrative duties
are merely to act as returning officer at municipal elections, and as
chairman of the meetings of the council.

The position and power of an English mayor contrast very strongly
with those of the similar official in the United States. The latter is

elected directly by the voters within the city, usually for several years;
and he has extensive administrative powers.

The English method of selecting a mayor by the council is followed
for the corresponding functionaries in France (except Paris), the more
important cities of Italy, and in Germany, where, however, the central
government must confirm the choice of the council. Direct
appointment by the central government exists in Belgium, Holland,
Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the smaller towns of Italy and Spain.
As a rule, too, the term of office is longer in other countries than in the
United Kingdom. In France election is for four years, in Holland for
six, in Belgium for an indefinite period, and in Germany usually for
twelve years, but in some cases for life. In Germany the post may be
said to be a professional one, the burgomaster being the head of the city
magistracy, and requiring, in order to be eligible, a training in
administration. German burgomasters are most frequently elected by
promotion from another city. In France the maire, and a number of
experienced members termed “adjuncts,” who assist him as an
executive committee, are elected directly by the municipal council
from among their own number. Most of the administrative work is left
in the hands of the maire and his adjuncts, the full council meeting
comparatively seldom. The maire and the adjuncts receive no salary.

Further information will be found in the sections on local
government in the articles on the various countries; see also A. Shaw,
Municipal Government in Continental Europe; J. A. Fairlie, Municipal
Administration; S. and B. Webb, English Local Government; Redlich
and Hirst, Local Government in England; A. L. Lowell, The
Government of England.

1 If a place was of mercantile importance it was called a port (from porta, the city gate),
and the reeve or bailiff, a “portreeve.”

2 The mayors of certain cities in the United Kingdom (London, York, Dublin) have
acquired by prescription the prefix of “lord.” In the case of London it seems to date from
1540. It has also been conferred during the closing years of the 19th century by letters
patent on other cities—Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Sheffield, Leeds,
Cardiff, Bradford, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Belfast, Cork. In 1910 it was granted to Norwich.
Lord mayors are entitled to be addressed as “right honourable.”

MAYOR OF THE PALACE.—The office of mayor of the
palace was an institution peculiar to the Franks of the Merovingian period.
A landowner who did not manage his own estate placed it in the hands of a
steward (major), who superintended the working of the estate and collected
its revenues. If he had several estates, he appointed a chief steward, who
managed the whole of the estates and was called the major domus. Each
great personage had a major domus—the queen had hers, the king his; and
since the royal house was called the palace, this officer took the name of
“mayor of the palace.” The mayor of the palace, however, did not remain
restricted to domestic functions; he had the discipline of the palace and tried
persons who resided there. Soon his functions expanded. If the king were a
minor, the mayor of the palace supervised his education in the capacity of
guardian (nutricius), and often also occupied himself with affairs of state.
When the king came of age, the mayor exerted himself to keep this power,
and succeeded. In the 7th century he became the head of the administration
and a veritable prime minister. He took part in the nomination of the counts
and dukes; in the king’s absence he presided over the royal tribunal; and he
often commanded the armies. When the custom of commendation
developed, the king charged the mayor of the palace to protect those who

had commended themselves to him and to intervene at law on their behalf.
The mayor of the palace thus found himself at the head of the commendati,
just as he was at the head of the functionaries.

It is difficult to trace the names of some of the mayors of the palace, the
post being of almost no significance in the time of Gregory of Tours. When
the office increased in importance the mayors of the palace did not, as has
been thought, pursue an identical policy. Some—for instance, Otto, the
mayor of the palace of Austrasia towards 640—were devoted to the Crown.
On the other hand, mayors like Flaochat (in Burgundy) and Erkinoald (in
Neustria) stirred up the great nobles, who claimed the right to take part in
their nomination, against the king. Others again, sought to exercise the
power in their own name both against the king and against the great nobles
—such as Ebroïn (in Neustria), and, later, the Carolingians Pippin II.,
Charles Martel, and Pippin III., who, after making use of the great nobles,
kept the authority for themselves. In 751 Pippin III., fortified by his
consultation with Pope Zacharias, could quite naturally exchange the title of
mayor for that of king; and when he became king, he suppressed the title of
mayor of the palace. It must be observed that from 639 there were generally
separate mayors of Neustria, Austrasia and Burgundy, even when Austrasia
and Burgundy formed a single kingdom; the mayor was a sign of the
independence of the region. Each mayor, however, sought to supplant the
others; the Pippins and Charles Martel succeeded, and their victory was at
the same time the victory of Austrasia over Neustria and Burgundy.

See G. H. Pertz, Geschichte der merowingischen Hausmeier
(Hanover, 1819); H. Bonnell, De dignitate majoris domus (Berlin,
1858); E. Hermann, Das Hausmeieramt, ein echt germanisches Amt,
vol. ix. of Untersuchungen zur deutschen Staats- und Rechtsgeschichte,
ed. by O. Gierke (Breslau, 1878, seq.); G. Waitz, Deutsche
Verfassungsgeschichte, 3rd ed., revised by K. Zeumer; and Fustel de

Coulanges, Histoire des institutions politiques de l’ancienne France:
La monarchie franque (Paris, 1888). (C. Pf.)

MAYORUNA, a tribe of South American Indians of Panoan stock.
Their country is between the Ucayali and Javari rivers, north-eastern Peru.
They are a fine race, roaming the forests and living by hunting. They cut
their hair in a line across the forehead and let it hang down their backs.
Many have fair skins and beards, a peculiarity sometimes explained by their
alleged descent from Ursua’s soldiers, but this theory is improbable. They
are famous for the potency of their blow-gun poison.

MAYO-SMITH, RICHMOND (1854-1901), American
economist, was born in Troy, Ohio, on the 9th of February 1854. Educated
at Amherst, and at Berlin and Heidelberg, he became assistant professor of
economics at Columbia University in 1877. He was an adjunct professor
from 1878 to 1883, when he was appointed professor of political economy
and social science, a post which he held until his death on the 11th of
November 1901. He devoted himself especially to the study of statistics,

and was recognized as one of the foremost authorities on the subject. His
works include Emigration and Immigration (1890); Sociology and Statistics
(1895), and Statistics and Economics (1899).

MAYOTTE, one of the Comoro Islands, in the Mozambique
Channel between Madagascar and the African mainland. It has belonged to
France since 1843 (see Comoro Islands).

MAYOW, JOHN (1643-1679), English chemist and physiologist,
was born in London in May 1643. At the age of fifteen he went up to
Wadham College, Oxford, of which he became a scholar a year later, and in
1660 he was elected to a fellowship at All Souls. He graduated in law
(bachelor, 1665, doctor, 1670), but made medicine his profession, and
“became noted for his practice therein, especially in the summer time, in the
city of Bath.” In 1678, on the proposal of R. Hooke, he was chosen a fellow
of the Royal Society. The following year, after a marriage which was “not
altogether to his content,” he died in London in September 1679. He

published at Oxford in 1668 two tracts, on respiration and rickets, and in
1674 these were reprinted, the former in an enlarged and corrected form,
with three others “De sal-nitro et spiritu nitro-aereo,” “De respiratione
foetus in utero et ovo,” and “De motu musculari et spiritibus animalibus” as
Tractatus quinque medico-physici. The contents of this work, which was
several times republished and translated into Dutch, German and French,
show him to have been an investigator much in advance of his time.

Accepting as proved by Boyle’s experiments that air is necessary for
combustion, he showed that fire is supported not by the air as a whole
but by a “more active and subtle part of it.” This part he called spiritus
igneo-aereus, or sometimes nitro-aereus; for he identified it with one
of the constituents of the acid portion of nitre which he regarded as
formed by the union of fixed alkali with a spiritus acidus. In
combustion the particulae nitro-aereae—either pre-existent in the
thing consumed or supplied by the air—combined with the material
burnt; as he inferred from his observation that antimony, strongly
heated with a burning glass, undergoes an increase of weight which can
be attributed to nothing else but these particles. In respiration he argued
that the same particles are consumed, because he found that when a
small animal and a lighted candle were placed in a closed vessel full of
air the candle first went out and soon afterwards the animal died, but if
there was no candle present it lived twice as long. He concluded that
this constituent of the air is absolutely necessary for life, and supposed
that the lungs separate it from the atmosphere and pass it into the
blood. It is also necessary, he inferred, for all muscular movements,
and he thought there was reason to believe that the sudden contraction
of muscle is produced by its combination with other combustible
(salino-sulphureous) particles in the body; hence the heart, being a
muscle, ceases to beat when respiration is stopped. Animal heat also is
due to the union of nitro-aerial particles, breathed in from the air, with

the combustible particles in the blood, and is further formed by the
combination of these two sets of particles in muscle during violent
exertion. In effect, therefore, Mayow—who also gives a remarkably
correct anatomical description of the mechanism of respiration—
preceded Priestley and Lavoisier by a century in recognizing the
existence of oxygen, under the guise of his spiritus nitro-aereus, as a
separate entity distinct from the general mass of the air; he perceived
the part it plays in combustion and in increasing the weight of the
calces of metals as compared with metals themselves; and, rejecting the
common notions of his time that the use of breathing is to cool the
heart, or assist the passage of the blood from the right to the left side of
the heart, or merely to agitate it, he saw in inspiration a mechanism for
introducing oxygen into the body, where it is consumed for the
production of heat and muscular activity, and even vaguely conceived
of expiration as an excretory process.

MAYSVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Mason county,
Kentucky, U.S.A., on the Ohio river, 60 m. by rail S.E. of Cincinnati. Pop.
(1890) 5358; (1900) 6423 (1155 negroes); (1910) 6141. It is served by the
Louisville & Nashville, and the Chesapeake & Ohio railways, and by
steamboats on the Ohio river. Among its principal buildings are the Mason
county public library (1878), the Federal building and Masonic and Odd
Fellows’ temples. The city lies between the river and a range of hills; at the
back of the hills is a fine farming country, of which tobacco of excellent

quality is a leading product. There is a large plant of the American Tobacco
Company at Maysville, and among the city’s manufactures are pulleys,
ploughs, whisky, flour, lumber, furniture, carriages, cigars, foundry and
machine-shop products, bricks and cotton goods. The city is a distributing
point for coal and other products brought to it by Ohio river boats. Formerly
it was one of the principal hemp markets of the country. The place early
became a landing point for immigrants to Kentucky, and in 1784 a double
log cabin and a blockhouse were erected here. It was then called Limestone,
from the creek which flows into the Ohio here, but several years later the
present name was adopted in honour of John May, who with Simon Kenton
laid out the town in 1787, and who in 1790 was killed by the Indians.
Maysville was incorporated as a town in 1787, was chartered as a city in
1833, and became the county-seat in 1848.

In 1830, when the question of “internal improvements” by the
National government was an important political issue, Congress passed
a bill directing the government to aid in building a turnpike road from
Maysville to Lexington. President Andrew Jackson vetoed the bill on
the ground that the proposed improvement was a local rather than a
national one; but one-half the capital was then furnished privately, the
other half was furnished through several state appropriations, and the
road was completed in 1835 and marked the beginning of a system of
turnpike roads built with state aid.

MAZAGAN (El Jadīda), a port on the Atlantic coast of Morocco in
33° 16′ N. 8° 26′ W. Pop. (1908), about 12,000, of whom a fourth are Jews
and some 400 Europeans. It is the port for Marrákesh, from which it is 110
m. nearly due north, and also for the fertile province of Dukálla. Mazagan
presents from the sea a very un-Moorish appearance; it has massive
Portuguese walls of hewn stone. The exports, which include beans,
almonds, maize, chick-peas, wool, hides, wax, eggs, &c., were valued at
£360,000 in 1900, £364,000 in 1904, and £248,000 in 1906. The imports
(cotton goods, sugar, tea, rice, &c.) were valued at £280,000 in 1900,
£286,000 in 1904, and £320,000 in 1906. About 46% of the trade is with
Great Britain and 34% with France. Mazagan was built in 1506 by the
Portuguese, who abandoned it to the Moors in 1769 and established a
colony, New Mazagan, on the shores of Para in Brazil.

See A. H. Dyé, “Les ports du Maroc” in Bull. Soc. Geog. Comm.
Paris, xxx. 325-332 (1908), and British consular reports.

MAZAMET, an industrial town of south-western France in the
department of Tarn, 41 m. S.S.E. of Albi by rail. Pop. (1906), town, 11,370;
commune, 14,386. Mazamet is situated on the northern slope of the
Montagnes Noires and on the Arnette, a small sub-tributary of the Agout.
Numerous establishments are employed in wool-spinning and in the
manufacture of “swan-skins” and flannels, and clothing for troops, and
hosiery, and there are important tanneries and leather-dressing, glove and

dye works. Extensive commerce is carried on in wool and raw hides from
Argentina, Australia and Cape Colony.

MAZANDARAN, a province of northern Persia, lying between
the Caspian Sea and the Elburz range, and bounded E. and W. by the
provinces of Astarabad and Gilan respectively, 220 m. in length and 60 m.
in (mean) breadth, with an area of about 10,000 sq. m. and a population
estimated at from 150,000 to 200,000. Mazandaran comprises two distinct
natural regions presenting the sharpest contrasts in their relief, climate and
products. In the north the Caspian is encircled by the level and swampy
lowlands, varying in breadth from 10 to 30 m., partly under impenetrable
jungle, partly under rice, cotton, sugar and other crops. This section is
fringed northwards by the sandy beach of the Caspian, here almost destitute
of natural harbours, and rises somewhat abruptly inland to the second
section, comprising the northern slopes and spurs of the Elburz, which
approach at some points within 1 or 2 m. of the sea, and are almost
everywhere covered with dense forest. The lowlands, rising but a few feet
above the Caspian, and subject to frequent floodings, are extremely
malarious, while the highlands, culminating with the magnificent
Demavend (19,400 ft.), enjoy a tolerably healthy climate. But the climate,
generally hot and moist in summer, is everywhere capricious and liable to
sudden changes of temperature, whence the prevalence of rheumatism,
dropsy and especially ophthalmia, noticed by all travellers. Snow falls
heavily in the uplands, where it often lies for weeks on the ground. The

direction of the long sandbanks at the river mouths, which project with
remarkable uniformity from west to east, shows that the prevailing winds
blow from the west and north-west. The rivers themselves, of which there
are as many as fifty, are little more than mountain torrents, all rising on the
northern slopes of Elburz, flowing mostly in independent channels to the
Caspian, and subject to sudden freshets and inundations along their lower
course. The chief are the Sardab-rud, Chalus, Herhaz (Lar in its upper
course), Babul, Tejen and Nika, and all are well stocked with trout, salmon
(azad-mahi), perch (safid-mahi), carp (kupur), bream (subulu), sturgeon
(sag-mahi) and other fish, which with rice form the staple food of the
inhabitants; the sturgeon supplies the caviare for the Russian market. Near
their mouths the rivers, running counter to the prevailing winds and waves
of the Caspian, form long sand-hills 20 to 30 ft. high and about 200 yds.
broad, behind which are developed the so-called múrd-áb, or “dead waters,”
stagnant pools and swamps characteristic of this coast, and a main cause of
its unhealthiness.

The chief products are rice, cotton, sugar, a little silk, and fruits in great
variety, including several kinds of the orange, lemon and citron. Some of
the slopes are covered with extensive thickets of the pomegranate, and the
wild vine climbs to a great height round the trunks of the forest trees. These
woodlands are haunted by the tiger, panther, bear, wolf and wild boar in
considerable numbers. Of the domestic animals, all remarkable for their
small size, the chief are the black, humped cattle somewhat resembling the
Indian variety, and sheep and goats.

Kinneir, Fraser and other observers speak unfavourably of the
Mazandarani people, whom they describe as very ignorant and bigoted,
arrogant, rudely inquisitive and almost insolent towards strangers. The
peasantry, however, are far from dull, and betray much shrewdness
where their interests are concerned. In the healthy districts they are

stout and well made, and are considered a warlike race, furnishing
some cavalry (800 men) and eight battalions of infantry (5600 men) to
government. They speak a marked Persian dialect, but a Tūrki idiom
closely akin to the Turkoman is still current amongst the tribes,
although they have mostly already passed from the nomad to the settled
state. Of these tribes the most numerous are the Modaunlū,
Khojehvand and Abdul Maleki, originally of Lek or Kurd stock,
besides branches of the royal Afshār and Kājār tribes of Tūrki descent.
All these are exempt from taxes in consideration of their military
service.

The export trade is chiefly with Russia from Meshed-i-Sar, the
principal port of the province, to Baku, where European goods are
taken in exchange for the white and coloured calicoes, caviare, rice,
fruits and raw cotton of Mazandarān. Great quantities of rice are also
exported to the interior of Persia, principally to Teheran and Kazvin.
Owing to the almost impenetrable character of the country there are
scarcely any roads accessible to wheeled carriages, and the great
causeway of Shah Abbas along the coast has in many places even
disappeared under the jungle. Two routes, however, lead to Teheran,
one by Firuz Kuh, 180 m. long, the other by Larijan, 144 m. long, both
in tolerably good repair. Except where crossed by these routes the
Elburz forms an almost impassable barrier to the south.

The administration is in the hands of a governor, who appoints the
sub-governors of the nine districts of Amol, Barfarush, Meshed-i-Sar,
Sari, Ashref, Farah-abad, Tunakabun, Kelarrustak and Kujur into which
the province is divided. There is fair security for life and property; and,
although otherwise indifferently administered, the country is quite free
from marauders; but local disturbances have latterly been frequent in
the two last-named districts. The revenue is about £30,000, of which

little goes to the state treasury, most being required for the governors,
troops and pensions. The capital is Sari, the other chief towns being
Barfarush, Meshed-i-Sar, Ashref and Farah-abad. (A. H.-S.)

MAZARIN, JULES (1602-1661), French cardinal and
statesman, elder son of a Sicilian, Pietro Mazarini, the intendant of the
household of Philip Colonna, and of his wife Ortensia Buffalini, a
connexion of the Colonnas, was born at Piscina in the Abruzzi on the 14th
of July 1602. He was educated by the Jesuits at Rome till his seventeenth
year, when he accompanied Jerome Colonna as chamberlain to the
university of Alcala in Spain. There he distinguished himself more by his
love of gambling and his gallant adventures than by study, but made himself
a thorough master, not only of the Spanish language and character, but also
of that romantic fashion of Spanish love-making which was to help him
greatly in after life, when he became the servant of a Spanish queen. On his
return to Rome, about 1622, he took his degree as Doctor utriusque juris,
and then became captain of infantry in the regiment of Colonna, which took
part in the war in the Valtelline. During this war he gave proofs of much
diplomatic ability, and Pope Urban VIII. entrusted him, in 1629, with the
difficult task of putting an end to the war of the Mantuan succession. His
success marked him out for further distinction. He was presented to two
canonries in the churches of St John Lateran and Sta Maria Maggiore,
although he had only taken the minor orders, and had never been
consecrated priest; he negotiated the treaty of Turin between France and

Savoy in 1632, became vice-legate at Avignon in 1634, and nuncio at the
court of France from 1634 to 1636. But he began to wish for a wider sphere
than papal negotiations, and, seeing that he had no chance of becoming a
cardinal except by the aid of some great power, he accepted Richelieu’s
offer of entering the service of the king of France, and in 1639 became a
naturalized Frenchman.

In 1640 Richelieu sent him to Savoy, where the regency of Christine, the
duchess of Savoy, and sister of Louis XIII., was disputed by her brothers-in-
law, the princes Maurice and Thomas of Savoy, and he succeeded not only
in firmly establishing Christine but in winning over the princes to France.
This great service was rewarded by his promotion to the rank of cardinal on
the presentation of the king of France in December 1641. On the 4th of
December 1642 Cardinal Richelieu died, and on the very next day the king
sent a circular letter to all officials ordering them to send in their reports to
Cardinal Mazarin, as they had formerly done to Cardinal Richelieu.
Mazarin was thus acknowledged supreme minister, but he still had a
difficult part to play. The king evidently could not live long, and to preserve
power he must make himself necessary to the queen, who would then be
regent, and do this without arousing the suspicions of the king or the
distrust of the queen. His measures were ably taken, and when the king
died, on the 14th of May 1643, to everyone’s surprise her husband’s
minister remained the queen’s. The king had by a royal edict cumbered the
queen-regent with a council and other restrictions, and it was necessary to
get the parlement of Paris to overrule the edict and make the queen absolute
regent, which was done with the greatest complaisance. Now that the queen
was all-powerful, it was expected she would at once dismiss Mazarin and
summon her own friends to power. One of them, Potier, bishop of Beauvais,
already gave himself airs as prime minister, but Mazarin had had the
address to touch both the queen’s heart by his Spanish gallantry and her
desire for her son’s glory by his skilful policy abroad, and he found himself

able easily to overthrow the clique of Importants, as they were called. That
skilful policy was shown in every arena on which the great Thirty Years’
War was being fought out. Mazarin had inherited the policy of France
during the Thirty Years’ War from Richelieu. He had inherited his desire for
the humiliation of the house of Austria in both its branches, his desire to
push the French frontier to the Rhine and maintain a counterpoise of
German states against Austria, his alliances with the Netherlands and with
Sweden, and his four theatres of war—on the Rhine, in Flanders, in Italy
and in Catalonia.

During the last five years of the great war it was Mazarin alone who
directed the French diplomacy of the period. He it was who made the peace
of Brömsebro between the Danes and the Swedes, and turned the latter once
again against the empire; he it was who sent Lionne to make the peace of
Castro, and combine the princes of North Italy against the Spaniards, and
who made the peace of Ulm between France and Bavaria, thus detaching
the emperor’s best ally. He made one fatal mistake—he dreamt of the
French frontier being the Rhine and the Scheldt, and that a Spanish princess
might bring the Spanish Netherlands as dowry to Louis XIV. This roused
the jealousy of the United Provinces, and they made a separate peace with
Spain in January 1648; but the valour of the French generals made the skill
of the Spanish diplomatists of no avail, for Turenne’s victory at
Zusmarshausen, and Condé’s at Lens, caused the peace of Westphalia to be
definitely signed in October 1648. This celebrated treaty belongs rather to
the history of Germany than to a life of Mazarin; but two questions have
been often asked, whether Mazarin did not delay the peace as long as
possible in order to more completely ruin Germany, and whether Richelieu
would have made a similar peace. To the first question Mazarin’s letters,
published by M. Chéruel, prove a complete negative, for in them appears
the zeal of Mazarin for the peace. On the second point, Richelieu’s letters in
many places indicate that his treatment of the great question of frontier

would have been more thorough, but then he would not have been
hampered in France itself.

At home Mazarin’s policy lacked the strength of Richelieu’s. The
Frondes were largely due to his own fault. The arrest of Broussel threw the
people on the side of the parlement. His avarice and unscrupulous
plundering of the revenues of the realm, the enormous fortune which he
thus amassed, his supple ways, his nepotism, and the general lack of public
interest in the great foreign policy of Richelieu, made Mazarin the especial
object of hatred both by bourgeois and nobles. The irritation of the latter
was greatly Mazarin’s own fault; he had tried consistently to play off the
king’s brother Gaston of Orleans against Condé, and their respective
followers against each other, and had also, as his carnets prove, jealously
kept any courtier from getting into the good graces of the queen-regent
except by his means, so that it was not unnatural that the nobility should
hate him, while the queen found herself surrounded by his creatures alone.
Events followed each other quickly; the day of the barricades was followed
by the peace of Ruel, the peace of Ruel by the arrest of the princes, by the
battle of Rethel, and Mazarin’s exile to Brühl before the union of the two
Frondes. It was while in exile at Brühl that Mazarin saw the mistake he had
made in isolating himself and the queen, and that his policy of balancing
every party in the state against each other had made every party distrust
him. So by his counsel the queen, while nominally in league with De Retz
and the parliamentary Fronde, laboured to form a purely royal party,
wearied by civil dissensions, who should act for her and her son’s interest
alone, under the leadership of Mathieu Molé, the famous premier president
of the parlement of Paris. The new party grew in strength, and in January
1652, after exactly a year’s absence, Mazarin returned to the court. Turenne
had now become the royal general, and out-manœuvred Condé, while the
royal party at last grew to such strength in Paris that Condé had to leave the
capital and France. In order to promote a reconciliation with the parlement

of Paris Mazarin had again retired from court, this time to Sedan, in August
1652, but he returned finally in February 1653. Long had been the trial, and
greatly had Mazarin been to blame in allowing the Frondes to come into
existence, but he had retrieved his position by founding that great royal
party which steadily grew until Louis XIV. could fairly have said “L’État,
c’est moi.” As the war had progressed, Mazarin had steadily followed
Richelieu’s policy of weakening the nobles on their country estates.
Whenever he had an opportunity he destroyed a feudal castle, and by
destroying the towers which commanded nearly every town in France, he
freed such towns as Bourges, for instance, from their long practical
subjection to the neighbouring great lord.

The Fronde over, Mazarin had to build up afresh the power of France at
home and abroad. It is to his shame that he did so little at home. Beyond
destroying the brick-and-mortar remains of feudalism, he did nothing for
the people. But abroad his policy was everywhere successful, and opened
the way for the policy of Louis XIV. He at first, by means of an alliance
with Cromwell, recovered the north-western cities of France, though at the
price of yielding Dunkirk to the Protector. On the Baltic, France guaranteed
the Treaty of Oliva between her old allies Sweden, Poland and
Brandenburg, which preserved her influence in that quarter. In Germany he,
through Hugues de Lionne, formed the league of the Rhine, by which the
states along the Rhine bound themselves under the headship of France to be
on their guard against the house of Austria. By such measures Spain was
induced to sue for peace, which was finally signed in the Isle of Pheasants
on the Bidassoa, and is known as the Treaty of the Pyrenees. By it Spain
recovered Franche Comté, but ceded to France Roussillon, and much of
French Flanders; and, what was of greater ultimate importance to Europe,
Louis XIV. was to marry a Spanish princess, who was to renounce her
claims to the Spanish succession if her dowry was paid, which Mazarin
knew could not happen at present from the emptiness of the Spanish

exchequer. He returned to Paris in declining health, and did not long survive
the unhealthy sojourn on the Bidassoa; after some political instruction to his
young master he passed away at Vincennes on the 9th of March 1661,
leaving a fortune estimated at from 18 to 40 million livres behind him, and
his nieces married into the greatest families of France and Italy.

The man who could have had such success, who could have made
the Treaties of Westphalia and the Pyrenees, who could have weathered
the storm of the Fronde, and left France at peace with itself and with
Europe to Louis XIV., must have been a great man; and historians,
relying too much on the brilliant memoirs of his adversaries, like De
Retz, are apt to rank him too low. That he had many a petty fault there
can be no doubt; that he was avaricious and double-dealing was also
undoubted; and his carnets show to what unworthy means he had
recourse to maintain his influence over the queen. What that influence
was will be always debated, but both his carnets and the Brühl letters
show that a real personal affection, amounting to passion on the
queen’s part, existed. Whether they were ever married may be doubted;
but that hypothesis is made more possible by M. Chéruel’s having been
able to prove from Mazarin’s letters that the cardinal himself had never
taken more than the minor orders, which could always be thrown off.
With regard to France he played a more patriotic part than Condé or
Turenne, for he never treated with the Spaniards, and his letters show
that in the midst of his difficulties he followed with intense eagerness
every movement on the frontiers. It is that immense mass of letters that
prove the real greatness of the statesman, and disprove De Retz’s
portrait, which is carefully arranged to show off his enemy against the
might of Richelieu. To concede that the master was the greater man and
the greater statesman does not imply that Mazarin was but a foil to his
predecessor. It is true that we find none of those deep plans for the
internal prosperity of France which shine through Richelieu’s policy.

Mazarin was not a Frenchman, but a citizen of the world, and always
paid most attention to foreign affairs; in his letters all that could teach a
diplomatist is to be found, broad general views of policy, minute details
carefully elaborated, keen insight into men’s characters, cunning
directions when to dissimulate or when to be frank. Italian though he
was by birth, education and nature, France owed him a great debt for
his skilful management during the early years of Louis XIV., and the
king owed him yet more, for he had not only transmitted to him a
nation at peace, but had educated for him his great servants Le Tellier,
Lionne and Colbert. Literary men owed him also much; not only did he
throw his famous library open to them, but he pensioned all their
leaders, including Descartes, Vincent Voiture (1598-1648), Jean Louis
Guez de Balzac (1597-1654) and Pierre Corneille. The last-named
applied, with an adroit allusion to his birthplace, in the dedication of
his Pompée, the line of Virgil:—

“Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento.”
(H. M. S.)

Authorities.—All the earlier works on Mazarin, and early accounts
of his administration, of which the best were Bazin’s Histoire de
France sous Louis XIII. et sous le Cardinal Mazarin, 4 vols. (1846),
and Saint-Aulaire’s Histoire de la Fronde, have been superseded by P.
A. Chéruel’s admirable Histoire de France pendant la minorité de
Louis XIV., 4 vols. (1879-1880), which covers from 1643-1651, and its
sequel Histoire de France sous le ministère de Cardinal Mazarin, 2
vols. (1881-1882), which is the first account of the period written by
one able to sift the statements of De Retz and the memoir writers, and
rest upon such documents as Mazarin’s letters and carnets. Mazarin’s
Lettres, which must be carefully studied by any student of the history
of France, have appeared in the Collection des documents inédits, 9
vols. For his carnets reference must be made to V. Cousin’s articles in

the Journal des Savants, and Chéruel in Revue historique (1877), see
also Chéruel’s Histoire de France pendant la minorité, &c., app. to vol.
iii.; for his early life to Cousin’s Jeunesse de Mazarin (1865) and for
the careers of his nieces to Renée’s Les Nièces de Mazarin (1856). For
the Mazarinades or squibs written against him in Paris during the
Fronde, see C. Moreau’s Bibliographie des mazarinades (1850),
containing an account of 4082 Mazarinades. See also A. Hassall,
Mazarin (1903).

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, a town of Afghanistan, the capital of the
province of Afghan Turkestan. Owing to the importance of the military
cantonment of Takhtapul, and its religious sanctity, it has long ago
supplanted the more ancient capital of Balkh. It is situated in a malarious,
almost desert plain, 9 m. E. of Balkh, and 30 m. S. of the Pata Kesar ferry
on the Oxus river. In this neighbourhood is concentrated most of the Afghan
army north of the Hindu Kush mountains, the fortified cantonment of
Dehdadi having been completed by Sirdar Ghulam Ali Khan and
incorporated with Mazar. Mazar-i-Sharif also contains a celebrated mosque,
from which the town takes its name. It is a huge ornate building with
minarets and a lofty cupola faced with shining blue tiles. It was built by
Sultan Ali Mirza about a.d. 1420, and is held in great veneration by all
Mussulmans, and especially by Shiites, because it is supposed to be the
tomb of Ali, the son-in-law of Mahomet.

MAZARRÓN, a town of eastern Spain, in the province of Murcia,
19 m. W. of Cartagena. Pop. (1900), 23,284. There are soap and flour mills
and metallurgic factories in the town, and iron, copper and lead mines in the
neighbouring Sierra de Almenara. A railway 5 m. long unites Mazarron to
its port on the Mediterranean, where there is a suburb with 2500 inhabitants
(mostly engaged in fisheries and coasting trade), containing barracks, a
custom-house, and important leadworks. Outside of the suburb there are
saltpans, most of the proceeds of which are exported to Galicia.

MAZATLÁN, a city and port of the state of Sinaloa, Mexico, 120
m. (direct) W.S.W. of the city of Durango, in lat. 23° 12′ N., long 106° 24′
W. Pop. (1895), 15,852; (1900), 17,852. It is the Pacific coast terminus of
the International railway which crosses northern Mexico from Ciudad
Porfirio Diaz, and a port of call for the principal steamship lines on this
coast. The harbour is spacious, but the entrance is obstructed by a bar. The
city is built on a small peninsula. Its public buildings include a fine town-
hall, chamber of commerce, a custom-house and two hospitals, besides

which there is a nautical school and a meteorological station, one of the first
established in Mexico. The harbour is provided with a sea-wall at Olas
Altas. A government wireless telegraph service is maintained between
Mazatlán and La Paz, Lower California. Among the manufactures are saw-
mills, foundries, cotton factories and ropeworks, and the exports are chiefly
hides, ixtle, dried and salted fish, gold, silver and copper (bars and ores),
fruit, rubber, tortoise-shell, and gums and resins.

MAZE, a network of winding paths, a labyrinth (q.v.). The word
means properly a state of confusion or wonder, and is probably of
Scandinavian origin; cf. Norw. mas, exhausting labour, also chatter, masa,
to be busy, also to worry, annoy; Swed. masa, to lounge, move slowly and
lazily, to dream, muse. Skeat (Etym. Dict.) takes the original sense to be
probably “to be lost in thought,” “to dream,” and connects with the root ma-
man-, to think, cf. “mind,” “man,” &c. The word “maze” represents the
addition of an intensive suffix.

MAZEPA-KOLEDINSKY, IVAN STEPANOVICH
(1644?-1709), hetman of the Cossacks, belonging to a noble Orthodox
family, was born possibly at Mazeptsina, either in 1629 or 1644, the latter
being the more probable date. He was educated at the court of the Polish
king, John Casimir, and completed his studies abroad. An intrigue with a
Polish married lady forced him to fly into the Ukraine. There is a
trustworthy tradition that the infuriated husband tied the naked youth to the
back of a wild horse and sent him forth into the steppe. He was rescued and
cared for by the Dnieperian Cossacks, and speedily became one of their
ablest leaders. In 1687, during a visit to Moscow, he won the favour of the
then all-powerful Vasily Golitsuin, from whom he virtually purchased the
hetmanship of the Cossacks (July 25). He took a very active part in the
Azov campaigns of Peter the Great and won the entire confidence of the
young tsar by his zeal and energy. He was also very serviceable to Peter at
the beginning of the Great Northern War, especially in 1705 and 1706,
when he took part in the Volhynian campaign and helped to construct the
fortress of Pechersk. The power and influence of Mazepa were fully
recognized by Peter the Great. No other Cossack hetman had ever been
treated with such deference at Moscow. He ranked with the highest
dignitaries in the state; he sat at the tsar’s own table. He had been made one
of the first cavaliers of the newly established order of St Andrew, and
Augustus of Poland had bestowed upon him, at Peter’s earnest solicitation,
the universally coveted order of the White Eagle. Mazepa had no
temptations to be anything but loyal, and loyal he would doubtless have
remained had not Charles XII. crossed the Russian frontier. Then it was that
Mazepa, who had had doubts of the issue of the struggle all along, made up
his mind that Charles, not Peter, was going to win, and that it was high time
he looked after his own interests. Besides, he had his personal grievances
against the tsar. He did not like the new ways because they interfered with
his old ones. He was very jealous of the favourite (Menshikov), whom he

suspected of a design to supplant him. But he proceeded very cautiously.
Indeed, he would have preferred to remain neutral, but he was not strong
enough to stand alone. The crisis came when Peter ordered him to co-
operate actively with the Russian forces in the Ukraine. At this very time he
was in communication with Charles’s first minister, Count Piper, and had
agreed to harbour the Swedes in the Ukraine and close it against the
Russians (Oct. 1708). The last doubt disappeared when Menshikov was sent
to supervise Mazepa. At the approach of his rival the old hetman hastened
to the Swedish outposts at Horki, in Severia. Mazepa’s treason took Peter
completely by surprise. He instantly commanded Menshikov to get a new
hetman elected and raze Baturin, Mazepa’s chief stronghold in the Ukraine,
to the ground. When Charles, a week later, passed Baturin by, all that
remained of the Cossack capital was a heap of smouldering mills and ruined
houses. The total destruction of Baturin, almost in sight of the Swedes,
overawed the bulk of the Cossacks into obedience, and Mazepa’s ancient
prestige was ruined in a day when the metropolitan of Kiev solemnly
excommunicated him from the high altar, and his effigy, after being dragged
with contumely through the mud at Kiev, was publicly burnt by the
common hangman. Henceforth Mazepa, perforce, attached himself to
Charles. What part he took at the battle of Poltava is not quite clear. After
the catastrophe he accompanied Charles to Turkey with some 1500
horsemen (the miserable remnant of his 80,000 warriors). The sultan
refused to surrender him to the tsar, though Peter offered 300,000 ducats for
his head. He died at Bender on the 22nd of August 1709.

See N. I. Kostomarov, Mazepa and the Mazepanites (Russ.) (St
Petersburg), 1885; R. Nisbet Bain, The First Romanovs (London,
1905); S. M. Solovev, History of Russia (Russ.), vol. xv. (St
Petersburg, 1895).
(R. N. B.)

MAZER, the name of a special type of drinking vessel, properly
made of maple-wood, and so-called from the spotted or “birds-eye”
marking on the wood (Ger. Maser, spot, marking, especially on wood; cf.
“measles”). These drinking vessels are shallow bowls without handles, with
a broad flat foot and a knob or boss in the centre of the inside, known
technically as the “print.” They were made from the 13th to the 16th
centuries, and were the most prized of the various wooden cups in use, and
so were ornamented with a rim of precious metal, generally of silver or
silver gilt; the foot and the “print” being also of metal. The depth of the
mazers seems to have decreased in course of time, those of the 16th century
that survive being much shallower than the earlier examples. There are
examples with wooden covers with a metal handle, such as the Flemish and
German mazers in the Franks Bequest in the British Museum. On the metal
rim is usually an inscription, religious or bacchanalian, and the “print” was
also often decorated. The later mazers sometimes had metal straps between
the rim and the foot.

A very fine mazer with silver gilt ornamentation 3 in. deep and 91⁄2
in. in diameter was sold in the Braikenridge collection in 1908 for
£2300. It bears the London hall-mark of 1534. This example is
illustrated in the article Plate: see also Drinking Vessels.

MAZURKA (Polish for a woman of the province of Mazovia), a
lively dance, originating in Poland, somewhat resembling the polka.It is
danced in couples, the music being in 3⁄8 or 3⁄4 time.

MAZZARA DEL VALLO, a town of Sicily, in the province of
Trapani, on the south-west coast of the island, 32 m. by rail S. of Trapani.
Pop. (1901), 20,130. It is the seat of a bishop; the cathedral, founded in
1093, was rebuilt in the 17th century. The castle, at the south-eastern angle
of the town walls, was erected in 1073. The mouth of the river, which bears
the same name, serves as a port for small ships only. Mazzara was in origin
a colony of Selinus: it was destroyed in 409, but it is mentioned again as a
Carthaginian fortress in the First Punic War and as a post station on the
Roman coast road, though whether it had municipal rights is doubtful.1 A
few inscriptions of the imperial period exist, but no other remains of
importance. On the west bank of the river are grottoes cut in the rock, of
uncertain date: and there are quarries in the neighbourhood resembling
those of Syracuse, but on a smaller scale.

See A. Castiglione, Sulle cose antiche della città di Mazzara
(Alcamo, 1878).

1 Th. Mommsen in Corpus inscr. lat. (Berlin, 1883), x. 739.

MAZZINI, GIUSEPPE (1805-1872), Italian patriot, was born
on the 22nd of June 1805 at Genoa, where his father, Giacomo Mazzini,
was a physician in good practice, and a professor in the university. His
mother is described as having been a woman of great personal beauty, as
well as of active intellect and strong affections. During infancy and
childhood his health was extremely delicate, and it appears that he was
nearly six years of age before he was quite able to walk; but he had already
begun to devour books of all kinds and to show other signs of great
intellectual precocity. He studied Latin with his first tutor, an old priest, but
no one directed his extensive course of reading. He became a student at the
university of Genoa at an unusually early age, and intended to follow his
father’s profession, but being unable to conquer his horror of practical
anatomy, he decided to graduate in law (1826). His exceptional abilities,
together with his remarkable generosity, kindness and loftiness of character,
endeared him to his fellow students. As to his inner life during this period,
we have only one brief but significant sentence; “for a short time,” he says,
“my mind was somewhat tainted by the doctrines of the foreign
materialistic school; but the study of history and the intuitions of conscience

—the only tests of truth—soon led me back to the spiritualism of our Italian
fathers.”

The natural bent of his genius was towards literature, and, in the course
of the four years of his nominal connexion with the legal profession, he
wrote a considerable number of essays and reviews, some of which have
been wholly or partially reproduced in the critical and literary volumes of
his Life and Writings. His first essay, characteristically enough on “Dante’s
Love of Country,” was sent to the editor of the Antologia fiorentina in 1826,
but did not appear until some years afterwards in the Subalpino. He was an
ardent supporter of romanticism as against what he called “literary
servitude under the name of classicism”; and in this interest all his critiques
(as, for example, that of Giannoni’s “Exile” in the Indicatore Livornese,
1829) were penned. But in the meantime the “republican instincts” which
he tells us he had inherited from his mother had been developing, and his
sense of the evils under which Italy was groaning had been intensified; and
at the same time he became possessed with the idea that Italians, and he
himself in particular, “could and therefore ought to struggle for liberty of
country.” Therefore, he at once put aside his dearest ambition, that of
producing a complete history of religion, developing his scheme of a new
theology uniting the spiritual with the practical life, and devoted himself to
political thought. His literary articles accordingly became more and more
suggestive of advanced liberalism in politics, and led to the suppression by
government of the Indicatore Genovese and the Indicatore Livornese
successively. Having joined the Carbonari, he soon rose to one of the higher
grades in their hierarchy, and was entrusted with a special secret mission
into Tuscany; but, as his acquaintance grew, his dissatisfaction with the
organization of the society increased, and he was already meditating the
formation of a new association stripped of foolish mysterious and theatrical
formulae, which instead of merely combating existing authorities should
have a definite and purely patriotic aim, when shortly after the French

revolution of 1830 he was betrayed, while initiating a new member, to the
Piedmontese authorities. He was imprisoned in the fortress of Savona on
the western Riviera for about six months, when, a conviction having been
found impracticable through deficiency of evidence, he was released, but
upon conditions involving so many restrictions of his liberty that he
preferred the alternative of leaving the country. He withdrew accordingly
into France, living chiefly in Marseilles.

While in his lonely cell at Savona, in presence of “those symbols of the
infinite, the sky and the sea,” with a greenfinch for his sole companion, and
having access to no books but “a Tacitus, a Byron, and a Bible,” he had
finally become aware of the great mission or “apostolate” (as he himself
called it) of his life; and soon after his release his prison meditations took
shape in the programme of the organization which was destined soon to
become so famous throughout Europe, that of La Giovine Italia, or Young
Italy. Its publicly avowed aims were to be the liberation of Italy both from
foreign and domestic tyranny, and its unification under a republican form of
government; the means to be used were education, and, where advisable,
insurrection by guerrilla bands; the motto was to be “God and the people,”
and the banner was to bear on one side the words “Unity” and
“Independence” and on the other “Liberty,” “Equality,” and “Humanity,” to
describe respectively the national and the international aims. In April 1831
Charles Albert, “the ex-Carbonaro conspirator of 1821,” succeeded Charles
Felix on the Sardinian throne, and towards the close of that year Mazzini,
making himself, as he afterwards confessed, “the interpreter of a hope
which he did not share,” wrote the new king a letter, published at
Marseilles, urging him to take the lead in the impending struggle for Italian
independence. Clandestinely reprinted, and rapidly circulated all over Italy,
its bold and outspoken words produced a great sensation, but so deep was
the offence it gave to the Sardinian government that orders were issued for
the immediate arrest and imprisonment of the author should he attempt to