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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Maximus of Tyre

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​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.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Maxwelltown

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​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.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/May, Isle of

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​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.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/May

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​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).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Maximus of Smyrna

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​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.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Meuse-Line

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​MEUSE-LINE, the chain of French forts closing the passages of the Meuse between Verdun and Toul. The total length of the line is 31 m., and the forts d’arrêt are disposed along the right bank. The forts are: between Verdun and St Mihiel, Génicourt and Troyon; near St Mihiel, Les Paroches (left bank) and Camp des Romains; and near Commercy—Liouville St Agnant, Gironville and Jouy-sous-les-Côtes. Above the circle of the Toul defences there are barrier forts on the Upper Meuse at Pagny (la-Blanche-Côte) and near Neufchâteau; but these last are practically in second line, and between Toul and Épinal the frontier districts are designedly left open. At Épinal the “Moselle-Line” begins. These lines form part of the defensive scheme adopted by France in 1873–1875. Their general design is that of the French fort illustrated in Fortification and Siegecraft, fig. 43, though they are varied in accordance with the site.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mevania

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​MEVANIA (mod. Bevagna), an ancient town of Umbria, on the river Clitumnus and on the Via Flaminia, 8 m. W.S.W. of Forum Flaminii, and 5 m. W. of Fulginium (Foligno), 738 ft. above sea-level. There are remains of a temple near the north gate, and of an amphitheatre built into the modern houses. The walls, which have disappeared, were, according to Pliny (Hist. Nat. xxxv. 173), built of unbaked bricks. In 310 B.C. the consul Fabius broke the Umbrian forces here; but otherwise it is not mentioned until the 1st century A.D. In 69 the army of Vitellius awaited here the advance of Vespasian. Its pastures near the river and its white oxen are mentioned by Propertius, whose family belonged to Asisium (mod. Assisi) and after him by Silius Italicus, Lucan and Statius. The town was a municipium. The churches of S. Michele Arcangelo and S. Nicolo are Romanesque buildings of the 12th century.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Meulen, Antony Francis van der

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​MEULEN, ANTONY FRANCIS VAN DER (1634–1690), Flemish painter, born in Brussels, was called to Paris about 1666 by Colbert, at the instance of Le Brun, to fill the post of battle painter to Louis XIV. His paintings during the campaigns of Flanders (1667) so delighted Louis that from that date Van der Meulen was ordered to accompany him in all his expeditions. In 1673 he was received into the French Academy, attained the grade of councillor in 1681, and died full of honours in Paris in 1690. He is best represented by the series of twenty-three paintings, mostly executed for Louis XIV., now in the Louvre. They show that he always retained his Flemish predilections in point of colour, although his style was modified by that of the French school.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Meunier, Constantin

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​MEUNIER, CONSTANTIN (1831–1905), Belgian painter and sculptor, was born at Etterbeek, Brussels. His first exhibit was a plaster sketch, “The Garland,” at the Brussels Salon in 1851. Soon afterwards, on the advice of the painter Charles de Groux he abandoned the chisel for the brush. His first important, painting, “The Salle St Roch” (1857), was followed by a series of paintings including “A Trappist Funeral” (1860), “Trappists Ploughing” (1863), in collaboration with Alfred Verwée “Divine Service at the Monastery of La Trappe” (1871) and episodes of the Peasants' War (1878). About 1880 he was commissioned to illustrate those parts of Camille Lemonnier’s description of Belgium in Le Tour du monde which referred to miners and factory-workers, and produced “In the Factory,” “Smithery at Cockerill’s” “Melting Steel at the Factory at Seraing" (1882) “Returning from the Pit” and “The Broken Crucible” (1884). In 1882 he was employed by the government to copy Pedro Campana’s “Descent from the Cross” at Seville, and in Spain he painted such characteristic pictures as “The Café Concert,” “Procession on Good Friday,” and “The Tobacco Factory at Seville” (Brussels Gallery). On his return to Belgium he was appointed professor at the Louvain Academy of Fine Arts. In 1885 he returned to statuary and produced “The Puddler,” “The Hammerer” (1886), “Firedamp” (1889, Brussels Gallery), “Ecce Homo” (1891), “The Old Mine-Horse” (1891), “The Mower” (1892}; “The Glebe" (1892), the monument to Father Damien at Louvain (1893), “Puddler at the Furnace” (1893), the scheme of decoration for the Botanic Garden at Brussels in collaboration with the sculptor Charles van der Stappen (1893) “The Horse at the Pond,” in the square in the north-east quarter of Brussels, and two unfinished works the “Monument to Labour” and the Zola monument, in collaboration with the French sculptor Charpentier. The “Monument to Labour,” which was acquired by the State for the Brussels Gallery, comprises four stone bas-reliefs, “Industry,” “The Mine,” “Harvest,” and the “Harbour”; four bronze statues, “The Sower,” “The Smith,” “The Miner," and the “Ancestor”; and a bronze group “Maternity,” Meunier died at Brussels on the 4th of April 1905.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mew

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​MEW. (1) An imitative word, also spelled miaou, representing the cry of a cat or of sea-birds. The name mew, usually sea-mew, as applied to the Larus canus, or common sea-gull, is, according to Skeat, also imitative. As the name of the sea-bird it appears in Du. meeuw, Ger. Möwe, and other languages. (2) (Through Fr. muer, from Lat. mutare, to change), a term originally applied in French to the moulting of a hawk or falcon, and then to the caging of the bird during that period; thus “to mew up” has come to mean to confine. The English word chiefly survives in the plural form mews, applied to a stable-yard, coach-houses, stalls for horses, and living accommodation, found in narrow streets in large towns. This use was due to the Royal Mews at Charing Cross, where the royal hawks were kept from 1377 to 1537, when the building became the royal stables.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Meurice, François Paul

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​MEURICE, FRANÇOIS PAUL (1818–1905), French dramatist, was born in Paris on the 7th of February 1818. In 1848 he became the editor of the Evénement, founded by Victor Hugo, and in 1869 he was one of the promoters of the Rappel, a journal on similar lines. He was the literary executor of Victor Hugo, and edited his works (1880–1885). In collaboration with Auguste Vacquerie and Théophile Gautier, he produced Falstaff (1842), a play in imitation of Shakespeare, and in 1843 an imitation of the Antigone; and with Alexandre Dumas a Hamlet (1847). He also wrote Benvenuto Cellini (1852), Schamyl (1854), Struensée (1893), and dramatic versions of Les Misérables (1878), Notre Dame de Paris (1876), Quatre-vingt-treize (1881). He died on the 12th of December 1905.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Meursius

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​MEURSIUS [Johannes van Meurs] (1579–1639), Dutch classical scholar and antiquary, was born at Loosduinen, near the Hague. He was extremely precocious, and at the age of sixteen produced a commentary on the Cassandra of Lycophron. In 1610 he was appointed professor of Greek and history at Leiden, and in the following year historiographer to the states-general. In consequence of the disturbed state of his country he welcomed the offer (1625) of Christian IV. of Denmark to become professor of history and politics at Sorb, in Zealand, combined with the office of historiographer royal. He died at Sorb on the 10th of September 1639. Meursius was the author of classical editions and treatises, many of which are printed in J. F. Gronovius’s Thesaurus antiquitatum graecarum. Their lack of arrangement detracts from their value, but they are a storehouse of information, and Meursius does not deserve the epithets of “pedant” and “ignoramus” which Scaliger applied to him. Meursius also wrote on the troubles in the Netherlands and the history of Denmark.
Complete edition of his works by J. Lami (1741–1763). See Van der Aa’s Biographisch Woordenboek der Nederlanden (1869), and J. E. Sandys, Hist. of Class. Scholarship (1908), ii. 311.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Meuse (river)

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​MEUSE (Flem. Maes, Du. Maas), a river rising at Pouilly, in the department of Haute Marne, France. After passing through a great part of Belgium and Holland it flows into the Waal channel of the Rhine at Fort Loevenstein. A few miles below Gorinchem the Meuse, or Waal as it is then called, divides into two branches. The northern flows almost due west, and joins the Lek (Rhine) above Rotterdam, and enters the North Sea at the Hook of Holland. Ocean-going steamers for Rotterdam use, however, the New Waterway (Nieuwe Waterweg), a little north of the Meuse. The southern branch turns south, crosses the marsh of Biesbosch by the canalized channel of New Merwede, enters the Hollandsch Diep, and reaches the sea by the arms called Haringvliet and Krammer. ​The length of the Meuse is nearly 560 m., of which 360 are navigable, and probably its traffic is only exceeded by that of the Rhine. Near Bazeilles it disappears under ground for a distance of over 3 m. The Chiers, the Semois, the Lesse, the Sambre, the Ourthe and the Roer are its most important tributaries. In Belgium it is canalized between Liége and Vise, and the Dutch are engaged on the same operation below Maestricht. The principal towns on the Meuse are: in France, Verdun, Sédan, Mézières and Givet; in Belgium, Dinant, Namur, Huy, Liége and Maeseyck; in Holland, Maestricht, Roermond, Venlo, Dordrecht and Rotterdam.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kabba

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​KABBA, a province of the British protectorate of Northern Nigeria, situated chiefly on the right bank of the Niger, between 7° 5′ and 8° 45′ N. and 5° 30′ and 7° E. It has an area of 7800 sq. m. and an estimated population of about 70,000. The province consists of relatively healthy uplands interspersed with fertile valleys. It formed part at one time of the Nupe emirate, and under Fula rule the armies of Bida regularly raided for slaves and laid waste the country. Amongst the native inhabitants the Igbira are very industrious, and crops of tobacco, indigo, all the African grains, and a good quantity of cotton are already grown. The sylvan products are valuable and include palm oil, kolas, shea and rubber. Lokoja, a town which up to 1902 was the principal British station in the protectorate, is situated in this province. The site of Lokoja, with a surrounding tract of country at the junction of the Benue and the Niger, was ceded to the British government in 1841 by the attah of Idah, whose dominions at that time extended to the right bank of the river. The first British settlement was a failure. In 1854 MacGregor Laird, who had taken an active part in promoting the exploration of the river, sent thither Dr W. B. Baikie, who was successful in dealing with the natives and in 1857 became the first British consul in the interior. The town of Lokoja was founded by him in 1860. In 1868 the consulate was abolished and the settlement was left wholly to commercial interests. In 1879 Sir George Goldie formed the Royal Niger Company, which bought out its foreign rivals and acquired a charter from the British government. In 1886 the company made Lokoja its military centre, and on the transfer of the company’s territories to the Crown it remained for a time the capital of Northern Nigeria. In 1902 the political capital of the protectorate was shifted to Zungeru in the province of Zaria, but Lokoja remains the commercial centre. The distance of Lokoja from the sea at the Niger mouth is about 250 m.
In the absence of any central native authority the province is entirely dependent for administration upon British initiative. It has been divided into four administrative divisions. British and native courts of justice have been established. A British station has been established at Kabba town, which is an admirable site some 50 m. W. by N. of Lokoja, about 1300 ft. above the sea, and a good road has been made from Kabba to Lokoja. Roads have been opened through the province. (See Nigeria.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kabbabish

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​KABBABISH (“goatherds”: James Bruce derives the name from Hebsh, sheep), a tribe of African nomads of Semitic origin. It is perhaps the largest “Arab” tribe in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and its many clans are scattered over the country extending S.W. from the province of Dongola to the confines of Darfur. The Kabbabish speak Arabic, but their pronunciation differs much from that of the true Arabs. The Kabbabish have a tradition that they came from Tunisia and are of Mogrebin or western descent; but while the chiefs look like Arabs, the tribesmen resemble the Beja family. They themselves declare that ​one of their clans, Kawahla, is not of Kabbabish blood, but was affiliated to them long ago. Kawahla is a name of Arab formation, and J. L. Burckhardt spoke of the clan as a distinct one living about Abu Haraz and on the Atbara. The Kabbabish probably received Arab rulers, as did the Abābda. They are chiefly employed in cattle, camel and sheep breeding, and before the Sudan wars of 1883–99 they had a monopoly of all transport from the Nile, north of Abu Gussi, to Kordofan. They also cultivate the lowlands which border the Nile, where they have permanent villages. They are of fine physique, dark with black wiry hair, carefully arranged in tightly rolled curls which cling to the head, with regular features and rather thick aquiline noses. Some of the tribes wear large hats like those of the Kabyles of Algeria and Tunisia.
See James Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile (1790); A. H. Keane, Ethnology of Egyptian Sudan (1884); Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (edited by Count Gleichen, 1905).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kach Gandava

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​KACH GANDAVA, or Kachhi (Kach, Kej, Kiz), a low-lying flat region in Baluchistan separating the Bugti hills from those of Kalat. It is driven, like a wedge, into the frontier mountain system and extends for 150 m. from Jacobabad to Sibi, with nearly as great a breadth at its base on the Sind frontier. Area, 5310 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 82,909. The Mula pass, which connects it with the Kalat highlands, was once (when the ancient city of Kandabel was the capital of Gandava) a much trodden trade highway, and is still a practicable route though no longer a popular one. The soil is fertile wherever it can be irrigated by the floods brought down from the surrounding hills; but much of the central portion is sandy waste. It is traversed by the North-Western railway. The climate is unhealthy in summer, when pestilential hot winds are sometimes destructive to life. The annual rainfall averages only 3 in. Kachhi, though subject to the khan of Kalat, is administered under the tribal system. There are no schools, dispensaries or gaols.
See Baluchistan District Gazetteer, vol. vi. (Bombay, 1907).