OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Maze

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​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.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mazer

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​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.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mazzara del Vallo

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​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. 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).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mazzoni, Giacomo

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​MAZZONI, GIACOMO (1548–1598), Italian philosopher, was born at Cesena and died at Ferrara. A member of a noble family and highly educated, he was one of the most eminent savants of the period. He occupied chairs in the universities of Pisa and Rome, was one of the founders of the Della Crusca Academy, and had the distinction, it is said, of thrice vanquishing the Admirable Crichton in dialectic. His chief work in philosophy was an attempt to reconcile Plato and Aristotle, and in this spirit he published in 1597 a treatise In universam Platonis et Aristotelis philosophiam praecludia. He wrote also De triplici hominum vita, wherein he outlined a theory of the infinite perfection and development of nature. Apart from philosophy, he was prominent in literature as the champion of Dante, and produced two works in the poet’s defence: Discorso composto in difesa della comedia di Dante (1572), and Della difesa della comedia di Dante (1587, reprinted 1688). He was an authority on ancient languages and philology, and gave a great impetus to the scientific study of the Italian language.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/McAlester

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​McALESTER, a city and the county-seat of Pittsburg county, Oklahoma, about 110 m. E.S.E. of Guthrie. Pop. (1900), 3479; (1907) 8144 (1681 negroes and 105 Indians); (1910) 12,954. McAlester is served by the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railways and is an important railway junction; it is connected with the neighbouring mining district by an electric line. There are undeveloped iron deposits and rich coal-mines in the surrounding country, and coke-making is the principal manufacturing industry of the city. There is a fine Scottish Rite Masons’ consistory and temple in McAlester. The city owns its waterworks. The vicinity was first settled in 1885. The city of South McAlester was incorporated in 1899, and in 1906 it annexed the town of McAlester and adopted its name.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mazurka

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​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.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mazzoni, Guido

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​MAZZONI, GUIDO (1859– ), Italian poet, was born at Florence, and educated at Pisa and Bologna. In 1887 he became professor of Italian at Padua, and in 1894 at Florence. He was much influenced by Carducci, and became prominent both as a prolific and well-read critic and as a poet of individual distinction. His chief volumes of verse are Versi (1880), Nuove poesie (1886), Poesie (1891), Voci della vita (1893).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/McAdam, John Loudon

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​McADAM, JOHN LOUDON (1756–1836), Scottish inventor, who gave his name to the system of road-making known as “macadamizing,” was born at Ayr, Scotland, on the 21st of September 1756, being descended on his father’s side from the clan of the McGregors. While at school he constructed a model road-section. In 1770 he went to New York, entering the counting-house of a merchant uncle. He returned to Scotland with a considerable fortune in 1783, and purchased an estate at Sauhrie, Ayrshire. Among other public offices he held that of road trustee. The highways of Great Britain were at this time in a very bad condition, and McAdam at once began to consider how to effect reforms. At his own expense he began at Sauhrie, despite much opposition, a series of experiments in road-making. In 1798 he removed to Falmouth, where he had received a government appointment, and continued his experiments there. His general conclusion was that roads should be constructed of broken stone (see Roads). In 1815, having been appointed surveyor-general of the Bristol roads, he was able to put his theories into practice. In 1819 he published a Practical Essay on the Scientific Repair and Preservation of Roads, followed, in 1820, by the Present State of Road-making. As the result of a parliamentary inquiry in 1823 into the whole question of road-making, his views were adopted by the public authorities, and in 1827 he was appointed general surveyor of roads. In pursuing his investigations he had travelled over thirty thousand miles of road and expended over £5000. Parliament recouped him for his expenses and gave him a handsome gratuity, but he declined a proffered knighthood. He died at Moffat, Dumfriesshire, on the 26th of November 1836.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Leo (popes)/Leo VIII

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​Leo VIII., pope from 963 to 965, a Roman by birth, held the lay office of protoscrinius when he was elected to the papal chair at the instance of Otto the Great by the Roman synod which deposed John XII. in December 963. Having been hurried with unseemly haste through all the intermediate orders, he received consecration two days after his election, which was unacceptable to the people. In February 964, the emperor having withdrawn from the city, Leo found it necessary to seek safety in flight, whereupon he was deposed by a synod held under the presidency of John XII. On the sudden death of the latter, the populace chose Benedict V. as his successor; but Otto, returning and laying siege to the city, compelled their acceptance of Leo. It is usually said that, at the synod which deposed Benedict, Leo conceded to the emperor and his successors as sovereign of Italy full rights of investiture, but the genuineness of the document on which this allegation rests is more than doubtful. Leo VIII. was succeeded by John XIII.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Leo (popes)/Leo II

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​Leo II., pope from August 682 to July 683, was a Sicilian by birth, and succeeded Agatho I. Agatho had been represented at the sixth oecumenical council (that of Constantinople in 681), where Pope Honorius I. was anathematized for his views in the Monothelite controversy as a favourer of heresy, and the only fact of permanent historical interest with regard to Leo is that he wrote once and again in approbation of the decision of the council and in condemnation of Honorius, whom he regarded as one who profana proditione immaculatam fidem subvertere conatus est. In their bearing upon the question of papal infallibility these words have excited considerable attention and controversy, and prominence is given to the circumstance that in the Greek text of the letter to the emperor in which the phrase occurs the milder expression παρεχώρησεν (subverti permisit) is used for subvertere conatus est. This Hefele in his Conciliengeschichte (iii. 294) regards as alone expressing the true meaning of Leo. It was during Leo’s pontificate that the dependence of the see of Ravenna upon that of Rome was finally settled by imperial edict. Benedict II. succeeded him.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Leo (popes)/Leo XI

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​Leo XI. (Alessandro de’ Medici) was elected pope on the 1st of April 1605, at the age of seventy. He had long been archbishop of Florence and nuncio to Tuscany; and was entirely pro-French in his sympathies. He died on the 27th day of his pontificate, and was succeeded by Paul V.
See the contemporary life by Vitorelli, continuator of Ciaconius, Vitae et res gestae summorum Pontiff. Rom.; Ranke, Popes (Eng. trans., Austin), ii. 330; v. Reumont, Gesch. der Stadt Rom. iii. 2, 604; Brosch, Gesch. des Kirchenstaates (1880), i. 350.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Leo (popes)/Leo III

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​Leo III., whose pontificate (795–816) covered the last eighteen years of the reign of Charlemagne, was a native of Rome, and having been chosen successor of Adrian I. on the 26th of December 795, was consecrated to the office on the following day. His first act was to send to Charles as patrician the standard of Rome along with the keys of the sepulchre of St Peter and of the city; a gracious and condescending letter in reply made it still more clear where all real power at that moment lay. For more than three years his term of office was uneventful; but at the end of that period the feelings of disappointment which had secretly been rankling in the breasts of Paschalis and Campulus, nephews of Adrian I., who had received from him the offices of primicerius and sacellarius respectively, suddenly manifested themselves in an organized attack upon Leo as he was riding in procession through the city on the day of the Greater Litany (25th April 799); the object of his assailants was, by depriving him of his eyes and tongue, to disqualify him for the papal office, and, although they were unsuccessful in this attempt, he found it necessary to accept the protection of Winegis, the Frankish duke of Spoleto, who came to the rescue. Having vainly requested the presence of Charles in Rome, Leo went beyond the Alps to meet the king at Paderborn; he was received with much ceremony and respect, but his enemies having sent in serious written charges, of which the character is not now known, Charles decided to appoint both the pope and his accusers to appear as parties before him when he should have arrived in Rome. Leo returned in great state to his diocese, and was received with honour; Charles, who did not arrive until November in the following year, lost no time in assuming the office of a judge, and the result of his investigation was the acquittal of the pope, who at the same time, however, was permitted or rather required to clear himself by the oath of compurgation. The coronation of the emperor followed two days afterwards; its effect was to bring out with increased clearness the personally subordinate position of Leo. The decision of the emperor, however, secured for Leo’s pontificate an external peace which was only broken after the accession of Louis the Pious. His enemies began to renew their attacks; the violent repression of a conspiracy led to an open rebellion at Rome; serious charges were once more brought against him, when he was overtaken by death in 816. It was under this pontificate that Felix of Urgel, the adoptianist, was anathematized (798) by a ​Roman synod. Leo at another synod held in Rome in 810 admitted the dogmatic correctness of the filioque, but deprecated its introduction into the creed. On this point, however, the Frankish Church persevered in the course it had already initiated. Leo’s successor was Stephen IV.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Leo (popes)/Leo IV

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​Leo IV., pope from 847 to 855, was a Roman by birth, and succeeded Sergius II. His pontificate was chiefly distinguished by his efforts to repair the damage done by the Saracens during the reign of his predecessor to various churches of the city, especially those of St Peter and St Paul. It was he who built and fortified the suburb on the right bank of the Tiber still known as the Civitas Leonina. A frightful conflagration, which he is said to have extinguished by his prayers, is the subject of Raphael’s great work in the Sala dell’ Incendio of the Vatican. He held three synods, one of them (in 850) distinguished by the presence of Louis II., who was crowned emperor on the occasion, but none of them otherwise of importance. The history of the papal struggle with Hincmar of Reims, which began during Leo’s pontificate, belongs rather to that of Nicholas I. Benedict III. was Leo’s immediate successor.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Leo (popes)/Leo V–VII

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​Leo V., a native of Ardea, was pope for two months in 903 after the death of Benedict IV. He was overthrown and cast into prison by the priest Christopher, who installed himself in his place.
Leo VI. succeeded John X. in 928, and reigned seven months and a few days. He was succeeded by Stephen VIII.
Leo VII., pope from 936 to 939, was preceded by John XI., and followed by Stephen IX.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Towneley, Charles

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​TOWNELEY (or Townley), CHARLES (1737–1805), English archaeologist and collector of marbles, was born at Towneley, the family seat, near Burnley in Lancashire, on the 1st of October 1737. He was educated at the college of Douai, and subsequently under John Turberville Needham, the physiologist and divine. In 1758 he took up his residence at Towneley, where he lived the ordinary life of a country gentleman until about 1765, when he left England to study ancient art, chiefly at Rome. He also made several excursions to the south of Italy and Sicily. In conjunction with Gavin Hamilton, the artist, and Thomas Jenkins, a banker in Rome, he got together a splendid collection of antiquities, which was deposited in two houses bought by him for the purpose in Park Street, Westminster, where he died on the 3rd of January 1805. His solitary publication was an account of an ancient helmet found at Ribchester. His marbles, bronzes, coins, and gems were purchased by the British Museum for about £28,000, and form part of Graeco-Roman collection.
For an account of the antiquities see Sir Henry Ellis’s The Towneley Gallery (1836), and A. T. F. Michaelis’s Ancient Marbles in Great Britain (1882).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Townsville

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​TOWNSVILLE, a town of Elphinstone county, Queensland, Australia, 870 m. direct N.W. of Brisbane. Pop. (1901), 12,717. It is the seat of the Anglican bishop of North Queensland and has a cathedral and several handsome buildings, including the supreme court and the custom-house. It is picturesquely situated partly on the slopes of Castle Hill and Melton Hill, and partly on the banks of Ross Creek, which is spanned by the Victoria Bridge, a swing bridge 550 ft. in length, worked by hydraulic power. The tidal harbour is enclosed by stone breakwaters, and large vessels enter and load frozen meat direct from the refrigerator cars. The port is an outlet for a wide area of pastoral country and for several goldfields, and has regular communication with all ports north and south by lines of steamers. The immigration barracks on Ross Island have accommodation for five hundred persons. The railway station is the terminus of the Northern line, which extends 236 m. to Hughenden. Townsville was founded in 1864 by John Medwin Black and named after his partner Captain Towns. A municipal charter was granted in 1866.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Toy

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​TOY (an adaptation of Du. tuig, tools, implements, stuff, speltuig, playthings, i.e. stuff to play with, spelen, to play), a child’s plaything, also a trifle, a worthless, petty ornament, a gew-gaw, a bauble. Children’s toys and playthings, survive from the most remote periods of man’s life on the earth, though many so-called diminutive objects made and used by primitive man, sometimes classified as playthings, may have been workmen’s models, votive offerings or sepulchral objects. A large number of wooden, earthenware, stone or metal dolls remain with which the children of ancient Egypt once played; thus in the British Museum collection there is a flat painted wooden doll with strings of mud-beads representing the hair, a bronze Woman doll bearing a pot on her head, an earthenware doll carrying and nursing a child; some have movable jointed arms. There are also many toy animals, such as a painted wooden calf, a porcelain elephant with a rider; this once had have disappeared. Balls are found made of leather stuffed with hair, chopped straw and other material and also of blue porcelain or papyrus. Jointed dolls, moved by strings, were evidently favourite playthings of the Greek and Roman children, and small models of furniture, chairs, tables, sets of jugs painted with scenes of children’s life survive from both Greek and Roman times. Balls, tops, rattles and the implements of numerous games, still favourites in all countries and every age, remain to show how little the amusements of children have changed.
See also Doll; Top; Play; and for the history of toys, with their varying yet unchanging fashions, see H. R. d’Allemagne, Histoire des Jouets, and F. N. Jackson, Toys of other Days (1908).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Townley, James

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​TOWNLEY, JAMES (1714–1778), English dramatist, second son of Charles Townley, merchant, was born in London on the 6th of May 1714. Educated at Merchant Taylors' School and at St John’s College, Oxford, he took holy orders, being ordained priest on the 28th of May 1738. He was lecturer at St Dunstan’s in the East, chaplain to the lord mayor, then under-master at Merchant Taylors’ School until 1753, when he became grammar master at Christ’s Hospital. In 1760 he became head master of Merchant Taylors' School, where in 1762 and 1763 he revived the custom of dramatic performances. He retained his headmastership until his death on the 5th of July 1778. He took a keen interest in the theatre, and it has been asserted that many of David Garrick’s best productions and revivals owed much to his assistance. He was the author, although the fact was long concealed, of High Life below Stairs, a two-act farce presented at Drury Lane on the 31st of October 1759; also of False Concord (Covent Garden, March 20, 1764) and The Tutor (Drury Lane, Feb. 4, 1765).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Toxicology

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​TOXICOLOGY, the name of that branch of science which deals with poisons, their effects and antidotes, &c. For the general treatment of the subject and for the law relating to the sale thereof see Poisons, and for the criminal law see Medical Jurisprudence. The term “toxic,” meaning poisonous, is derived from Gr. τόξον, bow, owing to the custom of smearing arrows with poison.