# The Nuttall Encyclopædia/M

M
Mab, Queen, the fairies' midwife that brings dreams to the birth, to be distinguished from Titania, the Queen.
Mabillon, Jean, a French Benedictine and eminent scholar; wrote a history of his order and edited St. Bernard's works (1632-1707).
Mably, Gabriel Bonnet De, French author, was born at Grenoble, brother of Condillac; educated at Lyons, and became secretary to Cardinal Tencin, but most of his life was spent in study, and he died in Paris; his “Romans and the French” is not complimentary to his countrymen; he was a great admirer of the ancients (1709-1785).
Mabusa, Jan, real name Gossaert, Flemish artist, born at Mabuse, lived and died at Antwerp; his work is not great but careful, his figures catch the stiffness of his favourite architectural backgrounds; his early period is strongly national, but a visit to Italy with Philip of Burgundy brought him under southern influences and contributed to intensify his colour (1470-1532).
Macadam, John Loudon, Scottish engineer, born at Ayr; inventor of the system of road-making which bears his name; he made his fortune as a merchant in New York, but spent it in road-making (1756-1836).
Macaire, Robert, a noted criminal and assassin that figures in French plays; was convicted of a murder in trial by combat with a witness in the shape of the dog of the murdered man.
Macao, small island at the mouth of the Canton River, 100 m. S. of Canton, forming with Colovane and Taipa since 1557 a Portuguese station (50, mostly Chinese); is a very healthy port, though very hot; formerly it was a centre of the Coolie trade, abolished in 1873, but its anchorage is bad, and since the rise of Hong-Kong its commerce has suffered severely; chief import opium, export tea; it is the head-quarters of French missions in China.
Macarius, St., a hermit of the Thebaïd, where he spent 60 years of a life of solitude and austerity (300-390). Festival, January 13.
Macaroni, a fine wheaten paste made into long thin tubes, and manufactured in Italy and the S. of France.
Macassar, southern portion and chief town (20) at SW. corner of Celebes; exports coffee, spices, timber, and “Macassar” oil.
Macaulay, Thomas Babington, Lord, essayist and historian, born at Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, son of Zachary Macaulay the philanthropist, and so of Scottish descent; graduated at Cambridge 1822, proving a brilliant debater in the Union, and became Fellow of Trinity 1824; called to the bar 1826, he preferred to follow literature, having already gained a footing by some poems in Knight's Quarterly and by his essay on “Milton” in the Edinburgh Review (1825); in 1830 he entered Parliament for a pocket-borough, took an honourable part in the Reform debates, and in the new Parliament sat for Leeds; his family were now in straitened circumstances, and to be able to help them he went out to India as legal adviser to the Supreme Council; to his credit chiefly belongs the Indian Penal Code; returning in 1838, he represented Edinburgh in the Commons with five years' interval till 1856; the “Lays of Ancient Rome” appeared in 1842, his collected “Essays” in 1843, two years later he ceased writing for the Edinburgh; he was now working hard at his “History,” of which the first two volumes attained a quite unprecedented success in 1848; next year he was chosen Lord Rector of Glasgow University; 1855 saw the third and fourth volumes of his “History”; in 1857 he was made a peer, and many other honours were showered upon him; with a tendency to too much declamation in style, a point of view not free from bias, and a lack of depth and modesty in his thinking, he yet attained a remarkable amount and variety of knowledge, great intellectual energy, and unrivalled lucidity in narration (1800-1859).
Macbeth, a thane of the north of Scotland who, by assassination of King Duncan, became king; reigned 17 years, but his right was disputed by Malcolm, Duncan's son, and he was defeated by him and fell at Lumphanan, December 5, 1056.
Maccabees, a body of Jewish patriots, followers of Judas Maccabæus, who in 2nd century B.C. and in the interest of the Jewish faith withstood the oppression of Syria and held their own for a goodly number of years against not only the foreign yoke that oppressed them, but against the Hellenising corruption of their faith at home.
Maccabees, Books Of, two books of the Apocrypha which give, the first, an account of the heroic struggle which the Maccabees maintained from 175 to 135 B.C. against the kings of Syria, and the second, of an intercalary period of Jewish history from 175 to 160 B.C., much of it of legendary unreliable matter; besides these two a third and a fourth of a still more apocryphal character are extant.
M'Carthy, Justin, writer and politician, began life as a journalist; is the author of a “History of Our Own Times” and a “History of the Four Georges,” as well as a number of novels; represents North Longford in Parliament; b. 1830.
M'Cheyne, Robert Murray, the subject of a well-known memoir by Andrew Bonar, was born in Edinburgh, educated at the university there, and was minister of St. Peter's, Dundee, from 1836 till his death; he is esteemed a saint by pious evangelical people, by whom the memoirs of him are much prized (1813-1843).
M'Clellan, American general, born in Philadelphia; served in the Mexican War, and in the War of Secession, eventually as commander-in-chief; was author of military engineering works (1826-1882).
Macclesfield (36), Cheshire manufacturing town on the Bollin, 15 m. S. of Manchester; has a 13th-century church, and a grammar-school founded by Edward VI.; its staple industry is silk manufactures; there are breweries, and mining and quarrying near.
MacClintock, Arctic navigator, born at Dundalk; sent out by Lady Franklin to discover the fate of Sir John and his crew; wrote an account of the voyage (1819-1891).
M'Clure, Arctic navigator, born in Wexford; went out in search of Franklin, and discovered the North-West Passage in 1850 (1807-1873).
M'Crie, Thomas, a Scotch seceder, born in Dunse; was minister in Edinburgh; author of the “Life of John Knox,” published in 1812; defended the Covenanters against Scott; he was a man of dignified military presence (1772-1835).
M'Culloch, Horatio, a Scottish landscape-painter, born in Glasgow; was distinguished for his Highland landscapes (1806-1867).
M'Culloch, John Ramsey, political economist, born in Isle of Whithorn; contributed to the Scotsman and Edinburgh Review; wrote “Principles of Political Economy,” and edited Dictionaries of Commerce and Geography (1789-1864).
MacCunn, Hamish, Scottish composer, born at Greenock; entered the Royal College of Music in 1883, and became junior professor of Harmony at the Royal Academy; his fertility in melody and mastery of the orchestra are devoted to music of strong national characteristics, as his overture “Land of the Mountain and the Flood,” and his choral work “The Lay of the Last Minstrel” show; b. 1868.
Macdonald, marshal of France, born at Sancerre, of Scotch descent, entered the army at the time of the Revolution as a lieutenant, and rapidly rose in rank; served with distinction under Napoleon, especially at Wagram, when he was made Duke of Taranto; supported the Bourbons on their restoration (1765-1840).
Macdonald, Sir Claude M., British Minister at Peking; served in the army in Egypt in 1882 and 1884, as a diplomatist in Zanzibar in 1887, and on the coast of Africa as commissioner in 1888; was sent to Peking in 1896; b. 1852.
Macdonald, Flora, a devoted Jacobite who, at the risk of her own life, screened Prince Charles Edward after his defeat at Culloden from his pursuers, and saw him safe off to France, for which she was afterwards confined for a short time in the Tower (1722-1790).
Macdonald, George, novelist, born in Huntly; trained for the ministry, but devoted himself to literature; is the author, among other works, of “Robert Falconer,” “David Elginbrod,” and “Alec Forbes”; his interests are religious, and his views liberal, particularly on religious matters; b., 1824.
Mace, The, the symbol of authority in the House of Commons; is placed on the table when the House is sitting, and is under the table as a rule when the Speaker is not in the chair.
Macedonia, an ancient kingdom lying between Thrace and Illyria, the Balkans and the Ægean; mostly mountainous, but with some fertile plains; watered by the Strymon, Axius, and Heliacmon Rivers; was noted for its gold and silver, its oil and wine. Founded seven centuries B.C., the monarchy was raised to dignity and power by Archelaus in the 5th century. Philip II. (359 B.C.) established it yet more firmly; and his son, Alexander the Great, extended its sway over half the world. His empire broke up after his death, and the Romans conquered it in 168 B.C. Ægæ and Pella were its ancient capitals, Philippi, Thessalonica, and Amphipolis among its towns. After many vicissitudes during the Middle Ages it is now a province of Turkey.
Macedonians, a sect in the early Church who taught that the Holy Ghost was inferior to the Father and the Son, so called from Macedonius, bishop of Constantinople, their leader.
Macfarren, Sir George Alexander, musical author and composer, born in London; studied at the Royal Academy, and became professor there in 1834; in many operatic works he aimed at restoring old English musical characteristics, and wrote also cantatas “Lenore,” “May-Day,” &c., and oratorios, of which “John the Baptist” (1873) was the first; but his chief merit lies in his writings on theory (1813-1887).
Machiavelli, Niccolo, statesman and historian, born in Florence, of an ancient family; was secretary of the Florentine Republic from 1498 to 1512, and during that time conducted its diplomatic affairs with a skill which led to his being sent on a number of foreign embassies; he was opposed to the restoration of the Medici family, and on the return of it to power was subjected to imprisonment and torture as a conspirator, but was at last set at liberty; he spent the remainder of his life chiefly in literary labours, producing among other works a treatise on government, entitled “The Prince,” the principles of which have established for him a notoriety wide as the civilised world (1469-1530).
Machiavellism, the doctrine taught by Machiavelli in “The Prince,” that to preserve the integrity of a State the ruler should not feel himself bound by any scruple such as may suggest itself by considerations of justice and humanity; the State he regards as too precious an institution to endanger by scruples of that sort.
M'Ivor, Flora, the heroine in Scott's “Waverley.”
Mack, Karl, Austrian general, born in Franconia; notorious for his military incapacity and defeats; confronted by Napoleon at Ulm in 1805, he surrendered with 28,000 men without striking a blow; for this he was tried by court-martial, and sentenced to death, which was commuted to imprisonment for life, from which he was released at the end of a year (1752-1826).
Mackay, Charles, journalist, novelist, and critic; wrote an autobiography entitled, “Forty Years' Recollections of Life, Literature, and Public Affairs”; was the father of Eric Mackay, author of “Love-Letters of a Violinist” (1814-1889).
Mackenzie, Sir Alexander Campbell, composer, born at Edinburgh; studied in Germany and at the Royal Academy; was teacher and conductor in his native city from 1865 to 1878, lived thereafter in Italy; was made Principal of the Royal Academy of Music in 1887, and knighted in 1895; his opera “Colomba” (1883) first brought him fame; among his works, which are of every kind, his oratorio, “The Rose of Sharon” (1884), is reckoned best; b. 1847.
Mackenzie, Sir George, eminent Scottish lawyer, born in Dundee; became King's Advocate for Scotland; wrote on law and on other subjects in a style which commended itself to such a critic as Dryden, though by his severe treatment of the Covenanters he earned in Scotland the opprobrious title of the “bluidy Mackenzie” (1636-1691).
Mackenzie, Henry, novelist, born in Edinburgh; bred to law; author of “The Man of Feeling,” “The Man of the World,” and “Julia de Roubigné,” written in a sentimental style; held the office of Controller of Taxes in Scotland by favour of Pitt (1745-1831).
Mackenzie River, a river in N. America, rises in the Rocky Mountains; is fed by mighty streams in its course, and falls into the Arctic Ocean after a course of over 2000 m. in length.
M'Kinley, William, American statesman, of Scottish parentage; served in the Civil War; born at Niles, Ohio; entered Congress in 1877; made his mark as a zealous Protectionist; passed in 1890 a tariff measure named after him; was elected to Presidency as the champion of a sound currency in opposition to Mr. Bryan in November 1896; b. 1844.
Mackintosh, Sir James, philosopher and politician, born in Inverness-shire; took his degree in medicine, but went to the London bar; was a Whig in politics; wrote “Vindiciæ Gallicæ” in reply to Burke's philippic; defended Peltier, Bonaparte's enemy, in a magnificent style, and contributed a masterly preliminary “Dissertation on Ethics” to the “Encyclopædia Britannica” (1763-1832).
Maclaren, Ian (nom de plume of Rev. John Watson), born in Essex, of Scottish parents; studied in Edinburgh; was minister of the Free Church in Logiealmond and in Glasgow, and translated to Sefton Park Presbyterian Church, Liverpool, In 1880; wrote a series of idylls entitled “Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush,” and a second series entitled “The Days of Auld Lang Syne”; both had a large circulation, and a number of other works, religious as well as fictitious; b. 1850.
Maclaurin, Colin, mathematician, born in Kilmoden, Argyllshire; was professor of Mathematics in Aberdeen and in Edinburgh; wrote a “Treatise on Fluxions,” in defence of Newton against Berkeley, and an “Account of Newton's Discoveries”; did much to give an impetus to mathematical study in Scotland (1698-1746).
Macleod, Norman, liberal Scottish clergyman, born at Campbeltown, son of the manse; a genial, warm-hearted man; an earnest, powerful, and vigorous preacher, and a humorous writer; a visit to India in connection with missions shortened his days (1817-1872).
Maclise, Daniel, painter, born at Cork, of Scottish extraction; among his oil-paintings are “Mokanna Unveiling,” “All Hallow Eve,” “Bohemian Gipsies,” and the “Banquet Scene in Macbeth,” his last work being a series of cartoons painted in fresco for the palace of Westminster illustrative of the glories of England (1811-1870).
Macmahon, Duke of Magenta, marshal of France, born at Sully, of Irish descent, second President of the third French republic from 1873 to 1879; distinguished himself in Algeria and at the Crimea, and took part in the Franco-German War to his defeat and capture (1808-1893).
Macpherson, James, a Gaelic scholar, born in Ruthven, Inverness-shire; identified with the publication of the poems of Ossian, the originals of which he professed to have discovered in the course of a tour through the Highlands, and about the authenticity of which there has been much debate, though they were the making of his fortune; he was buried in Westminster Abbey at his own request and expense (1738-1796).
Macramé Lace, a coarse lace made of twine, used to decorate furniture generally.
Macready, William Charles, English tragedian, born in London; he began his career as an actor in Birmingham in the character of Romeo, and was enthusiastically received on his first appearance in London; was distinguished for his impersonation of Shakespeare's characters, but suffered a good deal from professional rivalries; leased in succession Covent Garden and Drury Lane theatres with pecuniary loss, and when he took farewell of the stage he was entertained at a banquet, attended by a host of friends eminent in both art and literature (1793-1873).
Macrometer, an optical instrument to determine the size or distance of inaccessible objects.
MacTurk, Captain Hector, “the man of peace” in “St. Ronan's Well.”
Madagascar (3,500), largest island in the world but two, in the Indian Ocean, 300 m. off the Mozambique coast, SE. Africa; is nearly three times the size of Great Britain, a plateau in the centre, with low, fertile, wooded ground round about; has many extinct volcanoes and active hot springs; the highest peak is Ankàratra (9000 ft.), in the centre; the NW. coast has some good harbours; there are 300 m. of lagoons on the E.; the biggest lake is Alaotra, and the rivers flow mostly W.; the climate is hot, with copious rains, except in the S.; rice, coffee, sugar, and vanilla are cultivated; many kinds of valuable timber grow in the forests, and these, with cattle, hides, and india-rubber, constitute the exports; gold, iron, copper, lead, and sulphur are found, and the natives are skilled in working metals; the Malagasys possess civilised institutions; slavery was abolished in 1879; a quarter of the population is Christian; the heathen section, though untruthful and immoral, are affectionate, courageous, and loyal; Antanànarìvo (100), the capital, is situated in the interior, and has many fine buildings; chief ports, Tamatave on the E. and Majunga on the NW. coasts; the island has been under French protection since 1890, and is a French colony since 1896.
Madeira (140), the chief of a group of small volcanic islands with precipitous coasts, in the Atlantic, 400 m. off Morocco; has peaks 6000 ft. high and deep picturesque ravines; the island is a favourite resort for consumptives; the climate is very mild and equable, the rainfall moderate, and the soil fertile; crops of cereals and potatoes are raised; oranges, lemons, grapes, figs, and bananas abound; Madeira wine is famous, and the chief export; Funchal (21) is the capital, with an exposed harbour and some good buildings; the islands form a province of Portugal.
Madeira River (i. e. river of the wood), formed by the junction of the Mamoré and Beni on the borders of Bolivia and Brazil, flows 900 m. NE., and joins the Amazon, as an affluent its longest and largest, and forms a magnificent navigable waterway.
Madeleine, Church of the, one of the principal and wealthiest churches in Paris, erected in the style of a Greek temple, and the building of which, began in 1764, was not finished till 1842, both the interior and exterior of which has been adorned by the most distinguished artists.
Madge Wildfire, a pretty but giddy girl in the “Heart of Midlothian,” whom seduction and the murder of her child drove crazy.
Madison, James, American statesman and President, born at Port Conway, Virginia, educated at Princeton; devoted himself to politics in 1776; he took part in framing the Virginia constitution, and subsequently secured religious liberty in the State; with Jay and Hamilton he collaborated to establish the federation of the States and to frame the Federal Constitution; the “three-fifths” rule, which won the adhesion of the slave-holding States, was his suggestion; elected to the first Congress, he attached himself to Jefferson's party, and was Secretary of State during Jefferson's Presidency, 1801-1809; he succeeded his former leader and held office for two terms, during which the war of 1812-14 with England was waged; his public life closed with his term of office, 1817 (1751-1836).
Madman of the North, Charles XII. of Sweden, so called from his temerity and impetuosity.
Madoc, a Welshman who, according to Welsh tradition, discovered America 300 years before Columbus, after staying in which for a time he returned, gave an account of what he had seen and experienced, and went back, but was never heard of more; his story has been amplified by Southey in an epic.
Madonna is the name given to pictures of the Virgin with the infant Christ, and more generally to all sacred pictures in which the Virgin is a prominent figure; the Virgin has been a favourite subject of art from the earliest times, the first representation of her being, according to legend, by St. Luke; different countries and schools have depicted their Madonnas, each in its own characteristic style; the greatest of all are the Sistine and Della Sedia of Raphael.
Madras (35,630), one of the three Indian Presidencies, occupies the S. and E. of the peninsula, and is one-half as large again as Great Britain; the chief mountains are the Ghâts, from which flow SE. the Godavari, Kistna, and Kavari Rivers, which, by means of extensive irrigation works, fertilise the plains; climate is various; on the W. coast very hot and with a rainfall from June to October of 120 inches, producing luxurious vegetation; on the E. the heat is also great, but the rainfall, which comes chiefly between October and December, is only 40 inches; in the hill country, e. g. Ootacamund, the government summer quarters, it is genial and temperate all the year, and but for the monsoons the finest in the world; rice is everywhere the chief crop; cotton is grown in the E., tobacco in the Godavari region, tea, coffee, and cinchona on the hills, and sugar-cane in different districts; gold is found in Mysore (native State), and diamonds in the Karnul; iron abounds, but without coal; the teak forests are of great value; cotton, gunny-bags, sugar, and tiles are the chief manufactures; English settlements date from 1611; the population, chiefly Hindu, includes 2 million Mohammedans and ¾ million Christians; the chief towns are Rujumahendri (28), Vizugapatam (34), Trichinopoli (91), of cheroot fame, and Mangalore (41), on the W. coast, and the capital Madras (453), on the E., Coromandel, coast, a straggling city, hot but healthy, with an open roadstead, pier, and harbour exposed to cyclones, a university, examining body only, colleges of science, medicine, art, and agriculture, and a large museum; the chief exports are coffee, tea, cotton, and indigo.
Madrid (522), since 1561 the capital of Spain, on the Manzanares, a mere mountain torrent, on an arid plateau in New Castile, the centre of the peninsula; is an insanitary city, and liable to great extremes of temperature; it is regularly built, sometimes picturesque, with great open spaces, such as the Prado, 3 m. long; fine buildings and handsome streets. It contains the royal palace, parliament and law-court houses, a university, magnificent picture-gallery, many charitable institutions, and a bull-ring. The book-publishing, tapestry weaving, and tobacco industries are the most important. It is a growing and prosperous city.
Madrigal, a short lyric containing some pleasant thought or sweet sentiment daintily expressed; applied also to vocal music of a similar character.
Madvig, Johan Nicolai, Danish scholar and politician, born at Svaneke, Bornholm; studied at Copenhagen, where he became professor of Latin in 1829; his studies of the Latin prose authors brought him world-wide fame, and his Latin Grammar (1841) and Greek Syntax (1846) were invaluable contributions to scholarship; he entered parliament, was repeatedly its president, and was Liberal Minister of Education and Religion 1848 to 1851; he died blind (1804-1886).
Mæander, a river in Phrygia, flowing through the Plain of Troy, and noted for its numerous windings.
Mæcenas, a wealthy Roman statesman, celebrated for his patronage of letters; was the friend and adviser of Augustus Cæsar, and the patron of Virgil and Horace; claimed descent from the ancient Etruscan kings; left the most of his property to Augustus; d. 8 B.C.
Maelström. See Malström.
Mænades, the priestesses of Bacchus, who at the celebration of his festivals gave way to expressions of frenzied enthusiasm, as if they were under the spell of some demonic power.
Mæonides, a name given to Homer, either as the son of Mæon, or as born, according to one tradition, in Mæonia.
Maestricht (33), capital of Dutch Limburg, on the Maes, 57 m. E. of Brussels; has manufactures of glass, earthenware, and carpets; near it are the vast subterranean quarries of the Pietersberg, opened by the Romans.
Maeterlinck, Maurice, Belgian dramatist, born at Ghent; earned his fame by “La Princesse Maleine,” produced in Paris 1890, and followed by “L'Intruse,” “Les Aveugles,” and several other plays; his essays show religious sympathies; b. 1864.
Mafeking, a station in NE. of British Bechuanaland, on the Transvaal frontier, on the railway from Cape Town.
Maffia, a Sicilian secret society which aims at boycotting the law-courts, superseding the law, and ruling the island; its chief weapon is the boycott; violence is only resorted to for vengeance; funds are raised by blackmail; popular support enables it to control elections, avoid legal proceedings, and influence industrial questions. The Italian government try in vain to put it down.
Magdala, an Abyssinian hill fortress on a lofty plateau 300 m. S. of Massowah; captured by Lord Napier, who had been sent in 1868 to rescue certain British subjects held prisoners there, and which he succeeded in doing.
Magdalene, Mary, a Galilæan, belonging to Magdala, on the Sea of Galilee, who followed Christ, stood by the cross, prepared spices for His sepulchre, to whom He first appeared after His resurrection, and who is supposed by some recent critics to be the sole voucher for His rising again.
Magdeburg (202), on the Elbe, 75 m. SW. of Berlin, is the capital of Prussian Saxony, one of the most important fortresses, the chief sugar market of Germany, and the seat of large iron manufactures; it has also distilleries and cotton mills, and is a busy railway centre; it is a place of ancient date and historical interest.
Magellan, Ferdinand, Portuguese navigator; served his country first in the East Indies and Morocco, but dissatisfied with King Manuel's treatment of him, offered himself to Spain; under Charles V.'s patronage he and Ruy Falero set out to reach the Moluccas by the west in 1519; he reached the Philippines, and died in battle in Matan; on this voyage he discovered the Magellan Strait, 375 m. long and 15 m. wide, between the South American mainland and Tierra del Fuego; he gave name to the Pacific from the calm he exceptionally, it appears, experienced on entering it (1470-1521).
Magellanic Clouds, two masses of stars and nebulæ seen in the southern hemisphere, not far from the South Pole.
Magendie, François, a celebrated French physiologist, born at Bordeaux; was the author of several works on physiology, made important discoveries in connection with the animal system, and was an unscrupulous vivisectionist (1783-1855).
Magenta (6), Italian town, 15 m. W. of Milan, where Macmahon defeated a superior Austrian force in 1859.
Maggiore, Lago (i. e. the Greater Lake), a large lake in the N. of Italy, partly in Switzerland, 37 m. in length, and 8 m. in greatest breadth, the river Ticino flowing through it. The Borromean Islands (q. v.) occupy a western arm of the lake.
Magi, a priestly caste in the East, constituting the “learned” class, as the Druids in the West: the custodiers of religion and the rites connected therewith, and who gave themselves up to the study of sciences of a recondite character, but with a human interest, such as astrology and magic, and who were held in great reverence by, and exercised a great influence over, the people.
Magi, the Three, the “wise men from the East” mentioned in Matt. ii.—Melchior, an old man, who brought gold, the emblem of royalty; Gaspar, a youth, who brought frankincense, the emblem of divinity; Balthazar, a Moor, who brought myrrh, the emblem of humanity—and who were eventually regarded as the patron saints of travellers.
Magic, the pretended art to which extraordinary and marvellous effects are ascribed, of evoking and subjecting to the human will supernatural powers, and of producing by means of them apparitions, incantations, cures, &c., and the practice of which we find prevailing in all superstitious ages of the world and among superstitious people. See Superstition.
Maginn, William, a witty, generous-hearted Irishman, born in Cork; a man of versatile ability, who contributed largely to Blackwood, and became editor of Fraser's Magazine, in the conduct of which latter he gathered round him as contributors a number of the most eminent literary men; the stories and verses he wrote gave signs of something like genius (1793-1842).
Magliabecchi, an inordinate bookworm, born in Florence; became librarian of the Grand-Duke; his book-knowledge was as unbounded as his avidity for knowledge; his memory was extraordinary; he carried in his head the page of a passage in a book as well as the passage itself in the ipsissima verba, (1633-1714).
Magna Charta, “the great charter,” extorted from King John by the barons of England at Runnymede on June 5, 1215, that guaranteed certain rights and privileges to the subjects of the realm, which were pronounced inviolable, and that established the supremacy of the law over the will of the monarch.
Magna Græca, the ancient name of the southern part of Italy, so called in early times as it was extensively colonised by Greeks.
Magnet, the name given to loadstone as first discovered in Magnesia, a town in Asia Minor; also to a piece of iron, nickel, or cobalt having similar properties, notably the power of setting itself in a definite direction; also a coil of wire carrying an electric current, because such a coil really possesses the properties characteristic of an iron magnet.
Magnetic Induction, power in a magnet of imparting its qualities to certain other substances.
Magnetism, the branch of science devoted to the study of the properties of magnets, and of electric currents in their magnetic relations; sometimes also used to denote the subtle influence supposed to lie at the root of all magnetic phenomena, of the true nature of which nothing is known. See Animal Magnetism.
Magnificat, The, a musical composition embracing the song of the Virgin Mary in Luke I. 46-55, so called from the first word of the song in the Vulgate; it belongs to, and forms part of, the evening service.
Magnussen, Finn, a Scandinavian scholar and archæologist, born in Iceland; became professor of Literature at Copenhagen in 1815; distinguished for his translation and exposition of the “Elder Edda” (1781-1847).
Magyars, a people of Mongolian origin from the highlands of Central Asia that migrated westward and settled in Hungary and Transylvania, where they now form the dominant race.
Mahâbhârata, one of the two great epic poems of ancient India, a work of slow growth, extending through ages, and of an essentially encyclopædic character; one of the main sources of our knowledge of the ancient Indian religions and their mythologies; it is said to consist of upwards of 100,000 verses.
Mahâdêva, the great god of the Hindus; an appellation of Siva (q. v.), as Mahâdêvi is of Durgâ, his wife.
Mahánadé, a great Indian river which, after flowing eastward for over 500 m., the last 300 of which are navigable, falls into the Bay of Bengal near Cape Palmyras; its volume in flood is enormous, and renders it invaluable for irrigation.
Mahatma, one who, according to the Theosophists, has passed through the complete cycle of incarnation, has thereby attained perfection of being, and acquired the rank of high priesthood and miraculous powers in the spirit world, one, it would seem, of “the spirits of just men made perfect.”
Mahdi (i. e. religious leader), a name given to any Mohammedan fanatic who arises in the interest of the Mohammedan faith, summons the Moslems to war, and leads them to repel the infidel; a kind of Mohammed Messiah armed with the sword for the conquest of the world to the faith.
Mahdi, Mohammed Ahmed, a Mohammedan fanatic, born in Dongola, and who, at the head of an army of dervishes, raised his standard for the revival of Islam in the Soudan; he was unsuccessfully opposed by the Egyptians, and Khartoum, occupied by them, fell into his hands, to the sacrifice of General Gordon, just as the British relief army under Lord Wolseley approached its walls in 1885, a few months after which he died at Omdurman.
Mahdism, a hope cherished by devout Moslems of a Mahdi to come who will lead them on to victory against the infidel and to the conquest of the world.
Mahmud II., Sultan of Turkey; crushed a rebellion on his accession by putting his brother to death, on whose behalf the janissaries had risen, as they afterwards did to their annihilation at his hands by wholesale massacre; by the victory of Navarino in 1827 he lost his hold of Greece, which declared its independence, and was near losing his suzerainty in Egypt when he died; his reign was an eventful one (1785-1839).
Mahomet. See Mohammed.
Mahon, Lord, Earl Stanhope, statesman and historian; wrote “History of the War of the Succession in Spain,” “History of the Reign of Queen Anne,” and “History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles” (1805-1875).
Mahony, Francis, an Irish priest, born in Cork, who took to journalism, and is known by his nom de plume of Father Prout; contributed to Fraser's Magazine, and was foreign correspondent to the Daily News and the Globe; was famous for his elegant translations (1804-1866).
Mahoun, a contemptuous name for Mahomet, transferred in Scotland to the devil, who was called Old Mahoun.
Mahrattas, a warlike Hindu race in Central India, occupying a territory watered by the Nerbudda, Godavari, and Kistna, who at one time kept up a struggle for the supremacy of India with the British, but were finally subdued in 1843.
Maï, Angelo, cardinal, distinguished scholar and editor; became librarian of the Vatican; was distinguished for deciphering palimpsests (q. v.), and thus disclosing lost classical works or fragments of them; he edited a number of unedited MSS. which he found in the Vatican, and in particular the Vatican codex of the Bible (1782-1854).
Maia, the daughter of Atlas, the eldest of the seven Pleiades (q. v.), and the mother by Zeus of Hermes or Mercury.
Maid Marian, a man dressed as a woman who grimaced and performed antics in the morris dances.
Maid of Norway, daughter of Eric II., king of Norway, and through her mother heiress to the Scottish crown; died on her passage to Scotland in 1240.
Maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc, so called from her defence of Orleans against the English. See Joan.
Maiden, The, a sort of guillotine that appears to have been in use in Scotland during the 15th and 16th centuries, of which there is one in the Antiquarian Museum, Edinburgh.
Maidment, James, antiquary and collector, born in London; passed through Edinburgh University to the Scotch bar, and was chief authority on genealogical cases; his hobby was the collection of literary rarities, and he published editions of ancient literary remains; he died at Edinburgh (1794-1879).
Maidstone (32), county town of Kent, on the Medway, 30 m. SE. of London; has several fine old churches and historical buildings, a grammar school and a school of art and music, numerous paper-mills, and breweries, and does a large trade in hops; Woollett the engraver and Hazlitt the essayist were born here.
Maimon, Solomon, philosopher, born, of Jewish parents, in a village of Minsk; came to Berlin, where he studied, lived an eccentric, vagabond life, dependent mostly on his friends; made the acquaintance of Kant and Goethe, and attempted and published an eclectic system of philosophy in 1790, being Kant's system supplemented from Spinoza, Leibnitz, and Locke, and even Hume; his last patron was Count Kalkreuth, at whose house in Siegersdorf he died (1754-1800).
Maimonides, Moses, a Jewish rabbi, born at Cordova, whom the Jews regarded as their Plato, and called the “Lamp of Israel” and the “Eagle of the doctors”; was a man of immense learning, and was physician to the Sultan of Egypt; in his relation to the Jews he ranks next to Moses, and taught them to interpret their religion in the light of reason; he wrote a “Commentary on the Mishna and the Second Law,” but his chief work is the “Moreh Nebochim,” or “Guide to the Perplexed” (1135-1204).
Maine (662), the most north-easterly State in the American Union, lies between Quebec and New Hampshire on the W. and New Brunswick and the Atlantic on the E., and is a little larger than Ireland, a picturesque State with high mountains in the W., Katahdin (5000 ft), many large lakes like Moosehead, numerous rivers, and a much indented rocky coast; the climate is severe but healthy, the soil only in some places fertile, the rainfall is abundant; dense forests cover the north; hay, potatoes, apples, and sweet corn are chief crops; cotton, woollen, leather manufactures, lumber working, and fruit canning are principal industries; the fisheries are valuable; timber, building stone, cattle, wool, and in winter ice are exported; early Dutch, English, and French settlements were unsuccessful till 1630; from 1651 Maine was part of Massachusetts, till made a separate State in 1820; the population is English-Puritan and French-Canadian in origin; education is advancing; the State's Liquor Law of 1851 was among the first of the kind: the capital is Augusta (11); Portland (36) is the largest city and chief seaport; Lewiston (22) has cotton manufactures.
Maine, Sir Henry, English jurist, legal member of the Council in India, and professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford; wrote on “Ancient Law,” and important works on ancient institutions generally; regarded the social system as a development of the patriarchal system (1822-1888).
Maintenance, Cap of, an ermine-lined, crimson velvet cap, the wearing of which was a distinction granted first to dukes but subsequently to various other families.
Maintenon, Françoise d'Aubigné, Marquise de, born in the prison of Niort, where her father was incarcerated as a Protestant; though well inoculated with Protestant principles she turned a Catholic, married the poet Scarron in 1652, became a widow in 1660; was entrusted with the education of the children of Louis XIV. and Madame de Montespan; supplanted the latter in the king's affections, and was secretly married to him in 1684; she exercised a great influence over him, not always for good, and on his death in 1715 retired into the Convent of St. Cyr, which she had herself founded for young ladies of noble birth but in humble circumstances (1635-1719).
Mainz or Mayence (72), in Hesse-Darmstadt, on the Rhine, opposite the mouth of the Main, is an important German fortress and one of the oldest cities in Germany; it has a magnificent cathedral, restored in 1878, and is a stronghold of Catholicism; a large transit trade is done, and the making of furniture, leather goods, and machinery are important industries; Gutenberg was a native.
Maistre, Count, Joseph de, a keen and extreme Ultramontanist, born at Chambéry, of a noble French family; accompanied the king of Sardinia in his retreat while the French occupied Savoy in 1792; was ambassador at St. Petersburg from 1803 to 1817, when he was recalled to the home government at Turin; wrote numerous works, the chief “Du Pape” and “Soirées de St. Petersbourg” (1753-1821).
Maitland, William, Scottish politician and reformer, the Secretary Lethington of Queen Mary's reign; played a prominent part in the various movements of his time, but gained the confidence of no party; he adhered to the party of Moray as against the extreme measures of Knox, and proved a highly astute ambassador at the English Court; he connived at Rizzio's murder, but regained Mary's favour, and when she fled to England he, though joining with the new government, acted in her interest and formed a party to restore her to power; he and Kirkcaldy of Grange were forced to surrender, however, at Edinburgh in 1573, and Maitland afterwards died in Leith prison (1525-1573).
Majolica, a kind of enamelled pottery imported into Italy from Majorca, known also as faience from its manufacture at Faenza, and applied also to vessels made of coloured clay in imitation.
Majorca (234), the largest of the Balearic Isles, is 130 m. NE. of Cape San Antonio, in Spain; mountains in the N. rise to 5000 ft., their slopes covered with olives, oranges, and vines; the plains are extremely fertile, and the climate mild and equable; manufactures of cotton, silk, and shoes are the industries; the capital, Palma (61), is on the S. coast, at the head of a large bay of the same name.
Majuscule, a capital letter found in old Latin MSS. in and before the 6th century.
Makrizi, Taki-ed-din Ahmed el-, greatest Arabic historian of Egypt, born at Cairo; studied philosophy and theology, and in 1385 won the green turban; occupied several political and ecclesiastical offices; went to Damascus in 1408, but returning to Cairo devoted himself to history, and published among other works an important “History of Egypt and Cairo” (1364-1442).
Malabar (2,653), a district in the W. of Madras, sloping from the Ghâts down to the Indian Ocean, very rainy, covered with vast forests of teak; produces rice, coffee, and pepper.
Malacca is a name given to the whole Malay Peninsula, that remarkable tongue of land 44 to 210 m. wide, stretching 800 m. SE. from Burma between the Strait of Malacca and the Gulf of Siam; mountain ranges 7000 ft. high from the backbone; along the coast are deep mangrove swamps; the plains between yield rice, sugar-cane, cotton, and tobacco; there are forests of teak, camphor, ebony, and sandal-wood, and the richest tin mines in the world; the climate is unhealthy; the northern portion is Siamese, the southern constitutes the British Straits Settlements, of which one, on the W. coast, is specifically called Malacca (92); it exports tin and tapioca; the capital, Malacca (20), 120 m. NW. of Singapore, was the scene of Francis Xavier's labours.
Malachi, a prophetic book of the Old Testament, the author of which is otherwise unknown, as the name, which means the “Messenger of Jehovah,” occurs nowhere else in the Bible, and it is a question whether the name is that of a person or a mere appellative; the prophecy it contains appears to have been uttered 420 B.C., and refers to abuses which came to a head between the first and second visits of Nehemiah to Jerusalem; it lacks the old prophetic fire, and gives the impression that the prophetic office is ended.
Malachy, St., archbishop of Armagh in the 12th century; was a friend of St. Bernard's, who wrote his Life and in whose arms he died at Clairvaux; was renowned for his sanctity as well as learning; a book of prophecies ascribed to him bearing on the Roman pontiffs is a forgery.
Maladetta, Mount (i. e. the accursed), the name of the highest summit of the Pyrenees, 11,168 ft. high, in NE. of Zaragoza.
Malaga (132), Spanish seaport, 65 m. NE. of Gibraltar, an ancient Phoenician town, is now an important but declining centre of commerce; it exports olive-oil, wine, raisins, lead, &c., and manufactures cotton, linen, machinery, fine-art pottery, &c.; its magnificent climate makes it an excellent health resort.
Malagrowther, an old courtier in the “Fortunes of Nigel” soured by misfortune, and who would have every one be as discontented as himself.
Malaise, an uneasy feeling which often precedes a serious attack of some disease.
Malaprop, Mrs., a character in Sheridan's “Rivals,” noted for her blunders in the use of fine or learned words, as in the use of “allegory” for “alligator.”
Mälar Lake, large and beautiful Swedish lake, stretching 80 m. westward from Stockholm; its shores are deeply indented with bays, and the surrounding hills as well as the thousand islands it contains are well wooded.
Malay Archipelago or Indian Archipelago is that group of many hundred islands stretching from the Malay Peninsula SE. to Australia between the North Pacific and the Indian Ocean, of which Borneo, Sumatra, Java, and Celebes are the largest.
Malays, a branch of the human family now classed among the Mongols, and which inhabit the Malay Peninsula, the islands of the Indian Archipelago, as well as Madagascar, and many of the islands in the Pacific; they are of a dark-brown or tawny complexion, short of stature, have flat faces, black coarse hair, and high cheek-bones; there are three classes of them, distinguished from each other in character and habits of life; the more civilised of them are Mohammedans.
Malcolm, Sir John, Indian soldier and statesman, born in Dumfriesshire; went as cadet to the Madras army in 1785, and for over 30 years was an important figure in Eastern affairs; he was ambassador to Persia 1800, governor of Mysore 1803, again in Persia as plenipotentiary in 1807 and 1810, political agent in the Deccan 1817, and governor of Bombay 1827-30; he distinguished himself also in several wars; wrote “A History of Persia” and other historical works, and returning to England entered Parliament in 1831, opposed to the Reform Bill; two years later he died in London (1769-1833).
Malcolm Canmore, son of Duncan, whom Macbeth slew, succeeded his father in 1040 as king of Cumbria and Lothian, and in 1057, on Macbeth's death, became king of all Scotland; till 1066 his reign was peaceful, but thereafter it was one long conflict with the Normans in England; raids and counter-raids succeeded each other till, in 1091, Malcolm was forced to do homage to William Rufus; next year he lost his possessions S. of the Solway, and in 1093 he was slain in battle at Alnwick; the influence of his second wife, the saintly Margaret, did much to promote the civilisation of Scotland and to bring the Scottish Church into harmony with the rest of Christendom.
Maldive Islands (20), a chain of several hundred tiny coral islands in the Indian Ocean stretching 550 m. southward from a point 300 m. SW. of Cape Comorin, 200 of which are inhabited; Malé is the residence of the sultan, who is a tributary of the governor of Ceylon; the natives are akin to the Singhalese, and occupy themselves gathering cowries, cocoa-nuts, and tortoise-shell for exportation.
Malebolge, the name given to the eighth circle in Dante's “Inferno,” as consisting of “evil pits,” which the name means, 10 in number, for those guilty of frauds: contains (1) seducers, (2) flatterers, (3) simonists, (4) soothsayers, (5) bribers and receivers of bribes, (6) hypocrites, (7) robbers, (8) evil advisers, (9) slanderers, (10) forgers.
Malebranche, Nicholas, a French metaphysician, born in Paris; determined to embrace a monastic life, entered the congregation of the Oratory at the age of 22, and devoted himself to theological study, till the treatise of Descartes on “Man” falling into his hands, he gave himself up to philosophy; his famous work “De la Recherche de la Vérité” was published in 1673, the main object of which was to bridge over the gulf which separates mind from matter by the establishment of the thesis that the mind immediately perceives God, and sees all things in God, who in Himself includes the presumed irreconcilable antithesis (1638-1715).
Malesherbes, Lamoignon de, French statesman, born in Paris; a good and upright man; was twice over called to be one of Louis XVI.'s advisers, but his advice was not taken and he retired; defended Louis at his trial; pled for him “with eloquent want of eloquence, in broken sentences, in embarrassment and sobs,” and was guillotined for it; he had been censor of the press, and to his liberal-minded censorship the world owes the publication of the “Encyclopédie” (1721-1794).
Malherbe, François de, a French lyric poet and miscellaneous writer of great industry, born at Caen, is, from his correct though affected style, regarded as one of the reformers of the French language (1555-1628).
Malignants, the advisers of Charles I., chief among whom were Strafford and Laud; were so called by the Parliamentarians, who blamed them for the evils of the country; the name was afterwards applied to the whole Royalist party.
Malines or Mechlin (52), a Belgian city on the Dyle, 14 m. S. of Antwerp; has lost its old commercial activity, and is now the quiet ecclesiastical capital; masterpieces of Van Dyck and Rubens adorn its churches.
Malingering, a name given in the army to the crime of feigning illness to evade duty or obtain a discharge.
Mallet, David, originally Malloch, Scottish littérateur, born in Crieff; wrote several plays, and is remembered for his ballad entitled “William and Margaret”; he was a friend of Thomson, and divided with him the honour of the authorship of “Rule Britannia,” the merit of which, however, is more in the music than in the poetry, about which they contested (1702-1765).
Mallock, William Hurrell, author, born in Devonshire, educated at Oxford; published “The New Republic,” 1876, a masterly satire on prominent contemporaries, which none of his subsequent work has excelled; b. 1849.
Malmaison, a historical château 10 m. W. of Paris; belonged originally to Richelieu; saw the last days of Joséphine, whose favourite residence it was, and was the scene of the repulse of Ducrot's sortie in October 1870.
Malmesbury, William of, an English chronicler of the 12th century; his chief work “Gesta Regum Anglorum” and “Gesta Pontificum Anglorum,” followed by his “Historia Novella.”
Malmö (50), important seaport and third town of Sweden, opposite Copenhagen; ships farm produce, cement, and timber; imports machinery, textile fabrics, and coffee; has cigar and sugar factories, and some shipbuilding.
Malone, Edmund, a Shakespearian critic and editor, born in Dublin, was a stickler for literary accuracy and honesty (1741-1812).
Malory, Sir Thomas, flourished in the 15th century; was the author of “Morte d'Arthur,” being a translation in prose of a labyrinthine selection of Arthurian legends, which was finished in the ninth year of Edward IV., and printed fifteen years after by Caxton “with all care.”
Malpighi, Marcello, Italian anatomist and professor of Medicine; noted for his discovery of the corpuscles of the kidney and the spleen, named after him (1628-1694).
Malström, or Maelström, a dangerous whirlpool off the coast of Norway, caused by the rushing of the currents of the ocean in a channel between two of the Loffoden Islands, and intensified at times by contrary winds, to the destruction often of particularly small craft caught in the eddies of it, and sometimes of whales attempting to pass through it.
Malta (with Gozo) (177), a small British island in the Mediterranean, 80 m. S. of Sicily; is a strongly fortified and a most important naval station, head-quarters of the British Mediterranean fleet, and coaling-station for naval and mercantile marine; with a history of great interest, Malta was annexed to Britain in 1814. The island is treeless, and with few streams, but fertile, and has many wells. Wheat, potatoes, and fruit are largely cultivated, and filigree work and cotton manufactured. The people are industrious and thrifty; population is the densest in Europe. The Roman Catholic Church is very powerful. There is a university at Valetta, and since 1887 Malta has been self-governing.
Maltebrun, Conrad, geographer, born in Denmark; studied in Copenhagen, but banished for his revolutionary sympathies; settled in Paris; was the author of several geographical works, his “Geographic Universelle” the chief (1775-1826).
Malthus, Thomas R., an English economist, born near Dorking, in Surrey; is famous as the author of an “Essay on the Principle of Population,” of which the first edition appeared in 1798, and the final, greatly enlarged, in 1803; the publication provoked much hostile criticism, as it propounded a doctrine which was disastrous to the accepted theory of perfectibility, and which aimed at showing how the progress of the race was held in check by the limited supply of the means of subsistence, a doctrine that admittedly anticipated that struggle for life on a larger scale which the Darwinian hypothesis requires for its “survival of the fittest” (1766-1834).
Malvern, Great (6), a watering-place in Worcestershire, on the side of the Malvern Hills, with a clear and bracing air, a plentiful supply of water, and much frequented by invalids.
Mambrino, a Moorish king, celebrated in the romances of chivalry, who possessed a helmet of pure gold which rendered the wearer of it invulnerable, the possession of which was the ambition of all the paladins of Charlemagne, and which was carried off by Rinaldo, who slew the original owner; Cervantes makes his hero persuade himself that he has found it in a barber's brass basin.
Mamelukes, originally slaves from the regions of the Caucasus, captured in war or bought in the market-place, who became the bodyguard of the Sultan in Egypt, and by-and-by his master to the extent of ruling the country and supplying a long line of Sultans of their own election from themselves, many of them enlightened rulers, governing the country well, but their supremacy was crushed by the Sultan of Turkey in 1517; after this, however, they retained much of their power, and they offered a brilliant resistance to Bonaparte at the battle of the Pyramids in 1798, who defeated them; but recovering their power after his withdrawal and proving troublesome, they were by two treacherous massacres annihilated in 1811 by Mehemet Ali, who became Viceroy of Egypt under the Porte.
Mammon, the Syrian god of riches, which has given name to the modern passion for material wealth, specially conceived of as an abnegation of Christianity, the profession of which is in flat antagonism to it.
Mammoth, an extinct species of elephant of enormous size found fossilised in Northern Europe and Asia in deposits alongside of human remains, and yielding a supply of fossil ivory.
Mammoth Cave, a cave in Kentucky, U.S., about 10 m., the largest in the world, and rising at one point to 300 ft. in height, with numerous side branches leading into grottoes traversed by rivers, which here and there collect into lakes; name also of another of smaller dimensions in California.
Man, Isle Of (56), a small island in the Irish Sea, 35 m. W. of Cumberland and about the same distance E. of Co. Down; from its equable climate and picturesque scenery is a favourite holiday resort; it has important lead mines at Laxey and Foxdale; fishing and cattle-grazing are profitable industries; the people are Keltic, with a language and government of their own; the island is a bishopric, with the title Sodor and Man.
Man of Destiny, name given to Napoleon Bonaparte as reflecting his own belief, for he was a fatalist.
Man of Feeling, the title of a novel by Henry Mackenzie, frequently applied to himself as well as his hero.
Man of Ross, John Kyrle, a public-spirited gentleman, immortalised by Pope from the name of his parish in Hereford. See Kyrle.
Man of Sin, name given in 2 Thess. ii. 3 to the incarnation at the height of its pride of the spirit of Antichrist, synchronous with the day of its fall.
Manasseh-ben-Israel, a Jewish rabbi, born at Lisbon; settled at Amsterdam; wrote several works in the interest of Judaism (1604-1659).
Manby, Captain, a militia officer, born in Norfolk; was inventor of the apparatus for saving shipwrecked persons, and by means of which he saved the lives of nearly a thousand persons himself (1765-1854).
Mancha, La, an ancient province of Spain, afterwards included in New Castile, the greater part of which is occupied by Ciudad-Real; it is memorable as the scene of Don Quixote's adventures.
Manche, La, the French name for the English Channel, so called from its resemblance to a sleeve, which the word in French means.
Manchester (505), on the Irwell, in the SE. of Lancashire, 30 m. E. of Liverpool, the centre of the English cotton manufacturing district, with many other textile and related industries, is an ancient, rich, and prosperous city; it has many fine buildings, including a Gothic Town Hall and Assize Court-House by Waterhouse; there is a picture-gallery, philosophic and other institutions, and technical school; Owens College is the nucleus of Victoria University; the substitution of steam for hand power began here about 1750; the industrial struggles in the beginning of the 19th century were severe, and included the famous “Peterloo massacre”; the Anti-Corn-Law League originated in Manchester, and Manchester has given its name to a school of Liberal politicians identified with the advocacy of peace abroad, free trade, no government interference with industry, and laissez-faire principles at home; the Bridgewater Canal 1762, the railway 1830, and the Ship Canal to the mouth of the Mersey 1894, mark steps in the city's progress; since 1888 Manchester with Salford (198), on the opposite bank of the Irwell, have formed a county.
Manchester, Edward Montagu, Earl of, English statesman and general, eldest son of the first earl; sided with the Parliament in the Civil War, and commanded in the army, but was censured by Cromwell for his slackness at Newbury, which he afterwards resented by opposing the policy of the Protector; he contributed to the restoration of Charles II., and was in consequence made Lord Chamberlain (1602-1671).
Manchuria (21,000), a Chinese province lying between Mongolia and Corea, with the Amur River on the N. and the Yellow Sea on the S., is five times the size of England and Wales; the northern, central, and eastern parts are mountainous; the Sungari is the largest river; the soil is fertile, producing large crops of millet, maize, hemp, &c., but the climate in winter is severe; pine forests abound; the country is rich in gold, silver, coal, and iron, but they are little wrought; beans, silk, skins and furs are exported; the imports include textiles, metals, paper, and opium; the Manchus are the aristocracy of the province; Chinese settlers are industrious and prosperous; the chief towns are Moukden (250) in the S., Kirin (75) on the Sungari, and New-Chwang (60) on the Liao River, a treaty-port since 1858; Russian influence predominates in the province since 1890.
Mandæans, a community found working as skilled artisans in the Persian province of Khuzistan, and in Basra on the Euphrates; are a religious sect; called also Sabians, and holding tenets gathered from Christian, Jewish, and heathen sources, resembling those of the ancient Gnostics; their priesthood admits women; their chief rite is baptism, and hence their old name, Christians of St. John the Baptist.
Mandalay (189), capital of Upper Burma, on the Irawadi, in the centre of the country, 360 m. N. of Rangoon; was seized by the British in 1885. The Aracan Pagoda, with a brazen image of the Buddha, attracts many pilgrims, and Buddhist monasteries cluster outside the town. There are silk-weaving, gold, silver, ivory, and wood work, gong-casting and sword-making industries. Great fires raged in it in 1886 and 1892.
Mandarin, the name given by foreigners, derived from the Portuguese, signifying to “command,” to Chinese official functionaries, of which there are some nine orders, distinguished by the buttons on their caps, and they are appointed chiefly for their possession of the requisite qualifications for the office they aspire to.
Mandeville, Bernard de, a cynical writer, born at Dordrecht, Holland; bred to medicine; came to London to practise; wrote in racy English the “Fable of the Bees,” intended to show, as Stopford Brooke says, how the “vices of society are the foundation of civilisation,” or as Professor Saintsbury says, how “vice makes some bees happy, and virtue makes them miserable”; the latter calls him “The Diogenes of English Philosophy”; he affirmed that “private vices are public benefits,” and reduced virtue into a form of selfishness; his satire is directed against the ethics of Shaftesbury (q. v.) (1670-1733).
Mandeville, Sir John, English adventurer, named of St. Albans, who from his own account travelled over thirty years in the East, and wrote a narrative of the marvels he experienced in a book of voyages and travels published in 1356; the authorship of this book has been questioned, but on this point there is no doubt that, as Professor Saintsbury says, “it is the first book of belles-lottres in English prose.”
Mandingoes, a negro race in Senegambia, and farther inland around the Quorra; are numerous and powerful, and arranged in separate nationalities so to speak.
Manes, the general name given by the Romans to the departed spirits of good men, who are conceived of as dwelling in the nether world, and as now and again ascending to the upper.
Manes, Mani, or Manichæans, the founder of the Manichæans (q. v.), a native of Persia, and who died A.D. 274.
Manetho, an Egyptian priest and historian, of the 3rd century B.C.; wrote a history of Egypt in Greek, derived from study of sacred monumental inscriptions, which is extant only in fragments.
Manfred, king of the Two Sicilies, son of the Emperor Frederick II., who had to struggle for his birthright with three Popes, Innocent IV., Alexander IV., and Urban IV., the last of whom having excommunicated him, as his predecessors had done, and bestowed his dominions on Charles of Anjou, in conflict with whom at Benevento he fell, and who denied him Christian burial, though his nobles pled with him to grant it (1231-1266).
Manfred, Count, hero of a poem of Byron's; sold himself to the Prince of Darkness; lived in solitude on the Alps, estranged from all sympathy with others, and was carried off in the end by the master whom he had served.
Manhattan, a long island at the mouth of the Hudson, on which a great part of New York stands.
Manichæism, the creed which ascribes the created universe to two antagonistic principles, the one essentially good—God, spirit, light; the other essentially evil—the devil, matter, darkness; and this name is applied to every system founded on the like dualism. Mani, the founder of it, appears to have borrowed his system in great part from Zoroaster.
Manila (270), capital of the Philippine Islands; at the head of a great bay on the W. coast of Luzon; is hot, but not unhealthy; suffers severely from storms and earthquakes, and is largely built of wood. It has a cathedral, university, and observatory. Its only industry is cigar-making, but the exports include also manila hemp, sugar, and coffee. The population, chiefly Tagals, includes 25,000 Chinese, many Spaniards and Europeans. In the Spanish-American War of 1898 Admiral Dewey captured the city.
Manin, Daniel, an illustrious Italian patriot, born at Venice, of Jewish birth; bred for the bar, and practised at it; became President of the Venetian Republic in 1848, and was one of the most distinguished opponents of the domination of Austria; died at Paris, a teacher of Italian (1804-1857).
Manito`ba (193), a partially developed inland province of Canada, somewhat larger than England and Wales; is square in shape, with the United States on its S. border, Assiniboia on the W., Saskatchewan and Keewatin on the N., and Ontario on the E.; a level prairie and arable country, scantily wooded but well watered, having three large lakes, Winnipeg, Winnipegosis, and Manitoba, and three large rivers, Assiniboine, Souris, and Red River. The climate is dry and healthy, though subject to great extremes of temperature; comparatively little snow falls; the soil is very fertile; mixed farming, dairy, cattle, and sheep farming are carried on successfully. Land is cheap, and the government still makes free grants of 160-acre lots. There is no mineral wealth; coal is found in the S.; fishing is pursued on the lakes and rivers. Constituted a province in 1870, Manitoba was the scene of the Riel rebellion, quelled that same year. The government is vested in a lieutenant-governor, an executive council, and a single chamber of 40 members. In the Dominion Government the province is represented by four members of Senate and five members of the Commons. The capital is Winnipeg (26), the seat of a university and of extensive flour-mills. The other chief towns are Brandon (4), a market town, and Portage-la-Prairie (4), with a brewery, flour, and paper mills.
Manitou, among the North American Indians an animal revealed to the head of a tribe as the guardian spirit of it, and an object of sacred regard. See Totemism.
Manlius, Capitolinus, a Roman hero who, in 390 B.C., saved Rome from an attack of the Gauls, and who was afterwards for treason thrown down the Tarpeian Rock.
Mann, Horace, American educationist, born in Massachusetts; was devoted to the cause of education as well as that of anti-slavery (1790-1859).
Manna, the food with which the Israelites were miraculously fed in the wilderness, a term which means “What is this?” being the expression of surprise of the Israelites on first seeing it.
Mannheim (79), on the right bank of the Rhine, 55 m. above Mainz; the chief commercial centre of Baden; has manufactures of tobacco, india-rubber, and iron goods, and a growing river trade. An old historical city, it was formerly capital of the Rhenish Palatinate, and a resort of Protestant refugees.
Manning, Henry Edward, cardinal, born in Hertfordshire; Fellow of Merton, Oxford, and a leader in the Tractarian Movement there; became rector in Sussex; married, and became Archdeacon of Chichester; his wife being dead, and dissatisfied with the state of matters in the Church of England, in 1851 joined the Church of Rome, became Archbishop of Westminster in 1865, and Cardinal in 1875; took interest in social matters as well as the Catholic propaganda; a too candid “Life” has been written of him since his decease, which has created much controversy (1808-1892).
Mans, Le (53), capital of French department of Sarthe, on the river Sarthe, 170 m. SW. of Paris; has a magnificent cathedral; is an important railway centre, and has textile and hosiery factories. It was the scene of a great French defeat in January 1871.
Mansard, the name of two French architects, born in Paris—François, who constructed the Bank of France (1598-1666), and Jules Hardoun, his grand-nephew, architect of the dome of the Invalides and of the palace and chapel of Versailles (1645-1708).
Mansel, Henry Longueville, dean of St. Paul's, born in Northamptonshire; wrote admirably on philosophical and religious subjects, and was a doughty adversary in controversy both with Mill and Maurice; he was a follower in philosophy of Sir William Hamilton (q. v.) (1820-1871).
Mansfield (16), market-town of Notts, 14 m. N. of Nottingham, in the centre of a mining district, with iron and lace-thread manufactures.
Mansfield, William Murray, Earl of, Lord Chief-Justice of England, born in Perth, called to the bar in 1730; distinguished himself as a lawyer, entered Parliament in 1743, and became Solicitor-General, accepted the chief-justiceship in 1756; was impartial as a judge, but unpopular; raised to the peerage in 1776, and resigned his judgeship in 1789 (1704-1793).
Mansfield College, Oxford, a theological college established there for the education of students intended for the Nonconformist ministry, though open to other classes; the buildings were opened in 1889.
Mansion House, the official residence of the Lord Mayor of London, erected in 1739 at a cost of £42,638, with a banqueting-room capable of accommodating 400 guests.
Mantegna, Andrea, an Italian painter and engraver, born at Padua; his works were numerous, did atlas pieces and frescoes, his greatest “The Triumph of Cæsar”; he was a man of versatile genius, was sculptor and poet as well as painter, and his influence on Italian art was great (1430-1504).
Mantell, Gideon, an eminent English geologist and palæontologist, born at Lewes, in Sussex; wrote “The Wonders of Geology,” “Thoughts on a Pebble,” &c.; he was a voluminous author, and distinguished for his study of fossils (1790-1852).
Manteuffel, Baron von, field-marshal of Germany, born in Dresden; entered the Prussian army in 1827, rose rapidly, and took part in all the wars from 1866 to 1872, and was appointed viceroy at the close of the last in Alsace-Lorraine, a rather unhappy appointment, as it proved (1809-1885).
Mantra, the name given to hymns from the Veda, the repetition of which are supposed to have the effect of a charm.
Mantua (28), the strongest fortress in Italy, in SE. Lombardy, on two islands in the river Mincio, 83 m. E. of Milan, is a somewhat gloomy and unhealthy town, with many heavy mediæval buildings; there are saltpetre refineries, weaving and tanning industries. Virgil was born here in 70 B.C. The town was Austrian in the 18th century, but ceded to Italy 1866.
Mantuan Swan, a name given to the Roman poet Virgil, from his having been a native of Mantua, in N. Italy.
Manu, Code of, one of the sacred books of the Hindus, in which is expounded the doctrine of Brahminism, inculcating “sound, solid, and practical morality,” and containing evidence of the progress of civilisation among the Aryans from their first establishment in the valley of the Ganges. Manu, the alleged author, appears to have been a primitive mythological personage, conceived of as the ancestor and legislator of the human race, and as having manifested himself through long ages in a series of incarnations.
Manzoni, Alessandro, Italian poet and novelist, born at Milan; began a sceptic, but became a devout Catholic; wrote a volume of hymns, entitled “Inni Sacri,” and a tragedy, “Adelchi,” his masterpiece, and admired by Goethe, as also a prose fiction, “I Promessi Sposi,” which spread his name over Europe; in 1860 was made a senator of the kingdom of Italy, and was visited by Garibaldi in 1862; he was no less distinguished as a man than as an author (1780-1875).
Maoris, the natives of New Zealand, a Polynesian race numbering 40,000, who probably displaced an aboriginal; are distinguished for their bravery; are governed by chiefs, and speak a rich sonorous language; they are the most vigorous and energetic of all the South Sea islanders.
Mar, a district in S. Aberdeenshire, between the Don and the Dee, has given a title to many earls; one was regent of Scotland in 1572, another, nicknamed “Bobbing Joan,” led the Jacobite rising of 1715; on the death without issue of the earl in 1866 the question of succession was at issue; the Committee of Privileges granted it to his cousin, the Earl of Kellie, thereafter Mar and Kellie, and a Bill in Parliament awarding it to his nephew, who is thus Earl of Mar.
Marabouts, a sect of religious devotees of a priestly order much venerated in North Africa, believed to possess supernatural power, particularly in curing diseases, and exercising at times considerable political influence; their supernatural power appears to come to them by inheritance.
Maracaybo (34), a Venezuelan town and fortress on the W. shore of the outlet of Lake Maracaybo; has handsome streets and buildings, and exports coffee and valuable woods; the lake of Maracaybo is a large fresh-water lake in the W. of Venezuela, connected with the Gulf of Maracaybo by a wide strait, across which stretches an effective bar.
Maranatha (lit. the Lord cometh to judge), a form of anathema in use among the Jews.
Marañon, one of the head-waters of the Amazon, rising in Lake Lauricocha, Peru, and flowing N. and E. till it joins the Ucayali and forms the Amazon; the name is sometimes given to the whole river.
Marat, Jean Paul, a fanatical democrat, born in Neuchâtel, his father an Italian, his mother a Genevese; studied and practised medicine, came to Paris as horse-leech to Count d'Artois; became infected with the revolutionary fever, and had one fixed idea: “Give me,” he said, “two hundred Naples bravoes, armed each with a good dirk, and a muff on his left arm by way of shield, and with them I will traverse France and accomplish the Revolution,” that is, by wholesale massacre of the aristocrats; he had more than once to flee for his life, and one time found shelter in the sewers of Paris, contracting thereby a loathsome skin disease; he was assassinated one evening as he sat in his bath by Charlotte Corday (q. v.), but his body was buried with honours in the Pantheon by a patriot people, “that of Mirabeau flung out to make room for him,” to be some few months after himself cast out with execration (1743-1793).
Marathon, a village, 22 m. NE. of Athens, on the sea border of a plain where the Greeks under Miltiades on a world-famous occasion defeated the Persians under Darius in 480 B.C.; the plain on which the battle was fought extends between mountains on the W. and the sea on the E.
Marburg (13), quaint university town of Hesse-Nassau, on the Lahn, 40 m. NE. of Limburg; has many old buildings; its Gothic church contains St. Elizabeth's tomb; Luther and Zwingli held a conference in the castle, 1529; William Tyndale and Patrick Hamilton were students at its university, which has now 97 teachers, 1000 students, and a fine library.
Marceau, French general, born at Chartres; distinguished himself in the Republican army in La Vendée and Fleurus, and was killed at Altenkirchen when covering a retreat of the French army (1760-1796).
Marcello, Benedetto, an Italian musical composer; composed music for an Italian version of the Psalms (1686-1739).
Marcellus, Claudius, Roman general; in a war with the Gauls killed their chief Viridomarus with his own hands, whose spoils he dedicated as spolia opima (q. v.) to Jupiter; took Syracuse, which long baffled him through the skill of Archimedes, and fell fighting against Hannibal 208 B.C.; he was five times consul though but of plebeian birth.
Marcellus, Marcus, son of Octavia, the sister of Augustus, who had named him his heir; his decease at 20 was mourned as a public calamity, and inspired Virgil to pen his well-known lament over his death in the sixth book of the “Æneid.”
Marcet, Mrs. Jane, authoress, born at Geneva; married a Swiss doctor settled in London; wrote elementary text-books on chemistry (from which Faraday gained his first knowledge), political economy, natural philosophy, &c., under the title “Conversations,” and her best work, “Stories for very Little Children” (1769-1858).
March, the third month of our year; was before 1752 reckoned first month as in the Roman calendar, the legal year beginning on the 25th; it is proverbially dusty and stormy, and is the season of the spring equinox; it was dedicated to the Roman god Mars, whence the name.
Marchand, Major, a French emissary in Africa; was sent in 1890 to explore the sources of the Niger and other districts, and was afterwards appointed to push on to the Nile, where he arrived in 1898, hoisting the French flag by the way, and finally at Fashoda, from which he was recalled; with extreme disgust he was obliged to retire and find his way back to France; b. 1863.
Marcion, a heretic of the 2nd century, born at Sinope, in Pontus, who, convinced that the traditional records of Christianity had been tampered with, sought to restore Christianity to its original purity, taking his stand on the words of Christ and the interpretation of St. Paul as the only true apostle; he held that an ascetic life was of the essence of Christianity, and he had a following called Marcionites.
Marcus Aurelius. See Antoninus.
Maremma, a malarial coast district of Italy, N. of the Campagna, stretching from Orbitello to Guardistallo, with few villages or roads. Part of it was improved by draining and planting (1824-44), and the inhabitants come down from the neighbouring Apennine slopes in summer to cultivate it; healthier in winter, it affords good pasturage.
Marengo, a village of N. Italy, SE. of Alessandria, where Napoleon defeated the Austrians on 14th June 1800.
Mareotis, Lake, a lagune in the N. of Egypt, 40 m. long by 18 m. broad, separated from the Mediterranean by a tongue of land on which part of Alexandria is situated.
Margaret, queen of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, was the daughter of Waldemar IV. of Denmark, whose crown, on his death in 1375, she received in trust for her son Olaf; her husband, Hacon VIII. of Norway, died in 1380, and left her queen; Olaf died 1387, when she named her grand-nephew, Eric of Pomerania, her heir; the Swedes deposed their king next year, and offered Margaret the throne; she accepted it, put down all resistance, and ultimately brought about the Union of Calmar (1397), which provided for the perpetual union of the three crowns; her energy and force of character won for her the title of “Semiramis of the North” (1353-1412).
Margaret, a simple, innocent girl in Goethe's “Faust,” who is the victim of a tragic fatality; Faust meets her as she comes from church, falls in love with her, and seduces her; she slays the infant born, is convicted and condemned to death, and loses her reason; Faust would fain save her, but he is hurried away by Mephistopheles, and she is left to her fate.
Margaret, St., the type of female innocence, represented as a beautiful young maiden bearing the palm and crown of a martyr and attended by a dragon; is patron saint against the pains of childbirth. Festival, July 20.
Margaret, St., queen of Scotland, wife of Malcolm Canmore, and sister of Edgar Atheling, born in Hungary; brought up at the court of Edward the Confessor; after the conquest sought refuge in Scotland, and winning the heart of the Scotch king, was married to him at Dunfermline; was a woman of beautiful character and great piety, and did much to civilise the country by her devotion and example; she died in Edinburgh Castle, and was in 1250 canonised by Innocent IV.; Lanfranc had been her spiritual instructor (1047-1093).
Margaret of Angoulême, queen of Navarre, Sister of Francis I., married in 1527 Henri d'Albret, king of Navarre, by whom she became the mother of Jeanne d'Albret (q. v.); protected the Protestants, and encouraged learning and the arts; she left a collection of novels, under the name of “Heptameron,” and a number of interesting letters, as well as some poems (1492-1549).
Margaret of Anjou, queen of Henry VI. of England, and daughter of the good King René of Anjou; was distinguished for the courage she displayed during the Wars of the Roses, though, after a struggle of nearly twenty years, she was defeated at Tewkesbury and committed to the Tower, from which, after four years of incarceration, she was afterwards released by ransom (1429-1482).
Margaret of Valois, third daughter of Henry II. of France and Catherine de' Medicis; married Henry IV., by whom she was divorced for her immoral conduct (1552-1615).
Margate (18), seaport and watering-place, 3 m. W. of the North Foreland, Kent, is with its firm sands, bathing facilities, and various attractions a favourite resort of London holiday-makers. Its church-tower, 135 ft., is a prominent landmark. There are large almshouses and orphanages, and other charitable institutions; J. M. W. Turner was at school here.
Marheinecke, a German theologian, born at Hildesheim; professor successively at Erlangen, Heidelberg, and Berlin; was a Hegelian in philosophy; his chief works, a “System of Catholicism” and a “History of the German Reformation” (1780-1846).
Maria Louisa, empress of France, daughter of Francis I., Emperor of Austria; was married to Napoleon in 1810 after the divorce of Joséphine, and bore him a son, who was called King of Rome; after Napoleon's death she became the wife of Count von Neipperg (1791-1847).
Maria Theresa, empress of Austria, daughter of the Emperor Charles VI., a queenly woman; was in 1736 married to Francis of Lorraine; ascended the throne in 1740 on the death of her father, associating her husband with her in the government under the title of Francis I.; no sooner had she done so than, despite the Pragmatic Sanction (q. v.), which assured her of her dominions in their integrity, she was assailed by claimants one for this and one for another portion of them, in particular by Frederick the Great, who by force of arms wrenched Silesia from her and kept it fast; the war thus occasioned is known as the war of the Austrian Succession, which lasted seven years, and was concluded by the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748; this peace, however, was soon broken, and Maria, backed by France and counselled by Kaunitz, renewed hostilities in the hope of compelling Frederick to restore what he had taken; all in vain, for the end of this war, known as the Seven Years' War, was to leave Frederick still in possession of the territory which he had sliced from her empire as in the former; in the interim of these wars Maria devoted her attention to the welfare of her subjects, who were conspicuously loyal to her, and before the end of her reign she saw what she had lost made up to her in a measure by the partition of Poland, in which she took part (1717-1780).
Mariamne, the wife of Herod the Great, whom he put to death on suspicion of her unfaithfulness.
Mariana, Juan, Spanish historian and political philosopher, born at Talavera; joined the Jesuits in 1554, and taught in their colleges in Rome, Sicily, and Paris; returning to Toledo he gave himself to literature; his “History of Spain” appeared in 1592 and 1605, theological writings incurred persecution, and his greatest work, “De Rege et Regis Institutione,” in which he defended the right of the people to cast out a tyrant, was condemned by the general of his order (1536-1624).
Marie Antoinette, queen of France, fourth daughter of Maria Theresa; was married in 1770 to the dauphin of France, who in 1774 succeeded to the throne as Louis XVI.; was a beautiful woman, but indiscreet in her behaviour; had made herself unpopular and impotent for good when the Revolution broke out; when matters became serious the queenliness of her nature revealed itself, but it was in haughty defiance of the million-headed monster that was bellowing at her feet; the heroism she showed at this crisis the general mass of the people could not appreciate, though it won the homage of such men as Mirabeau and Barnave; all she wanted was a wise adviser, for she had courage to follow any course which she could be persuaded to see was right; in Mirabeau she had one who could have guided her, but by his death in 1791 she was left to herself, and the course she took was fatal to all the interests she had at heart; fatality followed fatality: first she saw her husband hurried off to the guillotine, and then she followed herself; hers, if any, was the most tragic of fates, and any one who has read that heart-moving apostrophe to her by Carlyle on the way to her doom must know and feel that it was her fate; she and her husband suffered as the representatives of the misgovernment of France for centuries before they were born, and were left a burden on their shoulders which they could not bear and under which they were crushed to death (1756-1793).
Marie de France, a poetess and fabulist of Henry III.'s time; her fables are translations into French from an English version of old Greek tales; a greater work was her “Laïs,” consisting of 12 or 14 beautiful narratives in French verse.
Marie de' Medici, daughter of the Grand-Duke of Tuscany, born at Florence; was married to Henry IV. of France in 1600, with whom she lived unhappily till his murder in 1610; she was then regent for seven years; in 1617 her son assumed power as Louis XIII.; she was for two years banished from the court, and on her return so intrigued as to bring about her imprisonment in 1631; though a lover of art she was neither good wife nor good queen, and escaping from confinement she died in destitution at Cologne (1573-1642).
Marienbad, a high-lying Bohemian watering-place, 18 m. S. of Carlsbad; it is much frequented for its saline springs.
Mariette Pasha, François Auguste Ferdinand, Egyptologist, born at Boulogne; became professor in the college there in 1841, entered the Egyptian department of the Louvre in 1849, and next year set out for Egypt; eight years later he was made keeper of the monuments to the Egyptian government, and in 1879 was made a pasha; he died at Cairo; he made many valuable discoveries and excavations, among which were the burial-place of the Apis bulls, the Sphinx monument, and many temples (1821-1881).
Mario, Giuseppe, a celebrated tenor, born in Cagliari; acquired a large fortune as a professional singer, but lost it through unsuccessful speculations; in the circumstances a concert was given in London for his benefit which realised £1000; he was a handsome man and of charming manners (1808-1883).
Mariotte, Edme, a French physicist, born at Dijon; discoverer of the law named after him, that the volume of a gas is inversely as the pressure; called also Boyle's; it bears the name of Mariotte's law on the Continent, and Boyle's in England (1620-1684).
Marius, Caius, a celebrated Roman general, born near Arpinum, uncle by marriage to Julius Cæsar and head of the popular party, and the rival of Sulla; conquered the Teutons and the Cimbri in Gaul, and made a triumphal entry into Rome; having obtained command of the war against Mithridates, Sulla marched upon the city and drove his rival beyond the walls; having fled the city, he was discovered hiding in a marsh, cast into prison, and condemned to die; to the slave sent to execute the sentence he drew himself haughtily up and exclaimed, “Caitiff, dare you slay Caius Marius?” and the executioner fled in terror of his life and left his sword behind him; Marius was allowed to escape; finding his way to Africa, he took up his quarters at Carthage, but the Roman prætor ordered him off; “Go tell the prætor,” he said to the messenger sent, “you saw Caius Marius sitting a fugitive on the ruins of Carthage”; upon this he took courage and returned to Rome, and along with Cinna made the streets of the city run with the blood of the partisans of Sulla; died suddenly (156-88 B.C.).
Marivaux, a French dramatist and novelist, born in Paris; was a man of subtle wit, and his writings reveal it as well as an affectation of style named Marivaudage after him; his fame rests on his novels rather than his dramas (1688-1763).
Mark, Gospel according to, is mainly a narrative of the doings of Christ and of the events of His life in their historical sequence; moves on at an even pace, abounds in graphic touches, and adds minute traits as if by an eye-witness; it represents Christ as the Son of man, but manifesting Himself by such signs and wonders as to show that He was also the Son of God; it is written for Gentile Christians and not for Jewish, and hence little stress is laid on Old Testament fulfilments or reference made to those antagonisms to Christianity which had a merely Jewish root.
Mark, John, the author of the second Gospel, the son of Mary, Barnabas' sister, who ministered to Christ, and whose house in Jerusalem was a place of resort for the disciples of Christ after the resurrection; accompanied Paul and his uncle on their first missionary journey, afterwards accompanied Peter, who calls him “my son,” and to him it is thought he is indebted for his Gospel narrative; he is regarded as the founder of the Coptic Church, and his body is said to have been buried in Venice, of which he is the patron saint, and the cathedral of which is named St. Mark's after him; he is represented in Christian art as a man in the prime of life accompanied by a winged lion, with his Gospel in his left hand and a pen in his right.
Mark Antony. See Antonius, Marcus.
Mark Twain. See Clemens.
Markham, Clements Robert, traveller and author, born near York, son of a clergyman; served in the navy from 1844 to 1851, taking part in the Franklin search expedition; 1852-1854 he spent exploring Peru; he introduced the cinchona plant to India 1860, became secretary to the Royal Geographical Society 1863, served as geographer to the Abyssinian Expedition of 1867-68, and was then put at the head of the Geographical department of the India Office; among many books of travels may be named “The Threshold of the Unknown Region” 1874, and among biographies “Columbus,” 1892; b. 1830.
Marlborough (9), on the Kennet, 38 m. E. of Bristol, a Wiltshire market-town, with sack and rope making, brewing, and tanning industries; has an old Norman church, the remains of an old royal residence, and a college, chiefly for sons of clergymen, founded in 1845.
Marlborough, John Churchill, Duke of, soldier and statesman, born in Devonshire; joined the Guards as ensign, and served in Tangiers in 1667; sent in command of a company to help Louis XIV. in his Dutch wars, his courage and ability won him a colonelcy; he married Sarah Jennings in 1678, and seven years later became Baron Churchill on James II.'s succession; as general he was employed in putting down Monmouth's rebellion; he seceded to William of Orange in 1688, and received from him the earldom of Marlborough; he was in disfavour from 1694 till the outbreak of the Spanish Succession War, in which he gained his great renown; beginning by driving the Spaniards from the Netherlands in 1702, he won a series of important victories—Blenheim 1704, Ramillies 1706, Oudenard 1708, and Malplaquet 1709, contributed to enhance the military glory of England; Queen Anne loaded him with honours; large sums of money, Woodstock estate, Blenheim Palace, and a dukedom were bestowed on him; his wife was the Queen's closest friend, and the duke and duchess virtually governed the country, till in 1711 the Queen threw off their influence, and charges of misappropriation of funds forced him into retirement; he was restored to many of his offices by George I. in 1714, but for the last six years of his life he sank into imbecility; one of England's greatest generals, he was also one of her meanest men (1650-1722).
Marlowe, Christopher, English dramatist and poet, precursor of Shakespeare; son of a shoemaker at Canterbury; besides a love poem entitled “Hero and Leander,” he was the author of seven plays, “Tamburlaine,” in two parts, “Doctor Faustus,” “The Jew of Malta,” “Edward the Second,” “The Massacre of Paris,” and “Dido,” the first four being romantic plays, the fifth a chronicle play, and the last two offering no particular talent; he dealt solely in tragedy, and was too devoid of humour to attempt comedy; “In Marlowe,” says Prof. Saintsbury, “two things never fail him long—a strange, not by any means impotent, reach after the infinite, and the command of magnificent verse”; his life was a short one (1564-1593).
Marmont, Duke of Ragusa and marshal of France, served under Napoleon, and distinguished himself on many a battlefield; received the title of duke for his successful defence of Ragusa against the Russians; was present at Wagram, Lützen, Bautzen, and Dresden, but came to terms with the allies after the taking of Paris, which led to Napoleon's abdication in 1814; obliged to flee on Napoleon's return, he came back to France and gave his support to the Bourbons; left Memoirs (1774-1852).
Marmontel, Jean François, French writer, born at Bort; author of “Les Incas,” “Bélesaire,” and “Contes Moraux;” “was,” says Ruskin, “a peasant's son, who made his way into Parisian society by gentleness, wit, and a dainty and candid literary power; he became one of the humblest yet honestest, placed scholars at the court of Louis XV., and wrote pretty, yet wise, sentimental stories in finished French, the sayings and thoughts in them, in their fine tremulous way, perfect like the blossoming heads of grass in May” (1723-1799).
Marmora, Sea of, 175 m. long and 50 broad, lies between Europe and Asia Minor, opening into the Ægean through the Dardanelles and into the Baltic through the Bosphorus; the Gulf of Ismid indents the eastern coasts; Marmora, the largest island, has marble and alabaster quarries.
Marne (435) and Haute-Marne (244), contiguous departments in the N.E. of France, in the upper basin of the Marne River; in both cereals, potatoes, and wine are the chief products, the best champagne coming from the N. In the former, capital Châlons-sur-Marne, building stone is quarried; there are metal works and tanneries; in the latter, capital Chaumont, are valuable iron mines and manufactures of cutlery and gloves.
Marochetti, Baron, Italian sculptor, born in Turin; after working in Paris, came to this country in 1848, and executed several public statues, one of the Queen among others (1805-1867).
Maronites, a sect of Syrian Christians, numbering 200,000, dwelling on the eastern slopes of Lebanon, where they settled in the 7th century, and who joined the Roman Catholic Church in 1445, while they retain much of their primitive character; they maintained a long sanguinary rivalry with their neighbours the Druses (q. v.).
Maroons, the name given to wild negro bands in Jamaica and Guiana; those in Jamaica left behind by the Spaniards on the conquest of the island by the English, 1655, escaped to the hills, and continued unsubdued till 1795; in Guiana they still maintain independent communities. To maroon a seaman is to leave him alone on an uninhabited island, or adrift in a boat.
Marot, Clement, French poet, born at Cahors; was valet-de-chambre of Margaret of Valois; was a man of ready wit and a satirical writer, the exercise of which often brought him into trouble; his poems, which consist of elegies, epistles, rondeaux, madrigals, and ballads, have left their impress on both the language and the literature of France (1495-1544).
Marprelate Tracts, a series of clever but scurrilous tracts published under the name of Martin Marprelate, but which are the work of different writers in the time of Elizabeth against prelacy, and which gave rise to great excitement and some inquisition as to their authorship.
Marque. See Letter of Marque.
Marquesas Islands (5), a group of 13 small volcanic mountainous islands in the S. Pacific, 3600 m. W. of Peru, under French protection since 1842, are peopled by a handsome but savage race, which is rapidly dying out; Chinese immigrants grow cotton; the more southerly were discovered by Mendaña in 1595, the more northerly by Ingraham, an American, in 1791.
Marrow Controversy, a theological controversy which arose in Scotland in the 18th century over the teaching of a book entitled “The Marrow of Modern Divinity,” and which led to a secession from the Established Church on the part of the “Marrow men,” as the supporters of the doctrine of the book were called. It contained an assertion of the evangelical doctrine of free grace, which was condemned by the Assembly, and for maintaining which the “Marrow men,” headed by the Erskines, were deposed in 1733, to the formation of the Secession Church.
Marryat, Frederick, novelist, born at Westminster; after service in the royal navy, which he entered in 1806, and in which he attained the rank of commandant, he retired in 1830, and commenced a series of novels; “Frank Mildmay,” the first, proving a success, he resolved to devote the rest of his life to literature; his novels were numerous, all of interest for their character sketches and adventures, and “Peter Simple” and “Midshipman Easy” are reckoned the best; it was by recourse to Marryat's stories of sea life that Carlyle solaced himself after the burning of the MS. volume of his “French Revolution,” and that he put himself in tune to repair the loss (1792-1848).
Mars, the exterior planet of the Solar system, nearest the earth, of one-half its diameter, with a mean distance from the sun of 141,000,000 m., round which it takes 686 days to revolve, in a somewhat centric orbit, and 24½ hours to revolve on its own axis, which inclines to its equator at an angle of 29°; examination of it shows that there is four times as much land as water in it; it is accompanied by two moons, an outer making a revolution round it in 30 hours 18 minutes, and an inner in 7 hours and 38 minutes; they are the smallest heavenly bodies known to science.
Mars, the Roman god of war, the reputed father of Romulus, and the recognised protector of the Roman State, identified at length with the Greek Ares.
Marseillaise, The, the hymn or march of the French republicans, composed, both words and music, at Strasburg by Rouget de Lisle one night in April 1792, and singing which the 600 volunteers from Marseilles entered Paris on the 30th July thereafter. “Luckiest musicial composition,” says Carlyle, “ever promulgated. The sound of which will make the blood tingle in men's veins, and whole armies and assemblages will sing it, with eyes weeping and burning, with hearts defiant of death, despot, and devil.”
Marseilles (321), third city and first seaport of France, on the shore of the Gulf of Lyons, 27 m. E. of the mouth of the Rhône; has extensive dock accommodation; does great trade in wheat, oil, wine, sugar, textiles, and coal, and manufactures soap, soda, macaroni, and iron; there is a cathedral, picture-gallery, museum, and library, schools of science and art; founded by colonists from Asia Minor in 600 B.C., it was a Greek city till 300 B.C.; after the days of Rome it had many vicissitudes, falling finally to France in 1575, and losing its privilege as a free port in 1660; always a Radical city, it proclaimed the Commune in 1871; a cholera plague devastated it in 1885; six years later great sanitary improvements were begun; Thiers and Puget were born here.
Marshal Forwards, a name given to Blücher (q. v.) for the celerity of his movements and the dash of his attack.
Marshall, John, an American judge; served in the army during the first years of the American War; afterwards entered the legal profession and became Chief-Justice of the United States; was an authority on constitutional law (1755-1835).
Marston, John, English dramatist, so called, was more of a poet than a dramatist, and his dramas are remembered chiefly for the poetic passages they contain; his masterpiece is a comedy entitled “What You Will” (1575-1634).
Marston, John Westland, dramatist, born at Boston, Lincolnshire; wrote several dramas, “Strathmore” and “Marie de Méranie” among the number (1819-1890).
Marston, Philip Bourke, poet, son of preceding; wrote three volumes of verse, admired by Rossetti and Swinburne; was blind from boyhood (1850-1887).
Marston Moor, 7 m. W. of York; here Cromwell and Fairfax defeated the Royalists under Prince Rupert, July 2, 1644, and so won the north of England for the Parliament.
Marsyas, a Phrygian peasant, who, having found a flute which Athena had thrown away because playing on it disfigured her face, and which, as still inspired by the breath of the goddess, yielded sweet tones when he put his lips to it, one day challenged Apollo to a contest, the condition being that the vanquished should pay whatever penalty the victor might impose on him; Apollo played on the lyre and the boor on the flute, when the Muses, who were umpires, assigned the palm to the former; upon this Apollo caught his rival up, bound him to a tree, and flayed him alive for his temerity.
Martello Towers, round towers of strong build, erected as a defence at one time off the low shores of Sussex and Kent; they are of Italian origin; there is one off the harbour of Leith.
Martens, Frederick de, German diplomatist and publicist, born at Hamburg; author of a “Précis du Droit des Gens” (1756-1821).
Martensen, Hans Lassen, bishop of Copenhagen, a distinguished theologian; author of “Meister Eckhart,” a study of mediæval mysticism, “Christliche Dogmatic” and “Christliche Ethic”; was a Hegelian of a conservative type (1808-1884).
Martha, St., the sister of Mary and Lazarus, the patron saint of good housewives, is represented, in homely costume, with a bunch of keys at her girdle, and a pot in her hand. Festival, July 20.
Martial, a Latin poet, born at Bilbilis, in Spain; went to Rome, stayed there, favoured of the emperors Titus and Domitian, for 35 years, and then returned to his native city, where he wrote his Epigrammata, a collection of short poems over 1500 in number, divided into 14 books, books xiii. and xiv. being entitled respectively Xenia and Apophoreta; these epigrams are distinguished for their wit, diction, and indecency, but are valuable for the light they shed on the manners of Rome at the period (43-104).
Martial Law, law administered by military force, to which civilians are amenable during an insurrection or riot.
Martin, the name of five Popes: M. I., St., Pope from 649 to 655; M. II., Pope from 882 to 884; M. III., Pope from 942 to 946; M. IV., Pope from 1281 to 1285; M. V., Pope from 1417 to 1431, distinguished for having condemned Huss to be burned.
Martin, Aimé, a French writer, born at Lyons, repaired to Paris, became the pupil and friend of Bernardin de St. Pierre; collected his works and married his widow; his letters to Sophia on “Natural History,” &c., highly popular (1781-1844).
Martin, Henri, celebrated French historian, born at Saint-Quentin; devoted his life to the study of the history of France; wrote an account of it, entitled “Histoire de France,” a magnificent work in 19 volumes; brought the history down to 1789, and received from the Institute 20,000 francs as a prize (1810-1885).
Martin, John, English painter, born near Hexham; was an artist of an ardent temperament and extraordinary imaginative power; his paintings, the first “Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion,” characterised as “sublime” and “gorgeous,” were 16 in number, and made a great impression when produced; engravings of some of them are familiar, such as the “Fall of Babylon” and “Belshazzar's Feast” (1789-1854).
Martin, Lady. See Faucit, Helen.
Martin, St., bishop of Tours, was in early life a soldier, and meeting with a naked beggar one cold day in winter divided his military cloak in two, and gave him the half of it; was conspicuous both as a monk and bishop for his compassion on the poor; seated at a banquet on one occasion between the king and queen, hobnobbed with a poor beggar looking on, and extended his goblet of wine to him; he is the patron saint of topers; d. 397. Festival, November 11.
Martin, Sarah, a philanthropist, born at Great Yarmouth; lived by dressmaking, and devoted much of her time among criminals in the jails (1791-1843).
Martin, Sir Theodore, man of letters, born in Edinburgh; acquired his first fame under the pseudonym of Bon Gaultier; is author of the “Life of the late Prince Consort”; wrote along with Aytouna “Book of Ballads,” and translated the Odes of Horace, Dante's “Vita Nuova” and Goethe's “Faust”; b. 1816.
Martineau, Harriet, English authoress, born at Norwich; a lady with little or no genius but with considerable intellectual ability, and not without an honest zeal for the “progress of the species”; she was what is called an “advanced” thinker, and was a disciple of Auguste Comte; wrote a number of stories bearing on social questions, and had that courage of her opinions which commanded respect; it was she who persuaded Carlyle to try lecturing when his finances were low, and she had a real pride at the success of the scheme (1802-1876).
Martineau, James, rationalistic theologian, born in Norwich, brother of the preceding; began life as an engineer, took to theology, and became a Unitarian minister; was at first a follower of Bentham and then a disciple of Kant; at one time a materialist he became a theist, and a most zealous advocate of theistic beliefs from the Unitarian standpoint; he is a thinker of great power, and has done much both to elevate and liberate the philosophy of religion; his views are liberal as well as profound, and he is extensively known as the author of the “Endeavours after the Christian Life” and “Hours of Thought on Sacred Things”; b. 1805.
Martinique (176, of which a few are white), a West Indian French possession, one of the Lesser Antilles; has a much-indented precipitous coast; a mountain range in the centre is densely wooded; the plains are fertile, and produce sugar, coffee, and cotton, which with fruit are the exports; the climate is hot and not salubrious; the island has been French, with three short intervals, since 1635.
Martyn, Henry, a Christian missionary, born at Truro, in Cornwall; was a Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge; went to India as a chaplain, settled in various stations and in Persia; translated the New Testament into Hindi and Persian, as well as the Prayer-book; fell into broken health; did more than he was able for, caught fever and died (1781-1812).
Marvell, Andrew, poet and politician, born at Worcester; was first a lyric poet, and in politics much of a Royalist, at last a violent politician on the Puritan side, having become connected with Milton and Cromwell; he wrote a tract “On the Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government in England” after the Restoration, which brought him into trouble; being a favourite with the king, the king sought to bribe him, but he could not be caught; he died suddenly, and an unfounded rumour was circulated that he had been poisoned (1621-1678).
Marx, Karl, a German Socialist, born at Trèves, of Jewish descent; was at first a student of philosophy and a disciple of Hegel, but soon abandoned philosophy for social economy on a democratic basis and in a materialistic interest, early adopted socialistic opinions, for his zeal in which he was driven from Germany, France, and finally Belgium, to settle in London, where he spent the last 30 years of his life; founded the “International” (q. v.), and wrote a work “Das Kapital,” which has become the text-book of Socialism, a remarkable book, and one that has materially promoted the cause it advocates (1818-1866).
Mary, the Virgin. Of her we know nothing for certain except what is contained in the Gospel history, and that almost exclusively in her relation to her Son, in connection with whom, and as His mother, she has become an object of worship in the Roman Catholic and Greek Churches.
Mary I., queen of England, was born at Greenwich, daughter of Henry VIII. and Catharine of Aragon; at first the king's favourite, on her mother's divorce she was treated with aversion; during her brother Edward VI.'s reign she lived in retirement, clinging to her Catholic faith; on her accession in 1553 a Protestant plot to put Lady Jane Grey on the throne failed; she began cautiously to restore Catholicism, imprisoning Reformers and reinstating the old bishops; on her choosing Philip of Spain for her husband a revolt broke out under Sir Thomas Wyatt, and though easily put down was the occasion for the execution of Lady Jane Grey and the imprisonment of Elizabeth; after her marriage in 1554 the religious reaction gained strength, submission was made to Rome, and a persecution began in which 300 persons, including Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer, perished in three years; ill-health, Philip's cruelty, and her childlessness drove her to melancholy; a war with France led to the loss of Calais in 1558, and she died broken-hearted, a virtuous and pious, but bigoted and relentless woman (1516-1558).
Mary II., queen of England, daughter of the Duke of York (afterwards James II.) and Anne Hyde; was married to her cousin William of Orange in 1677, ascended the English throne along with him on her father's abdication in 1688, and till her death was his much loved, good, and gentle queen; Greenwich Hospital for disabled sailors, which she built, is her memorial (1662-1694).
Mary, Queen of Scots, daughter of James V. and Mary of Lorraine, born at Linlithgow, became by her father's death queen ere she was a week old; her early childhood was spent on an island in the Lake of Menteith; she was sent to France in 1548, brought up at court with the royal princes, and married to the dauphin in 1558, who for a year, 1559-60, was King Francis II.; on his death she had to leave France; she returned to assume the government in Scotland, now in the throes of the Reformation; refraining from interference with the Protestant movement she retained her own Catholic faith, but chose Protestant advisers; out of many proposed alliances she elected, against all advice, to be married to her cousin Darnley 1565, and easily quelled the insurrection that broke out under Moray; Darnley, granted the title king, tried to force her to settle the succession in the event of her dying childless on him and his heirs; deeming her favourite Rizzio to stand in the way, he plotted with the Protestant Lords to have him murdered, and Mary was reduced to agree to his demands; the murder was done; the queen was for a time a prisoner in Holyrood, but she succeeded in detaching Darnley, and the scheme fell through; her only son, afterwards James VI., was born three months later in 1566; the murder of Darnley took place in February 1567, being accomplished by Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, almost certainly with Mary's connivance; her marriage with Bothwell in May alienated the nobles; they rose, took the queen prisoner at Carberry, carried her to Edinburgh, then to Loch Leven, where they forced her to abdicate in July; next year, escaping, she fled to England, and was there for many years a prisoner; Catholic plots were formed to liberate her and put her in place of Elizabeth on the English throne (she was next in order of succession, being great-granddaughter of Henry VII.); at last she was accused of complicity in Babbington's conspiracy, tried, found guilty, and executed in Fotheringhay Castle, February 8, 1587; faithful to her religion to the end; she was a woman of great beauty and charm, courage and ability, warm affection and generous temper (1542-1587).
Maryland (1,042), a State of the American Union, occupying the basin of the Potomac and of Chesapeake Bay, with Pennsylvania on the N., Delaware on the E., and the Virginias on the W. and S.; has a much indented coast-line affording great facilities for navigation; the soil is throughout fertile; on the level coast plains tobacco and fruit, chiefly peaches, are grown; in the undulating central land wheat; the mountains in the W. are well wooded with pine; there are coal-mines in the W., copper and chrome in the midland, and extensive marble quarries; the shad and herring fisheries are valuable; the manufactures of clothing stuffs, flour, tobacco, and beer are extensive; the climate of Maryland is temperate and genial; education is free, and advanced; the John Hopkins University is in Baltimore; there is a State college in every county, and schools for blind, deaf, and feeble-minded children; colonisation began in 1634, and a policy of religious toleration and peace with the Indians led to prosperity; the State was active in the War of Independence, and remained with the North in the Civil War; the capital is Annapolis (8), but the largest city is Baltimore (434), a great wheat-shipping port and centre of industry; Cumberland (13) has brick and cement works, and Hagerstown (10) has machine, farm implement, and furniture factories.
Masaccio, an Italian painter, born in Florence; went when very young to Rome, where he painted in the church of St. Clement a series of frescoes, his greatest work being the frescoes in the Brancacci chapel of the Carmine church; he was a great master of perspective and colour (1402-1443).
Masai, a warlike tribe in Africa, between the coast of Zanzibar and Victoria Nyanza, of the race of the Gallas, men of powerful physique, though far from prepossessing in appearance; when their warlike spirit and prowess are spent they settle down to cattle-breeding.
Masaniello, a fisherman of Amalfi, who headed a revolt against the Spanish viceroy in Naples, which proved successful, but turned his head and led to his assassination (1623-1647).
Mashonaland, a plateau 4000 ft. high crossed by the Umvukwe Mountains, lying to the NE. of Matabeleland and S. of the Zambesi River, of which its streams are tributaries; is a fertile country, and being traversed continually by cold SE. winds is healthy and bracing; the natives, of Bantu stock, are peaceful and industrious, growing rice, maize, tobacco, and cotton, which they also weave, and working with skill in iron; they live in dread of the fierce Matabele tribes; the country is very rich in iron, copper, and gold, and has traces of ancient scientific gold-mining; it has been under British protection since 1888.
Mask, Iron. See Iron Mask.
Maskelyne, Nevil, astronomer-royal, born in London; determined the method of finding longitude at sea, and the density of the earth by experiments at Schiehallion, and commenced the “National Almanack,” and produced the first volume of “Astronomical Observations at Greenwich” (1732-1811).
Mason, Sir Josiah, Birmingham manufacturer and philanthropist, born at Kidderminster; made his fortune by split rings, steel pens, electro-plating; founded an orphanage at Erdington at the cost of nearly £300,000, and the college at Birmingham which bears his name (1795-1881).
Mason, William, a minor poet, a friend of poet Gray; the author of two tragedies, “Elfrida” and “Caractacus” (1724-1797).
Mason and Dixon's Line, so called after English engineers who surveyed it 1764-67; is the boundary separating Maryland from Pennsylvania and Delaware; during the Civil War it was inaccurately regarded as dividing the slave-holding from the free States, Maryland and Delaware both recognising slavery.
Maspero, Gaston Camille Charles, French Egyptologist, born at Paris; made extensive explorations and important discoveries in Egypt; has written, among works bearing on Egypt, “Histoire Ancienne des Peuples d'Orient”; b. 1846.
Massachusetts (2,239), a New England State of the American Union, lies on the Atlantic seaboard between New Hampshire and Vermont on the N. and Rhode Island and Connecticut on the S., with New York on its western border; has a long irregular coast-line and an uneven surface, rising to the Green Mountains in the W.; the scenery is of great beauty, but the soil is in many places poor, the farms raising chiefly hay and dairy produce; the winters are severe; Massachusetts is the third manufacturing State of the Union; its industries include cotton, woollen, worsted, clothing, leather and leather goods, iron and iron goods; school education throughout the State is free and of a high standard; there are several universities and colleges, including Harvard, Boston, Williams, and Amherst; founded in 1620 by the Pilgrim Fathers, Massachusetts had many hardships in early days, and was long the scene of religious intolerance and persecution; the War of Independence began at Bunker's Hill and Lexington in 1776; the capital and chief seaport is Boston (448); Worcester (85) has machinery factories, Springfield (44) paper, and Lowell (78) cotton mills; Concord was for long a literary centre.
Massage, in medicine a process of kneading, stroking, and rubbing, with the fingers and palms of the hands, applied to the body as a whole or to locally affected parts, to allay pain, promote circulation, and restore nervous and vital energy; it was practised in very early times in China and India; was known to the Greeks and Romans, and was revived by Dr. Mezger of Amsterdam in 1853.
Massagetæ, a Scythian people on the NE. of the Caspian Sea, who used to kill and eat the aged among them, in an expedition against whom, it is said, Cyrus the Great lost his life.
Massena, Duc de Rivoli, Prince of Essling, one of the most illustrious marshals of France, born at Nice; he distinguished himself at Rivoli in 1796, at Zurich in 1799, at the siege of Genoa in 1800, at Eckmühl and at Wagram in 1809, and was named by Napoleon L'enfant chéri de la Victoire, i. e. the favoured child of victory; he was recalled from the Peninsula by Napoleon for failing to expel Wellington, and it appears he never forgot the affront (1758-1817).
Massey, Gerald, English democratic poet, born in Hertfordshire; wrote “Poems and Charms,” “Voices of Freedom and Lyrics of Love”; has written for the reviews, and taken a great interest in spiritualism; b. 1828.
Massillon, Jean Baptiste, celebrated French pulpit orator, born at Hières, in Provence; entered the congregation of the Oratory, and became so celebrated for his eloquence that he was called to Paris, where he gathered round him hearers in crowds; Bourdaloue, when he heard him, said, “He must increase, but I must decrease,” and Louis XIV. said to him, “When I hear others preach I go away much pleased with them, but when I hear you I feel displeased with myself”; he was made bishop of Clermont, and next year preached before Louis XV., now king, his famous “Petit Carême,” a series of ten sermons for Lent; he was a devoted bishop, and the idol of his flock; his style was perfect, and his eloquence was winning, and went home to the heart (1663-1742).
Massinger, Philip, English dramatist; little is known of his personal history except that he studied at Oxford without taking a degree, that he lived in London, and was buried as “a stranger” in St. Saviour's, Southwark; of his 37 plays only 18 remain, and of these the most famous is the comedy entitled “New Way to Pay Old Debts,” the chief character in which is Sir Giles Overreach, and the representation of which still holds its place on the stage (1583-1640).
Masson, David, man of letters, born in Aberdeen; elected literature as his profession in preference to theology, with the study of which he commenced; joined the staff of the Messrs. Chambers; settled in London, and became professor of English Literature in University College, from the chair of which he removed to the corresponding one in Edinburgh in 1865; edited Macmillan's Magazine from 1859 to 1868; his great work, the “Life of Milton,” in 6 vols., a thorough book, and of great historical value; has written on “British Novelists and their Styles,” “Life of Drummond of Hawthornden,” &c.; became in 1893 Historiographer-Royal of Scotland; b. 1822.
Masso`rah, a body of Biblical references, chiefly handed down by tradition, and calculated to be of great service in verifying the original text of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Massoretic Points, the vowel points and accents in Hebrew; invented by the Massorites, or authors of the Massorah.
Master Humphrey, a character in Dickens's “Old Curiosity Shop.”
Master of Sentences, Peter Lombard (q. v.).
Mastodon, one of an extinct species of mammals akin to the elephant.
Masulipatam (38), chief seaport in the district of Kistna, Madras Presidency, India, 215 m. N. of Madras, with a large coasting trade.
Matabeleland, a country stretching northward from the Transvaal, 180 m. by 150 m., towards the Zambesi River; formerly occupied by peaceful Mashona and Makalaka tribes, but conquered by the Matabele in 1840, and since held by them. They are warlike, and have no industries. The women grow mealies, the men make continual forays on their neighbours. Gold exists in various parts, and the country was declared British territory in 1890. It is developed by the British South African Company, whose chief stations are Buluwayo in the SW. and Fort Salisbury in the NE.
Matanza (50), a fortified town in Cuba, 32 m. E. of Havana.
Materialism, the theory which, denying the independent existence of spirit, resolves everything within the sphere of being into matter, or into the operation and the effect of the operation of forces latent in it, or into the negative and positive interaction of mere material forces, to the exclusion of intelligent purpose and design.
Mather, Cotton, an American divine, born in Boston; notorious for his belief in witchcraft, and for the persecution he provoked against those charged with it by his zeal in spreading the delusion (1663-1728).
Mathew, Theobald, or Father Mathew, apostle of temperance, born in Tipperary; studied for the Catholic priesthood, but joined the Capuchin Minorites; was in 1814 ordained a priest, and located in Cork, where at sight of the cruel effects of drunkenness on the mass of the people his heart was moved, and he resolved on a crusade against it to stamp it out; he started on this enterprise in 1827, but it took a year and a half before his mission bore any fruit, and then it was accompanied with marvellous success wherever he went, even as far as the New World itself (1790-1856).
Mathews, Charles, comedian, born in London; abandoned his father's trade of bookseller for the stage in 1794; appeared in Dublin and York, and from 1803 till 1818 played in Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and the Lyceum; the rest of his life he spent as a single-handed entertainer, charming countless audiences in Britain and America with his good singing and incomparable mimicry; he died at Plymouth (1776-1835).
Mathews, Charles James, light comedian, son of the preceding; married Madame Vestris; was a charming actor, acted with a great grace and delicacy of feeling (1803-1878).
Matlock, a watering-place in Derbyshire, on a slope overlooking the Derwent, 15 m. NW. of Derby.
Matilda, the “Great Countess” of Tuscany, celebrated for her zeal on behalf of the Popes against the Emperor Henry IV., and for the donation of her possessions to the Church, which gave rise to a contest after her death (1046-1115).
Matilda or Maud, daughter of Henry I. of England and wife of the Emperor Henry V., on whose decease she was married to Geoffrey Plantagenet of Anjou and became mother of Henry II.; on the death of her father succeeded to the English throne, but was supplanted by Stephen, whom she defeated and who finally defeated her (1103-1167).
Matadore, the athlete who kills the bull in a bull-fight.
Matsys, Quentin, a Flemish painter, originally a blacksmith, did altar-pieces and genre paintings (1466-1530).
Mattathias, a Jewish priest, the father of the Maccabees, who in 170 B.C., when asked by a Syrian embassy to offer sacrifice to the Syrian gods, not only refused to do so, but slew with his own hand the Jew that stepped forward to do it for him, and then fell upon the embassy that required the act; upon which he rushed with his five sons into the wilderness of Judea and called upon all to follow him who had any regard for the Lord; this was the first step in the war of the Maccabees, the immediate issue of which was to the Jew the achievement of an independence which he had not enjoyed for 400 years.
Matterhorn, a sharp Alpine peak 14,700 ft., on the Swiss-Italian border, difficult of ascent; first scaled by Whymper 1865.
Matthew, a publican, by the Sea of Tiberias, who being called became a disciple and eventually an apostle of Christ; generally represented in Christian art as an old man with a large flowing beard, often occupied in writing his gospel, with an angel standing by.
Matthew, Gospel according to, written not later than 62 A.D., is the earliest record we possess of the ministry and teaching of Christ, and is believed to have been originally a mere collection of His sayings and parables; was written in Aramaic, the spoken language of the Jews at the period, of which the version we have in Greek is a translation, as some think by Matthew himself; its aim is to show that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah promised in the Old Testament, in a form, however, which led to His rejection by the Jews, and their consequent rejection by Him, to the proclamation of His gospel among the Gentiles (chap. xxviii. 19, 20).
Matthias Corvinus, conqueror and patron of learning, born at Klausenburg; was elected King of Hungary 1458; though arbitrary in his measures, he promoted commerce, dispensed justice, fostered culture, and observed sound finance; he founded the University of Buda-Pesth, an observatory, and great library, but his reign was full of wars; for nine years he fought the Turks and took from them Bosnia, Moldavia, and Wallachia; from 1470 till 1478 the struggle was with Bohemia, from which he wrested Moravia, Silesia, and Lusatia; then followed war with Frederick III., the capture of Vienna 1485, and a large part of Austria 1487; he made Vienna his capital, and died there (1443-1490).
Maturin, Charles Robert, novelist, a poor curate in Dublin, where he died; wrote “The Fatal Revenge” and other extravagant tales, and produced one successful tragedy, “Bertram,” 1816 (1782-1824).
Maudsley, Henry, specialist in mental diseases, born near Giggleswick; was educated at University College, London, and graduated M.D. 1857; after being physician in Manchester Asylum, he returned to London 1862, and was professor of Medical Jurisprudence at his own college 1869-79; he is the author of several works on mental pathology; b. 1835.
Maunday-Thursday, the Thursday before Good Friday, on which day it was customary for high people to wash the feet of a number of poor people, and on which Royal alms are bestowed by the Royal Almoner to the poor.
Maupassant, Guy de, a clever French romancer, born at Fécamp; served in the Franco-German War, and afterwards gave himself to letters, producing novels, stories, lyrics, and plays; died insane (1850-1893).
Maupeou, chancellor of France, whose ministry was signalised by the banishment of the Parlement of Paris, and the institution of Conseils du roi; the Parlement Maupeou became a laughing-stock under Louis XV., and Louis XVI. recalled the old Parlement on his accession (1714-1792).
Maupertuis, Pierre Louis Moreau de, French mathematician and astronomer, born at St. Malo; went to Lapland to measure a degree of longitude, to ascertain the figure of the earth; wrote a book “On the Figure of the Earth”; was invited to Berlin by Frederick the Great, and made President of the Academy of Science there; was satirised by Voltaire much to the annoyance of the king, who patronised him and prided himself in the institution of which he was the head (1698-1759).
Maur, St., a disciple of St. Benedict in the 6th century; the congregation of Saint-Maur, founded in 1613, was a perfect nursery of scholarly men, known as Maurists.
Maurepas, French statesman, born at Versailles; was minister of France under Louis XV. and again under Louis XVI., an easy-going, careless minister, “adjusted his cloak well to the wind, if so be he might have pleased all parties” (1701-1784).
Maurice, Frederick Denison, a liberal theologian and social reformer, born at Normanstone, near Lowestoft, the son of a Unitarian minister; started as a literary man, and for a time edited the Athenæum, and took orders in the English Church in 1834; was chaplain to Guy's Hospital and afterwards to Lincoln's Inn, and incumbent of Vere Street Chapel; held professorships in Literature, in Theology, and Moral Philosophy; was a disciple of Coleridge and a Broad Churchman, who “promoted the charities of his faith, and parried its discussion”; one of the originators of Christian Socialism along with Kingsley, and the founder of the Working-Man's College; his writings were numerous though somewhat vague in their teachings, and had many admirers (1805-1872).
Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange; one of the most famous generals of modern times, son of William the Silent, on whose assassination he was elected Stadtholder, and became by his prowess the liberator of the United Provinces from the yoke of Spain; his name is stained by his treatment of Barneveldt, who saw and opposed his selfish designs (1567-1625).
Maurists, a congregation of reformed Benedictines, with head-quarters in Paris, disbanded in 1792; were through the 17th and 18th centuries noted for their services to learning; they published many historical and ecclesiastical works, including a “History of the Literature of France,” and boasted in their number Montfauçon, Mabillon, and other scholars. See Maur, St.
Mauritania, was the old name of the African country W. of the Muluya River and N. of the Atlas Mountains, from which supplies of corn and timber were obtained.
Mauritius, or Isle of France (372), a volcanic island in the Indian Ocean, 550 m. E. of Madagascar, as large as Caithness, with mountains 3000 feet high, a tableland in the centre, and many short streams; the climate is cool in winter, hot in the rainy season, and subject to cyclones; formerly well wooded, the forests have been cut down to make room for sugar, coffee, maize, and rice plantations; sugar is the main export; the population is very mixed; African and Eastern races predominate; descendants of French settlers and Europeans number 110,000; discovered by the Portuguese in 1510, they abandoned it 90 years later; the Dutch held it for 112 years, and abandoned it in turn; occupied by the French in 1721, it was captured by Britain in 1810, and is now, with some other islands, a crown colony, under a governor and council. Port Louis (62), on the NW., is the capital, and a British naval coaling station.
Maury, Abbé, born in Vaucluse, son of a shoemaker; came to Paris, and became celebrated as a preacher; “skilfulest vamper of old rotten leather to make it look like new,” was made member of the Constituent Assembly, “fought Jesuistico-rhetorically, with toughest lungs and heart, for throne, specially for altar and tithes”; his efforts, though fruitless for throne, gained in the end the “red cardinal plush,” and Count d'Artois and he embraced each other “with a kiss” (1740-1817).
Maury, Matthew Fontaine, American hydrographer, born in Virginia; entered the United States navy in 1825, became lieutenant in 1837, studied the Gulf Stream, oceanic currents, and great circle sailing, and in 1856 published his “Physical Geography of the Sea”; took the side of the Confederates in the Civil War, and was afterwards appointed professor in the Military College at Lexington, in Virginia (1806-1873).
Mausole`um, a building more or less elaborate, used as a tomb. See Mausolus.
Mausolus, a king of Caria, husband of Artemisia, who in 353 raised a monument to his memory, called the Mausoleum, and reckoned one of the Seven Wonders of the world.
Max Müller, Friedrich, philologist, born at Dessau, son of a German poet, Wilhelm Müller; educated at Leipzig; studied at Paris, and came to England in 1846; was appointed Taylorian Professor at Oxford in 1854, and in 1868 professor of Comparative Philology there, a science to which he has made large contributions; besides editing the “Rig-Veda,” he has published “Lectures on the Science of Language” and “Chips from a German Workshop,” dealing therein not merely with the origin of languages, but that of the early religious and social systems of the East; b. 1823.
Maxim, Hiram S., American inventor, born at Tangerville, Maine, U.S.; showed early a decided mechanical talent, and is best known in connection with the invention of the gun named after him, but among his other inventions are the smokeless powder, the incandescent lamp carbons, and search-lights; b. 1840.
Maxim Gun, an automatic machine-gun invented by Hiram S. Maxim, an American, in 1884, capable of discharging 620 rifle cartridges per minute; the first shot is fired by hand, and the recoil is utilised to reload and fire the next, and so on. A cylinder of water keeps the barrel from heating.
Maximilian, Ferdinand Joseph, archduke of Austria, younger brother of Francis Joseph, born at Schönbrunn; became emperor of Mexico; issued an edict threatening death to any Mexican who took up arms against the empire, roused the Liberal party against him, and was at the head of 8000 men defeated at Querétaro, taken prisoner, tried by court-martial, and shot (1832-1867).
Maximilian I., emperor of Germany, son of Frederick III., acquired Burgundy and Flanders by marriage, which involved him in a war with France; became emperor on the death of his father in 1493; became by marriage Duke of Milan, and brought Spain under the power of his dynasty by the marriage of his son Philip to the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella; it was he who assembled the Diet of Augsburg at which Luther made appeal to the Pope (1459-1519).
Maxwell, James Clerk, eminent physicist, born in Edinburgh, son of John Clerk Maxwell of Middlebie; attained the rank of senior wrangler at Cambridge; became professor in Aberdeen in 1856, in London in 1860, and of Experimental Physics in Cambridge in 1871; in this year appeared the first of his works, “The Theory of Heat,” which was followed by “Electricity and Magnetism” and “Matter and Motion,” the second being his greatest; he was as sincere a Christian as he was a zealous scientist (1831-1879).
Maxwell, Sir William Stirling, of Keir, Perthshire, a man of refined scholarship; travelled in Italy and Spain; wrote on subjects connected with the history and the artists of Spain (1818-1878).
May, the fifth month of the year, so called from a Sanskrit word signifying to grow, as being the shooting or growing month.
May, Isle Of, island at the mouth of the Firth of Forth, 5½ m. SE. of Crail on the Fife coast; has a lighthouse with an electric light, flashing out at intervals to a distance of 22 nautical miles.
May, Sir Thomas Erskine, English barrister; became Clerk of the House of Commons in 1871; wrote a parliamentary text-book, “Democracy in Europe,” and a “Constitutional History of England since the Accession of George III.,” in continuation of the works of Hallam and Stubbs (1815-1886).
Mayer, Julius Robert von, German physicist, born in Heilbronn; made a special study of the phenomena of heat, established the numerical relation between heat and work, and propounded the theory of the production and maintenance of the sun's temperature; he had a controversy as to the priority of his discoveries with Joule, who claimed to have anticipated them (1814-1878).
Mayhew, Henry, littérateur and first editor of Punch, born in London, and articled to his father, a solicitor; chose journalism as a profession, and in conjunction with Gilbert à Beckett started The Thief in 1832, the first of the “Bits” type of papers; he joined the first Punch staff in 1841, in which year his farce “The Wandering Minstrel” was produced; collaborating with his brother Augustus, he wrote “Whom to Marry” and many other novels between 1847 and 1855, thereafter works on various subjects; his principal book, “London Labour and the London Poor,” appeared in 1851 (1812-1887).
Maynooth, village in co. Kildare, 15 m. W. of Dublin; is the seat of a Roman Catholic seminary founded by the Irish Parliament in 1795 on the abolition of the French colleges during the Revolution; an annual grant of £9000 was made, increased to £26,000 in 1846, but commuted in 1869 for a sum of £1,100,000, when State connection ceased; the college trains 500 students for the priesthood.
Mayo (245), maritime county in Counaught, west of Ireland, between Sligo and Galway; has many indentations, the largest Broadhaven, Blacksod, and Clew Bays, and islands Achil and Clare, with a remarkable peninsula The Mullet; mountainous in the W., the E. is more level, and has Lough Conn and the Moy River; much of the county is barren and bog, but crops of cereals and potatoes are raised; cattle are reared on pasture lands; there are valuable slate quarries and manganese mines; Castlebar (4), in the centre, is the county town; Westport (4), on Clew Bay, has some shipping.
Mayo, Richard Southwark Bourke, Earl of, statesman, born and educated in Dublin; entered Parliament 1847, and was Chief Secretary for Ireland in Conservative Governments 1852, 1858, and 1866, opposing Gladstone's Irish Church resolutions; in 1868 he succeeded Lord Lawrence as Viceroy of India, in which office he proved himself a prudent statesman, a sound financier, and a just and wise administrator; he was murdered by a fanatic in the Andaman Islands, and universally mourned (1822-1872).
Mazarin, Jules, cardinal, born at Piscina, Abruzzi; having been sent by the Pope one of an embassy to France, he gained the favour of Richelieu, who recommended him to Louis XIII. as his successor, and whose successor, being naturalised as a Frenchman, he became in 1642, an office which he retained under the queen-regent on Louis' death; he brought the Thirty Years' War to an end by the peace of Westphalia, crushed the revolt of the Fronde (q. v.), and imposed on Spain the treaty of the Pyrenees; at first a popular minister, he began to lose favour when cabals were formed against him, and he was dismissed, but he contrived to allay the storm, regained his power, and held it till his death; he died immensely rich, and bequeathed his library, which was a large one, to the College Mazarin (1602-1661).
Mazarin Bible, the first book printed by movable metal types, a copy of which is in the Mazarin library, and bears the date 1456.
Mazeppa, Ivan, hetman of the Cossacks, born in Podolia; became page to John Casimir, king of Poland; was taken by a Polish nobleman, who surprised him with his wife, and tied by him to the back of a wild horse, which galloped off with him to the Ukraine, where it had been bred, and where some peasants released him half-dead; life among those people suited his taste, he stayed among them, became secretary to their hetman, and finally hetman himself; he won the confidence of Peter the Great, who made him a prince under his suzerainty, but in an evil hour he allied himself with Charles XII. of Sweden, and lost it; fled to Bender on the defeat of the Swedish king at Pultowa in 1709 (1644-1709).
Mazurka, a lively Polish dance, danced by four or eight couples, and much practised in the N. of Germany as well as in Poland.
Mazzini, Joseph, Italian patriot, born at Genoa; consecrated his life to political revolution and the regeneration of his country on a democratic basis by political agitation; was arrested by the Sardinian government in 1831 and expelled from Italy; organised at Marseilles the secret society of Young Italy, whose motto was “God and the People”; driven from Marseilles to Switzerland and from Switzerland to London, he never ceased to agitate and conspire for this object; on the outbreak of the Revolution in 1848 at Paris he hastened thither to join the movement, which had spread into Italy, and where in 1849 he was installed one of a triumvirate in Rome and conducted the defence of the city against the arms of France, but refusing to join in the capitulation he returned to London, where he still continued to agitate till, his health failing, he retired to Geneva and died (1805-1872).
Mead, a brisk liquor made by fermenting honey, and used in civilised and barbarous Europe from very early times.
Meade, George Gordon, American general, born at Cadiz, son of an American merchant; he passed through West Point and joined the engineers; he served in the Mexican War, became captain and major, and was employed surveying and lighthouse building till the Civil War; in it, first in command of volunteers and afterwards as general in the regular army, he distinguished himself chiefly by frustrating Lee in 1863; after the war he continued in the service till his death at Philadelphia (1815-1872).
Meander. See Mæander.
Meath (77), a county in Leinster, Ireland, touching the Irish Sea between Louth and Dublin, is watered by the Boyne River and its tributary the Blackwater; the surface is undulating, the soil fertile; some oats and potatoes are grown, but most of the county is under pasture; there is a little linen and coarse woollen industry; the chief towns are Navan (4), Kells (2), and the county town Trim (1).
Meaux (13), on the Marne, 28 m. NE. of Paris, a well-built town, with Gothic cathedral; has a large corn and provision trade, and some copper and cotton industries; Bossuet was bishop here, and it contains his grave.
Mecca, the birthplace of Mahomet, the Holy City and Keblah of the Moslems, the capital of Hedjaz and the true capital of Arabia; in the midst of sandy valleys, and 60 m. distant from Jeddah, its port; a city to which every true Mussulman must make a pilgrimage once in his life; has a population which varies from 30,000 to 60,000. See Caaba.
Mechanical Powers, the lever, inclined plane, wheel and axle, screw, pulley, and wedge, the elementary contrivances of which all machines are composed.
Mechanics' Institutes, associations of working-men which aim at providing a general education for artisans, and particularly instruction in the fundamental principles of their own trades; are managed by committees of their own election, usually have a reading-room and library, and provide classes and lectures; Dr. Birkbeck started a journeymen's class in Glasgow 1800, and in 1824 in London organised the first Mechanics' Institute.
Mecklenburg-Schwerin (578), a German grand-duchy, on the shores of the Baltic, between Schleswig-Holstein and Pomerania; is mostly a level, fertile plain, with numerous small rivers and many lakes; agriculture is the chief industry; merino sheep are renowned; there are iron-founding, sugar-refining, and tanning works, and amber is found on the coasts; social institutions are very backward; still largely feudal; serfdom was abolished in 1824 only. Schwerin (34), on Lake Schwerin, is the capital. Rostock (44), has a university; is a busy Baltic port, from which grain, wool, and cattle are shipped; has important wool and cattle fairs, shipbuilding, and other industries. Mecklenburg-Strelitz (98), adjacent to the foregoing on the SE., presents similar characteristics, and is united to it in government; the capital is Neustrelitz (9).
Medea, a famous sorceress of Greek legend, daughter of Æëtes, king of Colchis, by whose aid Jason (q. v.) accomplished the object of his expedition, and acquired the Golden Fleece, and who accompanied him back to Greece as his wife; by her art she restored the youth of Eson, the father of her husband, but the latter having abandoned her she avenged herself on him by putting the children she had by him to death; the art she possessed was that of making old people young again by first chopping them in pieces and then boiling them in a caldron.
Media, a country on the SW. of the Caspian Sea, originally a province of the Assyrian empire, from which it revolted; was after 150 years of independence annexed to Persia by Cyrus, of which it had formed the NW. portion.
Mediævalism, a tendency in literature and art to conform in spirit or otherwise to mediæval models.
Medical Jurisprudence or Forensic Medicine, is the branch of medical study which bears on legal questions, the detection of crime or the determination of civil rights.
Medici, an illustrious family who attained sovereign power in Florence in the 15th century, the most celebrated members of which were: Cosmo de, surnamed the “Father of his Country,” was exiled for ten years but recalled, and had afterwards a peaceful and prosperous reign; was a student of philosophy, and much interested in literature (1389-1464). Lorenzo de, the Magnificent, did much to demoralise Florence, but patronised literature and the arts (1448-1492). Other celebrated members of the family were Popes Leo X., Clement VII., and Catherine and Mary de Medici (q. v.).
Medicine-Man, one among the American Indians who professes to cure diseases or exorcise evil spirits by magic.
Medina (lit. the city) (76), called also Medina-en-Nabi, 210 m. N. of Mecca, the City of the Prophet, as the place in which he found refuge after his “flight” from Mecca in 632; it was here he from that date lived, where he died, and where his tomb is, in a beautiful and rich mosque called El Haram (i. e. the inviolate), erected on the site of the prophet's house. See Hegira.
Mediterranean Sea, so called by the ancients as lying in the presumed middle of the earth surrounded by Europe, Asia, and Africa; the largest enclosed sea in the world; its communication with the Atlantic is Gibraltar Strait, 9 m. wide; it communicates with the Black Sea through the Dardanelles, and in 1869 a canal through the isthmus of Suez connected it with the Red Sea, 2200 m. long by 100 to 600 m. broad; its S. shores are regular; the N. has many gulfs, and two great inlets, the Ægean and Adriatic Seas; the Balearic Isles, Corsica, and Sardinia, Sicily, Malta, Cyprus, and Crete, the Ionian Isles, and the Archipelago are the chief islands; the Rhône, Po, and Nile the chief rivers that discharge into it; a ridge between Sicily and Cape Bon divides it into two great basins; it is practically tideless, and salter than the Atlantic; its waters too are warm; northerly winds prevail in the E. with certain regular variations; the surrounding territories are the richest in the world, and the greatest movements in civilisation and art have taken place around it in Africa, Phoenicia, Carthage, Greece, and Rome.
Medium, in modern spiritualism a person susceptible to communication with the spirit-world.
Medjidie, an Ottoman order of knighthood instituted in 1852 by the Sultan Abd-ul-Medjid, as a reward of merit in civil or military service.
Médoc, a district in the dep. of the Gironde, on the left of the estuary, in the S. of France, famous for its wines.
Medusa, one of the three Gorgons (q. v.), is fabled to have been originally a woman of rare beauty, with a magnificent head of hair, but having offended Athena, that goddess changed her hair into hideous serpents, and gave to her eyes the power of turning any one into stone who looked into them; Perseus (q. v.) cut off her head by the help of Athena, who afterwards wore it on the middle of her breastplate or shield.
Medway, a river in Kent, which rises in Surrey and Sussex, and which after a NE. course of 58 m. falls into an estuary at Sheerness.
Meeanee, a village in Sind, 6 m. N. of Hyderabad, where Sir Charles Napier defeated an army of the Ameer of Sind in 1843.
Meerschaum (lit. sea-foam), a fine white clay, a hydrate-silicate of magnesia, supposed, as found on the sea-shore in some places, to have been sea-foam petrified.
Meerut (119), an Indian town in the North-West Provinces, on the Nuddi, 40 m. NE. of Delhi; is capital of a district of the same name, and an Important military station; it is noted as the scene of the outbreak of the Mutiny in 1857.
Megaris, a small but populous State of ancient Greece, S. of Attica, whose inhabitants were adventurous seafarers, credited with deceitful propensities. The capital, Megara, famous for white marble and fine clay, was the birthplace of Euclid.
Megatherium, an extinct genus of mammalia allied to the sloth, some 18 or 20 ft. in length and 8 ft. in height, with an elephantine skeleton.
Mehemet Ali, pasha of Egypt, born in Albania; entered the Turkish army, and rose into favour, so that he was able to seize the pashalic, the Sultan compromising matters by exaction of an annual tribute in acknowledgment of his suzerainty; the Mamelukes, however, proved unruly, and he could not otherwise get rid of them but by luring them into his coils, and slaughtering them wholesale in 1811; he maintained two wars with the Sultan for the possession of Syria, and had Ibrahim Pasha, his son, for lieutenant; compelled to give up the struggle, he instituted a series of reforms in Egypt, and prosecuted them with such vigour that the Sultan decreed the pashalic to remain hereditary in his family (1769-1849).
Meissen (15), a town of Saxony, on the Upper Elbe, 15 m. NW. of Dresden; has a very fine Gothic cathedral and an old castle. Gellert and Lessing were educated here. There is a large porcelain factory, where Dresden china is made, besides manufactures of iron.
Meissonier, Jean Louis Ernest, French painter, born at Lyons; began as a book illustrator of “Paul and Virginia” amongst other works, practising the while and perfecting his art as a figure painter, in which he achieved signal success, from his “Chess-player” series to his designs for the decoration of the Pantheon, “The Apotheosis of France,” in 1889 (1811-1891).
Meister, Wilhelm, a great work of Goethe's, fraught with world-wisdom, the hero of which of the name represents a man who is led, in these very days, by a higher hand than he is aware of to his appointed destiny.
Meistersängers or Singers, a guild founded in Germany in the 15th century or earlier for the cultivation of poetry, of which Hans Sachs (q. v.) was the most famous member.
Mekhong, is the great river of Siam. Its source In the mountains of Chiamdo is unexplored. Its course, 3000 m., is southerly to the China Sea; the last 500 m. are navigable. It carries great quantities of silt which goes to form and augment the delta through which it issues.
Melanchthon, Philip, Protestant Reformer, born in the Palatinate of the Rhine; was the scholar of the German Reformation, and a wise friend of Luther's, having come into contact with him at Wittenberg, where he happened to be professor of Greek; he wrote the first Protestant work in dogmatic theology, entitled “Loci Communes,” and drew up the “Augsburg Confession”; the sweetness of temper for which he was distinguished, together with his soberness as a thinker, had a moderating influence on the vehemence of Luther, and contributed much to the progress of the Reformation; he was the Erasmus of that movement, and combined the humanist with the Reformer, as George Buchanan did in Scotland (1497-1560).
Melanesia, eleven archipelagoes of crystalline, coralline, and volcanic islands in the W. of Polynesia, all S. of the equator, and inhabited by the Melanesian or dark oceanic race; includes the Fiji, Solomon, Bismarck, and New Hebrides islands.
Melba, Nellie, a celebrated operatic singer, born in Australia; made her first appearance when she was only six; has often appeared in opera in London; her private name is Mrs. Armstrong, and she resides in Paris; b. 1865.
Melbourne (491), the capital of Victoria, at the head of Port Phillip Bay; is the largest and most important city in Australia; built in broad regular streets, with much architectural beauty, and containing, besides the Government buildings, a Roman and an Anglican cathedral, a mint and a university, numerous colleges, hospitals, and other institutions. Its shipping interests are very large; a ship canal enables the largest ships to reach the quays; exports of gold and wool are extensive. Melbourne is the railway centre of the continent. It has manufactures of boots and clothing, foundries and flour-mills. It has a hot climate. Its water supply is abundant, but defective drainage impairs its healthfulness. First settled in 1835, it was incorporated in 1842, and nine years later was made capital of the newly constituted colony. It was the scene of an exhibition in 1888, of a great industrial struggle in 1890, and of a very severe financial crisis in 1893.
Melbourne, William Lamb, Viscount, English statesman, born in London; educated at Cambridge and Glasgow Universities; entered Parliament as a Whig in 1805, but was Chief Secretary for Ireland in the Governments of Canning, Goderich, and Wellington; succeeding to the title in 1828, he reverted to his old party; was Home Secretary under Earl Grey in 1830, and was himself Prime Minister for four months in 1834, and then from 1835 till 1841, when he retired from public life; he was a man of sound sense, and showed admirable tact in introducing the young queen to her various duties in 1837 (1779-1848).
Melchizedek (i. e. king of righteousness or justice), a priest-king of Canaan, to whom, though of no lineage as a priest, but as a minister of God's justice, Abraham did homage and paid tithes; a true type of priest as ordained of God, and one in that capacity “without father and without mother.”
Meleager, a Greek mythic hero, distinguished for throwing the javelin, and by his skill in it slaying a wild boar which devastated his country, and whose life depended on the burning down of a brand that was blazing on the hearth at the time of his birth, but which his mother at once snatched from the flames. But a quarrel having arisen between him and his uncles over the head of the boar, in which they met their death, the mother to be avenged on him for slaying her brothers threw back into the fire the brand on the preservation of which his life depended, and on the instant he breathed his last.
Meliorism, the theory that there is in nature a tendency to better and better development.
Melodrama, a play consisting of sensational incidents, and arranged to produce striking effects.
Melpomenë, the one of the nine muses which presides over tragedy.
Melrose, a small town in Roxburghshire, at the foot of the Eildons, on the S. bank of the Tweed, famed for its abbey, founded by David I. in 1136; it is celebrated by Sir Walter Scott in his “Lay of the Last Minstrel.”
Melton-Mowbray (6), a town 15 m. NE. of Leicester, the centre of the great hunting district; celebrated for its pork pies.
Melusina, a fairy of French legend, who married Raymond, a knight, on condition that on a particular day of the week he would not visit her, a stipulation which he was tempted to break, so that on a day of her seclusion he broke into her chamber, and found the lower part of her body from the waist downwards transformed into that of a serpent, upon which she straightway flew out at the window, to hover henceforth round the castle of her lord and only appear again on the occasion of the death of any of the inmates.
Melville, Andrew, Scottish Presbyterian ecclesiastic, born near Montrose; of good and even wide repute as a scholar; became Principal first of Glasgow College and then of St. Mary's College, St. Andrews; was zealous for the headship of Christ over the Church, in opposition to the claim of the king, James, and spoke his mind freely both to the king and the bishops, for which he was sent to the Tower; on his release, after four years, he retired to a professorship at Sedan, in France, having been forbidden to return to Scotland (1545-1622).
Melville, Whyte-, novelist; his novels were chiefly of the hunting field, such as “Katerfelto” and “Black, but Comely,” though he wrote historical ones also, such as “The Queen's Maries” (1821-1878).
Memel (19), Baltic seaport at the mouth of the Kurisches Haff, in the extreme NE. of Prussia; ships great quantities of Russian and Lithuanian timber, and has some chemical works and shipbuilding yards.
Memnon, a son of Tithonus and Aurora, who was sent by his father, king of Egypt and Ethiopia, to the assistance of Troy on the death of Hector, and who slew Antilochus, the son of Nestor, and was himself slain by Achilles, whereupon Aurora, all tears, besought Zeus to immortalise his memory, which, however, did not calm her sorrow, for ever since the earth bears witness to her weeping in the dews of the morning; a statue, presumed to be to his memory, was erected near Thebes, in Egypt, which was fabled to emit a musical sound every time the first ray fell on it from the rosy fingers of Aurora.
Memphis, an ancient city of Egypt, of which it was the capital; it was founded by Menes at the apex of the delta of the Nile, and contained 700,000 inhabitants.
Memphis (102), a Tennessee port on the Mississippi, 826 m. above New Orleans, accessible to the largest vessels, is also a great railway centre, and therefore a place of great commercial importance; has many industries, and a great cotton market.
Menado (549), a Dutch colony in the N. of Celebes.
Menai Strait, a picturesque channel separating Anglesey from Carnarvonshire, 14 m. long and at its narrowest 200 yards wide; is crossed by a suspension bridge (1825) and the Britannia Tubular Bridge for railway (1850).
Menander, a Greek comic poet, born at Athens; was the pupil of Theophrastus and a friend of Epicurus; of his works, which were numerous, we have only some fragments, but we can judge of them from his imitator Terence (q. v.) (342-291 B.C.).
Mencius or Meng-tze, a celebrated Chinese sage, a disciple, some say a grandson, of Confucius (q. v.); went up and down with his disciples from court to court in the country to persuade, particularly the ruling classes, to give heed to the words of wisdom, though in vain; after which, on his death, his followers collected his teachings in a book entitled the “Book of Meng-tze,” which is full of practical instruction (372-289 B.C.).
Mendicant Order, a religious fraternity, the members of which denude themselves of all private property and live on alms.
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Felix, celebrated German composer, grandson of the succeeding, born in Hamburg; he began to compose early in life, and his compositions consisted of symphonies, operas, oratorios, and church music; his oratorios of “St. Paul” and “Elijah” are well known, and are enduring monuments of his genius; he was a man universally loved and esteemed, and had the good fortune to live amidst the happiest surroundings (1809-1847).
Mendelssohn, Moses, a German philosopher, born at Dessau, of Jewish descent, a zealous monotheist, and wrote against Spinoza; was author of the “Phædon, a Discourse on the Immortality of the Soul,” and did a great deal in his day to do away with the prejudices of the Jews and the prejudices against them; he was the friend of Lessing, and is the prototype of his “Nathan” (1720-1786).
Mendoza (137), province in the extreme W. of Argentina; has the Andes in the W., Aconcagua (23,500 ft.), the highest peak in the New World, otherwise is chiefly worthless pampa, fertile only where irrigated from the small Mendoza River; there vines flourish; copper is plentiful, coal and oil are found. Mendoza (20), the capital, 640 m. W. of Buenos Ayres by rail, is on the Trans-Andine route to Chili, with which it trades largely; suffers frequently from earthquakes.
Menelaus, king of Sparta, the brother of Agamemnon and the husband of Helen, the carrying away of whom by Paris led to the Trojan War.
Menhir, a kind of rude obelisk understood to be a sepulchral monument.
Meninges, the name of three membranes that invest the brain and spinal cord, and the inflammation of which is called meningitis.
Mennonites, a Protestant sect founded at Zurich with a creed that combines the tenets of the Baptists with those of the Quakers; have an episcopal form of government, and maintain a rigorous church discipline.
Menschikoff, Alexander Danilovitch, Russian soldier and statesman, born in humble life at Moscow; became servant to Lefort, on whose death he succeeded him as favourite of Peter the Great, whom he accompanied to Holland and England; in the Swedish War (1702-1713) he won renown, and was created field-marshal on the field of Pultowa; he introduced to the Czar Catharine, afterwards czarina, whom he captured at Marienburg, and when Peter died secured the throne for her; during her reign and her successor's he governed Russia, but his ambition led the nobles to banish him to Siberia 1727 (1672-1729).
Menschikoff, Alexander Sergeievitch, general, great-grandson of the former, served in the wars of 1812-15, in the Turkish campaign of 1828, was ambassador to the Porte in 1853, and largely responsible for the Crimean War, in which he commanded at Alma, Inkermann, and Sebastopol (1789-1869).
Menteith, Lake of, a small beautiful loch in Perthshire, 13 m. W. of Stirling, with three islets, on one of which stood a priory where, as a child, Mary Stuart spent 1547-48; on another stood the stronghold of the earls.
Menthol, a crystalline substance obtained from the oil of peppermint, used in nervous affections, such as neuralgia, as a counter-irritant.
Mentone (8), town and seaport in France, on the Mediterranean, 1½ m. from the Italian border; was under the princes of Monaco till 1848, when it subjected itself to Sardinia, which afterwards handed it over to France; protected by the Alps, the climate is delightful, and renders it a favourite health resort in winter and spring; it exports olive-oil and fruit.
Mentor, a friend of Ulysses, and the tutor of his son Telemachus, whose form and voice Athena assumed in order to persuade his pupil to retain and maintain the courage and astuteness of his father.
Menzel, Adolf, German painter, born at Breslau, professor at Berlin; best known for his historical pictures and drawings; b. 1815.
Menzel, Wolfgang, German author and critic, born in Silesia; wrote on German history, literature, and poetry, as well as general history, and maintained a vigorous polemic against all who by their writings or their politics sought to subvert the Christian religion or the orthodox policy of the German monarchies (1789-1873).
Mephistopheles, the impersonation in Goethe's “Faust” of the modern devil, the incarnation of the spirit of universal scepticism and scoffing, who can see not only no beauty in goodness but no deforming in iniquity, alike without reverence for God and fear of his adversary, blind as a mole to all worth and all unworth throughout the universe, yet knowing and boastful of knowledge, by means of which he sees only “the ridiculous, the unsuitable, the bad, but for the solemn, the noble, the worthy is blind as his ancient mother.”
Mercator, a celebrated Dutch geographer who has given name to a projection of the earth's surface on a plane (1512-1592).
Mercenaries, originally hired soldiers as distinguished from feudal levies, now bodies of foreign troops in the service of the State; the Scots Guards in France from the 15th to 18th centuries were famous, and Swiss auxiliaries once belonged to most European armies; William III. had Dutch mercenaries in England; under the Georges, German were hired and were used in the American War, the Irish rebellion, and the Napoleonic struggle; in the Crimean War German, Swiss, and Italian were enrolled.
Mercia, one of the three chief kingdoms of early England; founded by Anglian settlers in the Upper Trent Valley (now South Staffordshire) In the 6th century; it rose to greatness under Penda 626-655, subsequently succeeded Northumberland in the supremacy, but after the death of Cenwulf 819, waned in turn before Wessex and the Danes.
Mercury, the Roman name for the Greek Hermes, the son of Jupiter and Maia, the messenger of the gods, the patron of merchants and travellers, and the conductor of the souls of the dead to the nether world.
Mercury, an interior planet of the Solar system, whose orbit is nearest the sun, the greatest distance being nearly 43,000,000 m. and the least over 28,000,000, is one-seventeenth the size of the earth, but is of greater density, and accomplishes its revolution in about 84 days; it is visible just before the sun rises and after it sets, but that very seldom owing to the sun's neighbourhood.
Mer-de-glace, the great glacier of the Alps near Chamouni, was the subject of the experiments of Professor J. D. Forbes of Edinburgh about 1843, and on which the movement of the glaciers was first observed.
Meredith, George, poet and novelist, born in Hampshire; began his literary career 1851 as a poet, in which capacity he has since distinguished himself and given expression to his deepest personal convictions, but it is chiefly as a novelist he is most widely known and is generally judged of; as a novel-writer he occupies a supreme place, and is reckoned superior in that department to all his contemporaries in the same line by the unanimous consent of one and all of them; his novels, however, appeal only to a select few, but by them they are regarded with unbounded admiration, some giving preference to this and others to that of the series; “The Ordeal of Richard Feveril,” published in 1859, is by many considered his best, though it is over “The Egoist” that Louis Stevenson breaks out into raptures; Meredith has most sympathetic insights into nature and life, has a marvellous power in analysing and construing character, and shows himself alive to all the great immediate interests of humanity; b. 1828.
Meredith, Owen, the nom de plume assumed by Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton, from his descent from a Welsh noble of the name.
Mergui, a small seaport near the mouth of the Tenasserim, British Burma, which exports birds' nests to China.
Meridian, an imaginary great circle passing through the poles at right angles to the equator.
Mèrimèe, Prosper, a great French writer, born in Paris; abandoned law, to which he was bred, for literature; became under Louis Philippe inspector-general of historical documents, and travelled in that capacity in the S. and W. of France, publishing from time to time the fruits of his researches; he wrote in exquisite style stories, historical dissertations, and travels, among other works “Guzla,” “Chronicles of Charles IX.,” the “History of Don Pedro, King of Castile,” “Letters to an Unknown”; he was a man of singularly enigmatic character (1802-1870).
Merio`neth (49), a mountainous county of North Wales, abutting on Cardigan Bay, between Carnarvon and Cardigan; lofty peaks, Aran Mowddy, Cader Idris, and Aran Benllyn; rivers, Dee and Dovey, and Lake Bala afford picturesque scenery; the soil is fit only for sheep-grazing; but there are slate and limestone quarries, manganese and gold mines; the county town, Dolgelly (2), on the Wnion, has woollen and tweed manufactures.
Merivale, Charles, dean of Ely, born at Exeter; held a succession of appointments as lecturer; wrote a history of Rome from its foundation in 753 to the fall of Augustus in 476, but his chief work is the “History of the Romans under the Empire,” indispensable as an Introduction to Gibbon (1808-1893).
Merle d'Aubigné, Jean-Henri. See D'Aubigné, Merle.
Merlin, a legendary Welsh prophet and magician, child of a wizard and a princess, who lived in the 5th century, and was subsequently a prominent personage at King Arthur's' court; prophecies attributed to him existed as far back as the 14th century; Tennyson represents him as bewitched by Vivian; legend also tells of a Clydesdale Merlin of the 6th century; his prophecies, published in 1615, include the former; both legends are based on Armorican materials.
Mermaids and Mermen (i. e. sea-maids and sea-men), a class of beings fabled to inhabit the sea, with a human body as far as the waist, ending in the tail of a fish; the females of them represented above the surface of the sea combing their long hair with one hand and holding a mirror with the other; they are supposed to be endowed with the gift of prophecy, and are of an amorous temper.
Merovingians, a name given to the first dynasty that ruled over France, and which derives its name from Merovig, the founder of the family.
Merrilees, Meg, a half-crazy Border gipsy; one of the characters in Scott's “Guy Mannering.”
Merry Monarch, a title by which Charles II. of England was at one time familiarly known.
Mersey, river rising in NW. Derbyshire, flows westward 70 m. between Lancashire and Cheshire to the Irish Sea; is of great commercial importance, having Liverpool on its estuary; its chief tributary is the Irwell, on which stands Manchester.
Merthyr-Tydvil (58), industrial town in Glamorganshire, on the Taff, 15 m. NW. of Cardiff; is the centre of great coal-fields and of enormous iron and steel works, which constitute the only industry.
Merv (500), an oasis in Turkestan, belonging to Russia, being conquered in 1883, 60 m. long by 40 broad, producing cereals, cotton, silk, &c.; breeds horses, camels, sheep, with a capital of the same name, on the Transcaspian railway.
Meryon, Charles, etcher of street scenes, born at Paris; son of English doctor; died insane (18211868).
Mesmer, Friedrich Anton, a German physician, born near Constance; bred for the Church, but took to medicine; was the founder of animal magnetism, called mesmerism after him, his experiments in connection with which created a great sensation, particularly in Paris, until the quackery of it was discovered by scientific investigation, upon which he retired into obscurity, “to walk silent on the shore of the Bodensee, meditating on much” (1733-1815).
Mesmerism, animal magnetism so called, or the alleged power which, by operating on the nervous system, one person obtains control over the thoughts and actions of another.
Mesopotamia, the name given after Alexander the Great's time to the territory “between the rivers” Euphrates and Tigris, stretching from Babylonia NW. to the Armenian mountains; under irrigation it was very fertile, but is now little cultivated; once the scene of high civilisation when Nineveh ruled it; it passed from Assyrian hands successively to Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Roman, and Arab; now, after many vicissitudes, it is in the deathly grasp of Turkish rule.
Messenia, a province of Greece, mainly the fertile peninsula between the Gulfs of Arcadia and Coron; in ancient times the Messenians were prosperous, excited Spartan envy, and after two long wars were conquered in 668 B.C. and fled to Sicily.
Messiah (i. e. the Anointed one), one consecrated of God, who the Jewish prophets predicted would one day appear to emancipate the Jewish people from bondage and exalt them in the eyes of all the other nations of the earth as His elect nation, and for the glory of His name.
Messina (78), on a bay at the NE. corner of Sicily; is a very ancient city, but rebuilt after the earthquake of 1783; has a 12th-century cathedral, two old castles, and a university, founded 1549; it manufactures light textiles, coral ornaments, and fruit essences; its excellent harbour encourages a good trade.
Messina, Strait of, 24 m. long, and at its narrowest 2½ broad; separates Sicily from the Italian mainland; here were the Scylla and Charybdis of the ancients.
Messuage, a dwelling-house with buildings and land attached for the use of the household.
Metabolism, name given to a chemical change in the cells or tissues of living matter.
Metamorphosis is a classical name for the changing of a human being into a beast, an inanimate object, or an element, stories of which are common in all folk-lore.
Metaphysics, the science of being as being in contradistinction from a science of a particular species of being, the science of sciences, or the science of the ultimate grounds of all these, and presupposed by them, called by Plato dialectics, or the logic of being.
Metastasio, an Italian poet, born at Rome, the son of a common soldier named Trapassi; his power of improvising verse attracted the attention of one Gravina, a lawyer, who educated him and left him his fortune; he wrote opera librettoes, which were set to music by the most eminent composers, was court poet at Vienna, and died there 40 years after his active powers were spent (1698-1782).
Meteors or Shooting Stars are small bodies consisting of iron, stone, and certain other familiar elements which are scattered in immense numbers through planetary space; they revolve round the sun in clouds or in long strings, and when the earth gets close to them numbers are drawn down to its surface, friction with the atmosphere rendering them luminous and grinding them usually to fine dust; larger meteors are known as fireballs and aërolites, many of which have reached the earth; comets are masses of meteors.
Methodists, a body of Christians founded by John Wesley in the interests of personal religion, ecclesiastically governed by a Conference with subordinate district synods, and holding and professing evangelical principles, which they teach agreeably to the theology of Arminius; the name is also given to the followers of Whitefield, who are Calvinists in certain respects.
Methylated Spirit, is alcohol adulterated with 10 per cent. of wood-spirit.
Metis (i. e. wise counsel), in the Greek mythology the daughter of Oceanos and Tethys, and the first wife of Zeus; afraid lest she should give birth to a child wiser and more powerful than himself, he devoured her on the first month of her pregnancy, and some time afterwards being seized with pains, he gave birth to Athena (q. v.) from his head.
Mètre, the name given to the unit of length in the metric or decimal system, and equal to 39.37 English inches, the tenths, the hundreds, and the thousands of which are called from the Latin respectively decimetres, centimetres, and millimetres, and ten times, a hundred times, and a thousand times, which are called from the Greek respectively decamètres, hectomètres, and kilomètres.
Metternich, Clement, Prince von, Austrian diplomatist, born at Coblenz; served as ambassador successively at the courts of Dresden, Berlin, and Paris, and became first Minister of State in 1809, exercising for 40 years from that date the supreme control of affairs in Austria; one of his first acts as such was to effectuate a marriage between Napoleon and the Archduchess Maria Theresa, himself escorting her to Paris; he presided at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, and from that date dominated in foreign affairs in the interest of the rights of kings and the repression of popular insurrection; he had to flee from Vienna in 1848, but returned in 1851, after which, though not called back to office, he continued to influence affairs by his advice (1773-1859).
Metz (60), strongest fortress in Lorraine, on the Moselle, 105 m. SW. of Coblenz, captured in 1870 from the French, who had held it since 1552; has a cathedral, library, museum, and school of music; industries are unimportant; the trade is in liquor, leather, and preserved fruits.
Meung, Jean de, mediæval French satirist; continued the unfinished “Roman de la Rose,” in which he embodied a vivid satiric portraiture of contemporary life (1250-1305 ?).
Meuse, river, 500 m. long, rises in Haute-Marne, France, and becoming navigable flows N. through Belgium, turns E. at Namur, where the Sambre enters from the left, N. again at Liège, where it receives the Ourthe from the right; enters Holland at Maastricht, is for a time the boundary, finally trends westward, and joins the Rhine at the delta.
Mexico (12,050), a federal republic of 27 States, a district, and two territories, lying S. of the United States, between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific, and including the peninsulas of Lower California in the W. and Yucatan in the E.; is nearly half as large as Europe without Russia; it consists of an immense plateau 3000 to 8000 ft. high, from which rises the Sierra Nevada, 10,000 ft., running N. and S., and other parallel ranges, as also single peaks. Toluca (19,340 ft.), Orizaba (18,000), and Popocatapetl (17,000); the largest lake is Chapala, in the centre; the rivers are mostly rapid and unnavigable; the chief seaports are Vera Cruz (29) and Tampico (5) on the E. and Acapulco on the W., but the coast-line is little indented and affords no good harbours; along the eastern seaboard runs a strip of low-lying unhealthy country, 60 m. broad; on the Pacific side the coast land is sometimes broader; these coast-lines are well watered, with tropical vegetation, tropical and sub-tropical fruits; the higher ground has a varied climate; in the N. are great cattle ranches; all over the country the mineral wealth is enormous, gold, silver, copper, iron, sulphur, zinc, quicksilver, and platinum are wrought; coal also exists; the bulk of Mexican exports is of precious metals and ores; there are cotton, paper, glass, and pottery manufactures; trade is chiefly with the United States and Britain; imports being textile fabrics, hardware, machinery, and coal; one-fifth of the population is white, the rest Indian and half-caste; education is backward, though there are free schools in every town; the religion is Roman Catholic, the language Spanish; conquered by Cortez in 1519, the country was ruled by Spain and spoiled for 300 years; a rebellion established its independence in 1821, but the first 50 years saw perpetual civil strife, and wars with the United States in 1848 and France in 1862; since 1867, however, when the constitution was modelled on that of the United States, there has been peace and progress, Ponfirio Diaz, President since 1876, having proved a masterly ruler. Mexico (327), the capital of the republic, 7000 ft. above the level of the sea, in the centre of the country, is a handsome though unhealthy city, with many fine buildings, a cathedral, a picture-gallery, schools of law, mining, and engineering, a conservatory of music, and an academy of art; there are few manufactures; the trade is chiefly transit.
Mexico, Gulf Of, a large basin between United States and Mexican territory; is shut in by the peninsulas of Florida and Yucatan, 500 m. apart, and the western extremity of Cuba, which lies between them; it receives the Mississippi, Rio Grande, and many other rivers; the coasts are low, with many lagoons; ports like New Orleans, Havana, and Vera Cruz make it a highway for ships; north-easterly hurricanes blow in March and October.
Meyer, Conrad Ferdinand, Swiss poet and novelist, native of Zurich; has written “Der Heilige” and many other novels; b. 1825.
Meyerbeer, illustrious musical composer, born at Berlin, of Jewish birth; composer of operatic music, and for over 30 years supreme in French opera; produced “Robert le Diable” in 1831, the “Huguenots” in 1833, “Le Prophète” in 1844, “L'Étoile du Nord” in 1854, the “Dinorah” in 1859 (1791-1864).
Mezzofanti, Giuseppe, cardinal and linguist, born at Bologna; celebrated for the number of languages he knew, some 58 in all; lived chiefly in Rome, and was keeper of the Vatican library; Byron called him “a walking polyglot” (1771-1848).
Mezzotint, a mode of engraving on steel or copper in imitation of Indian ink drawings, the lights and shades of the picture being produced by scraping on a black ground.
Miall, Edward, journalist, English apostle of disestablishment, founder of the Liberation Society; sat for Rochdale and Bradford; was presented on his retirement with a sum of ten thousand guineas for his services (1809-1881).
Micah, one of the minor prophets of the Old Testament, a contemporary of Isaiah, Hosea, and Amos; his prophecies are in the same strain as those of Isaiah, and numerous are the coincidences traceable between them; though a great sternness of temper and severity of tone appears in his prophecies, a deep tenderness of heart from time to time reveals itself, and a winning persuasiveness (chap. vi. 8); chap. vii. 8-20 has been quoted as one of the sweetest passages of prophetic writing; his prophecies predict the destruction both of Samaria and Jerusalem, the captivity and the return, with the re-establishment of the theocracy, and the advent of the Messiah.
Micawber, a character in “David Copperfield,” a schemer whose schemes regularly came to grief, yet who always wakes up after his depression, and hopes something will turn up to his advantage.
Michael, an archangel, the leader of the heavenly host, at never-ending war with the devil and his angels in their arrogance of claim; is represented in art as clad in armour, with a sword in one hand and a pair of scales in the other to weigh the souls of men at the judgment. Festival, September 20.
Michael, the name of a succession of eight emperors who, at different periods, occupied the throne of the East from 811 to 1282, the last being Michael VIII., the founder of the Palæologic dynasty.
Michael Angelo Buonarotti, painter, sculptor, architect, and poet, born at Caprese, in Tuscany, one of the greatest artists that ever lived; studied art as apprentice for three years under Domenico Ghirlandajo, and at seventeen his talents attracted the notice of Lorenzo de' Medici, who received him into his palace at Florence, and employed as well as encouraged him; on the death of his patron he left for Bologna, and afterwards, in 1496, went to Rome, whither his renown as a sculptor had gone before him, and there he executed his antiques “Bacchus” and “Cupid,” followed by his “Pieta,” or Virgin weeping over the dead Christ; from 1503 to 1513 he was engaged on the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel; in 1530 we find him at Florence dividing his time between work as an engineer in the defence of the city and his art as a sculptor; three years after this he was back in Rome, and by-and-by busy painting his great fresco in the Sistine Chapel, the “Last Judgment,” which occupied him eight years; in 1542 he was appointed architect of St. Peter's, and he planned and built the dome; sculpture was his great forte, but his genius was equal to any task imposed on him, and he has left poems to show what he might have done in the domain of letters as he has done in those of arts, with which his fame is more intimately associated (1474-1564).
Michaelis, Johann David, an Orientalist and Biblical scholar, born at Halle; was a man of vast learning; professor of Philosophy as well as of Oriental Languages at Göttingen; wrote an “Introduction to the New Testament,” and “Commentaries on the Legislation of Moses”; was one of the first to correlate the history of the Jews with that of the other Oriental nations of antiquity (1717-1791).
Michaelmas is the festival in honour of St. Michael and the angels, held on the 20th September, the day being one of the quarter days on which rents are levied.
Michel, Francesque, French antiquary, born at Lyons; was commissioned by the French Government in 1835 to visit the libraries of England in the interest of the history and literature of France; was a most erudite man, and edited a great many works belonging to the Middle Ages; wrote even on the Scottish language and Scottish civilisation (1809-1887).
Michelet, Jules, French historian, born in Paris; was the author among other works of a “History of France” in 18 vols., and a “History of the Revolution” in 7 vols.; he cherished a great animosity against the priests, and especially the Jesuits, whom he assailed with remorseless invective; he was from 1838, for 13 years, professor of History in the College of France, but he lost the appointment because he refused to take the oath of allegiance to Louis Napoleon; from this date he abandoned all interest in public affairs, and gave himself to the quiet study of nature and animal life; wrote on birds and insects, on the sea, on women, on love, on witchcraft, and the Bible and humanity; as a writer of history he gave his imagination free scope, and he painted it less as it was than as he regarded it from his own personal likes and dislikes (1798-1874).
Michigan (2,094), a State of the American Union, larger than England and Wales, is broken in two by Lake Michigan; the western portion has Wisconsin on its S. border, the eastern portion has Indiana and Ohio on the S.; the rest of the State is surrounded by Lakes Superior, Huron, and Erie. The western section is mountainous, with great forests of pine, little agriculture, rich mines of copper and iron, and some gold; the eastern section is much larger, very flat and low, has coal, gypsum, and marble quarries, but is chiefly a wheat-growing area; in the Saginaw Valley are great salt wells; the climate is modified by the lakes. At first a French colony, the country was handed over to England in 1760, and to the United States in 1776; it was organised as a territory in 1805, and admitted a State in 1837; the chief commercial city is Detroit (206), on Detroit River, in the E., has manufactures of machinery and railway plant, leather, and beer, and a large shipping trade. Grand Rapids (60), on the Grand River, has furniture works, and makes stucco-plaster and white bricks. Lansing (13) is the State capital, and an important railway centre.
Michigan, Lake, in the N. of the United States, between Michigan and Wisconsin, is the third largest of the fresh-water seas, its surface being three-fourths that of Scotland; it is 335 m. long and 50 to 80 broad, bears much commerce, has low sandy shores and no islands; the chief ports are Chicago, Milwaukee, and Racine.
Mickiewicz, Adam, Polish poet, born in Lithuania, of a noble family; in 1822 published at Kovno a collection of poems instinct with patriotic feeling; was exiled into the interior of Russia, in 1824, for secret intrigues in the interest of his nation; while there published three epics, conceived in the same patriotic spirit; left Russia in 1829 for Italy by way of Germany; was warmly welcomed by Goethe in passing; in 1834 published his great poem “Sir Thaddeus,” and in 1840 was appointed to a professorship of Polish Literature in Paris, where to the last he laboured for his country; died at Constantinople, whence his bones were transferred to lie beside those of Kosciusko at Cracow (1798-1855).
Mickle, William Julius, translator of the “Lusiad” (q. v.), born at Langholm, in Dumfriesshire, author of “There's nae Luck aboot the Hoose” (1734-1788).
Microbe, a minute organism found in the blood of animals, especially when suffering from disease. See Bacteria.
Microcosm, name given by the Middle Age philosophers to man as representing the macrocosm or universe in miniature.
Microphone, an instrument invented in 1878 by Professor Hughes, and consisting of charcoal tempered in mercury, which intensifies and renders audible the faintest possible sound.
Microzyme, a minute organism which acts as a ferment when it enters the blood and produces zymotic diseases.
Midas, a king of Phrygia who, in his lust of riches, begged of Bacchus and obtained the power of turning everything he touched into gold, a gift which he prayed him to revoke when he found it affected his very meat and drink, which the god consented to do, only he must bathe in the waters of the Pactolus, the sands of which ever after were found mixed with gold; appointed umpire at a musical contest between Pan and Apollo, he preferred the pipes of the former to the lyre of the latter, who thereupon awarded him a pair of ass-ears, the which he concealed with a cap, but could not hide them from his barber, who could not retain the secret, but whispered it into a hole in the ground, around which sprang up a forest of reeds, which as the wind passed through them told the tale into the general ear, to the owner's discomfiture.
Middle Ages, is a term used in connection with European history to denote the period beginning with the fall of the Roman Empire in 476, and closing with the invention of printing, the discovery of America, and the revival of learning in the 15th century.
Middle English, the English in use for two centuries and a half from 1200 to 1460.
Middle Passage, in the slave-trade the part of the Atlantic stretching between Africa and the West Indies.
Middlesbrough (99), iron manufacturing and shipping town at the mouth of the Tees, in the N. of Yorkshire, 45 m. N. of York; has also shipbuilding yards and chemical works, and exports coal. It owes its growth to the discovery of one of the largest iron-fields in the country in the Cleveland hills, near at hand, in 1850.
Middlesex (560), a small county on the N. of the Thames, adjacent to and W. of London; has no hills and no rivers, only undulating pasture land and small streams. In 1888 the populous part next the metropolis was detached for the new county of London, leaving no big town but many suburban villages, Brentford, reckoned the county town, Harrow with its school, Highgate, and Hornsey. Hampton Court, Hampstead Heath, and Enfield Chase are in the county. There are many market gardens.
Middleton, Conyers, a liberal theologian, Fellow of Cambridge; was engaged a good deal in controversy, particularly with Bentley; wrote an able Life of Cicero; is distinguished among English authors for his “absolutely plain style” of writing (1683-1750).
Middleton, Thomas, dramatist, born in London, where he was afterwards City Chronicler, married Mary Morbeck, and died; was fond of collaboration, and received assistance in his best work from Drayton, Webster, Dekker, Rowley, and Jonson; his comedies are smart and buoyant, sometimes indecorous; his masques more than usually elaborate and careful; in the comedy of “The Spanish Gypsy,” and the tragedies of “The Changeling,” and “Women beware Women,” is found the best fruit of his genius (1570-1627).
Midgard, a name given in the Norse mythology to the earth as intermediate between the Asgard (q. v.) of the gods and Utgard of the Jötuns (q. v.).
Midianites, a race of Arabs descended from Abraham by Keturah, who dwelt to the E. of Akaba; though related, were troublesome to the Hebrews, but were subdued by Gideon.
Midrash, the earliest Hebrew exposition of the Old Testament; included the Halacha, or development of the legal system on Pentateuchal lines, and the Hagada, a commentary on the whole Scripture, with ethical, social, and religious applications. The name Midrash came to refer exclusively to the latter, in which much fanciful interpretation was mixed with sound practical sense.
Mights and Rights, the Carlyle doctrine that Rights are nothing till they have realised and established themselves as Mights; they are rights first only then.
Migne, the Abbé, French Catholic theologian, born at St. Flour; edited a great many works on theology, such as “Patrologiæ Cursus Completus,” and “Orateurs Sacrés,” and founded L'Univers journal (1800-1875).
Mignet, François August, French historian, born at Aix, settled at Paris; was a friend of Thiers; became keeper of the archives of the Foreign Office, and had thus access to important historical documents; wrote a number of historical works, among others a “History of the French Revolution,” and “History of Marie Stuart” (1796-1884).
Mignon, an impassioned Italian child, a creation of Goethe's in his “Wilhelm Meister,” of mysterious origin and history; represented as a compact of vague aspirations and longings under which, as never fulfilled, she at length pines away and dies.
Miguel, Don, king of Portugal, born at Lisbon; usurped the throne in defiance of the right of his brother, Don Pedro, emperor of Brazil, who, however, conceded to him the title of regent on condition of his marrying Donna Maria, his daughter; on his arrival in Portugal he had himself proclaimed king, but refused to marry Maria, who followed him, and prohibited her landing, which, together with his conduct of affairs, provoked a civil war, in which the party of Don Pedro prevailed, and which ended in the capitulation of the usurper and his withdrawal to Italy (1802-1866).
Mikado, the emperor of Japan, regarded as the head of both Church and State in his dominions.
Miklosich, Franz von, philologist, born at Luttenberg, studied at Grätz; in 1844 was appointed to an office in the Imperial Library, Vienna, where from 1850 to 1885 he was professor of Slavonic; his works, all philological, are the authority on the Slavonic languages; b. 1813.
Milan (296), the largest city in Italy except Naples, is in Lombardy, 25 m. S. of Lake Como; of old much vexed by war, it is now prosperous, manufacturing silks and velvets, gold, silver, and porcelain ware, and trading in raw silk, grain, and tobacco, with great printing works, and is the chief banking centre of N. Italy; it is rich in architectural treasures, foremost of which is the magnificent Gothic cathedral of white marble; has a splendid picture-gallery, and many rich frescoes; in 1848 it revolted finally from Austrian oppression.
Milan Decree, a decree of Napoleon dated Milan, 27th Dec. 1807, declaring the British dominions in a state of blockade, and under penalty prohibiting all trade with them.
Miletus, the foremost Ionian city of ancient Asia Minor, at the mouth of the Mæander, was the mother of many colonies, and the port from which vessels traded to all the Mediterranean countries and to the Atlantic; its carpets and cloth were far-famed; its first greatness passed away when Darius stormed it in 494 B.C., and it was finally ruined by the Turks; Thales the philosopher and Cadmus the historian were among its famous sons.
Military Orders were in crusading times associations of knights sworn to chastity and devoted to religious service; the Hospitallers, the earliest, tended sick pilgrims at Jerusalem; the Templars protected pilgrims and guarded the Temple; the Knights of St. John were also celibate, but the orders of Alcantara and others in Spain, of St. Bennet in Portugal, and others elsewhere, with different objects, were permitted to marry.
Militia, a body of troops in the British service for home defence, the members of which have as a rule never served in the regular army, nor have, except for a short period each year, any proper military training.
Milky Way. See Galaxy.
Mill, James, economist, born in Logie Pert, near Montrose, the son of a shoemaker, bred for the Church; was a disciple of Locke and Jeremy Bentham; wrote a “History of British India,” “Elements of Political Economy,” and an “Analysis of the Human Mind”; held an important lucrative post in the East India Company's service (1773-1836).
Mill, John Stuart, logician and economist, born in London, son of the preceding; was educated pedantically by his father; began to learn Greek at 3, could read it and Latin at 14, “never was a boy,” he says, and was debarred from all imaginative literature, so that in after years the poetry of Wordsworth came to him as a revelation; entered the service of the East India Company in 1823, but devoted himself to philosophic discussion; contributed to the Westminster Review, of which he was for some time editor; published his “System of Logic” in 1843, and in 1848 his “Political Economy”; entered Parliament in 1865, but lost his seat in 1868, on which he retired to Avignon, where he died; he wrote a book on “Liberty” in 1859, on “Utilitarianism” in 1863, on “Comte” in 1865, and on “Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy” the same year, and left an “Autobiography”; he was a calm thinker and an impartial critic; he befriended Carlyle when he went to London, and Carlyle rather took to him, but divergences soon appeared, which, as it could not fail, ended in total estrangement; he had an Egeria in a Mrs. Taylor, whom he married when she became a widow; it was she, it would almost seem, who was responsible for the fate of Carlyle's MS. (1806-1873).
Millais, Sir John Everett, painter, born of Jersey parentage, at Southampton; studied at the Royal Academy, and at 17 exhibited a notable historical work; early associated with Rossetti and Holman Hunt, he remained for over 20 years under their influence; to this period belong “The Carpenter's Shop,” 1851, “Autumn Leaves,” 1856, and “The Minuet,” 1866; “The Gambler's Wife” marks the transition from Pre-Raphaelitism; his chief subsequent work, in which technical interest predominates, was portraiture, including Gladstone and Beaconsfield; he was a profuse illustrator, and wrought some etchings; he was made R.A. 1864, a baronet in 1885, and P.R.A. February 1896 (1829-1896).
Millbank Prison, Westminster, constructed 1812-21 on the plans of Howard and Bentham, so that each of its 1100 cells were visible from the governor's room, was used for solitary confinement preparatory to penal servitude, and as a convict prison until 1886, and demolished 1890.
Miller, Hugh, journalist and geologist, self-taught, born in Cromarty, of sailor ancestry; began life as a stone-mason; editor of the Witness newspaper from 1839 till his death; wrote the “Old Red Sandstone,” “Footprints of the Creator,” and the “Testimony of the Rocks,” books which awakened an interest in geological subjects, besides being the author of an account of his life, “My Schools and Schoolmasters”; died by his own hand at Portobello; he was a writer of considerable literary ability, and “nothing,” says Prof. Saintsbury, “can be more hopelessly unliterary than to undervalue Hugh Miller” (1802-1856).
Miller, William, line-engraver, lived at Millerfield, Edinburgh; famed for his engravings of Turner; was a member of the Society of Friends, and stood high in his art as an engraver (1797-1882).
Millet, Jean François, French painter of French peasant life, born near Greville, of a peasant family; sent to Paris, studied under Paul Delaroche, withdrew into rustic life, and took up his abode at the village of Barbizon, near the Forest of Fontainebleau, where he spent as a peasant the rest of his life, honoured though poor by all his neighbours, and produced inimitable pictures of French country life, completing his famous “Sower,” and treating such subjects as the “Gleaners,” the “Sheep-Shearers,” “Shepherdess and Flock,” &c., with an evident appreciation on his part of the life they depicted so faithfully (1814-1875).
Milman, Henry Hart, dean of St. Paul's, ecclesiastical historian, born in London; edited Gibbon's “Decline and Fall,” wrote “History of the Jews,” “History of Christianity to the Abolition of Paganism under the Empire,” and “History of Latin Christianity,” all learned works, particularly the last in 9 vols., described by Dean Stanley as “a complete epic and philosophy of mediæval Christianity”; was professor of Poetry at Oxford (1791-1865).
Milne-Edwards, Henri, eminent naturalist, born at Bruges, of English parentage; wrote extensively and learnedly on natural history subjects, dissented from Darwin, and held to the theory of different centres of creation, and to this he stoutly adhered to the last (1800-1885).
Milner, Viscount, High Commissioner of South Africa since 1897, and Governor of the Transvaal and Orange River Colonies since 1901; a student of Balliol (graduating with a first class in classics), and a Fellow of New College, Oxford; called to the bar in 1881; Private Secretary to Mr. Goschen (1887-1889); Under-Secretary for Finance in Egypt (1889-1892); Chairman of the Inland Revenue Board, from 1892 to 1897, when he succeeded Lord Rosmead at the Cape; represented the Mother Country with great ability before and during the Boer War; visited England and raised to the peerage in 1901; declined the Colonial Secretaryship in 1903; resigned in 1905; b. 1854.
Milner, Joseph, Church historian; master of the Grammar School, Hull; his “History of the Church” reaches down to the 16th century (1744-1797).
Milo, a celebrated athlete, born at Crotona, of extraordinary strength, said to have one day carried a live bullock 120 paces along the Olympic course, killed it with his fist, and eaten it up entire at one repast; in old age he attempted to split a tree, but it closed upon his arm, and the wolves devoured him.
Miltiades, an Athenian general, famous for his decisive defeat of the Persians at Marathon, 490 B.C.; failing in a naval attack on Paros, and fined to indemnify the cost of the expedition, but unable to pay, was cast into prison, where he died of his wounds inflicted in the attempt.
Milton, John, poet, born in London, son of a scrivener; graduated at Cambridge, and settled to study and write poetry in his father's house at Horton, 1632; in 1638 he visited Italy, being already known at home as the author of the “Hymn on the Nativity,” “Allegro,” “Penseroso,” “Comus,” a mask, and “Lycidas,” an elegy on his friend King, who was drowned in the Irish Sea in 1637, besides much excellent Latin verse; the outbreak of the Civil War recalled him, and silenced his muse for many years; settling in London he took pupils, married in 1643 Mary Powell, and became active as a writer of pamphlets on public questions; his first topic was Church Government, then his wife's desertion of him for two years called forth his tracts on Divorce, a threatened prosecution for which elicited in turn the “Areopagitica, a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing”; his father died in 1647, his wife in 1652; under the Common wealth he was “Secretary of Foreign Tongues,” and successfully defended the execution of Charles I. in his Latin “Defence of the English People,” and other bitter controversial works; he married in 1656 his second wife, who died two years later; the Restoration gave him back to leisure and poetry; his greatest work, “Paradise Lost,” was composed rapidly, dictated to his daughters, and completed in 1663, but not published till 1667; 1671 saw “Paradise Regained” and “Samson Agonistes”; he had been blind since 1652; he married Elizabeth Minshull in 1663, who comforted him in his closing years; a man of fervent, impulsive temperament, and a lover of music, he was sincere in controversy, magnanimous in character, and of deep religious faith; the richness, melody, and simplicity of his poetry, the sublimity of his great theme, and the adequacy of its treatment, place him among the greatest poets of the world; in later years he leaned to Arianism, and broke away from the restraints of outward religious practice; his last prose work, a Latin treatise on “Christian Doctrines,” was lost at the time of his death, and only recovered 150 years later (1608-1674).
Milwaükee (285), chief city of Wisconsin, U.S., on W. shore of Lake Michigan, 80 miles N. by W. of Chicago. Exports grain, iron ore, &c.; manufactures flour, machinery, and pig-iron.
Mimes, dramatic performances among the Greeks and Romans, in comic representation of scenes in ordinary life, often in extempore dialogue.
Mimir, in the Norse mythology the god of wisdom, guardian of the sacred well which nourished the roots of the tree Iggdrasil (q. v.), and a draught of whose waters imparted divine wisdom.
Minarets, a salient feature of Mohammedan architecture, are tall slim towers, in several storeys with balconies, from which the muezzin calls the people to prayer, and terminated by a spire or finial.
Minerva, the Roman virgin goddess of wisdom and the arts, identified with the Greek Athena (q. v.); born full-armed from the brain of Jupiter, and representing his thinking, calculating, inventive power, and third in rank to him.
Minerva Press, a printing establishment in Leadenhall Street, London, which about a century ago issued a set of trashy, extremely sentimental novels with complicated plots, in which hero and heroine were involved before they could get married.
Minghetti, Marco, Italian patriot and statesman, born at Bologna; a man of liberal views; a friend and associate of Cavour; held office under him as Minister of the Interior in 1862; was ambassador to the Court of St. James's in 1868, and Prime Minister at Rome from 1873 to 1876 (1818-1886)
Minims, an order of monks founded by St. Francis of Paula in 1453, a name which signifies “the least” to express super-humility.
Minneapolis (203), city of U.S., Minnesota, on both sides of the Mississippi, the greatest centre of the wheat and flour trade in U.S.
Minnesingers (i. e. love-singers), a name given to the lyric poets of Germany during the latter part of the 12th and the first half of the 13th centuries.
Minnesota (1,302), one of the United States of America; lies between the Dakotas on the W. and Wisconsin on the E., Canada on the N., and Iowa on the S., round the upper waters of the Mississippi, the St. Lawrence, and the Red River of the North; the State is largely prairie, with hundreds of lakes, the largest Red Lake, and is chiefly a wheat-producing area; there are pine forests in the N., iron mines, slate and granite quarries; the climate is dry, equable, and bracing; education is good; the State university is at Minneapolis; the capital is St. Paul (133), where the Mississippi is still navigable, a fine city, founded in 1840, the centre of the grocery and dry-goods trade; the largest city is Minneapolis (203), which has great lumber and flour mills; Duluth (33) has a magnificent harbour and good shipping trade.
Minorca (34), the second of the Balearic Isles, hilly, with stalactite caves and rocky coast; is less fertile than Majorca, from which it is 25 m. distant NE.; it produces oil, wine, and fruits, and makes boots and shoes, but under Spanish misrule is not prosperous; the capital Mahon (17), in the SE., is strongly fortified, and has a good harbour.
Minos, an ancient king of Crete, celebrated for his administration of justice; was fabled to have been appointed, along with Æacus and Rhadamanthus, one of the judges of the dead on their descent into the nether world.
Minotaur, in the Greek mythology a monster, half-man half-bull with a bull's head, confined in the Labyrinth of Crete, fed by the annual tribute of seven youths and seven maidens of Athenian birth, till he was slain by Theseus with the help of Ariadne (q. v.).
Minstrels, a body of men who during the Middle Ages wandered from place to place, especially from court to court, singing their own compositions to the harp for accompaniment.
Minto, Earl of, Governor-General of India; was bred to the bar, served in Parliament and as ambassador, went out to India in 1806, consolidated the British power, captured Java, and opened diplomatic relations with powers around (17501814).
Mirabeau, Gabriel Honoré Riquetti, Comte de, son of the succeeding, born at the mansion-house of Bignon; was a man of massive intellect and strong physical frame, who came to the front in the French Revolution; being expelled from his order by the noblesse of Provence, he ingratiated himself with the Third Estate, and was elected commons-deputy of Aix to the States-General in 1789, where he became, as the incarnation of the whole movement, the ruling spirit of the hour, and gave proof, if he had lived, of being able to change the whole course of the Revolution, for he was already in communication with the court and in hopes of gaining it over to accept the inevitable, when he sickened and died, to the consternation of the entire people, whose affection and confidence he had won (1749-1791). See Carlyle's “French Revolution” and his Essay in his “Miscellanies.”
Mirabeau, Victor Riquetti, Marquis de, “crabbed old friend of men,” born at Pertuis, in Provence, claimed to be of Florentine descent; “could never make the world go to his mind,” and set about reforming it by coercing a family as self-willed as himself, to the driving of his celebrated son to desperate courses and reckless excesses; advocated the doctrines of the French economists in a series of writings instinct with a certain theoretical philanthropy (1716-1783).
Miracle Plays were strictly speaking dramas founded on legends of the saints, as distinct from mysteries founded on scriptural subjects, but the name came to cover all those religious representations for the instruction of the people fostered by the Church of the Middle Ages, performed first in churches, afterwards in public places; they were common in England from the 12th century, but latterly became corrupt through the introduction of grotesque indecorous comicalities; the rise of the drama led to their abandonment; on the Continent ecclesiastical action was taken against them, not by the Reformers, but by the Church itself in the 18th century, and everywhere they have all but disappeared; the Passion Play acted every 10 years at Oberammergau, Bavaria, is the only important survival.
Miranda, the beautiful daughter of the magician Prospero in Shakespeare's “Tempest.”
Miranda, Francesco de, a Portuguese poet; wrote sonnets and epistles in verse; was predecessor of Camoëns (1495-1558).
Miserere, a carved bracket on the under side of the stall seats in mediæval churches, which, when the seat was turned up during the standing portion of the service, afforded support to the older clergy. Miserere, the Catholic name for the 51st Psalm.
Mishna, the oral law of the Jews, which is divided into six parts, and constitutes the text of the Talmud, of which the Gemara is the commentary.
Misprision, a high offence under, but close upon, the degree of a capital one; misprision of treason being a concealment of a felony without consenting to it.
Missal, a book containing the service of the mass for the entire year, such as is now in almost universal use throughout the Catholic world.
Mississippi (1,290), an American State on the E. bank of the Lower Mississippi, abutting on the Gulf of Mexico, between Louisiana and Alabama; has a hilly surface, traversed by numerous rivers, the Yazoo, a tributary of the Mississippi, forming a great fertile delta; the climate is free from extremes; the chief industry is agriculture; the best crops are grown in the N., and on the alluvial bottom lands; in the centre and NE. are good grazing farms; cotton, corn, oats, and fruits are the chief crops; virgin forests of hardwood cover much of the delta; valuable deposits of pipe and ochre clays and of lignite are found; cotton is manufactured, and there is trade in lumber; more than half the population is coloured, and the races are kept distinct in the State schools; the State university is at Oxford, and there are many other colleges; Jackson (6), the capital, is the chief railway centre, Meridian (10) has iron manufactures, Vicksburg (13) and Natchez (10) are the chief riverports; Mississippi was colonised by the French in 1699, ceded to Britain 1763, admitted to the Union 1817, joined the South in 1861, but was readmitted to the Union in 1869.
Mississippi River rises in Lake Itaska, Minnesota, and flowing S. for 2800 m., enters the Gulf of Mexico by a large delta; its earlier course is through picturesque country, often in gorges, with rapids such as the St. Anthony Falls, the Des Moines and Rock Island Rapids. After receiving the Missouri, 3000 m. long, from the Rocky Mountains, it flows 2½ m. per hour through great alluvial plains, which are protected from its overflows by hundreds of miles of earth embankments, and is joined by the Ohio from the E., the Red and Arkansas Rivers from the W., and many other navigable streams. The Mississippi is navigable by large steamers for 2000 m.; St. Louis, Memphis, Vicksburg, Natchez, and New Orleans are among the chief ports on its banks.
Mississippi Scheme was started in France 1717 by John Law and the Government, ostensibly to develop the Mississippi basin, but really to ease the pressure on the exchequer; a company was formed and empowered to monopolise almost all the foreign trade; 624,000 shares were issued; depreciated paper currency was accepted in payment, and the national bank issued notes without stint; in 1719 the demand for shares was enormous; the nation was completely carried away; next year the crash came; the Government made every effort to save the position, but in vain; the distress was extreme, and Law had to leave the country.
Missolonghi (6), Greek seaport and fishing town, on the Gulf of Patras, chiefly noted for heroic defences in the War of Independence 1821-1826, and as the place of Byron's death 1824.
Missouri (2,679), an American State on the right bank of the Mississippi, between Iowa and Arkansas, is half the size of the British Isles, and is traversed by the Missouri River; N. of that river the country is level, S. of it there rise the Ozark tablelands; the soil is very fertile, and the State principally agricultural; immense crops of maize, oats, potatoes, cotton, and tobacco are raised; there are large cattle ranches, and dressed beef and pork are largely exported; the climate is subject to extremes; coal, iron, lead, zinc, and other minerals abound, while marble, granite, and limestone are quarried; the rivers afford excellent transport facilities; the educational system is very complete; admitted to the Union in 1821, Missouri was divided in the Civil War, and suffered terribly, but since then has been very prosperous; the capital, St. Louis (452), is one of the greatest commercial and manufacturing towns in the Union, does a vast trade in grain and cotton, and has hardware, leather goods, and tobacco factories; Kansas City (133), has great pork-packing establishments and railroad iron-works.
Mistral, Frederick, poet of Southern France, born near Maillaune, was a peasant's son, and himself a peasant; his fame rose on the publication of the epic, “Mirèio,” in Provençal dialect, 1859; in 1867 he published “Calendou,” and in 1876 a volume of songs, and in 1884 “Nerto,” a novel; b. 1830.
Mitford, Mary Russell, authoress, born at Alresford, Hants, lived with her father, an extravagant physician, at Lyme Regis and London; she published poems in 1810-11-12, but, forced to earn a living, took to dramatic work; “Julian,” “The Foscari,” and “Rienzi” were successful if ephemeral tragedies; her best work was “Our Village,” sketches of homely English life written with much care, and after appearing in the London Magazine, published in 5 vols., 1824-32 (1786-1855).
Mitford, William, English author; wrote a “History of Greece” and on the “English Metre, or the Harmony of Language” (1744-1827).
Mithras (i. e. the Friend), the highest of the second order of deities in the ancient Persian religion, the friend of man in this life and his protector against evil in the world to come, sided with Ormuzd against Ahriman, incarnated in the sun, and represented as a youth kneeling on a bull and plunging a dagger into his neck, while he is at the same time attacked by a dog, a serpent, and a scorpion.
Mithridates the Great, surnamed Eupator, king of Pontus from 123 to 63 B.C.; an implacable enemy of the Romans, between whom and him there raged from 90 to 63 a succession of wars, till he was defeated by Pompey near the Euphrates, when, being superseded by his son, he put an end to his life; he was a great man and conqueror, subdued many surrounding nations, and was a collector of works of art; he made a special study of poisons, and familiarised himself with all their antidotes, in view of possible attempts by means of them to take away his life.
Mitrailleuse, a gun consisting of several, as many as 25, barrels, from which a number of shots may be fired simultaneously or in rapid succession, used by the French in the Franco-German War.
Mivart, St. George, naturalist, a Roman Catholic professor at Louvain, distinguished for his opposition to Darwinianism; b. 1827.
Mnemosynë in the Greek mythology the daughter of Uranos, the goddess of memory, and the mother of the Muses by Zeus.
Moa, the name of several species of New Zealand and Australian birds, from 2 to 14 ft. high, and quite wingless; almost extinct since the 17th century; two living specimens were captured in 1876.
Moab, a pastoral region extending along the E. of lower parts of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, and inhabited by the descendants of Lot, now extinct, or merged among the Arabs.
Moabite Stone, a stone 4 ft. high and 2 ft. broad found by Dr. Klein in 1868 among the ruins of Dhiban, a town in Moab, now in the Louvre at Paris, describing a victory of the Moabites over the Israelites; it was broken by the Arabs, but the fragments have been collected and put into their proper places.
Mobile (31), a city and port of Alabama, U.S., 30 m. N. of the Gulf of Mexico; a thriving place; exports cotton, lumber, &c.
Mobilier Crédit, a banking and financial company founded in Paris in 1852; lends money on security of property other than real, and takes shares in public schemes, such as railways.
Modena (31), Italian town, 62 m. N. of Florence; has a cathedral, with noted campanile, university, library, and art collections, and manufactures silk and leather; capital of a duchy (303); incorporated in the kingdom of Italy 1860.
Modern Athens, Edinburgh, from its resemblance to Athens and its repute for literary culture; applied also to Boston, in America.
Modern Babylon, London, from its huge extent and the miscellaneous character of its inhabitants.
Modjeska, Helena, actress, born in Cracow; went on the stage after her first marriage in 1861, and from 1868 to 1876 was the favourite of Warsaw; retired to California on her second marriage, but returned to the stage, having learned English in seven months in California 1877, and till her final retirement in 1895, was eminently successful in America and Britain in such parts as Rosalind, Beatrice, &c.
Modred, Sir, a treacherous knight, the rebellious nephew of King Arthur, whose wife he seduced; was slain in battle, and buried in Avalon.
Moffat, Robert, African missionary, born at Ormiston, Haddingtonshire; the scene of his nearly lifelong labours was among the Bechuanas in South Africa, whom he raised from a savage to a civilised state; he was sent out in 1816 by the London Missionary Society. He married (1819) Mary Smith, a daughter of his former employer at Dunkinfield.
Mohammed, great prophet of the Arabs, and founder of Islamism, born at Mecca, the son of Abdallah, of the tribe of the Koreish; left an orphan, brought up by his uncle Abu Taleb; became steward to a rich widow Kadijah (q. v.) whom he married; was given to serious meditation, would retire into solitude and pray, and one day, by the favour of Heaven, got answer which left him “in doubt and darkness no longer, but saw it all,” saw into the vanity of all that was not God, that He alone was great, inconceivably great; that it was with Him alone we had to do, we must all submit to Him; this revelation made to him he imparted to Kadijah, and after a time she assented, and his heart leaped for joy; he spoke or his doctrine to this man and that, but made slow progress in persuading others to believe it; made only 13 converts in 3 years; his preaching gave offence to the chief people, and his relatives tried hard to persuade him to hold his peace, but he would not; after 13 years a conspiracy was formed to take his life, and he fled, through peril after peril, to Medina, in his fifty-third year, and in 622 of our era; his enemies had taken up the sword against him, and he now replied with the same weapon, and in 10 years he prevailed; it was a war against idolatry in all its forms, and idolatry was driven to the wall, the motto on his banner “God is Great,” a motto with a depth of meaning greater than the Mohammedan world, and perhaps the Christian, has yet realised; it is for one thing a protest on the part of Mohammed, in which the Hebrew prophets forestalled him, against all attempts to understand the Deity and fathom “His ways, which are ever in the deep, and whose footsteps are not known” (571-631).
Mohammedanism, the religion of Mohammed, or Islam, (q. v.), is essentially much the same as the religion of the Jews with some elements borrowed from the Christian religion, and is defined by Carlyle as a bastard Christianity; originating in Arabia it spread rapidly over the W. of Asia, the N. of Africa, and threatened at one time to overrun Europe itself; it is the religion to-day of two hundred millions of the human race, and the profession of it extends over a wide area in western and southern Asia as also in northern Africa, though its limits in Europe do not extend beyond the bounds of Turkey.
Mohawk, a tribe of American Indians, gave name to a band or club of ruffians who infested the streets of London in 1711-12.
Mohic`ans, an American Indian tribe, took sides with the English settlers against the French and with the former against England.
Mohl, Julius, Orientalist, born in Stuttgart; edited the “Shah Nameh” of Firdushi, a monumental work (1800-1876).
Möhler, Johann Adam, a Roman Catholic theologian, born at Würtemberg, author of “Symbolik,” a work which discusses the differences between the doctrines of Catholics and Protestants, as evidenced in their respective symbolical books, a work which created no small stir in the theological world (1796-1838).
Moir, David Macbeth, the “Delta” of Blackwood, born in Musselburgh, where he practised as a physician; was author of “Mansie Waugh” (1798-1851).
Moira, Francis Rawdon-Hastings, Earl of, son of the Earl of Moira; entered the army 1771, and served against the Americans in the War of Independence; created Baron Rawdon in 1783; succeeded to his father's title 1793; entered political life under Fox, and was Governor-General of India 1813-23, in which period fell the Goorkha War, for the successful negotiations subsequent on which he was created Marquis of Hastings; his administration encouraged native education and freedom of the press; from 1824 he was Governor of Malta till his death at Naples (1754-1826).
Mokanna, Al, “the veiled one,” a name given to Hakim ben Allah, who wore a veil to hide the loss of an eye; he professed to be an incarnation of the Deity and to work miracles; found followers; founded a sect at Khorassan; seized some fortresses, but was overthrown at Kash A.D. 780, whereupon he took poison.
Moldau, largest river in Bohemia, rises on the N. of the Böhmerwald Mountains, flows SE. along their base, then turns northward through Bohemia, passes Budweis, becomes navigable, is 100 yards broad at Prague, and joins the Elbe at Melnik after flowing 278 m.
Moldavia, once independent, now the northern division of Roumania, lies between the Carpathians and the Pruth River, and is well watered by the Sereth; its chief town is Jassy, in the NE.
Molé, Louis Matthieu, Comte, French statesman, born in Paris; published in 1805 an essay on politics which, defending Napoleon, won for its author a series of minor offices, and in 1813 a peerage and a seat in the Cabinet; retaining power under Louis XVIII. and Louis Philippe, he was Minister of Marine 1817, Foreign Minister 1830, and Premier 1837, but retired from politics two years later (1781-1855).
Molecule, the smallest particle of which an element or a compound body is composed, and that retains all the properties in a free state.
Molesworth, Sir William, British statesman, born in London; was an advanced Liberal; editor and proprietor of the Westminster Review; edited the works of Hobbes (1810-1855).
Molière, Jean Baptiste Poquelin, great French comic dramatist, born in Paris; studied law and passed for the bar, but evinced from the first a proclivity for the theatre, and soon associated with actors, and found his vocation as a writer of plays, which procured him the friendship of Lafontaine, Boileau, and other distinguished men, though he incurred the animosity of many classes of society by the ridicule which he heaped on their weaknesses and their pretensions, the more that in his satires his characters are rather abstract types of men than concrete individualities; his principal pieces are, “Les Précieuses Ridicules,” “L'École des Femmes,” “Le Tartuffe,” “Le Misanthrope,” “George Dandin,” “L'Avare,” “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme,” “Les Fourberies de Scapin,” “Le Malade malgré Lui,” “Les Femmes Savantes,” and “Le Malade Imaginaire”; though seriously ill, he took part in the performance of this last, but the effort was too much for him, and he died that night; from the grudge which the priests bore him for his satires on them he was buried without a religious service (1622-1673).
Molina, Luis, a Spanish Jesuit and theologian, author of a theory called Molinism, which resolves the doctrine of predestination into a mere foreknowledge of those who would accept and those who would reject the grace of God in salvation.
Molinos, Miguel de, a Spanish theologian, born at Saragossa; published a book called the “Spiritual Guide,” which, as containing the germ of Quietism, was condemned by the Inquisition, and its author sentenced to imprisonment for life (1627-1696).
Mollah, a judge of the highest rank among the Turks on matters of law, both civil and sacred.
Mollwitz, a village in Silesia, 20 m. SE. of Breslau, where Frederick the Great defeated the Austrians 1741.
Moloch or Molech, the chief god of the Ammonites, the worship of whom, which prevailed among all the Canaanites, was accompanied with cruelties, human sacrifices among others, revolting to the humane spirit of the Jewish religion; originally it appears to have been the worship of fire, through which the innocent as well as the guilty have often to pass for the achievement of the noblest enterprises, which degenerated at length into selfish sacrifices of others for interests of one's own, into the substitution of the innocent for the guilty by way of atonement to the Deity!
Moltke, Count von, surnamed the Silent, great German field marshal, born in Mecklenburg-Schwerin, of an old family; was pre-eminent as a military strategist, planned and conducted the Prussian campaign against Austria in 1866, and the German campaign against France in 1870-72; was in the service of Denmark before he entered the Prussian (1800-1891).
Moluccas or Spice Islands (400), an archipelago of mountainous islands, mostly volcanic, between Celebes and New Guinea, is in two main groups; in the N. the largest island is Jilolo, but the most important Tidor and Ternate, which export spices, tortoise-shell, and bees-wax; in the S. Buru and Ceram are largest, most important, Amboyna, from which come cloves; the people are civilised Malays; the islands are equatorial, but tempered by sea-breezes, and healthy; discovered by the Portuguese in 1521, they have been in Dutch possession since 1607, except when held by Britain 1810-1814.
Mombasa (Africans and Arabs 20), capital of British East Africa, on a rocky islet, close inshore, 50 m. N. of Pemba; was ceded with a tract of country six times the size of the British Isles, and rich in gold, copper, plumbago, and india-rubber, to the British East African Company by the Sultan of Zanzibar in 1888, since when it has been rebuilt, and the harbour, one of the best and healthiest on the coast, made a naval coaling-station and head-quarters.
Mommsen, Theodor, historian, born in Schleswig, a man of immense historical knowledge; his greatest work the “History of Rome”; was professor of Ancient History at Berlin; his forte was his learning more than his critical capacity; b. 1817.
Momus, the god of raillery, the son of Night, a kind of ancient Mephistopheles (q. v.).
Monachism, or Monasticism, is an institution in which individuals devote themselves, apart from others, to the cultivation of spiritual contemplation and religious duties, and which has constituted a marked feature in Pre-Christian Jewish asceticism, and in Buddhism as well as in Christianity; in the Church it developed from the practice of living in solitude in the 2nd century, and received its distinctive note when the vow of obedience to a superior was added to the hermit's personal vows of poverty and chastity; the movement of St. Benedict in the 6th century stamped its permanent form on Western Monasticism, and that of St. Francis in the 12th gave it a more comprehensive range, entrusting the care of the poor, the sick, the ignorant, &c., to the hitherto self-centred monks and nuns; during the Middle Ages the monasteries were centres of learning, and their work in copying and preserving both sacred and secular literature has been invaluable; English Monachism was swept away at the Reformation; in France at the Revolution; and later in Spain, Portugal, and Italy it has been suppressed; brotherhoods and sisterhoods have sprung up in the Protestant churches of Germany and England, but in all of them the vows taken are revocable.
Monaco (13), a small principality 9 m. E. of Nice, on the Mediterranean shore, surrounded by French territory and under French protection; has a mild salubrious climate, and is a favourite winter resort. The capital, Monaco, is built on a picturesque promontory, and 1 m. NE. stands Monte Carlo.
Monad, the name given by Leibnitz to one of the active simple elementary substances, the plurality of which in their combinations or combined activities constitutes in his regard the universe both spiritual and physical; it denotes in biology an elementary organism.
Monaghan (82), an inland Ulster county, Ireland, surrounded by Louth, Armagh, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Cavan, and Meath; is undulating, with many small lakes and streams; grows flax and manufactures linen, and has limestone and slate quarries. The chief towns are Clones (2), and the county-town Monaghan (3), which has a produce market.
Monboddo, James Burnett, Lord, a Scottish judge, born in Kincardineshire, an eccentric writer, author of a “Dissertation on the Origin of Language” and of “Ancient Metaphysics”; had original fancies on the origin, particularly of the human race from the monkey, conceived not so foolish to-day as they were then (1714-1799).
Moncreiff, Sir Henry Wellwood, Scottish clergyman, born at Blackford; from 1775 to 1827 minister of St. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh, and leader of the evangelical party of the Scottish Church.
Moncreiff, James W., Lord, second son of preceding, eminent Scottish judge; was the author of the Veto Act which led to the Disruption of 1843 (1776-1851).
Moncreiff, Sir Henry W., son of preceding, became a Free Church minister, and was Principal Clerk of the General Assembly of the Free Church; an authority on Church law (1809-1885).
Moncreiff, James, brother of preceding, bred for the Scottish bar; was Lord Advocate of Scotland under four administrations; was appointed Lord Justice-Clerk in 1860; was raised to the peerage in 1874 (1811-1895).
Mond, Ludwig, distinguished technical chemist and inventor, born at Cassel, in Germany; was a pupil of Kolbe and Bunsen, and has made important additions to chemical-industrial processes and products; b. 1839.
Money, defined by Ruskin to be “a documentary claim to wealth, and correspondent in its nature to the title-deed of an estate.”
Monge, Gaspard, celebrated French mathematician, born at Beaune; one of the founders of the Polytechnic School in Paris (1746-1818).
Mongols, a great Asiatic people having their original home on the plains E. of Lake Baikal, Siberia, who first rose into prominence under their ruler Genghis Khan in the 12th century; he, uniting the three branches of Mongols, commenced a career of conquest which made him master of all Central Asia; his sons divided his empire, and pursued his conquests; a Mongol emperor seized the throne of China in 1234, and from this branch sprang the great Kublai Khan, whose house ruled an immense territory 1294-1368. Another section pushed westwards as far as Moravia and Hungary, taking Pesth in 1241, and founded the immense empire over which Tamerlane held sway. A third but later movement, springing from the ruins of these earlier empires, was that of Baber, who conquered India, and founded the Great Mogul line, 1519. Now Mongols are constituent elements in the populations of China, Russian, and Turkish Asia.
Monica, St., the mother of St. Augustine, who became to him the symbol of “the highest he knew on earth, bowing before a Higher in heaven.”
Monism, the name given to the principle of any system of philosophy which resolves the manifold of the universe into the evolution of some unity in opposition to dualism (q. v.).
Monk, George, Duke of Albemarle, general and admiral, was a Devonshire man, who spent his youth in the Dutch wars, and returned to England just in time to side with Charles I. against the Parliament; after leading a regiment in Ireland, he was captured at Nantwich in 1644, and spent two years in the Tower; obtaining his release by changing sides, he won commendation from Cromwell at Dunbar in 1650, and was entrusted with the command of operations in Scotland afterwards; in 1653 he beat Van Tromp at sea, twice; from 1654 till 1660 he was Governor of Scotland; on the death of Cromwell he saw the confusion, marched with 6000 troops to London, and after cautious negotiations, brought Charles II. to England and set him on the throne, receiving a peerage and many honours for reward; he behaved well as Governor of London in the plague year, and was again admiral in the Dutch wars of 1666 (1608-1670).
Monmouth, Geoffrey, a Welsh priest of the 12th century, compiler of what he called a “History of the Early Kings of Britain,” from that of Brut, through the story of King Arthur and others, such as King Lear, down to that of Cadwallo, a Welsh king, who died in 689.
Monmouth, James, Duke of, illegitimate son of Charles II., born at Rotterdam; was admitted to Court after the Restoration, and received his title in 1663; his manners and his Protestantism brought him popular favour in spite of his morals, and by-and-by plots were formed to secure the succession for him; forced to fly to Holland in 1683, he waited till his father's death, then planned a rebellion with Argyll; Argyll failed in Scotland; Monmouth, landing in Dorsetshire 1685, was soon overthrown at Sedgemoor, taken prisoner, and executed (1649-1685).
Monmouthshire (252), a west of England county lying N. of the Severn estuary, between Glamorgan and Gloucestershire; is low and flat in the S., but otherwise hilly, and is traversed by the Usk River; more than half the surface is under permanent pasture; the wealth of Monmouthshire consists of coal and iron-stone; Monmouth (5), the county town, is the centre of beautiful scenery, and has some fine buildings.
Monophysites, a body of heretics who arose in the 5th century and maintained that the divine and human natures in Christ were united in one divine-human nature, so that He was neither wholly divine nor wholly human, but in part both.
Monotheism, belief in the existence of one God, or the divine unity, or that the Divine Being, whether twofold, as in dualism, threefold, as in Trinitarianism, is in essence and in manifestation one.
Monothelism, a heresy which arose in the 7th century, in which it was maintained that, though in Christ there were two natures, there was but One Will, viz., the Divine.
Monro, Alexander, founder of Edinburgh Medical School, born of Scotch parentage in London; studied there, and at Paris and Leyden, and was appointed lecturer on Anatomy by the Surgeons' Company at Edinburgh in 1719; two years later he became professor, and in 1725 was admitted to the University; he was a principal promoter and early clinical lecturer in the Royal Infirmary, and continued his clinical work after resigning his chair to his son Alexander; he wrote several medical works, and was a Fellow of the Royal Society; he was called primus, to distinguish him from his son and grandson, who were called respectively secundus and tertius, and were professors of Anatomy in Edinburgh like himself (1697-1767).
Monroe, James, American President, born in Virginia, of Scottish descent; left college to join Washington's army; was wounded in the war, and studying law, entered Congress in 1783; he assisted in framing the Constitution, and sat in the Senate 1790-1794; his diplomatic career in France was marked by the purchase of Louisiana from that country in 1803; he was governor of Virginia thrice over, and Secretary of State till 1817; then followed two terms of the Presidency, during which Florida was acquired from Spain 1819, the delimitation of the slave limit by the Missouri compromise, the recognition of the South American Republics, and the statement of the “Monroe doctrine” (q. v.); in his later years his generosity led him into debt, and he spent his closing days with relations in New York (1758-1831).
Monroe Doctrine, the doctrine of James Monroe, twice over President of the United States, that the United States should hold aloof from all interference with the affairs of the Old World, and should not suffer the Powers of the Old World to interfere with theirs.
Monson, Sir Edward, English diplomatist; entered the diplomatic service in 1856, and after service at various courts, became ambassador at Paris in 1896; b. 1834.
Monsoon originally denoted a periodical wind in the Indian Ocean, which blows from SW. from April to October, and from NE. from October to April; now denotes any wind connected with a continent regularly recurring with the seasons.
Monstrance, a transparent pyx on which the Host is exhibited on the altar to the people, or conveyed in public procession.
Mont Blanc, in the Graian Alps, on the French-Italian frontier, the highest mountain in Europe, 15,782 ft., the upper half under perpetual snow; has 56 magnificent glaciers, including the Mer-de-Glace; it was first climbed by Balmat and Paccard in 1786, and since then has been many times ascended, now by 50 parties every year.
Mont Cenis, an Alpine peak (12,000 ft.) on the Savoy-Piedmont frontier and the adjacent pass, over which a road was constructed 1802-1810, and near which a railway tunnel was pierced (1857-70) at a cost of £3,000,000.
Mont de Piété, an institution to lend money to the poor at little or no interest, first established in the 15th century, a time when lending to the poor was as much a work of mercy as giving to them; a public pawnbroking establishment, so called in France.
Montagnards. See Mountain, The.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, an English lady, born in Nottinghamshire, celebrated for her wit and beauty, and for her “Letters on the Manners of the East” (1690-1762).
Montaigne, Michel de, a sceptico-speculative thinker and moralist, born in the Château of Montaigne, Périgord; an easy-going mortal, but a keen observer of the ways and manners of other people, which some experience in travel gave him opportunities to do, as well as the study of the old classic Latin authors; his fame rests on his “Essays,” in which he records his observations of mankind, but in which, from a decided descendental twist he had, he betrays a rather low idea of the morale of the race; the book, however, is a favourite with all observant people of education, and a translation of it by Florio is the one book we know for certain to have been in the library of Shakespeare; bred as he was by his father's arrangement among the common people, he always retained a friendly feeling towards his neighbours, and they cherished towards him feelings of very high regard; he was a quiet, tolerant man, and his writings reveal a character which commands the respect of men who affect a much higher level of thinking than that occupied by himself (1533-1592).
Montalembert, Comte de, a French politician, born in London, son of a French emigrant; was associated with Lamennais and Lacordaire in the conduct of the Avenir, an Ultramontane Liberal organ, and spent his life in advocating the cause of a free unfettered system of national education; wrote the “Monks of the West,” his chief work (1810-1870).
Montana (132), a State of the American Union, in the NW., lies along the Canadian border between Idaho and the Dakotas, with Wyoming on the S.; has a mild climate, and a soil which, with irrigation, produces fine crops of grain and vegetables. Cattle-raising is profitable, but the chief industry is mining, in the Rocky Mountains, which occupy a fifth of the State. There gold, silver, copper, and lead abound. The Missouri and the Columbia Rivers rise in Montana, and the Yellowstone traverses the whole State. The State was admitted to the Union in 1889, with Helena (9) as capital.
Montanism, a heresy which arose in the 2nd century; derived its name from an enthusiast in Phrygia named Montanus, who insisted on the permanency of the spiritual gifts vouchsafed to the primitive Church, and a return to the severe discipline of life and character prevailing in it.
Montcalm de Saint Véran, Louis Joseph, Marquis de, born near Nîmes; entered the army early, and at forty-four was field-marshal and commander of the forces in Quebec against the English; the capture of Forts Oswego and William Henry and the defence of Ticonderoga were followed by the loss of Louisburg and Fort Duquesne and the retreat on Quebec, where, surprised by Wolfe in 1759, he was totally defeated, and Canada lost to France; both generals fell (1712-1759).
Monte Carlo (4), a great gambling centre in Monaco, 1 m. NE. of the capital; visited by 400,000 persons annually. The Casino is held by a company, and stands on ground leased from the prince.
Montefiore, Sir Moses, a philanthropic Jewish banker, born in Leghorn; a friend to the emancipation not only of the oppressed among his own race, but of the slave in all lands; lived to a great age (1784-1885).
Montégut, Émile, French critic, born at Limoges; is noted for books of travel, studies in French and English literature, and for translations of Shakespeare, Macaulay's “History,” and Emerson's “Essays.”
Montenegro (236), a Balkan State, less than half the size of Wales, lying in a wild mountainous region between Herzegovina and Albania, and touching the Adriatic Sea with its SW. corner only. The climate is severe in winter, mild in summer. The soil is sterile, but is industriously tilled, and patches of arable land on the mountain sides and in the valleys yield maize, oats, potatoes, and tobacco. Cattle and sheep are reared in large numbers; vines and mulberries are cultivated round the lake, whose waters abound in fish. Cattle, hides, and cheese are the exports. The Montenegrins are a primitive people; the men hunt and fight, the women work. They are mostly of the Greek Church, and noted for their morality. The government is patriarchal, with a prince at the head. Education and road-making have recently advanced. The towns are mere villages. Cetinje (1) is the capital; Antivari and Dulcigno, the Adriatic ports.
Montespan, Marquise de, mistress of Louis XIV.; a woman noted for her wit and beauty; bore the king eight children; was supplanted by Madame de Maintenon (q. v.); passed her last days in religious retirement (1641-1707).
Montesquieu, Baron de, illustrious French publicist, born in the Château La Brède, near Bordeaux; his greatest work, and an able, “Esprit des Lois,” though rated in “Sartor” as at best the work of “a clever infant spelling letters from a hieroglyphic prophetic book, the lexicon of which lies in eternity, in heaven”; was author of an able work “On the Causes of the Grandeur of the Romans and their Declension” (1689-1755).
Montevideo (215), on the N. shore of the Rio de la Plata, 130 m. E. of Buenos Ayres; is the capital of Uruguay; a well-built town, with a cathedral, university, school of arts, and museum. The chief industries are beef-salting and shipping, though there is practically no harbour. Nearly half the population are foreigners.
Montez, Lola, an adventuress of Spanish descent, born at Limerick; contracted no end of marriages, which were broken off one after another; took to the stage; took to lecturing, and ended in trying to reclaim fallen women (1818-1861).
Montezuma II., the last of the Mexican emperors; submitted to Cortez when he landed; died in 1520 of a wound he received as he pled with his subjects to submit to the conqueror, aggravated by grief over the failure of his efforts in bringing about a reconciliation.
Montfort, Simon de, son of a French count; came to England in 1230, where he inherited from his grandmother the earldom of Leicester; attached to Henry III., and married to the king's sister, he was sent to govern Gascony in 1248; returned in 1253, and passed over to the side of the barons, whom he ultimately led in the struggle against the king; after repeated unsuccessful attempts to make Henry observe the Provisions of Oxford, Simon took arms against him in 1263; the war was indecisive, and appeal being made to the arbitration of Louis the Good, Simon, dissatisfied with his award, renewed hostilities, defeated the king at Lewes, and taking him and his son prisoner, governed England for a year (1264-65); he sketched a constitution for the country, and summoned the most representative parliament that had yet met, but as he aimed at the welfare of not the barons only, but the common people as well, the barons began to distrust him, when Prince Edward, having escaped from captivity, joined them, and overthrew Simon at Evesham, where he was slain (1206?-1265).
Montgolfier Brothers, inventors of the balloon, who made their first ascent in Paris in 1783 in “their paper dome, filled with smoke of burnt wood, amid the shouts of congregated men”; Joseph (1740-1810), and Étienne (1745-1799).
Montgomerie, Alexander, Scottish poet, born, it is alleged, in Ayrshire, from a branch of the Eglinton family; wrote sonnets and some short poems, but his best-known piece is an allegorical poem, “The Cherry and the Slae” (1556-1610).
Montgomery, Comte de, a French knight of Scottish descent, captain of the Scottish Guard under Henry II. of France; having in 1559 mortally wounded the king in a tourney, he fled to England, but returned to fight in the ranks of the Huguenots, and having had to surrender, he was taken to Paris and beheaded, in violation of the terms of surrender, which assured him of his life (1530-1574).
Montgomery, James, poet and hymn-writer, born at Irvine, son of a Moravian minister; studied for the same profession, but was not licensed; after some years of various occupation he started journalism, and eventually produced a journal of his own, Sheffield Iris, 1794-1825; he was twice fined and imprisoned for seditious publications, but became a Conservative in 1832, a pensioner 1835, and died at Sheffield; of his poetry most is forgotten, but “For ever with the Lord,” and some dozen other hymns are still remembered (1771-1854).
Montgomery, Robert, author of “The Omnipresence of Deity” and “Satan,” born at Bath, son of a clown; passed undistinguished through Oxford, and was minister of Percy Street Chapel, London; all his many works are forgotten save the above, which lives in Macaulay's famous review (1807-1855).
Montgomeryshire (58), a North Wales inland county, surrounded by Merioneth, Cardigan, Radnor, Salop, and Denbigh; is chiefly a stretch of mountain pasture land, which rises to 2500 ft. at Plinlimmon, and in which the Severn rises; but in the E. are well wooded and fertile valleys. There are lead and zinc mines, and slate and limestone quarries. There is some flannel manufacture at Newtown. The county town is Montgomery (1).
Montholon, Comte de, French general, born in Paris, served under Napoleon, accompanied him to St. Helena, and left “Memoirs” (1782-1853).
Montmorency, Anne, Duc de, marshal and constable of France, born of an old illustrious family; served in arms under Francis I.; was associated with Condé against the Huguenots, and was mortally wounded at St. Denis fighting against them (1492-1567).
Montmorency, Henri, second Duc of, born at Chantilly; distinguished himself in arms under Louis XIII., but provoked along with Gaston, Duke of Orleans, into rebellion, he was taken prisoner and beheaded, notwithstanding intercessions from high quarters on his behalf for the zeal he had shown in defence of the Catholic faith (1596-1632).
Montpelier (4), capital of Vermont, 250 m. N. of New York and 120 m. NW. of Portland, Maine, is on the Onion River, and has some mills and tanneries.
Montpellier (66), capital of Hérault, France, on the Lez, 6 m. from the Gulf of Lyons, 30 m. SW. of Nîmes, is a picturesque town, containing a cathedral, a university, picture-gallery, libraries, and other institutions, and has been a centre of culture and learning since the 16th century; it also manufactures chemicals, corks, and textiles, and does a large trade in brandy and wine.
Montreal (217), the greatest commercial city of Canada, on an island in the St. Lawrence, at the confluence of the Ottawa River, 150 m. above Quebec, is the centre of railway communication with the whole Dominion and the States, connected by water with all the shipping ports on the great lakes, and does an enormous import and export trade; its principal shipment is grain; it is the chief banking centre, has the greatest universities (M'Gill and a branch of Laval), hospitals, and religious institutions, and pursues boot and shoe, clothing, and tobacco manufactures; more than half the population is French and Roman Catholic, and the education of Protestant and Roman Catholic children is kept distinct; founded in 1642 by the French, Montreal passed to Britain in 1760; in 1776 it was occupied by the revolting colonies, but recovered next year, and since then has had a steady career of prosperity and advancement.
Montrose (13), an ancient burgh and seaport of Forfarshire, 35 m. S. of Aberdeen, stands on a tongue of land between the sea and a basin which is almost dry at low water; carries on timber-trade with Baltic and Canadian ports, and spins flax, makes ropes and canvas.
Montrose, James Graham, Marquis of, born at Old Montrose, and educated at St. Andrews; travelled in Italy, France, and the Netherlands; returning in 1637 he joined the Covenanters, and we find him at Aberdeen, Stonehaven, and across the English border supporting the Covenant by force of arms; suspected of treachery to the cause he was imprisoned for a year, 1641-42, in Edinburgh Castle, whereupon he joined the side of the king; in 1644-45 he did splendid service for Charles in Scotland, defeating the Covenanters near Aberdeen, at Inverlochy and Kilsyth; but routed by Leslie at Philiphaugh he lost the royal confidence, and next year withdrew to Norway; an unsuccessful invasion in the Stuart cause in 1650 ended in his defeat at Invercarron, capture, and execution; “The Great Marquis,” as he is called, was a soldier of genius, and a man of taste, learning, clemency, and courage (1612-1650).
Montyon Prizes, four prizes in the gift of the French Academy, so named from their founder, Baron de Montyon (1733-1820), and awarded annually for (1) improvements in medicine and surgery; (2) improvements tending to health in some mechanical process; (3) acts of disinterested goodness; (4) literary works conducive to morality; the last two are usually divided among several recipients.
Moody, Dwight Lyman, evangelist, born in Massachusetts; settled in Chicago, where he began his career as an evangelist, associated with Mr. Sankey; visited great Britain in 1873 and 1883, and produced a wide-spread impression, especially on the first visit; b. 1837.
Moon, the satellite of the earth, from which it is distant 238,800 m., and which revolves round it in 27-1/3 days, taking the same time to rotate on its own axis, so that it presents always the same side to us; is a dark body, and shines by reflection of the sun's light, its diameter 2165 m.; it has a rugged surface of mountains and valleys without verdure; has no water, no atmosphere, and consequently no life.
Moon, Mountains of the, a range of mountains supposed by Ptolemy and early geographers to stretch across Africa from Abyssinia to Guinea, now variously identified as the Kenia, Kilimanjaro, Ruwenzori, &c.
Moonshee, in India a teacher of languages, especially Hindustani and Persian.
Moore, Frank Frankfort, novelist and dramatist, born at Limerick, both his novels and his dramas are numerous; commenced his literary career as a journalist in connection with the Belfast News Letter as literary and art editor, a post he relinquished in 1893 to settle in London; b. 1855.
Moore, John, M.D., author and novelist, born at Stirling, studied medicine in Glasgow, and practised there, in Holland, Paris, and London; he published books on the countries of Europe which he visited, an essay on the French Revolution, and among several novels, one of some note, “Zeluco” (1789); he died at Richmond (1730-1802).
Moore, Sir John, general, eldest son of above, born at Glasgow; served in Corsica, the West Indies, Ireland, Holland, Egypt, Sicily, and Sweden; his famous and last expedition was to Spain in 1808, when with 10,000 men he was sent to co-operate in expelling the French; Spanish apathy and other causes weakened his hands, and in December he found himself with 25,000 men at Astorga, a French force of 70,000 advancing against him; retreat was necessary, but disastrous; he was overtaken by Soult at Coruña in the act of embarking; the victory lay with the English, but Moore was killed (1761-1808).
Moore, Thomas, the Bard of Erin, born in Dublin, the son of a grocer, studied at Trinity College; went to London with a translation of “Anacreon,” which gained him favour and a valuable appointment in the Bermudas in 1803; fought a duel with Jeffrey in 1806, began his “Irish Melodies” in 1807, and published “The Twopenny Postbag” in 1812; in 1817 appeared “Lalla Rookh,” a collection of Oriental tales, and in 1818 a satiric piece “The Fudge Family,” and published a Life of Byron in 1830; Moore's songs were written to Irish airs, and they contributed much to ensure Catholic emancipation (1779-1852).
Moors, a general term for tribes in North Africa descended from Arab and Berber stock; they were Christians for several centuries, but on their conquest by Arabs in 647 embraced Mohammedanism; the town Moors do not hold before European settlers, but the nomad tribes show more vitality; Moorish peoples seized and settled in Spain early in the 8th century, and, introducing a civilisation further advanced than that in Europe generally with respect to science, art, and industry alike, maintained a strong rule till the 11th century; then the Spaniards gradually recovered the peninsula; Toledo was taken in 1085, Saragossa in 1118, Valencia in 1238, Seville in 1248, Murcia in 1260, and Granada in 1492; Turkish successes in the East came too late to save the Moors, and the last were banished from the country in 1609.
Moraines, masses of rock which become detached from the hill-side and find lodgment on a glacier are so called, and are further described as lateral, medial, terminal, or ground moraines, according as they lie along its edges, its middle, are piled up in mounds at its end, or falling down crevasses, are ground against the rock underneath.
Moralities, didactic dramas, following in order of time the miracle plays and mysteries, in which the places of saints and biblical personages in them were taken by characters representing different virtues and vices, and the story was of an allegorical nature; were the immediate precursors of the secular drama.
Moravia (2,277), a crownland in the N. of Austria, lying between the Moravian and the Carpathian Mountains, with Silesia on the N., Hungary on the E., Lower Austria on the S., and Bohemia on the W.; is mountainous, with lofty plains in the S., and is watered by the March, a tributary of the Danube; the valleys and plains are fertile; grain, beetroot, flax, hemp, and vines are grown; cattle and poultry rearing and bee-keeping occupy the peasantry; sugar, textiles, and tobacco are the chief manufactures; there are coal and iron mines, graphite and meerschaum are found; the capital is Brünn (94), which has woollen and leather industries; associated with Bohemia in 1029, Moravia passed with that country to Austria in 1526, its association with Bohemia terminating in 1849; the inhabitants are two-thirds Slavs and one-third German, and are mostly Roman Catholic.
Moravians, a sect of Protestant Christians who, followers of John Huss, formed themselves into a separate community in Bohemia in 1467 on the model of the primitive Church, in which the members regarded each other as brethren, and were hence called the United Brethren; like other heretics they suffered much persecution at the hands of the orthodox Church; they are known also as Herrnhuters.
Moray, James Stuart, Earl of, illegitimate son of James V. of Scotland, and so half-brother of Mary, Queen of Scots; was from 1556 the leader of the Reformation party, and on Mary's arrival in her kingdom in 1561 became her chief adviser; on her marriage with Darnley he made an unsuccessful attempt to raise a Protestant rebellion, and had to escape to England 1565, and after a visit to Edinburgh, when he connived at Rizzio's murder, to France in 1567; he was almost immediately recalled by the nobles, who had imprisoned Mary in Lochleven, and appointed regent; next year he defeated at Langside the forces which, on her escape, had rallied round her, and in the subsequent management of the kingdom secured both civil and ecclesiastical peace, and earned the title of “the Good Regent”; he was shot by a partisan of the queen's, James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, when riding through Linlithgow (1531-1570).
More, Hannah, English authoress, born near Bristol; wrote dramas, a novel entitled “Coelebs in Search of a Wife,” and a tract “The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain” (1745-1833).
More, Henry, a Platonist, born at Grantham, a Fellow of Christ College, Cambridge, and author of a poem “Song of the Soul”; he was a mystic who exercised a great influence among the young men of Cambridge (1614-1687).
More, Sir Thomas, Chancellor of England, born in London; was the lifelong friend of Erasmus, and the author of “Utopia,” an imaginary commonwealth; succeeded Wolsey as Chancellor, but resigned the seals of office because he could not sanction the king's action in the matter of the divorce, and was committed to the Tower for refusing to take the oath of supremacy, whence after 12 months he was brought to trial and sentenced to be beheaded; he ascended the scaffold, and laid his head on the block in the spirit of a philosopher; was one of the wisest and best of men (1478-1535).
Morea is the modern name of the ancient Peloponnesus, that remarkable peninsula, larger than Wales, which constitutes the southern half of Greece, and is joined to the mainland by the Isthmus of Corinth, less than 4 m. broad.
Moreau, Jean Victor, French general, born at Morlaix; served with distinction under the Republic and the Empire; was suspected of plotting against the latter with George Cadoudal, and banished on conviction; went to America, but returning to Europe, joined the ranks of the Russians against his country, and was mortally wounded by a cannon ball at Dresden (1763-1813).
Morganatic Marriage, is a union permitted to German princes who, forbidden to marry except with one of equal rank, may ally themselves with a woman of inferior status, their children being legitimate but not eligible for the succession; the marriages of British princes contracted before the age of 25 without consent of the sovereign, or after that age without consent of Parliament, are of a morganatic nature.
Morgarten, a mountain slope in the canton of Zug, Switzerland, where 1400 Swiss, on Nov. 15, 1315, in assertion of their independence, defeated an Austrian army of 15,000.
Morghen, Raphael Sanzio Cavaliere, engraver, born in Naples, of German parentage; studied in Rome, and by genius and industry became one of the foremost engravers; his works include engravings of Raphael's “Transfiguration,” the result of 16 years' labour, and Leonardo da Vinci's “Last Supper,” his masterpiece (1758-1833).
Morgue, a house in which bodies found dead are placed for identification.
Morisonianism, the principles of the Evangelical Union, a Scottish denomination founded by the Rev. James Morison of Kilmarnock on his expulsion from the United Secession Church in 1843, and united with the Scottish Congregational Union in 1897; differed from the older Presbyterianism in affirming the freedom of the human will to accept or reject salvation, and the universal scope of the offer of salvation as made by God to all men; in polity the Morisonians observed a modified independency.
Morley, John, politician and man of letters, born in Blackburn; is an advanced Liberal in both capacities; besides essays and journalistic work, has written biographies, particularly on men associated with politics and social movements, such as Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot, as well as Burke, and is editor of “English Men of Letters”; in politics he was a staunch supporter of Mr. Gladstone, though he could have little sympathy with him as a High Churchman; b. 1838.
Mormon, Book of, a book which in 1827 fell into the hands of Joseph Smith, the son of a farmer, alleged by him to have been written by a Hebrew prophet who emigrated to America 600 years before Christ, and to have been recorded by him as a direct revelation to himself from heaven, by means of which the interrupted communication between heaven and earth was to be restored.
Mormonism, the creed of the Mormons, or Latter-day Saints as they are called, who have settlements of their own in the valley of the Salt Lake, generally called Utah, U.S.; they conceive, according to Hepworth Dixon, of God as a flesh and blood man, of man as of the divine substance, as existing from, and to exist to, all eternity, and without inherited sin, of the earth as only one of many inhabited worlds, of the spirit world as consisting of beings awaiting incarnation, of polygamy as of divine ordination and the relationship eternal, and of their social system as the kingdom of God on earth.
Morny, Duc de, French politician, born in Paris; played a conspicuous part in the coup d'état of December 1851, and was President of the Corps Législatif; was believed to have been the son of Queen Hortense, and consequently Louis Napoleon's half-brother (1811-1865).
Morocco (4,000), an empire in the NW. corner of Africa, three times the size of Great Britain, its coast-line stretching from Algeria to Cape Nun, and its inland confines being vaguely determined by the French hinterlands. Two-thirds of the country is desert; much of the remainder is poor pasture land; the Atlas Mountains stretch from SW. to NE., but there are some expanses of level fertile country; on the seaboard the climate is delightful, with abundance of rain in the season; among the mountains extremes prevail; south of the Atlas it is hot and almost rainless; the mineral wealth is probably great; gold, silver, copper, and iron are known to be plentiful, but bad government hinders development; the exports are maize, pulse, oil, wool, fruit, and cattle; cloth, tea, coffee, and hardware are imported; the chief industries are the making of leather, “Fez” caps, carpets, and the breeding of horses; government is extremely despotic and corrupt, and the Sultan's authority over many of the tribes is merely nominal; there is no education; the religion is Mohammedanism, and slavery prevails; there are no roads, and the country is imperfectly known; telegraph, telephone, and postal service are in European hands; the country was taken from the Romans by the Arabs in the 7th century, and has ever since been in their hands, but Berbers, Spaniards, Moors, Jews, and negroes also go to make up the population. The chief towns are Fez (25), in the N., a sacred Moslem city, squalid and dirty, but with good European trade, and a depôt for the caravans from the interior; and Morocco (60), in the S., near the Tensift River, 240 m. SW. of Fez, well situated for local and transit trade, but a dilapidated city.
Morocco, a fine-grained leather of the skin of a goat or sheep, first prepared in Morocco.
Morpheus (i. e. the Moulder), the god of dreams, the son of Night and Sleep.
Morris-dance, a rustic merrymaking common in England after 1350, and still extant; is of disputed origin; the chief characters, Maid Marian, Robin Hood, the hobby-horse, and the fool, execute fantastic movements and Jingle bells fastened to their feet and dress.
Morris, Sir Lewis, a poet, born in Carmarthen, Wales; the author of “Songs of Two Worlds,” “The Epic of Hades,” “A Vision of Saints,” &c.; often confounded with the succeeding, with whom he has next to nothing in common; b. 1833.
Morris, William, poet, art-worker, and Socialist, born in Walthamstow, near London, son and heir of a wealthy merchant; studied at Oxford, where he became the lifelong bosom friend of Burne-Jones; of an artistic temperament, he devoted his working hours to decorative art, in particular designing wall-papers; produced in 1858 “The Defence of Guenevere and other Poems,” in 1867 “The Life and Death of Jason,” and from 1868 to 1870 his masterpiece, “The Earthly Paradise” (q. v.); among other works he translated the “Æneid” and the “Odyssey,” and gave a splendid rendering of some of the Norse legends (1834-1896).
Morrison, Robert, first missionary to China, and Chinese scholar, born of Scottish parentage at Morpeth; entered the Independent ministry, and was sent to Macao and Canton by the London Missionary Society in 1807; in 1814 he published a Chinese version of the New Testament, and in 1819 of the Old Testament; in 1823 his great Chinese Dictionary was published at the expense of the East India Company; returning to England in 1824, he went out again 10 years later as interpreter to Lord Napier, and died at Canton (1782-1834).
Morse, Samuel Finley Breese, inventor, born at Charlestown, Massachusetts, graduated at Yale in 1810 and adopted art as a profession; he gained some distinction as a sculptor, and in 1835 was appointed professor of Design in New York; electrical studies were his hobby; between 1832 and 1837 he worked out the idea of an electric telegraph—simultaneously conceived by Wheatstone in England—and in 1843 Congress granted funds for an experimental line between Washington and Baltimore; honour and fortune crowded on him, his invention was adopted all over the world, and he received an international grant of £16,000; he died in New York (1791-1872).
Mortgage, a deed conveying property to a creditor as security for the payment of a debt, the person to whom it is given being called the Mortgagee.
Morton, James Douglas, Earl of, regent of Scotland; joined the Reforming party, was made Chancellor, took part in the murder of Rizzio, and was privy to the plot against Darnley, joined the confederacy of the nobles against Mary, fought against her at Langside, and became regent in 1572; became unpopular, was charged with being accessory to Darnley's murder, and beheaded in 1581.
Mosaylima, a rival of Mohammed, posed as equally a prophet, and entitled to share with Mohammed the sovereignty of the world; two battles followed, in the second of which Mosaylima was killed, to the dispersion of his followers.
Moschus, a Greek pastoral poet, author of lyrics which have been translated by Andrew Lang; lived 150 B.C.
Moscow (799), on the Moskwa River, in the centre of European Russia, 370 m. SE. of St. Petersburg; was before 1713 the capital, and is still a great industrial and commercial centre; its manufactures include textiles, leather, chemicals, and machinery; it does a great trade in grain, timber, metals from the Urals, and furs, hides, &c., from Asia; besides the great cathedral there are many churches, palaces, and museums, a university, library, picture-gallery, and observatory; the enclosure called the Kremlin or citadel is the most sacred spot in Russia; thrice in the 18th century the city was devastated by fire, and again in 1812 to compel Napoleon to retire.
Moselle, river, rising W. of the Vosges Mountains, flows NW. through French and German Lorraine, then NE. through Rhenish Prussia to join the Rhine at Coblenz, 315 m. long, two-thirds of it navigable; it passes in its tortuous course Metz, Thionville, and Trèves.
Moses, the great Hebrew law-giver, under whose leadership the Jews achieved their emancipation from the bondage of Egypt, and began to assert themselves as an independent people among the nations of the earth; in requiring of the people the fear of God and the observance of His commandments, he laid the national life on a sure basis, and he was succeeded by a race of prophets who from age to age reminded the people that in regard or disregard for what he required of them depended their prosperity or their ruin as a nation, of which from their extreme obduracy they had again and again to be admonished.
Mosheim, a Protestant Church historian, born at Lübeck, was professor at Göttingen; his principal work a History of the Church, written in Latin, and translated into English and other languages (1694-1755).
Moss-troopers, maurauders who formerly raided the moss-grown borderland of England and Scotland.
Motherwell, William, Scottish poet, born in Glasgow, educated in Edinburgh; entered a lawyer's office in Paisley in 1811 and became Sheriff-Clerk Depute of Renfrewshire 1818; he was editor of the Paisley Advertiser in 1828, and of the Glasgow Courier in 1830; he wrote biographical notices of local poets, and edited “Minstrelsy, Ancient and Modern,” in 1827; but his own fame was established by “Poems, Narrative and Lyrical,” 1832, the gem of the collection being “Jeanie Morison”; he died in Glasgow (1797-1835).
Motley, John Lothrop, historian and diplomatist, born in Massachusetts; commenced his literary career as a novelist, but soon turned all his thoughts to the study of history; spent years in the study of Dutch history; wrote the “History of the Dutch Republic,” which was published in 1856, the “History of the United Netherlands,” publishing the first part in 1860 and the second in 1868, and the “Life and Death of John Barnevelde” in 1874; was appointed the United States minister at Vienna in 1861, and at St. James's in 1869; he ranks high as a historian, being both faithful and graphic (1814-1877).
Motor Car, a vehicle propelled by petroleum, electricity, &c.
Mountain, The, the name given to the Jacobins, or the extreme democratic party, at the French Revolution, from their occupying the highest benches in the hall of the National Convention, and included such men as Marat, Danton, Robespierre, and the men of the Reign of Terror.
Movable Feasts, festivals of the Church, the date of which varies with the date of Easter.
Mozambique (1,000), the general name for Portuguese East Africa, lies between Cape Delgado and Delagoa Bay on the mainland, opposite Madagascar; the Rovuma River separates it from German territory in the N.; in the S. it touches British Maputaland, while inland it borders on British Central and South Africa and the Transvaal; the Zambesi divides it into two; the coast is low and wet, inland are richly wooded plateaux; the soil is fertile, and minerals abound, but the government is bad, and industry does not develop; 52 miles of railway connect Lorenzo Marques with the Transvaal; other chief towns are Quilimane (6), and the capital Mozambique (7), on an island.
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus Chrysostom, eminent musical composer, born at Salzburg; was distinguished for his musical genius as a boy, and produced over 600 musical compositions, but his principal works were his operas, the “Marriage of Figaro,” “Don Giovanni,” and the “Magic Flute”; his fate was an unhappy one; he suffered much from poverty and neglect; the last piece he wrote was a Requiem Mass, which he felt, he said, as if he were writing for himself, and he died at Prague on the evening of its rehearsal (1756-1791).
Mucklebackit, Saunders, an old fisherman in Scott's “Antiquary.”
Mucklewrath, a fanatic preacher in Scott's “Old Mortality.”
Mucous Membrane, a delicate membrane which lines the cavities and the canals of the human body.
Muezzin, an official, usually blind, attached to a Mohammedan mosque, summons the faithful to prayers with a chant from a minaret.
Mufti, a doctor and interpreter of Mohammedan law.
Mufti, The Grand, is head of the Ulema, or interpreters of the Korân; holds his appointment from the Sultan, and exercises great influence at the Porte; legal advisers to local and general councils in the Turkish empire are also styled Mufti.
Muggleton, founder of the Muggletonians, a tailor who, along with one Reeve, at the time of the Commonwealth, pretended to be the two witnesses of the Revelation and the last of God's prophets, invested with power to save and to damn; individuals of the sect founded by him existed so recently as the beginning of this century.
Muir, John, a Sanskrit scholar, born in Glasgow; was of the Indian Civil Service; was a man of liberal views, particularly in religion, and a patron of learning; endowed the Chair of Sanskrit in Edinburgh University (1810-1882).
Muir, Sir William, an Arabic scholar, brother of the preceding; Principal of Edinburgh University; was in the Indian Civil Service; wrote a “Life of Mahomet,” on the rise of Mohammedanism, and on the Korân; b. 1819.
Mukden (250), in Chinese Shing-king, the capital of Manchuria, on a tributary of the Liao, in the S. of the province; is a city of considerable commercial importance, and has good coal-mines in the neighbourhood; there are a great palace, and numerous temples; Irish and Scotch Presbyterian and Roman Catholic missions have a centre here; the Japanese invasion of 1894-98 was directed towards it.
Mull (5), large island in the NW. of Argyllshire, third of the Hebrides; is mountainous and picturesque, with greatly indented coast-line; the highest peak is Ben More, 3185 ft., the largest inlet Loch-na-Keal; the soil is best adapted for grazing. Tobermory (1), in the N., is the only town.
Müller, George, founder of the Orphan Homes near Bristol; born in Prussia; founded the Orphan Home, in 1836, on voluntary subscriptions, in answer to prayer, to the support one year of more than 2000 orphans (1805-1898).
Müller, Johannes, eminent German physiologist, born at Coblenz; professor at Berlin; ranks as the founder of modern physiology, and famed as author of a text-book on the science, entitled “Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen” (1801-1858).
Müller, Johannes von, celebrated historian, born at Schaffhausen, the “History of Switzerland” his principal work (1752-1809).
Müller, Julius, a German theologian, born at Brieg; professor at Halle; his great work, the “Christian Doctrine of Sin”; he collaborated on theological subjects with Neander and Nitzsch (1801-1878).
Müller, Karl Otfried, archæologist and philologist, born at Brieg, brother of the preceding; was professor at Göttingen, and distinguished for his researches in Grecian antiquities and his endeavour to construe all that concerns the history and life of ancient Greece, including mythology, literature, and art (1797-1840).
Mulock, Dinah Maria (Mrs. Craik), English novelist, born in Stock-upon-Trent, authoress of “John Halifax, Gentleman,” and other novels (1820-1887).
Mulready, William, genre painter, born at Ennis, Ireland, illustrated the “Vicar of Wakefield” and other works (1786-1863).
Multan (75), a Punjab city near the Chenab River, 200 m. SW. of Lahore; has many mosques and temples; manufactures of silks, carpets, pottery, and enamel ware, and considerable trade.
Münchhausen, Baron von, a cavalry officer in the service of Hanover famed for the extravagant stories he used to relate of his adventures and exploits which, with exaggerations, were collected by one Raspe, and published in 1785 under Münchhausen's name (1720-1797).
Münich (351), capital of Bavaria, on the Isar, 440 m. by rail SW. of Berlin; is a city of magnificent buildings and rare art treasures; palaces, public buildings, cathedral, churches, &c., are all on an elaborate scale, and adorned with works of art; there are galleries of sculpture, and ancient and modern painting, a university, colleges, and libraries; the industries include stained glass, lithographing, bell-founding, and scientific instrument-making; and there are enormous breweries. Münich has been the centre of artistic life and culture in the 19th century, and associated with it are Cornelius, Kaulbach, and many famous names.
Münster (49), capital of Westphalia, a mediæval-looking town, 100 m. by rail N. of Cologne; has textile, paper, and printing industries; there is an old cathedral of 12th century, a town-hall, castle, and 16th-century wine-cellar; the place of the Catholic university has been taken by an academy with Catholic theological and philosophical faculties; here took place the Anabaptist movement of 1535; the bishops retained their secular jurisdiction till 1803.
Münzer, Thomas, Anabaptist leader, born at Stolberg, and began to preach at Zwickau 1520; he came into collision both with the civil authorities and the Reformed Church; for several years he travelled through Bohemia and South Germany, and in 1525 settled at Mühlhausen; here his communistic doctrines obtained popularity and kindled an insurrection; the rebels were routed at Frankenhansen, and Münzer was captured and executed (1489-1525).
Murat, Joachim, king of Naples, born near Cahors, the son of an innkeeper; entered the army, attracted the notice of Bonaparte, and became his aide-de-camp; distinguished himself in many engagements, received Bonaparte's sister to wife, and was loaded with honours on the establishment of the Empire, and for his services under it as a dashing cavalry officer was rewarded with the crown of Naples in 1808, but to the last allied in arms with his brother-in-law; he had to fight in the end on his own behalf in defence of his crown, and was defeated, taken prisoner, and shot (1771-1815).
Muratori, Ludovico Antonio, Italian antiquary and historian, horn in Vignola, Modena; became librarian in Milan 1695, and of the D'Este library, Modena, in 1700, in which city he died; he edited the Italian chronicles of the 5th-16th centuries, with many essays and dissertations, and many other historical and antiquarian works; but his name is chiefly associated with the “Muratorian Fragment,” which dates from the 2nd century, and contains a list of the then canonical scriptures, and which he published 1840 (1672-1750).
Muravieff, Count, Russian statesman, born of a distinguished family; entered the diplomatic service in connection with the Russian embassies at Berlin, Stockholm, The Hague, and Paris, and became Minister to Denmark in 1893; in 1897 he was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs in succession to Lobanoff; b. 1845.
Murchison, Sir Roderick Impey, geologist, born in Ross-shire; entered the army and served in the Peninsular War, but retiring in 1816 gave himself to science; he explored many parts of Europe, predicted the discovery of gold in Australia, was President of the British Association, and knighted in 1846, and subsequently received many other scientific appointments and honours; he founded the Chair of Geology in Edinburgh University in 1870; but his fame rests on his discovery and establishment of the Silurian system; his book on “The Silurian System” is the chief of several works (1792-1871).
Murdoch, William, engineer, born at Auchinleck, Ayrshire; was a manager of the Soho Works under Boulton and Watt, where he distinguished himself by his inventive ingenuity, and where on his suggestion coal-gas was first employed for lighting purposes (1754-1830).
Mure, Colonel, Greek scholar, born at Caldwell, Ayrshire; wrote a scholarly work, “A Critical Account of the Language and Literature of Ancient Greece” (1799-1860).
Mürger, Henri, French novelist and poet, born at Paris; is chiefly distinguished as the author of “Scènes de la Vie de Bohême,” from his own experiences, and instinct with pathos and humour, sadness his predominant tone; wrote lyrics as well as novels and stories, the chief “La Chanson de Musette,” “a tear,” says Gautier, “which has become a pearl of poetry” (1822-1861).
Murillo, a celebrated Spanish painter, born at Seville; his subjects were drawn partly from low life and partly from religious or scripture themes, such as the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of the Virgin, as well as “Moses Smiting the Rock,” the “Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes,” &c.; died from a fall from a scaffold while painting an altar-piece at Cadiz (1618-1682).
Murray, John, London publisher, a successful business man; was on intimate terms with the celebrated men, such as Byron and Scott, whose works he published (1778-1843).
Murray, Lindley, grammarian, born in Pennsylvania, of Quaker parents; having realised a competency in business came to England and settled near York, where he produced his “Grammar of the English Language” in 1795 (1745-1826).
Murray, William, Scottish actor, lessee of Edinburgh theatre for 42 years; enjoyed the friendship of the Edinburgh literary celebrities of the time, and was an excellent actor, did Falstaff to perfection (1791-1852).
Murray River, the chief river of Australia, 1120 m. long, rises at the foot of Mount Kosciusko, in New South Wales, flows NW. between New South Wales and Victoria; receives the Lachlan and Darling on the right, and entering South Australia turns southward and reaches the sea at Encounter Bay.
Musæus, John August, German author, born at Jena, famous as the author of German Volksmärchen, three of which, “Dumb Love,” “Libussa,” and “Melechsala,” were translated in the volumes of “German Romance” by Thomas Carlyle; he parodied Richardson's “Sir Charles Grandison” and satirised Lavater's “Physiognomical Travels” (1735-1787).
Muscat (20), capital of Oman, in Eastern Arabia, on the Gulf of Oman; is an ill-built, unhealthy city, but does an important transit trade between Arabia, Persia, India, and East Africa; it was in Portuguese possession from 1508 to 1658, but has been independent since.
Muses, The, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosynë, presided over the liberal arts particularly, were nine in number, and dwelt along with Apollo near Parnassus, Pieria, and Helicon; Clio presided over history, Euterpë over music, Thalia over comedy, Melpomenë over tragedy, Terpsichorë over choral dance and song, Erato over erotic poetry and elegy, Polyhymnia over lyric poetry, Urania over astronomy, and Calliopë over eloquence and epic poetry.
Muspelheim. See Niflheim.
Musselburgh (9), an old-fashioned Midlothian fishing town on the coast, 6 m. E. of Edinburgh, with golf links, paper, nets, and tanning industries, and Loretto school.
Musset, Alfred de, the premier poet of modern French literature, born in Paris of good parentage; wayward and impulsive in youth, he would settle to no occupation, till his already awakened taste for poetry receiving a powerful stimulus through contact with Victor Hugo, led him to embrace the profession of letters; two volumes of poetry were published before he achieved, in 1833, his first signal success with the dramas “André del Sarto” and “Les Caprices de Marianne”; in the same year began his famous liaison with George Sand (q. v.), involving him in the ill-fated expedition to Venice, whence he returned in the spring of 1834 shattered in health and disillusioned; from one unhappy love intrigue he passed to another, seeking in vain a solace for his restless spirit, but reaping an experience which enriched his writings; “Confessions d'un Enfant du Siècle” appeared in 1836, and is a significant confession of his life at this time; two years later he was appointed librarian at the Home Office, and in 1847 his charming comedy, “Un Caprice,” was received with enthusiasm; in 1852 he was elected to the Academy, but his work was done, and already an ill-controlled indulgence in alcohol had fatally undermined his never robust strength; his writings, besides possessing the charm of an exquisite style, heightened by an undertone of true tenderness, are chiefly remarkable for the intense sincerity of feeling, albeit of a limited range, which animates them, and which finds its highest expression in his four great lyrical pieces, “Les Nuits”; his fine instinct for dramatic situation and gift of witty dialogue are manifest in the dramas already mentioned, as also in many others; of his prose works, “Le Fils du Titien,” “Mademoiselle Mimi Pinson,” and the “Confessions” are his best; he was a handsome man, with fascinating manners (1810-1857).
Mutsu Hito, the Mikado of Japan, ascended the throne in 1867, married in 1869; has one son, Prince Yoshihito, and three daughters; his reign has been marked by great reforms, and especially the abolition of the feudal system which till then prevailed, to the great and increasing prosperity of the country, and the opening of it to the ideas and arts of Western civilisation; b. 1852.
Muzaffer-ed-Din, Shah of Persia, second son of Nasr-ed-Din, who nominated him to succeed him; succeeded his father on his death by assassination in 1896, on the 1st of May; b. 1853.
Mycenæ, capital of Agamemnon's kingdom, in the NE. of the Peloponnesus, was in very ancient days a great city, but never recovered the invasion of the people of Argos in 468 B.C.; excavations point to its civilisation being more akin to Phoenician than Greek.
Myrmidons, “ant-men,” so-called because Zeus was said to have peopled Thessaly, from which originally they came, by transforming ants into men; they were the people of Ægina, whose warriors followed Achilles to the siege of Troy.
Mysore (4,900), a native State, half the size of England, embedded in the Madras Presidency, occupies a lofty, broken, but fertile tableland; the upper waters of the Kistna and Kaveri are used for irrigation purposes; betel-nut, coffee, cotton, rice, and silk are exported; cloth, wheat, and precious metals are imported; the climate is healthy and pleasant; under British government from 1831, it was restored to its prince in 1881, under British protection; the capital is Mysore (74), a prosperous, well-built town.
Mystagogue, in Greece, was the priest who instructed candidates and prepared them for initiation into the various religious mysteries; in the Christian Church it denoted the catechist who prepared catechumens previous to their admission to the sacraments.
Mysteries, sacred rites and ceremonies of stated observance among the Greeks and Romans in connection with the worship of particular divinities, to which only the initiated were admitted, and in which, by associating together, they quickened and confirmed each other in their faith and hope, and in which it would seem they made solemn avowal of these; the name is also applied to the miracle plays (q. v.) of the Middle Ages.
Mysticism, a state of mind and feeling induced by direct communion with the unseen, and by indulging in which the subject of it estranges himself more and more from those who live wholly in the outside world, so that he cannot communicate with them and they cannot understand him.