The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 300

MANN, HORACE, American educationist, born in Ma.s.sachusetts; 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 Suss.e.x; 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--FRANcOIS, 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 cla.s.ses; 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 Caesar"; 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 palaeontologist, born at Lewes, in Suss.e.x; 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 repet.i.tion 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 mediaeval 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, ent.i.tled "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 t.i.tle 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. sh.o.r.e 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.

MARAnON, 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 Neuchatel, 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 m.u.f.f on his left arm by way of shield, and with them I will traverse France and accomplish the Revolution," that is, by wholesale ma.s.sacre 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 a.s.sa.s.sinated 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-Na.s.sau, 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 Vendee 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 "aeneid."

MARCET, MRS. JANE, auth.o.r.ess, 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 t.i.tle "Conversations," and her best work, "Stories for very Little Children" (1769-1858).