The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 305

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.

MAUPa.s.sANT, GUY DE, a clever French romancer, born at Fecamp; 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 inst.i.tution 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 inst.i.tution 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 _Athenaeum_, and took orders in the English Church in 1834; was chaplain to Guy's Hospital and afterwards to Lincoln's Inn, and inc.u.mbent 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 Na.s.sAU, Prince of Orange; one of the most famous generals of modern times, son of William the Silent, on whose a.s.sa.s.sination 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 Montfaucon, 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, ABBe, 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 Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, "fought Jesuistico-rhetorically, with toughest lungs and heart, for throne, specially for altar and t.i.thes"; 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 MuLLER, FRIEDRICH, philologist, born at Dessau, son of a German poet, Wilhelm Muller; 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 Schonbrunn; 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 Queretaro, 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 a.s.sembled 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, 5 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 "Const.i.tutional 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 antic.i.p.ated them (1814-1878).

MAYHEW, HENRY, litterateur 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 a 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 princ.i.p.al 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 emba.s.sy 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.