MANASSEH. The tribe of JOSEPH (q.v.), the northern _and stronger half of the "sons of Rachel," was divided into two branches, so considerable as themselves to bear the name of tribes, which referred their origin to Manasseh and Ephraim, the two sons of Joseph by his Egyptian wife Asenath. Of the two Manasseh was held to be the elder, but the patriarchal story relates how Jacob predicted the superi…
MANATEE, an animal belonging to the order Sirenia, for the general characters and position of which see MAmmALIA (p. 389). The name Manati was apparently first applied to it by the early Spanish colonists of the West Indies, in allusion to the band-like use which it frequently makes of its fore limbs ; by English writers from the time of Dampier (who gives a good account of its habits) downwards i…
MANCHA, Lx. This name, when employed in its widest sense, denotes that bare and monotonous elevated plateau of central Spain which stretches between the mountains of Toledo and the western spurs of the hills of Cuenca, being bounded on the S. by the Sierra Morena and on the N. by the Alcarria, which skirts the upper course of the Tagus. It thus comprises portions of the modern provinces of Toledo,…
MANCHE, a department in the north-west of France, washed by the English Channel (Fr., La Manche), from which it derives its name, and made up of the Cotentin, the Avranchin, and part of the Bocage, three districts of the former province of Normandy, lies between 48? 28' 40" and 49? 47' 30" N. lat., and between 0? 43' and 1? 54' 30" W. long., bounded W., N., and N.E. by the Channel, E. by the depar…
MANCHESTER, a town of the United States, in Hartford county, Connecticut, with a station on the New York and New England Railroad, 8 miles east of Hartford.
MANCHESTER, a city whose industries are famous throughout the civilized world, is situated in the southThe city of Manchester and the borough of Salford are about 180 miles north-west of London, and lie in 53? 29' Medlock, the Irk, and the Tib, the last entirely overarched series of bridges ; it has here an average width of 91 feet contiguous coal-fields. The town, as its thousands of brick. built…
MANCHESTER, a city of the United States, one of the shire towns of Hillsborough county, New Hampshire, is situated mainly on the left bank of the Merrimac, in a broad plain about 90 feet above the level of the river, in 42? 35' N. lat. and 71? 31' W. long., 16 miles from Concord and 46 north-west of Boston. It is a terminus of several railroads, as well as a principal station on the Boston, Lowell…
MANCHURIA. is the name by which the territory in the east of Asia occupied by the Manchus is known in Europe. By the Chinese it is called the country of the Manchows, or, as it is pronounced by the natives,' of the Manchus, an epithet meaning "Pure," chosen by the founder of the dynasty which now rules over Manchuria and China as an appropriate designation for his family. Manchuria as it has exist…
MANDALAY, the capital of Independent Burmali, is situated about 2 miles from the left bank of the Irawadi river, in 21? 59' N. lat. and 96? 8' E. long. It was founded by the king of Burmall, who transferred to it the seat of government from Amarapura in 1860. The city proper is laid out in a square, each side of which is a little over a mile in length. It is enclosed by a crenellated brick wall 26…
MANDAMUS, WRIT OF, in English law, is usually described as a high prerogative writ, containing a command in the name of the king, and issuing from the King's Bench, directed to persons, corporations, and inferior courts, -ordering them to do a specific act within the duty of their office. Direct orders from the sovereign to subjects commanding the performance of particular acts were common in earl…
MANDATE (MANDATum). The contract of mandatunt in Roman law was constituted by one person (the mandatarius) promising to do something gratuitously at the request of another (the mandator), who undertakes. to indemnify him against loss. The jurist distinguished the different cases of rnandatutn according as the object of the contract was the benefit of the mandator or a third person singly, or the m…
MANDEVILLE, BERNARD DE (1670-1733), is generally known as an ethical writer of debasing and degrading tendency, but he was at least as much of a humorist as a philosopher, and set up as an analyst of "what is," repeatedly disavowing all pretensions as a lawgiver of " what ought to be." He was a foreigner by birth, a native of Rotterdam, where his father practised as a physician for thirty years. A…
MANDEVILLE, JETIAN DE, the name claimed by the compiler of a singular book of travels, written in French, and published between 1357 and 1371. By aid of translations into many other languages it acquired extraordinary popularity, while a few interpolated words in a particular edition of the English version have gained for Mandeville in modern times the spurious credit of being "the father of Engli…
MANDI, a native state in the Punjab, India, lying between 31? 23' 45" and 32? 4' N. lat., and between 76? 40' and 77? 22' 30" E. long., and bounded on the N. and E. by Kullu, on the S. by Suket, and on the W. by KangrA. The country is verymountainous, being intersected by two great parallel ranges, reaching to an average height of from 5000 to 7000 feet above sea. The valleys between the hill rang…
MANDINGOES, otherwise known as WANGARAWA, MALINKES, or WAKORE (the last probably their primitive designation), are one of the most widely distributed and important peoples of Western Africa to the north of the equator, and perhaps form the best representatives of the Negro stock. The country of Manding, from which their ordinary name is derived, is a comparatively small district on both banks of t…
MANDLA, a district in the chief commissionership of the Central Provinces, India, lying between 22? 14' and 23? 22' N. lat., and between 80? and 81? 48' E. long., is bounded on the N.E. by Rewah state, on the S.E. by Bihispur' on the S.W. by Balaghat, and on the W. by Semi and Jabalpur. It has an area of 4719 square miles, and the headquarters are at Mandla town. The district consists of a wild hi…
MANDRAKE, Mandragora ogicinarunz, L., of the potato family, order Solanacex, is a native of Spain, Sicily, Crete, Cilicia, Syria, ,Sec., and North Africa (Beath, et Hook., Gen. 1'1., ii. p. 900; and DC., Prod., xiii. p. 466). It has a short stem bearing a tuft of ovate leaves, with a thick fleshy and often forked root. The flowers are solitary, with a purple bell-shaped corolla. The fruit is a fle…
MANDRILL, the name of one of the most remarkable, at all events in outward appearance, of the Baboons, Cynocephalas maimon or niormon. The general characters of the genus to which it belongs are given in the article APE, vol. ii. p. 152. The word appears to have been first introduced into our literature in a work published in 1744 called A New Voyage to Guinea, by William Smith, who in an account …
MANDURIA, a city of Italy in the province of Lecce, 22 miles east of Taranto on the road to Lecce, in the midst of a wide open country. It had 7948 inhabitants at the census of 1871, is the seat of two pretty important fairs, and contains a spacious palace of the Francavilla family, and a fine old church with campanile and rose window ; but the main interest of the place attaches to the ruins of t…
MANES. This term, which is clearly euphemistic, meaning "goodies" or "good fellows," was applied by the Romans to the spirits of the departed. As in all nations of antiquity, and in many existing savage tribes, these spirits were held by them in great awe and veneration, as being powerful for good or for harm. The doctrine, whether imported from the Egyptian theology or of Turanian origin through …
MANETHO. Manetho Sebennyta (MaviOwv, MaveOd, Mav?0thrs, MavEroO, &c., i.e., .31-cri en Thoth, "beloved by Thoth "), Egyptian priest and annalist, was a native of Sebeunytus (Semmemid) in the Delta. His name is connected by Plutarch with the reign of Ptolemy I., and he is usually stated to have written under Ptolemy II. Philadelphus, though the only authority for this is an epistle to that king of …
MANFItED (c. 1231-1266), regent and king of the Two Sicilies, a natural son of the emperor Frederick II. by Bianca Lanzia, the daughter of a Lombard earl, was born in Sicily about 1231, and received from his father the title of prince of Tarentum in 1248. Frederick II. at his death appointed him regent of the Two Sicilies during the absence of his brother Conrad IV., and notwithstanding the hostil…
MANFREDONIA, a seaport and city of Italy, in the province of Foggia, the see of an archbishop, and the centre of a maritime district, lies 22 miles north-east of Foggia, with which it is connected by railway. The situation, on the shores of the Gulf of Manfredonia and at the foot of Monte Gargano, is finely sheltered, and the vegetation of the district is similar to that of Sicily. A castle dating…
MANGALIA, a town on the coast of the Black Sea, in the south of the Dobrudja, at the head of a district in the new Roumanian province of Kustendji.
MANGALORE, the administrative headquarters of south Kanara district,.
MANGANESE, a metallic chemical element (symbol Itln ; atomic weight 55) widely diffused throughout the. mineral kingdom, being an almost constant companion of ferrous oxide, lime, and magnesia in their native carbonates. and silicates. Of manganese minerals proper - which are comparatively scarce - the most important is pyrolusite, the native binoxide, Mn02. This is a black crystalline or crystall…
MANGO. The mango-tree (Mangifera indica, L., natural order Anacardiacex or Terebintleacex) is a native of tropical Asia, but during the last hundred years has been extensively cultivated in the tropical and subtropical regions of the New as well as the Old World. It grows rapidly to a height of 30 to 40 feet, and its dense, spreading, and glossy foliage would secure its cultivation for the sake 9f…
MANGOSTEEN, Garcinia Mangostana, L., is a tree belonging to the gamboge order (Clusiacezu or Guttifera). It is a native of the Molucca Islands, but has been introduced into the other islands of the eastern archipelago, Ceylon, and southern Asia, and even the Antilles, though not without difficulty. It grows about 20 feet high, and is somewhat fir-like in general form, but the leaves are large, ova…
MANGROVE. The remarkable "mangrove forests" which fringe tidal estuaries, overrun salt marshes, and line muddy coasts in th6 tropics of both Old and New Worlds, are composed of trees and shrubs belonging to the Rhizophoracew, a small order of calycifloral exogens, mixed, however, with the "white mangrove," Avieennia, a verbenaceous plant. Their trunks and branches constantly emit adventitious root…
MANICHLEISM. At the close of the 3d century three great religious systems stood opposed to one another in western Asia and the south of Europe ; these were NeoPlatonism, Catholicism, and Manichaeism. All three may be described as the final results reached, after a history of more than a thousand years, by the religious development of the civilized nations stretching from Persia to Italy. Each had …
MANILA (less correctly MANILLA), the capital of Luzon and the Philippine Islands, and the centre of Spanish commerce in the East, was founded by Legaspi in 1571, and is situated on the eastern shore of a circular bay 120 nautical miles in circumference, 14? 36' N. lat. and running north and south of the entrance to the bay, there is really nothing attractive about the harbour. It is unsafe in the …
MANILA, DANIELE (1804-1857), president of the Venetian republic in 1848-49, and one of the principal founders of Italian independence, was born in Venice on the 13th May 1804. He studied at Padua, graduating as doctor of laws when only seventeen years of age, and soon after translated Pothier's large treatise Sul' le Dot Ronzain.. To his father, an eminent barrister, he was indebted not only for m…
MANILA HEMP, the most valuable of all fibres for cordage, is the produce of the leaf-stalks of Musa textilis, native of the Philippine Islands. The plant, called abac? by the islanders, throws up a spurious stem from its rhizome, consisting of a cluster of sheathing leaf-stalks which rise to a height of from 20 to 30 feet, and spread out into a crown of huge undivided leaves characteristic of the …
MANILIUS, a Roman poet, was the author of a poem in five books called Astronoinie.a. Nothing is recorded of the author ; he is neither quoted nor mentioned by any ancient writer. His very name is uncertain, but was probably Marcus Manilius. From the work itself it may be gathered with much probability that the writer lived under Augustus or Tiberius, and that he was a citizen of and resident in Ro…
MANIPUR, a native state in north-eastern India, lying between 24? 35' and 21.? 48' 30" N. lat., and between 93? and 94? 40' E. long., is bounded on the N. by the Naga country and the hills overlooking the Assam valley, on the W. by Cachar district, and on the E. by Independent Burmah. On the south the boundary is undefined, and abuts on the country inhabited by various independent wild hill tribes…
MANISA, or MANISSA, a town of Asia Minor or Anatolia, situated on the north side of Mount Sipylus, 28 miles northeast of Smyrna. This town was anciently called Magnesia ad Sipybon (see MAGNESIA). It is situated on the banks of the Hermus, and is noted as being one of the neatest and cleanest cities in Asia Minor. It contains above twenty mosques, two of which are adorned on the exterior with doubl…
MAN, ISLE OF, a dominion of the crown of England, situated in the Irish Sea, almost equidistant from England on the east, Scotland on the north, and Ireland on the west. It lies between 54? 2' and 51? 25' N. lat., and between 4? 18' and 4? 50' W. long., Douglas on the east coast of the island being distant 58 miles west-north-west from Fleetwood, while Peel on the west coast is 65 miles south-east…
MANISTEE, a city of the United States, the county seat of Manistee county, Michigan, is situated 135 miles north-west of Lansing, on the east side of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the -Manistee river, which is navigable for vessels drawing 10 to 12 feet of water for the distance of 11 miles to Manistee Lake.
MANITOBA, one of the western provinces of the Dominion of Canada, is situated midway between the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts of the Dominion, about 1090 miles due west of Quebec (see vol. iv. plate xxxv.). It is bounded on the S. by the parallel 49? N. lat., which divides it from the United States ; on the W. by 101? 20' W. long ; on the N. by 52? 50' N. lat.; and on the E. by the western boun…
MANITOWOC, a city of the United States, the county seat of Manitowoc county, Wisconsin, is situated on the west side of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of Manitowoc river, 77 miles north of Milwaukee by the Milwaukee, Lake Shore, and Western Railway.
MANKATO, a city of the United States, the county seat of Blue Earth county, Minnesota, is situated in the midst of a good agricultural district on the right bank of the Minnesota river, and is a station on the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St Paul, the Chicago and North Western, and the Chicago, St Paul, Minneapolis, and Omaha railways.
MANLEY, MARY DE LA Riviux (I 672-1724), dramatist, political writer, and novelist, the most eminent female " wit " of the reign of Queen Anne, was the daughter of a studious and literary royalist, Sir Roger Manley, governor of the Channel Islands, part author of The Turkish Spy, and author of several military histories. Mrs Manley is herself the chief authority for such particulars of her private …
MANNA, a concrete saccharine exudation obtained by making incisions in the trunk of the flowering or manna ash tree, Frctxinus Ornus, L. At the present day the manna of commerce is collected exclusively in Sicily from cultivated trees, chiefly in the districts around Capaci, Carini, Cinisi, and Favarota, small towns 20 to 25 miles west of Palermo, and in the townships of Geraci, Castelbuono, and o…
MANNHEIM, the most populous town and the second capital of the grand-duchy of Baden, lies on the right bank of the Rhine, in the triangular piece of low-lying ground enclosed between that river and the Neckar. It is the most regularly built town in Germany, consisting of twelve parallel streets intersected at right angles by ten others, which cut it up into about 130 square sections of equal size,…
MANN, HORACE, one of the best-known of American educationists, was born at Franklin, Massachusetts, May 4, 1796, and died at Yellow Springs, Ohio, August 2, 1659. His childhood and youth were passed in great poverty. "It was the misfortune of his family that it belonged to the smallest district, had the poorest schoolhouse, and employed the cheapest teachers, in a town which was itself small and p…
MANNING, ROBERT, commonly known as Robert of Brunne, a monk of the priory of Brunne or Bourne in Lincolnshire, wrote in the beginning of the reign of Edward III. a metrical history of England from the landing of the imaginary Brute to the end of the reign of Edward I. The work has no independent historical value; it professedly follows Peter of Langtoft's Chronicle from the Anglo-Saxon or " Inglis…
MANOMETER, or PRESSURE GAUGE, is an instrument for measuring the hydrostatic pressure exerted by gases, of steam in a steam-boiler. The simplest and at the same time most accurate form of manometer is that known as the "mercury manometer," sometimes also called the "free-air manometer," and represented in fig. 1. It consists essentially of two vertical communicating form bore, is fixed hermetical…
MANOR, in English law, is an estate in land, to which is incident the right to hold certain courts called courts baron. ? It might be described as the unit of tenure under the feudal system, and it is historically connected with the territorial divisions of the mark and the parish or township) The legal theory of the origin of manors refers them to a grant from the crown, as stated in the followin…
MANSEL, HENRY- LONGUEVILLE (1820-1871), metaphysician and theologian, was born at Cosgrove, Northamptonshire (where his father was rector) in 1820, and educated at Merchant Taylors' School and St John's College, Oxford. He succeeded to a fellowship in 1812, graduated in 1843, and became tutor of his college. He was appointed reader in moral and metaphysical philosophy at Magdalen College in 1855, …
MANSFIELD, a market-town in the county of Nottingham, England, is situated in Sherwood Forest, near houses. The church of St Peter is partly Early Norman and partly Perpendicular. There is a grammar school founded by Queen Elizabeth in 1561, for which new buildings have lately been erected at a cost of ?10,000. Twelve almshouses were founded by Elizabeth Heath in 1693, aud to these six were afterw…
MANSFIELD, the county seat of Richland county, Ohio, U.S., pleasantly situated on high ground, 51 miles south of Sandusky, in the midst of a prosperous farming district. It is the terminus of the North-Western Ohio Railroad, and is at the junction of the Baltimore and Ohio, the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne, and Chicago, and the New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio lines. It possesses a flourishing trade, an…
MANS, LE, a town of France, formerly capital of Maine and now of the department of Sarthe, lies 118 miles (131 by rail) W.S.W. from Paris, near the confluence of the Sarthe and the Huisne, on an elevation rising from the left bank of the former river. Three bridges besides that of the railway connect the town with the quarter on the right bank. Of the wide and commodious thoroughfares which are gr…
MANSON, GEORGE (1850-1876), a Scottish watercolour painter, was born in Edinburgh on the 3d of December 1850. When about fifteen he was apprenticed as a woodcutter with Messrs W. 4; R. Chambers, with whom he remained for over five years, designing and engraving vignettes distinguished by singular rightness and directness of technical method, diligently employing all his spare time in the study and…
MANSUR, MANSOOR, or more properly, with the article, AL-MANstht, "the victorious," a surname (lakab) assumed by not a few Mohammedan princes.
MANTEGN A, ANDREA (1431-1506), one of the chief heroes in the advance of painting in Italy, was born in or near Padua, of very humble parentage. It is said that in his earliest boyhood Andrea was, like Giotto, put to shepherding or cattle-herding ; but this can have lasted only a very short while, as his natural genius for art developed with singular precocity, and excited the attention of Frances…
MANTELL, GIDEoN ALGERNON (1790-1852), born in 1790 at Lewes, Sussex, rose to eminence as a popular exponent of geology, and contributed many original papers to the literature of the science. Educated for the medical profession, he first practised in his native town, afterwards in Brighton, and finally at Clapham, near London. While devoting himself with industry and success to the duties of a medi…
MANTINEIA was one of the most famous cities of Arcadia. It was situated in the long narrow valley, running north and south, which is now called after the chief town Tripolitza. Tegea was in the same valley, about 10 miles south of Mantineia, and the two cities continually disputed the supremacy of the valley. In every great war we find them ranged on opposite sides, except when superior force cons…
MANTIS. Probably no other insect has been the subject of so many and widespread legends and superstitions as the con-anon "praying mantis," Mantis religiosa, L. (see INSECTS, Orthoptera; fam. Ihrantidw, vol. xiii. p. 152). The ancient Greeks endowed it with supernatural powers (tuivrts, "a diviner ") ; the Turks and Arabs hold that it prays constantly with its face turned towards Mecca; the Proven…
MANTUA (Italian, 3[aatova), a fortified city of Italy, the chief town of a province, the see of a bishop, and the centre of a military district, lies 95 miles east-south-east of Milan, and 25 miles by rail south of Verona on the way to Modena, occupying, at the height of 86 feet above the level of the Adriatic, an almost insular site in the midst of the swampy lagoons of the .Mincio, with their va…
MANUCODE, from the French, an abbreviation of Manucodiata, and the Latinized form of the Malay Man2d, delcata, meaning, says Crawfurd (Malay and Jdmgl. Dictionary, p. 97), the " bird of the gods," and a name applied for more ;hall two hundred years apparently to Birds-of-paradise in general. In the original sense of its inventor, Montbeillard (Mist. .1Vat. Oiseaux, iii. p. 163), .dfaoucode was res…
MANUEL I., COMNENUS, emperor of Constantinople from 1143 to 1184, was the fourth son of John II. (CaboJoannes), and was born about the year 1120. He succeeded to the imperial crown on April 8, 1143, having for his martial qualities beau nominated by John to the inheritance in preference to his elder surviving brother. During his reign of thirty-seven years he was involved in almost perpetual war, …
MANUEL I., emperor of Trebizond, surnamed the Great Captain (A orpamoolyrceres), was the second son of Alexius I., first emperor of Trebizond, and ruled from 1238 to 1263.
MANUEL II.,PAL:EOLOGUS, emperor of Constantinople, was born in. 1348, and succeeded his father, John VI. (with whom lie had been associated since 1375), in 1391.
MANUESA, a town of Catalonia, Spain, 39 miles north-west of Barcelona, with a population of 15,264. It was formerly Bacasis, one of the cities of the Jaccetani, the most important of the small tribes at the foot of the Pyrenees. It lies on the left bank of the Cardonero, 2 miles above its junction with the Llobregat, in the midst of a fertile and well-irrigated district, and its chief manufactures…
MANURE. The terra " manure," though formerly applied only to the excrements of animals, either alone or-mixed with straw, is now more widely used, and is given to all substances, or mixtures of substances, which are added to the soil in order to increase its prodnetiveness or to restore the natural fertility lost by repeated cropping. The subject of manures and their application involves a prior c…
MANUTIUS. I. Amius MANUTIUS (1450-1515). Teobaldo Mannucci, better known as Aldo Manuzio, the founder of the Aldine press, was born in 1450 at Sermoneta in the Papal States. He received a scholar's training, studying Latin at Rome under Gasparino da Verona, and Greek at Ferrara underGuarino da. Verona. Having qualified himself for the career of a humanist, according to the custom of the century, h…
MANZONI, ALESSANDRO FRANCESCO TOMMASO ANTONIO (1785-1873), founder of the romantic school in Italian literature, was born at Milan, March 7, 1785. Don Pietro, his father, then about fifty, represented an old family settled near Lecco, but originally feudal lords of Barzio, in the Valsassina, where the memory of their violence is still perpetuated in a local proverb, comparing it to that of the mou…
MAORIES. See NEW ZEALAND. MAP. 1. First Essays in Map-nutking. - As each man stands in the centre of his horizon and the portion of the earth's surface which lies within his range of vision has the appearance of a disk, the whole world was in ancient times conceived as a disk surrounded by the sea. It was consequently not uncommon for a people to imagine - as was the case we know with the Chinese,…
MAPLE. Maples and the sycamore are species of Acer,. suborder .Acerinex, order Sapindacem. The genus includes about fifty species, natives of Europe, North America, North Asia, especially the Himalayas and Japan (Benth. and Hook., Gen. Pl., i. 409). Maples are for the most part trees with palmately-lobed leaves. The flowers are in corymbs or racemes, - the lowermost mostly male, the terminal bisex…
MAP, MAPES, or MAPUS, WALTER, an ecclesiastical statesman and renowned wit of the 12th century, must be ranked among the greatest of English writers, though French was the language that he used, and his personal fame has long been lost in the splendour of his creations. He was the cosmogonist and one of the principal creators of the Round Table legends, which supplied the ideal of chivalrous life …
MARABOUT is a corruption of the Arabic Moral!, a Moslem name for a hermit or a devotee. Primarily the word is derived from ribdt, a fortified frontier station. To such stations pious men betook them to win religious merit in war against the infidel ; their leisure was spent in devotion, and the habits of the convent superseded those of the camp (see De Slane in Jour. As., 1842, i. 168; Dozy, Suipl…
MARACAIBO, a city and seaport of Venezuela, the capital of the state of Zulia (formerly Maracaibo), lies about 25 miles from the sea on the west bank of Lake Maracaibo, the suburbs presenting, with their cocoa-nut groves, a fine contrast to the background of barren-looking hills sloping up from the shore to a height of about 200 feet. The streets are laid out at right angles ; the houses are poor …
MARAGHA, a town of Persia, province Azerbijan, 37? 20' N., 46? 25' E., 68 miles from Tabriz, 232 north-west of Tehran, pleasantly situated in a long narrow valley opening towards Lake Urmiah, which lies 10 miles to the north-west. The town consists mostly of mud houses enclosed by a high dilapidated wall, and containing no conspicuous buildings except a large bazaar and fine public bath. Nasir-ed-…
MARANHAO, or MARANHAM (Latinized as Moray-. nanum), in full form SAD Lutz DE MARANHAO, the chief town of the province of Maranhao in Brazil, is situated in 2? 30' S. lat. and 44? 17' W. long., on the west side of an island of the same name 28 miles long and 15 broad. Though built on so hilly a surface that carriages cannot be used, it is laid out with regularity, and has straight, wide, and clean-…
MARATHON- was a plain on the north-east coast of Attica, containing four villages - Marathon, Probalinthos, Tricorythos, and Oinoe, which formed a tetrapolis. It was divided from the plain of Athens by Mount Pentelicus and the hilly district of Diacria, and was in the early period an autonomous state. After it became incorporated in the Attic state, it retained something of its original distinctiv…
MARBLE is a term applied to any limestone which is sufficiently close in texture to admit of being polished. Many other ornamental stones - such as serpentine, alabaster, and even granite - are sometimes loosely designated as marbles, but by accurate writers the term is invariably restricted to those crystalline and compact varieties of carbonate of lime which, when polished, are applicable to pur…
MARBLEHEAD, a town and port of entry of the United States, in Essex county, Massachusetts, situated on the coast, 17 miles by rail north-east of Boston, and 4 miles south-east of Salem, and communicates by two branch lines with the main line of the Eastern Railway. It is built on a rocky peninsula of about 3700 acres in extent, which juts out into Massachusetts Bay, and has a deep, roomy, and near…
MARBURG, an ancient university town of Prussia, in the province of Hesse-Nassau and district of Cassel, is very picturesquely situated on the slope of a bill on the right bank of the Lahti, 50 miles to the north of Frankfort-onthe-Main, and about the Same distance to the south-west of Cassel. On the opposite bank of the river, which is here spanned by two bridges, lie the suburb of Weidenhausen an…
MARBURG, the second town of the Austrian duchy of Styria, is very picturesquely situated on both banks of the river Drave, in a plain called the Pettauer-Feld, at the base of the well-wooded Bachergebirge. It is the seat of the bishop of Lavant, and of the judicial and administrative authorities of the district, and contains a gymnasium, a " realschule," an episcopal seminary, a normal school, a p…
MARCANTONIO, or, to give him his full name, MARCANTONIO RAIMONDI, is celebrated as the chief Italian master of the art of engraving in the age of the Renaissance. The date of his birth is uncertain, nor is there any good authority for assigning it, as is commonly done, approximately to the year 1488. He was probably born some years at least earlier than this, inasmuch as he is mentioned by a conte…
MARCASITE. Modern mineralogists, following Haidinger, have restricted this name to those forms of native bisulphide of iron which crystallize in the orthorhombic system, and are sometimes known as "prismatic iron-pyrites." By the older mineralogists the word was used with less definite meaning, being applied to all crystallized and radiated pyrites, whether rhombic or cubic. In the last century bo…
MARCELLUS, M. CLAUDIUS, son of C. Marcellus and Octavia, sister to Octavianus, was born about 43 B.C. Octavianus adopted him and made him pontifex and senator with prtetorian rank. In 25 he married Julia, daughter of Octavianus, and was looked on as his future successor. Yet in a dangerous illness Augustus gave his signet to Agrippa. Differences arising, Agrippa was made proconsul of Syria to sepa…
MARCELLUS, M. CLAUDIUS, was curule ocdile in 56 B.C. with P. Clodius. In 52 he spoke on behalf of Milo at his trial. In 51 he was consul with Ser. Sulpicius. During his consulship he proposed to remove Cmsar from his army from March 49. The decision was, however, delayed by Pompeius's irresolution till February 50, and then the tribune C. Curio insisted that Pompeius also should vacate his command…
MARCELLUS II., Marcellus Cervini, cardinal of Santa Croce, a native of the Mark of Ancona, was elected pope in the room of Julius III. on April 9, 1555, but his feeble constitution succumbed to the fatigues of the conclave, the exhausting ceremonies connected with his accession, and the anxieties arising from his high office, on the twenty-first day after his election.
MARCELLUS, MARCUS CLAUDIUS, Roman warrior, was born about 268 n.c., and served first in Sicily against Hamilcar. In his first consulship (222) he was engaged in the war against the Insubres, and won the spolia opima by slaying their chief Viridomarus. In 216 he was to have gone as prwtor to Sicily with a fleet, but was detained on the news of the defeat at Cannae. He went to Canusium and took comm…
MARCH, the third month of our modern year, contains thirty-one days. As in the Roman year so in the English ecclesiastical calendar used till 1752 this was the first month, and the legal year commenced on the 25th of March. The Romans called this month Martins, from the god Mars ; and it received the name Illyd ilionath, i.e., loud or stormy month, from the Anglo-Saxons. In France March was also g…
MARCHE, a former province of central France, was bounded on the N. by Berri, on the N.
MARCHENA, a town of Spain, in the province of Seville, lies in a sandy valley, not far from the Corbones, a tributary of the Guadalquivir, about 30 miles east-south-east from Seville. It is a station on the line by which Seville and Utrera are connected with Osuna and the Cordova-Malaga line. Formerly it was surrounded with walls and towers, of which some traces still remain. Among the principal b…
MARCIAN (MARcinNus), emperor of the East from 450 to 457, was born in a private station of life in Illyria or Thrace, about the year 391, and at an early age entered the army, where after a considerable term of obscurity he attracted the attention of Ardaburius and subsequently of Aspar, being made military secretary and a captain in the guards. He accompanied Aspar in the ill-fated expedition aga…
MARCION AND THE MA RCIONITE CHURCHES. In the fixed constitutions and creeds, schools with distinctive esoteric doctrines, associations for worship with peculiar mysteries, and ascetic sects with special rules of conduct. Of churchly organizations the most important, next to catholicism, was the Marcionite community. Like the catholic church, this body professed to comprehend everything belonging t…
MARCUS, the successor of Pope Sylvester I., according to the Liberian catalogue, had a pontificate of eight months and twenty days, from January 18 to October 7, 336.
MARCUS MANLIUS CAPITOLINITS, a brave and distinguished soldier, was one of the garrison of the Capitol while besieged by the Gauls ; when they attempted to scale the rock by night, Manlius, aroused by the cackling of the sacred geese, rushed to the spot and threw down the foremost.
MAR, EARLDOM or. Mar, one of the ancient divisions or provinces of Scotland, comprised the larger portion of Aberdeenshire, extending from north of the Don southwards to the Mounth, It is remarkable for its association with the oldest historical dignity of Scotland, or perhaps of any country, which has been perpetuated to our own time. Donald MacEnun MacCainech, mormaer (hereditary ruler or stewar…
MARGARET (1283-] 290), known in Scottish history as the "Maid of Norway," was, through her mother Margaret, who had been married to Eric of Norway, the only grandchild of Alexander III. of Scotland, and was born in Norway in 1283.
MARGARET of AUSTRIA (1522-1586), duchess of Parma, and regent of the Netherlands from 1559 to 1567, was a natural daughter of Charles V. by Margaret van Gheenst, a Flemish lady, and was born at Brussels in 1522.
MARGARET OF ANJOU, who became the queen of Henry -VI. of England, was born at Pont it Mousson in Lorraine on the 24thl March 1429. Her father, " the good King Rene," as he was called in later years, did not at the time of her birth possess any of the pompous titles to which he afterwards laid claim, but was simply count of Guise, and younger brother of the existing duke of Anjou. He had, however, …
MARGARET OF AUSTRIA (1480-1530), duchess of Savoy, and regent of the Netherlands from 1507 to 1530, was the daughter of the emperor Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy, and was born at Brussels on January 10, 1480.
MARGARET, ST, queen of Scotland, born in Hungary about 1040, was a daughter of Edward the Atheling, son of Edmund Ironsicle; her mother was Agatha, most probably a niece of Queen Gisela of Hungary and of the emperor Henry II. She accompanied her father to England in 1057, and after the Norman Conquest she was brought (1066) to Scotland, where she became the wife of Malcolm Canniore in the spring o…
MARGARITA, an island in the Caribbean Sea, about 8 miles off the coast of Venezuela, constituting along with the lesser islands Blanquilla and Hermanos the new state of Nueva Esparta. It has an area of 400 square miles, consists of two portions united by a low and narrow isthmus, is generally mountainous, and attains its greatest elevation of 4630 feet in Mont Macanao. The pearls from which Margar…
MARGARITA, ST, virgin and martyr, is celebrated by the Church of Rome on July 20, but her feast formerly fell on the 13th, and her story is almost identical, even in the proper names, with that of the Greek St Marina (July 17). She was of Antioch (in the Greek story Antioch of Pisidia), daughter of a priest Alclesius. She lived in the country with a foster mother, scorned by her father for her Chr…
MARGATE, a municipal borough, market-town, and watering-place of Kent, England, is situated in the Isle of Thanet, 4 miles west of North Foreland, and by rail 90 miles east of London, with which it has also in summer daily steam communication by water. The streets of the town are regular and spacious, and there are many good villas in the suburbs. There is a marine terrace 2500 feet in length, par…
MARGHILAN, Baber's MARGHINAN, 40? 28' N. lat., 71? 45' E. long., now the administrative centre of the Russian province of FEROIIANA (q.v.), a very old town, with high earthen walls and twelve gates, commanded by the fort of Yar Mazar, lies in a beautiful and extraordinarily fertile district of the same name, irrigated by canals from the Shahimardan river.
MARGUERITE DE VALOIS. The name Marguerite was common in the Valois dynasty, and during the 16th century there were three princesses, all of whom figure in the political as well as in the literary history of the time, and who have been not unfrequently confounded. The first and last are the most important, but all deserve some account. I. MARGUERITE D'ANGOULEME (1492-1549). This, the most celebrate…
MARIAN, a town of Turkish Kurdistan, the seat of a governor dependent on the pasha of Diarbekir, is situated in 37? 20' N. lat. and 41? E. long., about 60 miles southeast of Diarbekir, at a height of 3900 feet above the sea. Climbing the southern side of a steep conical hill (of soft limestone) in such a way that the roofs of the lower tier of houses serve as a?street for those immediately above, …
MARIANA, JUAN DE (1536-1621), a celebrated Spanish historian, was born of obscure parentage at Talavera de la Rehm in 1536. He studied at the university of Alcala, and the famous cardinal. He then passed into Sicily, where he remained for about two years, and in 1569 he was sent to Paris, where his expositions of the writings of Aquinas attracted large audiences. In 1574 the decline of his which h…
MARIA THERESA (1717-1780), archduchess of Austria, queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and empress of Germany, was the daughter of the emperor Charles VI. of Austria, by his wife Elizabeth Christina of BrunswickWolfenbiittel, and was born in Vienna on May 13, 1717.
MARIE ANTOINETTE, JOSEPHE JEANNE (1755? 1793), queen of France, was the fourth daughter of Maria Theresa and the emperor Francis I., and was born on the 2d November 1755, on the day of the great earthquake at Lisbon, and in the year in which the hereditary policy of enmity between the houses of France and Austria was changed to an alliance between them. From her earliest years she was destined by …
MARIE DE FRANCE is one of the most interesting figures in the literary history of the Middle Ages. She is also one of the most mysterious. Nothing is known of her except from her own statements, which amount to little more than that her name was Marie and her country France, that she dedicated one of her works to an unnamed king, and another to a certain Count William. She is mentioned by Denis Py…
MARIENBAD, one of the prettiest and most frequented watering-places on the Continent of Europe, with a station (about 1+ miles S:E. of the town) on the Kaiser Franz Josephs Railway, lies in a pleasant valley in the district of Tepl, in the north-west of Bohemia, about 18 miles south of Carlsbad, and nearly 2000 feet above the level of the sea. The gently-sloping hills which enclose it on all side…
MARIENBURG (in Polish, ilicaborg), the chief town of a circle in the district of Dantzic, Prussia, lies 30 miles to the south-east of Dantzic, in a fertile plain on the right bank of the Nogat, a channel of the Vistula, here spanned by a handsome railway bridge and by a bridge of boats. Marienburg contains a large chemical wool-cleaning work and several other factories, carries on a considerable t…
MARIETTA, a city of the United States, the capital of Washington county, Ohio, lies on the right bank of the Ohio, at the mouth of the Muskingum, 85 miles south-east of Columbus, and is the eastern terminus of the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad, and the southern terminus of the Cleveland and Marietta Railroad. The surrounding country being rich in petroleum, iron, and coal, the city has become t…
MARIETTE, AUGL'STE FERDINAND FRAInOIS, elder son of Francois P. Mariette, advocate and town-clerk of Boulogne-sur-Mer, was born iu that town on the 11th of February 1821. Educated at the Boulogne municipal college, he distinguished himself in geometry, physics, chemistry, history, Latin, Greek, and English. He also evinced a remarkable talent for art. In 1839, when but eighteen years of age, he we…
MARIGNOLLI, GIOVANNI DE', a notable traveller to the far East of the 14th century, born probably prior to 1290, and sprung from a noble family in Florence. The family is long extinct, but a street near the cathedral (Via de' Cerretani) formerly bore the name of the 3larignolli. In vol. v. pp. 628-29 some account has been given of the extraordinary episode of intercourse between Europe and China in…
MARIGOLD. This name has been given to several plants, of which the following are the best known : - Calendula qfileinalis, L., the pot-marigold; Tagetes erecter, L., the African marigold ; patu/a, L., the French marigold ; and Cltrysanthemum segetum, the corn marigold. All these below-, to the order Composite; but Caltha paletstris, L., the marsh marigold, is a ranunculaceous plant. ? The first-me…
MARINES. With all maritime nations, especially if they be insular and capable of taking the offensive in war, there must frequently be cases in which naval operations can be supplemented by the landing of a force. The armament, equipment, and discipline of the armies and navies of such nations were in early days practically alike. But with the introduction of more regular levies and better organiz…
MARINI, or MARINO, GIAMBATTISTA (1569-1625), Italian poet, was born at Naples on October 18, 1569.
MARINUS I. (MARTIN-us II.) succeeded John VIII, in the pontificate about the end of December 882.
MARIONETTES (probably from morio, a fool or buffoon), FANTOCCINI (from fantino, a child), or PUPPETS (poupee, a baby or doll), are figures, generally below life-size, suspended by threads or wires and imitating with their limbs and beads the movements of living persons. The high antiquity of puppets appears from the fact that figures with movable limbs have been discovered in the tombs of Egypt an…
MARION, FRANCIS (1732-1795), Americhn general, was born in 1732 at Winyah, near Georgetown, South Carolina. In 1759-61 he served as lieutenant in expeditions against the Cherokees, and in 1775 he was elected a member of the provincial congress of South Carolina. This voted two regiments of infantry, and Marion was elected captain in the second. Iie was made lieutenant-colonel after the defence of …
MARITIME PROVINCE (Russian, Printorskaya Oblast), a province of the Russian empire, and part of the general-governorship of Eastern Siberia, is a strip of territory which extends along the Siberian coast of the Pacific from Corea to the Arctic Ocean, and also includes the peninsula of KAMCHATK A (q.v.), the island of Saghalien or Sakhalin, and several small islands scattered along the coast. Its w…
MARIUPOL, a seaport of Russia, on the northern shore of the Sea of Azoff, at the mouth of the Kalmius, in the government of Ekaterinoslav, 55 miles west of Taganrog. It is connected by a branch railway with the line between Kharkoff and Taganrog, and is situated on the highway between the latter town and the Crimea. The place is said to have been inhabited in remote times under the name of Adamakh…
MAR IVAUX, PIERRE CARLET DE CHAMBLATN DE (1688-1763), novelist and dramatist, was born at Paris on the 4th February 1688. His father vais a financier of Norman extraction, whose real name was Carlet, but who after the loose fashion of the period assumed the surname of Chamblain, and then, finding that others of his class had chosen the same, superadded that of Marivaux. M. Carlet de Marivaux, howe…
MARK, the traditional name of the author of the Second Gospel. The name Mark occurs in several books of the New Testament. In the Acts of the Apostles, chap. xii. mention is made of "John whose surname was Mark," to the house of whose mother, Mary, at Jerusalem, Peter went when miraculously released from prison.I This John Mark went with Barnabas and Paul on their missionary journey, as far as Per…
MARKIRCH (in French, Ste-ifarie-aux-Mines), a flourishing industrial town of Germany, in Upper Alsace, circle of Rappoltsweiler, is prettily situated in the valley of the Leber or Liepvrette, an affluent of the Rhine, near the French frontier. The once productive silver, copper, and lead mines of the neighbourhood are now no longer worked ; and the present chief industries of the place are weaving…
MARLBOROUGH, a municipal and parliamentary borough of Wiltshire, England, situated on the great highroad between London and Bath, and distant 75 miles from the former, 32 from the latter, and 13 from Devizes. It stands on the left bank of the Kennet, a tributary of the Thames, in 51? 25' N. lat. and 1? 43' W. long. It is an agricultural centre, and has a weekly market. In the days of its prosperit…
MARLBOROUGH, a town of the United States, in Middlesex county, Massachusetts, about 25 miles west from Boston, with stations on the Old Colony and the Fitchburg Railways. It lies in a fertile hilly district, and contains a beautiful sheet of water 160 acres in extent, known as Williams Lake. Shoemaking is the staple industry, some of the factories in the department rivalling the largest in the wor…
MARLOWE, CHRISTOPHER (1564-1593), the father of English tragedy and the creator of English blank verse, was born at Canterbury in February 1564, and christened on the 26th of that month. John Marlowe, his father, is said, on authority which satisfied the best editor of the poet, to have been a shoemaker by trade ; it is supposed also that he was clerk of his parish, and survived his illustrious so…
MARLOW, GREAT, a parliamentary borough of Buckinghamshire, England, is finely situated on the Thames, and on a branch of the Great Western Railway, 37 miles west of London and 25 south-east of Oxford. It consists principally of two streets which cross each other at right angles. The church of All Saints, in the Later English style, erected in 1835, and lately extensively restored, possesses a numb…
MARLY-LE-ROT, chief place of a canton in the department of Seine-et-Oise, France, 5 miles to the north of Versailles and 3 miles to the south of St Germain-en-Laye, is, notwithstanding some fine country houses, a dull and unattractive village of 1250 inhabitants, which owes all its celebrity to the sumptuous chateau of Louis XIV. It was originally designed as a simple hermitage to which the king c…
MARMONT, AUGUSTE FREDLUC LOUIS VIESSE DE (1774-1852), duke of Ragusa, and marshal of France, one of Napoleon's earliest friends and most trusted generals, was born at Chtitillon-sur-Seine, on July 20, 1774. He was the son of an ex-officer in the army, who belonged to the petite noblesse, and had adopted the principles of the Revolution. His love of soldiering soon showing itself, his father took h…
MARMONTEL, JEAN FRANcOIS (1723-1799), one of the most distinguished men of letters in Paris during the latter half of the 18th century, was born of poor parents in Limousin, on the 11th July 1723. After studying with the Jesuits at Mauriac, he taught in their colleges at Clermont and Toulouse ; and in 1745, acting on the advice of Voltaire, lie set out for Paris to try for literary honours. From 1…
MARMOT. The word marmot may be considered to include animals belonging to the three following genera: - the true marmots; forming the genus Arctomys (" bear-mouse "), so called from the thickset, bear-like form of its members ; the prairie marmots of North America, better known as the "prairie dogs" (Cynomys, "dog-mouse "); and the pouched marmots, or sousliks, comprising the genus SpermopItilus, …
MARNE, a department of the north-east of France, made up from Champagne-Pouilleuse, E6mois, Perthois, Vallage, and La Brie-Charnpenoise, districts formerly belonging to Champagne. Its chief town, Chftlons-surMarne, is 92 miles in a direct line east of Paris. Bounded on the W. by Seine-et-Marne and Aisne, on the N. by Ardennes, on the E. by Meuse, on the S. by Haute-Marne and Aube, it is situated b…
MARNE, HAUTE-, a department of eastern France, made up for the most part of districts belonging to the former province of Champagne (Bassigny, Perthois, Vallage), with smaller portions of Lorraine and Burgundy, and some fragments of Franche-Comtd. It lies between 47? 35' and 48? 40' N. lat., and between 4? 40' and 5? 55" E. long., the capital, Chaumont, being 133 miles east-south-east from Paris i…
MARONITES (Syriac, Itorz2/14,i ? Arabic, Jfascsfrina), an ecclesiastical community, and therefore also, according to the usage of the Christian East, a distinct political or social body, found mainly in or near the Lebanon, acknowledging the headship of the pope and the Latin standard of orthodoxy, but still retaining some peculiar privileges, including the use of a Syriac service - which few even…
MAROONS.
MAROS-VSSARHELY, a royal free town of Hungary, and capital of the Transylvanian county of Maros-Torda, is situated on the Maros and on the Hungarian Eastern Railway, 50 miles northeast of Hermannstadt, in 46? 30' N. lat., 24? 31' E. long. It is the seat of the "royal table court of appeal for the Transylvanian circle, of royal and circuit courts of law, of a board of works, and of offices of assay…
MAROT, CaMENT (1496-1541), one of the most agreeable if not one of the greatest poets of France, and a figure of all but the first importance in her literary hiAory, was born at Cahors, the capital of the province of Quercy, some time during the winter of the year 1496-97. He was, however, not a southern by blood, at least by his father's side. That father, Jean Marot, whose more correct name appe…
MARQUESAS ISLANDS, or MENDAA ISLANDS (French, Les Marquises), an archipelago of twelve islands lying between 7? 50' and 10? 35' S. lat., and 138? 30' and 140? 50' W. long. They extend over 200 miles from S.E. to N.W., and have a total area of 489 square miles. The lower or true Marquesas group consists of the islands Fatonhiva or Magdalena, Motaoe or San Pedro, Tahouata or Sta Christina, and Hivao…
MARQUETTE, a city and port of entry of the United States, and the county seat of Marquette county, Michigan, lies on a bluff about 25 feet above a bay of Lake Superior, and is a terminus of the Marquette, Houghton, and Ontonagon, and the Detroit, Mackinac, and Marquette Railroads.
MARQUETTE, JACQUES, a Jesuit missionary and the mission of Sault Sainte Marie on Lake Superior in 1668, and followed the Hurons to Mackinaw in 1671.
MARQUIS, or MARQUESS, a title and rank of nobility, the second in the order of the British peerage, and therefore next to duke.
MARRIAGE, LAW OF.' Marriage may be defined here as the act, ceremony, or process by which the legal relation ship of husband and wife is constituted. In most if not all legal systems it takes the form of a contract - the mutual assent of the parties being the prominent and indispensable feature of the ceremony. Whether it is really a contract or not, and if so to what class of contracts it belongs…
MARRY.A.T, FREDERICK (1792-1848), has never been surpassed as a writer of tales of nautical adventure. His own life supplied him with abundant raw materials for his art. The son of a wealthy London gentleman (who sat in parliament for several years for the boroughs of Horsham and Sandwich, and was a writer of verses and political pamphlets), he distinguished himself as a boy by frequently running …
MARS was a Roman deity whose name has passed into later literature as that of the war god. There grew in Rome a tendency, fostered by Greek influence, to consider Jupiter as the one great god, and the other deities as representing special sides of his character. Mars then was identified with the Greek ARES (q.v.), and was regarded as almost the same in nature with the warlike element in Jupiter as…
MARSALA, a seaport on the west coast of Sicily, in the province of Trapani, 20 miles south of Trapani, to the north of the river Marsala, with a station on the railway between Trapani and Palermo. A flourishing and well-built town, with wide paved streets, it possesses a castle, a cathedral, a theatre, cavalry barracks (now occupied by Government offices), an academy of science and literature, and…
MARSDEN, WILLIAM (1754-1836), an eminent Oriental scholar, was the son of a Dublin merchant, and was born in 1754. After studying at Trinity College, he obtained an appointment in the civil service of the East India Company, and set sail for Bencoolen, Sumatra, in 1771. There he soon rose to the office of principal secretary to the Government, and was at the same time intent on acquiring that inti…
MARSEILLES (Fr. Marseille), the third largest city of France, and the chief commercial port of the Mediterranean, in 43? 17' N. lat. and 5? 22' E. long., is the chief town of the department of Bouches du Rhfine, headquarters of the 15th army corps, the seat of a bishop, and of numerous commercial and scientific institutions. The population (1881) is 360,099. The old harbour of Marseilles opens on …
MARSHAL (from Old High German morale, horse, and scale, care-taker), in its original signification a servant of the royal moneys, was afterwards a title given in different countries to the holder of various high offices, military and civil. In the time of Philip Augustus the commander of the French forces was called the marshal of France. Under Francis I. the marshals of France became two in numbe…
MARSHALL, Jons (1755-1835), chief justice of the United States, was born in Fauquier county, Virginia, on September 24, 1755. As lieutenant and captain he served in the revolutionary army from 1775 to 1780. In 1781 he began the practice of the law, and two years later removed to Richmond. At various times from 1782 to 1798 he was elected a member of the Virginia legislature, in 1788 a member of th…
MARSHALLTOWN, the county seat. of Marshall County, Iowa, United States, is situated on the Iowa river at the junction of several railways, and in the midst of a grain and stock producing region.
MARSH, GEORGE PERKINS, LL.D. (1801-1882), American diplomatist and philologist, was born at Woodstock, Vermont, March 17, 1801, graduated at Dartmouth College in 1820, and practised law at Burlington, Vermont, devoting himself also with ardour to philological studies. In 1835 he was elected' to the State legislature, and in 1842 he became a member of Congress. In 1849 he was appointed United State…
MARSHMAN, JOSHUA (1768-1837), a Baptist missionary and Oriental scholar, was born on April 20, 1768, at Westbury Leigh, in Wiltshire, where he received a somewhat defective school education, and afterwards followed the occupation of a weaver until 1794, when he removed to Bristol to take charge of a small school there. Meanwhile he had been diligent in the cultivation of his talents, which were na…
MARSTON, JOHN, was one of the most vigorous satirists and dramatists of the Shakespearean age. He was probably some ten years younger than Shakespeare He has been identified with a gentleman commoner of Brasenose College, Oxford, who entered in 1591, and was admitted B.A. in 1593 as the eldest son of an esquire. If this is the same John Marston that was buried in the Temple Church in 1634, under a…
MARTAZELL, a village in the duchy of Styria, Austria, with about 1200 inhabitants, is very picturesquely situated in the valley of the Salza, amid the Styrian Alps.
MARTEN,1 the name of a group of animals constituting a small but well-defined section of the family Musteli4 belonging to the Arctoid or Bear-like division of the order Carnivore (see 3ilioniALIA, pp. 439, 440 of the present volume). The genus ilfustela, as restricted by Cuvier (Revue Animal, 1817), contains a very natural assemblage of animals commonly called Martens, Sables, Polecats, Stoats, Er…
MARTIAL (M. VALERIHS MAKTIALIS) is a writer to whose merits it is difficult to do justice in the present day. His faults are of the most glaring kind ; they are exhibited without the least concealment ; and they are of the sort of which modern feeling is most intolerant. Living as he did under perhaps the worst of the many bad emperors who ruled the world in the 1st century, he addresses him and h…
MARTIGUES, chief place of a canton in the department of Bouches-du-Rhtine, France, stands on the southern shore of the lagoon of Berre, and at the eastern extremity of that of Caronte, by which the former is connected with the Mediterranean.
MARTIN 1 (French, Martinet), the Ilinendo urbica of Linnmus and Cbelidon atrbica of modern ornithologists, a bird very well known throughout Europe, including even Lapland, where it is abundant, retiring in winter to the south of Africa.' It also inhabits the western part of Asia, and appears from time to time in large flocks in India ; but the boundaries of its range and those of at least one of …
MARTIN V. (Otto di Colonna), pope from 1417 to 1431, was elected on St Martin's day at Constance by a conclave consisting of twenty-three cardinals and thirty delegates of the council, which after deposing John XXIII. had long experienced much perplexity from the conflicting claims of Gregory XII. and Benedict XIII. The son of Agapito Colonna and Catarina Conti, born about 1368, he belonged to one…
MARTIN, Jows (1789-1854), a popular 'English painter, was born at Haydon Bridge, near Hexham, on the 19th of July 1789. On account of his early interest in art he was apprenticed by his father to a coachbuilder to learn heraldic painting, but owing to a quarrel the indentures were cancelled, and he was placed under Bonifacio Musso, an Italian artist, father of the well-known enamel painter Charles…
MARTIN I., pope, succeeded Theodore I., in June or July 649. He had previously acted as papal apocrisiarius at Constantinople, and was held in high repute for learning and virtue. Almost his first official act was to summon a synod (the first Lateran) for dealing with the Monothelite heresy. It met in the Lateran church, was attended by one hundred and five bishops (chiefly from Italy, Sicily, and…
MARTINA FRANCA, a city of Italy in the province of Lecce, 18 miles north of Taranto, on a bill near the sources of the Tara.
MARTINEAU, HARRIET (1802-1876), English woman of letters, was born at Norwich, where her father was a manufacturer. The family was of Huguenot extraction, but had adopted Unitarian views. Her education, which included Latin and French, as well as domestic accomplishments, was received partly at home, and partly under a Mr Perry, to whose lessons in logical English composition she ascribed somethin…
MARTINI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1706-1784), the most learned musician of the 18th century, was born at Bologna on April 25, 1706. His father, Antonio Maria Martini, a 'violinist, taught him very early the elements of music, and to play the violin : at a later period he learned singing and harpsichord playing from Padre Pradieri, and counterpoint from Antonio Riecieri. Having received his education in …
MARTINIQUE, one of the West India islands, belonging to the chain of the Lesser Antilles, and constituting a French colony, lies 33 miles south of Dominica and 22 north of Saint Lucia, between 14? 23' and 14? 52' N. lat. and 63? 6' and 63? 31' W. long. The greatest length is 43 miles, the mean width 19 ; and the surface comprises 244,090 acres, or 380 square miles. A cluster of volcanic mountains …
MARTINI, SIMONE (1283-1344), called also Simone di Martino, and more commonly, but not correctly, Simon Memmi,1 was born in 1283. He followed the manner of painting proper to his native Siena, as improved by Duccio, which is essentially different from the style of Giotto and his school, and the idea that Simone was himself a pupil of Giotto is therefore wide of the mark. The Sienese style is less …
MARTIN IV., pope from 1281 to 1285, was the successor of Nicholas III. He was a native of Touraine, born about 1210, and his proper name was Simon de Brion. After holding various offices at Rouen and Tours, he was made chancellor of France by Louis IX. in 1260, and cardinal by Urban 1V. in 1261. He acted as legate for this pope and also for his successor Clement IV. in the negotiations for the ass…
MARTINSBURG, a town of the United States, the capital of Berkeley county, West Virginia, lies on a plateau above thy Tuscarora Creek, in the Shenandoah valley, 80 miles west of Washington. A station on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and a terminus of the Cumberland Valley Railway, Martinsburg is the seat of extensive machine-shops belonging to the former company, which were sacked by the Confede…
MARTIN, ST, bishop of Tours, was born of heathen parents at Sabaria (Stein am Anger) in Pannonia, about the year 316. When ten years of age he became a catechumen, and at fifteen, contrary to his own inclination, he entered the army. It was while he was stationed at Amiens that be divided his cloak with the beggar, and on the following night had the vision of Christ making known to his angels this…
MARTOS, a town of Spain, in the province of Jaen, is situated on the slope of a steep hill, which is surmounted by a ruined castle, 16 miles west-south-west of Jaen.
MARTYN, HENRY (1781-1812), a celebrated missionary, was born on February 18, 1781, at Truro, Cornwall. He came of a mining family, and his father John Martyn was a " captain " or mine-agent at Gwennap. He received his education at the grammar school of his native town under the famous Dr Cardew, entered St John's College, Cambridge, in the autumn of 1797, and in 1801, a month before he was twenty …
MARTYROLOGY, a catalogue or list of martyrs, arranged according to the succession of their anniversaries, and sometimes including an account of their lives and sufferings. The corresponding word in the Greek Church is Menologion or Analogion ; from the Menologia the Synaxaria are compiled. The custom of paying honour to the memory of those who had "witnessed the good confession" in perilous times …
MARULLUS, MICHAEL TARCHANIOTA (ob. 1500), one of the most brilliant scholars of the golden age of Florentine learning, was born at Constantinople, and at an early age, on the fall of his native city, was brought to Ancona in Italy, where lie became the friend and pupil of Pontanus, with whom his name is associated by Ariosto (Oil. Fur., xxxvii. 8). He was a soldier and a poet, and in the latter ca…
MARUTSE-MABUNDA, a kingdom in South Africa, ?stretching from 18? to 14? 25' S. lat. and from about 22? to 28? 25' B. long., with an area estimated at 123,590 square miles. It all belongs to the basin of the Zambesi, and by far the greater proportion lies to the north of that river, which forms its south-eastern boundary from the mouth of the Linyanti to the mouth of the Kafue, a distance of about …
MARVELL, ANDREW (1621-1678), was born on March 31, 1621, at the parsonage of Winestead in Holderness. He was educated at Hull grammar school by his father, who had obtained high position in that town, until his admission to Trinity College, Cambridge, on December 14, 1633. There he became ensnared by the Jesuits, who at that time were keen to secure youths of promise at the universities, and by th…
MARY (1542-1587), queen of Scots, daughter of King James V. and his wife Mary of Lorraine, was born in December 1542, a few days before the death of her father, heart-broken by the disgrace of his arms at Solway Moss, where the disaffected nobles had declined to encounter an enemy of inferior force in the cause of a king whose systematic policy had been directed against the privileges of their ord…
MARY I., queen of England (1516-1558), unpleasantly remembered as "the Bloody Mary" on account of time religious persecutions sanctioned under her reign, was a woman whose private history demands no less compassion than her policy as queen (if indeed it was her own) merits the condemnation of a more humane and tolerant age. She was the daughter of Henry VIII. and Catherine of Aragon, born in the e…
MARY 1 (Mapia, Maptc'tp,), the mother of Jesus, at the time when the gospel history begins, had her home in Galilee, at the village of Nazareth. Of her parentage nothing is recorded in any extant historical document of the 1st century, for the genealogy in Luke iii. (cf. f. 27) is manifestly that of Joseph. In early life she became the wife of JOSEPH (q.v.) and also the mother of our Lord (see JES…
MARYBOROUGH, a town of Queensland, Australia, in the county of March, on the left bank of the Mary river, 25 miles from its mouth, about 180 miles north of Brisbane, in 25? 35' S. lat. and 152? 43' E. long. It is the principal shipping port for an extensive district, communicating by steamer and coach with Brisbane and (since 1881) by railway with the Gympie gold-fields, 51 miles to the south. A l…
MARY IL (1662-1694), queen of England, was the eldest daughter of James, duke of York (afterwards James II. of England), by his first wife Anne Hyde, and was born in London on April 30, 1662.
MARYLAND, one of the thirteen original States of Plate the American Union, lies between the parallels of 37? 53' and 39? 43' 26" N. lat., and 75' 4' and 79? 33' W. long. It is bounded on the N. by Pennsylvania and Delaware ; E. by Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean ; and S. and W. by Virginia and West Virginia. The total area of the State is 12,210 square miles, of which about 2350 square miles are c…
MARYPORT, a market and seaport town of Cumberland, England, is situated on the Irish Sea, 29 miles southwest from Carlisle. It is irregularly built, partly on a cliff and partly on the sea-shore. The streets are spacious, but there are no public buildings of importance. The town until 1750 consisted of a few huts called Ellenfoot, when a harbour was constructed by Humphrey Senhouse, which gave a g…
MASACCIO (1402-1429). Tommaso Guidi, son of a notary, Ser Giovanni di Simone Guidi, of the family of the Scheggia, who had property in Castel S. Giovanni di Val d'Arno, was born in 1402, and acquired the nickname of Masaccio, which may be translated " Lubberly Tom," in consequence of his slovenly dressing and deportment. He loved to be alone and at home, neglected " appearances " of all sorts, and…
MASANIELLO (an abbreviation of TommAso ANIELLO or ANELLO) was the leader of the Neapolitan revolt in July 1647 For many years the Spanish Government, in straits for money, had exacted large sums from the Two Sicilies, although the privileges granted by Ferdinand and Charles V. had exempted them both from taxes on the necessaries of life and from all external payments whatever. Now, however, under …
MASAYA, a town in Nicaragua, Central America, on the east side of the Lake of Masaya, about 55 miles southeast of Managua, and 25 miles north-west of Granada.
MASCARA, a fortified town of Algeria in the province of Oran, 60 miles south-east of Oran, lies at a height of 1900 feet above the sea, on the southern slope of the first chain of the Atlas mountains, and occupies two small hills separated by the Oued Toudman. The walls, upwards of 2 miles in circuit, and strengthened by bastions and towers, give the place a somewhat imposing appearance ; the Fren…
MASCARENE ISLANDS, or MASCARENIIAS, a group in the Indian Ocean to the east of Madagascar, consisting of Mauritius (Yee de France), Reunion (Bourbon), and Rodriguez.
MASCARON, JULES, was born at Marseilles in 1634, and died at his diocesan city of Agen in 1703. His father was an advocate, and he was himself intended for the law, but lie preferred the church. As a member of the Oratorian congregation he preached in different provincial towns, beginning with Saumur, and in all produced a great effect. Then he went to Paris and quickly established his reputation …
MASINISSA, a Numidian prince whose history is closely intertwined with that of the wars between Rome and Carthage. With true barbarian fickleness, and a keen eye to his own interests, he espoused now one side now the other, inclining however on the whole decidedly in favour of Rome, so much so indeed as to be spoken of by Roman orators and historians as "a most faithful ally of the Roman people." …
MASKELYN E, NEVIL (1732-1811), astronomer-royal at Greenwich for nearly half a century, was born in London elected a fellow in 1756, he determined to devote himself wholly to astronomy. He early became intimate with Bradley, and in 1761 was deputed by the Royal Society to make observations of the transit of Venus at St Helena. During the voyage he introduced into navigation the determination of lo…
MASLTLIPATAM, the chief town of Kistna district, Madras, India, and a seaport, is situated in 16? 9' N. lat., schools, the chief being the high school. It is a flourishing station of the Church Missionary Society. Masulipatam was the earliest British settlement on the Coromandel coast. An agency was established there in 1611, and a fortified factory in 1622. During the wars of the Carnatic, the En…
MAS'ODY. Atai'l-Tjasen 'Ali ibn Hosein ibn el-Mas`ndy,1 was born at Baghdad towards the close of the 9th Christian century. Great part of his life was spent in travel ; in 912-13 A.D. he was at Mahan in the Punjab, and also visited Mansura. Three years later he was at Basra and met Abu Zeid, the geographer whose remarks on the extreme East are comprised in Reinand's Relation. des Voyages (Paris, 1…
MASOLINO DA. PANICALE (1383?c. 1440). The life and art-work of this Florentine painter were related by Vasari in a form which is partly demonstrated and partly inferred to be highly incorrect. We shall follow the account supplied, and in many respects carefully vouched, by Messrs Crowe and Cavalcaselle. Masolino (a name which corresponds to " Tommy ") was said to have been born at Panicale di Vald…
MASON AND DIXON'S LINE, a line in the United States between Pennsylvania on the north and Delaware, Maryland, and West Virginia on the south, coinciding with 39? 43' 26"?3 N. lat., and famous for a long time as the limit between the " free " and the "slave" States.
MASON, FRANCIS (1799-1874), an American missionary, son of a shoemaker in York, England, was born April 2, 1799. After emigrating to the United States in 1818, he practised there the trade he had learned from his father ; but, having studied languages with his minister at Canton, Massachusetts, he in 1827 entered the Newton theological institution. In 1830 he was sent by the American Missionary Un…
MASON, GEORGE HEMMING (1818-1872), A.R.A., was born at Whitley, in 1818, the eldest son of a Staffordshire county gentleman. Intended for the medical profession, he studied for five years under Dr Watt of Birming- ham ; but he had no taste for science ; all his thoughts were given to art. In 1844 he abandoned medicine and travelled for a time on the Continent, visiting France, Germany, and Switzer…
MASON, WILLIAM (1725-1797), was about the beginning of the last quarter of the 18th century one of the most eminent of living poets, but his eminence was owing to the lowness of the poetic level at the time. He is now held in remembrance, not by his poetry, but by his having been the friend, the literary executor, and the biographer of Gray. Born in 1725, the son of a Yorkshire clergyman, entered …
MASSA, or, to distinguish it from several places of the same name, MASSA CARRARA, a city of Italy, the chief town of the province of Massa, lies on the left bank of the Frigido, a small stream falling into the Gulf of Genoa about 3 miles lower down. It is 781 miles south-east of Genoa by rail, and 26 miles north of Pisa. The ancient part of the city stands on a hill. Among the objects of interest …
MASSACHUSETTS, an Indian name originally applied to a small hillock bordering on Boston Harbour, and thence to a neighbouring tribe of Indians. It is the chief political division of New England, and one of the original thirteen States of the American Union. It lies for the most part between 40? and 42? 45' N. lat., and 70' 30' and 73? 30' W. long. Physical Description. - Its area, of about 7800 sq…
MASSENA, AFDR (1758-1817), duke of Tivoli, prince of Essling, and marshal of France, the greatest soldier and greatest general of all Napoleon's marshals, and the one ' man who with education and ambition might have been Napoleon's rival, was the son of a small wine merchant, it is said of Jewish origin, and was born at Nice on May 6, 1758. His parents were very poor, and he began life as a cabin …
MASSILLON, a city of the United States, in Stark county, Ohio, is situated on the Tuscarawas, a head stream of the Muskingum, communicates with Lake Erie by the Ohio canal, and forms an important junction for various lines of railway.
MASSILLON, JEAN BAPTISTE, was born at Hyeres on June 21, 1663, and died at Clermont on September 28, 1742. He was thus, except Saint-Simon and Fontenelle, the longest-lived of the men of the Si?cle de Louis Quatorze. It is noteworthy that, like the majority of the great pulpit orators of his own and the preceding generation, he was a southerner. His father, Francois Massillon, was a notary, and he…
MASSINGER, Plump (1584-1640), one of the most prolific, scholarly, and powerful dramatists among the immediate successors of Shakespeare. He was born in 1584, went to Oxford (St Alban's Hall) in 1602, and left in 1606. This is all that is known of his early life, except that his father, as appears from the dedication of one of Iris plays (The Bondman), was in the service of the Herbert.% That his …
MASSOW ATI, or MESOWAFI, a town on the Abyssinian coast of the Red Sea, on a small coral island of the same name, in 15? 30' N. lat. and 39? 30' E. long. The height of the island is from 20 to 25 feet above the sea, the length does not exceed i? mile, and the breadth is about mile The western half is occupied by the town ; in the eastern half are Mohammedan burying-grounds and dismantled cisterns.…
MASSYS, or MATSYS, QUINT1N (1466-1530), was born at Louvain, where he first learned a mechanical art. During the greater part of the 15th century the centres in which the painters of the Low Countries most congregated were Bruges, Ghent, and Brussels. Towards the close of the same period Louvain took a prominent part in giving employment to workmen of every craft. It was not till the opening of th…
MASTER AND SERVANT. These are scarcely to be considered as technical terms in law. The relationship which they imply is created when one man hires the labour of another for a term. Thus it is not constituted by merely contracting with another for the performance of a definite work, or by sending an article to an artificer to be repaired, or engaging a builder to construct a house. Nor would the em…
MASTIC, or MASTICH, a resinous exudation obtained from the lentisk, Pistacia Lesetiscus, an evergreen shrub of the natural order A nacmliacece. The lentisk or mastic plant is Canaries. Although experiments have proved that excelshrubs are about 6 feet high. The resin is contained in and August, in the stein and chief branches. The resin speedily exudes and hardens into roundish or oval tears, whic…
MASTODON (from p,ao-rOs, "nipple," and 6801.1s., " tooth "), a name, suggested by the conical or papillary form of the projections on the molar teeth of some of the species, given by Olivier to a genus of extinct elephant-like animals. Their position in the suborder Proboscidea of the great order Ung viola has been indicated in the article MAmmALIA (p. 425 of the present volume). In size, general …
MATAMOROS, a city of Mexico, in the province of Tamaulipas, on the southern bank of the Rio Grande, has its streets laid out with great regularity ; and the fashions of the United States. The principal building is entrance even of small schooners, the place is not without its value to Mexico as a foreign port. The imports of American and of European goods are valued each at about $1,100,000, with …
MATANZAS, or SAN CAItLOS DE MATANZAS, a city and seaport on the north coast of Cuba, and the chief town of a province, lies 52 miles east of Havana, with which it is connected by rail. It is a well-built place of from 36,000 to 40,000 inhabitants, occupying a fine site at the head of the Bay of Matanzas, and separated from its suburbs Pueblo Nuevo and Versailles by the San Juan on the one hand and…
MATARO, a Mediterranean seaport of Spain, in the province of Barcelona, 21 miles to the north-east of that city, is beautifully situated on the lower slopes and at the foot of the range of hills which skirt the coast, and shelter the town from the cold northern winds. The streets of the new town, lying next the sea, are wide and regularly built ; those of the old town, farther up the hill, still p…
MATCHES. Till the close of the 18th century flint and steel with tinder box and sulphur-tipped splints of wood - " spunks " or matches - were the common means of obtaining fire for domestic and other purposes. The sparks struck off by the percussion of flint and steel were made to fall among the tinder, which consisted of carbonized fragments of cotton and linen ; the entire mass of the tinder was…
MATE, or PARAGUAY TEA, consists of the dried leaves of //ex paraguayensis, St HR.,' an evergreen shrub or small tree belonging to the same natural order as the common holly, a plant to which it bears some resemblance in size and habit. The leaves are from 6 to 8 inches long, shortly-stalked, oblong wedge-shaped, rounded at the upper end, and finely toothed at the margin. The small white flowers g…
MATERA, a city of Italy in the north-east of the province of Potenza, 48 miles from Potenza, on the high road to Bari.
MATHEMATICAL DRAWING AND MODELLING. The necessity for geometrical drawings and models is as old as geometry itself. The figure has formed the basis of many a geometrical truth ; and demonstration by mere inspection of this has frequently to do service for more rigorous proof. So necessary is this visual representation of an idea that there is hardly a branch of mathematics which does not make use …
MATHEMATICS. Any conception which is definitely elements, is a mathematical conception. Mathematics has for its function to develop the consequences involved in the definition of a group of mathematical conceptions. Interdependence and mutual logical consistency among the or would lie beyond the sphere of mathematics. As an example of a mathematical conception we may take "a triangle"; regarded wi…
MATHER, COTTON (1663-1728), was the most learned and widely known of a family which through four generations enjoyed singular consideration, and exercised com- mandina?? influence upon New England in its first century. Richard, son of Thomas Mather of Lowton (Winwick), Lancashire, England, after studying for a time at Brasenose, Oxford, and teaching and subsequently preaching at Toxteth Park, went…
MATHEWS, CHARLES (1776-1835), comedian, was born in London, 28th June 1776. His father was what he called "a serious bookseller," and also officiated as minister in one of Lady Huntingdon's chapels. Mathews was educated at Merchant Taylors' School. His love for the stage was formed in his boyhood, partly from admiration of Elliston, with whom he had taken part in private theatricals. According to …
MATHEWS, CHARLES JAMES (1803-1878), comedian, son of the above, was born at Liverpool, 26th December 1803. After attending Merchant Taylors' School he was articled as pupil to an architect, and he continued nominally to follow this business till 1835. His first appearance on the stage was made at the Adelphi, London. In 1838 he married Madame Vestris, then lessee of the Olympic, but neither his ma…
MATHEW, THEOBALD (1790-1856), popularly known as Father Mathew, the "Apostle of Temperance," was descended from an illegitimate branch of the Llandaff family, and was born at Thomastown, Tipperary, on October 10, 1790. He received his school education at Kilkenny, whence he passed for a short time to Maynooth ; from 1808 to 1814 he studied at Dublin, where in the latter year lie was ordained to th…
MATILDA, countess of Tuscany (1046-1114), popularly known as the Great Countess, was born in 1046, of a race of nobles of Lombard descent. By the death of her father Boniface the Rich, duke and marquis of Tuscany, she was left, at eight years old, under the guardianship of her mother, Beatrice of Lorraine, heiress to a powerful state, including Tuscany, Liguria, part of Lombardy, Modena, and Ferra…
MATLOCK, a town of Derbyshire, England, is situated on the river Derwent and on the Midland Railway, 149 miles north-west of London and 17 north-west of Derby. It possesses cotton, corn, and paper mills, and in the vicinity there are lead-mines. About 1i miles south-east, also on the Derwent, is Matlock Bath, possessing hot medicinal springs. There are in all three springs, the first of which was …
MATTER, PROPERTIES or. If we knew thoroughly the nature of any piece of matter, the deduction of its proper- ' ties would be a question of mere reasoning, just as (for instance) the definition of a circle really involves all the properties which mathematical methods have deduced from it. But, as we do not even know what matter is, in the abstract, the converse operation is (at least for the presen…
MATTEUCCI, CARLO (1811-1868), an Italian physicist, was born at Forli, June 20, 1811. In 1832, after completing his studies at L'Ecole Poly-technique, Paris, he became professor of physics at Bologna, where he had passed his earlier student days. In 1837 he removed to Ravenna, and in 1840 settled as professor of physics at Pisa. From 1817 he took an active part in politics, and in 1860 was chosen …
MATTHEW (Ma0Ba203 or Aim-Oa-Cos, i.e., TVO, a shortened form of Mattaniah or Mattithiah, equivalent to Theodorus ; comp. vol. xi. p. 370), one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ, and, according to tradition, the author of the First Gospel. In its full Hebrew form the name occurs several times in the Old Testament, being borne by more than one person of priestly or Levitical family. Matthew, in…
MATTHEW OF PARIS, one of our most important writers iu connexion with English medixval history, was born about the year 1200, or possibly somewhat earlier. His surname was probably derived either from his having been born in Paris or having studied in the university there ; but his English origin is proved by the tone in which he uniformly speaks of foreigners, especially the French, while his kno…
MATTHIAS (1557-1619), holy Roman emperor, the fourth son of the emperor Maximilian II., was born on the 24th of February 1557. He was educated in Germany by the diplomatist JJusbecq, while his brother, afterwards the emperor Rudolph II., was trained at the court of Philip II. of Spain. In 1577 Matthias went secretly to the Netherlands, the sovereignty of which he unlawfully assumed ; but in 1580 h…
MATTHIAS CORVINUS (1443-1490), king of Hun gary, was born at Klausenburg in Transylvania on March 27, 1443, and died at Vienna on April 6, 1 19 0.
MATTING. Under this name are embraced many coarse woven or plaited fibrous materials used for covering floors or furniture, for hanging as screens, for wrapping up heavy merchandise, and for other miscellaneous purposes. In the United Kingdom, under the name of "coir" matting a large amount of a coarse kind of carpet is made from cocoa-nut fibre ; and the same material, as well as strips of cane, …
MATTOON, a city of the United States, in Coles county, Illinois, 172 miles south-south-west of Chicago, on the Central Illinois Railroad, which at that point intersects the Indianapolis and St Louis and the Peoria, Decatur, and Evansville Railroads. It had 5742 inhabitants in 1880, has railway carriage works and repair shops, and is rising rapidly in commercial importance. MATURlic, CHARLES ROBERT…
MAUBEUGE, a fortified place of northern France, situated on both banks of the Sambre, 142 miles by rail north-east from Paris, and about 2 miles from the Belgian frontier. Its fortifications were planned by Vauban ; the enceinte is pierced by two gateways, that of France and that of Mons. Maubeuge, besides containing an arsenal and several old convents, is an industrial town, manufac numerous forg…
MAULMAIN, or MOULMEIN, a town in Amherst district, British Burmah, situated on the left bank of the Salwin river, in 16? 30' N. hit. and 97? 38' E. long.
MAUNDY THURSDAY, the day preceding Good Friday.
MAU RANiPUR, a town in Jhansf district, in the North-Western Provinces df India, in 25? 15' N. lat., 79? 11' E. lung.
MAURER, GEORG LUDWIG VON (1790-1872), a distinguished German jurist and statesman, was born at Erpolsheim in the Bavarian Palatinate, November 2, 1790. He was the son of a Protestant pastor. He received his education at the university of IIeidelberg, and afterwards followed for some time the profession of an advocate. In 1812 he went to reside in Paris, where, with the aid of the great libraries o…
MAURETANIA, or MAURITANIA (the former is the more correct form of the name, according to coins and inscriptions), was the name given in ancient geography to the district which constituted the north-western angle of the African continent. It comprised a considerable part of the modern empire of Morocco, together with the western portion of Algeria. But its limits varied much at different times. Whe…
MAURICE, JoriN FREDERIC DENISON (1805-1872), better known without his first name, an English clergyman and theologian, was born in the year 1805. He was the son of a Unitarian minister, and educated in his father's faith, entering Trinity College, Cambridge, as a Nonconformist, for the sake of the university course, at a time when it was impossible for any but members of the Established Church to …
MAURICE (AIAURICrus), S; and his companions are commemorated as martyrs by the Roman Church on September 22. The earliest extant form of the legend relating to them is that of Eucherius, bishop of Lyons about the middle of the 5th century, who tells us that Maurice was in command of the Theban legion (so called because raised in the Thebais) when it was sent into the West and attached to the army …
MAURICE (MAURICIUS FLAVIUS TIBERIUS), emperor of the East from 582 to 602, was of Roman descent but a native of Arabissus in Cappadocia, where he was born about 539. He spent his youth at the court of Justin II., and, having joined the army, fought with distinction in the Persian war (578-581). At the age of forty-three he was declared Caesar by the dying emperor Tiberius II., who bestowed upon hi…
MAURICE (1521-1553), duke and elector of Saxony, the son of Duke Henry the Pious, was born on the 21st of March 1521. He received a learned education, and at an early age gave evidence of an energetic and ambitious temper. In 1541 he married Agnes, daughter of the landgrave Philip of Hesse, and succeeded his father as duke of Saxony, of the Albertine line. Although a Protestant, he held cautiously…
MAURICE OF NASSAU, prince of Orange, the younger son of William the Silent, was born at Dillenburg in 1567, and was made governor of the United Provinces after the assassination of his father in 1584.
MAURITIUS, formerly called the ISLE OF FRANCE, an island in the south-western portion of the Indian Ocean, between 57? 18' and 57? 48' E. long., and 19? 58' and 20? 31' S. let., 550 miles east of Madagascar, and 115 miles north-east of the island of Reunion, 040 miles south-east of the Seychelles, 2300 miles front the Cape of Good Hope, and 9500 miles from England via Aden and Suez. The island is …
MAURUS, ST, according to the Roman Breviary (January 15), was a Roman of noble birth, and while still a child was placed by his father Eutychius under the discipline of St Benedict, where he soon became a model of all the virtues and endowed with the gift of miracles.
MAURY, JEAN SIFFRE1N (1746-1817), cardinal and archbishop of Paris, the great opponent of Mirabeau in the constituent assembly, and esteemed his rival in eloquence, was the son of a poor cobbler, and was born at Valroas in the Venaissin, the district in France which belonged to the pope. His quickness was soon observed by the priests of Avignon, where he was educated and took orders, and lie deter…
MAUSOLUS, or according to his coins .3laussolus (3Ia-tlo-crwItDs), a king of Caria, whose reign probably began in 377 and terminated with his death in 353 n.e. The part he took in the revolt against Artaxerxes Memnon, his conquest of Lydia, Ionia, and several of the Greek islands along the coast, his cooperation with the Rhodians and their allies in the war against Athens, and the removal of his c…
MAXIMA AND MINIMA. The consideration of the greatest or the least value of a variable quantity, that is restricted by certain conditions, is a problem of which several simple cases were investigated by the early Greek geometers. Thus in Euclid iii. 7, 8 we find the determination of the greatest and least right lines that can be drawn from a point to the circumference of a circle. But the most char…
MAXIMIANUS, GALEntus VALERIUS, usually referred to by his name GALERIUS, Roman emperor from 305 to 311, was born near Sardica in Dacia, and originally followed his father's occupation, that of a herdsman, whence his surname of Armentarius. He served with distinction as a soldier under Aurelian and Probus, and in 292 was designated Cesar along with Constantius, receiving in marriage Diocletian's da…
MAXIMIA NUS, MARCUS AURELIUS VALERTUS, surnamed HERCULIUS, Roman emperor from 286 to 305, and again in a doubtful manner for some time prior to 308, was by birth a Pannonian peasant, but achieved great distinction in the course of long service in the army in almost every quarter of the empire, and, having been made Cesar by Diocletian in 285, received the title of Augustus in the following year (A…
MAXIMILIAN I. (1459-1519), holy Roman emperor, the son of the emperor Frederick III., was born on the 22d of March 1459. In 1477 he married Mary, daughter of Charles the Bold of Burgundy, thus securing for his family the possessions of the house of Burgundy ; and by the marriage of his son Philip with the infanta Joanna in 1496 lie prepared the wayfor the association of Spain with the empire under…
MAXIMILIAN II. (1527-1576), holy Roman emperor, son and successor of Ferdinand I., was born at Vienna on the 1st of August 1527. He was of a mild and tolerant disposition, and in youth received a favourable impression of Protestantism from his tutor, Wolfgang Severus, - an impression which was not effaced by a residence of three years at the Spanish court. In 1562 he became king of Bohemia and kin…
MAXIMINUS, CAWS JULIUS VERUS, Roman emperor from 235 to 238, was of barbarian parentage, his father being a Goth and his mother an Alan, and was born in a village on the confines of Thrace, where his immense stature and enormous feats of strength first drew the attention of the emperor Septimius Severus. From being a shepherd he became a soldier, and under Caracalla rose to the rank of centurion. …
MAXIMINUS, GALERIUS VALERIUS, Roman emperor from 303 to 314, was originally an Illyrian shepherd, and bore the name of Daza. His mother was a sister of him who afterwards became the emperor Galerius. He rose to high distinction after he had joined the army, and in 305 he was raised by his uncle to the rank of Caesar, with the honorary appellation of Jovius, Syria and Egypt being the government ass…
MAXIMUS, the name of four Roman emperors. In chronological order the first was 31. Clodius Pupienus Maximus, who was associated with Balbinus in the imperial dignity by the senate for a short time in 238, before and after the death of the hated Maximin. The second was Magnus Clemens Maximus, a native of Spain, who shared the imperial dignity with Valentinian and Theodosius from 383 to 388. He had …
MAXIMUS, ST, abbot of Chrysopolis, known as " the Confessor" from his orthodox zeal in the Monothelite controversy, or as "the monk," was born of noble parentage at Constantinople about the year 580. Educated with great care, he early became distinguished by his talents and acquirements, and some time after the accession of the emperor Heraclius in 610 was made his private secretary. In 630 he aba…
MAXWELL, JAMES CLERK (1831-1879), was the last representative of a younger branch of the well-known Scottish family of Clerk of Penicuik. He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy (1840-47) and the university of Edinburgh (1847-50). Entering at Cambridge in 1850, he spent a term or two in Peterhouse, but afterwards migrated to Trinity. He took his degree in 1854 as second wrangler, and was declared…
MAYBOLE, a burgh of barony and market-town of Scotland, in the county of Ayr, 9 miles south of Ayr on the railway to Stranraer, is built on the face of a hill gently sloping to the south. The characteristic features of the place are the old family mansions in the main street, the castle of the earls of Cassilis, and the old church ruins with the Cassilis burial-place. It has recently increased con…
MAYENNE, capital of an arrondissement in the above of that name, who was born in Mayenne.
MAYENNE, a department of north-western France, three-fourths of which formerly belonged to Lower Maine and the remainder to Anjou, lies between 47? 45' 10" and 48? 34' 30" N. lat., and 0? 2' E. and 1? 14' W. long., and is bounded on the N. by Manche and Orne, on the E. by Sarthe, on the S. by Maine-et-Loire, and on the W. by Ille-et-Vilaine, having a maximum length from north to south of 51 miles,…
MAYER, JOHANN TOBIAS (1723-1762), one of the greatest of last century's astronomers, was born at Macbach in Wiirtemberg, February 17, 1723. He was brought up at Esslingen in comparatively poor circumstances, and as a mathematician was mainly self-taught. He had already published several original geometrical tracts when, in 1746, he entered Homann's cartographic establishment at Nuremberg. Here he …
MAYER, JULIUS ROBERT (1814-1878), was born at Heilbronn, Nov. 25, 1814, studied medicine at Tilbingen, Munich, and Paris, and, after a journey to Java in 1810 as surgeon of a Dutch vessel, obtained a medical post in his native town. He claims recognition as an independent a priori propounder of the " First Law of Thermodynamics," Natur," appeared in 1842 in Liebig's Annalen, five years calls it) w…
MAYHEM (MAIM), an old term of the law signifying were passed aimed at the offence of maiming and disfiguring, which is now dealt with by section 18 of 24 & 25 Viet. c. 100.
MAYKOP, a town of the Caucasus, Russia, in the province of Kuban, on the Byelaya, a tributary of the Kuban, 93 miles to the south-east of Yekaterinodar, the capital of the province.
MAYNOOTH, a village in the county of Kildare, province of Leinster, Ireland, is:situated on the Royal Canal and on the Midland Great Western Railway, 15 miles northwest of Dublin.
MAYO, a maritime county on the west coast of Ireland, province of Connaught, is bounded N. and W. by the Atlantic Ocean, N.E. by Sligo, E. by Roscommon, S.E. and S. by Galway. Its greatest length from north to south is about 75 miles, and its greatest breadth about 65 miles. The total area is 1,318,129 acres, or 2060 square miles. About two-thirds of the boundary of Mayo is formed by sea, and the …
MAYSVILLE, a city of the United States, the capital of Mason county, Kentucky, lies on the south bank of the Ohio, 69 miles north-east of Lexington by rail.
MAZAMET, an industrial town in the department of Tarn, France, stands on the northern slope of the Montagnes Noires (part of the Cevennes), and on the Arnette, a tributary of the Tarn by the Agout.
MAZATLAN, a city and seaport of Mexico, in the state of Cinaloa, on the coast of the Pacific, near the mouth of the Gulf of California, in 23? 18' N. lat. and 106? 56' W. long. It occupies an.,"attractive situation, but, as the houses are for the most part low, has not an imposing appearance. The port is often visited by English and American vessels, and is consequently the seat of several consula…
MAZER KOTLA, a native state in the Punjab, India, situated between 30? 24' and 30? 41' N. lat., and between 75? 42' and 75? 59' 15" E. long., with an estimated area of 165 square miles, and an estimated population of 91,560. The chief products are cotton, sugar, opium, aniseed, tobacco, garlic, and grain. The gross revenue is ?25,893. The nawab exercises complete jurisdiction, and receives a compe…
MAZZARA DEL VALLO, a city of Italy, on the coast of Sicily, in the province Trapani, 13 miles by rail southeast of Marsala.
MAZZINI, GIUSEPPE (1805-1872), Italian patriot, was born on June 22, 1S05, at Genoa, where his father, Giacomo Mazzini, was a physician in good practice, and a professor in the university. His mother is described as having been a woman of great personal beauty, as well as of active intellect and strong affections, During infancy and childhood his health was extremely delicate, and it appears that …
M'CLURE, SIR ROBERT JOHN LE MESURIER, the discoverer of the North-West Passage, was born at Wexford, January 28, 1807, and died in London, October 17, 1873. He was the posthumous son of one of Abercrombie's captains, and spent his childhood under the care of his godfather, General Le Mesurier, hereditary governor of Alderney. Schooled in Arctic exploration by his service under Captain Back on boar…
MEAD, RICHARD (1673-1754), physician, was born on August 11, 1673, at Stepney (near London), where his father, at one time minister of the parish, had been ejected for nonconformity in 1662. He was sent to Utrecht, where he studied for three years under Grmvius ; having decided to follow the medical profession, lie then went to Leyden and attended the lectures of Hermann and Pitcairn. In 1695 he g…
MEADVILLE, a city of the United States, county seat of Crawford county, Pennsylvania, on the left bank of French Creek, a tributary of the Alleghany river, and at the junction of the Franklin branch with the main line of the New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio Railroad, 102 miles from Salamanca.
MEASLES (Morbilli, Rubeola ; German, Maseru ; French, Raugeole), an acute infectious disease occurring mostly in children. It appears to have been known from an early period in the history of medicine, mention being made of it in the writings of Rhazes and others of the Arabian physicians in the 10th century. For long, however, its specific nature was not recognized, and it was held to be a variet…
MEASUREMENT. We propose in the first place to enter into some detail on the fundamental principles of the theory of measurement, and in doing so it will he necessary to sketch the very remarkable theory established by Riemann and other mathematicians as to the foundations of our geometrical knowledge. Every system of geometrical measurement, as indeed the whole science of geometry itself, is found…
MEATH, a maritime county of Ireland, in the province of Leinster, is bounded E. by the Irish Sea, S.E. by Dublin, S. by Kildare and King's county, W. by Westmeath, N. W. by Cavan and Monaghan, and N.E. by Louth. Its greatest length north and south is about 40 miles, and its breadth east and west about 45 miles. The total area comprises 578,247 acres, or 904 square miles. The county forms part of t…
MEAUX, capital of an arrondissement, and an episcopal see, in the department of Seine-et-Marne, France, and feet high, consists of a nave, two aisles, a fine transept, school, which also adjoins the cathedral, are likewise of some architectural and archeological interest. Meaux is the centre of a considerable trade in corn, cheese, eggs, and poultry; and its mills, on the Marne, provide a great pa…
MECCA illakka), the chief town of the Hijaz in Arabia,' and the great holy city of Islam, is situated two camel marches (the resting-place being Batira or Hadda in the Batn Marr), or about 45 miles, almost due east, from Jidda, on the Red Sea.2 Thus on a rough estimate Mecca lies in 21? 30' N. lat. and 40? E. long. It is said in the Koran (cur. xiv. 40) that Mecca lies in a sterile valley, and the…
MECHLIN, or MALINES, a city of Belgium, in the province of Antwerp, on the river Dyle, about 14 miles north of Brussels. The general aspect of the town, belted by a fine avenue of trees, with well-built houses, extensive gardens, and broad airy streets and squares of proverbial cleanliness, is pleasing to the eye ; there is, however, a lack of life and motion, a repose bordering on stagnation; and…
'MECKLENBURG, a territory in North Germany, on the Baltic Sea, extending from 53? 4' to 54? 24' N. lat., and from 10? 35' to 13? 57' E. long., corresponds with tolerable closeness to the old lower Saxon province of the same name, and is now unequally divided into the two grand-duchies of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz: These are so closely related in history, political organization,…
MEDEA, the daughter of /Eetes, king of the Colchians, who were believed to be of Egyptian descent (Herod., ii. 104), and are said to have found a settlement on the east of the Euxine and to the south of the Caucasus. Medea was one of the " wise women " (witches or sorceresses) of antiquity, and perhaps, like Helen, was a human embodiment of some goddess connected with Eastern element-worship, poss…
MEDELLIN, a town of Colombia, South America, capital of the state of Antioquia, is situated at a height of 4845 feet above the sea, in the valley of the Rio Porce, a right-band tributary of the Rio Cauca, and, though 100 miles from the confluence, not- more than 16 miles east from the valley of the larger stream.
MEDFORD, a town of the United States, in Middlesex county, -Massachusetts, at the head of navigation on Mystic river, and 5 miles north-west of Boston by a branch of the Boston and Maine Railroad.
MEDHURST, WALTER HENRY (1796-1857), one of the most distinguished Protestant missionaries to the Chinese, was born in London in 1796. His education began at St Paul's Cathedral school. As be grew up, he learned the business of a printer ; and, having become interested in missions to the heathen, he sailed in 1816 for the London Missionary Society's station at Malacca, which was likely to be a peat…
MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE, or, as it is now more usually termed, FORENSIC MEDICINE, is that branch of state medicine which treats of the application of medical knowledge to the purposes of the law. The term medical jurisprudence, though sanctioned by long usage, is not an appropriate one; since the subject is, strictly speaking, a branch of medicine rather than of jurisprudence ; it does not properly …
MEDICI. This family is renowned in Italian history for the extraordinary number of statesmen to whom it gave birth, and for its magnificent patronage of letters and art. It emerged from private life and rose to power by on a field of gold. The name appears in Florentine chronicles as early as the close of the 12th century, although only casually mentioned Nevertheless the lesser guilds had gained …
MEDICINE HISTORY, the history of medicine falls naturally under two heads, or might be conceivably written from two different points of view. It might be a history of the medical profession or a history of medical doctrine, - in other words, the history of medicine in its relation to society or in its relation to science. We shall here deal chiefly with the history of medical knowledge, rememberin…
MEDICINE SYNOPTICAL VIEW, the subject-matter of one of the learned professions, includes, as it now stands, a wide range of scientific knowledge and practical skill. The history of its growth from small beginnings in Greece is traced in the second section of the present article ; it remains here to give a synoptical view of medicine, including its scientific or philosophical position, its subdivis…
MEDINA STDONIA, a town of Spain, in the province of Cadiz, and about 21 miles by road westward front that city, stands at a height of 600 feet above the sea-level, on an isolated hill surrounded by a cultivated plain. Apart from its picturesque airy situation it has nothing to interest the traveller ; the streets are narrow, steep, and dirty, and its buildings and ruins are unimportant. The occupa…
MEDITERRANEAN SEA. The southern shores of Europe are separated from the northern shores of Africa by the Mediterranean Sea. It extends in a generally cast and west direction from longitude 5? 21' W. to 36? 10' E. Its length from Gibraltar to its eastern extremity in Syria is about 2100 miles. Its breadth is very various, being 400 miles from the mouth of the Rhone to the Algerian coast, 500 miles …
MEDYN, a district town of Russia, situated in the government of Kaluga, 39 miles north-west of the capital of the province, on the highway from Moscow to Warsaw.
MEER, JAN VAN DER (1632-1675), of Delft, - not to be confounded with the elder or younger Van der Meer of Haarlem or with Van der Meer of Utrecht, - is one of the excellent painters of Holland about whom the Dutch biographers give us little information.' Van der Meer, or Vermeer, by which name he is also known, was born in Delft in 1632. There is a tradition, handed down by the Dutch writers, that…
MEERSCHAUM. This German name is applied to a certain mineral, in consequence of its lightness, softness, and white colour, which suggest a resemblance to "sea foam.' In like wanner it is called in French tlenme de suer. By the German mineralogist Clocker it was termed sepiolite, in allusion to its resemblance to the so-called bone of the sepia or cuttle-fish. Possibly the fact that pieces of meers…
MEERUT, or MiniTif, a district in the divisiont of narrow plain lying between the Ganges and the Jumna, with a very gentle slope from north to south. Though land to break the general expanse of cultivated soil. Sandy ridges run along the low watersheds which separate the minor channels, but with this exception the whole district is one continuous expanse of careful and prosperous tillage, Its fert…
MEERUT, a city, and cantonment in the above district, is situated about half way between the Ganges and the Jumna, in 29? 0' 41" N. lat. and 77? 45' 3" E. lmig. The city proper lies south of tine cantonments, and although a very ancient town, dating as far back as the days of the Buddhist emperor Asoka (circ. 250 n.c.), Meerut owes its modern importance to its selection by tire British Government …
MEGALOPOLIS, a city of southern Arcadia, situated in a plain about 20 nines south-west of Tegea, on both banks of the Helisson, about 2i miles above its junction with the Alpheus. Like Messene, it owed its origin to Epaminondas, and was founded in 370 B. C. , the year after the battle of Leuctra, as a bulwark for the southern Arcadians against Sparta, and as the seat of the Arcadian federal diet, …
MEGAPODE, the name given generally to a small but remarkable Family of birds, highly characteristic of some parts of the Australian Region, to which it is almost peculiar. The Hegapodtidze with the Cracidx form that division of the Order Gallinx named by Professdr Huxley Peristeropodes (Proc. Zuol. Society, d 868, p. 296), and morphologically seem to be the lowest of the Order, with which apparent…
MEGARA was the name of two Greek towns, one in Sicily, which has been already described under Ilvnt,A, the other on the road from Attica to Corinth. The country which belonged to the city was called Muyapt's or MEyafnwr) ; it occupied the broader part of the isthmus between Attica, Bceotia, Corinth, and the two gulfs, and its whole area is estimated by Clinton at 143 square miles. The range of Mou…
MEGIINA, a river of India, forming, in the lower part of its course, the great estuary of the Bengal delta, which conveys to the sea the main body of the waters of the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, which unite at Goalanda in Farfdpur district. The united waters thence roll south - own formation, sometimes spreading out into a widespread sheet of water which the eye cannot see across. The river enter…
MEHADIA, a market-town in the county of Szoreny, Hungary, is situated on the Bella-Reka, or Eereka, 13A. miles north of Orsova, in 44? 55' N. let., 22? 22' E. long. The town is small but thriving, and contains Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, the ruins of a castle, and some interesting Roman antiquities. Meliaclia is, however, chiefly of importance as the station for the Cserna. Of the …
MEHUL, ETIENNE HENRI (1763-1817), one of the most remarkable composers of France, was born at Civet, in Ardennes, on the 24th of June 1763. His father being too poor to give him a regular musical education, his first ideas of art were derived from a poor blind organist of Givet ; yet such was his aptitude that, when ten years old, he was appointed organist of the convent of the Recollets. In 1775 …
MEININGEN, the capital of the little duchy of SaxeMeiningen, in central Germany, and the seat of the provinmal courts for Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Coburg, and the Prussian districts of Schmalkalden and Schleusingen, is situated on the right bank of the Werra, about 40 miles to the south of Eisenach. It consists of an old town and several handsome suburbs, but much of the former has been rebuilt in a m…
MEISSEN, an ancient and important industrial town of Saxony is situated on the left bank of the Elbe, between the streams Meisse and Triehisch, in the district and about 9 miles to the north-west of the town of Dresden. Its irregular hilly site and numerous fine old buildings give it a quaint and picturesque appearance, and most of the streets are narrow and uneven. The cathedral, one of the fines…
MEKONG, MExtioNG, or 'AI auoxo, less frequently NAM-KONG, the Da-Kio of the Tibetans, the LantsangKiang or Lankiang of the Chinese, and the Son-Kong of the Anamese, sometimes also called the Cambodia or Camboja, is one of the largest and most remarkable rivers of southern Asia. As it rises in Tibet, probably about 34? N. lat. and 94? E. long., and reaches the China Sea about 10? N. lat., after a s…
MELANESIA. This term comprises that long belt of island groups which, beginning in the Indian archipelago at the east limits of the region there occupied by the Malay race, and, as it were, a prolongation of that great island region, runs south-east for a distance of some 3500 English miles, i.e., from New Guinea at the equator, in 130? E. long., to New Caledonia just within the Tropic, 167? E. lo…
MELA, POMPONIUS, a Roman writer on geography. His little work, though a mere compendium, is the only systematic treatise on the subject preserved to us in the Latin language, with the exception of that which forms part of the encyclopwdic work of the elder Pliny, mid from this circumstance it derives a value to which it would be little entitled from its intrinsic merits. Nothing is known of the au…
MELBOURNE, the capital of the colony of Victoria, and the most populous city in Australia, is situated at the head of the large bay of Port Phillip, on its northern bend known as Ilobsou's Bay, about 500 miles S.W. of Sydney by land and 770 by sea, the position of the observatory being 37? 49' 53" S. lat. and 144? 58' 42" E. long. Along the shores of the bay the suburbs extend for a distance of o…
MELBOURNE, WILLIAM LAMB, SECOND YISCOUNT (1779-1848), second son of the first Viscount Melbourne, was born 15th March 1779. After completing his course at Trinity College, Cambridge, he studied law at the university of Glasgow, entered Lincoln's Inn in 1797, and was called to the bar in 1804. In 1S05 he married Lady Caroline Ponsonby, daughter of the earl of Bess-borough, who after her separation …
MELCHIADES, or MILTIADES (other forms of the name being Meltiades, Melciades, Milciades, and Miltides), was pope from July 2, 310, to January 10 or 11, 314.
MELCHITES.
MELCHIZEDEK (P75"'P572, "king of righteousness"), king of Salem and priest of ''supreme El" (El' elyOn), brought forth bread and wine to Abram, on his return from the expedition against Chedorlaomer, and blessed him in the name of the supreme God, possessor (or maker) of heaven and earth. And Abram gave him tithes of all his booty (Gen. xiv. 18-20). The Bible history tells us nothing more about Me…
MELDS (Att. Gr., MCIA.os), the modern Milo, one of the Sporades of the ./Egean Sea, situated at the south-west corner of the archipelago, in 36? 45' N. lat. and 24? 26' E. long., 75 miles clue east from the coast of Laconia. From east to west it measures about 14 miles, from north to south 8 miles, and its area is estimated at 52 square mites. The greater portion is rugged and hilly, and the culmi…
MELENDEZ VALDES, JUAN (1754-1817), minor poet of Spain, was born at Ribero. del Fresno, Badajoz, on Marsh 11, 1754. He was destined by his parents, who were in good circumstances, for an official career ; and accordingly, after having completed his preliminary education at Madrid and Segovia, he went to Salamanca, and duly graduated in laws. At an early age he had begun to write verses in imitatio…
MELFI, a city of Italy, in the province of Potenza, 30 miles N. of I'otenza, on the road and railway between that city and Foggia, is built on a small hill on the lower slopes of Monte Vulture. The castle was originally erected by Robert Guiscard, but as it now stands it is mainly the work of the Doria family, who have possessed it since the time of Charles V. ; and the noble cathedral which was f…
MELITA (McX&p), the classical name for MALTA (7.v.),. was also the name borne by the modern Neleda, one of the Dalmatian islands, situated immediately to the south of Sabbioncello and to the north of Ragusa.
MELITO, bishop of Sardes, a Christian writer of the 2d 3entury, is mentioned by Eusebius (ii. E., iv. 21) ? along with Hegesippus, Dionysius of Corinth, Apollinaris of Hierapolis, Irenmus, and others, his contemporaries, as a champion of orthodoxy and upholder of apostolic tradition. Of his personal history nothing is known, and of? his numerous works (which are enumerated by Eusebius) only a few …
MELLON I, MACEnoNto (1798-1854), a distinguished physicist, was born at Parma on April 11, 1798. From 1824 to 1831 he was professor at Parma, but in the latter year he was compelled to escape to France, having taken part in the revolution. In 1839 lie went to Naples as director of the conservatory of arts and handicrafts. He was likewise director of the Vesuvius observatory, a post which he held u…
MELON (C wands Melo, L.), a most polymorphic species of the order Cneurbitacew, the varieties of which it.' The melon is an annual herb with palmately-lobed. leaves, and bears tendrils. It is monmeious, having male and female flowers on the same plant. The flowers have deeply five-lobed campanulate corollas and three stamens. Nandin observed that in soma varieties (e.g., of Cantaloups) fertile sta…
MELROSE, a village of Roxburghshire, Scotland, on the south bank of the Tweed, 37 miles by rail south-south-east of Edinburgh. Its population has steadily advanced from 966 in 1851 to 1550 in 1881. Though a burgh of barony since 1609, it is a purely agricultural villae, and would be of little interest but for tire ruins of its abbey, now the property of the duke of Buccleuch. It was formerly calle…
MELTON MOWBRAY, a market-town of England, county of Leicester, is pleasantly situated in a fertile vale, at the confluence of the Wreake and Eye, 15 miles northeast of Leicester and 104 north of London by rail. The Eye is spanned by a bridge of four arches. The town consists principally of two main streets, and is substantially built of brick. The church of St Mary, a handsome cruciform structure …
MELUN, capital of the department of Seine-et-Marne, France, 28 miles south-east of Paris by railway, occupies a hill on the right bank of the Seine and the level ground at its foot. It owes its rank as " chef-lieu" to its central position merely ; for there are two other towns in the department, Meaux and Fontainebleau, which have a larger population. Melon is near one of the most beautiful parts …
MELVILLE, ANDREW (1545-1622), a distinguished Scottish scholar, theologian, and religions reformer, was the youngest son of Richard Melville, proprietor of Baldovy, near Montrose, at which place Andrew was born in 1545. His father fell at the battle of Pinkie, fighting in the van of the Scottish army, two years after the birth of his son ; and, his wife having soon after followed him to the grave,…
MELVILLE, GEORGE JOHN WIIYTE (1S21-1878), has a right to be regarded as the founder of a school of fashionable novels, - the fashionable sporting novel.. He was lamented on his death as the Tyrtmus of the hunting field, the laureate of fox-hunting ; all his most popular and distinctive heroes and heroines, Digby Grand, Tilbury Nogo, the Honourable Crasher, Mr Sawyer, Kate Coventry, Mrs Lascelles, …
MELVILLE, HENRY DUNDAS, VISCOUNT (1741-1811), younger son of the Right _Honourable Robert Dundas, lord president of the Scottish court of session, was born at Edinburgh in 1711, and was educated at the high school and university there. Becoming member of the faculty of advocates in 1763, he soon acquired a leading position at the bar. After his appointment as lord advocate in 1775, he gradually re…
MEMEL, the most northerly town in Germany, and the principal seat of the Baltic timber trade, is situated in the district of Konigsberg, Prussia, at the mouth of the Dange, and on the bank of a sound connecting the Kurische Had' with the Baltic Sea. On the side next the sea the town is defended by a citadel and other fortifications, and the entrance to the large and fine harbour is protected by a …
MEMLING, HANS, a painter of the 15th century, whose art gave a passing lustre to Bruges in the period of its political and commercial decline. Though much has been written respecting the rise and fall of the school which made this city famous, it still remains a moot question whether that school ever truly existed. Like Rome or Naples, Bruges absorbed the talents which were formed and developed in…
MEMMINGEN, a town of Bavaria, an the district of Schwaben and Neuburg, is situated about 35 miles to the south-west of Augsburg, near the river Iller.
MEMNON. In the Homeric mythology (or rather the mythology of the Troica in the much fuller form in which Antilochus, the son of Nestor, an event alluded to in Pindar, P yth., vi. 32-39. His story must have been very famous, for more than one Greek play was composed bearing the title. The chief sonree from which our knowledge about Memthe Odyssey (xi. 522), with especial praise for personal non - l…
MEMPHIS, the capital of the old Egyptian empire, founded by Menes, the first historical king ; see vol. vii. pp. 731, 770.
MI DOC is the name given to the district in France adjoining the left bank of the Gironde from Ambes, the point where the Garonne and Dordogne unite, to Lesparie, where the marshes and polders which border on the mouth of the river begin ; its length varies from 35 to 40 miles, its breadth from 12 to 5, and the arca is about 386 square miles.
MIECENAS, C. Ciutius, is, from two' different points of view, a prominent representative man of the ancient world. He was the first, and one of the most capable and successful, of those who filled the office of a great minister under the Roman empire. He was also, if not the first, certainly the most fortunate and influential among the patrons of Roman literature. It is in the latter capacity that…
M'LENNAN, JOHN FERGUSON, LL.D. (1827-1881), one of the most original of modern inquirers into the constitution of early society, was born at Inverness 14th October 1827. He studied at King's College, Aberdeen, where he graduated with great distinction in 1849, and then proceeded to Cambridge, where he remained till 1855, but did not take his degree. After some years spent in literary work and lega…
MXNSFELD, COUNT ERNEST OF (1585-1626), a natural son of Peter Ernest, governor of Luxemburg and Church, and in 1610 formally associated himself with the Protestant princes. From the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War in 1618 he fought steadily on behalf of the elector of the Palatinate both in Bohemia and in the Rhine country. In 1625 ha was able to collect a powerful force with which he intended t…
TAGO (formerly called LANTERL00), a round game of cards. Loo may be played by any number of persons; from five to seven makes the best game. "Three-card loo" is the game usually played. A pack of fifty-two cards is required. The players being seated, the pack is shuffled and a card dealt face upwards to each. The player to whom a knave falls has the first deal, the player to his left deals next, a…
THE DESERTAS. - Th me are three uninhabited rocks lying about 11 miles south-east of Madeira.
TITUS MANLIUS TORQUATUS in his first consulship (235 B.c.) subjugated Sardinia, recently acquired from the Carthaginians ; he was consul again (224) during the Gallic war.
TITUS MANLTUS hirmuosus TORQUATUS went to the tribune Pomponius, who had brought his father to trial for overstepping the limits of his office, and threatened to kill him unless he desisted from the accusation (365 n.c.). Shortly after he slew a gigantic Gaul in single combat, and, took from him a torques or neck-ornamnt, whence his surname is said to have been derived. When the Latins demanded an…
WCHLLOCIT, JOHN RAMSAY (1779-1864), a distinguished writer on political economy and statistics, was born on 1st March 1779, at Whithorn in Wigtownshire. His family belonged to the class of " statesmen," or small landed proprietors. Having received his early education from his maternal grandfather, a Scotch clergyman, he came to Edinburgh, and was for some time employed there as a clerk in the offi…
WORM, THOMAS (1772-1835), was born at Dunse or Duns in Berwickshire, Scotland, November 1772. He studied in Edinburgh University, and thereafter in the divinity hall at Whitburn. In 1796 he was ordained minister of the Second Associate Congregation, Edinburgh, the place of worship being in the Potterrow. At an early period in its history the Secession Church in Scotland had been divided by a contr…
