Part 305 (2/2)
MAXIMILIAN, FERDINAND JOSEPH, archduke of Austria, younger brother of Francis Joseph, born at Schonbrunn; became emperor of Mexico; issued an edict threatening death to any Mexican who took up arms against the empire, roused the Liberal party against him, and was at the head of 8000 men defeated at Queretaro, taken prisoner, tried by court-martial, and shot (1832-1867).
MAXIMILIAN I., emperor of Germany, son of Frederick III., acquired Burgundy and Flanders by marriage, which involved him in a war with France; became emperor on the death of his father in 1493; became by marriage Duke of Milan, and brought Spain under the power of his dynasty by the marriage of his son Philip to the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella; it was he who a.s.sembled the Diet of Augsburg at which Luther made appeal to the Pope (1459-1519).
MAXWELL, JAMES CLERK, eminent physicist, born in Edinburgh, son of John Clerk Maxwell of Middlebie; attained the rank of senior wrangler at Cambridge; became professor in Aberdeen in 1856, in London in 1860, and of Experimental Physics in Cambridge in 1871; in this year appeared the first of his works, ”The Theory of Heat,” which was followed by ”Electricity and Magnetism” and ”Matter and Motion,” the second being his greatest; he was as sincere a Christian as he was a zealous scientist (1831-1879).
MAXWELL, SIR WILLIAM STIRLING, of Keir, Perths.h.i.+re, a man of refined scholars.h.i.+p; travelled in Italy and Spain; wrote on subjects connected with the history and the artists of Spain (1818-1878).
MAY, the fifth month of the year, so called from a Sanskrit word signifying to grow, as being the shooting or growing month.
MAY, ISLE OF, island at the mouth of the Firth of Forth, 5 m. SE.
of Crail on the Fife coast; has a lighthouse with an electric light, flas.h.i.+ng out at intervals to a distance of 22 nautical miles.
MAY, SIR THOMAS ERSKINE, English barrister; became Clerk of the House of Commons in 1871; wrote a parliamentary text-book, ”Democracy in Europe,” and a ”Const.i.tutional History of England since the Accession of George III.,” in continuation of the works of Hallam and Stubbs (1815-1886).
MAYER, JULIUS ROBERT VON, German physicist, born in Heilbronn; made a special study of the phenomena of heat, established the numerical relation between heat and work, and propounded the theory of the production and maintenance of the sun's temperature; he had a controversy as to the priority of his discoveries with Joule, who claimed to have antic.i.p.ated them (1814-1878).
MAYHEW, HENRY, litterateur and first editor of _Punch_, born in London, and articled to his father, a solicitor; chose journalism as a profession, and in conjunction with Gilbert a Beckett started _The Thief_ in 1832, the first of the ”Bits” type of papers; he joined the first _Punch_ staff in 1841, in which year his farce ”The Wandering Minstrel”
was produced; collaborating with his brother Augustus, he wrote ”Whom to Marry” and many other novels between 1847 and 1855, thereafter works on various subjects; his princ.i.p.al book, ”London Labour and the London Poor,” appeared in 1851 (1812-1887).
MAYNOOTH, village in co. Kildare, 15 m. W. of Dublin; is the seat of a Roman Catholic seminary founded by the Irish Parliament in 1795 on the abolition of the French colleges during the Revolution; an annual grant of 9000 was made, increased to 26,000 in 1846, but commuted in 1869 for a sum of 1,100,000, when State connection ceased; the college trains 500 students for the priesthood.
MAYO (245), maritime county in Counaught, west of Ireland, between Sligo and Galway; has many indentations, the largest Broadhaven, Blacksod, and Clew Bays, and islands Achil and Clare, with a remarkable peninsula The Mullet; mountainous in the W., the E. is more level, and has Lough Conn and the Moy River; much of the county is barren and bog, but crops of cereals and potatoes are raised; cattle are reared on pasture lands; there are valuable slate quarries and manganese mines; Castlebar (4), in the centre, is the county town; Westport (4), on Clew Bay, has some s.h.i.+pping.
MAYO, RICHARD SOUTHWARK BOURKE, EARL OF, statesman, born and educated in Dublin; entered Parliament 1847, and was Chief Secretary for Ireland in Conservative Governments 1852, 1858, and 1866, opposing Gladstone's Irish Church resolutions; in 1868 he succeeded Lord Lawrence as Viceroy of India, in which office he proved himself a prudent statesman, a sound financier, and a just and wise administrator; he was murdered by a fanatic in the Andaman Islands, and universally mourned (1822-1872).
MAZARIN, JULES, cardinal, born at Piscina, Abruzzi; having been sent by the Pope one of an emba.s.sy to France, he gained the favour of Richelieu, who recommended him to Louis XIII. as his successor, and whose successor, being naturalised as a Frenchman, he became in 1642, an office which he retained under the queen-regent on Louis' death; he brought the Thirty Years' War to an end by the peace of Westphalia, crushed the revolt of the FRONDE (q. v.), and imposed on Spain the treaty of the Pyrenees; at first a popular minister, he began to lose favour when cabals were formed against him, and he was dismissed, but he contrived to allay the storm, regained his power, and held it till his death; he died immensely rich, and bequeathed his library, which was a large one, to the College Mazarin (1602-1661).
MAZARIN BIBLE, the first book printed by movable metal types, a copy of which is in the Mazarin library, and bears the date 1456.
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