Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Matter" to "Mecklenburg"
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Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Matter" to "Mecklenburg"
Author: Various
Release date: April 7, 2013 [eBook #42473]
Most recently updated: November 27, 2024
Language: English
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Transcriber's notes:
(1) Numbers following letters (without space) like C2 were originally
printed in subscript. Letter subscripts are preceded by an
underscore, like C_n.
(2) Characters following a carat (^) were printed in superscript.
(3) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective
paragraphs.
(4) Macrons and breves above letters and dots below letters were not
inserted.
(5) [root] stands for the root symbol; [alpha], [beta], etc. for greek
letters, [oo] for infinity and [dP] for partial differential
symbol.
(6) The following typographical errors have been corrected:
ARTICLE MAURITIUS: "... in 1893 a great part of Port Louis was
destroyed by fire." 'a' added.
ARTICLE MAXIMA AND MINIMA: "If d²u/dx² vanishes, then there is no
maximum or minimum unless d²u/dx² vanishes ..." 'minimum' amended
from 'minimun.'
ARTICLE MAYOR: "Any female servant or slave in the household of a
barbarian, whose business it was to overlook other female servants
or slaves, would be quite naturally called a majorissa."
'household' amended from 'houselold'.
ARTICLE MAZANDARAN: "They speak a marked Persian dialect, but a
Turki idiom closely akin to the Turkoman is still current amongst
the tribes, although they have mostly already passed from the nomad
to the settled state." 'idiom' amended from 'idion'.
ARTICLE MAZARIN, JULES: "But he began to wish for a wider sphere
than papal negotiations, and, seeing that he had no chance of
becoming a cardinal except by the aid of some great power ..."
'sphere' amended from 'shpere'.
ARTICLE MAZZINI, GIUSEPPE: "he did not actually hinder more than he
helped the course of events by which the realization of so much of
the great dream of his life was at last brought about." 'hinder'
amended from 'binder'.
ARTICLE MEAUX: "The building, which is 275 ft. long and 105 ft.
high, consists of a short nave, with aisles, a fine transept, a
choir and a sanctuary." 'sanctuary' amended from 'sanctury'.
ARTICLE MECHANICS: "The simplest case is that of a frame of three
bars, when the three joints A, B, C fall into a straight [**
amended from straght] line ..." 'straight' amended from 'straght'.
ARTICLE MECHANICS: "... a determinate series of quantities having
to one another the above-mentioned ratios, whilst the constants C
..." 'quantities' amended from 'quantites'.
ARTICLE MECHANICS: "Then assuming that the acceleration of one
point of a particular link of the mechanism is known together with
the corresponding configuration of the mechanism ..." 'particular'
amended from 'particuar'.
ARTICLE MECKLENBURG: "... were succeeded in the 6th century by some
Slavonic tribes, one of these being the Obotrites, whose chief
fortress was Michilenburg ..." 'Slavonic' amended from 'Salvonic'.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA
A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE
AND GENERAL INFORMATION
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME XVII, SLICE VIII
Matter to Mecklenburg
ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE:
MATTER MAX MÜLLER, FRIEDRICH
MATTERHORN MAXWELL
MATTEUCCI, CARLO MAXWELL, JAMES CLERK
MATTHEW, ST MAXWELLTOWN
MATTHEW, TOBIAS MAY, PHIL
MATTHEW, GOSPEL OF ST MAY, THOMAS
MATTHEW CANTACUZENUS MAY, WILLIAM
MATTHEW OF PARIS MAY (month)
MATTHEW OF WESTMINSTER MAY, ISLE OF
MATTHEWS, STANLEY MAYA
MATTHIAE, AUGUST HEINRICH MAYAGUEZ
MATTHIAS (disciple) MAYAVARAM
MATTHIAS (Roman emperor) MAYBOLE
MATTHIAS I., HUNYADI MAYEN
MATTHISSON, FRIEDRICH VON MAYENNE, CHARLES OF LORRAINE
MATTING MAYENNE (department of France)
MATTOCK MAYENNE (town of France)
MATTO GROSSO MAYER, JOHANN TOBIAS
MATTOON MAYER, JULIUS ROBERT
MATTRESS MAYFLOWER
MATURIN, CHARLES ROBERT MAY-FLY
MATVYEEV, ARTAMON SERGYEEVICH MAYHEM
MAUBEUGE MAYHEW, HENRY
MAUCH CHUNK MAYHEW, JONATHAN
MAUCHLINE MAYHEW, THOMAS
MAUDE, CYRIL MAYMYO
MAULE MAYNARD, FRANÇOIS DE
MAULÉON, SAVARI DE MAYNE, JASPER
MAULSTICK MAYNOOTH
MAUNDY THURSDAY MAYO, RICHARD SOUTHWELL BOURKE
MAUPASSANT, HENRI GUY DE MAYO
MAUPEOU, RENÉ NICOLAS AUGUSTIN MAYOR, JOHN EYTON BICKERSTETH
MAUPERTUIS, PIERRE MOREAU DE MAYOR
MAU RANIPUR MAYOR OF THE PALACE
MAUREL, ABDIAS MAYORUNA
MAUREL, VICTOR MAYO-SMITH, RICHMOND
MAURENBRECHER, KARL WILHELM MAYOTTE
MAUREPAS, JEAN PHÉLYPEAUX MAYOW, JOHN
MAURER, GEORG LUDWIG VON MAYSVILLE
MAURETANIA MAZAGAN
MAURIAC MAZAMET
MAURICE, ST MAZANDARAN
MAURICE (Roman emperor) MAZARIN, JULES
MAURICE (elector of Saxony) MAZAR-I-SHARIF
MAURICE, JOHN FREDERICK DENISON MAZARRÓN
MAURICE OF NASSAU MAZATLÁN
MAURISTS MAZE
MAURITIUS MAZEPA-KOLEDINSKY, IVAN STEPANOVICH
MAURY, JEAN SIFFREIN MAZER
MAURY, LOUIS FERDINAND ALFRED MAZURKA
MAURY, MATTHEW FONTAINE MAZZARA DEL VALLO
MAUSOLEUM MAZZINI, GIUSEPPE
MAUSOLUS MAZZONI, GIACOMO
MAUVE, ANTON MAZZONI, GUIDO
MAVROCORDATO MEAD, LARKIN GOLDSMITH
MAWKMAI MEAD, RICHARD
MAXENTIUS, MARCUS VALERIUS MEAD
MAXIM, SIR HIRAM STEVENS MEADE, GEORGE GORDON
MAXIMA AND MINIMA MEADE, WILLIAM
MAXIMIANUS MEADVILLE
MAXIMIANUS, MARCUS VALERIUS MEAGHER, THOMAS FRANCIS
MAXIMILIAN I. (elector of Bavaria) MEAL
MAXIMILIAN I. (king of Bavaria) MEALIE
MAXIMILIAN II. (king of Bavaria) MEAN
MAXIMILIAN I. (Roman emperor) MEASLES
MAXIMILIAN II. (Roman emperor) MEAT
MAXIMILIAN (emperor of Mexico) MEATH
MAXIMINUS, GAIUS JULIUS VERUS MEAUX
MAXIMINUS, GALERIUS VALERIUS MECCA
MAXIMS, LEGAL MECHANICS
MAXIMUS MECHANICVILLE
MAXIMUS, ST MECHITHARISTS
MAXIMUS OF SMYRNA MECKLENBURG
MAXIMUS OF TYRE
MATTER. Our conceptions of the nature and structure of matter have been
profoundly influenced in recent years by investigations on the
Conduction of Electricity through Gases (see CONDUCTION, ELECTRIC) and
on Radio-activity (q.v.). These researches and the ideas which they have
suggested have already thrown much light on some of the most fundamental
questions connected with matter; they have, too, furnished us with far
more powerful methods for investigating many problems connected with the
structure of matter than those hitherto available. There is thus every
reason to believe that our knowledge of the structure of matter will
soon become far more precise and complete than it is at present, for now
we have the means of settling by testing directly many points which are
still doubtful, but which formerly seemed far beyond the reach of
experiment.
The Molecular Theory of Matter--the only theory ever seriously
advocated--supposes that all visible forms of matter are collocations of
simpler and smaller portions. There has been a continuous tendency as
science has advanced to reduce further and further the number of the
different kinds of things of which all matter is supposed to be built
up. First came the molecular theory teaching us to regard matter as made
up of an enormous number of small particles, each kind of matter having
its characteristic particle, thus the particles of water were supposed
to be different from those of air and indeed from those of any other
substance. Then came Dalton's Atomic Theory which taught that these
molecules, in spite of their almost infinite variety, were all built up
of still smaller bodies, the atoms of the chemical elements, and that
the number of different types of these smaller bodies was limited to the
sixty or seventy types which represent the atoms of the substance
regarded by chemists as elements.
In 1815 Prout suggested that the atoms of the heavier chemical elements
were themselves composite and that they were all built up of atoms of
the lightest element, hydrogen, so that all the different forms of
matter are edifices built of the same material--the atom of hydrogen. If
the atoms of hydrogen do not alter in weight when they combine to form
atoms of other elements the atomic weights of all elements would be
multiples of that of hydrogen; though the number of elements whose
atomic weights are multiples or very nearly so of hydrogen is very
striking, there are several which are universally admitted to have
atomic weights differing largely from whole numbers. We do not know
enough about gravity to say whether this is due to the change of weight
of the hydrogen atoms when they combine to form other atoms, or whether
the primordial form from which all matter is built up is something other
than the hydrogen atom. Whatever may be the nature of this primordial
form, the tendency of all recent discoveries has been to emphasize the
truth of the conception of a common basis of matter of all kinds. That
the atoms of the different elements have a common basis, that they
behave as if they consisted of different numbers of small particles of
the same kind, is proved to most minds by the Periodic Law of Mendeléeff
and Newlands (see ELEMENT). This law shows that the physical and
chemical properties of the different elements are determined by their
atomic weights, or to use the language of mathematics, the properties of
an element are functions of its atomic weight. Now if we constructed
models of the atoms out of different materials, the atomic weight would
be but one factor out of many which would influence the physical and
chemical properties of the model, we should require to know more than
the atomic weight to fix its behaviour. If we were to plot a curve
representing the variation of some property of the substance with the
atomic weight we should not expect the curve to be a smooth one, for
instance two atoms might have the same atomic weight and yet if they
were made of different materials have no other property in common. The
influence of the atomic weight on the properties of the elements is
nowhere more strikingly shown than in the recent developments of physics
connected with the discharge of electricity through gases and with
radio-activity. The transparency of bodies to Röntgen rays, to cathode
rays, to the rays emitted by radio-active substances, the quality of the
secondary radiation emitted by the different elements are all determined
by the atomic weight of the element. So much is this the case that the
behaviour of the element with respect to these rays has been used to
determine its atomic weight, when as in the case of Indium, uncertainty
as to the valency of the element makes the result of ordinary chemical
methods ambiguous.
The radio-active elements indeed furnish us with direct evidence of this
unity of composition of matter, for not only does one element uranium,
produce another, radium, but all the radio-active substances give rise
to helium, so that the substance of the atoms of this gas must be
contained in the atoms of the radio-active elements.
It is not radio-active atoms alone that contain a common constituent,
for it has been found that all bodies can by suitable treatment, such as
raising them to incandescence or exposing them to ultra-violet light, be
made to emit negatively electrified particles, and that these particles
are the same from whatever source they may be derived. These particles
all carry the same charge of negative electricity and all have the same
mass, this mass is exceedingly small even when compared with the mass of
an atom of hydrogen, which until the discovery of these particles was
the smallest mass known to science. These particles are called
corpuscles or electrons; their mass according to the most recent
determinations is only about 1/1700 of that of an atom of hydrogen, and
their radius is only about one hundred-thousandth part of the radius of
the hydrogen atom. As corpuscles of this kind can be obtained from all
substances, we infer that they form a constituent of the atoms of all
bodies. The atoms of the different elements do not all contain the same
number of corpuscles--there are more corpuscles in the atoms of the
heavier elements than in the atoms of the lighter ones; in fact, many
different considerations point to the conclusion that the number of
corpuscles in the atom of any element is proportional to the atomic
weight of the element. Different methods of estimating the exact number
of corpuscles in the atom have all led to the conclusion that this
number is of the same order as the atomic weight; that, for instance,
the number of corpuscles in the atom of oxygen is not a large multiple
of 16. Some methods indicate that the number of corpuscles in the atom
is equal to the atomic weight, while the maximum value obtained by any
method is only about four times the atomic weight. This is one of the
points on which further experiments will enable us to speak with greater
precision. Thus one of the constituents of all atoms is the negatively
charged corpuscle; since the atoms are electrically neutral, this
negative charge must be accompanied by an equal positive one, so that on
this view the atoms must contain a charge of positive electricity
proportional to the atomic weight; the way in which this positive
electricity is arranged is a matter of great importance in the
consideration of the constitution of matter. The question naturally
arises, is the positive electricity done up into definite units like the
negative, or does it merely indicate a property acquired by an atom when
one or more corpuscles leave it? It is very remarkable that we have up
to the present (1910), in spite of many investigations on this point, no
direct evidence of the existence of positively charged particles with a
mass comparable with that of a corpuscle; the smallest positive particle
of which we have any direct indication has a mass equal to the mass of
an atom of hydrogen, and it is a most remarkable fact that we get
positively charged particles having this mass when we send the electric
discharge through gases at low pressures, whatever be the kind of gas.
It is no doubt exceedingly difficult to get rid of traces of hydrogen in
vessels containing gases at low pressures through which an electric
discharge is passing, but the circumstances under which the positively
electrified particles just alluded to appear, and the way in which they
remain unaltered in spite of all efforts to clear out any traces of
hydrogen, all seem to indicate that these positively electrified
particles, whose mass is equal to that of an atom of hydrogen, do not
come from minute traces of hydrogen present as an impurity but from the
oxygen, nitrogen, or helium, or whatever may be the gas through which
the discharge passes. If this is so, then the most natural conclusion we
can come to is that these positively electrified particles with the mass
of the atom of hydrogen are the natural units of positive electricity,
just as the corpuscles are those of negative, and that these positive
particles form a part of all atoms.
Thus in this way we are led to an electrical view of the constitution of
the atom. We regard the atom as built up of units of negative
electricity and of an equal number of units of positive electricity;
these two units are of very different mass, the mass of the negative
unit being only 1/1700 of that of the positive. The number of units of
either kind is proportional to the atomic weight of the element and of
the same order as this quantity. Whether this is anything besides the
positive and negative electricity in the atom we do not know. In the
present state of our knowledge of the properties of matter it is
unnecessary to postulate the existence of anything besides these
positive and negative units.
The atom of a chemical element on this view of the constitution of
matter is a system formed by n corpuscles and n units of positive
electricity which is in equilibrium or in a state of steady motion under
the electrical forces which the charged 2n constituents exert upon each
other. Sir J. J. Thomson (_Phil. Mag._, March 1904, "Corpuscular Theory
of Matter") has investigated the systems in steady motion which can be
formed by various numbers of negatively electrified particles immersed
in a sphere of uniform positive electrification, a case, which in
consequence of the enormous volume of the units of positive electricity
in comparison with that of the negative has much in common with the
problem under consideration, and has shown that some of the properties
of n systems of corpuscles vary in a periodic way suggestive of the
Periodic Law in Chemistry as n is continually increased.
_Mass on the Electrical Theory of Matter._--One of the most
characteristic things about matter is the possession of mass. When we
take the electrical theory of matter the idea of mass takes new and
interesting forms. This point may be illustrated by the case of a single
electrified particle; when this moves it produces in the region around
it a magnetic field, the magnetic force being proportional to the
velocity of the electrified particle.[1] In a magnetic field, however,
there is energy, and the amount of energy per unit volume at any place
is proportional to the square of the magnetic force at that place. Thus
there will be energy distributed through the space around the moving
particle, and when the velocity of the particle is small compared with
that of light we can easily show that the energy in the region around
the charged particle is ([mu]e²)/(3a), when v is the velocity of the
particle, e its charge, a its radius, and [mu] the magnetic permeability
of the region round the particle. If m is the ordinary mass of the
particle, the part of the kinetic energy due to the motion of this mass
is ½mv², thus the total kinetic energy is ½[m + (2/3)[mu]e²/a]. Thus the
electric charge on the particle makes it behave as if its mass were
increased by (2/3)[mu]e²/a. Since this increase in mass is due to the
energy in the region outside the charged particle, it is natural to look
to that region for this additional mass. This region is traversed by the
tubes of force which start from the electrified body and move with it,
and a very simple calculation shows that we should get the increase in
the mass which is due to the electrification if we suppose that these
tubes of force as they move carry with them a certain amount of the
ether, and that this ether had mass. The mass of ether thus carried
along must be such that the amount of it in unit volume at any part of
the field is such that if this were to move with the velocity of light
its kinetic energy would be equal to the potential energy of the
electric field in the unit volume under consideration. When a tube moves
this mass of ether only participates in the motion at right angles to
the tube, it is not set in motion by a movement of the tube along its
length. We may compare the mass which a charged body acquires in virtue
of its charge with the additional mass which a ball apparently acquires
when it is placed in water; a ball placed in water behaves as if its
mass were greater than its mass when moving in vacuo; we can easily
understand why this should be the case, because when the ball in the
water moves the water around it must move as well; so that when a force
acting on the ball sets it in motion it has to move some of the water as
well as the ball, and thus the ball behaves as if its mass were
increased. Similarly in the case of the electrified particle, which when
it moves carries with it its lines of force, which grip the ether and
carry some of it along with them. When the electrified particle is moved
a mass of ether has to be moved too, and thus the apparent mass of the
particle is increased. The mass of the electrified particle is thus
resident in every part of space reached by its lines of force; in this
sense an electrified body may be said to extend to an infinite distance;
the amount of the mass of the ether attached to the particle diminishes
so rapidly as we recede from it that the contributions of regions remote
from the particle are quite insignificant, and in the case of a
particle as small as a corpuscle not one millionth part of its mass will
be farther away from it than the radius of an atom.
The increase in the mass of a particle due to given charges varies as we
have seen inversely as the radius of the particle; thus the smaller the
particle the greater the increase in the mass. For bodies of appreciable
size or even for those as small as ordinary atoms the effect of any
realizable electric charge is quite insignificant, on the other hand for
the smallest bodies known, the corpuscle, there is evidence that the
whole of the mass is due to the electric charge. This result has been
deduced by the help of an extremely interesting property of the mass due
to a charge of electricity, which is that this mass is not constant but
varies with the velocity. This comes about in the following way. When
the charged particle, which for simplicity we shall suppose to be
spherical, is at rest or moving very slowly the lines of electric force
are distributed uniformly around it in all directions; when the sphere
moves, however, magnetic forces are produced in the region around it,
while these, in consequence of electro-magnetic induction in a moving
magnetic field, give rise to electric forces which displace the tubes of
electric force in such a way as to make them set themselves so as to be
more at right angles to the direction in which they are moving than they
were before. Thus if the charged sphere were moving along the line AB,
the tubes of force would, when the sphere was in motion, tend to leave
the region near AB and crowd towards a plane through the centre of the
sphere and at right angles to AB, where they would be moving more nearly
at right angles to themselves. This crowding of the lines of force
increases, however, the potential energy of the electric field, and
since the mass of the ether carried along by the lines of force is
proportional to the potential energy, the mass of the charged particle
will also be increased. The amount of variation of the mass with the
velocity depends to some extent on the assumptions we make as to the
shape of the corpuscle and the way in which it is electrified. The
simplest expression connecting the mass with the velocity is that when
the velocity is v the mass is equal to (2/3)[mu]e²/a [1/(1 - v²/c²)^½]
where c is the velocity of light. We see from this that the variation of
mass with velocity is very small unless the velocity of the body
approaches that of light, but when, as in the case of the [beta]
particles emitted by radium, the velocity is only a few per cent less
than that of light, the effect of velocity on the mass becomes very
considerable; the formula indicates that if the particles were moving
with a velocity equal to that of light they would behave as if their
mass were infinite. By observing the variation in the mass of a
corpuscle as its velocity changes we can determine how much of the mass
depends upon the electric charge and how much is independent of it. For
since the latter part of the mass is independent of the velocity, if it
predominates the variation with velocity of the mass of a corpuscle will
be small; if on the other hand it is negligible the variation in mass
with velocity will be that indicated by theory given above. The
experiment of Kaufmann (_Göttingen Nach._, Nov. 8, 1901), Bucherer
(_Ann. der Physik._, xxviii. 513, 1909) on the masses of the [beta]
particles shot out by radium, as well as those by Hupka (_Berichte der
deutsch. physik. Gesell._, 1909, p. 249) on the masses of the corpuscle
in cathode rays are in agreement with the view that the _whole_ of the
mass of these particles is due to their electric charge.
The alteration in the mass of a moving charge with its velocity is
primarily due to the increase in the potential energy which accompanies
the increase in velocity. The connexion between potential energy and
mass is general and holds for any arrangement of electrified particles;
thus if we assume the electrical constitution of matter, there will be a
part of the mass of any system dependent upon the potential energy and
in fact proportional to it. Thus every change in potential energy, such
for example as occurs when two elements combine with evolution or
absorption of heat, must be attended by a change in mass. The amount of
this change can be calculated by the rule that if a mass equal to the
change in mass were to move with the velocity of light its kinetic
energy would equal the change in the potential energy. If we apply this
result to the case of the combination of hydrogen and oxygen, where the
evolution of heat, about 1.6 × 10^11 ergs per gramme of water, is
greater than in any other known case of chemical combination, we see
that the change in mass would only amount to one part in 3000 million,
which is far beyond the reach of experiment. The evolution of energy by
radio-active substances is enormously larger than in ordinary chemical
transformations; thus one gramme of radium emits per day about as much
energy as is evolved in the formation of one gramme of water, and goes
on doing this for thousands of years. We see, however, that even in this
case it would require hundreds of years before the changes in mass
became appreciable.
The evolution of energy from the gaseous emanation given off by radium
is more rapid than that from radium itself, since according to the
experiments of Rutherford (Rutherford, _Radio-activity_, p. 432) a
gramme of the emanation would evolve about 2.1 × 10^16 ergs in four
days; this by the rule given above would diminish the mass by about one
part in 20,000; but since only very small quantities of the emanation
could be used the detection of the change of mass does not seem feasible
even in this case.
On the view we have been discussing the existence of potential energy
due to an electric field is always associated with mass; wherever there
is potential energy there is mass. On the electro-magnetic theory of
light, however, a wave of light is accompanied by electric forces, and
therefore by potential energy; thus waves of light must behave as if
they possessed mass. It may be shown that it follows from the same
principles that they must also possess momentum, the direction of the
momentum being the direction along which the light is travelling; when
the light is absorbed by an opaque substance the momentum in the light
is communicated to the substance, which therefore behaves as if the
light pressed upon it. The pressure exerted by light was shown by
Maxwell (_Electricity and Magnetism_, 3rd ed., p. 440) to be a
consequence of his electro-magnetic theory, its existence has been
established by the experiment of Lebedew, of Nichols and Hull, and of
Poynting.
Weight.
We have hitherto been considering mass from the point of view that the
constitution of matter is electrical; we shall proceed to consider the
question of weight from the same point of view. The relation between
mass and weight is, while the simplest in expression, perhaps the most
fundamental and mysterious property possessed by matter. The weight of a
body is proportional to its mass, that is if the weights of a number of
substances are equal the masses will be equal, whatever the substances
may be. This result was verified to a considerable degree of
approximation by Newton by means of experiments with pendulums; later,
in 1830 Bessel by a very extensive and accurate series of experiments,
also made on pendulums, showed that the ratio of mass to weight was
certainly to one part in 60,000 the same for all the substances examined
by him, these included brass, silver, iron, lead, copper, ivory, water.
The constancy of this ratio acquires new interest when looked at from
the point of view of the electrical constitution of matter. We have seen
that the atoms of all bodies contain corpuscles, that the mass of a
corpuscle is only 1/1700 of the mass of an atom of hydrogen, that it
carries a constant charge of negative electricity, and that its mass is
entirely due to this charge, and can be regarded as arising from ether
gripped by the lines of force starting from the electrical charge. The
question at once suggests itself, Is this kind of mass ponderable? does
it add to the weight of the body? and, if so, is the proportion between
mass and weight the same as for ordinary bodies? Let us suppose for a
moment that this mass is not ponderable, so that the corpuscles increase
the mass but not the weight of an atom. Then, since the mass of a
corpuscle is 1/1700 that of an atom of hydrogen, the addition or removal
of one corpuscle would in the case of an atom of atomic weight x alter
the mass by one part in 1700 x, without altering the weight, this would
produce an effect of the same magnitude on the ratio of mass to weight
and would in the case of the atoms of the lighter elements be easily
measurable in experiments of the same order of accuracy as those made by
Bessel. If the number of corpuscles in the atom were proportional to the
atomic weight, then the ratio of mass to weight would be constant
whether the corpuscles were ponderable or not. If the number were not
proportional there would be greater discrepancies in the ratio of mass
to weight than is consistent with Bessel's experiments if the corpuscles
had no weight. We have seen there are other grounds for concluding that
the number of corpuscles in an atom is proportional to the atom weight,
so that the constancy of the ratio of mass to weight for a large number
of substances does not enable us to determine whether or not mass due to
charges of electricity is ponderable or not.
There seems some hope that the determination of this ratio for
radio-active substances may throw some light on this point. The enormous
amount of heat evolved by these bodies may indicate that they possess
much greater stores of potential energy than other substances. If we
suppose that the heat developed by one gramme of a radio-active
substance in the transformations which it undergoes before it reaches
the non-radio-active stage is a measure of the excess of the potential
energy in a gramme of this substance above that in a gramme of
non-radio-active substance, it would follow that a larger part of the
mass was due to electric charges in radio-active than in
non-radio-active substances; in the case of uranium this difference
would amount to at least one part in 20,000 of the total mass. If this
extra mass had no weight the ratio of mass to weight for uranium would
differ from the normal amount by more than one part in 20,000, a
quantity quite within the range of pendulum experiments. It thus appears
very desirable to make experiments on the ratio of mass to weight for
radio-active substances. Sir J. J. Thomson, by swinging a small pendulum
whose bob was made of radium bromide, has shown that this ratio for
radium does not differ from the normal by one part in 2000. The small
quantity of radium available prevented the attainment of greater
accuracy. Experiments just completed (1910) by Southerns at the
Cavendish Laboratory on this ratio for uranium show that it is normal to
an accuracy of one part in 200,000; indicating that in non-radio-active,
as in radio-active, substances the electrical mass is proportional to
the atomic weight.
Though but few experiments have been made in recent years on the value
of the ratio of mass to weight, many important investigations have been
made on the effect of alterations in the chemical and physical
conditions on the weight of bodies. These have all led to the conclusion
that no change which can be detected by our present means of
investigation occurs in the weight of a body in consequence of any
physical or chemical changes yet investigated. Thus Landolt, who devoted
a great number of years to the question whether any change in weight
occurs during chemical combination, came finally to the conclusion that
in no case out of the many he investigated did any measurable change of
weight occur during chemical combination. Poynting and Phillips (_Proc.
Roy. Soc._, 76, p. 445), as well as Southerns (78, p. 392), have shown
that change in temperature produces no change in the weight of a body;
and Poynting has also shown that neither the weight of a crystal nor the
attraction between two crystals depends at all upon the direction in
which the axis of the crystal points. The result of these laborious and
very carefully made experiments has been to strengthen the conviction
that the weight of a given portion of matter is absolutely independent
of its physical condition or state of chemical combinations. It should,
however, be noticed that we have as yet no accurate investigation as to
whether or not any changes of weight occur during radio-active
transformations, such for example as the emanation from radium undergoes
when the atoms themselves of the substance are disrupted.
It is a matter of some interest in connexion with a discussion of any
views of the constitution of matter to consider the theories of
gravitation which have been put forward to explain that apparently
invariable property of matter--its weight. It would be impossible to
consider in detail the numerous theories which have been put forward to
account for gravitation; a concise summary of many of these has been
given by Drude (Wied. _Ann._ 62, p. 1);[2] there is no dearth of
theories as to the cause of gravitation, what is lacking is the means of
putting any of them to a decisive test.
There are, however, two theories of gravitation, both old, which seem to
be especially closely connected with the idea of the electrical
constitution of matter. The first of these is the theory, associated
with the two fluid theory of electricity, that gravity is a kind of
residual electrical effect, due to the attraction between the units of
positive and negative electricity being a little greater than the
repulsion between the units of electricity of the same kind. Thus on
this view two charges of equal magnitude, but of opposite sign, would
exert an attraction varying inversely as the square of the distance on a
charge of electricity of either sign, and therefore an attraction on a
system consisting of two charges equal in magnitude but opposite in sign
forming an electrically neutral system. Thus if we had two neutral
systems, A and B, A consisting of m positive units of electricity and an
equal number of negative, while B has n units of each kind, then the
gravitational attraction between A and B would be inversely proportional
to the square of the distance and proportional to n m. The connexion
between this view of gravity and that of the electrical constitution of
matter is evidently very close, for if gravity arose in this way the
weight of a body would only depend upon the number of units of
electricity in the body. On the view that the constitution of matter is
electrical, the fundamental units which build up matter are the units of
electric charge, and as the magnitude of these charges does not change,
whatever chemical or physical vicissitudes matter, the weight of matter
ought not to be affected by such changes. There is one result of this
theory which might possibly afford a means of testing it: since the
charge on a corpuscle is equal to that on a positive unit, the weights
of the two are equal; but the mass of the corpuscle is only 1/1700 of
that of the positive unit, so that the acceleration of the corpuscle
under gravity will be 1700 times that of the positive unit, which we
should expect to be the same as that for ponderable matter or 981.
The acceleration of the corpuscle under gravity on this view would be
1.6 × 10^6. It does not seem altogether impossible that with methods
slightly more powerful than those we now possess we might measure the
effect of gravity on a corpuscle if the acceleration were as large as
this.
The other theory of gravitation to which we call attention is that due
to Le Sage of Geneva and published in 1818. Le Sage supposed that the
universe was thronged with exceedingly small particles moving with very
great velocities. These particles he called ultra-mundane corpuscles,
because they came to us from regions far beyond the solar system. He
assumed that these were so penetrating that they could pass through
masses as large as the sun or the earth without being absorbed to more
than a very small extent. There is, however, some absorption, and if
bodies are made up of the same kind of atoms, whose dimensions are small
compared with the distances between them, the absorption will be
proportional to the mass of the body. So that as the ultra-mundane
corpuscles stream through the body a small fraction, proportional to the
mass of the body, of their momentum is communicated to it. If the
direction of the ultra-mundane corpuscles passing through the body were
uniformly distributed, the momentum communicated by them to the body
would not tend to move it in one direction rather than in another, so
that a body, A, alone in the universe and exposed to bombardment by the
ultra-mundane corpuscles would remain at rest. If, however, there were a
second body, B, in the neighbourhood of A, B will shield A from some of
the corpuscles moving in the direction BA; thus A will not receive as
much momentum in this direction as when it was alone; but in this case
it only received just enough to keep it in equilibrium, so that when B
is present the momentum in the opposite direction will get the upper
hand and A will move in the direction AB, and will thus be attracted by
B. Similarly, we see that B will be attracted by A. Le Sage proved that
the rate at which momentum was being communicated to A or B by the
passage through them of his corpuscles was proportional to the product
of the masses of A and B, and if the distance between A and B was large
compared with their dimensions, inversely proportional to the square of
the distance between them; in fact, that the forces acting on them would
obey the same laws as the gravitational attraction between them. Clerk
Maxwell (article "ATOM," _Ency. Brit._, 9th ed.) pointed out that this
transference of momentum from the ultra-mundane corpuscles to the body
through which they passed involved the loss of kinetic energy by the
corpuscles, and if the loss of momentum were large enough to account for
the gravitational attraction, the loss of kinetic energy would be so
large that if converted into heat it would be sufficient to keep the
body white hot. We need not, however, suppose that this energy is
converted into heat; it might, as in the case where Röntgen rays are
produced by the passage of electrified corpuscles through matter, be
transformed into the energy of a still more penetrating form of
radiation, which might escape from the gravitating body without heating
it. It is a very interesting result of recent discoveries that the
machinery which Le Sage introduced for the purpose of his theory has a
very close analogy with things for which we have now direct experimental
evidence. We know that small particles moving with very high speeds do
exist, that they possess considerable powers of penetrating solids,
though not, as far as we know at present, to an extent comparable with
that postulated by Le Sage; and we know that the energy lost by them as
they pass through a solid is to a large extent converted into a still
more penetrating form of radiation, Röntgen rays. In Le Sage's theory
the only function of the corpuscles is to act as carriers of momentum,
any systems which possessed momentum, moved with a high velocity and had
the power of penetrating solids, might be substituted for them; now
waves of electric and magnetic force, such as light waves or Röntgen
rays, possess momentum, move with a high velocity, and the latter at any
rate possess considerable powers of penetration; so that we might
formulate a theory in which penetrating Röntgen rays replaced Le Sage's
corpuscles. Röntgen rays, however, when absorbed do not, as far as we
know, give rise to more penetrating Röntgen rays as they should to
explain attraction, but either to less penetrating rays or to rays of
the same kind.
We have confined our attention in this article to the view that the
constitution of matter is electrical; we have done so because this view
is more closely in touch with experiment than any other yet advanced.
The units of which matter is built up on this theory have been isolated
and detected in the laboratory, and we may hope to discover more and
more of their properties. By seeing whether the properties of matter are
or are not such as would arise from a collection of units having these
properties, we can apply to this theory tests of a much more definite
and rigorous character than we can apply to any other theory of matter.
(J. J. T.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] We may measure this velocity with reference to any axes, provided
we refer the motion of all the bodies which come into consideration
to the same axes.
[2] A theory published after Drude's paper in that of Professor
Osborne Reynolds, given in his Rede lecture "On an Inversion of Ideas
as to the Structure of the Universe."
MATTERHORN, one of the best known mountains (14,782 ft.) in the Alps. It
rises S.W. of the village of Zermatt, and on the frontier between
Switzerland (canton of the Valais) and Italy. Though on the Swiss side
it appears to be an isolated obelisk, it is really but the butt end of a
ridge, while the Swiss slope is not nearly as steep or difficult as the
grand terraced walls of the Italian slope. It was first conquered, after
a number of attempts chiefly on the Italian side, on the 14th of July
1865, by Mr E. Whymper's party, three members of which (Lord Francis
Douglas, the Rev. C. Hudson and Mr Hadow) with the guide, Michel Croz,
perished by a slip on the descent. Three days later it was scaled from
the Italian side by a party of men from Val Tournanche. Nowadays it is
frequently ascended in summer, especially from Zermatt.
MATTEUCCI, CARLO (1811-1868), Italian physicist, was born at Forlì on
the 20th of June 1811. After attending the École Polytechnique at
Paris, he became professor of physics successively at Bologna (1832),
Ravenna (1837) and Pisa (1840). From 1847 he took an active part in
politics, and in 1860 was chosen an Italian senator, at the same time
becoming inspector-general of the Italian telegraph lines. Two years
later he was minister of education. He died near Leghorn on the 25th of
June 1868.
He was the author of four scientific treatises: _Lezioni di fisica_ (2
vols., Pisa, 1841), _Lezioni sui fenomeni fisicochimici dei corpi
viventi_ (Pisa, 1844), _Manuale di telegrafia elettrica_ (Pisa, 1850)
and _Cours spécial sur l'induction, le magnetisme de rotation_, &c.
(Paris, 1854). His numerous papers were published in the _Annales de
chimie et de physique_ (1829-1858); and most of them also appeared at
the time in the Italian scientific journals. They relate almost
entirely to electrical phenomena, such as the magnetic rotation of
light, the action of gas batteries, the effects of torsion on
magnetism, the polarization of electrodes, &c., sufficiently complete
accounts of which are given in Wiedemann's _Galvanismus_. Nine
memoirs, entitled "Electro-Physiological Researches," were published
in the _Philosophical Transactions_, 1845-1860. See Bianchi's _Carlo
Matteucci e l'Italia del suo tempo_ (Rome, 1874).
MATTHEW, ST ([Greek: Maththaios] or [Greek: Matthaios], probably a
shortened form of the Hebrew equivalent to Theodorus), one of the twelve
apostles, and the traditional author of the First Gospel, where he is
described as having been a tax-gatherer or customs-officer ([Greek:
telônês], x. 3), in the service of the tetrarch Herod. The circumstances
of his call to become a follower of Jesus, received as he sat in the
"customs house" in one of the towns by the Sea of Galilee--apparently
Capernaum (Mark ii. 1, 13), are briefly related in ix. 9. We should
gather from the parallel narrative in Mark ii. 14, Luke v. 27, that he
was at the time known as "Levi the son of Alphaeus" (compare Simon
Cephas, Joseph Barnabas): if so, "James the son of Alphaeus" may have
been his brother. Possibly "Matthew" (Yahweh's gift) was his Christian
surname, since two native names, neither being a patronymic, is contrary
to Jewish usage. It must be noted, however, that Matthew and Levi were
sometimes distinguished in early times, as by Heracleon (c. 170 A.D.),
and more dubiously by Origen (c. _Celsum_, i. 62), also apparently in
the Syriac _Didascalia_ (sec. iii.), V. xiv. 14. It has generally been
supposed, on the strength of Luke's account (v. 29), that Matthew gave a
feast in Jesus' honour (like Zacchaeus, Luke xix. 6 seq.). But Mark (ii.
15), followed by Matthew (ix. 10), may mean that the meal in question
was one in Jesus' own home at Capernaum (cf. v. 1). In the lists of the
Apostles given in the Synoptic Gospels and in Acts, Matthew ranks third
or fourth in the second group of four--a fair index of his relative
importance in the apostolic age. The only other facts related of Matthew
on good authority concern him as Evangelist. Eusebius (_H.E._ iii. 24)
says that he, like John, wrote only at the spur of necessity. "For
Matthew, after preaching to Hebrews, when about to go also to others,
committed to writing in his native tongue the Gospel that bears his
name; and so by his writing supplied, for those whom he was leaving, the
loss of his presence." The value of this tradition, which may be based
on Papias, who certainly reported that "Matthew compiled the Oracles (of
the Lord) in Hebrew," can be estimated only in connexion with the study
of the Gospel itself (see below). No historical use can be made of the
artificial story, in _Sanhedrin_ 43a, that Matthew was condemned to
death by a Jewish court (see Laihle, _Christ in the Talmud_, 71 seq.).
According to the Gnostic Heracleon, quoted by Clement of Alexandria
(_Strom._ iv. 9), Matthew died a natural death. The tradition as to his
ascetic diet (in Clem. Alex. _Paedag._ ii. 16) maybe due to confusion
with Matthias (cf. _Mart. Matthaei_, i.). The earliest legend as to his
later labours, one of Syrian origin, places them in the Parthian
kingdom, where it represents him as dying a natural death at Hierapolis
(= Mabog on the Euphrates). This agrees with his legend as known to
Ambrose and Paulinus of Nola, and is the most probable in itself. The
legends which make him work with Andrew among the Anthropophagi near the
Black Sea, or again in Ethiopia (Rufinus, and Socrates, _H.E._ i. 19),
are due to confusion with Matthias, who from the first was associated in
his Acts with Andrew (see M. Bonnet, _Acta Apost. apocr._, 1808, II. i.
65). Another legend, his _Martyrium_, makes him labour and suffer in
Mysore. He is commemorated as a martyr by the Greek Church on the 16th
of November, and by the Roman on the 21st of September, the scene of his
martyrdom being placed in Ethiopia. The Latin Breviary also affirms that
his body was afterwards translated to Salerno, where it is said to lie
in the church built by Robert Guiscard. In Christian art (following
Jerome) the Evangelist Matthew is generally symbolized by the "man" in
the imagery of Ezek. i. 10, Rev. iv. 7.
For the historical Matthew, see _Ency. Bibl._ and Zahn, _Introd. to
New Test._, ii. 506 seq., 522 seq. For his legends, as under MARK.
(J. V. B.)
MATTHEW, TOBIAS, or TOBIE (1546-1628), archbishop of York, was the son
of Sir John Matthew of Ross in Herefordshire, and of his wife Eleanor
Crofton of Ludlow. He was born at Bristol in 1546. He was educated at
Wells, and then in succession at University College and Christ Church,
Oxford. He proceeded B.A. in 1564, and M.A. in 1566. He attracted the
favourable notice of Queen Elizabeth, and his rise was steady though not
very rapid. He was public orator in 1569, president of St John's
College, Oxford, in 1572, dean of Christ Church in 1576, vice-chancellor
of the university in 1579, dean of Durham in 1583, bishop of Durham in
1595, and archbishop of York in 1606. In 1581 he had a controversy with
the Jesuit Edmund Campion, and published at Oxford his arguments in 1638
under the title, _Piissimi et eminentissimi viri Tobiae Matthew,
archiepiscopi olim Eboracencis concio apologetica adversus Campianam_.
While in the north he was active in forcing the recusants to conform to
the Church of England, preaching hundreds of sermons and carrying out
thorough visitations. During his later years he was to some extent in
opposition to the administration of James I. He was exempted from
attendance in the parliament of 1625 on the ground of age and
infirmities, and died on the 29th of March 1628. His wife, Frances, was
the daughter of William Barlow, bishop of Chichester.
His son, SIR TOBIAS, or TOBIE, MATTHEW (1577-1655), is remembered as the
correspondent and friend of Francis Bacon. He was educated at Christ
Church, and was early attached to the court, serving in the embassy at
Paris. His debts and dissipations were a great source of sorrow to his
father, from whom he is known to have received at different times
£14,000, the modern equivalent of which is much larger. He was chosen
member for Newport in Cornwall in the parliament of 1601, and member for
St Albans in 1604. Before this time he had become the intimate friend of
Bacon, whom he replaced as member for St Albans. When peace was made
with Spain, on the accession of James I., he wished to travel abroad.
His family, who feared his conversion to Roman Catholicism, opposed his
wish, but he promised not to go beyond France. When once safe out of
England he broke his word and went to Italy. The persuasion of some of
his countrymen in Florence, one of whom is said to have been the Jesuit
Robert Parsons, and a story he heard of the miraculous liquefaction of
the blood of San Januarius at Naples, led to his conversion in 1606.
When he returned to England he was imprisoned, and many efforts were
made to obtain his reconversion without success. He would not take the
oath of allegiance to the king. In 1608 he was exiled, and remained out
of England for ten years, mostly in Flanders and Spain. He returned in
1617, but went abroad again in 1619. His friends obtained his leave to
return in 1621. At home he was known as the intimate friend of Gondomar,
the Spanish ambassador. In 1623 he was sent to join Prince Charles,
afterwards Charles I., at Madrid, and was knighted on the 23rd of
October of that year. He remained in England till 1640, when he was
finally driven abroad by the parliament, which looked upon him as an
agent of the pope. He died in the English college in Ghent on the 13th
of October 1655. In 1618 he published an Italian translation of Bacon's
essays. The "Essay on Friendship" was written for him. He was also the
author of a translation of _The Confessions of the Incomparable Doctor
St Augustine_, which led him into controversy. His correspondence was
published in London in 1660.
For the father, see John Le Neve's _Fasti ecclesiae anglicanae_
(London, 1716), and Anthony Wood's _Athenae oxonienses_. For the son,
the notice in _Athenae oxonienses_, an abridgment of his
autobiographical _Historical Relation_ of his own life, published by
Alban Butler in 1795, and A. H. Matthew and A. Calthrop, _Life of Sir
Tobie Matthew_ (London, 1907).
MATTHEW, GOSPEL OF ST, the first of the four canonical Gospels of the
Christian Church. The indications of the use of this Gospel in the two
or three generations following the Apostolic Age (see GOSPEL) are more
plentiful than of any of the others. Throughout the history of the
Church, also, it has held a place second to none of the Gospels alike in
public instruction and in the private reading of Christians. The reasons
for its having impressed itself in this way and become thus familiar are
in large part to be found in the characteristics noticed below. But in
addition there has been from an early time the belief that it was the
work of one of those publicans whose heart Jesus touched and of whose
call to follow Him the three Synoptics contain an interesting account,
but who is identified as Matthew (q.v.) only in this one (Matt. ix. 9-13
= Mark ii. 13-17 = Luke v. 27-32).
1. _The Connexion of our Greek Gospel of Matthew with the Apostle whose
name it bears._--The earliest reference to a writing by Matthew occurs
in a fragment taken by Eusebius from the same work of Papias from which
he has given an account of the composition of a record by Mark (Euseb.
_Hist. Eccl._ iii. 39; see MARK, GOSPEL OF ST). The statement about
Matthew is much briefer and is harder to interpret. In spite of much
controversy, the same measure of agreement as to its meaning cannot be
said to have been attained. This is the fragment: "Matthew, however, put
together and wrote down the Oracles ([Greek: ta logia synegrapsen]) in
the Hebrew language, and each man interpreted them as he was able."
Whether "the elder" referred to in the passage on Mark, or some other
like authority, was the source of this statement also does not appear;
but it is probable that this was the case from the context in which
Eusebius gives it. Conservative writers on the Gospels have frequently
maintained that the writing here referred to was virtually the Hebrew
original of our Greek Gospel which bears his name. And it is indeed
likely that Papias himself closely associated the latter with the Hebrew
(or Aramaic) work by Matthew, of which he had been told, since the
traditional connexion of this Greek Gospel with Matthew can hardly have
begun later than this time. It is reasonable also to suppose that there
was some ground for it. The description, however, of what Matthew did
suits better the making of a collection of Christ's discourses and
sayings than the composition of a work corresponding in form and
character to our Gospel of Matthew.
The next reference in Christian literature to a Gospel-record by Matthew
is that of Irenaeus in his famous passage on the four Gospels (_Adv.
haer._ iii. i. r). He says that it was written in Hebrew; but in all
probability he regarded the Greek Gospel, which stood first in his, as
it does in our, enumeration, as in the strict sense a translation of the
Apostle's work; and this was the view of it universally taken till the
16th century, when some of the scholars of the Reformation maintained
that the Greek Gospel itself was by Matthew.
The actual phenomena, however, of this Gospel, and of its relation to
sources that have been used in it, cannot be explained consistently with
either of the two views just mentioned. It is a composite work in which
two chief sources, known in Greek to the author of our present Gospel,
have, together with some other matter, been combined. It is
inconceivable that one of the Twelve should have proceeded in this way
in giving an account of Christ's ministry. One of the chief documents,
however, here referred to seems to correspond in character with the
description given in Papias' fragment of a record of the compilation of
"the divine utterances" made by Matthew; and the use made of it in our
first Gospel may explain the connexion of this Apostle's name with it.
In the Gospel of Luke also, it is true, this same source has been used
for the teaching of Jesus. But the original Aramaic Logian document may
have been more largely reproduced in our Greek Matthew. Indeed, in the
case of one important passage (v. 17-48) this is suggested by a
comparison with Luke itself, and there are one or two others where from
the character of the matter it seems not improbable, especially vi. 1-18
and xxiii. 1-5, 7b-10, 15-22. On the whole, as will be seen below, what
appears to be a Palestinian form of the Gospel-tradition is most fully
represented in this Gospel; but in many instances at least this may well
be due to some other cause than the use of the original Logian document.
2. _The Plan on which the Contents is arranged._--In two respects the
arrangement of the book itself is significant.
(a) As to the general outline in the first half of the account of the
Galilean ministry (iv. 23-xi. 30). Immediately after relating the call
of the first four disciples (iv. 18-22) the evangelist gives in iv. 23
a comprehensive summary of Christ's work in Galilee under its two
chief aspects, teaching and healing. In the sequel both these are
illustrated. First, he gives in the Sermon on the Mount (v.-vii.) a
considerable body of teaching, of the kind required by the disciples
of Jesus generally, and a large portion of which probably also stood
not far from the beginning of the Logian document. After this he turns
to the other aspect. Up to this point he has mentioned no miracle. He
now describes a number in succession, introducing all but the first of
those told between Mark i. 23 and ii. 12, and also four specially
remarkable ones, which occurred a good deal later according to Mark's
order (Matt. viii. 23-34 = Mark iv. 35-v. 20; Matt. ix. 18-26 = Mark
v. 21-43); and he also adds some derived from another source, or other
sources (viii. 5-13; ix. 27-34). Then, after another general
description at ix. 35, similar to that at iv. 23, he brings strikingly
before us the needs of the masses of the people and Christ's
compassion for them, and so introduces the mission of the Twelve
(which again occurs later according to Mark's order, viz. at vi. 7
seq.), whereby the ministry both of teaching and of healing was
further extended (ix. 36-x. 42). Finally, the message of John the
Baptist, and the reply of Jesus, and the reflections that follow
(xi.), bring out the significance of the preceding narrative. It
should be observed that examples have been given of every kind of
mighty work referred to in the reply of Jesus to the messengers of the
Baptist; and that in the discourse which follows their departure the
perversity and unbelief of the people generally are condemned, and the
faith of the humble-minded is contrasted therewith. The greater part
of the matter from ix. 37 to end of xi. is taken from the Logian
document. After this point, i.e. from xii. 1 onwards, the first
evangelist follows Mark almost step by step down to the point (Mark
xvi. 8), after which Mark's Gospel breaks off, and another ending has
been supplied; and gives in substance almost the whole of Mark's
contents, with the exception that he passes over the few narratives
that he has (as we have seen) placed earlier. At the same time he
brings in additional matter in connexion with most of the Marcan
sections.
(b) With the accounts of the words of Jesus spoken on certain
occasions, which our first evangelist found given in one or another of
his sources, he has combined other pieces, taken from other parts of
the same source or from different sources, which seemed to him
connected in subject, e.g. into the discourse spoken on a mountain,
when crowds from all parts were present, given in the Logian document,
he has introduced some pieces which, as we infer from Luke, stood
separately in that document (cf. Matt. vi. 19-21 with Luke xii. 33,
34; Matt. vi. 22, 23 with Luke xi. 34-36; Matt. vi. 24 with Luke xvi.
13; Matt. vi. 25-34 with Luke xii. 22-32; Matt. vii. 7-11 with Luke
xi. 9-13). Again, the address to the Twelve in Mark vi. 7-11, which in
Matthew is combined with an address to disciples, from the Logian
document, is connected by Luke with the sending out of seventy
disciples (Luke x. 1-16). Our first evangelist has also added here
various other sayings (Matt. x. 17-39, 42). Again, with the Marcan
account of the charge of collusion with Satan and Christ's reply (Mark
iii. 22-30), the first evangelist (xii. 24-45) combines the parallel
account in the Logian document and adds Christ's reply to another
attack (Luke xi. 14-16, 17-26, 29-32). These are some examples. He has
in all in this manner constructed eight discourses or collections of
sayings, into which the greater part of Christ's teaching is gathered:
(1) On the character of the heirs of the kingdom (v.-vii.); (2) The
Mission address (x.); (3) Teaching suggested by the message of John
the Baptist (xi.); (4) The reply to an accusation and a challenge
(xii. 22-45); (5) The teaching by parables (xiii.); (6) On offences
(xviii.); (7) Concerning the Scribes and Pharisees (xxiii.); (8) On
the Last Things (xxiv., xxv.). In this arrangement of his material the
writer has in many instances disregarded chronological considerations.
But his documents also gave only very imperfect indications of the
occasions of many of the utterances; and the result of his method of
procedure has been to give us an exceedingly effective representation
of the teaching of Jesus.
In the concluding verses of the Gospel, where the original Marcan
parallel is wanting, the evangelist may still have followed in part
that document while making additions as before. The account of the
silencing of the Roman guard by the chief priests is the sequel to the
setting of this guard and their presence at the Resurrection, which at
an earlier point arc peculiar to Matthew (xxvii. 62-66, xxviii. 4).
And, further, this matter seems to belong to the same cycle of
tradition as the story of Pilate's wife and his throwing the guilt of
the Crucifixion of Jesus upon the Jews, and the testimony borne by
the Roman guard (as well as the centurion) who kept watch by the cross
(xxvii. 15-26, 54), all which also are peculiar to this Gospel. It
cannot but seem probable that these are legendary additions which had
arisen through the desire to commend the Gospel to the Romans.
On the other hand, the meeting of Jesus with the disciples in Galilee
(Matt. xxviii. 16 seq.) is the natural sequel to the message to them
related in Mark xvi. 7, as well as in Matt, xxviii. 7. Again, the
commission to them to preach throughout the world is supported by Luke
xxiv. 47, and by the present ending of Mark (xvi. 15), though neither
of these mention Galilee as the place where it was given. The
baptismal formula in Matt. xxviii. 19, is, however, peculiar, and in
view of its non-occurrence in the Acts and Epistles of the New
Testament must be regarded as probably an addition in accordance with
Church usage at the time the Gospel was written.
3. _The Palestinian Element._--Teaching is preserved in this Gospel
which would have peculiar interest and be specially required in the home
of Judaism. The best examples of this are the passages already referred
to near end of § 1, as probably derived from the Logian document. There
are, besides, a good many turns of expression and sayings peculiar to
this Gospel which have a Semitic cast, or which suggest a point of view
that would be natural to Palestinian Christians, e.g. "kingdom of
heaven" frequently for "kingdom of God"; xiii. 52 ("every scribe");
xxiv. 20 ("neither on a Sabbath"). See also v. 35 and xix. 9; x. 5, 23.
Again, several of the quotations which are peculiar to this Gospel are
not taken from the LXX., as those in the other Gospels and in the
corresponding contexts in this Gospel commonly are, but are wholly or
partly independent renderings from the Hebrew (ii. 6, 15, 18; viii. 17,
xii. 17-21, &c.). Once more, there is somewhat more parallelism between
the fragments of the Gospel according to the Hebrews and this Gospel
than is the case with Luke, not to say Mark.
4. _Doctrinal Character._--In this Gospel, more decidedly than in either
of the other two Synoptics, there is a doctrinal point of view from
which the whole history is regarded. Certain aspects which are of
profound significance are dwelt upon, and this without there being any
great difference between this Gospel and the two other Synoptics in
respect to the facts recorded or the beliefs implied. The effect is
produced partly by the comments of the evangelist, which especially take
the form of citations from the Old Testament; partly by the frequency
with which certain expressions are used, and the prominence that is
given in this and other ways to particular traits and topics.
He sets forth the restriction of the mission of Jesus during His life on
earth to the people of Israel in a way which suggests at first sight a
spirit of Jewish exclusiveness. But there are various indications that
this is not the true explanation. In particular the evangelist brings
out more strongly than either Mark or Luke the national rejection of
Jesus, while the Gospel ends with the commission of Jesus to His
disciples after His resurrection to "make disciples of all the peoples."
One may divine in all this an intention to "justify the ways of God" to
the Jew, by proving that God in His faithfulness to His ancient people
had given them the first opportunity of salvation through Christ, but
that now their national privilege had been rightly forfeited. He was
also specially concerned to show that prophecy is fulfilled in the life
and work of Jesus, but the conception of this fulfilment which is
presented to us is a large one; it is to be seen not merely in
particular events or features of Christ's ministry, but in the whole new
dispensation, new relations between God and men, and new rules of
conduct which Christ has introduced. The divine meaning of the work of
Jesus is thus made apparent, while of the majesty and glory of His
person a peculiarly strong impression is conveyed.
Some illustrations in detail of these points are subjoined. Where there
are parallels in the other Gospels they should be compared and the words
in Matthew noted which in many instances serve to emphasize the points
in question.
(a) _The Ministry of Jesus among the Jewish People as their promised
Messiah, their rejection of Him, and the extension of the Gospel to
the Gentiles._ The mission to Israel: Matt. i. 21; iv. 23 (note in
these passages the use of [Greek: ho laos], which here, as generally
in Matthew, denotes the chosen nation), ix. 33, 35, xv. 31. For the
rule limiting the work of Jesus while on earth see xv. 24 (and note
[Greek: ixelthousa] in verse 22, which implies that Jesus had not
himself entered the heathen borders), and for a similar rule
prescribed to the disciples, x. 5, 6 and 23.
The rejection of Jesus by the people in Galilee, xi. 21; xiii. 13-15,
and by the heads of "the nation," xxvi. 3, 47 and by "the whole
nation," xxvii. 25; their condemnation xxiii. 38.
Mercy to the Gentiles and the punishment of "the sons of the kingdom"
is foretold viii. 11, 12. The commission to go and convert Gentile
peoples ([Greek: ethnê]) is given after Christ's resurrection (xxviii.
19).
(b) _The Fulfilment of Prophecy._--In the birth and childhood of
Jesus, i. 23; ii. 6, 15, 18, 23. By these citations attention is drawn
to the lowliness of the beginnings of the Saviour's life, the
unexpected and secret manner of His appearing, the dangers to which
from the first He was exposed and from which He escaped.
The ministry of Christ's forerunner, iii. 3. (The same prophecy, Isa.
xl. 3, is also quoted in the other Gospels.)
The ministry of Jesus. The quotations serve to bring out the
significance of important events, especially such as were
turning-points, and also to mark the broad features of Christ's life
and work, iv. 15, 16; viii. 17; xii. 18 seq.; xiii. 35; xxi. 5; xxvii.
9.
(c) _The Teaching on the Kingdom of God._--Note the collection of
parables "of the Kingdom" in xiii.; also the use of [Greek: hê
basileia] ("the Kingdom") without further definition as a term the
reference of which could not be misunderstood, especially in the
following phrases peculiar to this Gospel: [Greek: to euangelion tês
basileias] ("the Gospel of the Kingdom") iv. 23, ix. 35, xxiv. 14; and
[Greek: ho logos tês basileias] ("the word of the kingdom") xiii. 19.
The following descriptions of the kingdom, peculiar to this Gospel,
are also interesting [Greek: hê basileia tou patros autôn] ("the
kingdom of their father") xiii. 43 and [Greek: tou patros mou]("of my
father") xxvi. 29.
(d) _The Relation of the New Law to the Old._--Verses 17-48, cf. also,
addition at xxii. 40 and xix. 19b. Further, his use of [Greek:
dikaiosynê] ("righteousness") and [Greek: dikaios]("righteous")
(specially frequent in this Gospel) is such as to connect the New with
the Old; the standard in mind is the law which "fulfilled" that
previously given.
(e) _The Christian Ecclesia._--Chap. xvi. 18, xviii. 17.
(f) _The Messianic Dignity and Glory of Jesus._--The narrative in i.
and ii. show the royalty of the new-born child. The title "Son of
David" occurs with special frequency in this Gospel. The following
instances are without parallels in the other Gospels: ix. 27; xii. 23;
xv. 22; xxi. 9; xxi. 15. The title "Son of God" is also used with
somewhat greater frequency than in Mark and Luke: ii. 15; xiv. 33;
xvi. 16; xxii. 2 seq. (where it is implied); xxvii. 40, 43.
The thought of the future coming of Christ, and in particular of the
judgment to be executed by Him then, is much more prominent in this
Gospel than in the others. Some of the following predictions are
peculiar to it, while in several others there are additional touches:
vii. 22, 23; x. 23, 32, 33; xiii. 39-43; xvi. 27, 28; xix. 28; xxiv.
3, 27, 30, 31, 37, 39; xxv. 31-46; xxvi. 64.
The majesty of Christ is also impressed upon us by the signs at His
crucifixion, some of which are related only in this Gospel, xxvii.
51-53, and by the sublime vision of the Risen Christ at the close,
xxviii. 16-20.
(5) _Time of Composition and Readers addressed._--The signs of dogmatic
reflection in this Gospel point to its having been composed somewhat
late in the 1st century, probably after Luke's Gospel, and this is in
accord with the conclusion that some insertions had been made in the
Marcan document used by this evangelist which were not in that used by
Luke (see LUKE, GOSPEL OF ST). We may assign A.D. 80-100 as a probable
time for the composition.
The author was in all probability a Jew by race, and he would seem to
have addressed himself especially to Jewish readers; but they were Jews
of the Dispersion. For although he was in specially close touch with
Palestine, either personally or through the sources at his command, or
both, his book was composed in Greek by the aid of Greek documents.
See commentaries by Th. Zahn (1903) and W. C. Allen (in the series of
International Critical Commentaries, 1907); also books on the Four
Gospels or the Synoptic Gospels cited at the end of GOSPEL.
(V. H. S.)
MATTHEW CANTACUZENUS, Byzantine emperor, was the son of John VI.
Cantacuzenus (q.v.). In return for the support he gave to his father
during his struggle with John V. he was allowed to annex part of Thrace
under his own dominion and in 1353 was proclaimed joint emperor. From
his Thracian principality he levied several wars against the Servians.
An attack which he prepared in 1350 was frustrated by the defection of
his Turkish auxiliaries. In 1357 he was captured by his enemies, who
delivered him to the rival emperor, John V. Compelled to abdicate, he
withdrew to a monastery, where he busied himself with writing
commentaries on the Scriptures.
MATTHEW OF PARIS (d. 1259), English monk and chronicler known to us only
through his voluminous writings. In spite of his surname, and of his
knowledge of the French language, his attitude towards foreigners
attests that he was of English birth. He may have studied at Paris in
his youth, but the earliest fact which he records of himself is his
admission as a monk at St Albans in the year 1217. His life was mainly
spent in this religious house. In 1248, however, he was sent to Norway
as the bearer of a message from Louis IX. of France to Haakon VI.; he
made himself so agreeable to the Norwegian sovereign that he was
invited, a little later, to superintend the reformation of the
Benedictine monastery of St Benet Holme at Trondhjem. Apart from these
missions, his activities were devoted to the composition of history, a
pursuit for which the monks of St Albans had long been famous. Matthew
edited anew the works of Abbot John de Cella and Roger of Wendover,
which in their altered form constitute the first part of his most
important work, the _Chronica majora_. From 1235, the point at which
Wendover dropped his pen, Matthew continued the history on the plan
which his predecessors had followed. He derived much of his information
from the letters of important personages, which he sometimes inserts,
but much more from conversation with the eye-witnesses of events. Among
his informants were Earl Richard of Cornwall and Henry III. With the
latter he appears to have been on terms of intimacy. The king knew that
Matthew was writing a history, and showed some anxiety that it should be
as exact as possible. In 1257, in the course of a week's visit to St
Albans, Henry kept the chronicler beside him night and day, "and guided
my pen," says Paris, "with much good will and diligence." It is
therefore curious that the _Chronica majora_ should give so unfavourable
an account of the king's policy. Luard supposes that Matthew never
intended his work to see the light in its present form, and many
passages of the autograph have against them the note _offendiculum_,
which shows that the writer understood the danger which he ran. On the
other hand, unexpurgated copies were made in Matthew's lifetime; though
the offending passages are duly omitted or softened in his abridgment of
his longer work, the _Historia Anglorum_ (written about 1253), the real
sentiments of the author must have been an open secret. In any case
there is no ground for the old theory that he was an official
historiographer.
Matthew Paris was unfortunate in living at a time when English
politics were peculiarly involved and tedious. His talent is for
narrative and description. Though he took a keen interest in the
personal side of politics he has no claim to be considered a judge of
character. His appreciations of his contemporaries throw more light on
his own prejudices than on their aims and ideas. His work is always
vigorous, but he imputes motives in the spirit of a partisan who never
pauses to weigh the evidence or to take a comprehensive view of the
situation. His redeeming feature is his generous admiration for
strength of character, even when it goes along with a policy of which
he disapproves. Thus he praises Grosseteste, while he denounces
Grosseteste's scheme of monastic reform. Matthew is a vehement
supporter of the monastic orders against their rivals, the secular
clergy and the mendicant friars. He is violently opposed to the court
and the foreign favourites. He despises the king as a statesman,
though for the man he has some kindly feeling. The frankness with
which he attacks the court of Rome for its exactions is remarkable;
so, too, is the intense nationalism which he displays in dealing with
this topic. His faults of presentment are more often due to
carelessness and narrow views than to deliberate purpose. But he is
sometimes guilty of inserting rhetorical speeches which are not only
fictitious, but also misleading as an account of the speaker's
sentiments. In other cases he tampers with the documents which he
inserts (as, for instance, with the text of Magna Carta). His
chronology is, for a contemporary, inexact; and he occasionally
inserts duplicate versions of the same incident in different places.
Hence he must always be rigorously checked where other authorities
exist and used with caution where he is our sole informant. None the
less, he gives a more vivid impression of his age than any other
English chronicler; and it is a matter for regret that his great
history breaks off in 1259, on the eve of the crowning struggle
between Henry III and the baronage.
AUTHORITIES.--The relation of Matthew Paris's work to those of John de
Cella and Roger of Wendover may best be studied in H. R. Luard's
edition of the _Chronica majora_ (7 vols., Rolls series, 1872-1883),
which contains valuable prefaces. The _Historia_ _Anglorum sive
historia minor_ (1067-1253) has been edited by F. Madden (3 vols.,
Rolls series, 1866-1869). Matthew Paris is often confused with
"Matthew of Westminster," the reputed author of the _Flores
historiarum_ edited by H. R. Luard (3 vols., Rolls series, 1890). This
work, compiled by various hands, is an edition of Matthew Paris, with
continuations extending to 1326. Matthew Paris also wrote a life of
Edmund Rich (q.v.), which is probably the work printed in W. Wallace's
_St Edmund of Canterbury_ (London, 1893) pp. 543-588, though this is
attributed by the editor to the monk Eustace; _Vitae abbatum S Albani_
(up to 1225) which have been edited by W. Watts (1640, &c.); and
(possibly) the _Abbreviatio chronicorum_ (1000-1255), edited by F.
Madden, in the third volume of the _Historia Anglorum_. On the value
of Matthew as an historian see F. Liebermann in G. H. Pertz's
_Scriptores_ xxviii. pp. 74-106; A. Jessopp's _Studies by a Recluse_
(London, 1893); H. Plehn's _Politische Character Matheus Parisiensis_
(Leipzig, 1897). (H. W. C. D.)
MATTHEW OF WESTMINSTER, the name of an imaginary person who was long
regarded as the author of the _Flores Historiarum_. The error was first
discovered in 1826 by Sir F. Palgrave, who said that Matthew was "a
phantom who never existed," and later the truth of this statement was
completely proved by H. R. Luard. The name appears to have been taken
from that of Matthew of Paris, from whose _Chronica majora_ the earlier
part of the work was mainly copied, and from Westminster, the abbey in
which the work was partially written.
The _Flores historiarum_ is a Latin chronicle dealing with English
history from the creation to 1326, although some of the earlier
manuscripts end at 1306; it was compiled by various persons, and
written partly at St Albans and partly at Westminster. The part from
1306 to 1326 was written by Robert of Reading (d. 1325) and another
Westminster monk. Except for parts dealing with the reign of Edward I.
its value is not great. It was first printed by Matthew Parker,
archbishop of Canterbury, in 1567, and the best edition is the one
edited with introduction by H. R. Luard for the Rolls series (London,
1890). It has been translated into English by C. D. Yonge (London,
1853). See Luard's introduction, and C. Bémont in the _Revue critique
d'histoire_ (Paris, 1891).
MATTHEWS, STANLEY (1824-1889), American jurist, was born in Cincinnati,
Ohio, on the 21st of July 1824. He graduated from Kenyon College in
1840, studied law, and in 1842 was admitted to the bar of Maury county,
Tennessee. In 1844 he became assistant prosecuting attorney of Hamilton
county, Ohio; and in 1846-1849 edited a short-lived anti-slavery paper,
the _Cincinnati Herald_. He was clerk of the Ohio House of
Representatives in 1848-1849, a judge of common pleas of Hamilton county
in 1850-1853, state senator in 1856-1858, and U.S. district-attorney for
the southern district of Ohio in 1858-1861. First a Whig and then a
Free-Soiler, he joined the Republican party in 1861. After the outbreak
of the Civil War he was commissioned a lieutenant of the 23rd Ohio, of
which Rutherford B. Hayes was major; but saw service only with the 57th
Ohio, of which he was colonel, and with a brigade which he commanded in
the Army of the Cumberland. He resigned from the army in 1863, and was
judge of the Cincinnati superior court in 1863-1864. He was a Republican
presidential elector in 1864 and 1868. In 1872 he joined the Liberal
Republican movement, and was temporary chairman of the Cincinnati
convention which nominated Horace Greeley for the presidency, but in the
campaign he supported Grant. In 1877, as counsel before the Electoral
Commission, he opened the argument for the Republican electors of
Florida and made the principal argument for the Republican electors of
Oregon. In March of the same year he succeeded John Sherman as senator
from Ohio, and served until March 1879. In 1881 President Hayes
nominated him as associate justice of the Supreme Court, to succeed Noah
H. Swayne; there was much opposition, especially in the press, to this
appointment, because Matthews had been a prominent railway and
corporation lawyer and had been one of the Republican "visiting
statesmen" who witnessed the canvass of the vote of Louisiana[1] in
1876; and the nomination had not been approved when the session of
Congress expired. Matthews was renominated by President Garfield on the
15th of March, and the nomination was confirmed by the Senate (22 for,
21 against) on the 12th of May. He was an honest, impartial and
conscientious judge. He died in Washington, on the 22nd of March 1889.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] It seems certain that Matthews and Charles Foster of Ohio gave
their written promise that Hayes, if elected, would recognize the
Democratic governors in Louisiana and South Carolina.
MATTHIAE, AUGUST HEINRICH (1769-1835), German classical scholar, was
born at Göttingen, on the 25th of December 1769, and educated at the
university. He then spent some years as a tutor in Amsterdam. In 1798 he
returned to Germany, and in 1802 was appointed director of the
Friedrichsgymnasium at Altenburg, which post he held till his death, on
the 6th of January 1835. Of his numerous important works the best-known
are his _Greek Grammar_ (3rd ed., 1835), translated into English by E.
V. Blomfield (5th ed., by J. Kenrick, 1832), his edition of _Euripides_
(9 vols., 1813-1829), _Grundriss der Geschichte der griechischen und
römischen Litteratur_ (3rd ed., 1834, Eng. trans., Oxford, 1841)
_Lehrbuch für den ersten Unterricht in der Philosophie_ (3rd ed., 1833),
_Encyklopädie und Methodologie der Philologie_ (1835). His _Life_ was
written by his son Constantin (1845).
His brother, FRIEDRICH CHRISTIAN MATTHIAE (1763-1822), rector of the
Frankfort gymnasium, published valuable editions of Seneca's _Letters_,
Aratus, and Dionysius Periegetes.
MATTHIAS, the disciple elected by the primitive Christian community to
fill the place in the Twelve vacated by Judas Iscariot (Acts i. 21-26).
Nothing further is recorded of him in the New Testament. Eusebius
(_Hist. Eccl._, I. xii.) says he was, like his competitor, Barsabas
Justus, one of the seventy, and the Syriac version of Eusebius calls him
throughout not Matthias but Tolmai, i.e. Bartholomew, without confusing
him with the Bartholomew who was originally one of the Twelve, and is
often identified with the Nathanael mentioned in the Fourth Gospel
(_Expository Times_, ix. 566). Clement of Alexandria says some
identified him with Zacchaeus, the Clementine _Recognitions_ identify
him with Barnabas, Hilgenfeld thinks he is the same as Nathanael.
Various works--a Gospel, Traditions and Apocryphal Words--were
ascribed to him; and there is also extant _The Acts of Andrew and
Matthias_, which places his activity in "the city of the cannibals" in
Ethiopia. Clement of Alexandria quotes two sayings from the
Traditions: (1) Wonder at the things before you (suggesting, like
Plato, that wonder is the first step to new knowledge); (2) If an
elect man's neighbour sin, the elect man has sinned.
MATTHIAS (1557-1619), Roman emperor, son of the emperor Maximilian II.
and Maria, daughter of the emperor Charles V., was born in Vienna, on
the 24th of February 1557. Educated by the diplomatist O. G. de Busbecq,
he began his public life in 1577, soon after his father's death, when he
was invited to assume the governorship of the Netherlands, then in the
midst of the long struggle with Spain. He eagerly accepted this
invitation, although it involved a definite breach with his Spanish
kinsman, Philip II., and entering Brussels in January 1578 was named
governor-general; but he was merely a cipher, and only held the position
for about three years, returning to Germany in October 1581. Matthias
was appointed governor of Austria in 1593 by his brother, the emperor
Rudolph II.; and two years later, when another brother, the archduke
Ernest, died, he became a person of more importance as the eldest
surviving brother of the unmarried emperor. As governor of Austria
Matthias continued the policy of crushing the Protestants, although
personally he appears to have been inclined to religious tolerance; and
he dealt with the rising of the peasants in 1595, in addition to
representing Rudolph at the imperial diets, and gaining some fame as a
soldier during the Turkish War. A few years later the discontent felt by
the members of the Habsburg family at the incompetence of the emperor
became very acute, and the lead was taken by Matthias. Obtaining in May
1605 a reluctant consent from his brother, he took over the conduct of
affairs in Hungary, where a revolt had broken out, and was formally
recognized by the Habsburgs as their head in April 1606, and was
promised the succession to the Empire. In June 1606 he concluded the
peace of Vienna with the rebellious Hungarians, and was thus in a better
position to treat with the sultan, with whom peace was made in November.
This pacific policy was displeasing to Rudolph, who prepared to renew
the Turkish War; but having secured the support of the national party in
Hungary and gathered an army, Matthias forced his brother to cede to him
this kingdom, together with Austria and Moravia, both of which had
thrown in their lot with Hungary (1608). The king of Hungary, as
Matthias now became, was reluctantly compelled to grant religious
liberty to the inhabitants of Austria. The strained relations which had
arisen between Rudolph and Matthias as a result of these proceedings
were temporarily improved, and a formal reconciliation took place in
1610; but affairs in Bohemia soon destroyed this fraternal peace. In
spite of the letter of majesty (_Majestätsbrief_) which the Bohemians
had extorted from Rudolph, they were very dissatisfied with their ruler,
whose troops were ravaging their land; and in 1611 they invited Matthias
to come to their aid. Accepting this invitation, he inflicted another
humiliation upon his brother, and was crowned king of Bohemia in May
1611. Rudolph, however, was successful in preventing the election of
Matthias as German king, or king of the Romans, and when he died, in
January 1612, no provision had been made for a successor. Already king
of Hungary and Bohemia, however, Matthias obtained the remaining
hereditary dominions of the Habsburgs, and in June 1612 was crowned
emperor, although the ecclesiastical electors favoured his younger
brother, the archduke Albert (1559-1621).
The short reign of the new emperor was troubled by the religious
dissensions of Germany. His health became impaired and his indolence
increased, and he fell completely under the influence of Melchior Klesl
(q.v.), who practically conducted the imperial business. By Klesl's
advice he took up an attitude of moderation and sought to reconcile the
contending religious parties; but the proceedings at the diet of
Regensburg in 1613 proved the hopelessness of these attempts, while
their author was regarded with general distrust. Meanwhile the younger
Habsburgs, led by the emperor's brother, the archduke Maximilian, and
his cousin, Ferdinand, archduke of Styria, afterwards the emperor
Ferdinand II., disliking the peaceful policy of Klesl, had allied
themselves with the unyielding Roman Catholics, while the question of
the imperial succession was forcing its way to the front. In 1611
Matthias had married his cousin Anna (d. 1618), daughter of the archduke
Ferdinand (d. 1595), but he was old and childless and the Habsburgs were
anxious to retain his extensive possessions in the family. Klesl, on the
one hand, wished the settlement of the religious difficulties to precede
any arrangement about the imperial succession; the Habsburgs, on the
other, regarded the question of the succession as urgent and vital.
Meanwhile the disputed succession to the duchies of Cleves and Jülich
again threatened a European war; the imperial commands were flouted in
Cologne and Aix-la-Chapelle, and the Bohemians were again becoming
troublesome. Having decided that Ferdinand should succeed Matthias as
emperor, the Habsburgs had secured his election as king of Bohemia in
June 1617, but were unable to stem the rising tide of disorder in that
country. Matthias and Klesl were in favour of concessions, but Ferdinand
and Maximilian met this move by seizing and imprisoning Klesl. Ferdinand
had just secured his coronation as king of Hungary when there broke out
in Bohemia those struggles which heralded the Thirty Years' War; and on
the 20th of March 1619 the emperor died at Vienna.
For the life and reign of Matthias the following works may be
consulted: J. Heling, _Die Wahl des römischen Königs Matthias_
(Belgrade, 1892); A. Gindely, _Rudolf II. und seine Zeit_ (Prague,
1862-1868); F. Stieve, _Die Verhandlungen über die Nachfolge Kaisers
Rudolf II._ (Munich, 1880); P. von Chlumecky, _Karl von Zierotin und
seine Zeit_ (Brünn, 1862-1879); A. Kerschbaumer, _Kardinal Klesel_
(Vienna, 1865); M. Ritter, _Quellenbeiträge zur Geschichte des Kaisers
Rudolf II._ (Munich, 1872); _Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der
Gegenreformation und des dreissigjährigen Krieges_ (Stuttgart, 1887,
seq.); and the article on Matthias in the _Allgemeine deutsche
Biographie_, Bd. XX. (Leipzig, 1884); L. von Ranke, _Zur deutschen
Geschichte vom Religionsfrieden bis zum 30-jährigen Kriege_ (Leipzig,
1888); and J. Janssen, _Geschichte des deutschen Volks seit dem
Ausgang des Mittelalters_ (Freiburg, 1878 seq.), Eng. trans. by M. A.
Mitchell and A. M. Christie (London, 1896, seq.).
MATTHIAS I., HUNYADI (1440-1490), king of Hungary, also known as
Matthias Corvinus, a surname which he received from the raven (_corvus_)
on his escutcheon, second son of János Hunyadi and Elizabeth Szilágyi,
was born at Kolozsvár, probably on
the 23rd of February 1440. His tutors were the learned János Vitéz,
bishop of Nagyvárad, whom he subsequently raised to the primacy, and the
Polish humanist Gregory Sanocki. The precocious lad quickly mastered the
German, Latin and principal Slavonic languages, frequently acting as his
father's interpreter at the reception of ambassadors. His military
training proceeded under the eye of his father, whom he began to follow
on his campaigns when only twelve years of age. In 1453 he was created
count of Bistercze, and was knighted at the siege of Belgrade in 1454.
The same care for his welfare led his father to choose him a bride in
the powerful Cilli family, but the young Elizabeth died before the
marriage was consummated, leaving Matthias a widower at the age of
fifteen. On the death of his father he was inveigled to Buda by the
enemies of his house, and, on the pretext of being concerned in a purely
imaginary conspiracy against Ladislaus V., was condemned to
decapitation, but was spared on account of his youth, and on the king's
death fell into the hands of George Podebrad, governor of Bohemia, the
friend of the Hunyadis, in whose interests it was that a national king
should sit on the Magyar throne. Podebrad treated Matthias hospitably
and affianced him with his daughter Catherine, but still detained him,
for safety's sake, in Prague, even after a Magyar deputation had
hastened thither to offer the youth the crown. Matthias was the elect of
the Hungarian people, gratefully mindful of his father's services to the
state and inimical to all foreign candidates; and though an influential
section of the magnates, headed by the palatine László Garai and the
voivode of Transylvania, Miklós Ujlaki, who had been concerned in the
judicial murder of Matthias's brother László, and hated the Hunyadis as
semi-foreign upstarts, were fiercely opposed to Matthias's election,
they were not strong enough to resist the manifest wish of the nation,
supported as it was by Matthias's uncle Mihály Szilágyi at the head of
15,000 veterans. On the 24th of January 1458, 40,000 Hungarian noblemen,
assembled on the ice of the frozen Danube, unanimously elected Matthias
Hunyadi king of Hungary, and on the 14th of February the new king made
his state entry into Buda.
The realm at this time was environed by perils. The Turks and the
Venetians threatened it from the south, the emperor Frederick III. from
the west, and Casimir IV. of Poland from the north, both Frederick and
Casimir claiming the throne. The Czech mercenaries under Giszkra held
the northern counties and from thence plundered those in the centre.
Meanwhile Matthias's friends had only pacified the hostile dignitaries
by engaging to marry the daughter of the palatine Garai to their
nominee, whereas Matthias not unnaturally refused to marry into the
family of one of his brother's murderers, and on the 9th of February
confirmed his previous nuptial contract with the daughter of George
Podebrad, who shortly afterwards was elected king of Bohemia (March 2,
1458). Throughout 1458 the struggle between the young king and the
magnates, reinforced by Matthias's own uncle and guardian Szilágyi, was
acute. But Matthias, who began by deposing Garai and dismissing
Szilágyi, and then proceeded to levy a tax, without the consent of the
Diet, in order to hire mercenaries, easily prevailed. Nor did these
complications prevent him from recovering the fortress of Galamboc from
the Turks, successfully invading Servia, and reasserting the suzerainty
of the Hungarian crown over Bosnia. In the following year there was a
fresh rebellion, when the emperor Frederick was actually crowned king by
the malcontents at Vienna-Neustadt (March 4, 1459); but Matthias drove
him out, and Pope Pius II. intervened so as to leave Matthias free to
engage in a projected crusade against the Turks, which subsequent
political complications, however, rendered impossible. From 1461 to 1465
the career of Matthias was a perpetual struggle punctuated by truces.
Having come to an understanding with his father-in-law Podebrad, he was
able to turn his arms against the emperor Frederick, and in April 1462
Frederick restored the holy crown for 60,000 ducats and was allowed to
retain certain Hungarian counties with the title of king; in return for
which concessions, extorted from Matthias by the necessity of coping
with a simultaneous rebellion of the Magyar noble in league with
Podebrad's son Victorinus, the emperor recognized Matthias as the actual
sovereign of Hungary. Only now was Matthias able to turn against the
Turks, who were again threatening the southern provinces. He began by
defeating Ali Pasha, and then penetrated into Bosnia, and captured the
newly built fortress of Jajce after a long and obstinate defence (Dec.
1463). On returning home he was crowned with the holy crown on the 29th
of March 1464, and, after driving the Czechs out of his northern
counties, turned southwards again, this time recovering all the parts of
Bosnia which still remained in Turkish hands.
A political event of the first importance now riveted his attention upon
the north. Podebrad, who had gained the throne of Bohemia with the aid
of the Hussites and Utraquists, had long been in ill odour at Rome, and
in 1465 Pope Paul II. determined to depose the semi-Catholic monarch.
All the neighbouring princes, the emperor, Casimir IV. of Poland and
Matthias, were commanded in turn to execute the papal decree of
deposition, and Matthias gladly placed his army at the disposal of the
Holy See. The war began on the 31st of May 1468, but, as early as the
27th of February 1469, Matthias anticipated an alliance between George
and Frederick by himself concluding an armistice with the former. On the
3rd of May the Czech Catholics elected Matthias king of Bohemia, but
this was contrary to the wishes of both pope and emperor, who preferred
to partition Bohemia. But now George discomfited all his enemies by
suddenly excluding his own son from the throne in favour of Ladislaus,
the eldest son of Casimir IV., thus skilfully enlisting Poland on his
side. The sudden death of Podebrad on the 22nd of March 1471 led to
fresh complications. At the very moment when Matthias was about to
profit by the disappearance of his most capable rival, another dangerous
rebellion, headed by the primate and the chief dignitaries of the state,
with the object of placing Casimir, son of Casimir IV., on the throne,
paralysed Matthias's foreign policy during the critical years 1470-1471.
He suppressed this domestic rebellion indeed, but in the meantime the
Poles had invaded the Bohemian domains with 60,000 men, and when in 1474
Matthias was at last able to take the field against them in order to
raise the siege of Breslau, he was obliged to fortify himself in an
entrenched camp, whence he so skilfully harried the enemy that the
Poles, impatient to return to their own country, made peace at Breslau
(Feb. 1475) on an _uti possidetis_ basis, a peace subsequently confirmed
by the congress of Olmütz (July 1479). During the interval between these
peaces, Matthias, in self-defence, again made war on the emperor,
reducing Frederick to such extremities that he was glad to accept peace
on any terms. By the final arrangement made between the contending
princes, Matthias recognized Ladislaus as king of Bohemia proper in
return for the surrender of Moravia, Silesia and Upper and Lower
Lusatia, hitherto component parts of the Czech monarchy, till he should
have redeemed them for 400,000 florins. The emperor promised to pay
Matthias 100,000 florins as a war indemnity, and recognized him as the
legitimate king of Hungary on the understanding that he should succeed
him if he died without male issue, a contingency at this time somewhat
improbable, as Matthias, only three years previously (Dec. 15, 1476),
had married his third wife, Beatrice of Naples, daughter of Ferdinand of
Aragon.
The endless tergiversations and depredations of the emperor speedily
induced Matthias to declare war against him for the third time (1481),
the Magyar king conquering all the fortresses in Frederick's hereditary
domains. Finally, on the 1st of June 1485, at the head of 8000 veterans,
he made his triumphal entry into Vienna, which he henceforth made his
capital. Styria, Carinthia and Carniola were next subdued, and Trieste
was only saved by the intervention of the Venetians. Matthias
consolidated his position by alliances with the dukes of Saxony and
Bavaria, with the Swiss Confederation, and the archbishop of Salzburg,
and was henceforth the greatest potentate in central Europe. His
far-reaching hand even extended to Italy. Thus, in 1480, when a Turkish
fleet seized Otranto, Matthias, at the earnest solicitation of the pope,
sent Balasz Magyar to recover the fortress, which surrendered to him on
the 10th of May 1481. Again in 1488, Matthias took Ancona under his
protection for a time and occupied it with a Hungarian garrison.
Though Matthias's policy was so predominantly occidental that he soon
abandoned his youthful idea of driving the Turks out of Europe, he at
least succeeded in making them respect Hungarian territory. Thus in 1479
a huge Turkish army, on its return home from ravaging Transylvania, was
annihilated at Szászváros (Oct. 13), and in 1480 Matthias recaptured
Jajce, drove the Turks from Servia and erected two new military banates,
Jajce and Srebernik, out of reconquered Bosnian territory. On the death
of Mahommed II. in 1481, a unique opportunity for the intervention of
Europe in Turkish affairs presented itself. A civil war ensued in Turkey
between his sons Bayezid and Jem, and the latter, being worsted, fled to
the knights of Rhodes, by whom he was kept in custody in France (see
BAYEZID II.). Matthias, as the next-door neighbour of the Turks, claimed
the custody of so valuable a hostage, and would have used him as a means
of extorting concessions from Bayezid. But neither the pope nor the
Venetians would hear of such a transfer, and the negotiations on this
subject greatly embittered Matthias against the Curia. The last days of
Matthias were occupied in endeavouring to secure the succession to the
throne for his illegitimate son János (see CORVINUS, JÁNOS); but Queen
Beatrice, though childless, fiercely and openly opposed the idea and the
matter was still pending when Matthias, who had long been crippled by
gout, expired very suddenly on Palm Sunday, the 4th of April 1490.
Matthias Hunyadi was indisputably the greatest man of his day, and one
of the greatest monarchs who ever reigned. The precocity and
universality of his genius impress one the most. Like Napoleon, with
whom he has often been compared, he was equally illustrious as a
soldier, a statesman, an orator, a legislator and an administrator. But
in all moral qualities the brilliant adventurer of the 15th was
infinitely superior to the brilliant adventurer of the 19th century.
Though naturally passionate, Matthias's self-control was almost
superhuman, and throughout his stormy life, with his innumerable
experiences of ingratitude and treachery, he never was guilty of a
single cruel or vindictive action. His capacity for work was
inexhaustible. Frequently half his nights were spent in reading, after
the labour of his most strenuous days. There was no branch of knowledge
in which he did not take an absorbing interest, no polite art which he
did not cultivate and encourage. His camp was a school of chivalry, his
court a nursery of poets and artists. Matthias was a middle-sized,
broad-shouldered man of martial bearing, with a large fleshy nose, hair
reaching to his heels, and the clean-shaven, heavy chinned face of an
early Roman emperor.
See Vilmós Fraknói, _King Matthias Hunyadi_ (Hung., Budapest, 1890,
German ed., Freiburg, 1891); Ignácz Acsády, _History of the Hungarian
Realm_ (Hung. vol. i., Budapest, 1904); József Teleki, _The Age of the
Hunyadis in Hungary_ (Hung., vols. 3-5, Budapest, 1852-1890); V.
Fraknói, _Life of János Vitéz_ (Hung. Budapest 1879); Karl Schober,
_Die Eroberung Niederösterreichs durch Matthias Corvinus_ (Vienna,
1879); János Huszár, _Matthias's Black Army_ (Hung. Budapest, 1890);
Antonio Bonfini, _Rerum hungaricarum decades_ (7th ed., Leipzig,
1771); Aeneas Sylvius, _Opera_ (Frankfort, 1707); _The Correspondence
of King Matthias_ (Hung. and Lat., Budapest, 1893); V. Fraknói, _The
Embassies of Cardinal Carvajal to Hungary_ (Hung., Budapest, 1889);
Marzio Galeotti, _De egregie sapienter et jocose, dictis ac factis
Matthiae regis (Script. reg. hung. I.)_ (Vienna, 1746). Of the above
the first is the best general sketch and is rich in notes; the second
somewhat chauvinistic but excellently written; the third the best work
for scholars; the seventh, eighth and eleventh are valuable as being
by contemporaries. (R. N. B.)
MATTHISSON, FRIEDRICH VON (1761-1831), German poet, was born at
Hohendodeleben near Magdeburg, the son of the village pastor, on the
23rd of January 1761. After studying theology and philology at the
university of Halle, he was appointed in 1781 master at the classical
school Philanthropin in Dessau. This once famous seminary was, however,
then rapidly decaying in public favour, and in 1784 Matthisson was glad
to accept a travelling tutorship. He lived for two years with the Swiss
author Bonstetten at Nyon on the lake of Geneva. In 1794 he was
appointed reader and travelling companion to the princess Louisa of
Anhalt-Dessau. In 1812 he entered the service of the king of
Württemberg, was ennobled, created counsellor of legation, appointed
intendant of the court theatre and chief librarian of the royal library
at Stuttgart. In 1828 he retired and settled at Wörlitz near Dessau,
where he died on the 12th of March 1831. Matthisson enjoyed for a time a
great popularity on account of his poems, _Gedichte_ (1787; 15th ed.,
1851; new ed., 1876), which Schiller extravagantly praised for their
melancholy sweetness and their fine descriptions of scenery. The verse
is melodious and the language musical, but the thought and sentiments
they express are too often artificial and insincere. His _Adelaide_ has
been rendered famous owing to Beethoven's setting of the song. Of his
elegies, _Die Elegie in den Ruinen eines alten Bergschlosses_ is still a
favourite. His reminiscences, _Erinnerungen_ (5 vols., 1810-1816),
contain interesting accounts of his travels.
Matthisson's _Schriften_ appeared in eight volumes (1825-1829), of
which the first contains his poems, the remainder his _Erinnerungen_;
a ninth volume was added in 1833 containing his biography by H.
Döring. His _Literarischer Nachlass_, with a selection from his
correspondence, was published in four volumes by F. R. Schoch in 1832.
MATTING, a general term embracing 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 coco-nut fibre; and the same
material, as well as strips of cane, Manila hemp, various grasses and
rushes, is largely employed in various forms for making door mats. Large
quantities of the coco-nut fibre are woven in heavy looms, then cut up
into various sizes, and finally bound round the edges by a kind of rope
made from the same material. The mats may be of one colour only, or they
may be made of different colours and in different designs. Sometimes the
names of institutions are introduced into the mats. Another type of mat
is made exclusively from the above-mentioned rope by arranging alternate
layers in sinuous and straight paths, and then stitching the parts
together. It is also largely used for the outer covering of ships'
fenders. Perforated and otherwise prepared rubber, as well as wire-woven
material, are also largely utilized for door and floor mats. Matting of
various kinds is very extensively employed throughout India for floor
coverings, the bottoms of bedsteads, fans and fly-flaps, &c.; and a
considerable export trade in such manufactures is carried on. The
materials used are numerous; but the principal substances are straw, the
bulrushes _Typha elephantina_ and _T. angustifolia_, leaves of the date
palm (_Phoenix sylvestris_), of the dwarf palm (_Chamaerops Ritchiana_),
of the Palmyra palm (_Borassus flabelliformis_), of the coco-nut palm
(_Cocos nucifera_) and of the screw pine (_Pandanus odoratissimus_), the
munja or munj grass (_Saccharum Munja_) and allied grasses, and the mat
grasses _Cyperus textilis_ and _C. Pangorei_, from the last of which the
well-known Palghat mats of the Madras Presidency are made. Many of these
Indian grass-mats are admirable examples of elegant design, and the
colours in which they are woven are rich, harmonious and effective in
the highest degree. Several useful household articles are made from the
different kinds of grasses. The grasses are dyed in all shades and
plaited to form attractive designs suitable for the purposes to which
they are to be applied. This class of work obtains in India, Japan and
other Eastern countries. Vast quantities of coarse matting used for
packing furniture, heavy and coarse goods, flax and other plants, &c.,
are made in Russia from the bast or inner bark of the lime tree. This
industry centres in the great forest governments of Viatka,
Nizhniy-Novgorod, Kostroma, Kazan, Perm and Simbirsk.
MATTOCK (O.E. _mattuc_, of uncertain origin), a tool having a double
iron head, of which one end is shaped like an adze, and the other like a
pickaxe. The head has a socket in the centre in which the handle is
inserted transversely to the blades. It is used chiefly for grubbing and
rooting among tree stumps in plantations and copses, where the roots are
too close for the use of a spade, or for loosening hard soil.
MATTO GROSSO, an inland state of Brazil, bounded N. by Amazonas and
Pará, E. by Goyaz, Minas Geraes, São Paulo and Paraná, S. by Paraguay
and S.W. and W. by Bolivia. It ranks next to Amazonas in size, its area,
which is largely unsettled and unexplored, being 532,370 sq. m., and its
population only 92,827 in 1890 and 118,025 in 1900. No satisfactory
estimate of its Indian population can be made. The greater part of the
state belongs to the western extension of the Brazilian plateau, across
which, between the 14th and 16th parallels, runs the watershed which
separates the drainage basins of the Amazon and La Plata. This elevated
region is known as the plateau of Matto Grosso, and its elevations so
far as known rarely exceed 3000 ft. The northern slope of this great
plateau is drained by the Araguaya-Tocantins, Xingú, Tapajos and
Guaporé-Mamoré-Madeira, which flow northward, and, except the first,
empty into the Amazon; the southern slope drains southward through a
multitude of streams flowing into the Paraná and Paraguay. The general
elevation in the south part of the state is much lower, and large areas
bordering the Paraguay are swampy, partially submerged plains which the
sluggish rivers are unable to drain. The lowland elevations in this part
of the state range from 300 to 400 ft. above sea-level, the climate is
hot, humid and unhealthy, and the conditions for permanent settlement
are apparently unfavourable. On the highlands, however, which contain
extensive open _campos_, the climate, though dry and hot, is considered
healthy. The basins of the Paraná and Paraguay are separated by low
mountain ranges extending north from the _sierras_ of Paraguay. In the
north, however, the ranges which separate the river valleys are
apparently the remains of the table-land through which deep valleys have
been eroded. The resources of Matto Grosso are practically undeveloped,
owing to the isolated situation of the state, the costs of
transportation and the small population.
The first industry was that of mining, gold having been discovered in
the river valleys on the southern slopes of the plateau, and diamonds on
the head-waters of the Paraguay, about Diamantino and in two or three
other districts. Gold is found chiefly in placers, and in colonial times
the output was large, but the deposits were long ago exhausted and the
industry is now comparatively unimportant. As to other minerals little
is definitely known. Agriculture exists only for the supply of local
needs, though tobacco of a superior quality is grown. Cattle-raising,
however, has received some attention and is the principal industry of
the landowners. The forest products of the state include fine woods,
rubber, ipecacuanha, sarsaparilla, jaborandi, vanilla and copaiba. There
is little export, however, the only means of communication being down
the Paraguay and Paraná rivers by means of subsidized steamers. The
capital of the state is Cuyabá, and the chief commercial town is Corumbá
at the head of navigation for the larger river boats, and 1986 m. from
the mouth of the La Plata. Communication between these two towns is
maintained by a line of smaller boats, the distance being 517 m.
The first permanent settlements in Matto Grosso seem to have been made
in 1718 and 1719, in the first year at Forquilha and in the second at or
near the site of Cuyabá, where rich placer mines had been found. At this
time all this inland region was considered a part of São Paulo, but in
1748 it was made a separate _capitania_ and was named Matto Grosso
("great woods"). In 1752 its capital was situated on the right bank of
the Guaporé river and was named Villa Bella da Santissima Trindade de
Matto Grosso, but in 1820 the seat of government was removed to Cuyabá
and Villa Bella has fallen into decay. In 1822 Matto Grosso became a
province of the empire and in 1889 a republican state. It was invaded by
the Paraguayans in the war of 1860-65.
MATTOON, a city of Coles county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the east central
part of the state, about 12 m. south-east of Peoria. Pop. (1890), 6833;
(1900), 9622, of whom 430 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 11,456. It is
served by the Illinois Central and Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St
Louis railways, which have repair shops here, and by inter-urban
electric lines. The city has a public library, a Methodist Episcopal
Hospital, and an Old Folks' Home, the last supported by the Independent
Order of Odd Fellows. Mattoon is an important shipping point for Indian
corn and broom corn, extensively grown in the vicinity, and for fruit
and livestock. Among its manufactures are foundry and machine shop
products, stoves and bricks; in 1905 the factory product was valued at
$1,308,781, an increase of 71.2% over that in 1900. The municipality
owns the waterworks and an electric lighting plant. Mattoon was first
settled about 1855, was named in honour of William Mattoon, an early
landowner, was first chartered as a city in 1857, and was reorganized
under a general state law in 1879.
MATTRESS (O.Fr. _materas_, mod. _matelas_; the origin is the Arab.
_al-materah_, cushion, whence Span. and Port. _almadraque_, Ital.
_materasso_), the padded foundation of a bed, formed of canvas or other
stout material stuffed with wool, hair, flock or straw; in the last case
it is properly known as a "palliasse" (Fr. _paille_, straw; Lat.
_palea_); but this term is often applied to an under-mattress stuffed
with substances other than straw. The padded mattress on which lay the
feather-bed has been replaced by the "wire-mattress," a network of wire
stretched on a light wooden or iron frame, which is either a separate
structure or a component part of the bedstead itself. The
"wire-mattress" has taken the place of the "spring mattress," in which
spiral springs support the stuffing. The term "mattress" is used in
engineering for a mat of brushwood, faggots, &c., corded together and
used as a foundation or as surface in the construction of dams, jetties,
dikes, &c.
MATURIN, CHARLES ROBERT (1782-1824), Irish novelist and dramatist, was
born in Dublin in 1782. His grandfather, Gabriel Jasper Maturin, had
been Swift's successor in the deanery of St Patrick. Charles Maturin was
educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and became curate of Loughrea and
then of St Peter's, Dublin. His first novels, _The Fatal Revenge; or,
the Family of Montorio_ (1807), _The Wild Irish Boy_ (1808), _The
Milesian Chief_ (1812), were issued under the pseudonym of "Dennis
Jasper Murphy." All these were mercilessly ridiculed, but the irregular
power displayed in them attracted the notice of Sir Walter Scott, who
recommended the author to Byron. Through their influence Maturin's
tragedy of _Bertram_ was produced at Drury Lane in 1816, with Kean and
Miss Kelly in the leading parts. A French version by Charles Nodier and
Baron Taylor was produced in Paris at the Théâtre Favart. Two more
tragedies, _Manuel_ (1817) and _Fredolfo_ (1819), were failures, and his
poem _The Universe_ (1821) fell flat. He wrote three more novels,
_Women_ (1818), _Melmoth, the Wanderer_ (1820), and _The Albigenses_
(1824). _Melmoth_, which forms its author's title to remembrance, is the
best of them, and has for hero a kind of "Wandering Jew." Honoré de
Balzac wrote a sequel to it under the title of _Melmoth réconcilié à
l'église_ (1835). Maturin died in Dublin on the 30th of October 1824.
MATVYEEV, ARTAMON SERGYEEVICH ( -1682), Russian statesman and reformer,
was one of the greatest of the precursors of Peter the Great. His
parentage and the date of his birth are uncertain. Apparently his birth
was humble, but when the obscure figure of the young Artamon emerges
into the light of history we find him equipped at all points with the
newest ideas, absolutely free from the worst prejudices of his age, a
ripe scholar, and even an author of some distinction. In 1671 the tsar
Alexius and Artamon were already on intimate terms, and on the
retirement of Orduin-Nashchokin Matvyeev became the tsar's chief
counsellor. It was at his house, full of all the wondrous,
half-forbidden novelties of the west, that Alexius, after the death of
his first consort, Martha, met Matvyeev's favourite pupil, the beautiful
Natalia Naruishkina, whom he married on the 21st of January 1672. At the
end of the year Matvyeev was raised to the rank of _okolnichy_, and on
the 1st of September 1674 attained the still higher dignity of _boyar_.
Matvyeev remained paramount to the end of the reign and introduced
play-acting and all sorts of refining western novelties into Muscovy.
The deplorable physical condition of Alexius's immediate successor,
Theodore III. suggested to Matvyeev the desirability of elevating to
the throne the sturdy little tsarevich Peter, then in his fourth year.
He purchased the allegiance of the _stryeltsi_, or musketeers, and then,
summoning the boyars of the council, earnestly represented to them that
Theodore, scarce able to live, was surely unable to reign, and urged the
substitution of little Peter. But the reactionary boyars, among whom
were the near kinsmen of Theodore, proclaimed him tsar and Matvyeev was
banished to Pustozersk, in northern Russia, where he remained till
Theodore's death (April 27, 1682). Immediately afterwards Peter was
proclaimed tsar by the patriarch, and the first _ukaz_ issued in Peter's
name summoned Matvyeev to return to the capital and act as chief adviser
to the tsaritsa Natalia. He reached Moscow on the 15th of May, prepared
"to lay down his life for the tsar," and at once proceeded to the head
of the Red Staircase to meet and argue with the assembled stryeltsi, who
had been instigated to rebel by the anti-Petrine faction. He had already
succeeded in partially pacifying them, when one of their colonels began
to abuse the still hesitating and suspicious musketeers. Infuriated,
they seized and flung Matvyeev into the square below, where he was
hacked to pieces by their comrades.
See R. Nisbet Bain, _The First Romanovs_ (London, 1905); M. P.
Pogodin, _The First Seventeen Years of the Life of Peter the Great_
(Rus.), (Moscow, 1875); S. M. Solovev, _History of Russia_ (Rus.),
(vols. 12, 13, (St Petersburg, 1895, &c.); L. Shehepotev, _A. S.
Matvyeev as an Educational and Political Reformer_ (Rus.), (St
Petersburg, 1906). (R. N. B.)
MAUBEUGE, a town of northern France, in the department of Nord, situated
on both banks of the Sambre, here canalized, 23½ m. by rail E. by S. of
Valenciennes, and about 2 m. from the Belgian frontier. Pop. (1906),
town 13,569, commune 21,520. As a fortress Maubeuge has an old enceinte
of bastion trace which serves as the centre of an important entrenched
camp of 18 m. perimeter, constructed for the most part after the war of
1870, but since modernized and augmented. The town has a board of trade
arbitration, a communal college, a commercial and industrial school; and
there are important foundries, forges and blast-furnaces, together with
manufactures of machine-tools, porcelain, &c. It is united by electric
tramway with Hautmont (pop. 12,473), also an important metallurgical
centre.
Maubeuge (_Malbodium_) owes its origin to a double monastery, for men
and women, founded in the 7th century by St Aldegonde relics of whom are
preserved in the church. It subsequently belonged to the territory of
Hainault. It was burnt by Louis XI., by Francis I., and by Henry II.,
and was finally assigned to France by the Treaty of Nijmwegen. It was
fortified at Vauban by the command of Louis XIV., who under Turenne
first saw military service there. Besieged in 1793 by Prince Josias of
Coburg, it was relieved by the victory of Wattignies, which is
commemorated by a monument in the town. It was unsuccessfully besieged
in 1814, but was compelled to capitulate, after a vigorous resistance,
in the Hundred Days.
MAUCH CHUNK, a borough and the county-seat of Carbon county,
Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the W. bank of the Lehigh river and on the
Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company's Canal, 46 m. by rail W.N.W. of
Easton. Pop. (1800), 4101; (1900), 4029 (571 foreign-born); (1910),
3952. Mauch Chunk is served by the Central of New Jersey railway and, at
East Mauch Chunk, across the river, connected by electric railway, by
the Lehigh Valley railway. The borough lies in the valley of the Lehigh
river, along which runs one of its few streets and in another deeply cut
valley at right angles to the river; through this second valley east and
west runs the main street, on which is an electric railway; parallel to
it on the south is High Street, formerly an Irish settlement; half way
up the steep hill, and on the north at the top of the opposite hill is
the ward of Upper Mauch Chunk, reached by the electric railway. An
incline railway, originally used to transport coal from the mines to the
river and named the "Switch-Back," now carries tourists up the steep
slopes of Mount Pisgah and Mount Jefferson, to Summit Hill, a rich
anthracite coal region, with a famous "burning mine," which has been on
fire since 1832, and then back. An electric railway to the top of
Flagstaff Mountain, built in 1900, was completed in 1901 to Lehighton, 4
m. south-east of Mauch Chunk, where coal is mined and silk and stoves
are manufactured, and which had a population in 1900 of 4629, and in
1910 of 5316. Immediately above Mauch Chunk the river forms a horseshoe;
on the opposite side, connected by a bridge, is the borough of East
Mauch Chunk (pop. 1900, 3458; 1910, 3548); and 2 m. up the river is Glen
Onoko, with fine falls and cascades. The principal buildings in Mauch
Chunk are the county court house, a county gaol, a Young Men's Christian
Association building, and the Dimmick Memorial Library (1890). The
borough was long a famous shipping point for coal. It now has ironworks
and foundries, and in East Mauch Chunk there are silk mills. The name is
Indian and means "Bear Mountain," this English name being used for a
mountain on the east side of the river. The borough was founded by the
Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company in 1818. This company began in 1827
the operation of the "Switch-Back," probably the first railway in the
country to be used for transporting coal. In 1831 the town was opened to
individual enterprise, and in 1850 it was incorporated as a borough.
Mauch Chunk was for many years the home of Asa Packer, the projector and
builder of the Lehigh Valley railroad from Mauch Chunk to Easton.
MAUCHLINE, a town in the division of Kyle, Ayrshire, Scotland. Pop.
(1901), 1767. It lies 8 m. E.S.E. of Kilmarnock and 11 m. E. by N. of
Ayr by the Glasgow and South-Western railway. It is situated on a gentle
slope about 1 m. from the river Ayr, which flows through the south of
the parish of Mauchline. It is noted for its manufacture of snuff-boxes
and knick-knacks in wood, and of curling-stones. There is also some
cabinet-making, besides spinning and weaving, and its horse fairs and
cattle markets have more than local celebrity. The parish church, dating
from 1829, stands in the middle of the village, and on the green a
monument, erected in 1830, marks the spot where five Covenanters were
killed in 1685. Robert Burns lived with his brother Gilbert on the farm
of Mossgiel, about a mile to the north, from 1784 to 1788. Mauchline
kirkyard was the scene of the "Holy Fair"; at "Poosie Nansie's" (Agnes
Gibson's)--still, though much altered, a popular inn--the "Jolly
Beggars" held their high jinks; near the church (in the poet's day an
old, barn-like structure) was the Whiteford Arms inn, where on a pane of
glass Burns wrote the epitaph on John Dove, the landlord; "auld Nanse
Tinnock's" house, with the date of 1744 above the door, nearly faces the
entrance to the churchyard; the Rev. William Auld was minister of
Mauchline, and "Holy Willie," whom the poet scourged in the celebrated
"Prayer," was one of "Daddy Auld's" elders; behind the kirkyard stands
the house of Gavin Hamilton, the lawyer and firm friend of Burns, in
which the poet was married. The braes of Ballochmyle, where he met the
heroine of his song, "The Lass o' Ballochmyle," lie about a mile to the
south-east. Adjoining them is the considerable manufacturing town of
CATRINE (pop. 2340), with cotton factories, bleach fields and brewery,
where Dr Matthew Stewart (1717-1785), the father of Dugald Stewart--had
a mansion, and where there is a big water-wheel said to be inferior in
size only to that of Laxey in the Isle of Man. Barskimming House, 2 m.
south by west of Mauchline, the seat of Lord-President Miller
(1717-1789), was burned down in 1882. Near the confluence of the Fail
and the Ayr was the scene of Burns's parting with Highland Mary.
MAUDE, CYRIL (1862- ), English actor, was born in London and educated
at Charterhouse. He began his career as an actor in 1883 in America, and
from 1896 to 1905 was co-manager with F. Harrison of the Haymarket
Theatre, London. There he became distinguished for his quietly humorous
acting in many parts. In 1906 he went into management on his own
account, and in 1907 opened his new theatre The Playhouse. In 1888 he
married the actress Winifred Emery (b. 1862), who had made her London
début as a child in 1875, and acted with Irving at the Lyceum between
1881 and 1887. She was a daughter of Samuel Anderson Emery (1817-1881)
and granddaughter of John Emery (1777-1822), both well-known actors in
their day.
MAULE, a coast province of central Chile, bounded N. by Talea, E. by
Linares and Nuble, and S. by Concepción, and lying between the rivers
Maule and Itata, which form its northern and southern boundaries. Pop.
(1895), 119,791; area, 2475 sq. m. Maule is traversed from north to
south by the coast range and its surfaces are much broken. The
Buchupureo river flows westward across the province. The climate is mild
and healthy. Agriculture and stock-raising are the principal
occupations, and hides, cattle, wheat and timber are exported. Transport
facilities are afforded by the Maule and the Itata, which are navigable,
and by a branch of the government railway from Cauquenes to Parral, an
important town of southern Linares. The provincial capital, Cauquenes
(pop., in 1895, 8574; 1902 estimate, 9895), is centrally situated on the
Buchupureo river, on the eastern slopes of the coast cordilleras. The
town and port of Constitución (pop., in 1900, about 7000) on the south
bank of the Maule, one mile above its mouth, was formerly the capital of
the province. The port suffers from a dangerous bar at the mouth of the
river, but is connected with Talca by rail and has a considerable trade.
The Maule river, from which the province takes its name, is of historic
interest because it is said to have marked the southern limits of the
Inca Empire. It rises in the Laguna del Maule, an Andean lake near the
Argentine frontier, 7218 ft. above sea-level, and flows westward about
140 m. to the Pacific, into which it discharges in 35° 18´ S. The upper
part of its drainage basin, to which the _Anuario Hydrografico_ gives an
area of 8000 sq. m., contains the volcanoes of San Pedro (11,800 ft.),
the Descabezado (12,795 ft.), and others of the same group of lower
elevations. The upper course and tributaries of the Maule, principally
in the province of Linares, are largely used for irrigation.
MAULÉON, SAVARI DE (d. 1236), French soldier, was the son of Raoul de
Mauléon, vicomte de Thouars and lord of Mauléon (now Châtillon-sur-Sèvre).
Having espoused the cause of Arthur of Brittany, he was captured at
Mirebeau (1202), and imprisoned in the château of Corfe. But John set him
at liberty in 1204, gained him to his side and named him seneschal of
Poitou (1205). In 1211 Savari de Mauléon assisted Raymond VI. count of
Toulouse, and with him besieged Simon de Montfort in Castelnaudary. Philip
Augustus bought his services in 1212 and gave him command of a fleet which
was destroyed in the Flemish port of Damme. Then Mauléon returned to John,
whom he aided in his struggle with the barons in 1215. He was one of those
whom John designated on his deathbed for a council of regency (1216). Then
he went to Egypt (1219), and was present at the taking of Damietta.
Returning to Poitou he was a second time seneschal for the king of
England. He defended Saintonge against Louis VIII. in 1224, but was
accused of having given La Rochelle up to the king of France, and the
suspicions of the English again threw him back upon the French. Louis
VIII. then turned over to him the defence of La Rochelle and the coast of
Saintonge. In 1227 he took part in the rising of the barons of Poitiers
and Anjou against the young Louis IX. He enjoyed a certain reputation for
his poems in the _langue d'oc_.
See Chilhaud-Dumaine, "Savari de Mauléon," in _Positions des Thèses
des élèves de l'École des Chartes_ (1877); _Histoire littéraire de la
France_, xviii. 671-682.
MAULSTICK, or MAHLSTICK, a stick with a soft leather or padded head,
used by painters to support the hand that holds the brush. The word is
an adaptation of the Dutch _maalstok_, i.e. the painter's stick, from
_malen_, to paint.
MAUNDY THURSDAY (through O.Fr. _mandé_ from Lat. _mandatum_,
commandment, in allusion to Christ's words: "A new commandment give I
unto you," after he had washed the disciples' feet at the Last Supper),
the Thursday before Easter. Maundy Thursday is sometimes known as
_Sheer_ or _Chare_ Thursday, either in allusion, it is thought, to the
"shearing" of heads and beards in preparation for Easter, or more
probably in the word's Middle English sense of "pure," in allusion to
the ablutions of the day. The chief ceremony, as kept from the early
middle ages onwards--the washing of the feet of twelve or more poor men
or beggars--was in the early Church almost unknown. Of Chrysostom and St
Augustine, who both speak of Maundy Thursday as being marked by a
solemn celebration of the Sacrament, the former does not mention the
foot-washing, and the latter merely alludes to it. Perhaps an indication
of it may be discerned as early as the 4th century in a custom, current
in Spain, northern Italy and elsewhere, of washing the feet of the
catechumens towards the end of Lent before their baptism. It was not,
however, universal, and in the 48th canon of the synod of Elvira (A.D.
306) it is expressly prohibited (cf. _Corp. Jur. Can._, c. 104, _caus._
i. _qu._ 1). From the 4th century ceremonial foot-washing became yearly
more common, till it was regarded as a necessary rite, to be performed
by the pope, all Catholic sovereigns, prelates, priests and nobles. In
England the king washed the feet of as many poor men as he was years
old, and then distributed to them meat, money and clothes. At Durham
Cathedral, until the 16th century, every charity-boy had a monk to wash
his feet. At Peterborough Abbey, in 1530, Wolsey made "his maund in Our
Lady's Chapel, having fifty-nine poor men whose feet he washed and
kissed; and after he had wiped them he gave every of the said poor men
twelve pence in money, three ells of good canvas to make them shirts, a
pair of new shoes, a cast of red herrings and three white herrings."
Queen Elizabeth performed the ceremony, the paupers' feet, however,
being first washed by the yeomen of the laundry with warm water and
sweet herbs. James II. was the last English monarch to perform the rite.
William III. delegated the washing to his almoner, and this was usual
until the middle of the 18th century. Since 1754 the foot-washing has
been abandoned, and the ceremony now consists of the presentation of
Maundy money, officially called Maundy Pennies. These were first coined
in the reign of Charles II. They come straight from the Mint, and have
their edges unmilled. The service which formerly took place in the
Chapel Royal, Whitehall, is now held in Westminster Abbey. A procession
is formed in the nave, consisting of the lord high almoner representing
the sovereign, the clergy and the yeomen of the guard, the latter
carrying white and red purses in baskets. The clothes formerly given are
now commuted for in cash. The full ritual is gone through by the Roman
Catholic archbishop of Westminster, and abroad it survives in all
Catholic countries, a notable example being that of the Austrian
emperor. In the Greek Church the rite survives notably at Moscow, St
Petersburg and Constantinople. It is on Maundy Thursday that in the
Church of Rome the sacred oil is blessed, and the chrism prepared
according to an elaborate ritual which is given in the _Pontificale_.
MAUPASSANT, HENRI RENÉ ALBERT GUY DE (1850-1893), French novelist and
poet, was born at the Château of Miromesnil in the department of
Seine-Inférieure on the 5th August 1850. His grandfather, a landed
proprietor of a good Lorraine family, owned an estate at
Neuville-Champ-d'Oisel near Rouen, and bequeathed a moderate fortune to
his son, a Paris stockbroker, who married Mademoiselle Laure Lepoitevin.
Maupassant was educated at Yvetot and at the Rouen lycée. A copy of
verses entitled _Le Dieu créateur_, written during his year of
philosophy, has been preserved and printed. He entered the ministry of
marine, and was promoted by M. Bardoux to the Cabinet de l'Instruction
publique. A pleasant legend says that, in a report by his official
chief, Maupassant is mentioned as not reaching the standard of the
department in the matter of style. He may very well have been an
unsatisfactory clerk, as he divided his time between rowing expeditions
and attending the literary gatherings at the house of Gustave Flaubert,
who was not, as he is often alleged to be, connected with Maupassant by
any blood tie. Flaubert was not his uncle, nor his cousin, nor even his
godfather, but merely an old friend of Madame de Maupassant, whom he had
known from childhood. At the literary meetings Maupassant seldom shared
in the conversation. Upon those who met him--Tourgenieff, Alphonse
Daudet, Catulle Mendès, José-Maria de Heredia and Émile Zola--he left
the impression of a simple young athlete. Even Flaubert, to whom
Maupassant submitted some sketches, was not greatly struck by their
talent, though he encouraged the youth to persevere. Maupassant's first
essay was a dramatic piece twice given at Étretat in 1873 before an
audience which included Tourgenieff, Flaubert and Meilhac. In this
indecorous performance, of which nothing more is heard, Maupassant
played the part of a woman. During the next seven years he served a
severe apprenticeship to Flaubert, who by this time realized his pupil's
exceptional gifts. In 1880 Maupassant published a volume of poems, _Des
Vers_, against which the public prosecutor of Etampes took proceedings
that were finally withdrawn through the influence of the senator
Cordier. From Flaubert, who had himself been prosecuted for his first
book, _Madame Bovary_, there came a letter congratulating the poet on
the similarity between their first literary experiences. _Des Vers_ is
an extremely interesting experiment, which shows Maupassant to us still
hesitating in his choice of a medium; but he recognized that it was not
wholly satisfactory, and that its chief deficiency--the absence of
verbal melody--was fatal. Later in the same year he contributed to the
_Soirées de Médan_, a collection of short stories by MM. Zola, J.-K.
Huysmans, Henry Céard, Léon Hennique and Paul Alexis; and in _Boule de
suif_ the young unknown author revealed himself to his amazed
collaborators and to the public as an admirable writer of prose and a
consummate master of the _conte_. There is perhaps no other instance in
modern literary history of a writer beginning, as a fully equipped
artist, with a genuine masterpiece. This early success was quickly
followed by another. The volume entitled _La Maison Tellier_ (1881)
confirmed the first impression, and vanquished even those who were
repelled by the author's choice of subjects. In _Mademoiselle Fifi_
(1883) he repeated his previous triumphs as a _conteur_, and in this
same year he, for the first time, attempted to write on a larger scale.
Choosing to portray the life of a blameless girl, unfortunate in her
marriage, unfortunate in her son, consistently unfortunate in every
circumstance of existence, he leaves her, ruined and prematurely old,
clinging to the tragic hope, which time, as one feels, will belie, that
she may find happiness in her grandson. This picture of an average woman
undergoing the constant agony of disillusion Maupassant calls _Une Vie_
(1883), and as in modern literature there is no finer example of cruel
observation, so there is no sadder book than this, while the effect of
extreme truthfulness which it conveys justifies its sub-title--_L'Humble
vérité_. Certain passages of _Une Vie_ are of such a character that the
sale of the volume at railway bookstalls was forbidden throughout
France. The matter was brought before the chamber of deputies, with the
result of drawing still more attention to the book, and of advertising
the _Contes de la bécasse_ (1883), a collection of stories as improper
as they are clever. _Au soleil_ (1884), a book of travels which has the
eminent qualities of lucid observation and exact description, was less
read than _Clair de lune_, _Miss Harriet_, _Les Soeurs Rondoli_ and
_Yvette_, all published in 1883-1884 when Maupassant's powers were at
their highest level. Three further collections of short tales, entitled
_Contes et nouvelles_, _Monsieur Parent_, and _Contes du jour et de la
nuit_, issued in 1885, proved that while the author's vision was as
incomparable as ever, his fecundity had not improved his impeccable
form. To 1885 also belongs an elaborate novel, _Bel-ami_, the cynical
history of a particularly detestable, brutal scoundrel who makes his way
in the world by means of his handsome face. Maupassant is here no less
vivid in realizing his literary men, financiers and frivolous women than
in dealing with his favourite peasants, boors and servants, to whom he
returned in _Toine_ (1886) and in _La Petite roque_ (1886). About this
time appeared the first symptoms of the malady which destroyed him; he
wrote less, and though the novel _Mont-Oriol_ (1887) shows him
apparently in undiminished possession of his faculty, _Le Horla_ (1887)
suggests that he was already subject to alarming hallucinations.
Restored to some extent by a sea-voyage, recorded in _Sur l'eau_ (1888),
he went back to short stories in _Le Rosier de Madame Husson_ (1888), a
burst of Rabelaisian humour equal to anything he had ever written. His
novels _Pierre et Jean_ (1888), _Fort comme la mort_ (1889), and _Notre
coeur_ (1890) are penetrating studies touched with a profounder sympathy
than had hitherto distinguished him; and this softening into pity for
the tragedy of life is deepened in some of the tales included in
_Inutile beauté_ (1890). One of these, _Le Champ d'Oliviers_, is an
unsurpassable example of poignant, emotional narrative. With _La Vie
errante_ (1890), a volume of travels, Maupassant's career practically
closed. _Musotte_, a theatrical piece written in collaboration with M.
Jacques Normand, was published in 1891. By this time inherited nervous
maladies, aggravated by excessive physical exercises and by the
imprudent use of drugs, had undermined his constitution. He began to
take an interest in religious problems, and for a while made the
_Imitation_ his handbook; but his misanthropy deepened, and he suffered
from curious delusions as to his wealth and rank. A victim of general
paralysis, of which _La Folie des grandeurs_ was one of the symptoms, he
drank the waters at Aix-les-Bains during the summer of 1891, and retired
to Cannes, where he purposed passing the winter. The singularities of
conduct which had been observed at Aix-les-Bains grew more and more
marked. Maupassant's reason slowly gave way. On the 6th of January 1892
he attempted suicide, and was removed to Paris, where he died in the
most painful circumstances on the 6th of July 1893. He is buried in the
cemetery of Montparnasse. The opening chapters of two projected novels,
_L'Angélus_ and _L'Ame étrangère_, were found among his papers; these,
with _La Paix du ménage_, a comedy in two acts, and two collections of
tales, _Le Père Milon_ (1898) and _Le Colporteur_ (1899), have been
published posthumously. A correspondence, called _Amitié amoureuse_
(1897), and dedicated to his mother, is probably unauthentic. Among the
prefaces which he wrote for the works of others, only one--an
introduction to a French prose version of Mr Swinburne's _Poems and
Ballads_--is likely to interest English readers.
Maupassant began as a follower of Flaubert and of M. Zola, but, whatever
the masters may have called themselves, they both remained essentially
_romantiques_. The pupil is the last of the "naturalists": he even
destroyed naturalism, since he did all that can be done in that
direction. He had no psychology, no theories of art, no moral or strong
social prejudices, no disturbing imagination, no wealth of perplexing
ideas. It is no paradox to say that his marked limitations made him the
incomparable artist that he was. Undisturbed by any external influence,
his marvellous vision enabled him to become a supreme observer, and,
given his literary sense, the rest was simple. He prided himself in
having no invention; he described nothing that he had not seen. The
peasants whom he had known as a boy figure in a score of tales; what he
saw in Government offices is set down in _L'Héritage_; from Algiers he
gathers the material for Maroca; he drinks the waters and builds up
_Mont-Oriol_; he enters journalism, constructs _Bel-ami_, and, for the
sake of precision, makes his brother, Hervé de Maupassant, sit for the
infamous hero's portrait; he sees fashionable society, and, though it
wearied him intensely, he transcribes its life in _Fort comme la mort_
and _Notre coeur_. Fundamentally he finds all men alike. In every grade
he finds the same ferocious, cunning, animal instincts at work: it is
not a gay world, but he knows no other; he is possessed by the dread of
growing old, of ceasing to enjoy; the horror of death haunts him like a
spectre. It is an extremely simple outlook. Maupassant does not prefer
good to bad, one man to another; he never pauses to argue about the
meaning of life, a senseless thing which has the one advantage of
yielding materials for art; his one aim is to discover the hidden aspect
of visible things, to relate what he has observed, to give an objective
rendering of it, and he has seen so intensely and so serenely that he is
the most exact transcriber in literature. And as the substance is, so is
the form: his style is exceedingly simple and exceedingly strong; he
uses no rare or superfluous word, and is content to use the humblest
word if only it conveys the exact picture of the thing seen. In ten
years he produced some thirty volumes. With the exception of _Pierre et
Jean_, his novels, excellent as they are, scarcely represent him at his
best, and of over two hundred _contes_ a proportion must be rejected.
But enough will remain to vindicate his claim to a permanent place in
literature as an unmatched observer and the most perfect master of the
short story.
See also F. Brunetière, _Le Roman naturaliste_ (1883); T. Lemaître,
_Les Contemporains_ (vols. i. v. vi.); R. Doumic, _Ecrivains
d'aujourd'hui_ (1894); an introduction by Henry James to _The Odd
Number_ ... (1891); a critical preface by the earl of Crewe to _Pierre
and Jean_ (1902); A. Symons, _Studies in Prose and Verse_ (1904).
There are many references to Maupassant in the _Journal des Goncourt_,
and some correspondence with Marie Bashkirtseff was printed with
_Further Memoirs_ of that lady in 1901. (J. F. K.)
MAUPEOU, RENÉ NICOLAS CHARLES AUGUSTIN (1714-1792), chancellor of
France, was born on the 25th of February 1714, being the eldest son of
René Charles de Maupeou (1688-1775), who was president of the parlement
of Paris from 1743 to 1757. He married in 1744 a rich heiress, Anne de
Roncherolles, a cousin of Madame d'Épinay. Entering public life, he was
his father's right hand in the conflicts between the parlement and
Christophe de Beaumont, archbishop of Paris, who was supported by the
court. Between 1763 and 1768, dates which cover the revision of the case
of Jean Calas and the trial of the comte de Lally, Maupeou was himself
president of the parlement. In 1768, through the protection of Choiseul,
whose fall two years later was in large measure his work, he became
chancellor in succession to his father, who had held the office for a
few days only. He determined to support the royal authority against the
parlement, which in league with the provincial magistratures was seeking
to arrogate to itself the functions of the states-general. He allied
himself with the duc d'Aiguillon and Madame du Barry, and secured for a
creature of his own, the Abbé Terrai, the office of comptroller-general.
The struggle came over the trial of the case of the duc d'Aiguillon,
ex-governor of Brittany, and of La Chalotais, procureur-général of the
province, who had been imprisoned by the governor for accusations
against his administration. When the parlement showed signs of hostility
against Aiguillon, Maupeou read letters patent from Louis XV. annulling
the proceedings. Louis replied to remonstrances from the parlement by a
_lit de justice_, in which he demanded the surrender of the minutes of
procedure. On the 27th of November 1770 appeared the _Édit de règlement
et de discipline_, which was promulgated by the chancellor, forbidding
the union of the various branches of the parlement and correspondence
with the provincial magistratures. It also made a strike on the part of
the parlement punishable by confiscation of goods, and forbade further
obstruction to the registration of royal decrees after the royal reply
had been given to a first remonstrance. This edict the magistrates
refused to register, and it was registered in a _lit de justice_ held at
Versailles on the 7th of December, whereupon the parlement suspended its
functions. After five summonses to return to their duties, the
magistrates were surprised individually on the night of the 19th of
January 1771 by musketeers, who required them to sign yes or no to a
further request to return. Thirty-eight magistrates gave an affirmative
answer, but on the exile of their former colleagues by _lettres de
cachet_ they retracted, and were also exiled. Maupeou installed the
council of state to administer justice pending the establishment of six
superior courts in the provinces, and of a new parlement in Paris. The
_cour des aides_ was next suppressed.
Voltaire praised this revolution, applauding the suppression of the old
hereditary magistrature, but in general Maupeou's policy was regarded as
the triumph of tyranny. The remonstrances of the princes, of the nobles,
and of the minor courts, were met by exile and suppression, but by the
end of 1771 the new system was established, and the Bar, which had
offered a passive resistance, recommenced to plead. But the death of
Louis XV. in May 1774 ruined the chancellor. The restoration of the
parlements was followed by a renewal of the quarrels between the new
king and the magistrature. Maupeou and Terrai were replaced by
Malesherbes and Turgot. Maupeou lived in retreat until his death at
Thuit on the 29th of July 1792, having lived to see the overthrow of the
_ancien régime_. His work, in so far as it was directed towards the
separation of the judicial and political functions and to the reform of
the abuses attaching to a hereditary magistrature, was subsequently
endorsed by the Revolution; but no justification of his violent methods
or defence of his intriguing and avaricious character is possible. He
aimed at securing absolute power for Louis XV., but his action was in
reality a serious blow to the monarchy.
The chief authority for the administration of Maupeou is the _compte
rendu_ in his own justification presented by him to Louis XVI. in
1789, which included a dossier of his speeches and edicts, and is
preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale. These documents, in the hands
of his former secretary, C. F. Lebrun, duc de Plaisance, formed the
basis of the judicial system of France as established under the
consulate (cf. C. F. Lebrun, _Opinions, rapports et choix d'écrits
politiques_, published posthumously in 1829). See further _Maupeouana_
(6 vols., Paris, 1775), which contains the pamphlets directed against
him; _Journal hist. de la révolution opérée ... par M. de Maupeou_ (7
vols., 1775); the official correspondence of Mercy-Argenteau, the
letters of Mme d'Épinay; and Jules Flammermont, _Le Chancelier Maupeou
et les parlements_ (1883).
MAUPERTUIS, PIERRE LOUIS MOREAU DE (1698-1759), French mathematician and
astronomer, was born at St Malo on the 17th of July 1698. When twenty
years of age he entered the army, becoming lieutenant in a regiment of
cavalry, and employing his leisure on mathematical studies. After five
years he quitted the army and was admitted in 1723 a member of the
Academy of Sciences. In 1728 he visited London, and was elected a fellow
of the Royal Society. In 1736 he acted as chief of the expedition sent
by Louis XV. into Lapland to measure the length of a degree of the
meridian (see EARTH, FIGURE OF), and on his return home he became a
member of almost all the scientific societies of Europe. In 1740
Maupertuis went to Berlin on the invitation of the king of Prussia, and
took part in the battle of Mollwitz, where he was taken prisoner by the
Austrians. On his release he returned to Berlin, and thence to Paris,
where he was elected director of the Academy of Sciences in 1742, and in
the following year was admitted into the Academy. Returning to Berlin in
1744, at the desire of Frederick II., he was chosen president of the
Royal Academy of Sciences in 1746. Finding his health declining, he
repaired in 1757 to the south of France, but went in 1758 to Basel,
where he died on the 27th of July 1759. Maupertuis was unquestionably a
man of considerable ability as a mathematician, but his restless, gloomy
disposition involved him in constant quarrels, of which his
controversies with König and Voltaire during the latter part of his life
furnish examples.
The following are his most important works: _Sur la figure de la
terre_ (Paris, 1738); _Discours sur la parallaxe de la lune_ (Paris,
1741); _Discours sur la figure des astres_ (Paris, 1742); _Éléments de
la géographie_ (Paris, 1742); _Lettre sur la comète de 1742_ (Paris,
1742); _Astronomie nautique_ (Paris, 1745 and 1746); _Vénus physique_
(Paris, 1745); _Essai de cosmologie_ (Amsterdam, 1750). His _Oeuvres_
were published in 1752 at Dresden and in 1756 at Lyons.
MAU RANIPUR, a town of British India in Jahnsi district, in the United
Provinces. Pop. (1901), 17,231. It contains a large community of wealthy
merchants and bankers. A special variety of red cotton cloth, known as
_kharua_, is manufactured and exported to all parts of India. Trees line
many of the streets, and handsome temples ornament the town.
MAUREL, ABDIAS (d. 1705), Camisard leader, became a cavalry officer in
the French army and gained distinction in Italy; here he served under
Marshal Catinat, and on this account he himself is sometimes known as
Catinat. In 1702, when the revolt in the Cévennes broke out, he became
one of the Camisard leaders, and in this capacity his name was soon
known and feared. He refused to accept the peace made by Jean Cavalier
in 1704, and after passing a few weeks in Switzerland he returned to
France and became one of the chiefs of those Camisards who were still in
arms. He was deeply concerned in a plot to capture some French towns, a
scheme which, it was hoped, would be helped by England and Holland. But
it failed; Maurel was betrayed, and with three other leaders of the
movement was burned to death at Nîmes on the 22nd of April 1705. He was
a man of great physical strength; but he was very cruel, and boasted he
had killed 200 Roman Catholics with his own hands.
MAUREL, VICTOR (1848- ), French singer, was born at Marseilles, and
educated in music at the Paris Conservatoire. He made his début in opera
at Paris in 1868, and in London in 1873, and from that time onwards his
admirable acting and vocal method established his reputation as one of
the finest of operatic baritones. He created the leading part in Verdi's
_Otello_, and was equally fine in Wagnerian and Italian opera.
MAURENBRECHER, KARL PETER WILHELM (1838-1892), German historian, was
born at Bonn on the 21st of December, 1838, and studied in Berlin and
Munich under Ranke and Von Sybel, being especially influenced by the
latter historian. After doing some research work at Simancas in Spain,
he became professor of history at the university of Dorpat in 1867; and
was then in turn professor at Königsberg, Bonn and Leipzig. He died at
Leipzig on the 6th of November, 1892.
Many of Maurenbrecher's works are concerned with the Reformation,
among them being _England im Reformationszeitalter_ (Düsseldorf,
1866); _Karl V. und die deutschen Protestanten_ (Düsseldorf, 1865);
_Studien und Skizzen zur Geschichte der Reformationszeit_ (Leipzig,
1874); and the incomplete _Geschichte der Katholischen Reformation_
(Nördlingen, 1880). He also wrote _Don Karlos_ (Berlin, 1876);
_Gründung des deutschen Reiches 1859-1871_ (Leipzig, 1892, and again
1902); and _Geschichte der deutschen Königswahlen_ (Leipzig, 1889).
See G. Wolf, _Wilhelm Maurenbrecher_ (Berlin, 1893).
MAUREPAS, JEAN FRÉDÉRIC PHÉLYPEAUX, COMTE DE (1701-1781), French
statesman, was born on the 9th of July 1701 at Versailles, being the son
of Jérôme de Pontchartrain, secretary of state for the marine and the
royal household. Maurepas succeeded to his father's charge at fourteen,
and began his functions in the royal household at seventeen, while in
1725 he undertook the actual administration of the navy. Although
essentially light and frivolous in character, Maurepas was seriously
interested in scientific matters, and he used the best brains of France
to apply science to questions of navigation and of naval construction.
He was disgraced in 1749, and exiled from Paris for an epigram against
Madame de Pompadour. On the accession of Louis XVI., twenty-five years
later, he became a minister of state and Louis XVI.'s chief adviser. He
gave Turgot the direction of finance, placed Lamoignon-Malesherbes over
the royal household and made Vergennes minister for foreign affairs. At
the outset of his new career he showed his weakness by recalling to
their functions, in deference to popular clamour, the members of the old
parlement ousted by Maupeou, thus reconstituting the most dangerous
enemy of the royal power. This step, and his intervention on behalf of
the American states, helped to pave the way for the French revolution.
Jealous of his personal ascendancy over Louis XVI., he intrigued against
Turgot, whose disgrace in 1776 was followed after six months of disorder
by the appointment of Necker. In 1781 Maurepas deserted Necker as he had
done Turgot, and he died at Versailles on the 21st of November 1781.
Maurepas is credited with contributions to the collection of facetiae
known as the _Étrennes de la Saint Jean_ (2nd ed., 1742). Four volumes
of _Mémoires de Maurepas_, purporting to be collected by his secretary
and edited by J. L. G. Soulavie in 1792, must be regarded as
apocryphal. Some of his letters were published in 1896 by the _Soc. de
l'hist. de Paris_. His _éloge_ in the Academy of Sciences was
pronounced by Condorcet.
MAURER, GEORG LUDWIG VON (1790-1872), German statesman and historian,
son of a Protestant pastor, was born at Erpolzheim, near Dürkheim, in
the Rhenish Palatinate, on the 2nd of November 1790. Educated at
Heidelberg, he went in 1812 to reside in Paris, where he entered upon a
systematic study of the ancient legal institutions of the Germans.
Returning to Germany in 1814, he received an appointment under the
Bavarian government, and afterwards filled several important official
positions. In 1824 he published at Heidelberg his _Geschichte des
altgermanischen und namentlich altbayrischen öffentlich-mündlichen
Gerichtsverfahrens_, which obtained the first prize of the academy of
Munich, and in 1826 he became professor in the university of Munich. In
1829 he returned to official life, and was soon offered an important
post. In 1832, when Otto (Otho), son of Louis I., king of Bavaria, was
chosen to fill the throne of Greece, a council of regency was nominated
during his minority, and Maurer was appointed a member. He applied
himself energetically to the task of creating institutions adapted to
the requirements of a modern civilized community; but grave difficulties
soon arose and Maurer was recalled in 1834, when he returned to Munich.
This loss was a serious one for Greece. Maurer was the ablest, most
energetic and most liberal-minded member of the council, and it was
through his enlightened efforts that Greece obtained a revised penal
code, regular tribunals and an improved system of civil procedure. Soon
after his recall he published _Das griechische Volk in öffentlicher,
kirchlicher, und privatrechtlicher Beziehung vor und nach dem
Freiheitskampfe bis zum 31 Juli 1834_ (Heidelberg, 1835-1836), a useful
source of information for the history of Greece before Otto ascended the
throne, and also for the labours of the council of regency to the time
of the author's recall. After the fall of the ministry of Karl von Abel
(1788-1859) in 1847, he became chief Bavarian minister and head of the
departments of foreign affairs and of justice, but was overthrown in the
same year. He died at Munich on the 9th of May 1872. His only son,
Conrad von Maurer (1823-1902), was a Scandinavian scholar of some
repute, and like his father was a professor at the university of Munich.
Maurer's most important contribution to history is a series of books
on the early institutions of the Germans. These are: _Einleitung zur
Geschichte der Mark-, Hof-, Dorf-, und Stadtverfassung und der
öffentlichen Gewalt_ (Munich, 1854); _Geschichte der Markenverfassung
in Deutschland_ (Erlangen, 1856); _Geschichte der Fronhöfe, der
Bauernhöfe, und der Hofverfassung in Deutschland_ (Erlangen,
1862-1863); _Geschichte der Dorfverfassung in Deutschland_ (Erlangen,
1865-1866); and _Geschichte der Slädteverfassung in Deutschland_
(Erlangen, 1869-1871). These works are still important authorities for
the early history of the Germans. Among other works are, _Das Stadt-
und Landrechtsbuch Ruprechts von Freising, ein Beitrag zur Geschichte
des Schwabenspiegels_ (Stuttgart, 1839); _Über die Freipflege (plegium
liberale), und die Entstehung der grossen und kleinen Jury in England_
(Munich, 1848); and _Über die deutsche Reichsterritorial- und
Rechtsgeschichte_ (1830).
Sec K. T. von Heigel, _Denkwürdigkeiten des bayrischen Staatsrats G.
L. von Maurer_ (Munich, 1903).
MAURETANIA, the ancient name of the north-western angle of the African
continent, and under the Roman Empire also of a large territory eastward
of that angle. The name had different significations at different times;
but before the Roman occupation, Mauretania comprised a considerable
part of the modern Morocco i.e. the northern portion bounded on the east
by Algiers. Towards the south we may suppose it bounded by the Atlas
range, and it seems to have been regarded by geographers as extending
along the coast to the Atlantic as far as the point where that chain
descends to the sea, in about 30 N. lat. (Strabo, p. 825). The
magnificent plateau in which the city of Morocco is situated seems to
have been unknown to ancient geographers, and was certainly never
included in the Roman Empire. On the other hand, the Gaetulians to the
south of the Atlas range, on the date-producing slopes towards the
Sahara, seem to have owned a precarious subjection to the kings of
Mauretania, as afterwards to the Roman government. A large part of the
country is of great natural fertility, and in ancient times produced
large quantities of corn, while the slopes of Atlas were clothed with
forests, which, besides other kinds of timber, produced the celebrated
ornamental wood called _citrum_ (Plin. _Hist. Nat._ 13-96), for tables
of which the Romans gave fabulous prices. (For physical geography, see
MOROCCO.)
Mauretania, or Maurusia as it was called by Greek writers, signified
the land of the Mauri, a term still retained in the modern name of
Moors (q.v.). The origin and ethnical affinities of the race are
uncertain; but it is probable that all the inhabitants of this
northern tract of Africa were kindred races belonging to the great
Berber family, possibly with an intermingled fair-skinned race from
Europe (see Tissot, _Géographie comparée de la province romaine
d'Afrique_, i. 400 seq.; also BERBERS). They first appear in history
at the time of the Jugurthine War (110-106 B.C.), when Mauretania was
under the government of Bocchus and seems to have been recognized as
organized state (Sallust, _Jugurtha_, 19). To this Bocchus was given,
after the war, the western part of Jugurtha's kingdom of Numidia,
perhaps as far east as Saldae (Bougie). Sixty years later, at the time
of the dictator Caesar, we find two Mauretanian kingdoms, one to the
west of the river Mulucha under Bogud, and the other to the east under
a Bocchus; as to the date or cause of the division we are ignorant.
Both these kings took Caesar's part in the civil wars, and had their
territory enlarged by him (Appian, B.C. 4, 54). In 25 B.C., after
their deaths, Augustus gave the two kingdoms to Juba II. of Numidia
(see under JUBA), with the river Ampsaga as the eastern frontier
(Plin. 5. 22; Ptol. 4. 3. 1). Juba and his son Ptolemaeus after him
reigned till A.D. 40, when the latter was put to death by Caligula,
and shortly afterwards Claudius incorporated the kingdom into the
Roman state as two provinces, viz. Mauretania Tingitana to the west
of the Mulucha and M. Caesariensis to the east of that river, the
latter taking its name from the city Caesarea (formerly Iol), which
Juba had thus named and adopted as his capital. Thus the dividing line
between the two provinces was the same as that which had originally
separated Mauretania from Numidia (q.v.). These provinces were
governed until the time of Diocletian by imperial procurators, and
were occasionally united for military purposes. Under and after
Diocletian M. Tingitana was attached administratively to the
_dioicesis_ of Spain, with which it was in all respects closely
connected; while M. Caesariensis was divided by making its eastern
part into a separate government, which was called M. Sitifensis from
the Roman colony Sitifis.
In the two provinces of Mauretania there were at the time of Pliny a
number of towns, including seven (possibly eight) Roman colonies in M.
Tingitana and eleven in M. Caesariensis; others were added later.
These were mostly military foundations, and served the purpose of
securing civilization against the inroads of the natives, who were not
in a condition to be used as material for town-life as in Gaul and
Spain, but were under the immediate government of the procurators,
retaining their own clan organization. Of these colonies the most
important, beginning from the west, were Lixus on the Atlantic, Tingis
(Tangier), Rusaddir (Melila, Melilla), Cartenna (Tenes), Iol or
Caesarea (Cherchel), Icosium (Algiers), Saldae (Bougie), Igilgili
(Jijelli) and Sitifis (Setif). All these were on the coast but the
last, which was some distance inland. Besides these there were many
municipia or _oppida civium romanorum_ (Plin. 5. 19 seq.), but, as has
been made clear by French archaeologists who have explored these
regions, Roman settlements are less frequent the farther we go west,
and M. Tingitana has as yet yielded but scanty evidence of Roman
civilization. On the whole Mauretania was in a flourishing condition
down to the irruption of the Vandals in A.D. 429; in the _Notitia_
nearly a hundred and seventy episcopal sees are enumerated here, but
we must remember that numbers of these were mere villages.
In 1904 the term Mauretania was revived as an official designation by
the French government, and applied to the territory north of the lower
Senegal under French protection (see SENEGAL).
To the authorities quoted under AFRICA, ROMAN, may be added here
Göbel, _Die West-küste Afrikas im Alterthum_. (W. W. F.*)
MAURIAC, a town of central France, capital of an arrondissement in the
department of Cantal, 39 m. N.N.W. of Aurillac by rail. Pop. (1906),
2558. Mauriac, built on the slope of a volcanic hill, has a church of
the 12th century, and the buildings of an old abbey now used as public
offices and dwellings; the town owes its origin to the abbey, founded
during the 6th century. It is the seat of a sub-prefect and has a
tribunal of first instance and a communal college. There are marble
quarries in the vicinity.
MAURICE [or MAURITIUS], ST (d. c. 286), an early Christian martyr, who,
with his companions, is commemorated by the Roman Catholic Church on the
22nd of September. The oldest form of his story is found in the _Passio_
ascribed to Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, c. 450, who relates how the
"Theban" legion commanded by Mauritius was sent to north Italy to
reinforce the army of Maximinian. Maximinian wished to use them in
persecuting the Christians, but as they themselves were of this faith,
they refused, and for this, after having been twice decimated, the
legion was exterminated at Octodurum (Martigny) near Geneva. In late
versions this legend was expanded and varied, the martyrdom was
connected with a refusal to take part in a great sacrifice ordered at
Octodurum and the name of Exsuperius was added to that of Mauritius.
Gregory of Tours (c. 539-593) speaks of a company of the same legion
which suffered at Cologne.
The _Magdeburg Centuries_, in spite of Mauritius being the patron
saint of Magdeburg, declared the whole legend fictitious; J. A. du
Bordien _La Légion thébéenne_ (Amsterdam, 1705); J. J. Hottinger in
_Helvetische Kirchengeschichte_ (Zürich, 1708); and F. W. Rettberg,
_Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands_ (Göttingen, 1845-1848) have also
demonstrated its untrustworthiness, while the Bollandists, De Rivaz
and Joh. Friedrich uphold it. Apart from the a priori improbability of
a whole legion being martyred, the difficulties are that in 286
Christians everywhere throughout the empire were not molested, that at
no later date have we evidence of the presence of Maximinian in the
Valais, and that none of the writers nearest to the event (Eusebius,
Lactantius, Orosius, Sulpicius Severus) know anything of it. It is of
course quite possible that isolated cases of officers being put to
death for their faith occurred during Maximinian's reign, and on some
such cases the legend may have grown up during the century and a half
between Maximinian and Eucherius. The cult of St Maurice and the
Theban legion is found in Switzerland (where two places bear the name
in Valais, besides St Moritz in Grisons), along the Rhine, and in
north Italy. The foundation of the abbey of St Maurice (Agaunum) in
the Valais is usually ascribed to Sigismund of Burgundy (515). Relics
of the saint are preserved here and at Brieg and Turin.
MAURICE (MAURICIUS FLAVIUS TIBERIUS) (c. 539-602), East Roman emperor
from 582 to 602, was of Roman descent, but a native of Arabissus in
Cappadocia. 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 him the hand of his daughter
Constantina. Maurice brought the Persian War to a successful close by
the restoration of Chosroes II. to the throne (591). On the northern
frontier he at first bought off the Avars by payments which compelled
him to exercise strict economy in his general administration, but after
595 inflicted several defeats upon them through his general Crispus. By
his strict discipline and his refusal to ransom a captive corps he
provoked to mutiny the army on the Danube. The revolt spread to the
popular factions in Constantinople, and Maurice consented to abdicate.
He withdrew to Chalcedon, but was hunted down and put to death after
witnessing the slaughter of his five sons.
The work on military art ([Greek: stratêgika]) ascribed to him is a
contemporary work of unknown authorship (ed. Scheffer, _Arriani
tactica et Mauricii ars militaris_, Upsala, 1664; see Max Jähns,
_Gesch. d. Kriegswissensch._, i. 152-156).
See Theophylactus Simocatta, _Vita Mauricii_ (ed. de Boor, 1887); E.
Gibbon, _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ (ed. Bury, London,
1896, v. 19-21, 57); J. B. Bury, _The Later Roman Empire_ (London,
1889, ii. 83-94); G. Finlay, _History of Greece_ (ed. 1877, Oxford, i.
299-306).
MAURICE (1521-1553), elector of Saxony, elder son of Henry, duke of
Saxony, belonging to the Albertine branch of the Wettin family, was born
at Freiberg on the 21st of March 1521. In January 1541 he married Agnes,
daughter of Philip, landgrave of Hesse. In that year he became duke of
Saxony by his father's death, and he continued Henry's work in
forwarding the progress of the Reformation. Duke Henry had decreed that
his lands should be divided between his two sons, but as a partition was
regarded as undesirable the whole of the duchy came to his elder son.
Maurice, however, made generous provision for his brother Augustus, and
the desire to compensate him still further was one of the minor threads
of his subsequent policy. In 1542 he assisted the emperor Charles V.
against the Turks, in 1543 against William, duke of Cleves, and in 1544
against the French; but his ambition soon took a wider range. The
harmonious relations which subsisted between the two branches of the
Wettins were disturbed by the interference of Maurice in Cleves, a
proceeding distasteful to the Saxon elector, John Frederick; and a
dispute over the bishopric of Meissen having widened the breach, war was
only averted by the mediation of Philip of Hesse and Luther. About this
time Maurice seized the idea of securing for himself the electoral
dignity held by John Frederick, and his opportunity came when Charles
was preparing to attack the league of Schmalkalden. Although educated as
a Lutheran, religious questions had never seriously appealed to Maurice.
As a youth he had joined the league of Schmalkalden, but this adhesion,
as well as his subsequent declaration to stand by the confession of
Augsburg, cannot be regarded as the decision of his maturer years. In
June 1546 he took a decided step by making a secret agreement with
Charles at Regensburg. Maurice was promised some rights over the
archbishopric of Magdeburg and the bishopric of Halberstadt; immunity,
in part at least, for his subjects from the Tridentine decrees; and the
question of transferring the electoral dignity was discussed. In return
the duke probably agreed to aid Charles in his proposed attack on the
league as soon as he could gain the consent of the Saxon estates, or at
all events to remain neutral during the impending war. The struggle
began in July 1546, and in October Maurice declared war against John
Frederick. He secured the formal consent of Charles to the transfer of
the electoral dignity and took the field in November. He had gained a
few successes when John Frederick hastened from south Germany to defend
his dominions. Maurice's ally, Albert Alcibiades, prince of Bayreuth,
was taken prisoner at Rochlitz; and the duke, driven from electoral
Saxony, was unable to prevent his own lands from being overrun.
Salvation, however, was at hand. Marching against John Frederick,
Charles V., aided by Maurice, gained a decisive victory at Mühlberg in
April 1547, after which by the capitulation of Wittenberg John Frederick
renounced the electoral dignity in favour of Maurice, who also obtained
a large part of his kinsman's lands. The formal investiture of the new
elector took place at Augsburg in February 1548.
The plans of Maurice soon took a form less agreeable to the emperor. The
continued imprisonment of his father-in-law, Philip of Hesse, whom he
had induced to surrender to Charles and whose freedom he had guaranteed,
was neither his greatest nor his only cause of complaint. The emperor
had refused to complete the humiliation of the family of John Frederick;
he had embarked upon a course of action which boded danger to the
elector's Lutheran subjects, and his increased power was a menace to the
position of Maurice. Assuring Charles of his continued loyalty, the
elector entered into negotiations with the discontented Protestant
princes. An event happened which gave him a base of operations, and
enabled him to mask his schemes against the emperor. In 1550 he had been
entrusted with the execution of the imperial ban against the city of
Magdeburg, and under cover of these operations he was able to collect
troops and to concert measures with his allies. Favourable terms were
granted to Magdeburg, which surrendered and remained in the power of
Maurice, and in January 1552 a treaty was concluded with Henry II. of
France at Chambord. Meanwhile Maurice had refused to recognize the
_Interim_ issued from Augsburg in May 1548 as binding on Saxony; but a
compromise was arranged on the basis of which the Leipzig _Interim_ was
drawn up for his lands. It is uncertain how far Charles was ignorant of
the elector's preparations, but certainly he was unprepared for the
attack made by Maurice and his allies in March 1552. Augsburg was taken,
the pass of Ehrenberg was forced, and in a few days the emperor left
Innsbruck as a fugitive. Ferdinand undertook to make peace, and the
Treaty of Passau, signed in August 1552, was the result. Maurice
obtained a general amnesty and freedom for Philip of Hesse, but was
unable to obtain a perpetual religious peace for the Lutherans. Charles
stubbornly insisted that this question must be referred to the Diet, and
Maurice was obliged to give way. He then fought against the Turks, and
renewed his communications with Henry of France. Returning from Hungary
the elector placed himself at the head of the princes who were seeking
to check the career of his former ally, Albert Alcibiades, whose
depredations were making him a curse to Germany. The rival armies met at
Sievershausen on the 9th of July 1553, where after a fierce encounter
Albert was defeated. The victor, however, was wounded during the fight
and died two days later.
Maurice was a friend to learning, and devoted some of the secularized
church property to the advancement of education. Very different
estimates have been formed of his character. He has been represented as
the saviour of German Protestantism on the one hand, and on the other as
a traitor to his faith and country. In all probability he was neither
the one nor the other, but a man of great ambition who, indifferent to
religious considerations, made good use of the exigencies of the time.
He was generous and enlightened, a good soldier and a clever
diplomatist. He left an only daughter Anna (d. 1577), who became the
second wife of William the Silent, prince of Orange.
The elector's _Politische Korrespondenz_ has been edited by E.
Brandenburg (Leipzig, 1900-1904); and a sketch of him is given by
Roger Ascham in _A Report and Discourse of the Affairs and State of
Germany_ (London, 1864-1865). See also F. A. von Langenn, _Moritz
Herzog und Churfürst zu Sachsen_ (Leipzig, 1841); G. Voigt, _Moritz
von Sachsen_ (Leipzig, 1876); E. Brandenburg, _Moritz von Sachsen_
(Leipzig, 1898); S. Issleib, _Moritz von Sachsen als protestantischer
Fürst_ (Hamburg, 1898); J. Witter, _Die Beziehung und der Verkehr des
Kurfürsten Moritz mit König Ferdinand_ (Jena, 1886); L. von Ranke,
_Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation_, Bde. IV. and V.
(Leipzig, 1882); and W. Maurenbrecher in the _Allgemeine deutsche
Biographie_, Bd. XXII. (Leipzig, 1885). For bibliography see
Maurenbrecher; and _The Cambridge Modern History_, vol. ii.
(Cambridge, 1903).
MAURICE, JOHN FREDERICK DENISON (1805-1872), English theologian, was
born at Normanston, Suffolk, on the 29th of August, 1805. He was the son
of a Unitarian minister, and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in
1823, though it was then impossible for any but members of the
Established Church to obtain a degree. Together with John Sterling (with
whom he founded the Apostles' Club) he migrated to Trinity Hall, whence
he obtained a first class in civil law in 1827; he then came to London,
and gave himself to literary work, writing a novel, _Eustace Conyers_,
and editing the _London Literary Chronicle_ until 1830, and also for a
short time the _Athenaeum_. At this time he was much perplexed as to his
religious opinions, and he ultimately found relief in a decision to take
a further university course and to seek Anglican orders. Entering Exeter
College, Oxford, he took a second class in classics in 1831. He was
ordained in 1834, and after a short curacy at Bubbenhall in Warwickshire
was appointed chaplain of Guy's Hospital, and became thenceforward a
sensible factor in the intellectual and social life of London. From 1839
to 1841 Maurice was editor of the _Education Magazine_. In 1840 he was
appointed professor of English history and literature in King's College,
and to this post in 1846 was added the chair of divinity. In 1845 he was
Boyle lecturer and Warburton lecturer. These chairs he held till 1853.
In that year he published _Theological Essays_, wherein were stated
opinions which savoured to the principal, Dr R. W. Jelf, and to the
council, of unsound theology in regard to eternal punishment. He had
previously been called on to clear himself from charges of heterodoxy
brought against him in the _Quarterly Review_ (1851), and had been
acquitted by a committee of inquiry. Now again he maintained with great
warmth of conviction that his views were in close accordance with
Scripture and the Anglican standards, but the council, without
specifying any distinct "heresy" and declining to submit the case to the
judgment of competent theologians, ruled otherwise, and he was deprived
of his professorships. He held at the same time the chaplaincy of
Lincoln's Inn, for which he had resigned Guy's (1846-1860), but when he
offered to resign this the benchers refused. Nor was he assailed in the
incumbency of St. Peter's, Vere Street, which he held for nine years
(1860-1869), and where he drew round him a circle of thoughtful people.
During the early years of this period he was engaged in a hot and bitter
controversy with H. L. Mansel (afterwards dean of St Paul's), arising
out of the latter's Bampton lecture upon reason and revelation.
During his residence in London Maurice was specially identified with two
important movements for education. He helped to found Queen's College
for the education of women (1848), and the Working Men's College (1854),
of which he was the first principal. He strongly advocated the abolition
of university tests (1853), and threw himself with great energy into all
that affected the social life of the people. Certain abortive attempts
at co-operation among working men, and the movement known as Christian
Socialism, were the immediate outcome of his teaching. In 1866 Maurice
was appointed professor of moral philosophy at Cambridge, and from 1870
to 1872 was incumbent of St Edward's in that city. He died on the 1st of
April 1872.
He was twice married, first to Anna Barton, a sister of John Sterling's
wife, secondly to a half-sister of his friend Archdeacon Hare. His son
Major-General Sir J. Frederick Maurice (b. 1841), became a distinguished
soldier and one of the most prominent military writers of his time.
Those who knew Maurice best were deeply impressed with the spirituality
of his character. "Whenever he woke in the night," says his wife, "he
was always praying." Charles Kingsley called him "the most beautiful
human soul whom God has ever allowed me to meet with." As regards his
intellectual attainments we may set Julius Hare's verdict "the greatest
mind since Plato" over against Ruskin's "by nature puzzle-headed and
indeed wrong-headed." Such contradictory impressions bespeak a life made
up of contradictory elements. Maurice was a man of peace, yet his life
was spent in a series of conflicts; of deep humility, yet so polemical
that he often seemed biased; of large charity, yet bitter in his attack
upon the religious press of his time; a loyal churchman who detested the
label "Broad," yet poured out criticism upon the leaders of the Church.
With an intense capacity for visualizing the unseen, and a kindly
dignity, he combined a large sense of humour. While most of the "Broad
Churchmen" were influenced by ethical and emotional considerations in
their repudiation of the dogma of everlasting torment, he was swayed by
purely intellectual and theological arguments, and in questions of a
more general liberty he often opposed the proposed Liberal theologians,
though he as often took their side if he saw them hard pressed. He had a
wide metaphysical and philosophical knowledge which he applied to the
history of theology. He was a strenuous advocate of ecclesiastical
control in elementary education, and an opponent of the new school of
higher biblical criticism, though so far an evolutionist as to believe
in growth and development as applied to the history of nations.
As a preacher, his message was apparently simple; his two great
convictions were the fatherhood of God, and that all religious systems
which had any stability lasted because of a portion of truth which had
to be disentangled from the error differentiating them from the
doctrines of the Church of England as understood by himself. His love
to God as his Father was a passionate adoration which filled his whole
heart. The prophetic, even apocalyptic, note of his preaching was
particularly impressive. He prophesied in London as Isaiah prophesied
to the little towns of Palestine and Syria, "often with dark
foreboding, but seeing through all unrest and convulsion the working
out of a sure divine purpose." Both at King's College and at Cambridge
Maurice gathered round him a band of earnest students, to whom he
directly taught much that was valuable drawn from wide stores of his
own reading, wide rather than deep, for he never was, strictly
speaking, a learned man. Still more did he encourage the habit of
inquiry and research, more valuable than his direct teaching. In his
Socratic power of convincing his pupils of their ignorance he did more
than perhaps any other man of his time to awaken in those who came
under his sway the desire for knowledge and the process of independent
thought.
As a social reformer, Maurice was before his time, and gave his eager
support to schemes for which the world was not ready. From an early
period of his life in London the condition of the poor pressed upon
him with consuming force; the enormous magnitude of the social
questions involved was a burden which he could hardly bear. For many
years he was the clergyman whom working men of all opinions seemed to
trust even if their faith in other religious men and all religious
systems had faded, and he had a marvellous power of attracting the
zealot and the outcast.
His works cover nearly 40 volumes, often obscure, often tautological,
and with no great distinction of style. But their high purpose and
philosophical outlook give his writings a permanent place in the
history of the thought of his time. The following are the more
important works--some of them were rewritten and in a measure recast,
and the date given is not necessarily that of the first appearance of
the book, but of its more complete and abiding form: _Eustace Conway,
or the Brother and Sister_, a novel (1834); _The Kingdom of Christ_
(1842); _Christmas Day and Other Sermons_ (1843); _The Unity of the
New Testament_ (1844); _The Epistle to the Hebrews_ (1846); _The
Religions of the World_ (1847); _Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy_
(at first an article in the _Encyclopaedia Metropolitana_, 1848); _The
Church a Family_ (1850); _The Old Testament_ (1851); _Theological
Essays_ (1853); _The Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament_ (1853);
_Lectures on Ecclesiastical History_ (1854); _The Doctrine of
Sacrifice_ (1854); _The Patriarchs and Lawgivers of the Old Testament_
(1855); _The Epistles of St John_ (1857); _The Commandments as
Instruments of National Reformation_ (1866); _On the Gospel of St
Luke_ (1868); _The Conscience: Lectures on Casuistry_ (1868); _The
Lord's Prayer, a Manual_ (1870). The greater part of these works were
first delivered as sermons or lectures. Maurice also contributed many
prefaces and introductions to the works of friends, as to Archdeacon
Hare's _Charges_, Kingsley's _Saint's Tragedy_, &c.
See _Life_ by his son (2 vols., London, 1884), and a monograph by C.
F. G. Masterman (1907) in "Leader of the Church" series; W. E. Collins
in _Typical English Churchmen_, pp. 327-360 (1902), and T. Hughes in
_The Friendship of Books_ (1873).
MAURICE OF NASSAU, prince of Orange (1567-1625), the second son of
William the Silent, by Anna, only daughter of the famous Maurice,
elector of Saxony, was born at Dillenburg. At the time of his father's
assassination in 1584 he was being educated at the university of Leiden,
at the expense of the states of Holland and Zeeland. Despite his youth
he was made stadtholder of those two provinces and president of the
council of state. During the period of Leicester's governorship he
remained in the background, engaged in acquiring a thorough knowledge of
the military art, and in 1586 the States of Holland conferred upon him
the title of prince. On the withdrawal of Leicester from the Netherlands
in August 1587, Johan van Oldenbarneveldt, the advocate of Holland,
became the leading statesman of the country, a position which he
retained for upwards of thirty years. He had been a devoted adherent of
William the Silent and he now used his influence to forward the
interests of Maurice. In 1588 he was appointed by the States-General
captain and admiral-general of the Union, in 1590 he was elected
stadtholder of Utrecht and Overysel, and in 1591 of Gelderland. From
this time forward, Oldenbarneveldt at the head of the civil government
and Maurice in command of the armed forces of the republic worked
together in the task of rescuing the United Netherlands from Spanish
domination (for details see HOLLAND). Maurice soon showed himself to be
a general second in skill to none of his contemporaries. He was
especially famed for his consummate knowledge of the science of sieges.
The twelve years' truce on the 9th of April 1609 brought to an end the
cordial relations between Maurice and Oldenbarneveldt. Maurice was
opposed to the truce, but the advocate's policy triumphed and
henceforward there was enmity between them. The theological disputes
between the Remonstrants and contra-Remonstrants found them on different
sides; and the theological quarrel soon became a political one.
Oldenbarneveldt, supported by the states of Holland, came forward as the
champion of provincial sovereignty against that of the states-general;
Maurice threw the weight of his sword on the side of the union. The
struggle was a short one, for the army obeyed the general who had so
often led them to victory. Oldenbarneveldt perished on the scaffold, and
the share which Maurice had in securing the illegal condemnation by a
packed court of judges of the aged patriot must ever remain a stain upon
his memory.
Maurice, who had on the death of his elder brother Philip William, in
February 1618, become prince of Orange, was now supreme in the state,
but during the remainder of his life he sorely missed the wise counsels
of the experienced Oldenbarneveldt. War broke out again in 1621, but
success had ceased to accompany him on his campaigns. His health gave
way, and he died, a prematurely aged man, at the Hague on the 4th of
April 1625. He was buried by his father's side at Delft.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--I. Commelin, _Wilhelm en Maurits v. Nassau, pr. v.
Orangien, haer leven en bedrijf_ (Amsterdam, 1651); G. Groen van
Prinsterer, _Archives ou correspondance de la maison d'Orange-Nassau_,
1^e série, 9 vols. (Leiden, 1841-1861); G. Groen van Prinsterer,
_Maurice et Barneveldt_ (Utrecht, 1875); J. L. Motley, _Life and Death
of John of Barneveldt_ (2 vols., The Hague, 1894); C. M. Kemp, v.d.
_Maurits v. Nassau, prins v. Oranje in zijn leven en verdiensten_ (4
vols., Rotterdam, 1845); M. O. Nutting, _The Days of Prince Maurice_
(Boston and Chicago, 1894).
MAURISTS, a congregation of French Benedictines called after St Maurus
(d. 565), a disciple of St Benedict and the legendary introducer of the
Benedictine rule and life into Gaul.[1] At the end of the 16th century
the Benedictine monasteries of France had fallen into a state of
disorganization and relaxation. In the abbey of St Vaune near Verdun a
reform was initiated by Dom Didier de la Cour, which spread to other
houses in Lorraine, and in 1604 the reformed congregation of St Vaune
was established, the most distinguished members of which were Ceillier
and Calmet. A number of French houses joined the new congregation; but
as Lorraine was still independent of the French crown, it was considered
desirable to form on the same lines a separate congregation for France.
Thus in 1621 was established the famous French congregation of St Maur.
Most of the Benedictine monasteries of France, except those belonging to
Cluny, gradually joined the new congregation, which eventually embraced
nearly two hundred houses. The chief house was Saint-Germain-des-Prés,
Paris, the residence of the superior-general and centre of the literary
activity of the congregation. The primary idea of the movement was not
the undertaking of literary and historical work, but the return to a
strict monastic régime and the faithful carrying out of Benedictine
life; and throughout the most glorious period of Maurist history the
literary work was not allowed to interfere with the due performance of
the choral office and the other duties of the monastic life. Towards the
end of the 18th century a tendency crept in, in some quarters, to relax
the monastic observances in favour of study; but the constitutions of
1770 show that a strict monastic régime was maintained until the end.
The course of Maurist history and work was checkered by the
ecclesiastical controversies that distracted the French Church during
the 17th and 18th centuries. Some of the members identified themselves
with the Jansenist cause; but the bulk, including nearly all the
greatest names, pursued a middle path, opposing the lax moral theology
condemned in 1679 by Pope Innocent XI., and adhering to those strong
views on grace and predestination associated with the Augustinian and
Thomist schools of Catholic theology; and like all the theological
faculties and schools on French soil, they were bound to teach the four
Gallican articles. It seems that towards the end of the 18th century a
rationalistic and free-thinking spirit invaded some of the houses. The
congregation was suppressed and the monks scattered at the revolution,
the last superior-general with forty of his monks dying on the scaffold
in Paris. The present French congregation of Benedictines initiated by
Dom Guéranger in 1833 is a new creation and has no continuity with the
congregation of St Maur.
The great claim of the Maurists to the gratitude and admiration of
posterity is their historical and critical school, which stands quite
alone in history, and produced an extraordinary number of colossal works
of erudition which still are of permanent value. The foundations of this
school were laid by Dom Tarisse, the first superior-general, who in 1632
issued instructions to the superiors of the monasteries to train the
young monks in the habits of research and of organized work. The
pioneers in production were Ménard and d'Achery.
The following tables give, divided into groups, the most important
Maurist works, along with such information as may be useful to
students. All works are folio when not otherwise noted:--
I.--THE EDITIONS OF THE FATHERS
Epistle of Barnabas Ménard 1645 1 in 4^to
(editio princeps)
Lanfranc d'Achery 1648 1
Guibert of Nogent d'Achery 1651 1
Robert Pulleyn and Peter
of Poitiers Mathou 1655 1
Bernard Mabillon 1667 2
Anselm Gerberon 1675 1
Cassiodorus Garet 1679 1
Augustine (see Kukula, Delfau, Blampin,
_Die Mauriner-Ausgabe Coustant, Guesnie 1681-1700 11
des Augustinus_, 1898)
Ambrose du Frische 1686-1690 2
Acta martyrum sincera Ruinart 1689 1
Hilary Coustant 1693 1
Jerome Martianay 1693-1706 5
Athanasius Loppin and Mont-
faucon 1698 3
Gregory of Tours Ruinart 1699 1
Gregory the Great Sainte-Marthe 1705 4
Hildebert of Tours Beaugendre 1708 1
Irenaeus Massuet 1710 1
Chrysostom Montfaucon 1718-1738 13
Cyril of Jerusalem Touttée and Maran 1720 1
Epistolae romanorum Coustant 1721 1
pontificum[2]
Basil Garnier and Maran 1721-1730 3
Cyprian (Baluze, not a
Maurist) finished
by Maran 1726 1
Origen Ch. de la Rue (1, 2,
3) V. de la Rue (4) 1733-1759 4
Justin and the Apologists Maran 1742 1
Gregory Nazianzen[3] Maran and Clémencet 1778 1
II.--BIBLICAL WORKS
St Jerome's Latin Bible Martianay 1693 1
Origen's Hexapla Montfaucon 1713 2
Old Latin versions Sabbathier 1743-1749 3
III.--GREAT COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS
Spicilegium d'Achery 1655-1677 13 in 4^to
Veterae analecta Mabillon 1675-1685 4 in 8^vo
Musaeum italicum Mabillon 1687-1689 2 in 4^to
Collectio nova patrum Montfaucon 1706 2
graecorum
Thesaurus novus Martène and Durand 1717 5
anecdotorum
Veterum scriptorum Martène and Durand 1724-1733 9
collectio
De antiquis Martène 1690-1706
ecclesiaeritibus (Final form) 1736-1738 4
IV.--MONASTIC HISTORY
Acta of the Benedictine d'Achery, Mabillon
Saints and Ruinart 1668-1701 9
Benedictine Annals (to Mabillon (1-4),
1157) Massuet (5),
Martène (6) 1703-1739 6
V.--ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES OF FRANCE
A.--_General._
Gallia Christiana (3 other Sainte-Marthe
vols. were published (1, 2, 3) 1715-1785 13
1856-1865)
Monuments de la monarchie Montfaucon 1729-1733 5
française
Histoire littéraire de la Rivet, Clémencet,
France (16 other vols. Clément 1733-1763 12 in 4^to
were published 1814-1881)
Recueil des historiens de Bouquet (1-8), Brial
la France (4 other vols. (12-19) 1738-1833 19
were published 1840-1876)
Concilia Galliae (the Labbat 1789 1
printing of vol. ii. was
interrupted by the
Revolution; there were
to have been 8 vols.)
B.--HISTORIES OF THE PROVINCES.
Bretagne Lobineau 1707 2
Paris Félibien and
Lobineau 1725 5
Languedoc Vaissette and de Vic 1730-1745 5
Bourgogne Plancher (1-3), 1739-1748 4
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