Chapter 12

See G. Bizos,Étude sur la vie et les œuvres de Jean de Mairet(1877).Sophonisbewas edited by K. Vollmöller (Heilbronn, 1888), andSilvanireby R. Otto (Bamberg, 1890).

MAISTRE, JOSEPH DE(1754-1821), French diplomatist and polemical writer, was born at Chambéry on the 1st of April 1754. His family was an ancient and noble one, enjoying the title of count, and is said to have been of Languedocian extraction. The father of Joseph was president of the senate of Savoy, and held other important offices. Joseph himself, after studying at Turin, received various appointments in the civil service of Savoy, finally becoming a member of the senate. In 1786 he married Françoise de Morand. The invasion and annexation of Savoy by the French Republicans made him an exile. He did not take refuge in that part of the king of Sardinia’s domains which was for the time spared, but betook himself to the as yet neutral territory of Lausanne. There, in 1796, he published his first important work (he had previously written certain discourses, pamphlets, letters, &c.),Considérations sur la France. In this he developed his views, which were those of a Legitimist, but a Legitimist entirely from the religious and Roman Catholic point of view. The philosophism of the 18th century was Joseph de Maistre’s lifelong object of assault.

After the still further losses which, in the year of the publication of this book, the French Revolution inflicted on Sardinia, Charles Emmanuel summoned Joseph de Maistre to Turin, and he remained there for the brief space during which the king retained a remnant of territory on the mainland. Then he went to the island of Sardinia, and held office at Cagliari. In 1802 he was appointed envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at St Petersburg, and journeyed thither the next year. Although his post was no sinecure, its duties were naturally less engrossing than the official life, with intervals of uneasy exile and travelling, which he had hitherto known, and his literary activity was great. He only published a single treatise, on thePrincipe générateur des Constitutions; but he wrote his best and most famous works,Du Pape,De L’église gallicaneand theSoirées de St Pétersbourg, the last of which was never finished.Du Pape, which the second-named book completes, is a treatise in regular form, dealing with the relations of the sovereign pontiff to the Church, to temporal sovereigns, to civilization generally, and to schismatics, especially Anglicans and the Greek Church. It is written from the highest possible standpoint of papal absolutism. TheSoirées de St Pétersbourg, so far as it is anything (for the arrangement is somewhat desultory), is a kind ofthéodicée, dealing with the fortunes of virtue and vice in this world. It contains two of De Maistre’s most famous pieces, his panegyric on the executioner as the foundation of social order, and his acrimonious, and in part unfair, but also in part very damaging, attack on Locke. TheDu Papeis dated May 1817; on theSoiréesthe author was still engaged at his death. Besides these works he wrote an examination of the philosophy of Bacon, some letters on the Inquisition (an institution which, as may be guessed from the remarks just noticed about the executioner, was no stumbling-block to him), and, earlier than any of these, a translation of Plutarch’s “Essay on the Delay of Divine Justice,” with somewhat copious notes. After 1815 he returned to Savoy, and was appointed to high office, while hisDu Papemade a great sensation. But the world to which he had returned was not altogether in accordance with his desires. He had domestic troubles; and chagrin of one sort and another is said to have had not a little to do with his death by paralysis on the 26th of February 1821 at Turin. Most of the works mentioned were not published till after his death, and it was not till 1851 that a collection ofLettres et opusculesappeared, while even since that time fresh matter has been published.

Joseph de Maistre was one of the most powerful, and by far the ablest, of the leaders of the neo-Catholic and anti-revolutionary movement. The most remarkable thing about his standpoint is that, layman as he was, it was entirely ecclesiastical. Unlike his contemporary Bonald, Joseph de Maistre regarded the temporal monarchy as an institution of altogether inferior importance to the spiritual primacy of the pope. He was by no means a political absolutist, except in so far as he regarded obedience as the first of political virtues, and he seldom loses an opportunity of stipulating for a tempered monarchy. But the pope’s power is not to be tempered at all, either by councils or by the temporal power or by national churches, least of all by private judgment. The peculiarity of Joseph de Maistre is that he supports his conclusions, or if it be preferred his paradoxes, by the hardest and heaviest argument. Although a great master of rhetoric, he never makes rhetoric do duty for logic. Every now and then it is possible to detect fallacies in him, but for the most part he has succeeded in carrying matters back to those fundamental differences of opinion which hardly admit of argument, and on which men take sides in consequence chiefly of natural bent, and of predilection for one state of things rather than for another. The absolute necessity of order may be said to have been the first principle of this thinker, who, in more ways than one, will invite comparison with Hobbes. He could not conceive such order without a single visible authority, reference to which should settle all dispute. He saw that there could be no such temporal head, and in the pope he thought that he saw a spiritual substitute. The anarchic tendencies of the Revolution in politics and religion were what offended him. It ought to beadded that he was profoundly and accurately learned in history and philosophy, and that the superficial blunders of the 18th-centuryphilosophesirritated him as much as their doctrines. To Voltaire in particular he shows no mercy.

Of the two works named as his masterpieces,Du Papeand theSoirées de St Pétersbourg, editions are extremely numerous. No complete edition of his works appeared till 1884-1887, when one was published at Lyons in 14 volumes. This had been preceded, and has been followed, by numerous biographies and discussions: C. Barthélemy,L’Esprit de Joseph de Maistre(1859); R. de Sézeval,Joseph de Maistre(1865), and J. C. Glaser,Graf Joseph Maistre(same year); L. I. Moreau,Joseph de Maistre(1879); F. Paulhan,Joseph de Maistre et sa philosophie(1893); L. Cogordan, “Joseph de Maistre” in theGrands écrivains français(1894); F. Descostes,Joseph de Maistre avant la révolution(1896), and other works by the same writer; J. Mandoul,Un Homme d’état italien: Joseph de Maistre et la politique de la maison de Savoie(1900); and E. Grasset,Joseph de Maistre(1901).

(G. Sa.)

MAISTRE, XAVIER DE(1763-1852), younger brother of Joseph de Maistre, was born at Chambéry in October 1763. He served when young in the Piedmontese army, and wrote his delightful fantasy,Voyage autour de ma chambre(published 1794) when he was under arrest at Turin in consequence of a duel. Xavier shared the politics and the loyalty of his brother, and on the annexation of Savoy to France, he left the service, and took a commission in the Russian army. He served under Suvarov in his victorious Austro-Russian campaign and accompanied the marshal to Russia. He shared the disgrace of his general, and supported himself for some time in St Petersburg by miniature painting. But on his brother’s arrival in St Petersburg he was introduced to the minister of marine. He was appointed to several posts in the capital, but also saw active service, was wounded in the Caucasus, and attained the rank of major-general. He married a Russian lady and established himself in his adopted country, even after the overthrow of Napoleon, and the consequent restoration of the Piedmontese dynasty. For a time, however, he lived at Naples, but he returned to St Petersburg and died there on the 12th of June 1852. He was only once in Paris (in 1839), when Sainte-Beuve, who has left some pleasant reminiscences of him, met him. Besides theVoyagealready mentioned, Xavier de Maistre’s works (all of which are of very modest dimensions) areLe Lépreux de la cité d’Aoste(1811), a touching little story of human misfortune;Les Prisonniers du Caucase, a powerful sketch of Russian character,La Jeune Sibérienne, and theExpédition nocturne, a sequel to theVoyage autour de ma chambre(1825). His style is of remarkable ease and purity.

His works, with the exception of some brief chemical tractates, are included in the collections of Charpentier, Garnier, &c. See Sainte-Beuve’sPortraits contemporains, vol. iii.

MAITLAND, EDWARD(1824-1897), English humanitarian writer, was born at Ipswich on the 27th of October 1824, and was educated at Caius College, Cambridge. The son of Charles David Maitland, perpetual curate of St James’s Chapel, Brighton, he was intended for the Church, but his religious views did not permit him to take holy orders. For some years he lived abroad, first in California and then as a commissioner of Crownlands in Australia. After his return to England in 1857 he took up an advanced humanitarian position, and claimed to have acquired a new sense by which he was able to discern the spiritual condition of other people. He was associated with Mrs Anna Kingsford (1846-1888), the lady-doctor and supporter of vegetarianism and anti-vivisectionism, who, besides being one of the pioneers of higher education for women, had become a devotee of mystical theosophy; with her he brought outKeys of the Creeds(1875),The Perfect Way: or the Finding of Christ(1882), and founded the Hermetic Society in 1884. After her death he founded the Esoteric Christian Union in 1891, and wrote herLife and Letters(1896). He died on the 2nd of October 1897.

MAITLAND, FREDERIC WILLIAM(1850-1906), English jurist and historian, son of John Gorham Maitland, was born on the 28th of May 1850, and educated at Eton and Trinity, Cambridge, being bracketed at the head of the moral sciences tripos of 1872, and winning a Whewell scholarship for international law. He was called to the bar (Lincoln’s Inn) in 1876, and made himself a thoroughly competent equity lawyer and conveyancer, but finally devoted himself to comparative jurisprudence and especially the history of English law. In 1884 he was appointed reader in English law at Cambridge, and in 1888 became Downing professor of the laws of England. Though handicapped in his later years by delicate health, his intellectual grasp and wide knowledge and research gradually made him famous as a jurist and historian. He edited numerous volumes for the Selden Society, includingSelect Pleas for the Crown, 1200-1225,Select Pleas in Manorial CourtsandThe Court Baron; and among his principal works wereGloucester Pleas(1884),Justice and Police(1885),Bracton’s Note-Book(1887),History of English Law(with Sir F. Pollock, 1895; new ed. 1898; see also his articleEnglish Lawin this encyclopaedia),Domesday Book and Beyond(1897),Township and Borough(1898),Canon Law in England(1898),English Law and the Renaissance(1901), theLife of Leslie Stephen(1906), besides important contributions to theCambridge Modern History, theEnglish Historical Review, theLaw Quarterly Review,Harvard Law Reviewand other publications. His writings are marked by vigour and vitality of style, as well as by the highest qualities of the historian who recreates the past from the original sources; he had no sympathy with either legal or historical pedantry; and his death at Grand Canary on the 19th of December 1906 deprived English law and letters of one of their most scholarly and most inspiring representatives, notable alike for sweetness of character, acuteness in criticism, and wisdom in counsel.

See P. Vinogradoff’s article on Maitland in theEnglish Historical Review(1907); Sir F. Pollock’s in theQuarterly Review(1907); G. T. Lapsley’s inThe Green Bag(Boston, Mass., 1907); A. L. Smith,F. W. Maitland(1908); H. A. L. Fisher,F. W. Maitland(1910).

MAITLAND, SIR RICHARD(Lord Lethington) (1496-1586), Scottish lawyer, poet, and collector of Scottish verse, was born in 1496. His father, Sir William Maitland of Lethington and Thirlestane, fell at Flodden; his mother was a daughter of George, Lord Seton. He studied law at the university of St Andrews, and afterwards in Paris. His castle at Lethington was burnt by the English in 1549. He was in 1552 one of the commissioners to settle matters with the English about the debateable lands. About 1561 he seems to have lost his sight, but this did not render him incapable of attending to public business, as he was the same year admitted an ordinary lord of session with the title of Lord Lethington, and a member of the privy council; and in 1562 he was appointed keeper of the Great Seal. He resigned this last office in 1567, in favour of John, prior of Coldingham, his second son, but he sat on the bench till he attained his eighty-eighth year. He died on the 20th of March 1586. His eldest son, by his wife Mary Cranstoun of Crosbie, was William Maitland (q.v.): his second son, John (c.1545-1595), was a lord of session, and was made a lord of parliament in 1590, with the title of Lord Maitland of Thirlestane, in which he was succeeded by his son John, also for some time a lord of session, who was created earl of Lauderdale in 1624. One of Sir Richard’s daughters, Margaret, assisted her father in preparing his collection of old Scots verse.

The poems of Sir Richard Maitland, none of them lengthy, are for the most part satirical, and are principally directed against the social and political abuses of his time. He is chiefly remembered as the industrial collector and preserver of many pieces of Scots poetry. These were copied into two large volumes, one in folio and another in quarto, the former written by himself, and the latter by his daughter. After being in the possession of his descendant the duke of Lauderdale, these volumes were purchased at the sale of the duke’s library by Samuel Pepys, and have since been preserved in the Pepysian Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge. They lay there unnoticed for many years till Bishop Percy published one of the poems in hisReliques of English Poetry. Several of theprices were then transcribed by John Pinkerton, who afterwards published them under the title ofAncient Scottish Poems(2 vols., 1786.)

For an account of the Maitland Folio MS. see Gregory Smith’sSpecimens of Middle Scots, 1902 (p. lxxiii.). The Scottish Text Society has undertaken an edition of the entire manuscript. Maitland’s own poems were reprinted by Sibbald in hisChronicle of Scottish Poetry(1802), and in 1830 by the Maitland Club, named after him, and founded for the purpose of continuing his efforts to preserve the remains of early Scots literature. Sir Richard left in manuscript a history of the family of Seton, and a volume of legal decisions collected by him between the years 1550 and 1565. Both are preserved in the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh; the former was published by the Maitland Club, in 1829.

MAITLAND(Maitland of Lethington),WILLIAM(c.1528-1573), Scottish statesman, eldest son of the preceding, was educated at St Andrews. At an early age he entered public life and began in various ways to serve the regent, Mary of Lorraine, becoming her secretary of state in 1558. In 1559, however, he deserted her and threw in his lot with the lords of the congregation, to whom his knowledge of foreign, and especially of English, politics and his general ability were assets of the highest value. The lords sent him to England to ask for assistance from Elizabeth, and his constant aim throughout his political career was to bring about a union between the two crowns. He appears to have feared the return of Mary Queen of Scots to Scotland, but after her arrival in 1561 he was appointed secretary of state, and for about six years he directed the policy of Scotland and enjoyed the confidence of the queen. His principal antagonist was John Knox; there were several tussles between them, the most famous, perhaps, being the one in the general assembly of 1564, and on the whole Maitland held his own against the preachers. He was doubtless concerned in the conspiracy against David Rizzio, and after the favourite’s murder he was obliged to leave the court and was himself in danger of assassination. In 1567, however, he was again at Mary’s side. He was a consenting party to the murder of Darnley, although he had favoured his marriage with Mary, but the enmity between Bothwell and himself was one of the reasons which drove him into the arms of the queen’s enemies, among whom he figured at Langside. He was one of the Scots who met Elizabeth’s representatives at York in 1568; here he showed a desire to exculpate Mary and to marry her to the duke of Norfolk, a course of action probably dictated by a desire to avoid all revelations about the Darnley murder. But this did not prevent him from being arrested in September 1569 on account of his share in the crime. He was, however, delivered from his captors by a ruse on the part of his friend, Sir William Kirkcaldy of Grange, and was brought into Edinburgh Castle, while his trial was put off because the city was thronged with his adherents. Maitland now became the leader of the remnant which stood by the cause of the imprisoned queen. Already a physical wreck, he was borne into Edinburgh Castle in April 1571 and with Kirkcaldy he held this fortress against the regent Morton and his English auxiliaries. The castle surrendered in May 1573 and on the 7th or the 9th of June following Maitland died at Leith, there being very little evidence for the theory that he poisoned himself. “Secretary Maitland” was a man of great learning with a ready wit and a caustic tongue. He was reputed to be the most versatile and accomplished statesman of his age, and almost alone among his Scottish contemporaries he placed his country above the claims of either the Roman Catholic or the Protestant religions. Among the testimonies to his great abilities are those of Queen Elizabeth, of William Cecil and of Knox. By his second wife, Mary Fleming, one of Queen Mary’s ladies, whom he married in 1567, he had a son and daughter. His son James died without issue about 1620.

See John Skelton,Maitland of Lethington(1894); A. Lang,History of Scotland, vol. ii. (1902).

MAITLAND, EASTandWEST, adjoining municipalities in Northumberland county, New South Wales, Australia, 120 m. by rail N. of Sydney. Pop. (1901), West Maitland, 6798; East Maitland, 3287. These towns are situated in a valley on the Hunter River, which is liable to sudden floods, to guard against which the river is protected by stone embankments at West Maitland, while there are flood-gates at East Maitland. Maitland is the centre of the rich agricultural district of the Hunter Valley, which produces maize, wheat and other cereals, lucerne, tobacco, fruit and wine; excellent coal also is worked in the vicinity. East Maitland is the see of a Roman Catholic bishop, whose cathedral (St John’s), however, is situated in the larger town. Besides this, West Maitland contains several handsome public and commercial buildings.

MAITREYA, the name of the future Buddha. In one of the works included in the Pali canon, theDīgha Nikāya, a prophecy is put into the Buddha’s mouth that after the decay of the religion another Buddha, named Metteyya, will arise who will have thousands of followers instead of the hundreds that the historical Buddha had. This is the only mention of the future Buddha in the canon. For some centuries we hear nothing more about him. But when, in the period just before and after the Christian era, some Buddhists began to write in Sanskrit instead of Pali, they composed new works in which Maitreya (the Sanskrit form of Metteyya) is more often mentioned, and details are given as to his birthplace and history. These are entirely devised in imitation of the details of the life of the historical Buddha, and have no independent value. Only the names differ. The document in which the original prophecy occurs was put together at some date during the 1st century after the Buddha’s death (seeNikāya). It is impossible to say whether tradition was, at that time, correct in attributing it to the Buddha. But whoever chose the name (it is a patronymic or family, not a personal name), had no doubt regard to the etymological connexion with the word for “love,” which is Mettā in Pali. This would only be one of those punning allusions so frequent in Indian literature.

Long afterwards, probably in the 6th or 7th century, a reformer in south India, at a time when the incoming flood of ritualism and superstition threatened to overwhelm the simple teaching of the earlier Buddhism, wrote a Pali poem, entitled theAnāgata Vaṃsa. In this he described the golden age of the future when, in the time of Metteyya, kings, ministers and people would vie one with the other in the maintenance of the original simple doctrine, and in the restoration of the good times of old. The other side also claimed the authority of the future Buddha for their innovations. Statues of Maitreya are found in Buddhist temples, of all sects, at the present day; and the belief in his future advent is universal among Buddhists.

Authorities.—Dīgha Nikāya, vol. iii., edited by J. E. Carpenter, (London, 1908); “Anāgata Vaṃsa,” edited by J. Minayeff inJournal of the Pali Text Society(1886);Watters on Yuan Chwang, edited by Rhys Davids and S. W. Bushell (London, 1904-1905).

(T. W. R. D.)

MAIWAND, a village of Afghanistan, 50 m. N.W. of Kandahar. It is chiefly notable for the defeat inflicted on a British brigade under General Burrows by Ayub Khan on the 27th of July 1880 during the second Afghan War (seeAfghanistan). Ayub Khan, Shere Ali’s younger son, who had been holding Herat during the British operations at Kabul and Kandahar, set out towards Kandahar with a small army in June 1880, and a brigade under General Burrows was detached from Kandahar to oppose him. Burrows advanced to the Helmund, opposite Girishk, to oppose Ayub Khan, but was there deserted by the troops of Shere Ali, the wali of Kandahar, and forced to retreat to Kushk-i-Nakhud, half way to Kandahar. In order to prevent Ayub passing to Ghazni, Burrows advanced to Maiwand on the 27th of July, and attacked Ayub, who had already seized that place. The Afghans, who numbered 25,000, outflanked the British, the artillery expended their ammunition, and the native portion of the Brigade got out of hand and pressed back on the few British infantry. The British werecompletely routed, and had to thank the apathy of the Afghans for escaping total annihilation. Of the 2476 British troops engaged, 934 were killed and 175 wounded or missing. This defeat necessitated Sir Frederick Roberts’ famous march from Kabul to Kandahar.

See Lord Roberts,Forty-one Years in India(1896).

MAIZE, orIndian Corn,Zea Mays(fromζεάorζειά, which appears to have been “spelt,”Triticum spelta, according to the description of Theophrastus), a plant of the tribe Maydeae of the order Gramineae or grasses (see fig. 1). It is unknown in the native state, but is most probably indigenous to tropical America. Small grains of an unknown variety have been found in the ancient tombs of Peru, and Darwin found heads of maize embedded on the shore in Peru at 85 ft. above the present sea-level. Bonafous, however (Histoire naturelle du maïs), quotes authorities (Bock, 1532, Ruel and Fuchs) as believing that it came from Asia, and maize was said by Santa Rosa de Viterbo to have been brought by the Arabs into Spain in the 13th century. A drawing of maize is also given by Bonafous from a Chinese work on natural history,Li-chi-tchin, dated 1562, a little over sixty years after the discovery of the New World. It is not figured on Egyptian monuments, nor was any mention made of it by Eastern travellers in Africa or Asia prior to the 16th century. Humboldt, Alphonse de Candolle and others, however, do not hesitate to say that it originated solely in America, where it had been long and extensively cultivated at the period of the discovery of the New World; and that is the generally accepted modern view. Some hold the view that maize originated from a common Mexican fodder grass,Euchlaena mexicana, known as Teosinte, a closely allied plant which when crossed with maize yields a maize-like hybrid.

The plant is monoecious, producing the staminate (male) flowers in a large feathery panicle at the summit, and the (female) dense spikes of flowers, or “cobs,” in the axils of the leaves below, the long pink styles hanging out like a silken tassel. They are invested by the sheaths of leaves, much used in packing oranges in south Europe, and the more delicate ones for cigarettes in South America. Fig. 2 shows a branch of the terminal male inflorescence. Fig. 3 is a single spikelet of the same, containing two florets, with the three stamens of one only protruded. Fig. 4 is a spike of the female inflorescence, protected by the sheaths of leaves—the blades being also present. Usually the sheaths terminate in a point, the blades being arrested. Fig. 5 is a spikelet of the female inflorescence, consisting of two outer glumes, the lower one ciliated, which enclose two florets—one (a) barren (sometimes fertile), consisting of a flowering glume and pale only, and the other (b) fertile, containing the pistil with elongated style. The mass of styles from the whole spike is pendulous from the summit of the sheaths, as in fig. 4. Fig. 6 shows the fruit or grain. More than three hundred varieties are known, which differ more among themselves than those of any other cereal. Some come to maturity in two months, others require seven months; some are as many feet high as others are inches; some have kernels eleven times larger than others. They vary similarly in shape and size of ears, colour of the grain, which may be white, yellow, purple, striped, &c., and also in physical characters and chemical composition. Dr E. Lewis Sturtevant, who has made an extended study of the forms and varieties, classes into seven groups those grown primarily for the grain, the distinguishing characters of which are based on the grains or kernels; there are, in addition, forms of horticultural interest grown for ornament. Pod corn (var.tunicata) is characterized by having each kernel enclosed in a husk. Pop corn (var.everta) has a very large proportion of the “endosperm”—the nutritious matter which with the small embryo makes up the grain—of a horny consistency, which causes the grain to pop when heated, that is to say, the kernel becomes turned inside out by the explosion of the contained moisture. It is also characterized by the small size of the grain and ear. Flint corn (var.indurata) has a starchy endosperm enclosed in a horny layer of varying thickness in the different varieties. The colour of the grain is white, yellow, red, blue or variegated. It is commonly cultivated in Canada and northern United States, where the seasons are too short for Dent corn, and has been grown as far north as 50° N. lat. Dent or field corn (var.indentata) has the starchy endosperm extending to the summit of the grain, with horny endosperm at the sides. The top of the grain becomes indented, owing to the drying and shrinkage of the starchy matter; the character of the indented surface varies with the height and thickness of the horny endosperm. This is the form commonly grown in the United States; the varieties differ widely in the size of the plants and the appearance of the ear.

The colour of the grain varies greatly, being generally white, yellow, mottled red, or less commonly red. Soft corn (var.amylacea) has no horny endosperm, and hence the grains shrink uniformly. It is cultivated only to a limited extent in the United States, but seems to have been commonly grown by the Indians in many localities in North and South America. Sweet corn (var.saccharata) is characterized by the translucent horny appearance of the grains and their more or less wrinkled condition. It is pre-eminently a garden vegetable, the ear being used before the grain hardens, when it is well filled but soft and milky. It is often cooked and served in the cob; when canned it is cut from the cob. Canned sweet corn is an important article of domestic commerce in Canada and the United States. In starchy sweet corn (var.amylea-saccharata) the grain has the external appearance of sweet corn, but examination shows the lower half to be starchy, the upper horny and translucent. A form of flint corn, with variegated leaves, is grown for ornament under the nameZea japonicaor Japanese striped corn.

Chemical analysis, like common experience, shows that Indian corn is a very nutritious article of food, being richer in albuminoids than any other cereals when ripe (calculated in the dry weight). It can be grown in the tropics from the level of the sea to a height equal to that of the Pyrenees and in the south and middle of Europe, but it cannot be grown in England with any chance of profit, except perhaps as fodder. Frost kills the plant in all its stages and all its varieties; and the crop does not flourish well if the nights are cool, no matter how favourable the other conditions. Consequently it is the first crop to disappear as one ascends into the mountain regions, and comparatively little is grown west of the great plains of North America. In Brittany, where it scarcely ripens the grain, it furnishes a strong crop in the autumn upon sandy soil where clover and lucerne will yield but a poor produce. It prefers a deep, rich, warm, dry and mellow soil, and hence the rich bottoms and fertile prairies of the Mississippi basin constitute the region of its greatest production. It is extensively grown throughout India, both for the ripe grain and for use of the unripe cob as a green vegetable. It is the most common crop throughout South Africa, where it is known as mealies, being the staple food of the natives. It is also largely used for fodder and is an important article of export.

As an article of food maize is one of the most extensively used grains in the world. Although rich in nitrogenous matter and fat, it does not make good bread. A mixture of rye and corn meal, however, makes an excellent coarse bread, formerly much used in the Atlantic states, and a similar bread is now the chief coarse bread of Portugal and some parts of Spain. It is either baked into cakes, calledtortillaby the Indians of Yucatan, or made into a kind of porridge, as in Ireland. When deprived of the gluten it constitutes oswego, maizena or corn flour. Maize contains more oil than any other cereal, ranging from 3.5 to 9.5% in the commercial grain. This is one of the factors in its value for fattening purposes. In distilling and some other processes this oil is separated and forms an article of commerce. When maize is sown, broadcast or closely planted in drills the ears may not develop at all, but the stalk is richer in sugar and sweeter; and this is the basis of growing “corn-fodder.” The amount of forage that may be produced in this way is enormous; 50,000 to 80,000 ℔ of green fodder are grown per acre, which makes 8000 to 12,000 ℔ as field-cured. Sugar and molasses have from time to time been manufactured from the corn stalks.

See articles on corn andZea Maysin L. H. Bailey’sCyclopaedia of American Horticulture(1900-1902); and for cultivation in India, Watt’sDictionary of the Economic Products of India, vi. (1893).

MAJESTY(Fr.majesté; Lat.majestas, grandeur, greatness, from the basemag-, as inmagnus, great,major, greater, &c.), dignity, greatness, a term especially used to express the dignity and power of a sovereign. This application is to be traced to the use ofmajestasin Latin to express the supreme sovereign dignity of the Roman state, themajestas reipublicaeorpopuli Romani, hencemajestatem laedereorminuere, was to commit high treason,crimen majestatis. (For the modern law and usage oflaesa majestas, lèse majesté, Majestätsbeleidigung, seeTreason.) From the republicmajestaswas transferred to the emperors, and themajestas populi Romanibecame themajestas imperii, andaugustalis majestasis used as a term to express the sovereign person of the emperor. Honorius and Theodosius speak of themselves in the first person asnostra majestas. The term “majesty” was strictly confined in the middle ages to the successors of the Roman emperors in the West, and at the treaty of Cambrai (1529) it is reserved for the emperor Charles V. Later the word is used of kings also, and the distinction is made between imperial majesty (caesareana majestas) and kingly or royal majesty. From the 16th century dates the application of “Most Christian and Catholic Majesty” to the kings of France, of “Catholic Majesty” to the kings of Spain, of “Most Faithful Majesty” to the kings of Portugal, and “Apostolic Majesty” to the kings of Hungary. In England the use is generally assigned to the reign of Henry VIII., but it is found, though not in general usage, earlier; thus theNew English Dictionaryquotes from anAddress of the Kings Clerks to Henry II.in 1171 (Materials for the History of Archbishop Becket, vii. 471, Rolls Series, 1885), where the king is styledvestra majestas, and Selden (Titles of Honour, part i. ch. 7, p. 98, ed. 1672) finds many early uses in letters to Edward I., in charters of creation of peers, &c. The fullest form in English usage is “His Most Gracious Majesty”; another form is “The King’s Most Excellent Majesty,” as in the English Prayer-book. “His Sacred Majesty” was common in the 17th century; and of this form Selden says: “It is true, I think, that in our memory or the memory of our fathers, the use of it first began in England.” “His Majesty,” abbreviated H.M., is now the universal European use in speaking of any reigning king, and “His Imperial Majesty,” H.I.M., of any reigning emperor.

From the particular and very early use of “majesty” for the glory and splendour of God, the term has been used in ecclesiastical art of the representation of God the Father enthroned in glory, sometimes with the other persons of the Trinity, and of the Saviour alone, enthroned with an aureole.

MAJLÁTH, JÁNOS, orJohn, Count(1786-1855), Hungarian historian and poet, was born at Pest on the 5th of October 1786. First educated at home, he subsequently studied philosophy at Eger (Erlau) and law at Györ (Raab), his father, Count Joseph Majláth, an Austrian minister of state, eventually obtaining for him an appointment in the public service. Majláth devoted himself to historical research and the translation into German of Magyar folk-tales, and of selections from the works of the best of his country’s native poets. Moreover, as an original lyrical writer, and as an editor and adapter of old German poems, Majláth showed considerable talent. During the greater part of his life he resided either at Pest or Vienna, but a few years before his death he removed to Munich, where he fell into a state of destitution and extreme despondency. Seized at last by a terrible infatuation, he and his daughter Henriette, who had long been his constant companion and amanuensis, drowned themselves in the Lake of Starnberg, a few miles south-west of Munich, on the 3rd of January 1855.

Of his historical works the most important are theGeschichte der Magyaren(Vienna, 1828-1831, 5 vols.; 2nd ed., Ratisbon, 1852-1853) and hisGeschichte des österreichischen Kaiserstaats(Hamburg, 1834-1850, 5 vols.). Specially noteworthy among his metrical translations from the Hungarian are theMagyarische Gedichte(Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1825); andHimfy’s auserlesene Liebeslieder(Pest, 1829; 2nd ed., 1831). A valuable contribution to folk-lore appeared in theMagyarische Sagen, Märchen und Erzählungen(Brünn, 1825; 2nd ed., Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1837, 2 vols.).

MAJOLICA, a name properly applied to a species of Italian ware in which the body is coated with a tin-enamel, on which is laid and fired a painted decoration. It is also applied to similar wares made in imitation of the Italian ware in other countries. The word in Italian ismaiolica. Du Cange (Gloss. s.v.“Majorica”) quotes from a chronicle of Verona of 1368, in which the formmajolicaoccurs for the more usual Latin formmajorica. It has usually been supposed that this type of pottery was first made in the island of Majorca, but it is more probable that the name was given by the Italians to the lustred Spanish ware imported by ships hailing from the Balearic Islands. (SeeCeramics:Medieval and Later Italian.)

MAJOR(orMair),JOHN(1470-1550), Scottish theological and historical writer, was born at the village of Gleghornie, near North Berwick, Scotland, in the year 1470. He was educated at the school of Haddington, where John Knox was later a pupil. After a short period spent at Cambridge (at God’s House, afterwards Christ’s College) he entered the university of Paris in 1493, studying successively at the colleges of St Barbe, Montaigu and Navarre, and graduating as master of arts in 1496. Promoted to the doctorate in 1505, he lectured on philosophy at Montaigu College and on theology at Navarre. He visited Scotland in 1515 and returned in 1518, when he was appointed principal regent in the university of Glasgow, John Knox being among the number of those who attended his lectures there. In 1522 he removed to St Andrew’s University, where in 1525 George Buchanan was one of his pupils. He returned to the college of Montaigu in 1525, but was once more at St Andrew’s in 1531, where he was head of St Salvator’s College from 1534 until his death.

Major’s voluminous writings may be grouped under (a) logic and philosophy, (b) Scripture commentary, and (c) history. All are in Latin, all appeared between 1503 and 1530, and all were printed at Paris. The first group includes hisExponabilia(1503), his commentary on Petrus Hispanus (1505-1506), hisInclitarum artium libri(1506, &c.), his commentary on Joannes Dorp (1504, &c.), hisInsolubilia(1516, &c.), his introduction to Aristotle’s logic (1521, &c.), his commentary on the ethics (1530), and, chief of all, his commentary on Peter Lombard’sSentences(1509, &c.); the second consists of a commentary on Matthew (1518) and another on the Four Gospels (1529); the last is represented by his famousHistoria Majoris Britanniae tam Angliae quam Scotiae per J. M.(1521). In political philosophy he maintained the Scotist position, that civil authority was derived from the popular will, but in theology he was a scholastic conservative, though he never failed to show his approbation of Gallicanism and its plea for the reform of ecclesiastical abuses. He has left on record that it was his aim and hope to reconcile realism and nominalism in the interests of theological peace. He had a world-wide reputation as a teacher and writer. Buchanan’s severe epigram, perhaps the only unfriendly words in the flood of contemporary praise, may be explained as a protest against the compromise which Major appeared to offer rather than as a personal attack on his teacher. Major takes a more independent attitude in hisHistory, which is a remarkable example of historical accuracy and insight. He claims that the historian’s chief duty is to write truthfully, and he is careful to show that a theologian may fulfil this condition.

TheHistory, on which his fame now rests, was reprinted by Freebairn (Edinburgh, 1740), and was translated in 1892 by Archibald Constable for the Scottish History Society. The latter volume contains a full account of the author by Aeneas J. G. Mackay and a bibliography by Thomas Graves Law.

MAJOR(Lat. for “greater”), a word used, both as a substantive and adjective, for that which is greater than another in size, quality, degree, importance, &c., often opposed correlatively to that to which “minor” is applied in the same connotation. In the categorical syllogism in logic, the major term is the term which forms the predicate of the conclusion, the major premise is that which contains the major term. (For the distinction between major and minor intervals, and other applications in music, seeMusicandHarmony.)

The use ofMajoras part of an official title in Med. Lat. has given the Span.mayor, Fr.maire, and Eng. “mayor” (q.v.). In English the unadapted form “major” is the title of a military officer now ranking between a captain and a lieutenant-colonel. Originally the word was used adjectivally in the title “sergeant-major,” an officer of high rank (third in command of an army) who performed the same duties of administration, drill and encampments on the staff of the chief commander as the sergeant in a company performs as assistant to the captain. This was in the latter half of the 16th century, and very soon afterwards the “sergeant-major” became known as the “sergeant-major-general”—hence the modern title of major-general. By the time of the English Civil War “majors” had been introduced in each regiment of foot, who corresponded in a lesser sphere to the “major-general” of the whole army. The major’s sphere of duties, precedence and title have since varied but little, though he has, in the British service, taken the place of the lieutenant-colonel as second in command—the latter officer exercising the command of the cavalry regiment, infantry battalion or artillery brigade, and the colonel being, save for certain administrative functions, little more than the titular chief of his regiment. Junior majors command companies of infantry; squadrons of cavalry and batteries of artillery are also commanded by majors. In most European armies, however, and of late years in the army of the United States also, the major has become a battalion commander under the orders of a regimental commander (colonel or lieutenant-colonel). The word appears also in the British service in “brigade-major” (the adjutant or staff officer of a brigade). “Town-majors” (garrison staff officers) are now no longer appointed. In the French service up to 1871 the “major-general” was the chief of the general staff of a field army, and thus preserved the tradition of the former “sergeant-major” or “sergeant-major-general.”

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