Chapter 20

There are in print several scientific works of Malesherbes of varying value, of which the most interesting is hisObservations sur Buffon et Daubenton, written when he was very young, and published with a notice by Abeille in 1798. There exist also hisMémoire pour Louis XVI., hisMémoire sur la liberté de la presse(published 1809) and extracts from his remonstrances, published asŒuvres choisies de Malesherbesin 1809. For his life should be read theNotice historique(3rd ed., 1806) of Dubois, theÉloge historique(1805) of Gaillard, and the interestingEssai sur la vie, les écrits et les opinions de M. de Malesherbes(in 2 vols., 1818), of F. A. de Boissy d’Anglas. There are also many éloges on him in print, of which the best-known is that of M. Dupin, which was delivered at the Academy in 1841, and was reviewed with much light on Malesherbes’s control of the press by Sainte-Beuve in the 2nd volume of theCauseries du lundi. The protest of thecour des aideshas been published with translation by G. Robinson in theTranslations and Reprints of the University of Pennsylvania(1900). For his defence of Louis XVI. see Marquis de Beaucourt,Captivité et derniers moments de Louis XVI.(2 vols., 1892, Soc. d’hist. contemp.), and A. Tuetey,Répertoire général des sources manuscrites de l’hist. de Paris pendant la Rev. fr., vol. viii. (1908).

MALET, LUCAS,the pen-name of Mary St Leger Harrison (1852- ), English novelist. She was the eldest daughter of Charles Kingsley, and was born at Eversley on the 4th of June 1852. She studied at the Slade school and at University College, London, and married in 1876 William Harrison, rector of Clovelly. After her husband’s death in 1897 she eventually settled in London. She had already written several books—Mrs Lorimer(1882),Colonel Enderby’s Wife(1885),Little Peter(1887),A Counsel of Perfection(1888)—when she published her powerful story,The Wages of Sin(1891), which attracted great attention. HerHistory of Sir Richard Calmady(1901) had an even greater success. Her other novels includeThe Carissima(1896),The Gateless Barrier(1900),On the Far Horizon(1906).

MALHERBE, FRANÇOIS DE(1555-1628), French poet, critic and translator, was born at Caen in 1555. His family was of some position, though it seems not to have been able to establish to the satisfaction of heralds the claims which it made to nobility older than the 16th century. The poet was the eldest son of another François de Malherbe,conseiller du roiin the magistracy of Caen. He himself was elaborately educated at Caen, at Paris, at Heidelberg and at Basel. At the age of twenty-one, preferring arms to the gown, he entered the household of Henri d’Angoulême, grand prior of France, the natural son of Henry II. He served this prince as secretary in Provence, and married there in 1581. It seems that he wrote verses at this period, but, to judge from a quotation of Tallemant des Réaux, they must have been very bad ones. His patron died when Malherbe was on a visit in his native province, and for a time he had no particular employment, though by some servile verses he obtained a considerable gift of money from Henry III., whom he afterwards libelled. He lived partly in Provence and partly in Normandy for many years after this event; but very little is known of his life during this period. HisLarmes de Saint Pierre, imitated from Luigi Tansillo, appeared in 1587.

It was in the year parting the two centuries (1600) that he presented to Marie de’ Medici an ode of welcome, the first of his remarkable poems. But four or five years more passed before his fortune, which had hitherto been indifferent, turned. He was presented by his countryman, the Cardinal Du Perron, to Henry IV.; and, though that economical prince did not at first show any great eagerness to entertain the poet, he was at last summoned to court and endowed after one fashion or another. It is said that the pension promised him was not paid till the next reign. His father died in 1606, and he came into his inheritance. From this time forward he lived at court, corresponding affectionately with his wife, but seeing her only twice in some twenty years. His old age was saddened by a great misfortune. His son, Marc Antoine, a young man of promise, fell in a duel in 1626. His father used his utmost influence to have the guilty parties (for more than one were concerned, and there are grounds for thinking that it was not a fair duel) brought to justice. But he died before the suit was decided (it is said in consequence of disease caught at the camp of La Rochelle, whither he had gone to petition the king), in Paris, on the 16th of October, 1628, at the age of seventy-three.

The personal character of Malherbe was far from amiable, but he exercised, or at least indicated the exercise of, a great and enduring effect upon French literature, though by no means a wholly beneficial one. The lines of Boileau beginningEnfin Malherbe vintare rendered only partially applicable by the extraordinary ignorance of older French poetry which distinguished that peremptory critic. But the good as well as bad side of Malherbe’s theory and practice is excellently described by his contemporary and superior Regnier, who was animated against him, not merely by reason of his own devotion to Ronsard but because of Malherbe’s discourtesy towards Regnier’s uncle P. Desportes, whom the Norman poet had at first distinctly copied. These are the lines:—

“Cependant leur savoir ne s’étend nullementQu’à régratter un mot douteuse au jugement,Prendre garde qu’unquine heurte une diphthongue,Epier si des vers la rime est brève ou longue,Ou bien si la voyelle à l’autre s’unissantNe rend point à l’oreille un vers trop languissant.. . . . . . . .C’est proser de la rime et rimer de la prose.”

“Cependant leur savoir ne s’étend nullement

Qu’à régratter un mot douteuse au jugement,

Prendre garde qu’unquine heurte une diphthongue,

Epier si des vers la rime est brève ou longue,

Ou bien si la voyelle à l’autre s’unissant

Ne rend point à l’oreille un vers trop languissant.

. . . . . . . .

C’est proser de la rime et rimer de la prose.”

This is perfectly true, and from the time of Malherbe dates that great and deplorable falling off of French poetry in its more poetic qualities, which was not made good till 1830. Nevertheless the critical and restraining tendency of Malherbe was not ill in place after the luxuriant importation and innovation of thePléiade; and if he had confined himself to preaching greater technical perfection, and especially greater simplicity and purity in vocabulary and versification, instead of superciliously striking his pen through the great works of his predecessors, he would have deserved wholly well. As it was, his reforms helped to elaborate the kind of verse necessary for the classical tragedy, and that is the most that can be said for him. His own poetical work is scanty in amount, and for the most part frigid and devoid of inspiration. The beautifulConsolation à Duperier, in which occurs the famous line—

Et, rose, elle a vécu ce que vivent les roses—

the odes to Marie de’ Medici and to Louis XIII., and a few other pieces comprise all that is really worth remembering of him. His prose work is much more abundant, not less remarkable for care as to style and expression, and of greater positive value. It consists of some translations of Livy and Seneca, and of a very large number of interesting and admirably written letters, many of which are addressed to Peiresc, the man of science of whom Gassendi has left a delightful Latin life. It contains also a most curious commentary on Desportes, in which Malherbe’s minute and carping style of verbal criticism is displayed on the great scale.

The chief authorities for the biography of Malherbe are theVie de Malherbeby his friend and pupil Racan, and the longHistoriettewhich Tallemant des Réaux has devoted to him. The standard edition is the admirable one of Ludovic Lalanne (5 vols., Paris, 1862-1869). Of the poems only, there is an excellent and handsome little issue in theNouvelle collection Jannet(Paris, 1874). Of modern works devoted to him,La Doctrine de Malherbe, by G. Brunot (1891), is not only the most important but a work altogether capital in regard to the study of French language and literature. Others are A. Gasté,La Jeunesse de Malherbe(1890); V. Bourrienne,Points obscurs dans la vie normande de Malherbe(1895); and the duc de Broglie’s “Malherbe” inLes Grands écrivains français. On his position in French and general critical history, G. Saintsbury’sHistory of Criticism, vol. ii., may be consulted.

(G. Sa.)

MALIBRAN, MARIE FÉLICITÉ(1808-1836), operatic singer, daughter of Manoel Garcia, was born in Paris on the 24th of March 1808. Her father was then a member of the company of the Théâtre des Italiens, and she accompanied him to Italy and London. She possessed a soprano voice of unusual beauty andphenomenal compass, which was carefully cultivated by her father. She was only seventeen when, in consequence of an indisposition of Madame Pasta, she was suddenly asked to take her place inThe Barber of Sevilleat Covent Garden. She was forthwith engaged for the remaining six weeks of the season, and then followed her father to New York, where she appeared inOthello,The Barber of Seville,Don Juan,Romeo and Juliet,Tancred. Her gifts as an actress were on a par with her magnificent voice, and her gaiety made her irresistible in light opera, although her great triumphs were obtained chiefly in tragic parts. She married a French banker of New York, named Malibran, who was much older than herself. The marriage was an unhappy one, and Mme Malibran returned alone to Europe in 1828, when she began the series of representations at the Théâtre des Italiens, which excited an enthusiasm in Paris only exceeded by the reception she received in the principal towns of Italy. She was formally divorced from Malibran in 1835, and married the Belgian violinist, Charles de Beriot; but she died of fever on the 23rd of September 1836.

SeeMemoirs of Mme Malibran by the comtesse de Merlin and other intimate friends, with a selection from her correspondence(2 vols., 1840); and M. Teneo,La Malibran, d’après des documents inédits, inSammelbände der internationalen Musik-Gesellschaft(Leipzig, 1906).

MALIC ACID(Hydroxyethylene Succinic Acid), C4H6O5, an organic acid found abundantly in the juices of many plants, particularly in mountain-ash berries, in unripe apples and in grapes. The acid potassium salt is also found in the leaves and stalks of rhubarb. Since the acid contains an asymmetric carbon atom, it can exist in three forms, a dextro-rotatory, a laevo-rotatory and an inactive form; the acid obtained in the various synthetical processes is the inactive form. It may be prepared by heating racemic acid (seeTartaric Acid) with fuming hydriodic acid; by heating fumaric acid (q.v.) with water at 150-200° C.; by the action of nitrous acid on inactive aspartic acid; and by the action of moist silver oxide on monobromsuccinic acid. It forms deliquescent crystals, which are readily soluble in alcohol and melt at 100° C. When heated for some time at 130° C. it yields fumaric acid (q.v.), and on rapid heating at 180° C. gives maleic anhydride and fumaric acid. It yields coumarins when warmed with sulphuric acid and phenols (H. v. Pechmann,Ber., 1884, 17, 929, 1649 et seq.). Potassium bichromate oxidizes it to malonic acid; nitric acid oxidizes it to oxalic acid; and hydriodic acid reduces it to succinic acid. The inactive variety may be split into the component active forms by means of its cinchonine salt (G. J. W. Bremer,Ber., 1880, 13, 352).

MALIGNANT(Lat.malignus, evil-disposed, frommaligenus), wicked, of a malicious or wilfully evil disposition. The word was early applied by the Protestants to the Romanists, with an allusion to the “congregation of evil doers” (VulgateEcclesiam malignantium) of Psalm xxvi. 5. In English history, during the Great Rebellion, the name was given to the Royalists by the Parliamentary party. In the Great Remonstrance of 1641 occur the words “the malignant partie, wherof the Archbishop (Laud) and the earl of Strafford being heads.” The name throughout the period had special reference to the religious differences between the parties. In medical science, the term “malignant” is applied to a particularly virulent or dangerous form which a disease may take, or to a tumour or growth of rapid growth, extension to the lymphatic glands, and recurrence after operation.

MALIK IBN ANAS(c.718-795), the founder of the Malikite school of canon law, was born at Medina aboutA.D.718: the precise date is not certain. He studied and passed his life there, and came to be regarded as the greatest local authority in theology and law. (For his legal system and its history seeMahommedan Law.) His life was one of extreme honour and dignity, but uneventful, being given to study, lecturing on law and acting as muftī and judge. Only two episodes stand out in his biography. When Mahommed ibn ‘Abdallāh, the ‘Alid, rose inA.D.762 at Medina against the ‘Abbāsids, Malik gave afatwā, or legal opinion, that the oath of allegiance to the ‘Abbāsids was invalid, as extorted by force. For this independence he was severely scourged by the ‘Abbāsid governor, who, apparently, did not dare to go beyond scourging with a man of his standing with the people. The second episode gave equal proof of independence. In 795 Hārūn al-Rashīd made the pilgrimage, came with two of his sons to Medina, and sat at the feet of Malik as he lectured in the mosque. The story, legendary or historical, adds that Malik had refused to go to the caliph, saying that it was for the student to come to his teacher. Late in life he seems to have turned to asceticism and contemplation. It is said that he retired from all active, public life and even neglected plain, public duties, replying to reproaches, “Not every one can speak in his own excuse” (Ibn Qutaiba,Ma ‘ārif, 250). He is also entered among the early ascetic Sūfīs (cf.Fihrist, 183). He died in Medina,A.D.795.

For a description of his principal book, theMuwaṭṭa’, see Goldziher’sMuhammedanische Studien, ii. 213 sqq. He wrote also a Koran commentary, now apparently lost, and a hortatory epistle to Hārūn al-Rashīd. See further, de Slane’s trans. of Ibn Khallikān, ii. 545 sqq.; von Kremer,Culturgeschichte, i. 477 sqq.; Brockelmann,Gesch. der arab. Litt., i. 175 sqq.; Macdonald,Muslim Theology, &c., 99 sqq. and index;Fihrist, 198 seq.; Nawawi, 530 sqq.

(D. B. Ma.)

MALINES(Flemish,Mechelen, called in the middle ages by the Latin name Mechlinia, whence the spelling Mechlin), an ancient and important city of Belgium, and the seat since 1559 of the only archbishopric in that country. Pop. (1904), 58,101. The name is supposed to be derived frommaris linea, and to indicate that originally the sea came up to it. It is now situated on the Dyle, and is in the province of Antwerp, lying about half-way between Antwerp and Brussels. The chief importance of Malines is derived from the fact that it is in a sense the religious capital of Belgium—the archbishop being the primate of the Catholic Church in that country. The archbishop’s palace is in a picturesque situation, and dates from the creation of the dignity. The principal building in the city is the exceedingly fine cathedral dedicated to St Rombaut. This cathedral was begun in the 12th and finished early in the 14th century, and although modified in the 15th after a fire, it remains one of the most remarkable specimens of Gothic architecture in Europe. The massive tower of over 300 ft., which is described as unfinished because the original intention was to carry it to 500 ft., is its most striking external feature. The people of Malines gained in the old distich—“gaudet Mechlinia stultis”—the reputation of being “fools,” because one of the citizens on seeing the moon through the dormer windows of St Rombaut called out that the place was on fire, and his fellow-citizens, following his example, endeavoured to put out the conflagration until they realized the truth. The cathedral contains a fine altar-piece by Van Dyck, and the pulpit is in carved oak of the 17th century. Another old palace is that of Margaret of Austria, regent for Charles V., which has been carefully preserved and is now used as a court of justice. In the church of Notre Dame (16th century) is Rubens’ masterpiece “the miraculous draught of fishes,” and in that of St John is a fine triptych by the same master. Malines, although no longer famous for its lace, carries on a large trade in linen, needles, furniture and oil, while as a junction for the line from Ghent to Louvain and Liège, as well as for that from Antwerp to Brussels and the south, its station is one of the busiest in Belgium, and this fact has contributed to the general prosperity of the city.

The lordship of Malines was conferred as a separate fief by Pippin the Short on his kinsman Count Adon in 754. In the 9th century Charles the Bald bestowed the fief on the bishop of Liége, and after being shared between Brabant and Flanders it passed into the hands of Philip the Bold, founder of the house of Burgundy, in 1384. During the religious troubles of the 16th century Malines suffered greatly, and in 1572 it was sacked by Alva’s troops during three days. In the wars of the 17th and 18th centuries it was besieged many times and captured by the French, Dutch and English on several occasions. The French finally removed the fortifications in 1804, since which year it has been an open town.

MALLANWAN,a town in Hardoi district, the United Provinces, India. Pop. (1901), 11,158. Under native rule the town possessed considerable political importance, and upon the British annexation of Oudh it was selected as the headquarters of the district, but was abandoned in favour of Hardoi after the Mutiny. Saltpetre and brass utensils are manufactured.

MALLARMÉ, FRANÇOIS RENÉ AUGUSTE(1755-1835), French Revolutionist, the son of a lawyer, was born at Nancy on the 25th of February 1755. He was brought up in his father’s profession, and was appointedprocureur-syndicof the district of Pont-à-Mousson. During the Revolution he was elected by the department of Meurthe deputy to the Legislative Assembly and the Convention, where he attached himself to the Mountain and voted for the death of Louis XVI. He was elected president of the Convention on the 30th of May 1793, and by his weakness during the crisis of the following day contributed much to the success of the insurrection against the Girondists. He took an active part in thelevée-en-masse, and in November 1793 was given the task of establishing the revolutionary government in the departments of Meuse and Moselle, where he gained an unenviable notoriety by ordering the execution of the sentence of death decreed by the revolutionary tribunal on some young girls at Verdun who had offered flowers to the Prussians when they entered the town. After the fall of Robespierre he joined the group of “Thermidorians” and was sent on mission to the south of France, where he closed the Jacobin club at Toulouse and set free a number of imprisoned “suspects.” On the 1st of June 1795 he was denounced and arrested, but was soon set at liberty. In 1796 he was appointed by the Directory commissioner for the organization of the departments of Dyle and Mont-Tonnerre. Under the empire he was receiver of thedroits réunisat Nancy, and lost his money in 1814 in raising a levy of volunteers. Appointed sub-prefect of Avesnes during the Hundred Days, he was imprisoned by the Prussians in revenge for the death of the maidens of Verdun, and lived in exile during the Restoration. He returned to France after the revolution of 1830, and died at Richemont (Seine-Inférieure) on the 25th of July 1835.

MALLARMÉ, STÉPHANE(1842-1898), French poet and theorist, was born at Paris, on the 18th of March 1842. His life was simple and without event. His small income as professor of English in a French college was sufficient for his needs, and, with his wife and daughter, he divided the year between a fourth-floor flat in Paris and a cottage on the banks of the Seine. His Tuesday evening receptions, which did so much to form the thought of the more interesting of the younger French men of letters, were almost as important a part of his career as the few carefully elaborated books which he produced at long intervals.L’Après-midi d’un faune(1876) and other fragments of his verse and prose had been known to a few people long before the publication of thePoésies complètesof 1887, in a facsimile of his clear and elegant handwriting, and of the Pages of 1891 and theVers et proseof 1893. His remarkable translation of poems of Poe appeared in 1888, “The Raven” having been published as early as 1875, with illustrations by Manet.Divagations, his own final edition of his prose, was published in 1897, and a more or less complete edition of thePoésies, posthumously, in 1899. He died at Valvins, Fontainebleau, on the 9th of September 1898. All his life Mallarmé was in search of a new aesthetics, and his discoveries by the way were often admirable. But he was too critical ever to create freely, and too limited ever to create abundantly. His great achievement remains unfinished, and all that he left towards it is not of equal value. There are a few poems and a few pieces of imaginative prose which have the haunting quality of Gustave Moreau’s pictures, with the same jewelled magnificence, mysterious and yet definite. His later work became more and more obscure, as he seemed to himself to have abolished limit after limit which holds back speech from the expression of the absolute. Finally, he abandoned punctuation in verse, and invented a new punctuation, along with a new construction, for prose. Patience in the study of so difficult an author has its reward. No one in our time has vindicated with more pride the self-sufficiency of the artist in his struggle with the material world. To those who knew him only by his writings his conversation was startling in its clearness; it was always, like all his work, at the service of a few dignified and misunderstood ideas.

See also Paul Verlaine,Les Poètes maudits(1884); J. Lemaître,Les Contemporains(5th series, 1891); Albert Moekel,Stéphane Mallarmé, un héros(1899); E. W. Gosse,French Profiles(1905) and A. Symons,The Symbolist Movement in Literature(1900). A complete bibliography is given in thePoètes d’aujourd’hui(1880-1900, 11th ed., 1905) of MM. A. van Bever and P. Léautaud.

(A. Sy.)

MALLECO,a province of southern Chile, once a part of the Indian territory of Araucania (q.v.), lying between the provinces of Bio-Bio on the N. and E., Cautin on the S. and Arauco on the W. Area, 2973 sq. m. Pop. (1895), 98,032. It belongs to the rainy, forested region of southern Chile, and is thinly populated, a considerable part of its population being Araucanian Indians, who occupy districts in the Andean foothills. Gold placer mining has attracted some attention, but the output is small. The principal industries are cattle and wheat raising and timber-cutting. The capital is Angol (pop., 7056 in 1895; estimated at 7638 in 1902), a small town in the northern part of the province, on the Malleco river, and a station on the Traiguen branch of the state railway. Traiguen (pop., 5732 in 1895; estimated at 7099 in 1902) in the southern part of the province is the second town in importance, and Victoria (pop., 6989 in 1895; estimated at 10,002 in 1902), about 20 m. E. of the last-named town, was for a time the terminal station of the main line of the railway.

MALLEMUCK,from the German rendering of the DutchMallemugge(which originally meant small flies or midges that madly whirl round a light), a name given by the early Dutch Arctic voyagers to the Fulmar (q.v.), of which the English form is nowadays most commonly applied by our sailors to the smaller albatrosses, of about the size of a goose, met with in the Southern Ocean—corrupted into “molly mawk,” or “mollymauk.” A number of species have been identified.Diomedea irrorataof West Peru is sooty-brown with white mottlings and a white head;D. migripesof the North Pacific is similar in colour but with white only near the eye and at the base of the tail and bill;D. immutabilisof Japan is darker but has a white head.D. melanophrysof the southern oceans has been found in summer both in California, in England, and as far north as the Faeroes. According to J. Gould the latter is the commonest species of albatross inhabiting the Southern Ocean, and its gregarious habits and familiar disposition make it well known to every voyager to or from Australia, for it is equally common in the Atlantic as well as the Pacific. The back, wings and tail are of a blackish-grey, but all the rest of the plumage is white, except a dusky superciliary streak, whence its name of black-browed albatross, as also its scientific epithet, are taken. The bill of the adult is of an ochreous-yellow, while that of the young is dark. This species breeds on the Falkland Islands.D. bulleriof the New Zealand seas is greyish-brown, with white underparts and rump and ashy head.Diomedea(orThalassogeron)culminataandchlororhynchaof the southern seas,D.(orT.)cautaof Tasmania,salviniof New Zealand andlayardiof the Cape resembleD. bulleri, but have a strip of naked skin between the plates of the maxilla towards its base. H. N. Moseley (Notes of a Naturalist, 130) describesD. culminataas making a cylindrical nest of grass, sedge and clay, with a shallow basin atop and an overhanging rim—the whole being about 14 in. in diameter and 10 in height. The bird lays a single white egg, which is held in a sort of pouch, formed by the skin of the abdomen, while she is incubating. The feet ofD. bulleriare red, ofD. chlororhynchaflesh-coloured, of the others yellow.

(A. N.)

MALLESON, GEORGE BRUCE(1825-1898), Indian officer and author, was born at Wimbledon, on the 8th of May 1825. Educated at Winchester, he obtained a cadetship in the Bengal infantry in 1842, and served through the second Burmese War. His subsequent appointments were in the civil line, the last being that of guardian to the young maharaja of Mysore. He retiredwith the rank of colonel in 1877, having been created C.S.I. in 1872. He died at Kensington, on the 1st of March 1898. He was a voluminous writer, his first work to attract attention being the famous “Red Pamphlet,” published at Calcutta in 1857, when the Mutiny was at its height. He continued, and considerably rewrote theHistory of the Indian Mutiny(6 vols., 1878-1880), which was begun but left unfinished by Sir John Kaye. Among his other books the most valuable areHistory of the French in India(2nd ed., 1893) andThe Decisive Battles of India(3rd ed., 1888).

MALLET(orMalloch),DAVID(?1705-1765), Scottish poet and dramatist, the son of a Perthshire farmer, was born in that county, probably in 1705. In 1717 he went to the high school at Edinburgh, and some three years later to the university, where he made the friendship of James Thomson, author ofThe Seasons. As early as 1720 he began to publish short poems in the manner of the period, a number of which appeared during the next few years in collections such as theEdinburgh Miscellanyand Allan Ramsay’sTea Table Miscellany, in which his ballad “William and Margaret” was published in 1724. For some years from 1723 he was private tutor to the duke of Montrose’s sons, with whom he travelled on the Continent in 1727. His real name was Malloch; but this he changed to Mallet in 1724. In 1735 he took the M.A. degree at Oxford. He had already made the friendship of Pope, whose vanity he flattered in a poem onVerbal Criticism, in 1733; and through Pope he became acquainted with Bolingbroke and other Tory politicians, especially those attached to the party of the prince of Wales, who in 1742 appointed Mallet to be his paid secretary. After Pope’s death, in 1744, Mallet, at the instigation of Bolingbroke and forgetful of past favours and friendship, vilified the poet’s memory, thereby incurring the resentment of Pope’s friends. For his services as a party pamphleteer, in which character he published an attack on Admiral Byng, Mallet received from Lord Bute a lucrative sinecure in 1760. He died on the 21st of April 1765. Mallet was a small man, in his younger days something of a dandy and inordinately vain. He was twice married; by his first wife he had a daughter, Dorothy, who married Pietro Paolo Celesia, a Genoese gentleman, and was the author of several poems and plays, notablyAlmida, produced by Garrick at Drury Lane in 1771.

Mallet’s own works included several plays, some of which were produced by Garrick, who was Mallet’s personal friend.Eurydice, a tragedy, with prologue and epilogue by Aaron Hill, was produced at Drury Lane in 1731;Mustapha, also a tragedy, had considerable success at the same theatre in 1739; in 1740, in collaboration with Thomson, he produced the masqueAlfred, of which he published a new version in 1751, after Thomson’s death, claiming it to be almost entirely his own work. This masque is notable as containing the well-known patriotic song, “Rule Britannia,” the authorship of which has been attributed to Mallet, although he allowed it to appear without protest in his lifetime with Thomson’s name attached. His other writings includePoems on Several Occasions(1743);Amyntor and Theodora, or the Hermit(1747); another volume ofPoems(1762).

In 1759 a collected edition of Mallet’sWorkswas published in three volumes; and in 1857 hisBallads and Songswere edited by F. Dinsdale with notes, and a biographical memoir of the author.

MALLET, PAUL HENRI(1730-1807), Swiss writer, was born on the 20th of August 1730, in Geneva. After having been educated there, he became tutor in the family of the count of Calenberg in Saxony. In 1752 he was appointed professor ofbelles lettresto the academy at Copenhagen. He was naturally attracted to the study of the ancient literature and history of his adopted country, and in 1755 he published the first fruits of his researches, under the titleIntroduction à l’histoire du Danemarck où l’on traite de la religion, des mœurs, des lois, et des usages des anciens Danois. A second part, more particularly relating to the ancient literature of the country,Monuments de la mythologie et de la poesie des Celtes, et particulièrement des anciens Scandinaves, was issued in 1756, and was also translated into Danish. A translation into English, with notes and preface, by Bishop Percy, was issued in 1770 under the title ofNorthern Antiquities(republished with additions in 1847). The book had a wide circulation, and attracted much attention on account of its being the first (though a very defective) translation into French of theEdda. The king of Denmark showed his appreciation by choosing Mallet to be preceptor of the crown prince. In 1760 he returned to Geneva, and became professor of history in his native city. While there he was requested by the czarina to undertake the education of the heir-apparent of Russia (afterwards the czar Paul I.), but declined the honour. An invitation more congenial to his tastes led to his accompanying Lord Mountstuart in his travels through Italy and thence to England, where he was presented at court and commissioned to write the history of the house of Brunswick. He had previously received a similar commission from the landgrave of Hesse-Cassel for the preparation of a history of the house of Hesse, and both works were completed in 1785. The quietude of a literary life was rudely broken by the shock of the Revolution, to which he was openly hostile. His leanings to the unpopular side were so obnoxious to his fellow-citizens that he was obliged to quit his native country in 1792, and remained in exile till 1801. He died at Geneva, on the 8th of February 1807.

A memoir of his life and writings, by Sismondi, was published at Geneva in 1807. Besides theIntroduction to the History of Denmark, his principal works are:Histoire du Danemarck(3 vols., Copenhagen, 1758-1777);Histoire de la maison de Hesse(4 vols., 1767-1785);Histoire de la maison de Brunswick(4 vols., 1767-1785);Histoire de la maison et des états du Mecklenbourg(1796);Histoire des Suisses ou Helvétiens(4 vols., Geneva, 1803) (mainly an abridgment of J. von Müller’s great history);Histoire de la ligue hanséatique(1805).

MALLET, ROBERT(1810-1881), Irish engineer, physicist and geologist, was born in Dublin, on the 3rd of June 1810. He was educated at Trinity College in that city, and graduated B.A. in 1830. Trained as an engineer, he was elected M.Inst.C.E. in 1842; he built in 1848-1849 the Fastnet Rock lighthouse, south-west of Cape Clear, and was engaged in other important works. Devoting much attention to pure science, he became especially distinguished for his researches on earthquakes, and from 1852-1858 he was engaged (with his son John William Mallet) in the preparation of his great work,The Earthquake Catalogue of the British Association(1858). In 1862 he published two volumes, dealing with theGreat Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857andThe First Principles of Observational Seismology. He then brought forward evidence to show that the depth below the earth’s surface, whence came the impulse of the Neapolitan earthquake, was about 8 or 9 geographical miles. One of his most important essays was that communicated to the Royal Society (Phil. Trans.clxiii. 147; 1874), entitledVolcanic Energy: an Attempt to develop its True Origin and Cosmical Relations. He sought to show that volcanic heat may be attributed to the effects of crushing, contortion and other disturbances in the crust of the earth; the disturbances leading to the formation of lines of fracture, more or less vertical, down which water would find its way, and if the temperature generated be sufficient volcanic eruptions of steam or lava would follow. He was elected F.R.S. in 1854, and he was awarded the Wollaston medal by the Geological Society of London in 1877. He died at Clapham, London, on the 5th of November 1881.

MALLET DU PAN, JACQUES(1749-1800), French journalist, of an old Huguenot family, was born near Geneva in 1749, the son of a Protestant minister. He was educated at Geneva, and through the influence of Voltaire obtained a professorship at Cassel. He soon, however, resigned this post, and going to London joined H.S.N. Linguet in the production of hisAnnales politiques(1778-1780). During Linguet’s imprisonment in the Bastille Mallet du Pan continued theAnnalesby himself (1781-1783); but Linguet resented this on his release, and Mallet du Pan changed the title of his own publication toMémoires historiques(1783). From 1783 he incorporated this work with theMercure de Francein Paris, the political direction of which had been placed in his hands. On the outbreak of the French Revolution he sided with the Royalists, and was sent on a mission (1791-1792) by Louis XVI. to Frankfort to try and secure thesympathy and intervention of the German princes. From Germany he travelled to Switzerland and from Switzerland to Brussels in the Royalist interest. He published a number of anti-revolutionary pamphlets, and a violent attack on Bonaparte and the Directory resulted in his being exiled in 1797 to Berne. In 1798 he came to London, where he founded theMercure britannique. He died at Richmond, Surrey, on the 10th of May 1800, his widow being pensioned by the English government. Mallet du Pan has a place in history as a pioneer of modern political journalism. His sonJohn Lewis Mallet(1775-1861) spent a useful life in the English civil service, becoming secretary of the Board of Audit; and J. L. Mallet’s second son,Sir Louis Mallet(1823-1890) also entered the civil service in the Board of Trade and rose to be a distinguished economist and a member of the Council of India.

Mallet du Pan’sMémoires et correspondancewas edited by A. Sayous (Paris, 1851). SeeMallet du Pan and the French Revolution(1902), by Bernard Mallet, son of Sir Louis Mallet, author also of a biography of his father (1900).

MALLING, EASTandWEST, two populous villages in the Medway parliamentary division of Kent, England, respectively 5 and 6 m. W. by N. of Maidstone, with a station on the South-Eastern and Chatham railway. Pop. (1901), East Malling, 2391; West Malling, 2312. They are situated in a rich agricultural district on the western slope of the valley of the Medway, and East Malling has large paper mills. At West Malling are remains of Malling Abbey, a Benedictine nunnery founded in 1090 by Gundulf, bishop of Rochester. The remains, which are partly incorporated in a modern building, include the Norman west front of the church, the Early English cloisters, the chapter-house, gate-house (the chapel of which is restored to use), and other portions. About Addington near West Malling are considerable prehistoric remains, including mounds, single stones, stone circles and pits in the chalk hills; while at Leybourne are the gateway and other fragments of the castle held by the Leybourne family from the 12th to the 14th century.

MALLOCK, WILLIAM HURRELL(1849- ), English author, was born at Cockington Court, Devonshire. He was educated privately, and at Balliol College, Oxford. He won the Newdigate prize in 1872, and took a second class in the final classical schools in 1874. He attracted considerable attention by his satirical storyThe New Republic(2 vols., 1877), in which he introduced characters easily recognized as prominent living men, Mark Pattison, Matthew Arnold, W. K. Clifford and others. His keen logic and gift for acute exposition and criticism were displayed in later years both in fiction and in controversial works. In a series of books dealing with religious questions he insisted on dogma as the basis of religion and on the impossibility of founding religion on purely scientific data. InIs Life Worth Living?(1879) andThe New Paul and Virginia(1878) he attacked Positivist theories, and in a volume on the intellectual position of the Church of England,Doctrine and Doctrinal Disruption(1900), he advocated the necessity of a strictly defined creed. Later volumes on similar topics wereReligion as a Credible Doctrine(1903) andThe Reconstruction of Belief(1905). He published several brilliant works on economics, directed against Radical and Socialist theories:Social Equality(1882),Property and Progress(1884),Labour and the Popular Welfare(1893),Classes and Masses(1896) andAristocracy and Evolution(1898); and among his anti-socialist works should be classed his novel,The Old Order Changes(1886). His other novels includeA Romance of the Nineteenth Century(1881),A Human Document(1892),The Heart of Life(1895) andThe Veil of the Temple(1904). He published a volume ofPoemsin 1880, and in 1900Lucretius on Life and Deathin verse.

MALLOW,a market town and watering place of Co. Cork, Ireland, on the Blackwater, 144½ m. S.W. from Dublin, and 21 N. from Cork by the Great Southern and Western railway. Pop. (1901), 4542. It is a junction for lines westward to Killarney and Co. Kerry, and eastward to Lismore and Co. Waterford. The town owes its prosperity to its beautiful situation in a fine valley surrounded by mountains, and possesses a tepid mineral spring, considered efficacious in cases of general debility and for scorbutic and consumptive complaints. A spa-house with pump-room and baths was erected in 1828. The parish church dates from 1818, but there are remains of an earlier building adjoining it. There are manufactures of mineral water and condensed milk, corn-mills and tanneries. Mallow received a charter of incorporation from James I. Its name was originally Magh Allo, that is, Plain of the Allo (the old name used by Spenser for this part of the river), and the ford was defended by a castle, built by the Desmonds, the ruins of which remain. A bridge connects the town with the suburb of Ballydaheen. Mallow is a centre for the fine salmon fishing on the Blackwater. The climate is very mild. The town was a parliamentary borough till 1885. It is governed by an urban district council.

MALLOW,botanicallyMalva, the typical genus of the natural order Malvaceae, embracing about sixteen species of annual and perennial herbaceous plants, widely distributed throughout the northern hemisphere. The mallows possess the reniform one-celled anthers which specially characterize theMalvaceae(q.v.). The petals also are united by their base to the tube formed by the coalesced filaments of the stamens. The special characters which separate the genusMalvafrom others most nearly allied to it are the involucre, consisting of a row of three separate bracts attached to the lower part of the true calyx, and the numerous single-seeded carpels disposed in a circle around a central axis, from which they become detached when ripe. The flowers aremostly white or pinkish, never yellow, the leaves radiate-veined, and more or less lobed or cut. Three species are natives of Britain. The musk mallow (Malva moschata) is a perennial herb with five-partite, deeply-cut leaves, and large rose-coloured flowers clustered together at the ends of the branched stems, and is found growing along hedges and borders of fields, blossoming in July and August. It owes its name to a slight musky odour diffused by the plant in warm dry weather when it is kept in a confined situation. The round-leaved dwarf mallow (Malva rotundifolia) is a creeping perennial, growing in waste sandy places, with roundish serrate leaves and small pinkish-white flowers produced in the axils of the leaves from June to September. It is common throughout Europe and the north of Africa, extending to western and northern Asia. The common mallow (Malva sylvestris), themauveof the French, is an erect biennial or perennial plant with long-stalked roundish-angular serrate leaves, and conspicuous axillary reddish-purple flowers, blossoming from May to September. Like most plants of the order it abounds in mucilage, and hence forms a favourite domestic remedy for colds and sore throats. The aniline dye called mauve derives its name from its resemblance to the colour of this plant.

1. Flower in section.

2. Stamens showing the union of the filaments into a common tube (monadelphous).

3. Fruit with persistent calyx. 1, 2 and 5 enlarged.

4. Same seen from the back showing the 3-leaved epicalyx.

5. Seed.

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