Page:A Compendium of Irish Biography.djvu/351

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in foreign languages was strikingly exhi- bited in a series of articles on " Moore's Plagiarisms," wherein the Latin and Greek "originals" of most of the Melodies were given. In the Greek versions he was assisted by Francis Stack Murphy, Mahony also wrote " The Groves of Blar- ney " in Italian, as " sung by a Garibaldian bivouac amid the woods over Lake Como, 25th May 1859," besides versions in French, Greek, and Latin. The writer of the pre- face to his works says he " belonged to a race of mortals now quite gone out of Irish existence, like the elk and wolf-dog." The " Prout Papers " as a whole brim over with humour, dash, and feeling. He spent some years in travelling through Hungary, Asia Minor, Greece, and Egypt ; and in January 1846 accepted, under Dickens, the position of Eoman corre- spondent of the Daily News. His articles were afterwards republished as Facts and Figures from Italy, hy Don Jeremy Savonarola, Benedictine Monk. He was Paris correspondent of the Globe the last eight years of his life, and until within a few weeks of his death, which took place at his residence in the Kue des Moulins, Paris, i8th May 1866. A re- viewer thus speaks of his Reliques : " Do you wish for epigrams? There is a fairy shower of them. Have you a taste for ballads, varying from the lively to the tender, from the note of the trumpet to the note of the lute ? Have you an ear for translations which give the semblance of another language's face ? Are you given to satire ? . . . Do you delight in the classic allusion, the quaint though yet profound learning of other days 1 AH these and a great deal more are to be found in Father Front's chest." '* Father Mahony strenuously opposed O'Connell and the Eepeal movement. Hardly any- thing more bitter in its way was ever written against the " Liberator" than "The Lay of Lazarus," which appeared in the Times in 1845. He was also opposed to the disestablishment of the Church in Ireland. His person is thus described : "He was a remarkable figure in Lon- don. A short, spare man, stooping as he went, with the right arm clasped in the left hand behind him ; a sharp face, with piercing grey eyes that looked vacantly upwards, a mocking lip, a close-shaven face, and an ecclesiastical garb of slovenly appearance — such was the old Fraserian, who would laugh outright at times, quite unconscious of by-standers. Mahony was a combination of Voltaire and Rabelais ; . . . but there was never the slightest doubt as to his orthodoxy." '^o He never

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allowed a day to pass without reading his Office from the well-worn volume which he always carried about with him. " He may have been, canouically speak- ing, an indifferent priest, an inefficient memberof an uncongenial profession, which I have always understood he entered from family pique and impetuosity ; . . but he was in heart and soul a thoroughly be- lieving and, as everyone knew, a most sincerely tolerant Christian. He was on friendly and in some instances aff'ectionate terms with many ministers of various Christian denominations ; had the highest esteem for several Jewish rabbis, and their noble old faith ; and even his academic pride and high cultivation did not hinder him from sympathizing with field and street preachers, whose mission, however rude their speech and manner might be, he always declared was generous and good." 230 16 40 233

Maildiilpli, a learned Irish monk, who was the author of several theological works named in Harris's Ware, flourished in the 7th century. He removed to Britain, and fouqded a monastery and school at Ingle- borne, where he instructed many after- wards eminent for learning, of whom the great St. Aldhelm was the chief. " From this Maildulph, Ingleborne, situated in "Wiltshire, was anciently called Maildul- fesburg (by Bede, Maildulfi Urbs), but now commonly Malmesbury, where there was afterwards an abbey enriched by the presents of King Athelstane and other benefactors." ^39

Makemie, Francis, a Presbyterian divine, who was distinguished in the early settlement of Virginia. He was born in Donegal, and went to America in 1682. He preached principally in Virginia and the Carolinas, and was for a time engaged in the West India trade. For preaching without licence in New York in 1707, he was arrested by Governor Cornbury, and imprisoned for two months. Cornbury, in justifying his action, reported that Ma- kemie was " a preacher, a doctor of physic, a merchant, an attorney, a counsellor-at- law, and, which is worst of all, a disturber of governments." He printed a Narrative of this affair, and many tracts, some of which have been since republished. His Ansxoer to George Keith's Libel (Boston 1692) bears the imprimatur of Increase Mather. He died in Boston in the sum- mer of 1708. 37-

Malachy I. (Maelseachlainn), Monarch of Ireland, reigned, according to the Four Masters, from 845 to 860. Before his accession he compassed the assassination of Turgesius, a Dane, and the expulsion 327