Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 37.djvu/164

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Mayer
150
Mayerne


management as long as he lived, besides providing for its continuance afterwards. The library stands in public grounds (six acres), which he also dedicated to the use of the people. He was much interested in floriculture, and was accustomed to distribute flowers during the summer months to readers who came to change their books. He founded two scholarships at the Newcastle-under-Lyme high school, and presented drawings and pictures.

He retired from business in 1873, and died unmarried at Pennant House, Bebington, Cheshire, on 19 Jan. 1886, aged 82. His private library, prints and manuscripts were dispersed by auction in 1867.

A marble statue of Mayer, by G. Fontana, was placed by the Liverpool corporation in St. George's Hall in September 1869. His portrait was presented by subscribers to the Bebington Free Library in 1872. Another portrait as a young man, painted by Daniels, is in the Mayer Museum, Liverpool. An engraved portrait is prefixed to 'Inventorium Sepulchrale.'

[Liverpool newspapers, 20 Jan. 1886; Men of the Time, 6th edit.; C. Roach Smith's Retrospections, i. 67; Prefaces to Meteyard's Life of Wedgwood and Group of Englishmen; C. T. Gatty's Catalogues of the Mayer Collection, 1877-82; Gatty's Mayer Collection considered as an Educational Possession, 1877; A Free Village Library, Bebington, 1878; communications from Mr. Rupert Simms, Newcaslle-under-Lyme.]

C. W. S.

MAYER, SAMUEL RALPH TOWNSHEND (1840–1880), miscellaneous writer, second son of Samuel Mayer, solicitor, Gloucester, was born at Gloucester in August 1841, and as he grew up bore a remarkable resemblance to the poet Keats. He was a ready and voluminous writer, and for several years a frequent contributor to the Gloucester newspapers, and to many serial publications. Removing to London, he founded and was secretary of the Free and Open Church Association from 1866 till February 1872. He edited the ‘Churchman's Shilling Magazine,’ the ‘Illustrated Review’ from January to June 1871, the ‘Free and Open Church Advocate,’ 3 vols. 1872–7, and was proprietor and editor of the ‘St. James's Magazine’ in 1875. In conjunction with J. B. Payne he established the Junior Conservative Club in 1870, and was the editor of the first report of the Metropolitan Conservative Working Men's Association, 1868. In ‘The Origin and Growth of Sunday Schools in England,’ 1878, and ‘Who was the Founder of Sunday Schools? Being an Inquiry,’ 1880, he attempted to prove that whatever credit belonged to Robert Raikes as the founder of those institutions, equally belonged to the Rev. Thomas Stock. Mayer died at Richmond, Surrey, on 28 May 1880. His wife Gertrude, daughter of John Watson Dalby, whom he married in 1868, was a great favourite with Leigh Hunt and B. W. Procter (Barry Cornwall). She wrote ‘Sir Hubert's Marriage,’ 3 vols. 1876; ‘The Fatal Inheritance and other Stories,’ 1878; ‘Belmore,’ 1880; and with J. C. Paget, ‘Afghanistan,’ 1878.

Besides the works already mentioned Mayer wrote: 1. ‘Amy Fairfax,’ a novelette, 1859. 2. ‘Fractional Supplement to Hotson's Ready Reckoner,’ 1861.

[Academy, 5 June 1880, p. 420; Gloucester Chron. 5 June 1880, p. 4; Gloucester Journal, 5 June 1880, p. 5; Cowden Clarke's Recollections.]

G. C. B.

MAYERNE, Sir THEODORE TURQUET DE, M.D. (1573–1655), physician, son of Louis Turquet de Mayerne, a French protestant historian, of Piedmontese origin, and his wife Louise le Maçon, daughter of Antoine le Maçon, treasurer-at-war in the reigns of Francis I and Henry II of France, was born at Mayerne, near Geneva, 28 Sept. 1573, and had Theodore Beza for his godfather. After school education at Geneva he went to the university of Heidelberg for four years, and thence to Montpellier, where he graduated M.B. in 1596 and M.D. 20 Feb. 1597. He then went to Paris, where, through the influence of Dr. Ribbitz de la Rivière, he became a royal district physician in 1600. He began to give lectures on medicine to such students as would come, chiefly surgeons and apothecaries, and openly used and defended the use of chemical remedies, abhorred by the Galenists. Irritated by an anonymous attack, he published in 1603 'Apologia in Sua videre est inviolatis Hippocratis et Galeni legibus remedia chymice preparata, tuto usurpari posse.' This treatise of 120 pages is dedicated to Achilles Harlæus, president of the parliament of Paris, and after a statement of the jealousy with which Mayerne, as a doctor of Montpellier, had been received by the physicians of Paris, and an account of his own education, he goes on to show that the use of chemical remedies was not only in accord with the principles but even with the practice of Hippocrates and Galen. The pamphlet, while expressing just indignation, is moderate in tone and dignified in style. A reply appeared, at once: 'Ad famosam Turqueti Apologiam responsio,' which is attributed to the elder Riolanus by Guy Patin, and which is filled with abuse, beginning with