Page:EB1911 - Volume 17.djvu/955

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
936
MAYNARD—MAYO
  

Mandalay-Lashio railway 422 m. from Rangoon. Pop. (1901), 6223. It consists of an undulating plateau, surrounded by hills, which are covered with thin oak forest and bracken. Though not entirely free from malaria, it has been chosen for the summer residence of the lieutenant-governor; and it is also the permanent headquarters of the lieutenant-general commanding the Burma division, and of other officials.

MAYNARD, FRANÇOIS DE (1582–1646), French poet, was born at Toulouse in 1582. His father was conseiller in the parlement of the town, and François was also trained for the law, becoming eventually president of Aurillac. He became secretary to Margaret of Valois, wife of Henry IV., for whom his early poems are written. He was a disciple of Malherbe, who said that in the workmanship of his lines he excelled Racan, but lacked his rival’s energy. In 1634 he accompanied the Cardinal de Noailles to Rome and spent about two years in Italy. On his return to France he made many unsuccessful efforts to obtain the favour of Richelieu, but was obliged to retire to Toulouse. He never ceased to lament his exile from Paris and his inability to be present at the meetings of the Academy, of which he was one of the earliest members. The best of his poems is in imitation of Horace, “Alcippe, reviens dans nos bois.” He died at Toulouse on the 23rd of December 1646.

His works consist of odes, epigrams, songs and letters, and were published in 1646 by Marin le Roy de Gomberville.

MAYNE, JASPER (1604–1672), English author, was baptized at Hatherleigh, Devonshire, on the 23rd of November 1604. He was educated at Westminster School and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he had a distinguished career. He was presented to two college livings in Oxfordshire, and was made D.D. in 1646. During the Commonwealth he was dispossessed, and became chaplain to the duke of Devonshire. At the Restoration he was made canon of Christ Church, archdeacon of Chichester and chaplain in ordinary to the king. He wrote a farcical domestic comedy, The City Match (1639), which is reprinted in vol. xiii. of Hazlitt’s edition of Dodsley’s Old Plays, and a fantastic tragi-comedy entitled The Amorous War (printed 1648). After receiving ecclesiastical preferment he gave up poetry as unbefitting his profession. His other works comprise some occasional gems, a translation of Lucian’s Dialogues (printed 1664) and a number of sermons. He died on the 6th of December 1672 at Oxford.

MAYNOOTH, a small town of county Kildare, Ireland, on the Midland Great Western railway and the Royal Canal, 15 m. W. by N. of Dublin. Pop. (1901), 948. The Royal Catholic College of Maynooth, founded by an Act of the Irish parliament in 1795, is the chief seminary for the education of the Roman Catholic clergy of Ireland. The building is a fine Gothic structure by A. W. Pugin, erected by a parliamentary grant obtained in 1846. The chapel, with fine oak choir-stalls, mosaic pavements, marble altars and stained glass, and with adjoining cloisters, was dedicated in 1890. The average number of students is about 500—the number specified under the act of 1845—and the full course of instruction is eight years. Near the college stand the ruins of Maynooth Castle, probably built in 1176, but subsequently extended, and formerly the residence of the Fitzgerald family. It was besieged in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., and during the Cromwellian Wars, when it was demolished. The beautiful mansion of Carton is about a mile from the town.

MAYO, RICHARD SOUTHWELL BOURKE, 6th Earl of (1822–1872), British statesman, son of Robert Bourke, the 5th earl (1797–1867), was born in Dublin on the 21st of February, 1822, and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. After travelling in Russia he entered parliament, and sat successively for Kildare, Coleraine and Cockermouth. He was chief secretary for Ireland in three administrations, in 1852, 1858 and 1866, and was appointed viceroy of India in January 1869. He consolidated the frontiers of India and met Shere Ali, amir of Afghanistan, in durbar at Umballa in March 1869. His reorganization of the finances of the country put India on a paying basis; and he did much to promote irrigation, railways, forests and other useful public works. Visiting the convict settlement at Port Blair in the Andaman Islands, for the purpose of inspection, the viceroy was assassinated by a convict on the 8th of February 1872. His successor was his son, Dermot Robert Wyndham Bourke (b. 1851) who became 7th earl of Mayo.

See Sir W. W. Hunter, Life of the Earl of Mayo, (1876), and The Earl of Mayo in the Rulers of India Series (1891).

MAYO, a western county of Ireland, in the province of Connaught, bounded N. and W. by the Atlantic Ocean, N.E. by Sligo, E. by Roscommon, S.E. and S. by Galway. The area is 1,380,390 acres, or about 2157 sq. m., the county being the largest in Ireland after Cork and Galway. About two-thirds of the boundary of Mayo is formed by sea, and the coast is very much indented, and abounds in picturesque scenery. The principal inlets are Killary Harbour between Mayo and Galway; Clew Bay, in which are the harbours of Westport and Newport; Blacksod Bay and Broad Haven, which form the peninsula of the Mullet; and Killala Bay between Mayo and Sligo. The islands are very numerous, the principal being Inishturk, near Killary Harbour; Clare Island, at the mouth of Clew Bay, where there are many islets, all formed of drift; and Achill, the largest island off Ireland. The coast scenery is not surpassed by that of Donegal northward and Connemara southward, and there are several small coast-towns, among which may be named Killala on the north coast, Belmullet on the isthmus between Blacksod Bay and Broad Haven, Newport and Westport on Clew Bay, with the watering-place of Mallaranny. The majestic cliffs of the north coast, however, which reach an extreme height in Benwee Head (892 ft.), are difficult of access and rarely visited. In the eastern half of the county the surface is comparatively level, with occasional hills; the western half is mountainous. Mweelrea (2688 ft.) is included in a mountain range lying between Killary Harbour and Lough Mask. The next highest summits are Nephin (2646 ft.), to the west of Lough Conn, and Croagh Patrick (2510 ft.), to the south of Clew Bay. The river Moy flows northwards, forming part of the boundary of the county with Sligo, and falls into Killala Bay. The courses of the other streams are short, and except when swollen by rains their volume is small. The principal lakes are Lough Mask and Lough Corrib, on the borders of the county with Galway, and Loughs Conn in the east, Carrowmore in the north-west, Beltra in the west, and Carra adjoining Lough Mask. These loughs and the smaller loughs, with the streams generally, afford admirable sport with salmon, sea-trout and brown trout, and Ballina is a favourite centre.

Geology.—The wild and barren west of this county, including the great hills on Achill Island, is formed of “Dalradian” rocks, schists and quartzites, highly folded and metamorphosed, with intrusions of granite near Belmullet. At Blacksod Bay the granite has been quarried as an ornamental stone. Nephin Beg, Nephin and Croagh Patrick are typical quartzite summits, the last named belonging possibly to a Silurian horizon but rising from a metamorphosed area on the south side of Clew Bay. The schists and gneisses of the Ox Mountain axis also enter the county north of Castlebar. The Muilrea and Ben Gorm range, bounding the fine fjord of Killary Harbour, is formed of terraced Silurian rocks, from Bala to Ludlow age. These beds, with intercalated lavas, form the mountainous west shore of Lough Mask, the east, like that of Lough Corrib, being formed of low Carboniferous Limestone ground. Silurian rocks, with Old Red Sandstone over them, come out at the west end of the Curlew range at Ballaghaderreen. Clew Bay, with its islets capped by glacial drift, is a submerged part of a synclinal of Carboniferous strata, and Old Red Sandstone comes out on the north side of this, from near Achill to Lough Conn. The country from Lough Conn northward to the sea is a lowland of Carboniferous Limestone, with L. Carboniferous Sandstone against the Dalradian on the west.

Industries.—There are some very fertile regions in the level portions of the county, but in the mountainous districts the soil is poor, the holdings are subdivided beyond the possibility of affording proper sustenance to their occupiers, and, except where fishing is combined with agricultural operations, the circumstances of the peasantry are among the most wretched of any district of Ireland. The proportion of tillage to pasturage is roughly as 1 to 31/2. Oats and potatoes are the principal crops. Cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry are reared. Coarse linen and woollen cloths are manufactured to a small extent. At Foxford woollen-mills are established at a nunnery, in connexion with a scheme of technical instruction. Keel, Belmullet and Ballycastle are the headquarters of sea and