the church. At Oxford he had known Sir William Jones, and been stimulated by the historical lectures of Mr. Scott, afterwards Lord Stowell, and he conceived at an early period the design of writing a history of India. He executed it while a curate in Essex. Unfortunately he was unacquainted with Sanscrit, and his materials were of an ordinary kind. He had proceeded a great way with his work when the breaking out of the French revolution induced him to recast it; and in a preliminary work, "Indian Antiquities," 1791-92, he appeared as a champion of orthodoxy against the theories of Volney. His "History of Hindostan" followed in 1795-99, and his "Modern History of Hindostan" in 1802-4. They are rather a collection of dissertations than histories, and penury of thought and of original material is thinly disguised under a pompous style, and a show of laborious industry. The works, however, procured him preferment in the church and the assistant-librarianship of the British museum. Of his "Memoirs," rambling but amusing, three parts were published, 1819-22, bringing down the story of his life only to the year 1796. He died in March, 1824. There is a full account of him and his writings in the Annual Biography and Obituary for 1825.—F. E.
MAURICIANUS, Junius, a Roman jurist who flourished in the reign of Antoninus Pius. Four extracts from his works appear in the Digest, and a treatise of his, "Ad leges," is mentioned in the Florentine Index.—D. W. R.
MAURICIUS, Flavius Tiberius, born at Arabissus in Cappadocia in 539, succeeded Tiberius as emperor of Constantinople in 582. His name first appears in history as "magister militum" under his predecessor. Having obtained important victories over the Persians he entered Constantinople in triumph in 582. Soon after, the emperor feeling that his end approached, named Maurice as his successor, and gave him his daughter Constantina in marriage. After he ascended the throne war was resumed with the Persians, and again was carried on with success; but in his contests with the Avars, though he gained some advantages at first, he afterwards experienced serious reverses. Twelve thousand prisoners were taken by the enemy, who might have been redeemed with six thousand pieces of gold; but having been mutinous soldiers they were left by the emperor to their fate, and all were put to death. His conduct on this occasion ever after distressed the emperor's conscience, and ultimately led to his ruin. In 602 he ordered his troops to encamp on the north side of the Danube, which they refused to do and mutinied. Maurice was obliged to fly from the capital, and was murdered near Chalcedon on the 27th November of that year. He was a sober and virtuous prince, and much attached to the catholic faith. He wrote a treatise on military operations entitled "Strategica," published at Upsala in 1664.—D. W. R.
MAURO (Fra), a monk of the monastery of St. Michel de Murano, near Venice, lived about the middle of the fifteenth century. The dates of his birth and death are unknown. Between 1457 and 1459 he prepared a map of the world, which is still preserved in his monastery, and considered the highest authority as to the state of geographical knowledge in that age.—W. J. M. R.
MAUROLYCO, Francesco, an eminent Sicilian mathematician, of Greek descent, was born at Messina on the 16th of September, 1494, and died in its neighbourhood on the 21st of July, 1575. He entered the church at an early age, and through the friendship of the Marquis de Geraci, was appointed superior of a wealthy abbey. His chief original work was a treatise on conic sections. He made important advances in the science of optics, and by discovering that the rays of light from a point in an external object converge to a focus in the eye, came very near to the true theory of vision. He edited several of the works of ancient mathematicians.—W. J. M. R.
MAURUS TERENTIANUS, a Latin grammarian of whom very little is known, is said to have been a native of Carthage. Augustine mentions him in terms which indicate a high opinion of his abilities; but there are no sufficient grounds for identifying him with the Terentianus, prefect of Syene, to whom one of the epigrams of Martial was addressed. The Grammatici Veteres of Putschius, and Maittaire's Corpus Poetarum Latinorum, contain the only work of his now extant. It is entitled "De Litteris, Syllabis, Pedibus et Metris Carmen," and has been edited separately by Lennep and by Lachmann.—W. B.
MAURY, Jean Siffrein, a French ecclesiastic and politician, was born at Vauréas on the 26th June, 1746. Having studied at Lyons he came to Paris at the age of eighteen, and soon attracted attention. In 1772, through his eloge on Fėnélon, he became vicar-general of the bishop of Louberg, and after many other preferments he was promoted to be preacher to the court. When the states-general assembled in 1789, he was named clerical deputy from the circle of Péronne. Bravely and eloquently did he defend the royal cause, nor would he swear allegiance to the constitution in the following year. His opposition failing of its purpose, he retired to Péronne where he was arrested, but was afterwards liberated. In the national assembly he fought stoutly for king and clergy—for the privileges of the one and the property of the other. When the assembly was dissolved he went to Rome, where the pope gave him a cordial welcome, named him archbishop of Nicæa, and apostolic nuncio to the diet to be held for the election of the Emperor Francis II. In 1794 he was made a cardinal. When Napoleon became reconciled to the Roman see, Maury wrote a letter of submission to him, and entreated to be allowed to return to France. He met the emperor at Genoa in 1806, and peace was made up. On his arrival at Paris honours were bestowed upon him, and in 1811, as the reward of his timely reconciliation, he was consecrated archbishop of Paris. His former friends were greatly scandalized by the tergiversation of such a royalist. On the return of the Bourbons he lost his diocese and fled to Rome, where he was imprisoned and forced to resign his cardinalate, receiving a small pension in return. He died in 1817. His work, "Essais sur l'eloquence de la chaire," is a production of no mean order, and is a species of classic on the subject in France.—J. E.
MAUVILLON, James, born at Leipsic in 1743; served in the Seven Years' war under the standard of Hanover; and was appointed military teacher and superintendent of roads and bridges at Cassel. He subsequently held the professorship of military sciences in the Caroline college at Brunswick, and a major's commission in the corps of engineers. It was to him that Mirabeau addressed the Lettres a un de ses amis en Allemagne. Mauvillon's principal publications were—"Letters on the German poets;" an "Introduction to the Military Sciences;" a "System of religion;" and translations of Raynal's Indies, and Ariosto. He died in 1793.—W. B.
MAVROCORDATO-SCARLATOS, Alessandro, Grand Dragoman to the Porte, diplomatist and author, born in Constantinople or one of the Greek islands about 1637; died in 1709. His family was mercantile on both sides, and his parents were Greek, though Alessandro loved to connect his descent with the Scarlati of Genoa. At twelve years old he was sent for his education into Italy; acquired European languages in the Greek college of S. Athanasius in Rome; and studied medicine in Padua, where he is said to have displayed his ready wit on the occasion of the sudden indisposition of a professor, whose place he took, and whose audience he harangued with unpremeditated eloquence. His conduct, however, not satisfying the authorities, he quitted Padua for Bologna, and there in 1664 took a doctor's degree in philosophy and medicine. On his return to Constantinople he practised physic with such success, as to be appointed physician to the grand seignor; but finding his profession a somewhat dangerous one in Turkey, he abandoned it. His vast knowledge of European languages, including Latin, now stood him in good stead. In 1673 he succeeded Panagioti as court interpreter, and finally was appointed grand dragoman of the Ottoman empire, an office which he discharged during thirty years. But besides being master of a practised and fluent tongue, he was versed in the page of history, in the politics of the day, and in the individual interests of courts; he was skilled to read the human heart, and to conciliate those with whom he had to deal; in a word, he possessed the gifts of a diplomatist. In 1681 he was empowered to treat with the emperor in the cause of Hungary, a negotiation which, according to the desire of the grand vizier, terminated in war. Mavrocordato followed the Turkish hosts to that siege of Vienna which to them proved ruinous, and on his return home was called to account for the foregone disaster, stripped of his office, and imprisoned; his life being purchased only at the price of all his property: nor was he released till the value of his services was made plain by the incompetence of his successor. In 1688, once more on a mission to Vienna, he adroitly managed to be detained four years a prisoner, until the death of a hostile vizier rendered safe his return to his own country. In 1699, as Ottoman-plenipotentiary and counsellor of secrets, a title newly bestowed upon him, Mavrocordato took part in the negotiations
