MALCOLM. 736 MAXEBRANCHE. dice of Major-General Sir John Malcolm (3 vols., London, 1850-57). MALCZEWSKI, miU'cliev'sk*, Antoni (1793- 18211). A Polish piict, who was born and diud at Waisaw. In 1811 lie entercu the Polish army, and led a gay life in Warsaw, but resigned in 1810, after being seriously wounded in a duel. Tie went abroad, and in Venice became intimate with By- ron, whose Mai^cppa was directly inspired by Malczewski's vivid account of the story. He re- turned to Warsaw, then settled in Volhjnia, where he wrote Marja (1825). He fell in love with the wife of a friend and had to leave for Warsaw, whither slie .soon followe<l liim. and where they lived in miserv- The pictures of the sle|)pes, the ]iortrayaIs of passion, the cliaraeteri- zation of the chief personages of Marja are gems. The poem appeared in a German translation by Nilschmann in his I'olnischcr Parnass (4th ed. Leipzig, 1875). MALDEN, mol'drn. A city, including sev- eral villages, in Miildlese.x County, Mass., five miles north of Boston ; on the Maiden River, and on the Boston and Maine Railroad (Map: Massa- chusetts, E 3). It lias a public library, a city hospital. Home for Aged Persons, and a Young Men's Christian Association building; and there are extensive manufacturing interests. The pro- ducts include rubber boots and shoes, cotton goods, libre goods, wire cord, sand and emery paper, leather, and boot and shoe lasts. Maiden spends annually in maintenance and operation, over .$000,000. the jirincijial items of expense be- ing about .$155,000 for .schools, $45,000 for the water-works, .$40,000 for charitiible institutions, $35,000 for the fire department, .$30,000 for the police department, and $30,000 for iiuiuici|ial ligliting. The water-works, which supply Maiden and the cities of MedffJid and .Melrose, were built in 1800 at a cost of over $1,000,000. These works are now a part of the Metropolitan Di.strict water system. Population, in 1800, 23,031; in 1000, 33,004. Maiden formed jiart of Charlestown until 1649, when it was incorporated as a separate town. Michael Wigglesworth (q.v.) was an early pastor here, where in 1062 he wrote The Dai/ of Drtom. In 1881 the town was incorpo- rated as a city. Consult Corey, The Historij of Malil',1. Miissachiiset/s (Maiden, 1809). MALDIVE (mal'dlv) ISLANDS. A chain of low coral islands in the Indian Ocean, about 300 miles .southwest of Cajie Comorin (Map: India. B 7). It consists of 17 compound atolls, each of which has a number of smaller atolls ar- r.anged around a central lagoon, so that the en- tire number of islets amounts to many hundred, the aggregate area being, however, only about 200 .square miles. The elevation above the sea level is in no case more than 20 feet, and generally only 6 feet. The larger and inhabited islands, of which there are about 200. are covered with coeoanut palms and fig, citron, and breadfruit trees; wild fowl and fish are abundant. The climate is very hot, and. owing to the numerous lagoons and swamps, unhealthful. The inhabit- ants, who number about 30.000, are Singhalese of the Mohammedan faith, and are good sailors, carrying on an active trade with the Malabar coast, to which they export in their own vessels copra, tortoise-shells, and dried bonito-fish. They are governed by a sultan residing at Mali, the largest of the atolls, but are under British pro- tection, and subject to the Governor of Ceylon. The- were formerly under the Portuguese and the 'Dutch flag. MALDIVE LANGUAGE. The Indian di.a- lect spoken in the Maldive Islands. It is closely related to the Ceyloncse (see Ceylon, Language and Literature) , and repre.sents a younger st.age of it. The phonological tendencies already seen in Ceyloncse have been carried further in Mal- dive, and it seems that the latter dialect has been inllucnced by some non-Indian language, yet its Ceyloncse origin is clear. The Maldive alpha- bet was formerly written from left to right, like the Ceyloncse script, on which it .seems to have been based. Later the direction was reversed, and to the twenty-four original let- ters three from the Perso-Arabic alphabet were added. No literature exists as yet, and before the researches of Wilhelm Geiger, who visited the islands for linguistic investigations in 1895- 96, the only written specimens of Maldive were the vocabularies of Pyrard (1602-07) and Chris- topher (1834), as well as a small manuscript dictionary at Copenhagen, and a glossed Persian- Hindustani dictionary in the India Office in Lon- don. MALDON, mfil'don. A market-town and river port in Essex, England, a mile below the confluence of the Chelmer and the Blackwivter, nine miles east of Chelmsford (Map: England, G 5). It has manufactures of crystallized salt; brick-making, iron-founding, oyster fisheries, and some shipping trade. It has a quaint town or moot hall built in the reign of Henry VI., and a grammar school founded in 1547. The town owns corporate property, water supply, and maintains libraries and baths. It has Roman, Saxon, and Banish remains, and is mentioned in 913 as an encampment of Edward the Elder. It received its first charter from Henry II. and was incor- porated in 1553. Population, in 1891, 5397; in 1901, 5000. MAL'DONA'TTTS, or MALDONADO, Jo- ii.VNKES (1533-83). A Jesuit theologian. He was born at Casar de Reyna, Estremadura, Spain, and was educated at Salamanca. There he became professor of theology (1556) ; in 1562 he became a Jesuit at Rome, and in 1503 was sent to Paris to found a college. He taught with such success that jealousy caused charges of heresy against him by the Sorbonne, -He was cleared of heresy in 1575, but withdrew to Bourges, and ultimately (1580) to Rome, where he died, .Jan- uary 5, 1583, He is reckoned one of the greatest Roman Catholic exegetes. A list of his books is in De Backer, Bihliotlirgiie des ecrivains de la compnpnic de Jcfuis (Paris. 1869-76). Most fa- mous of them is his commentary on the Gospels, of which the best edition is by Raich (Mainz, 1874) ; English translation by Davis (2d ed. London. ISSS), For his life, consult the preface to Raich's edition. MALEBRANCHE, m41'braNsh', Nicolas (1638-1715). A French philosopher. He was born in Paris, where his father was president of the Chamhre des Comptes. He was deformed and sickly, with a constitutional inclination to solitude. His early education was conducted at home. After studying theology at the Sorbonne, he entered the Congregation of the Oratory at the age of twenty-two. His interests were mainly in
