which the Turks gave him, and even the Christians have not disputed it with him; for he was the first of the Ottoman emperors, whom the Western nations dignified with the title of Grand Seignior, or Great Turk, which posterity has preserved to his descendants. Italy had suffered greater calamities, but she had never felt a terror equal to that which this suitan's victories imprinted. The inhabitants seemed already condemned to wear the turban; it is certain that pope Sixtus IV. represented to himself Rome as already involved in the dreadful fate of Constantinople; and thought of nothing but escaping into Provence, and once more transferring the holy see to Avignon. Accordingly, the news of Mahomet's death, which happened the 3d of May, 1481, was received at Rome with the greatest joy that ever was beheld there. Sixtus caused all the churches to be thrown open, made the trades-people leave off their work, ordered a feast of three days, with public prayers and processions, commanded a discharge of the whole artillery of the castle of St. Angelo all that time, and put a stop to his journey to Avignon. Some authors have written that this sultan was an atheist, and derided all religions, without excepting that of his prophet, whom he treated as no better than a leader of banditti. This is possible enough; and there are many cir cumstances which make it credible. It is certain he en gaged in war, not to promote Mahometism, but to gratify his own ambition: he preferred his own interest to that of the faith he professed; and to this it was owing that he tolerated the Greek church, and even shewed wonderful civility to the patriarch of Constantinople. His epitaph deserves to be noted; the inscription consisted only of nine or ten Turkish words, thus translated: "I proposed to myself the conquest of Rhodes and proud Italy."

He appears to be the first sultan who was a lover of arts and sciences; and even cultivated polite letters. He often read the History of Augustus, and the other Cæsars; and he perused those of Alexander, Constantine, and Theodosius, with more than ordinary pleasure, because these had reigned in the same country with himself. He was fond of painting, music, and sculpture; and he applied himself to the study of agriculture. He was much addicted to astrology, and used to encourage his troops by giving out that the motion and influence of the heavenly bodies promised him the empire of the world. Contrary to the genius

of his country, he delighted so much in the knowledge of foreign languages, that he not only spoke the Arabian, to which the Turkish laws, and the religion of their legislator Mahomet are appropriated, but also the Persian, the Greek, and the French, that is, the corrupted Italian. Landin, a knight of Rhodes, collected several letters which this sultan wrote in the Syriac, Greek, and Turkish languages, and translated them into Latin. Where the originals are is not known; but the translation has been published several times; as at Lyons, 1520, in 4to; at Basil, 1554, 12mo, in a collection published by Oporinus; at Marpurgh, 1604, in 8vo, and at Leipsic, 1690, in 12mo. Melchior Junius, professor of eloquence at Strasburg, published at Montbeliard, 1595, a collection of letters, in which there are three written by Mahomet II. to Scanderbeg. One cannot discover the least air of Turkish ferocity in these letters: they are written in as civil terms as the most polite prince in Christendom could have used.'

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MAIER (MICHAEL), a celebrated German alchymist and rosicrucian of the seventeenth century, who sacrificed his health, his fortune, his time, and his understanding, to those ruinous follies, wrote many works, all having reference, more or less, to the principles or rather absurdities of his favourite study. The following are mentioned as the chief of these publications. 1. "Atalanta fugiens," 1618, 4to, the most rare and curious of his works. 2. Septimana philosophica," 1620, 4to. In both these works he has given abundance of his reveries. 3. "Silentium post clamores, seu tractatus Revelationum fratrum rosea Crucis," 1617, 8vo. 4. De fraternitate roseæ Crucis," 1618, 8vo. 5. "Jocus severus," 1617, 4to. 6. "De roseâ Cruce," 1618, 4to. 7. "Apologeticus revelationum fratrum rosea Crucis," 1617, 8vo. 8. "Cantilenæ intellectuales," Rome, 1624. 9. "Museum Chymicum," 1708, 4to. 10. " De Circulo physico-quadrato," 1616, 4to.

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MAIGNAN (EMANUEL), a religious minim, and one of the greatest philosophers of his age, was born at Toulouse, of an ancient and noble family, July 17, 1601. While he was a child, he discovered an inclination to letters and the sciences, and nothing is said to have had so great an effect ! Guillet Hist. de Mahomet II.-Universal Hist.-Gibbon. 2 Dict. Hist.

in quieting his infant clamours, as putting some little book into his hands. He went through his course in the college of Jesuits, and acquitted himself with great diligence in every part of scholarship, both with respect to literary and religious exercises. He was determined to a religious life, by a check given to his vanity when he was learning rhetoric. He had written a poem, in order to dispute the prize of eloquence, and believed the victory was unjustly adjudged to another. This made him resolve to ask the minim's habit, and having acquitted himself satisfactorily in the trials of his probation-time, he was received upon his taking the vow in 1619, when he was eighteen. He went through his course of philosophy under a professor who was very much attached to the doctrine of Aristotle; and he omitted no opportunity of disputing loudly against all the parts of that philosopher's scheme, which he suspected of heterodoxy. His preceptor considered this as a good presage; and in a short time discovered, to his great astonishment, that his pupil was very well versed in mathematics, without having had the help of a teacher. In this, like Pascal, he had been his own master; but what he says of himself upon this point must be understood with some limitation; namely, that " in his leisure hours of one year from the duties of the choir and school, he discovered of himself as many geometrical theorems and problems, as were to be found in the first six books of Euclid's Elements."

However freely he examined the opinions of philosophy, instead of shewing himself incredulous in matters of divinity, he implicitly submitted to all the tenets of his church. But, as the arguments of the Peripatetics were commonly applied to illustrate and confirm those tenets, where he did not upon examination find them wellgrounded, he made no scruple to prefer the assistance of Plato to that of Aristotle. His reputation was so great, that it spread beyond the Alps and Pyrenees; and the general of the minims ordered him to Rome, in 1636, to fill a professor's chair. His capacity in mathematical discoveries and physical experiments soon became known; especially from a dispute which arose between him and father Kircher, about the invention of a catoptrical work. In 1648 his book "De perspectiva horaria" was printed at Rome, at the expence of cardinal Spada, to whom it was dedicated, and greatly esteemed by all the curious.

From Rome he returned to Toulouse, in 1650, and was so well received by his countrymen, that they created him provincial the same year; though he was greatly averse to having his studies interrupted by the cares of any office, and he even refused an invitation from the king in 1660, to settle in Paris, as it was his only wish to pass the remainder of his days in the obscurity of the cloister, where he had put on the habit of the order. Before this, in 1652, he published his "Course of Philosophy," at Toulouse, in 4 vols. 8vo, in which work, if he did not invent the explanation of physics by the four elements, which some have given to Empedocles, yet he restored it, as Gassendus did the doctrine of the atomists. He published a second edition of it in folio, 1673, and added two treatises to it; the one against the vortices of Des Cartes, the other upon the speaking-trumpet invented by our countryman sir Samuel Morland. He also formed a machine, which shewed by its movements that Des Cartes's supposition concerning the manner in which the universe was formed, or might have been formed, and concerning the centrifugal force, was entirely without foundation.

Thus this great philosopher and divine passed a life of tranquillity in writing books, making experiments, and reading lectures. He was perpetually consulted by the most eminent philosophers, and was obliged to carry on a very extensive correspondence. Such was the activity of his mind that he is said to have studied even in his sleep; for his very dreams employed him in theorems, and he was frequently awaked by the exquisite pleasure which he felt upon the discovery of a demonstration. The excellence of his manners, and his unspotted virtues, rendered him no less worthy of esteem than his genius and learning. He died at Toulouse Oct. 29, 1676, aged seventy-five. It is said of him, that he composed with great ease, and without any alterations at all. See a book entitled "De vita, moribus, & scriptis R. patris Emanuelis Maignani Tolosatis, ordinis Minimorum, philosophi atque mathematici præstantissimi, elogium," written by F. Saguens, and printed at Toulouse in 1697, a work in which are some curious facts, not, however, unmixed with declamatory puerilities.'

1 Life as above.-Niceron, vol. XXXI.-Gen. Dict.-Moreri.

MAILLA (JOSEPH-ANNE-MARIE DE MOYRIAC DE), a learned Jesuit, was born in the French province of Bugey on the borders of Savoy, in 1670. From the age of twenty-eight he had made himself so completely master of Chinese learning of all kinds, that he was considered as a prodigy, and in 1703, was sent as a missionary into that country, where he was highly esteemed by the emperor Kam-Hi, who died in 1722. By that prince he was employed, with other missionaries, to construct a chart of China, and Chinese Tartary, which was engraved in France in 1732. He made also some separate maps of particular provinces in that vast empire, and the emperor was so pleased with these performances, that he fixed the author at his court. Mailla likewise translated the "Great Annals" of China into French, and transmitted his manuscript to France in 1737, comprising the complete history of the Chinese empire. The first volumes appeared in 1777, under the care of the abbé Grosier, and the whole was completed by him in 1785, making thirteen volumes 4to. The style of the original is heavy, and contains many long and tedious harangues, which the editor has suppressed it gives many lively and characteristic traits of men and manners. Mailla died at Pekin June 28, 1748, having lived forty-five years in China, and attained his seventy-ninth year. He was a man of a lively but placid character, of an active and persevering spirit, which no labours repressed. The late emperor Kien Long paid the expences of his funeral, which was attended by a procession of seven hundred persons.'

MAILLARD (OLIVER), a famous preacher, and a cordelier, was a native of Paris, where he rose to the dignity of doctor in divinity. He was entrusted with honourable employments by Innocent VIII. and Charles VIII. of France, by Ferdinand of Arragon, &c. and is said to have served the latter prince, even at the expence of his master. He died at Toulouse June 13, 1502. His sermons, which remained in manuscript, are full of irreverent familiarities, and in the coarsest style of his times. His Latin sermons were printed at Paris, in seven parts, forming three volumes in 8vo; the publication commenced in 1711, and was continued to 1730. In one of his sermons for Lent, the words hem! hem! are written in the margin to mark

1 Dict. Hist.