continent, and was the starting point of a long and violent controversy. The theory of Malthus was that the means of subsistence could not be made to increase in a greater than an arithmetical ratio, while population had a tendency to increase in a geometrical ratio. The practical deduction from this doctrine was that the distress of the labouring classes instead of being a phenomenon to be alleviated by poor-laws, &c., was an instrument in the hands of Providence of checking the growth of populations; and pushed to its extremest limits, the Malthusian theory ought to have contemplated with complacency, instead of horror, the occurrence of deaths by starvation. By self-restraint, by abstaining from early marriages, &c., it was, argued Malthus, in the power of the labouring classes themselves to keep down their numbers so as not to over-crowd the labour market or press unduly upon the national fund of subsistence, and under these circumstances a poor-law was simply an absurdity. The "gloomy view" which Malthus, as he himself confessed, took of the future of the human race has long been discarded, along with the antipodal perfectibility notions of Godwin and Condorcet. The promulgation of his theory did good, however, by directing the attention of statesmen to emigration and to the new fields for the supply of food, which it only required free trade to open up to an industrious and industrial population like our own. In the first decade of the century Malthus was appointed professor of political economy at the East India Company's college of Haileybury, and he performed the congenial duties of the post till his death in December, 1834. He wrote several works on political economy, the names of which, with brief criticisms on their contents, will be found in Mr. Macculloch's Literature of Political Economy. His name and doctrines had been almost forgotten when they were resuscitated by that new poor-law legislation of the whig government in 1834, which was believed to have been produced by his theory. A storm of obloquy burst upon him, and it is hinted that, had he lived, the whigs intended, as a compensation, to have made him a bishop. He was one of the founders of the Political Economy Club and of the Statistical Society. In all the relations of life he was most exemplary. To the edition of Malthus' "Principles of Political Economy," published in 1836, his friend Dr. Otter prefixed a memoir of the author.—F. E.
MALTON, Thomas, was born about 1750. He made numerous tinted drawings, and was one of the earliest to avail himself of the newly-introduced art of aquatinta for the purpose of multiplying copies of his views of public buildings, &c. He published a "Picturesque Tour through the Cities of London and Westminster," folio, 1792; "Picturesque Views of the University of Oxford," folio, 1802-3; and he engraved a set of views in St. Petersburg. He died March 7, 1804.—J. T—e.
MALUS, Etienne Louis, a French military engineer and man of science, discoverer of the polarization of light, was born in Paris on the 23rd of June, 1775, and died there on the 23rd of February, 1812. At the age of seventeen he entered the school of military engineering, and having completed his studies, was on the point of receiving a commission, when his appointment was prohibited by the government on the ground of his father's being suspected of royalism; and he entered the army as a private soldier. After the close of the Reign of Terror he was chosen by Monge as one of the assistant-instructors at the Polytechnic school, then newly established. Soon afterwards he obtained a commission in the corps of military engineers, and served with distinction on the Rhine and in Egypt. In 1801 he married a lady to whom he had long been attached, and was for a time employed in the superintendence of engineering works of the government, occupying his leisure in scientific researches on optics. In 1808 a prize was offered by the Institute for an investigation of the phenomena of double refraction, to which subject Malus at once applied himself. While looking through a doubly-refracting crystal one evening at the light of the setting sun, reflected from the windows of the palace of the Luxembourg, he observed, that on turning the crystal about, the two luminous images produced by double refraction underwent alternate variations of intensity, as the prism passed through certain angular positions. He was thus led to the discovery of the property since called polarization, which is impressed upon light both by reflection and by refraction. His memoir on that subject obtained the prize offered by the Institute, and the Copley medal of the Royal Society of London. His early death was justly regarded as a heavy loss to science.—W. J. M. R.
MAMÆA, mother of the Emperor Alexander Severus. On the death of Elagabalus and elevation of Alexander to the throne in 222, the chief influence in the state passed into the hands of Mamæa. She used her authority wisely in the main, and the good government of her son during his reign of thirteen years is chiefly to be ascribed to her counsels. Mamæa was a patroness of learned men. She paid great respect to Ulpian the jurist, and listened, though not herself a christian, to the exhortations of Origen. She had, however, some great faults. Her jealous love of power led her to treat with great harshness her daughter-in-law, the wife of Alexander. The same despotic temper, joined to her avarice, ultimately caused her ruin. The army mutinied; and she was put to death along with her son in Gaul, 19th March, 235.—G.
MAMOUN, Abul Abbas Abdallah, seventh Abasside caliph, was born in September, 786, and died in August, 835. He was the son of the famous Haroun Alraschid and of a slave Meradjol. In the year 800 he was made governor of Khorassan, and became so popular that at his father's death he was proclaimed caliph by a portion of the army. He recognized, however, the right of his elder brother Amyn; but the latter treating him with ingratitude, war broke out between them, and in 813 Mamoun was a second time proclaimed caliph. Amyn died, and the road to power was so far cleared; but he had to encounter a series of revolts before he could settle at Bagdad. He encouraged learning, and caused translations to be made into Arabic of the books sent to his father. The first Arabic version of Euclid's Elements was dedicated to him. He was also the first to measure a degree of the meridian, which he did on the plain of Shinar. Mathematics, astronomy, medicine, music, and poetry were cultivated at his court. He left several treatises—one on the Koran, one on prophecy, and another on rhetoric.—P. E. D.
MANASSES or MENASSES (Ben Joseph Ben Israel), a learned and bigoted Jewish writer, was born at Lisbon in 1604. He early distinguished himself in rabbinical studies, and at eighteen became rabbi in the synagogue of Amsterdam, in the place of his former master, Rabbi Isaac Uriel. About 1640 he was reduced to poverty through the confiscation of his paternal inheritance by the Portuguese inquisition, and in the hope of restoring his fortune he began trading. Having a printing establishment in his house, he published and sold books, still maintaining a high character for learning. He was consulted by Grotius and other eminent Arminians on points of sacred literature, and his works were recommended to the study of christians by them. Manasses went to England to procure from Cromwell the recall of the Jews into this country. He flattered the Protector by applying to him the texts of scripture which refer to the Messiah. Failing in his mission he returned to Amsterdam, and died at Middelburg in 1659. He left many works written in Hebrew, in Spanish, and in Latin, the most important of which is "El conciliador o de la Conveniencia de los lagares de las escripturas." This work, which occupied the author from his eighteenth year, was published in four parts, quarto, of which the first is dated 1632, and the last 1651. It is a most learned and laborious attempt to reconcile four hundred and seventy-two apparently contradictory passages in the Old Testament. The first part treats of the Pentateuch; the second, of the early prophets; the third, of the later prophets; and the fourth, of the remaining books of the Bible. Vossius translated the work into Latin, 4to, Amsterdam, 1633-67; and Lindo into English, 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1842. Many passages of invective against Jesus Christ are very properly omitted in the translations. His treatises on the "Immortality of the Soul," and on the "Resurrection of the Dead," were printed in several languages. Basnage, in his History of the Jews, gives an abridgment of some of his writings.—(See also De Rossi, Biblioth. Judaica.)—R. H.
MANBY, George William, Captain, an inventor of apparatus for saving lives in cases of shipwreck, was born in Hilgay, Norfolk, November 28, 1765, and was educated first at the grammar-school, Lynn, and afterwards at the royal military college, Woolwich. Being disappointed in his hopes of obtaining a suitable commission in the regular service, he became an officer in the militia for seven years. In 1801 he published the "History of St. David's, South Wales," and subsequently various other local descriptions and guides. In 1803 he was appointed barrack-master at Yarmouth, where in February, 1807, he was an eye-witness of the destruction of the gunbrig Snipe, and the
