MAXWELL, SIR WILLIAM STIRLING, of Keir, Perthshire, a man of refined scholarship; travelled in Italy and Spain; wrote on subjects connected with the history and the artists of Spain (1818-1878).
MAY, the fifth month of the year, so called from a Sanskrit word signifying to grow, as being the shooting or growing month.
MAY, ISLE OF, island at the mouth of the Firth of Forth, 51/2 m. SE. of Crail on the Fife coast; has a lighthouse with an electric light, flashing out at intervals to a distance of 22 nautical miles.
MAY, SIR THOMAS ERSKINE, English barrister; became Clerk of the House of Commons in 1871; wrote a parliamentary text-book, “Democracy in Europe,” and a “Constitutional History of England since the Accession of George III.,” in continuation of the works of Hallam and Stubbs (1815-1886).
MAYER, JULIUS ROBERT VON, German physicist, born in Heilbronn; made a special study of the phenomena of heat, established the numerical relation between heat and work, and propounded the theory of the production and maintenance of the sun’s temperature; he had a controversy as to the priority of his discoveries with Joule, who claimed to have anticipated them (1814-1878).
MAYHEW, HENRY, litterateur and first editor of Punch, born in London, and articled to his father, a solicitor; chose journalism as a profession, and in conjunction with Gilbert a Beckett started The Thief in 1832, the first of the “Bits” type of papers; he joined the first Punch staff in 1841, in which year his farce “The Wandering Minstrel” was produced; collaborating with his brother Augustus, he wrote “Whom to Marry” and many other novels between 1847 and 1855, thereafter works on various subjects; his principal book, “London Labour and the London Poor,” appeared in 1851 (1812-1887).
MAYNOOTH, village in co. Kildare, 15 m. W. of Dublin; is the seat of a Roman Catholic seminary founded by the Irish Parliament in 1795 on the abolition of the French colleges during the Revolution; an annual grant of L9000 was made, increased to L26,000 in 1846, but commuted in 1869 for a sum of L1,100,000, when State connection ceased; the college trains 500 students for the priesthood.
MAYO (245), maritime county in Counaught, west of Ireland, between Sligo and Galway; has many indentations, the largest Broadhaven, Blacksod, and Clew Bays, and islands Achil and Clare, with a remarkable peninsula The Mullet; mountainous in the W., the E. is more level, and has Lough Conn and the Moy River; much of the county is barren and bog, but crops of cereals and potatoes are raised; cattle are reared on pasture lands; there are valuable slate quarries and manganese mines; Castlebar (4), in the centre, is the county town; Westport (4), on Clew Bay, has some shipping.
MAYO, RICHARD SOUTHWARK BOURKE, EARL OF, statesman, born and educated in Dublin; entered Parliament 1847, and was Chief Secretary for Ireland in Conservative Governments 1852, 1858, and 1866, opposing Gladstone’s Irish Church resolutions; in 1868 he succeeded Lord Lawrence as Viceroy of India, in which office he proved himself a prudent statesman, a sound financier, and a just and wise administrator; he was murdered by a fanatic in the Andaman Islands, and universally mourned (1822-1872).