Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/312

Rh 294 M A I M A I by the subsequent magnificent edition of Vercellone and Cozza (Rome, 1868), which in turn leaves much to be desired. Generally speaking, it may be said that the services rendered to scholarship by Mai (great though they were) were merely those of a laborious and persevering pioneer ; as a textual critic he does not rank high, either for sagacity or for accuracy. MALA was the eldest and fairest of the Pleiades, the seven daughters of Atlas and the Oceanid Pleione. Her name marks her as the &quot; fruitful mother &quot; ; and the seven sisters have- no individuality except as the mothers of famous families. They were all born on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia, and are sometimes called mountain goddesses. In a cave of Cyllene, in the darkness of night, Maia became by Zeus the mother of the god Hermes. Maia bears one of the most characteristic names of the Phrygian mother, Cybele or Ma, the goddess whose home is on mountains and in caves ; and in a common class of votive reliefs Hermes-Cadmilus is represented as a youth bearing a vase standing beside the throne on which Cybele sits. Maia was also an epithet of the Bona Dea, who is a form of Cybele, in Rome. See Conze, &quot; Hermes-Cadmilos,&quot; in Arch. Ztff., 1880. MAIDENHEAD, a municipal borough and market- town in Berkshire, England, in the diocese of Oxford, 22 J- miles from London, 13| from Reading, and 6 from Windsor. It was formerly called Maidenhythe, a wharf for timber and a wooden bridge across the Thames having existed there from very early times. In 1352 Edward III. incor porated a guild to keep the bridge in repair. In 1400 the duke of Surrey and the followers of Richard II. held the bridge against the new king, Henry IV., and at nightfall made good their retreat. In July 1647 a meeting took place at the Greyhound Inn between Charles I. and his three children. The church, dedicated to St Andrew and St Mary Magdalene, was originally founded by Margaret of France in 1270, and it was rebuilt on the same site in 1724 ; but in 1823 it was entirely taken down, and a new church was erected at the east end of the High Street. A church dedicated to St Luke was erected in 1867, and enlarged in 1869. The town contains a small town-hall, a large hall recently erected for concerts and lectures, schools, almhouses, and Roman Catholic, Wesleyan, and Baptist places of worship. There are numerous charities for the education and maintenance of poor persons. The principal trades are in malt, meal, and timber. A fine stone bridge across the Thames was erected at a cost of .20,000 in 1772, connecting Berkshire with Buckingham. The scenery around Maidenhead is extremely picturesque, and several noblemen s seats are in the neighbourhood. Population in 1871, 6173; in 1881, 8219. MAIDSTONE, a municipal and parliamentary borough, and the county town of Kent, England, situated almost midway between London and Dover. It lies princi pally on the eastern bank of the river Medway, the modern part spreading over the western slopes of a picturesque valley, which is intersected and environed by orchards and hop gardens. Although antiquaries have conjectured that Maidstone was a military station of the Romans, few Roman remains have been found in the neighbourhood. The Saxon spelling of the name was Medwegestun, &quot; Med way s town.&quot; The manor, valued in Domesday Book at 35, 10s., had from a very early period belonged to the see of Canterbury. Archbishop Boniface in 1260 established a hospital here for poor pilgrims, the chapel of which, with modern additions, is again used for public worship. The parish church of St Mary, which had existed from Norman times, was demolished in 1395 by Archbishop Courtenay, who erected on the site thereof the present church of All Saints ; he also, at a short distance, founded a college of secular canons, the ruins of which are an interesting specimen of 14th century architecture. From the reign of John until the Reformation the arch bishops had here a residence, at which Stafford and Courtenay died ; but the existing building known as the palace dates chiefly from Elizabethan times. The rectory, with the manor, passed into lay hands at the Reformation; and, having been a perpetual curacy for three hundred and twenty years, the living became a vicarage in 1866. All Saints is one of the largest parish churches in the kingdom, and contains, besides many excellent monuments, the richly carved sedilia and the twenty-eight oak seats used by the collegiate priests. The parish has, since 1837, been divided into nine ecclesiastical districts, each with a church. The grammar school was founded in 1549, and endowed with the estates of the local Corpus Christi fraternity, then dis solved; the hall in which the guild assembled still remains. Broadcloth and linen thread, introduced by Dutch settlers, were at one time manufactured here ; but brewing and papermaking have long superseded these industries. Of the barges trading on the Medway, about sixty belong to Maidstone wharfingers. The river is crossed by a stone bridge of three arches, completed in 1879. A museum, with public library attached, was opened in 1858. The endowed charities yield an annual income of 3000. Since the beginning of the 17th century the Kent assizes have generally been held at Maidstone. From Saxon times down to 1830 condemned malefactors were executed, and all the great county meetings were held, on Penenden Heath, a common situated about a mile north-east of the town, and recently enclosed by the corporation. The area of the municipal borough is 4008 acres, of the parliamentary borough 4576 acres. The population has steadily increased during the present century; in 1801 it was 8027, in 1881 29,632. With general history Maidstone has been intimately associated. &quot;Wat Tyler broke into the prison, liberated John Ball, the rebel preacher, and committed other depredations. Several of the lead ing inhabitants joined Jack Cade s rising. Sir Thomas Wyatt, who resided at Allington Castle, now an ivy-clad ruin a mile and a half north of the town, raised the standard of rebellion at Maid- stone on 25th January 1554. As a punishment for their complicity with Wyatt, the burgesses were for the next five years deprived of their charter of incorporation. The rising of the Kentish royalists in 1648 collapsed at Maidstone, where, on the 1st June, Fairfax, after five hours obstinate fighting, captured the town at midnight. Anciently governed by a portreve, Maidstone was first incorporated by Edward VI., and since the beginning of Elizabeth s reign it has sent two representatives to parliament. Andrew Broughton, one of its mayors, as clerk of the court which tried Charles I., read the fatal sentence to the king. See Russell s History of Maidstone, and Poste s History of the College of All Saints. MAIMANSINH, or MYMENSING, a district in the lieu tenant-governorship of Bengal, India, lying between 23 56 and 25 25 N. lat., and 89 43 and 91 18 E. long., with an area of 6287 square miles, is bounded on the N. by the Garo Hills, on the E. by Sylhet, on the S.E. by Tipperah, on the S. by Dacca, and on the W. by the river Jamuna, which separates it from Pabna, Bogra, and Rangpur dis tricts. It is, for the most part, level and open, covered with well-cultivated fields, and intersected by numerous rivers. The Madhupur jungle is a slightly elevated tract, extending from the north of Dacca district into the heart of Maimansinh, almost as far as the Brahmaputra; its average height is about 60 feet above the level of the surrounding country, and it nowhere exceeds 100 feet. The jungle contains abundance of sal, valuable both as timber and for charcoal. During the cold season the open parts of the jungle afford grazing grounds for cattle. The only other elevated tract in the district is on the southern border, where the Susang hills rise. They are for the most part covered with thick thorny jungle, but in parts are barren and rocky. The Jamuna forms the vestern boundary of Maimansinh for a course of 94 miles. It is