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MAJ architect, from Vasari's downwards, are full of the strangest chronological errors and contradictions. Milizia, for example, places his birth in 1377, and his death in 1447, yet makes him work for Paul II., who did not become pope till 1464; whilst the last published notice of G. da Majano (Nouv. Biog. Générale, 1860) has sought to evade some of the chronological difficulties by the ingenious expedient of shifting Vasari's and Milizia's dates ten years forward to 1387 and 1457. The researches of Gaye (Carteggio) and of the editors of the Florence edition of Vasari (1849) have, however, determined from official documents the correct dates, as given above.—J. T—e.  MAJOLI,, an Indian botanist, was born at Forli on 28th February, 1746, and died at same place on 11th January, 1823. He at first joined one of the monkish institutions and studied theology; afterwards he gave attention to natural science; and in 1781 he occupied a chair of philosophy at Rome. Botany subsequently became his favourite pursuit. He espoused the system of Linnæus. He published "Collectio Plantarum;" "Index Plantarum;" "Agrostographia;" "Dissertatio Phytologica;" besides various works on shells, entomology, and ornithology.—J. H. B.  MAJOR,, the leader of the Majoristic controversy in the Lutheran church of the latter half of the sixteenth century, was born in Nuremberg in 1502, and educated in the university of Wittemberg, where he became a professor of theology in 1536. When the university was broken up for a time by the Schmalcaldian war of 1546, he was appointed pastor in Merseburg, but returned again to Wittemberg in 1548, and was associated with Melancthon in the negotiations which issued in the Leipsic Interim. Some concessions, as they were deemed, made in this document with his consent on the subject of good works, drew upon him and the whole Wittemberg school the mistrust and disapprobation of the more zealous Lutherans; and he was roundly charged by Amsdorf, the ancient friend of Luther, with teaching "the necessity of good works unto salvation." Major confessed the truth of the charge, but denied that he held that doctrine in the popish sense of merit. There were three senses of necessity in connection with good works—a necessity of merit, which he denied; a necessity of consequence; and a necessity of obligation—both of which last he maintained. The antinomian party of the church, with Agricola at their head, assailed him with great violence; Flacius, in his heat exclaimed, "Deus non curat opera;" and Amsdorf even uttered the mad declaration, that good works are "noxia ad salutem." The synod of Eisenach, 1556, took a sensible view of the matter. It held that the language of Major admitted of a true and just sense, but that it was injudiciously chosen, and to be avoided in pulpit discourse; and Major himself ended by retracting the form of his proposition, though maintaining to the last, with reason, and with the whole of scripture at his back, that "without holiness no man shall see the Lord."—P. L.  MAJOR or MAIR,, a Scottish theologian and author of the period immediately preceding the Reformation, is supposed to have been born in 1469. He was a native of the village of Gleghorn, in the parish of North Berwick. Little is known with certainty of his early life. Early in the sixteenth century he was a member of Christ's college, Cambridge; and he was subsequently incorporated with the faculty of arts in the university of Paris, of which he became procurator and quæstor, and where he was made doctor of divinity in 1508. In 1518 he was incorporated with the university of Glasgow, and was made principal regent; and the record of these facts bears evidence that he had previously been made a canon of the chapel royal of Stirling, and vicar of the parish of Dunlop. In 1522 he was still in that university, in whose records he receives in that year the additional titles of professor of theology, and treasurer of the chapel royal. During these years he had John Knox for one of his pupils; and as some of his principles, ecclesiastical and political, were remarkably free and liberal for that age, it is supposed with some probability that the future reformer may have owed something to the influence of Major. But it could not be much, for in theology proper the Sorbonne licentiate and doctor was a rigid scholastic. It was at that very time, from 1519 to 1521, that he published in Paris a commentary, "In Libros Sententiarum," one of the latest works of that kind; and an Introduction to Aristotle's Dialectics. His "Historia De Gestis Scotorum" appeared in 1521, and though written in the Sorbonnic style of Latinity, contains much curious information, expresses many liberal opinions, and distinguishes itself favourably from Boece's history, which appeared about the same time, by a more critical spirit and juster views of the sources and grounds of historical truth. When James Beaton, archbishop of Glasgow, became primate of St. Andrews in 1523, he induced Major to follow him to that city, where he was incorporated on the same day with Patrick Hamilton, and where he had George Buchanan for some time among his students—"learning sophistics rather than dialectics," as he afterwards sharply observed—and Alexander Alesius as a student of scholastic theology. He soon after removed to Paris, for what cause is not known, unless it was to publish his "In Quatuor Evangelia Expositiones Luculentæ," which appeared there in 1529. He is said to have returned again to St. Andrews in 1530. It is certain that he was professor of theology there during the last part of his life, which was prolonged to a great age. In 1547 he was unable, from the infirmities of age, to attend the provincial council of the national church at Linlithgow; but he subscribed the canons then adopted, by proxy, in quality of dean of theology of St. Andrews. Though liberal in some particulars, he was not a reformer. His name appears as a judge on several of the tribunals at which the early Scottish reformers were tried and adjudged to exile or the flames; but he took no active part on these occasions, and there is nothing to show that he was overzealous in the cause of the threatened and falling church.—P. L  MAJOR,, a German physician and botanist, was born at Breslau on 16th August, 1634, and died at Stockholm on 3rd August, 1693. He prosecuted the study of medicine at Leipsic, and took the degree of doctor of medicine at Padua. He first settled as a medical man at Wittemberg, and afterwards went to Hamburg. He was then promoted to the chair of theory of medicine in the university of Kiel; and subsequently he became professor of botany and director of the garden. In 1693 he was summoned by Charles XI. to Stockholm to attend the queen of Sweden. While in that city he was attacked with a severe illness, which proved fatal. He was a learned man, and published numerous works. Among them may be noticed works on anatomy and surgery, on the physiology of the brain and the eyes, on transfusion of the blood, on renal calculi, botanical dissertations on monstrosities in plants, and on myrrh, besides treatises on cones.—J. H. B.  MAJOR,, an eminent line-engraver, was born about 1719. He studied under Le Bas in Paris, where several of his early plates were executed. Major engraved figure pieces and portraits, but he excelled as a landscape engraver. His best plates are those after Berghem, Teniers (two "Flemish Festivals"), Rubens ("Landscape, with a man driving sheep"), Claude Lorraine, and G. Poussin. "The Ruins of Pæstum," after drawings by J. B. Borra, are a well-known series of twenty-four plates published by him in 1768. Mr. Major was engraver to George III., and for forty years held the more lucrative post of engraver to the stamp-office. He died December 30, 1799.—J. T—e.  MAJORIANUS,, Emperor of the West in 457-61, was bred a soldier, and served with distinction under the famous Roman general Aetius. After the deposition of Avitus the influence of the barbarian Ricimer, at that time very powerful in Italy, raised Majorian to the vacant throne. Shortly before his accession the new emperor had baffled an inroad of the Alemanni, and after a brief interval he was called on to repel an invasion of the Vandals under Genseric from Africa. Having successfully repulsed these enemies, he collected a large army in Liguria, consisting mainly of barbarian auxiliaries, and marched into Gaul, where he reduced Theodoric, king of the Visigoths, to obedience, and arranged with a firm and vigorous hand the government of both Gaul and Spain. Meanwhile he collected a large fleet at Carthagena to attack the Vandal kingdom in Africa. But when the fleet was almost equipped, it was betrayed to Genseric by some of Majorian's officers, and totally destroyed in 460. Majorian then concluded peace with Genseric upon honourable terms; but the energy and integrity of his government had made him many enemies, and he was soon after dethroned by the partizans of Ricimer who had now become hostile to him, and put to death at Tortona in Lombardy, 7th August, 461. The legal and fiscal reforms of this excellent prince deserve the highest praise. To remedy the frightful oppression of the provinces by the central administration, he proclaimed an absolute immunity from all arrears of debt or tribute claimed by the fiscal officers. He restored the 