MAINE, SIR HENRY JAMES SUMNER (1822-1888). —Jurist, ed. at Christ's Hospital and at Camb., where he became Regius Prof. of Civil Law 1847-54. Called to the Bar in 1850, he went in 1862 to India as legal member of the Government. On his return he was in 1870 appointed Prof. of Comparative Jurisprudence at Oxf., which office he held until his election in 1878 as Master of Trinity Hall. He became Whewell Prof. of International Law at Camb. in 1887, and was the author of many valuable works on law and the history of political institutions, and profoundly influenced the study of jurisprudence. Among his writings are Ancient Law (1861), Village Communities (1871), Early History of Institutions (1875), and Dissertations on Early Law and Customs (1883).
MAIR, or MAJOR, JOHN (1469?-1550). —Historian, studied at Camb. and Paris, was the teacher of John Knox and George Buchanan. In 1506 he was a Doctor of the Sorbonne, and in 1519 became Prof. of Divinity at St. Andrews. He wrote, in Latin, treatises on divinity and morals, and a History of Greater Britain, in which the separate histories of England and Scotland were brought together, pub. at Paris (1521). In his writings, while upholding the doctrinal teaching of Rome, he was outspoken in condemning the corruptions of the clergy.
MAITLAND, SIR RICHARD (1496-1586). —Poet, f. of M. of Lethington, Sec. of State to Mary Queen of Scots. In his later years he was blind, and occupied himself in composing a History of the House of Seaton, and by writing poems, e.g. On the New Year, On the Queene's Maryage, etc. He held various offices, chiefly legal, but appears to have kept as far as possible out of the fierce political struggles of his time, and to have been a genially satirical humorist.
MALCOLM, SIR JOHN (1769-1833). —Indian soldier, statesman, and historian, b. at Burnfoot, Dumfriesshire, went to India in 1782, studied Persian, was employed in many important negotiations and held various distinguished posts, being Ambassador to Persia and Governor of Bombay 1826-30. He was the author of several valuable works regarded as authorities, viz., A History of Persia (1815), Memoir of Central India (1823), Political History of India from 1784 to 1823 (1826), and Life of Lord Clive (1836).
MALLET, originally MALLOCH, DAVID (1705-1765). —Poet and miscellaneous writer, ed. at Crieff parish school and the Univ. of Edin., where he became acquainted with James Thomson, and in 1723 went to London as tutor in the family of the Duke of Montrose. In the following year appeared his ballad of William and Margaret, by which he is chiefly remembered, and which made him known to Pope, Young, and others. In 1726 he changed his name to Mallet to make it more pronounceable by Southern tongues. His Excursion, an imitation of Thomson, was pub. in 1728. At the request of the Prince of Wales, whose sec. he had become, he wrote with Thomson a masque, Alfred (1740), in which Rule Britannia first appeared, which, although he claimed the authorship, is now generally attributed to Thomson. He also wrote a Life of Bacon; and on Bolingbroke bequeathing to him his manuscripts and library, he pub. an ed. of his works (1754). On the accession of George III., M. became a zealous supporter of Lord Bute, and was rewarded with a sinecure. In addition to the works above named M. wrote some indifferent dramas, including Eurydice, Mustapha, and Elvira. Dr. Johnson said of him that he was "the only Scotsman whom Scotsmen did not commend."