[Maid of Norway], daughter of Eric II., king of Norway, and through her mother heiress to the Scottish crown; died on her passage to Scotland in 1240.
[Maid of Orleans], Joan of Arc, so called from her defence of Orleans against the English. See [Joan].
[Maiden, The], a sort of guillotine that appears to have been in use in Scotland during the 15th and 16th centuries, of which there is one in the Antiquarian Museum, Edinburgh.
[Maidment, James], antiquary and collector, born in London; passed through Edinburgh University to the Scotch bar, and was chief authority on genealogical cases; his hobby was the collection of literary rarities, and he published editions of ancient literary remains; he died at Edinburgh (1794-1879).
[Maidstone] (32), county town of Kent, on the Medway, 30 m. SE. of London; has several fine old churches and historical buildings, a grammar school and a school of art and music, numerous paper-mills, and breweries, and does a large trade in hops; Woollett the engraver and Hazlitt the essayist were born here.
[Maimon, Solomon], philosopher, born, of Jewish parents, in a village of Minsk; came to Berlin, where he studied, lived an eccentric, vagabond life, dependent mostly on his friends; made the acquaintance of Kant and Goethe, and attempted and published an eclectic system of philosophy in 1790, being Kant's system supplemented from Spinoza, Leibnitz, and Locke, and even Hume; his last patron was Count Kalkreuth, at whose house in Siegersdorf he died (1754-1800).
[Maimonides, Moses], a Jewish rabbi, born at Cordova, whom the Jews regarded as their Plato, and called the "Lamp of Israel" and the "Eagle of the doctors"; was a man of immense learning, and was physician to the Sultan of Egypt; in his relation to the Jews he ranks next to Moses, and taught them to interpret their religion in the light of reason; he wrote a "Commentary on the Mishna and the Second Law," but his chief work is the "Moreh Nebochim," or "Guide to the Perplexed" (1135-1204).
[Maine] (662), the most north-easterly State in the American Union, lies between Quebec and New Hampshire on the W. and New Brunswick and the Atlantic on the E., and is a little larger than Ireland, a picturesque State with high mountains in the W., Katahdin (5000 ft), many large lakes like Moosehead, numerous rivers, and a much indented rocky coast; the climate is severe but healthy, the soil only in some places fertile, the rainfall is abundant; dense forests cover the north; hay, potatoes, apples, and sweet corn are chief crops; cotton, woollen, leather manufactures, lumber working, and fruit canning are principal industries; the fisheries are valuable; timber, building stone, cattle, wool, and in winter ice are exported; early Dutch, English, and French settlements were unsuccessful till 1630; from 1651 Maine was part of Massachusetts, till made a separate State in 1820; the population is English-Puritan and French-Canadian in origin; education is advancing; the State's Liquor Law of 1851 was among the first of the kind: the capital is Augusta (11); Portland (36) is the largest city and chief seaport; Lewiston (22) has cotton manufactures.
[Maine, Sir Henry], English jurist, legal member of the Council in India, and professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford; wrote on "Ancient Law," and important works on ancient institutions generally; regarded the social system as a development of the patriarchal system (1822-1888).
[Maintenance, Cap of], an ermine-lined, crimson velvet cap, the wearing of which was a distinction granted first to dukes but subsequently to various other families.