MAYNARD, FRANÇOIS DE (1582-1646), French poet, was born at Toulouse in 1582. His father was conseiller in the parlement of the town, and François was also trained for the law, becoming eventually president of Aurillac. He became secretary to Margaret of Valois, wife of Henry IV., for whom his early poems are written. He was a disciple of Malherbe, who said that in the workmanship of his lines he excelled Racan, but lacked his rival’s energy. In 1634 he accompanied the Cardinal de Noailles to Rome and spent about two years in Italy. On his return to France he made many unsuccessful efforts to obtain the favour of Richelieu, but was obliged to retire to Toulouse. He never ceased to lament his exile from Paris and his inability to be present at the meetings of the Academy, of which he was one of the earliest members. The best of his poems is in imitation of Horace, “Alcippe, reviens dans nos bois.” He died at Toulouse on the 23rd of December 1646.
His works consist of odes, epigrams, songs and letters, and were published in 1646 by Marin le Roy de Gomberville.
MAYNE, JASPER (1604-1672), English author, was baptized at Hatherleigh, Devonshire, on the 23rd of November 1604. He was educated at Westminster School and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he had a distinguished career. He was presented to two college livings in Oxfordshire, and was made D.D. in 1646. During the Commonwealth he was dispossessed, and became chaplain to the duke of Devonshire. At the Restoration he was made canon of Christ Church, archdeacon of Chichester and chaplain in ordinary to the king. He wrote a farcical domestic comedy, The City Match (1639), which is reprinted in vol. xiii. of Hazlitt’s edition of Dodsley’s Old Plays, and a fantastic tragi-comedy entitled The Amorous War (printed 1648). After receiving ecclesiastical preferment he gave up poetry as unbefitting his profession. His other works comprise some occasional gems, a translation of Lucian’s Dialogues (printed 1664) and a number of sermons. He died on the 6th of December 1672 at Oxford.
MAYNOOTH, a small town of county Kildare, Ireland, on the Midland Great Western railway and the Royal Canal, 15 m. W. by N. of Dublin. Pop. (1901), 948. The Royal Catholic College of Maynooth, founded by an Act of the Irish parliament in 1795, is the chief seminary for the education of the Roman Catholic clergy of Ireland. The building is a fine Gothic structure by A. W. Pugin, erected by a parliamentary grant obtained in 1846. The chapel, with fine oak choir-stalls, mosaic pavements, marble altars and stained glass, and with adjoining cloisters, was dedicated in 1890. The average number of students is about 500—the number specified under the act of 1845—and the full course of instruction is eight years. Near the college stand the ruins of Maynooth Castle, probably built in 1176, but subsequently extended, and formerly the residence of the Fitzgerald family. It was besieged in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., and during the Cromwellian Wars, when it was demolished. The beautiful mansion of Carton is about a mile from the town.
MAYO, RICHARD SOUTHWELL BOURKE, 6th Earl of (1822-1872), British statesman, son of Robert Bourke, the 5th earl (1797-1867), was born in Dublin on the 21st of February, 1822, and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. After travelling in Russia he entered parliament, and sat successively for Kildare, Coleraine and Cockermouth. He was chief secretary for Ireland in three administrations, in 1852, 1858 and 1866, and was appointed viceroy of India in January 1869. He consolidated the frontiers of India and met Shere Ali, amir of Afghanistan, in durbar at Umballa in March 1869. His reorganization of the finances of the country put India on a paying basis; and he did much to promote irrigation, railways, forests and other useful public works. Visiting the convict settlement at Port Blair in the Andaman Islands, for the purpose of inspection, the viceroy was assassinated by a convict on the 8th of February 1872. His successor was his son, Dermot Robert Wyndham Bourke (b. 1851) who became 7th earl of Mayo.
See Sir W. W. Hunter, Life of the Earl of Mayo, (1876), and The Earl of Mayo in the Rulers of India Series (1891).