Ayliffe's Parergon. From the practice of the wisest nations, when a prince was laid aside for maladministration, the nobles and people did resume the administration of the supreme power. Swift. MALEBRANCHE (Nicholas), an eminent French metaphysician, the son of Nicholas Malebranche, secretary to the French king, was born in 1638, and admitted into the congregation of the oratory in 1660. He at first studied philology and history; but afterwards, meeting with Des Cartes's Treatise on Man, he applied himself entirely to philosophy. In 1699 he was admitted an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris. Although of a delicate constitution, he enjoyed tolerable health till he died in 1715, aged seventy-seven. He meditated with his windows shut, to keep out the light, which disturbed him. His works are celebrated; particularly his Recherche de la Verité, i. e. Search after truth. Locke styles him an acute and ingenious author;' who has many very fine thoughts, judicious reasonings, and uncommon reflections, in his Recherche,' yet he refutes the chief principles of his system. Malebranche wrote many other pieces, to confirm his doctrine, and to clear it from obJections. MALECA, or MELECCA, a cape on the north coast of the island of Candia, anciently the Promontorium Ciamum. Long. 24° 4′ E., lat. 35° 32' N. MALECONTENT', adj. fied. Male and content. Discontented; dissatis On Bacchus' altar, and his forfeit paid. ministry, not for preferment but refuge; like maleIt is a sad thing when men shall repair to the factors flying to the altar, only to save their lives. South. MALEFIC, adj. Lat. maleficus. MisMALEFIQUE. chievous; hurtful. MALESHERBES (C. W. de Lamoignon de), a French statesman and advocate, descended from a family eminent for its talents and probity, was the son of William de Lamoignon, chancellor of France, and born at Paris in 1721. He studied at the Jesuits' college, and first became a counsellor in the parliament of Paris. He succeeded his father in 1750 as president of the court of aids, and was made at the same time superintendant of the press. On the suppression of parliaments, and of the court of aids, Malesherbes was exiled to his country seat, where he devoted his leisure to the study of statistics and agriculture. On the accession of Louis XVI. he resumed his presidentship over the revived tribunal, and was appointed a minister of state in 1775; but, finding his plans counteracted, he resigned his office in the May of the following year, and went to Switzerland. Recalled to the king's councils, in 1786, he drew up memoirs, On the Calamities of France and the Means of repairing them;' but, his advice being rejected, he took a final leave of the court. In 1790 he published An Essay on the Means of accelerating the Progress of Rural Economy in France; and took no part in the public proceedings of the government, until the decree of the National Convention for the trial of the king, when he nobly offered himself as the advocate of his unfortunate master. This generous attachment naturally excited the jealousy of the demagogues now in power; and scarcely had he returned home, when his daughter, madame Lepelletier Rosambo, and her husband, were arrested and conducted to Paris; and his own arrest, and that of his grand-children, soon followed. Malesherbes himself was beheaded April 22d, 1794, and bore his sufferings with an equanimity becoming his character. His bust was afterwards ordered to be placed with those of the great men who have reflected honor upon France. Besides the tracts above named he was the author of Observations sur l'Histoire Naturelle de Buffon, 2 vols. 8vo., published after his death. MALEVOLENCE, n. s. malignity. Lat. malevolentia. Ill will; inclination to hurt others; The son of Duncan Lives in the English court; and is received Shakspeare. Macbeth. Dryden's King Arthur. This frequently cuts off charity from the greatest objects of compassion, and inspires people with a malevolence towards those poor decrepit parts of our species, in whom human nature is defaced by infirmity and dotage. Addison. MALHERBE (Francis de), the first French poet of his age, was born at Caen about 1556, of a noble family. He quitted Normandy at seventeen years of age; and went into Provence, where he attached himself to the family of Henry D'Angouleme, the natural son of king Henry II., and was in the service of that prince till he was killed in 1586. Cardinal de Perron, being informed of his merit and abilities, introduced him to Henry IV., who took him into his service. After that monarch's death, queen Mary de Medicis settled a pension of 500 crowns upon our poet, who died at Paris in 1628. The best and most complete edition of his works is that of 1666, with Menage's remarks. Boileau cons ders him as the father of French poetry; but he composed with great difficulty. MALIC ACID, an acid abounding in the juice of unripe fruits, particularly in apples; so named from Latin malum, an apple. See CHE Wit loses its respect with the good, when seen in with malice. company Sheridan. MALICE, in ethics and law, is a formed design of doing mischief to another; it differs from hatred. In murder, it is malice makes the crime; and if a man, having a malicious intent to kill another, in the execution of his malice kills a person not intended, the malice shall be connected to his person, and he shall be adjudged a murderer. The words ex malitia præcogitata are necessary to an indictment of murder, &c. And this malitia præcogitata, or malice prepense, may be either express or implied. Express malice is, when one, with a sedate, deliberate mind, and formed design, kills another; which formed design is evidenced by external circumstances, discovering that intention; as lying in wait, antecedent menaces, former grudges, and concerted schemes to do him some bodily harm. Besides, where no malice is expressed, the law will imply it; as where a man wilfully poisons another: in such a deliberate act the law presumes malice, though no particular enmity can be proved. And if a man kills another suddenly, without any, or without a considerable provocation, the law implies malice: for no person, unless of an abandoned heart, would be guilty of such an act upon a slight cause. He that turneth the humours back, and maketh the wound bleed inwards, endangereth malign ulcers and pernicious imposthumations. Id. Essays. Whether any tokens of poison did appear, reports are various; his physicians discerned an invincible malignity in his disease. Hayward. No redress could be obtained with any vigour proportionable to the malignity of that far-spread disease. King Charles. Then it follows that original sin is of less malignity than the least actual sin in the world. Jeremy Taylor. They inveighed against the malignant party, that had sought to cause jealousies between them and their brethren of Scotland. Clarendon. Lest you think I rally more than teach, Or praise malignly arts I cannot reach; Let me for once presume to instruct the times. Pope. I thought it necessary to justify my character in point of cleanliness, which my maligners call in quesSwift. tion. They have seen all other notions besides their own represented in a false and malignant light; whereupon they judge and condemn at once. Watts's Improvement of the Mind. Where shrieks, the roaring flame, the rattling chain, And all the dreadful eloquence of pain, MAL'KIN, n. s. From mal, moll, Mary, and kin the diminutive termination. A kind of ragmop made for sweeping ovens; thence any scarecrow figure; thence a dirty wench. The kitchen malkin pins Shakspeare. Coriolanus. MALL, n. s. & v. a. ] Lat. malleus, a hamMALL'EABLE, adj. mer; Fr. malleable. MALLEABILITY, n. s. Mall and mallet are MALL'EABLENESS, (both used for a kind MALL'EATE, v. a. of heavy club or hamMALL'ET, n. s. mer: Spenser uses the former for a heavy blow: other writers have used it as a verb for to strike or beat with a mall: malleable is, capable of, or apt to, spread by beating; ductile : Butler uses it satirically for cowardly malleability and malleableness, the quality of enduring or spreading under the hammer: to malleate is to forge or shape by the hammer. With mighty mall, The monster merciless him made to fall. Give that reverend head a mall Bacon. Hudibras. Supposing the nominal essence of gold to be a body of such a peculiar colour and weight, with the malleability and fusibility, the real essence is that constitution on which these qualities and their union depend. Locke. The bodies of most use that are sought for out of the earth are the metals which are distinguished from other bodies by their weight, fusibility, and malleableness. Id. He took a mall, and after having hollowed the handle, and that part which strikes the ball, he enclosed in them several drugs. Addison's Spectator. If the body is compact, and bends or yields inward Bismuth Platinum Iron MALLEOLI, or Pyroboli, in the ancient art of war, were bundles of combustible materials, set on fire to give light in the night, or to annoy the enemy: when they were employed for the latter purpose they were shot out of a bow, or fixed to a javelin, and thus thrown into the enemy's engines, ships, &c., in order to burn them. Pitch was always a principal ingredient in the composition. MALLEOLI, in anatomy, the ancle bones. See ANATOMY. MALLET, or MALLOCH, (David), an English poet, but a Scotchman by birth, born about 1700. By the penury of his parents, he was compelled to be janitor of the high school at Edinburgh; but he surmounted the disadvantages of his birth and fortune; for, when the duke of Montrose applied to the college of Edinburgh for a tutor to educate his sons, Mallet was recommended. When his pupils went abroad, they were entrusted to his care; and, having conducted them through their travels, he returned with them to London. While residing in their family, he began to give specimens of his poetical talents. In 1733 he published a poem on Verbal Criticism in 1740 he wrote a Life of Lord Bacon, which was prefixed to an edition of his works. After the death of Pope, lord Bolingbroke employed Mallet to blacken his memory, in revenge for clandestinely printing his Patriot King. In reward for this service, his lordship left him his works, which in 1754 he published in five volumes, quarto, but which not only involved him in difficulties, on account of certain sentiments contained in them subversive of the principles of revealed religion, but which did not produce to the editor any profit. The old duchess of Marlborough assigned in her will the task of writing the duke's life, to Glover and Mallet, with a reward of £1000, and a prohibition to insert any verses. Glover is said to have rejected the legacy with disdain, so that the work devolved upon Mallet; who had also a pension from the duke's son to promote his industry, and was continually talking of the discoveries he had made, but left not, when he died, any historical labors behind him. When Frederick prince of Wales was driven from the palace, and kept a separate court by way of opposition, to increase his popularity by patronising literature, he made Mallet his under secretary, with a salary of £200 a year. Thomson, likewise, had a pension; and they were associated in the composition of the masque of Alfred, which in its original state was played at Cliefden in 1740. It was afterwards almost wholly changed by Mallet, and brought upon the stage of Drury Lane in 1751, but with no great success. He had before published two tragedies; Eurydice, acted at Drury Lane in 1731; and Mustapha, acted in 1739. It was dedicated to the prince, and well received, but never revived. His next work was Amyntor and Theodora, 1747, a long dull story in blank verse; but in which there is elegance of language and vigor of sentiment. In 1753 his masque of Britannia was acted at Drury Lane, and his tragedy of Elvira in 1763, when he was appointed keeper of the book of entries for ships in the port of London. In the beginning of the French war, in 1756, when the nation was exasperated by ill success, he was employed to turn the public vengeance upon admiral Byng, and wrote a letter of accusation under the chater of A Plain Man. This paper was with great industry dispersed, and Mallet was rewarded with a considerable pension, which he retained to his death. Towards the end of his life he went with his wife to France; but, finding his health declining, he returned alone to England, and died in April 1765. He was twice married, and by his first wife had several children. His stature was diminutive, but, being regularly formed, his appearance, till he grew corpulent, was agreeable, and his conversation elegant and easy. Nothing,' says his biographer, 'elevated or dignified can be discerned in his character or principles. As a poet he may lay claim to elegant diction, splendid imagery, and pathetic sentiment, but he is deficient in energy and judgment.'-Johnson's Lives of the Poets. MALLET (Edmund), was born at Melun in 1713, and enjoyed a curacy near that place till 1751, when he went to Paris to be professor of theology in the college of Navarre, of which he was admitted D. D. Boyer Bishop of Mirepoix, who had been at first much prejudiced against him, conferred upon him the see of Verdun. Jansenism had been imputed to him by his enemies, and the Ecclesiastical Gazette accused him of impiety; both imputations equally groundless. He died in Paris in 1755, at the age of fortytwo. The principal of his works are, 1. Principes pour la lecture des Poetes, 1745, 2 vols, 12mo. 2. Essai sur l'Etude des Belles Lettres, 1747. 12mo. 3. Essai sur les bienseances oratoires, 1753, 12mo. 4. Principes pour la lecture des Orateurs, 1753, 3 vols. 12mo. 5. Histoire des Guerres civiles de France sous les regnes de Francois II., Charles IX., Henri III., et Henri IV, translated from the Italian of D'Avila. His style, like his mind and manners, was easy and unaffected; and his attachment to his friends, his candor, moderation, gentleness, and modesty, rendered him truly amiable. He was employed to write the articles on theology and the belles lettres in the Encyclopedia. He was preparing two important works, viz. Une Histoire generale de nos Guerres depuis le commencement de la Monarchie; and Une Histoire du Conseil de Trente, in opposition to that of Father Paul, when he died in Paris in 1755. MALLET DU PAN (Jaques), a modern political writer, was the son of a clergyman of Geneva, and born in 1749. Having completed his education at college, he first entered on the study o. law, but soon deserted it for the belles lettres. He was invited in 1772 to fill the chair of history and French literature at Cassel. Not long after we find him in Switzerland, where he published a political and literary journal, and other works of reputation so that he was invited to Paris to conduct the political department of the Mercure de France. Here he continued during the years 1789, 1790, and 1791, animadverting with freedom on the public affairs; but he found it necessary to quit France in May 1792, and retired to his native city; and afterwards to Berne, where he published several tracts. His apprehensions from the French Directory induced him finally to take refuge in England, where he published, under high patronage, a journal entitled Mercure Britannique, from 1796 till the 15th of March 1800. He died the 10th of May, in the latter year, at Richmond, Surrey. MALLET, MALL, or MAULE in ancient armour, was a weapon much used both by the English and Scots. In the memorable combat fought in Bretagne, in the year 1515, between thirty champions on the part of the English and the like number on that of the French, one of the English champions named Billefort, was armed with a leaden mallet weighing five-and-twenty pounds. We learn also from father Daniel, that the English archers continued to use mallets in the time of Louis XII., who began his reign in 1515, and died in 1524. In the ancient poem of the battle of Flodden, the mention of leaden mallets often occurs : Then on the English part with speed The bills stept forth, and bows went back; The Moorish pikes and malls of lead Did deal there many a dreadful thwack. Ralph Smith equips an archer with a 'maule of lead, five feet long, and a pike with the same, hanging by a girdle with a hook;' meaning, probably, by this description, that the handle of the mall should be of this length, the end armed with a pike or spike; and this implement, we may imagine, was worn at the back, hung by a hook fixed in the centre of its handle, with a loop, or some other contrivance to keep it nearly perpendicular. This weapon seems to have been of French extraction; for we find that in the reign of Charles VI., on occasion of a riot, the populace forced open the arsenal, and armed themselves chiefly with mallets, whence they were styled Mailliotins.' Mallets were tremendous weapons in the hands of strong active men. MALLETS are much used by artificers who work with chisels, as sculptors, masons, and stone cutters, whose mallet is ordinarily round; and by carpenters, joiners, &c., who use it square. There are several sorts of mallets used for different purposes on ship-board. The caulking mallet is chiefly employed to drive the oakum into the seams of a ship, where the edges of the planks are joined to each other in the sides, deck, or bottom. The head of this mallet is long and cylindrical, being hooped with iron to prevent it from splitting in the exercise of caulk |