65 



MANNYNG, ROBERT. 



MANSFIELD, EARL OF. 



86 



The circumstances attending his trial and death are involved in much 

 obscurity. It would appear that he was accused before the centuries 

 and was acquitted ; and that afterwards, seeing that the patrician 

 party were determined on his destruction, he seized upon the capitol, 

 and prepared to defend it by arm?. In consequence of this Camillus, 

 his personal enemy, was appointed dictator, and the curiie (that is. the 

 patrician assembly) condemned him to death. According to Livy, 

 who implies that Manliua did not take up arms, he was thrown down 

 from the Tarpeian rock by the tribunes; but Niebuhr supposes, from 

 a fragment of Dion (xxxi.) compared with the narrative of Zonaras 

 (vii. 24), that he was treacherously pushed down from the rock by a 

 slave, who had been hired for that purpose by the patrician party. 

 (' Roman History,' vol. ii., pp. 610, 611, Engl. transL ; Livy, vi. 11, 14, 

 20.) The house which had belonged to Manlius was razed ; and the 

 Manlian gens resolved that none of its patrician members should again 

 bear the name of Marcus. Manlius was pnt to death B.C. 3S1. 



2. TITUS MANLIUS CAPITOLUIUS TOBQUATUS, son of L. Manlius, 

 surnamed Imperiosus, who was dictator B.C. 361. .When his father 

 Lucius was accused by the tribune Pomponius on account of his 

 cruelty towards the soldiers under his command, and also for keeping 

 his son Titus among his slaves in the country, Titus is said to have 

 obtained admittance to the house of Pompouius shortly before the 

 trial, and to have compelled him, under fear of death, to swear that 

 he would drop the prosecution against his father. This instance of 

 filial affection is said to have operated so strongly in his favour, that 

 he was appointed in the same year (B.C. 359) one of the military 

 tribunes. (Liv., vii. 4, 5 ; Cicero, ' De Off,' iii. 31.) In the following 

 year Manlius distinguished himself by slaying in single combat a Qaul 

 of gigantic size on the banks of the Anio. In consequence of his 

 taking a chain (torques) from the dead body of his enemy, he received 

 his surname of Torquatus. (Liv., vii. 10.) Manlius filled the office 

 of dictator twice, and in both instances before he had been appointed 

 consul : once, in order to conduct the war against the Cicrites, B.C. 351 ; 

 and the second time in order to preside at the Comitia for the election 

 of consuls, B.C. 346. (Liv., vii. 19-26.) Manliua was consul at least 

 three times. (Cic., 'Do Off,' iii. 31.) In 1m third consulship he 

 defeated the Latins, who had formed a powerful confederacy against 

 the Romans. In the same campaign he put hia own son to death for 

 having engaged in single combat with one of the enemy, contrary to 

 his orders. (Liv., viii. 5-12.) 



3. TITUS MAHLIUS TORQUATUS wag consul B.C. 235, and obtained a 

 triumph on account of his conquests in Sardinia. (Veil, ii. 33 ; 

 Eutrop., iii. 3.) In his second consulship, B.C. 224, he conquered the 

 Gauls. (Polyb., ii. 31.) He opposed the ransom of the prisoners, 

 who had been taken at the battle of Cannrc. (Liv., xxii. 60.) In 

 B.C. 215 he defeated the Carthaginians in Sardinia (Liv., xxiii. 34, 40, 

 41) ; and in 212 was an unsuccessful candidate for the office of 

 Pontifez Maximus. (Liv., xxv. 5.) In 211 he was again elected 

 consul, but declined the honour on account of the weakness of his 

 eyes. (Liv., xxvi. 22.) In 208 be was appointed dictator in order to 

 hold the Comitia. (Liv., xxvii. 33.) The temple of Janus was closed 

 during the first consulship of Manilas. (Liv., i. 19; Veil, ii. 38.) 



4. CSEIUS MAHLIUS VULSO was consul B.C. 189, and appointed to 

 the command of the war against the Gauls in Galatia, whom he 

 entirely subdued. An account of thia war is given by Livy (xxxviii. 

 12-17) and Polybias (xxii. 16-22). After remaining in Asia the follow- 

 ing year as pro-consul, he led hia army home through Thrace, where 

 he was attacked by the inhabitants in a narrow defile and plundered 

 of part of hia booty. He obtained a triumph, B.C. 186, though not 

 without some difficulty. (Liv., xxxix. 6.) 



MANNYNG, ROBERT, is more usually called Robert de Brunne. 

 Ho owes this name to his having been a Gilbertino canon in the 

 monastery of Brunne or Bourne iu Lincolnshire. He lived in the 

 reigns of Edward I. and hia successor, and was the writer of one of 

 the earliest of the Metrical Chronicles whose language can be called 

 English. His work however is merely a translation from the French. 

 It U in two parts : the first, translated from the ' Brut d'Angleterre ' 

 and ' Roman le Rou'of Wace and Uaimar, begins with JEuesaa and 

 ends with CadwalUder; the second, from C'adwallader to Edward I., 

 is translated from the Chronicle of Peter Langtoft [LANUTOFT, 

 PtTEii.] Robert's version was published by Hearne in 1725. The 

 measure of it is octosyllabic in the first part, and Alexandrine in the 

 ecoud. Its poetical merit is very small ; but it is interesting as an 

 earl; monument of the language, and valuable for ita information, 

 both historical and literary. Robert made hi EnglUh rhymes a trans- 

 lation, which has never been printed, of Saint Buonaventura's treatise 

 ' Do Cccna et Passione DomiuL' He translated also freely, into octo- 

 syllabic verse, the ' Manuel Peche,' or 'Manual of Sins," which used to 

 be attributed to Bishop Qrosthead on insufficient grounds. Of this 

 unprintcd translation specimens are given in Warton's work and else- 

 where. Hearne has supposed, with little reason, that Robert de 

 Brunne was the author of the old English metrical romance called 

 'Rychanle Cutr-de-Ljon.' 



MANSAIUJ, the name of two French architects of great celebrity 

 in the 17th century. 



I K.v.Nc.oi3 MANSARD the elder, whose father, Absalon, is said to have 

 been architect or builder to the king, was born at Paris in 1598. At 

 the age of twenty-two he began to distinguish himself by his restora- 



tion of the Hotel Toulouse; and a short time afterwards he was com- 

 missioned to execute the portal of the church of the Feuillans, in the 

 Rue St. Honore. The reputation he acquired by these works soon 

 procured him abundant employment, ami obtained for him ample 

 opportunities for displaying his talents. Among the numerous 

 chateaus erected after his designs may bo mentioned Berni near Paris, 

 Baleray, Blerancourt, Choisy, and that of Maisons, which last was 

 built for the president De Longueil, and is generally considered his 

 best work of that class. Among his churches the most noted ia that 

 of the Val de Grace at Paris, the dome of which was once generally 

 extolled as a fine piece of architecture, although now considered a 

 grotesque composition, remarkable for nothing so much as its impure 

 and meagre taste. The facade of the church of the Minimes in the 

 Place Royale is also by him, and has been admired as exhibiting the 

 solution of a knotty problem, the metopes being perfect squares 

 throughout ! Such was the puerile and pedantic trifling that formerly 

 engaged the attention of architects and connoisseurs, and for the sake 

 of which they overlooked matters of infinitely greater importance in 

 architectural taste and design. Fraosoia died in 1666. This architect 

 ia said to have been the inventor of the curb roof, called, after him, a 

 Mansard, which consists of two planes on each Bide, a steeper one 

 below and a flatter one above. It has however little beauty of form 

 to recommend it, having very much the look of being broken or 

 doubled. 



JDLES HARDOUIU MAXSARD was the nephew of the preceding, being 

 the son of a painter who had married the sister of Fran9ois. J ules, 

 who assumed his maternal family name on becoming heir to his uncle, 

 was born in 1648. He was brought up by Franjois to hia own pro- 

 fession, in which he became much the more celebrated of the two. 

 Most assuredly he had ample field allowed him for the display of his 

 talent?, since, had he been employed on no other work, he was called 

 to execute one' which for lavish prodigality has hardly its parallel iu 

 any age or country. It becomes therefore quite as much a satire as a 

 eulogium on his ' genius ' to say, that on that occasion, and with 

 unlimited resources, ho produced nothing better than Versailles a 

 huge pile of building, which Sir Christopher Wren happily described 

 as composed of " heaps of littleness." It would not be difficult to 

 select from his other works numerous instances of exceedingly bad 

 taste, of puerile caprices, and downright solecisms ; their magnitudo 

 and the costliness of their decorations however give to hia worka an 

 imposing air, though the effect thua produced is hardly to be ascribed 

 to the architect himself. After Versailles, the work which has chiefly 

 contributed to hia reputation is the dome of the Invalidcs at Paris, 

 which, although as splendid aa gilding can make it, is externally 

 greatly inferior to that of our St. Paul's in harmony and majesty of 

 design and proportions. The plan of the interior of the edifice pre- 

 sents far more that deserves commendation, the whole being skilfully 

 arranged for perspective effect. Both the. Place Louia XIV. and that 

 culled Des Victoires at Paris were built after his design*, but have 

 little at all remarkable, except it be tliat the one is an octagon and the 

 other an oval In plan. He was enabled to amass a vast fortune. He 

 died suddenly at Marly in 1708, and was buried in the church of 

 St. Paul, at Paris, where a monument by Coysevox was erected 

 to him. 



MANSFIELD, WILLIAM MURRAY, EARL OF, lord-chief-juatice 

 of the king's bench, was born at Perth on the 2nd of March 1701, o.s. 

 He was the fourth son of Andrew Viscount Stormont When three 

 years old he waa removed to London, and iu 1719 he was admitted a 

 king's scholar at Westminster school. On the 18th of June 1723 he 

 was entered at Christ Church, Oxford, where, as before at Westminster, 

 he distinguished himself by hia classical attainments. After taking 

 his degree of M.A. he left the university in 1730, and after travelling 

 some time abroad he was called to the bar iu Michaelmas term 1731. 

 In early life he appears to have associated a good deal with the " men 

 of wit about town." 



It has been said of him, aa of other eminent lawyers, that he had 

 been heard to say that he never knew the difference between a total 

 want of employment and an income of 30001. a-yeir. But in 1732, 

 the year after hia being called to the bar, it appears that he was 

 engaged iu an important appeal case ; and in the two following years 

 he was frequently retained in similar caaei before the House of Lords. 

 (Uolliday's ' Life,' p. 28). The first cause iu the common-law courts 

 in which Mr. Murray distinguished hims.-lf was an action for criminal 

 conversation brought by Theophilus Cibber against Mr. Sloper. A 

 sudden attack of illness having prevented his leader from appearing 

 in court, the duty of conducting the defence devolved upon him. 

 The result brought him an influx of business which at once raised 

 his income from a few hundreds to thousands. In 1743 he was 

 appointed solicitor-general, and obtained a seat in the House of 

 Commons, where his eloquence and legal knowledge soon rendered 

 him very powerful. In the House, Murray aud Pitt (Lord Chatham) 

 were opposed to each other as tha best speakers of their respective 

 parties. Pitt's attacks on Murray seem to have occasionally exceeded 

 the limits prescribed by modern parliamentary regulations, and Murray 

 had not the nerve to return or to parry his fierce invectives. In 1754 

 Mr. Murray was made attorney -general, and in 1756 he received the 

 appointment of chief-justice of the kiug'a bench, aud waa imme- 

 diately created a peer, by the title of Baron Mansfield, of Mansfield 



