113 



MASSON, ANTOINE. 



MAS'tJDl, ABU'-L-HASAN. 



146 



Massinger is, we believe, the only dramatist of his time who did not 

 either openly or in secret espouse the court doctrine of the divine 

 right of kings. Massinger's plays are distinguished by an almost 

 entire abstinence from common oaths, and although we cannot add to 

 this that they contain no coarse or even disgusting passages, we might 

 perhaps venture, in respect to some of them, those for instance 'in 

 the ' Virgin Martyr,' to shift the blame from Massinger himself to his 

 coadjutor in the composition. Whether this abstinence from profanity 

 arose from the restraining influence of the growing prejudice against 

 stage-plays, or from Massinger's own taste, we cannot now tell, but 

 the delicacy, approaching to feminine, so evident in his writings, would 

 induce us to ascribe it to the poet's own choice. 



Mapsinger's extant plays are, ' The Old Law,' ' The Virgin Martyr,' 

 The Unnatural Combat,' 'The Duke of Milan,' 'The Bondman,' 

 ' The Renegado,' ' The Parliament of Love,' ' The Roman Actor,' 

 ' The Great Duke of Florence,' ' The Maid of Honour,' ' The Emperor 

 of the East,' ' The Fatal Dowry,' ' A New Way to Pay Old Debts,' 

 ' The City Madam,' ' The Guardian,' ' A Very Woman,' and ' The 

 Bashful Lover." 



(Gifford, Preface to Massinger; and the Edinburgh Review for 1808.) 

 MASSON, ANTOINE, a celebrated French engraver and painter 

 was born at Loury, near Orleans, in 1636, and was originally an 

 armourer and ' damasquineur,' or ornamental engraver and inlayer of 

 metals, an artist in much request in the days of armour and chivalry. 

 Maeson, who in engraving appears to have been self-taught, had 

 extreme facility and certainty of execution, and he was one of the 

 first artists who made a marked distinction in the textures of the 

 objects which he engraved ; he was also extremely successful in his 

 mode of representing colour. The fantastic and eccentric mode how- 

 ever in which he sometimes engraved his portraits, has been condemned 

 by some critics as mere bravura to display his own remarkable facility 

 in handling the graver ; in some heads the features are engraved in 

 continuous and peculiar lines. He was very fond of displaying his 

 skill also in executing hair, whether of man or beast, though he fre- 

 quently sacrificed truth to his propensity for making these fine lines, 

 and in draperies and animals lie has gone so far beyond the truth, 

 that this peculiarity is the most striking feature of some of his works. 

 A print, after Titian, of the Disciples at Kinmaus, is from the nature 

 of the cloth on the table generally known ag La Nappe, and there is a 

 dog in the picture which is such a mass of hair, that upon a close 

 inspection it appears, says Watelet, to be made entirely of straw ; yet 

 notwithstanding these peculiarities, says the same intelligent critic, 

 this print is the best engraving after Titian. Watelet says that Maseon's 

 faults are faults which he would have, and that they are always com- 

 pensated by bis beauties. The print of the Disciples at Eminaus has 

 an additional value beyond its merits as an engraving, for, with the 

 exception of that of Christ, all the heads are portraits the praying 

 disciple is the Pope Adrian IV., the other is the Emperor Charles V., 

 the boat is the emperor's confessor, and the attendant is Philip II. of 

 Spain. Masson died at Paris, in 1700, as engraver in ordinary to the 

 king, and a member of the French Academy of Painting. He has 

 executed many portraits, several after his own paintings, and some of 

 them are nearly of the size of life. Masson'a portraits have a peculiar 

 interest also as representing a great portion of the most distinguished 

 men during the reign of Louis XIV. His historical pieces are not 

 numerous, but they are all excellent. (Watelet and Levesque, Diction- 

 naire des Beaux Arti ; Robert Dumesnil, Peintre-Grareur Franfait; 

 Nagler, Ncua Allgemeine* Kiinttltr-Lexikon.) 



MAS'UDf, ABU'-L-HASA'N 'ALI' BEN-HUSEI'N BEN-'ALI', 

 one of the most celebrated Arabian writers, was born, according to his 

 own statement, at Baghdad, in the 3rd century of the hejra, or the 

 9th of the Christian era. He belonged to the illustrious family of 

 'Abdallah ben-Mas'tid, of the tribe Hodzdil, and one of his ancestors 

 was among the few early followers of Mohammed who accompanied the 

 prophet on his flight from Mecca to Medina. Mas'udi was gifted with 

 great talents, which he applied at an early age to learned pursuits. He 

 gathered an immense stock of knowledge in all branches of science, 

 and his learning was not mere book learning, but he improved it in 

 his long travels through all parts of the Eaat, Turkey, Eastern Russia, 

 and Spain. In A.H. 303 he visited India, Ceylon, and the coast of 

 China, where the Arabs had founded numerous small colonies; thence 

 he went to Madagascar and Southern Arabia ; thence through Persia 

 to the Caspian, and he visited the Khazars in Southern Russia. In 

 A. u. 8J 4 he was in Palestine ; from 332 to 334 in Syria and Egypt, and 

 he says that in 845, when he wrote his last work, the second edition 

 of hia ' Golden Meadows,' he was in Ejrypt, and had been a long time 

 absent from his native country, Irak. He says that he travelled so far 

 to the West (Mnrocco and Spain), that he forgot the Eaet, and so far 

 Kant, that he forgot the West. Mas'udi died probably at Kahirah 

 (Ciro), in A.H. 345 (A.I). 956), and since he visited India as early as 

 A. ir. 303, it is evident that those who say he died young are mistaken. 



No Arabian writer is quoted eo often, and spoken of with eo much 



admiration by his countrymen, as Mas'udi, and although only a small 



u of his numerous and voluminous works is known to Europeans, 



it i sufficient to show that he deserves his reputation. The variety of 



subjects on which he wrote astonishes even the learned, and the 



philosopher is surprised to see this Arab of the middle age resolving 



questions which remained problems to Europeans for many centuries 



Bioo. Div. VOL. IV. 



after him. Mas'udi knew not only the history of the Eastern nations, 

 but also ancient history and that of the Europeans of his time; he had 

 thoroughly studied the different religions of mankind, Mohammedanism, 

 Christianity, those of Zoroaster and Confucius, and the idolatry of 

 barbarous nations. His geographical knowledge was no less extensive 

 and correct than his acquaintance with history, and no Arabian writer 

 can boast like him of learning at once profound and almost universal. 

 A characteristic feature of Mas'udi is his want of method in arranging 

 the prodigious number of facts which a rare memory never failed to 

 supply him with while he was writing. He illustrates the history or 

 geography of the West with analogies or contrasts taken from China 

 or Arabia; he avails himself of his knowledge of Christianity to elucidate 

 the creeds of the different Mohammedan sects ; and while he informs 

 the reader of the mysteries of the extreme North, he will all at once 

 forget his subject and transfer him into the desert of the Sahara. 



The principal works of Mas'udi are: 1, ' Akhbdr-ez-zemdn,' or 

 ' History of the Times.' This work, the wonder and delight of the 

 learned in the East, was too voluminous to meet with popularity. 

 According to Burckbardt there is a manuscript of it in the library of 

 the mosque of St. Sophia, which, incomplete as it is, consists of twenty 

 large volumes in 4to, and ten at least are said to be wanted to make 

 it complete. The ' AkhbaV-ez-zemdn ' was a general history of all 

 nations ; it has never been printed ; manuscripts are very rare in the 

 East, and there are none in Europe. In the royal library in Paris 

 however there is a manuscript fragment of it on Egypt, of which there 

 is a manuscript translation by Pe'tis de la Croix, which has been perused 

 by later orientalists. The Arabic work ' Kitdb tarikh-al-ju.ma'n fi 

 mokhtasar dkhbdr-ez-zemdn,' or ' The Book of Pearls gathered from 

 the History of the Times,' of which there is a manuscript copy in the 

 Royal Library at Copenhagen, and another in that of Paris, is an 

 extract from the 'Akhbdr-ez-zemdn,' according to the Danisb orien- 

 talist Kasmussen. Saint Martin however doubts this. This extract 

 was made in the 9th century of our era, by Shehdbed-din Ahmed-am- 

 Mokri, a native of Fez in Marocco. 2, ' Kitdb-al-dusat,' ' The Book of 

 the Middle,' the word ' dusat ' the plural of ' wesat,' being probably 

 taken in the sense of ' proportionate,' ' not exceeding a certain size.' 

 This is the complement to No. 1, and treats of the most curious and 

 important questions in history aud geography. There is no manuscript 

 of it in Europe, and we know some of its details only through the 

 quotations of other Arabic writers. Aware that his works were too 

 voluminous, Mas'udi wrote, 3, 'Moruj-ad-dhehel we m'ddin-al-jewdhir,' 

 hia celebrated 'Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems.' This is an 

 extract with additions from Nos. 1 and 2. In the Leyden manuscript 

 perused by Dr. Sprenger, the work is divided into 132 chapters, of 

 which the doctor gives the titles in the introduction to the first 

 volume of his translation of the work ; in a Paris manuscript it is 

 divided into 129 chapters, 65 of which treat on foreign countries, and 

 the remainder on the Empire of the Arabs. Mas'udi wrote this work 

 in A.H. 332, in the space of one year, according to the author, for each 

 chapter bears the date when, the author finished it. This seems how- 

 ever scarcely credible. In A.H. 345 the author issued a second edition 

 containing 350 chapters, but this work was again too voluminous, and 

 met with less favour from the public than the first edition, of which 

 there are many manuscripts in the East as well as iu Europe ; but 

 there ia no manuscript extant of the second edition. A Spanish Arab, 

 El-Shatibi, a native of Xativa, made an extract from the 'Golden 

 Meadows,' and so did Reiske during his residence at Leyden. The 

 ' Historia Joctanidarum,' in Schuttens' ' Monuinenta Antiquissima His- 

 toriie Arabum,' is a translation of a chapter of the ' Golden Meadows;' 

 and it appears that the Arabic treatise of which Henaudot published a 

 translation under the title ' Anciennes Relations des Indes et de la 

 Cbine de deux Voyageurs Mohammedans ' is likewise a fragment of 

 that work, though probably of the second edition. Dr. Gildemeister 

 published a translation of a chapter of it on India, entitled ' De Indis,' 

 Bonn, 1836, 8vo. The Oriental Translation Fund proposed to publish 

 a translation of the whole work, but only the first volume, containing 

 the first seven chapters, translated by Dr. Aloys Sprenger, with the 

 co-operation of the late Earl of Munster, has appeared under the 

 titlo ' El-Mas' udi's Historical Encyclopaedia entitled Meadows of Gold 

 and Mines of Gems,' 1st vol., London, 1841, 8vo. A French translation 

 ' Les prairies d'Or par Derenbourg ' is announced as " in the press." 

 The 'Golden Meadows' treat on the history, geography, religion, 

 manners, and politics of most of the Eastern and European nations, 

 and are full of matter both important and curious. 



The following are works of Mas'udi, some of which are extant in 

 manuscript, but most of them are only known by being quoted by 

 other writers : 



of what 

 4c., 



Jonsideratiou,' treats on a matter of the highest importance to all 

 Moslems, namely on those who were entitled to succeed Mohammed as 

 Khalif; 7, ' Kitdb-al-mesdil,' &c., 'The Book of Questions on the 

 Causes of Religion ; ' 8, ' Kitdb-al-stbiinah,' ' On the Principles of 

 Heligion ; ' 9, ' Kititb-as-safwah,' ' On Sincerity,' treats on the different 

 Mohammedan sects. Mas'udi was a schismatic, and it is believed 

 that he left his native town, and settled abroad, on account of some 

 religious differences ; 10 ' Kitdb sirr-al-hdyah,' 'On the Secret of Life,' 



It 



