MASPERO 



MASSACHUSETTS 



81 



where large flints abound, the walls are often 

 faced with these, split so as to form a clean face 

 ami good joints, and arranged in bands or panels 

 between stonework or brickwork. 



Mas'pero, GASTON CAMILLE CHARLES, Egypt 

 ologist, was born at Paris, of Italian parents, on 

 23d June 1846. He began to lecture on Egyptology 

 at the School of Higher Studies in Paris* in 1869, 

 ami in 1H73 was appointed professor of Egyptology 

 at the College of France. In 1881 he founded 

 a school of Egyptian archreology at Cairo, and 

 succeeded Mariette an director of explorations and 

 custodian of the Boulak Museum. In 1886 he 

 became professor at the Institute of Paris. As 

 an explorer he has excavated or opened the pyra- 

 mids of the kings In-longing to the 5th and 6th 

 dynasties, and the burial-fields of Sakkara and 

 Dahshur, and discovered new sepulchral sites of 

 great value at Deir el- Italian, near the entrance to 

 the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, at Ekhmim, 

 130 miles S. of Thebes, and at other places. His 

 most valuable written work includes the excellent 

 Hintiiin- Aii'-iniiie ties Peiiples d'Orient (illust. ed. 

 1X04; trans, as The. Driirii nf Cirllixiitinn, 1H94) ; 

 La Trouvaille de Deyr el-Bahri; L'ArcMoliif/ie 

 gij)itien>ie (1887 ; Eng. trans. 1887); Contes Popu- 

 latriu ili: rf: : i ; /iil c An<-ienne (1882) ; titttdes fcgypt- 

 ieniiei (1879-82); papers in Recueil tie Tntvaux, 

 and several other more technical productions. 



Masque, a species of dramatic performance, 

 much in vogue in England towards the close of the 

 16th and the beginning of the 17th century. It 

 was in fact the favourite form of private theatricals 

 at the time. The masque appears to have origin- 

 ated in the practice of introducing, in any solemn 

 or festive processions, men wearing masks, who 

 represented either imaginary or allegorical |>erson- 

 a'.'i-s. At first it was simply an 'acted pageant,' 

 as in the well-known progresses of Queen Elizabeth ; 

 but gradually it expanded into a regular dramatic 

 entertainment, and in the hands of men like 

 Fletcher and Ben Jonson attained a high degree 

 of literary beauty. Jonson 's masques were repre- 

 sented at court, and were greatly relished. The 

 taste i"i masques died out under Charles I., to whose 

 reign belongs the. noble I'umiin of Milton ( Ki.'il >. 

 Eiitjlisli .l/<i.vyi//'.v, I'diicd by II. A. Evans (1897), 

 contains t-n pieces by Jonson, and othi-rs by Daniel, 

 Campion, Beaumont, Shirley, and Davenaut. 



Masquerade, or MASKED BALL, a festive 

 meeting in which the host and guests assume ficti- 

 tious characters, and disguise themselves more or 

 less for the occasion, the name lieing derived from 

 the use of the mask. The public mumi/n-.i-ius of 

 farmer times, Easter plays. Festivals of Fools, &c., 

 which were frequent in most parts of Europe, but 

 somewhat various in different countries, probably 

 -f-sted the idea of the masquerade, which, how- 

 ever, was not o]en to all, according to the well 

 understood rules of these ancient amusements, but 

 was limited to some select class, or to those who 

 paid a certain sum for admission. Catharine de' 

 Medici introduced the regular masquerade at the 

 French court. It found its way to England in the 

 reign of Henry VIII., but did lint reach any of the 

 courts of (i.-iniany till the end of the 17th century. 

 The li"l i-iiilnint is a very moditied and much less 

 objectionable form of the masquerade. 



Mass is defined as 'the quantity of matter in a 

 body;' and weight is proportional to mass (see 

 GRAVITATION, MATTER). 



Mass. See LITURGY. 



Mass. MI.-SIC OF. Each part of the service of 



i Mass has its unisonal plain song melody, 



ing according to the season or festival ; the 



first collections of these melodies were made liv St 



318 



Ambrose, and afterwards more completely by St 

 Gregory. But since the invention of counterpoint 

 certain portions have been selected for more elabor- 

 ate treatment viz. the Ki/n'e, Gloria, Credo, Sac- 

 tiis, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei; each of which, 

 but especially the Credo, is by common traditional 

 practice divided into separate movements, also 

 designated by the initiatory words. In the early 

 contrapuntal music, a plain-song melody, or even a 

 secular tune, formed the basis on which the whole 

 was constructed, and the mass was named in 

 accordance e.g. the numerous Missce L'Hommc 

 Armt, founded on an old French love-song. This 

 appropriation of secular tunes, which could never 

 wholly lose their association with the often objec- 

 tionable words, anticipates Shakespeare's Puritan 

 'who sings Psalms to hornpipes,' and the similar 

 practices of recent revivalists. These compositions 

 soon liecame more remarkable for their learning 

 and ingenuity than appropriateness or reverential 

 feeling ; and to such an extent was this abuse 

 carried that the Council of Trent condemned them 

 in no measured terms, and a commission, appointed 

 in 1564 to carry out certain of its decrees, was on 

 the point of entirely forbidding the use in future of 

 polyphonic music in the church, when the produc- 

 tion by Palestrina of his world-famous Missa Pa/tee 

 Marcetli convinced the cardinals that such music 

 could be profoundly devotional as well as techni- 

 cally skilful ; and its use was allowed to be con- 

 tinued. The succeeding epoch of church music, 

 however, was one of decline ; but in the later part 

 of the 17th and commencement of the 18th centuries 

 arose a new school, comprising Alejandro Scarlatti, 

 Leo, ami IJurante, in wnose compositions the intro- 

 duction of instrumental accompaniment was the 

 most important new feature ; one which gave to all 

 subsequent masses the style of the cantata, more 

 individual and dramatic than devotional. In this 

 style also are the stupendous masses of Bach in 

 B minor, Beethoven in D, and Cherubini in D 

 and A. Of less importance, though full of beautiful 

 music, are those of Hay dn, Mozart, Weber, Schubert, 

 and Gounod. 



The music of the Kequiem, or Missa pro drf inn-tin, 

 differs of course considerably in its details from that 

 of the ordinary High Mass. The most famous com- 

 positions for it are those of Mozart and Cherubini. 

 Brahms' masterpiece, the German Kequiem, is hot 

 a mass but a sacred cantata on scriptural words. 



Massa. distinguished as MASSA DI CARRARA, 

 a city of Northern Italy, 20 miles by rail SE. of 

 Spezia, It is a bishop's see, has a public library, 

 an academy of arts and sciences, a cathedral, and a 

 ducal palace. The inhabitants, 8998 in 1881, rear 

 silkworms, grow tobacco, press oil, make paper, 

 saw timber, and trade in the white marble that 

 all sculptors use. The province of Massa and 

 Carrara has an area of 687 sq. in., and a pop. 

 .1881) of 169,469; (1894) 181,397. In 1568 the 

 ruling family in Massa were created princes, and 

 in 1664 dukes. The dukedom passed by marriage 

 to the house of Modena-Este in 1741. 



Massachusetts, one of theoldestand most cele- 

 brated of the states of the American Union, lies be- 

 tween 41 14' and 42 53' N. lat., 

 and between 69 53' and 73 ' 32' \V. 

 long., and has an area of about 

 S315 sq. m. It is irregular in outline, its greatest 

 length being about 1H2 and its average breadth 

 474 miles. It is bounded on the east by Massa- 

 chusetts Bay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean, from 

 which the state derives its familiar name of the 

 Bay State. The surface is uneven, varying from 

 low plains, near the sea-coast, containing numerous 

 small lakes, to a rolling Auntry in the interior, 

 becoming mountainous as the western boundary a 



Copyright 1891, 1897, and 

 100 in the U. S. by J. B. 

 Llppiucott Compauy . 



