15(5 M. A f 
and fourpenee for the latter. The fy Hematic regularity, 
punctuality, fuperior fafety, and expedition, of the mail- 
coaches of England, render them peculiarly eligible and 
convenient for travellers. The property and profits of 
the poll, or conveyance of letters, are veiled in govern¬ 
ment, which contracts with the proprietors of coaches for 
the carriage of the mail; but thefe proprietors derive their 
chief profit from the fare of paffengers, and carriage of 
fmall packets. The mail-coaches run above 13,000 miles 
daily. There is a fimilar eftablifhment in Ireland. 
To MAIL, v. a. To arm defenfively j to cover as with 
armour: 
The mailed. Mars (hall on his altar fit 
Up to the ears in blood. Shakefpeare's Henry IV. 
To bundle in a wrapper: 
I am thy married wife, 
And thou a prince, protestor of this land ; 
'Methinks I fhould not thus be led along, 
Mail'd up in lhame, with papers on my back, Shake/peare. 
MAILABOU'R. See St. Thomas. 
MA'ILAH, a river of Africa, which rifes in the coun¬ 
try of Sahara, and lofes itfelf in the Shott. This river is 
at firll called IVel el Shai-er. 
MAILAN'SCHI,y. in botany. See Lawsonia. 
MAILCOT'TA, or Milg'ottah, a town of Hindoo- 
ftan, in the country of Myfore, celebrated for a battle 
fought between Mudharrow and Hyder Ali, in the year 
1772, in which the latter was completely routed, his army 
difperfed, and all his cannon taken. It was here the Mah- 
ratta chiefs met lord Cornwallis in the year 1791. It is 
fifteen miles north of Seririgapatam. 
MA'ILED, adj. Spotted. 
MA'ILING,/. The aft of drelling in mail; the aft of 
making up in a bag, or mail. 
MA'ILLA (Jofeph-Anne-Marie de Moyriac de), a 
learned Jefuit, was born in the caftle of Maillac in the 
JBugey, and appointed a miflionary to China, whither he 
■went in 1703. At the age of twenty-eight he had acquired 
fo great a (kill in the charafters, arts, fciences, mythology, 
and ancient books, of the Chinefe, as to aftonilh even the 
learned. He was greatly beloved and efteemed by the 
emperor Kham-Hi, who died in 1712. He, together with 
other mifiionaries, was employed by that prince to draw 
a chart of China and Chinefe Tartary, which was engraven 
in France in the year 1732. He drew likewife particular 
charts of fome of the provinces of this vaft empire; with 
which the emperor was fo pleafed, that he fettled the au¬ 
thor at his court. The Great Annals of China were alfo 
tranflated into French by father Mailla, and his manu- 
fcript was tranfmitted to France in 1737. This work was 
publilhed in 12 volumes quarto, under the infpeftion of 
M. Grofier, and is the firll complete hiftory of that exten- 
live empire. The ftyle, which was full of hyperbole and 
bombalt, was revifed by the editor, and the fpeeches 
which extended to too great a length, and had too much 
famenefs in them, were omitted. Father Mailla, after 
having refided forty-five years in China, died at Pekin 
on the 28th of June, 1748, in the 79th year of his age. 
.Kien-Lung, the reigning emperor, paid the expenfes of his 
funeral. 
MA'ILLEBOIS, a town of France, in the department 
of the Seine and Oife : fix miles fouth of Chateauneuf en 
Thimerais, and ten fouth-weft of Dreux. 
MAILLERA'YE, a town of France, in the department 
of the Lower Seine: three miles fouth of Caudebec, and 
nine north of Bourgachard. 
MAI'LLET (Benedift de), born of a good family of 
.Lorraine in 1659, was nominated at the age of thirty-three 
conful-general of the French nation in Egypt. He exer- 
.cifed this employment during fixteen years with great 
credit and fuccefs; and was recompenfed with the confu- 
late of Leghorn, the inoll confiderable belonging to the 
Trench commerce. In 17 ij, he was appointed to vifit all 
M A I 
the factories of Barbary and the Levant, and executed his 
commillion fo much to the fatisfaftion of the government, 
that he obtained leave to retire with a.handfome penfion. 
He fixed his refidence at Marfeilles, where he died at the 
age of feventy-^iine, in 1738. De Maillet was a man of 
exaft probity, of pleafing and gentle manners, and of a 
warm imagination. He was all his life a great lludent of 
natural hiltory, which his lively fancy turned into a fyftem 
that for a time interelfed the lovers of fcientific fpecula- 
tion. He held that all the land of this earth, and its ve¬ 
getable and animal inhabitants, rofe from the bofom of 
the fea on the fucceflive contraftion of its waters ; that 
men had originally been tritons furnilhed with tails; and 
that they, as well as other animals, had loll their marine, 
and acquired their terrellrial, forms, by their agitations 
when left on dry ground. This whimfical fyllem appeared 
after his death in a work entitled Telliambd, from the 
letters of his name tranfpofed, and which pretended to be 
the fubltance of a conference between an Indian philofo- 
pher and a French milTionary, printed at Amllerdam in 
1748, and put into its dialogue-form by the editor, the 
abbe la Mafcrier. It is addrelfed in a jocular epillle to 
Cyrano de Bergerac, author of the Voyage to the Moon, 
and is there announced as a mafs of reveries; but t-he work 
itfelf is written with great gravity and apparent feriouf- 
nefs, and contains many curious and philofophical obfer- 
vations, though applied to fupport an extravagant theory. 
The fame editor alfo publilhed, in 1743, A Defcription of 
Egypt, drawn up from the papers of de Maillet. 
In Baron Grimm’s celebrated Memoirs, lately publilhed', 
we have an allufion to this fanciful theory of human beings 
originating from filh, and whence it might arife. “ Egypt, 
though its fituation only approaches the tropic, endures 
more heat than the torrid zone in many parts of the globe. 
Thofe frequent rains and feafonable dorms which tempe¬ 
rate and refrelh the heated air of the tropics, are here al- 
mod unknown. A cloud is never to be feen between the 
fun and the earth ; and the rays of the fun, concentrated 
and reflefted, fall perpendicularly on the two chains of 
mountains which follow the courfe of the Nile, becoming 
like a burning mirror, which fpreads its dames far and 
wide ; for, whild the heat purfues you, the land offers no 
retreat. Egypt is entirely without high trees ; it boads 
none of thofe foreds whofe waving afts as a ventilator in 
the torrid zones, and whofe elevated and umbrageous 
fummits arred the fun’s rays, and keep up a deady cool- 
nefs below, during the intenfe heat that reigns above. 
There are parts of the year when the animals who feed in 
the plains are parched as by a fire, fill the air with their 
cries, and rulh into the waters of the Nile, where they 
remain night and day. The buffalo, the hog, the horfe, 
and the ox, are there almod amphibious; and it would 
appear that Egypt, at certain periods, had no other living 
creatures except filh. It was in Egypt that a Frenchman 
wrote the Jingular work called Telliamed, where he pretends 
that all the animals , and even man, commenced their origin as 
JiJh. The men and women certainly live in the waters of 
the Nile very much with the filh. One is furprifed to fee 
the number of children and young people fwimming acrofs 
and amufing themfelves about this river and its canals. 
In the time of Herodotus and Thales, they were feeri 
riling from the water, and furrounding the boats which 
came up and down the Nile, accompanying them with 
their longs. This fight, one would fuppofe, gave rife 
to the fable of the Nereids. Homer faw it : Homer’s ge¬ 
nius was formed in part by what the nature of Egypt pre- 
fented to him.” 
MAILLEZAI'S, a town of France, in the department 
of the Vendee, once the fee of a bilhop, removed to Ro¬ 
chelle : fix miles fouth of Fontenay, and twelve well- 
north-well of Niort. 
MAI'LLY, a town of France, in the department of the 
Aube: nine miles north of Arcis. 
MAI'LLY, a town of France, in the department of the 
Somme ; fifteen miles eafl-lottth-eafl of Doulens. 
MAI'LLY. 
