11)2 M A 1 
where he could purfue his ftudies without moleftation. 
In this retreat he employed himfelf very affiduoufly for 
about eighteen months, on his commentarie upon the 
Gofpels, and upon the minor prophets. But a perfon of 
fuch extraordinary learning and endowments could not 
be fuffered to remain long in obfcurity. Accordingly, 
lie was tent for to Rome, by pope Gregory XIII. to fu- 
perintend the publication of the Septuagint; and he there 
finilhed his Commentary upon the Gofpels, which he pre- 
fented to his general Aquaviva, in December 1582. Soon 
afterwards he fell fick; and was found dead in his bed, in 
January 1583, when he was about fifty-nine years of age. 
Maldonatus was one of the molt learned divines of whom 
the fociety of Jefuits had to boaft, and one of the ableft 
men of his time. He was mailer of the Greek and Hebrew 
languages, fpoke Latin with the greatelt purity, and was 
•well Ikilled in profane and facred literature. The ancient 
fathers and divines he had read with great care. He had 
a clear and methodical head, great facility of elocution, 
much vivacity, prefence of mind, and addrefs in deputa¬ 
tion. Jnftead of fervilely fubmitting to the opinions of 
the fcholaltic divines, he thought for himfelf and thought 
freely, and, in general, Ihowed that he pofTefTed found 
judgment. As a fcripture-commentator, he is entitled to 
\'ery high commendation, and isjuftly much valued by 
protellants as well as catholics. “He adheres,” fays 
Dupin, “ to the hiftorical and natural fenfe of the text, 
and explains it clearly, without going out of his way after 
allegories, or making long digreflions.” Father Simon 
entertains a limilar opinion of his merits, and obferves, 
that “ he does not allow one difficulty to pafs without ex¬ 
amining it to the bottom. When a great number of li¬ 
teral interpretations of the fame paffage prefent themfelves, 
he ulually fixes upon the belt, without paying too great a 
deference to the ancient commentators, or even to the ma¬ 
jority, regarding nothing but truth alone, ftript of all au¬ 
thorities but her own.” The high value which was en¬ 
tertained for his character, De Thou has placed in a link¬ 
ing light, in his 78th book, § 7. where, after obferving 
that he joined a fingular piety and purity of life, and an 
exquifite judgment, with an exaCt know ledge of philofo- 
phy and divinity, he adds, that his merit was the foie 
caufe w hy the parliament of Paris decreed nothing againlt 
the Jefuits, though they were fufpeCted by the wifelt 
heads, and the whole univerfity hated them very much. 
Of Maldonatus’s various works not one was publifhed 
during his life-time. The fir ft which was given to the 
world was his Commentarii in Quatuor Evangeliltas, folio, 
which was printed at Pont-a-Mouflon, in 1596, by the Je- 
iuits of the college in that city, from a copy of Maldo- 
natus’s original tranfmitted to them by their general. It 
was afterwards printed at Brefcia in Italy, in 1598, at 
Lyons in 1601, at Mentz about the fame time, and at Paris 
in 1617. The above-mentioned are the heft editions of this 
work The next of his works, in point of importance, is 
his Commentarii in Quatuor Prophetas, Hieremiam, Ba¬ 
ruch, Ezekielem, et Danielein ; printed at Lyons in 1609, 
and at Cologne in 1611, in quarto, accompanied with an 
Expoiition of the 109th Pfalm, and a Letter concerning a 
Conference held at Sedan, with fome Calvinift Minifters. 
The author left behind him many manufcripts, fome of 
which were prevented from being loft by M. du Bois, 
a doctor of the Sorbonne, who publifhed a collection of 
them, in a folio volume, confiding of difcourfes upon 
the facrament; letters; mifcellaneous trails ; prefaces ; 
harangues j and trearifes on grace, original fin, the imma¬ 
culate conception, providence, predeltination, righteouf- 
nels, and the merit of works. As for the Summa Cafuum 
Confcientioe, and the Difputationes circa VII. Ecclefise 
Sacramenta, which have appeared under his name, they 
are confidered to be Ipurious. Solvel/i Bibl. Scrip. Soc. Jes. 
MALDUAR', a fmall circar of Bengal, between Dina- 
gcpour and Purneah, about nine miles long and fix broad. 
It‘may be confidered part of Rajemul. Rahny is the chief 
town. 
M A L 
MALE, adj. [male, Fr. mafcvlus, Lat.J Of the fex that 
begets, not bears, young ; not female.—You are the richeft 
parfon in the commonwealth; you have no male child; 
your daughters are all married to wealthy patricians. 
Swift. 
MALE,/. The he of any fpecies.—In molt the male is 
the greater, and in fome few the female. Bacon. 
MALE, an ifland in the Indian Ocean, and principal 
of thole called the Maldives, about four miles in circum¬ 
ference, and fituated nearly in the centre. It is the molt 
fertile, and contains a town, which is the relidence of the 
prince. Lat. 6. 20. N. Ion. 73. 10. E. 
MALE BAL'SAM-APPLE. See Momordica. 
MALE'A, in ancient geography. Capo Malio, a town of 
Laconia, fituated at the extremity of a chain of moun¬ 
tains, advancing into the fea between the Argolic and 
Laconic gulfs. The fea is fo rough and boilterous there, 
that the dangers which attended a voyage round it gave 
rife to the proverb of Cum ad Maleam dflexeris, oblivifcere 
quee funt domi. 
MALEADMINISTR A'TION, / Bad management of 
affairs.—From the practice of the wifeft nations’, when a 
prince was laid afide for malcadminjlration, the nobles and 
people did refume the adminiftration of the fupreme power. 
Swift. 
MALEBA'YE, a town of Canada, on the river St. Lau¬ 
rence : feventy miles north-eaft of Quebec. 
MALEBRAN'CHE (Nicholas), a celebrated philofo- 
pher, was born at Paris in the year 1638, and inftrmfled 
in the Latin and Greek languages by a domeftic tutor. 
He afterwards profecuted the ftudy of philofophy at the 
college of la Marche, and of divinity in the Sorbonne. At 
the age of twenty-two, he determined to embrace a mo¬ 
nadic life, and was admitted into the congregation of the 
Oratory. Weary of the refearches of ecclefialtical hiftory, 
to which he firft directed his attention, he was advifed by- 
father Simon to apply to oriental literature and biblical 
criticifm ; but, when he had acquired fufficient knowledge 
of the Hebrew language to read the Old Teltament in the 
original, he defilted from the purfuit of ftudies of this 
kind ; and, under the influence of a temporary enthufiafm, 
he feemed inclined to give himfelf up wholly to devotion, 
and filently to wait for divine illumination. But he was 
roufed from this ftate by the accidental perufal of Des 
Cartes’s treatife On Man, with the perfpicuous realoning 
of which he was fo much pleafed, that he determined to 
make himfelf thoroughly acquainted with this author’s 
fyftem of philofophy. With this view, he devoted ten 
years to profound meditation, and to metaphyfical re¬ 
fearches, which led him, under the influence ot a warm 
and exuberant imagination, into the very vifionary regions 
of enthufiafm. Conceiving the foul of man to be mylte- 
rioufly united to his body, and apprehending alio that a 
no lefs myllerious union fublilted between the human 
foul and God, he publilhed, in 1673, the refult of his me¬ 
ditations and conclufions, in his famous treatife, entitled 
Recherche de la Rerite', or Search after Truth, in 3 vols. umo. 
In 1676, he attempted to evince the agreement between 
true philofophy and religion, in a work, entitled Chriltian 
Converfations, in which the Truth of the Religion and 
Morality of Jefus Chrilt is vindicated, 121110. In 1680, 
appeared a Treatife on Nature and on Grace, 121110, which 
was the refult of a controverfy between him and M Ar- 
nauld on the fubjeit of grace ; and this treatife was fuc- 
ceeded by leveral controverlial trails, written by both 
thefe authoi'6. He publilhed alfo feveral other pieces in 
vindication of his iyltem announced in the Search after 
Truth. Our author alfo publilhed a Treatife on Phyfical 
Premotion, againlt Bourfier’s Book on the Action of God ; 
and Reflections on Light and Colours, and on the Gene¬ 
ration of Fire, and alto other papers, inferted -in the Me¬ 
moirs of the Academy of Sciences, of which body he was 
admitted an honorary member in the year 1699. By tem¬ 
perance he maintained a good ftate of health, notwith- 
ltanding the delicacy of Ins conftitution, till near the clofe 
of 
