Bibliography.—Jewitt and Hope, Corporation Plate and Insignia of Office, &c. (2 vols., 1895); J. R. Garstin, Irish State and Civic Maces, &c. (1898); J. Paton, Scottish History and Life (1902); J. H. Buck, Old Plate (1903), pp. 124-140; Cripps, Old English Plate (9th ed., 1906), pp. 394-404; E. Alfred Jones, Old Plate at the Tower of London (1908); ed., “Some Historic Silver Maces,” Burlington Magazine (Dec. 1908). (E. A. J.)
MACEDO, JOSÉ AGOSTINHO DE (1761–1831), Portuguese poet and prose writer, was born at Beja of plebeian family, and studied Latin and rhetoric with the Oratorians in Lisbon. He became professed as an Augustinian in 1778, but owing to his turbulent character he spent a great part of his time in prison, and was constantly being transferred from one convent to another, finally giving up the monastic habit to live licentiously in the capital. In 1792 he was unfrocked, but by the aid of powerful friends he obtained a papal brief which secularized him and permitted him to retain his ecclesiastical status. Taking to journalism and preaching he now made for himself a substantial living and a unique position. In a short time he was recognized as the leading pulpit orator of the day, and in 1802 he became one of the royal preachers. Macedo was the first to introduce from abroad and to cultivate didactic and descriptive poetry, the best example of which is his notable transcendental poem Meditation (1813). His colossal egotism made him attempt to supersede Camoens as Portugal’s greatest poet, and in 1814 he produced Oriente, an insipid epic notwithstanding its correct and vigorous verse, dealing with the same subject as the Lusiads—Gama’s discovery of the sea route to India. This amended paraphrase met with a cold reception, whereupon Macedo published his Censura dos Lusiadas, containing a minute examination and virulent indictment of Camoens. Macedo founded and wrote for a large number of journals, and the tone and temper of these and his political pamphlets induced his leading biographer to name him the “chief libeller” of Portugal, though at the time his jocular and satirical style gained him popular favour. An extreme adherent of absolutism, he expended all his brilliant powers of invective against the Constitutionalists, and advocated a general massacre of the opponents of the Miguelite régime. Notwithstanding his priestly office and old age, he continued his aggressive journalistic campaign, until his own party, feeling that he was damaging the cause by his excesses, threatened him with proceedings, which caused him in 1829 to resign the post of censor of books for the Ordinary, to which he had been appointed in 1824. Though his ingratitude was proverbial, and his moral character of the worst, when he died in 1831 he left behind him many friends, a host of admirers, and a great but ephemeral literary reputation. His ambition to rank as the king of letters led to his famous conflict with Bocage (q.v.), whose poem Pena de Talião was perhaps the hardest blow Macedo ever received. His malignity reached its height in a satirical poem in six cantos, Os Burros (1812–1814), in which he pilloried by name men and women of all grades of society, living and dead, with the utmost licence of expression. His translation of the Odes of Horace, and his dramatic attempts, are only of value as evidence of the extraordinary versatility of the man, but his treatise, if his it be, A Demonstration of the Existence of God, at least proves his possession of very high mental powers. As a poet, his odes on Wellington and the emperor Alexander show true inspiration, and the poems of the same nature in his Lyra anacreontica, addressed to his mistress, have considerable merit.
See Memorias para la vida intima de José Agostinho de Macedo (ed. Th. Braga, 1899); Cartas e opusculos (1900); Censuras á diversas obras (1901). (E. Pr.)
MACEDONIA, the name generally given to that portion of
European Turkey which is bounded on the N. by the Kara-Dagh
mountain range and the frontier of Bulgaria, on the E.
by the river Mesta, on the S. by the Aegean Sea and the frontier
of Greece, and on the W. by an ill-defined line coinciding with
the mountain chains of Shar (ancient Scardus) Grammus and
Pindus. The Macedonia of antiquity was originally confined
to the inland region west of the Axius, between that river and the
Scardus range, and did not include the northern portion, known
as Paeonia, or the coast-land, which, with the eastern districts,
was inhabited by Thracian tribes; the people of the country
were not Hellenic. In modern Macedonia are included the
vilayet of Salonica (Turk. Selanik), the eastern and greater portion
of the vilayet of Monastir (sanjaks of Monastir, Servia
[Turk. Selfije], and part of that of Kortcha), and the south-eastern
portion of the vilayet of Kossovo (sanjak of Usküb).
The greater part of Macedonia is inhabited by a Slavonic
population, mainly Bulgarian in its characteristics; the coast-line
and the southern districts west of the Gulf of Salonica by
Greeks, while Turkish, Vlach and Albanian settlements exist
sporadically, or in groups, in many parts of the country.
Geographical Features.—The coast-line is broken by the remarkable peninsula of Chalcidice, with its three promontories of Athos (ancient Acte), Longus (Sithonia) and Cassandra (Pallene). The country is divided into two almost equal portions by the river Vardar (Axius), the valley of which has always constituted the principal route from Central Europe to the Aegean. Rising in the Shar mountains near Gostivar (Bulgarian Kostovo), the Vardar, flowing to the N.E., drains the rich elevated plain of Tetovo (Turk. Kalkandelen) and, turning to the S.E. at the foot of Mt Liubotrn, traverses the town and plain of Usküb, leaving to the left the high plateau of Ovchepolye (“the sheep-plain”); then flowing through the town of Veles, it receives on its right, near the ruins of the ancient Stobi, the waters of its principal tributary, the Tcherna (Erigon), which drains the basin of Monastir and the mountainous region of Morichovo, and after passing through the picturesque gorge of Demir-Kapu (the Iron Gate) finds its way to the Gulf of Salonica through the alluvial tract known as the Campania, extending to the west of that town. The other important rivers are the Struma (Strymon) and Mesta (Nestus) to the east, running almost parallel to the Vardar, and the Bistritza in the south, all falling into the Aegean. (The Black Drin, issuing from Lake Ochrida and flowing N.W. to the Adriatic, is for the greater part of its course an Albanian river.) The Struma, which rises in Mt Vitosha in Bulgaria, runs through a narrow defile till, within a short distance of the sea, it expands into Lake Tachino, and falls into the Aegean near the site of the ancient Amphipolis. The Mesta, rising in the Rhodope range, drains the valley of Razlog and forms a delta at its entrance into the Aegean opposite the island of Thasos. The Bistritza, which has its source in the eastern slope of Mt Grammus, receives early in its course the outflow from Lake Castoria on the left; it flows to the S.E. towards the frontier of Greece, where its course is arrested by the Cambunian mountains; then turning sharply to the N.E., and passing through the districts of Serfije and Verria, it reaches the Campania and enters the Gulf of Salonica at a point a few miles to the S.W. of the mouth of the Vardar. The valleys of most of the rivers and their tributaries broaden here and there into fertile upland basins, which were formerly lakes. Of these the extensive plateau of Monastir, the ancient plain of Pelagonia, about 1500 ft. above the sea, is the most remarkable; the basins of Tetovo, Usküb, Kotchané, Strumnitza, Nevrokop, Melnik, Serres and Drama furnish other examples. The principal lakes are Ochrida (Lychnitis) on the confines of Albania; Prespa, separated from Ochrida by the Galinitza mountains, and supposed to be connected with it by a subterranean channel; Castoria, to the S.E. of Prespa; Ostrovo, midway between Prespa and the Vardar; Tachino (Cercinitis) on the lower course of the Struma; Beshik (Bolbe), separating the Chalcidian peninsula from the mainland, and Doiran (probably Prasias), beneath the southern declivity of the Belasitza mountains; the smaller lakes of Amatovo and Yenije are in the alluvial plain on either side of the lower Vardar. Lake Ochrida (q.v.) finds egress into the Black Drin (Drilon) at Struga, where there are productive fisheries. The lacustrine habitations of the Paeonians on Lake Prasias described by Herodotus (v. 16) find a modern counterpart in the huts of the fishing population on Lake Doiran. The surface of the country is generally mountainous; the various mountain-groups present little uniformity in their geographical contour. The great chain of Rhodope, continued to the N.W. by the Rilska and Osogovska Planina, forms a natural boundary on the north; the principal summit, Musalla (9031 ft.), is just over the Bulgarian frontier. The adjoining Dospat range culminates in Belmeken (8562 ft.), also just over the Bulgarian frontier. Between the upper courses of the Mesta and Struma is the Perim Dagh or Pirin Planina (Orbelos) with Elin (8794 ft.), continued to the south by the Bozo Dagh (6081 ft.); still further south, overlooking the bay of Kavala, are the Bunar Dagh and Mt Pangaeus, famous in antiquity for its gold and silver mines. Between the Struma and the Vardar are the Belasitza, Krusha and other ranges. West of the Vardar is the lofty Shar chain (Scardus) overlooking the plain of Tetovo and terminating at its eastern extremity in the pyramidal Liubotrn (according to some authorities, 10,007 ft., and consequently the highest mountain in the Peninsula; according to others 8989, 8856, or 8200 ft.). The Shar range, with the Kara Dagh to the east, forms the natural boundary of Macedonia on the N.W.; this is prolonged on the west by the Yaina-Bistra and Yablanitza mountains with several summits exceeding 7000 ft. in height, the Odonishta Planina overlooking Lake Ochrida on the west,
