MANGAN

mangan, james clarence (1803-1849), irish poet, was born in dublin on the 1st of may 1803. his baptismal name was james, the "clarence" being his own addition. his father, a grocer, who boasted of the terror with which he inspired his children, had ruined himself by imprudent speculation and extravagant hospitality. the burden of supporting the family fell on james, who entered a scrivener's office, at the age of fifteen, and drudged as a copying clerk for ten years. he was employed for some time in the library of trinity college, and in 1833 he found a place in the irish ordnance survey. he suffered a disappointment in love, and continued ill health drove him to the use of opium. he was habitually the victim of hallucinations which at times threatened his reason. for charles maturin, the eccentric author of _melmoth_, he cherished a deep admiration, the results of which are evident in his prose stories. he belonged to the comet club, a group of youthful enthusiasts who carried on war in their paper, the _comet_, against the levying of tithes on behalf of the protestant clergy. contributions to the _dublin penny journal_ followed; and to the _dublin university magazine_ he sent translations from the german poets. the mystical tendency of german poetry had a special appeal for him. he chose poems that were attuned to his own melancholy temperament, and did much that was excellent in this field. he also wrote versions of old irish poems, though his knowledge of the language, at any rate at the beginning of his career, was but slight. some of his best-known irish poems, however, _o'hussey's ode to the maguire_, for instance, follow the originals very closely. besides these were "translations" from arabic, turkish and persian. how much of these languages he knew is uncertain, but he had read widely in oriental subjects, and some of the poems are exquisite though the original authors whom he cites are frequently mythical. he took a mischievous pleasure in mystifying his readers, and in practising extraordinary metres. for the _nation_ he wrote from the beginning (1842) of its career, and much of his best work appeared in it. he afterwards contributed to the _united irishman_. on the 20th of june 1849 he died at meath hospital, dublin, of cholera. it was alleged at the time that starvation was the real cause. this statement was untrue, but there is no doubt that his wretched poverty made him ill able to withstand disease. mangan holds a high place among irish poets, but his fame was deferred by the inequality and mass of his work, much of which lay buried in inaccessible newspaper files under his many pseudonyms, "vacuus," "terrae filius," "clarence," &c. of his genius, morbid though it sometimes is, as in his tragic autobiographical ballad of _the nameless one_, there can be no question. he expressed with rare sincerity the tragedy of irish hopes and aspirations, and he furnished abundant proof of his versatility in his excellent nonsense verses, which are in strange contrast with the general trend of his work. an autobiography which appeared in the _irish monthly_ (1882) does not reproduce the real facts of his career with any fidelity. for some time after his death there was no adequate edition of his works, but _german anthology_ (1845), and _the poets and poetry of munster_ (1849) had appeared during his lifetime. in 1850 hercules ellis included thirty of his ballads in his _romances and ballads of ireland_. other selections appeared subsequently, notably one (1897), by miss l. i. guiney. _the poems of james clarence mangan_ (1903), and the _prose writings_ (1904), were both edited by d. j. o'donoghue, who wrote in 1897 a complete account of the _life and writings_ of the poet. manganese [symbol mn; atomic weight, 54.93 (o = 16)], a metallic chemical element. its dioxide (pyrolusite) has been known from very early times, and was at first mistaken for a magnetic oxide of iron. in 1740 j. h. pott showed that it did not contain iron and that it yielded a definite series of salts, whilst in 1774 c. scheele proved that it was the oxide of a distinctive metal. manganese is found widely distributed in nature, being generally found to a greater or less extent associated with the carbonates and silicates of iron, calcium and magnesium, and also as the minerals braunite, hausmannite, psilomelane, manganite, manganese spar and hauerite. it has also been recognized in the atmosphere of the sun (a. cornu, _comptes rendus_, 1878, 86, pp. 315, 530), in sea water, and in many mineral waters. the metal was isolated by j. g. gahn in 1774, and in 1807 j. f. john (_gehlen's jour. chem. phys._, 1807, 3, p. 452) obtained an impure metal by reducing the carbonate at a high temperature with charcoal, mixed with a small quantity of oil. r. bunsen prepared the metal by electrolysing manganese chloride in a porous cell surrounded by a carbon crucible containing hydrochloric acid. various reduction methods have been employed for the isolation of the metal. c. brunner (_pogg. ann._, 1857, 101, p. 264) reduced the fluoride by metallic sodium, and e. glatzel (_ber._, 1889, 22, p. 2857) the chloride by magnesium, h. moissan (_ann. chim. phys._, 1896 (7) 9, p. 286) reduced the oxide with carbon in the electric furnace; and h. goldschmidt has prepared the metal from the oxide by means of his "thermite" process (see chromium). w. h. green and w. h. wahl [german patent 70773 (1893)] prepare a 97% manganese from pyrolusite by heating it with 30% sulphuric acid, the product being then converted into manganous oxide by heating in a current of reducing gas at a dull red heat, cooled in a reducing atmosphere, and finally reduced by heating with granulated aluminium in a magnesia crucible with lime and fluorspar as a flux. a purer metal is obtained by reducing manganese amalgam by hydrogen (o. prelinger, _monats._, 1894, 14, p. 353). prelinger's manganese has a specific gravity of 7.42, and the variety obtained by distilling pure manganese amalgam _in vacuo_ is pyrophoric (a. guntz, _bull. soc._ [3], 7, 275), and burns when heated in a current of sulphur dioxide. the pure metal readily evolves hydrogen when acted upon by sulphuric and hydrochloric acids, and is readily attacked by dilute nitric acid. it precipitates many metals from solutions of their salts. it is employed commercially in the manufacture of special steels. (see iron and steel.)