in military affairs, a field-officer, next in rank above a captain, and inferior to a lieutenant-colonel. The major of a regiment assists the lieutenant-colonel, but has no positive duties in the presence of that officer. An officer must be six years in the service before he can be promoted to a majority. (See Army, and Commission.)

Major and Minor, in Music. See Music, §§ Intervals, Scales.

or MAIR, JOHN, a scholastic divine and historian, was born about 1470 at the village of Cleghorn, near North Berwick. After attending for a short time at Christ's College, Cambridge, he entered the university of Paris in 1493. There he studied successively at the colleges of St Barbe and Montaigu, and graduated as A.M. in 1496. Chosen a doctor in 1505, he lectured on philosophy in the latter college, and numbered among his regular auditors the principals Jacques Almain, Robert Cenalis, and Jerome de Hangest. Soon after this, Major seems to have returned to his native country; and in 1518 he is found discharging the office of principal of the university of Glasgow. In his joint capacity of professor of theology, he became in 1522 the preceptor of John Knox. He was promoted to a chair in the university of St Andrews in the following year, and there, in 1525, George Buchanan was one of his pupils. Not long after this, Major removed once more to Paris, but returned to St Andrews in 1530, and became principal or provost of St Salvator's College in 1533. In this office he died about 1550.

The following is a list of Major's principal works:—In Libros Sententiarum Commentarius, published in 4 vols., Paris, 1509, 1510, 1517, 1519; De Historia Gentis Sco- torum libri sex, Paris, 1521; Commentarius in Physica Aristotelis, Paris, 1526; and In Quatuor Evangelia Expositio- nes Luculentae, Paris, 1529. During his residence in France, Major had imbibed very liberal opinions on civil and ecclesiastical government; and from him it is probable that Knox and Buchanan first received those political principles, which afterwards in their separate spheres they so ably defended. As a writer, he is characterized by small erudition, no independence of thought, and a style bald and inelegant.