Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama Part 27

=Mosby=, an unmitigated villain. He seduced Alicia, the wife of Arden of Feversham. Thrice he tried to murder Arden, but was baffled, and then frightened Alicia into conniving at a most villainous scheme of murder.

Pretending friends.h.i.+p, Mosby hired two ruffians to murder Arden while he was playing a game of draughts. The villains, who were concealed in an adjacent room, were to rush on their victim when Mosby said, "Now I take you." The whole gang was apprehended and executed.--_Arden of Feversham_ (1592), altered by George Lillo (1739).

=Mosca=, the knavish confederate of Vol'pone (2 _syl._), the rich Venetian "fox."--Ben Jonson, _Volpone_ or _The Fox_ (1605).

If your mother, in hopes to ruin me, should consent to marry my pretended uncle, he might, like "Mosca" in _The Fox_, stand upon terms.--W. Congreve, _The Way of the World_, ii. 1. (1700).

=Mo'ses=, the Jew money-lender in Sheridan's comedy, _The School for Scandal_ (1777).

=Moses' Clothes.= The _Koran_ says: "G.o.d cleared Moses from the scandal which was rumored against him" (ch. x.x.xiii.). The scandal was that his body was not properly formed, and therefore he would never bathe in the presence of others. One day, he went to bathe, and laid his clothes on a stone, but the stone ran away with them into the camp. Moses went after it as fast as he could run, but the Israelites saw his naked body, and perceived the untruthfulness of the common scandal.--Sale, _Al Koran_, x.x.xiii. notes.

=Moses' Horns.= The Vulgate gives _quod cornuta esset facies sua_, for what our version has translated "he wist not _that the skin of his face shone_." The Hebrew word used means both a "horn" and an "irradiation."

Michael Angelo followed the Vulgate.

=Moses' Rod.=

While Moses was living with Re'uel [_Jethro_], the Midianite, he noticed a staff in the garden, and he took it to be his walking-stick. This staff was Joseph's, and Re'uel carried it away when he fled from Egypt. This same staff Adam carried with him out of Eden. Noah inherited it, and gave it to Shem. It pa.s.sed into the hands of Abraham, and Abraham left it to Isaac; and when Jacob fled from his brother's anger into Mesopotamia, he carried it in his hand, and gave it at death to his son Joseph.--_The Talmud_, vi.

=Moses Slow of Speech.= The tradition is this: One day, Pharaoh was carrying Moses in his arms, when the child plucked the royal beard so roughly that the king, in a pa.s.sion, ordered him to be put to death.

Queen Asia said to her husband, the child was only a babe, and was so young he could not discern between a ruby and a live coal. Pharaoh put it to the test, and the child clapped into his mouth the burning coal, thinking it something good to eat. Pharaoh's anger was appeased, but the child burnt its tongue so severely that ever after it was "slow of speech."--Shalshel, _Hakkabala_, 11.

_Moses Slow of Speech._ The account given in the _Talmud_ is somewhat different. It is therein stated that Pharaoh was sitting one day with Moses on his lap, when the child took the crown from the king's head and placed it on his own. The "wise men" of Egypt persuaded Pharaoh that this act was treasonable, and that the child should be put to death.

Jithro [_sic_] the priest of Midian, said it was the act of a child who knew no better. "Let two plates," said he, "be set before the child, one containing gold and the other live coals, and you will presently see that he will choose the coals in preference to the gold." The advice of Jithro being followed, the boy Moses s.n.a.t.c.hed at the coals, and putting one of them into his mouth, burnt his tongue so severely that ever after he was "heavy of speech."--_The Talmud_, vi.

=Moses Pennell.= Waif rescued from a wrecked vessel, and adopted by old Captain Pennell and his wife. He is, in time, discovered to belong to a n.o.ble Cuban family.--Harriet Beecher Stowe, _The Pearl of Orr's Island_.

=Most Christian King= (_Le Roy Tres-Christien_). The king of France is so called by others, either with or without his proper name; but he never styles himself so in any letter, grant, or rescript.

In St. Remigius or Remy's Testament, King Clovis is called _Christianissimus Ludovicus_.--Flodoard, _Historia Remensis_, i. 18 (A.D. 940).

=Motallab= (_Abd al_), one of the four husbands of Zesbet, the mother of Mahomet. He was not to know her as a wife till he had seen Mahomet in his pre-existing state. Mahomet appeared to him as an old man, and told him he had chosen Zesbet, for her virtue and beauty, to be his mother.--Comte de Caylus, _Oriental Tales_ ("History of Abd al Motallab," 1743).

=Mo'tar= ("_One doomed_ or _devoted to sacrifice_"). So Prince a.s.sad was called, when he fell into the hands of the old fire-wors.h.i.+pper, and was destined by him to be sacrificed on the fiery mountain.--_Arabian Nights_ ("Amgiad and a.s.sad").

=Moth=, page to Don Adriano de Arma'do, the fantastic Spaniard. He is cunning and versatile, facetious and playful.--Shakespeare, _Love's Labor's Lost_ (1594).

_Moth_, one of the fairies.--Shakespeare, _Midsummer Night's Dream_ (1592).

=Moths and Candles.= The moths fell in love with the night-fly; and the night-fly, to get rid of their importunity, maliciously bade them to go and fetch fire for her adornment. The blind lovers flew to the first flame to obtain the love-token, and few escaped injury or death.--Kaempfer, _Account of j.a.pan_, vii. (1727).

=Mother Ann=, Ann Lee, the "spiritual mother" of the Shakers (1731-1784).

? Mother Ann is regarded by the Shakers as the female form, and Jesus as the male form, of the Messiah.

=Mother Bunch=, a celebrated ale-wife in Dekker's _Satiromaster_ (1602).

? In 1604 was published _Pasquil's Jests, mixed with Mother Bunch's Merriments_. In 1760 was published, in two parts, _Mother Bunch's Closet Newly Broke Open, etc._, by a "Lover of Mirth and Hater of Treason."

Mother Bunch's _Fairy Tales_ are known in every nursery.

=Mother Carey's Chickens.= The fish-f.a.gs of Paris in the first Great Revolution were so called, because, like the "stormy petrel," whenever they appeared in force in the streets of Paris, they always foreboded a tumult or political storm.

=Mother Carey's Goose=, the great black petrel or gigantic fulmar of the Pacific Ocean.

=Mother Douglas=, a noted crimp, who lived at the north-east corner of Covent Garden. Her house was superbly furnished. She died 1761.

? Foote introduces her in _The Minor_, as "Mrs. Cole" (1760); and Hogarth in his picture called "The March to Finchley."

=Mother Goose=, in French _Contes de Ma Mere l'Oye_, by Charles Perrault (1697).

? There are ten stories in this book, seven of which are from the _Pentamerone_.

_Mother Goose_, according to a new exploded story, was a native of Boston, and the author of the nursery rhymes that bear her name. She used to sing her rhymes to her grandson, and Thomas Fleet, her brother-in-law, published the first edition of these rhymes, ent.i.tled _Songs for the Nursery_, or _Mother Goose's Melodies_, in 1719.

? Dibdin wrote a pantomime ent.i.tled _Mother Goose_.

=Mother Hubbard=, an old lady, whose whole time and attention were taken up by her dog, who was most willful; but the dame never lost her temper, or forgot her politeness. After running about all day to supply Master Doggie,

The dame made a curtsey, the dog made a bow; The dame said, "Your servant!" the dog said, "Bow, wow!"

_A Nursery Tale in Rhyme._

=Mother Hubberd=, the supposed narrator of a tale called _The Fox and the Ape_, related to the poet Spenser to beguile the weary hours of sickness. Several persons told him tales, but

Amongst the rest a good old woman was Hight Mother Hubberd, who did far surpa.s.s The rest in honest mirth that seemed her well; She, when her turn was come her tale to tell, Told of a strange adventure that betided Betwixt a fox and ape by him misguided; The which, for that my sense it greatly pleased ...

I'll write it as she the same did say.

Spenser.