Chapter Macaber of M by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Mexico and Maximilian, his evil stars.

Milan. He made his entrance into Milan, and drove the Austrians out of Marignano.

Mincio (The battle of the), called also Solferino, a great victory. Having won this, he turned back at the walls of Mantua (June 24, 1859).

Montebello, a victory won by him (June, 1859).

The mitrailleuse was to win him Prussia, but it lost him France.

Months—

March. In this month his son was born, he was deposed by the National Assembly, and was set at liberty by the Prussians. The treaty of Paris was March 30, 1856. Savoy and Nice were annexed in March, 1860.

May. In this month he made his escape from Ham. The great French Exhibition was opened in May, 1855.

By far his best publication is his Manual of Artillery.

Mab, queen of the fairies, according to the mythology of the English poets of the fifteenth century. Shakespeare describes queen Mab in Romeo and Juliet, act i. sc. 4 (1598).

Chaucer makes Proserpîna the spouse of Pluto, an calls Pluto “the king of Faërie.”

Queen Mab’s Maids of Honour. They were Hop and Mop, Drap, Pip, Trip, and Skip. Her train of waiting- maids were Fib and Tib, Pinck and Pin, Tick and Quick, Jill and Jin, Tit and Nit, Wap and Win.—Drayton: Nymphidia (1563–1631).

Queen Mab, the Fairies’ Midwife, that is, the midwife of men’s dreams, employed by the fairies. Thus, the queen’s or king’s judges do not judge the sovereign, but are employed by the sovereign to judge others.

Mab (Queen), a speculative poem by P. B. Shelley, in blank verse, divided into nine sections of about two hundred lines each. The outline of the story is as follows:—

Ianthefalls asleep, and dreams that her disembodied spirit is conveyed to the court of queen Mab, beyond the confines of this earth. Here she is taught the evils of civil government, and the untruthfulness of religion generally. Queen Mab then summons into her presence Ahasuerus, the “Wandering Jew,” who tells her all about creation and redemption, when the queen dismisses him. Ianthe then dreams that the earth is renewed, and that love is made the ruling spirit, both of earth and heaven. Then waking from her sleep, she finds Henry sitting beside her, lovingly watching her varying moods. The poem was written when Shelley was about 18 (1810).

Mabinogion. A series of Welsh tales, chiefly relating to Arthur and the Round Table. A MS. volume of some 700 pages is preserved in the library of Jesus College, Oxford, and is known as the Red Book of Hergest, from the place where it was discovered. Lady Charlotte Guest published an edition in Welsh and English, with notes, three vols. (1838–49). The word is the Welsh mabi nogi, “juvenile instruction” (mabin, “juvenile;” mab, “a boy;” and ogi, “to use the harrow”).

Does he [Tennyson] make no use of the Mabinogion in his Arthurian series?—Notes and Queries, November 23, 1878.