Chapter Mador to Magnano of M by Brewer's Readers Handbook

the handle was of box, or any other material, according to fancy.—Les Secrets Merveilleux de Petit Albert, 130.

Were it not for my magic…staff, I should not continue the business long.

Longellow: The Golden Legend (1851).

Magic Wands. The hermit gave Charles the Dane and Ubaldo a wand, which, being shaken, infused terror into all who saw it.—Tasso: Jerusalem Delivered (1575).

The palmer who accompanied sir Guyon had a wand of like virtue. It was made of the same wood as Mercury’s caduceus.—Spenser: Faërie Queene, ii. (1590).

Magician of the North (The), sir Walter Scott (1771–1832).

How beautifully has the magician of the North described “The Field of Waterloo”!—Lord Lennox: Celebrities, etc., i. 16.

Johann Georg Hamann of Prussia called himself “The Magician of the North” (1730–1788).

Magliabechi, the greatest bookworm that ever lived. He devoured books, and never forgot anything he had read. He had also so exact a memory, that he could tell the precise place and shelf of a book, as well as the volume and page of any passage required. He was the librarian of the great-duke Cosmo III. His usual dinner was three hard-boiled eggs and a draught of water (1633–1714).

Magmu, the coquette of Astracan.

Though naturally handsome, she used every art to set off her beauty. Not a word proceeded from her mouth that was not studied. To counterfeit a violent passion, to sigh à propos, to make an attractive gesture, to trifle agreeably, and collect the various graces of dumb eloquence into a smile, were the arts in which she excelled. She spent hours before her glass in deciding how a curl might be made to hang loose upon her neck to the greatest advantage; how to open and shut her lips so as best to show her teeth without affectation—to turn her face full or otherwise, as occasion might require. She looked on herself with ceaseless admiration, and always admired most the works of her own hand in improving on the beauty which nature had bestowed on her.—Gueulette: Chinese Tales (“Magmu,” 1723).

Magnanimous (The), Alfonso V. of Aragon (1385, 1416–1458).

Khosrû or Chosroës, the twenty-first of the Sassanîdês, was surnamed Noushirwan (“Magnanimous”) (*, 513–579).

Magnano, one of the leaders of the rabble that attacked Hudibras at a bearbaiting. The character is designed for Simeon Wait, a tinker, as famous an independent preacher as Burroughs. He used to style Cromwell “the archangel who did battle with the devil.”—S. Butler: Hudibras, i, 2 (1663).