Chapter Mansur to Mardi-Gras of M by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Mansur to Mardi-Gras

Mansur (Elijah), a warrior, prophet, and priest, who taught a more tolerant form of Islâm; but not being an orthodox Moslem, he was condemned to imprisonment in the bowels of a mountain. Mansur is to reappear and wave his conquering sword, to the terror of the Muscovite.—Milner: Gallery of Geography, 781.

A similar survival is told of Arthur, Barbarossa (q.v.), Boabdil, Charlemagne, Desmond, Henry the Fowler, Ogier, Sebastian I., Theodorick, and some others.

Mantaccni, a charlatan, who professed to restore the dead to life.

Mantalini (Madame), a fashionable milliner near Cavendish Square, London. She dotes upon her husband, and supports him in idleness.

Mr. Mantalini, the husband of madame; he is a man-doll and cockney fop, noted for his white teeth, his minced oaths, and his gorgeous morning gown. This “exquisite” lives on his wife’s earnings, and thinks he confers a favour on her by lavishing her money on his selfish indulgences.—Dickens: Nicholas Nickleby (1838).

Mantle (The Boy and the). One day, a little boy presented himself before king Arthur, and showed him a curious mantle “which would become no wife that was not leal” to her true lord. The queen tried it on, but it changed its colour and fell into shreds; sir Kay’s lady tried it on, but with no better success; others followed, but only sir Cradock’s wife could wear it.—Percy: Reliques.

Mantuan (The), that is, Baptista Spag’nolus, surnamed Mantuanus, from the place of his birth. He wrote poems and eclogues in Latin. His works were translated into English by George Tuberville in 1567. He lived 1443–1516.

Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice—

Vinegia, Vinegia, Chi mon te vede, ei non te pregia. Shakespeare: Love’s Labour’s Lost, act iv. sc. 2 (1594).

Mantuan Swan (The), Virgil, a native of Mantua (B.C. 70-19).

Mantua me genult; Calabri rapuere; tenet nunc
Parthenopê; cecini pascua, rura, duces.
   —On Virgil’s Tomb (composed by himself).

Ages elapsed ere Homer’s lamp appeared;
And ages ere the Mantuan Swan was heard.
   —Cowper.

Manucodiata, a bird resembling a swallow, found in the Molucca Islands. “It has no feet, and though the body is not bigger than that of a swallow, the span of its wings is equal to that of an eagle. These birds never approach the earth, but the female lays her eggs on the back of the male, and hatches them in her own breast. They live on the dew of heaven, and eat neither animal nor vegetable food.”—Cardan: De Rerum Varietate (1557).

Less pure the footless fowl of heaven, that never
Rest upon earth, but on the wing for ever,
Hovering o’er flowers, their fragrant food inhale,
Drink the descending dew upon the way,
And sleep aloft while floating on the gale.
   —Southey: Curse of Kehama, xxi. 6 (1809).

Manuel du Sosa, governor of Lisbon, and brother of Guiomar (mother of the vainglorious Duarte, 3 syl).—Fletcher: The Custom of the Country (1647).

Mapp (Mrs.), bone-setter. She was born at Epsom, and at one time was very rich, but she died in great poverty at her lodgings in Seven Dials (1737).