Chapter Moon's Men to More of More Hall of M by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Moon's Men to More of More Hall

Moon’s Men, thieves or highwaymen, who ply their vocation by night.

The fortune of us that are but moon’s men doth ebb and flow like the sea.—Shakespeare: 1 Henry IV. act i. sc. 2 (1597).

Moonshine (Saunders), a smuggler.—Sir W. Scott: Bride of Lammermoor (time, William III.).

Moor, the brigand, in Schiller’s drama called The Robbers (1781).

Moore (Mr. John), of the Pestle and Mortar, Abchurch Lane, immortalized by his “worm-powder,” and called the “Worm Doctor.”

O learnêd friend of Abchurch Lane,
Who set’st our entrails free!
Vain is thy art, thy powder vain,
Since worms shall eat e’en thee.

Pope: To Mr. John Moore (1733).

Moorfields. Here stood Bethlehem Hospital, or Bedlam, at one time.

Subtle. Remember the feigned madness I have taught thee. …

Tricksey. Fear not, he shall think me fresh slipped from the regions of Moorfields.—Ben Jonson: The Alchemist, i. (1610).

Moors. The Moors of Aragon are called Tang arins; those of Granada are Mudajares; and those of Fez are called Elches. They are the best soldiers of the Spanish dominions. In the Middle Ages all Mohammedans were called Moors; and hence Camoëns, in the Lusiad, viii., calls the Indians so.

Mopes (Mr.), the hermit who lived on Tom Tiddler’s Ground. He was dirty, vain, and nasty, “like all hermits,” but had landed property, and was said to be rich and learned. He dressed in a blanket and skewer, and, by steeping himself in soot and grease, soon acquired immense fame. Rumour said he murdered his beautiful young wife, and abandoned the world. Be this as it may, he certainly lived a nasty life. Mr. Traveller tried to bring him back into society, but a tinker said to him, “Take my word for it, when iron is thoroughly rotten, you can never botch it, do what you may.”—Dickens: A Christmas Number (“Tom Tiddler’s Ground,” 1861).

Mopsus, a shepherd, who, with Menalcas, celebrates the funeral eulogy of Daphnis.—Virgil: Eclogue v.

Mora, a hill in Ulster, on the borders of a heath called Moi-lena.—Ossian: Temora.

(Near Upsala is what is called “The Mora Stone,” where the Swedes used of old to elect their kings.)

Mora, the betrothed of Oscar who mysteriously disappears on the bridal eve, and is long mourned for as dead. His younger brother Allan, hoping to secure the lands and fortune of Mora, proposes marriage, and is accepted. At the wedding banquet, a stranger demands “a pledge to the lost Oscar,” and all accept it except Allan, who is there and then denounced as the murderer of his brother. The stranger then vanishes, and Allan dies.—Byron: Oscar of Alva.

Moradbak, daughter of Fitead a widower. She undertook to amuse Hudjudge with tales, and married him. (See Hudjadge, p. 509.)—Comte de Caylus: Oriental Tales (1743).

Morakanabad, grand vizier of the caliph Vathek.—Beckford: Vathek (1784).

Moral Philosophy (The Father of), Thomas Aquinas (1227–1274).

Moral Tales, translated from the French by Marmontel (1761).