Chapter Most Christian King to Mount of Transfiguration of M by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Most Christian King to Mount of Transfiguration

Most Christian King (Le Roy Tres-Christien). The king of France used to be so called by others, either with or without his proper name; but he never styled himself so in any letter, grant, or rescript.

In St. Remigius’ or Remy’s Testament, king Clovis is called Christianissimus Ludovicus. (See Flodard: Historia Remensis, i. 18, A.D. 940.)

Motallab (Abdal), 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 Abdal Motallab,” 1743).

Motar (“one doomed or devoted to sacrifice”). So prince Assad was called, when he fell into the hands of the old fire-worshipper, and was destined by him to be sacrificed on the fiery mountain.—Arabian Nights (“Amgiad and Assad”).

Moth, page to don Adriano de Armdo the fantastical Spaniard. He is cunning and versatile, facetious and playful.—Shakespeare: Love’s Labour’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 lovetoken, and few escaped injury or death.—Kœmpfer: Account of Japan, vii. (1727).

Mother Ann, Ann Lee, the “spiritual mother” of the shakers (1734–1784).

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

Mother Bunch, a celebrated ale-wife in Dekker’s Satiro-mastix (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-fags 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 forboded 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 Mère l’Oye, by Charles Perrault (1697).

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

Mother Goose, a native of Boston, in Massachusetts, authoress of nursery rhymes. Mother Goose used to sing her rhymes to her grandson, and Thomas Fleet, her brother-in-law, of Pudding Lane (now Devonshire Street), printed and published the first edition, entitled Songs for the Nursery or Mother Goose’s Melodies, in 1719.