Chapter Magenta to Magpie of M by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Magician The Great Magician or Wizard of the North. Professor Wilson calls Sir Walter Scott the Great Magician, from the wonderful fascination of his writings.
   Magician of the North. The title assumed by Johann Georg Hamann, of Prussia (1730-1788).

Magliabecchi The greatest bookworm that ever lived. He never forgot what he had once read, and could even turn at once to the exact page of any reference. He was the librarian of the Great Duke Cosmo III. (1633-1714).

Magna Charta The Great Charter of English liberty extorted from King John, 1215; called by Spelman-

“Augustissimum Anglicarum, liberta tum diploma et sacra anchora.”

Magnalia Christi Cotton Mathers's book, mentioned in Longfellow's Mayflower.

Magnanimous (The).
   Alfonso V. of Aragon (1385, 1416-58).
   Chosroes or Khosru, twenty-first of the Sassanides, surnamed Noushirwan (the Magnanimous) (531-579).

Magnano One of the leaders of the rabble that attacked Hudibras at a bear-baiting. The character is a satire on Simeon Wait, a tinker and Independent preacher. (Hudibras, pt. i. 2.) He calls Cromwell the “archangel who did battle with the devil.”

Magnet The loadstone; so called from Magnesia, in Lydia, where the ore was said to abound. The Greeks called it magnes. Milton uses the adjective for the substantive in the line “As the magnetic hardest iron draws.”

Magnetic Mountain A mountain which drew out all the nails of any ship that approached within its magnetic influence. The ship in which Prince Agib sailed fell to pieces when wind-driven towards it. (Arabian Nights; The Third Calendar.)

Magneuse (French). An anonyma or fille de joie; so called from the nunnery founded at Rheims in 1654, by Jeanne Canart, daughter of Nicolas Colbert, seigneur de Magneux. The word is sometimes jocosely perverted into Magni-magno.

Magnificat To sing the Magnificat at matins. To do things at the wrong time, or out of place. The Magnificat does not belong to the morning service, but to vespers. The Magnificat is Luke i. 46-55 in Latin.

Magnificent (The).
   Khosru or Chosroes I. of Persia (*, 531-579). The golden period of Persian history was 550-628.
   Lorenzo de Medici (1448-1492).
   Robert, Duc de Normandie, also called Le Diable (*, 1028- 1035).
   Soliman I., greatest of the Turkish sultans (1493, 1520-1566).

Magnifique ... Guerre “C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.” Admirable, but not according to rule. The comment of Marshal Canrobert on the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava.

“It is because the clergy, as a class, are animated by a high ideal ... that they, as a class, are incomparably better than they need be ... C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.”- Nineteenth Century, April, 1866.

Magnolia A flower so called from Pierre Magnol, professor of medicine at Montpelier. (1638-1715.)

Magnum Opus Chief or most important of a person's works. A literary man says of his most renowned book it is his magnum opus.

Magnum of Port (A), or other wine, a double bottle.

Magnus Apollo (My), or Meus Magnus Apollo. My leader, authority, and oracle.