Part 26 (1/2)

Gueulette, _Chinese Tales_ (”The Ape Moroug,” 1723).

=Morrel= or =Morell=, a goat-herd, who invites Thomalin, a shepherd, to come to the higher grounds, and leave the low-lying lands. He tells Thomalin that many hills have been canonized, as St. Michael's Mount, St. Bridget's Bower in Kent, and so on; then there was Mount Sinah and Mount Parna.s.s, where the Muses dwelt. Thomalin replies, ”The lowlands are safer, and hills are not for shepherds.” He then ill.u.s.trates his remark by the tale of shepherd Algrind, who sat, like Morrel, on a hill, when an eagle, taking his white head for a stone, let a sh.e.l.l-fish fall on it, and cracked his skull.--Spenser, _Shepheardes Calendar_, vii.

[aeschylus was killed by a tortoise dropped on his head by an eagle].

(This is an allegory of the high and low church parties. Morel is an anagram of Elmer or Aylmer, bishop of London, who ”sat on a hill,” and was the leader of the high-church party. Algrind is Grindal, archbishop of Canterbury, head of the low-church party, who in 1578 was sequestrated for writing a letter to the queen on the subject of puritanism. Thomalin represents the puritans. This could not have been written before 1578, unless the reference to Algrind was added in some later edition).

=Morris=, a domestic of the earl of Derby.--Sir W. Scott, _Peveril of the Peak_ (time, Charles II).

_Morris_ (_Mr._), the timid fellow-traveller of Frank Osbaldistone, who carried the portmanteau. Osbaldistone says, concerning him, ”Of all the propensities which teach mankind to torment themselves, that of causeless fear is the most irritating, busy, painful, pitiable.”--Sir W.

Scott, _Rob Roy_ (time, George I.).

_Morris_ (_Peter_), the pseudonym of John G. Lockhart, in _Peter's Letters to His Kinsfolk_ (1819).

_Morris_ (_Dinah_). Beautiful gospeller, who marries Adam Bede, after the latter recovers from his infatuation for pretty _Hetty Sorrel_.

Hetty is seduced by the young squire, murders her baby, and is condemned to die for the crime. Dinah visits the doomed girl in prison, wins her to a confession and repentance, and accompanies her in the gallows-cart.

They are at the scaffold when a reprieve arrives.--George Eliot, _Adam Bede_.

=Morris-Dance=, a comic representation of every grade of society. The characters were dressed partly in Spanish and partly in English costume.

Thus, the huge sleeves were Spanish, but the laced stomacher English.

Hobby-horse represented the king and all the knightly order; Maid Marian, the queen; the friar, the clergy generally; the fool, the court jester. The other characters represented a franklin or private gentleman, a churl or farmer, and the lower grades were represented by a clown. The Spanish costume is to show the origin of the dance.

A representation of a morris-dance may still be seen at Betley, in Staffords.h.i.+re, in a window placed in the house of George Tollet, Esq., in about 1620.

=Morrison= (_Hugh_), a Lowland drover, the friend of Robin Oig.--Sir W.

Scott, _The Two Drovers_ (time, George III.).

=Mortality= (_Old_), a religious itinerant who frequented country churchyards and the graves of covenanters. He was first discovered in the burial ground at Gandercleugh, clearing the moss from the gray[TN-24]

tombstones, renewing with his chisel the half-defaced inscriptions, and repairing the decorations of the tombs.--Sir W. Scott, _Old Mortality_ (time, Charles II.).

? ”Old Mortality” is said to be meant for Robert Patterson.

=Morta'ra=, the boy who died from being covered all over with gold-leaf by Leo XII., to adorn a pageant.

=Mortcloke= (_Mr._), the undertaker at the funeral of Mrs. Margaret Bertram of Singleside.--Sir W. Scott, _Guy Mannering_ (time, George II.).

=Morte d'Arthur=, a compilation of Arthurian tales, called on the t.i.tle-page _The History of Prince Arthur_, compiled from the French by Sir Thomas Malory, and printed by William Caxton in 1470. It is divided into three parts. The first part contains the birth of King Arthur, the establishment of the Round Table, the romance of Balin and Balan, and the beautiful allegory of Gareth and Linet'. The second part is mainly the romance of Sir Tristram. The third part is the romance of Sir Launcelot, the quest of the Holy Graal, and the death of Arthur, Guenever, Tristram, Lamorake, and Launcelot.

? The difference of style in the third part is very striking. The end of ch. 44, pt. i., is manifestly the close of a romance. The separate romances are not marked by any formal indication; but, in the modern editions, the whole is divided into chapters, and these are provided with brief abstracts of their contents.

This book was finished the ninth year of the reign of King Edward IV. by Sir Thomas Malory, knight. Thus endeth this n.o.ble and joyous book, ent.i.tled _La Morte d'Arthur_, notwithstanding it treateth of the birth, life and acts of the said King Arthur, and of his n.o.ble knights of the Round Table ... and the achieving of the Holy Sancgreall, and in the end the dolorous death and departing out of the world of them all.--Concluding paragraph.