Part 74

Merovingians, a dynasty of Frankish kings in the sixth and seventh centuries A.D.

Metastasio, Pietro Trapassi, an Italian poet (1698-1782)

Mina, a famous guerilla chief in the Peninsular war, and (in 1834) against Don Carlo (1781-1834). Empecinado (covered with pitch) a nick-name given to Juan Matin Diaz, an early comrade of Mina

Mirabel and Millamont, the Benedick and Beatrice of Beaumont and Fletcher’s Wildgoose Chase

Mithridates, king of Pontus (B.C. 120-63), famous for his struggle against Rome, and the general vigour and ability of his intellect

Moliere’s doctors (see L’Amour Medecin (II. iii.), Le Malade Imaginaire, and Le Medicin malgre lui)

Mompesson, Sir Giles, one of the Commissioners for the granting of monopoly licenses

Monks and Giants, “These stanzas are from a poem by Hookham Frere, really entitled Prospectus and specimen of an inteneded national Work . . . relating to King Arthur and his Round Table,”

Monmouth Street, now called Dudley Street

Morgante Maggiore, a serio-comic romance in verse, by Pulci of Florence (1494)

Morone, an Italian cardinal and diplomatist (1509-80)

Murillo, Spain’s greatest painter (1618-82)

Murphy, Arthur, an actor-author, who, besides writing some plays, edited Fielding, and published an Essay on the Life and Genius of Samuel Johnson (1727-1815)

Murray, Lindley, the Pennsylvania grammarian (1745-1826), who settled near York, and there produced his Grammar of the English Language

NARSES the Roman general (d. 573) who drove the Goths out of Rome. In his youth he had been a slave

Nephelococcygia, i.e. “Cuckoo town in the cloud”--a fictitious city referred to in the Birds of Aristophanes,

Newdigate and Seatonian poetry, verse written in competition for prizes founded by Sir R..Newdigate and Rev. Thos. Seaton at Oxford and Cambridge respectively, Dodsley (ib.) was an honest publisher and author who brought out Poems by Several Hands in 1748,

Nugent, Dr., one of the original members and a regular attendant at the meetings of the Literary Club

OCTOBER CLUB, a High Church Tory Club of Queen Anne’s time, which met at the Bell Tavern, Westminster

o Daphnis K. T. L., “Daphnis went into the waters; the eddies swirled over the man whom the Muses loved and the nymphs held dear” (Theocritus, Idylls, i.). An allusion to Shelley’s death

Odoacer, a Hun, who became emperor, and was assassinated by his colleague Theodoric the Ostrogoth in 493

Oldmixon, John, a dull and insipid historian (1673-1742), roughly handled by Pope in the Dunciad (ii. 283)

Orlando Furioso, Ariosto’s (1471-1533) great poem of chivalry suggested by the Orlando Innamorato of Boiardo (c. 1430-94). Alcina is a kind of Circe in the Orlando Furioso

Ortiz, eighteenth-century historian, author of Compendio de la Historia de Espana

Osborn, John, a notorious bookseller who “sweated” Pope and Johnson among other authors (d. 1767)

Otho, Roman emperor (69 A.D.) The only brass coins bearing his name were struck in the provinces, and are very rare

PADALON, the Hindu abode of departed Spirits

Paestum, ancient Posidonia, mod. Pesto, 22 miles S.E. from Salerno, 471