Merchant’s Tale (The), in Chaucer, is substantially the same as the first Latin metrical tale of Adolphus, and is not unlike a Latin prose tale given in the appendix of T. Wright’s edition of Æsop’s fables. The tale is this:
A girl named May married January, an old Lombard baron, 60 years of age, but entertained the love of Damyan, a young squire. She was detected in familiar intercourse with Damyan, but persuaded her husband that his eyes had deceived him, and he believed her.—Chaucer, Canterbury Tales (1388).
Mercian Laws. (See [Martian].)
Mercilla, a “maiden queen of great power and majesty, famous through all the world, and honored far and nigh.” Her kingdom was disturbed by a soldan, her powerful neighbor, stirred up by his wife Adicĭa. The “maiden queen” is Elizabeth; the “soldan,” Philip of Spain, and “Adicia” is injustice, presumption, or the bigotry of popery.—Spenser, Faëry Queen, v. (1596).
Mercu´tio, kinsman of Prince Escalus, and Romeo’s friend. An airy, sprightly, elegant young nobleman, so full of wit and fancy that Dryden says Shakespeare was obliged to kill him in the third act, lest the poet himself should have been killed by Mercutio.—Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (1598).
Mercutio of Actors (The), William Lewis (1748-1811).
Mercy, a young pilgrim, who accompanied Christiana in her walk to Zion. When Mercy got to the Wicket Gate, she swooned from fear of being refused admittance. Mr. Brisk proposed to her, but being told that she was poor, left her, and she was afterwards married to Matthew, the eldest son of Christian.—Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress, ii. (1684).
Merdle (Mr.), banker, a skit on the directors of the Royal British bank, and on Mr. Hudson, “the railway king.” Mr. Merdle, of Harley Street, was called the “Master Mind of the Age.” He became insolvent, and committed suicide. Mr. Merdle was a heavily made man, with an obtuse head, and coarse, mean, common features. His chief butler said of him, “Mr. Merdle never was a gentleman, and no ungentlemanly act on Mr. Merdle’s part would surprise me.” The great banker was “the greatest forger and greatest thief that ever cheated the gallows.”
Lord Decimus [Barnacle] began waving Mr. Merdle about ... as Gigantic Enterprise. The wealth of England, Credit, Capital, Prosperity, and all manner of blessings.—Bk. ii. 24.
Mrs. Merdle, wife of the bank swindler. After the death of her husband, society decreed that Mrs. Merdle should still be admitted among the sacred few; so Mrs. Merdle was still received and patted on the back by the upper ten.—C. Dickens, Little Dorrit (1857).