Merop’s Son, a nobody, a terræ filius, who thinks himself somebody. Thus Phaëton (Merop’s son), forgetting that his mother was an earthborn woman, thought he could drive the horses of the sun, but not being able to guide them, nearly set the earth on fire. Many presume like him, and think themselves capable or worthy of great things, forgetting all the while that they are only “Merop’s son.”
Why, Phaëton (for thou art Merop’s son),
Wilt thou aspire to guide the heavenly car,
And with thy daring folly burn the world?
Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, act iii. sc. 1 (1594).
Merrilees (Meg), a half-crazy woman, part sibyl and part gypsy. She is the ruler and terror of the gypsy race. Meg Merrilees was the nurse of Harry Bertram.—Sir W. Scott, Gay Mannering (time, George II.).
In the dramatized version of Scott’s novel, Miss Cushman [1845-9] made “Meg Merrilees” her own. She showed therein indisputably the attributes of genius. Such was her power over the intention and feeling of the part, that the mere words were quite a secondary matter. It was the figure, the gait, the look, the gesture, the tone, by which she put beauty and passion into language the most indifferent.—Henry Morley.
Merry Andrew, Andrew Borde, physician to Henry VIII. (1500-1549).
*** Prior has a poem on Merry Andrew.
Merry Monarch (The), Charles II., of England (1630, 1660-1685).
Merry Mount. Name of the home of a certain Englishman, called in the chronicle “the pestilent Morton,” who set up a May-pole in colonial Massachusetts.
“That worthy gentleman, Mr. John Endicott, ... visiting those parts, caused that May-pole to be cut down, and rebuked them for their profaneness ... so they now (or others) changed the name of their place, ‘Merry Mount,’ again, and called it ‘Mount Dagon.’”—William Bradford, History of the Plymouth Plantation (1630-50).