Marchioness, The.—Old Curiosity Shop, Dickens. A half-starved maid-of-all-work, in the service of Sampson Brass and his sister Sally. She was so lonesome [805] and dull that it afforded her relief to peep at Mr. Swiveller even through the keyhole of his door. Mr. Swiveller called her the “marchioness,” when she played cards with him, “because it seemed more real and pleasant” to play with a marchioness than with a domestic. While enjoying these games they made the well known “orange peel wine.”
Mariana (mä-rē-ä´nä).—In Tennyson’s poem The Moated Grange, a young damsel, who sits in the moated grange, looking out for her lover, who never comes. (2) In Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure Mariana is a lovely and lovable lady, betrothed to Angelo, who, during the absence of Vincentio, the duke of Vienna, acted as his lord deputy. Her pleadings to the duke for Angelo are wholly unrivaled.
Martin’s Summer, St.—Halcyon days; a time of prosperity; fine weather. Mentioned by Shakespeare in Henry VI., etc.
Masora.—A critical work or canon, whereby is fixed and ascertained the reading of the text of the Hebrew version of the Bible.
Mauth Dog.—Lay of the Last Minstrel, Scott. A black specter spaniel that haunted the guard room of Peeltown in the Isle of Man. A drunken trooper entered the guard room while the dog was there, but lost his speech, and died within three days.
Mazeppa (mä-zep´ä).—A poem by Byron. Mazeppa was a Cossack of noble family who became a page in the court of the king of Poland, and while in this capacity intrigued with Theresia, the young wife of a count, who discovered the amour, and had the young page lashed to a wild horse, and turned adrift.
McFingal.—The hero of Trumbull’s political poem of the same name; represented as a burly New England squire, enlisted on the side of the Tory part of the American revolution, and constantly engaged in controversy with Honorius, the champion of the Whigs.
Measure for Measure.—A comedy by Shakespeare. There was a law in Vienna that made it death for a man to live with a woman not his wife; but the law was so little enforced that the mothers of Vienna complained to the duke of its neglect. So the duke deputed Angelo to enforce it; and, assuming the dress of a friar, absented himself awhile, to watch the result. Scarcely was the duke gone, when Claudio was sentenced to death for violating the law. His sister Isabel went to intercede on his behalf, and Angelo told her he would spare her brother if she would become his Phryne. Isabel told her brother he must prepare to die, as the conditions proposed by Angelo were out of the question. The duke, disguised as a friar, heard the whole story, and persuaded Isabel to “assent in words,” but to send Mariana (the divorced wife of Angelo) to take her place. This was done; but Angelo sent the provost to behead Claudio, a crime which “the friar” contrived to avert. Next day the duke returned to the city, and Isabel told her tale. Finally the duke married Isabel, Angelo took back his wife, and Claudio married Juliet.
Medea (mē-dē´ä).—A play by Euripides. The Medea came out in 431 B. C. along with the poet’s Philoctetes, Dictys, and the satiric Reapers (the last was early lost). It was based upon a play of Neophron’s, and only obtained the third prize, Euphorion being first, and Sophocles second. It may accordingly be regarded as a failure in its day—an opinion apparently confirmed by the faults (viz., Ægeus and the winged chariot) selected from it as specimens in Aristotle’s Poetica. There is considerable evidence of there being a second edition of the play, and many of the variants, or so-called interpolations, seem to arise from both versions being preserved and confused. Nevertheless, there was no play of Euripides more praised and imitated.
Médecine Malgré Lui, Le (mād-saN´ mal-grā´lwē lu), (or, The Doctor in Spite of Himself).—A comedy by Molière. The “enforced doctor” is Sganarelle, a fagot maker, who is called in by Géronte to cure his daughter of dumbness. Sganarelle soon perceives that the malady is assumed in order to prevent a hateful marriage, and introduces her lover as an apothecary. The dumb spirit is at once exorcized, and the lovers made happy with “pills matrimonial.”