MOLE CRICKET MOLIERE. 



17 



The mole of America is wholly different from the 

 mole of Europe, and has been termed the shrew-mole, 

 under- which word a description of it will be found in 

 this Encyclopedia. 



MOLE CRICKET (gryllus gryllo-ta/pa, L.). The 

 legs and fore feet of these insects are very large and 

 strong, and placed, like those of the mole, so as to 

 be useful in burrowing. They commonly live under 

 ground, through which they can burrow with great 

 rapidity. The female forms a nest of clay, about as 

 large as a hen's egg, and deposits in it nearly a hun- 

 dred and fifty eggs, about the size of a grain of rice. 

 These the mother defends with extreme vigilance ; 

 and some of her contrivances for the preservation of 

 her offspring are very curious. Wherever a nest is 

 situated, fortifications, avenues, and intrenchnients 

 surround it : there are also numerous winding pas- 

 sages which lead to it, and the whole is environed by 

 a ditch, which presents an impassable barrier to most 

 insects. They are very destructive in gardens, by 

 dividing or injuring the roots of plants : but it ap- 

 pears that this is done less for nourishment than in 

 making their burrows, as their principal food consists 

 of insects and worms. The male has a chirp, or note 

 of a low, jarring sound, which may be heard in the 

 evening and night. At the approach of winter, the 

 mole crickets remove their nests to so great a depth in 

 the earth as to avoid any injury from the frost. When 

 the mild season returns, they raise it 1 in proportion to 

 the advance of the warm weather, and at last elevate 

 it so near the surface as to permit the sun and air to 

 act on it. Their favourite residence is in hot-beds, 

 where they occasion havock. In France, they are 

 known under the name courtilieres. (See White's 

 Natural History of Selborne ; and a paper by M. 

 Feburier, Nouv. Cours d'Agricult.) No method has 

 yet been discovered of preventing the depredations 

 of these pernicious vermin. But as most of this 

 kind of insects are averse to the smell of hog's dung, 

 the use of this article would probably expel them 

 from infested places. 



MOLE ; a mound or massive work formed of 

 large stones laid in the sea, extended either in a right 

 line or an arch of a circle, before a port, which it 

 serves to defend from the violent impulse of the 

 waves, thus protecting ships in a harbour. The 

 word is sometimes used for the harbour itself. The 

 Romans used it for a kind of mausoleum, built like a 

 round tower on a square base, insulated, encompassed 

 with columns, and covered with a dome. 



MOLE, MATTHEW, president of the parliament of 

 Paris, and an eminent statesman, was born in 1584. 

 His father, also president of parliament, had distin- 

 guished himself by his prudence and courage in that 

 station, during the troubles of the league ; and the 

 son gained not less honour during the disturbances 

 of the Fronde. His integrity and fearlessness often 

 resisted the arbitrary measures of the despotic Riche- 

 lieu ; and under the no less ambitious, but less vig- 

 orous Mazarin, he acquired the esteem of all parties. 

 In 1614, Mole was named procureur-general, and, in 

 1641, first president of the parliament, through the 

 influence of Richelieu, whom he had opposed in the 

 process against the marshal de Marillac. The dis- 

 turbances of the Fronde soon after commenced. In 

 this contest of factions, Mole defended with equal 

 prudence and sagacity, the interests of justice and 

 freedom, as well as those of the court, and, when 

 Paris became the theatre of tumults, conducted with 

 so much firmness and dignity, that his bitterest ene- 

 mies could not withhold from him their approba- 

 tion ; and even Conde and cardinal de Retz were 

 forced to esteem him, although his unshaken recti- 

 tude, and devotion to the welfare of the nation 

 and the safety of the throne, frequently frustrated 



their designs. At one time, indeed, wearied with the 

 intrigues of the interested and ambitious, and un- 

 protected by the feeble and wavering court, he 

 voluntarily resigned the seals, and rejected the offer 

 of a cardinal's hat for himself, and of the place of 

 secretary of state for his son, by which Anne of 

 Austria wished to idemnify him for the loss of his 

 office. But he was soon obliged to resume the diffi- 

 cult station, and was more than once threatened 

 with personal violence by the furious partisans of the 

 Fronde, whom he overawed by his inflexible dignity. 

 These unhappy disputes between the parliament, the 

 court, and the leaders of the Fronde, did not cease 

 until after Louis XIV. had assumed the reins of 

 government : under his brilliant and artful despotism, 

 the freedom of the parliament and of the nation per- 

 ished together. Mole died in 1656. In the Memoirs 

 of De Retz, and the other records of the time of the 

 regency of Anne of Austria and Mazarin, Mole's influ- 

 ence in the troubled state is everywhere perceptible, 

 and all voices agree that a better man could not have 

 been at the head of affairs in that stormy period. 



MOLECULE, in chemistry, is used to signify the 

 constituent particles of bodies. Chemists have divid- 

 ed them into integrant molecules and constituent 

 molecules. The former are such as have the same 

 properties as the mass, and are therefore compound 

 or simple, as the mass is one or the other. Thus a 

 mass of pure metal consists of integrant molecules, 

 each of which has the metallic properties of the mass. 

 A mass of alloy, in the same manner, is composed of 

 integrant molecules, each of which is compounded of 

 the different substances forming the alloy. If we 

 decompose a compound integrant molecule, we 

 obtain the constituent molecules of which it consists. 

 An integrant molecule of water is composed of con- 

 stituent molecules of oxygen and hydrogen. 



MOLES ADRIANI ; the mausoleum of Adrian, 

 in Rome, consisting of a square basement, of 170 feet 

 in length, on which rises a round tower, 115 feet in 

 diameter. In the wars with the Goths, it was used 

 as a fortress, and the popes converted it into a castle, 

 which received the name of St Angela, from the statue 

 of the archangel Michael on its summit. 



MOLIERE, JEAN BAPTISTE POCQCELIN DE, the 

 celebrated French comic writer, was born at Paris, 

 Jan. 15, 1622. His father was valet de chambre and 

 upholsterer to the king. In his fourteenth year he 

 enjoyed the instructions of the Jesuits, and made 

 great progress. Gassendi, Chapelle, Bernier, were 

 Ins teachers. When his father had become debili- 

 tated, he had to discharge his office about the per- 

 son of Louis XIII. In 1641, he accompanied the 

 king to Narbonne. The French theatre had at that 

 time begun to flourish, through the talents of the great 

 Corneille, and the young Pocquelin, who had imbibed 

 a strong passion for the stage, now formed a com- 

 pany of young persons of similar tastes, and exchang- 

 ed his family name for that of Moliere, either from 

 regard to his parents, as his profession was then 

 deemed disreputable, or in imitation of other actors, 

 and resigned the office of his father. His company 

 soon became distinguished. During the troubles of 

 the Fronde, he is lost to our view ; but after the 

 restoration of order, we find him at the head of a 

 strolling troop, which acted the Etourtli, at Lyons, 

 in 1662. This is the first comedy written in verse by 

 Moliere. The truth of the dialogue, the inexhausti- 

 ble skill of a valet, who is continually employed in 

 rectifying the blunders of his master, the interest of 

 the situations arising therefrom, have kept this piece 

 on the theatre, notwithstanding the want of con- 

 nexion between the parts, the coldness of the per- 

 sonages, and the incorrectness of the style. Moliere 

 gained equal applause as a poet and a dramatist, and 



