76 



MOSS-TROOPER MOTH. 



professional abilities on the metropolitan stage, he 

 was reduced to great distress, and died in absolute 

 penury, at Chelsea, in November, 1773. 



MOSS-TROOPER; the usual appellation (says 

 Scott, note thirteen to canto first of the Lay of the 

 Last Minstrel) of the marauders upon the borders of 

 KM t: land and Scotland. Long after the union of the 

 crowns, the moss-troopers, although sunk in reputa- 

 tion, and no longer enjoying the pretext of national 

 hostility, continued to pursue their calling. Fuller 

 says, " They are called moss-troopers because dwell- 

 ing in the mosses, and riding in troops together. 

 They dwell in the bounds or meeting of the two 

 kingdoms, but obey the laws of neither. They come 

 to church as seldom as the 29th of February comes 

 into the calendar. They are a nest of hornets ; 

 strike one, and you stir all of them about your ears. 

 Indeed, if they promise safely to conduct a traveller, 

 they will perform it with the fidelity of a Turkish jani- 

 zary ; otherwise, woe be to him that falleth into their 

 quarters." Speaking in reference to his own time, 

 he says, " They amounted, forty years since, to some 

 thousands. They compelled the vicinage to purchase 

 their security by paying a constant rent to them. 

 When in their greatest height, they had two great 

 enemies, the laws of the land, and the lord William 

 Howard of Naivorth. He sent many of them to Car- 

 lisle, to that place where the officer doth always work 

 kis work by daylight. Such was the success of this wor- 

 thy lord's severity, that he made a thorough reforma- 

 tion among them; and, the ringleaders being destroyed, 

 the rest are reduced to legal obedience, and so, I 

 trust, will continue." (Fuller's Worthies vf England, 

 page 216.) The last public mention of moss-troopers, 

 says Scott, occurs during the civil wars of the seven- 

 teenth century, when many ordinances of parliament 

 were directed against them. 



MOSTARABS. See Arabia. 



MOST CHRISTIAN MAJESTY; a title borne by 

 many kings of France, as by Pepin the Short, but 

 winch was first solemnly conferred on them by pope 

 Paul II., in 1469. According to some, pope Pius 11. 

 gave this title to Louis XI., to atone for his refusal 

 of the request of that king that, as suzerain of Naples, 

 he would assist prince John of Calabria, the kinsman 

 of Louis, against Ferdinand of Naples. 



Most Faithful Majesty is a title which was given 

 by Benedict XIV. to John V. of Portugal. 



MOSUL, or MOSSOUL ; a city of Turkey in 

 Asia; capital of a pachalic included in the pachalic 

 of Bagdad, in a plain on the west bank of the Tigris; 

 240 miles east of "Aleppo, 480 west-north-west of 

 Ispahan ; Ion. 42 8' E.; lat. 36 20' N.; population, 

 according to Oliver, about 70,000 ; 25,000 Arabians, 

 16,000 Turks, 15,000 Kurds, 8000 Armenians and 

 Nestorians ; according to others, 35,000. It is sur- 

 rounded with walls and ditches, and defended by a 

 castle. Almost all the houses are built of stone. 

 The Tigris is deep and rapid, and is crossed by a 

 bridge, of boats. The air is healthy in spring, hot in 

 summer, feverish in autumn, and inconveniently cold 

 in winter. The inhabitants consist of Arabians, Turks, 

 Persians, and Kurds, all which languages are spoken. 

 The Nestorian patriarch of Syria resides at Elkasch, 

 near the town, where also are found many Christians, 

 Armenians, Greeks, and Maronites. This city is 

 very large, and contains many handsome buildings, 

 exclusive of mosques, minarets, and hummums, which 

 are of hewn stone. The bazar is large, and well 

 supplied. The commerce is considerable, and there 

 are manufactures of leather and cotton, particularly 

 muslins, said to, be named from this place. The 

 town is surrounded by a strong and high wall of 

 stone, but all the space enclosed is not occupied with 

 houses, and many places are covered with ruins, 



which show that it was once more populous than it 

 now is ; however, the inhabitants carry on considera- 

 ble manufactures of cotton. Merchandise from India 

 is brought hither by the way of Bassora, and Euro- 

 pean goods by the way of Aleppo. About a mile 

 from Mosul, on the opposite bank of the river, are 

 mounds, similar to those of Babylon, supposed to be 

 the remains of ancient Nineveh. 



MOTANABBI, ABUL TAYIB AHMED AL ; a cele- 

 brated Arabian poet, born at Cufa in 915. He studied 

 at Damascus, and applied himself especially to gram- 

 mar and the belles-lettres. At length, being inflamed 

 with a passion for poetry, he gave himself up to the 

 cultivation of that species of literature with the utmost 

 enthusiasm, and professed to believe that he was 

 divinely inspired. He aspired to become the rival 

 of Mohammed, and, by the charms of his versification, 

 seduced a multitude of the Arabs to become his dis- 

 ciples. The governor of Emesa stopped the progress 

 of the new sect, by seizing their chief, and dispersing 

 his followers. Motanabbi, reduced to reason by con- 

 finement, renounced his chimerical pretensions to in- 

 spiration, and, on regaining his liberty, applied him- 

 self wholly to poetical composition. He was enter- 

 tained at the court of the prince of Aleppo, whence 

 he removed to Egypt, and afterwards to Shiraz, 

 where he was loaded with benefits by the sultan 

 Adadodowla. He was at length killed by robbers in 

 crossing the desert to visit his native country, in 965. 

 A memoir of Motanabbi, with two of his poems, 

 may be found in Ouseley's Oriental Collections. His 

 Divan (q. v.), a collection of 289 poems, has exercis- 

 ed the industry of more than forty commentators. 

 Von Hammer first gave a complete translation of 

 them (Vienna, 1824), with notes. He was called 

 in the "East, the sultan of poetry. See Arabian 

 Literature. 



MOTET (from the French) formerly signified a 

 studied composition enriched with all the beauties of 

 the musical art. At present, the name of motet is 

 given to every composition set to Latin words ; such 

 as hymns, psalms, or any small portion of scripture, 

 in the Roman Catholic churqh. In Germany, the 

 name is given to figured musical pieces, generally 

 intended only for singing, the subjects of which are 

 passages of the Bible. There are some for four, five, 

 six voices. The motets of France and Italy are 

 always accompanied by instrumental music. The 

 subjects are also passages of the Bible, generally in 

 rhymed Latin verses, whilst the words of the German 

 motet are in prose. The German motet is chiefly con- 

 fined to the Protestant part of Germany. The two 

 Bachs (q. v.) may be said to have carried the Ger- 

 man motet to its highest point. 



MOTH (p/ialcena, L.). These numerous and 

 beautiful insects, which are seldom seen except in 

 the evening or night, were included by LinncBtis in 

 the genus phalaena. Since his time, however, 

 naturalists have divided them into an immense 

 number of different groups. (See Entomology.) All 

 the diurnal butterflies are provided with a tongue 

 for gathering their food ; but a great proportion of 

 the moths are destitute of that organ, whilst in others 

 it is exceedingly small. A considerable number of 

 them, therefore, must pass the whole of their winged 

 state without food. The caterpillars, from which 

 the various species of the perfect insects are pro- 

 duced, exhibit nearly the same variety of appearance 

 as the moths themselves. Some are large, and 

 others extremely minute ; many are furnished with 

 ten, others with twelve or fourteen feet, whilst the 

 largest have sixteen. All these caterpillars, after 

 having shed their skin one or more times, spin for 

 themselves the materials of a habitation, in which 

 they are to undergo their transformations. The 



