Chapter Mamillius to Man of Law's Tale of M by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Man of Brass, Talos, the work of Hephæstos (Vulcan). He traversed the Isle of Crete thrice a year. Apollonius (Argonautica, iv.) says he threw rocks at the Argonauts, to prevent their landing. It is also said that when a stranger was discovered on the island, Talos made himself red hot, and embraced the intruder to death.

That portentous Man of Brass
Hephæstus made in days of yore,
Who stalked about the Cretan shore,
And saw the ships appear and pass,
And threw stones at the Argonauts.
   —Longfellow: The Wayside Inn (1863).

Man of December, Napoleon III. So called because he was made president December 11, 1848; made the coup d’état, December 2, 1851; and was made emperor, December 2, 1852.

(Born in the Rue Lafitte, Paris (not in the Tuileries), April 20, 1808; reigned 1852–1870; died at Chiselhurst, Kent, January 9, 1873.)

Man of Destiny, Napoleon I., who always looked on himself as an instrument in the hands of destiny, and that all his acts were predestined.

The Man of Destiny…had power for a time “to bind kings with chains, and nobles with fetters of iron.”—Sir W. Scott.

Man of Feeling (The), Harley, a sensitive, bashful, kind-hearted, sentimental sort of hero.—Mackenzie: The Man of Feeling (1771).

(Sometimes Henry Mackenzie is himself called “The Man of Feeling.”)

Man of Law’s Tale. (See under Law’s Tale, p. 599.)—Chaucer; Canterbury Tales (1388).