Chapter Meteoric Stones to Middleburgh of M by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Meteoric Stones to Middleburgh

Meteoric Stones. In the museum of Carlton (Melbourne) is preserved a huge meteoric stone twenty- five tons in weight. It fell on a large plain between Melbourne and Kilmore in 1860, with such force that it sank six feet in the ground. Some said it must have been shot from a crater of the moon.

The largest in the world is in Brazil, and exceeds thirty tons. There is another in the Imperial Museum at St. Petersburg, of unusual dimensions; and one is preserved in Paris.

Methos, Drunkenness personified. He is twin-brother of Gluttony, their mother being Caro (fleshly lust). In the battle of Mansoul, Methos is slain by Agneia (wifely chastity) spouse of Encratês (temperance) and sister of Parthenia (maiden chastity). (Greek, methê or methus is “drunkenness.”)—Fletcher: The Purple Island, vii. xi. (1633).

Metophis, the corrupt chief minister of Sesostris.

Il avait l’ame aussi corrumpue et aussi artificieuse que Sesostris était sincère et généreux.—Fénelon: Télémaque (1700).

Mexitli, chief god and idol of the Aztecas. He leaped full-grown into life, and with a spear slew those who mocked his mother Coatlantona .

Already at [his mother’s breast] the blow was aimed,
When forth Mexitli leapt, and in his hand
The angry spear.
   —Southey: Madoc, ii. 21 (1805).

Of course, it will be remembered that Minerva, like Mexitli, was born fullgrown and fully armed.

Meynard, in Boucicault’s Corsican Brothers (1848). In Dumas’ novel, Dumas himself fills the rôle of Meynard.

Mezentius, king of the Tyrrhenians, who put criminals to death by tying them face to face with dead bodies.—Virgil: Æneid, viii. 485.

This is like Mezentius in Virgil…Such critics are like dead coals; they may blacken, but cannot burn.—Broome: Preface to Poems (1730).

Mezentius and Lausus, an episode in Virgil’s Æneid. Æneas attacked Mezentius, but his son Lausus interposed and was slain. Mezentius takes to flight, but when he finds that

Lausus is dead, he mounts his horse Phœbus and defies the Trojan. Æneas kills the horse, and Mezentius slays himself.—Æneid, bk. x. (the latter part).

The death of the horse is 891–894.

Mezzoramia, an earthly paradise in Africa, accessible by only one road. Gaudentio di Lucca discovered the road, and lived at Mezzoramia for twenty-five years.—Berington: Gaudentio di Lucca.

M. F. H., Master [of the] Fox-hounds.

“He can’t stand long before ’em at this pace,” said the M. F. H., coming up with his huntsman.—Whyte Melville: Uncle John.

Micawber (Mr. Wilkins), a most unpractical, half-clever man, a great speechifier, letter-writer, projector of bubble schemes, and, though confident of success, never succeeding. Having failed in everything in the old country, he migrated to Australia, and became a magistrate at Middlebay.—Dickens David Copperfield (1849).