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it could have been made more agreeable; as it is, the lover of good eating * will wish his throat a mile long, and every inch of it palate.'"

Molly Maguires, a secret society among the coal-miners of Pennsylvania, which for many years prior to 1877 terrorized the entire coal-producing region, and even rose to be an important political factor in the State, through the numerous votes which it controlled. The name was originally that of a secret society organized in Ireland in 1843 f°r tne purpose of terrorizing the officials employed by the landlords to distrain for rent. Stout, active young men, dressed in women's clothes, with faces blackened, or otherwise disguised, would pounce upon the grippers, bumbailiffs, process-servers, and drivers (persons who impounded cattle till the rent was paid), releasing the distress and roughly handling the distrainers, from the effects of which they not infrequently died.

The Molly Maguires of the coal-regions were composed almost entirely of Irishmen, and they kept the forms and practices oi the secret societies of the old country. They combined against mine-owners and overseers as the Irish society had combined against landlords and agents. But their crimes were worse, as their excuse was less, and their cruelty was as ferocious as the offence which caused it was petty. In committing their murders, the society took a course not unknown in the history of the brotherhoods of assassins, and had the deeds done by persons who were strangers in the sections where the victims lived. Returns of courtesies were arranged by which murders were exchanged. They pursued the same course in regard to terrorism of witnesses and to subornation of perjury, and consequently for a long time made trials a farce. With murder and incendiarism, matters came to such a pass that in 1875 tne entire region was in a tremble of fear. After the total failure of the local constabulary, after even the militia had failed to establish more than temporary quiet, the Pinkerton Agency of Chicago was ultimately set upon their track, and largely through the personal efforts and influence of Franklin B. Gowen, President of the Reading Railroad, the ringleaders were detected, arrested, convicted, and, in June, 1877, hanged, after which order was restored and the association broken up.

Moloch. Figuratively, a ruling passion or consuming vice, to which man sacrifices things most dear and sacred; it may be the Moloch of gambling, the Moloch of ambition, the Moloch of war, etc. The derivation is from Moloch, a god of the Ammonites, into whose bowels, being a furnace with a raging fire, the worshippers cast as sacrifices jewels, treasures, often even their own favorite children : this practice is alluded to in the Biblical reference to the god, to whom children were "made to pass through the fire" in sacrifice.

Money makes tne mare go, an old English proverb of uncertain origin. It may be a far-off variant of the ancient phrase found in this form in Publius Syrus: "Money alone sets all the world in motion." (Maxim 6561) There is an old glee that contains the following lines:

"Will you lend me your mare to go a mile ?M
"No; she is lame, leaping over a stile."
"But if you will her to me spare
You shall have money for your mare."

""Oh, ho 1 say you so f
Money will make the mare to go."

There is no evidence, however, to show that the glee was not taken from the saw. In Caleb Bingham's "American Preceptor," published in 1794,1s a dialogue called " Self-interest," in which an English rustic, named Scrapewell, makes all sorts of false excuses to avoid lending his mare to a neighbor, but afterwards, finding that the loan is to be profitable to himself, he takes back all the excuses and lets the mare go. The author's name is given as Berquin. Probably it is a paraphrase from the French writer for children Arnauld Berquin (1749-91). The glee may have been founded on this dialogue, as it follows it in all essentials. And, as the proverb is not mentioned in the dialogue, the saw as well as the glee may have arisen therefrom.

Monkey's money, To make payment in,—i.e., in something of no value. The origin of the phrase is sought in an ordinance said to have existed in Paris, imposing a toll of four deniers upon any animal crossing the Petit Pont and brought into the city for sale ; if it was a showman's monkey, not intended for sale, an exception was made, and in such a case it would suffice if the monkey went through his antics and grimaces.

Friar John bought him two rare pictures, . an original, by master Charles Charmois, principal painter to King Megistus; and he paid for them in court fashion, with monkey's money (with conge and grimace).—Rabelais, Book iv., ch. ii.

A parallel figure is the English colloquialism "monkey's allowance." The extract explains the meaning:

You fellows worked like bricks, spent money, and got midshipman's half-pay (nothing a day and find yourself) and monkey's allowance (more kicks than halfpence).—C. Kingslby: Letters, May, 1856.

Monograms are cabalistic-looking ciphers or figures, often utterly meaningless at first sight, which on closer inspection resolve themselves into letters fantastically intertwined the one with the other. These devices can be traced back to early ages, possibly to the Egyptians, and certainly to the Greeks, who used them on early coins, medals, and seals. They are found also on the family coins of Rome, but not on the coins of the Roman emperors until the time of Constantine, who used, there and elsewhere, the famous monogram of Christ, formed from the first two letters of the Greek XP12T02, which was the most striking part of the labarum. (See In Hoc Signo Vinces.) Another famous Christian monogram is considered sub voce I. H. S. Charlemagne is thought to have revived in France the practice of placing monograms on coins, which was copied by most of the Carlovingian kings. And in order to hide his ignorance of the art of writing, Charlemagne was wont to use a monogram stamped on a seal as his signature. The M merchants' marks" of the Middle Ages were often monograms, as were the devices on tradesmen's tokens, and the signatures of old painters, engravers, and printers. The latter form the especial study of the bibliographer, who is thus enabled to fix the identity of the ancient editions, German, Italian, and English, from the invention of printing down to the middle or end of the sixteenth century. But as a means of handing down one's name to posterity monograms can hardly be considered a success. Not many years ago a long controversy broke out in the pages of Notes and Queries concerning a monogram which different correspondents variously attributed to Peter Quast, Lewis Crosse, Sir Peter Lely, and others, and which to the uninstructed mind seemed to contain a P, a C, an L, and a D. Unfortunately, there are no rules for deciphering a monogram. All attempted rules, such as that which declares that in these combinations the initial of the surname should be the most prominent character, have been sacrificed to the exigencies of the occasion in hand. It is now generally held that the diphthong Mt for example, is a true monogram in itself, embracing the initials A, E, F, L in any desired order, and standing either for Ebenezer Fitz-Adam Longshanks or Alexandria I^etitia Frances Escobar. Shakespeare asks, What's in a name? With a deal more reason he might ask, " What's in a monogram?"

Monosyllable. The literary value of simplicity, of Saxon as against Latin terminology, of the short word as against the long, of monosyllables, in fact, as against polysyllables, is a modern discovery, or not so much a discovery as a recrudescence. It was known to the Elizabethans, it was forgotten by their successors, it was rediscovered in more modern times. Shakespeare and the English Bible have established and retained their hold on the popular heart by their knowledge of this great rhetorical fact. But Shakespeare and the Bible (as a literary force) had become discredited in Queen Anne's age. For that age was big with the coming portent of Johnsonese and Gibbonese, it was the legitimate precursor of the " Rambler" and the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," it was subconsciously aware of the revolution which it bore within its womb. It is not astonishing, therefore, to find in the work of a great Queen Anne poet the well-known gibe against monosyllabic verse,—

And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.

This, of course, is Pope, in the "Dunciad." A successor of Pope, a satirist who lived in the very heyday of Johnsonese English,—Churchill, in short,— in his " Rosciad" has this sarcastic fling at the actor Mossop:

With studied impropriety of speech.
He soars beyond the hackney'd critic's reach;
* To epithets allots emphatic state,

Whilst principals, ungraced, like lackeys wait;

In ways first trodden by himself excels,

And stands alone in indeclinables;

Conjunction, preposition, adverb, join

To stamp new vigor on the nervous line;

In monosyllables his thunders roll.

He, she, it, and we, ye, they, affright the soul.

But in spite of Pope, in erring Churchill's spite, ten words can fly as well as creep, and thunders may roll in monosyllables as readily as in sesquipedaia verba. The finest passages in Shakespeare, the "To be or not to be," for example, the most impressive portions of the Bible, as in the books of Job and Revelation, or the denunciations of Jeremiah against Jehoiakim, King of Judah, "O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord," etc, the Burial Service, Tennyson's "Tears, Idle Tears," Pope's " Universal Prayer," Gray's "Elegy," Scott's description of the battle of Flodden Field,—all these and many more of the best-remembered passages in English literature might be searched in vain for words hard enough to set at a spelling-bee. They represent all moods of the mind, all the possibilities of human expression. They show that directness and simplicity may consort with majesty, with dignity, with passion, with eloquence. This truth is excellently put in the following two sonnets by Dr. J. Addison Alexander, written throughout in monosyllables, which originally appeared in the Princeton Review:

The Power Of Short Words.

Think not that strength lies in the big round word.

Or that the brief and plain must needs be weak.
To whom can this be true .who once has heard

The cry for help, the tongue that all men speak,
When want or woe or fear is in the throat.

So that each word gasped out is like a shriek
Pressed from the sore heart, or a strange wild note

Sung by some fay or fiend? There is a strength
Which dies if stretched too far or spun too fine,

Which has more height than breadth, more depth than length.
Let but this force of thought and speech be mine,

And he that will may take the sleek fat phrase
Which glows and burns not, though it gleam and shine,—

Light, but no heat,—a flash, but not a blaze 1

Nor is it mere strength that the short word boasts:

It serves of more than fight or storm to tell,
The roar of waves that dash on rock-bound coasts,

The crash of tall trees when the wild winds swell,
The roar of guns, the groans of men that die

On blood-stained fields. It has a voice as well
For them that far off on their sick-beds lie;

For them that weep, for them that mourn the dead;
For them that laugh and dance and clap the hand;

To joy's quick step, as well as grief's slow tread,
The sweet, plain words we learnt at first keep time,

And though the theme be sad, or gay, or grand,
With each, with all, these may be made to chime,
In thought, or speech, or song, in prose or rhyme.

Let us cull from literature a few of the more notable examples of verse and prose wherein monosyllables play the chief and sometimes the only part. Shakespeare and the Bible, as we have already noted, yield a rich harvest. Where is the language of passionate grief made more expressive than in the speech of the widowed Constance in •* King John" ?—

Thou may'st, thou shalt; I will not go with thee:

1 will instruct my sorrows to be proud;

For grief is proud, and makes his owner stout.

To me, and to the state of my great grief,

Let kings assemble; for my grief's so great,

That no supporter but the huge firm earth

Can hold it up: here I and Sorrow sit;

Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it.

Act iii., Sc. i.

Here are seventy-three words, of which only six are polysyllables. In the same play, in the thrilling scene where King John is inciting Hubert to murder Arthur, his speech consists largely of monosyllables. Here are four lines without a single word of more than one syllable:

Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet;
But thou shalt have; and creep time ne'er so slow,
Yet it shall come, for me to do thee good.
I had a thing to say;—but let it go.

Act iii., Sc. 3.

In one of the most forceful of all the Shakespearian plays, " King Lear," the most forceful passages are made up of words of one syllable. Here again are four lines without a single polysyllable:

Thou know'st the first time that we smell the air,
We wawl and cry: I will preach to thee, mark me.
When we are born we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools.—This a good block?

Act iv., Sc. 6.

Coleridge considered that the most beautiful verse, and also the most sublime, in the Bible was that in the book of Ezekiel which runs, "And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest." Here are seventeen monosyllables, and only three words of two syllables.

Here are a few more examples, selected almost at random:

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good.—Genesis i. 3, 4.

At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet he bowed, he fell: where he bowed, there he fell down dead.—Judges v. 27.

O Lord my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me. O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave: thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit. Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of his, and give thanks.—Psalm xxx. 2-4.

Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.—x Thessalonians v. 21.

For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him.—2 Timothy ii. u.

For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand ?—Revelation vi. 17.

And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day; for there shall be no night there.— Revelation xxi. 25.

If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the dhch.—Matthrw xv. 14. Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink.—Matthew ri. 2$. Or what man is there of you, whom if his sun ask bread, will he give him a stone ?— Matthew vii. 0.

The tree is known by his fruit.—Matthew xii. 33.

Be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.—James i. xo.

If they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry f—Luke xxiii. 31.'

We walk by faith, not by sight.—3 Corinthians v. 7.

Lord Russell, in his Life of Moore, records a conversation between that poet, Rogers, and the once popular critic Crowe on the use of short words. Phrases like " He jests at scars who never felt a wound," "Give all thou canst," and " Sigh on my lip" were quoted with approval as most musical and vigorous. Rogers cited two lines from Pope, declaring that they could not be improved:

Pant on thy lip, and to thy heart be press'd;
Give all thou canst—and let me dream- the rest.

Eloisa to Abelardy 1. 133.

Moore himself offers some excellent examples:

Rich and rare were the gems she wore,
And a bright gold ring on her wand she bore.

Rich and rare were the Gems she wore.
I know not, I ask not, if guilt's in that heart,
I but know that I love thee whatever thou art.

Come rest in this Bosom.
I give thee all,—I can no more,
Though poor the offering be;
My heart and lute are all the store
That I can bring to thee.

My Heart and Lute.
Who has not felt how sadly sweet

The dream of home, the dream of home,
Steals o'er the heart, too soon to fleet,
When far o'er sea or land we roam T

The Dream of Home.
Love on through all ills, and love on till they die.

The Light of the Harem.
I knew, I knew it could not last:
'Twas bright, 'twas heavenly, but 'tis past.
Oh, ever thus, from childhood's hour,
I've seen my fondest hopes decay;
I never loved a tree or flower

But 'twas the first to fade away.
I never nursed a dear gazelle,

To glad me with its soft black eye,
But when it came to know me well
And love me, it was sure to die.
Now, too, the joy most like divine

Of all I ever dreamt or knew,
To see thee, hear thee, call thee mine,—

Oh, misery! must I lose that toof
Yet go! On peril's brink we meet;

Those frightful rocks—that treacherous sea-
No, never come again—though sweet,
Though heaven, it may be death to thee 1"

The Fire^Worshippert.

Phineas Fletcher in "The Purple Island" has a remarkable passage:

New light new love, new love new life hath bred;

A life that lives by love, and loves by light;
A love to Him to whom all loves are wed;

A light to whom the sun is darkest night:
Eye's light, heart's love, soul's only life He is;
Life, soul, love, heart, light, eye, and all are Hit;
He eye, light, heart, love, soul; He all my joy and bliaa.

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