Here he resided above three years, and then returned upon some disgust, without an audience of leave. Upon his return he drew up his Account of Denmark, in which he represented that government as arbitrary; and hence gave great offence to George prince of Denmark. The Danish envoy presented a memorial to king William concerning it; and furnished materials for an answer, which was executed by Dr. William King. Mr. Molesworth was member of the houses of commons in both kingdoms: king George I. made him a commissioner of trade and plantations, and advanced him to the peerage of Ireland, by the title of baron Philipstown, and viscount Molesworth of Swords. He died in 1725. He wrote an address to the house of commons, for the encouragement of agriculture; and translated Franco-Gallia, a Latin treatise of the civilian Hottoman.

MOLEVILLE (Francis Bertrand de), a French statesman and historian, born in 1744, first occupied the situation of attendant of the finances in Britanny. In October 1791 he was appointed minister of the marine. Being accused in the Legislative Assembly of having favored the emigration of the officers, in March 1792, he resigned his post. He subsequently took refuge in England, where he employed himself in literary undertakings. He died at Paris in 1819. Among his works are, A Chronological History of England, 6 vols. 8vo.; Memoirs relative to the last Year of the reign of Louis XVI.; and Annals of the French Revolution; all which were first published in English, being translated from the MSS. of the author.

MOLIERE (John Baptist), a famous French comedian, whose original name was Pocquelin. He was the son of a valet de chambre, and was born at Paris about 1620. He studied the classics under the Jesuits in the college of Clermont, and was designed for the bar; but, on quitting the law schools, he became an actor. From his fondness for the drama, he continued till his death to exhibit plays, which were greatly applauded. It is said the first motive of his going upon the stage was to enjoy the company of an actress, for whom he had contracted a violent affection. His last comedy was Le Malade Imaginaire, which was first acted in 1673; and Moliere died on the fourth night of its representation; some say in acting the very part of the dead man; but others say he died in his bed that night, from the bursting of a vein in his lungs by coughing. The king prevailed with the archbishop of Paris to suffer him to be buried in consecrated ground; though he had irritated the clergy by his Tartuffe. The best editions of his works are those of Amsterdam, 5 vols. 12mo., 1699; and Paris, 6 vols. 4to., 1734.

MOLINA, a celebrated Jesuit, founder of the sect of the Molinists. He taught that the operations of divine grace were entirely consistent with the freedom of human will; and introduced a new hypothesis to remove the difficulties attending the doctrines of predestination and liberty, and to reconcile the jarring opinions of Augustines, Thomists, Semi-Pelagians, and other polemical divines. He affirmed that the decree of predestination to eternal glory was founded

upon a previous knowledge and consideration of the merits of the elect; that the grace, from whose operation these merits are derived, is not efficacious by its own intrinsic power only, but also by the consent of our own will, and because it is administered in those circumstances in which the Deity, by that branch of his knowledge which is called scientia media, foresees that it will be efficacious. The kind of prescience, denominated in the schools scientia media, is that foreknowledge of future contingents that arises from an acquaintance with the nature and faculties of rational beings, of the circumstances in which they shall be placed, of the objects that shall be presented to them, and of the influence which their circumstances and objects must have on their actions.

MOLINOS (Michael), a Spanish priest, born in the diocese of Saragossa in 1627. He entered into priest's orders, but never held any benefice. He wrote a work entitled Il Guida Spirituale, containing his peculiar notions, which was much read in Italy and Spain. His followers are called Quietists; because his chief tenet was that men ought to annihilate themselves to be united to God, and afterwards remain in quietness of mind, without being concerned about what may happen to the body. He was taken up in 1687, and his sixty-eight propositions were examined by the pope and inquisitors, who decreed that his doctrine was false and pernicious; that his books should be burnt; and that he should recant his errors publicly in the Dominican church. Thus he was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, in his sixtieth year, for doctrines which he had been spreading twenty-two years before. He died in prison in 1692.

MOLISE, the ancient Samnium, a mountainous province of Naples, surrounded by the Capitanata, Abruzzo, Principato Ultra, and Terra di Lavoro. It contains about 1200 square miles, and is watered by the Tamaro, Bifuno, and Tregno rivers; its forests and pasturages are extensive, but are occupied by goats, sheep, and hogs more than cattle. Inhabitants 207,000. MOLLIENT, adj. Lat. molliens, mollis. MOLLIFI'ABLE, Softening: mollifiable MOLLIFICATION, n.s. means that which may MOLLIFIER, be softened: mollifiMOL'LIFY, v. a. cation, the act of mollifying; purification; mitigation: mollifier, a thing or person that softens or mitigates: to mollify (Fr. mollir), to assuage; soften; quiet; qualify.

Sores have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Isaiah i. 6.

Neither herb, nor mollifying plaister, restored them to health. Wisd. xvi. 12. Thinking her silent imaginations began to work upon somewhat, to mollify them, as the nature of musick is to do, I took up my harp. Sidney.

He brought them to these savage parts, And with sweet science mollified then stubborn Spenser.

hearts.

MOLLOY (Charles), Esq., a well-known writer of the eighteenth century, was born in Dublin, and educated at Trinity College, of which he became a fellow. On his coming to England he entered of the Middle Temple, and is said to have had a very considerable hand in a periodical paper called Fog's Journal; and to have been almost the sole author of another well-known paper, entitled Common Sense. He had large offers made him to write in defence of Sir Robert Walpole, but rejected them; notwithstanding which, at the change of the ministry in 1742, he was entirely neglected. But, having married a lady of fortune, he treated the ingratitude of his patriotic friends with contempt. He also wrote three dramatic pieces, viz. The Perplexed Couple; The Coquet; and The Half-pay Officers; none of which met with much success. He died 16th July, 1767.

MOLLUCELLA, in botany, a genus of plants belonging to the didynamia class, and gymnospermia order: CAL. campanulate, dilated, broader than the corolla, spinous. Species six, natives of the Molucca Islands, Syria, and Tartary; some of them shrubs, others annual herbaceous plants.

MOLLUGO, African chickweed, a genus of the trigynia order, and triandria class of plants; natural order twenty-second, caryophylleæ: CAL. pentaphyllous: COR. none: CAPS. trilocular and trivalved. Its characters are these: the empalement of the flower is composed of five oblong small leaves, colored on their insides, and permanent; the flower has five oval petals shorter than the empalement, and three bristly stamina, which stand near the style, terminated by single summits; it has an oval germen, having three furrows, supporting three very short styles; the germen becomes an oval capsule with three cells, filled with small kidney-shaped seeds. There are several species, few of which are admitted into gardens. Miller reckons two, and Linné five species. This plant is said to have an aperitive virtue.

MOLLUSCA, in zoology, the second genus of vermes or worms. These are simple naked animals, not included in a shell, but furnished with limbs, and comprehend eighteen subordinate genera, and 110 species.

MOLMUTIN LAws, in ancient British history,

the laws of Dunwalla Molmutius, the sixteenth king of the Britons. They are said to have been in use till the Norman conquest.

MOLO, a philosopher of Rhodes, called also Apollonius. Some are of opinion that the philosopher Apollonius and Molo were different persons, both natives of Alabanda, and disciples of Menecles. They both visited Rhodes, and there opened a school; but Molo came some time after Apollonius. Molo had Cicero and Julius Cæsar among his pupils.

MOLOCH, or MOLECH, Heb. a, i. e. king, a false god of the Ammonites, who dedicated their children to him by making them 'pass through the fire,' as the Scriptures express it. There are various opinions concerning this method of consecration. Some think the children leaped over a fire sacred to Moloch; others that they passed between two fires; but the most probable opinion is that they were really burnt in the fire, as sacrifices to this god. For, although it was usual among the pagans to lustrate or purify with fire, yet it is expressly said that the inhabitants of Sepharvaim burnt their children in the fire to Anamelech and Adramelech; deities similar to Moloch of the Ammonites. Moses, in several places, forbids the Israelites to dedicate their children to this god as the Ammonites did, and threatens utter extirpation to such as were guilty of this abominable idolatry. The Hebrews were, however, much addicted to this barbarous superstition. Amos, and after him Stephen, reproaches them with having carried along with them into the wilderness the tabernacle of their god Moloch. Solomon built a temple to Moloch upon the mount of Olives; and Manasseh, long after, imitated his impiety, by making his son pass through the fire in honor of Moloch. It was chiefly in the valley of Tophet and Hinnom, east of Jerusalem, that the Israelites paid their idolatrous worship to this false God. See BEN-HINNOM and GEHENNA. Some mythologists make Moloch the same with Saturn, to whom human sacrifices were offered; others the sun. Moloch was likewise called Milcom, as appears from 1 Kings xi. 5, 7, 33.

MOLOGA, a town of European Russia, in the government of Jaroslav, situate at the junction of the Mologa River with the Wolga, in long. 38° 22′ E., and lat. 58° 1' N. Population, generally employed on the Wolga, 2000.

MOLOSSES, or MOLASSES, that gross fluid matter remaining of sugar after refining, and which no boiling will bring to a consistence more solid than that of syrup; hence also called syrup of sugar. Properly, molosses are only the sediment of one kind of sugar called chypre, or brown sugar, which is the refuse of other sugars not to be whitened or reduced into loaves. Molosses are much used in Holland for the preparation of tobacco, and also among poor people instead of sugar. There is a kind of brandy or spirit made of molosses.

MOLOSSES, ARTIFICIAL. There has been found a method of making molosses from apples, without the addition of sugar. The apple that succeeds best in this operation is a summer-sweeting of a middle size, pleasant to the taste, and so full of juice that seven bushels will yield a barrel of

cyder. The method of making it is this:-The apples are to be ground and pressed; then the juice is to be boiled in a large copper, till threequarters of it be evaporated; this will be done, with a moderate fire, in about six hours, with the quantity of juice above-mentioned: by this time it will be of the consistence and taste, as well as of the color, of molosses. These new molosses serve all the purposes of the common kind, and are of great use in preserving cyder. Two quarts, put into a barrel of racked cyder, will preserve it, and give it an agreeable color. The invention of this kind was owing to Mr. Chandler of Woodstock in New England, who, living at a distance from the sea, and where the common molosses were very dear and scarce, provided this for the supply of his own family, and soon made it the practice among people of the neigh bourhood. It is to be observed that this sort of apple, the sweeting, is of great use in making cyder, one of the very best kinds we know being made of it. The people in New England also feed their hogs with the fallings of their orchards of these apples; in consequence of which their pork is the finest in the world.

MOLOSSES SPIRIT, a very clean and pure spirit, much used in England, and made from molosses or common treacle dissolved in water, and fermented in the same manner as malt, or the common malt spirit. See DISTILLATION. Molosses spirit coming dearer than that of malt, it is frequently met with basely adulterated with a mixture of that spirit, and indeed seldom is to be bought without some dash of it. Many have a way of mixing malt in the fermenting liquor: by this the produce of the whole is greatly increased, and the maker may assure the buyer that the spirit is pure as it ran from the worm. In most of the nice cases in our compound distillery, the molosses spirit supplies the place of a pure and clean spirit. Cinnamon, citron, and other fine cordial waters, are made with it; for the malt spirit would impart to these a very disagreeable flavor. Molosses spirit gives a yellow stain to the hands, or other substances dipped into it; and may therefore be of use in dyeing. The vinegar-makers may also find use for it; but the most advantageous of all its uses is to the distiller; a quantity of it added to new treacle for fermentation is of great use in the process, and increases very considerably the quantity of spirit; but the proportion, in regard to the new matter, must not be too great.

MOLOSSIA, or MOLOSSIS, a territory of Epirus, so named from king Molossus, son of Pyrrhus and Andromache. This country had the bay of Ambracia on the south, and the country of the Perrhæbeans on the east. The dogs of the place were famous, and received the name of Molossi among the Romans. Dodona was the capital of the country, though others reckon it the chief city of Thesprotia.

MOLOSSUS, in the Greek and Latin poetry, a foot consisting of three long syllables. As audiri, cantabant, virtutem. It takes its name either from a dance in use among the Molossi, or from the temple of Jupiter Molossus, where odes were sung, in which this foot had a great share; or else because the march of the Molossi, when

they went to the combat, was composed of these feet, or had the cadence thereof. The same foot was also called among the ancients, vertumnus, extensipes, hippius, et canius.

MOLSA (Tarquinia), daughter of Camillo Molsa, a knight of the order of St. James of Spain, a most accomplished lady, who was born at Ferrara. Her father early observing the excellence of her genius, procured her the best masters in every branch of literature and science. Lazarus Labadini taught her polite literature; and her Latin compositions show that she profited by his instructions. She studied Aristotle under Camillo Corcapani; Anthony Guarini taught her astronomy; she learned poetry under Francis Patricius; Greek, logic, and philosophy under P. Latoni. The rabbi Abraham taught her the Hebrew language; and John Marier Barbier instructed her in the Tuscan, in which she wrote a great number of elegant verses, letters, and other pieces, which are still held in esteem. She also translated several pieces from Greek and Latin in an elegant manner. attained the highest degree of perfection in music; and played upon the violin and lute, and sung to them in a most exquisite taste. She instituted a choir of ladies, over which she presided. She was in high reputation at the court of Alphonsus II. duke of Ferrara. But the most decided compliment to her merit she received from Rome. By a decree of the senate, she was honored with the title of Singular, and the rights of Roman citizens were granted to her and the whole family. She was married, but lost her husband without having any children.

MOLTEN, part. pass of MELT, which see.
Brass is molten out of the stone.

She

Love's mystick form the artizans of Greece In wounded stone, or molten gold express. Prior.

MOLUCCA ISLANDS. The Moluccas, in the former extent of this name, included all the islands situated to the east of the Molucca passage, or in about long. 126° E. The word seems to be Arabic, and to signify Royal Islands, each of them being anciently the residence of a sovereign. This name was afterwards more particularly applied to the Spice Islands of BANDA, AMBOYNA, CERAM, TERNATA, TIDORE, and BATCHIAN, which see in their alphabetical places.

These islands present the appearances of having undergone some great natural convulsion, being singularly broken, and rising in enormous peaks from the ocean; most of them are also volcanoes either extinct or active. Earthquakes are likewise very frequent, though seldom violent.

The nature of the climate, and of the soil in most of these islands, prevent the cultivation of any kind of grain; the former being, for one season, a constant rain, and for the other an uninterrupted drought; while the latter is in general either spongy or rocky; hence the staple food of the islanders is derived from the sago palm,

which nature has given to them in vast profusion, as if to compensate for the corn she has denied them. The chief riches of these islands, however, and without which they would never have attracted the notice of Europeans, are their nutmegs and cloves, which are indigenous in no other region of the globe. The most remarkable animals are the babeeroussa, or hogdeer, the opossum, the phalanger, the moschus pygmæus, and the wild hogs and common deer.

Valentyn notices a singular phenomenon in that part of the sea usually called the Banda Sea. Between June and September, every year, a current of white water occupies this part, first appearing towards the south-east, near the islands of Key and Timor Laut, and gradually spreading to the shores of Ceram on the north, and of Ombay on the west, beyond which it disappears between Flores and Celebes. During the day its color is that of milk, and in the night it emits a light similar to that of the horizon; the water which composes it seems to be agitated internally, and, while the phenomenon lasts, the fish disappear from the coasts.

The Portuguese, who first came hither in 1510, succeeded in establishing themselves in possession of the islands, which were wrested from them by the Dutch in 1607. They remained with the Dutch since that period, till their capture by the British during the late wars, by whom, however, they were again surrendered in 1814 to their former rulers. They were formerly subject in succession to the Chinese, the Javanese, and the Malayans; and the Mahometans had begun to settle in them, and convert the inhabitants, but a little before they were discovered by the Portuguese. We have described each of these islands under its particular appellation. MOʻLY, n. s. Fr. moly; Lat. moly Swe d. mola. A plant. See below.

Sweet is the nut, but bitter is his pill;
Sweet is the bloomflower, but yet sour enough;
And sweet his moly, but his root is ill;
To every sweet with sour is tempered still,
That maketh it be coveted the more:
For easy things, that may be got at will,
Most sorts of men do set but little store.

Spencer.

Moly, or wild garlick, is of several sorts; as the great moly of Homer, the Indian moly, the moly of Hungary, serpent's moly, the yellow moly, Spanish purple moly, Spanish silver-capped moly, Dioscorides's moly, the sweet moly of Montpelier: the roots are tender, and must be carefully defended from frosts: as for the time of their flowering, the moly of Homer flowers in May, and continues till July, and so do all the rest except the last, which is late in September: they are hardy and will thrive in any soil. Mortimer.

The sovereign plant he drew, And shewed its nature, and its wonderous power, Black was the root, but milky white the flower; Moly the name. Pope's Odyssey. MOLY, has been rendered famous by Homer; and hence has been much enquired into, as to its true sense, by the botanists of almost all times. The old interpreters of Homer explain this word by the wild rue; and the only reason for this is, that at some time, probably long after the days

of Homer, the people of Cappadocia called the wild rue moly. But this plant is wholly different from the moly of Homer, which Theophrastus affirms grew in his time in Arcadia in great plenty, and had a round bulbous root like an onion, and long and grassy leaves like the squill. On the whole, the moly of Homer seems to have been a species of allium or garlic.

MOLYBDENUM, in chemistry and metallurgy, a metal which is found mineralized by sulphur in the ore called sulphuret of molybdena. This ore, which is very scarce, is found at Glenely in Inverness-shire, imbedded in chlorite-slate, and its granite at Thap in Westmoreland, Coldbeck in Westmoreland, and Huel Gorland in Cornwall. It occurs also in Norway, and in other parts of Europe, in Greenland, and in Siberia. It appears to be a compound of 60 molybdenum and 40 sulphur, and so much resembles plumbago in many of its properties, that they were long considered as varieties of the same substance. It is of a light lead-grey color; its surface is smooth, and feels unctuous; its texture is lamellated; it soils the fingers, and marks paper blueish-black, or silver-grey. It may be cut with a knife. It is generally found in compact masses; seldom in particles, or crystallised.

Scheele, in 1778, showed that from this ore a peculiar acid might be obtained, and in 1782 molybdenum was first procured in a metallic state by Hielm. To obtain this metal is a task of the utmost difficulty. Few chemists have since succeeded in producing this metal, on account of its great infusibility. The method recommended in general is the following:-Molybdic acid is to be formed into a paste with oil, dried at the fire, and then exposed to a violent heat in a crucible lined with charcoal. By this agglutinated metal is obtained, very brittle under means the oxide becomes decomposed; a black

the finger, and having a metallic brilliancy. The globules are grey, brittle, and extremely infusible. When heated in open vessels, this mettle combines with the oxygen of the atmosphere and is converted into the white or per-oxide. It is susceptible of three states of oxidisement, giving a brown, a blue, and a white oxide. The two latter having acid properties, are known also by the names of the molybdous and the molybdic acids. Nitric acid readily oxidises and acidifies the metal. Nitre detonates with it, and the remaining alkali combines with its oxide. Molybdenum unites by fusion with several of the metals, and forms brittle or friable compounds. acid acts on it but the nitric and nitromuriatic. Several acids act on its oxide, and afford blue solutions. The specific gravity of molybdenum is 8-611. When dry, molybdate of ammonia is ignited in a crucible with charcoal powder, it is converted into the brown oxide of the metal. This has a crystallised appearance, a copperbrown color, and a specific gravity of 5.66. It does not form salts with acids.

No

MOLYBDIC ACID. The native sulphuret of molybdenum being roasted for some time, and dissolved in water of ammonia, when nitric acid is added to this solution, the molybdic acid precipitates in fine white scales, which become yellow on melting and subliming them. It changes