"Elemens de Teratologie Vegetale ou Histoire abregé des Anomalies del'organisation dans les Vegetaux," Paris, 1841—J. H. B.
MORA, José Joaquin de, a Spanish poet, born at Cadiz in 1783. He was studying at Granada when the war of 1808 broke out, and enlisted as a volunteer in the dragoons of Pavia. In March, 1809, he was taken prisoner and went to France, where he remained six years, devoted to literary pursuits. At the peace of 1815 he returned to Spain, and conducted the Cronica Cientifica y Literaria, El Constitutionnel, and La Minerva for some years. In 1823 he came to England, where he published at Ackermann's four volumes of the "No me oloides," (Forget-Me-Not); "Sketches from the History of the Arabs;" "Letters on the Education of the Fair Sex" (for an American lady); "Poetic Meditations;" a translation of Jeremy Bentham's Counsels to the Spanish People, and of Ivanhoe and the Talisman. In 1826 he went to Buenos Ayres, and thence to Chili, where he conducted a large educational establishment and became professor of law. He was subsequently secretary to General Santa Cruz, consul-general for the Bolivian republic in London, and consul-general for Spain in the same capital. He published still later a volume entitled "Legendas Españolas" (Legends of Spain).—F. M. W.
MORALES, Ambrosio de, a Spanish historian, born in 1513; died in 1591. In 1570 he was appointed historiographer to the crown of Castile, and commenced a continuation of Ocampo's History of Spain; but he only lived to carry it down to the union of the crowns of Castile and Leon, 1070. It is marked by great ability, but the style is inaccurate. The history, with the preceding work of Ocampo, and a continuation by Sandoval down to 1097, bear together the title of Cronica General de España.—F. M. W.
MORALES, Christopher, the earliest Spanish musician of any eminence, was a native of Seville. He held the situation of a singer in the pontifical chapel, under Paul III., about the year 1544, and was the author of two collections of masses, the one for five and the other for four voices, and also of a well-known magnificat. Mention has also been made of a fine motet by him, "Lamentabatur Jacob," which for many years continued to be sung in the pope's chapel on the fourth Sunday in Lent. Morales likewise composed the "Lamentations of Jeremiah" for four, five, and six voices. These works have been printed; and a "Gloria Patri" composed by him is preserved in Kircher's Masurgia as a specimen of his composition. One of the madrigals, "Ditti mi o si," taken from his fourth book, published at Venice in 1561, is inserted in J. S. Smith's Musica Antiqua. The style of Morales, though learned for the time in which he wrote, is somewhat dry, and the harmony, by his frequent use of unaccompanied fourths and ninths, is uncouth and insipid.—E. F. R.
MORALES, Luis de, called el Divino, one of the greatest of the Spanish painters, was born at Badajoz about 1509, but both his birth and education are in obscurity. He lived chiefly in Estremadura, and in 1554 was residing at Frexenal, where his son Cristobal was born that year; his wife's name was Leonora de Chaves. About ten years after this date Morales was invited to the Escurial by Philip II., but seems to have found no favour from that king; he appears to have painted only one picture for him, "Christ going to Calvary," placed afterwards in the church of San Geronimo at Madrid. He retired to Badajoz, and became gradually poorer, when in 1581 Philip II., having occasion to pass through that city visited the painter, and finding him not only very old, but also very poor, granted him a pension of three hundred ducats a year, which bounty, however, the poor painter enjoyed only five years. He died at Badajoz in 1586. Morales painted commonly half figures, and his works are of a melancholy and ascetic character, deriving perhaps some portion of their tone from the disappointed hopes of the painter himself, from his feeling little sympathy with the fascinations of this life. He was, however, a good painter generally, except perhaps that his figures are too laboured and smooth in their handling, besides an occasional coldness of colouring. He is one of the few great Spanish painters whose best works have remained in Spain; partly owing to their comparatively obscure location in the provinces, but partly certainly to their general want of attractiveness from the almost uniform painfulness of the sentiments and feelings expressed in them. It is only perhaps in formal, externally ascetic Spain, that such creations could procure their author the title of the Divine. (Cean Bermudez, Diccionario Historico, &c.)—R. N. W.
MORANDE, Charles T. Hevenot de, was born in 1748 at Arnai le Duc, studied at Dijon, and in a fit of spite with his father enlisted in a regiment of dragoons. Bought off, he came to Paris and led a disorderly and degraded life. Flying to England he wrote a vile libel on the court of France, for the suppression of which he obtained a sum of five hundred guineas, and a pension of four thousand francs. Hoping to make another hit, he wrote to Voltaire menacing him with similar defamations. Voltaire quietly published his letter. The Comte de Lauraguais did better still: meeting his slanderer he gave him a good beating. Returning to France during the Revolution, his vile existence terminated in the massacres of September, 1792.
MORANT, Philip, the historian of the county of Essex, was born in Jersey in 1700, educated at Abingdon school and Pembroke college, Oxford, and presented successively to several benefices in Essex. He was a zealous antiquary, although he is alluded to sarcastically in some verses by Mr. Gough on discoveries of ancient temples, as one
- " who with idle pains,
- " who with idle pains,
Finds out not half, nor half he finds explains."
His knowledge of Norman-French acquired in Jersey recommended him to the employment of preparing an edition of the rolls of parliament ordered by the house of lords, a task in which he was engaged up to the time of his death. He died in 1770, and was buried at Aldham, Essex, where a monument, with a Latin epitaph, was erected to his memory, and to that of his wife, by his daughter and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Astle. His "History of Essex" was published in 1760-68, 2 vols. fol.—(See Lowndes' Manual and Nichols' Lit. Anec.)—R. H.
MORATA, Olympia Fulvia, was born at Ferrara in 1526. Her father, Fulvius Moratus, had been a professor of ancient literature in several Italian universities, when he was intrusted by Duke Alphonsus of Ferrara with the education of his two sons. He educated his daughter with the greatest care, and her extraordinary abilities enabled her to make marvellous progress. At sixteen she spoke Latin and Greek fluently, and read and explained publicly in Ferrara the Paradoxa of Cicero. After the death of her father, she accepted the hand of Andreas Gründler, a German student of medicine at Ferrara, who was a good Latin and Greek scholar, and accompanied him after he had taken his medical degree to Schweinfurt, his native town. Here she fell in with the writings of the German reformers, which she perused with deep interest, and became attached to the doctrines of the Reformation, which proved a great solace to her in the time of deep trouble which was near at hand. Schweinfurt underwent a siege; and her husband and she having taken refuge in a church, had a narrow escape of perishing in the flames of the building. They saved their lives by flight, but they lost the whole of their property, and had to subsist for some time upon the hospitality and charity of others. At length, in 1554, Gründler was able to obtain a chair of medicine at Heidelberg, and she was appointed to read lectures in philosophy in the Latin and Greek languages. But her spirit was broken by the calamities which had overtaken her; she had few days of health in Heidelberg, and in 1555 she died there in her twenty-ninth year. She wrote a commentary on Homer. Her Latin, Greek, and Italian poems, or as many of them as had not perished in the conflagration of Schweinfurt, were published at Basle by her countryman Cælio Secundo Curione in 1562, and were dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. Her learning and taste were acknowledged by the most eminent scholars.—P. L.
MORATIN, Leandro Fernandez, a Spanish poet and critic, son of Nicolas Fernandez, born at Madrid, 10th March, 1760. In his early years he worked as a jeweller. His first success as a poet was a prize poem on the capture of Granada (1779); his next, an edition of his father's works, with critical notes. About 1788 he formed the friendship of Jovellanos; but it was from the count of Florida Blanca that he received a small preferment in the church. Under Godoy he received more lucrative appointments. His first play, "El viejo y la niña," was acted in 1790, and in 1792 he went abroad for the purpose of studying the theatres of England, France, Germany, and Italy, with a view to the reformation of the Spanish stage. He returned in 1796, and produced a number of plays, which are much better than the pedantic principles which he advocated might lead us to expect. A translation of Hamlet also resulted from his visit to England. The fear of the Inquisition—although he still enjoyed the protection of Godoy—led him to abandon writing for the
