Morin, in Samaritan and Hebrew letters, accompanied with a Latin version. In 1657 he published a Samaritan Grammar and Lexicon, and some various readings of the Pentateuch which had been communicated to him, under the title of "Opuscula Hebraico-Samaritana;" the "Exercitationes biblicæ de Hebraici Græcique textus sinceritate," &c., appeared first in 1633, and again in an enlarged form after his death in 1669, in folio, to which was prefixed a life of the author by Father Constantine of the Oratory. His learning was immense, but his critical judgments and opinions have not been sustained and confirmed by later investigations in the same field. An interesting account of his biblical writings will be found in the Lectures of Bishop Marsh. He died suddenly by apoplexy in 1659.—P. L.
MORIN, Jean, a celebrated French engraver, was born at Paris about 1612. A pupil of Philip de Champagne, he for some time practised as a painter, but gradually abandoned the pencil for the burin; and it is only as an engraver that he is now known. He engraved subject pieces, landscapes, and portraits; but the last, especially those after De Champagne, are most esteemed by collectors. He had some peculiarities of manner, used the dry point freely, was fond of mingling dots with his lines, and was rather rude in execution. But he had considerable freedom of hand, spirit, and a painter's eye for effect. He died in 1666.—J. T—e.
MORIN, Jean-Baptiste, a French astronomer and astrologer, was born in 1583 at Villefranche in the Beaujolais, and died in Paris on the 6th of November, 1656. His services to astronomy consist mainly in his having suggested the use of observations of the position of the moon relatively to fixed stars to determine the longitude; but from the imperfect state of the theory of the moon, and the want of suitable instruments, that suggestion was of no use at the time when it was made. He was a furious opponent of the Copernican and Galilean astronomy, especially the doctrine of the motion of the earth. As an astrologer he obtained a high reputation on the credit of some predictions of his which were casually fulfilled; and in that capacity he was consulted by Richelieu and Mazarin. He was a voluminous and indefatigable writer. His largest work was a treatise on astrology, "Astrologia Gallica," published after his death in 1661, at the expense of Louisa Maria, queen of Poland.—W. J. M. R.
MORISON, Robert, a Scotch botanist, was born at Aberdeen in 1620, and died at London on 9th November, 1683. He was originally intended for the clerical profession, but he deserted this, and devoted himself to science, and more particularly to botany. He espoused the cause of Charles I., was wounded and proscribed, and finally took refuge in Paris, where he studied medicine and botany. He graduated at Angers in 1648. He was appointed botanist to the duke of Orleans, and superintended the garden at Blois. He made many excursions in France for the purpose of collecting plants. After the death of the duke of Orleans in 1660 he repaired to the court of Charles II., and was appointed physician and botanist to his majesty. He took charge of the botanic garden at Oxford. He possessed an extensive knowledge of botany, and promulgated a new classification of plants, founded on natural affinities. His system was developed in his work entitled "Plantarum Historia Universalis Oxoniensis." His death was sudden. He was struck by the pole of a carriage in the streets of London, and died next day. A genus, Morisonia, has been named after him by Plumier. Among his other writings are "Hortus regius Blesensis" and "Plantarum Umbelliferarum distributio nova."—J. H. B.
MORISON. See Moryson.
MORLAND, George, a celebrated animal painter, was born June 26, 1763. His father, Henry Robert Morland, a painter of some talent, but best known by his crayon drawings of figures of familiar life, taught him to paint, and he drew for a short time in the Royal Academy. But as his drawings early began to find ready purchasers, his father, who had bound him apprentice to himself, removed him from the Academy and from any associates who would have been likely to be of benefit to him, and kept him closely confined at the drudgery of making drawings and pictures for the dealers. As soon as his apprenticeship expired, Morland left his father. He painted animals, interiors of stables, farm-yards, &c.; and his paintings at once brought him fame and profit. But he gave himself up to the most reckless dissipation; was the constant companion of jockeys, hostlers, prize-fighters, and the like; and, broken down in health and reputation, fell into the hands of low dealers, who advanced him money on unpainted pictures, and so kept him always in a state of dependence, or under the fear of arrest. He at last died in a sponging-house in Eyre Street, Coldbath Fields, on the 29th of October, 1804, in his forty-second year. His wife, a beautiful young woman—the sister of James Ward, R.A., who married Morland's sister—had been compelled to separate from him on account of his bad conduct, but was still tenderly attached to him, and so deeply affected at his miserable death, that she died within two days of a broken heart, and was buried in the same grave with him—a proof that, notwithstanding his sad habits, there was much that was good and lovable in him. Morland painted horses—especially old unkempt farm-horses—asses, dogs, &c., with great truth and spirit, and with wonderful facility. His pigs are beyond comparison. He is also often happy in rendering the pollard oak or other raggedly picturesque tree. But he got little beyond this. There is a certain cleverness about his composition, and his execution is singularly light and facile; but both are tricky and conventional. Sometimes his colour is refined and pleasing; but at other times, and almost always in his later pictures, coarse and dull. His best pictures are interiors of stables, or gypsies with dogs and donkeys. His readiness in painting was extraordinary; though it is very unlikely that he painted, as has been said, four thousand pictures. There are, indeed, many more than that number which are attributed to him; but so insatiable for a long time was the demand for Morland's pictures that dealers had them manufactured in large numbers—a process which the narrow range and simplicity of his subjects and the peculiarity of his manner rendered easy. Indeed Morland himself is said to have been aware of, and even taken part in the deception; whilst his brother Henry—a wine merchant by trade—it is asserted, kept for many years a regular manufactory of "genuine Morlands," which his relationship to the painter enabled him to pass off readily upon unsuspicious purchasers. Nor, as the demand continued, did the manufacture cease for many years after the painter's death. Now that the taste for this class of pictures has somewhat abated, and the genuineness of unknown specimens is always suspected, paintings by Morland are somewhat in disfavour even in the auction-room; but a really fine Morland still commands a very high price.—J. T—e.
MORLAND, Sir Samuel, Bart., an inventor and projector of note, was the son of a Berkshire clergyman, and was born about 1625. Educated at Winchester and Cambridge, he accompanied Whitelocke as one of the suite in the embassy to Queen Christina, and after his return became assistant to Thurloe, Cromwell's secretary. When the wrath and compassion of Cromwell and puritan England were roused in the summer of 1655, by the news of the duke of Savoy's persecution of the Vaudois, Morland was appointed to distribute the subscriptions raised for the "saints" of the "Alpine valleys cold," and was sent as English commissioner to Savoy. He discharged his duty with success; and after his return to England in 1658 he published his "History of the Evangelical Churches of the Valleys of Piedmont," comprising an account of the then recent persecution. According to his own statement to Pepys (14th August, 1660), Thurloe's "bad usage" led him to betray to Charles II. the secrets of his office, and after the death of Cromwell he went to the king at Breda. At the Restoration he was rewarded with a baronetcy, a pension on the post-office, and the appointment of master of mechanics to the king; "but," says Peyps, "was looked upon by all men as a knave." He devoted himself to practical science, and his house, with its models and applied inventions, was a resort of the curious. The reward of his treachery did not grow in his hands. Late in life he was entrapped into a second marriage with an infamous adventuress whose debts he had to pay, and from whom he had to obtain a divorce. His penury was aggravated by loss of sight, and during his last years he seems to have subsisted on the charity of Archbishop Tenison. He died in 1695. As an inventor Morland claims a place in the history of the steam-engine. In a MS. in the Harleian collection there is a treatise by him, in which he shows an accurate knowledge of the power of steam, and explains how it can be employed to work cylinders in raising water, a subject to which he had paid particular attention, having brought water from a considerable distance to the top of Windsor castle. He invented a calculating machine, which worked the simple rules of arithmetic, and is described in his tract pub-
