MORONI, Giambattista, a celebrated Italian portrait painter, was born at Albino, near Bergamo, about 1510, and studied under Moretto of Brescia. Though his historical pictures are not important, he ranks among the best of the portrait painters of the sixteenth century, being considered by some second only to Titian: his heads are animated and have much individuality, and his draperies also are very skilfully managed. Titian is said to have expressed astonishment that people of Bergamo should go to him to be painted, when they had so admirable a master of their own; and he recommended visitors to Bergamo to take the opportunity of being painted by Moroni. The duke of Sutherland has a celebrated portrait of a jesuit by this painter, who died at Bergamo, 5th February, 1578.—(Tassi, Vite del Pittori, &c., Bergamaschi, 1793.)—R. N. W.
MOROSINI, Francesco, called the Peloponnesiac, Doge of Venice from 1688 to 1694, Procurator of S. Mark, and four times elected generalissimo of the Venetian forces; born, of one of the twelve Venetian families termed apostolic, 1618; died at Napoli di Romagna, 6th January, 1694. From the age of twenty Francesco bore arms in his country's cause, and his prowess against the Turks was rewarded in 1645 by the command of a galley. In 1650, as general of the galleys, he swept the Adriatic; and in the maritime engagement between Paros and Naxos turned the fortune of the day against the Porte. In 1656 he accepted the government of Candia; and in 1658 as generalissimo, reinforced by Papal, Tuscan, and Maltese contingents, he ejected the Turks from various points in the Archipelago and Morea. His career, indeed, was one long struggle with the Ottoman power. In 1660, aided by four thousand French, he obtained a signal victory in Candia; and in his turn sustained a reverse, when in 1669 the grand vizier, Mahomet Cuprogli, reduced him, after a twenty-eight months' siege, to capitulate on honourable terms. On the 6th August, 1684, Morosini took the island of S. Maura, and to his successes in the Morea he owed his title of the Peloponnesiac. As doge and generalissimo he fought his country's battles till the age of seventy-five, then, worn out with labours, died. Three memorials perpetuated his name in Venice—a brazen statue erected during his lifetime; a monument raised to him after death by the senate; and those renowned lions from the Athenian temple of Minerva, sent by him to Venice, and placed in the arsenal.—C. G. R.
MORRELL, Benjamin, an American navigator, born in 1795; died in 1839. He ran away from home in his seventeenth year, and joined a merchant ship at New York. In the course of several trading voyages, and one or two of a piratical kind, he amassed some money with which he purchased a small vessel, and set off on a whaling excursion. He afterwards undertook several voyages of discovery, an account of which, not devoid of interest to the geographer, was published at New York in 1832.
MORREN, Charles François Antoine, a Belgian botanist, was born at Ghent on the 3rd March, 1807, and died at Liege on 17th December, 1858. His early studies were prosecuted at Brussels, whence he went in 1825 to the university of Ghent. Here he pursued the study of science and of medicine. After taking his degrees in natural philosophy and mathematics he repaired to Paris, where he devoted himself to natural history. He subsequently studied natural science at Göttingen and Berlin. In 1831 he was chosen professor of physics in the industrial school of Ghent, and in 1833 he became professor of the same subject in the university of that city. In 1835 he was chosen extraordinary professor, and in 1837 ordinary professor of botany, in the university of Liege. He was also member of the Royal Belgian Academy, and director of the botanic and agricultural garden of Liege. He was an eloquent lecturer, and possessed extensive information in various departments of science. His writings are very numerous, including studies on vegetable anatomy and physiology; a collection of observations on botany, agriculture, horticulture, and zoology; remarks on vegetable teratology; on the artificial impregnation of the Vanille plant; on the course of the sap on dicotyledons; on the movement of the column in stylidium; on the formation of indigo in the leaves of polygonum tinctorium; on the style of Goldfussia; on the influence of light on the development of animal and vegetable organisms; on the irritability of the leaves of species of oxalis; several biographical notices; besides memoirs in the Transactions of the Belgian Academy, and in various journals and encyclopædias. He was principal editor of the Belgian Horticultural Journal, of the Annals of the Royal Agricultural and Botanical Society of Ghent, and of the Journal of Practical Agriculture. Morren was a chevalier of the order of Leopold, of the polar star of Sweden and Norway, of the Dannebrog, &c.—J. H. B.
MORRIS, Gouverneur, an American diplomatist, was born at Morrisania, near New York, January 31, 1752, and graduated at King's college in 1768. He became a member of the provincial assembly in 1775, and two years later was elected one of the general congress which directed the revolution. He was appointed one of the commissioners employed along with Washington to examine into the condition of the army, and exerted himself strenuously in promoting the efficiency of the national forces. A disagreement with his constituents of New York having prevented his re-election to congress, he went to reside in Philadelphia and practised there as a lawyer. In 1780 he had the misfortune to lose his leg in consequence of a fall from his carriage. The plain wooden substitute for the lost limb served him in good stead once in after years. Being in Paris in 1792 when the sansculottes were at the height of their triumph and intolerance, he was pursued by a mob with dreadful cries of "aristocrat!" because he was riding in a carriage. "An aristocrat?" cried he, putting his wooden leg out of the coach door; "Yes, to be sure, one who has lost his leg in the war of American independence." The hooting of the populace was instantly turned into cheers. From 1781 to 1784 he served under his namesake, Robert Morris, in the finance department, and subsequently assisted in framing the new constitution of the United States. In 1788 he set out for Europe as an agent in some important commercial transactions, and reached Paris in the eventful year 1789. He resided there in a private capacity till 1791, when he went to England and thence to Germany. The following year he was appointed minister of the United States at Paris, which office he held till October, 1794. He had access to the best society, was a man of wit and keen observation, and has left an interesting account of his life in Paris in a journal published by Jared Sparks in 1832. The horrors he had witnessed in France cooled his love for democracy, to the annoyance of some of his countrymen. He returned to America in 1798, and died at Morrisania in 1816.—R. H.
MORRIS, Robert, superintendent of finances in the United States during the war of independence, was born in 1734, in Lancashire, England. At the age of thirteen he accompanied his father to America, and in 1749 was placed in a merchant's counting-house at Philadelphia. He was but twenty years old when admitted a partner in the firm whose commercial transactions he helped greatly to extend during a partnership of nearly forty years. He was a member of congress in 1776, and signed the declaration of independence. In 1781 the national finances were confided to his management, and by his zeal and energy the army was provided with necessaries and enabled to execute important and decisive operations. The supply of flour, which depended chiefly on Pennsylvania, he obtained at his own cost and risk, trusting to taxes as yet uncollected for reimbursement. In the then precarious condition of the young states, this was an act of patriotic virtue that had important results. He resigned his office after a tenure of three years, and after having established a national bank on the joint-stock principle, which was incorporated in 1781. Though successful in economizing the public finances, he was unfortunate in private speculations, and some of the last years of his life were spent in the debtors' prison. He died at Philadelphia, May 8, 1806.—R. H.
MORRISON or MORYSON, Sir Richard, a distinguished member of a family originally from Yorkshire, but settled in Hertfordshire, where Sir Richard became lord of the manor of Cashio, near Watford, and built the house at Cashiobury, which passed by the marriage of his great-granddaughter Elizabeth into the possession of Lord Essex's family. Richard Morrison, after spending several years very profitably in the university of Oxford, travelled abroad. King Henry VIII appreciating his learning and accomplishments made him a knight, and employed him in several embassies to the Emperor Charles V. and other princes of Germany, in which he was attended by Roger Ascham. King Edward VI. continued to employ him in the same capacity, and subsequently made him one of the commissioners for reforming the university of Oxford. His zeal for the protestant religion exposed him to the dangers of persecution in Queen Mary's reign, and he fled to the continent. After residing a short time in Italy, he returned to Strasburg, where he died in 1556. His wife Bridget, daughter of Lord Hussey, was married three times.
