=Mouldy= (_Ralph_), “a good-limbed fellow, young, strong, and of good friends.” Ralph was pricked for a recruit in Sir John Falstaff’s regiment. He promised Bardolph forty shillings “to stand his friend.” Sir John being told this, sent Mouldy home, and when Justice Shallow remonstrated, saying that Ralph “was the likeliest man of the lot,” Falstaff replied, “Will you tell me, Master Shallow, how to choose a man? Care I for the limb, the thews, the stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man? Give me the spirit, Master Shallow.”--Shakespeare, 2 _Henry IV._ act iii. sc. 2 (1598). =Moullahs=, Mohammedan lawyers, from which are selected the judges. =Mountain= (_The_), a name given in the French revolution to a faction which sat on the benches most elevated in the Hall of Assembly. The Girondins sat in the centre or lowest part of the hall, and were nicknamed the “plain.” The “mountain” for a long time was the dominant part; it utterly overthrew the “plain” on August 31, 1793, but was in turn overthrown at the fall of Robespierre (9 Thermidor ii. or July 27, 1794). _Mountain_ (_The Old Man of the_), the imaum Hassan ben Sabbah el Homari. The sheik Al Jebal was so called. He was the prince of the Assassins. ⁂ In Rymer’s _Fœdera_ (vol. i.), Dr. Clarke, the editor, has added two letters of this sheik; but the doctor must be responsible for their genuineness. =Mountain Brutus= (_The_), William Tell (1282-1350). =Mountain of Flowers=, the site of the palace of Violenta, the mother fairy who brought up the young princess afterwards metamorphosed into “The White Cat.”--Comtesse D’Aunoy, _Fairy Tales_ (“The White Cat,” 1682). =Mountain of Miseries.= Jupiter gave permission for all men to bring their grievances to a certain plain, and to exchange them with any others that had been cast off. Fancy helped them; but though the heap was so enormous, not one single _vice_ was to be found amongst the rubbish. Old women threw away their wrinkles, and young ones their mole-spots; some cast on the heap poverty; many their red noses and bad teeth; but no one his crimes. Now came the choice. A galley-slave picked up gout, poverty picked up sickness, care picked up pain, snub noses picked up long ones, and so on. Soon all were bewailing the change they had made; and Jupiter sent Patience to tell them they might, if they liked, resume their old grievances again. Every one gladly accepted the permission, and Patience helped them to take up their own bundle and bear it without murmuring.--Addison, _The Spectator_ (1711, 1712, 1714). =Mourning.= In Colman’s _Heir-at-Law_ (1796), every character is in mourning: the Dowlases as relatives of the deceased Lord Duberly; Henry Morland as heir of Lord Duberly; Steadfast as the chief friend of the family; Dr. Pangloss as a clergyman; Caroline Dormer for her father recently buried; Zekiel and Cicely Homespun for the same reason; Kenrick for his deceased master.--James Smith, _Memoirs_ (1840).