MONEYSCRIVENER. s. (money and scrivener.) One who raises money for others (Arbuthnot).

MONEYSWORTH. s. (money and worth.) Something valuable (L'Estrange).

MOʻNGCORN. s. (mang, Saxon, and corn) Mixed corn: as, wheat and rye. MONGER. s. s. (mangene, Saxon, a trader.) A dealer; a seller (Hudibras).

MONGOZ, in mastiology. See LEMUR. MONGREL. a. (from mang, Saxon, or mengen, to mix, Dutch.) Of a mixed breed. MONILIA, in botany, a genus of the class cryptogamia, order fungi, consisting of moniliform filaments clustered into a head. Six species; of which four are stipitate, and two sessile: most of them indigenous to our own

MONIMENT. s. (from moneo, Latin.) It seems to signify inscription in Spenser. To MO'NISH. v. a. (moneo, Latin.) To admonish (Ascham).

MONISHER. s. (from monish.) An admonisher; a monitor.

MONITION. s. (monitio, Latin.) 1. In formation; hint (Holder). 2. Instruction; document (L'Estrange). MONITOR. s. (Latin.) One who warns of faults, or informs of duty. It is used of an upper scholar in a school commissioned by the master to look to the boys (Locke).

MONITORY. a. (monitorius, Lat.) Conreying useful instruction; giving admonition. MONITORY. S. Admonition; warning (Bacon).

MONK anciently denoted a person who retired from the world to give himself up wholly to God, and to live in solitude and abstinence. The word is derived from the Latin monachus, and that from the Greek povas, solitary; of , solus, alone.

The original of monks seems to have been this: the persecutions which attended the first ages of the gospel forced some christians to retire from the world, and live in deserts and plates most private and unfrequented, in hopes cf finding that peace and comfort among beasts which were denied them among men. And this being the case of some very extraordinary persons, their example gave so much reputaon to retirement, that the practice was continued when the reason of its commencement

ceased. After the empire became christian, instances of this kind were numerous; and those whose security had obliged them to live separately and apart, became afterwards united into societies. We may also add, that the mystic theology, which gained ground towards the close of the third century, contributed to produce the same effect, and to drive men into solitude for the purposes of enthusiastic de

votion.

The monks, at least the ancient ones, were distinguished into solitaries, cœnobites, and sarabaites. The solitary are those who live alone in places remote from all towns and habitations of men, as do still some of the hermits. The cœnobites are those who live in community with several others in the same house, and under the same superiors.-The sarabaites were strolling monks, having no fixed rule or residence.

The houses of monks again were of two kinds, viz. monasteries and lauræ. (See MoNASTERY and LAURA.) Those we call monks now-a-days are cœnobites, who live together in a convent or monastery, who make vows of living according to a certain rule established by the founder, and wear a habit which distinguishes their order. Those that are endowed, or have a fixed revenue, are most properly called monks, monachi; as the Chartreux, Benedictines, Bernardines, &c. The Mendicants, or those that beg, as the Capuchins and Franciscans, are more properly called religious and friars; though the names are frequently confounded.

The first monks were those of St. Antony; who, towards the close of the fourth century, formed them into a regular body, engaged them to live in society with each other, and prescribed to them fixed rules for the direction of their conduct. These regulations, which Antony had made in Egypt, were soon introduced into Palestine and Syria by his disciple Hilarion. Almost about the same time, Aones or Eugenius, with their companions Gaddanas and Azyzas, instituted the monastic order in Mesopotamia and the adjacent countries; and their example was followed with such rapid success, that in a short time the whole east was filled with a lazy set of mortals, who abandoning all human connections, advantages, pleasures, and concerns, wore out a languishing and miserable life, amidst the hardships of want, and various kinds of suffering, in order to arrive at a more close and rapturous communication with God and angels.

From the east this gloomy institution passed into the west, and first into Italy and its neighbouring islands; though it is uncertain who transplanted it thither. St. Martin, the celebrated bishop of Tours, erected the first monasteries in Gaul, and recommended this religious solitude with such power and efficacy, beth by his instructions and his example, that his funeral is said to have been attended by no less than 2000 monks. From hence the monastic discipline extended gradually its progress through the other provinces and countries of

Europe. There were besides the monks of St. Basil (called in the east calogeri, from xaλes yigwv, good old man), and those of St. Jerom, the hermits of St. Augustine, and afterwards those of St. Benedict and St. Bernard; at length came those of St. Francis and St. Dominic, with a legion of others; all which see under their proper heads.

Anciently the monks were all laymen, and were only distinguished from the rest of the people by a particular habit and an extraordinary devotion. Not only the monks were prohibited the priesthood, but even priests were expressly prohibited from becoming monks, as appears from the letters of St. Gregory. Pope Syricius was the first who called them to the clericate, on occasion of some great scarcity of priests, that the church was then supposed to labour under and since that time the priesthood has been usually united to the monastical profession in Roman catholic countries.

MONK FISH, in ichthyology. See SQUA

MONKEY'S BEARD. See ADANSONIA, MONKISH. a. (from monk.) Monastic; pertaining to monks (Smith).

MONMOUTH, the capital of the county of Monmouth in England, 129 miles from London. It has its name from its situation at the conflux of the Monow or Mynwy, and the Wye, over each of which it has a bridge, and a third over the Frothy.-Here was a castle in William the Conqueror's time, which Henry III. took from John baron of Monmouth. It afterwards came to the house of Lancaster, who bestowed many privileges upon the town. Here Henry V. surnamed of Monmouth, was born. The famous historian Geoffrey was also born at this place. Formerly it gave the title of earl to the family of Carey, and of duke to king Charles the second's eldest natural son; but now of earl to the Mordaunts, who are also carls of Peterborough. It is a populous and well built place, and carries on a considerable trade with Bristol by means of the Wye. It has a weekly market, and three fairs. In 1801 the number of inhabited houses in Monmouth was 638, of inhabitants 3,345, of electors about 800. Lat. 51. 49 N. Lon. 2.46 W.

MONMOUTHSHIRE, a county of England; anciently reckoned a part of Wales, but in Charles the Second's time taken into the Oxford circuit, and made an English county. It is bounded on the north by Herefordshire, on the east by Gloucestershire, on the south by the river Severn, and on the west by the Welch counties of Brecknock and Glamorgan. Its extent from north to south is about thirty miles, from east to west twenty-six, and in

circumference 110. It is subdivided into six hundreds; and contains seven market-towns, 127 parishes. In 1801 it contained 8,948 houses, and 9,903 families; the whole population amounting to 45,582 persons. It sends only three members to parliament, that is, one for Monmouth, and two for the county. The air is temperate and healthy; and the soil fruitful, though mountainous and woody. The hills feed sheep, goats, and horned cattle; and the valleys produce plenty of grass and corn. This county is extremely well watered by several fine rivers; for, besides the Wye, which parts it from Gloucestershire, the Mynow, which runs between it and Herefordshire, and the Rumney, which divides it from Glamorganshire, it has, peculiar to itself, the Usk, which enters this county a little above Abergavenny, runs mostly southward, and falls into the Severn by the mouth of the Edwith; which last river runs from north to south in the western side of the county. All these rivers, especially the Wye and Usk, abound with fish, particularly salmon and

trout.

MONNIER (Peter Charles Le), was born at Paris on the 20th of November 1715. The profession of his father, or the rank which he held in society, we have not learned; and we are equally ignorant of the mode in which he educated his son. All that we know is that young Monnier, from his earliest years, devoted himself to the study of astronomy; and that when only sixteen years of age, he made his first observation, viz. of the opposition of Saturn. At the age of twenty he was nominated a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris. In the year 1735 he accompanied Maupertuis in the celebrated expedition to Lapland, to measure a degree of latitude. In 1748 he went to Scotland with lord Macclesfield, to observe the annular eclipse of the sun, which was most visible in that country; and he was the first astronomer who had the pleasure to measure the diameter of the moon on the disk of the sun.

Louis XV. it is well known, was extremely fond of astronomy, and greatly honoured its professors: he loved and esteemed Le Monnier. I have seen the king himself (says Lalande) come out of his cabinet, and look around for Le Monnier; and when his younger brother was presented to him on his appointment to the office of first physician, his majesty was pleased to wish him the merit and reputation of his brother the astronomer." All the remarkable celestial phenomena were always observed by the king, in company with Le Monnier. Thus he observed with him at his chateau of St. Hubert, the two celebrated transits of Venus through the disk of the sun in the years 1761 and 1769; as appears from the Memoirs of the Royal Parisian Academy of Sciences. It well deserves to be here recorded in what manner the king behaved during these important observations, and how little he disturbed his astronomers (the celebrated La Condamine being likewise permitted to observe the transit in his presence) in this

occupation; the proper time for which, if permitted to pass by, could not be recalled. Le Monnier relates in his Dissertation, that "his majesty perceiving that we judged the last contacts to be of the greatest importance, a profound silence at that moment reigned around us." At the transit of Venus in 1769, the king allowed the marquis de Chabert, an intelligent and expert naval officer, who was just returned from a literary voyage to the Levant, to assist at the observation. In a court like that of Louis XV. so scrupulously observant of etiquette, these will be allowed to have been most distinguished marks of honour, and of royal favour and condescension.

In the year 1750, Le Monnier was ordered to draw a meridian at the royal chateau of Bellevue, where the king frequently made observations. The monarch on this occasion rewarded him with a present of 15,000 livres; but Le Monnier applied this sum of money likewise in a manner that redounded to the honour of his munificent sovereign and of his country, by procuring new and accurate instruments, with which he afterwards made his best and most remarkable observations. In 1742 the king gave him in Paris Rue de la Paste, a beautiful free dwelling, where, till the breaking out of the revolution, he resided, and pursued his astronomical labours, and where his instruments in part yet remain. Some of them the present French government has, at the instance of Lalande, purchased for the National Observatory. In 1751 the king presented him with a block of marble, eight feet in height, six feet in breadth, and fifteen inches in thickness, to be used for fixing his mural quadrant of five feet. This marble wall, together with the instruments appending to it, turns on a large brass ball and socket, by which the quadrant may be directed from south to north; thus serving to rectify the large mural quadrant of eight feet, which is immoveably made fast to a wall towards the south.

With these quadrants Le Monnier observed, for the long period of forty years, the moon with unwearied perseverance at all hours of the night. It is requisite, to be a diligent astronomer, to be able to conceive to what numberless inconveniencies the philosopher is exposed during an uninterrupted series of lunar observations. As the moon during a revolution may pass through the meridian at all hours of the day or night; the astronomer who, day after day, prosecutes such observations, must be prepared at all, even the most inconvenient, hours, and sacrifice to them his sleep and all his enjoyments. How secluded from all the pleasures of social intercourse, and how fatiguing such a mode of life is, those astronomers, indeed, know not who then only set their pendulum clocks in motion, when some of the eclipses of the sun, moon, or of the satellites of Jupiter, are to be viewed. At this time, and in the present state of the science, these are just the most insignificant observations; and an able astronomer, well supplied with VOL. VIII.

accurate instruments, may every day, if he take into his view the whole of his profession, make more important and more necessary observations.

Le Monnier was Lalande's preceptor, and worthy of such a scholar; and he promoted his studies by his advice, and by every other means in his power. Le Monnier's penetrat ing mind, indeed, presaged in young Lalande, then only sixteen years old, what in the sequel has been so splendidly confirmed. In his twentieth year he became, on the recommendation of his preceptor, a member of the Royal Academy: and in 1752 he was proposed by him as the fittest person to be sent to Berlin, to make with La Caille's, who had been sent to the Cape of Good Hope, correspondent observations, for the purpose of determining the parallaxes of the moon, then but imperfectly known. Le Monnier lent his pupil for this expedition his mural quadrant of five feet. His zeal for astronomy knew no bounds. For this reason Lalande, in his Notice des Travaux du C. Le Monnier, says of himself: "Je suis moi-meme le principal resultat de son zele pour l'astronomie."

Le Monnier was naturally of a very irritable temper: as ardently as he loved his friends, so easily could he be offended; and his hatred was then implacable. Lalande, as he himself expresses it, had the misfortune to incur the displeasure of his beloved preceptor; and he never after could regain his favour. But Lalande's gratitude and respect for him always continued undiminished, and were on every occasion with unremitting constancy publicly declared: patiently he endured from him undeserved ill treatment; so much did he love and esteem his instructor and master to the day of his death. "I have not ceased to exclaim (writes Lalande), as Diogenes exclaimed to his master Antisthenes, You cannot find a stick strong enough to drive me away from you!"

What a noble trait in the character of Lalande, who in 1797 wrote likewise an eulogium on Le Monnier in the style of a grateful pupil, penetrated with sentiments of profound veneration and esteem for his beloved master; but Le Monnier would not read it. This is not the place to give a circumstantial account of this intricate quarrel; we shall only further remark, that Lalande was the warm friend and admirer of the no less eminent astronomer La Caille, whom Le Monnier mortally hated. An intimate friendship likewise subsisted be tween Le Monnier and D'Alembert; but Lalande had no friendly intercourse with the latter.

Among the scholars of Le Monnier may likewise be reckoned Henwart, the celebrated geometrician and professor of mathematics at Utrecht; who, in a letter to Von Zach, astronomer to the duke of Saxe Gotha, dated the 26th of May, 1797, says, "Le Monnier is a penetrating and philosophical astronomer: I learned much from him in Paris; though I lodged with the late De l'Isle, where I frequently made observations in company with

K

Messier Le Monnier was the friend of D'Alembert; and consequently an opposer of Lalande."

This great man, who had, for some years, ceased to exist either for the science of astronomy, or for the comfort of his friends, died at Lizeaux, in the province of Normandy, in 1799, aged 84 years. He left behind him some valuable manuscripts, and a number of good observations; with respect to which he had always been very whimsical, and of which in his latter years he never would publish any thing. He had by him a series of lunar observations, and a multitude of observations of the stars, for a catalogue of the stars, which he had announced so early as the year 1741. The more he was requested to communicate his observations, the more obstinate he became; he even threatened to destroy them. At the breaking out of the revolution, Lalande was greatly alarmed for the safety of these papers; he wished to preserve them from destruction, and made an attempt to get them into his possession; but all his endeavours were in vain. He was only able to learn that Le Monnier had hidden them under the roof of his house. Le Monnier having been first seized with a fit of the apoplexy so early as the 10th of November 1791, Lalande apprehended, lest, if no one except himself should know where he had hidden his papers, the infirm old man might perhaps have himself forgot it. He hopes, however, that La Grange, who married his second daughter, may have some information concerning them. Le Monnier left behind him no

son.

MONNIERIA, in botany, a genus of the class diadelphia, order pentandria. Calyx fiveparted, the upper division long; corol ringent; filaments two; the upper with two anthers, lower with three; capsules five, one-seeded. One species only; a Guiana plant, with forked stem; ternate leaves; white spiked flowers.

MONOCEROS, unicorn, in astronomy, a southern constellation formed by Hevelius, containing in his catalogue 19 stars, and in the Britannic catalogue 31, viz. 0.0.0.7.10.14.

MONOCEROS, in zoology. See MONO

DON.

MONOCHORD, a musical instrument wherewith to try the variety and proportion of musical sounds.

The monochord, according to Boethius, is an instrument invented by Pythagoras, for measuring geometrically, or by lines, the quantities and proportions of sounds.

The ancient monochord was composed of a rule divided and subdivided into divers parts, whereon there was a string pretty well stretched upon two bridges at each extreme thereof. In the middle between both was a moveable bridge, called magas, by means of which, in applying it to the different divisions of the line, the sounds were found to be in the same proportion to one another, as the divisions of the line cut by the bridge were.

The monochord is also called the harmonical canon, or canonical rule; because serving

to measure the degrees of gravity, and acuteness of sounds. Ptolemy examines his harmonical intervals by the monochord.

There are also monochords with divers strings, and a multitude of fixed bridges; but the use of all these may be supplied by one single moveable bridge; by only shifting it under a new chord or string, which is placed in the middle, and represents the entire sound, or open note, answering to all the divisions on the other bridges.

When the chord was divided into equal parts, so that the terms were as 1 and 1, they called them unisons; if they were as 2 to 1, octaves, or diapasons; when they were as 8 to 2, fifths, or diapentes; if they were as 4 to 3, they called them fourths, or diatessarons; if the terms were as 5 to 4, diton, or a greater third; if as 6 to 5, a demi-diton, or a lesser third; lastly, if as 24 to 25, demi-diton, or diesis.

The monochord, being thus divided, was properly what they call a system, of which there were many kinds, according to the different divisions of the monochord.

Lord Stanhope, who has paid much attention to the subject of musical temperament, has given the following description of a new monochord :

1. The wire is made of steel, which does not keep continually lengthening, like brass or iron. 2. The whole wire forms one straight horizontal line, so that the moveable bridge can be moved without altering the tension of the wire; which is not the case when the wire pulls downwards on the bridges. 3. The ends of the wire are not twisted round the two stout steel pins that keep it stretched; but each end of the wire is soft soldered in a long groove formed in a piece of steel, which goes over its corresponding pin. 4. One of these two steel pins is strongly fastened by a brass slider, which is moved by means of a screw with very fine threads, this screw having a large micrometer head minutely divided on its edge, and a corresponding nonius; whence the tension of the wire may be very exactly adjusted. 5. A slider is fixed across the top of the moveable bridge, and is moved by means of another screw with very fine threads. 6. The slider is adjusted to the steel rod or scale, by means of mechanical contact against projecting pieces of steel firmly fixed on that steel scale, at the respective distances specified in the monochord table. 7. Each bridge carries a metallic finger, which keeps the wire close to the top of such bridge, while the remainder of the wire is made to vibrate. 8. The vibrations of the wire are produced by touching it with a piece of cork with the same elastic force, and always at the distance of one inch from the immoveable bridge.

The Stanhope monochord, though very ingeniously constructed, is in some respects inferior to the monochord contrived by Mr. Atwood. In this gentleman's apparatus the string hangs vertically, its tension being regulated by a weight suspended at its lower extremity, a