knavish confederate of Vol'pone (2 _syl._), the rich
Venetian "fox."--Ben Jonson, _Volpone_ or _The Fox_ (1605).

If your mother, in hopes to ruin me, should consent to marry my
pretended uncle, he might, like "Mosca" in _The Fox_, stand upon
terms.--W. Congreve, _The Way of the World_, ii. 1. (1700).

=Mo'ses=, the Jew money-lender in Sheridan's comedy, _The School for
Scandal_ (1777).

=Moses' Clothes.= The _Kor[^a]n_ says: "God cleared Moses from the scandal
which was rumored against him" (ch. xxxiii.). The scandal was that his
body was not properly formed, and therefore he would never bathe in the
presence of others. One day, he went to bathe, and laid his clothes on a
stone, but the stone ran away with them into the camp. Moses went after
it as fast as he could run, but the Israelites saw his naked body, and
perceived the untruthfulness of the common scandal.--Sale, _Al Kor[^a]n_,
xxxiii. notes.

=Moses' Horns.= The Vulgate gives _quod cornuta esset facies sua_, for
what our version has translated "he wist not _that the skin of his face
shone_." The Hebrew word used means both a "horn" and an "irradiation."
Michael Angelo followed the Vulgate.

=Moses' Rod.=

While Moses was living with Re'u[:e]l [_Jethro_], the Midianite, he
noticed a staff in the garden, and he took it to be his
walking-stick. This staff was Joseph's, and Re'uel carried it away
when he fled from Egypt. This same staff Adam carried with him out
of Eden. Noah inherited it, and gave it to Shem. It passed into the
hands of Abraham, and Abraham left it to Isaac; and when Jacob fled
from his brother's anger into Mesopotamia, he carried it in his
hand, and gave it at death to his son Joseph.--_The Talmud_, vi.

=Moses Slow of Speech.= The tradition is this: One day, Pharaoh was
carrying Moses in his arms, when the child plucked the royal beard so
roughly that the king, in a passion, ordered him to be put to death.
Queen Asia said to her husband, the child was only a babe, and was so
young he could not discern between a ruby and a live coal. Pharaoh put
it to the test, and the child clapped into his mouth the burning coal,
thinking it something good to eat. Pharaoh's anger was appeased, but the
child burnt its tongue so severely that ever after it was "slow of
speech."--Shalshel, _Hakkabala_, 11.

_Moses Slow of Speech._ The account given in the _Talmud_ is somewhat
different. It