Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 14.djvu/47

MORTMAIN. 35 poration to piircliasie ami hold luiuls, a preroga- live which at times was freely exercised. Owing yeiienillj- to the absence of great reli- gions coriKiiatioiis in this country, and to the laet that the feudal system never obtained a foothold here, the mortmain acts were not re- enacted in the United States, with possibly one or two exceptions. Pennsylvania has a mort- main act, and Xew York has a statute which, like the statute of 9 George II., seems calculated rather to restrain a testator from making un- wise and im|iri)vident gifts to charity than to prevent .land-holding by corporations. The stat- ute provides that a testator who leaves surviv- ing him a wife, child, or ])arent shall not devise or bequeath more than one-fourth of his estate to a charital)lc corjioration ; and no such devise or bequest shall be valid unless made more than two months before the death of the testator. In many States business corporations may not receive real estate by devise, but generally chari- table corporations may do so; and in most States there is no restraint upon conveyance of lands inter vivos to corjiorations, unless the charter of the corporation or the general law under which it is created limits the total amount of land which the corporation may hold. See CuABiTABLE TRUSTS; UsEs ; and Trust; and considt the authorities there referred to, and also under Real Estate. Also consult: High- more. T'l'ciy of the History of Mortmain (Lon- don, 1800) ; Rawlinson, y'otcs on the Mortmain Acts (London, 1877). MOETO DA FELTKE, mor'to da fel'tra (c.l474-c.l.51'J) . An Italian painter, bom at I'eltre. His fame rests upon Vasari's statement that he was the first to use classic arabesques in ornamentation. Of his life nothing certain is known, nor do any authenticated works by him survive. Cambruzzo. a seventeenth-century his- torian of Feltre, identified him with Pietro Luzzi (also called Zarato) of that town, who was an assistant of Giorgione at Venice. Luzzi is recorded as having been at Rome in 1495, at Florence in 1506, and at Venice in 1508. He is known to have decorated with frescoes the town-hall, the Church of San Stefano, and two houses in liis native town. According to the usual account, Jlorto was killed fighting in the Vene- tian army at the battle of Zara ; but if he bo identical with Luzzi, he cannot have died till after lolil, in which year the latter was active in his native town. MORTON, Ch.rles (1627-98). An English clergyman and educator, born at Pendavy, Corn- wall, and educated at Wadham College, Oxford. He renounced the Royalist traditions of his family and Ijecame a Puritan, though he did not leave the Anglican communion until 1662. He opened a school for dissenters at Stoke Xewington, near London, which he maintained until 1685, having Daniel Defoe among his pupils. Contrary to the custom of the universities, he made his pupils write their dissertations and hold their disputations in English — a practice which, Defoe allirms, made his pupils excel in English those of any other school. In 1GS6 he emigrated to New England. He settled first at Charlestown. Mass., and became the pastor of a church there. He became connected with Har- vard College, and two of his manuscript works — A System of Logic and Compendium Physicoe MORTON". — were used as text-books. He was made vice- president of the college at the establishment of that olliee, and hoped to succeed Increase Jlather as president. His death [irevented the fulfill- ment of this ambition. Consult Josiah Quincy, History of Harvard University (Cambridge, 1S40). MORTON, James Douglas, fourth Earl of (1530-81). Regent of Scotland. The second son of Sir George Douglas of Pittendriech, in 1553 he succeeded in right of his wife, Eliza- beth, daughter of the third Earl of Douglas, to the title and estates of the earldom. He early favored the cause of the Reformation, and in 1557 was one of the original lords of the congregation. S«orn a Privy Councilor in 1561, he was appointed l>ord High Chancellor of Scotland, January 7, 1503. As one of the chief conspirators against Rizzio (q.v.), he fled with his associates to England, but obtained his pardon from the t,!ueen. Though privy to the design for the murder of Darnley, on the marriage of the Queen to Bothwell he joined the confederacy of the nobles against her. After Mary's imprisonment in the Castle of Lochleven, he was restored to the office of High Chancellor, of which he had been deprived, and constituted Lord High Ad- miral of Scotland. On the death of the Earl of Mar, in October, 1572. he was elected Regent of the kingdom. His rule, chiefly directed toward the benefit of the masses and toward the forma- tion of a Protestant league with England, in anticipation of the iniion of the two kingdoms, made him obnoxious to many of the nobles, and as the young King, .James VI.. desired to assume the reins of government, Morton resigned the regency in March, 1578. Two months later, how- ever, he obtained possession of the Castle of Stirling, with the person of the King, and for a time recovered his authority. Intrigue, however, was active against him ; he was accused of having participated in the murder of Darnley, and was beheaded at Edinburgh, .June 2, 1581, bearing himself with dignitj- and composure, and maintaining his innocence of 'art and ])art' in the murder of the King's father. Consult: Crawford, Crown and State Officers of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1720) ; Froude. History of Eng- land, ch. Ixiii. (London, 1881-82). MORTON, George (c.l585-c.l628). An Eng- lish colonist in America. He was born in Eng- land, became a separatist, and removed to Hol- land with his brother, Thomas Jlorton, settling at Leyden, where for some years prior to 1620 he was an agent of the London Puritans. In 1623 he sailed for Kew England in the ship Ann, in charge of a party of new settlers for the Plymouth Colony. He remained at Plym- outh .several years, and then returned to Eng- land. The book known as Monrt's Relation (1622), which was the first published accoimt of the New England settlement, comprising a journal of the first twelve months of the Plym- outh Colony, has the name 'G. Mourt' subscribed to the preface, and for that reason has been ascribed to Jlorton. Careful investigators, how- ever, among them Dr. H. M. Dexter, who re- printed the work with critical and historical notes in 1S64. while agreeing that the name 'CI. Jlourf evidently referred to George Jlorton. are inclined to think that the account itself was the work of Bradford and Winslow.