made against Moxon in 1841. The case was tried before Lord Denman. Serjeant Talfourd defended Moxon, but the jury returned a verdict of guilty, and the offensive passages were for a time eliminated. In 1840 he published Browning’s Sordello; and in succeeding years works by Lord Houghton, Tom Hood, Barry Cornwall, Lord Lytton, Browning and Tennyson appeared. Edward Moxon died on the 3rd of June 1858, his business being continued by Mr J. B. Payne and Mr Arthur Moxon, who in 1865 published Swinburne’s Atalanta in Calydon; but in 1871 it was taken over by Messrs Ward, Lock & Tyler.
MOXOS, Mojos, Mohos, a tribe of South American Indians living around the head-waters of the Madeira river, northern Bolivia, particularly on both banks of the Mamoré. They submitted to Inca domination, but in 1564 gallantly repulsed the Spaniards. A century later, however, the Jesuits were welcomed, and the Moxos became devout Catholics. They number some 30,000.
MOZAMBIQUE [São Sebastiao de Moçambique], a town of Portuguese East Africa, seat of a Roman Catholic bishopric in the province of Goa, in 15° 4′ S., 40° 44′ E. The town occupies the whole of a small coral island at the mouth of Mossoril Bay. The name Mozambique, used first to designate the island, was also given to the town and extended to the whole of the Portuguese possessions on the east coast of Africa. There are three forts, of which the principal, St Sebastian, at the northern extremity of the island was built in 1510 entirely of stone brought from Portugal. It is quadrangular, and has bastioned walls nearly 70 ft. high. In it are mounted some modern guns. The harbour is small, but deep enough to admit vessels drawing 25 feet.
The inhabitants, who number about 7000, consist chiefly of Mahommedan negroes of mixed descent speaking a dialect of the Makwa language. There are Parsee, Banyan, Goanese and Arab traders, and about 300 Europeans, besides half-caste Portuguese. The annual average value of the imports for the three years 1904–1906 was £97,035, of the exports £71,636 The import trade is chiefly with Great Britain and India, the articles in chief demand being cotton, coloured shawls and hardware. The exports are chiefly groundnuts, rubber of inferior quality, sesamum and other oil seeds, tortoise-shell and ebony. Germany has a large share of the exports.
Mozambique was discovered by Vasco da Gama in 1498. There was then a flourishing Arab town on the island, of which no trace exists. The history of the Portuguese town is closely identified with that of the province, for which see Portuguese East Africa. The commercial and political importance of Mozambique has been eclipsed by Lourenço Marques.
MOZARAB [Spanish Mozárabe, a corruption of the Arabic Mustaʽrib, coll. Mustaʽriba], a general term for persons not Arab by race who have assimilated themselves to the Arabs. It was applied by the Moslems in Spain to the Christian communities existing among them, in Cordova, Seville, Toledo and other large cities, in the exercise of their own laws and religion. The ancient liturgy used by the Christians of Toledo is commonly known as Mozarabic.
MOZART, WOLFGANG AMADEUS[1] (1756–1791), German composer, was born at Salzburg on the 27th of January 1756. He was educated by his father, Leopold Mozart, a violinist of high repute in the service of the archbishop of Salzburg. When only three years old he shared the harpsichord lessons of his sister Maria, five years his senior. A year later he played minuets, and composed little pieces, some of which are still preserved in Maria’s music-book. When five years old he performed in public for the first time, in the hall of the university. In 1762 Leopold Mozart took Wolfgang and Maria on a musical tour, during the course of which they played before most of the sovereigns of Germany. The little “Wolferl’s”[2] charming appearance and disposition endeared him to every one; and so innocent and natural were his manners that at Vienna he sprang upon the empress’s lap and kissed her. The emperor Francis I. sat by his side while he played, and called him his “little magician.” When he slipped one day on the polished floor the archduchess Marie Antoinette, afterwards queen of France, lifted him up, whereupon he said, “You are very kind; when I grow up I will marry you.” Yet, in spite of the petting he received at court, he remained as gentle and docile as ever, and so amenable to parental authority that he used to say, “Next after God comes my father.” In 1763 the whole family started again. Wolferl now sang, composed, and played on the harpsichord, the organ and the violin, winning golden opinions everywhere. At every court he visited he was loaded with caresses and presents; but the journeys were expensive, and the family terribly poor. In Paris they lodged at the Bavarian embassy, giving performances on a grand scale both there and at Versailles, where Wolferl’s organ-playing was even more admired than his performance on the harpsichord. Here, also, he published his first compositions—two sets of sonatas for the harpsichord and violin.
On the 10th of April 1764 Leopold Mozart brought his family to England, engaging a lodging in Cecil Court, St Martin’s Lane, whence he afterwards removed to Frith Street, Soho. On the 27th of April and the 19th of May Wolferl played before the royal family with immense success, accompanying the queen in a song and playing at sight anything that the king set before him. He now made his first attempt at the composition of a symphony; published a third set of sonatas, dedicated to the queen; and wrote an anthem for four voices entitled God is our Refuge, for presentation to the British Museum.[3] On the 17th of September 1765 the family left England for the Hague, where they remained some time, and where in March 1766 the young composer made his first attempt at an oratorio, commanding in Holland a success as great as that he had already attained in London, and astonishing his hearers at Haarlem by performing on what was at that time the largest organ in the world. In September 1767 he paid a second visit to Vienna, and at the suggestion of the emperor Joseph II. composed an opera buffa, La Finta semplice, which, though acknowledged by the company for which it was written to be “an incomparable work,” was suppressed by a miserable cabal. The archbishop of Salzburg hearing of this commanded a representation of the rejected work in his palace, and appointed the young composer his “maestro di capella.” The office, however, was merely an honorary one, and, since it did not involve compulsory residence, Leopold Mozart determined to complete his son’s education in Italy, to which country he himself accompanied him in December 1769.
Wolfgang, now nearly fourteen years old, was already an accomplished musician, needing experience rather than instruction, and gaining it every day. At Milan he received a commission to write an opera for the following Christmas. Arriving in Rome on the Wednesday in Holy Week, he went at once to the Sistine Chapel to hear the celebrated Miserere of Gregorio Allegri, which, on returning to his hotel, he wrote down from memory note for note—a feat which created an immense sensation, for at that time the singers were forbidden to transcribe the music on pain of excommunication. Returning to Rome towards the end of June, he was invested by the pope with the order of “The Golden Spur,” of which he was made a cavaliere,[4] an honour which he prized the more highly because, not many years before, it had been conferred upon Gluck. In July he paid a second visit to Bologna, when the Accademia Filarmonica, after subjecting him to a severe examination, admitted him to the rank of “compositore,” notwithstanding a statute restricting this preferment to candidates of at least twenty years old. The exercise which gained him this distinction is a four-part composition (Köchel’s Catalogue, No. 86) in strict counterpoint on the antiphon Quaerite primum, written in the severe ecclesiastical style of the 16th century and abounding in points of ingenious imitation and device.
