Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/119

 cruelty in the west country. Stephen marched against him, but believing Dunster Castle to be impregnable, and being unwilling to remain long enough before it to compel its surrender by blockade, marched away, leaving Henry Tracy to carry on the war in those parts. This Tracy did with success, preventing William from continuing his expeditions from Dunster, and on one occasion taking 104 knights prisoners. William was humbled and compelled to remain quiet (Gesta Stephani, pp. 52, 53). He was with the empress at Westminster in June 1141, and marched with her to the siege of Winchester. There it is said (ib. p. 81) that the empress made him Earl of Dorset, but it appears that he was an earl when he was at Westminster in June, Geoffrey de Mandeville, p. 93). He called himself Earl of Somerset (Monasticon, vi. 335), but the close connection then existing between the two shires renders this apparent discrepancy of no importance. In 1142 he founded a priory at Bruton for Augustinian canons. He also granted land to the monks of Dunster to pray for the soul of his son Ralph (, p. 28). By his wife Agnes he had six sons, of whom four were clerks, and another, Ralph, predeceased him. A son William succeeded him, but did not, as far as is known, bear the title of earl, and was in turn succeeded by his son Reginald de Mohun, father of Reginald de Mohun (d. 1257) [q. v.]

 MOINENNO, (d. 570), suffragan bishop of Clonfert, was a disciple of St. of Clonfert [q. v.] His name also appears as Monnennio, Moinnend, Maoinenn, or Moenu, and in Latin as Moinennus. He must be distinguished from [q. v.], bishop of Whithorn; but whether Moenna or Moena, a bishop and disciple of St. Brendan, has a separate identity is not so clear. The bishop of Clonfert's feast is celebrated on 1 March, Moenna's on 26 Feb. Colgan distinguishes the two by making Moenna identical with Moenus, Mainus, who lived near Dol in Brittany, but the Breton saint's feast is 15 June (, Book of Hymns, fasc. i. 104). St. Moinenno died in 570. The feasts of St. [q. v.] and Moinenno both fall on 1 March, and Skene suggests that the two were confused in the accounts which represent St. Monan as the companion of St. Adrian, afterwards bishop of St. Andrews in his missionary efforts among the Picts of the ninth century. According to Skene, the monastery with which Moinenno was associated at Clonfert was broken up between 841 and 845, when St. Adrian's expedition was leaving Ireland for Fife, and St. Adrian possibly carried with him the relics of the dead St. Moinenno, and not the living St. Monan.

 MOIR, DAVID MACBETH (1798–1851), physician and author, known as Delta (Δ), son of Robert Moir and Elizabeth Macbeth, was born at Musselburgh on 5 Jan. 1798, and received his school education there. At the age of thirteen he was apprenticed for four years to Dr. Stewart, a physician in that town, and studied medicine in Edinburgh, obtaining his surgeon's diploma in his nineteenth year (1816). In 1817 he entered into partnership with Dr. Brown of Musselburgh, whose practice, he tells us, kept him so occupied that he did not spend a night out of the town between that year and 1828.

Moir began to write as early as 1812, about which year he sent two essays to 'The Cheap Magazine,' published at Haddington. In 1816 he wrote his first articles for the 'Scots Magazine,' and published anonymously 'The Bombardment of Algiers, and other Poems.' After entering on professional practice he contributed to 'Constable's Edinburgh Magazine' and to 'Blackwood's Magazine.' In the latter he became a regular writer of jeux d'esprit, which were at first ascribed to [q. v.], as well as of essays and serious verse over the signature 'Δ.' His connection with 'Blackwood' was the means of introducing him to Christopher North, and in 1823 to, the novelist, for whom Moir wrote the concluding chapters of 'The Last of the Lairds.' In the autumn of 1824 appeared 'The Legend of Genevieve, with other Tales and Poems,' in part a reprint of magazine pieces, and the first instalments in 'Blackwood' of 'The Autobiography of Mansie Wauch,' republished in book form, with additions, in 1828. He had the offer from Mr. Blackwood in 1829 of the editorship of the 'Quarterly Journal of Agriculture,' and was urged by him and other friends to settle in Edinburgh, but he refused both proposals (Letters quoted by Aird). He continued to write for the magazines, and soon included 'Fraser' and the 'Edinburgh Literary Gazette' among the periodicals to which he contributed. 