MORRIS, Robert (1734-1806), American statesman, was born at Liverpool, England, on 20th January 1734. At the age of thirteen he accompanied his father to America, and after serving in a counting-house at Philadelphia he became in 1754 partner in the business. From 1776 to 1778 he was delegate to the Continental Congress, and he was one of those who signed the Declaration of Independence. During the war he served on the committee of ways and means, and freely placed his immense wealth at the disposal of his country, his personal credit being at one time pledged to the amount of $1,400,000. He also in 1780 established the Bank of North America, and until 1784 acted as superintendent of finance. In 1786 he became a member of the Pennsylvania legislature, and he was one of the convention which framed the Federal constitution in 1787. From 1786 to 1795 he was United States senator. On account of the disastrous result of some of his financial speculations Morris passed the later years of his life in a debt prison. He died at Philadelphia, 8th May 1806. Robert Morris had as his assistant-superintendent of finance Gouverneur Morris (1752-1816), with whom he engaged also in several mercantile enterprises. Gouverneur Morris, who rose to some eminence as a statesman and orator, was more fortunate in his speculations than his colleague, and latterly became celebrated for the munificence of his hospitality. He was the author of a series of essays on currency and finance, which are included in the Life, Correspondence, and Writings of Gouverneur Morris, 3 vols., edited by Jared Sparks, 1832.

MORRIS-DANCE, or Morrice-dance, a performance for a long time associated with certain festive seasons in England, but now wholly discontinued. The origin of the name is doubtful; and whether the dance was indigenous to England, or was introduced by John of Gaunt from Spain, or was borrowed from the French or Flemings, must be left to conjecture. That, as the name would seem to indicate, it was a development of the morisco-dance or Spanish fandango is not, however, invalidated by the fact that the morisco was for one person only, for, although latterly the morris-dance was represented by various characters, uniformity in this respect was not always observed, and the elements of the dance may have been borrowed from the morisco. There are few references to it earlier than the reign of Henry VII., but it would appear that in the reign of Henry VIII. it was an almost essential part of the principal village festivities. Although allusions to it in poems are very frequent in the 16th and 17th centuries, nothing more than fragmentary descriptions have been handed down to us, so that an accurate knowledge of its characteristic features at even any particular period is impossible. In earlier times it was usually danced by five men and a boy dressed in a girl’s habit, who was called Maid Marian. There were also two musicians; and, at least sometimes, one of the dancers, more gaily and richly dressed than the others, acted as “foreman of the morris.” The garments of the dancers were ornamented with bells tuned to different notes so as to sound in harmony. Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, and Little John were characters extraneous to the original dance, and were introduced when it came to be associated with the May-games. At Betley, in Staffordshire, there is a painted window of the ...

MORRISON, Robert (1782-1834), the first Protestant missionary to China, was born of Scottish parents at Morpeth, Northumberland, on 5th January 1782. After receiving an elementary education in Newcastle, he was apprenticed to a lastmaker, but his spare hours were devoted to studies connected with theology, and in 1803 he was received into the Independent academy at Hoxton. In the following year he offered his services to the London Missionary Society, by which, after he had attended the mission college of Gosport and studied Chinese under a native teacher, he was sent to Canton in 1807. He was appointed translator to the East India Company’s factory there in 1808, and, in addition to his official dutiqp connected with this post, laboured with intense application at a Chinese Grammar and a translation of the New Testament, both of which were published in 1814. In 1817 he published A View of China for Philological Purposes, and his translation of the entire Bible was completed in the following year. His next enterprise was the establishment of an Anglo-Chinese college at Malacca for “the reciprocal cultivation of Chinese and European literature,” which was opened in 1820. In 1821 his Chinese Dictionary was published by the East India Company at an expense of £15,000. Leaving China at the close of 1823 he spent two years in England, where he advocated Chinese missions before large and enthusiastic audiences, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Returning to China in 1826 he set himself to promote education and to prepare a Chinese commentary on the Bible and other Christian literature. He died at Canton on 1st August 1834. His Memoirs, compiled by his widow, were published in 1839 (2 vols. 8vo, London).

MORRISTOWN, a city of the United States, county seat of Morris county, New Jersey, lies on the Whippany river, 81 miles from New York by the Morris and Essex division of the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad. It was twice the headquarters of the American army during the War of Independence, and Washington’s residence, owned by the Washington Association, assisted by the State, is a half-mile to the east. On Whatnong mountain, 3 miles distant, stands the State insane asylum, usually called Morristown Asylum, a vast granite building 1243 feet long, erected in 1874-1875, and capable of accommodating 1000 patients. The population in 1880 was 5418.