_Moke_ (Vol. v., p. 374).--With the Editor of "N. & Q." I think the
interpretation of "muck" for the old word used by Wyckliffe is "not
satisfactory:" I therefore suggest another, perhaps equally
questionable. Every rustic in grazing districts knows, that in the hot
season of the year sheep are liable to be fearfully flyblown in their
living flesh; and that the maggots thence resulting are called _mokes_,
or mawks. Is not the preacher's allusion in the text to certain
shepherds, or rather sheep of Christ's flock, who, rather than give one
of their _mokes_ to help one of their "needy brethren," will allow
themselves to "perish" and "be taken of" these maggots? The term in
question is, or was formerly, in provincial use as a metonym for
lendiculosity in a figurative sense--a tetchy, whimsical individual,
being said to be "maggoty," _vulgo_, _mokey_. Lendix has not, however,
in all cases been treated with abhorrence; for one of the elder Wesleys
not only printed a book of rhymes with the title of _Maggots_, but
prefixed to it his portrait, with one of these _animi impetu concitari_
represented as creeping on the forehead!