other northern countries, and are much valued by farmers as a source
of carbonate of lime, though rarely burned to produce quicklime. They
are generally obtained by digging pits in marshy spots or meadows, and
often occur below considerable thicknesses of peat. Large numbers of
shells of fresh-water mollusca are scattered through a matrix of clay;
usually retaining their shapes though they are in a friable and
semi-decomposed state. The species represented are very few, and from
their unbroken state it is obvious that they have not been
transported but lived in the place where their remains are found. As
mollusca of this kind thrive best in open stretches of clear water,
the sites of the marl deposits must have been shallow lakes and open
pools.
Among the older strata it is not uncommon to find beds which have the
same composition and in many cases the same origin as shell marl.
While some of them are fresh-water deposits, others are of marine
origin. The "crag beds" of the Pliocene formation in Norfolk, Suffolk
and Essex are essentially sand and gravel, which are often rich in
shells; with them occur clays such as the Chillesford clay; and many
of these beds have actually been used as marls for dressing the
surface of agricultural land. Better examples occur among the
Oligocene beds of the Hampshire basin and the Isle of Wight, where the
Steadon, Bembridge and Hempstead marls are clays, more or less sandy,
containing fresh-water shells. In the Cretaceous rocks of the south of
England soft argillaceous limestones of marine origin, which may be
described as marls, occur on several horizons. At its base the white
chalk is often mixed with clay, and the "chalk marl" is a rock of this
kind; it is known in Cambridgeshire, at Folkestone, in the Isle of
Wight, &c. The chloritic marl, which underlies the chalk and is well
developed in the Isle of Wight, is a greenish argillaceous limestone,
the colour being due to the presence of glauconite, not of chlorite;
it is often very fossiliferous. The Gault, an argillaceous type of the
Upper Greensand, is a stiff greyish calcareous clay, beneath the white
chalk, well known for the excellent preservation of its fossils. It
outcrops along the base of the escarpment of the North and South
Downs; the original name given to it by William Smith was "the blue
marl." In the Jurassic rocks of England there are marls or shelly
fresh-water clays in the Purbeck series and also in the estuarine beds
of the Great Oolite, but the name "marlstone" has long been reserved
for the argillaceous limestone of the Middle Lias. It ranges from the
Dorset coast, through Edge Hill in Warwickshire and Lincolnshire, and
thence to the sea in the north of Yorkshire, presenting many
variations in this long extent of country and often accompanied by, or
converted into, beds of clay ironstone. The marlstone is typically a
firm, greyish limestone weathering to a rusty brown colour, and is
always more or less argillaceous.
In the Triassic rocks of Britain there is a very important series of
red, green and mottled clays, over a thousand feet thick in some
places, which have been called the New Red marls. They belong to the
Keuper or uppermost division of the system, and in Cheshire contain
valuable deposits of rock salt, the principal sources of that mineral
in Great Britain. In the strict sense these rocks are not marls, being
ferruginous clays rather than calcareous clays. Most of them appear to
have been laid down in saline lakes in desert regions. As a rule they
contain very few fossils, and often they have little or no carbonate
of lime, but beds and veins of fibrous gypsum occur in them in
considerable profusion. These rocks cover a wide area in the midland
counties extending to the south coast near Exmouth, and reappear in
the north in the Vale of Eden and a few places in southern Scotland.
The clays are used for brick-making, and yield a stiff soil, mostly
devoted to pasture and dairy farming. In the Rhaetic beds which
immediately overlie the Triassic rocks there are three seams of
calcareous clay, often only a few feet thick, which have been called
the "grey marls" and the "tea-green marls."
To rocks older than these the name marl has not often been given,
probably because, though argillaceous limestones are often common in
the Carboniferous and Silurian rocks, they are usually firm and
compact, while marls usually comprise rocks which are more or less
soft and friable. In other countries, and especially in Germany, many
different kinds of marl and of marl-slate are described. Two of these
are of especial importance--the dark copper-bearing marl slate of the
Permian rocks near Mansfeld in Germany, which has been long and
extensively worked as sources of copper, and the white or creamy
Solenhofen limestone, much quarried in Bavaria, and used as a
lithographic stone. (J. S. F.)
MARLBOROUGH, EARLS AND DUKES OF. The earldom of Marlborough was held by
the family of Ley from 1626 to 1679. James Ley, the 1st earl (c.
1550-1629), was lord chief justice of the King's Bench in Ireland and
then in England; he was an English member of parliament and was lord
high treasurer from 1624 to 1628. In 1624 he was created Baron Ley and
in 1626 earl of Marlborough. The 3rd earl was his grandson James
(1618-1665), a naval officer who was killed in action with the Dutch.
James was succeeded by his uncle William, a younger son of the 1st earl,
on whose death in 1679 the earldom became extinct.
In 1689 John Churchill was created earl and in 1702 duke of Marlborough
(see below). After the death of his only son Charles in 1703 an act of
parliament was passed in 1706 settling the duke's titles upon his
daughters and their issue. Consequently when he died in June 1722 his
eldest daughter Henrietta (1681-1733), wife of Francis Godolphin, 2nd
earl of Godolphin, became duchess of Marlborough. She died without sons
and was succeeded by her nephew Charles Spencer, 5th earl of Sunderland
(1706-1758), a son of the great duke's second daughter Anne (d. 1716).
Although at this time Charles handed over the Sunderland estates to his
younger brother John, the ancestor of the earls Spencer, he did not
obtain Blenheim until Sarah, the dowager duchess, died in 1744. His
eldest son George Spencer, the 4th duke (1739-1817), left three sons.
The eldest, George Spencer, the 5th duke (1766-1840), was summoned to
the House of Lords as Baron Spencer of Wormleighton in 1806, and in
1817, after succeeding to the dukedom, he took the name of
Spencer-Churchill. The 4th duke's second son was Lord Henry John Spencer
(1770-1795), envoy to Sweden and to Prussia; and his third son was Lord
Francis Almeric Spencer (1779-1845), who was created a peer as Baron
Churchill of Whichwood in 1815. His grandson Victor Albert Francis
Charles Spencer (b. 1864) succeeded his father as 3rd Baron Churchill in
1886, and was raised to the rank of a viscount in 1902.
The 7th duke of Marlborough, John Winston Spencer-Churchill (1822-1883),
a prominent Conservative politician, was lord-lieutenant of Ireland
1876-1880, and when marquess of Blandford (the courtesy title borne by
the duke's eldest son in his father's lifetime) was responsible for the
act of 1856 called the "Blandford Act," enabling populous parishes to be
divided for purposes of Church work. In 1892 his grandson Charles
Richard John Spencer-Churchill (b. 1871) became 9th duke of Marlborough.
MARLBOROUGH, JOHN CHURCHILL, 1ST DUKE OF (1650-1722), English soldier,
was born in the small manor house of Ash, in Musbury, Devonshire, near
Axminster, in May or June 1650. Arabella Churchill, his eldest sister,
and the mother of the duke of Berwick, was born in the same house on the
28th of February 1648. They were the children of Winston Churchill of
Glanville Wotton in Dorset and Elizabeth the fourth daughter of Sir John
Drake, who died in 1636; his widow, after the close of the civil war,
received her son-in-law into her own house. From 1663 to 1665 John
Churchill went to St Paul's school, and there is a tradition that during
this period he showed the bent of his taste by reading and re-reading
Vegetius _De re militari_. When fifteen years old he became page of
honour to the duke of York, and about the same time his sister Arabella
became maid of honour to the duchess, two events which contributed
greatly to the advancement of the Churchills. On the 14th of September
1667 he received through the influence of his master a commission in the
Guards, and left England for service at Tangier but returned home in the
winter of 1670-1671. For a short interval Churchill remained in
attendance at the court, and it was during this period that the natural
carefulness of his disposition was shown by his investing in an annuity
a present of £5,000 given him by the duchess of Cleveland.
In June 1672, when England to her shame sent six thousand troops to aid
Louis XIV. in his attempt to subdue the Dutch, Churchill was made a
captain in the company of which the duke of York was colonel, and soon
attracted the attention of Turenne, by whose profound military genius
the whole army was directed. At the siege of Nimeguen Churchill
acquitted himself with such success that the French commander predicted
his ultimate rise to distinction. When Maestricht was besieged in June
1673 he saved the life of the duke of Monmouth, and received the thanks
of Louis XIV. for his services. In 1678 he was married to Sarah Jennings
(b. June 5, 1660), the favourite attendant on the Princess Anne, younger
daughter of the duke of York. Her father, Richard Jennings of Sandridge,
near St Albans, had twenty-two brothers and sisters; one of the latter
married a London tradesman named Francis Hill, and their daughter
Abigail Hill afterwards succeeded her cousin the duchess of Marlborough
as favourite to Queen Anne.
On the accession of James II. the Churchills received a great increase
in fortune. Colonel Churchill had been created a Scotch peer as Lord
Churchill of Eyemouth on the 21st of December 1682; and as a reward for
his services in going on a special mission from the new monarch to Louis
XIV. he was advanced on the 14th of May 1685 to the English peerage
under the title of Baron Churchill of Sandridge in Hertfordshire. When
the duke of Monmouth attempted his ill-fated enterprise in the western
counties, the second position in command of the king's army was bestowed
on Lord Churchill, and on the 3rd of July 1685 he was raised to the rank
of major-general. Through his vigilance and energy at the battle of
Sedgemoor (July 6) victory declared itself on the king's side. After the
death of Monmouth he withdrew as far as possible from the administration
of public business, but both he and his wife remained the favourite
attendants of the princess Anne. Whilst on his embassy to the French
court he had declared with emphasis that if the king of England should
change the religion of the state he should at once leave his service,
and it was not long before the design of James became apparent to the
world. Churchill was one of the first to send overtures of obedience to
the prince of Orange, to whom he had gone on a commission in 1678.
Although he continued in a high position under James and drew the
emoluments of his places, he promised William of Orange to use every
exertion to bring over the troops to his side. James had been warned
against putting any trust in the loyalty of the man on whom he had
showered so many favours, but the warnings were in vain, and on the
landing of the Dutch prince at Brixham Churchill was promoted to be
lieutenant-general (Nov. 7, 1688) and was sent against him with five
thousand men. When the royal army had advanced to the downs of Wiltshire
and a battle seemed imminent, James was dismayed at finding that in the
dead of night his general had stolen away like a thief into the opposite
camp.
Churchill was sworn as a privy councillor on the 14th of February 1688/9
and on the 9th of April became earl of Marlborough. William felt,
however, that he could not place implicit reliance in his friend's
integrity; and, with a clear sense of the manner in which Marlborough's
talents might be employed without any detriment to the stability of his
throne, he sent him in June 1689 with the army into the Netherlands, and
in the autumn of 1690 into Ireland, where owing to his generalship Cork
and Kinsale fell into his hands after short sieges. For some time there
was no open avowal of any distrust in Marlborough's loyalty, but in May
1692 he was thrown into the Tower on an accusation of treason. Though
the evidence which could be brought against him was slight, and he was
soon set at liberty, there is no doubt that Marlborough was in close
relations with the exiled king at St Germains, and that he even went so
far as to disclose, in May 1694, to his late master the intention of the
English to attack the town of Brest. The talents of the statesmen of
this reign were chiefly displayed in their attempts to convince both the
exiled and the reigning king of England of their attachment to his
fortunes. The sin of Marlborough lay in the fact that he had been
favoured above his fellows by each in turn, and that he betrayed both
alike apparently without scruple or without shame. Once again during the
Fenwick plot of 1696 he was charged with treason, but William, knowing
that if he pushed Marlborough and his friends to extremities there were
no other statesmen on whom he could rely, contented himself with
ignoring the accusation of Sir John Fenwick, and with executing that
conspirator himself. In 1698 the forgiven traitor was made governor to
the young duke of Gloucester, the only one of Anne's numerous children
who gave promise of attaining to manhood. During the last years of
William's reign Marlborough once more was placed in positions of
responsibility. His daughters were married into the most prominent
families of the land; Henrietta, the eldest, became the wife of Francis,
the eldest son of Lord Godolphin; the second, the loveliest woman at the
court, with her father's tact and temper and her mother's beauty,
married Charles, Lord Spencer, the only surviving son of the earl of
Sunderland. Higher honours came on the accession of Queen Anne in March
1702. He was at once appointed a Knight of the Garter, captain-general
of the English troops both at home and abroad, and master-general of the
ordnance. The new queen did not forget the life-long service of his
wife; three positions at the court by which she was enabled to continue
by the side of the sovereign were united in her person. The queen showed
her devotion to her friend by another signal mark of favour. The
rangership of Windsor Park was granted her for life, with the especial
object of enabling Lady Marlborough to live in the Great Lodge. These
were the opening days of many years of fame and power. A week or two
after the death of William it was agreed by the three great powers,
England, Holland and Austria, which formed the grand alliance, that war
should be declared against France on the same day, and on the 4th of May
1702 the War of the Spanish Succession was declared by the three
countries. Marlborough was made commander-in-chief of the united armies
of England and Holland, but throughout the war his plans were impeded by
the jealousy of the commanders who were nominally his inferiors, and by
the opposite aims of the various countries that were striving to break
the power of France. He himself wished to penetrate into the French
lines; the anxiety of the Dutch was for the maintenance of their
frontier and for an augmentation of their territory; the desire of the
Austrian emperor was to secure that his son the Archduke Charles should
rule over Spain. To secure concerted action by these different powers
taxed all the diplomacy of Marlborough, but he succeeded for the most
part in his desires. In the first year of the campaign it was shown that
the armies of the French were not invincible. Several fortresses which
Louis XIV. had seized upon surrendered to the allies. Kaiserswerth on
the Rhine surrendered on the 15th of June, and Venlo on the Meuse on the
23rd of September. The prosperous commercial town of Liége with its
commanding citadel capitulated on the 29th of October. The successes of
Marlborough caused much rejoicing in his own country, and for these
brilliant exploits he was raised (Dec. 14, 1702) to be duke of
Marlborough, and received a grant of £5000 per annum for the queen's
life. In the spring of the following year a crushing blow fell upon the
duke and duchess. Their eldest and only surviving son, the marquess of
Blandford, was seized whilst at King's College, Cambridge (under the
care of Francis Hare, afterwards bishop of Chichester), with the
small-pox, and died on the 20th of February 1703, in his seventeenth
year. His talents had already justified the prediction that he would
rise to the highest position in the state.
The result of the campaign of 1703 inspired the French king with fresh
hopes of ultimate victory. The dashing plans of Marlborough were
frustrated by the opposition of his Dutch colleagues. When he wished to
invade the French territory they urged him to besiege Bonn, and he was
compelled to accede to their wishes. It surrendered on the 15th of May,
whereupon he returned to his original plan of attacking Antwerp; but, in
consequence of the incapacity of the Dutch leaders, the generals
(Villeroi and Boufflers) of the French army surprised the Dutch division
on the 30th of June and inflicted on it a loss of many thousands of men.
Marlborough was forced to abandon his enterprise, and all the
compensation which he received was the capture of the insignificant
forts of Huy and Limburg. After a year of comparative failure for the
allies, Louis XIV. was emboldened to enter upon an offensive movement
against Austria; and Marlborough, smarting under the misadventures of
1703, was eager to meet him. A magnificent army was sent by the French
king, under the command of Marshal Tallard, to join the forces of the
elector of Bavaria and to march by the Danube so as to seize Vienna
itself. Marlborough divined the intention of the expedition, and while
making a feint of marching into Alsace led his troops into Bavaria. The
two armies (that under Marlborough and Prince Eugène numbering more than
fifty thousand men, whilst Tallard's forces were nearly four thousand
stronger) met in battle near the village of Blenheim on the left bank of
the Danube. The French commander made the mistake of supposing that the
enemy's attack would be directed against his position in the village,
and he concentrated an excessive number of his troops at that point. The
early part of the fight was in favour of the French. Three times were
the troops led by Prince Eugène, which were attacking the Bavarians, the
enemy's left wing, driven back in confusion; Marlborough's cavalry
failed on their first attack in breaking the line of the enemy's
centre. But in the end the victory of the allies was conclusive. Nearly
thirty thousand of the French and Bavarians were killed and wounded, and
eleven thousand of the French who had been driven down to the Danube
were forced to surrender. Bavaria fell into the hands of the allies.
Never was a victory more eagerly welcomed than this, and never was a
conquering leader more rewarded than Marlborough. Poets and prose
writers were employed to do him honour, and the lines of Addison
comparing the English commander to the angel who passed over "pale
Britannia" in the storm of 1703 have been famous for over two centuries.
The manor of Woodstock, which was transferred by act of parliament from
the crown to the duke, was a reward more after his own heart. The gift
even in that form was noble, but the queen heightened it by instructing
Sir John Vanbrugh to build a palace in the park at the royal expense,
and £240,000 of public money was spent on the buildings. He was also
created a prince of the empire and the principality of Mindelheim was
formed in his honour.
The following year was not marked by any stirring incident. Marlborough
was hampered by tedious formalities at the Hague and by jealousies at
the German courts. The armies of the French were again brought up to
their full standard, but the generals of Louis were instructed to
entrench themselves behind earthworks and to act on the defensive. In
the darkness of a July night these lines were broken through near
Tirlemont, and the French were forced to take shelter under the walls of
Louvain. Marlborough in vain urged an attack upon them in their new
position, and when 1705 had passed away the forces of the French king
had suffered no diminution. This immunity from disaster tempted Villeroi
in the next spring into meeting the allied forces in an open fight, but
his assurance proved his ruin. Through the superior tactics of
Marlborough the battle of Ramillies (May 23, 1706) ended in the total
rout of the French, and caused the transference of nearly the whole of
Brabant and Flanders to the allies. Five days afterwards the victor
entered Brussels in state, and the inhabitants acknowledged the rule of
the archduke. Antwerp and Ostend surrendered themselves with slight
loss. Menin held out until three thousand of the soldiers of the allies
were laid low around its walls, but Dendermonde, which Louis had forty
years previously besieged in vain, quickly gave itself up to the
resistless Marlborough. Again a year of activity and triumph was
succeeded by a period of languor and depression. During the whole of
1707 fortune inclined to the other side, with the result that in July
1708 Ghent and Bruges returned to the allegiance of the French, and
Marlborough, fearing that their example might be followed by the other
cities, advanced with his whole army towards Oudenarde. Had the counsels
of Vendôme, one of the ablest of the French generals, prevailed, the
fight might have had a different issue, but his suggestions were
disregarded by the duke of Burgundy, the grandson of Louis, and the
battle, which raged on the high ground above Oudenarde, ended in their
defeat (July 11, 1708). After this victory Marlborough, ever anxious for
decisive measures, wished to advance on Paris, but he was overruled. The
allied army invested the town of Lille, on the fortifications of which
Vauban had expended an immensity of thought; and after a struggle of
nearly four months, and the loss to the combatants of thirty thousand
men, the citadel was surrendered by Marshal Boufflers on the 9th of
December. By the end of the year Brabant was again subject to the rule
of the allies. The suffering in France at this time weighed so heavily
upon the people that its proud king humbled himself to sue for peace.
Each of the allies in turn did he supplicate, and Torcy his minister
endeavoured by promises of large sums of money to obtain the support of
Marlborough to his proposals. These attempts were in vain, and when the
winter passed away a French army of one hundred and ten thousand, under
the command of Villars, took the field. On the 3rd of September 1709
Tournay capitulated, and the two leaders, Marlborough and Eugène, led
their forces to Mons, in spite of the attempt of Villars to prevent
them. For the last time during the protracted war the two armies met in
fair fight at Malplaquet, on the south of Mons (Sept. 11, 1709), where
the French leader had strengthened his position by extensive earthworks.
The fight was long and doubtful, and although the French ultimately
retreated under the direction of Boufflers, for Villars had been wounded
on the knee, it was in good order, and their losses were less than those
of their opponents. The campaign lasted for a year or two after this
indecisive contest, but it was not signalized by any such "glorious
victory" as Blenheim. All that the English could plume themselves on was
the acquisition of a few such fortresses as Douai and Bethune, and all
that the French had to fear was the gradual tightening of the enemy's
chain until it reached the walls of Paris. The energies of the French
were concentrated in the construction of fresh lines of defence, until
their commander boasted that his position was impregnable. In this way
the war dragged on until the conclusion of the Peace of Utrecht in June
1712.
These victorious campaigns had not prevented the position of Marlborough
from being undermined by party intrigues at home. In the early part of
Queen Anne's reign his political friends were to be found among the
Tories, and the ministry under Sidney Godolphin was chiefly composed of
members of that party. After a year or two, however, the more ardent
Tories withdrew, and two younger adherents of the same cause, Harley and
St John, were introduced in May 1704 into the ministry. The duchess,
partly through the influence of her son-in-law, the earl of Sunderland,
who came into office against the queen's wish on the 3rd of December
1706, and partly through the opposition of the Tories to the French war,
had gone over to the Whig cause, and she pressed her views on the
sovereign with more vehemence than discretion. She had obtained for her
indigent cousin, Abigail Hill, a small position at court, and the poor
relation very soon began to injure the benefactor who had befriended
her. With Hill's assistance Harley and St John widened the breach with
the queen which was commenced by the imperious manner of the duchess.
The love of the two friends changed into hate, and no opportunity for
humiliating the family of Marlborough was allowed to pass neglected.
Sunderland and Godolphin were the first to fall (July-Aug. 1710); a few
months later the duchess was dismissed from her offices; and, although
Marlborough himself was permitted to continue in his position a short
time longer, his fall was only delayed until the last day of 1711. Life
in England had become so unpleasant that he went to the Continent in
November 1712 and remained abroad until the death of Anne (Aug. 1,
1714).
Then he once more returned to England and resumed his old military
posts, but he took little part in public affairs. Even if he had wished
to regain his commanding position in the country, ill health would have
prevented him from obtaining his desires. Johnson indeed says, in the
_Vanity of Human Wishes_, that "the streams of dotage" flowed from his
eyes; but this is a poetical exaggeration. It is certain that at the
time of his death he was able to understand the remarks of others and to
express his own wishes. At four o'clock on the morning of the 16th of
June 1722 he died at Cranbourn Lodge, near Windsor. His remains were at
first deposited in Westminster Abbey, in the vault at the east end of
King Henry VII.'s chapel, but they now rest in a mausoleum in the chapel
at Blenheim.
His widow, to whom must be assigned a considerable share both in his
rise and in his fall, survived till the 18th of October 1744. Those
years were spent in bitter animosity with many within and without her
own family. Left by her husband with the command of boundless wealth,
she used it for the vindication of his memory and for the justification
of her own resentment. Two of the leading opponents of the Whig
ministry, Chesterfield and Pitt, were especially honoured by her
attentions. To Pitt she left ten thousand pounds, to the other statesman
twice that sum and a reversionary interest in her landed property at
Wimbledon. Whilst a widow she received numerous offers of marriage from
titled suitors. She refused them all: from her marriage to her death her
heart had no other inmate than the man as whose wife she had become
almost a rival to royalty.
The rapid rise of Marlborough to the highest position in the State was
due to his singular tact and his diplomatic skill in the management of
men. In an age remarkable for grace of manner and for adroitness of
compliment, his courteous demeanour and the art with which he refused or
granted a favour extorted the admiration of every one with whom he came
in contact. Through his consideration for the welfare of his soldiers he
held together for years an army drawn from every nation in Christendom.
His talents may not have been profound (he possessed "an excellent plain
understanding and sound judgment" is the opinion of Lord Chesterfield),
but they were such as Englishmen love. Alike in planning and in
executing, he took infinite pains in all points of detail. Nothing
escaped his observation, and in the hottest moment of the fight the
coolness of his intellect shone conspicuous. His enemies indeed affected
to attribute his uniform success in the field to fortune, and they
magnified his love of money by drawing up balance sheets which included
every penny which he had received, but omitted the pounds which he had
spent in the cause he had sincerely at heart. All that can be alleged in
excuse of his attempts to serve two masters, the king whom he had
deserted and the king who had received him into favour, is that not one
of his associates was without sin in this respect.
The books on Marlborough are very numerous. Under his name in the
catalogue of the British Museum there are 165 entries, and 44 under
that of his wife. The chief works are Lediard's, Archdeacon William
Coxe's (1818-1819), Sir Archibald Alison's (1855), and Viscount
Wolseley's (1894) _Lives_, but Wolseley stops with the accession of
Queen Anne; a French memoir in three volumes, 1808; Marlborough's
_Letters and Despatches_, edited by Sir George Murray (5 vols., 1845);
and the interesting summaries of Mrs Creighton (1879) and George
Saintsbury (1885). The descriptions in John Hill Burton's _Reign of
Queen Anne_ of the battle scenes of Marlborough are from personal
observation. A good account of his birthplace and country will be
found in G. P. R. Pulman's _Book of the Axe District_ (4th ed., 1875);
and for the home of the duchess the reader can refer to the _History
of Hertfordshire_, by J. E. Cussans. A memoir of her, by one of her
descendants, Mrs Arthur Colville, appeared in 1904. The pamphlets
written on her conduct at court relate to matters of little interest
at the present time. (W. P. C.)
MARLBOROUGH, a market town and municipal borough in the Devizes
parliamentary division of Wiltshire, England, 75¾ m. W. of London, on
the Great Western and the Midland and South Western Junction railways.
Pop. (1901), 3887. It is an old-fashioned place on the skirts of
Savernake Forest, lying in a valley of the chalk uplands known as
Marlborough Downs, and traversed by the river Kennet. It consists mainly
of one broad street, in which a majority of the houses are Jacobean;
those on the north side, which have projecting upper storeys, forming
the colonnade commended in the Diary of Samuel Pepys for 1668. St
Peter's church, a Perpendicular building, is said to have been the scene
of the ordination of Cardinal Wolsey in 1498. The church of Preshute,
largely rebuilt, but preserving its Norman pillars, has a curious
piscina, and a black basalt font of great size dating from 1100-1150, in
which according to a very old tradition King John was baptized. Other
noteworthy buildings are the town-hall, 16th century grammar school and
Marlborough College. This important public school was opened in 1843,
originally for the sons of clergymen, by whom alone certain scholarships
are tenable. The number of boys is about 600. Marlborough possesses
little trade other than agricultural; but there are breweries, tanneries
and roperies. The town is governed by a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12
councillors. Area, 598 acres.
The antiquity of Marlborough is shown by the Castle Mound, a British
earthwork, which local legend makes the grave of Merlin; and the name of
Marlborough has been regarded as a corrupt form of Merlin's Berg or
Rock.
Near the site of the modern Marlborough (_Merleberge_, _Marleberge_) was
originally a Roman _castrum_ called Cunetio, and later there was a
Norman fortress in which William I. established a mint. In Domesday it
was royal demesne and during the following centuries figures in numerous
grants generally as the dowry of queens. The castle, built under Henry
I., by Roger, bishop of Salisbury, was held for Matilda against Stephen,
and became a favourite residence of Henry II., Savernake being a royal
deer-park. In 1267 Henry III. held his last parliament here, at which
the Statute of Marlborough was passed. The castle ceased to be an
important stronghold after the Wars of the Roses, but was garrisoned for
Charles I. by its owners, the Seymour family. Marlborough itself,
however, is mentioned by Clarendon as "the most notoriously disaffected
[town] in Wiltshire," and was captured by the royal forces in 1642, and
partly burnt. At the Restoration Charles II. was received and
magnificently entertained by Lord Seymour, whose mansion forms the
oldest part of Marlborough College. The town was constituted a suffragan
see by Henry II. Sacheverell, the politician and divine, was born here
in 1674, and educated at the grammar school. In 1653 the town was nearly
destroyed by fire, and it again suffered in 1679 and 1690; after which
an act was passed forbidding the use of thatch. Marlborough, from its
position on the Great Bath Road, was a famous coaching centre.
The first charter was granted by John in 1204, and conferred a gild
merchant, together with freedom from all pleas except pleas of the Crown
and from all secular exactions by sea and land. This was confirmed by
subsequent sovereigns from Henry III. to Henry VIII. Later charters were
obtained from Henry IV. in 1407 and from Elizabeth in 1576. The former
granted some additional exemptions whilst the latter incorporated the
town under the title of mayor and burgesses of Marlborough. The
corporation was finally reconstructed in 1835 under the title of a
mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Marlborough returned two members
to parliament until 1867 when the number was reduced to one, and in 1885
the representation was merged in that of the county. A yearly fair was
granted by John in 1204, for eight days from August 14, and two more by
Henry III. for three days from November 11 and June 29 respectively. In
1204 John also granted a weekly market on Wednesday and Saturday. In
Tudor times the corn trade prospered here.
See "Victoria County History": _Wilts_; James Waglen, _History of
Marlboro_ (London, 1854).
MARLBOROUGH, a city of Middlesex county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., about 28
m. W. of Boston. Pop. (1900), 13,609 (3311 were foreign-born); (1910),
14,579; it is served by the Boston & Maine and the New York New Haven &
Hartford railways, and by interurban electric lines. The city, with a
total area of 21.08 sq. m., lies in a fertile hilly country, and
contains several ponds, including the beautiful Williams Pond, which
covers ¼ sq. m. A public library was established here in 1792; it was
housed in a new building in 1904. Other public buildings are the city
hall, the Federal building and a state armoury. There is a boarding
school for girls, St Ann's Academy (1887), under the direction of the
Sisters of St Ann. The city's importance is industrial; in 1905 its
factory product was valued at $7,468,849 (an increase of 66% since
1900), of which 88.6% was the value of boots and shoes. Whether the city
is named from Marlborough in Wiltshire, or, as seems more probable,
because of early spellings "Marlberg" and "Marlbridge," from the
presence of marl in the neighbourhood, is uncertain. Settlers from
Sudbury in 1665 took possession of a hill called by the Indians
Whipsuffenicke and gradually hemmed in the Christian Indian village of
Ockoocangansett (or Ognoikonguamescitt), on an adjoining hill still
bearing this name. The town was incorporated in 1660. It was destroyed
by Indians in March 1676, during King Philip's war, and was abandoned
for a year. Westborough was separated from it in 1717, Southborough in
1727, and a part of Berlin in 1784; parts of it were annexed to
Northborough in 1807, to Bolton in 1829 and to Hudson in 1866; and it
annexed parts of Framingham in 1791, and of Southborough in 1843. In
1890 it was incorporated as a city.
See S. A. Drake, _History of Middlesex County_, ii. 137 sqq.,
"Marlborough" by Rev. R. S. Griffin and E. L. Bigelow (Boston, 1880).
MARLITT, E., the pseudonym of EUGENIE JOHN (1825-1887), German novelist,
who was born at Arnstadt in Thuringia, the daughter of a merchant, on
the 5th of December 1825. By her musical talent she attracted the notice
of the reigning princess of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, who provided for
her training as a singer at the Vienna Conservatoire. After three years'
study she made a successful stage début, but was compelled in
consequence of deafness to abandon this career. She then became reader
and travelling companion to her patroness, and her life at the court and
on her many travels furnished her with material for her novels. In 1863
she resigned her post, and then lived with her brother at Arnstadt until
her death on the 22nd of June 1887.
Her first novel, _Die zwölf Apostel_, was published in the
_Gartenlaube_ in 1865 and this was followed in 1866 by _Goldelse_
(23rd ed., 1890), with which she established her literary reputation.
Among others of her novels may be mentioned _Blaubart_ (1866); _Das
Geheimnis der alten Mamsell_ (1867; 13th ed., 1888); _Reichsgräfin
Gisela_ (1869; 9th ed., 1900), _Das Heideprinzesschen_ (1871; 8th ed.,
1888) and _Im Hause des Kommerzienrats_ (1877; 5th ed., 1891). All
these works are directed against social prejudices, but, although
attractively written, are deficient in higher literary qualities and
appeal mostly to juvenile readers.
E. Marlitt's _Gesammelte Romane und Novellen_ were published in 10
volumes (1888-1890; 2nd ed., 1891-1894), to which is appended a
biographical memoir.
MARLOW (GREAT MARLOW), a market town in the Wycombe parliamentary
division of Buckinghamshire, England, 31½ m. W. of London on a branch of
the Great Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901), 4526. It is
beautifully situated on the north (left) bank of the Thames, which is
here confined closely between low wooded hills. A weir and lock, near
which rise the high tower and spire of the modern church of All Saints,
separate two fine reaches of the river, and the town is a favourite
resort for boating and fishing. The village of Little Marlow, where the
foundations of a Benedictine nunnery of the time of Henry III. have been
revealed by excavation, lies near the river two miles below. The town
is, as a whole, modern in appearance, but a few old houses remain, such
as the grammar school, founded as a bluecoat school in 1624, adjoining
which is a house occupied by the poet Shelley in 1817. The town has
manufactures of chairs, lace and embroidery, paper mills and breweries.
Great Marlow (_Merlaue_, _Merlawe_, _Marlowe_, _Marlow_) appears as a
manor in Domesday Book, but its "borough and liberties" are not
mentioned before 1261. It was then held by the earls of Gloucester, and
its importance was probably due to the bridge across the Thames, first
built, according to tradition, by the Templars at Bisham. No charter of
incorporation was ever granted to the town, but there are faint traces
of its constitution in the 14th century. In 1342 the mayor and burgesses
presented to a chantry and continued to be the patrons till 1394. Later
writs addressed to the town only mention two bailiffs as officers of the
borough, nor were the pontage rights and dues held by it until the 15th
century. Two burgesses sat in parliament from 1300 to 1309, but the
representation of the borough lapsed until 1621, when the right to
return members was re-established. After the Reform Bill of 1832 the
boundaries of the parliamentary borough were enlarged, but in 1867 its
representation was reduced to one member, and in 1885 was merged in that
of the county. No grant of a market in the borough has been found, but a
market was held by the Despensers who had succeeded the De Clares as
lords of the manor in the 14th century. In the 16th century the market
seems to have been given up, but it was revived and held in the 18th
century, only to disappear again before 1862. Fairs were mentioned in
1306 on the death of Gilbert de Clare, when they were held on St Luke's
Day and on the Wednesday in Whit-week by the earl of Gloucester, and
Hugh le Despenser was granted a fair in his manor of Marlow in 1324. In
1792 there were two fairs, one of which, for horses and cattle, is still
held on the 29th of October. Lace and satin-stitch work used to be made
to a considerable extent.
MARLOWE, CHRISTOPHER (1564-1593), English dramatist, the father of
English tragedy, and instaurator of dramatic blank verse, the eldest son
of a shoemaker at Canterbury, was born in that city on the 6th of
February 1564. He was christened at St George's Church, Canterbury, on
the 26th of February, 1563/4, some two months before Shakespeare's
baptism at Stratford-on-Avon. His father, John Marlowe, is said to have
been the grandson of John Morley or Marlowe, a substantial tanner of
Canterbury. The father, who survived by a dozen years or so his
illustrious son, married on the 22nd of May 1561 Catherine, daughter of
Christopher Arthur, at one time rector of St Peter's, Canterbury, who
had been ejected by Queen Mary as a married minister. The dramatist
received the rudiments of his education at the King's School,
Canterbury, which he entered at Michaelmas 1578, and where he had as his
fellow-pupils Richard Boyle, afterwards known as the great earl of Cork,
and Will Lyly, the brother of the dramatist. Stephen Gosson entered the
same school a little before, and William Harvey, the famous physician, a
little after Marlowe. He went to Cambridge as one of Archbishop Parker's
scholars from the King's School, and matriculated at Benet (Corpus
Christi) College, on the 17th of March 1571, taking his B.A. degree in
1584, and that of M.A. three or four years later.
Francis Kett, the mystic, burnt in 1589 for heresy, was a fellow and
tutor of his college, and may have had some share in developing
Marlowe's opinions in religious matters. Marlowe's classical
acquirements were of a kind which was then extremely common, being based
for the most part upon a minute acquaintance with Roman mythology, as
revealed in Ovid's _Metamorphoses_. His spirited translation of Ovid's
_Amores_ (printed 1596), which was at any rate commenced at Cambridge,
does not seem to point to any very intimate acquaintance with the
grammar and syntax of the Latin tongue. Before 1587 he seems to have
quitted Cambridge for London, where he attached himself to the Lord
Admiral's Company of Players, under the leadership of the famed actor
Edward Alleyn, and almost at once began writing for the stage. Of
Marlowe's career in London, apart from his four great theatrical
successes, we know hardly anything; but he evidently knew Thomas Kyd,
who shared his unorthodox opinions. Nash criticized his verse, Greene
affected to shudder at his atheism; Gabriel Harvey maligned his memory.
On the other hand Marlowe was intimate with the Walsinghams of Scadbury,
Chiselhurst, kinsmen of Sir Francis Walsingham: he was also the personal
friend of Sir Walter Raleigh, and perhaps of the poetical earl of
Oxford, with both of whom, and with such men as Walter Warner and Robert
Hughes the mathematicians, Thomas Harriott the notable astronomer, and
Matthew Royden, the dramatist is said to have met in free converse.
Either this free converse or the licentious character of some of the
young dramatist's tirades seems to have sown a suspicion among the
strait-laced that his morals left everything to be desired. It is
probable enough that this attitude of reprobation drove a man of so
exalted a disposition as Marlowe into a more insurgent attitude than he
would have otherwise adopted. He seems at any rate to have been
associated with what was denounced as Sir Walter Raleigh's school of
atheism, and to have dallied with opinions which were then regarded as
putting a man outside the pale of civilized humanity. As the result of
some depositions made by Thomas Kyd under the influence of torture, the
Privy Council were upon the eve of investigating some serious charges
against Marlowe when his career was abruptly and somewhat scandalously
terminated. The order had already been issued for his arrest, when he
was slain in a quarrel by a man variously named (Archer and Ingram) at
Deptford, at the end of May 1593, and he was buried on the 1st of June
in the churchyard of St Nicholas at Deptford. The following September
Gabriel Harvey referred to him as "dead of the plague." The disgraceful
particulars attached to the tragedy of Marlowe in the popular mind would
not seem to have appeared until four years later (1597) when Thomas
Beard, the Puritan author of _The Theatre of God's Judgements_, used the
death of this playmaker and atheist as one of his warning examples of
the vengeance of God. Upon the embellishments of this story, such as
that of Francis Meres the critic, in 1598, that Marlowe came to be
"stabbed to death by a bawdy servingman, a rival of his in his lewde
love," or that of William Vaughan in the _Golden Grove_ of 1600, in
which the unfortunate poet's dagger is thrust into his own eye in
prevention of his felonious assault upon an innocent man, his guest, it
is impossible now to pronounce. We really do not know the circumstances
of Marlowe's death. The probability is he was killed in a brawl, and his
atheism must be interpreted not according to the _ex parte_ accusation
of one Richard Baines, a professional informer (among the Privy Council
records), but as a species of rationalistic antinomianism, dialectic in
character, and closely related to the deflection from conventional
orthodoxy for which Kett was burnt at Norwich in 1589. A few months
before the end of his life there is reason to believe that he
transferred his services from the Lord Admiral's to Lord Strange's
Company, and may have thus been brought into communication with
Shakespeare, who in such plays as _Richard II._ and _Richard III._ owed
not a little to the influence of his romantic predecessor.
Marlowe's career as a dramatist lies between the years 1587 and 1593,
and the four great plays to which reference has been made were
_Tamburlaine the Great_, an heroic epic in dramatic form divided into
two parts of five acts each (1587, printed in 1590); _Dr Faustus_ (1588,
entered at Stationers' Hall 1601); _The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Jew
of Malta_ (dating perhaps from 1589, acted in 1592, printed in 1633);
and _Edward the Second_ (printed 1594). The very first words of
_Tamburlaine_ sound the trumpet note of attack in the older order of
things dramatic:--
"From jigging veins of riming mother wits
And such conceits as clownage keeps in pay
We'll lead you to the stately tent of war,
Where you shall hear the Scythian Tamburlaine
Threatening the world with high astounding terms
And scourging kingdoms with his conquering sword."
It leapt with a bound to a place beside Kyd's _Spanish Tragedy_, and few
plays have been more imitated by rivals (Greene's _Alphonsus of Aragon_,
Peek's _Battle of Alcazar, Selimus, Scanderbeg_) or more keenly
satirized by the jealousy and prejudice of out-distanced competitors.
(T. Se.)
The majestic and exquisite excellence of various lines and passages in
Marlowe's first play must be admitted to relieve, if it cannot be
allowed to redeem, the stormy monotony of Titanic truculence which
blusters like a simoom through the noisy course of its ten fierce acts.
With many and heavy faults, there is something of genuine greatness in
_Tamburlaine the Great_; and for two grave reasons it must always be
remembered with distinction and mentioned with honour. It is the first
poem ever written in English blank verse, as distinguished from mere
rhymeless decasyllabics; and it contains one of the noblest passages,
perhaps indeed the noblest, in the literature of the world, ever written
by one of the greatest masters of poetry in loving praise of the
glorious delights and sublime submission to the everlasting limits of
his art. In its highest and most distinctive qualities, in unfaltering
and infallible command of the right note of music and the proper tone of
colour for the finest touches of poetic execution, no poet of the most
elaborate modern school, working at ease upon every consummate resource
of luxurious learning and leisurely refinement, has ever excelled the
best and most representative work of a man who had literally no models
before him and probably or evidently was often if not always compelled
to write against time for his living.
The just and generous judgment passed by Goethe on the _Faustus_ of his
English predecessor in tragic treatment of the same subject is somewhat
more than sufficient to counterbalance the slighting or the sneering
references to that magnificent poem which might have been expected from
the ignorance of Byron or the incompetence of Hallam. And the particular
note of merit observed, the special point of the praise conferred, by
the great German poet should be no less sufficient to dispose of the
vulgar misconception yet lingering among sciolists and pretenders to
criticism, which regards a writer than whom no man was ever born with a
finer or a stronger instinct for perfection of excellence in execution
as a mere noble savage of letters, a rough self-taught sketcher or
scribbler of crude and rude genius, whose unhewn blocks of verse had in
them some veins of rare enough metal to be quarried and polished by
Shakespeare. What most impressed the author of _Faust_ in the work of
Marlowe was a quality the want of which in the author of _Manfred_ is
proof enough to consign his best work to the second or third class at
most. "How greatly it is all planned!" the first requisite of all great
work, and one of which the highest genius possible to a greatly gifted
barbarian could by no possibility understand the nature or conceive the
existence. That Goethe "had thought of translating it" is perhaps hardly
less precious a tribute to its greatness than the fact that it has been
actually and admirably translated by the matchless translator of
Shakespeare--the son of Victor Hugo; whose labour of love may thus be
said to have made another point in common, and forged as it were another
link of union, between Shakespeare and the young master of Shakespeare's
youth. Of all great poems in dramatic form it is perhaps the most
remarkable for absolute singleness of aim and simplicity of
construction; yet is it wholly free from all possible imputation of
monotony or aridity. _Tamburlaine_ is monotonous in the general roll and
flow of its stately and sonorous verse through a noisy wilderness of
perpetual bluster and slaughter; but the unity of tone and purpose in
_Doctor Faustus_ is not unrelieved by change of manner and variety of
incident. The comic scenes, written evidently with as little of labour
as of relish, are for the most part scarcely more than transcripts,
thrown into the form of dialogue, from a popular prose _History of Dr
Faustus_, and therefore should be set down as little to the discredit as
to the credit of the poet. Few masterpieces of any age in any language
can stand beside this tragic poem--it has hardly the structure of a
play--for the qualities of terror and splendour, for intensity of
purpose and sublimity of note. In the vision of Helen, for example, the
intense perception of loveliness gives actual sublimity to the sweetness
and radiance of mere beauty in the passionate and spontaneous selection
of words the most choice and perfect; and in like manner the sublimity
of simplicity in Marlowe's conception and expression of the agonies
endured by Faustus under the immediate imminence of his doom gives the
highest note of beauty, the quality of absolute fitness and propriety,
to the sheer straightforwardness of speech in which his agonizing horror
finds vent ever more and more terrible from the first to the last
equally beautiful and fearful verse of that tremendous monologue which
has no parallel in all the range of tragedy.
It is now a commonplace of criticism to observe and regret the decline
of power and interest after the opening acts of _The Jew of Malta_. This
decline is undeniable, though even the latter part of the play (the text
of which is very corrupt) is not wanting in rough energy; but the first
two acts would be sufficient foundation for the durable fame of a
dramatic poet. In the blank verse of Milton alone--who perhaps was
hardly less indebted than Shakespeare was before him to Marlowe as the
first English master of word-music in its grander forms--has the glory
or the melody of passages in the opening soliloquy of Barabbas been
possibly surpassed. The figure of the hero before it degenerates into
caricature is as finely touched as the poetic execution is excellent;
and the rude and rapid sketches of the minor characters show at least
some vigour and vivacity of touch.
In _Edward the Second_ the interest rises and the execution improves as
visibly and as greatly with the course of the advancing story as they
decline in _The Jew of Malta_. The scene of the king's deposition at
Kenilworth is almost as much finer in tragic effect and poetic quality
as it is shorter and less elaborate than the corresponding scene in
Shakespeare's _King Richard II_. The terror of the death-scene
undoubtedly rises into horror; but this horror is with skilful
simplicity of treatment preserved from passing into disgust. In pure
poetry, in sublime and splendid imagination, this tragedy is excelled by
_Doctor Faustus_; in dramatic power and positive impression of natural
effect it is certainly the masterpiece of Marlowe. It was almost
inevitable, in the hands of any poet but Shakespeare, that none of the
characters represented should be capable of securing or even exciting
any finer sympathy or more serious interest than attends on the mere
evolution of successive events or the mere display of emotions (except
always in the great scene of the deposition) rather animal than
spiritual in their expression of rage or tenderness or suffering. The
exact balance of mutual effect, the final note of scenic harmony,
between ideal conception and realistic execution is not yet struck with
perfect accuracy of touch and security of hand; but on this point also
Marlowe has here come nearer by many degrees to Shakespeare than any of
his other predecessors have ever come near to Marlowe.
Of _The Massacre at Paris_ (acted in 1593, printed 1600?) it is
impossible to judge fairly from the garbled fragment of its genuine text
which is all that has come down to us. To Mr Collier, among numberless
other obligations, we owe the discovery of a noble passage excised in
the piratical edition which gives us the only version extant of this
unlucky play, and which, it must be allowed, contains nothing of quite
equal value. This is obviously an occasional and polemical work, and
being as it is overcharged with the anti-Catholic passion of the time
has a typical quality which gives it some empirical significance and
interest. That antipapal ardour is indeed the only note of unity in a
rough and ragged chronicle which shambles and stumbles onward from the
death of Queen Jeanne of Navarre to the murder of the last Valois. It is
possible to conjecture, what it would be fruitless to affirm, that it
gave a hint in the next century to Nathaniel Lee for his far superior
and really admirable tragedy on the same subject, issued ninety-seven
years after the death of Marlowe.
In the tragedy of _Dido Queen of Carthage_ (completed by Thomas Nash,
produced and printed 1594), a servile fidelity to the text of Virgil's
narrative has naturally resulted in the failure which might have been
expected from an attempt at once to transcribe what is essentially
inimitable and to reproduce it under the hopelessly alien conditions of
dramatic adaptation. The one really noble passage in a generally feeble
and incomposite piece of work is, however, uninspired by the
unattainable model to which the dramatists have been only too obsequious
in their subservience. It is as nearly certain as anything can be which
depends chiefly upon cumulative and collateral evidence that the better
part of what is best in the serious scenes of _King Henry VI._ is mainly
the work of Marlowe. That he is at any rate the principal author of the
second and third plays passing under that name among the works of
Shakespeare, but first and imperfectly printed as _The Contention
between the two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster_, can hardly be now
a matter of debate among competent judges. The crucial difficulty of
criticism in this matter is to determine, if indeed we should not rather
say to conjecture, the authorship of the humorous scenes in prose,
showing as they generally do a power of comparatively high and pure
comic realism to which nothing in the acknowledged works of any
pre-Shakespearian dramatist is even remotely comparable. Yet, especially
in the original text of these scenes as they stand unpurified by the
ultimate revision of Shakespeare or his editors, there are tones and
touches which recall rather the clownish horseplay and homely ribaldry
of his predecessors than anything in the lighter interludes of his very
earliest plays. We find the same sort of thing which we find in their
writings, only better done than they usually do it, rather than such
work as Shakespeare's a little worse done than usual. And even in the
final text of the tragic or metrical scenes the highest note struck is
always, with one magnificent and unquestionable exception, rather in the
key of Marlowe at his best than of Shakespeare while yet in great
measure his disciple.
_A Taming of a Shrew_, the play on which Shakespeare's comedy was
founded, has been attributed, without good reason, to Marlowe. The
passages in the play borrowed from Marlowe's works provide an argument
against, rather than for his authorship; while the humorous character of
the play is not in keeping with his other work. He may have had a share
in _The Troublesome Raigne of King John_ (1591), and Fleay conjectured
that the plays _Edward III._ and _Richard III._ usually included in
editions of Shakespeare are at least based on plays by Marlowe. _Lust's
Dominion_, printed in 1657, was incorrectly ascribed to him, and a play
no longer extant, _The True History of George Scanderbage_, was assumed
by Fleay on the authority of an obscure passage of Gabriel Harvey to be
his work. _The Maiden's Holiday_, assigned to Day and Marlowe, was
destroyed by Warburton's cook. Day was considerably Marlowe's junior,
and collaboration between the two is not probable.
Had every copy of Marlowe's boyish version or perversion of Ovid's
_Elegies_ (P. Ovidii Nasonis _Amorum_ compressed into three books)
deservedly perished in the flames to which it was judicially condemned
by the sentence of a brace of prelates, it is possible that an
occasional bookworm, it is certain that no poetical student, would have
deplored its destruction, if its demerits could in that case have been
imagined. His translation of the first book of Lucan alternately rises
above the original and falls short of it,--often inferior to the Latin
in point and weight of expressive rhetoric, now and then brightened by a
clearer note of poetry and lifted into a higher mood of verse. Its
terseness, vigour and purity of style would in any case have been
praiseworthy, but are nothing less than admirable, if not wonderful,
when we consider how close the translator has on the whole (in spite of
occasional slips into inaccuracy) kept himself to the most rigid limit
of literal representation, phrase by phrase and often line by line. The
really startling force and felicity of occasional verses are worthier of
remark than the inevitable stiffness and heaviness of others, when the
technical difficulty of such a task is duly taken into account.
One of the most faultless lyrics and one of the loveliest fragments in
the whole range of descriptive and fanciful poetry would have secured a
place for Marlowe among the memorable men of his epoch, even if his
plays had perished with himself. His _Passionate Shepherd_ remains ever
since unrivalled in its way--a way of pure fancy and radiant melody
without break or lapse. The untitled fragment, on the other hand, has
been very closely rivalled, perhaps very happily imitated, but only by
the greatest lyric poet of England--by Shelley alone. Marlowe's poem of
_Hero and Leander_ (entered at Stationers' Hall in September 1593;
completed and brought out by George Chapman, who divided Marlowe's work
into two sestiads and added four of his own, 1598), closing with the
sunrise which closes the night of the lovers' union, stands alone in its
age, and far ahead of the work of any possible competitor between the
death of Spenser and the dawn of Milton. In clear mastery of narrative
and presentation, in melodious ease and simplicity of strength, it is
not less pre-eminent than in the adorable beauty and impeccable
perfection of separate lines or passages. It is doubtful whether the
heroic couplet has ever been more finely handled.
The place and the value of Christopher Marlowe as a leader among English
poets it would be almost impossible for historical criticism to
over-estimate. To none of them all, perhaps, have so many of the
greatest among them been so deeply and so directly indebted. Nor was
ever any great writer's influence upon his fellows more utterly and
unmixedly an influence for good. He first, and he alone, guided
Shakespeare into the right way of work; his music, in which there is no
echo of any man's before him, found its own echo in the more prolonged
but hardly more exalted harmony of Milton's. He is the greatest
discoverer, the most daring and inspired pioneer, in all our poetic
literature. Before him there was neither genuine blank verse nor a
genuine tragedy in our language. After his arrival the way was prepared,
the paths were made straight, for Shakespeare. (A. C. S.)
Marlowe's fame, so finely appreciated by Shakespeare and Drayton, was
in obscuration from the fall of the theatres until the generation of
Lamb and Hazlitt. A collected edition was brought out by Pickering in
1826. This was greatly improved upon by A. Dyce (1858, 1865, 1876). A
one-volume edition was prepared by Colonel Francis Cunningham in 1871.
The standard edition of Mr A. H. Bullen in 3 vols. appeared in
1884-1885 and is now under revision. The "Best Plays" were edited for
the Mermaid series by Havelock Ellis with an Introduction by J. A.
Symonds (1887-1889). The best modern text is that edited by C. F.
Tucker Brooke (Oxf. Univ. Press, 1910). A sketch in outline of
Marlowe's Life was essayed by J. G. Lewis (Canterbury, 1891). A not
very conclusive monograph on _Christopher Marlowe and his Associates_
by J. H. Ingram, followed in 1904. For further information the reader
should consult the histories of the stage by Collier, Ward, Fleay,
Schelling, and the studies of Shakespeare's Predecessors by Symonds,
Mezières, Boas, Manley, Churton Collins, Feuillerat and J. M.
Robertson. See also Verity's _Essay on Marlowe's Influence_ (1886);
_Mod. Lang. Rev._ iv. 167 (M. at Cambridge); Swinburne, _Study of
Shakespeare_ (1880); Elze, _Notes_, and Hazlitt _Dramatic Lit. of the
Age of Elizabeth_; _Fortnightly Review_, xiii., lxxi., and Sept.-Oct.,
1905; Jusserand, _Hist. of English Lit._; the _Cambridge Hist. of
English Lit._; Seccombe and Allen, _Age of Shakespeare_ (vol. ii. 3rd
ed., 1909), and the separate editions of _Dr Faustus_, _Edward II._,
&c. The main sources of Marlowe were as follows: for _Tamburlaine_,
Pedro Mexia's _Life of Timur_ in his _Silva_ (Madrid, 1543),
anglicized by Fortescue in his _Foreste_ (1571) and Petrus Perondinus
_Vita Magni Tamerlanis_ (1551); for _Faustus_: a contemporary English
version of the Faust-buch or _Historia von D. Johann Fausten_
(Frankfort, 1587), and for _Edward II._, the _Chronicles_ of Fabyan
(1516), Holinshed (1577) and Stow (1580). (T. Se.)
MARLOWE, JULIA [SARAH FRANCES FROST] (1870- ), American actress, was
born near Keswick, England, on the 17th of August 1870, and went with
her family to America in 1875. Her first formal appearance on the stage
was in New York in 1887, although she had before that travelled with a
juvenile opera company in _H.M.S. Pinafore_, and afterwards was given
such parts as Maria in _Twelfth Night_ in Miss Josephine Riley's
travelling company. Her first great success was as Parthenia in
_Ingomar_, and her subsequent presentations of Rosalind, Viola, and
Julia in _The Hunchback_ confirmed her position as a "star." In 1894 she
married Robert Taber, an actor, with whom she played until their divorce
in 1900. Subsequently she had great success as Barbara Frietchie in
Clyde Fitch's play of that name, and other dramas; and from 1904 to 1907
she acted with E. H. Sothern in a notable series of Shakespeare plays,
as well as in modern drama.
MARLY-LE-ROI, a village of northern France in the department of
Seine-et-Oise, 5 m. N. by W. of Versailles by road. Pop. (1906), 1409.
Notwithstanding some fine country houses, Marly is dull and
unattractive, and owes all its celebrity to the sumptuous château built
towards the end of the 17th century by Louis XIV., and now destroyed. It
was originally designed as a simple hermitage to which the king could
occasionally retire with a few of his more intimate friends from the
pomp of Versailles, but gradually it grew until it became one of the
most ruinous extravagances of the Grand Monarque. The central pavilion
(inhabited by the king himself) and its twelve subsidiary pavilions were
intended to suggest the sun surrounded by the signs of the zodiac.
Seldom visited by Louis XV., and wholly abandoned by Louis XVI., it was
demolished after the Revolution, its art treasures having previously
been dispersed, and the remains now consist of a large basin, the
Abreuvoir, a few mouldering ivy-grown walls, some traces of parterres
with magnificent trees, the park, and the forest of 8½ sq. m., one of
the most pleasant promenades of the neighbourhood of Paris, containing
the shooting preserves of the President of the Republic.
Close to the Seine, half-way between Marly-le-Roi and St Germain, is the
village of Port-Marly, and one mile farther up is the hamlet of
Marly-la-Machine. Here, in 1684, an immense hydraulic engine, driven by
the current of the river, was erected; it raised the water to a high
tower, where the aqueduct of Marly began (700 yds. in length, 75 in
height, with 36 arches, still well-preserved), carrying the waters of
the Seine to Versailles.
MARMALADE (adopted from Fr. _marmelade_, from _marmelo_, a quince,
derived through the Lat. _melimelum_, from Gr. [Greek: meli], honey, and
[Greek: mêlon], an apple, an apple grafted on a quince), a preserve
originally made of quinces, but now commonly of Seville oranges. The
"marmalade-tree" (_Lucuma mammosa_) bears a fruit whose thick pulp
resembles marmalade and is called natural marmalade. "Marmalade box" is
the name of the fruit of the _Genipa Americana_, which opens in the same
manner as a walnut, the nut being replaced by a soft pulp.
MARMANDE, a town of south-western France, capital of an arrondissement
in the department of Lot-et-Garonne, 35 m. N.W. of Agen, on the Southern
railway from Bordeaux to Cette. Pop. (1906), town 6373; commune, 9748.
Marmande is situated at the confluence of the Trec with the Garonne on
the right bank of the latter river, which is here crossed by a
suspension bridge. Public institutions include the sub-prefecture, the
tribunals of first instance and commerce, the communal college and
schools of commerce and industry and of agriculture. Apart from the
administrative offices, the only building of importance is the church of
Nôtre-Dame, which dates from the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries. The
graceful windows of the nave, the altarpiece of the 18th century, and in
particular, the Renaissance cloister adjoining the south side, are its
most interesting features. Among the industries are iron-founding, steam
sawing, the manufacture of woollens, carriage-making, cooperage and
brandy-distilling. There is a large trade in wine, plums, cattle, grain
and other agricultural produce.
Marmande was a _bastide_ founded about 1195 on the site of a more
ancient town by Richard Coeur de Lion, who granted it a liberal measure
of self-government. Its position on the banks of the Garonne made it an
important place of toll. It soon passed into the hands of the counts of
Toulouse, and was three times besieged and taken during the Albigensian
crusade, its capture by Amaury de Montfort in 1219 being followed by a
massacre of the inhabitants. It was united to the French crown under
Louis IX. A short occupation by the English in 1447, an unsuccessful
siege by Henry IV. in 1577 and its resistance of a month to a division
of Wellington's army in 1814, are the chief events in its subsequent
history.
MARMIER, XAVIER (1809-1892), French author, was born at Pontarlier, in
Doubs, on the 24th of June 1809. He had a passion for travelling, and
this he combined throughout his life with the production of literature.
After journeying in Switzerland, Belgium and Holland, he was attached in
1835 to the Arctic expedition of the "Recherche"; and after a couple of
years at Rennes as professor of foreign literature, he visited (1842)
Russia, (1845) Syria, (1846) Algeria, (1848-1849) North and South
America, and numerous volumes from his pen were the result. In 1870 he
was elected to the Academy, and he was for many years prominently
identified with the Sainte-Geneviève library. He did much to encourage
the study of Scandinavian literature in France, publishing translations
of Holberg, Oehlenschläger and others. He died in Paris on the 11th of
October 1892.
MARMONT, AUGUSTE FRÉDÉRIC LOUIS VIESSE DE, DUKE OF RAGUSA (1774-1852),
marshal of France, was born at Châtillon-sur-Seine, on the 20th of July
1774. He was the son of an ex-officer in the army who belonged to the
_petite noblesse_ and adopted the principles of the Revolution. His love
of soldiering soon showing itself, his father took him to Dijon to learn
mathematics prior to entering the artillery, and there he made the
acquaintance of Bonaparte, which he renewed after obtaining his
commission when he served in Toulon. The acquaintance ripened into
intimacy; Marmont became General Bonaparte's aide-de-camp, remained with
him during his disgrace and accompanied him to Italy and Egypt, winning
distinction and promotion to general of brigade. In 1799 he returned to
Europe with his chief; he was present at the _coup d'état_ of the 18th
Brumaire, and organized the artillery for the expedition to Italy, which
he commanded with great effect at Marengo. For this he was at once made
general of division. In 1801 he became inspector-general of artillery,
and in 1804 grand officer of the Legion of Honour, but was greatly
disappointed at being omitted from the list of officers who were made
marshals. In 1805 he received the command of a corps, with which he did
good service at Ulm. He was then directed to take possession of Dalmatia
with his army, and occupied Ragusa. For the next five years he was
military and civil governor of Dalmatia, and traces of his beneficent
régime still survive both in great public works and in the memories of
the people. In 1808 he was made duke of Ragusa, and in 1809, being
summoned by Napoleon to take part in the Austrian War, he marched to
Vienna and bore a share in the closing operations of the campaign.
Napoleon now made him a marshal and governor-general of all the Illyrian
provinces of the empire. In July 1810 Marmont was hastily summoned to
succeed Masséna in the command of the French army in the north of Spain.
The skill with which he manoeuvred his army during the year he commanded
it has been always acknowledged. His relief of Ciudad Rodrigo in the
autumn of 1811 in spite of the presence of the English army was a great
feat, and in the manoeuvring which preceded the battle of Salamanca he
had the best of it. But Wellington more than retrieved his position in
the battle (see SALAMANCA), and inflicted a severe defeat on the French,
Marmont himself being gravely wounded in the right arm and side. He
retired to France to recover, and was still hardly cured when in April
1813 Napoleon, who soon forgot his fleeting resentment for the defeat,
gave him the command of a corps. With it he served at the battles of
Lützen, Bautzen and Dresden, and throughout the great defensive campaign
of 1814 until the last battle before Paris, from which he drew back his
forces to the commanding position of Essonne. Here he had 20,000 men in
hand, and was the pivot of all thoughts. Napoleon said of this camp of
Essonne, "C'est là que viendront s'addresser toutes les intrigues,
toutes les trahisons; aussi y ai-je placé Marmont, mon enfant élevé sous
ma tente." Marmont then took upon himself a political rôle which has, no
doubt justly, been stigmatized as ungrateful and treasonable. A secret
convention was concluded, and Marmont's corps was surrounded by the
enemy. Napoleon, who still hoped to retain the crown for his infant son,
was prostrated, and said with a sadness deeper than violent words,
"Marmont me porte le dernier coup."
This act was never forgiven by Marmont's countrymen. On the restoration
of the Bourbons he was indeed made a peer of France and a major-general
of the royal guard, and in 1820 a knight of the Saint Esprit and a grand
officer of the order of St Louis; but he was never trusted. He was the
major-general of the guard on duty in July 1830, and was ordered to put
down with a strong hand any opposition to the ordinances (see FRANCE).
Himself opposed to the court policy, he yet tried to do his duty, and
only gave up the attempt to suppress the revolution when it became clear
that his troops were outmatched. This brought more obloquy upon him, and
the duc d'Angoulême even ordered him under arrest, saying, "Will you
betray us, as you betrayed him?" Marmont did not betray them; he
accompanied the king into exile and forfeited his marshalate thereby.
His desire to return to France was never gratified and he wandered in
central and eastern Europe, settling finally in Vienna, where he was
well received by the Austrian government, and strange to say made tutor
to the duke of Reichstadt, the young man who had once for a few weeks
been styled Napoleon II. He died at Venice on the 22nd of March 1852.
Much of his time in his last years was spent upon his _Mémoires_, which
are of great value for the military history of his time, though they
must be read as a personal defence of himself in various junctures
rather than as an unbiased account of his times. They show Marmont, as
he really was, an embittered man, who never thought his services
sufficiently requited, and above all, a man too much in love with
himself and his own glory to be a true friend or a faithful servant. His
strategy indeed tended to become pure virtuosity, and his tactics,
though neat, appear frigid and antiquated when contrasted with those of
the instinctive leaders, the fighting generals whom the theorists affect
to despise. But his military genius is undeniable, and he was as far
superior to the mere theorist as Lannes and Davout were to the pure
_divisionnaire_ or "fighting" general.
His works are _Voyage en Hongrie_, &c. (4 vols., 1837); _Voyage en
Sicile_ (1838); _Esprit des institutions militaires_ (1845); _César_;
_Xenophon_; and _Mémoires_ (8 vols., published after his death in
1856). See the long and careful notice by Sainte-Beuve, _Causeries du
Lundi_, vol. vi.
MARMONTEL, JEAN FRANÇOIS (1723-1799), French writer, was born of poor
parents at Bort, in Cantal, on the 11th of July 1723. After studying
with the Jesuits at Mauriac, he taught in their colleges at Clermont and
Toulouse; and in 1745, acting on the advice of Voltaire, he set out for
Paris to try for literary honours. From 1748 to 1753 he wrote a
succession of tragedies which,[1] though only moderately successful on
the stage, secured the admission of the author to literary and
fashionable circles. He wrote for the _Encyclopédie_ a series of
articles evincing considerable critical power and insight, which in
their collected form, under the title _Éléments de Littérature_, still
rank among the French classics. He also wrote several comic operas, the
two best of which probably are _Sylvain_ (1770) and _Zémire et Azore_
(1771). In the Gluck-Piccini controversy he was an eager partisan of
Piccini with whom he collaborated in _Didon_ (1783) and _Pénélope_
(1785). In 1758 he gained the patronage of Madame de Pompadour, who
obtained for him a place as a civil servant, and the management of the
official journal _Le Mercure_, in which he had already begun the famous
series of _Contes moraux_. The merit of these tales lies partly in the
delicate finish of the style, but mainly in the graphic and charming
pictures of French society under Louis XV. The author was elected to the
French Academy in 1763. In 1767 he published a romance, _Bélisaire_, now
remarkable only on account of a chapter on religious toleration which
incurred the censure of the Sorbonne and the archbishop of Paris.
Marmontel retorted in _Les Incas_ (1778) by tracing the cruelties in
Spanish America to the religious fanaticism of the invaders.
He was appointed historiographer of France (1771), secretary to the
Academy (1783), and professor of history in the Lycée (1786). In his
character of historiographer Marmontel wrote a history of the regency
(1788) which is of little value. Reduced to poverty by the Revolution,
Marmontel in 1792 retired during the Terror to Evreux, and soon after to
a cottage at Abloville in the department of Eure. To that retreat we owe
his _Mémoires d'un père_ (4 vols., 1804) giving a picturesque review of
his whole life, a literary history of two important reigns, a great
gallery of portraits extending from the venerable Massillon, whom more
than half a century previously he had seen at Clermont, to Mirabeau. The
book was nominally written for the instruction of his children. It
contains an exquisitely drawn picture of his own childhood in the
Limousin; its value for the literary historian is very great. Marmontel
lived for some time under the roof of Mme Geoffrin, and was present at
her famous dinners given to artists; he was, indeed, an _habitué_ of
most of the houses where the encyclopaedists met. He had thus at his
command the best material for his portraits, and made good use of his
opportunities. After a short stay in Paris when elected in 1797 to the
Conseil des Anciens, he died on the 31st of December 1799 at Abloville.
See Sainte-Beuve, _Causeries du lundi_, iv.; Morellet, _Éloge_ (1805).