[1] From the Latin _cannabis_, Provençal _cannèbe_, "hemp," in
allusion to the rope-walks formerly occupying its site.
MARSH, ADAM (ADAM DE MARISCO) (d. c. 1258), English Franciscan, scholar
and theologian, was born about 1200 in the diocese of Bath, and educated
at Oxford under the famous Grosseteste. Before 1226 Adam received the
benefice of Wearmouth from his uncle, Richard Marsh, bishop of Durham;
but between that year and 1230 he entered the Franciscan order. About
1238 he became the lecturer of the Franciscan house at Oxford, and
within a few years was regarded by the English province of that order as
an intellectual and spiritual leader. Roger Bacon, his pupil, speaks
highly of his attainments in theology and mathematics. His fame,
however, rests upon the influence which he exercised over the statesmen
of his day. Consulted as a friend by Grosseteste, as a spiritual
director by Simon de Montfort, the countess of Leicester and the queen,
as an expert lawyer and theologian by the primate, Boniface of Savoy, he
did much to guide the policy both of the opposition and of the court
party in all matters affecting the interests of the Church. He shrank
from office, and never became provincial minister of the English
Franciscans, though constantly charged with responsible commissions.
Henry III. and Archbishop Boniface unsuccessfully endeavoured to secure
for him the see of Ely in 1256. In 1257 Adam's health was failing, and
he appears to have died in the following year. To judge from his
correspondence he took no interest in secular politics. He sympathized
with Montfort as with a friend of the Church and an unjustly treated
man; but on the eve of the baronial revolution he was on friendly terms
with the king. Faithful to the traditions of his order, he made it his
ambition to be a mediator. He rebuked both parties in the state for
their shortcomings, but he did not break with either.
See his correspondence, with J. S. Brewer's introduction, in
_Monumenta franciscana_, vol. i. (Rolls ser., 1858); the biographical
notice in A. G. Little's Grey _Friars in Oxford_ (Oxford, 1892), where
all the references are collected. On Marsh's relations with
Grosseteste, see _Roberti Grosseteste epistolae_, ed. H. R. Luard
(Rolls ed., 1861), and F. S. Stevenson, _Robert Grosseteste_ (London,
1809). (H. W. C. D.)
MARSH, GEORGE PERKINS (1801-1882), American diplomatist and philologist,
was born at Woodstock, Vermont, on the 15th of March 1801. He graduated
at Dartmouth College in 1820, was admitted to the bar in 1825, and
practised law at Burlington, Vermont, devoting himself also with ardour
to philological studies. In 1835 he was a member of the Supreme
Executive Council of Vermont, and from 1843 to 1849 a Whig
representative in Congress. In 1849 he was appointed United States
minister resident in Turkey, and in 1852-1853 discharged a mission to
Greece in connexion with the imprisonment by the authorities of that
country of an American missionary, Dr Jonas King (1792-1869). He
returned to Vermont in 1854, and in 1857 was a member of the state
railway commission. In 1861 he became the first United States minister
to the kingdom of Italy, and died in that office at Vallombrosa on the
23rd of July 1882. He was buried in a Protestant cemetery in Rome. Marsh
was an able linguist, writing and speaking with ease the Scandinavian
and half a dozen other European languages, a remarkable philologist for
his day, and a scholar of great breadth, knowing much of military
science, engraving and physics, as well as of Icelandic, which was his
specialty. He wrote many articles for Johnson's _Universal Cyclopaedia_,
and contributed many reviews and letters to the _Nation_. His chief
published works are: _A Compendious Grammar of the Old Northern or
Icelandic Language_ (1838), compiled and translated from the grammars of
Rask; _The Camel, his Organization, Habits, and Uses, with Reference to
his Introduction into the United States_ (1856); _Lectures on the
English Language_ (1860); _The Origin and History of the English
Language_ (1862; revised ed., 1885); and _Man and Nature_ (1865). The
last-named work was translated into Italian in 1872, and, largely
rewritten, was issued in 1874 under the title _The Earth as Modified by
Human Action_; a revised edition was published in 1885. He also
published a work on _Mediaeval and Modern Saints and Miracles_ (1876).
His valuable library was presented in 1883 by Frederick Billings to the
university of Vermont. His second wife, CAROLINE (CRANE) MARSH
(1816-1901), whom he married in 1839, published _Wolfe of the Knoll and
other Poems_ (1860), and the _Life and Letters of George Perkins Marsh_
(New York, 1888). This last work was left incomplete, the second volume
never having been published. She also translated from the German of
Johann C. Biernatzki (1795-1840), _The Hallig; or the Sheepfold in the
Waters_ (1856).
MARSH, HERBERT (1757-1839), English divine, was born at Faversham, Kent,
on the 10th of December 1757, and was educated at St John's College,
Cambridge, where he was elected fellow in 1782, having been second
wrangler and second Smith's prizeman. For some years he studied at
Leipzig, and between 1793 and 1801 published in four volumes a
translation of J. D. Michaelis's _Introduction to the New Testament_,
with notes of his own, in which he may be said to have introduced German
methods of research into English biblical scholarship. His _History of
the Politics of Great Britain and France_ (1799) brought him much notice
and a pension from William Pitt. In 1807 he was appointed Lady Margaret
professor of divinity at Cambridge, and lectured to large audiences on
biblical criticism, substituting English for the traditional Latin. Both
here, and afterwards as bishop of Llandaff (1816) and of Peterborough
(1819), he stoutly opposed hymn-singing, Calvinism, Roman Catholicism,
and the Evangelical movement as represented by Charles Simeon and the
Bible Society. Among his writings are _Lectures on the Criticism and
Interpretation of the Bible_ (1828), _A Comparative View of the Churches
of England and Rome_ (1814), and _Horae Pelasgicae_ (1815). He died at
Peterborough on the 1st of May 1839.
MARSH, NARCISSUS (1638-1713), archbishop of Dublin and Armagh, was born
at Hannington, Wiltshire, and educated at Oxford. He became a fellow of
Exeter College, Oxford, in 1658. In 1662 he was ordained, and presented
to the living of Swindon, which he resigned in the following year. After
acting as chaplain to Seth Ward, bishop of Exeter and Salisbury, and
Lord Chancellor Clarendon, he was elected principal of St Alban Hall,
Oxford, in 1673. In 1679 he was appointed provost of Trinity College,
Dublin, where he did much to encourage the study of the Irish language.
He helped to found the Royal Dublin Society, and contributed to it a
paper entitled "Introductory Essay to the Doctrine of Sounds" (printed
in _Philosophical Transactions_, No. 156, Oxford, 1684). In 1683 he was
consecrated bishop of Ferns and Leighlin, but after the accession of
James II. he was compelled by the turbulent soldiery to flee to England
(1689), where he became vicar of Gresford, Flint, and canon of St Asaph.
Returning to Ireland in 1691 after the battle of the Boyne, he was made
archbishop of Cashel, and three years later he became archbishop of
Dublin. About this time he founded the Marsh Library in Dublin. He
became archbishop of Armagh in 1703. Between 1699 and 1711 he was six
times a lord justice of Ireland. He died on the 2nd of November 1713.
MARSH, OTHNIEL CHARLES (1831-1899), American palaeontologist, was born
in Lockport, New York, on the 29th of October 1831. He graduated at Yale
College in 1860, and studied geology and mineralogy in the Sheffield
scientific school, New Haven, and afterwards palaeontology and anatomy
in Berlin, Heidelberg and Breslau. Returning to America in 1866 he was
appointed professor of vertebrate palaeontology at Yale College, and
there began the researches of the fossil vertebrata of the western
states, whereby he established his reputation. He was aided by a private
fortune from his uncle, George Peabody, whom he induced to establish the
Peabody Museum of Natural History (especially devoted to zoology,
geology and mineralogy) in the college. In May 1871 he discovered the
first pterodactyl remains found in America, and in subsequent years he
brought to light from Wyoming and other regions many new genera and
families, and some entirely new orders of extinct vertebrata, which he
described in monographs or periodical articles. These included remains
of the Cretaceous toothed birds _Hesperornis_ and _Ichthyornis_, the
Cretaceous flying-reptiles (_Pteranodon_), the swimming reptiles or
Mosasauria, and the Cretaceous and Jurassic land reptiles (_Dinosauria_)
among which were the _Brontosaurus_ and _Atlantosaurus_. The remarkable
mammals which he termed Brontotheria (now grouped as Titanotheriidae),
and the huge Dinocerata, one being the _Uintatherium_, were also brought
to light by him. Among his later discoveries were remains of early
ancestors of horses in America. On becoming vice-president of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1875 he gave an
address on the "Introduction and Succession of Vertebrate Life in
America," summarizing his conclusions to that date. He repeatedly
organized and often accompanied scientific exploring expeditions in the
Rocky Mountains, and their results tended in an important degree to
support the doctrines of natural selection and evolution. He published
many papers on these, and found time--besides that necessarily given to
the accumulation and care of the most extensive collection of fossils in
the world--to write _Odontornithes: A Monograph on the Extinct Toothed
Birds of North America_ (1880); _Dinocerata: A Monograph on an Extinct
Order of Gigantic Mammals_ (1884); and _The Dinosaurs of North America_
(1896). His work is full of accurately recorded facts of permanent
value. He was long in charge of the division of vertebrate palaeontology
in the United States Geological Survey, and received many scientific
honours, medals and degrees, American and foreign. He died in New Haven
on the 18th of March 1899.
See obituary by Dr Henry Woodward (with portrait) in _Geol. Mag._
(1899), p. 237.
MARSH (O. F. _mersc_, for _merisc_, a place full of "meres" or pools;
cf. Ger. _Meer_, sea, Lat. _mare_), an area of low-lying watery land.
The significance of a marsh area is not so much in the manner of its
formation as in the peculiar chemical and physical results that
accompany it, and its relation to the ecology of plant and animal life.
Chemically it is productive of such gases as arise from decomposing
vegetation and are transitory in their effects, and in the production of
hydrated iron oxide, which may be seen floating as an iridescent scum at
the edge of rusty, marshy pools. This sinks into the soil and forms a
powerful iron cement to many sandstones, binding them into a hard local
mass, while the surrounding sandstones are loose and friable. A curious
morphological inversion follows in a later geological period, the marsh
area forming the hard cap of a hill (see MESA) while the surrounding
sandstones are weathered away. Salt marshes are a feature of many
low-lying sea-coasts and areas of inland drainage.
MARSHAL (med. Lat. _marescalcus_, from O.H.Ger. _marah_, horse, and
_scalc_, servant), a title given in various countries to certain
military and civil officers, usually of high rank. The origin and
development of the meaning of the designation is closely analogous with
that of constable (q.v.). Just as the title of constable, in all its
medieval and modern uses, is traceable to the style and functions of the
Byzantine count of the stable, so that of marshal was evolved from the
title of the _marescalci_, or masters of the horse, of the early
Frankish kings. In this original sense the word survived down to the
close of the Holy Roman empire in the titular office of _Erz-Marschalk_
(arch-marshal), borne by the electors of Saxony. Elsewhere the meaning
of office and title was modified. The importance of cavalry in medieval
warfare led to the marshalship being associated with military command;
this again led to the duty of keeping order in court and camp, of
deciding questions of chivalry, and to the assumption of judicial and
executive functions. The marshal, as a military leader, was originally a
subordinate officer, the chief command under the king being held by the
constable; but in the 12th century, though still nominally second to the
constable, the marshal has come to the forefront as commander of the
royal forces and a great officer of state. In England after the Conquest
the marshalship was hereditary in the family which derived its surname
from the office, and the hereditary title of earl-marshal originated in
the marriage of William Marshal with the heiress of the earldom of
Pembroke (see EARL MARSHAL). Similarly, in Scotland, the office of
marischal (from the French _maréchal_), probably introduced under David
I., became in the 14th century hereditary in the house of Keith. In 1485
the Scottish marischal became an earl under the designation of
earl-marischal, the dignity coming to an end by the attainder of George,
10th earl-marischal, in 1716. In France, on the other hand, though under
Philip Augustus the marshal of France (_marescalcus Franciae_) appears
as commander-in-chief of the forces, care was taken not to allow the
office to become descendible; under Francis I. the number of marshals of
France was raised to two, under Henry III. to four, and under Louis XIV.
to twenty. Revived by Napoleon, the title fell into abeyance with the
downfall of the Second empire.
In England the use of the word marshal in the sense of commander of an
army appears very early; so Matthew Paris records that in 1214 King John
constituted William, earl of Salisbury, _marescalcus_ of his forces. The
modern military title of field marshal, imported from Germany by King
George II. in 1736, is derived from the high dignity of the
_marescalcus_ in a roundabout way. The _marescalcus campi_, or _maréchal
des champs_, was originally one of a number of officials to whom the
name, with certain of the functions, of the marshal was given. The
marshal, being responsible for order in court and camp, had to employ
subordinates, who developed into officials often but nominally dependent
upon him. On military expeditions it was usual for two such marshals to
precede the army, select the site of the camp and assign to the lords
and knights their places in it. In time of peace they preceded the king
on a journey and arranged for his lodging and maintenance. In France
_maréchal des logis_ is the title of superior non-commissioned officers
in the cavalry.
Similarly at the king's court the _marescalcus aulae_ or _intrinsecus_
was responsible for order, the admission or exclusion of those seeking
access, ceremonial arrangements, &c. Such "marshals" were maintained,
not only by the king, but by great lords and ecclesiastics. The more
dignified of their functions, together with the title, survive in the
various German courts, where the court marshal (_Hofmarschall_) is
equivalent to the English lord chamberlain. Just as the _marescalcus
intrinsecus_ acted as the vicar of the marshal for duties "within" the
court, so the _marescalcus forinsecus_ was deputed to perform those acts
of serjeanty due from the marshal to the Crown "without." Similarly
there appears in the statute 5 Edw. III. cap. 8, a _marescalcus banci
regii_ (_maréchal du Banc du Roy_), or marshal of the king's bench, who
presided over the Marshalsea Court, and was responsible for the safe
custody of prisoners, who were bestowed in the _mareschalcia_, or
Marshalsea prison. The office of marshal of the queen's bench survived
till 1849 (see LORD STEWARD; and MARSHALSEA). The official known as a
judge's marshal, whose office is of considerable antiquity, and whose
duties consisted of making abstracts of indictments and pleadings for
the use of the judge, still survives, but no longer exercises the above
functions. He accompanies a judge of assize on circuit and is appointed
by him at the beginning of each circuit. His travelling and other
expenses are paid by the judge, and he receives an allowance of two
guineas a day, which is paid through the Treasury. He introduces the
high sheriff of the county to the judge of assize on his arrival, and
swears in the grand jury. For the French _maréchaussée_ see FRANCE: §
_Law and Institutions_.
In the sense of executive legal officer the title marshal survives in
the United States of America in two senses. The United States marshal is
the executive officer of the Federal courts, one being appointed for
each district, or exceptionally, one for two districts. His duties are
to open and close the sessions of the district and circuit courts, serve
warrants, and execute throughout the district the orders of the court.
There are United States marshals also in Alaska, Hawaii, Porto Rico and
the Philippines. They are appointed by the President, with the advice
and consent of the Senate, for a term of four years, and, besides their
duties in connexion with the courts, are employed in the service of the
internal revenue, public lands, post office, &c. The temporary police
sworn in to maintain order in times of disturbance, known in England as
special constables, are also termed marshals in the United States. In
some of the southern and western states of the Union the title marshal
has sunk to that of the village policeman, as distinct from the county
officers known as sheriffs and those of the justices' courts called
constables.
In England the title of marshal, as applied to an executive officer,
survives only in the army, where the provost marshal is chief of the
military police in large garrisons and in field forces. Office and title
were borrowed from the French _prévot des maréchaux_, the modern
equivalent of the medieval _praepositus marescalcorum_ or _guerrarum_.
MARSHALL, ALFRED (1842- ), English economist, was born in London on
the 26th of July 1842. He was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School
and St John's College, Cambridge, being second wrangler in 1865, and in
the same year becoming fellow of his college. He became principal of
University College, Bristol, in 1877, and was lecturer and fellow of
Balliol College, Oxford in 1883-1884. He was professor of political
economy at Cambridge University from 1885 to 1908, and was a member of
the Royal Commission on Labour in 1891. He became a fellow of the
British Academy in 1902. He wrote (in conjunction with his wife)
_Economics of Industry_ (1879), whilst his _Principles of Economics_
(1st ed., 1890) is a standard English treatise.
MARSHALL, JOHN (1755-1835), American jurist, chief-justice of the U.S.
Supreme Court, was born on the 24th of September 1755 at Germantown (now
Midland), in what four years later became Fauquier county, Virginia. He
was of English descent, the son of Thomas Marshall (1732-1806) and his
wife Mary Isham Keith. Marshall served first as lieutenant and after
July 1778 as captain in the Continental Army during the War of
Independence. He resigned his commission early in 1781; was admitted to
the bar after a brief course of study, first practised in Fauquier
county; and after two years began to practise in Richmond. In 1786 we
find him counsel in a case of great importance, _Hite_ v. _Fairfax_,
involving the original title of Lord Fairfax to that large tract of
country between the headwaters of the Potomac and Rappahannock, known as
the northern neck of Virginia. Marshall represented tenants of Lord
Fairfax and won his case. From this time, as is shown by an examination
of Call's _Virginia Reports_ which cover the period, he maintained the
leadership of the bar of Virginia. He was a member of the Virginia
Assembly in 1782-1791 and again in 1795-1797; and in 1788, he took a
leading part in the Virginia Convention called to act on the proposed
constitution for the United States, with Madison ably urging the
ratification of that instrument. In 1795 Washington offered him the
attorney-generalship, and in 1796, after the retirement of James Monroe,
the position of minister to France. Marshall declined both offers
because his situation at the bar appeared to him "to be more independent
and not less honourable than any other," and his "preference for it was
decided." He spent the autumn and winter of 1797-1798 in France as one
of the three commissioners appointed by President John Adams to adjust
the differences between the young republic and the directory. The
commission failed, but the course pursued by Marshall was approved in
America, and with the resentment felt because of the way in which the
commission had been treated in France, made him, on his return,
exceedingly popular. To this popularity, as well as to the earnest
advocacy of Patrick Henry, he owed his election as a Federalist to the
National House of Representatives in the spring of 1799, though the
feeling in Richmond was overwhelmingly in favour of the opposition or
Republican party. His most notable service in Congress was his speech on
the case of Thomas Nash, alias Jonathan Robbins, in which he showed that
there is nothing in the constitution of the United States which prevents
the Federal government from carrying out an extradition treaty. He was
secretary of state under President Adams from the 6th of June 1800 to
the 4th of March 1801. In the meantime he had been appointed
chief-justice of the Supreme Court, his commission bearing date the 31st
of January. Thus while still secretary he presided as chief-justice.
At the time of Marshall's appointment it was generally considered that
the Supreme Court was the one department of the new government which had
failed in its purpose. John Jay, the first chief-justice, who had
resigned in 1795, had just declined a reappointment to the
chief-justiceship on the ground that he had left the bench perfectly
convinced that the court would never acquire proper weight and dignity,
its organization being fatally defective. The advent of the new
chief-justice was marked by a change in the conduct of business in the
court. Since its organization, following the prevailing English custom,
the judges had pronounced their opinions seriatim. But beginning with
the December term 1801, the chief-justice became practically the sole
mouthpiece of the court. For eleven years the opinions are almost
exclusively his, and there are few recorded dissents. The change was
admirably adapted to strengthen the power and dignity of the court. The
chief-justice embodied the majesty of the judicial department of the
government almost as fully as the president stood for the power of the
executive. That this change was acquiesced in by his associates without
diminishing their goodwill towards their new chief is testimony to the
persuasive force of Marshall's personality; for his associates were not
men of mediocre ability. After the advent of Mr Justice Joseph Story the
practice was abandoned. Marshall, however, still delivered the opinion
in the great majority of cases, and in practically all cases of any
importance involving the interpretation of the Constitution. During the
course of his judicial life his associates were as a rule men of
learning and ability. During most of the time the majority were the
appointees of Democratic presidents, and before their elevation to the
bench supposed to be out of sympathy with the federalistic ideas of the
chief-justice. Yet in matters pertaining to constitutional construction,
they seem to have had hardly any other function than to add the weight
of their silent concurrence to the decision of their great chief. Thus
the task of expounding the constitution during the most critical period
of its history was his, and it was given to him to preside over the
Supreme Court when it was called upon to decide four cases of vital
importance: _Marbury_ v. _Madison_, _M'Culloch_ v. _Maryland_, _Cohens_
v. _Virginia_ and _Gibbons_ v. _Ogden_. In each of these cases it is
Marshall who writes the opinion of the court; in each the continued
existence of the peculiar Federal system established by the Constitution
depended on the action of the court, and in each the court adopted a
principle which is now generally perceived to be essential to the
preservation of the United States as a federal state.
In _Marbury_ v. _Madison_, which was decided two years after his
elevation to the bench, he decided that it was the duty of the court
to disregard any act of Congress, and, therefore, a fortiori any act
of a legislature of one of the states, which the court thought
contrary to the Federal Constitution.
In _Cohens_ v. _Virginia_, in spite of the contention of Jefferson and
the then prevalent school of political thought that it was contrary to
the Constitution for a person to bring one of the states of the United
States, though only as an appellee, into a court of justice, he held
that Congress could lawfully pass an act which permitted a person who
was convicted in a state court, to appeal to the Supreme Court of the
United States, if he alleged that the state act under which he was
convicted conflicted with the Federal Constitution or with an act of
Congress.
In _M'Culloch_ v. _Maryland_, though admitting that the Federal
government is one of delegated powers and cannot exercise any power
not expressly given in the Constitution, he laid down the rule that
Congress in the exercise of a delegated power has a wide latitude in
the choice of means, not being confined in its choice of means to
those which must be used if the power is to be exercised at all.
Lastly, in _Gibbons_ v. _Ogden_, he held that when the power to
regulate interstate and foreign commerce was conferred by the
Constitution on the Federal government, the word "commerce" included
not only the exchange of commodities, but the means by which
interstate and foreign intercourse was carried on, and therefore that
Congress had the power to license vessels to carry goods and
passengers between the states, and an act of one of the states making
a regulation which interfered with such regulation of Congress was,
_pro tanto_, of no effect. It will be seen that in the first two cases
he established the Supreme Court as the final interpreter of the
Constitution.
The decision in _M'Culloch_ v. _Maryland_, by leaving Congress
unhampered in the choice of means to execute its delegated powers,
made it possible for the Federal government to accomplish the ends of
its existence. "Let the end be legitimate," said Marshall in the
course of its opinion, "let it be within the scope of the
Constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly
adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the
letter and spirit of the Constitution, are constitutional."
If the decision in _M'Culloch_ v. _Maryland_ gave vigour to all
Federal power, the decision in _Gibbons_ v. _Ogden_, by giving the
Federal government control over the means by which interstate and
foreign commerce is carried on, preserved the material prosperity of
the country. The decision recognizes what the framers of the
Constitution recognized, namely that the United States is an economic
union, and that business which is national should be under national,
not state, control.
Though for the reasons stated, the four cases mentioned are the most
important of his decisions, the value of his work as an expounder of the
Constitution of the United States is not to be measured by these cases
alone. In all he decided forty-four cases involving constitutional
questions. Nearly every important part of the Constitution of the United
States as it existed before the amendments which were adopted after the
Civil War, is treated in one or more of them. The Constitution in its
most important aspects is the Constitution as he interpreted it. He did
not work out completely the position of the states in the Federal
system, but he did grasp and establish the position of the Federal
legislature and the Federal judiciary. To appreciate his work, however,
it is necessary to see that it was the work not of a statesman but of a
judge. Had Marshall been merely a far-seeing statesman, while most of
his important cases would have been decided as he decided them, his
life-work would have been a failure. It was not only necessary that he
should decide great constitutional questions properly, but also that the
people of the United States should be convinced of the correctness of
his interpretation of the Constitution. His opinions, therefore, had to
carry to those who studied them a conviction that the constitution as
written had been interpreted according to its evident meaning. They
fulfilled this prime requisite. Their chief characteristic is the
cumulative force of the argument. The ground for the premiss is
carefully prepared, the premiss itself is clearly stated; nearly every
possible objection is examined and answered; and then comes the
conclusion. There is little or no repetition, but there is a wealth of
illustration, a completeness of analysis, that convinces the reader, not
only that the subject has been adequately treated, but that it has been
exhausted. His style, reflecting his character, suits perfectly the
subject matter. Simple in the best sense of the word, his intellectual
processes were so clear that he never doubted the correctness of the
conclusion to which they led him. Apparently from his own point of view,
he merely indicated the question at issue, and the inexorable rules of
logic did the rest. Thus his opinions are simple, clear, dignified.
Intensely interesting, the interest is in the argument, not in its
expression. He had, in a wonderful degree, the power of phrase. He
expressed important principles of law in language which tersely yet
clearly conveyed his exact meaning. Not only is the Constitution
interpreted largely as he taught the people of the United States to
interpret it, but when they wish to express important constitutional
principles which he enunciated they use his exact words. Again, his
opinions show that he adhered closely to the words of the Constitution;
indeed no one who has attempted to expound that instrument has confined
himself more strictly to an examination of the text. In the proper,
though not in the historical, sense he was the strictest of strict
constructionalists, and as a result his opinions are practically devoid
of theories of government, sovereignty and the rights of man.
A single illustration of his avoidance of all theory and his adherence
to the words of the Constitution will suffice. In the case of the
_United States_ v. _Fisher_ the constitutional question involved was
the power of Congress to give to the United States a preference over
all other creditors in the distribution of the assets of a bankrupt.
Such an act can be upheld on the ground that all governments have
necessarily the right to give themselves priority. Not so Marshall. To
him the act must be supported, if supported at all, not on any theory
of the innate nature of the government, national or otherwise, but as
a reasonable means of carrying out one of the express powers conferred
by the Constitution on the Federal government. Thus, he upholds the
act in question because of the power expressly conferred on the
Federal government to pay the debts of the union, and as a necessary
consequence of this power the right to make remittances by bills or
otherwise and to take precautions which will render the transactions
safe.
It is important to emphasize the fact that Marshall adhered in his
opinions to the Constitution as written, not only because it is a fact
which must be recognized if we are to understand the correct value of
his work in the field of constitutional law, but also because there
exists to-day a popular impression that by implication he stretched to
the utmost the powers of the Federal government. This impression is due
primarily to the ignorance of many of those who have undertaken to
praise him. During his life he was charged by followers of the States
Rights School of political thought with upholding Federal power in cases
not warranted by the constitution. Later, however, those who admired a
strong national government, without taking the trouble to ascertain
whether the old criticism by members of the States Rights Party was
just, regarded the assumption on which it was founded as Marshall's best
claim to his country's gratitude.
As a constitutional lawyer, Marshall stands without a rival. His work on
international law and admiralty is of first rank. But though a good, he
was not a great, common law or equity lawyer. In these fields he did not
make new law nor clarify what was obscure, and his constitutional
opinions which to-day are found least satisfactory are those in which
the question to be solved necessarily involves the discussion of some
common-law conception, especially those cases in which he was required
to construe the restriction imposed by the Constitution on any state
impairing the obligation of contracts. His decision in the celebrated
case of _Dartmouth College_ v. _Woodward_, in which he held that a state
could not repeal a charter of a private corporation, because a charter
is a contract which a subsequent act of the state repealing the charter
impairs, though of great economic importance, does not touch any
fundamental question of constitutional law. The argument which he
advances lacks the clearness and finality for which most of his opinions
are celebrated. It is not certain with whom he thought the contract was
made: with the corporation created by the charter, with the trustees of
the corporation, or with those who had contributed money to its objects.
Of the wonderful persuasive force of Marshall's personality there is
abundant evidence. His influence over his associates, already referred
to, is but one example though a most impressive one. From the moment he
delivered the opinion in _Marbury_ v. _Madison_ the legal profession
knew that he was a great judge. Each year added to his reputation and
made for a better appreciation of his intellectual and moral qualities.
The bar of the Supreme Court during his chief-justiceship was the most
brilliant which the United States has ever known. Leaders, not only of
legal, but political thought were among its members; one, Webster, was a
man of genius and commanding position. To a very great degree Marshall
impressed on the members of this bar and on the profession generally his
own ideas of the correct interpretation of the Constitution and his own
love for the union. He did this, not merely by his arguments but by the
influence which was his by right of his strong, sweet nature. Statesmen
and politicians, great and small, were at this time, almost without
exception, members of the bar. To influence the political thought of the
bar was to a great extent to influence the political thought of the
people.
In 1782 he married Mary Willis Ambler, the daughter of the then
treasurer of Virginia. They had ten children, six of whom grew to full
age. For the greater part of the forty-eight years of their married life
Mrs Marshall suffered intensely from a nervous affliction. Her condition
called out the love and sympathy of her husband's deep and affectionate
nature. Judge Story tells us: "That which, in a just sense, was his
highest glory, was the purity, affectionateness, liberality and
devotedness of his domestic life." For the first thirty years of his
chief-justiceship his life was a singularly happy one. He never had to
remain in Washington for more than three months. During the rest of the
year, with the exception of a visit to Raleigh, which his duties as
circuit judge required him to make, and a visit to his old home in
Fauquier county, he lived in Richmond. His house on Shockhoe Hill is
still standing.
On Christmas Day 1831 his wife died. He never was quite the same again.
On returning from Washington in the spring of 1835 he suffered severe
contusions, from an accident to the stage coach in which he was riding.
His health, which had not been good, now rapidly declined and in June he
returned to Philadelphia for medical attendance. There he died on the
6th of July. His body, which was taken to Richmond, lies in Shockhoe
Hill Cemetery under a plain marble slab, on which is a simple
inscription written by himself. In addition to his decisions Marshall
wrote a famous biography of George Washington (5 vols., 1804-1807; 2nd
ed., 2 vols., 1832), which though prepared hastily contains much
material of value.
The principal sources of information are: an essay by James B. Thayer
(Boston and New York, 1904); _Great American Lawyers_ (Philadelphia,
1908), ii. 313-408, an essay by Wm. Draper Lewis; and Allan B.
Magruder, _John Marshall_ (Boston, 1885), in the "American Statesmen
Series." The addresses delivered on Marshall Day, the 4th of February
1901, are collected by John F. Dillon (Chicago, 1903). In the
"Appendix" to Dillon's collection will be found the "Discourse" by
Joseph Story and the "Eulogy" by Horace Binney, both delivered soon
after Marshall's death. For a study of Marshall's decisions, the
_Constitutional Decisions of John Marshall_, edited by Joseph P.
Collon, Jr. (New York and London, 1905), is of value. (W. D. L.)
MARSHALL, JOHN (1818-1891), British surgeon and physiologist, was born
at Ely, on the 11th of September 1818, his father being a lawyer of that
city. He entered University College, London, in 1838, and in 1847 he was
appointed assistant-surgeon at the hospital, becoming in 1866 surgeon
and professor of surgery. He was professor of anatomy at the Royal
Academy from 1873 till his death. In 1883 he was president of the
College of Surgeons, also Bradshaw lecturer (on "Nerve-stretching for
the relief or cure of pain"), Hunterian orator in 1885, and Morton
lecturer in 1889. In 1867 he published his well-known textbook _The
Outlines of Physiology_ in two volumes. He died on the 1st of January
1891. "Marshall's fame," wrote Sir W. MacCormac in his volume on the
_Centenary of the College of Surgeons_ (1900), "rests on the great
ability with which he taught anatomy in relation to art, on the
introduction into modern surgery of the galvano-cautery, and on the
operation for the excision of varicose veins. He was one of the first to
show that cholera might be spread by means of drinking water, and issued
a report on the outbreak of cholera in Broad Street, St James's, 1854.
He also invented the system of circular wards for hospitals, and to him
are largely owing the details of the modern medical student's
education."
MARSHALL, STEPHEN (c. 1594-1655), English Nonconformist divine, was born
at Godmanchester in Huntingdonshire, and was educated at Emmanuel
College, Cambridge (M.A. 1622, B.D. 1629). After holding the living of
Wethersfield in Essex he became vicar of Finchingfield in the same
county, and in 1636 was reported for "want of conformity." He was a
preacher of great power, and influenced the elections for the Short
Parliament of 1640. Clarendon esteemed his influence on the
parliamentary side greater than that of Laud on the royalist. In 1642 he
was appointed lecturer at St Margaret's, Westminster, and delivered a
series of addresses to the Commons in which he advocated episcopal and
liturgical reform. He had a share in writing _Smectymnuus_, was
appointed chaplain to the earl of Essex's regiment in 1642, and a member
of the Westminster Assembly in 1643. He represented the English
Parliament in Scotland in 1643, and attended the parliamentary
commissions at the Uxbridge Conference in 1645. He waited on Archbishop
Laud before his execution, and was chaplain to Charles I. at Holmby
House and at Carisbrooke. A moderate and judicious presbyterian, he
prepared with others the "Shorter Catechism" in 1647, and was one of the
"Triers," 1654. He died in November 1655 and was buried in Westminster
Abbey, but his body was exhumed and maltreated at the Restoration. His
sermons, especially that on the death of John Pym in 1643, reveal
eloquence and fervour. The only "systematic" work he published was _A
Defence of Infant Baptism_, against John Tombes (London, 1646).
MARSHALL, a city and the county-seat of Saline county, Missouri, U.S.A.,
situated a little W. of the centre of the state, near the Salt Fork of
the La Mine River. Pop. (1890), 4297; (1900), 5086 (208 being
foreign-born and 98 negroes); (1910) 4869. It is served by the Missouri
Pacific and the Chicago & Alton railways. The city is laid out regularly
on a high, undulating prairie. It is the seat of Missouri Valley College
(opened 1889; co-educational), which was established by the Cumberland
Presbyterian church, and includes a preparatory department and a
conservatory of music. The court-house (1883), a Roman Catholic convent
and a high school (1907) are the principal buildings. The Missouri
colony for the feeble-minded and epileptic (1899) is at Marshall. The
principal trade is with the surrounding farming country. The
municipality owns and operates the waterworks. Marshall was first
settled and was made the county seat in 1839; it became a town in 1866
(re-incorporated 1870) and a city in 1878.
MARSHALL, a city and the county-seat of Harrison county, Texas, U.S.A.,
about 145 m. E. by S. of Dallas. Pop. (1890), 7207; (1900) 7855 (3769
negroes); (1910) 11,452. Marshall is served by the Texas & Pacific and
the Marshall & East Texas railways, which have large shops here. Wiley
University was founded in 1873 by the Freedman's Aid Society of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, and Bishop College, was founded in 1881 by
the American Baptist Home Mission Society and incorporated in 1885.
Marshall is situated in a region growing cotton and Indian corn,
vegetables, small fruits and sugar-cane; in the surrounding country
there are valuable forests of pine, oak and gum. In the vicinity of the
city there are several lakes (including Caddo Lake) and springs
(including Hynson and Rosborough springs). The city has a cotton
compress, and among its manufactures are cotton-seed oil, lumber, ice,
foundry products and canned goods. The municipality owns and operates
the waterworks. Marshall was first settled in 1842, was incorporated in
1843, and received a city charter in 1848; in 1909 it adopted the
commission form of government.
MARSHALL ISLANDS, an island group in the western Pacific Ocean
(Micronesia) belonging to Germany. The group consists of a number of
atolls ranged in two almost parallel lines, which run from N.W. to S.E.
between 4° and 15° N. and 161° and 174° E. The north-east line, with
fifteen islands, is called Ratak, the other, numbering eighteen, Ralik.
These atolls are of coralline formation and of irregular shape. They
rise but little above high-water mark. The highest elevation occurs on
the island of Likieb, but is only 33 ft. The lagoon is scarcely more
than 150 ft. deep and is accessible through numerous breaks in the reef.
On the outward side the shore sinks rapidly to a great depth. The
surface of the atolls is covered with sand, except in a few places where
it has been turned into soil through the admixture of decayed
vegetation. The reef in scarcely any instance exceeds 600 ft. in width.
The climate is moist and hot, the mean temperature being 80.50° F.
Easterly winds prevail all the year round. There is no difference
between the seasons, which, though the islands belong to the northern
hemisphere, have the highest temperature in January and the lowest in
July. Vegetation, on the whole, is very poor. There are many coco-nut
palms, bread-fruit trees (_Artocarpus incisa_), various kinds of
bananas, yams and taro, and pandanus, of which the natives eat the
seeds. From the bark of another plant they manufacture mats. There are
few animals. Cattle do not thrive, and even poultry are scarce. Pigs,
cats, dogs and rats have been imported. There are a few pigeons and
aquatic birds, butterflies and beetles. Crustacea and fish abound on the
reefs.
The natives are Micronesians of a dark brown colour, though lighter
shades occur. Their hair is not woolly but straight and long. They
practise tattooing, and show Papuan influence by distending the
ear-lobes by the insertion of wooden disks. They are expert navigators,
and construct curious charts of thin strips of wood tied together with
fibres, some giving the position of the islands and some the direction
of the prevailing winds. Their canoes carry sails and are made of the
trunk of the bread-fruit tree. The people are divided into four classes,
of which only two are allowed to own land. The islands lie entirely
within the German sphere of interest, and the boundaries were agreed
upon between Great Britain and Germany on the 10th of April 1889. Their
area is estimated at 160 sq. m., with 15,000 inhabitants, who are
apparently increasing, though the contrary was long believed. All but
about 250 are natives. The administrator of the islands is the governor
of German New Guinea, but a number of officials reside on the islands.
There is no military force, the natives being of peaceful disposition.
The chief island and seat of government is Jaluit. The most populous
island is Majeru, with 1600 inhabitants. The natives are generally
pagans, but a Roman Catholic mission has been established, and the
American Mission Board maintains coloured teachers on many of the
islands. There is communication with Sydney by private steamer, and a
steamer sails between Jaluit and Ponape to connect with the French boats
for Singapore. The chief products for export are copra, tortoise-shell,
mother-of-pearl, sharks' fins and trepang. The natives are clever
boat-builders, and find a market for their canoes on neighbouring
islands. They have made such progress in their art that they have even
built seaworthy little schooners of 30 to 40 tons. The only other
articles they make are a few shell ornaments.
The Marshall Islands may have been visited by Alvaro de Saavedra in
1529, Captain Wallis touched at the group in 1767, and in 1788 Captains
Marshall and Gilbert explored it. The Germans made a treaty with the
chieftains of Jaluit in 1878 and annexed the group in 1885-1886.
See C. Hager, _Die Marshall-Inseln_ (Leipzig, 1886); Steinbach and
Grösser, _Wörterbuch der Marshall-Sprache_ (Hamburg, 1902).
MARSHALLTOWN, a city and the county-seat of Marshall county, Iowa,
U.S.A., near the Iowa River and about 60 m. N.E. of Des Moines. Pop.
(1890), 8914; (1900), 11,544, of whom 1590 were foreign-born; (1910
census) 13,374. Marshalltown is served by the Chicago & North-Western,
the Chicago Great Western, and the Iowa Central railways, the last of
which has machine shops here. At Marshalltown are the Iowa soldiers'
home, supported in part by the Federal Government, and St. Mary's
institute, a Roman Catholic commercial and business school. The city is
situated in a rich agricultural region, and is a market for grain, meat
cattle, horses and swine. There are miscellaneous manufactures, and in
1905 the factory product was valued at $3,090,312. The municipality owns
and operates its waterworks and its electric-lighting plant.
Marshalltown, named in honour of Chief Justice John Marshall, was laid
out in 1853, and became the county-seat in 1860. It was incorporated as
a town in 1863, and was chartered as a city in 1868.
MARSHALSEA, a prison formerly existing in Southwark, London. It was
attached to the court of that name held by the steward and marshal of
the king's house (see LORD STEWARD and MARSHAL). The date of its first
establishment is unknown, but it existed as early as the reign of Edward
III. It was consolidated in 1842 with the queen's bench and the Fleet,
and was then described as "a prison for debtors and for persons charged
with contempt of Her Majesty's courts of the Marshalsea, the court of
the queen's palace of Westminster, and the high court of admiralty, and
also for admiralty prisoners under sentence of courts martial." It was
abolished in 1849. The Marshalsea Prison is described in Charles
Dickens' _Little Dorrit_.
MARSHBUCK, a book-name proposed for such of the African bushbucks or
harnessed antelopes as have abnormally long hoofs to support them in
walking on marshy or swampy ground. (See BUSHBUCK and ANTELOPE.)
MARSHFIELD, a city of Wood county, Wisconsin, about 165 m. N.W. of
Milwaukee. Pop. (1890), 3450; (1900), 5240, of whom 1161 were
foreign-born; (1905) 6036; (1910) 5783. It is served by the Chicago &
North-Western, the Chicago, St Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha, and the
Minneapolis, St Paul & Sault Ste Marie railways. It contains the
mother-house of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother. Lumbering is the
most important industry, and there are various manufactures. The city is
situated in a clover region, in which dairying is important, and
Guernsey and Holstein-Friesland cattle are raised. The municipality owns
and operates the waterworks and the electric-lighting plant. The site of
Marshfield was part of a tract granted by the Federal government to the
Fox River Improvement Company, organized to construct a waterway between
the Mississippi river and Green Bay, and among the original owners of
the town site were Samuel Marsh of Massachusetts (in whose honour the
place was named) and Horatio Seymour, Ezra Cornell, Erastus Corning, and
William A. Butler of New York. Marshfield was settled about 1870, and
was first chartered as a city in 1883.
MARSH GAS (methane), CH4, the first member of the series of paraffin
hydrocarbons. It occurs as a constituent of the "fire-damp" of
coal-mines, in the gases evolved from volcanoes, and in the gases which
arise in marshy districts (due to the decomposition of vegetable matter
under the surface of water). It is found associated with petroleum and
also in human intestinal gases. It is a product of the destructive
distillation of complex organic matter (wood, coal, bituminous shale,
&c.), forming in this way from 30 to 40% of ordinary illuminating gas.
It may be synthetically obtained by passing a mixture of the vapour of
carbon bisulphide with sulphuretted hydrogen over red-hot copper (M.
Berthelot, _Comptes rendus_, 1856, 43, p. 236), CS2 + 2H2S + 8Cu = 4Cu2S
+ CH4; by passing a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide over reduced
nickel at 200-250° C., or hydrogen and carbon dioxide at 230-300° C. (P.
Sabatier and J. B. Senderens, _Comptes rendus_, 1902, 134, pp. 514,
689); by the decomposition of aluminium carbide with water [H. Moissan,
_Bull. Soc. Chim._, 1894, (3) 11, p. 1012]; and by heating phosphonium
iodide with carbon bisulphide in a sealed tube to 120-140° C. (H. Jahn,
_Ber._, 1880, 13, p. 127). It is also obtained by the reduction of many
methyl compounds with nascent hydrogen; thus methyl iodide dissolved in
methyl alcohol readily yields methane when acted on by the zinc-copper
couple (J. H. Gladstone and A. Tribe, _Jour. Chem. Soc._, 1884, 45, p.
156) or by the aluminium-mercury couple. It may be obtained in an
indirect manner from methyl iodide by conversion of this compound into
zinc methyl, or into magnesium methyl iodide (formed by the action of
magnesium on methyl iodide dissolved in anhydrous ether), and
decomposing these latter substances with water (E. Frankland, 1856; V.
Grignard, 1900),
Zn(CH4)2 + H2O = 2CH4 + ZnO; 2CH3MgI + H2O = 2CH4 + MgI2 + MgO.
In the laboratory it is usually prepared by J. B. A. Dumas' method
(_Ann._, 1840, 33, p. 181), which consists in heating anhydrous sodium
acetate with soda lime, CH3CO2Na + NaOH = Na2CO3 + CH4. The product
obtained by this method is not pure, containing generally more or less
ethylene and hydrogen.
Methane is a colourless gas of specific gravity 0.559 (air = 1). It may
be condensed to a colourless liquid at -155° to -160° C. under
atmospheric pressure (S. Wroblewsky, _Comptes rendus_, 1884, 99, p.
136). It boils at -162° C. and freezes at -186° C. Its critical
temperature is -99.5° C. (J. Dewar). The gas is almost insoluble in
water, but is slightly soluble in alcohol. It decomposes into its
constituents when passed through a red-hot tube, small quantities of
other hydrocarbons (ethane, ethylene, acetylene, benzene, &c.) being
formed at the same time. It burns with a pale flame, and when mixed with
air or oxygen forms a highly explosive mixture. W. A. Bone (_Jour. Chem.
Soc._, 1902, 81, p. 535; 1903, 83, p. 1074) has shown that in the
oxidation of methane by oxygen at 450-500° C. formaldehyde (or possibly
methyl alcohol) is formed as an intermediate product, and is ultimately
oxidized to carbon dioxide. Methane is an exceedingly stable gas, being
unaffected by the action of chromic acid, nitric acid, or a mixture of
nitric and sulphuric acids. Chlorine and bromine, however, react with
methane, gradually replacing hydrogen and forming chlor- and
brom-substitution products.
MARSHMAN, JOSHUA (1768-1837), English Baptist missionary and
orientalist, was born on the 20th of April 1768, at Westbury Leigh, in
Wiltshire. He followed the occupation of a weaver until 1794, but having
meanwhile devoted himself to study he removed to Broadmead, Bristol, to
take charge of a small school. In 1799 he was sent by the Baptist
Missionary Society to join their mission at Serampur. Here, in addition
to his more special duties, he studied Bengali and Sanskrit, and
afterwards Chinese. He translated the Bible into various dialects, and,
aided by his son, established newspapers and founded Serampur College.
He received the degree of D.D. from Brown University, U.S.A., in 1810.
He died at Serampur on the 5th of December 1837. His son, John Clark
Marshman (1704-1877), was official Bengali translator; he published a
_Guide to the Civil Law_ which, before the work of Macaulay, was the
civil code of India, and wrote a _History of India_ (1842).
Marshman translated into Chinese the book of Genesis, the Gospels, and
the Epistles of Paul to the Romans and the Corinthians; in 1811 he
published _The Works of Confucius, containing the Original Text, with
a Translation_, and in 1814 his _Clavis Sinica_. He was also the
author of _Elements of Chinese Grammar, with Preliminary Dissertation
on the Characters and Colloquial Mediums of the Chinese_, and was
associated with W. Carey in the preparation of a Sanskrit grammar and
of a Bengali-English dictionary.
See J. C. Marshman, _Life and Times of Carey, Marshman and Ward_ (2
vols., 1859).
MARSI, an ancient people of Italy, whose chief centre was Marruvium, on
the eastern shore of Lake Fucinus. They are first mentioned as members
of a confederacy with the Vestini, Paeligni and Marrucini (Liv. viii.
29, cf. viii. 6, and Polyb. ii. 24, 12). They joined the Samnites in 308
B.C. (Liv. ix. 41), and on their submission became allies of Rome in 304
B.C. (Liv. ix. 45). After a short-lived revolt two years later, for
which they were punished by loss of territory (Liv. x. 3), they were
readmitted to the Roman alliance and remained faithful down to the
social war, their contingent (e.g. Liv. xliv. 46) being always regarded
as the flower of the Italian forces (e.g. Hor. _Od._ ii. 20, 18). In
this war, which, owing to the prominence of the Marsian rebels is often
known as the Marsic War, they fought bravely against odds under their
leader Q. Pompaedius Silo, and, though they were frequently defeated,
the result of the war was the enfranchisement of the allies (see ROME:
_History_, "The Republic"). The Marsi were a hardy mountain people,
famed for their simple habits and indomitable courage. It was said that
the Romans had never triumphed over them or without them (Appian). They
were also renowned for their magicians, who had strange remedies for
various diseases.
The Latin colony of Alba Fucens near the north-west corner of the lake
was founded in the adjoining Aequian territory in 303, so that from the
beginning of the 3rd century the Marsians were in touch with a
Latin-speaking community, to say nothing of the Latin colony of Carsioli
(298 B.C.) farther west. The earliest pure Latin inscriptions of the
district seem to be _C.I.L._ ix. 3827 and 3848 from the neighbourhood of
Supinum; its character generally is of the Gracchan period, though it
might be somewhat earlier.
Mommsen (_Unteritalische Dialekten_, p. 345) pointed out that in the
social war all the coins of Pompaedius Silo have the Latin legend
"Italia," while the other leaders in all but one case used Oscan.
The chief record of the dialect or patois we owe to the goddess Angitia,
whose chief temple and grove stood at the south-west corner of Lake
Fucinus, near the inlet to the _emissarius_ of Claudius (restored by
Prince Torlonia), and the modern village of Luco. She (or they, for the
name is in the plural in the Latin inscription next cited) was widely
worshipped in the central highlands (Sulmo, _C.I.L._ ix. 3074, Furfo
Vestinorum, ibid. 3515) as a goddess of healing, especially skilled to
cure serpent bites by charms and the herbs of the Marsian woods. Her
worshippers naturally practised the same arts--as their descendants do
(see A. de Nino's charming collection of _Usi e costumi abruzzesi_),
their country being in Rome counted the home of witchcraft; see Hor.
_Sal._ 1, 9, 29, _Epod._ 17, 28, &c.
The earliest local inscriptions date from about 300 to 150 B.C. and
include the interesting and difficult bronze of Lake Fucinus, which
seems to record a votive offering to Angitia, if _A(n)ctia_, as is
probable, was the local form of her name. Their language differs very
slightly from Roman Latin of that date; for apparently contracted forms
like _Fougno_ instead of _Fucino_ may really only be a matter of
spelling. In final syllables the diphthongs _ai_, _ei_, _oi_, all appear
as _e_. On the other hand, the older form of the name of the tribe (dat.
plur. _Martses_ = Lat. _Martiis_) shows its derivation and exhibits the
assibilation of _-tio-_ into _-tso-_ proper to many Oscan dialects (see
OSCA LINGUA) but strange to classical Latin.
See R. S. Conway, _The Italic Dialects_, pp. 290 seq. (from which some
portions of this article are taken by permission of the syndics of the
Camb. Univ. Press); on the Fucino-Bronze, ib. p. 294. (R. S. C.)
MARSIGLI [Latinized MARSILIUS], LUIGI FERDINANDO, Count (1658-1730),
Italian soldier and scientific writer, was born at Bologna on the 10th
of July 1658. After a course of scientific studies in his native city he
travelled through Turkey collecting data on the military organization of
that empire, as well as on its natural history. On his return he entered
the service of the emperor Leopold (1682) and fought with distinction
against the Turks, by whom he was wounded and captured in an action on
the river Raab, and sold to a pasha whom he accompanied to the siege of
Vienna. His release was purchased in 1684, and he afterwards took part
in the war of the Spanish succession. In 1703 he was appointed second in
command under Count Arco in the defence of Alt-Breisach. The fortress
surrendered to the duke of Burgundy, and both Arco and Marsigli were
court martialled; the former was condemned to death and the latter
cashiered, although acquitted of blame by public opinion. Having thus
been forced to give up soldiering, he devoted the rest of his life to
scientific investigations, in the pursuit of which he made many journeys
through Europe, spending a considerable time at Marseilles to study the
nature of the sea. In 1712 he presented his collections to his native
city, where they formed the nucleus of the Bologna Institute of Science
and Art. He died at Bologna on the 1st of November 1730. Marsigli was a
fellow of the London Royal Society and a member of the Paris Academy of
Science.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--A list of his works, over twenty in number, is given in
Niceron's _Memoirs_; his _Breve ristretto del saggio fisico intorno
alla storia del mare_ was published at Venice in 1711, and again at
Amsterdam (in French) in 1725; the _Stato militare dell' impero
ottomano_ was published at Amsterdam and the Hague in Italian and
French (1732), the _Osservazioni intorno al Bosforo Tracio_ in Rome
(1681) and the _Danubius pannonico-mysicus_, a large work in six
volumes containing much valuable historic and scientific information
on the Danubian countries, at the Hague (1725). See Fontenelle,
"Éloge" in the _Mém. de l'acad. des sciences_ (Paris, 1730); Quincy,
_Mémoires sur la vie de M. le comte Marsigli_ (Zürich, 1741), and
Fantuzzi's biography of Marsigli (Bologna, 1770).
MARSILIUS OF PADUA [MARSIGLIO MAINARDINO] (1270-1342), Italian medieval
scholar, was born at Padua, and at first studied medicine in his own
country. After practising various professions, among others that of a
soldier, he went to Paris about 1311. The reputation which he had gained
in the physical sciences soon caused him to be raised to the position of
rector of the university (for the first term of the year 1313). While
still practising medicine he entered into relations with another master
of Paris, the philosopher John of Jandun, who collaborated with him in
the composition of the famous _Defensor pacis_ (1324), one of the most
extraordinary political and religious works which appeared during the
14th century. A violent struggle had just broken out between pope John
XXII. and Louis of Bavaria, king of the Romans, and the latter, on being
excommunicated and called upon to give up the empire, only replied to
the pope's threats with fresh provocations. Marsilius of Padua and John
of Jandun, though they had both reason to be grateful for the benefits
of John XXII., chose this moment to demonstrate, by plausible arguments,
the supremacy of the Empire, its independence of the Holy See, and the
emptiness of the prerogatives "usurped" by the sovereign pontiffs--a
demonstration naturally calculated to give them a claim on the gratitude
of the German sovereign.
The _Defensor pacis_, as its name implies, is a work intended to restore
peace, as the most indispensable benefit of human society. The author of
the law is the people, i.e. the whole body, or at least the most
important part (_valentior_) of the citizens; the people should
themselves elect, or at least appoint, the head of the government, who,
lest he should be tempted to put himself above the scope of the laws,
should have at his disposal only a limited armed force. This chief is
responsible to the people for his breaches of the law, and in serious
cases they can condemn him to death. The real cause of the trouble which
prevails among men is the papacy, a "fictitious" power, the development
of which is the result of a series of usurpations. Marsilius denies, not
only to the pope, but to the bishops and clergy, any coercive
jurisdiction or any right to pronounce on their own authority
excommunications and interdicts, or in any way to impose the observation
of the divine law. He is not opposed to penalties against heretics, but
he would have them pronounced only by civil tribunals. Desiring to see
the clergy practise a holy poverty, he proposes the suppression of
tithes and the seizure by the secular power of the greater part of the
property of the church. The clergy, thus deprived of its wealth,
privileges and jurisdiction, is further to be deprived of independence,
for the civil power is to have the right of appointing to benefices,
&c. The supreme authority in the church is to be the council, but a
council summoned by the emperor. The pope, no longer possessing any more
power than other bishops (though Marsilius recognizes that the supremacy
of the Church of Rome goes back to the earliest times of Christianity),
is to content himself with a pre-eminence mainly of an honorary kind,
without claiming to interpret the Holy Scriptures, define dogmas or
distribute benefices; moreover, he is to be elected by the Christian
people, or by the delegates of the people, i.e. the princes, or by the
council, and these are also to have the power to punish, suspend or
depose him. Such is this famous work, full of obscurities, redundancies
and contradictions, in which the thread of the argument is sometimes
lost in a labyrinth of reasonings and citations, both sacred and
profane, but which nevertheless expresses, both in religion and
politics, such audacious and novel ideas that it has been possible to
trace in it, as it were, a rough sketch of the doctrines developed
during the periods of the Reformation and of the French Revolution. The
theory was purely democratic, but was all ready to be transformed, by
means of a series of fictions and implications, into an imperialist
doctrine; and in like manner it contained a visionary plan of
reformation which ended, not in the separation of the church from the
state, but in the subjection of the church to the state. To overthrow
the ecclesiastical hierarchy, to deprive the clergy of all their
privileges, to reduce the pope to the rank of a kind of president of a
Christian republic, which governs itself, or rather submits to the
government of Caesar--such is the dream formed in 1324 by two masters of
the university of Paris.
When in 1326 Louis of Bavaria saw the arrival in Nuremberg of the two
authors of the book dedicated to him, startled by the boldness of their
political and religious theories, he was at first inclined to treat them
as heretics. He soon changed his mind, however, and, admitting them to
the circle of his intimates, loaded them with favours. Having become one
of the chief inspirers of the imperial policy, Marsilius accompanied
Louis of Bavaria to Italy, where he preached or circulated written
attacks against the pope, especially at Milan, and where he came within
the sight of the realization of his wildest utopias. To see a king of
the Romans crowned emperor at Rome, not by the pope, but by those who
claimed to be the delegates of the people (Jan. 17, 1328), to see John
XXII. deposed by the head of the Empire (April 18), and a mendicant
friar, Pietro de Corbara, raised by an imperial decree to the throne of
St Peter (as Nicholas V.) after a sham of a popular election (May 12),
all this was merely the application of principles laid down in the
_Defensor pacis_. The two authors of this book played a most active part
in the Roman Revolution. Marsilius, appointed imperial vicar, abused his
power to persecute the clergy who had remained faithful to John XXII. In
recompense for his services, he seems to have been appointed archbishop
of Milan, while his collaborator, John of Jandun, obtained from Louis of
Bavaria the bishopric of Ferrara.
Marsilius of Padua also composed a treatise _De translatione imperii
romani_, which is merely a rearrangement of a work of Landolfo Colonna,
_De jurisdictione imperatoris in causa matrimoniali_, intended to prove
the exclusive jurisdiction of the emperor in matrimonial affairs, or
rather, to justify the intervention of Louis of Bavaria, who, in the
interests of his policy, had just annulled the marriage of the son of
the king of Bohemia and the countess of Tirol. But, above all, in an
unpublished work preserved at Oxford, the _Defensor minor_, Marsilius
completed and elaborated in a curious manner certain points in the
doctrine laid down in the _Defensor pacis_. In it he deals with
ecclesiastical jurisdiction, penances, indulgences, crusades and
pilgrimages, vows, excommunication, the pope and the council, marriage
and divorce. Here his democratic theory still more clearly leads up to a
proclamation of the imperial omnipotence.
Marsilius of Padua does not seem to have lived long after 1342. But the
scandal provoked by his _Defensor pacis_, condemned by the court of
Avignon in 1326, lasted much longer. Benedict XII. and Clement VI.
censured it in turn; Louis of Bavaria disowned it. Translated into
French, then into Italian (14th century) and into English (16th
century), it was known by Wycliffe and Luther, and was not without an
influence on the Reform movement.
See J. Sullivan, _American Historical Review_, vol. ii. (1896-1897),
and _English Historical Review_ for April 1905; _Histoire littéraire
de la France_ (1906), xxxiii. 528-623; Sigmund Riezler, _Die
literarischen Widersacher der Päpste zur Zeit Ludwig des Baiers_
(Leipzig, 1874).
There are numerous manuscripts of the _Defensor pacis_ extant. We will
here mention only one edition, that given by Goldast, in 1614, in vol.
i. of his _Monarchia sacri imperii_; an unpublished last chapter was
published by Karl Müller, in 1883, in the _Göttingische gelehrte
Anzeigen_, pp. 923-925.
Count Lützow in _The Life and Times of Master John Hus_ (London and
New York, 1909), pp. 5-9, gives a good abstract of the Defensor pacis
and the relations of Marsilius to other precursors of the Reformation.
(N. V.)
MARSIVAN, or MERZIFUN (anc. _Phazemon?_), a town in the Amasia sanjak of
the Sivas vilayet of Asia Minor, situated at the foot of the Tavshan
Dagh. Pop. about 20,000, two-thirds Mussulman. It is a centre of
American missionary and educational enterprise, and the seat of Anatolia
College, a theological seminary, and schools which were partly destroyed
in the anti-Armenian riots of 1893 and 1895. There is also a Jesuit
school. Marsivan is an unusually European place both in its aspect and
the commodities procurable in the bazaar.
MARS-LA-TOUR, a village of Lorraine, between Metz and the French
frontier, which formed part of the battlefield of the 16th of August
1870. The battle is often called the battle of Mars-la-Tour, though it
is more usually named after Vionville. (See METZ; and FRANCO-GERMAN
WAR.) At Mars-la-Tour occurred the destruction of the German 38th
brigade.
MARSTON, JOHN (c. 1575-1634), English dramatist and satirist, eldest son
of John Marston of Coventry, at one time lecturer of the Middle Temple,
was born in 1575, or early in 1576. Swinburne notes his affinities with
Italian literature, which may be partially explained by his parentage,
for his mother was the daughter of an Italian physician, Andrew Guarsi.
He entered Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1592, taking his B.A. degree in
1594. The elder Marston in his will expresses regret that his son, to
whom he left his law-books and the furniture of his rooms in the Temple,
had not been willing to follow his profession. John Marston married Mary
Wilkes, daughter of one of the royal chaplains, and Ben Jonson said that
"Marston wrote his father-in-law's preachings, and his father-in-law his
sermons." His first work was _The Metamorphosis of Pigmalions Image, and
certaine Satyres_ (1598). "Pigmalion" is an erotic poem in the metre of
_Venus and Adonis_, and Joseph Hall attached a rather clumsy epigram to
every copy that was exposed for sale in Cambridge. In the same year
Marston published, under the pseudonym of W. Kinsayder, already employed
in the earlier volume, his _Scourge of Villanie_, eleven satires, in the
sixth of which he asserted that Pigmalion was intended to parody the
amorous poetry of the time. Both this volume and its predecessor were
burnt by order of the archbishop of Canterbury. The satires, in which
Marston avowedly took Persius as his model, are coarse and vigorous. In
addition to a general attack on the vices of his age he avenges himself
on Joseph Hall who had assailed him in _Virgidemiae_. He had a great
reputation among his contemporaries. John Weever couples his name with
Ben Jonson's in an epigram; Francis Meres in _Palladis tamia_ (1598)
mentions him among the satirists; a long passage is devoted to "Monsieur
Kinsayder" in the _Return from Parnassus_ (1606), and Dr Brinsley
Nicholson has suggested that _Furor poeticus_ in that piece may be a
satirical portrait of him. But his invective by its general tone, goes
far to justify Mr W. J. Courthope's[1] judgment that "it is likely
enough that in seeming to satirize the world without him, he is usually
holding up the mirror to his own prurient mind."
On the 28th of September 1599 Henslowe notices in his diary that he lent
"unto Mr Maxton, the new poete, the sum of forty shillings," as an
advance on a play which is not named. Another hand has amended "Maxton"
to "Mastone." The earliest plays to which Marston's name is attached are
_The History of Antonio and Mellida. The First Part_; and _Antonio's
Revenge. The Second Part_ (both entered at Stationers' Hall in 1601 and
printed 1602). The second part is preceded by a prologue which, in its
gloomy forecast of the play, moved the admiration of Charles Lamb, who
also compares the situation of Andrugio and Lucia to Lear and Kent, but
the scene which he quotes gives a misleading idea of the play and of the
general tenor of Marston's work.
The melodrama and the exaggerated expression of these two plays offered
an opportunity to Ben Jonson, who had already twice ridiculed Marston,
and now pilloried him as Crispinus in _The Poetaster_ (1601). The
quarrel was patched up, for Marston dedicated his _Malcontent_ (1604) to
Jonson, and in the next year he prefixed commendatory verses to
_Sejanus_. Far greater restraint is shown in _The Malcontent_ than in
the earlier plays. It was printed twice in 1604, the second time with
additions by John Webster. _The Dutch Courtezan_ (1605) and
_Parasitaster, or the Fawne_ (1606) followed. In 1605 _Eastward Hoe_,[2]
a gay comedy of London life, which gave offence to the king's Scottish
friends, caused the playwrights concerned in its production--Marston,
Chapman and Jonson--to be imprisoned at the instance of Sir James
Murray. _The Wonder of Women, or the Tragedie of Sophonisba_ (1606),
seems to have been put forward by Marston as a model of what could be
accomplished in tragedy. In the preface he mocks at those authors who
make a parade of their authorities and their learning, and the next
play, _What you Will_ (printed 1607; but probably written much earlier),
contains a further attack on Jonson. The tragedy of _The Insatiate
Countesse_ was printed in 1613, and again, this time anonymously, in
1616. It was not included in the collected edition of Marston's plays in
1633, and in the Duke of Devonshire's library there is a copy bearing
the name of William Barksteed, the author of the poems, _Myrrha, the
Mother of Adonis_ (1607), and _Hiren and the Fair Greek_ (1611). The
piece contains many passages superior to anything to be found in
Marston's well-authenticated plays, and Mr A. H. Bullen suggests that it
may be Barksteed's version of an earlier one drafted by Marston. The
character and history of Isabella are taken chiefly from "The Disordered
Lyfe of the Countess of Celant" in William Paynter's _Palace of
Pleasure_, derived eventually from Bandello. There is no certain
evidence of Marston's authorship in _Histriomastix_ (printed 1610, but
probably produced before 1599), or in _Jacke Drums Entertainement, or
the Comedie of Pasquil and Katherine_ (1616), though he probably had a
hand in both. Mr R. Boyle (_Englische Studien_, vol. xxx., 1901), in a
critical study of Shakespeare's _Troilus and Cressida_, assigns to
Marston's hand the whole of the action dealing with Hector, with the
prologue and epilogue, and attributes to him the bombast and coarseness
in the last scenes of the play. It will be seen that his undoubted
dramatic work was completed in 1607. It is uncertain at what time he
exchanged professions, but in 1616 he was presented to the living of
Christchurch, Hampshire. He formally resigned his charge in 1631, and
when his works were collected in 1633 the publisher, William Sheares,
stated that the author "in his autumn and declining age" was living "far
distant from this place." Nevertheless he died in London, in the parish
of Aldermanbury, on the 25th of June 1634. He was buried in the Temple
Church.
Marston's works were first published in 1633, once anonymously as
_Tragedies and Comedies_, and then in the same year as _Workes of Mr
John Marston_. _The Works of John Marston_ (3 vols.) were reprinted by
Mr J. O. Halliwell (Phillipps) in 1856, and again by Mr. A. H. Bullen
(3 vols.) in 1887. His _Poems_ (2 vols.) were edited by Dr A. B.
Grosart in 1879. The British Museum Catalogue tentatively assigns to
Marston _The Whipper of the Satyre his pennance in a white sheete; or,
the Beadle's Confutation_ (1601), a pamphlet in answer to _The
Whipping of the Satyre_. For an account of the quarrel of Dekker and
Marston with Ben Jonson see Dr R. A. Small, _The Stage Quarrel
between Ben Jonson and the so-called Poetasters_; in E. Koelbing,
_Forschungen zur englischen Sprache und Litteratur_, pt. i. (1899).
See also three articles _John Marston als Dramatiker_, by Ph.
Aronstein in _Englische Studien_ (vols. xx. and xxi., 1895), and
"Quellenstudien zu den Dramen Ben Jonsons, John Marstons ..." by Emil
Koeppel (_Münchener Beiträge zur roman. und engl. Philologie_, pt. xi.
1895).