The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 302

MARK ANTONY. See ANTONIUS, MARCUS.

MARK TWAIN. See CLEMENS.

MARKHAM, CLEMENTS ROBERT, traveller and author, born near York, son of a clergyman; served in the navy from 1844 to 1851, taking part in the Franklin search expedition; 1852-1854 he spent exploring Peru; he introduced the cinchona plant to India 1860, became secretary to the Royal Geographical Society 1863, served as geographer to the Abyssinian Expedition of 1867-68, and was then put at the head of the Geographical department of the India Office; among many books of travels may be named "The Threshold of the Unknown Region" 1874, and among biographies "Columbus," 1892; _b_. 1830.

MARLBOROUGH (9), on the Kennet, 38 m. E. of Bristol, a Wilts.h.i.+re market-town, with sack and rope making, brewing, and tanning industries; has an old Norman church, the remains of an old royal residence, and a college, chiefly for sons of clergymen, founded in 1845.

MARLBOROUGH, JOHN CHURCHILL, DUKE OF, soldier and statesman, born in Devons.h.i.+re; joined the Guards as ensign, and served in Tangiers in 1667; sent in command of a company to help Louis XIV. in his Dutch wars, his courage and ability won him a colonelcy; he married Sarah Jennings in 1678, and seven years later became Baron Churchill on James II.'s succession; as general he was employed in putting down Monmouth's rebellion; he seceded to William of Orange in 1688, and received from him the earldom of Marlborough; he was in disfavour from 1694 till the outbreak of the Spanish Succession War, in which he gained his great renown; beginning by driving the Spaniards from the Netherlands in 1702, he won a series of important victories--Blenheim 1704, Ramillies 1706, Oudenard 1708, and Malplaquet 1709, contributed to enhance the military glory of England; Queen Anne loaded him with honours; large sums of money, Woodstock estate, Blenheim Palace, and a dukedom were bestowed on him; his wife was the Queen's closest friend, and the duke and d.u.c.h.ess virtually governed the country, till in 1711 the Queen threw off their influence, and charges of misappropriation of funds forced him into retirement; he was restored to many of his offices by George I. in 1714, but for the last six years of his life he sank into imbecility; one of England's greatest generals, he was also one of her meanest men (1650-1722).

MARLOWE, CHRISTOPHER, English dramatist and poet, precursor of Shakespeare; son of a shoemaker at Canterbury; besides a love poem ent.i.tled "Hero and Leander," he was the author of seven plays, "Tamburlaine," in two parts, "Doctor Faustus," "The Jew of Malta,"

"Edward the Second," "The Ma.s.sacre of Paris," and "Dido," the first four being romantic plays, the fifth a chronicle play, and the last two offering no particular talent; he dealt solely in tragedy, and was too devoid of humour to attempt comedy; "In Marlowe," says Prof. Saintsbury, "two things never fail him long--a strange, not by any means impotent, reach after the infinite, and the command of magnificent verse"; his life was a short one (1564-1593).

MARMONT, Duke of Ragusa and marshal of France, served under Napoleon, and distinguished himself on many a battlefield; received the t.i.tle of duke for his successful defence of Ragusa against the Russians; was present at Wagram, Lutzen, Bautzen, and Dresden, but came to terms with the allies after the taking of Paris, which led to Napoleon's abdication in 1814; obliged to flee on Napoleon's return, he came back to France and gave his support to the Bourbons; left Memoirs (1774-1852).

MARMONTEL, JEAN FRANcOIS, French writer, born at Bort; author of "Les Incas," "Belesaire," and "Contes Moraux;" "was," says Ruskin, "a peasant's son, who made his way into Parisian society by gentleness, wit, and a dainty and candid literary power; he became one of the humblest yet honestest, placed scholars at the court of Louis XV., and wrote pretty, yet wise, sentimental stories in finished French, the sayings and thoughts in them, in their fine tremulous way, perfect like the blossoming heads of gra.s.s in May" (1723-1799).

MARMORA, SEA OF, 175 m. long and 50 broad, lies between Europe and Asia Minor, opening into the aegean through the Dardanelles and into the Baltic through the Bosphorus; the Gulf of Ismid indents the eastern coasts; Marmora, the largest island, has marble and alabaster quarries.

MARNE (435) and HAUTE-MARNE (244), contiguous departments in the N.E. of France, in the upper basin of the Marne River; in both cereals, potatoes, and wine are the chief products, the best champagne coming from the N. In the former, capital Chalons-sur-Marne, building stone is quarried; there are metal works and tanneries; in the latter, capital Chaumont, are valuable iron mines and manufactures of cutlery and gloves.

MAROCHETTI, BARON, Italian sculptor, born in Turin; after working in Paris, came to this country in 1848, and executed several public statues, one of the Queen among others (1805-1867).

MARONITES, a sect of Syrian Christians, numbering 200,000, dwelling on the eastern slopes of Lebanon, where they settled in the 7th century, and who joined the Roman Catholic Church in 1445, while they retain much of their primitive character; they maintained a long sanguinary rivalry with their neighbours the DRUSES (q. v.).

MAROONS, the name given to wild negro bands in Jamaica and Guiana; those in Jamaica left behind by the Spaniards on the conquest of the island by the English, 1655, escaped to the hills, and continued unsubdued till 1795; in Guiana they still maintain independent communities. To MAROON a seaman is to leave him alone on an uninhabited island, or adrift in a boat.

MAROT, CLEMENT, French poet, born at Cahors; was valet-de-chambre of Margaret of Valois; was a man of ready wit and a satirical writer, the exercise of which often brought him into trouble; his poems, which consist of elegies, epistles, rondeaux, madrigals, and ballads, have left their impress on both the language and the literature of France (1495-1544).

MARPRELATE TRACTS, a series of clever but scurrilous tracts published under the name of Martin Marprelate, but which are the work of different writers in the time of Elizabeth against prelacy, and which gave rise to great excitement and some inquisition as to their authors.h.i.+p.

MARQUE. See LETTER OF MARQUE.

MARQUESAS ISLANDS (5), a group of 13 small volcanic mountainous islands in the S. Pacific, 3600 m. W. of Peru, under French protection since 1842, are peopled by a handsome but savage race, which is rapidly dying out; Chinese immigrants grow cotton; the more southerly were discovered by Mendana in 1595, the more northerly by Ingraham, an American, in 1791.

MARROW CONTROVERSY, a theological controversy which arose in Scotland in the 18th century over the teaching of a book ent.i.tled "The Marrow of Modern Divinity," and which led to a secession from the Established Church on the part of the "Marrow men," as the supporters of the doctrine of the book were called. It contained an a.s.sertion of the evangelical doctrine of free grace, which was condemned by the a.s.sembly, and for maintaining which the "Marrow men," headed by the Erskines, were deposed in 1733, to the formation of the Secession Church.

MARRYAT, FREDERICK, novelist, born at Westminster; after service in the royal navy, which he entered in 1806, and in which he attained the rank of commandant, he retired in 1830, and commenced a series of novels; "Frank Mildmay," the first, proving a success, he resolved to devote the rest of his life to literature; his novels were numerous, all of interest for their character sketches and adventures, and "Peter Simple" and "Mids.h.i.+pman Easy" are reckoned the best; it was by recourse to Marryat's stories of sea life that Carlyle solaced himself after the burning of the MS. volume of his "French Revolution," and that he put himself in tune to repair the loss (1792-1848).

MARS, the exterior planet of the Solar system, nearest the earth, of one-half its diameter, with a mean distance from the sun of 141,000,000 m., round which it takes 686 days to revolve, in a somewhat centric orbit, and 24 hours to revolve on its own axis, which inclines to its equator at an angle of 29; examination of it shows that there is four times as much land as water in it; it is accompanied by two moons, an outer making a revolution round it in 30 hours 18 minutes, and an inner in 7 hours and 38 minutes; they are the smallest heavenly bodies known to science.

MARS, the Roman G.o.d of war, the reputed father of Romulus, and the recognised protector of the Roman State, identified at length with the Greek Ares.

Ma.r.s.eILLAISE, THE, the hymn or march of the French republicans, composed, both words and music, at Strasburg by Rouget de Lisle one night in April 1792, and singing which the 600 volunteers from Ma.r.s.eilles entered Paris on the 30th July thereafter. "Luckiest musicial composition," says Carlyle, "ever promulgated. The sound of which will make the blood tingle in men's veins, and whole armies and a.s.semblages will sing it, with eyes weeping and burning, with hearts defiant of death, despot, and devil."

Ma.r.s.eILLES (321), third city and first seaport of France, on the sh.o.r.e of the Gulf of Lyons, 27 m. E. of the mouth of the Rhone; has extensive dock accommodation; does great trade in wheat, oil, wine, sugar, textiles, and coal, and manufactures soap, soda, macaroni, and iron; there is a cathedral, picture-gallery, museum, and library, schools of science and art; founded by colonists from Asia Minor in 600 B.C., it was a Greek city till 300 B.C.; after the days of Rome it had many vicissitudes, falling finally to France in 1575, and losing its privilege as a free port in 1660; always a Radical city, it proclaimed the Commune in 1871; a cholera plague devastated it in 1885; six years later great sanitary improvements were begun; Thiers and Puget were born here.

MARSHAL FORWARDS, a name given to BLuCHER (q. v.) for the celerity of his movements and the dash of his attack.

MARSHALL, JOHN, an American judge; served in the army during the first years of the American War; afterwards entered the legal profession and became Chief-Justice of the United States; was an authority on const.i.tutional law (1755-1835).

MARSTON, JOHN, English dramatist, so called, was more of a poet than a dramatist, and his dramas are remembered chiefly for the poetic pa.s.sages they contain; his masterpiece is a comedy ent.i.tled "What You Will" (1575-1634).

MARSTON, JOHN WESTLAND, dramatist, born at Boston, Lincolns.h.i.+re; wrote several dramas, "Strathmore" and "Marie de Meranie" among the number (1819-1890).

MARSTON, PHILIP BOURKE, poet, son of preceding; wrote three volumes of verse, admired by Rossetti and Swinburne; was blind from boyhood (1850-1887).

MARSTON MOOR, 7 m. W. of York; here Cromwell and Fairfax defeated the Royalists under Prince Rupert, July 2, 1644, and so won the north of England for the Parliament.

MARSYAS, a Phrygian peasant, who, having found a flute which Athena had thrown away because playing on it disfigured her face, and which, as still inspired by the breath of the G.o.ddess, yielded sweet tones when he put his lips to it, one day challenged Apollo to a contest, the condition being that the vanquished should pay whatever penalty the victor might impose on him; Apollo played on the lyre and the boor on the flute, when the Muses, who were umpires, a.s.signed the palm to the former; upon this Apollo caught his rival up, bound him to a tree, and flayed him alive for his temerity.

MARTELLO TOWERS, round towers of strong build, erected as a defence at one time off the low sh.o.r.es of Suss.e.x and Kent; they are of Italian origin; there is one off the harbour of Leith.

MARTENS, FREDERICK DE, German diplomatist and publicist, born at Hamburg; author of a "Precis du Droit des Gens" (1756-1821).

MARTENSEN, HANS La.s.sEN, bishop of Copenhagen, a distinguished theologian; author of "Meister Eckhart," a study of mediaeval mysticism, "Christliche Dogmatic" and "Christliche Ethic"; was a Hegelian of a conservative type (1808-1884).