VOLUME XVII SLICE VI Map to Mars (continued 10)

The working organs of the money market of London at the beginning of the 20th century were:—

A. (1) The Bank of England.

(2) Banks, joint-stock and private, including several great foreign banks.

(3) Discount houses and bill-brokers.

B. (4) Certain members of the Stock Exchange.

(5) Certain great merchants and finance houses.

The institutions included in group A are the most constantly active organs of the money market; those included in group B are intermittently active, but in the case of section (4), though their activity is greater at some times than others, they are never wholly outside the market. Even in the case of (5) a certain amount of qualification is needed, which is indicated by the fact that most of the great merchant houses are “registered” as bankers, though they do not perform the functions usually associated with that term in the United Kingdom. Several of the great houses were originally and still are nominally merchants, but are largely concerned with finance business—that is, with the making of loans to foreign governments and the issue of capital on behalf of companies. These powerful capitalists often have large amounts of money temporarily in their hands, and lend it in the money market or on the Stock Exchange; one or two of them are large buyers of bills from time to time, and generally the members of this group may be said to be in sufficiently close touch with the active organs of the money market to form part of it.

The actual working of the money market has been described by Walter Bagehot in his Lombard Street, a work which has attained the rank of a classic. Most of what he said in 1873 is true now, but in certain minor respects The Working of the Money Market. developments have taken place, the most important being the greater extent to which money is “used up” every day, or rather every night. In Bagehot’s time the discount houses only quoted “allowance” rates for “loans at call and short notice,” based on the rate “allowed” by the banks for loans at seven days’ notice; but since then the bill-brokers have been obliged—(1) occasionally to fix their terms independently of the banks, and (2) to “allow” a rate for “money for the night.” This latter practice became usual about 1888 or 1889. The change it introduced was not a vital one, but has some importance from the point of view of the historian. A good deal of the “money” thus dealt with is derived from the group of traders included in class (5). It is (a) money which is temporarily in the hands of houses or institutions which have just received subscriptions to loans or other capital offered to the public; (b) balances left temporarily with finance houses or banks on behalf of foreign governments or other parties who have payments to make in London. In the former case the “money” is almost invariably only available for a short time, probably only for a few days; in the latter case also it probably will be only available for a few days, but may be available for months. Money derived from either of these sources is usually to be had cheap, but is not, in the slang of the City, “good,” because it is uncertain how long loans at call obtained from either of them will remain undisturbed. Nevertheless, there has been at times so much “money” of this fugitive character, and derived from such varied sources since about 1888, that its cheapness has been an attraction to the less wealthy bill-brokers, who have occasionally been able to go on using it profitably for many continuous weeks, or even months, in their business. The risk run by employing it is, of course, the certainty that it will be “called” from the borrower sooner or later, and probably at a time when it is very inconvenient to repay it. The more wealthy houses take money of this kind when it suits them, but never rely on it as a basis for business.

Since Bagehot wrote the growth of the big joint-stock banks has been enormous, not so much through the increased business done by banks generally, though the expansion in banking has been considerable, as by the absorption The Great Banks. of a great number of small banks by three or four large institutions (see Banks and Banking). The growth of these large institutions tends to facilitate combination for purposes of common concern among banks generally—e.g. to support the Bank of England in maintaining its reserve, which is the sole reserve of all the banks, at a proper level, and thus render the money market more stable. Two or three of the banks have for a long time, owing to their large holding of bills, had much more influence than the Bank of England over the foreign exchanges, on which the foreign bullion movements chiefly depend; and since 1890 persons of weight in the joint-stock banking body have implicitly, though not explicitly, admitted a certain degree of responsibility in the matter on behalf of their institutions. It is, however, characteristic of British business arrangements that the question of the responsibility for the reserve of the Bank of England, the ultimate reserve of the whole country, is still in as nebulous a condition, so far as explicit acceptance of responsibility by any institution is concerned, as it was in 1870. There has been no improvement in theory, though in practice there has been real improvement, since Bagehot’s time. The tendency is, indeed, decidedly in the direction of closer combination between the Bank and the banks. On more than one occasion the Bank has, not merely by borrowing “in the market,” but by more or less private negotiations with the big banks, obtained temporary control of large sums belonging to the banks in order to take cash off the market. This proceeding, and its concomitants, did not meet with universal approval; but the results were satisfactory on the whole, and on the later occasions when the measure was carried out there was little or no friction.

The enormous war loans raised by Japan in 1904, 1905, 1906 exemplified aptly the more modern methods of dealing with the disturbance to the money market which such operations produce. The loans were issued by three Effect of Big Foreign Loans. banks, one of which was a Japanese institution and represented the Japanese government in the operations connected with the various loans. Of the other two, one was a leading London bank and the other the principal British bank doing business in China. These large loans were issued with the minimum of disturbance to the London money market. The very large amounts of cash which were suddenly withdrawn from other banks, and deposited with the institutions issuing the loan as “application money,” were lent out again in the short loan market as soon as possible, usually on the afternoon of the day of issue. The work involved was very heavy, as a great number of cheques had to be cleared in a brief space of time, but by skilful organization this was done. Similar promptitude was displayed when the successive instalments on the loans became due and were paid, most of the cash being available for borrowers a few hours after it was paid in by the holders of the scrip which represented the loans until the definitive bonds were ready. The task of dealing with cash forming instalments of the loans was not, however, the only problem before the banks which issued them. As the scrip of each loan gradually became “fully paid” the proceeds of the loan in the hands of the banks became a very large sum. The Japanese government held the whole of it at its disposal, and might have seriously embarrassed the London money market if it had not dealt with its huge balances considerately. The Japanese government had promised not to withdraw any portion of the loans raised in London in gold, but it was under no restrictions as to how it should employ the money lying to its account. It might have kept it locked up until it had a bill for ships or clothing to pay. As might be expected, the government from the outset transferred a portion of what was deposited with the banks to the Bank of England, finding it advantageous on various grounds to do so. The remainder was lent for short periods by the banks, but for some time no means were available for lending for any considerable length of time, though the Japanese government had no immediate use for the whole of it. It was suggested to the government by its advisers that it would be a convenience to the money market, and no inconvenience to Japanese policy, if any balances which were not likely to be wanted for some months were invested in British treasury bills, and the government, after fully acquainting itself with the nature of the operation, agreed to it. The plan was found to work well; it released for definite periods money that would otherwise have been of little use to the money market, and it was of pecuniary benefit to the Japanese exchequer to the extent of the interest earned by the portion of the balances so employed. Incidentally it suited the British treasury; the Japanese demand, which became a constant feature in connexion with treasury bill issues, lowered the discount rates at which “sixes” were placed. The Japanese not only applied for treasury bills and bought them in the market, but they also took up some of the exchequer bonds issued in connexion with the South African war towards the end of their currency, thus relieving the money market of a further part of the weight of British government paper which it would otherwise have had to take on itself. A further important development of Japanese management of its London balances took place in 1906, when a portion of these balances was placed under the control of agents of the Bank of England, to be lent, or not lent, in the market as suited the Bank’s policy, which was at that time directed to raising the value of money in order to protect and increase its reserve. The plan worked very well on the whole. It was merely an adaptation of a practice initiated some years before, whereby the Bank sometimes obtained temporary control of moneys belonging to the India Council. The same idea, that of “intercepting” market funds, which were beating down the discount rate, depressing the foreign exchanges and depleting the Bank’s reserve, has been employed in regard to the clearing banks themselves, the banks having on more than one occasion agreed to lend the Bank of England a certain portion of their balances.

The discount houses, though an important body of institutions, are not of so much importance as they were before 1866, when they suffered a serious blow through the failure of “Overend’s,” from which as a body they have never The Discount Houses. fully recovered. The five large concerns which still exist are, however, very powerful and exercise considerable influence on the market. They hold considerable quantities of bills at all times; occasionally their holdings are very large, but they turn out the contents of their bill cases readily if they think fit. Their business is different in practice from that of the smaller “bill-brokers,” who usually are what their name suggests, namely, persons who do not hold many bills, but find them for banks who need them, charging a small commission. The small bill-brokers borrow from the Bank of England much more freely than the big discount houses. The latter only “go to the bank” in ordinary times perhaps once or twice a year. During the South African War, which disturbed the money market very much, they obtained accommodation from the Bank more frequently than usual. The small brokers almost always have to borrow from the Bank at the end of every quarter, when money is scarce owing to the regular quarterly requirements of business, and also, to some extent, because certain of the banks make it a practice to call in loans at the end of each month in order to show a satisfactory cash reserve in their monthly balance-sheet. This practice is not approved by the best authorities, for although it does no great harm in quiet times, the banks who follow it might find it difficult, or even impossible, to call in their loans in times of severe stringency.

Authorities.—Walter Bagehot, Lombard Street (1873); Arthur Ellis, Rationale of Market Fluctuations; Robert Giffen, Stock Exchange Securities (1879); W. Stanley Jevons, Theory of Political Economy (2nd ed., 1879), pp. 91 seq., and Investigations in Currency and Finance; Henry Sidgwick, Principles of Political Economy, book ii. ch. ii.; Augustin Cournot, Theory of Wealth (1838), translated by Nathaniel T. Bacon; George Clare, A Money Market Primer and Key to the Exchanges; John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, book iii. ch. i.-vi.; John Shield Nicholson, Bankers’ Money; Hartley Withers, The Meaning of Money (1909).

(W. Ho.)

MARKET BOSWORTH, a market town in the Bosworth parliamentary division of Leicestershire, England; 105 m. N.N.W. from London on a branch from Nuneaton of the London & North Western and Midland railways, near the Ashby-de-la-Zouch canal. Pop. (1901), 659. The church of St Peter is Perpendicular, with a lofty tower and spire. At the grammar school, founded in 1528, Dr Samuel Johnson was a master about 1732, but found the work unbearable. The trade of Market Bosworth is principally agricultural, and there are brickworks. Two miles south is the scene of the battle of Bosworth, in 1485, where Richard III. fell before Henry earl of Richmond, who thereupon assumed the crown as Henry VII.

MARKET DRAYTON, a market town in the Newport division of Shropshire, England, on the river Tern and the Shropshire Union canal, 178 m. N.W. from London. Pop. (civil parish of Drayton-in-Hales, 1901), 5167. The Wellington-Crewe line of the Great Western railway is here joined by a branch into Staffordshire of the North Staffordshire railway. The church of St Mary has Norman remains but is modernised by restoration. The town is a centre of agricultural trade, and there are large iron foundries. It is in the parish of Drayton-in-Hales, a name sometimes applied to it; and it is also known as Drayton Magna. It is an ancient town, of which the manor was held successively by the abbots of St Ebrulph in Normandy and Combermere in Cheshire. On Blore Heath, 3 m. east in Staffordshire, Audley Cross marks a great battle in the Wars of the Roses (1459), in which the Yorkists were successful and Lord Audley fell.

MARKET HARBOROUGH, a market town in the Harborough parliamentary division of Leicestershire, England; on the river Welland and the Grand Union Canal. Pop. of urban district (1901), 7735. It is 81 m. N.N.W. from London by the Midland railway, and is served by branches of the London & North Western and Great Northern railways. The church of St Dionysius is Decorated and Perpendicular, with a fine tower and spire. The grammar school was founded in 1614; it occupies modern buildings, but the original house remains, a picturesque half-timbered building, raised upon pillars of wood. Both British and Roman remains have been found in the vicinity. There are malt-houses and boot, shoe and stay factories. The town is also an important fox-hunting centre.

MARKHAM, SIR CLEMENTS ROBERT (1830- ), English traveller, geographer and author, son of the Rev. David F. Markham, canon of Windsor, and of Catherine, daughter of Sir W. Milner, Bart., of Nunappleton, Yorkshire, was born on the 20th of July 1830 at Stillingfleet, near York, and educated at Westminster School. He entered the navy in 1844, became midshipman in 1846, and passed for a lieutenant in 1851. In 1850-1851 he served on the Franklin search expedition in the Arctic regions, under Captain Austin. He retired from the navy in 1852, and in 1852-1854 travelled in Peru and the forests of the eastern Andes. He visited South America again in 1860-1861, in order to arrange for the introduction of the cinchona plant into India, a service of the highest value to humanity. In 1865-1866 he visited Ceylon and India, to inspect and report upon the Tinnevelly pearl-fishery and the cinchona plantations. On the Abyssinian expedition of 1867-68 he served as geographer, and was present at the storming of Magdala. In 1874 he accompanied the Arctic expedition under Sir George Nares as far as Greenland. In later years Sir Clements Markham travelled extensively in western Asia and the United States. In 1855 he became a clerk in the Board of Control. From 1867-1877 he was in charge of the geographical department of the Indian Office. He was secretary to the Hakluyt Society from 1858-1887, and became its president in 1890. From 1863-1888 he acted as secretary to the Royal Geographical Society, and on his retirement received the society’s gold medal for his distinguished services to geography. He was elected president of the same society in 1893, and retained office for the unprecedented period of twelve years, taking an active share in the work of the society and in increasing its usefulness in various directions. It was almost entirely due to his exertions that funds were obtained for the National Antarctic Expedition under Captain Robert Scott, which left England in the summer of 1901. Sir Clements Markham was elected F.R.S. in 1873; was created C.B. in 1871, and K.C.B. in 1896; became an honorary member of the principal geographical societies; and was president of the International Geographical Congress which met in London in 1895.

Sir Clements Markham conducted the Geographical Magazine from 1872-1878, when it became merged in the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society. Among his other publications may be mentioned the following: Franklin’s Footsteps (1852); Cuzco and Lima (1856); Travels in Peru and India (1862); A Quichua Grammar and Dictionary (1863); Spanish Irrigation (1867); A History of the Abyssinian Expedition (1869); A Life of the Great Lord Fairfax (1870); Ollanta, a Quichua Drama (1871); Memoir on the Indian Surveys (1871; 2nd ed., 1878); General Sketch of the History of Persia (1873); The Threshold of the Unknown Region (1874, 4 editions); A Memoir of the Countess of Chinchon, (1875); Missions to Thibet, (1877; 2nd ed., 1879); Memoir of the Indian Surveys; Peruvian Bark (1880); Peru (1880); The War between Chili and Peru (1879-81; 3rd ed., 1883); The Sea Fathers (1885); The Fighting Veres (1888); Paladins of King Edwin (1896); Life of John Davis the Navigator (1889); a Life of Richard III. (1906), in which he maintained that the king was not guilty of the murder of the two princes in the Tower; also lives of Admiral Fairfax, Admiral John Markham, Columbus and Major Rennel; A History of Peru; editions with introductions of twenty works for the Hakluyt Society, of which fourteen were also translations; about seventy papers in the Royal Geographical Society’s Journal; the Reports on the Moral and Material Progress of India for 1871-1872 and 1872-1873; Memoir of Sir John Harington for the Roxburghe Club (1880); the Peruvian chapters for J. Winsor’s History of America, and the chapters on discovery and surveying for Clowes’s History of the Navy.

MARKHAM, GERVASE (or Jervis) (1568?-1637), English poet and miscellaneous writer, third son of Sir Robert Markham of Cotham, Nottinghamshire, was born probably in 1568. He was a soldier of fortune in the Low Countries, and later was a captain under the earl of Essex’s command in Ireland. He was acquainted with Latin and several modern languages, and had an exhaustive practical acquaintance with the arts of forestry and agriculture. He was a noted horse-breeder, and is said to have imported the first Arab. Very little is known of the events of his life. The story of the murderous quarrel between Gervase Markham and Sir John Holles related in the Biographia Britannica (s.v. Holles) has been generally connected with him, but in the Dictionary of National Biography, Sir Clements R. Markham, a descendant from the same family, refers it to another contemporary of the same name, whose monument is still to be seen in Laneham church. Gervase Markham was buried at St Giles’s, Cripplegate, London, on the 3rd of February 1637. He was a voluminous writer on many subjects, but he repeated himself considerably in his works, sometimes reprinting the same books under other titles. His booksellers procured a declaration from him in 1617 that he would produce no more on certain topics.

Markham’s writings include: The Teares of the Beloved (1600) and Marie Magdalene’s Teares (1601) long and rather commonplace poems on the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, both reprinted by Dr A. B. Grosart in the Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies Library (1871); The most Honorable Tragedy of Sir Richard Grinvile (1595), reprinted (1871) by Professor E. Arber, a prolix and euphuistic poem in eight-lined stanzas which was no doubt in Tennyson’s mind when he wrote his stirring ballad; The Poem of Poems, or Syon’s Muse (1595), dedicated to Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Philip Sidney; Devoreux, Vertues Teares (1597). Herod and Antipater, a Tragedy (1622) was written in conjunction with William Sampson, and with Henry Machin he wrote a comedy called The Dumbe Knight (1608). A Discourse of Horsemanshippe (1593) was followed by other popular treatises on horsemanship and farriery. Honour in his Perfection (1624) is in praise of the earls of Oxford, Southampton and Essex, and the Souldier’s Accidence (1625) turns his military experiences to account. He edited Juliana Berners’s Boke of Saint Albans under the title of The Gentleman’s Academie (1595), and produced numerous books on husbandry, many of which are catalogued in Lowndes’s Bibliographer’s Manual (Bohn’s ed., 1857-1864).

MARKHAM, MRS, the pseudonym of Elizabeth Penrose (1780-1837), English writer, daughter of Edmund Cartwright, the inventor of the power-loom. She was born at her father’s rectory at Goadby Marwood, Leicestershire, on the 3rd of August 1780. In 1804 she married the Rev. John Penrose, a country clergyman in Lincolnshire and a voluminous theological writer. During her girlhood Mrs Penrose had frequently stayed with relatives at Markham, a village in Nottinghamshire, and from this place she took the nom de plume of “Mrs Markham,” under which she gained celebrity as a writer of history and other books for the young. The best known of her books was A History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans to the End of the Reign of George III. (1823), which went through numerous editions. In 1828 she published a History of France. Both these works enjoyed a wide popularity in America as well as in England. The distinctive characteristic of “Mrs Markham’s” histories was the elimination of all the “horrors” of history, and of the complications of modern party politics, as being unsuitable for the youthful mind; and the addition to each chapter of “Conversations” between a fictitious group consisting of teacher and pupils bearing upon the subject matter. Her less well-known works were Amusements of Westernheath, or Moral Stories for Children (2 vols., 1824); A Visit to the Zoological Gardens (1829); two volumes of stories entitled The New Children’s Friend (1832); Historical Conversations for Young People (1836); Sermons for Children (1837). Mrs Markham died at Lincoln on the 24th of January 1837.

See Samuel Smiles, A Publisher and his Friends (2 vols., London, 1891); G. C. Boase and W. P. Courtney, Bibliotheca Cornubiensis (3 vols., London, 1874-1882).

MARKHAM, WILLIAM (1719-1807), archbishop of York, was educated at Westminster and at Christ Church, Oxford. He was one of the best scholars of his day, and attained to the headship of his old school and college in 1753 and 1767 respectively. He held from time to time a number of livings, and in 1771 was made bishop of Chester and tutor to George prince of Wales. In 1777 he became archbishop of York, and also lord high almoner and privy councillor. He was for some time a close friend of Edmund Burke, but his strong championship of Warren Hastings caused a breach. He was accused by Lord Chatham of preaching pernicious doctrines, and was a victim of the Gordon riots in 1780. He died in 1807.

MARKHOR (“snake-eater”), the Pushtu name of a large Himalayan wild goat (Capra falconeri), characterized by its spirally twisted horns, and long shaggy winter coat. From the Pir-Panjal range of Kashmir the markhor extends westwards into Baltistan, Astor, Hunza, Afghanistan and the trans-Indus ranges of the Punjab. The twist of the horns varies to a great extent locally, the spiral being most open and corkscrew-like in the typical Astor animal, and closest and most screw-like in the race (C. falconeri jerdoni) inhabiting the Suleiman and adjacent ranges.

MARKIRCH (French, Ste-Marie-aux-Mines), a town of Germany, in Upper Alsace, prettily situated in the valley of the Leber, an affluent of the Rhine, near the French frontier. Pop. (1900), 12,372. The once productive silver, copper and lead mines of the neighbourhood were practically unworked during the whole of the 19th century, but have recently been reopened. The main industries of the place are, however, weaving and dyeing, and it is estimated that there are about 40,000 work-people in the industrial district of which Markirch is the centre. The small river Leber, which intersects the town, was at one time the boundary between the German and French languages, and traces of this separation still exist. The German-speaking inhabitants on the right bank were Protestants, and subject to the counts of Rappoltstein, while the French inhabitants were Roman Catholics, and under the rule of the dukes of Lorraine.

See Mühlenbeck, Documents historiques concernant Ste-Marie aux Mines (Markirch, 1876-1877); Hauser, Das Bergbaugebiet von Markirch (Strass., 1900).

MARKLAND, JEREMIAH (1693-1776), English classical scholar, was born at Childwall in Lancashire on the 29th (or 18th) of October 1693. He was educated at Christ’s Hospital and Peterhouse, Cambridge. He died at Milton, near Dorking, on the 7th of July 1776.

His most important works are Epistola critica (1723), the Sylvae of Statius (1728), notes to the editions of Lysias by Taylor, of Maximus of Tyre by Davies, of Euripides’ Hippolytus by Musgrave, editions of Euripides’ Supplices, Iphigenia in Tauride and in Aulide (ed. T. Gaisford, 1811); and Remarks on the Epistles of Cicero to Brutus (1745).

See J. Nichols’s Literary Anecdotes (1812), iv. 272; also biography by F. A. Wolf, Literarische Analekten, ii. 370 (1818).

MARKO KRALYEVICH, Servian hero, was a son of the Servian king or prince, Vukashin (d. 1371). Chagrined at not himself becoming king after his father’s death, he headed a revolt against the new ruler of the Servians. Later he passed into the service of the sultan of Turkey, and was killed in battle about 1394. Marko, however, is more celebrated in legend than in history. He is regarded as the personification of the Servian race, and stories of strength and wonder have gathered round his name. He is supposed to have lived for 300 years, to have ridden a horse 150 years old, and to have used his enormous physical strength against oppressors, especially against the Turks. He is a great figure in Servian poetry, and his deeds are also told in the epic poems of the Rumanians and the Bulgarians. One tradition relates how he retired from the world owing to the advent of firearms, which, he held, made strength and valour of no account in battle. Goethe regards Marko as the counterpart of Hercules and of the Persian Rustem.

The Servian poems about him were published in 1878; a German translation by Gröber (Marko, der Königssohn) appeared at Vienna in 1883.

MARK SYSTEM, the name given to a social organization which rests on the common tenure and common cultivation of the land by small groups of freemen. Both politically and economically the mark was an independent community, and its earliest members were doubtless blood relatives. In its origin the word is the same as mark or march (q.v.), a boundary. First used in this sense, it was then applied to the land cleared by the settlers in the forest areas of Germany, and later it was used for the system which prevailed—to what extent or for how long is uncertain—in that country. It is generally assumed that the lands of the mark were divided into three portions, forest, meadow and arable, and as in the manorial system which was later in vogue elsewhere, a system of rotation of crops in two, three or even six fields was adopted, each member of the community having rights of pasture in the forest and the meadow, and a certain share of the arable. The mark was a self-governing community. Its affairs were ordered by the markmen who met together at stated times in the markmoot. Soon, however, their freedom was encroached upon, and in the course of a very short time it disappeared altogether.

The extent and nature of the mark system has been, and still is, a subject of controversy among historians. One school holds that it was almost universal in Germany; that it was, in fact, the typical Teutonic method of holding and cultivating the land. From Germany, it is argued, it was introduced by the Angle and Saxon invaders into England, where it was extensively adopted, being the foundation upon which the prevailing land system in early England was built. An opposing school denies entirely the existence of the mark system, and a French writer, Fustel de Coulanges, refers to it contemptuously as “a figment of the Teutonic imagination.” This view is based largely upon the supposition that common ownership of the land was practically unknown among the early Germans, and was by no means general among the early English. The truth will doubtless be found to lie somewhere between the two extremes. The complete mark system was certainly not prevalent in Anglo-Saxon England, nor did it exist very widely, or for any very long period in Germany, but the system which did prevail in these two countries contained elements which are also found in the mark system.

The chief authority on the mark system is G. L. von Maurer, who has written Einleitung zur Geschichte der Mark- Hof- Dorf- und Stadtverfassung und der öffentlichen Gewalt (Munich, 1854; new ed., Vienna, 1896), and Geschichte der Markenverfassung in Deutschland (Erlangen, 1856). See also N. D. Fustel de Coulanges, Recherches sur quelques problèmes de l’histoire (1885); and a translation from the same writer’s works called The Origin of Property in Land, by M. Ashley. This contains an introductory chapter by Professor W. J. Ashley. Other authorities are K. Lamprecht, Deutsches Wirtschaftsleben im Mittelalter (Leipzig, 1886); R. Schröder, Lehrbuch der deutschen Rechtsgeschichte (Leipzig, 1902); and W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, vol. i. (1891).

MARL (from O. Fr. marle, Late Lat. margila, dim. of marga; cf. Du. and Ger. Mergel), a calcareous clay, or a mixture of carbonate of lime with argillaceous matter. It is impossible to give a strict definition of a marl, for the term is applied to a great variety of rocks and soils with a considerable range of composition. On the one hand, the marls graduate into clays by diminution in the amount of lime that they contain, and on the other hand they pass into argillaceous limestones (see Limestone). From 25-75% of carbonate of lime may be regarded as characteristic of the marls. But in popular usage many substances are called marls which would not be included under the definition given here. The practice formerly much in vogue of top-dressing land with marls, and the use of many different kinds of earth and clay for that purpose, has led to a very general misapplication of the term; for all sorts of rotted rock, some being of igneous origin while others are rain-wash, loams, and various superficial deposits, have been called “marls” in different parts of Britain, if only it was believed that an application of them to the surface of the fields would result in increased fertility.

The typical marls are soft, earthy, and of a white, grey or brownish colour. Many of them disintegrate in water; and they are readily attacked by dilute hydrochloric acid, which dissolves the carbonate of lime rapidly, giving off bubbles of carbon dioxide. The lime of some marls is present in the form of shells, whole or broken; in others it is a fine impalpable powder mixed with the clay. In many marls there is organic matter (plant fragments or humus). Sand is usually not abundant but is rarely absent. Gypsum occurs in some marls, occasionally in large simple crystals with the form of lozenge-shaped plates or in twinned groups resembling an arrow-head; fine examples of these are obtained in the marls of Montmartre near Paris, where celestine (strontium sulphate) occurs also in nodular or concretionary masses. Large crystals of calcite or of dolomite, lumps of iron pyrites or radiate nodules of marcasite, and small crystals of quartz are found in certain marl deposits; and in Westphalia the marls of the Senonian (part of the Cretaceous system) at Hamm yield masses of strontianite up to two feet in length. A very large variety of accessory minerals may be proved to exist in marls by microscopic examination.

The rocks known as shell marls are found in many parts of Britain and 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, 753⁄4 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 1⁄4 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, 311⁄2 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.