Chapter III: Part 3

The natives are Micronesians of a dark brown colour, though lighter shades occur. Their hair is not woolly but straight and long. They practise tattooing, and show Papuan influence by distending the ear-lobes by the insertion of wooden disks. They are expert navigators, and construct curious charts of thin strips of wood tied together with fibres, some giving the position of the islands and some the direction of the prevailing winds. Their canoes carry sails and are made of the trunk of the bread-fruit tree. The people are divided into four classes, of which only two are allowed to own land. The islands lie entirely within the German sphere of interest, and the boundaries were agreed upon between Great Britain and Germany on the 10th of April 1889. Their area is estimated at 160 sq. m., with 15,000 inhabitants, who are apparently increasing, though the contrary was long believed. All but about 250 are natives. The administrator of the islands is the governor of German New Guinea, but a number of officials reside on the islands. There is no military force, the natives being of peaceful disposition. The chief island and seat of government is Jaluit. The most populous island is Majeru, with 1600 inhabitants. The natives are generally pagans, but a Roman Catholic mission has been established, and the American Mission Board maintains coloured teachers on many of the islands. There is communication with Sydney by private steamer, and a steamer sails between Jaluit and Ponape to connect with the French boats for Singapore. The chief products for export are copra, tortoise-shell, mother-of-pearl, sharks' fins and trepang. The natives are clever boat-builders, and find a market for their canoes on neighbouring islands. They have made such progress in their art that they have even built seaworthy little schooners of 30 to 40 tons. The only other articles they make are a few shell ornaments.

The Marshall Islands may have been visited by Alvaro de Saavedra in 1529, Captain Wallis touched at the group in 1767, and in 1788 Captains Marshall and Gilbert explored it. The Germans made a treaty with the chieftains of Jaluit in 1878 and annexed the group in 1885-1886.

See C. Hager, _Die Marshall-Inseln_ (Leipzig, 1886); Steinbach and
Grösser, _Wörterbuch der Marshall-Sprache_ (Hamburg, 1902).

MARSHALLTOWN, a city and the county-seat of Marshall county, Iowa, U.S.A., near the Iowa River and about 60 m. N.E. of Des Moines. Pop. (1890), 8914; (1900), 11,544, of whom 1590 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 13,374. Marshalltown is served by the Chicago & North-Western, the Chicago Great Western, and the Iowa Central railways, the last of which has machine shops here. At Marshalltown are the Iowa soldiers' home, supported in part by the Federal Government, and St. Mary's institute, a Roman Catholic commercial and business school. The city is situated in a rich agricultural region, and is a market for grain, meat cattle, horses and swine. There are miscellaneous manufactures, and in 1905 the factory product was valued at $3,090,312. The municipality owns and operates its waterworks and its electric-lighting plant. Marshalltown, named in honour of Chief Justice John Marshall, was laid out in 1853, and became the county-seat in 1860. It was incorporated as a town in 1863, and was chartered as a city in 1868.

MARSHALSEA, a prison formerly existing in Southwark, London. It was attached to the court of that name held by the steward and marshal of the king's house (see LORD STEWARD and MARSHAL). The date of its first establishment is unknown, but it existed as early as the reign of Edward III. It was consolidated in 1842 with the queen's bench and the Fleet, and was then described as "a prison for debtors and for persons charged with contempt of Her Majesty's courts of the Marshalsea, the court of the queen's palace of Westminster, and the high court of admiralty, and also for admiralty prisoners under sentence of courts martial." It was abolished in 1849. The Marshalsea Prison is described in Charles Dickens' _Little Dorrit_.

MARSHBUCK, a book-name proposed for such of the African bushbucks or harnessed antelopes as have abnormally long hoofs to support them in walking on marshy or swampy ground. (See BUSHBUCK and ANTELOPE.)

MARSHFIELD, a city of Wood county, Wisconsin, about 165 m. N.W. of Milwaukee. Pop. (1890), 3450; (1900), 5240, of whom 1161 were foreign-born; (1905) 6036; (1910) 5783. It is served by the Chicago & North-Western, the Chicago, St Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha, and the Minneapolis, St Paul & Sault Ste Marie railways. It contains the mother-house of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother. Lumbering is the most important industry, and there are various manufactures. The city is situated in a clover region, in which dairying is important, and Guernsey and Holstein-Friesland cattle are raised. The municipality owns and operates the waterworks and the electric-lighting plant. The site of Marshfield was part of a tract granted by the Federal government to the Fox River Improvement Company, organized to construct a waterway between the Mississippi river and Green Bay, and among the original owners of the town site were Samuel Marsh of Massachusetts (in whose honour the place was named) and Horatio Seymour, Ezra Cornell, Erastus Corning, and William A. Butler of New York. Marshfield was settled about 1870, and was first chartered as a city in 1883.

MARSH GAS (methane), CH4, the first member of the series of paraffin hydrocarbons. It occurs as a constituent of the "fire-damp" of coal-mines, in the gases evolved from volcanoes, and in the gases which arise in marshy districts (due to the decomposition of vegetable matter under the surface of water). It is found associated with petroleum and also in human intestinal gases. It is a product of the destructive distillation of complex organic matter (wood, coal, bituminous shale, &c.), forming in this way from 30 to 40% of ordinary illuminating gas. It may be synthetically obtained by passing a mixture of the vapour of carbon bisulphide with sulphuretted hydrogen over red-hot copper (M. Berthelot, _Comptes rendus_, 1856, 43, p. 236), CS2 + 2H2S + 8Cu = 4Cu2S + CH4; by passing a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide over reduced nickel at 200-250° C., or hydrogen and carbon dioxide at 230-300° C. (P. Sabatier and J. B. Senderens, _Comptes rendus_, 1902, 134, pp. 514, 689); by the decomposition of aluminium carbide with water [H. Moissan, _Bull. Soc. Chim._, 1894, (3) 11, p. 1012]; and by heating phosphonium iodide with carbon bisulphide in a sealed tube to 120-140° C. (H. Jahn, _Ber._, 1880, 13, p. 127). It is also obtained by the reduction of many methyl compounds with nascent hydrogen; thus methyl iodide dissolved in methyl alcohol readily yields methane when acted on by the zinc-copper couple (J. H. Gladstone and A. Tribe, _Jour. Chem. Soc._, 1884, 45, p. 156) or by the aluminium-mercury couple. It may be obtained in an indirect manner from methyl iodide by conversion of this compound into zinc methyl, or into magnesium methyl iodide (formed by the action of magnesium on methyl iodide dissolved in anhydrous ether), and decomposing these latter substances with water (E. Frankland, 1856; V. Grignard, 1900),

Zn(CH4)2 + H2O = 2CH4 + ZnO; 2CH3MgI + H2O = 2CH4 + MgI2 + MgO.

In the laboratory it is usually prepared by J. B. A. Dumas' method (_Ann._, 1840, 33, p. 181), which consists in heating anhydrous sodium acetate with soda lime, CH3CO2Na + NaOH = Na2CO3 + CH4. The product obtained by this method is not pure, containing generally more or less ethylene and hydrogen.

Methane is a colourless gas of specific gravity 0.559 (air = 1). It may be condensed to a colourless liquid at -155° to -160° C. under atmospheric pressure (S. Wroblewsky, _Comptes rendus_, 1884, 99, p. 136). It boils at -162° C. and freezes at -186° C. Its critical temperature is -99.5° C. (J. Dewar). The gas is almost insoluble in water, but is slightly soluble in alcohol. It decomposes into its constituents when passed through a red-hot tube, small quantities of other hydrocarbons (ethane, ethylene, acetylene, benzene, &c.) being formed at the same time. It burns with a pale flame, and when mixed with air or oxygen forms a highly explosive mixture. W. A. Bone (_Jour. Chem. Soc._, 1902, 81, p. 535; 1903, 83, p. 1074) has shown that in the oxidation of methane by oxygen at 450-500° C. formaldehyde (or possibly methyl alcohol) is formed as an intermediate product, and is ultimately oxidized to carbon dioxide. Methane is an exceedingly stable gas, being unaffected by the action of chromic acid, nitric acid, or a mixture of nitric and sulphuric acids. Chlorine and bromine, however, react with methane, gradually replacing hydrogen and forming chlor- and brom-substitution products.

MARSHMAN, JOSHUA (1768-1837), English Baptist missionary and orientalist, was born on the 20th of April 1768, at Westbury Leigh, in Wiltshire. He followed the occupation of a weaver until 1794, but having meanwhile devoted himself to study he removed to Broadmead, Bristol, to take charge of a small school. In 1799 he was sent by the Baptist Missionary Society to join their mission at Serampur. Here, in addition to his more special duties, he studied Bengali and Sanskrit, and afterwards Chinese. He translated the Bible into various dialects, and, aided by his son, established newspapers and founded Serampur College. He received the degree of D.D. from Brown University, U.S.A., in 1810. He died at Serampur on the 5th of December 1837. His son, John Clark Marshman (1704-1877), was official Bengali translator; he published a _Guide to the Civil Law_ which, before the work of Macaulay, was the civil code of India, and wrote a _History of India_ (1842).

Marshman translated into Chinese the book of Genesis, the Gospels, and
the Epistles of Paul to the Romans and the Corinthians; in 1811 he
published _The Works of Confucius, containing the Original Text, with
a Translation_, and in 1814 his _Clavis Sinica_. He was also the
author of _Elements of Chinese Grammar, with Preliminary Dissertation
on the Characters and Colloquial Mediums of the Chinese_, and was
associated with W. Carey in the preparation of a Sanskrit grammar and
of a Bengali-English dictionary.

See J. C. Marshman, _Life and Times of Carey, Marshman and Ward_ (2
vols., 1859).

MARSI, an ancient people of Italy, whose chief centre was Marruvium, on the eastern shore of Lake Fucinus. They are first mentioned as members of a confederacy with the Vestini, Paeligni and Marrucini (Liv. viii. 29, cf. viii. 6, and Polyb. ii. 24, 12). They joined the Samnites in 308 B.C. (Liv. ix. 41), and on their submission became allies of Rome in 304 B.C. (Liv. ix. 45). After a short-lived revolt two years later, for which they were punished by loss of territory (Liv. x. 3), they were readmitted to the Roman alliance and remained faithful down to the social war, their contingent (e.g. Liv. xliv. 46) being always regarded as the flower of the Italian forces (e.g. Hor. _Od._ ii. 20, 18). In this war, which, owing to the prominence of the Marsian rebels is often known as the Marsic War, they fought bravely against odds under their leader Q. Pompaedius Silo, and, though they were frequently defeated, the result of the war was the enfranchisement of the allies (see ROME: _History_, "The Republic"). The Marsi were a hardy mountain people, famed for their simple habits and indomitable courage. It was said that the Romans had never triumphed over them or without them (Appian). They were also renowned for their magicians, who had strange remedies for various diseases.

The Latin colony of Alba Fucens near the north-west corner of the lake was founded in the adjoining Aequian territory in 303, so that from the beginning of the 3rd century the Marsians were in touch with a Latin-speaking community, to say nothing of the Latin colony of Carsioli (298 B.C.) farther west. The earliest pure Latin inscriptions of the district seem to be _C.I.L._ ix. 3827 and 3848 from the neighbourhood of Supinum; its character generally is of the Gracchan period, though it might be somewhat earlier.

Mommsen (_Unteritalische Dialekten_, p. 345) pointed out that in the social war all the coins of Pompaedius Silo have the Latin legend "Italia," while the other leaders in all but one case used Oscan.

The chief record of the dialect or patois we owe to the goddess Angitia, whose chief temple and grove stood at the south-west corner of Lake Fucinus, near the inlet to the _emissarius_ of Claudius (restored by Prince Torlonia), and the modern village of Luco. She (or they, for the name is in the plural in the Latin inscription next cited) was widely worshipped in the central highlands (Sulmo, _C.I.L._ ix. 3074, Furfo Vestinorum, ibid. 3515) as a goddess of healing, especially skilled to cure serpent bites by charms and the herbs of the Marsian woods. Her worshippers naturally practised the same arts--as their descendants do (see A. de Nino's charming collection of _Usi e costumi abruzzesi_), their country being in Rome counted the home of witchcraft; see Hor. _Sal._ 1, 9, 29, _Epod._ 17, 28, &c.

The earliest local inscriptions date from about 300 to 150 B.C. and include the interesting and difficult bronze of Lake Fucinus, which seems to record a votive offering to Angitia, if _A(n)ctia_, as is probable, was the local form of her name. Their language differs very slightly from Roman Latin of that date; for apparently contracted forms like _Fougno_ instead of _Fucino_ may really only be a matter of spelling. In final syllables the diphthongs _ai_, _ei_, _oi_, all appear as _e_. On the other hand, the older form of the name of the tribe (dat. plur. _Martses_ = Lat. _Martiis_) shows its derivation and exhibits the assibilation of _-tio-_ into _-tso-_ proper to many Oscan dialects (see OSCA LINGUA) but strange to classical Latin.

See R. S. Conway, _The Italic Dialects_, pp. 290 seq. (from which some
portions of this article are taken by permission of the syndics of the
Camb. Univ. Press); on the Fucino-Bronze, ib. p. 294. (R. S. C.)

MARSIGLI [Latinized MARSILIUS], LUIGI FERDINANDO, Count (1658-1730), Italian soldier and scientific writer, was born at Bologna on the 10th of July 1658. After a course of scientific studies in his native city he travelled through Turkey collecting data on the military organization of that empire, as well as on its natural history. On his return he entered the service of the emperor Leopold (1682) and fought with distinction against the Turks, by whom he was wounded and captured in an action on the river Raab, and sold to a pasha whom he accompanied to the siege of Vienna. His release was purchased in 1684, and he afterwards took part in the war of the Spanish succession. In 1703 he was appointed second in command under Count Arco in the defence of Alt-Breisach. The fortress surrendered to the duke of Burgundy, and both Arco and Marsigli were court martialled; the former was condemned to death and the latter cashiered, although acquitted of blame by public opinion. Having thus been forced to give up soldiering, he devoted the rest of his life to scientific investigations, in the pursuit of which he made many journeys through Europe, spending a considerable time at Marseilles to study the nature of the sea. In 1712 he presented his collections to his native city, where they formed the nucleus of the Bologna Institute of Science and Art. He died at Bologna on the 1st of November 1730. Marsigli was a fellow of the London Royal Society and a member of the Paris Academy of Science.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--A list of his works, over twenty in number, is given in
Niceron's _Memoirs_; his _Breve ristretto del saggio fisico intorno
alla storia del mare_ was published at Venice in 1711, and again at
Amsterdam (in French) in 1725; the _Stato militare dell' impero
ottomano_ was published at Amsterdam and the Hague in Italian and
French (1732), the _Osservazioni intorno al Bosforo Tracio_ in Rome
(1681) and the _Danubius pannonico-mysicus_, a large work in six
volumes containing much valuable historic and scientific information
on the Danubian countries, at the Hague (1725). See Fontenelle,
"Éloge" in the _Mém. de l'acad. des sciences_ (Paris, 1730); Quincy,
_Mémoires sur la vie de M. le comte Marsigli_ (Zürich, 1741), and
Fantuzzi's biography of Marsigli (Bologna, 1770).

MARSILIUS OF PADUA [MARSIGLIO MAINARDINO] (1270-1342), Italian medieval scholar, was born at Padua, and at first studied medicine in his own country. After practising various professions, among others that of a soldier, he went to Paris about 1311. The reputation which he had gained in the physical sciences soon caused him to be raised to the position of rector of the university (for the first term of the year 1313). While still practising medicine he entered into relations with another master of Paris, the philosopher John of Jandun, who collaborated with him in the composition of the famous _Defensor pacis_ (1324), one of the most extraordinary political and religious works which appeared during the 14th century. A violent struggle had just broken out between pope John XXII. and Louis of Bavaria, king of the Romans, and the latter, on being excommunicated and called upon to give up the empire, only replied to the pope's threats with fresh provocations. Marsilius of Padua and John of Jandun, though they had both reason to be grateful for the benefits of John XXII., chose this moment to demonstrate, by plausible arguments, the supremacy of the Empire, its independence of the Holy See, and the emptiness of the prerogatives "usurped" by the sovereign pontiffs--a demonstration naturally calculated to give them a claim on the gratitude of the German sovereign.

The _Defensor pacis_, as its name implies, is a work intended to restore peace, as the most indispensable benefit of human society. The author of the law is the people, i.e. the whole body, or at least the most important part (_valentior_) of the citizens; the people should themselves elect, or at least appoint, the head of the government, who, lest he should be tempted to put himself above the scope of the laws, should have at his disposal only a limited armed force. This chief is responsible to the people for his breaches of the law, and in serious cases they can condemn him to death. The real cause of the trouble which prevails among men is the papacy, a "fictitious" power, the development of which is the result of a series of usurpations. Marsilius denies, not only to the pope, but to the bishops and clergy, any coercive jurisdiction or any right to pronounce on their own authority excommunications and interdicts, or in any way to impose the observation of the divine law. He is not opposed to penalties against heretics, but he would have them pronounced only by civil tribunals. Desiring to see the clergy practise a holy poverty, he proposes the suppression of tithes and the seizure by the secular power of the greater part of the property of the church. The clergy, thus deprived of its wealth, privileges and jurisdiction, is further to be deprived of independence, for the civil power is to have the right of appointing to benefices, &c. The supreme authority in the church is to be the council, but a council summoned by the emperor. The pope, no longer possessing any more power than other bishops (though Marsilius recognizes that the supremacy of the Church of Rome goes back to the earliest times of Christianity), is to content himself with a pre-eminence mainly of an honorary kind, without claiming to interpret the Holy Scriptures, define dogmas or distribute benefices; moreover, he is to be elected by the Christian people, or by the delegates of the people, i.e. the princes, or by the council, and these are also to have the power to punish, suspend or depose him. Such is this famous work, full of obscurities, redundancies and contradictions, in which the thread of the argument is sometimes lost in a labyrinth of reasonings and citations, both sacred and profane, but which nevertheless expresses, both in religion and politics, such audacious and novel ideas that it has been possible to trace in it, as it were, a rough sketch of the doctrines developed during the periods of the Reformation and of the French Revolution. The theory was purely democratic, but was all ready to be transformed, by means of a series of fictions and implications, into an imperialist doctrine; and in like manner it contained a visionary plan of reformation which ended, not in the separation of the church from the state, but in the subjection of the church to the state. To overthrow the ecclesiastical hierarchy, to deprive the clergy of all their privileges, to reduce the pope to the rank of a kind of president of a Christian republic, which governs itself, or rather submits to the government of Caesar--such is the dream formed in 1324 by two masters of the university of Paris.

When in 1326 Louis of Bavaria saw the arrival in Nuremberg of the two authors of the book dedicated to him, startled by the boldness of their political and religious theories, he was at first inclined to treat them as heretics. He soon changed his mind, however, and, admitting them to the circle of his intimates, loaded them with favours. Having become one of the chief inspirers of the imperial policy, Marsilius accompanied Louis of Bavaria to Italy, where he preached or circulated written attacks against the pope, especially at Milan, and where he came within the sight of the realization of his wildest utopias. To see a king of the Romans crowned emperor at Rome, not by the pope, but by those who claimed to be the delegates of the people (Jan. 17, 1328), to see John XXII. deposed by the head of the Empire (April 18), and a mendicant friar, Pietro de Corbara, raised by an imperial decree to the throne of St Peter (as Nicholas V.) after a sham of a popular election (May 12), all this was merely the application of principles laid down in the _Defensor pacis_. The two authors of this book played a most active part in the Roman Revolution. Marsilius, appointed imperial vicar, abused his power to persecute the clergy who had remained faithful to John XXII. In recompense for his services, he seems to have been appointed archbishop of Milan, while his collaborator, John of Jandun, obtained from Louis of Bavaria the bishopric of Ferrara.

Marsilius of Padua also composed a treatise _De translatione imperii romani_, which is merely a rearrangement of a work of Landolfo Colonna, _De jurisdictione imperatoris in causa matrimoniali_, intended to prove the exclusive jurisdiction of the emperor in matrimonial affairs, or rather, to justify the intervention of Louis of Bavaria, who, in the interests of his policy, had just annulled the marriage of the son of the king of Bohemia and the countess of Tirol. But, above all, in an unpublished work preserved at Oxford, the _Defensor minor_, Marsilius completed and elaborated in a curious manner certain points in the doctrine laid down in the _Defensor pacis_. In it he deals with ecclesiastical jurisdiction, penances, indulgences, crusades and pilgrimages, vows, excommunication, the pope and the council, marriage and divorce. Here his democratic theory still more clearly leads up to a proclamation of the imperial omnipotence.

Marsilius of Padua does not seem to have lived long after 1342. But the scandal provoked by his _Defensor pacis_, condemned by the court of Avignon in 1326, lasted much longer. Benedict XII. and Clement VI. censured it in turn; Louis of Bavaria disowned it. Translated into French, then into Italian (14th century) and into English (16th century), it was known by Wycliffe and Luther, and was not without an influence on the Reform movement.

See J. Sullivan, _American Historical Review_, vol. ii. (1896-1897),
and _English Historical Review_ for April 1905; _Histoire littéraire
de la France_ (1906), xxxiii. 528-623; Sigmund Riezler, _Die
literarischen Widersacher der Päpste zur Zeit Ludwig des Baiers_
(Leipzig, 1874).

There are numerous manuscripts of the _Defensor pacis_ extant. We will
here mention only one edition, that given by Goldast, in 1614, in vol.
i. of his _Monarchia sacri imperii_; an unpublished last chapter was
published by Karl Müller, in 1883, in the _Göttingische gelehrte
Anzeigen_, pp. 923-925.

Count Lützow in _The Life and Times of Master John Hus_ (London and
New York, 1909), pp. 5-9, gives a good abstract of the Defensor pacis
and the relations of Marsilius to other precursors of the Reformation.
(N. V.)

MARSIVAN, or MERZIFUN (anc. _Phazemon?_), a town in the Amasia sanjak of the Sivas vilayet of Asia Minor, situated at the foot of the Tavshan Dagh. Pop. about 20,000, two-thirds Mussulman. It is a centre of American missionary and educational enterprise, and the seat of Anatolia College, a theological seminary, and schools which were partly destroyed in the anti-Armenian riots of 1893 and 1895. There is also a Jesuit school. Marsivan is an unusually European place both in its aspect and the commodities procurable in the bazaar.

MARS-LA-TOUR, a village of Lorraine, between Metz and the French frontier, which formed part of the battlefield of the 16th of August 1870. The battle is often called the battle of Mars-la-Tour, though it is more usually named after Vionville. (See METZ; and FRANCO-GERMAN WAR.) At Mars-la-Tour occurred the destruction of the German 38th brigade.

MARSTON, JOHN (c. 1575-1634), English dramatist and satirist, eldest son of John Marston of Coventry, at one time lecturer of the Middle Temple, was born in 1575, or early in 1576. Swinburne notes his affinities with Italian literature, which may be partially explained by his parentage, for his mother was the daughter of an Italian physician, Andrew Guarsi. He entered Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1592, taking his B.A. degree in 1594. The elder Marston in his will expresses regret that his son, to whom he left his law-books and the furniture of his rooms in the Temple, had not been willing to follow his profession. John Marston married Mary Wilkes, daughter of one of the royal chaplains, and Ben Jonson said that "Marston wrote his father-in-law's preachings, and his father-in-law his sermons." His first work was _The Metamorphosis of Pigmalions Image, and certaine Satyres_ (1598). "Pigmalion" is an erotic poem in the metre of _Venus and Adonis_, and Joseph Hall attached a rather clumsy epigram to every copy that was exposed for sale in Cambridge. In the same year Marston published, under the pseudonym of W. Kinsayder, already employed in the earlier volume, his _Scourge of Villanie_, eleven satires, in the sixth of which he asserted that Pigmalion was intended to parody the amorous poetry of the time. Both this volume and its predecessor were burnt by order of the archbishop of Canterbury. The satires, in which Marston avowedly took Persius as his model, are coarse and vigorous. In addition to a general attack on the vices of his age he avenges himself on Joseph Hall who had assailed him in _Virgidemiae_. He had a great reputation among his contemporaries. John Weever couples his name with Ben Jonson's in an epigram; Francis Meres in _Palladis tamia_ (1598) mentions him among the satirists; a long passage is devoted to "Monsieur Kinsayder" in the _Return from Parnassus_ (1606), and Dr Brinsley Nicholson has suggested that _Furor poeticus_ in that piece may be a satirical portrait of him. But his invective by its general tone, goes far to justify Mr W. J. Courthope's[1] judgment that "it is likely enough that in seeming to satirize the world without him, he is usually holding up the mirror to his own prurient mind."

On the 28th of September 1599 Henslowe notices in his diary that he lent "unto Mr Maxton, the new poete, the sum of forty shillings," as an advance on a play which is not named. Another hand has amended "Maxton" to "Mastone." The earliest plays to which Marston's name is attached are _The History of Antonio and Mellida. The First Part_; and _Antonio's Revenge. The Second Part_ (both entered at Stationers' Hall in 1601 and printed 1602). The second part is preceded by a prologue which, in its gloomy forecast of the play, moved the admiration of Charles Lamb, who also compares the situation of Andrugio and Lucia to Lear and Kent, but the scene which he quotes gives a misleading idea of the play and of the general tenor of Marston's work.

The melodrama and the exaggerated expression of these two plays offered an opportunity to Ben Jonson, who had already twice ridiculed Marston, and now pilloried him as Crispinus in _The Poetaster_ (1601). The quarrel was patched up, for Marston dedicated his _Malcontent_ (1604) to Jonson, and in the next year he prefixed commendatory verses to _Sejanus_. Far greater restraint is shown in _The Malcontent_ than in the earlier plays. It was printed twice in 1604, the second time with additions by John Webster. _The Dutch Courtezan_ (1605) and _Parasitaster, or the Fawne_ (1606) followed. In 1605 _Eastward Hoe_,[2] a gay comedy of London life, which gave offence to the king's Scottish friends, caused the playwrights concerned in its production--Marston, Chapman and Jonson--to be imprisoned at the instance of Sir James Murray. _The Wonder of Women, or the Tragedie of Sophonisba_ (1606), seems to have been put forward by Marston as a model of what could be accomplished in tragedy. In the preface he mocks at those authors who make a parade of their authorities and their learning, and the next play, _What you Will_ (printed 1607; but probably written much earlier), contains a further attack on Jonson. The tragedy of _The Insatiate Countesse_ was printed in 1613, and again, this time anonymously, in 1616. It was not included in the collected edition of Marston's plays in 1633, and in the Duke of Devonshire's library there is a copy bearing the name of William Barksteed, the author of the poems, _Myrrha, the Mother of Adonis_ (1607), and _Hiren and the Fair Greek_ (1611). The piece contains many passages superior to anything to be found in Marston's well-authenticated plays, and Mr A. H. Bullen suggests that it may be Barksteed's version of an earlier one drafted by Marston. The character and history of Isabella are taken chiefly from "The Disordered Lyfe of the Countess of Celant" in William Paynter's _Palace of Pleasure_, derived eventually from Bandello. There is no certain evidence of Marston's authorship in _Histriomastix_ (printed 1610, but probably produced before 1599), or in _Jacke Drums Entertainement, or the Comedie of Pasquil and Katherine_ (1616), though he probably had a hand in both. Mr R. Boyle (_Englische Studien_, vol. xxx., 1901), in a critical study of Shakespeare's _Troilus and Cressida_, assigns to Marston's hand the whole of the action dealing with Hector, with the prologue and epilogue, and attributes to him the bombast and coarseness in the last scenes of the play. It will be seen that his undoubted dramatic work was completed in 1607. It is uncertain at what time he exchanged professions, but in 1616 he was presented to the living of Christchurch, Hampshire. He formally resigned his charge in 1631, and when his works were collected in 1633 the publisher, William Sheares, stated that the author "in his autumn and declining age" was living "far distant from this place." Nevertheless he died in London, in the parish of Aldermanbury, on the 25th of June 1634. He was buried in the Temple Church.

Marston's works were first published in 1633, once anonymously as
_Tragedies and Comedies_, and then in the same year as _Workes of Mr
John Marston_. _The Works of John Marston_ (3 vols.) were reprinted by
Mr J. O. Halliwell (Phillipps) in 1856, and again by Mr. A. H. Bullen
(3 vols.) in 1887. His _Poems_ (2 vols.) were edited by Dr A. B.
Grosart in 1879. The British Museum Catalogue tentatively assigns to
Marston _The Whipper of the Satyre his pennance in a white sheete; or,
the Beadle's Confutation_ (1601), a pamphlet in answer to _The
Whipping of the Satyre_. For an account of the quarrel of Dekker and
Marston with Ben Jonson see Dr R. A. Small, _The Stage Quarrel
between Ben Jonson and the so-called Poetasters_; in E. Koelbing,
_Forschungen zur englischen Sprache und Litteratur_, pt. i. (1899).
See also three articles _John Marston als Dramatiker_, by Ph.
Aronstein in _Englische Studien_ (vols. xx. and xxi., 1895), and
"Quellenstudien zu den Dramen Ben Jonsons, John Marstons ..." by Emil
Koeppel (_Münchener Beiträge zur roman. und engl. Philologie_, pt. xi.
1895).

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Hist. of Eng. Poetry_, iii. 70.

[2] Revived at Drury Lane (1751) as _The Prentices_, in 1775 as _Old
City Manners_, and said to have suggested Hogarth's "Industrious and
Idle Prentices."

MARSTON, PHILIP BOURKE (1850-1887), English poet, was born in London on the 13th of August 1850. His father, JOHN WESTLAND MARSTON (1819-1890), of Lincolnshire origin, the friend of Dickens, Macready and Charles Kean, was the author of a series of metrical dramas which held the stage in succession to the ambitious efforts of John Tobin, Talfourd, Bulwer and Sheridan Knowles. His chief plays were _The Patrician's Daughter_ (1841), _Strathmore_ (1849), _A Hard Struggle_ (1858) and _Donna Diana_ (1863). He was looked up to as the upholder of the outworn tradition of the acted poetic drama, but his plays showed little vitality, and Marston's reviews for the _Athenaeum_, including one of Swinburne's _Atalanta in Calydon_, and his dramatic criticisms embodied in _Our Recent Actors_ (1888) will probably claim a more enduring reputation. His _Dramatic and Poetical Works_ were collected in 1876. The son, Philip Bourke, was born in a literary atmosphere. His sponsors were Philip James Bailey and Dinah Mulock (Mrs Craik). At his father's house near Chalk Farm he met authors and actors of his father's generation, and subsequently the Rossettis, Swinburne, Arthur O'Shaughnessy and Irving. From his earliest years his literary precocity was overshadowed by misfortunes. In his fourth year, in part owing to an accident, his sight began to decay, and he gradually became almost totally blind. His mother died in 1870. His _fiancée_, Mary Nesbit, died in 1871; his closest friend, Oliver Madox Brown, in 1874; his sister Cicely, his amanuensis, in 1878; in 1879 his remaining sister, Eleanor, who was followed to the grave after a brief interval by her husband, the poet O'Shaughnessy, and her two children. In 1882 the death of his chief poetic ally and inspirer, Rossetti, was followed closely by the tragedy of another kindred spirit, the sympathetic pessimist, James Thomson ("B. V."), who was carried dying from his blind friend's rooms, where he had sought refuge from his latest miseries early in June of the same year. It is said that Marston came to dread making new friendships, for fear of evil coming to the recipients of his affection. In the face of such calamities it is not surprising that Marston's verse became more and more sorrowful and melancholy. The idylls of flower-life, such as the early and very beautiful "The Rose and the Wind" were succeeded by dreams of sleep and the repose of death. These qualities and gradations of feeling, reflecting the poet's successive ideals of action and quiescence, are traceable through his three published collections, _Songtide_ (1871), _All in All_ (1875) and _Wind Voices_ (1883). The first and third, containing his best work, went out of print, but Marston's verse was collected in 1892 by Mrs Louise Chandler Moulton, a loyal and devoted friend, and herself a poet. Marston read little else but poetry; and of poetic values, especially of the intenser order, his judgment could not be surpassed in sensitiveness. He was saturated with Rossetti and Swinburne, and his imitative power was remarkable. In his later years he endeavoured to make money by writing short stories in _Home Chimes_ and other American magazines, through the agency of Mrs Chandler Moulton. His popularity in America far exceeded that in his own country. His health showed signs of collapse from 1883; in January 1887 he lost his voice, and suffered intensely from the failure to make himself understood. He died on the 13th of February 1887.

He was commemorated in Dr Gordon Hake's "Blind Boy," and in a fine
sonnet by Swinburne, beginning "The days of a man are threescore years
and ten." There is an intimate sketch of the blind poet by a friend,
Mr Coulson Kernahan, in _Sorrow and Song_ (1894), p. 127. (T. Se.)

MARSTON MOOR, BATTLE OF, was fought on the 2nd of July 1644 on a moor (now enclosed) seven miles west of York, between the Royalist army under Prince Rupert and the Parliamentary and Scottish armies under the earl of Manchester, Lord Fairfax and Lord Leven. For the operations that preceded the battle see GREAT REBELLION. Rupert had relieved York and joined forces with the marquess of Newcastle's army that had defended that city, and the Parliamentarians and Scots who had besieged it had drawn off south-westward followed by the Royalists. On the morning of the 2nd of July, however, Rupert's attack on their rearguard forced them to halt and deploy on rising ground on the south edge of the moor, their position being defined on the right and left by Long Marston and Tockwith and divided from the Royalist army on the moor by a lane connecting these two villages. The respective forces were--Royalists about 18,000, Parliamentarians and Scots about 27,000. The armies stood front to front. On the Royalist right was half the cavalry under Rupert; the infantry was in the centre in two lines and the left wing of cavalry was under General (Lord) Goring. The lane along the front was held by skirmishers. On the other side the cavalry of the Eastern Association under Lieut.-General Cromwell and that of the Scots under Major-General Leslie (Lord Newark) formed the left, the infantry of the Eastern Association under Major-General Crawford, of the Scots under Lord Leven, and of the Yorkshire Parliamentarians under Lord Fairfax was in the centre and the Yorkshire cavalry under Sir Thomas Fairfax was on the right wing.

During the afternoon there was a desultory cannonade, but neither side advanced. At last, concluding from movements in the enemy's lines that there would be no fighting that day, Rupert and Newcastle strolled away to their coaches and their soldiers dismounted and lay down to rest. But seeing this Cromwell instantly advanced his wing to the attack (5 p.m.). His dragoons drove away the skirmishers along the lane, and the line cavalry crossed into the moor. The general forward movement spread along the Parliamentary line from left to right, the Eastern Association infantry being the first to cross the road. In Rupert's momentary absence, the surprised Royalist cavalry could make no head against Cromwell's charge, although the latter was only made piecemeal as each unit crossed the lane and formed to the front. Rupert soon galloped up with his fresh second line and drove back Cromwell's men, Cromwell himself being wounded, but Leslie and the Scots Cavalry, taking ground to their left, swung in upon Rupert's flank, and after a hard struggle the hitherto unconquered cavalry of the prince was broken and routed. Then, being unlike other cavalry of the time, a thoroughly disciplined force, the Eastern Association cavalry rallied, leaving the pursuit to the Scots light horse. On the Parliamentary right, Goring had swept away the Yorkshire horse, and although most of his troopers had followed in disorderly pursuit, Sir Charles Lucas with some squadrons was attacking the exposed right of Leven's infantry. At the same time the Parliamentary infantry had mostly crossed the lane and was fighting at close quarters and suffering severely, Newcastle's north-country "White-Coat" brigade driving back and finally penetrating their centre. Lord Leven gave up the battle as lost and rode away to Tadcaster. But the Scots on the right of the foot held firm against Lucas's attacks, and Cromwell and Leslie with their cavalry passed along the rear of the Royal army, guided by Sir Thomas Fairfax (who though wounded in the rout of his Yorkshire horse had made his way to the other flank). Then, on the ground where Goring had routed Fairfax, Cromwell and Leslie won an easy victory over Goring's scattered and disordered horsemen. The Eastern Association infantry had followed the horse and was now in rear of the Royalists. The original Parliamentary centre of foot, a remnant, but one containing only the bravest and steadiest men, held fast, and soon the Royalist infantry was broken up into isolated regiments and surrounded by the victorious horse and foot of the enemy. The White-Coats retreated into an enclosure and there defended themselves to the last man. The rest were cut down on the field or scattered in the pursuit and at nightfall the Royalist army had ceased to exist. Some of Rupert's foot regiments made their way to York, but the dispirited garrison only held out for a fortnight. Rupert rallied some six thousand of the men and escaped over the hills into Lancashire, thence rejoining King Charles in the south. But the Northern army, the main hope of the Royalist cause, was destroyed.

MARSUPIALIA (from Lat. _marsupium_, a "pouch," or "bag"), the group of mammals in which the young are usually carried for some time after birth in a pouch on the under-surface of the body of the female. The group, which has also the alternative title of Didelphia, is by some authorities regarded as a sub-class of the mammalia of equal rank with the Monotremata, while by others it is brigaded with the placentals, so that the two together form a sub-class of equal grade with the one represented by the monotremes. There is much to be urged in favour of either view; and in adopting the former alternative, it must be borne in mind that the difference between monotremes and marsupials is vastly greater than that which separates the latter from placentals. In elevating the marsupials to the rank of a sub-class the name Metatheria has been suggested as the title for the higher grade, with Marsupialia as the designation for the single order by which they are now represented. It is, however, less liable to cause confusion, and in many other ways more convenient to employ the better known term Marsupialia in both senses.

Marsupials may be defined as viviparous (that is non-egg-laying) mammals, in which the young are born in an imperfect condition, and almost immediately attached to the teats of the mammary glands; the latter being generally enclosed in a pouch, and the front edge of the pelvis being always furnished with epipubic or "marsupial" bones. As a rule there is no allantoic placenta forming the means of communication between the blood of the parent and the foetus, and when such a structure does occur its development is incomplete. In all cases a more or less full series of teeth is developed, these being differentiated into incisors, canines, premolars and molars, when all are present; but only a single pair of teeth in each jaw has deciduous predecessors.

The pouch from which the marsupials take their name is supported by the two epipubic bones, but does not correspond to the temporary breeding-pouch of the monotremes. It may open either forward or backwards; and although present in the great majority of the species, and enclosing the teats, it may, as in many of the opossums, be completely absent, when the teats extend in two rows along the whole length of the under-surface of the body. Whether a pouch is present or not, the young are born in an exceedingly imperfect state of development, after a very short period of gestation, and are immediately transferred by the female parent to the teats, where they remain firmly attached for a considerable time; the milk being injected into their mouths at intervals by means of a special muscle which compresses the glands. In the case of the great grey kangaroo, for instance, the period of gestation is less than forty days, and the newly-born embryo, which is blind, naked, and unable to use its bud-like limbs, is little more than an inch in length.

As additional features of the sub-class may be mentioned the absence
of a corpus callosum connecting the right and left hemispheres of the
brain,[1] and of a fossa in the septum between the two auricles of the
heart. In the skull there are always vacuities, or unossified spaces
in the bones of the palate, while the "angle," or lower hind extremity
of each half of the lower jaw is strongly bent inwards so as to form a
kind of shelf, and the alisphenoid bone takes a share in the formation
of the tympanum, or auditory bladder, or bulla. Didelphia, the
alternative name of the group was given in allusion to the
circumstance that the uterus has two separate openings; while other
features are the inclusion of the openings of the alimentary canal and
the urino-genital sinus in a common sphincter muscle, and the position
of the scrotum in advance of the penis. The bandicoots alone possess a
placenta. Lastly the number of trunk-vertebrae is always nineteen,
while there are generally thirteen pairs of ribs.

As regards the teeth, in all cases except the wombats the number of
upper incisors differs from that of the corresponding lower teeth. As
already stated, there is no vertical displacement and succession of
the functional teeth except in the case of a single tooth on each side
of each jaw, which is the third of the premolar series, and is
preceded by a tooth having more or less of the characters of a molar
(see fig. 1). In some cases (as in rat-kangaroos) this tooth retains
its place and function until the animal has nearly, if not quite,
attained its full stature, and is not shed and replaced by its
successor until after all the other teeth, including the molars, are
in place and use. In others, as the thylacine, it is rudimentary,
being shed or absorbed before any of the other teeth have cut the gum,
and therefore functionless. It may be added that there are some
marsupials, such as the wombat, koala, marsupial ant-eater and the
dasyures, in which no such deciduous tooth, even in a rudimentary
state, has been discovered. In addition to this replacement of a
single pair of functional teeth in each jaw, it has been discovered
that marsupials possess rudimentary tooth-germs which never cut the
gum. According to one theory, these rudimentary teeth, together with
the one pair of functional teeth in each jaw that has vertical
successors, represent the milk-teeth of placental mammals. On the
other hand, there are those who believe that the functional dentition
(other than the replacing premolar and the molars) correspond to the
milk-dentition of placentals, and that the rudimentary tooth-germs
represent a "prelacteal" dentition. The question, however, is of
academic rather than of practical interest, and whichever way it is
answered does not affect our general conception of the nature and
relationships of the group.

Unfortunately the homology of the functional series does not by any
means end the uncertainty connected with the marsupial dentition; as
there is also a difference of opinion with regard to the serial
homology of some of the cheek-teeth. For instance, according to the
older view, the dental formula in the thylacine or Tasmanian wolf is
i. 4/3, c, 1/1 p. 3/3, m. 4/4 = 46. On the other hand, in the opinion
of the present writer, this formula, so far as the cheek-teeth are
concerned, should be altered to p. 4/4, m. 3/3, thus bringing it in
accord, so far as these teeth are concerned, with the placental
formula, and making the single pair of replacing teeth the third
premolars. It may be added that the formula given above shows that the
marsupial dentition may comprise more teeth than the 44 which form the
normal full placental complement.

As regards geographical distribution, existing marsupials, with the exception of two families, _Didelphyidae_ and _Epanorthidae_, are mainly limited to the Australian region, forming the chief mammalian fauna of Australia, New Guinea, and some of the adjacent islands. The _Didelphyidae_ are almost exclusively Central and South American, only one or two species ranging into North America. Fossil remains of members of this family have also been found in Europe in strata of the Oligocene period.

_History._--The origin and evolution of the Australian marsupials have been discussed by Mr B. A. Bensley. In broad contrast to the views of Dr A. R. Wallace, this author is of opinion that marsupials did not effect an entrance into Australia till about the middle of the Tertiary period, their ancestors being probably opossums of the American type. They were then arboreal; but they speedily entered upon a rapid, although short-lived, course of evolution, during which leaping terrestrial forms like the kangaroos were developed. The short period of this evolution is at least one factor in the primitive grade of even the most specialized members of the group. In the advance of their molar teeth from a tritubercular to a grinding type, the author traces a curious parallelism between marsupials and placentals. Taking opossums to have been the ancestors of the group, the author considers that the present writer may be right in his view that marsupials entered Australia from Asia by way of New Guinea. On the other hand there is nothing absolutely decisive against their origin being southern.

Again, taking as a text Mr L. Dollo's view that marsupials were originally arboreal, that, on account of their foot-structure, they could not have been the ancestors of placentals, and that they themselves are degenerate placentals, Mr Bensley contrasts this with Huxley's scheme of mammalian evolution. According to the latter, the early monotremes which became specialized into modern monotremes, gave rise to the ancestors of the modern marsupials; while the modern placentals are likewise an offshoot from the ancestral marsupial stock. This phylogeny, the author thinks, is the most probable of all. It is urged that the imperfect placenta of the bandicoots instead of being vestigial, may be an instance of parallelism, and that in marsupials generally the allantois failed to form a placental connexion. Owing to the antiquity of both placentals and marsupials, the arboreal character of the feet of the modern forms of the latter is of little importance. Further, it is considered that too much weight has been assigned to the characters distinguishing monotremes from other mammals, foetal marsupials showing a monotreme type of coracoid, while it is probable that in the long run it will be found impossible to maintain the essential dissimilarity between the milk-glands of monotremes and other mammals.

Another view is to regard both marsupials and placentals as derivates from implacental ancestors more or less nearly related to the creodont carnivora, or possibly as independently descended from anomodont reptiles (see CREODONTA). Finally, there is the hypothesis that marsupials are the descendants of placentals, in which case, as was suggested by its discoverer, the placenta of the bandicoots would be a true vestigial structure.

_Classification._

Existing marsupials may be divided into three main divisions or sub-orders, of which the first, or Polyprotodontia, is common to America and Australasia; the second, or Paucituberculata, is exclusively South American; while the third, or Diprotodonts, is as solely Australasian inclusive of a few in the eastern Austro-Malayan islands.

1. _Polyprotodonts._--The Polyprotodonts are characterized by their
numerous, small, sub-equal incisors, of which there are either five or
four pairs in the upper and always three in the lower jaw, (fig. 2)
and the generally strong and large canines, as well as by the presence
of from four to five sharp cusps or tubercles on the crown of the
molars. The pouch is often absent, and may open backwards. For the
most part the species are carnivorous or insectivorous.

FIG. 2.--Front View of Skull of the Tasmanian Devil (_Sarcophilus
ursinus_) to exhibit polyprotodont type of dentition.]

The first family is that of the true or American
opossums--_Didelphyidae_, in which there are five pairs of upper
incisors, while the feet are of the presumed primitive arboreal type,
the hind foot having the four outer toes sub-equal and separate, with
the first opposable to them all. With the exception of the
water-opossum, forming the genus _Chironectes_, all the living members
of the family may be included in the genus _Didelphys_. The latter
may, however, be split up into several sub-generic groups, such as
_Metachirus_, _Philander_, _Marmosa_ (_Micoureus_ or _Grymaeomys_),
_Peramys_, _Dromiciops_, &c. The small South American forms included
in _Marmosa_, which lack the pouch, and have numerous teats, and molar
teeth of a primitive type, are doubtless the most generalized
representatives of the group (see OPOSSUM; and WATER-OPOSSUM).

Nearly allied is the Australian family _Dasyuridae_, characterized by
the presence of only four pairs of upper incisors, the generally small
and rudimentary condition of the first hind toe, which can but seldom
be opposed to the rest, and the absence of prehensile power in the
tail; the pouch being either present or absent, and the fore feet
always five-toed. The stomach is simple, and there is no caecum to the
intestine, although this is present in the opossums.