to Trinity College, where he had been 34 97 231 254 Malone, William, Rev., best known for his challenge to Protestant writers and Archbishop Ussher's reply, was born in Dublin about 1586. At an early age he was sent to Portugal, and then to Rome, where in his twentieth year he entered the order of Jesuits. After a sojourn in Ireland, he was sent for to Rome and appointed Rector of St. Isidore's College. He returned to Ireland as Superior of the Jesuit mission. He excited the suspicion of the Government and was arrested; but contrived to make his escape to Spain, where he died Rector of the Irish College at Seville, in 1659, aged about 73. 334 loathing horror he spoke, when at rare intervals he could be induced to speak at all, of his labours with the scrivener and the attorney. He was shy and sensitive, with exquisite sensibility and fine impulses. At this time he must have been a great devourer of books, and seems to have early devoted himself to the exploration of those treasures which lay locked up in foreign languages. Mangan had no education of a regular and approved sort; neither, in his multifarious reading had he, nor could brook, any guidance whatever." 232 How he came by the brilliant acquirements he soon displayed is not recorded. How he made his unaided studies in the attorney's office, or at the top of a library ladder so effective, is difficult to understand. It is certain that he became a classical scholar, and that he was familiar with at least three modern languages-German, French, and Spanish -besides his own. During this obscure and unrecorded period of his life, he appears to have contracted an unhappy passion for a certain "Frances," whose name often appears in his poems. About 1830 we find him contributing short poems, usually translations from the German, or renderings of literal translations from the Irish, to Dublin periodicals. He thus became acquainted with Dr. Anster, Dr. Petrie, and Dr. Todd, and through their influence was given employment suited to his tastes and acquirements, in the catalogue department of Trinity College Library. John Mitchel describes his appearance here: "It was an unearthly and ghostly figure in a brown garment; the same garment (to all appearance) which lasted till the day of his death. The blanched hair was totally unkempt; the corpse-like features still as marble; a large book was in his arms, and Mangan, James Clarence, a distin- all his soul was in the book. Here guished Irish poet, was born in Fishamble- Mangan laboured mechanically, and street, Dublin, in the spring of the year dreamed, roosting on a ladder, for certain 1803. Little is recorded concerning his months, perhaps years; carrying the proparentage. Those who knew him in his ceeds in money to his mother's poor home, later days had a vague sort of knowledge storing in his memory the proceeds which that he had a brother, sister, and mother were not in money, but in another kind of still living, whose scanty subsistence de- ore, which might feed the imagination inpended partly on him. He received what deed, but was not available for board and scholastic training he ever had at a poor lodging. All this time he was the bondschool in Derby-square, near his birth- slave of opium." He found employment place. For seven years he laboured as in the Ordnance Survey. He also wrote a copyist with a scrivener at a weekly for the Dublin Penny Journal, the Irish salary, and afterwards passed two years Penny Journal, and the University Magain an attorney's office. "At what agezine, and later for the Nation. When he devoted himself to this drudgery, at what age he left it, or was discharged from it, does not appear. Those who knew him in after years can remember with what a shuddering and Manby, Peter, Rev., Dean of Derry, an Irish writer who flourished in the 17th century, was educated at Trinity College, became chaplain to Archbishop Boyle, and in 1672 was appointed Dean of Derry. In 1686 he embraced Catholicism, being permitted by James II. to retain his deanery. After the defeat of James in Ireland he removed to France and afterwards to London, where he died in 1697. He was the author of several controversial works, some of which were replied to by Dr. King, afterwards Archbishop of Dublin. 118 339 John Mitchel left the Nation, and started the Irishman, Mangan, who thoroughly sympathized with his revolutionary sentiments, confined his writings almost exclusively to its columns. Nothing could reclaim him from habits of intemperance. It has been well said, "There were two Mangans, one well known to the Muses, the other to the police. Sometimes he could not be found for weeks; and then he would reappear, like a ghost, or a ghoul, with a wildness in his blue, glittering eye, as of one who has seen spectres.. Yet he was always humble, affectionate, almost prayerful. He was never of the Satanic school, never devoted mankind to the infernal gods, nor cursed the sun; but the cry of his spirit was ever, 'Miserable man that I am, who will deliver me from the wrath to come?"" Anster, Father Meehan, Petrie, and James Haughton retained generous friendship for him to the last. Early in June 1849 he was seized with cholera in a miserable lodging in Dublin, was taken to Mercer's Hospital for treatment, and there sank and died on the 20th of the same month, aged 46. He was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery. His poetry, instinct with tenderness, pathos, and force of imagery, is too little known. A memoir and an essay on the characteristics of his poetical genius are prefixed to the edition of his Poems published by John Mitchel (New York, 1859). Of his distinctly Irish pieces, perhaps his "Dark Rosaleen," and "Lament for the Princes of Tyrone and Tirconnell" are the best known. In these and other translated Irish pieces he has so completely caught the feeling of the original that it is difficult to believe that his knowledge of Irish was very limited, and that he trusted to literal translations made for him by friends. His German Anthology contains perhaps the most widely-known of his translations. Mitchel says: "I have never yet met a cultivated Irish man or woman, of genuine Irish nature, who did not prize Clarence Mangan above all the poets that their island of song ever nursed." 232 Marianus Scotus, whose Irish name was Maelbrigde, an annalist of the 11th century, a contemporary of Tigernach, was born in 1028. He is said to have been the first by whom the name Scotia, theretofore applied to Ireland only, was given to Scotland. He went abroad in 1056, and joined a religious community at Cologne. From 1059 to 1069 he was imprisoned by command of the Bishop of Metz. He died in 1086, aged 57. Harris gives a list of his works, and quotes the opinion that, "without comparison, he was the most learned man of his age, an excellent historian, a famous man at calculations, and a solid divine." 339 196 Marsden, William, F.R.S., a distinguished oriental scholar, was born in Dublin, 16th November 1754. Obtaining an Indian appointment in 1771, he broke off his theological studies at Trinity College, and went out to Bencoolen, Sumatra, as secretary to the British representative. His duties were by no means arduous, and he devoted his leisure to the study of the Malay language, and was enabled to lay up the stock of oriental knowledge that was afterwards given to the world in his various publications. After eight years' residence abroad, he returned to England in 1779, with an income of a few hundred pounds a year, determined to devote himself to literature. Before long he became acquainted with Sir Joseph Banks and the leading literary men of the day, and was elected a member of the Royal Society and other learned bodies. His History of Sumatra was published in 1782-according to Southey, "a perfect model of topographical and descriptive composition." Having declined several offers of lucrative employment in India, in 1795 he was appointed Second Secretary of the Admiralty, and in due time became Chief Secretary, with a salary of £4,000 per annum. discharged the duties of this office for twelve years eventful to the British navy, much to his own honour and the public advantage. In 1807 his health began to suffer from overwork, and he retired on a pension of £1,500. The first fruit of his labour in retirement was the publication, in 1812, of his Grammar and Dictionary of the Malay Language, thirty-three years after he had collected the materials. In 1817 appeared a translation of the Travels of Marco Polo. According to MacCulloch, "this is incomparably the best translation of the celebrated Travels of Marco Polo, and is in all respects one of the best edited books that have ever been published." Several other works followed-notably Numismata Orientalia. In 1831, from feelings of patriotism, he voluntarily resigned his pension. He died of apoplexy, 6th October 1836, aged 81, and was buried in Kensal-green. He bequeathed his collection of oriental coins and medals to the British Museum, and his library to King's College, London. 16 40 He Marsh, Sir Henry, Bart., a distinguished physician, was born at Loughrea in 1790. (He was lineally descended from Francis Marsh, Archbishop of Dublin.) He graduated at Trinity College in 1812; but having attached himself to a sect known as the Walkerites, abandoned the studies which he had been pursuing with a view of entering the Church. He turned his attention to medicine, and was contains many valuable works, is still open to the public. Archbishop Marsh died 2nd November 1713, aged 75,339 and was buried in a vault in the churchyard of St. Patrick's, adjoining the library. A stately monument was erected to his memory in St. Patrick's Cathedral. He at one period as the Archbishop's palace. No relationship appears to have existed between him and Francis Marsh, his predecessor in the see of Dublin. 111 196 254 332 apprenticed to Philip Crampton. In 1818 he took his degree, walked the Paris hospitals, and in 1820, having settled in Dublin, was appointed physician to Dr. Steevens' Hospital. Thenceforward his progress in the medical profession was rapid. He enjoyed an increasing private practice, and held some of the most onerous and honour-occupied a house at Leixlip, still known able positions connected with Dublin medical charities; and in 1839 he and Surgeon Crampton were created baronets. He died suddenly at his residence in Merrion-square, Dublin, 1st December 1860, aged 70, and was buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery. Sir Henry was greatly beloved in private life, and was held in high esteem by the members of his own profession. 116 (57) Marsh, James, a Dublin physician and chemist, who distinguished himself by the discovery of a process by which the most minute portions of arsenic can be detected in any body or liquid, was born in 1789. His discovery was given to the world in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal for October 1836. The process, details of which will be found in the Encyclopædia Britannica, is constantly made use of in medical jurisprudence. He died at Woolwich, where for some time he had occupied the position of practical chemist to the Royal Arsenal, 21st June 1846, aged 56. 734 Marsh, Narcissus, Archbishop of Armagh, was born at Hannington in Wiltshire, 20th December 1638. Educated at Oxford, he became Doctor of Divinity in 1671; and seven years afterwards, through the influence of his friend the Duke of Ormond, was appointed Provost of Trinity College, Dublin. In 1682 he was consecrated Bishop of Leighlin and Ferns; in 1690 was translated to Cashel; in 1694 he was promoted to the archbishopric of Dublin; and in 1702 became Archbishop of Armagh. The writings of this eminent prelate scarcely merit record; he is remembered for his bequests to the see of Armagh, for the foundation of widows' alms-houses at Drogheda, and above all by the foundation, in 1707, of a free public library contiguous to St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin-probably the first of its kind in Ireland. He laid out £4,000 on the building, which at his death contained 10,000 volumes. Forty years afterwards it received an important addition in a bequest of books and MSS. from Dr. Stearne. The salary of a librarian was provided for by a charge of £250 per annum on church lands in Meath. An Act of the Irish Parliament exempted Marsh's Library from taxes. This venerable foundation, which, although somewhat restricted in its scope, Martin, John, a distinguished Irish nationalist, was born 8th September 1812, at Loughorne, near Newry, where his father was a Presbyterian clergyman. After a preliminary education at Newry, he passed to Trinity College, where he took a degree in 1834. He then commenced the study of medicine, which he eventually abandoned, partly from want of nerve in the dissecting-room, and partly from want of faith in the science. The death of an uncle in 1835 left him in independent circumstances. In 1839 he visited America, and in 1841 travelled on the Continent. His attention was turned to politics by the progress of the Repeal agitation, and he gave in his adhesion to the movement, nothing but diffidence preventing him from advocating the cause in public. He joined in the secession of the Young Ireland party, and took a prominent part in the councils of the Confederation, occasionally contributing articles to the United Irishman. Although the purity and sincerity of his character were well known, he showed more courage and determination than he had been credited with, when, on the seizure of the United Irishman in 1848, he settled his affairs in the north, proceeded to Dublin, and commenced the publication of the Irish Felon from the abandoned office of the United Irishman, and openly advocated the policy of revolution and forcible separation from Great Britain. After the issue of the third number a warrant for his arrest was in the hands of the police, and the fifth number was the last. On 8th July 1848 he surrendered himself to the authorities (having kept out of the way for a few days to avoid trial at a commission then sitting), and was committed to Newgate. On 19th August he was tried for treasonfelony before the Commission Court sitting in Dublin, and a verdict of guilty having been returned, he was sentenced to ten years' transportation. Next year was sent in the ship Elphinstone, in company with Kevin I. O'Doherty, to Tasmania, where they arrived in November 1849. During his exile, in common with the other he Irish political prisoners, Mr. Martin enjoyed comparative freedom in the district assigned to him. In 1854, together with W. Smith O'Brien and Kevin I. O'Doherty, he was pardoned, on condition of not visiting the United Kingdom, whereupon he returned to Europe by the overland route, and settled in Paris in October. Two years afterwards his pardon was made unconditional, and he paid a short visit to his friends in Ireland. He had made no effort to secure these pardons, and in accepting them placed himself under no restraint as to his future action. His sisterin-law died in 1858, and the illness of his brother induced him to return to Ireland to tend him in his dying moments, and to assume the guardianship of his children and the care of his business at Kilbroney, Rostrevor. These duties he performed with scrupulous fidelity, and in their discharge, and in communion with nature in the romantic neighbourhood of Rostrevor, he found the best support against the anguish he endured at the failure of his hopes for Ireland, and the faithlessness of many of his old friends. In January 1864, with The O'Donohoe and some others, he established "The National League," having for its object the securing of the legislative independence of Ireland. It had a short existence, chiefly owing to the active opposition of the Fenian party, then rising into power. On Sunday, 8th December 1867, Mr. Martin took a prominent part in the funeral procession in Dublin in honour of Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien, who had been executed at Manchester a few days previously. For this he was prosecuted by Government, and defending himself in a speech of singular ability and moderation, was acquitted. Mr. Martin gave in his hearty adhesion to the principles of the Home Government Association, established in May 1870, to agitate for a federal arrangement between Great Britain and Ireland. Late in the same year he was, without cost to himself, elected member of Parliament for Meath. When applied to by the editor of Debrett's Heraldic and Biographical House of Commons for his arms, he wrote: "I carry no arms: this is a proclaimed district." He was re-elected by an overwhelming majority at the general election in 1874. Attendance at the House of Commons was very irksome to him: yet when he spoke it was with feeling and impressiveness, and he won general respect. His greatest parliamentary effort was perhaps a speech delivered during the discussion of a Coercion Act, 26th May 1871, in reply to Mr. Gladstone, who taunted him with being "the servant of the evil traditions of his country," and said the Ministry were "not afraid to compete with him for the future confidence of Ireland." At the Home Rule Conference of 1873 in Dublin, he unreservedly accepted the programme then adopted. For a time he was induced to occupy the post of Secretary to the Home Rule League-drawing, however, only half the salary agreed upon, although his means had been much straitened by his unceasing sacrifices for Ireland. Shortly before his death he resigned the paid secretaryship, and accepted an honorary one, finding it impossible, on any terms, to receive money for patriotic services. The death of his friend and brother-in-law, John Mitchel, in March 1875, was a severe blow to him. Within one week thereafter he succumbed to an old complaint, spasmodic asthma, on the 29th March 1875, aged 62, and was buried in Loughorne churchyard, close by the homestead, where he was born. Few men have been more revered both in public and private life. He was lovingly known in Ireland as "Honest John Martin." His knowledge of languages was extensive, and his literary tastes were refined. 157 233 308 Martin, Mary Lætitia Bell, an authoress, daughter of Thomas B. Martin, of Ballinahinch Castle, County of Galway (who died in 1847), was born early in the present century. An heiress to landed property in the county, worth some £5,000 per annum, she married Arthur G. Bell, who took her name. She was a writer of no mean ability, and contributed largely to the Encyclopédie des Gens du Monde and other French periodicals, besides writing some novels, of which St. Etienne, a Tale of the Vendean War, and Julia Howard may be mentioned. The failure of the potato crop and the famine and pestilence of 1845-'7 caused the financial ruin of herself and her husband. "Her projects for the improvement of the wild district over which she had reigned as a sort of native sovereign were at an end, and she went forth from the roof of her fathers a wanderer, without a home, and, as it would appear, almost without a friend." She died in a hotel in New York, 30th October 1850, ten days after her arrival in America, having suffered much from fever, the consequence of a premature confinement during her passage on board a sailing vessel. 7 16 Massey, Eyre, Lord Clarina, was born in Ireland, 24th May 1719. He entered the army at an early age, and was wounded at Culloden in 1745. At the head of the storming party that took Moro Castle, Havannah, he was again wounded, as also at the capture of Martinique. He fought under Wolfe at Quebec, and captured Fort Oswegachie, in August 1760. During the American Revolutionary War he was a Brigadier-General in command at Halifax. He was Colonel of the 27th Regiment, Governor of Limerick, and of Kilmainham Hospital, and was created an Irish peer, 27th December 1800. He died at Bath, 17th May 1804, aged 84, being one of the last survivors of those who served under Wolfe. 37 54 Massue, Henry de, Marquis de Ruvigny, Earl of Galway, a distinguished general (son of the first Marquis de Ruvigny, a General in the French army and Councillor-of-State), was born in France in 1648, and left the country with his father on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and settled at Greenwich. When news reached him of the death of his only brother, De la Caillemotte, and of his friend Marshal Schomberg at the battle of the Boyne in 1690, he offered his services to William III., was appointed Major-General, and Colonel of Schomberg's Regiment of Huguenot Horse, and joined De Ginkell at Athlone. His regiment lost 144 men in the capture of the town. "After the battle," says De Bosanquet, "Ginkell came up and embraced De Ruvigny, declaring how much he was pleased with his bravery and his conduct;" 166 and the King raised him to the Irish peerage, as Earl of Galway. After serving William III. upon the Continent, he was appointed one of the Lords-Justices of Ireland; and, says Mr. Smiles, "during the time that he held office, devoted himself to the establishment of the linen trade, the improvement of agriculture, and the reparation of the losses and devastations from which the country had suffered during the civil wars." The King conferred upon him an estate in the Queen's County, on which he founded the colony of Portarlington, where he induced a large number of the best class of Huguenot refugees to settle. He liberally assisted them out of his private means, erected more than one hundred dwellings of a superior kind, built and endowed a French and an English Church, and established two excellent schools for the education of their children. "Thus," says Mr. Smiles, "the little town of Portarlington shortly became a centre of polite learning, from which emanated some of the most distinguished men in Ireland, while the gentle and industrious life of the colonists exhibited an example of patient labour, neatness, thrift, and orderliness, which exercised a consi derable influence on the surrounding population." The appropriation of the Portarlington estate was, however, objected to by the English Parliament, and a Bill was passed annulling that and all grants of a like kind made by the King. The property was eventually made over to the Hollow Sword-Blade Company, along with many large estates throughout the country, and in 1701 Lord Galway returned to England. Fortunately the leases he had given to the Huguenot exiles were not interfered with; and he ever continued to take a deep interest in the colony he had established. The rest of his life was passed in active military service on the Continent, and for the last few years in retirement at Rookley, near Southampton. He died 3rd September 1720, aged 72, and was buried in Micheldever churchyard. Samuel Smiles's Huguenots, their Settlements, Churches, and Industries in England and Ireland, is full of interesting particulars concerning the French settlers in Ireland. 166 Mathew, Theobald, D.D., temperance reformer, was born at Thomastown, in the County of Kilkenny, 10th October 1790. His family were connexions of the Baron of Landaff, and at Thomastown House, the seat of that nobleman, much of the lad's early life was passed. He was of a sweet and engaging disposition, incapable of anger or resentment, free from selfishness, always anxious to share with others whatever he possessed, and jealous of the affections of those to whom he was particularly attached. Having passed through the usual preliminary course of studies for Maynooth College, he was sent thither in September 1807; but left it within a short time to avoid expulsion for some trifling breach of discipline, and placed himself under the spiritual care of Rev. Celestine Corcoran, Dublin. In 1814 he was ordained by Archbishop Murray, and admitted a member of the Capuchin Order. For more than twenty years he devoted himself untiringly to the duties of his order, principally in Cork, without any thought of the more comprehensive mission that lay before him. Mr. Maguire, his biographer, thus speaks of his ministrations between 1820 and 1830, at a little priory in Cork, of which he and a colleague, Father Donovan, were the principal occupants: "Father Mathew was not a man of shining abilities, nor was he a profound or severely-trained scholar. Neither had he fashioned his style upon the best models, or improved his taste by a thorough acquaintance with those authors whose works are the classics of English litera |