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).
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
