Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/295

Martin year appeared his 'Voyage to St. Kilda,' describing the island and its inhabitants. It reached a fourth edition in 1753, and it too has been reprinted (, Voyages, &c.) In the 'Philosophical Transactions,' xxv. 2469, there is a second paper by him on 'A Relation of a Deaf and Dumb Person who recovered his Speech and Hearing after a Violent Fever,' 'Martinus Martin, Scoto-Britannus,' entered Leyden University March 1710, and graduated M.D. there (, Index of Leyden Students, p. 65). He died in London in 1719.

Martin's 'Description of the Western Islands ' was given to Dr. Johnson to read by his father, and roused the doctor's interest in Scotland, which afterwards resulted in the famous tour. Although Johnson was interested in the work and took it with him to the highlands, he had a poor opinion of its literary merits. 'No man,' he said, 'now writes so ill as Martin's account of the Hebrides is written.'

 MARTIN, MARY LETITIA (1815–1850), novelist, generally called Mrs. Bell Martin, and known also as the ‘Princess of Connemara,’ was the only child of Thomas Barnewall Martin of Ballinahinch Castle, co. Galway, M.P. for the county, and was born there on 28 Aug. 1815. Richard Martin (1754–1834) [q. v.] was her grandfather. For her sake her father, in an ill-advised moment, broke the entail, mortgaged his large estates to the extent of 200,000l. to the Law Life Assurance Society, and further burdened himself with the debts of his father and grandfather, liabilities dating as far back as 1775. He died 23 April 1847, and the heavily charged estates passed on his death to Mary. She had always devoted her energies to improving the condition of her father's tenantry, hence her popular title of the ‘Princess of Connemara.’ During the great famine, when the tenants ceased to pay rent, the Martins had spent large sums on food and clothing for the people, and had given continuous work to some hundreds of labourers. On 14 Sept. 1847 she married a poor man, Arthur Gonne Bell of Brookside, co. Mayo, who assumed by royal license the surname and arms of Martin. About the time of her marriage Mary borrowed further large sums of money, with which to relieve her tenantry, both from private sources and from the Law Life Assurance Company, and when she was unable to pay the instalments of her father's mortgages, the society insisted on the observance of the bond. The property was among the first brought into the Encumbered Estates Court. Out of an estate of nearly two hundred thousand acres not a single rood remained to Mrs. Martin, who became comparatively a pauper. She retired to Fontaine L'Evêque in Belgium, and there helped to support herself by her pen. Determined to seek a better fortune in the New World, she was prematurely confined on board ship, and died 7 Nov. 1850, only ten days after reaching New York. Her husband lived until 1883.

Her chief literary work is ‘Julia Howard, a Romance,’ 1850, which gives something of her own experience. The scene is partly laid in the west of Ireland, and the hero, through no fault of his own, loses his estates, and becomes a soldier of fortune. Although the tale has little merit, the descriptions of the wild scenery of Connemara and the characters of the Irish peasants are truthful and picturesque. Another fair novel is entitled ‘St. Etienne, a Tale of the Vendean War.’ She contributed largely to the ‘Encyclopédie des Gens du Monde’ and other French periodicals.

 MARTIN, MATTHEW (1748–1838), naturalist and philanthropist, born in 1748 in Somerset, was engaged in trade at Exeter. He was a member of the Bath Philosophical Society, and in early life devoted some attention to natural history, publishing 'The Aurelian's Vade-mecum; containing an English Catalogue of Plant' affording nourishment to Butterflies, Hawkmoths, and Moths in the state of Caterpillar,' 12mo, Exeter, 1785, and 'Observations on Marine Vermes, Insects, &c.,' fasc. 1, 4to, Exeter, 1786. Later on he obtained the post of secretary to a commission for adjusting St. Domingo claims, and settled in a house adjoining Poets' Corner, Westminster. About 1796 he began 'an enquiry into the circumstances of beggars in the metropolis,' and joined the 'Society for Bettering the Condition ... of the Poor,' of which he acted for a time as secretary. Martin proposed a plan for a systematic inquiry into the nature and extent of mendicity in London, and in 1800 obtained a grant of 1,000l. from the treasury in two instalments. His report, in the form of a 'Letter to Lord Pelham on the State of Mendicity in the Metropolis,' was published in 1803, and reissued by the society in 1811. 