Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/592

Rh 5(54 M A E M A R the squabble, and that, as in Dolet s case, his subsequent misfortunes were not altogether unconnected with a too little governed tongue and pen. Although on his last return into France he had formally abjured his errors, the publication of the Psalms gave the Sorbonne a handle, and the book was condemned by that body. Jn 1543 it was evident that he could not rely on the protection of Francis, who was probably too selfish in any case to have given him inconvenient help, arid who, like many of his family, was disposed to compound with the church for a libertine life by ceremonial devotion and by sacrificing heretics liberally. Marot accordingly fled to Geneva; but the stars were now decidedly against him. He had, like most of his friends, been at least as much of a freethinker as of a Protestant, and, notwithstanding the immense service he had done to the cause by. the publication of his Psalms, this was fatal to his reputation in the austere city of Calvin. He had again to fly, and made his way into -Piedmont, where he seems to have enjoyed a sort of left-handed protection from Francis, who then held it. But the harassing effect of these constant persecutions, assisted very likely by the careless living which was but too common at the time, proved too much for him, and he died at Turin in the autumn of 1544, aged barely forty-eight. In character Marot seems to have been a typical Frenchman of the old stamp, cheerful, good humoured, and amiable enough, but probably not very much disposed to elaborately moral life and con versation or to serious reflexion. He has sometimes been charged, though on no very definite grounds, with a want of independence of character, and his attitude towards his patrons was certainly not that of almost haughty equality which Ronsard brought in ; but it is fair to remember that Marot belonged almost as much to the Middle Ages as to the Renaissance, and that in the Middle Ages men of letters naturally attached themselves as dependants to the great. Such scanty knowledge as we have of his relations with his equals is favourable to him. He certainly at one time quarrelled with Dolet, or at least wrote a violent epigram against him, for which there is no known cause. But, as Dolet quarrelled with almost every friend he ever had, and in two or three cases played them the shabbiest of tricks, the presumption is not against Marot in this matter. AVhatever may have been Marot s personal weaknesses, his importance in the history of French literature is very great, and it is wont nowadays to be rather under- than over-valued. Coming immediately before a great literary reform that of the Pleiade Marot suffered the drawbacks of his position ; he was both eclipsed and decried by the partakers in that reform. In the reaction against the Pleiade he recovered honour ; but its restoration to virtual favour, a perfectly just restoration, has again unjustly depressed him. Yet Marot is in no sense one of those writers of transition who are rightly obscured by those who come after them. He himself was a reformer, and a reformer on perfectly independent lines, besides which it may be said that he carried his own reform as far as it would go. It has been said that his early work was couched in the rhetoriqucur style, the distinguishing characteristics of which are elaborate metre and rhyme, allegoric matter, and pedantic language. In his second stage he entirely emancipated himself from this, and became one of the easiest, least affected, and most vernacular poets of France. In these points indeed he has, with the exception of La Fontaine, no rival, and the lighter verse writers ever since have taken one or the other or both as model. In his third period he lost a little of this flowing grace and ease, but acquired something in stateliness, while he certainly lost nothing in wit. It is beyond question that Marot is the first poet who strikes readers of French as being distinctively modern. He is not so great a poet as Villon nor as some of his successors of the Pleiade, but he is much less antiquated than the first (whose works, as well as the Roman de la Rose, it may be well to mention that he edited) and not so elaborately artificial as the second. Indeed, if there be a fault to find with Marot, it is undoubtedly that in his gallant and success ful effort to break up, supple, and liquefy the stiff forms and stiffer language of the 15th century, he made his poetry almost too ver nacular and pedestrian. In his hands, and while the style Marotique was supreme, French poetry ran some risk of finding itself unequal to anything but graceful vcrs de societe. But it is only fair to remember that for a century and more its best achievements, with rare exceptions, had been vcrs de societe which were not graceful. There is a very cheap, handsome, and useful edition of Marot by Jannet and Hdricault, 4 vols., Paris, 1873; but M. Georges Guiffrcy is slowly producing a costly and splendid work, containing a vast quantity of unpublished matter, which will undoubtedly be the standard. This work contains much biographical detail, which, however, as being still incomplete, is not available to modify former accounts. (G. SA.) MARQUESAS ISLANDS, or MENDANA ISLANDS (French, Les Marquises), an archipelago of twelve islands lying between 7 50 and 10 35 S. lat, and 138 30 and 1 40 50 W. long. They extend over 200 miles from S.E, to N.W., and have a total area of 489 square miles. The lower or true Marquesas group consists of the islands Falouhiva or Magdalena, Motan.e or San Pedro, Tahouata or Sta Christina, and Hivaoa or Dominica, the last with a coast line of more than 60 miles. With these is often included the rocky islet of Fetohougo or Hood s, lying in mid- channel to the north of Hivaoa. The north-western or Washington group is formed of seven islands, the four largest being Koa-Poua or Adams, Houahouna or Washington, Noukahiva or Marc-hand (70 miles in circum ference), and Hiaou. Along the centre of each island is a ridge of mountains, sometimes attaining an altitude of 3500 feet, whence rugged spurs forming deep valleys stretch towards the sea. The volcanic origin of the whole archipelago is proved by the principal rocks being of basalt, trachyte, and lava. Except on a few barren peaks .the islands are clothed with verdure, and in the valleys, which are well watered with streams and brooks, the vegetation is luxuriant. The flora includes over four hundred known species, many of them identical with those belonging to the Society Islands. The vegetable products comprise bananas, bread-fruit, yarns, plantains, wild cotton, bamboos, sugar-cane, cocoa-nut and dwarf palms, and several kinds of timber trees. The land fauna is, however, very poor: there are few mammals with the exception of dogs, rats, and pigs ; and amphibia and insects are also generally scarce. Of twenty species of birds more than half belong to the sea, where animal life is as abundant as at other subtropical Polynesian groups. The climate of the Marquesas, although hot and humid, is not unhealthy. During the greater part of the year moderate easterly trade winds prevail, and at the larger islands there are often both land and sea breezes ; the rainy season, accompanied by variable winds, sets in at the end of November, and lasts for about six months. During this period the thermometer varies from 84 to 91 F.; in the dry season its average range is from 77 to 80. The inhabitants, a native Polynesian race, have in many respects a great affinity to the Tahitians, but excel them in symmetry of form. They live chiefly on bread-fruit, vegetables, and fish, almost entirely neglect agriculture, but rear hogs and fowls in great numbers. They exchange live stock, timber, vegetables, fruit, and fresh water with traders for iron utensils, firearms, gunpowder, cloth, tobacco, and brandy. They are polite in their intercourse with strangers, susceptible and courageous, but at the same time excitable, revengeful, addicted to stealing, lazy, and immoral. The efforts of missionaries, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic, have hitherto proved of little avail either in converting them to Christianity or in improving their moral and social condition. At the commence ment of the present century the population exceeded 20,000, -but since then petty warfare, infectious maladies, and various other causes have greatly reduced its number; and on the 31st December 1876 it reached only 5754. In 1842 the Marquesas archipelago was formally taken possession of for France by Captain Du Petit-Thouars ; and the French still maintain a nominal protectorate over the islands, with a resident and a small garrison at Noukahiva. Since 1861, however, French colonization has been virtually abandoned. The Marquesas Islands were first discovered 21st July 1595, by Alvaro Mendana, who, however, only knew of the south-east group, to which he gave the name of Marquesas de Mendoza, in honour of the viceroy of Peru. Cook, pursuing the same track, rediscovered this group, with the addition of Fetohougo, in 1774. The north-