Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/602

Rh 574 M A R M A II lias received a considerable impulse from the conquest of Algeria and the opening of the Suez Canal. The completion of the canal of the Durance has covered with verdure the formerly arid country surrounding the town, and the openings made in the old part of Marseilles have improved its sanitary condition. (G. ME. ) MARSH, GEORGE PERKINS, LL.D. (1801-1882), American diplomatist and philologist, was born at Wood stock, Vermont, March 17, 1801, graduated at Dartmouth College in 1820, and practised law at Burlington, Vermont, devoting himself also with ardour to philological studies. In 1835 he was elected to the State legislature, and in 1842 he became a member of Congress. In 1849 he was appointed United States minister to Turkey, and in 1852 discharged also a special mission to Greece, returning to Vermont in 1853. In 1861 he became United States minister to Italy, and died in that office at Vallombrosa, July 24, 1882. His chief published works are a Compendious Grammar of the Old Northern or Icelandic Language, 1838, compiled and translated from the grammar of Rask ; The Camel, his Organization, Halits, and Uses, 1856 ; Lectures on the English Language, 1861 ; The Origin and History of the English Language, 1862; Man and Nature, 1864. The last-named work, largely rewritten, was issued under the title The Earth as Modified by Human Action in 1874. MARSHAL (from Old High German marah, horse, and scale, care-taker), in its original signification a servant of the royal manege, was afterwards a title given in different countries to the holder of various high offices, military and civil. In the time of Philip Augustus the commander of the French forces was called the marshal of France. Under Francis I. the marshals of France became two in number, under Henry III. four, and in the time of Louis XIV. their number was raised to twenty. In England the marshal was a high officer of state as far back as the 12th century. In the end of the 12th and first half of the 13th century the office was conferred on the earls of Pembroke, from whom it passed by female descent to the family of Bigod, earl of Norfolk. The dignity of earl- marshal was afterwards held successively by the Mowbrays, dukes of Norfolk, the Howards, dukes of Norfolk, and the earls of Arundel and Norwich. Under a grant by Charles II. to. Henry Howard, earl of Norwich, it has descended to and continues in the line of the existing dukes of Norfolk. The marshal was in feudal times (in conjunction with the constable, a still higher officer) the judge in the court of chivalry, which had cognizance of questions of honour and dignity ; and, when the king headed his army in person, it was the marshal who selected the proper spot for the encampment of each noble. The constable s powers and duties were superseded in the reign of Henry VIII. ; but the earl-marshal is still the head of the Heralds College, and appoints the officers of arms. In Scotland (an orthography resembling the French mardchal being adopted) the office of marischal, probably introduced under David I., became from the 14th century hereditary in the family of Keith. The Scottish marischal became an earl under the designation of &quot; earl-marischal&quot; in 1 458. Marischal College in Aberdeen was founded and endowed by the munificence of George, 5th earl-marischal. The dignity came to an end by the attainder of George, 10th earl-marischal, in 1716. The military title of field-marshal was at first borrowed by the Germans from the French marechal de champs ; and in the Thirty Years War it meant much what quartermaster-general does now. It was not till last century that the word rose in dignity so as to signify the highest military dignity except that of commander-in-chief. It was adopted into the British military system from Germany, the first field-marshals being John, duke of Argyll, and George, earl of Orkney, made so by George II. in 1736. MARSHALL, JOHN (1755-1835), chief justice of the United States, was born in Fauquier county, Virginia, on September 24, 1755. As lieutenant and captain he served in the revolutionary army from 1775 to 1780. In 1781 he began the practice of the law, and two years later removed to Richmond. At various times from 1782 to 1798 he was elected a member of the Virginia legislature, in 1788 a member of the Virginia convention for the rati fication of the constitution ; in 1797 he was envoy-extra ordinary to France, and in 1799 a member of Congress; in 1800 he became secretary of state; and on January 31, 1801, he was appointed to the chief justiceship, which position he held until his death on the 6th of July 1835. Marshall as a lawyer soon rose to the first rank at the Virginia bar, and acquired also a national reputation. In the Virginia convention of 1788 his influence was second only to that of Madison in securing the adoption of the constitution. But, unlike Madison, he continued, under the constitution, to support the administration of Washing ton and Federalist measures in general. It was as chief justice of the supreme court of the United States, however, that Marshall won lasting fame. His reports, filling about thirty volumes, form a work which time will only render more valued. In the expounding of public law, whether international or State law, his talents found their freest scope. In these departments of jurisprudence general prin ciples rather than authority must be sought by the judge, and in their application Marshall has had no equal upon the American bench. It is the peculiar function of the supreme court of the United States to interpret the consti tution and to guard it from the encroachments of both national and State legislation. To this duty Marshall brought his great and just powers of reasoning, as well as those broad views of government which, during the thirty- four years of his judicial career, gave to the constitution the liberal powers which were necessary to its durability. &quot; The constitution,&quot; says Judge Story, &quot; since its adoption, owes more to him than to any other single mind for its true interpretation and vindication.&quot; See biography by Henry Flanders in his Lives of the Chief Justices, vol. ii. MARSHALL ISLANDS. See MICROXESIA. MARSHALLTOWN, the county seat of Marshall County, Iowa, United States, is situated on the Iowa river at the junction of several railways, and in the midst of a grain and stock producing region. Among its numer ous industries are sugar-refining, waggon-making, and the manufacture of. barbed steel wire for fencing purposes. The population was 3218 in 1870 and 6240 in 1880, and has since increased rapidly. MARSHMAN, JOSHUA (1768-1837), a Baptist mis sionary and Oriental scholar, was born on April 20, 1768, at Westbury Leigh, in Wiltshire, where he received a somewhat defective school education, and afterwards followed the occupation of a weaver until 1794, when he removed to Bristol to take charge of a small school there. Meanwhile he had been diligent in the cultivation of his talents, which were naturally good ; and he was already a man of considerable acquirements when in 1799 he was sent by the Baptist Missionary Society to join their estab lishment at Serampore. Here, in addition to the discharge of his more special duties, he engaged with success in the study of Bengali and Sanskrit, and afterwards of Chinese, and accomplished numerous literary tasks, the more im portant of which are mentioned below. He received the degree of D.D. from Brown University, U.S.A., in 1811. His death took place at Serampore on December 5, 1837. Dr 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 Vas also the author of Elements of Chinese Grammar, with Pre liminary Dissertation on tlie Characters and Colloquial Mediums of the Chinese, and was associated with Carey in the preparation of a