his custom to send them a minute account of the proceedings before he took either sleep or refreshment. For some unknown reason, he appears to have been absent from his post between June, 1661, and March, 1663; and in June of the latter year he accompanied Lord Carlisle on an embassy to Russia, Sweden, and Denmark. His absence spared him the pain of witnessing the arbitrary and ruinous measures by which the parliament and the country were at this period disgraced, and which he could not have opposed with any hope of success. He returned to his parliamentary duties in 1665, when the parliament was sitting at Oxford, on account of the plague then raging in London. He found the high church faction zealously engaged in persecuting the nonconformists, and destroying the liberties of the nation; while the Scottish covenanters were in arms, and a war was raging with Holland which terminated in most humiliating disasters. At the commencement of his parliamentary career, Marvell was far from being unfriendly to the court; but the arbitrary proceedings and licentious lives of Charles and his ministers completely alienated the honest and public-spirited senator, and during the remainder of his career he acted with a small band of patriots, who cautiously, but firmly, resisted the unconstitutional policy of the government. Though he rarely took part in the debates, his influence was very great both in the house and in the country; and prince Rupert paid such respect to his advice that, when he voted—as he frequently did—against the court, it used to be said that the prince had been with his tutor. No means were omitted to win over so formidable an opponent. "He was threatened, he was flattered, he was thwarted, he was caressed, he was beset with spies, he was waylaid by ruffians, and courted by beauties." At one time he had become so obnoxious to the court, or rather to the party of the duke of York, that it was dangerous for him to stir abroad. But Marvell's integrity was proof alike against danger and against corruption. He equally despised threats and bribes. In 1672 Marvell was involved in a controversy with Dr. Samuel Parker, afterwards bishop of Oxford, who had published a book called Ecclesiastical Polity, in which he inculcated the slavish doctrine of divine right and passive obedience. Marvell's reply, which is entitled "The Rehearsal Transposed," displays a mixture of brilliant wit, pungent sarcasm and irony, and sterling argument, which was received with avidity by all classes of people, and which Swift said he perused with pleasure, though Parker's work had long been forgotten. A feeble rejoinder was attempted by Parker, and an anonymous epistle was sent to Marvell, threatening him with assassination, which he treated with contempt, and in his "Second part of the Rehearsal Transposed," printed in 1673, silenced his adversary and humbled his whole party. In 1676 he published another controversial piece entitled "Mr. Smirke, or the Divine in Mode," &c., in defence of Dr. Croft, bishop of Hereford, who had been violently assailed by the high church clergy for his liberality and toleration. To this work was appended a short "Historical Essay concerning general councils, creeds, and impositions in matters of religion." His next publication, which appeared in the early part of 1678, was entitled "An Account of the growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government in England," and so provoked the government by its truth and biting satire, that a reward was offered for the discovery of the author, printer, or publisher of what was termed "seditious and scandalous libel." No prosecution, however, took place, though in consequence of the dark and desperate threatenings made against him, the author was obliged frequently to live in concealment. Marvell died shortly after, 16th August, 1678, so suddenly as to give rise to a suspicion of his having been poisoned, of which, however, there is no evidence. The corporation of Hull voted a sum for his funeral expenses and for an appropriate monument. Besides the works already mentioned, Marvell wrote a number of poems which, though somewhat disfigured by conceits, display great tenderness and simplicity of feeling; but a great deal of trash has been ascribed to him which he did not write. In his personal appearance Aubrey says he "was of a middling stature, pretty strong set, roundish-cheeked, hazel-eyed, brown-haired. In his conversation he was modest, and of very few words." Marvell was the last member of parliament who received wages from his constituents.—J. T.
* MARX, Adolph Bernhard, a musician and writer on music, was born at Halle, November 27, 1799. His father, a physician, gratified his early inclination for music by obtaining good instruction for him on the pianoforte and in harmony; and Türk, a reputed contrapuntist, was his chief teacher. The notion that he would succeed better in art, if he followed it as a recreation than as a means of existence, induced him to select the law as a profession, and he accordingly became a student of Halle university. He held an official appointment in the court of justice of his native town, and afterwards another at Naumburg. Discontented, however, with the opportunities these places afforded him of extending his knowledge of music, he removed to Berlin, where, besides some legal engagements, he obtained occupation as a teacher of singing, the pianoforte, and composition; and he had intercourse with the best artists and access to the best performances. He was much befriended by the family of Mendelssohn, and for a time he was ardent in his acknowledgment of the wonderful powers of this musician. He was engaged to edit the Berliner-Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung, during the seven years of its existence, namely, from 1823 till 1830. He wrote music to Göthe's Jery und Bätely, which was performed in 1825; to a melodrama called Die Rache wartet, which was performed in 1827; and to an ode—the poem by Fouqué—entitled Undines Gruss, which, together with a festal symphony, was performed in celebration of the marriage of the present king of Prussia in 1829. Not one of these productions was successful. Marx was appointed to his present post of musical professor in the Berlin university, in 1830; in fulfilment of which he has been an active lecturer on the theory, practice, æsthetics, and history of his art. The diploma of doctor of music was granted to him by the university of Marburg. He wrote an oratorio called "Johannes der Täufer" (John the Baptist), which was produced in 1833; and another, "Moses," which was produced nine or ten years later; but these, though they are more widely spoken of than his secular efforts, are scarcely held in higher esteem. His compositions, besides those already named, are the setting of Schiller's Semele, an attempt of his boyish years; a symphony representing the fall of Warsaw; a book of chorals for the organ; "Nahid," a series of songs on oriental subjects; and several collections of single songs, part songs, and pieces of church music. Marx is principally known by his literary works upon music; besides editing the journal named above, he contributed many papers to another periodical, the Cecilia, and furnished the most important biographical and theoretical articles in Schilling's Lexicon der Tonkunst; his "Kunst des Gesanges," a treatise on singing, appeared in 1826; his "Maigruss," a humorous pamphlet on descriptive music, in 1828; a supplement to his "Art of Singing," treating of the value to the present time of the study of Handel's songs, illustrated by selections from the oratorios and operas of this master, in 1829; his "School of Composition," the first volume in 1837, and the other three volumes in subsequent years; his "Universal School of Music," in 1839—(this last work and the first volume of the preceding have been translated into English under the author's supervision); his "Music in the nineteenth century," a critical view of the state of art and of the high calling of an artist, and the requirements for its fulfilment—also translated—in 1855; and his "Ludwig van Beethoven, Leben und Schaffen," an ill-compiled biography, with fanciful criticisms on the best known of the master's works, in 1859. Marx's general literary acquirements and his very extensive reading are manifest in all his writings. His elaborate style gives an importance to his works, apart from their theoretical or critical merit; but the complicated construction of his sentences, and the diffuseness with which he treats his subjects, are inappropriate to what are designed as books of instruction. As a theorist he is profound, and the arrangement of his course of composition is novel and ingenious. His views of the sacred nature of art, and of the exalted duties of those who practise and who teach it, are worthy the study of artists of all denominations. As a critic he is certainly prejudiced, showing always a strong inclination towards those musicians—such as Schumann, Berlioz, Wagner, Liszt, and others—who, like himself, have written upon their art, and broached hypotheses as to its tendency and the means of carrying this into effect; and he is equally prone to disparage others—Mendelssohn in particular—whose merits are too great to lose their lustre through the sneers with which he would obscure them.—G. A. M.
MARY, Queen Regnant of England, daughter of Henry VIII. and Catherine of Arragon, was born at Greenwich palace on the 18th of February, 1516. The only child of that union who
