MAUTEXSEX 



MARTIAL 



. H AM LAMBS, tr*tro|HiliUn hi-hop 

 erf Denmark and bar most pn.inin.-nt theologian in 

 UM IMfe century, was born at Flennborg on 19th 



i*t 1808, and studied at the university of 

 Copenhagen. After shaking ofl* the influence of 

 (.Minduigianiam, by which he wan dominated in 

 hi- -in. lent days, he Mepped into the chair of 

 n.ilonophy at Copenhagen, and in 184* a<liled to 

 these duties those of court preacher In 1*40 he 

 published a valuable monograph on Mrittrr Erkhnrt, 

 the lierman mystic, and nine years later lai<l th-- 

 foaodation of a European fame by a masterly 

 ii the conservative Lutheran standpoint 

 on ('Aru<iVm Dogmatic* ( Eng. trans. I860). This 

 gained him in ISM the primary of Denmark. 

 and thin again was the cause of a powerful witiric.il 

 attack upon him by Kierkegaard, which started a 

 controversy in which Martensen suffered severely. 



great" intellectual energy, however, anil tin- 

 force of hu character noon enabled him to recover 

 from the blow, MI that, after the imhlicati.m <>f 

 another great work, in 3 vols., on Chrittian Elhin 



I 7*; Kng. trans. 1881-82), hi* influence in 

 tin- country wan more dominant than ever. With 

 a mind wonderfully acute and mwerfnl, he was 

 deficient in intellectual sympathy. Nevertheless 

 be stood for mnnv year* a bulwark of defence to 

 conservative tln-..).igy. He died on 3d February 

 1884. See his AmSttoartftf, in Danish (1883), 

 London Qwirtrrly ( 1883), and Brit, and Foreign 

 Emitg. Ktri(ir, vol. x\\t. 



Martha's Vineyard, an inland on the south 

 coast of Massachusetts, -.'I mil.- long, 6 miles in 

 average width. It is noted as a summer health- 



: - ". 



Miirflal. Marcus Valerius Martialis, one of 

 tli>- finest among the few original Latin poets, and 

 still the first of epigram mat Ut- in verse, was born 



March 38 or 41 AH., in C.-ltiU-rian Spain, at 

 Hilliili", famed as a steel factory', for which 1U iron. 

 mines and ice-cold Salo torrent specially fitted it 

 a centre, t<i, of Koninn rnltni--. which afforded 

 him the good eilucation he g.t under the eye of 



parent*, Fronto ami Finn-ilia. Like other 

 {rifted young provincial*, he repair.-.! to Home, 

 where (64 A.D.) he became a cli-nt of tin- inllin-n- 

 tial S|Mniib house of the Seneca*, thn>ugh which 

 he found other patrons, am.ni;: them I.. Calpurnius 



>. the leading man of hi* day. The tragic 

 failure of the PWonian plot lo*t Martial his 

 warmest friends Lucan, and Mill more Seneca, 

 from whose heirs, however. In- doiihth-M tottM 

 the email wine growing estate nt Nunn-ntuiii. Of 

 ii.- till Ifcimitian necame emperor we know 

 lit!: I- tu-vi-r mnintaiiHil himself by 



the steady professional work to which his com 

 patriot Quintilian neemii to have exhorts! him, 

 but rather courted itn|ierial and senatorial natron- 

 aoe by bis rare social gift* and hi- g.-nius for ITJ 

 Jt fiironitmmet. When (80 A.H . i Titu-. by a ncries 

 it gladiatorial spectacle*, .l.-.li.-.n.-,! the ( olomeum 

 t.. t lie amusement of K I i>ipiali-.l tl,.. 



oofnton by epigram* whi.-h l.ruu-lit him the JIM 

 In am liheromm and the equestrian rank probably 

 broyoseil by Tilu. and afu;rwanl r..ntiiin.-.l by 

 DnroitUa. Snlmtantial inde|Nndenn, Imwevei. h>- 

 did not obtain from either emtieror. tliou^h hi* 

 venal flattery of Dnmitian and of that depofn 

 ennupt retinue was gro. enough to leave a stain 

 on hi* luewmy. In i. i|n.-t a* a diner out. In- 

 Itidnl hi* dav between the litli. the tin- 

 UM> reritation halln, nnd the ..niip^ili..!! of .-pj 

 . and sn far oaw hi* nmbition gralifml as to 

 the mot >litin^nilie.| M-naton> of the time 

 hi* friends, ami all the l,irr,<li in rity or 

 among hi* mwler-. <lf envy and rletrae- 

 tion be had. of coarse, his share; 'but what he 



most complained of was not, for instance, the 

 jealousy of Statins, his young Neapolitan com- 

 petitor for ini|M-ri!il favour. Imt tlie use of liis 11:1111.- 

 liv iiiiili^iiant iHM-lasters, who fathered on him their 

 own lilii-ls on the leaders, im-liulinj,' the ladies, of 

 so.-i.-ty. His life, indeed, was not a happy one - 

 continually shadowed by that 'ignoble nielam-lmly 

 \\liii-li arises from pecuniary embarrassment,' so 

 that we find him inportoaing a ]>atron even for a 

 toga or a mantle, t mm HO to 90 he had a lodging, 

 tlir.-.- stories high, at the sign of the ' I'eixr' on tin- 

 Quirinal, and in 94 a house of his own in the same 

 quarter; while his Nomentan nied-ntn-n, which, 

 under lietter hunlwindry, might have yielded a 

 living, was pri/e.l by him mainly as a retreat from 

 the 1 MI res (or duns) of the city. During his thirty- 

 four years of Human life he seems to have made an 

 excursion from it only once (in 87) to Forum 

 Cornell and other resorts in the .Kmilia. Hut, by 

 degrees, the capital, its cares and its pleasures, 

 became irksome to him ; advancing years bereft 

 him of Domitian and his friends of the palace ; and 

 the austere Nerva and Trajan had to lie conciliated 

 by other and less congenial arts than the adulatory 

 ejiigram. In a fit of nostalgia he borrowed from 

 his admirer, the younger Pliny, the means of n- isit- 

 ing those haunt- of childhood he had never for- 

 gotten- Hilliilis on the mountain-side overhanging 

 the headlong Salo, the snowy peaks of the Sierras, 

 the golden Tagus, the rich orchards, the awe- 

 inspiring oak-forests his home, with its frugal 

 meals and simple joys. Here again his good genius 

 found him patrons among them the. highly-cul- 

 tured Marcella, who presented him with an estate, 

 on which, with its grove, its fountain, its vineyard 

 and rosary, ito kitchen-garden, its fish-pond and 

 dovecot, he led an idyllic life. Hut the nln muni- 

 cipaiit palled on him once more, and even in such 

 Mirroumlings we find him fretting for the riln in-lxina 

 and angling for patrons in that distant world of 

 theatres and libraries, cultured connoisseurs, and 

 social dissipation he was never again to see. 

 Haiilkeil of his wish to attain his sevenn --fifth 

 year, he died, at latest, in 104, aged sixty-three or 

 sixty-six. 



Martial possessed, for good and evil, the artistic 

 temperament, its lack of steady purpose, its love 

 of hand-to-mouth independence. This latter he 

 enjoyed by humouring the contemporary vices he 

 could not reform, though, conscience-stricken, he 

 excuses himself on the ground that if his 'page 

 were wanton, his life was honest.' Much of Ins 

 best work, unfortunately, is his least pure, and this 

 has produced an exaggerated impression of his 

 moral turpitude. If, however, we excise ISO 

 epigrams from the 1172 of the first twelve Imoks, 

 Ins collective writings (including his early 'spec- 

 tacular ' epigrams and his Xeuia and AjHijilmnin) 

 are free from licentiousness. On the other hand, 

 his genius and skill in verse it were hard to over- 

 estimate. An imjmvitalorr in readiness, he could 

 attain to the most fastidious finish ; with his love 

 of antithetic shocks and electric surprises, he had 

 the true poet's eye for nature; he could alternate 

 the organ-note of a masterful eloquence with minor 

 tones of the most tremulous pathos witness his 

 epigrams on 'Arria and I'n-tus,' on ' Pompeii,' on 

 his little slave-girl 'Erotion,' and on 'Formiie' 

 with its lovelv si-aUiard. Itut it is as an epigram- 

 matist, even in its modem and restricted sense, 

 that he remains without a peer, wielding a weapon 

 peculiarly his own, bright and pointed as a rapier 

 from the anvils of his native Hilbilis, chastened in 

 the rushing Salo. Unequal, of course, he often is, 

 but never vulgar rarely (it has ln-en well observed ) 

 with all hi* nenxe of the ridiculous degenerating 

 into caricature. He lifts the veil from the Home 

 of Donation and exposes it mainly n n 'tn seamy 



