to amass, without giving much grace to the materials he compiles.'

MARTENS, or MARTINUS (THIERRY, or THEODORE), an eminent printer, was born at Alost, in Flanders, in 1454. He began printing in 1473, and died in 1534. He is celebrated as the person who first introduced the art of printing into the Netherlands; having exercised this useful and noble art nearly sixty years at Alost, Louvain, and Antwerp. He was an author as well as a printer; and wrote Latin hymns in honour of the saints, a dialogue on the virtues, and other pieces; but he is more renowned for the many beautiful editions of other men's works which issued from his presses. He was highly esteemed by the learned men of the period in which he lived, and enjoyed the friendship of Erasmus, who lodged in his house. He employed the double anchor as a sign of the books that were printed at his office."

MARTHE. See ST. MARTHE.

MARTIALIS (MARCUS VALERIUS), an ancient Latin poet, and the model of epigrammatists, was born at Bilbilis, now called Bubiera, a town of the ancient Celtiberia in Spain, which is the kingdom of Arragon. He was born, as is supposed, in the reign of Claudius, and went to Rome when he was about twenty-one. He was sent thither with a view of prosecuting the law; but soon forsook that study, and applied himself to poetry. He excelled so much in the epigrammatic style, that he soon acquired reputation, and was courted by many of the first rank at Rome. Silius Italicus, Stella, and Pliny the younger, were his friends and patrons. Stertinius, a noble Roman, had so great an esteem for his compositions, that he placed his statue in his library, while he was yet living; and the emperor Verus, who reigned with Antoninus the philosopher, used to call him his Virgil, which was as high an honour as could well be paid to him. We learn also from Pliny and Tacitus, as well as from several passages in his own writings, that he had honours and diguities bestowed upon him by some of the emperors. Domitian, whom it must be confessed he has flattered not a little, made him a Roman knight, and gave him likewise the "Jus trium liberorum," the privileges of a citizen who had three children. He was also advanced to the tribunate. But though he was so particularly honoured, and had so many great and noble patrons, who admired him for his wit and poetry, it

Moreri.-Dupin.-Dict. Hist.

2 Marchand's Dict. Hist,

does not appear that he made his fortune among them. There is reason to think that, after the death of Domitian, his credit and interest declined at Rome; and if he had still remaining among the nobles some patrons, such as Pliny, Cornelius Priscus, &c. yet the emperor Nerva took but little notice of him, and the emperor Trajan none at all. Tired of Rome, therefore, after he had lived in that city about four and thirty years, and grown, as himself tells us, grey-headed, he returned to his own country Bilbilis, where he took a wife, and had the happiness to live with her several years. He admired her much, as one who alone was sufficient to supply the want of every thing he enjoyed at Rome. She appears to have brought him a very large fortune; for, in one of his epigrams he extols the magnificence of the house and gardens he had received from her, and says, "that she had made him a little kind of monarch." About three years after he had retired into Spain, he inscribed his twelfth book of Epigrams to Priscus, who had been his friend and benefactor; and is supposed to have died about the year 100. As an epigrammatist, Martial is eminently distinguished, and has been followed as a model by all succeeding wits. All his efforts, however, are not equally successful, and many of his epigrams are perhaps unjustly so called, being merely thoughts or sentiments without applicable point. He offends often by gross indelicacy, which was the vice. of the times; but his style is in general excellent, and his frequent allusion to persons and customs render his works very interesting to classical antiquaries.

His works were first printed at Venice, as is supposed in 1470, then at Ferrara in 1471, Rome 1473, and Venice 1475. These are the most rare and valuable editions. The more modern and useful are: that of Aldus, 1501; by Raderus, 1627, fol.; by Scriverius, 1619, 12mo; the Variorum of 1670; and the Bipont edition of 1784, 2 vols. 8vo. A strange absurdity occurs in the Delphin edition, 1680, 4to, where all the indelicate epigrams are omitted in the body of the work, but carefully collected at the end! This has, however, been followed and perhaps exceeded by Smids, in the Amsterdam edition of 1701, who, having ornamented his edition with engravings, places the more indelicate ones at the end of the volume.'

'Crusius's Latin poets.-Vossius de Poet. Lat.--Dibdin's Classics and Bibl, Spenceriana. Saxii Onomasticon.

MARTIAL (D'AUVERGNE), a French poet of the fifteenth century, was procurator in parliament, and notary of the châtelet at Paris, where also he was born; and died in 1508, regarded as one of the most pleasing men and easy writers of his age. He wrote, 1. "Arrets l'Amour," Love-causes, the thought of which was taken from the Troubadours of Provence, but handled with great skill and eloquence. The introduction and the close are in verse; the rest in prose. 2. " Vigiles de la mort du Roi," an historical poem on the death of Charles VII.; in which, in the form of the Romish office, entitled Vigils, he recites the misfortunes and the glorious acts of his hero; and displays his honest love of virtue and hatred of vice. 3. "L'Amant rendu Cordelier de l'observance d'Amour;" a poem of 234 stanzas, reviling the extravagances produced by the passion of love. 4. "Devotes louanges a la Vierge Marie," in 8vo, an historical poem on the life of the virgin Mary; a legend in bad verse, filled with the fables which were at that time believed. '

MARTIANAY (JOHN), a Benedictine monk, who distinguished himself by an edition of St. Jerome, was born at St. Sever, a village in Gascony, in 1647. He entered into the congregation of St. Maur at twenty years of age; and applied himself to the study of the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages. He read lectures upon the holy scriptures in several monasteries, at Arles, at Avignon, at Bourdeaux in the last of which places he accidentally met with father Pezron's book called "The antiquity of time re-established;" "L'Antiquité du temps retablie." The authority of the Hebrew text, and the chronology of the Vulgate, being attacked in this work, Martianay resolved to defend them in two or three pieces, published against Pezron and Isaac Vossius, who maintained the Septuagint version. This monk died of an apoplexy in 1717, after having spent fifty years in a scrupulous observance of all the duties belonging to his order, and in writing more than twenty works, of which the most distinguished is his edition of the works of St. Jerome, in 5 vols. folio; the first of which was published at Paris in 1693, the second in 1699. In his notes on these two volumes he criticized several learned men, as well papists as protestants, with much severity, and even contumely; which pro

Niceron, vols. IX. and X.-Dict. Hist.

voked Le Clerc, who was one of them, to examine the merits of this e-lition and of the editor. This he did in a volume published in 12mo, at Amsterdam, in 1700, with this title, "Quæstiones Hieronymianæ, in quibus expenditur Hieronymi nupera editio Parisina, &c." in which he endeavours to shew that Martianay, notwithstanding the indecent petulances he had exercised towards other critics, had none of the requisites to qualify him for an editor of St. Jerome; that he had not a competent skill either in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages, or in the ancient interpreters of scripture, or in profane authors, or in the science of manuscripts, for this work. Martianay published the third volume in 1704, the fourth in 1705, and the fifth in 1706; and Le Clerc published, in the seventeenth tome of his "Bibliotheque choisée," some copious remarks upon these three last volumes, in order to confirm the judgment he had passed on the two first. Nevertheless, Martianay's edition of Jerome was by many thought the best, even after the appearance of Vallarsius's edition. '

MARTIGNAC (STEPHEN ALGAI, sieur de), seems to be one of the first French writers who practised the plan, so little approved in England, of translating the ancient classical poets into prose. He gave in this way, versions of, 1. Terence. 2. Horace. 3. Juvenal and Persius. 4. Virgil. 5. Ovid, entire, in 9 vols. 12mo. These translations are in general clear and exact, but want elegance, and purity of style. This laborious writer published also lives of the archbishops, &c. of Paris, of the seventeenth century, in 4to. He died in 1698, at the age of seventy." MARTIN (BENJAMIN), an eminent optician, was born at Worplesdon, in Surrey, in 1704, and began life as a plough-boy at Broad-street, a hamlet belonging to that parish. By some means, however, he contrived to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic, so as to be soon enabled to teach them to others. For some time he continued to assist in the farming business, but, as our authority states, finding that he became a poor husbandman in proportion as he grew a learned one, he prudently forsook what indeed he had no great inclination for," and having a strong inclination to mathematics and philosophical speculations, now entered upon such a course of reading and study as in

،،

1 Niceron, vol. I.-Moreri.

2 Moreri.Dict. Hist.

some measure supplied the want of a learned education. The historian of Surrey says that he first taught reading and writing at Guildford. It was probably some time after this that a legacy of five hundred pounds bequeathed to him by a relation encouraged his laudable ambition, and after purchasing books, instruments, &c. and acquiring some knowledge of the languages, we find him, in 1735, settled at Chichester, where he taught mathematics, and performed courses of experimental philosophy. At this time he published his first work, "The Philosophical Grammar; being a view of the present state of experimental physiology, or natural philosophy, &c." London, 8vo. When he came up to London we have not been able to discover, but after settling there he read lectures on experimental philosophy for many years, and carried on a very extensive trade as an optician and globe-maker in Fleet-street, till the growing infirmities of old age compelled him to withdraw from the active part of business. Trusting too fatally to what he thought the integrity of others, he unfortunately, though with a capital more than sufficient to pay all his debts, became a bankrupt. The unhappy old man, in a moment of desperation from this unexpected stroke, attempted to destroy himself; and the wound, though not immediately mortal, hastened his death, which happened Feb. 9th, 1782, at seventy-eight years of age.

He had a valuable collection of fossils and curiosities of every species, which after his death were almost given. away by public auction. He was indefatigable as an artist, and as a writer he had a very happy method of explaining his subject, and wrote with clearness, and even considerable elegance. He was chiefly eminent in the science of optics; but he was well skilled in the whole circle of the mathematical and philosophical sciences, and wrote useful books on every one of them; though he was not distinguished, by any remarkable inventions or discoveries of his own. His publications were very numerous, and generally useful: some of the principal of them were as follow: 1. "The Philosophical Grammar," already mentioned. 2."A new, complete, and universal system or body of Decimal Arithmetic," 1735, 8vo. 3. "The young student's Memorial Book, or Patent Library," 1735, 8vo. 4. "Description and use of both the Globes, the Armillary Sphere and Orrery," 1736, 2 vols. 8vo. 5. "Elements of Geometry,"