MARINELLI, LUCREZIA,
Of Venice, was born in 1571. Her talents were surprisingly versatile. She was learned in church history, understood and practised the art of sculpture, was skilled in music, and besides left many literary productions, lives of several saints, a treatise entitled "The Excellence of Women and the Defects of Men;" an epic poem; several epistles to the Duchess d'Este; and many other pieces of poetry, both sacred and profane. She died in 1653.
MARKHAM, MRS.,
As her cognomen is placed on the title-page of many books, though some assert it is fictitious. This writer has, however, laboured with much success for the improvement of the young. Three generations have had the benefit of her little "Histories of France," and of "England," where the leading facts are produced, divested of philosophic comments so dry and useless to children. Her other works are judiciously prepared, and all have been successful. Many editions have been published in the United States.
MARLBOROUGH. SARAH, DUCHESS OF,
Was the daughter of Mr. Jennings, a country gentleman of respectable lineage and good estate. She was born on the 26th. of May, 1660, at Holywell, a suburb of St. Albans. Her elder sister, Frances, afterwards Duchess of Tyrconnel, was maid of honour to the Duchess of York; and Sarah, when quite a child, was introduced at court, and became the playfellow of the Princess Anne, who was several years younger than herself. Sarah succeeded her sister as maid of honour to the Duchess of .York; which, however, did not prevent her having constant intercourse with the princess, who lived under the same roof with her father, and who at that early age showed the greatest preference for her.
In 1677, Sarah Jennings married, clandestinely, the handsome Colonel Churchill, favourite gentleman of the Duke of York. Both parties being poor, it was an imprudent match; but the Duchess of York, whom they made the confidant of their attachment, stood their friend, and offered her powerful assistance. She gave her attendant a handsome donation, and appointed her to a place of trust about her person. The young couple followed the fortunes of the Duke of York for some years, while he was a sort of honourable exile from the court; but when the establishment of the Princess Anne was formed, she being now married, Mrs. Churchill, secretly mistrusting the durability of the fortunes of her early benefactress, expressed an ardent wish to become one of the ladies of the Princess Anne, who requested her father's permission to that effect, and received his consent. The early regard evinced by the Princess Anne for Mrs. Churchill, soon ripened into a romantic attachment; she lost sight of the difference in their rank, and treated her as an equal, desiring a like return. When apart, they corresponded constantly under the names, chosen by the princess, of Mrs. Morley and Mrs. Freeman.
No two persons could be less alike than the princess and Sarah Churchill; the former was quiet, somewhat phlegmatic, easy and gentle, extremely well bred, fond of ceremony, and averse to mental exertion; the latter, resolute, bold, inclined to violence, prompt,
