m or his work are slight. Bryan's dictionary
accords him a few paragraphs. When at the British Museum, a few years
ago, I asked Mr. Sidney Colvin about the Martins in his print-room.
There are not many, not so many as in a certain private collection
here. But Mr. Colvin told me of the article written by Cosmo Monkhouse
in the Dictionary of National Biography, and from it we are enabled to
present a few items about the man's career. He was born at Hayden
Bridge, near Hexham, Northumberland, July 19, 1789. His father,
Fenwick Martin, a fencing-master, held classes at the Chancellor's
Head, Newcastle. His brothers, Jonathan (1782-1838) and William
(1772-1851), have some claim on our notice, for the first was an
insane prophet and incendiary, having set fire to York Minster in
1829; William was a natural philosopher and poet who published many
works to prove the theory of perpetual motion. "After having convinced
himself by means of thirty-six experiments of the impossibility of
demonstrating it scientifically, it was revealed to him in a dream
that God had chosen him to discover the great cause of all things, and
this he made the subject of many works" (Jasnot, Verites positives,
1854). Verily, as Lombroso hath it, "A hundred fanatics are found for
a theological or metaphysical statement, but not one for a geometric
problem."

The Martin stock was, without doubt, neurasthenic. John was
apprenticed when fourteen to Wilson, a Newcastle coach painter, but
ran away after a dispute over wages. He met Bonifacio Musso, an
Italian china painter, and in 1806 went with him to London. There he
supported himself painting china and glass while he studied
perspective and architecture. At nineteen he married and in 1812 lived
in High Street, Marylebone, and from there sent to the Academy his
first picture, Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion (from Tales
of the Genii). The figure of Sadak was so small that the framers
disputed as to the top of the picture. It sold to Mr. Manning for
fifty guineas. Benjamin West, president of the Royal Academy,
encouraged Martin, and next year he painted Adam's First Sight of Eve,
which he sold for seventy guineas. In 1814 his Clytis was shown in an
ante-room of the exhibition, and he bitterly complained of his
treatment. Joshua, in 1816, was as indifferently hung, and he never
forgave the Academy the insult, though he did not withdraw from its
annual functions. In 1817 he was appointed historical p