John Westland Marston

John Westland Marston (30 January 1819 – 5 January 1890) was an English dramatist and critic.

He was born at Boston, Lincolnshire, on 30 January 1819, was son of the Rev. Stephen Marston, minister of a baptist congregation. In 1834, he was apprenticed to his maternal uncle, a London solicitor; but although he was not inattentive to the duties of the office, after obtained a fair knowledge of law, literature and the theatre had much greater attractions for him. His evenings were devoted to the theatre, and becoming acquainted with Heraud, Francis Barham, and other members of the group which gathered around James Pierrepont Greaves. He contributed to Heraud's magazine The Sunbeam, and himself became editor of a mystical periodical entitled The Psyche. Among its chief supporters were some wealthy ladies near Cheltenham, Through them he made the acquaintance of Eleanor Jane Potts, eldest daughter of the proprietor of Saunders's News Letter, who had retired to Cheltenham. She was not, as has been stated, a member of the Earl of Mayo's family. A warm and durable attachment on both sides was the consequence, which resulted in marriage in May 1840, notwithstanding the strongest opposition on the part of the lady's family. Marston idealised and inverted his love story in his first play, the Patrician's Daughter (1841, 8vo), performed in December 1842. Marston had already produced a little volume entitled Gerald, a Dramatic Poem, and other Poems (1842, 12mo), respectable, like everything he wrote.

Bulwer and Knowles had ceased to write, and for many years Marston was almost the only acted dramatist who wrought with any elevation of purpose. The Heart and the World (1847) was a failure, but in 1849 Marston, laying his theories aside for a time, appeared with an historical drama, Strathmore, which obtained great success, and which he himself regarded as his best work. It has fine literary qualities, although the author's inability to think himself into the age he exhibits constitutes a grave defect. The same may be said of Philip of France and Marie de Meranie (1850), 'a stirring tragedy, of which the verse has an appropriate martial ring,' and in which Helen Faucit produced a great impression. It is based to some extent on G. P. R. James's novel Philip Augustus. In the interim (1862) had appeared Anne Blake, another domestic drama, clever, but marred by such situations and denouements as only occur on the stage. In A Life's Hansom (1857) the domestic and historical elements are in some measure blended, the action being laid at the revolution of 1688. Such a piece might be easily produced by a man of Mareton's literary ability, but his next tragi-comedy, A Hard Struggle (1858), required genuine feeling in the author and great command over the resources of the stage. Being written in prose, it produces a greater impression of reality than his more ambitious efforts; it drew tears and enthusiastic praise from Dickens, and obtained a greater success than any of his pieces, owing in part to the powerful acting of Dillon.

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