Chapter Macdonald to Macklin of M by Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

Macdonald to Macklin

Macdonald, George (1824-1905).—Poet and novelist, son of a farmer, was born at Huntly, Aberdeenshire, and ed. at the University of Aberdeen, and at the Independent College, Highbury. He became minister of a congregation at Arundel, but after a few years retired, on account partly of theological considerations, partly of a threatened breakdown of health. He then took to literature, and published his first book, Within and Without (1856), a dramatic poem, Poems followed in 1857, and Phantastes, a Faerie Romance, in 1858. He then turned to fiction, and produced numerous novels, of which David Elginbrod (1862), Alec Forbes (1865), Robert Falconer (1868), The Marquis of Lossie (1877), and Sir Gibbie (1879), are perhaps the best. He also wrote stories for children of great charm and originality, including The Princess and the Goblin, At the Back of the North Wind, and Ranald Bannerman’s Boyhood. As a novelist he had considerable narrative and dramatic power, humour, tenderness, a genial view of life and character, tinged with mysticism, and within his limits was a true poet. On retiring from the ministry he attached himself to the Church of England, but frequently preached as a layman, never accepting any remuneration for his sermons.

Mackay, Charles (1814-1889).—Poet and journalist, son of a naval officer, was born at Perth, and ed. at the Royal Caledonian Asylum, London, and at Brussels, but much of his early life was spent in France. Coming to London in 1834, he engaged in journalism, published Songs and Poems (1834), wrote a History of London, Popular Delusions, and a romance, Longbeard. His fame, however, chiefly rests upon his songs, some of which, including Cheer, Boys, Cheer, were in 1846 set to music by Henry Russell, and had an astonishing popularity. In 1852 he became editor of the Illustrated London News, in the musical supplement to which other songs by him were set to old English music by Sir H. R. Bishop. Mackay acted as Times correspondent during the American Civil War, and in that capacity discovered and disclosed the Fenian conspiracy. He had the degree of LL.D. from Glasgow in 1846.

Mackenzie, Sir George (1636-1691).—Lawyer and miscellaneous writer, son of Sir Simon Mackenzie, of Lochslin, a brother of the Earl of Seaforth, was ed. at St. Andrews, Aberdeen, and Bourges, called to the Bar in 1659, in 1677 became Lord Advocate, in which capacity he was the subservient minister of the persecuting policy of Charles II. in Scotland, and the inhumanity and relentlessness of his persecution of the Covenanters gained for him the name of “Bloody Mackenzie.” In private life, however, he was a cultivated and learned gentleman with literary tendencies, and is remembered as the author of various graceful essays, of which the best known is A Moral Essay preferring Solitude to Public Employment (1665). He also wrote legal, political, and antiquarian works of value, including Institutions of the Law of Scotland (1684), Antiquity of the Royal Line of Scotland (1686), Heraldry, and Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland from the Restoration of Charles II, a valuable work which was not published until 1821. Mackenzie was the founder of the Advocates’ Library in Edinburgh He retired at the Revolution to Oxford, where he died

Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831).—Novelist and miscellaneous writer, son of a physician in Edinburgh, where he was born and ed. He studied for the law, and became Controller of Taxes for Scotland. He was the author of three novels, The Man of Feeling (1771), The Man of the World (1773), and Julia de Roubigné (1777), all written in a strain of rather high-wrought sentimentalism, in which the influence of Sterne is to be seen. He was also a leading contributor to The Mirror and The Lounger, two periodicals somewhat in the style of the Spectator. In his later days he was one of the leading members of the literary society of Edinburgh.

Mackintosh, Sir James (1765-1832).—Philosopher and historian, was born at Aldowrie, Inverness- shire, son of an officer in the army and landowner, ed. at Aberdeen, whence he proceeded to Edinburgh to study medicine, in which he grad. in 1787. In the following year he went to London, where he wrote for the press and studied law, and in 1791 he published Vindiciæ Gallicæ in answer to Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution, which was well received by those who, in its earlier stages, sympathised with the Revolution, and procured for him the friendship of Fox, Sheridan, and other Whigs. Called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1795, he delivered before that society in 1799 a brilliant course of lectures on The Law of Nature and Nations, which greatly increased his reputation. In 1804 he went out to India as Recorder of Bombay, and two years later was appointed a Judge of the Admiralty Court. He remained