Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

MACLEOD, NORMAN (1812-1872), Scottish divine, son of Rev. Norman Macleod (1783-1862), and grandson of Rev. Norman Macleod, minister of Morven, Argyllshire, was born at Campbeltown on the 3rd of June 1812. In 1827 he became a student at Glasgow University, and in 1831 went to Edinburgh to study divinity under Dr Thomas Chalmers. On the 18th of March 1838 he became parish minister at Loudoun, Ayrshire. At this time the troubles in the Scottish Church were already gathering to a head (see FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND). Macleod, although he had no love for lay patronage, and wished the Church to be free to do its proper work, clung firmly to the idea of a national Established Church, and therefore remained in the Establishment when the disruption took place. He was one of those who took a middle course in the non-intrusion controversy, holding that the fitness of those who were presented to parishes should be judged by the presbyteries--the principle of Lord Aberdeen's Bill. On the secession of 1843 he was offered many different parishes, and having finally settled at Dalkeith, devoted himself to parish work and to questions affecting the Church as a whole. He was largely instrumental in the work of strengthening the Church. In 1847 he became one of the founders of the Evangelical Alliance, and from 1849 edited the _Christian Instructor_ (Edinburgh). In 1851 he was called to the Barony church, Glasgow, in which city the rest of his days were passed. There the more liberal theology rapidly made way among a people who judged it more by its fruits than its arguments, and Macleod won many adherents by his practical schemes for the social improvement of the people. He instituted temperance refreshment rooms, a congregational penny savings bank, and held services specially for the poor. In 1860 Macleod was appointed editor of the new monthly magazine _Good Words_. Under his control the magazine, which was mainly of a religious character, became widely popular. His own literary work, nearly all of which originally appeared in its pages--sermons, stories, travels, poems--was only a by-product of a busy life. By far his best work was the spontaneous and delightful _Reminiscences of a Highland Parish_ (1867). While _Good Words_ made his name known, and helped the cause he had so deeply at heart, his relations with the queen and the royal family strengthened yet further his position in the country. Never since Principal Carstairs had any Scottish clergyman been on such terms with his sovereign. In 1865 he risked an encounter with Scottish Sabbatarian ideas. The presbytery of Glasgow issued a pastoral letter on the subject of Sunday trains and other infringements of the Sabbath. Macleod protested against the grounds on which its strictures were based. For a time, owing partly to a misleading report of his statement, he became "the man in all Scotland most profoundly distrusted." But four years later the Church accorded him the highest honour in her power by choosing him as moderator of her general assembly. In 1867, along with Dr Archibald Watson, he was sent to India, to inquire into the state of the missions. He undertook the journey in spite of failing health, and seems never to have recovered from its effects. He returned resolved to devote the rest of his days to rousing the Church to her duty in the sphere of foreign missions, but his health was now broken, and his old energy flagged. He died on the 16th of June 1872, and was buried at Campsie. He was one of the greatest of Scottish religious leaders, a man of wide sympathy and high ideals. His Glasgow church was named after him the "Macleod Parish Church," and the "Macleod Missionary Institute" was erected by the Barony church in Glasgow. Queen Victoria gave two memorial windows to Crathie church as a testimony of her admiration for his work.

See _Memoir of Norman Macleod_, by his brother, Donald Macleod (1876).

MACLISE, DANIEL (1806-1870), Irish painter, was born at Cork, the son of a Highland soldier. His education was of the plainest kind, but he was eager for culture, fond of reading, and anxious to become an artist. His father, however, placed him, in 1820, in Newenham's Bank, where he remained for two years, and then left to study in the Cork school of art. In 1825 it happened that Sir Walter Scott was travelling in Ireland, and young Maclise, having seen him in a bookseller's shop, made a surreptitious sketch of the great man, which he afterwards lithographed. It was exceedingly popular, and the artist became celebrated enough to receive many commissions for portraits, which he executed, in pencil, with very careful treatment of detail and accessory. Various influential friends perceived the genius and promise of the lad, and were anxious to furnish him with the means of studying in the metropolis; but with rare independence he refused all aid, and by careful economy saved a sufficient sum to enable him to leave for London. There he made a lucky hit by a sketch of the younger Kean, which, like his portrait of Scott, was lithographed and published. He entered the Academy schools in 1828, and carried off the highest prizes open to the students. In 1829 he exhibited for the first time in the Royal Academy. Gradually he began to confine himself more exclusively to subject and historical pictures, varied occasionally by portraits of Campbell, Miss Landon, Dickens, and other of his literary friends. In 1833 he exhibited two pictures which greatly increased his reputation, and in 1835 the "Chivalric Vow of the Ladies and the Peacock" procured his election as associate of the Academy, of which he became full member in 1840. The years that followed were occupied with a long series of figure pictures, deriving their subjects from history and tradition and from the works of Shakespeare, Goldsmith and Le Sage. He also designed illustrations for several of Dickens's Christmas books and other works. Between the years 1830 and 1836 he contributed to _Fraser's Magazine_, under the pseudonym of Alfred Croquis, a remarkable series of portraits of the literary and other celebrities of the time--character studies, etched or lithographed in outline, and touched more or less with the emphasis of the caricaturist, which were afterwards published as the _Maclise Portrait Gallery_ (1871). In 1858 Maclise commenced one of the two great monumental works of his life, the "Meeting of Wellington and Blücher," on the walls of Westminster Palace. It was begun in fresco, a process which proved unmanageable. The artist wished to resign the task; but, encouraged by Prince Albert, he studied in Berlin the new method of "water-glass" painting, and carried out the subject and its companion, the "Death of Nelson," in that medium, completing the latter painting in 1864. The intense application which he gave to these great historic works, and various circumstances connected with the commission, had a serious effect on the artist's health. He began to shun the company in which he formerly delighted; his old buoyancy of spirits was gone; and when, in 1865, the presidentship of the Academy was offered to him he declined the honour. He died of acute pneumonia on the 25th of April 1870. His works are distinguished by powerful intellectual and imaginative qualities, but most of them are marred by harsh and dull colouring, by metallic hardness of surface and texture, and by frequent touches of the theatrical in the action and attitudes of the figures. His fame rests most securely on his two greatest works at Westminster.

A memoir of Maclise, by his friend W. J. O'Driscoll, was published in
1871.

MACLURE, WILLIAM (1763-1840), American geologist, was born at Ayr in Scotland in 1763. After a brief visit to New York in 1782 he began active life as a partner in a London firm of American merchants. In 1796 business affairs took him to Virginia, U.S.A., which he thereafter made his home. In 1803 he visited France as one of the commissioners appointed to settle the claims of American citizens on the French government; and during the few years then spent in Europe he applied himself with enthusiasm to the study of geology. On his return home in 1807 he commenced the self-imposed task of making a geological survey of the United States. Almost every state in the Union was traversed and mapped by him, the Alleghany Mountains being crossed and recrossed some fifty times. The results of his unaided labours were submitted to the American Philosophical Society in a memoir entitled _Observations on the Geology of the United States explanatory of a Geological Map_, and published in the Society's _Transactions_ (vol. iv. 1809, p. 91) together with the first geological map of that country. This antedates William Smith's geological map of England by six years. In 1817 Maclure brought before the same society a revised edition of his map, and his great geological memoir was issued separately, with some additional matter, under the title _Observations on the Geology of the United States of America_. Subsequent survey has corroborated the general accuracy of Maclure's observations. In 1819 he visited Spain, and attempted, unsuccessfully, to establish an agricultural college near the city of Alicante. Returning to America in 1824, he settled for some years at New Harmony, Indiana, and sought to develop his scheme of the agricultural college. Failing health ultimately constrained him to relinquish the attempt, and to seek (in 1827) a more congenial climate in Mexico. There, at San Angel, he died on the 23rd of March 1840.

See S. G. Morton, "Memoir of William Maclure," _Amer. Journ. Sci._,
vol. xlvii. (1844), p. 1.

MacMAHON, MARIE EDMÉ PATRICE MAURICE DE, duke of Magenta (1808-1893), French marshal and president of the French republic, was born on the 13th of July 1808 at the château of Sully, near Autun. He was descended from an Irish family which went into exile with James II. Educated at the military school of St Cyr, in 1827 he entered the army, and soon saw active service in the first French campaign in Algeria, where his ability and bravery became conspicuous. Being recalled to France, he gained renewed distinction in the expedition to Antwerp in 1832. He became captain in 1833, and in that year returned to Algeria. He led daring cavalry raids across plains infested with Bedouin, and especially distinguished himself at the siege of Constantine in 1837. From then until 1855 he was almost constantly in Algeria, and rose to the rank of general of division. During the Crimean War MacMahon was given the command of a division, and in September 1855 he successfully conducted the assault upon the Malakoff works, which led to the fall of Sebastopol. After his return to France honours were showered upon him, and he was made a senator. Desiring a more active life, however, and declining the highest command in France, he was once more sent out, at his own request, to Algeria, where he completely defeated the Kabyles. After his return to France he voted as a senator against the unconstitutional law for general safety, which was brought forward in consequence of Orsini's abortive attempt on the emperor's life. MacMahon greatly distinguished himself in the Italian campaign of 1859. Partly by good luck and partly by his boldness and sagacity in pushing forward without orders at a critical moment at the battle of Magenta, he enabled the French to secure the victory. For his brilliant services MacMahon received his marshal's baton and was created duke of Magenta. In 1861 he represented France at the coronation of William I. of Prussia, and in 1864 he was nominated governor-general of Algeria. MacMahon's action in this capacity formed the least successful episode of his career. Although he did institute some reforms in the colonies, complaints were so numerous that twice in the early part of 1870 he sent in his resignation to the emperor. When the ill-fated Ollivier cabinet was formed the emperor abandoned his Algerian schemes and MacMahon was recalled.

War being declared between France and Prussia in July 1870, MacMahon was appointed to the command of the Alsace army detachment (see FRANCO-GERMAN WAR). On the 6th of August MacMahon fought the battle of Wörth (q.v.). His courage was always conspicuous on the field, but the two-to-one numerical superiority of the Germans triumphed. MacMahon was compelled to fall back upon Saverne, and thence to Toul. Though he suffered further losses in the course of his retreat, his movements were so ably conducted that the emperor confided to him the supreme command of the new levies which he was mustering at Châlons, and he was directed to effect a junction with Bazaine. This operation he undertook against his will. He had an army of 120,000 men, with 324 guns; but large numbers of the troops were disorganized and demoralized. Early on the 1st of September the decisive battle of Sedan began. MacMahon was dangerously wounded in the thigh, whereupon General Ducrot, and soon afterwards General de Wimpffen, took command. MacMahon shared the captivity of his comrades, and resided at Wiesbaden until the conclusion of peace.

In March 1871 MacMahon was appointed by Thiers commander-in-chief of the army of Versailles; and in that capacity he suppressed the Communist insurrection, and successfully conducted the second siege of Paris. In the following December he was invited to become a candidate for Paris in the elections to the National Assembly, but declined nomination. On the resignation of Thiers as president of the Republic, on the 24th of May 1873, MacMahon was elected to the vacant office by an almost unanimous vote, being supported by 390 members out of 392. The duc de Broglie was empowered to form a Conservative administration, but the president also took an early opportunity of showing that he intended to uphold the sovereignty of the National Assembly. On the 5th of November 1873 General Changarnier presented a motion in the Assembly to confirm MacMahon's powers for a period of ten years, and to provide for a commission of thirty to draw up a form of constitutional law. The president consented, but in a message to the Assembly he declared in favour of a confirmation of his own powers for seven years, and expressed his determination to use all his influence in the maintenance of Conservative principles. After prolonged debates the Septennate was adopted on the 19th of November by 378 votes to 310. There was no _coup d'état_ in favour of "Henri V.," as had been expected, and the president resolved to abide by "existing institutions." One of his earliest acts was to receive the finding of the court-martial upon his old comrade in arms, Marshal Bazaine, whose death sentence he commuted to one of twenty years' imprisonment in a fortress. Though MacMahon's life as president of the Republic was of the simplest possible character, his term of office was marked by many brilliant displays, while his wife was a leader in all works of charity and benevolence.

The president was very popular in the rural districts of France, through which he made a successful tour shortly after the declaration of the Septennate. But in Paris and other large cities his policy soon caused great dissatisfaction, the Republican party especially being alienated by press prosecutions and the attempted suppression of Republican ideas. Matters were at a comparative deadlock in the National Assembly, until the accession of some Orleanists to the Moderate Republican party in 1875 made it possible to pass various constitutional laws. In May 1877, however, the constitutional crisis became once more acute. A peremptory letter of censure from MacMahon to Jules Simon caused the latter to resign with his colleagues. The duc de Broglie formed a ministry, but Gambetta carried a resolution in the Chamber of Deputies in favour of parliamentary government. The president declined to yield, and being supported by the Senate, he dissolved the Chamber, by decree, on the 25th of June. The prosecution of Gambetta followed for a speech at Lille, in which he had said "the marshal must, if the elections be against him, _se soumettre ou se démettre_." In a manifesto respecting the elections, the president referred to his successful government and observed, "I cannot obey the injunctions of the demagogy; I can neither become the instrument of Radicalism nor abandon the post in which the constitution has placed me." His confidence in the result of the elections was misplaced. Notwithstanding the great pressure put upon the constituencies by the government, the elections in October resulted in the return of 335 Republicans and only 198 anti-Republicans, the latter including 30 MacMahonists, 89 Bonapartists, 41 Legitimists, and 38 Orleanists. The president endeavoured to ignore the significance of the elections, and continued his reactionary policy. As a last resort he called to power an extra-parliamentary cabinet under General Rochebouet, but the Republican majority refused to vote supplies, and after a brief interval the president was compelled to yield, and to accept a new Republican ministry under Dufaure. The prolonged crisis terminated on the 14th of December 1877, and no further constitutional difficulties arose in 1878. But as the senatorial elections, held early in 1879, gave the Republicans an effective working majority in the Upper Chamber, they now called for the removal of the most conspicuous anti-Republicans among the generals and officials. The president refused to supersede them, and declined to sanction the law brought in with this object. Perceiving further resistance to be useless, however, MacMahon resigned the presidency on the 30th of January 1879, and Jules Grévy was elected as his successor.

MacMahon now retired into private life. Relieved from the cares of state, his simple and unostentatious mode of existence enabled him to pass many years of dignified repose. He died at Paris on the 17th of October 1893, in his eighty-sixth year. A fine, tall, soldierly man, of a thoroughly Irish type, in private life MacMahon was universally esteemed as generous and honourable; as a soldier he was brave and able, without decided military genius; as a politician he was patriotic and well-intentioned, but devoid of any real capacity for statecraft. (G. B. S.)

McMASTER, JOHN BACH (1852- ), American historian, was born in Brooklyn, New York, on the 29th of June 1852. He graduated from the college of the City of New York in 1872, worked as a civil engineer in 1873-1877, was instructor in civil engineering at Princeton University in 1877-1883, and in 1883 became professor of American history in the university of Pennsylvania. He is best known for his _History of the People of the United States from the Revolution to the Civil War_ (1883 sqq.), a valuable supplement to the more purely political writings of Schouler, Von Holst and Henry Adams.

MACMILLAN, the name of a family of English publishers. The founders of the firm were two Scotsmen, Daniel Macmillan (1813-1857) and his younger brother Alexander (1818-1896). Daniel was a native of the Isle of Arran, and Alexander was born in Irvine on the 3rd of October 1818. Daniel was for some time assistant to the bookseller Johnson at Cambridge, but entered the employ of Messrs Seeley in London in 1837; in 1843 he began business in Aldersgate Street, and in the same year the two brothers purchased the business of Newby in Cambridge. They did not confine themselves to bookselling, but published educational works as early as 1844. In 1845 they became the proprietors of the more important business of Stevenson, in Cambridge, the firm being styled Macmillan, Barclay & Macmillan. In 1850 Barclay retired and the firm resumed the name of Macmillan & Co. Daniel Macmillan died at Cambridge on the 27th of June 1857. In that year an impetus was given to the business by the publication of Kingsley's _Two Years Ago_. A branch office was opened in 1858 in Henrietta Street, London, which led to a great extension of trade. These premises were surrendered for larger ones in Bedford Street, and in 1897 the buildings in St Martin's Street were opened. Alexander Macmillan died in January 1896. By his great energy and literary associations, and with the aid of his partners, there had been built up in little over half a century one of the most important publishing houses in the world. Besides the issue of many important series of educational and scientific works, they published the works of Kingsley, Huxley, Maurice, Tennyson, Lightfoot, Westcott, J. R. Green, Lord Roberts, Lewis Carroll, and of many other well-known authors. In 1898 they took over the old-established publishing house of R. Bentley & Son, and with it the works of Mrs Henry Wood, Miss Rhoda Broughton, _The Ingoldsby Legends_, and also _Temple Bar_ and the _Argosy_. In 1893 the firm was converted into a limited liability company, its chairman being Frederick Macmillan (b. 1851), who was knighted in 1909. The American firm of the Macmillan Company, of which he was also a director, is a separate business.

See Thomas Hughes, _Memoir of Daniel Macmillan_ (1882); _A
Bibliographical Catalogue of Macmillan & Co's Publications from 1843
to 1889_ (1891), with portraits of the brothers Daniel and Alexander
after Lowes Dickinson and Hubert Herkomer; also articles in _Le Livre_
(September 1886), _Publishers' Circular_ (January 14, 1893), the
_Bookman_ (May 1901), &c.

MACMONNIES, FREDERICK WILLIAM (1863- ) American sculptor and painter, was born at Brooklyn, New York, on the 20th of September 1863. His mother was a niece of Benjamin West. At the age of sixteen MacMonnies was received as an apprentice in the studio of Augustus St Gaudens, the sculptor, where he remained for five years. In 1884 he went to Paris and thence to Munich, where he painted for some months. Returning to Paris next year he became the most prominent pupil of Falguière. His "Diana" brought him a mention at the Salon of 1889. Three life-sized figures of angels for the church of St Paul, New York, were followed by his "Nathan Hale," in the City Hall Park, New York, and a portrait of James S. T. Stranahan, for Brooklyn. This last brought him a "second medal" in the Salon of 1891, the first time an American sculptor had been so honoured. In 1893 he was chosen to design and carry out the Columbian Fountain for the Chicago World's Fair, which placed him instantly in the front rank. His largest work is a decoration for the Memorial Arch to Soldiers and Sailors, in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, consisting of three enormous groups in bronze. In Prospect Park, Brooklyn, MacMonnies has also a large "Horse Tamer," a work of much distinction. A "Winged Victory" at the U.S. military academy at West Point, New York, is of importance; and his "Bacchante," an extraordinary combination of realism and imagination, rejected by the Boston Public Library, is now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He also became well known as a painter, mainly of portraits. In 1888 he married Mary Fairchild, a figure painter of distinction, but in 1909 they were divorced and she married Will H. Low.

MACNAGHTEN, SIR WILLIAM HAY, BART. (1793-1841), Anglo-Indian diplomatist, was the second son of Sir Francis Macnaghten, Bart., judge of the supreme courts of Madras and Calcutta. He was born in August 1793, and educated at Charterhouse. He went out to Madras as a cadet in 1809, but was appointed in 1816 to the Bengal Civil Service. He early displayed a great talent for languages, and also published several treatises on Hindu and Mahommedan law. His political career began in 1830 as secretary to Lord William Bentinck; and in 1837 he became one of the most trusted advisers of the governor-general, Lord Auckland, with whose policy of supporting Shah Shuja against Dost Mahommed, the reigning amir of Kabul, Macnaghten was closely identified. As political agent at Kabul he came into conflict with the military authorities and subsequently with his subordinate Sir Alexander Burnes. Macnaghten attempted to placate the Afghan chiefs with heavy subsidies, but when the drain on the Indian exchequer became too great, and the allowances were reduced, this policy led to an outbreak. Burnes was murdered on the 2nd of November 1841; and owing to the incapacity of the aged General Elphinstone the British army in Kabul degenerated into a leaderless mob. Macnaghten tried to save the situation by negotiating with the Afghan chiefs and, independently of them, with Dost Mahommed's son, Akbar Khan, by whom he was assassinated on the 23rd of December 1841; the disastrous retreat from Kabul and the massacre of the British army in the Kurd Kabul pass followed. These events threw doubt on Macnaghten's capacity for dealing with the problems of Indian diplomacy, though his fearlessness and integrity were unquestioned. He had been created a baronet in 1840, and four months before his death was nominated to the governorship of Bombay.

MacNALLY, LEONARD (1752-1820), Irish informer, was born in Dublin, the son of a merchant. In 1776 he was called to the Irish, and in 1783 to the English bar. He supported himself for some time in London by writing plays and editing the _Public Ledger_. Returning to Dublin, he entered upon a systematic course of informing against the members of the revolutionary party, for whom his house had become the resort. He also betrayed to the government prosecutors political clients whom he defended eloquently in the courts. He made a fine defence for Robert Emmet and cheered him in his last hours, although before appearing in court he had sold, for £200, the contents of his brief to the lawyers for the Crown. After living a professed Protestant all his life, he received absolution on his deathbed from a Roman Catholic priest. He died on the 13th of February 1820.

MACNEE, SIR DANIEL (1806-1882), Scottish portrait painter, was born at Fintry in Stirlingshire. At the age of thirteen he was apprenticed, along with Horatio Macculloch and Leitch the water-colour painter, to John Knox, a landscapist of some repute. He afterwards worked for a year as a lithographer, was employed by the Smiths of Cumnock to paint the ornamental lids of their planewood snuff-boxes, and, having studied in Edinburgh at the "Trustees' Academy," supporting himself meanwhile by designing and colouring book illustrations for Lizars the engraver, he established himself as an artist in Glasgow, where he became a fashionable portrait painter. He was in 1829 admitted a member of the Royal Scottish Academy; and on the death of Sir George Harvey in 1876 he was elected president, and received the honour of knighthood. From this period till his death, on the 18th of January 1882, he resided in Edinburgh, where his genial social qualities and his inimitable powers as a teller of humorous Scottish anecdote rendered him popular.

MACNEIL, HERMON ATKINS (1866- ), American sculptor, was born at Chelsea, Massachusetts. He was an instructor in industrial art at Cornell University in 1886-1889, and was then a pupil of Henri M. Chapu and Falguière in Paris. Returning to America, he aided Philip Martiny in the preparation of sketch models for the Columbian exposition, and in 1896 he won the Rinehart scholarship, passing four years (1896-1900) in Rome. In 1906 he became a National Academician. His first important work was "The Moqui Runner," which was followed by "A Primitive Chant," and "The Sun Vow," all figures of the North-American Indian. A "Fountain of Liberty," for the St Louis exposition, and other Indian themes came later; his "Agnese" and his "Beatrice," two fine busts of women, also deserve mention. His principal work is the sculpture for a large memorial arch, at Columbus, Ohio, in honour of President McKinley. In 1909 he won in competition a commission for a large soldiers' and sailors' monument in Albany, New York. His wife, Carol Brooks MacNeil, also a sculptor of distinction, was a pupil of F. W. MacMonnies.

McNEILE, HUGH (1795-1879), Anglican divine, younger son of Alexander McNeile (or McNeill), was born at Ballycastle, Co. Antrim, on the 15th of July 1795. He graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1810. His handsome presence, and his promise of exceptional gifts of oratory, led a wealthy uncle, Major-General Daniel McNeill, to adopt him as his heir; and he was destined for a parliamentary career. During a stay at Florence, Hugh McNeile became temporarily intimate with Lord Byron and Madame de Staël. On returning home, he determined to abandon the prospect of political distinction for the clerical profession, and was disinherited. In 1820 he was ordained, and after holding the curacy of Stranorlar, Co. Donegal, for two years, was appointed to the living of Albury, Surrey, by Henry Drummond.

Edward Irving endeavoured, not without success at first, to draw McNeile into agreement with his doctrine and aims. Irving's increasing extravagance, however, soon alienated McNeile. His preaching now attracted much attention; in London he frequently was heard by large congregations. In 1834 he accepted the incumbency of St Jude's, Liverpool, where for the next thirty years he wielded great political as well as ecclesiastical influence. He repudiated the notion that a clergyman should be debarred from politics, maintaining at a public meeting that "God when He made the minister did not unmake the citizen." In 1835 McNeile entered upon a long contest, in which he was eventually successful, with the Liverpool corporation, which had been captured by the Whigs, after the passing of the Municipal Reform Act. A proposal was carried that the elementary schools under the control of the corporation should be secularized by the introduction of what was known as the Irish National System. The threatened withdrawal of the Bible as the basis of denominational religious teaching was met by a fierce agitation led by McNeile, who so successfully enlisted public support that before the new system could be introduced every child was provided for in new Church of England schools established by public subscriptions. At the same time he conducted a campaign which gradually reduced the Whig element in the council, till in 1841 it almost entirely disappeared. To his influence was also attributed the defeat of the Liberal parliamentary candidates in the general election of 1837, followed by a long period of Conservative predominance in Liverpool politics. McNeile had the Irish Protestant's horror of Romanism, which he constantly denounced in the pulpit and on the platform; and Macaulay, speaking in the House of Commons on the Maynooth endowment in April 1845, singled him out for attack as the most powerful representative of uncompromising Protestant opinion in the country. As the Tractarian movement in the Church of England developed, he became one of its most zealous opponents and the most conspicuous leader of the evangelical party. In 1840 he published a volume of _Lectures on the Church of England_, and in 1846 (the year after Newman's secession to Rome) _The Church and the Churches_, in which he maintained with much dialectical skill the evangelical doctrine of the "invisible Church" in opposition to the teaching of Newman and Pusey. Hugh McNeile was in close sympathy with the philanthropic work as well as the religious views of the 7th earl of Shaftesbury, who more than once tried to persuade Lord Palmerston to raise him to the episcopal bench. But although Palmerston usually followed the advice of Shaftesbury in the appointment of bishops, he would not consent to the elevation to the House of Lords of so powerful a political opponent as McNeile, whom Lord John Russell had accused of frustrating for thirty years the education policy of the Liberal party. In 1860 he was appointed a canon of Chester; and in 1868 Disraeli appointed him dean of Ripon. This preferment he resigned in 1875, and he lived in retirement at Bournemouth till his death on the 28th of January 1879. McNeile married, in 1822, Anne, daughter of William Magee, archbishop of Dublin, and aunt of William Connor Magee, archbishop of York, by whom he had a large family.

Although a vehement controversialist, Hugh McNeile was a man of simple and sincere piety of character. Sir Edward Russell, an opponent alike of his religious and his political opinions, bears witness to the deep spirituality of his teaching, and describes him as an absolutely unique personality. "He made himself leader of the Liverpool people, and always led with calm and majesty in the most excited times. His eloquence was grave, flowing, emphatic--had a dignity in delivery, a perfection of elocution, that only John Bright equalled in the latter half of the 19th century. Its fire was solemn force. McNeile's voice was probably the finest organ ever heard in public oratory. His action was as graceful as it was expressive. He ruled an audience."

See J. A. Picton, _Memorials of Liverpool_, vol. i. (1873); Sir Edward
Russell, "The Religious Life of Liverpool," in the _Sunday Magazine_
(June 1905); Charles Bullock, _Hugh McNeile and Reformation Truth_.
(R. J. M.)

MACNEILL, HECTOR (1746-1818), Scottish poet, was born near Roslin, Midlothian, on the 22nd of October 1746, the son of an impoverished army captain. He went to Bristol as a clerk at the age of fourteen, and soon afterwards was despatched to the West Indies. From 1780 to 1786 he acted as assistant secretary on board the flagships of Admiral Geary and Sir Richard Bickerton (1727-1792). Most of his later life was spent in Scotland, and it was in the house of a friend at Stirling that he wrote most of his songs and his _Scotland's Skaith, or the History of Will and Jean_ (1795), a narrative poem intended to show the deteriorating influences of whisky and pothouse politics. A sequel, _The Waes of War_, appeared next year. In 1800 he published _The Memoirs of Charles Macpherson, Esq._, a novel understood to be a narrative of his own hardships and adventures. A complete edition of the poems he wished to own appeared in 1812. His songs "Mary of Castlecary," "Come under my plaidy," "My boy Tammy," "O tell me how for to woo," "I lo'ed ne'er a lassie but ane," "The plaid amang the hether," and "Jeanie's black e'e," are notable for their sweetness and simplicity. He died at Edinburgh on the 15th of March 1818.

MACOMB, a city and the county-seat of McDonough county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the W. part of the state, about 60 m. S.W. of Peoria. Pop. (1890), 4052; (1900), 5375 (232 foreign-born); (1910), 5774. Macomb is served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, and the Macomb & Western Illinois railways. The city is the seat of the Western Illinois state normal school (opened in 1902), and has a Carnegie library and a city park. Clay is found in the vicinity, and there are manufactures of pottery, bricks, &c. The city was founded in 1830 as the county-seat of McDonough county, and was called Washington by the settlers, but the charter of incorporation, also granted in 1830, gave it the present name in honour of General Alexander Macomb. Macomb was first chartered as a city in 1856.

MACOMER, a village of Sardinia in the province of Cagliari, from which it is 95 m. N.N.W. by rail, and the same distance S.W. of Golfo degli Aranci. Pop. (1901), 3488. It is situated 1890 ft. above sea-level on the southern ascent to the central plateau (the Campeda) of this part of Sardinia; and it is the junction of narrow-gauge lines branching from the main line eastwards to Nuoro and westwards to Bosa. The old parish church of S. Pantaleone has three Roman mile-stones in front of it, belonging to the Roman high-road from Carales to Turris Libisonis. The modern high-road follows the ancient. The district, especially the Campeda, is well fitted for grazing and horse and cattle breeding, which is carried on to a considerable extent. It is perhaps richer in _nuraghi_ than any other part of Sardinia.

MACON, NATHANIEL (1758-1837), American political leader, was born at Macon Manor, Warren county, North Carolina, on the 17th of December 1758. He studied at the college of New Jersey (now Princeton University) from 1774 to 1776, when the institution was closed on account of the outbreak of the War of Independence; served for a short time in a New Jersey militia company; studied law at Bute Court-house, North Carolina, in 1777-1780, at the same time managing his tobacco plantation; was a member of a Warren county militia company in 1780-1782, and served in the North Carolina Senate in 1781-1785. In 1786 he was elected to the Continental Congress, but declined to serve. In 1791-1815 he was a member of the national House of Representatives, and in 1815-1828 of the United States Senate. Macon's point of view was always local rather than national. He was essentially a North Carolinian first, and an American afterwards; and throughout his career he was an aggressive advocate of state sovereignty and an adherent of the doctrines of the "Old Republicans." He at first opposed the adoption of the Federal constitution of 1787, as a member of the faction led by Willie Jones (1731-1801) of Halifax, North Carolina, but later withdrew his opposition. In Congress he denounced Hamilton's financial policy, opposed the Jay Treaty (1795) and the Alien and Sedition Acts, and advocated a continuance of the French alliance of 1778. His party came into power in 1801, and he was Speaker of the house from December 1801 to October 1807. At first he was in accord with Jefferson's administration; he approved the Louisiana Purchase, and as early as 1803 advocated the purchase of Florida. For a number of years, however, he was politically allied with John Randolph.[1] As speaker, in spite of strong opposition, he kept Randolph at the head of the important committee on Ways and Means from 1801 to 1806; and in 1805-1808, with Randolph and Joseph H. Nicholson (1770-1817) of Maryland, he was a leader of the group of about ten independents, called the "Quids," who strongly criticized Jefferson and opposed the presidential candidature of Madison. By 1809, however, Macon was again in accord with his party, and during the next two years he was one of the most influential of its leaders. In December 1809 he introduced resolutions which combined the ideas of Peter Early (1773-1817) of Georgia, David R. Williams (1776-1830) of South Carolina, and Samuel W. Dana (1757-1830) of Connecticut with his own. The resolutions recommended the complete exclusion of foreign war vessels from United States ports and the suppression of illegal trade carried on by foreign merchants under the American flag. The substance of these resolutions was embodied in the "Macon Bill, No. 1," which passed the House but was defeated in the Senate. On the 7th of April 1810 Macon reported from committee the "Macon Bill, No. 2," which had been drawn by John Taylor (1770-1832) of South Carolina, and was not actively supported by him. This measure (amended) became law on the 1st of May, and provided for the repeal of the Non-Intercourse Act of 1809, authorized the president, "in case either Great Britain or France shall before the 3rd day of March next so revoke or modify her edicts as that they shall cease to violate the neutral commerce of the United States," to revive non-intercourse against the other, and prohibited British and French vessels of war from entering American waters. In 1812 Macon voted for the declaration of war against Great Britain, and later was chairman of the Congressional committee which made a report (July 1813) condemning Great Britain's conduct of the war. He opposed the Bank Act of 1816, the "internal improvements" policy of Calhoun (in the early part of his career) and Clay, and the Missouri Compromise, his speech against the last being especially able. In 1824 Macon received the electoral vote of Virginia for the vice-presidency, and in 1826-1828 was president pro tempore of the Senate. He was president of the North Carolina constitutional convention in 1835, and was an elector on the Van Buren ticket in 1836. He died at his home, Buck Springs, Warren county, North Carolina, on the 29th of June 1837.

See William E. Dodd, _The Life of Nathaniel Macon_ (Raleigh, N.C.,
1903); E. M. Wilson, _The Congressional Career of Nathaniel Macon_
(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1900).

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Their names are associated in Randolph-Macon College, named in
their honour in 1830.

MÂCON, a town of east-central France, capital of the department of Saône-et-Loire, 45 m. N. of Lyons on the Paris-Lyon railway. Pop. (1906), 16,151. Mâcon is situated on the right bank of the Saône facing the plain of the Bresse; a bridge of twelve arches connects it with the suburb of St Laurent on the opposite bank. The most prominent building is the modern Romanesque church of St Pierre, a large three-naved basilica, with two fine spires. Of the old cathedral of St Vincent (12th and 13th centuries), destroyed at the Revolution, nothing remains but the Romanesque narthex, now used as a chapel, the façade and its two flanking towers. The hôtel de ville contains a library, a theatre and picture-gallery. Opposite to it stands a statue of the poet Alphonse Lamartine, a native of the town. Mâcon is the seat of a prefecture, and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, and a chamber of commerce. There are lycées and training colleges. Copper-founding is an important industry; manufactures include casks, mats, rope and utensils for the wine-trade. The town has a large trade in wine of the district, known as Mâcon. It is a railway centre of considerable importance, being the point at which the line from Paris to Marseilles is joined by that from Mont Cenis and Geneva, as well as by a branch from Moulins.

Mâcon (_Matisco_) was an important town of the Aedui, but under the Romans it was supplanted by Autun and Lyons. It suffered a succession of disasters at the hands of the Germans, Burgundians, Vandals, Huns, Hungarians and even of the Carolingian kings. In the feudal period it was an important countship which in 1228 was sold to the king of France, but more than once afterwards passed into the possession of the dukes of Burgundy, until the ownership of the French crown was established in the time of Louis XI. In the 16th century Mâcon became a stronghold of the Huguenots, but afterwards fell into the hands of the League, and did not yield to Henry IV. until 1594. The bishopric, created by King Childebert, was suppressed in 1790.

MACON, a city and the county-seat of Bibb county, Georgia, U.S.A., in the central part of the state, on both sides of the Ocmulgee river (at the head of navigation), about 90 m. S.S.E. of Atlanta. Pop. (1900), 23,272, of whom 11,550 were negroes; (1910 census) 40,665. Macon is, next to Atlanta, the most important railway centre in the state, being served by the Southern, the Central of Georgia, the Georgia, the Georgia Southern & Florida, the Macon Dublin & Savannah, and the Macon & Birmingham railways. It was formerly an important river port, especially for the shipment of cotton, but lost this commercial advantage when railway bridges made the river impassable. It is, however, partially regaining the river trade in consequence of the compulsory substitution of drawbridges for the stationary railway bridges. The city is the seat of the Wesleyan female college (1836), which claims to be the first college in the world chartered to grant academic degrees to women; Mercer university (Baptist), which was established in 1833 as Mercer Institute at Penfield, became a university in 1837, was removed to Macon in 1871, and controls Hearn Academy (1839) at Cave Spring and Gibson Mercer Academy (1903) at Bowman; the state academy for the blind (1852), St Stanislaus' College (Jesuit), and Mt de Sales Academy (Roman Catholic) for women. There are four orphan asylums for whites and two for negroes, supported chiefly by the Protestant Episcopal and Methodist Churches, and a public hospital. Immediately east of Macon are two large Indian mounds, and there is a third mound 9 m. south of the city. Situated in the heart of the "Cotton Belt," Macon has a large and lucrative trade; it is one of the most important inland cotton markets of the United States, its annual receipts averaging about 250,000 bales. The city's factory products in 1905 were valued at $7,297,347 (33.8% more than in 1900). In the vicinity are large beds of kaolin, 30 m. wide, reaching nearly across the state, and frequently 35 to 70 ft. in depth. Macon is near the fruit-growing region of Georgia, and large quantities of peaches and of garden products are annually shipped from the city.

Macon (named in honour of Nathaniel Macon) was surveyed in 1823 by order of the Georgia legislature for the county-seat of Bibb county, and received its first charter in 1824. It soon became the centre of trade for Middle Georgia; in 1833 a steamboat line to Darien was opened, and in the following year 69,000 bales of cotton were shipped by this route. During the Civil War the city was a centre for Confederate commissary supplies and the seat of a Treasury depository. In July 1864 General George Stoneman (1822-1894) with 500 men was captured near the city by the Confederate general, Howell Cobb. Macon was finally occupied by Federal troops under General James H. Wilson (b. 1837) on the 20th of April 1865. In 1900-1910 the area of the city was increased by the annexation of several suburbs.

MACPHERSON, SIR DAVID LEWIS (1818-1896), Canadian financier and politician, was born at Castle Leathers, near Inverness, Scotland, on the 12th of September 1818. In 1835 he emigrated to Canada, settling in Montreal, where he built up a large fortune by "forwarding" merchandise. In 1853 he removed to Toronto, and in the same year obtained the contract for building a line of railway from Toronto to Sarnia, a project from which sprang the Grand Trunk railway, in the construction of which line he greatly increased his wealth. In 1864 he was elected to the Canadian parliament as member of the Legislative Council for Saugeen, and on the formation of the Dominion, in 1867, was nominated to the Senate. In the following years he published a number of pamphlets on economic subjects, of which the best-known is _Banking and Currency_ (1869). In 1880 he was appointed Speaker of the Senate, and from October 1883 till 1885 was minister of the interior in the Conservative cabinet. In 1884 he was knighted by Queen Victoria. He died on the 16th of August 1896.

MACPHERSON, JAMES (1736-1796), Scottish "translator" of the Ossianic poems, was born at Ruthven in the parish of Kingussie, Inverness, on the 27th of October 1736. He was sent in 1753 to King's College, Aberdeen, removing two years later to Marischal College. He also studied at Edinburgh, but took no degree. He is said to have written over 4000 lines of verse while a student, but though some of this was published, notably _The Highlander_ (1758), he afterwards tried to suppress it. On leaving college he taught in the school of his native place. At Moffat he met John Home, the author of _Douglas_, for whom he recited some Gaelic verses from memory. He also showed him MSS. of Gaelic poetry, supposed to have been picked up in the Highlands, and, encouraged by Home and others, he produced a number of pieces translated from the Gaelic, which he was induced to publish at Edinburgh in 1760 as _Fragments of Ancient Poetry collected in the Highlands of Scotland_. Dr Hugh Blair, who was a firm believer in the authenticity of the poems, got up a subscription to allow Macpherson to pursue his Gaelic researches. In the autumn he set out to visit western Inverness, the islands of Skye, North and South Uist and Benbecula. He obtained MSS. which he translated with the assistance of Captain Morrison and the Rev. A. Gallie. Later in the year he made an expedition to Mull, when he obtained other MSS. In 1761 he announced the discovery of an epic on the subject of Fingal, and in December he published _Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem in Six Books, together with Several Other Poems composed by Ossian, the Son of Fingal, translated from the Gaelic Language_, written in the musical measured prose of which he had made use in his earlier volume. _Temora_ followed in 1763, and a collected edition, _The Works of Ossian_, in 1765.

The genuineness of these so-called translations from the works of a 3rd-century bard was immediately challenged in England, and Dr Johnson, after some local investigation, asserted (_Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland_, 1775) that Macpherson had only found fragments of ancient poems and stories, which he had woven into a romance of his own composition. Macpherson is said to have sent Johnson a challenge, to which Johnson replied that he was not to be deterred from detecting what he thought a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian. Macpherson never produced his originals, which he refused to publish on the ground of the expense. In 1764 he was made secretary to General Johnstone at Pensacola, West Florida, and when he returned, two years later, to England, after a quarrel with Johnstone, he was allowed to retain his salary as a pension. He occupied himself with writing several historical works, the most important of which was _Original Papers, containing the Secret History of Great Britain from the Restoration to the Accession of the House of Hanover; to which are prefixed Extracts from the Life of James II., as written by himself_ (1775). He enjoyed a salary for defending the policy of Lord North's government, and held the lucrative post of London agent to Mahommed Ali, nabob of Arcot. He entered parliament in 1780, and continued to sit until his death. In his later years he bought an estate, to which he gave the name of Belville, in his native county of Inverness, where he died on the 17th of February 1796.

After Macpherson's death, Malcolm Laing, in an appendix to his _History of Scotland_ (1800), propounded the extreme view that the so-called Ossianic poems were altogether modern in origin, and that Macpherson's authorities were practically non-existent. For a discussion of this question see CELT: _Scottish Gaelic Literature_. Much of Macpherson's matter is clearly his own, and he confounds the stories belonging to different cycles. But apart from the doubtful morality of his transactions he must still be regarded as one of the great Scottish writers. The varied sources of his work and its worthlessness as a transcript of actual Celtic poems do not alter the fact that he produced a work of art which by its deep appreciation of natural beauty and the melancholy tenderness of its treatment of the ancient legend did more than any single work to bring about the romantic movement in European, and especially in German, literature. It was speedily translated into many European languages, and Herder and Goethe (in his earlier period) were among its profound admirers. Cesarotti's Italian translation was one of Napoleon's favourite books.

AUTHORITIES.--For Macpherson's life, see _The Life and Letters of
James Macpherson ..._ (1894, new ed., 1906), by T. Bailey Saunders,
who has laboured to redeem his character from the suspicions generally
current with English readers. The antiquity of the Ossianic poems was
defended in the introduction by Archibald Clerk to his edition of the
_Poems of Ossian_ (1870). Materials for arriving at a decision by
comparison with undoubtedly genuine fragments of the Ossianic legend
are available in _The Book of the Dean of Lismore_, Gaelic verses,
collected by J. McGregor, dean of Lismore, in the early 16th century
(ed. T. McLauchlan, 1862); the _Leabhar na Feinne_ (1871) of F. J.
Campbell, who also discusses the subject in _Popular Tales of the
Western Highlands_, iv. (1893). See also L. C. Stern, "Die ossianische
Heldenlieder" in _Zeitschrift für vergleichende Litteratur-geschichte_
(1895; Eng. trans. by J. L. Robertson in _Trans. Gael. Soc. of
Inverness_, xxii., 1897-1898); Sir J. Sinclair, _A Dissertation on the
Authenticity of the Poems of Ossian_ (1806); _Transactions of the
Ossianic Society_ (Dublin, 1854-1861); _Cours de littérature
celtique_, by Arbois de Jubainville, editor of the _Revue celtique_
(1883, &c.); A. Nutt, _Ossian and the Ossianic Literature_ (1899),
with a valuable bibliographical appendix; J. S. Smart, _James
Macpherson: an Episode in Literature_ (1905).