of phrases illustrating the use of words. Thus under 'about,' in Irish 'timchioll,' forty-five phrases are given, as 'about noon,' 'I jeered him about his hat,' 'there's such a devilish way about him,' 'I have no money about me,' showing every possible use of the Irish equivalents of the English word, and incidentally giving many idioms. In other directions the dictionary is incomplete. The daffodil is rendered 'sort planda,' a kind of plant. But it is a valuable record of the vernacular of its day. A summary of the grammar is printed at the end. In 1749 he wrote a dirge for his teacher and cousin Andrew MacCurtin, and in 1750 a poem on upstarts, beginning 'Ar aonach ma theid sin ar uair do lo' (Egerton MS. 160 in Brit. Mus.) He also wrote an answer to Tadhg O'Neachtain (ib. 194). In his later years he kept a school in the townland of Knockin-an-aoird, in native parish, and there died in 1755. He was buried in the churchyard of Kilmacreehy. The ruins of his house and schoolroom were standing in 1863.
[B. O'Looney's Danta Chlainne Domhnaill, 1863; J. O'Daly's Poets and Poetry of Munster; E. O'Reilly in Transactions of the Iberno-Celtic Soc. Dublin, 1820. Egerton MSS. 160 and 194, in Brit. Mus.]
MACDIARMID, JOHN (1779–1808), journalist and author, was born in 1779 at Weem, Perthshire, where his father, James Macdiarmid (1743–1828), was parish minister. His mother was Catherine, only child of John Buik, minister of Tannadice, Forfarshire. A brother, James, was an officer in the army (Hew Scott, Fasti Eccl. Scot. pt. iv. p. 817). After receiving elementary education at home, he studied at Edinburgh and St. Andrews Universities, and for a short time was a private tutor. In 1801 he settled in London as a man of letters. There he wrote for various periodicals, and edited the 'St. James's Chronicle.' When war with France broke out in 1802 he specially studied the subject of national defence, and in 1805 published, in two volumes, 'An Enquiry into the System of National Defence in Great Britain,' deprecating the substitution of volunteers for a strong standing army. In 1806 appeared his 'Enquiry into the Principles of Civil and Military Subordination,' skillfully treated, and in 1807 a friend helped him to issue, in a handsome quarto, his useful 'Lives of British Statesmen,' reprinted 1820, 2 vols., and 1838, 1 vol.
Macdiarmid, who was always in poverty, died in London of paralysis, 7 April 1808.
[Chambers's Eminent Scotsmen; D'Israeli's Calamities of Authors.]
M'DIARMID, JOHN (1790–1852), Scottish journalist, born in 1790 at Glasgow, was son of the minister of the Gaelic Church there. After some education, mainly in Edinburgh, he became, at an early age, owing to his father's death, a clerk in the Edinburgh counting-house, whence he passed into the head office of the Commercial Bank, Edinburgh, remaining there till 1817. He devoted his leisure to study, attending several classes in the university, and for two years occupying his evenings as amanuensis to Professor Playfair, who gave him access to his classes and his library. He was a distinguished member of a college debating society, and of the Edinburgh Forum, a club that helped to train many good speakers, and he wrote some clever verses. He formed friendships with Scott, Wilson, Hogg, and Jeffrey—for whom he is said to have done some work in the 'Edinburgh Review.' On 25 Jan. 1817 he joined Charles Maclaren [q. v.] and William Ritchie in preparing the first number of the 'Scotsman' newspaper, and in the same month he removed to Dumfries to become editor of the 'Dumfries and Galloway Courier.'
M'Diarmid made himself familiar with the district in which his paper circulated, and became an authority on agriculture, besides writing for his columns descriptive sketches of his journeys. In 1820 he declined the editorship of the 'Caledonian Mercury' in Edinburgh, receiving at the same time an interest in the property of the 'Courier,' of which he became owner in 1837. An advocate of liberal measures, he specially interested himself in the poor. When in September 1832 Dumfries suffered heavily from cholera, M'Diarmid's appeal for a relief fund brought in 2,900l., which he skilfully distributed. He was the trusted adviser of Burns's widow in her latter days. He died of erysipelas at Dumfries, 18 Nov. 1862. His wife, Anne M'Knight of Dumfries, whom he married in 1819, predeceased him in 1850.
In 1817 M'Diarmid published Cowper's 'Poems,' with a Life, which went through several editions. In 1820 appeared the first volume of his 'Scrap Book,' consisting of selections and original contributions. A second series speedily followed, and both have been frequently reprinted. In 1823 he published the 'Vicar of Wakefield,' with memoir of Goldsmith. In 1825 he started the 'Dumfries Magazine,' which existed three years. In 1830 he reprinted 'Sketches from Nature' from the 'Courier,' and in 1832 he contributed to an 'Illustrated Picture of Dumfries' an account of the town and district. He also wrote a description of Moffat,
