MACDONALD, ANDREW (1755?–1790), dramatist and verse-writer, son of George Donald, gardener, was born at Leith about 1755. Educated in Leith and at Edinburgh University, he received deacon's orders in the Scottish episcopal church in 1775, when he lengthened his surname to Macdonald. After being tutor for a year at Gask, Perthshire, he was appointed in 1777 to a charge in Glasgow. Although apparently a good preacher, he met with little success, and an imprudent marriage injured his prospects. Resigning his charge, he settled in Edinburgh as a literary man, and ultimately tried his fortune in London. Here his prospects brightened. His tragedy called 'Vimonds,' which had been successfully played in Edinburgh, with a prologue by Henry Mackenzie, was accepted by Colman, and was produced at the Haymarket on 5 Sept. 1787 (Genest, Account of the Stage, vi. 455). It proved popular, and a repetition of the success next year was encouraging, but Macdonald's other dramatic efforts were failures. Adopting the pseudonym of 'Matthew Bramble,' Macdonald amused London for some time with poetical burlesques, cleverly modelled on 'Peter Pindar' (cf. D'Israeli, Calamities of Author's). Macdonald's health failed very suddenly, and he died in Kentish Town, London, 22 Aug. 1790, leaving his widow and a child destitute.
In 1782 Macdonald published 'Velina, a Poetical Fragment'—a clever piece in Spenserian stanza—which was followed in 1783 byan unsuccessful novel, 'The Independent.' Besides ' Vimonda,' published in 1768, on which his dramatic reputation rests, he left an unfinished tragedy, 'The Fair Apostate,' an opera, 'Love and Loyalty,' a comedy, 'Princess of Tarento,' various 'Probationary Odes for the Laureateship,' kc. A posthumous volume of sermons, 1790, secured some popularity, and Macdonald's 'Miscellaneous works,' including all his known writings, appeared in 1791.
[Lives of Scottish Poets, by the Society of Ancient Scots; Baker's Biog. Dramatica 1812; Chambers's Eminent Scotsmen.]
MACDONALD, ANGUS (1834–1886), medical writer, was of humble Aberdeen family. At the age of nineteen he obtained a bursary at King's College, Aberdeen, where he read divinity for a year with the intention of becoming a minister. Proceeding, however, to Edinburgh, where the medical school was then at its zenith, he turned to the study of medicine, and in 1801 graduated M.D. Settling in practice at Edinburgh, he became lecturer at Minto House, afterwards at Surgeons' Hall, and physician and clinical lecturer on the diseases of women in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, physician to the Royal Maternity Hospital, Edinburgh, and fellow of the Royal College of Physicians there, he died on 10 Feb. 18S6, leaving a widow, two daughters, and five sons. He was author of 'The Bearings of Chronic Diseases of the Heart upon Pregnancy,' &c., London. 1878, and edited Jackson's 'Notebook of Materia Medica,' Edinburgh, 1871.
[Works in English Museum; Lancet, 1886. i. 378; Medical Directory, 1887; Times, 12 Feb. 1888.]
MACDONALD, ARCHIBALD (1736–1814), author, born in 1736, was a Benedictine monk, and for many years was Roman catholic pastor of Seal Street Chapel, Liverpool. He published a defence of the authenticity of Macpherson's poems of Ossian against the attacks of Malcolm Laing [q. v.], and added some translations by himself of the lesser poems of Ossian, 1805. 'Fingal rendered into Verse' appeared in 1808, and Macdonald also published 'Moral Essays.' He died at Woolton in September 1814.
[Allibone's Dict. of English Literature; Gent. Mag. 1814, pt. ii. p, 298.]
MACDONALD, Sir ARCHIBALD (1747–1826), judge, the third and posthumous son of Sir Alexander Macdonald, seventh baronet of Sleat in the island of Skye, by his second wife, Lady Margaret., youngest daughter of Alexander Montgomery, ninth earl of Eglinton [q. v.], was born at Armidale Castle in the island of Skye on 13 July 1747. He was educated at Westminster School, where on 14 May 1760 he was admitted on the foundation, and on 30 May 1764 was elected to a studentship of Christ Church, Oxford. Thence he matriculated 20 June 1764, and graduated B.A. 20 April 1768, M.A. 30 June 1772. He was admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn on 13 Nov. 1765, and was called to the bar in Michaelmas term 1770. Owing to his connection with Scotland, Macdonald was frequently employed at the outset of his legal career as a junior in Scottish appeals to the House of Lords (see Paton, Reports, vol. ii.) In May 1775 he was engaged on behalf of the defendant in the Grenada case before Lord-chief justice Mansfield (Howell, State Trials, xx. 287-306), and in July 1778 be appeared as one of the counsel for the prosecution in the Greenwich Hospital case (ib. xxi, 61-5). In Hilary term 1778 he was made a king's counsel, and in 1780 was appointed one of the justices of the grand sessions in Wales. On 7 April 1764 he succeeded Richard Pepper Arden
