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).
McPHERSON, JAMES BIRDSEYE (1828–1864), American
soldier, was born at Sandusky, Ohio, on the 14th of November
1828. He entered West Point at the age of twenty-one, and
graduated (1853) at the head of his class, which included Sheridan,
Schofield and Hood. He was employed at the military academy
as instructor of practical military engineering (1853). A year
later he was sent to engineer duty at New York, and in 1857,
after constructing Fort Delaware, he was sent as superintending
engineer to San Francisco, becoming 1st lieutenant in 1858. He
was promoted captain during the first year of the Civil War, and
towards the close of 1861 became lieutenant-colonel and aide-de-camp
to General Halleck, who in the spring of 1862 sent him to
General Grant as chief engineer. He remained with Grant during
the Shiloh campaign, and acted as engineer adviser to Halleck
during the siege operations against Corinth in the summer of
1862. In October he distinguished himself in command of an
infantry brigade at the battle of Corinth, and on the 8th of this
month was made major-general of volunteers and commander of
a division. In the second advance on Vicksburg (1863) McPherson
commanded the XVII. corps, fought at Port Gibson, Raymond
and Jackson, and after the fall of Vicksburg was strongly recommended
by Grant for the rank of brigadier-general in the regular
army, to which he was promoted on the 1st of August 1863. He
commanded at Vicksburg until the following spring. He was about
to go on leave of absence in order to be married in Baltimore
when he received his nomination to the command of the Army
of the Tennessee, Grant’s and Sherman’s old army, which was to
take part under Sherman’s supreme command in the campaign
against Atlanta (1864). This nomination was made by Sherman
and entirely approved by Grant, who had the highest opinion of
McPherson’s military and personal qualities. He was in command
of his army at the actions of Resaca, Dallas, Kenesaw Mountain
and the battles about Atlanta. On the 22nd of July, when
the Confederates under his old classmate Hood made a sudden
and violent attack on the lines held by the Army of the Tennessee,
McPherson rode up, in the woods, to the enemy’s firing line
and was killed. He was one of the most heroic figures of the
American Civil War, and Grant is reported to have said when
he heard of McPherson’s death, “The country has lost one of
its best soldiers, and I have lost my best friend.”
MACQUARIE, a British island in the South Pacific Ocean,
in 54° 49′ S. and 159° 49′ E. It is about 20 m. long, and covered
with a grassy vegetation, with some trees or shrubs in the sheltered
places which afford food to a parrot of the genus Cyanorhamphus,
allied to those of the Auckland Islands. Although it
has no settled population, Macquarie is constantly visited by
sailors in quest of the seals which abound in its waters.
MACRAUCHENIA, a long-necked and long-limbed, three-toed South American ungulate mammal, typifying the suborder Litopterna (q.v.).
MACREADY, WILLIAM CHARLES (1793–1873), English
actor, was born in London on the 3rd of March 1793, and educated at Rugby. It was his intention to go up to Oxford, but in 1809 the embarrassed affairs of his father, the lessee of several provincial theatres, called him to share the responsibilities of theatrical management. On the 7th of June 1810 he made a successful first appearance as Romeo at Birmingham. Other Shakespearian parts followed, but a serious rupture between father and son resulted in the young man’s departure for Bath in 1814. Here he remained for two years, with occasional professional visits to other provincial towns. On the 16th of September 1816, Macready made his first London appearance at Covent Garden as Orestes in The Distressed Mother, a translation of Racine’s Andromaque by Ambrose Philips. Macready’s choice of characters was at first confined chiefly to the romantic drama. In 1818 he won a permanent success in Isaac Pocock’s (1782–1835) adaptation of Scott’s Rob Roy. He showed his capacity for the highest tragedy when he played Richard III. at Covent Garden on the 25th of October 1819. Transferring his services to Drury Lane, he gradually rose in public favour, his most conspicuous success being in the title-rôle of Sheridan Knowles’s William Tell (May 11, 1825). In 1826 he completed a successful engagement in America, and in 1828 his performances met with a very flattering reception in Paris. On the 15th of December 1830 he appeared at Drury Lane as Werner, one of his most powerful impersonations. In 1833 he played in Antony and Cleopatra, in Byron’s Sardanapalus, and in King Lear. Already Macready had done something to encourage the creation of a modern English drama, and after entering on the management of Covent Garden in 1837 he introduced Robert Browning’s Strafford, and in the following year Bulwer’s Lady of Lyons and Richelieu, the principal characters in which were among his most effective parts. On the 10th of June 1838 he gave a memorable performance of Henry V., for which Stanfield prepared sketches, and the mounting was superintended by Bulwer, Dickens, Forster, Maclise, W. J. Fox and other friends. The first production of Bulwer’s Money took place under the artistic direction of Count d’Orsay on the 8th of December 1840, Macready winning unmistakable success in the character of Alfred Evelyn. Both in his management of Covent Garden, which he resigned in 1839, and of Drury Lane, which he held from 1841 to 1843, he found his designs for the elevation of the stage frustrated by the absence of adequate public support. In 1843–1844 he made a prosperous tour in the United States, but his last visit to that country, in 1849, was marred by a riot at the Astor Opera House, New York, arising from the jealousy of the actor Edwin Forrest, and resulting in the death of seventeen persons, who were shot by the military called out to quell the disturbance. Macready took leave of the stage in a farewell performance of Macbeth at Drury Lane on the 26th of February 1851. The remainder of his life was spent in happy retirement, and he died at Cheltenham on the 27th of April 1873. He had married, in 1823, Catherine Frances Atkins (d. 1852). Of a numerous family of children only one son and one daughter survived. In 1860 he married Cecile Louise Frederica Spencer (1827–1908), by whom he had a son.
Macready’s performances always displayed fine artistic perceptions developed to a high degree of perfection by very comprehensive culture, and even his least successful personations had the interest resulting from thorough intellectual
