Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/529

  [q. v.], recognised, to reading outside examination subjects. He was in 1869 elected a fellow of Downing, having won the Hare prize in 1868 with an essay on 'Greek Sceptics from Pyrrho to Sextus,' which was published and indicated the bent of his mind. He graduated B.A. in 1866 and proceeded M.A. in 1869. He became a student of Lincoln's Inn on 21 Jan. 1872, and was called to the bar on 17 Nov. 1875. At Cambridge MacColl began an acquaintance with Sir [q. v. Suppl. II] proprietor of the 'Athenæum,' and in 1871 Dilke appointed him editor of that paper. He held the office to the end of 1900, working without any regular assistance till 1896.

As editor of the 'Athenæum' MacColl, whose general knowledge was great and whose interests were wide, was faithful to sound ideals of criticism, thorough, independent, and well-informed. An artist in language, he kept a keen eye on the style of his contributors. He was cautious in his policy, but, once having settled it, was not easily moved. He claimed to be something of a tactician, when new ideas, as in the case of Darwin, made changes of view imperative, and he allowed his reviewers when they were wrong to be corrected in published correspondence.

His temperament encouraged independence and a certain measure of isolation, partly from reserve and shyness, partly from his unwillingness to associate himself with any clique, and partly from a horror of self-advertisement; he went comparatively little into society, although he visited occasionally Westland Marston's Sunday parties, went regularly in later life to the Athenæum Club, was one of Leslie Stephen's Sunday tramps, and played a steady game of golf. His private generosity was notable, and much kindness lay underneath a somewhat sardonic humour. MacColl travelled much on the Continent in his vacations, making one Spanish tour. He devoted himself seriously to the study of Spanish from 1874. He published in 1888 'Select Plays of Calderon,' with introduction and notes; in 1902 a translation of Cervantes' 'Exemplary Novels' (Glasgow, 2 vols.), and at the time of his death he was engaged on an edition of the 'Miscellaneous Poems of Cervantes' which was published posthumously (1912). His Spanish publications reflect his scrupulous methods of scholarship. He died suddenly at his residence, 4 Campden Hill Square, Kensington, on 16 Dec. 1904, from heart failure. and was buried at Charlton cemetery, Blackheath, in the same grave with his parents. He was unmarried.

A portrait by Clegg Wilkinson, painted shortly before his death, belongs to his cousin, Mrs. Jackson, who presented a replica to Downing College, now in the Combination Room. A small but vivid sketch occupies the centre of Harry Furniss's view of literary characters at the reading-room of the British Museum (Punch, 28 March 1885). He endowed by will a lectureship at Cambridge in Spanish and Portuguese which bears his name, and left to the university library his Spanish books.

 MACCORMAC, WILLIAM, first baronet (1836–1901), surgeon, the elder son of  [q. v.], a physician of Belfast, and Mary Newsham his wife, was born at Belfast on 17 Jan. 1836. The younger son, John, became a director of the Northern Linen Company at Belfast. William, after education at the Belfast Royal Academical Institution, studied at Dublin and Paris. In October 1851 he entered Queen's College, Belfast, as a student of engineering and gained engineering scholarships there in his first and second years. He then turned aside to the arts course, graduating B.A. in the old Queen's University in 1855 and proceeding M.A. in 1858. He won the senior scholarship in natural philosophy in 1856, and next year was admitted M.D., subsequently receiving the hon. degrees of M.Ch. in 1879 and of D.Sc. in 1882, with the gold medal of the university. The hon. degrees of M.D. and M.Ch. were also bestowed upon him in later life by the University of Dublin in June 1900.

After graduation MacCormac studied surgery in Berlin, where he made lasting friendships with von Langenbeck, Billroth, and von Esmarch. Becoming M.R.C.S. England in 1857, he was elected in 1864 F.R.C.S. Ireland. MacCormac practised as a surgeon in Belfast from 1864 to 1870, becoming successively surgeon, lecturer on clinical surgery, and consulting surgeon to the Royal Hospital. He then moved to 13 Harley Street, London, where he resided until death.

At the outbreak of the Franco-German