Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 35.djvu/135

Mackay 's Return,' 'The Song of Winter,' 'A Poem on Death,' and a 'Satire on Avarice, or the Rispond Brothers.'

He resembled Burns in two of his highest qualities—the love of nature and the naturalness of his verse. But his place among poets cannot be fairly appreciated till more of his poems have been translated.

 MACKAY, ROBERT WILLIAM (1803–1882), philosopher and scholar, born 27 May 1803 in Piccadilly, London, was only son of John Mackay, and was educated at Winchester. He matriculated at Brasenose College, Oxford, 15 Jan. 1821, graduating B.A. 1824 and M.A. 1828, and carrying off the chancellor's prize for Latin verse. On leaving Oxford he entered Lincoln's Inn in 1828, but after planning and partly writing a treatise on equity he conceived a dislike to the subject, and turned to theology and philosophy. In 1850 he published his most elaborate work, ‘The Progress of the Intellect, as exemplified in the Religious Development of the Greeks and Hebrews,’ 2 vols. 8vo. This was followed in 1854 by ‘A Sketch of the Rise and Progress of Christianity,’ and in 1863 by ‘The Tübingen School and its Antecedents: a Review of the History and Present Condition of Modern Theology.’ All are remarkable for ‘the amount of research and thought put into a narrow compass.’ Their author, as a philosopher, agreed most nearly with Kant, as a theologian he followed Baur and Strauss. His devotion to Plato found expression in two translations—‘The Sophistes of Plato, translated, with explanatory Notes and an Introduction on Ancient and Modern Sophistry,’ 1868, and ‘Plato's Meno, translated, with explanatory Notes and Introduction, and a preliminary Essay on the Moral Education of the Greeks,’ 1869. These, like his other works, show originality of thought and fine scholarship. He died 23 Feb. 1882.

 MACKELLAR, MARY (1834–1890), highland poetess, daughter of Allan Cameron, baker at Fort William, was born on 1 Oct. 1834. She married early John Mackellar, captain and joint-owner of a coasting vessel, with whom she sailed for several years, visiting many places in Europe, and being often shipwrecked. She settled in Edinburgh in 1876, shortly afterwards obtained a judicial separation from her husband, and dying on 7 Sept. 1890, was buried at Kilmallie, Argyllshire. For the last ten years of her life she tried to make a livelihood by her pen, and she was granted 60l. from the Royal Bounty Fund in 1885. Her 'Poems and Songs, Gaelic and English,' collected chiefly from newspapers and periodicals, were published at Edinburgh m 1880. The Gaelic poems show force and some fancy, but the English pieces, through which there is an undertone of sadness, are of no merit. She also wrote 'The Tourist's Handbook of Gaelic and English Phrases for the Highlands' (Edinburgh, 1880), and her translation of the queen's second series of Leaves from our Journal in the Highlands 'has been described as 'a masterpiece of forcible and idiomatic Gaelic.' A 'Guide to Lochaber' by her gives many traditions and historical incidents nowhere else recorded. She held the office of 'bard' to the Gaelic Society of Inverness, in whose 'Transactions' much of her prose, including her last work, appears. A monument is being erected to her memory at Kilmallie by public subscription.

 MACKELLAR, PATRICK (1717–1778), colonel, military engineer, belonged to an old Scottish family. In 1735 he entered the ordnance service as a clerk at Woolwich, and in 1739, having been promoted to the office of clerk of the works, was sent to Minorca, at that time a military station of equal importance with Gibraltar. His talent for architecture and military engineering gained him on 7 Dec. 1742 the warrant of practitioner engineer, and on 8 March 1743 he was promoted to be engineer extraordinary, without passing through the intermediate rank of sub-engineer. In 1751 he was promoted engineer in ordinary. With the exception of a short interval of special duty at Sheerness in 1752, he remained at Minorca until 1754, his duties consisting in perfecting the defences of Port Mahon, with the collateral work of St. Philip's Castle, and in the extension of the subterranean mine defence, and of the underground stores and magazines, designed by Brigadiers Petit and Durand.

In 1754 Mackellar was called home to join the expeditionary force to North America, and served in the ill-fated campaign under Braddock, making roads and bridges in advance of the army on the march from Alexandria in Virginia across the Alleghany mountains, through a wild and little known