Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/184

Rh 166 rendered miserable by shattered health and depressed spirits, he retired to the house of a friend at Stirling, vli3re he wrote most of his songs and his Scotland s Skaith, or the History of Will and Jean, a narrative poem intended to show the deteriorating influences of whisky and pot house politics, which appeared in 1795, and at once made its author popular, having passed through fourteen editions within the year. A sequel, The Ways of War, appeared next year, and in 1799 The Links of Forth, or a Parting Peep at ihe Carse of Stirling, a somewhat feeble descriptive poem, intended as a parting tribute to his kind host before his own departure for Jamaica. Not long after his arrival an early friend settled on him an annuity of .100, which enabled the poet to return soon afterwards to Scotland, and so close his long struggle against adversity with fifteen years of comparative comfort at Edinburgh. In 1800 he published The Memoirs of Charles Macpherson, Esq., a novel understood to be a close narrative of his own hardships and adventures. His later works, which added little to his fame, were The Pastoral or Lyric Muse of Scotland, 1809 ; two anonymous works in verse entitled Town Fashions, or Modern Manners Deline ated, and Byegone, Times and Latccome Changes, and The Scottish Adventurers, a novel. He left behind an autobiography still un published, but of which an abstract appeared in BlacJcwood s Maga zine for December 1818. A complete edition of the poems he wished to own appeared in 1812, and it is on these that his fame will rest. His songs, &quot; Mary of Castlecary,&quot; &quot; Come under my plaidy,&quot; &quot; My boy, Tammy,&quot; &quot; tell me how for to woo,&quot; &quot; I lo ed ne er a lassie but aue,&quot; &quot; The plaid amang the hether,&quot; and &quot; Jeanie s black e e,&quot; will live, spite of Allan Cunningham, for their sweetness and sim plicity, while his Will and Jean, quite apart from its excellent intention and tendency, will maintain a place among the most characteristic productions of the Doric Muse in Scotland. M AGON, the capital of Saone-et-Loire, France, occupies a gently sloping site on the right bank of the Saone, 41 miles north of Lyons. It is connected by a bridge of twelve arches with the suburb of St Laurent on the opposite bank of the river. The site is sheltered and the climate mild, but the locality is subject to sudden changes of tempera ture. Of the public buildings of Macon the most pro minent is the old church of St Pierre, reconstructed in 1866, a three-naved basilica, 328 feet in length, with two fine spires. Of the old cathedral, destroyed at the Revolu- tion, nothing remains but the facade, portions of the two towers, and a narthex of the 1 2th century, now used as a chapel. The old episcopal palace, which has been rebuilt, is now used as the prefecture. The hospital is from designs by Soufliot ; the lyceum bears the name of Lamartine (a native of Macon, to whom there is a statue). The town house contains a library of 7000 volumes, and a museum. Macon is a railway centre of considerable importance, being the point at which the line from Paris to Marseilles is joined by that from Mont Cenis and Geneva, as well as by a branch from Digoin. The industries of the place include brass-founding, the manu facture of agricultural implements, weighing-machines, and the like, printing, dyeing, and the production of faience. Tha principal articles of commerce are wine, barrels and hoops, and grain. The population in 1876 was 17,570. Macon (Matisco) was an important town of the ^Edui, but under the Romans it was supplanted by Autun and Lyons. It suffered a succession of disasters at the hands of Germans, Burgundians, Vandals, Huns, Hungarians, and even of the Carlovingian kings. In 1228 it was sold to the king of France, but more than once afterwards passed into the possession of the dukes of Burgundy, until the ownership of the French crown was fixed in the time of L mis XI. In the 16th century Macon became a stronghold of the Huguenots, sided with the League, and did not yield to Henry IV. until 1594. The bishopric, created by King Childebert, was suppressed in 1790. MACON, a city of the United States, the chief town of &quot;Bibb county, Georgia, is situated on rising ground in the midst of a beautifully wooded country on both sides of the Ocmulgee river, a navigable headwater of the Altamaha, about 80 miles south-east of Atlanta. It is well laid out with tree-bordered streets, often 180 feet wide, and pos sesses since 1870 a fine central park, on the formation of which $125,000 were expended. The principal institu tions in the town are the State academy for the blind (1852), the Mercer university (a Baptist foundation, 1838), the Wesleyan Female College (1839), the Pio Nono (Roman Catholic) College, and the Southern Botariico-Medical Institute. As an important junction for the Georgia, the Georgia Central, and the South-Western Railways, and com municating with the coast by the direct line to Brunswicki, Macon enjoys great facilities for trade; and, besides its extensive railway machine-shops, it has cotton factories, iron foundries, flour-mills, and sash and blind factories. The annual fair held in the Central Park is the great meeting- place of the Georgian planters. From 5720 in 1850 the population has steadily advanced to 8247 in 1860, 10,810 in 1870, and 12,748 in 1880. The foundation of the town dates only from 1823. MACPHERSON, JAMES (1738-1796), the &quot;translator &quot; of the Ossianic poems, was born at Ruthven, Inverness, Scotland, in 1738, was educated in his native village and at King s College, Aberdeen, and from 1756 taught the school of Ruthven for some time. In 1758 he published a poem entitled the Highlander, and about the same period contributed several minor pieces to the Scots Magazine. In 1759, while residing with a pupil at Moffat, he became accidentally known to Dr Carlyle of Inveresk and Mr Home, the author of Douglas, both of them already interested in the subject of ancient Highland poetry; some fragmentary &quot;translations&quot; from the Gaelic, which in the course of a few days he supplied to Home, were much appreciated in the literary circles of Edinburgh, and in 1760 a volume was published by Macpherson, entitled Fragments of Ancient Poetry collected in the Highlands of Scotland, and translated from the Gaelic or JErse Language, with a preface by Dr Blair. A sum of money was now subscribed by the faculty of advocates for the purpose of enabling Macpherson to go to the Scottish Highlands in search of other fragments, and the result of his labours was the publication at London in 1762 of Fingal, an Epic Poem, in six books, with other lesser Poems, dedicated to Lord Bute ; this was followed in 1763 by Temora, in eight books, with several other poems. For the real character of these publications see CELTIC LITERATURE, vol. v. p. 313-4. At the time of their appearance they greatly advanced the translator both in fame and fortune ; in 1764 he was appointed surveyor-general of the Floridas, and on his return to England two years afterwards he was permitted to retain for life the salary of the office. In 1771 he published An Introduction to the History of Great Britain and Ireland, and in 1775 A History of Great Britain from the Restoration to the Accession of the House of Hanover (2 vols. 4to) and Original Papers containing the Secret History of Great Britain for the same period (also in 2 vols. 4to). His translation of the Iliad, published in 1773, was greatly praised by Robertson and others in Scotland, but met with a severe reception in England, and has not stood the test of time. About 1779 he was appointed to the lucrative post of agent for the nabob of Arcot, and from 1780 onwards he sat in parlia ment for the borough of Camelford. He died at Belleville, an estate which he had recently purchased in Inverness, on February 17, 1796, and was buried in the Poets Corner at Westminster Abbey. His will had provided for the publication of the Ossianic poems in the original Gaelic, which he is understood to have been preparing for the press at the time of his death ; and the work accordingly appeared in 3 vols. 8vo, in 1807, with a literal translation into Latin, by Robert Macfarlane, and a dissertation on the authenticity of the poems, by Sir John Sinclair.