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MAC to 1842 was envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary in Persia. A work which he published anonymously in 1836, on the progress of Russian influence in the East, produced a considerable impression in England. After his return home he was appointed in 1845 chairman of the new board of supervision for relief of the poor in Scotland, and in 1851 conducted an inquiry into the condition of the western Highlands and islands, in his report strongly recommending emigration as a remedy for the then destitution of a large portion of their population. In the winter of 1855 Sir John M'Neill was commissioned with Colonel Tulloch by the government to investigate on the spot certain deficiencies in the arrangements of the army before Sebastopol, and their report proved of service, though its accuracy in some particulars was impugned by a military commission at home. Sir John M'Neill was made a G.C.B. in 1837, and a privy councillor in 1857.—F. E.  MACNISH,, M.D., LL.D., was born in Glasgow in 1802, and was the son of a respectable medical practitioner in that city. Having made choice of the same profession, after the usual training and examination, Macnish obtained his diploma at the age of eighteen, and for a year and half acted as assistant to Dr. Henderson of Clyth in Caithness. On quitting this situation he resided for a year in Paris, for the double purpose of recruiting his health and prosecuting his medical studies. On his return to Glasgow, he became assistant to his father, and took his degree in 1825. He obtained a fair share of success; but it is to his literary, rather than his professional abilities, that his fame is mainly owing. At an early age he had become a contributor to the periodical literature of the day, and in 1825 one of his pieces entitled "The Metempsychosis," found admission into Blackwood's Magazine. From this time he became a regular contributor to that far-famed journal, under the signature of "a Modern Pythagorean." His articles were distinguished by their classical style, and by rich, racy, and original humour, and soon attracted general attention. He also furnished contributions both in prose and verse to Fraser's Magazine and other periodicals. But his reputation now mainly rests on his "Anatomy of Drunkenness;" and "Philosophy of Sleep"—works which embody the results of much patient research and thoughtful sagacity. In 1833 Macnish published his "Book of Aphorisms;" and his "Introduction to Phrenology" appeared in 1835. He died of typhus fever in January, 1837. His miscellaneous writings have been collected and published in one volume by his friend Delta.—J. T.  MACPHERSON,, celebrated for having given to the world the poems known as "Ossian," was born in 1738 in the parish of Kingussie, Inverness-shire, where his father occupied a farm. He studied at the university of Aberdeen, but did not enter the church of Scotland, for which he was intended, and became parish schoolmaster of Ruthven. In this situation he published about 1738, "The Highlanders," a heroic poem in six cantos; and then became tutor to Mr. Graham, the younger of Balgowan, afterwards famous as Lord Lynedoch. In the summer of 1759, while visiting Moffat with his pupil, he met John Home, the author of Douglas, and his friend Dr. Alexander Carlyle. In their conversations the old Celtic poetry of Scotland was adverted to; and Macpherson translated for them some pieces of Gaelic poetry, which made a great impression upon Home. Dr. Blair inspected them with admiration; Macpherson was exhorted to publish; and with the aid of Dr. Blair, who contributed an anonymous preface, they appeared in 1760 as "Fragments of Ancient poetry collected in the Highlands of Scotland," translated into English. Macpherson, according to David Hume, was discontented with his position, and no doubt eagerly availed himself of a subscription raised for the purpose by the Edinburgh Faculty of Advocates, to make a tour in the highlands and islands in search of more remains of Celtic poetry. He found, according to his own account, an abundance of Ossianic poetry not only floating on the lips of the people, but preserved in ancient MSS. Accordingly, in 1762 appeared "Fingal, an epic poem in six books;" and in 1763, "Temora, an epic poem in eight books," professing to be translations from the Gaelic of Ossian—a Celtic Homer of the fourth century. Their success was great; and Ossian and Macpherson soon attained a European celebrity. Dr. Blair wrote a critical dissertation defending the genuineness of the poems against cavillers, and descanting on their beauty; while Dr. Johnson denied both. Meanwhile Macpherson found his worldly fortunes improved by his literary fame. The year after the publication of "Temora "he was appointed private secretary to the governor of Pensacola and surveyor-general of the Floridas; and after a two years' absence from England he returned with a life-income of £200 a-year. Between 1771 and 1775 he published his "Introduction to the History of Great Britain and Ireland," chiefly in its relation to Celtic archeology and ethnology—(in one of the chapters a list is given of Gaelic and Latin words identical in meaning and similar in sound); a prose translation of the Iliad, which was received with ridicule; and a not unreadable "History of Great Britain from the restoration to the accession of the house of Hanover;" with two volumes of "Original Papers," which contain, among other curious matter, portions of the autobiography of James II. It was in the year of the publication of this last work, 1775, that the severest blow till then given to the genuineness of Ossian was dealt by Dr. Johnson in his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. Macpherson threatened personal violence, and received from Johnson the celebrated letter containing the passage—"I hope I shall not be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian." Macpherson turned to politics, and wrote pamphlets for the ministry against the claims of the American colonists, at least one of which was ascribed to Gibbon. He next became agent for the nabob of Arcot—a position of considerable emolument, and which brought him into the house of commons, where he represented Camelford from 1780 to 1790. Though active with his pen in the cause of his Indian patron, he was a silent member of parliament. About 1796 he retired, the possessor of a considerable fortune, to an estate which he had purchased in his native county, not far from Mrs. Grant of Laggan, whose one or two notices in her Letters from the Mountains, of Macpherson in his later years, represent him as a dissipated old bachelor. He died on his estate in February, 1796, leaving directions, which were obeyed, for the transfer of his remains to Westminster abbey. In 1797, the year after his death, the Highland Society appointed the committee of inquiry into the genuineness of the Ossianic poems, which reported in 1805 the non-existence of a single old MS. copy of them or of any one of them. The non-production of the MSS. talked of by Macpherson was indeed the great weakness of his case. Even when the Scotch residents in India raised a sum of £1000 to defray the expense of publishing the Gaelic originals, Macpherson delayed the publication on one pretence or another; and when it did take place, eleven years after his death, the MS. used was simply Macpherson's own. No unbiassed critic and scholar can now be found to assert that the Ossianic poems, as we have them, are genuine. It is too late to discover with perfect exactness what portions of them Macpherson did glean from oral tradition; but that there was really some slight basis of that kind in existence in his time even Johnson did not deny. Malcolm Laing's Dissertation, appended to the second volume of his History of Scotland, 1800, and his notes and illustrations to the Poems of Ossian, 1805, nearly exhaust what can be said on the anti-Macpherson side. Of recent contributions to the Ossianic controversy we may mention two, both of them by believers in Macpherson—the Genuine remains of Ossian, literally translated, with a preliminary dissertation, by Patrick Macgregor, 1841, published under the patronage of the Highland Society of London; and the Authenticity of the Poems of Ossian, a lecture by Peter M'Naughton, 1861.—F. E.  MACPHERSON,, for a short time governor-general of India, was born about 1767 in the island of Skye. Proceeding to India in no recognized capacity, with an uncle, he made himself useful to the nabob of Arcot, and as his agent returned to England. His pleadings for his client, and his denunciations of the East India Company, pleased the ministry; and through the duke of Grafton's influence he obtained an Indian writership. Eventually he rose to be senior member of council, and became provisional governor-general in 1785, when Warren Hastings finally left India for England. He was succeeded, or superseded, in 1786 by Lord Cornwallis. His brief tenure of power was marked by a financial reform much needed and duly appreciated. He was knighted before his return in 1787 to England, where he died in 1821.—F. E.  MACQUARIE,, a distinguished soldier, and for twelve years governor of New South Wales, was born in the island of Mull in 1762. He served in America for a short time 