Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 15, Loo-Memphis

164 M A C —M A C
not weighty. He had edited the Edinburgh Christian
Magazine, without achieving any marked success. His
best work as yet was the life of his friend and brother-
in-law, John Mackintosh. But nothing human was
foreign to him, and “ good words,” on things in general,
were just the words that he could make quick and
powerful. Very soon Good Words came to be by far the
most popular magazine of the day. Nearly all his
own literary work, by which he will be judged in other
times, appeared in its pages,—sermons, stories, travels,
novels, poems,—all of them honest “ good words ” which
it was wholesome to read. But they hardly give him a
name in literature,—at least, not such a name in the
future as he had while he was still alive. They were too
much the hurried productions of a life busy with many
affairs. The short stories, like “Wee Davie” and “Billy
Buttons,” are those which are most likely to retain a place
in letters, on account of their mingled humour and pathos.
Of his more studied works “ The Starling ” is perhaps the
best; but, while he could tell a brief tale admirably, he
could not sustain a long narrative, with its play of varied
character and incident; and, instead of leaving his art to
read its own lesson, he preached a sermon by means of a
story. Always, indeed, it is evident that he was more of
an orator than a writer. The best of his poems is the
hymn “ Trust in God and do the right,” though the
“ Curling ” song has the right ring of the stones rattling
over the ice. Altogether, his work was honest and good,
not the highest in point of literary finish, but wholesomer
than much that is more perfect in its form.
While Good Wo?*ds made his name widely known, and
helped the cause he had so deeply at heart, his relations
with the queen and the royal family strengthened yet
further his position in the country. Never since Principal
Carstairs had any Scotch clergyman been on such terms
with his sovereign; and their friendship was felt to be
alike honourable to both, resting, on her part, on esteem
for his work and character, and on his, on a loyal desire to
serve his queen as a Christian minister may. All this
helped not a little to increase his influence in the councils
of the church, and to restore its prestige, which had for a
time been nearly overthrown; and yet, while his popu¬
larity was in full swing, one unlucky piece of honesty made
him for a time the man in all Scotland most profoundly
distrusted.
Scotch Sabbatarian ideas had been a good deal disturbed
by the running of Sunday trains and by other novelties,
and in 1865 the presbytery of Glasgow issued a pastoral
letter on the subject to be read from all the pulpits there.
Macleod, of course, loved the day of rest as much as any
of them, but he did not like the grounds on which they
rested it, nor yet the spirit in which they would have it
observed. Therefore he resolved to deliver his mind on
the subject to his brethren. Like St Paul, he refused to
let any man judge him concerning “new moons and Sab¬
baths.” His speech was not at first well reported, those
parts only being printed which were most likely to startle
the religious public; and in consequence it was, for a
while, greatly misunderstood. Old friends shrunk from
him. His house seemed to be shunned as if plague-
stricken. His brethren in the presbytery threatened a
“ libel ” for heresy. And he needed all his courage to bear
up against the outcry which assailed him on all hands. A
more correct version of the speech was issued, however, and
the good sense and Christian intelligence of the people soon
learned to form a juster estimate of its real bearing. The
threatened prosecution broke down. Truer ideas of Sabbath
observance got a lodgment in men’s minds. And, four
years after, the church, which at one time seemed ready to
cast him from her bosom, accorded him the highest honour
in her power to give, by choosing him as moderator of her
General Assembly.
Before that, however, he had already gained her con¬
fidence so far as to be sent, along with Dr Archibald
\\ atson, to India to inquire into the state of her mission
there. He had always taken a deep interest in the India
mission, and had been for some time convener of the com¬
mittee which took charge of its interests. When asked to
undertake this duty, he was already labouring under the
disease which afterwards shortened his days ; his medical
advisers were not without grave anxieties as to the effect
of the climate on his constitution, and it was with clear
consciousness of the risk he ran that, in 1867, he sailed
for the East. He returned fully resolved to devote
the rest of his days largely to the work of rousing the
church to her duty in carrying out “the marching
orders ” of her Commander. But he was not destined
to do much more for the cause that lay so near his heart
than to make one or two stirring appeals to the conscience
of the church. His health was now broken, and his old
energy flagged. Always his habits of work had been
somewhat irregular; properly, indeed, he had no fixed
habits, but only tremendous fits of labour and periods .of
exhaustion. Now neither body nor brain could stand
this strain, and with reluctance and pain he had to give
up the charge of the India mission. His speech in doing
so was the last and greatest he ever made. It was as if
he had gathered up his failing powers for one final effort,
and spent his life on it. Shortly after his return from the
Assembly of May 1872, his disease showed some fresh
symptoms that alarmed the doctors. And on Sunday the
16th of June, shortly after completing his sixtieth year,
Norman Macleod peacefully fell asleep, the country
hardly knowing how it had loved him till he was borne to
his quiet resting-place in Campsie churchyard.
Memoir of Norman Macleod, D.D., by his brother, the Rev.
Donald Macleod, 2 vols., appeared in 1876. (W. C. S.*)
MACLISE, Daniel (1806 or 1811-1870), subject and
history painter, was born at Cork, the son of a Highland
soldier.1 His education was of the plainest kind, but he
was eager for culture, fond of reading, and anxious to be¬
come au artist. His father, however, placed him, in 1820,
in Newenham’s Bank, where he remained for two years, and
then left to study in the Cork school of art. In 1825 it
happened that Sir Walter Scott was travelling in Ireland,
and young Maclise, having seen him in a bookseller’s shop,
made a surreptitious sketch of the great man, which he after¬
wards lithographed. It was exceedingly popular, and the
artist became celebrated enough to receive many commis¬
sions for portraits, which he executed, in pencil, with very
careful treatment of detail and accessory. Various influ¬
ential friends perceived the genius and promise of the lad,
and were anxious to furnish him with the means of studying
in the metropolis; but with rare independence he refused
all aid, and by careful economy saved a sufficient sum to
enable him to leave for London. There he made a
lucky hit by a sketch of the younger Kean, which, like his
portrait of Scott, was lithographed and published. He
entered the Academy schools in 1828, and carried off the
highest prizes open to the students, including, in 1829,
the gold medal for the best historical composition.
In the same year he exhibited for the first time in the
Royal Academy. Gradually he began to confine him¬
self more exclusively to subject and historical pictures,
varied occasionally by portraits of Campbell, Miss
Landon, Dickens, and other of his celebrated literary
1 The year of his birth is uncertain; he himself used to assert that
the 25th of January 1811 was the correct date, but research in the
register of the old Presbyterian church in Cork seems to prove that he
was born on 2d February 1806.