he should have occupied at a still earlier period, but for the predominance of that
party in the church to which his views in doctrine and discipline were opposed.
In 1835 he was made one of the deans of the Chapel-Royal, a merely honorary
appointment, having neither emolument nor duties at that time attached to it.
Three years after (1838) he was busily occupied with the plan of erecting a
house of refuge for juvenile delinquents in Glasgow one of his many successful public efforts for the instruction of the young, and reformation of the vicious.
During 1838 and 1839 he was also employed in preparing two volumes for the
press. In 1839, though now borne down by age, and the pressure of domestic
misfortunes, he resolved to encounter the labours of the winter as he had been
wont; and in October, he opened the Divinity Hall, and went through the
half-year's course without having been absent a single day. But it was life's
last effort. In the end of July, while returning from Bowling Bay, where he
had been visiting a friend, he was caught in a heavy shower of rain: a cold and
sore throat ensued, that soon turned into fever, accompanied with delirium, in
which he was generally either in the attitude of prayer, or employed in addressing an imaginary audience. It was indeed the ruling passion strong in death—the predominance of that piety and activity which had formed his main characteristics through life. He died on the morning of the 18th of August, 1840, in the seventy-sixth year of his age.
Dr. Macgill was not a voluminous writer; this, his devotedness to his daily public duties prevented, as well as the fastidious views which he entertained oi authorship, that made him unwilling to commit to the press anything which he had not deeply studied and carefully elaborated. Whatever, therefore, he has written, he has written well. Besides his "Letters to a Young Clergyman," he published "Discourses and Essays on Subjects of Public Interest," "Collection of Translations, Paraphrases, and Hymns"—several of which were his own composition—"Lectures on Rhetoric and Criticism, and on Subjects introductory to the Critical Study of the Scriptures," and a volume of Sermons, dedicated "to his former pupils, now his brethren, as a remembrancer of past times." But even when his writings are forgot, his labours in the Scottish Church, rent asunder though it has been since his death, and the benefits of these labours upon all parties, will continue to remain a unanimous and hallowed remembrance.
MACINTOSH, Charles, F.R.S., an inventor of several chemical manufactures, was born at Glasgow, December 29, 1766. He was the son of Mr. George Macintosh, who introduced the manufacture of cudbear and Turkey-red dyeing into Glasgow. His mother was the daughter of the Rev. Charles Moore, of Stirling, the brother of Dr. John Moore, author of "Zeluco," and her nephew was Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore, K.B., who fell in the disastrous retreat at Corunna. Charles received the elements of his education in his native city, and afterwards was sent to a school at Catterick Bridge, in Yorkshire. On his leaving the latter, he was placed in the counting-house of Mr. Glassford, of Dugaldston, to acquire habits of business. He studied chemistry under the celebrated Dr. Black, then settled in Edinburgh, and turned his knowledge to practical account at an early period, having embarked in the manufacture of sal-ammoniac before he had attained the age of twenty. He subsequently introduced from Holland into this country, the manufacture of acetate of lead and acetate of alumina, employed in calico-printing. In 1797 he was associated with Mr. Charles Tennant, then a bleacher at Darnley, near Glasgow, in working the patent for the production of chloride of lime in the dry state and in
