both clergy and laity. He still preached with all his former spirit, and from 1880 to 1882 was select preacher in the university of Oxford. He received the honorary degree of D.C.L. at Oxford in 1870, and presided over the Church Congress at Leicester in 1880. A serious illness in 1883 evoked the widest sympathy not only in his diocese, but throughout the kingdom.
In January 1891 he was selected, with every sign of enthusiastic approval, to succeed Dr. William Thomson [q. v.] as archbishop of York. He was enthroned in York Minster on 17 March, but he died while on a visit to London to attend a committee of the House of Lords on his Infant Insurance Bill, on 5 May following. He was buried on 9 May in the burial-ground of Peterborough Cathedral. Magee married, in August 1851, Ann Nisbitt, second daughter of Charles Smith, rector of Arklow. She, with three sons and three daughters, survived him. Two elder children died young.
Magee was one of the greatest orators and most brilliant controversialists of his day. In his oratory, which Lord Beaconsfield described as persuasive, clearness and terseness of expression were accompanied by withering power of sarcasm, much logical reasoning and humorous illustration, and his full-toned voice was capable of sounding every gradation of feeling. In private society his faculty of witty retort was exercised without restraint, and easily placed him in the first rank of conversationalists. Although his religious views were always of an evangelical tone, they broadened considerably in later years. He viewed with disfavour ritualistic prosecutions; but all fanatical excesses in religion were abhorrent to him. His faith was too robust to tolerate artificial aids to Christian virtue or belief. Yet his sincerity attracted the two extremes of thinkers, the unquestioning believer and the honest intellectual sceptic. He had little sympathy with the eccentricities of teetotal fanatics and other social reformers, and some remarks in his latest speeches that he would rather see England free than sober, and that under certain circumstances betting was not wholly sinful, led to much misconception, but were fully consistent with his masculine hatred of exaggeration and misapplied enthusiasm.
Magee was the author of many speeches and addresses, separately issued. His chief published collections of sermons were:
- ‘Sermons at St. Saviour's, Bath,’ 1852.
- ‘Sermons at the Octagon Chapel, Bath,’ 1852.
- ‘The Gospel and the Age,’ 1884.
He also issued in a series called ‘Helps to Belief,’ 1887, a volume on ‘The Atonement,’ 1887; and two further selections from his sermons, edited by C. S. Magee, called respectively ‘Christ the Light of all Scripture,’ 1892, and ‘Growth in Grace,’ 1891, with a volume of ‘Addresses and Speeches,’ 1892, appeared posthumously.
[Private information; Times, 6 May 1891; Crockford's Clerical Direct. 1891; Burke's Peerage, 1891; Men of the Time, 1891; Foster's Alumni Oxon. A full Memoir by the present writer appeared in 1896.]
MAGELLAN or MAGALHAENS, JEAN HYACINTHE de (1723–1790), scientific investigator, was lineal descendant of the great Portuguese navigator, Ferdinando Magalhaens, who discovered in 1520 the passage to the Pacific Ocean through the straits bearing his name. He is said, indeed, to have been the navigator's great-grandson, but this is quite impossible (cf. Gent. Mag. 1790, pt. i. p. 184). He is also claimed as a near relative of Gabriel Magalhaens and of Antonio Magalhaens. The former, a well-known jesuit missionary, travelled over China from 1640 to 1648, till he was carried to the court of Pekin, where he resided till his death in 1677. The latter, Antonio Magalhaens, accompanied the papal legate, Mezzabarba, from China to Rome in 1721–6. De Magellan signed his letters ‘Jean Hyacinthe de Magellan,’ but his proper name was João Jacinto de Magalhães (see Biog. Universelle, xxvi. 113). Although Lisbon was his reputed birthplace, there is reason for supposing that he was born at Talavera in 1723. On the title-page of his translation of Cronstedt's ‘System of Mineralogy,’ 1788, he assumed the appellation ‘Talabrico-Lusitanus’ (ib. p. 120). He seems to have been brought up at Lisbon, where he became a monk of the order of St. Augustine, and was pursuing his studies in the Portuguese capital when the city was destroyed by the great earthquake of 1755, an event which he could never recollect without shuddering (Monthly Review, lix. 140). Magellan obtained a wide reputation as a student of chemistry and mineralogy and other branches of natural science. When forty years old he abandoned the monastic life in order to devote himself to wider philosophical research. About 1764 he appears to have reached England and was in communication with Da Costa of the Royal Society in 1766 (see Nichols, Illustrations of Literature, 1831, vi. 498), but for some time he acted as tutor to various young foreigners of distinction on continental tours, an occupation for which his powers as a linguist, in Latin and almost all modern European languages, specially
