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 Words 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 Watson, 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 fixer! 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 IGth 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 an 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 Februarv ] SO*!.