tution, the first of the kind in the kingdom, was instituted in Glasgow. In its formation the young surgeon took a deep interest, and he volunteered a course of popular lectures on natural history, the first which had been delivered on that subject in his native city. The course was repeated and enlarged a second year, and was attended by numerous students gathered from all ranks. He prepared and published for these lectures a class book, which was at the time acknowledged to be a rare instance of accuracy and condensation. In 1824 he published a small volume of poetry under the name of the "Seven Laras," dedicated to John Wilson, the poet and professor. In 1825 he went to London, and passed as surgeon for the royal navy, with the view of being appointed to some scientific expedition. Sir William Hooker, knowing his high attainments in botanical science, pressed on him the office of "island botanist" of Jamaica. This appointment so congenial to his tastes he accepted, and entered on his duties with his usual ardour. In 1833 he published the first volume of "Flora of Jamaica," dedicated to his patron Sir William Hooker. His fame as a botanist was so wide-spread that De Candolle of Geneva, and several other distinguished botanists, have given his name to different plants. He was preparing a second volume on the interesting subject, when death arrested his fond pursuit. In 1837 he made a short visit to his native town, and received the degree of M.D. from the university of Glasgow. His practice as a physician in the island became so extensive, that he had reluctantly, but conscientiously, to resign his appointment in connection with the botanic garden. His hospitality to visitors to the island was unbounded, and his attention to the poor uniformly great. In 1850 the island was visited by cholera. Incessantly did M'Fadyen labour amongst the afflicted until, exhausted, he sunk under an attack of the malady, and died on the 24th November, 1850. On the 20th November, four days before his death, on the motion of Sir Charles Lyell he was elected a fellow of the Royal Geological Society. At a meeting held in Kensington a resolution was passed, "deploring his lamented death;" and the mover of it most truthfully represented the character of M'Fadyen, when he said "his character was not a character that required deep or profound critical elucidation. Its great leading feature was simplicity, 'the manners of a child, with the mind of a giant.' He was great without assumption, dignified yet modest, unobtrusive and retiring, upright, candid, and ingenuous. Endowed with a noble mind, improved by solid learning, and extensive acquaintance with men and books, he possessed great sagacity and unbending integrity."—H. B—y.
MACFARREN, George, author of a great many successful dramatic pieces, including the librettos or "Malvina," "The Devil's Opera," and "Don Quixote," was born in London, September 5, 1788, and died in the same capital, April 24, 1843. In 1831 and 1832 he was director of the Queen's theatre, Tottenham Street, and some years later of the then but newly-erected theatre in the Strand. He possessed considerable skill on the violin; wrote a great deal of poetry which, although highly spoken of, was for the most part never published; and held an honourable position as a critic both in art and literature.—J. W. D.
* MACFARREN, George Alexander, eldest son of the preceding, and one of the most eminent musical composers of this country, was born in London, March 2, 1813. He received his first instructions in music from his father; and at the age of fourteen (1827) was placed under Mr. Charles Lucas, with whom he studied harmony and the theory of composition, two years. In September, 1829, he became a pupil of the Royal Academy of Music, and in the following year (September) his first orchestral symphony was performed, at one of the concerts "for the exhibition of the students," which at that period were highly creditable to the institution. His chief preceptor at the Academy was Mr. Cipriani Potter. In 1832 Mr. Macfarren's progress was sufficiently great to warrant his being made sub-professor. Two years later he ceased to be a pupil, and in June, 1834, was appointed professor—his class for harmony and composition, on account of his peculiarly intelligible and attractive method of teaching, becoming in a short time one of the most popular in the school. About this time a new society was founded, under the name of the Society of British Musicians (still existing), with the object of advancing native art through the encouragement of native talent. The first great step adopted by the committee of management was to hold a series of six orchestral concerts, to which the public were invited, at a much more reasonable charge than had ever before been known at entertainments of the kind. These concerts were ridiculed by the editor of the Harmonicon—then our chief, if not indeed our only musical authority in the form of a periodical newspaper—as "the three-and-six-penny concerts." They were, nevertheless, wonderfully successful, notwithstanding the fact that, by a fundamental law of the society—afterwards, as the sequel proved, unwisely modified—the programmes were exclusively confined to the works of British musicians. The honour of inaugurating the first concert (October 27, 1834), devolved upon Mr. Macfarren, whose fourth symphony (in F minor) was received with an extraordinary degree of enthusiasm, the composer himself directing its performance in the orchestra.
Meanwhile, for several years previous, Mr. Macfarren, devoting himself to composition for the theatre, had produced a good number of melo-dramatic pieces, operettas, &c., at the Queen's, the Olympic, the English Opera House (now Lyceum), and the Strand. His first dramatic work of importance, however, was "The Devil's Opera," in two acts, brought out at the English Opera House, August 13, 1838. Owing to continued bad business, the theatre had been in a languishing state; but the success of the new work completely turned the tide, and by replenishing the treasury averted the necessity of closing the doors. Although the composition of "The Devil's Opera," words and music, did not occupy longer than three weeks, it was unanimously hailed as a work likely to add to the reputation of the English school, which Bishop's "Aladdin" and "Doom Kiss," Mr. E. J. Loder's "Nourjahad," Mr. John Barnet's "Mountain Sylph," and two or three operas of Mr. Balfe, had already raised to a more elevated position than it previously occupied. To name one piece—the trio for women's voices, "Good night, good night," obtained a wide popularity. Mr. Macfarren's next opera—"Don Quixote" (libretto by Mr. Macfarren, sen.), produced at Drury Lane Theatre, eight years later—February 3, 1846, when Mr. Bunn was manager—although of considerably higher pretensions and of indisputably greater merit, was not played so frequently as the "Devil's Opera." That such a work should never since have been revived, must be attributed to the want of a national theatre which might afford our English composers chances equivalent to those presented by the Opera Comique, the Théâtre Lyrique, and in a lesser degree, by the Académie Impériale, to the musicians of France. The beautiful romance of Quiteria, "Ah, why do we love?"—even now one of the oftenest heard and most universally admired of concert-songs; the air, with chorus, of Don Quixote, "When Bacchus invented the bowl;" and the overture, are the only pieces with which the musical public of the present day are at all familiar. "King Charles, II." (libretto by Mr. Desmond Ryan), Mr. Macfarren's third important dramatic work, was first played at the Princess's Theatre, October 27, 1849—Mr. Maddox being director—and achieved a more complete success than either of its predecessors. This was his first genuine English opera, or more strictly speaking his first opera built upon an English subject, and thus admitting a certain approximation to the English style of melody. That style, it must be understood, was essentially the old style; the influence of foreign dramatic music, German, French, and Italian, upon our composers, during a long series of years, having almost totally annihilated the legitimate English school which Bishop had been the last to enrich and the first, in his "Aladdin," to repudiate. "Charles II." was a successful exemplification of how much could be effected by the aid of this national element, without in any way compromising the higher requisites of operatic form. Criticism was unanimously favourable to the new work, the production of which at the Princess's Theatre was further memorable as having been the occasion of bringing out the afterwards celebrated English soprano. Miss Louisa Pyne, for the first time in an original part written expressly for her by an English composer. Another interesting feature was the first appearance on the stage of Mad. Macfarren, wife of the composer, to whom was allotted the part of Julian, and who has since abandoned the public exercise of her vocation. In the interval between the production of "The Devil's Opera" and that of "Charles II.," Mr. John Barnett had added "Fair Rosamond" and "Farinelli," and Mr. E. J. Loder "The Night Dancers," to the English dramatic repertory; while Mr. Balfe—who began in 1835 with "The Siege of Rochelle"—had obtained an almost uninterrupted series of successes (including "The Bohemian Girl") at Drury Lane Theatre; and a composer, hitherto unknown (Mr. W. Vincent Wallace), had already, at
