Mackay, CHARLES, LL.D.

Mackay, CHARLES, LL.D., poet and journalist, the son of an officer in the Royal Artillery, was born in Perth in 1814. He was sent to school in London and Brussels, and showed an early fondness for verse-writing. In 1830 he became secretary to Cockerill (q.v.) at Seraing. The publication of a small volume of poems in 1834 led to his becoming assistant-editor of the Morning Chronicle (1835-44). From 1844-47 he was editor of the Glasgow Argus; he acted on the literary staff of the Illustrated London News (1848-59), and filled the post of New York correspondent of the Times during the civil war (1862-65). The London Review, a weekly journal which he established in 1860, was not a success. Down to the time of his death, December 24, 1889, he issued many volumes of poetry and prose, and was a contributor to Blackwood's Magazine, the Nineteenth Century, and other periodicals. Two of Mackay's songs, 'There's a Good Time Coming' and 'Cheer, Boys, Cheer,' had an extraordinary vogue, 400,000 of the first having been sold, without putting anything into his pocket. He published eleven volumes of poetry; Gossamer and Snowdrift (1890) was edited by his son Eric (1851-98; author of Love-letters of a Violinist, Arrows of Song, Nero and Actea, &c.). His prose works included Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions (1841), a work on Gaelic Etymology (1878), and two works of literary autobiography, Forty Years' Recollections (2 vols. 1877) and Through the Long Day (2 vols. 1887).