A Scottish poet, journalist, and miscellaneous writer; born at Perth, March 27, 1814; died in London, Dec. 24, 1889. He was editor of the illustrated London News, 1852–59. He lectured in the United States in 1857–58. While special correspondent of the London Times in New York during the Civil War (strongly favoring the Southern cause), he unearthed the Fenian conspiracy (1862). He wrote: “The Salmandrien, or Love and Immortality” (1842); “Voices from the Crowd” (1846); “Voices from the Mountains” (1847); “History of the Mormons” (1851); etc.

—Warner, Charles Dudley, 1897, ed., Library of the World’s Best Literature, Biographical Dictionary, vol. XXIX, p. 359.    

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Personal

  I was charmed with Mackay, the “Poet of the People.” He has a fine face, lighted up with noble emotions of the soul.

—Le Vert, Octavia Walton, 1853, Souvenirs of Travel, vol. I, p. 79.    

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  Throughout his career Charles Mackay was a most energetic and prolific worker,—poems, novels, essays, critical articles, lectures, dissertations on literary antiquities, papers on philology, whether in French or English, coming apparently with equal facility from his pen. His “History of Popular Delusions” was one of his most popular books, and his “Gaelic Etymology of the Languages of Western Europe,” and his “Récréations Gauloises et Origines Françaises” were his most important contributions to philological science. A frequent contributor to journalistic literature, his “Voices from the Crowd,” which appeared in the “Daily News,” are still remembered, while his articles in the “Nineteenth Century” on “Burns and Beranger,” and on “Boileau and Pope,” show him to have been an able and eloquent critic.

—Miles, Alfred H., 1892, The Poets and the Poetry of the Century, Frederick Tennyson to Arthur Hugh Clough, p. 456.    

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General

  One of the most popular authors of the day…. Mr. Mackay is emphatically the lyric poet of progress. He writes with great animation and deep feeling, and no one can fail to see that he has a true heart—a deeply philanthropic spirit; and that he has a firm faith in the ultimate happiness of the race,—in the reign of universal love.

—Cleveland, Charles Dexter, 1853, English Literature of the Nineteenth Century, p. 701.    

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  Like all the great song-writers, Dr. Mackay is a musician, and the composer of all the melodies published with many of his songs. He possesses in a high degree the rare faculty of a true lyric poet, that of working his words and music up into harmony and unison with the feelings they express.

—Beeton, S. O., 1870, ed., Great Book of Poetry.    

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  Among the authors of the day, uniting political sympathies and aspirations with lyrical poetry, is Dr. Charles Mackay. Some of his songs are familiar as household words both in this country and in America, and his influence as an apostle or minstrel of social reform and the domestic affections must have been considerable.

—Chambers, Robert, 1876, Cyclopædia of English Literature, ed. Carruthers.    

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  Like those of many other poets, his longer efforts in verse have lost whatever interest they may have once excited, but his songs and shorter poems still give lyrical expression to popular feeling, sentiment, and philosophy. These are characterized by a clear resonant ring, and animated by a healthy, liberal spirit. “John Littlejohn” is of the happiest class of popular verse, and “Tubal Cain” swings along and drives home its points as with the sweep and force of the blacksmith’s hammer.

—Miles, Alfred H., 1892, The Poets and the Poetry of the Century, Frederick Tennyson to Arthur Hugh Clough, p. 457.    

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