Sir George Alexander Macfarren

MACFARREN, SIR GEORGE ALEXANDER (1813— 1887), English composer, was born in London on March 2, 1813, and entered the Royal Academy of Music in 1829. His Chevy Chase overture was written as early as 1836, and in a single night. In 1837 Macfarren was appointed a professor at the Academy, and wrote his Romeo and Juliet overture. In 1838 he brought out The Devil's Opera, one of his best works. In 1845 he be came conductor at Covent Garden. A gradual failure of his eye sight led to total blindness in 1865. He succeeded Sterndale Ben nett as principal of the Royal Academy of Music in February 1875, and in March became professor of music in Cambridge University. His theoretical works, such as the Rudiments of Harmony, and the treatise on counterpoint, will probably be remembered longer than many of his compositions, which in cluded a number of oratorios. He was knighted in 1883, and died suddenly in London on Oct. 31, 1887.

An excellent memoir by H. C. Banister appeared in 1891.

McGEE, THOMAS D'ARCY

(1825-1868), Irish-Cana dian politician and writer, second son of James McGee, a coast guard, was born at Carlingford, Co. Louth, on April 13, 1825. He early showed a remarkable aptitude for oratory. At the age of 17 he emigrated to America, and by his writing and public speaking in Boston attracted the attention of O'Connell. Before he was 20 he returned to London to become parliamentary cor respondent of the Freeman's Journal, and shortly afterwards London correspondent of the Nation, to which he also contributed a number of poems. In 1846 he became one of the moving spirits in the "Young Ireland" party, and contributed two volumes to the "Library of Ireland." On the failure of the movement in 1848 McGee escaped in the disguise of a priest to the United States where between 1848 and 1853 he established two newspapers, the New York Nation and the American Celt.

In 1857 McGee, driven from the United States by the scurrilous attacks of the extreme Irish revolutionaries, took up his abode in Canada, and was admitted to the bar of the province of Lower Canada in 1861. At the general election in 1858 he was returned

to parliament as the member for Montreal, and for four years he was regarded as a powerful factor in the house. On the forma tion of the Sandfield-Macdonald-Sicotte administration in 1862 he accepted the office of president of the council. When the cabinet was reconstructed a year later the Irish were left without representation, and McGee sought re-election as a member of the opposite party. In 1864 he was appointed minister of agriculture in the administration of Sir E. P. Tache, and he served the country in that capacity until his death. He actively supported the policy of federation and was elected a member of the first Dominion parliament in 1867. On April 7, 1868 he was shot by an assassin as he was about to enter his house at Ottawa. His utterances against the Fenian invasion are believed to have been the cause of the crime for which P. J. Whelan was executed.

McGee's principal works

are: A Popular History of Ireland (3 vols., ; Irish Writers of the Seventeenth Century (Dublin, 5846) ; Historical Sketches of O'Connell and his Friends (Boston, 1844) ; Memoirs of the Life and Conquests of Art McMurrogh, King of Leinster (Dublin, 1847) Memoir of C. G. Duffy (Dublin, 1849) ; A History of the Irish Settlers in North America (Boston, 1851) ; History of the Attempts to establish the Protestant Reformation in Ireland (Boston, 18531 ; Life of Edward Maginn, Coadjutor Bishop of Derry (New York, 1857) ; Catholic History of North America (Boston, 1854) ; Canadian Ballads and Occasional Pieces (New York, 1858) ; Notes on Federal Governments Past and Present (Montreal, 1865) ; Speeches and Addresses, chiefly on the Subject of the British American Union (1865); Poems, edited by Mrs. M. A. Sadleir with introductory memoir (New York, 1869). See Fennings Taylor, The Hon. Thomas D'Arcy McGee (Montreal, 1867) ; J. K. Foran, Thomas D'Arcy McGee as an Empire Builder (Ottawa, 1904) ; H. J. O'C. French, A Sketch of the Life of the Hon. T. D. McGee (Montreal).