MARNEIL, IIEcTon, 1746-1818; b. Scotland; educated by his parents at borne, and at a commercial school in Glasgow. After spending some titne in the mercantile house of one of his relatives at Bristol he sailed for the West Indies, where he remained for six years. Some two years after his return to England, having lost the little property left him by his father, he secured the place of assistant secretary on the tiag-ship of admiral Geary; and afterwards held the same position on the flag-ship of sir Richard Bickerton, with whom he sailed to the East Indies. While in India he visited the sculp tures at Elephanta, which he described in Archwologia for 1787. He spent five years in India, and on his return to Scotland bettled near Stirling., and composed his poem called The Links of Forth. Ile next went to Kingston, Jamaica, to accept an office in the cus tom-house there, but ill-health compelled him to return, and on the homeward voyage he wrote a canto of his poem The Barp. For the next six years, still sufferiug from ill-health, he lived in retirement near Bannockburn, and composed Scotland's Skaith, his best work, published in 1795. At the end of this period he again sailed for Jamaica, where lie recovered his health; and about the same time he received a legacy sufficient to enable him to live at ease for the rest of his life. He had written T he Scottish, Muse, a sort of poetical autobiography, while in Jamaica; and at Edinburgh, which he made his home henceforth, he published in 1812 T he Pastoral or Lyric Muse of Scotland ; in 1810 two satires under the name of Town Fashions ; in 1811 Bygone Times and Late Come Changes ; and in 1812 7'he Scottish Adventurers, an historical novel.
3IcNEIL„lollx, 1784-1830; b. N. H.; capt. and afterwards maj. in the 11th regiment U. S. infantry in the war of 1812. The battle of Chippewa, July 5, 1814, was mainly decided in fzivor of the Americans by the bayonet charge nude by McNeil's regiment, to whose command on that day, after the death of its col., he succeeded. For his gal lantry in that action, and at Lundy's Lane, July 25, where he was teverely wounded, he was brevetted lieut.col. and col. He continued in the service till 1830, was brevetted brig.gen. in 1824, and made col. of the first regiment of infantry in 1826. In 1829 he was made surveyor of the port of Boston, and retained that office till his death.
3IcNEILE, Huron. D.D., 1795-1879; b. at Ballyeastle, Antrim, Ireland; educated at Trinity college, Dublin, where he received the degrees of M.A. and D.D. in after years. He studied for the law, but in 1820 took orders, and after holding several preferments, was made canon of Chester, and in 1868 dean of Ripon. He WAS a popular preacher, of powerful diction and elegant delivery. Among his published works are lectures on the
Church of England, Prophecies of the Jews, and sermons on the Second Advent, and riaany other topics.
McNEILL, Sir Jous, D.e.L. b. Scotland, 1795; assistant ambassador to the Per sian court in 1881, secretary of ;he Persian embassy in 1834, and envoy extraordinary to the Persian court in 1836. On his return to Great Britain in 1844 he was made chair man of the committee appointed to take charge of the operation of the Scotch poor-law act; and in 1851 he made a report to the government upon the condition of the western Highlands and islands. Four years later, under the Palmerston administration, he was put at the head of the board of inquiry appointed to investigate the proceedings of the commissary department during the Crimean war; and for Ills services in that capacity, he was sworn in of the privy council. He published in 1854 Progress and Position of Russia in the East to 1854.
McNEILL, WILLIAM GIBBS, 1800-53, b. N.C.; graduated at West Point, and enter ing the ariny, waS attached at first to the artillery, and afterwards to the topographical engineers. He resigned from the army in 1837, and took up the profession of a civil engineer, in which he was eminently successful. He was chief engineer of a number of railroads, and of the dry dock in the navy-yard at Brooklyn. He assisted in making the survey for the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, and WAS president of the Chesapeake and Ohio canal company.
1NIAcNEVEN, WILLIAM JAMES, 1703-1841, b. Ireland; studied medicine at Vienna, and practiced at Dublin. He was a member of the " United Irislunen," and for his participation in the designs of that organization was arrested in 1798, and imprisoned. Released in 1802 he traveled through Switzerland, writing a description of his travels in his 1?amble through Switzerland. Soon afterwards lie took a commission in the Irish brigade attached to the French service. Finding that his expectations of a French invasion of Ireland were baseless, he threw up his commission, and went to New York, where lie resumed the practice of his profession. He was onc of the editors of the New York Medicail and Philosophkal Journal; from 1808 to 1830 a professor in the college of physicians and surgeons, and at the medical school connected with Rutgers colleg,e in New Jersey. He published Exposition of the Atomic Theory, and Pieces of Irish History.
MAcNISII, Ronunr, 1802-37; b. Glasgow, where he passed his life in practice as a physician. He contributed to Blackwood's and Frazer's Magazines, and became very pop ular. He published The Metempsychosis,1825; The Anatomy of Drunkenness, 1827; The Philosophy of Sleep, and other works.