Although now invested
with the clerical character, there was yet no vacant living for him; but
through the interest of his patron, the worthy divine just named, he
procured the appointment of preceptor in the family of Mr Oliphant of
Gask, as a temporary employment and means of support, until a vacancy in
the church should present itself. In this situation he remained about a
year, when he was chosen pastor of the episcopal congregation at
Glasgow, in room of Mr Wood, who had gone to St Petersburg. His
appointment took place in the year 1777. His patron, bishop Forbes,
having in the mean time died, he was put into priest’s orders by bishop
Falconer. Although much addicted to literary pursuits, Macdonald made no
public appearance as an author for five years after this period, when he
made a debut in the character of a poet, by publishing a poem, or rather
part of a poem, entitled "Velina, a Poetical Fragment." Neither this
work, nor a novel which he subsequently published under the title of the
"Independent," met with any remarkable degree of success. He therefore
resolved to try his talents in dramatic composition; and his first
effort was the tragedy of Vimonda, which was brought out at the
Edinburgh theatre royal, for the benefit of Mr Wood, with a prologue by
Henry Mackenzie, and was received with marked applause by the public,
though, like all the other works of its unfortunate author, it is now
scarcely known to exist.
In the mean time,
Macdonald, who still resided at Glasgow, was making but little progress
in worldly prosperity. His fortunes, notwithstanding the success of his
play, which does not seem to have yet yielded him any considerable
pecuniary remuneration, were rather retrograding than advancing. The
episcopal church of Scotland was at this period in a very depressed
state. The old members were fast dying out, and there were none to
replace them. The result was that Macdonald’s congregation was speedily
reduced to a number so trifling, that he could no longer live by his
charge. Thus situated, he resolved on resigning it; and as no better
prospects presented themselves elsewhere in the Scottish episcopal
church, he denuded himself altogether of his ecclesiastical functions,
and finally threw aside even the outward sign of his calling, the
clerical dress, and became at all points entirely secularized. On
throwing up his ministry, he came to Edinburgh, with, it would seem,
pretty confident hopes of being able to make a living by his pen; an
idea in which he was encouraged by the success of his tragedy. He had,
however, before leaving Glasgow, taken a step which his friends thought
fit to consider as at once imprudent and degrading. This was his
marrying the maid servant of the house in which he had lodged. His
reception, therefore, on his return to Edinburgh, from these friends and
those of his acquaintances who participated in their feelings on the
subject of his marriage, had much in it to annoy and distress him,
although no charge could be brought against the humble partner of his
fortune, but the meanness of her condition. Whatever question, however,
might have been made of the prudence or imprudence of his matrimonial
connexion, there could be none regarding the step which he next took.
This was his renting an expensive house, and furnishing it at a cost
which he had no immediate means of defraying, although with all that
sanguine hope which is but too frequently found associated with literary
dispositions, he fully expected to be enabled to do so by the exertion
of his talents. The result was such as might have been looked for. His
literary prospects, as far as regarded Edinburgh, ended in total
disappointment. His creditors became pressing, and the neglect of his
friends, proceeding from the circumstance already alluded to, and which,
in some cases amounted to direct insult, continued as marked as when he
first returned amongst them, and added greatly to the distress of mind
with which the unfortunate poet was now overwhelmed.
Under the pressure of
these accumulated evils, he determined on quitting Edinburgh, and on
seeking in London that employment for his literary talents which he
could not find in his native capital. Having come to this resolution, he
left his mother, for whom he always entertained the most tender regard,
in possession of his house and furniture, and proceeded, accompanied by
his wife, to the metropolis. Here his reception was such as to
compensate in some measure for the treatment which he had experienced at
home. The fame of his tragedy had gone before him, and soon after his
arrival procured him many sincere and cordial, though it does not appear
very powerful, friends. Vimonda was brought out with much splendour by
Colman, in the summer of 1787, a short time after its author had arrived
in London, and was performed to crowded houses. In the following summer,
it was again produced, and with similar success. This good fortune,
operating on a temperament naturally sanguine, lifted poor Macdonald’s
hopes beyond all reasonable bounds, and filled his mind with the
brightest anticipations of fame and independence. In this spirit he
wrote several letters to Mr M. Stewart, music-seller in Edinburgh, the
principal, if not indeed the only friend he had left behind him, full of
the most splendid ideas regarding his future fortunes. Having left
Edinburgh in embarrassed circumstances, so that neither his house rent
nor his furniture had been paid, he promises speedy remittances to
defray all his debts, and amongst the rest that which he had incurred to
his correspondent, who seems to have managed all his affairs for him
after he left the Scottish capital, and to have generously made, from
time to time, considerable advances of money on his account.
"Thank Heaven," says the
ill-fated poet in one of these letters to Stewart, in which he announces
the good fortune which he now conceived was to be his for the remainder
of his life, "thank Heaven, my greatest difficulties are now over; and
the approaching opening of the summer theatre will soon render me
independent and perfectly at ease. In three weeks you will see by the
public spirits, I shall be flourishing at the Haymarket in splendour
superior to last season. I am fixed for the summer in a sweet retirement
at Brompton, where, having a large bed, and lying alone, I can
accommodate you tolerably, and give you a share of a poet’s supper,
sallads and delicious fruits from my own garden."
All this felicity, and
all these gay visions of the future, were, however, speedily and sadly
dissipated. In a few short months thereafter Macdonald sunk into an
untimely grave, disappointed in his hopes, and reduced to utter
destitution in his circumstances. That he did thus die is certain, but
neither the immediate cause, nor the progress of the sudden blight which
thus came over his fortunes before his death, is very distinctly traced
in any of the memoirs which have been consulted in the composition of
this article, unless the following remark, contained in an advertisement
prefixed to a volume of posthumous sermons of Macdonald, printed in
1790, can be considered as an explanation:—"Having no powerful friends
to patronize his abilities, and suffering under the infirmities of a
weak constitution, he fell a victim, at the age of thirty-three, to
sickness, disappointment and misfortune." Macdonald died in the year
1788, in the thirty-third year of his age, leaving behind him his wife
and one child, wholly unprovided for.
Macdonald made several
attempts in dramatic composition subsequent to the appearance of Vimonda,
but none of them were at all equal in merit to that performance, a
circumstance which affords, probably, a more satisfactory elucidation of
the cause of those disappointments which gathered round and hurried him
to his grave, and embittered his dying moments, than those enumerated in
the extract employed above. For some time previous to his death, under
the fictitious signature of Matthew Bramble, he amused the town almost
daily with little humorous and burlesque poems, after the manner of
Peter Pindar’s (Dr Wolcot) and these were not unfrequently equal in
point and satirical allusion to some of the most felicitous effusions of
his celebrated prototype.
As a preacher, he was
distinguished for neat, classical, and elegant composition; qualities
which procured a favourable reception for the volume of posthumous
sermons published in 1790. A tragedy, which he left in a finished state
at his death, was printed and included in a volume of his poetical
works, published in 1791.
On the whole, Macdonald’s
literary talents seem to have been of that unfortunate description which
attract notice, without yielding profit, which produce a show of
blossom, but no fruit, and which, when trusted to by their sanguine
possessor as a means of insuring a subsistence, are certain to be found
wholly inadequate to that end, and equally certain to leave their
deceived and disappointed victim to neglect and misery.
It may be proper, before
concluding this brief sketch of Macdonald, to advert to the account
given of him by D’Israeli, in his "Calamities of Authors." That account
is an exceedingly pathetic one, and is written with all the feeling and
eloquence for which its highly distinguished writer is so remarkable;
but unfortunately it is inconsistent in many parts with fact. What Mr
D’Israeli mentions regarding him from his own knowledge and experience,
we do not question; but in nearly all the particulars which were not so
acquired, he seems to have been egregiously misinformed. In that
information, however, which is of the description that there is no
reason for doubting, the following affecting passage occurs:--"It was
one evening I saw a tall, famished, melancholy man, enter a bookseller’s
shop, his hat flapped over his eyes, and his whole frame evidently
feeble from exhaustion and utter misery. The bookseller inquired how he
proceeded with his tragedy? ‘Do not talk to me about my tragedy! Do not
talk to me about my tragedy! I have indeed more tragedy than I can bear
at home,’ was his reply, and his voice faultered as he spoke. This man
was Matthew Bramble—Macdonald, the author of the tragedy of Vimonda, at
that moment the writer of comic poetry." D’Israeli then goes on, giving
the result of his inquiries regarding him, and at this point error
begins. He represents him as having seven children. He had, as already
noticed, only one. He says he was told, "that he walked from Scotland
with no other fortune than the novel of the Independent in one pocket,
and the tragedy of Vimonda in the other." The novel alluded to was
published four years before he went to London; and Vimonda had been
brought out at Edinburgh a considerable time before he left that city.
D’Israeli speaks of the literary success which the "romantic poet" had
anticipated while yet "among his native rocks." The reader need
scarcely be reminded that Macdonald was born in the immediate vicinity
of the Scottish capital, and that the whole of his life, previously to
his leaving Scotland, was spent in the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow,
and great part of it in what has always been considered the profession
of a gentleman.