He courteously declined the offer of Perceval to resume political life under the auspices of the dominant Tory party, though tempting prospects of office in connexion with India were opened up. He entered parliament in the Whig interest as member for Nairn. He sat for that county, and afterwards for Knaresborough, till his death. In London society, and in Paris during his occasional visits, he was a recognized favourite for his genial wisdom and his great conversational power. On Mme de Stael's visit to London he was the only Englishman capable of representing his country in talk with her. His parliamentary career was marked by the same wide and candid liberalism as his private life. He opposed the reactionary measures of the Tory government, supported and afterwards succeeded Romilly in his efforts for reforming the criminal code, and took a leading part both in Catholic emancipation and in the Reform Bill. But he was too little of a partisan, too widely sympathetic and candid, as well as too elaborate, to be a telling speaker in parliament, and was consequently surpassed by more practical men whose powers were incomparably inferior. From 1818 to 1824 he was professor of law and general politics in the East India Company's College at Haileybury.
In the midst of the attractions of London society and of his parliamentary avocations Mackintosh felt that the real work of his life was being neglected. His great ambition was to write a history of England. His studies both in English and foreign speculation led him to cherish the design also of making some worthy contribution to philosophy. It was not till 1828 that he set about the first task of his literary ambition. This was the Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, prefixed to the seventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The dissertation, written mostly in ill-health and in snatches of time taken from his parliamentary engagements, was published in 1831. It was severely attacked in 1835 by James Mill in his Fragment on Mackintosh. About the same time he wrote for the Cabinet Cyclopaedia a "History of England from the Earliest Times to the Final Establishment of the Reformation." His more elaborate History of the Revolution, for which he had made great researches and collections, was not published till after his death. Already a privy councillor, Mackintosh was appointed commissioner for the affairs of India under the Whig administration of 1830. He died on the 30th of May 1832.
Mackintosh was undoubtedly one of the most cultured and catholic-minded men of his time. His studies and sympathies embraced almost every human interest, except pure science. But the width of his intellectual sympathies, joined to a constitutional indecision and vis inertiae, prevented him from doing more enduring work. Vindiciae Gallicae was the verdict of a philosophic Liberal on the development of the French Revolution up to the spring of 1791, and though the excesses of the revolutionists compelled him a few years after to express his entire agreement with the opinions of Burke, its defence of the "rights of man" is a valuable statement of the cultured Whig's point of view at the time. The History of the Revolution in England, breaking off at the point where William of Orange is preparing to intervene in the affairs of England, is chiefly interesting because of Macaulay's admiring essay on it and its author.
A Life, by his son R. J. Mackintosh, was published in 1836.
MACKLIN, CHARLES (c. 1699-1797), Irish actor and playwright, whose real name was McLaughlin, was born in Ireland, and had an adventurous youth before coming to Bristol, where he made his first appearance on the stage as Richmond in Richard III. He was at Lincoln's Inn Fields about 1725, and by 1733 was at Drury Lane, where the quarrel between the manager and the principal actors resulted in his getting better parts. When the trouble was over and these were taken from him, he went to the Haymarket, but he returned in 1734 to Drury Lane and acted there almost continuously until 1748. Then for two seasons he and his wife (d. c. 1758), an excellent actress, were in Dublin under Sheridan, then back in London at Covent Garden. He played a great number of characters, principally in comedy, although Shylock was his greatest part, and Iago and the Ghost in Hamlet were in his repertory. At the end of 1753 Macklin bade farewell to the stage to open a tavern, near the theatre, where he personally supervised the serving of dinner. He also delivered an evening lecture, followed by a debate, which was soon a hopeless subject of ridicule. The tavern failed, and Macklin returned to the stage, and played for a number of years in London and Dublin. His quick temper got him into constant trouble. In a foolish quarrel over a wig in 1735 he killed a fellow actor in the green-room at Drury Lane, and he was constantly at law over his various contracts and quarrels. The bitterest of these arose on account of his appearing as Macbeth at Covent Garden in 1772. The part was usually played there by William Smith, and the public would not brook a change. A few nights later the audience refused to hear Macklin as Shylock, and shouted their wish, in response to the manager's question, to have him discharged. This was done in order to quell the riot. His lawsuit, well conducted by himself, against the leaders of the disturbance resulted in an award of £600 and costs, but Macklin magnanimously elected instead that the defendants should take £100 in tickets at three benefits--for himself, his daughter and the management. He returned to Covent Garden, but his appearances thereafter were less frequent, ending in 1789, when as Shylock, at his benefit, he was only able to begin the play, apologize for his wandering memory, and retire. He lived until the 11th of July 1797, and his last years were provided for by a subscription edition of two of his best plays, The Man of the World and Love in a Maze. Macklin's daughter, Mary Macklin (c. 1734-1781), was a well-known actress in her day.
See Edward A. Parry, Charles Macklin (1891).
MACK VON LEIBERICH, KARL, FREIHERR (1752-1828), Austrian soldier, was born at Nenslingen, in Bavaria, on the 25th of August 1752. In 1770 he joined an Austrian cavalry regiment, in which his uncle, Leiberich, was a squadron commander, becoming an officer seven years later. During the brief war of the Bavarian Succession he was selected for service on the staff of Count Kinsky, under whom, and subsequently under the commander-in-chief Field Marshal Count Lacy, he did excellent work. He was promoted first lieutenant in 1778, and captain on the quartermaster-general's staff in 1783. Count Lacy, then the foremost soldier of the Austrian army, had the highest opinion of his young assistant. In 1785 Mack married Katherine Gabrieul, and was ennobled under the name of Mack von Leiberich. In the Turkish war he was employed on the headquarter staff, becoming in 1788 major and personal aide-de-camp to the emperor, and in 1789 lieutenant-colonel. He distinguished himself greatly in the storming of Belgrade. Shortly after this, disagreements between Mack and Loudon, now commander-in-chief, led to the former's demanding a court-martial and leaving the front. He was, however, given a colonelcy (1789) and the order of Maria Theresa, and in 1790 Loudon and Mack, having become reconciled, were again on the field together. During these campaigns Mack received a severe injury to his head, from which he never fully recovered. In 1793 he was made quartermaster-general (chief of staff) to Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg, commanding in the Netherlands; and he enhanced his reputation by the ensuing campaign. The young Archduke Charles, who won his own first laurels in the action of the 1st of March 1793, wrote after the battle, "Above all we have to thank Colonel Mack for these successes." Mack distinguished himself again on the field of Neerwinden; and had a leading part in the negotiations between Coburg and Dumouriez. He continued to serve as quartermaster-general, and was now made titular chief (Inhaber) of a cuirassier regiment. He received a wound at Famars, but in 1794 was once more engaged, having at last been made a major-general. But the failure of the allies, due though it was to political and military factors and ideas, over which Mack had no control, was ascribed to him, as their successes of March-April 1793 had been, and he fell into disfavour in consequence. In 1797 he was promoted lieutenant field marshal, and in the following year he accepted, at the personal request of the emperor, the command of the Neapolitan army. But with the unpromising material of his new command he could do nothing against the French revolutionary troops, and before long, being in actual danger of being murdered by his men, he took refuge in the French camp. He was promised a free pass to his own country, but Napoleon ordered that he should be sent to France as a prisoner of war. Two years later he escaped from Paris in disguise. The allegation that he broke his parole is false. He was not employed for some years, but in 1804, when the war party in the Austrian court needed a general to oppose the peace policy of the Archduke Charles, Mack was made quartermaster-general of the army, with instructions to prepare for a war with France. He did all that was possible within the available time to reform the army, and on the opening of the war of 1805 he was made quartermaster-general to the titular commander-in-chief in Germany, the Archduke Ferdinand. He was the real responsible commander of the army which opposed Napoleon in Bavaria, but his position was ill-defined and his authority treated with slight respect by the other general officers. For the events of the Ulm campaign and an estimate of Mack's responsibility for the disaster, see NAPOLEONIC CAMPAIGNS. After Austerlitz, Mack was tried by a court-martial, sitting from February 1806 to June 1807, and sentenced to be deprived of his rank, his regiment, and the order of Maria Theresa, and to be imprisoned for two years. He was released in 1808, and in 1819, when the ultimate victory of the allies had obliterated the memory of earlier disasters, he was, at the request of Prince Schwarzenberg, reinstated in the army as lieutenant field marshal and a member of the order of Maria Theresa. He died on the 22nd of October 1828 at S. Pölten.