(1814-1889) Poet and journalist, son of a naval officer, was born at Perth, and educated at the Royal Caledonian Asylum, London, and at Brussels, but much of his early life was spent in France. Coming to London in 1834, he engaged in journalism, puborn Songs and Poems (1834), wrote a History of London, Popular Delusions, and a romance, Longbeard. His fame, however, chiefly rests upon his songs, some of which, including Cheer, Boys, Cheer, were in 1846 set to music by Henry Russell, and had an astonishing popularity. In 1852 he became editor of the Illustrated London News, in the musical supplement to which other songs by him were set to old English music by Sir H.R. Bishop. Mackay acted as Times correspondent during the American Civil War, and in that capacity discovered and disclosed the Fenian conspiracy. He had the degree of LL.D. from Glasgow in 1846.