“ Mackay, who was born in 1839, was educated at Edinburgh Academy and at University College, Oxford, and at Heidelberg. He was admitted at member of the Faculty of Advocates in 1864, and filled the chair of Constitutional Law and History in the University of Edinburgh from 1874 to 1881. In 1882 the University of Edinburgh conferred on him the honorary degree of LL.D. and he was also an honorary Fellow of King's College, London. ”