and romances they never became favourites with the public, and have now ceased to be remembered. Songs of Scotland, Ancient and Modern, with Introduction and Notes, Historical and Critical, and Characters of the Lyric Poets. Four vols. 8vo, 1825. Some of the best poems in this collection are by Cunningham himself; not introduced surreptitiously, however, as in the case of Cromek, but as his own productions; and of these De Bruce contains such a stirring account of the battle of Bannockburn as Scott's Lord of the Isles has not surpassed.

Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, published in Murray's “Family | Library." Six vols. 12mo. 1829-33. This work, although defective in philosophical and critical analysis, and chargeable, in many instances, with partiality, continues to be highly popular, in consequence of the poetical spirit with which it is pervaded, and the vivacious, attractive style in which it is written. This was what the author probably aimed at, instead of producing a work that might serve as a standard for artists and connoisseurs; and in this he has fully succeeded.

Literary Illustrations to Major's “Cabinet Gallery of Pictures." 1833-34.

The Maid of Elvar, a poem.
Lord Roldan, a romance.
Life of Burns.

Life of Sir David Wilkie. Three vols. 8vo. 1843. Cunningham, who knew the painter well, and loved him dearly as a congenial Scottish spirit, found in this production the last of his literary efforts, as he finished its final corrections only two days before he died. At the same time, he had made considerable progress in an extended edition of Johnson's Lives of the Poets; and a Life of Chantrey was also expected from his pen; but before these could be accomplished, both poet and sculptor, after a close union of twentynine years, had ended their labours, and bequeathed their memorial to other hands. The last days of Chantrey were spent in drawing the tomb in which he wished to be buried, in the churchyard of Norton, in Derbyshire, the place of his nativity; and while showing the plans to his assistant, he observed, with a look of anxiety, "But there will be no room for you." "Room for me!" cried Allan Cunningham, "I would not lie like a toad in a stone, or in a place strong enough for another to covet. O, no! let me lie where the green grass and the daisies grow, waving under the winds of the blue heaven." The wish of both was satisfied; for Chantrey reposes under his mausoleum of granite, and Cunningham in the picturesque cemetery of Harrow. The artist by his will left the poet a legacy of £2000, but the constitution of the latter was so prematurely exhausted that he lived only a year after his employer. His death, which was occasioned by paralysis, occurred at Lower Belgrave Place, Pimlico, on the 29th October, 1842, in the fifty-seventh year of his age.

CUNNINGHAM, THOMAS MOUNSEY. This excellent poet and song-writer belonged to a family that has been prolific of genius during two generations, being the second son of a family of ten children, and elder brother of Allan Cunningham. His father, John Cunningham, who had been previously a land-steward, first in the county of Durham and afterwards in Dumfriesshire, ultimately leased the farm of Culfaud, in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, and there Thomas was born on the 25th of June, 1776; but his father having been unsuccessful as a farmer, the family migrated to several abodes successively, so that Thomas was educated, first at the village school of Kellieston, and afterwards at the VOL. I.

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schools and academy of Dumfries, where he completed his education by acquiring the knowledge of book-keeping, mathematics, the French tongue, and a little Latin. At the age of sixteen he became clerk to Mr. John Maxwell of Terraughty, but soon after, having been offered a clerkship in South Carolina, he was preparing to set out for that quarter, but was dissuaded by the advice of Mr. Patrick Miller of Dalswinton, to whom his father at that time was factor. It was necessary, however, on account of home poverty and a numerous family, that Thomas should learn some trade or manual profession, and, accordingly, by his own choice, he was apprenticed to the laborious occupation of a mill-wright. It was while he was thus employed, that during the leisure hours of this toilsome apprenticeship he recreated himself with the cultivation of poetry; and his productions, which were in his native tongue, found acceptance with the neighbouring peasantry, for whom they were chiefly written. His father also, who appears to have been a man of taste and judgment, approved of these juvenile productions, and encouraged him to persevere. But the best stamp of their merit in the eyes of a young poet was the fact, that one of his pieces was actually put in print. This was the poem of the Har'st Kirn, written in 1797, descriptive of the fun and frolic of a harvest-home in a farmhouse in Scotland, and which was published by Messrs. Brash and Reid, booksellers in Glasgow, in their series of Poetry, Original and Selected.

Having finished his apprenticeship during the same year, Thomas Mounsey Cunningham went to England to exercise his craft, and found employment in the workshop of a mill-wright in Rotherham. His employer having become bankrupt, he went to London, and was seriously thinking of trying his fortune in the West Indies, when his former employer, who had recommenced business at Lynn in Norfolk, invited him to return. He complied, and remained at Lynn until 1800, when he removed to Wiltshire, and soon after to the neighbourhood of Cambridge. Still prosecuting his employment and endeavouring to better his condition, he proceeded to Dover, and while there witnessed, in 1805, a sea engagement between our cruisers and the French flotilla. From Dover he subsequently went to London, where he occupied a situation in the establishment of Mr. Rennie, the celebrated engineer and his countryman, which he afterwards exchanged for that of foreman to Mr. Dickson, also an engineer, and superintendent of Fowler's chain-cable manufactory. In 1812, a clerkship in Rennie's establishment having become vacant, Thomas Cunningham was invited to occupy it, in consequence of which he went back to his former quarters, and there, latterly, became principal clerk, with a liberal salary, and permission to admit his eldest son as his assistant. This ended his manifold peregrinations and changes, which however had always been conducted prudently, and had led to advancement, until they finally located him in respectability and comfort, and where he had for his fellow-citizen his brother Allan, already beginning to be known in the literary world. termination seldom falls to the lot of poet adventurers, especially if poetry is their sole dependence.

Such a

When he went to the south to "pouse his fortune," in 1797, Thomas Cunningham had been earnestly advised by his counsellor, Mr. Miller of Dalswinton, to abjure his indulgences in poetry-and with this difficult restriction he had so far complied, as to let his harp lie mute for nine long years. But after this penance he again ventured to touch the strings, and in 1806 he sent to the Scots Magazine several poetical

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productions, which arrested attention, and were declared to be the best that had adorned its pages. Such was the opinion of Hogg himself, already a contributor to the magazine, who having discovered the author, addressed him in a highly complimentary epistle, to which the other replied in verse in the same journal. When the Ettrick Shepherd also planned the Forest Minstrel in 1809, and applied to his poetical friend for contributions, Cunningham permitted him to republish such of his productions as pleased him from the magazine, and these are the best poems in the Forest Minstrel, unless we except those of Hogg himself. But while Cunningham's fame as a poet was thus rising to a height that might have proved dangerous to his worldly advancement, a check occurred which induced him suddenly to pause. Some critical allusions to his style occurred in the Scots Magazine, and with these he was so highly offended that he again relapsed into poetical silence, which was continued for another nine years. It was only a still worse injury that made him at last speak out. One of his songs was published without his permission in the Nithsdale Minstrel, and incensed at this unhandsome act of lifting, he snatched up his pen to write a severe castigation of the publishers of the Minstrel, which appeared in the Scots Magazine of 1815. The flood-gates of his inspiration being thus opened anew, he continued to write, and in the Edinburgh Magazine, which was started in 1817 he contributed, under the title of the Literary Legacy, a miscellany or medley of things old and new, in prose and in verse, which were of popular interest, and highly advantageous to the periodical. Thus matters continued, until a slight difference with the editor reduced him once more to a moody silence, which this time was to be perpetual. It will be seen from these events, that he was not only touchy in taking offence, but obstinate in nursing the feud. | During the latter period of his life he was so careful of the literary reputation he had won, that he held an annual "auto de fe" upon his productions both in prose and poetry written during the elapsed year, and those which did not satisfy him he consigned to the flames. But such deeds of arbitrary destruction are apt at times to be too hasty, and on one such occasion he destroyed the Braken Fell, one of the best of his compositions in verse, which contained a diverting description of the droll characters he had known and the scenes he had witnessed in his early days. The loss was irretrievable, and his brother Allan, who valued the poem very highly, deplored its hasty doom.

Although Cunningham was so capricious in literature, he was very different in the affairs of business: in these his industry, steadiness, and perseverance were so conspicuous, as to secure the confidence of his employers, and work his way from the rank of a mere workman to a position of respectability and comfort. He had indeed a double portion of that prudence which distinguished his brother Allan, so that instead of using literature as a crutch, or even a staff, he handled it as a switch, and could throw it lightly aside when there was work for both hands to do. It was this toying with poetry, and indifference to authorship as an occupation, which his friends, and especially the Ettrick Shepherd, so deeply regretted; but Thomas Cunningham persevered to the end in preferring the honourable substantialities of life to uncertain fame and the risk of starvation. He died of Asiatic cholera on the 28th of October, 1834, in the fifty-eighth year of his age. His larger poems are distinguished by drollery and grave Scottish humour, while his songs, which are the best specimens of his poetical powers, abound in forcible cor

WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM.

rect description, with deep feeling and tenderness, Among these was his Hills of Gallowa, which was attributed successively to Robert Burns and James Hogg, before its real author was ascertained.

CUNNINGHAM, REV. WILLIAM, D.D., LL.D. This profound theologian and distinguished controversialist, whose name is so closely connected with the origin of the Free Church, was born in the town of Hamilton in 1805. His father, who was a merchant, a word in the provincial towns of Scotland indicating a storekeeper or dealer in miscellaneous articles, dealt in drapery and hardware goods in Castle Wynd, Hamilton. He died, however, when William, the eldest of three sons, was only five years of age, leaving the family very scantily provided, in consequence of which the widow with her children was obliged to return to her father's house in Lesmahago. Here William was sent to school, the teacher of which was a sister's son of the poet Burns, and who still is teacher of the parochial school of Kinross. But the residence of the fatherless boy at Lesmahago was brief, for when he was only ten years of age his grandfather died, and Mrs. Cunningham was obliged to seek a new home. Her choice was naturally decided for Dunse, of which her brother was parish minister, and there William was educated for five more years at the school taught by a Mr. Maule. Having in this way acquired a knowledge of the branches of an ordinary education, and a sufficient acquaintanceship with classical learning to fit him for entrance into college, he went to Edinburgh in 1820, and at the age of fifteen became a student of the university.

From the foregoing account it can easily be surmised that the college career of William Cunningham was not to be an easy one. Unpatronized and unaided, he had encountered in mere boyhood the task of a man, and while making himself a scholar, must labour for his own support. But no one who saw him in after-life-who noted his resolute features and bold straightforward bearing, that made way through every difficulty, like a ship in its course— could believe him likely to fail either through indolence or faint-heartedness. While at college he maintained himself by working as a tutor and private teacher, and while thus labouring to make others good scholars, he perfected his own classical attainments; thus also he trained himself to encounter those difficulties which, in future years, he saw, faced, and overcame. The champion of the disruption, which was like the rending of the pillars of Hercules, was not to be nursed upon a bed of down and a silken pillow. We need not follow his course of education from class to class at college; his was a silent unostentatious character, that did not parade its intellectual attainments; but his early diligence, and the proficiency that rewarded it, were strikingly indicated in the full equipment with which, when still young, he entered the field, and distanced every rival. Having finished the curriculum prescribed by the rules of the Church of Scotland, he was licensed to preach by the presby tery of Dunse in 1828. He was now a probationer; but like many others of unrecognized talent and unfulfilled renown, he might have remained a probationer for years, had it not been for a circumstance which the world would call fortunate, and the more reflective providential. Early in 1829 the Rev. Dr. Scott, minister of the West Church, Greenock, having been disabled from his clerical duties by paralysis, engaged Mr. Cunningham as an assistant, and in this capacity he became so popular with the congregation, that they soon after wished the temporary tie to be made permanent. This was done,

Dr. C. will be chiefly distinguished by his posthumous works. His lectures on church history were left in excellent order for publication, and of these, three volumes have already issued from the press, under the supervision of two of his learned coadjutors in the Free Church College.

CURRIE, JAMES, M.D., an eminent physician of Liverpool, was born May 31, 1756, in the parish of Kirkpatrick-Fleming, Dumfriesshire. His father was the minister of that parish, but obtained, soon after the birth of his son, the living of Middlebie. His mother was Jane Boyd, a woman of superior understanding, but who unfortunately died of consumption shortly after their removal to Middlebie. Young Currie was the only son in a family of seven children. Having been at an early age deprived of his mother, his aunt, Miss Duncan, kindly undertook the management of the family. To the anxious care which Miss Duncan took of his early education, Currie owed many of those virtues which adorned his after-life. He commenced his education at the parochial school of Middlebie, and at the age of thirteen was removed to Dumfries and placed in the seminary of the learned Dr. Chapman, where he remained for upwards of two years. He was originally intended for the profession of medicine, but having accompanied his father in a visit to Glasgow, he was so much delighted with the bustle and commercial activity displayed in that city, that he obtained his father's consent to betake himself to a mercantile life; and accordingly he entered the service of a company of American merchants. This, as frequently happens, where the wishes of an inexperienced young man are too readily yielded to, proved a very unfortunate change. He sailed for Virginia just at the commencement of those disputes with the American colonies which terminated in their independence, and the commercial embarrassment and losses which were occasioned by the consequent interruption of trade have been offered as an apology for the harsh and ungenerous manner in which Currie was treated by his employers. To add to his distress, he fell sick of a dangerous illness, and before he was completely restored to health he had the misfortune to lose his father, who left his family in very narrow circumstances. Young Currie, with that generosity and sanguine disregard of the difficulties of his situation which formed so remarkable a feature in his character, immediately on learning of the death of his father, and of the scanty provision made for his sisters, divided among them the small portion which fell to his share. And, disgusted with the hardships he had encountered in the commencement of his mercantile education, he determined to renounce the pursuits of commerce. For a time he seems to have turned his attention to politics, writing several papers on the then all-engrossing subject of the quarrel between Great Britain and America. At length, however, he saw the necessity of making choice of some profession; and, led by the advice of his near relation Dr. Currie, of Richmond, New Carolina, with whom he was then living, he determined to resume his original intention of studying medicine. In pursuance of this plan he proceeded to Britain, returning home by the West Indies; being prevented by the war from taking a more direct route. After encountering many difficulties, he reached London in 1776, having been absent from his native country for five years. From London he proceeded to Edinburgh, where he prosecuted his studies with unremitting assiduity until the year 1780. He early became conspicuous among his fellow-students by

greatly distinguished himself, and the papers which he read before that body not only give evidence of his superior abilities, but afford an interesting proof that, even at that early period, he had given his attention to those subjects in his profession which he afterwards so fully and ably illustrated.

Although the rapid progress he was making in his studies, and the high station he held among his contemporaries, rendered a continuance at college very desirable, still Currie was too deeply impressed with the necessity of attaining independence and of freeing his sisters and aunt of the burden of his support, not to make every exertion to push himself into employment. Accordingly, having procured an introduction to General Sir William Erskine, he obtained from that officer an ensigncy in his regiment, with the situation of surgeon's mate attached to it. He does not appear, however, to have availed him. self of these appointments; for, learning that a medical staff was about to be formed in Jamaica, he hurried to Glasgow, where he obtained a degree as a physician; his attendance at college having been insufficient to enable him to graduate at the uni versity of Edinburgh. Having got his degree, and haying furnished himself with numerous introductions, he proceeded to London, in the hope of obtaining an appointment in the West India establishment. But, on reaching the capital, he found that all the appointments were already filled up. Although disappointed in obtaining an official situation, he still determined to sail to Jamaica, with the intention of establishing himself there in private practice; or, failing that, to proceed to Richmond, and join his kinsman Dr. Currie. He was induced, however, by the persuasion of his friends in London, to abandon this plan, even after his passage to Jamaica had been taken out. They strongly urged him to establish himself in one of the large provincial towns of Eng. land; for, from the high estimate which they had formed of his abilities and professional acquirements, they were convinced that he would speedily raise himself to eminence in his profession. In accordance with this view he proceeded to Liverpool in October, 1780. He was induced to select that town in consequence of a vacancy having occurred there by the removal of Dr. Dobson to Bath. But, even without such an opening, it is evident that, to a young physician of talent and enterprise, a wealthy and rapidly increasing commercial town like Liverpool holds out peculiar advantages, and great facilities for getting into practice, where the continual fluctuation of society presents an open field for professional abilities, widely different from that of more stationary communities. Hence, as had been anticipated, Dr. Currie's talents and gentlemanly manners brought him rapidly into practice; although on his first arrival he was an utter stranger in Liverpool, and only found access to society there by the introduc tions he brought with him. His success was early confirmed by being elected one of the physicians to the Infirmary, and strengthened by his marriage, in the year 1783, to Miss Lucy Wallace, the daughter of a respectable merchant of Liverpool.

Although busily engaged in the arduous duties of his profession, Dr. Currie yet found time to cultivate literature. A similarity of tastes having led to an intimacy with the well-known Mr. Roscoe, Dr. Currie and Mr. Roscoe, along with Mr. William Rathbone, formed a literary club, which deserves to be remembered as being the first of those numerous literary institutions by which Liverpool is now so creditably distinguished.

The pulmonary affection under which Dr. Currie