CUNNINGHAME'S POEMS. 51 was written in the year 1785; and was, as he informs us, occasioned by a remarkable phenomenon in the heavens, said to have been observed in Russia, Feb. 19th; a particular account of which was given in the Gentleman's Magazine, July, 1785, page 531. In this poem the genius of Russia foretels the decline and extinction of the Ottoman Empire, and the establishment of a Russian dynasty on the throne of Constantinople. It is a very spirited production, and contains some excellent stanzas, which I regret cannot be quoted in connection with each other without making the extracts too voluminous. His description of the approach of the Russians is highly animated. "See where the fierce Muscovian eagles fly, "As conscious of their heaven-devoted prey, "Within his mosque, with gleaming crescents crown'd, "His fuming censer on th' embroidered ground. Big with the fates of oriental powers, "See where sublime her* eagle genius soars, "Her eyry builds on Theodosia's towers, "And flies in triumph round her Euxine shores." The poet then pourtrays some of the happy results of the accomplishment of his prophecy, and he anticipates the revival of Greece in all its glory. "Near lucid fountains, where the muses trod, "That at a sultan's torpor-shedding nod, Slept a long triple century of years.+ "I see o'er each poetic mountain roam "Shades of great bards, reviving freedom's fire, "With hymns of rapture on his classic lyre." His poem called the NAVAL TRIUMPH, written in commemoration of the victory obtained over the French fleet, under the command of Admiral De Grasse, by Lord Rodney, on the 12th of April, 1782, contains the following picture of detraction, which, with the exception of an incongruous image in the last line, is a spirited sketch, and it affords a fair specimen of the general style of Cunninghame's versification. * The late Empress of Russia. + Constantinople was taken by the Turkish Sultan, Mahomet, May 2d; 1455. 52 CUNNINGHAME'S POEMS. "And see where foul Detraction rears her head, "She rolls, with snaky glance, her folds along; "And plants, with hand unseen, her dagger in his breast.” The eloquent Burke, it appears, participated at this time in what the poet has chosen to characterize as the "rude clamours of a sordid throng." "He from whose lips such elocution flows, "Falls on the sense, then melts into the heart; "Not he upon whose lips prophetic hung "The clustering bees -more sweet or more divinely sung." The third and fourth lines in the preceding stanza are inimitably fine, though the simile itself is borrowed from Homer. They likewise suggest the recollection of a very beautiful couplet in BURNS, which Cunninghame could not have seen. "Or as the snow falls in the river, "A moment white- then gone for ever." The subsequent extract is from a poem to the memory of R. R. Esq., in which the writer intimates that it is the peculiar office of the muse to consecrate her sweetest strains to departed virtue. Many of the lines are beautiful, and one cannot but regret that he did not oftener use the same versification. "For this the muse, the plaintive muse was given, What art thou, life! unless some fairer sky There, only there, affliction finds her stay, -Sees future immortality her own." THE REV. R. CUNNINGHAME. 53 Having indulged thus liberally in quotation, I have necessarily circumscribed the space that, otherwise, might have been devoted to a more ample account of the writer. The Rev. R. Cunninghame left the village of Eyam in the year 1790; where," through evil and good report," he had spent the flower of his days. Though now not exactly in the decline of life, he was yet not young, and his mode of living had left him poor; he was, therefore, under the necessity of selling all that he possessed, even his books, to enable him, as he expresses it, "to encounter the expensive outset of the new life he was entering upon." In a letter to one of his friends, written the week before his departure, and which is now before me, he says, "I am disposing of all my books and every thing else, as you may suppose I shall need all the money I can raise to encounter the very expensive outset of the new life I am entering upon; and, from what I can discover, I must chiefly depend upon myself for the means. You have a set of the elegant Swinburne's Travels in Spain belonging to me: they cost me 6s. a volume; if you choose to purchase them you shall have them for 10s. 6d.; which you will be so good as to remit me immediately, or the books, that I may dispose of them elsewhere. I should suppose you will have an opportunity of doing either by R. Blackwall or the old post on Sunday. By those carrier pigeons you can likewise oblige me with the copy I desired; I wish my circumstances enabled me to offer you the books gratuitously. But, alas !—” The majority of Mr. Cunninghame's parishioners were poor and ignorant, and he strove to better their manners and improve their situation in life by informing their minds. His attention to the education of the youth of the village was, at one time, truly exemplary; regardless of pecuniary compensation, he took them under his tuition, and devoted much of his time to their improvement. So long, indeed, as he remained at Eyam none were permitted to want instruction; hence he was beloved, and the grateful recollections of his pupils still dwell upon his name with delight. His farewell sermon, and the effects which it produced, are well remembered and frequently mentioned, even at the present day: it was a composition of great eloquence and the most powerful pathos, full of recollected kindness, and delivered in the tenderest tones of affection. This sermon was never printed, but some copies were circulated in manuscript among his hearers, after he had bidden them a last farewell. These are yet preserved with 54 THE REV. R. CUNNINGHAME. something like a religious veneration; and I have occasionally seen them brought from the place where they were carefully deposited, and viewed and contemplated with a melancholy feeling of reverence and regret, that forcibly indicated how strongly attached the villagers of Eyam yet are to the name of Cunninghame. On leaving Eyam he obtained an appointment as chaplain to the English factory at Smyrna, where he remained for several years. There he was singularly unfortunate: in the Archipelago he almost miraculously escaped from shipwreck; and at Smyrna, where he was involved in equal peril by the casual occurrence of a fire, his life was narrowly preserved, and he lost his papers and manuscripts in the conflagration. A residence at Smyrna was banishment to Cunninghame, and he soon determined to revisit his native country. Returning homeward, an English lady, who had become acquainted with his misfortunes, his merits, and his wants, presented him with a volume of poetry, which she remarked might occasionally amuse him on his way. Desolate, unknown, without friends or money, far from home, and travelling on foot through Germany on his way to Paris, he sustained much fatigue and suffered many privations. Approaching a town on the borders of Hungary, after a hard day's journey, he sat down to reflect on his forlorn condition, when he took his volume of poetry from his pocket, for the first time, and read to relieve his mind from the pressure of those unpleasant thoughts and gloomy presagings that now began to harass and torment him. Reading was a pleasure which he had not enjoyed for several days; a particular poem had been recommended to his perusal by his female friend, and he anxiously turned to the page, where he found, "close nestled within the leaves," a note, or order, for fifty pounds: thus delicately did an amiable woman contrive to administer to the necessities of a stranger in a foreign land. Shortly after his return to the country he so reluctantly had left, he undertook the duties of a humble curacy in the vicinity of London, a situation which he soon relinquished for a small living, obtained for him through the influence of the Devonshire family, during the last short administration of that friend of his country, Charles James Fox. This he did not long enjoy. Invited to preach an annual sermon to a society at Islington, to whom he had become endeared, he attended and dined with the members, after delivering to them his last and one of his THE REV. R. CUNNINGHAME. 55 best discourses. He appeared in perfect health and high in spirits, but soon after the cloth was removed, while conversing with a gentleman near him, he fell back in his chair, and immediately expired without a sigh or a groan: such was the end of Cunninghame. Enough has been said to excite an enquiry after his poetic effusions, even if they are worthy of being remembered and preserved, and, certainly, too much if they are not. The local history of Eyam has afforded an opportunity, of which I have gladly availed myself, of devoting a few pages to the memory of a man who was once the admiration of all who knew him, afterwards the object of their pity, and lastly of their condemnation. Contemplating his character, as presented to us by the Rev. Mr. Seward in his farewell sermon to his congregation at Eyam, how amiable does it appear! who would wish to turn his eyes from such a picture to fix them on one less perfect? "I hope and trust," says Mr. Seward, "that I shall return to you and frequently address you from this pulpit; but, in the mean time, I have the greatest consolation and joy that I leave you under the care of so excellent a preacher; whose piety to God, whose delight in the performance of the duties of his office, whose amiable, engaging, courteous, and affectionate behaviour to the rich, and condescending, affable, and charitable treatment to his poorer neighbours, is a continued living sermon to us all, and has so endeared him to us already, that he has become our general friend, our delight, and our joy. Like holy Job, when the ear heareth him then it blesseth him, and when the eye seeth him it giveth witness to him: one hearer telleth another how rational and clear he is in his arguments, how affecting and convincing he is in his persuasions, and how zealous and devout in his prayers; and one neighbour certifieth to another how cheerful he is in his common conversation, how candid and charitable in his opinions and characters of others, and how ready in showing pity to all who are in the least distress. Think not that I have put so much of the pulpit duty upon him, since we have been here together, through idleness and indolence; no, it was that I would not disappoint so many longing ears that wished to hear him; it was that I rejoiced at the occasion of really preferring his sermons to my own, and of giving so eminent and worthy, though so young a man, the right hand of fellowship: grey hairs may receive instruction from his lips, and the aged bow |