and the young poet proceeded to London in the year 1810. Here he connected himself with the newspaper press. In the same year appeared Cromek's Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, nearly all the pieces in which, though published as originals, were composed by Cunningham. In 1814 he became foreman or clerk of the works to Sir Francis Chantrey, in whose establishment he continued until the death of that eminent sculptor in 1842. Perhaps no foreman ever rendered more important services to his principal than did Cunningham to Chantrey. His vivid and intelligent criticism delighted and informed all visitors to the studio, while his powers of conversation and his unflagging activity were the means of bringing to Chantrey many an important and lucrative commission. It was through Cunningham that Sir Walter Scott and Southey were induced to sit. Chantrey is said to have been indebted to him for many poetic suggestions; in particular, for the happy thought of placing a bunch of snow-drops, newly gathered, in the hand of one of the Sleeping Children—the celebrated monument in Litchfield cathedral. Shortly before his death, Cunningham was prostrated by a stroke of paralysis, the enfeebling effects of which can be traced in portions of his last work, "The Memoirs of Sir David Wilkie." He died on the 29th October, 1842. Cunningham was an indefatigable writer. Besides several novels, he was the author of a dramatic poem called "Sir Marmaduke Maxwell," and of an epic entitled "The Maid of Elvar." He wrote "The Lives of Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects," for the Family Library, and published an admirably edited re-issue of Burns' works, in eight volumes, to which he prefixed a life of the poet, containing many facts and anecdotes till then unknown. His poems are for the most part in the manner of Burns, but greatly inferior.—T. A.
CUNNINGHAM, Allan, an eminent botanist and traveller, was born on 13th July, 1791, at Wimbledon in Surrey, where his father, a native of Renfrewshire, was a gardener. Having become connected with the garden at Kew, he was introduced to Robert Brown, and was by him made known to Sir Joseph Banks. By this means his botanical merits were noticed, and he was appointed on 4th September, 1814, botanical collector in the southern hemisphere for the royal gardens at Kew. Along with Mr. James Bowie, he sailed from Plymouth on 29th October, 1814, and proceeded to Rio Janeiro. He then visited various places in the neighbourhood of Rio and in Brazil, and made extensive collections. Subsequently he visited New South Wales, and settled for a time at Paramatta. Thence he proceeded with an expedition to trace the courses of the Lachlan and Macquarie rivers, under the command of Mr. John Oxley, the surveyor-general. His next expedition was to the north and north-west coast of New Holland, under the direction of Captain Philip Parker King. Van Diemen's Land was also in part explored by him, and he likewise examined the botany of New Zealand and of Norfolk Island. In all these excursions Mr. Cunningham made extensive and valuable collections, and contributed largely to the botany of Australia. After an absence of seventeen years, he returned to England in July, 1831, in a very indifferent state of health. He was offered the situation of colonial botanist in New South Wales, on the death of Mr. Thomas Fraser, but he declined in favour of his brother Richard, also a distinguished botanist, who was killed in April, 1835, by one of the native tribes, two years after getting the appointment. Allan now accepted the office, and proceeded to Sydney. The duties of this new office appear to have been too laborious for him. His strength failed, and he died on 27th June, 1839, at the age of forty-eight. The greenhouses and conservatories of Britain owe many of their finest ornaments to the exertions of Allan Cunningham. The following are his publications—"A Specimen of the Indigenous Botany of the Mountain Country between the Colony round Port Jackson and the Settlement of Bathurst;" "Remarks on the Vegetation of certain Coasts of Terra Australis."—J. H. B.
CURRAN, John Philpot, born at Newmarket in the county of Cork, Ireland, in 1750; died in London in 1817—the son of James Curran, who held the office of seneschal of Newmarket, and Martha Philpot. The future orator was educated at a classical school in Newmarket, then conducted by the Rev. Nathaniel Boyse. From Newmarket he was sent to the endowed school of Middleton, in the county of Cork, from which he entered Trinity college, Dublin. Here, in 1770, he became a scholar of the house. In 1773 he went to London to keep law terms at the inns of court. Curran entered the middle temple, and seems from the first to have studied with great diligence, but without any guidance. He speaks in a letter written soon after he was fixed in London, of reading for ten hours a day, "seven at law, three at history and politics." He attended debating societies, and spoke at several of them. The claims of the Roman catholics were a frequent subject of discussion: from the earnestness with which he advocated their cause, and from some peculiarity in his dress, he was taken for a Romish ecclesiastic, and was called the Little Jesuit from St. Omer. His only acquaintances at this time in London were a few law students. He saw Goldsmith once in a coffee-house, Garrick two or three times on the stage, and Lord Mansfield on the bench; with Macklin he formed some acquaintance, which was afterwards renewed in Dublin.
Curran had physical defects which would have unfitted a less determined man for oratory—a stutter, a shrill voice, a provincial accent. To remove these defects he read each day aloud, imitating the tones of the most skilful speakers. His person was short and stunted, and he constantly recited before a glass, "to acquire such gesticulation as was best adapted to his imperfect stature." Curran married in the second year of his residence in London. In 1775 he was called to the Irish bar, and went the Munster circuit. It is said that his success was slow. This seems a mistake. His fee-book shows that in his first year, he received eighty-two guineas, in the second, between one and two hundred, and so on in proportion. "The monks of the screw or the order of St. Patrick," of which Curran was the prior, was a political and convivial club, instituted in 1779. It consisted of professed and lay members—the lay members had no rights, except the important one of dining in the refectory. The professed members were chiefly barristers and members of parliament. Their meetings were conducted with fantastic solemnity. They met, as they called it, "in convent," each of the members wearing the habit of the order, a black tabinet domino. Latin graces were pronounced by the precentor or chaplain before and after commons. In 1783 Curran was returned to parliament, and about the same time obtained a silk gown. He sat in parliament during this and the next session, till the summer of 1797. What Burke has called the Irish revolution, occurred in the year before Curran first sat in parliament. The right of self-government had been asserted for Ireland, as if to show of how little value are abstract rights. The representative body was entirely and utterly corrupt, the constituencies were worse. In a sentence we may state what he did in parliament. His first speech was on the right of the commons to originate money bills, December 16, 1783; attachments, February 24, 1785; commercial regulations, July 23, 1785, and August 15, 1785; pensions, March 13, 1786; catholic emancipation, October 17, 1796. The perpetual mutiny bill was repealed, a habeas corpus act was passed, an act for the independence of the judges, and an act in favour of dissenting protestants, but catholic emancipation was resisted. Curran, on one occasion, was in one of his loudest dithyrambics; his swarthy cheek burned, his black bright eyes flashed fire, his very person seemed enlarged as he listened with delight to the violent applause of his tumultuous admirers; he looked over to the treasury benches to see the effect on Fitzgibbon, then attorney-general, whom he expected to behold writhing under the lash. Fitzgibbon was fast asleep. "I envy," said Curran, who was not at the moment himself to be envied, "I envy his tranquillity. I do not feel myself so happily tempered as to be lulled to repose by the storms that shake the land. If they invite any to rest, that rest ought not to be lavished on the guilty spirit." Fitzgibbon awoke, and replied scornfully to what he was told Curran had said. A duel followed. The parties exchanged shots, and left the ground unreconciled.
Curran passed his vacations as often as he could in the neighbourhood of his birthplace. He is said to have been fond at all times of attending rustic wakes and weddings, and he describes himself as forming his first notions of eloquence from the language and the songs of the mourners over the dead—customs now falling into disuse, or existing only in retired districts of Ireland. In 1787 Curran visited France. Some compliment being paid him by the superior of a convent in a town through which he passed, he told them he was prior of a monastic institution in his own land, and in this character claimed to be intrusted with the key of the wine cellar during his stay. The
