Allan was put early to school. His first Dr. Busby was a woman, a Cameronian, whose prayers were long, controversial, and dramatic. A schoolmaster of the same persuasion completed his education. He was, we have been told, a singular person. His sectarian enthusiasm was somewhat abated, or rather chequered with a kind of classic ardour. His memory was rife with Scottish tale and tradition, which he embellished, as he went on, with Latin names and heathen ornaments. His knowledge of the classics, however extensive, was never called into use; and Allan's education was confined to reading the Scriptures, the sermons and predictions of Peden, the enthusiastic pastor of Glenluce, and the Pilgrim's Progress; to writing and arithmetic-the latter without rule, and the former without spelling or grammar. When Allan had learned all his instructors could well teach, he was at the age of eleven removed from school, and apprenticed to the trade of a mason, the trade of his brother James, whose apprentice he was. "During the intermissions of labour," writes the poet, in later life, "I sought instruction with diligence, and even enthusiasm. My father was fond of literature, a beautiful relater of traditional stories, and one gifted with a particular grace in reciting old ballads and songs. He dabbled in verse himself a little, and acquired the friendship and esteem of Robert Burns, the poet, who was a near neighbour. He had gathered a small library, into which I frequently ventured in search of instruction. I was also an attentive listener to the recitals of legendary lore, the gladsome and the pathetic, the humorous and the devout, of which the Scottish peasantry are remarkably fond. Round the firesides of the farmers are still lingering many scraps and fragments of those stately romances and fine old ballads so common to Scotland; and it was among these traditions, at once chivalrous, superstitious, and curious, that I may say I received my education; for, in all I write I continue to feel their impulse and their presence." Allan's father, as he tells us was intimate with Burns; indeed Dalswinton, where John Cunningham then lived as land steward to Mr. Miller, lies over against Ellisland, a little lower down the river Nith, than Blackwood; and thus the father of a future poet may be said to have been for several years the immediate neighbour of the great poet of woman's love. Miller is known through his encouragement of infant steam, and the correspondence of Burns, his tenant at Ellisland; and John Cunningham had entered the service of Mr. Miller on the death of Copland, of Blackwood, some time, we believe, in the year 1790. There is a ford at Ellisland; and thus the two families of Burns and Cuuningham (names now inseparably united) were often at the ingle cheeks of one another. Allan was no common boy, and Burns the very man to make an impression on a youthful mind. His portrait of the great poet was drawn in words for Mr. Lockhart's admirable life of him :—

"I was very young," says Allan Cunningham, "when I first saw Burns. He came to see my father; and their conversation turned partly on farming, partly on poetry, in both of which my father had taste and skill. Burns had just come to Nithsdale, and I think he appeared a shade more swarthy than he does in Nasmyth's picture, and at least ten years older than he really was at the time. His face was deeply marked by thought, and the habitual expression intensely melancholy. His frame was very muscular, and well proportioned, though he had a short neck, and something of a ploughman's stoop; he was strong, and proud of his strength. I saw him, one evening, match himself with a number of masons; and out of five-and-twenty practised hands, the most vigorous young men in the parish, there was only one that could lift the same weight as Burns.

"He had," continues Mr. Cunningham, "a very manly face, and a very melancholy look; but on the approach of those he esteemed, his looks brightened up, and his whole face beamed with affection and genius. His voice was very musical. I once heard him read Tam o'Shanter'-I think I hear him now. His fine manly voice followed all the undulations of the sense, and expressed as well as his genius had done, the pathos and humour-the horrible and the awful, of that wonderful performance. As a man feels, so will

he write; and in proportion as he sympathizes with his author, so will he read him with grace and effect."

Allan, a boy of twelve, stood, in 1796, in St. Michael's churchyard, Dumfries, at the grave of Burns; saw the coffin of the great poet lowered, and the long-dreaded ragged volley fired by the awkward squad over the grave of their fellow volunteer. Little did Burns foresee that the modest, open-mouthed, and attentive boy he saw at the fireside of John Cunningham, was to become his future biographer and editor; and that the man and his works would be best known and understood through the valuable labours of that diffident but intelligent looking boy.

In his fifteenth year Allan lost his father-" worn to the grave with hardship, poverty, and domestic sorrow." He never spoke of him but with a kind of subdued grief, often with a tear, and always with a regret that he did not live to hear of the fame his son had acquired, and of the friendships he had formed. "I had been a proud man," he would say, "had my father lived to hear all that has been said about me."

We have already given Allan Cunningham's recollection of Burns; let us now give James Hogg's recollections of Allan Cunningham, when a lad of eighteen years:

"One day," says the poet of Ettrick, "about the beginning of autumn, some three-and-twenty years ago, as I was herding my master's ewes on the great hill of Queensberry, in Nithsdale, I perceived two men coming towards me, who appeared to be strangers. I saw, by their way of walking, they were not shepherds, and could not conceive what the men were seeking there, where there was neither path nor aim towards any human habitation. However, I stood staring about me till they came up, always ordering my dog Hector to silence in an authoritative style, he being the only servant I had to attend my orders. The men approached me rather in a breathless state, from climbing the hill. The one was a tall thin man, of a fairish complexion, and pleasant intelligent features, seemingly approaching to forty, and the other a dark ungainly youth, of about eighteen, with a boardly frame, for his age, and strongly marked manly features-the very model of Burns, and exactly such a man: had they been the same age, it would not have been easy to distinguish one from the other. The eldest came up, and addressed me frankly, asking me if I was Mr. Harkness's shepherd, and if my name was James Hogg?-to both of which queries I answered cautiously in the affirmative; for I was afraid they were coming to look after me with an accusation regarding some of the lasses. The younger stood at a respectful distance, as if I had been the Duke of Queensberry, instead of a ragged servant lad, herding sheep. The other seized my hand, and said, 'Well, then, sir, I am glad to see you; there is not a man in Scotland whose hand I am prouder to hold.'

"I could not say a single word in answer to this address; but when he called me sir,' I looked down at my bare feet and ragged coat, to remind the man whom he was addressing. 'But,' he continued, my name is James Cunningham, a name unknown to you, though yours is not entirely so to meand this is my younger brother, Allan, the greatest admirer that you have on earth, and himself a young aspiring poet of some promise. You will be so kind as to excuse this intrusion of ours on your solitude; for, in truth, I could get no peace, either night or day, with Allan, till I consented to come and see you.' "I then stepped down the hill, to where Allan Cunningham still stood, with his weather-beaten cheek toward me; and, seizing his hard, brawny hand, I gave it a hearty shake, saying something as kind as I was able, and at the same time, I am sure, as stupid as it possibly could be. From that moment we were friends; for Allan has none of the proverbial Scottish caution about him he is all heart together, without reserve either of expression or manner: you at once see the unaffected benevolence, warmth of feeling, and firm independence of a man conscious of his own rectitude and mental energies. Young as he was, I had heard of his value, although slightly, and I think seen one or two of his juvenile pieces. Of an elder brother of his, Thomas Mounsey, I

had previously to that, conceived a very high idea; and I always marvel how he could possibly put his poetical vein under lock and key, as he did all at once; for he certainly then bade fair to be the first of Scottish bards.

“I had a small bothy upon the hill, in which I took my breakfast and dinner on wet days, and rested myself. It was so small, that we had to walk in on all-fours; and when we were in, we could not get up our heads any way but in a sitting posture. It was exactly my own length, and on the one side I had a bed of rushes, which served likewise as a seat. On this we all three sat down, and there we spent the whole afternoon; and, I am sure, a happier group of three never met on the hill of Queensberry. Allan brightened up prodigiously after he got into the dark bothy, repeating all his early pieces of poetry, and part of his brother's, to me. The two brothers partook heartily, and without reserve, of my scrip and bottle of sweet milk, and the elder Mr. Cunningham had a strong bottle with him—I have forgot whether it was brandy or rum, but I remember it was excessively good, and helped to keep up our spirits to a late hour. Thus began, at that bothy in the wilderness, a friendship and a mutual attachment between two aspiring Scottish peasants, over which the shadow of a cloud has never yet passed.

"From that day forward I failed not to improve my acquaintance with the Cunninghams. I visited them several times at Dalswinton, and never missed an opportunity of meeting with Allan when it was in my power to do so. I was astonished at the luxuriousness of his fancy; it was boundless, but it was the luxury of a rich garden overrun with rampant weeds. He was likewise then a great mannerist in expression, and no man could mistake his verses for those of any other man. I remember seeing some imitations of Ossian by him, which I thought exceedingly good, and it struck me that that style of composition was peculiarly fitted for his vast and fervent imagination.

"When Cromek's Nithsdale and Galloway Relics' came to my hand, I at once discerned the strains of my friend, and I cannot describe with what sensations of delight I first heard Mr. Morrison read the ‘Mermaid of Galloway,' while at every verse I kept naming the author. It had long been my fixed opinion, that if a person could once succeed in the genuine ballad style, his muse was adequate for any other; and after seeing Allan's strains in that work, I concluded that no man could calculate what he was capable of.

"I continued my asseverations to all my intimate friends, that Allan Cunningham was the author of all that was beautiful in the work. Gray, who had an attachment to Cromek, denied it positively, on his friend's authority. Grieve joined him. Morrison, I saw, had strong lurking suspicions, but then he stickled for the ancient genius of Galloway. When I went to Sir Walter Scott (then Mr. Scott), I found him decidedly of the same opinion a smyself, and he said he wished to God we had that valuable and original young man fairly out of Cromek's hands again.

"I next wrote a review of the work, in which I laid the saddle on the right horse, and sent it to Mr. Jeffrey; but, after retaining it some time, he returned it with a note, saying, that he had read over the article, and was convinced of the fraud which had been attempted to be played off on the public, but he did not think it worthy of exposure. I have the article and card by me to this day. "Mr. Cunningham's style of poetry is greatly changed of late for the better. I have never seen any style improved so much; it is free of all that crudeness and mannerism that once marked it so decidedly. Ile is now uniformly lively, serious, descriptive, or pathetic, as he changes his subject; but formerly he jumbled all these together, as in a boiling caldron, and, when once he began, it was impossible to calculate where or when he was going to end. If these reminiscences should meet his friendly eye, he will pardon them, on the score that they are the effusions of a heart that loves to dwell on some scenes of former days."(Autobiography of the Ettrick Shepherd, p. cxxx.)

We have allowed the Shepherd, in his gossiping way, to carry us off the stream of our narrative. It is now time to return, and follow up the facts of a chequered life in the order in which they occurred.

Love has made many a rhymer; but if love ever started a genuine poet, that poet was Allan Cunningham, for Allan's poetic sensibilities had their origin in all-controlling love. He thought, read, wrote what he felt, and burnt what he had written. He never could satisfy himself (a sign there was something in him), but wrote and tried his verses by the settled standard of received song, and then despaired. Burns, and Ramsay, and many of the old ballads, he had by heart, when Shakspeare and Milton were known to him only by name. Before these great treasures were opened up to him, he had been initiated a little into what he was to expect by the works of Thomson, Young, Akenside, and Dryden; but Shakspeare, he said, went far beyond all his expectations. "I read him on my way to my work, and you may guess how loth I was to leave a play for the hammer and the chisel of my trade. Shakspeare confirmed me in a desire to write naturally, and I was going on in a proper line till chance threw me in the way of Cowley's works, when I gave up all thoughts of ever becoming a poet. I read The Mistress' through and through, with an equal mixture of wonder and delight. After Cowley, I got Hudibras, (a treat indeed!) and then I made up my mind to the fact, that to be a great poet, I must first be a great scholar.' Such is the account of his first introduction to written literature, which, when we had the pleasure of meeting him at the table of his friend Mr. Hastie, we heard him relate with his own lips.

One of his purchases at this period was a quarto copy of the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," then an expensive book-some four-and-twenty shillingsand more than the poet's week's wages. "I never grudged the money," he has been heard to say. "If I had a meal in the day less for some time, or wore an old coat a little longer than usual, I was well repaid in mind. I shall never forget the impression the poem made upon me. Such vivacity, such vigour, such description! I know the poem nearly by heart, and I still love to read it and see it in print." "Marmion" followed; and Allan could no longer contain his admiration, but paid a visit to Edinburgh in the winter season, for the sole purpose of seeing Sir Walter, then Mr. Scott. He sought no introduction to the mighty minstrel, he thrust no volume of verse or supplicatory letter into his hands, but was content with seeing the man who had contributed so much to his happiness. "I have reason to remember Scott's house in North Castle-street," Mr. Cunningham wrote in 1829, "for various pilgrimages I made before it, with the hope of seeing the poet; and though I was gratified at last, I did not succeed till I had in a manner become acquainted with almost every stone which composed the front of the building. I did not know a soul in Edinburgh who could introduce me, or, rather, I had such a sense of my own unworthiness, as compared to so great a poet, that I did not desire an introduction, but strove to see him and peruse his face, without being put to the torture of conversation--I could have faced a battery sooner. On the second or third day of my pilgrimage, I had passed and repassed before the house several times, when, to my surprise, a lady looked out of a window in the adjoining house, and, calling me by name, desired a servant to open the door and let me in. This was a person of some consideration in my native place, who was residing there with her family, and to whom I was slightly known. 'I saw you,' she said, 'walking up and down, and thought you might as well spend your time here as waste it in the street.' 'I was not exactly wasting it,' I answered; I am come to Edinburgh to see Walter Scott, and, as he lives here, I hope to see him as he goes into his own house.' This is an affair of poetry, then, I find,' said the lady, with a smile; I cannot help you in it, for I have not the honour of his acquaintance, though his neighbour; but you shall see him, nevertheless, for this is about his time of coming home-and here he is!' What!' I said, 'that tall stalwart man with the staff in his hand, and 'The same, the same,' answered my friend, laying her hand on my arm- Speak softly. Why, I protest, he is coming here!' Scott passed his own door, walked up the steps of that in which I was, and announced himself with the knocker. He was instantly

admitted. He was in some poetic reverie or other, and had made a mistake. He no sooner saw the bonnets of three or four boys on the pegs where he was about to hang his hat, than he said, loud enough for us to hear him, Hey-day! here's owre mony bairns' bonnets for the house to be mine!' and, apologizing to the servant, withdrew hastily."

In the year 1808, he was still a mason, and a very skilful one, with wit and humour at will, a book in his pocket, a mass of stray reading, and a kind word for every one. A handier or readier mason never lifted tools, for he was indeed an adept in all the mysteries of his trade. His spare hours (they were very few) he dedicated to reading and writing. Ossian was then, as ever, an immense favourite, and his first attempts in verse were either in the manner of Ossian, or in imitation of the old ballads of his native land.

Iu 1809, Mr. Cromek, the engraver, visited Dumfries, collecting the socalled "Reliques of Robert Burns." He stayed some time in the town, and became, before he had been there long, the very intimate friend of Allan Cunningham. Cromek soon perceived the poetical turn of his new acquaintance, and asked to see such of his poems as he had by him. Fired by the fame he had achieved through the pages of the "Literary Recreations," in which a poem of his, "The Bard's Winter Night," appeared, Allan at once acceded to his friend's request, and set his poetic treasures before him. Cromek allowed many of them praise; they were good, he said, and above the common; but it so happened that at that time nothing was good in Cromek's eyes but what Burns had written, or what was old in the ballad strain. "Oh, man!" said Cromek, "if we could but get together a volume of old Nithsdale and Galloway song, our fortunes would be made; and we should stand together just as Percy does through his Reliques, and Scott through his Minstrelsy. Song is rife everywhere—and, man! you could easily collect a volume." Allan undertook to consider, and, indignant at Cromek's low commendation of his verse, determined to write in the old strain himself, and palm his own verses off on the credulous antiquary as the true remains of Nithsdale and Galloway song.

Cromek had not been long in London, and "Burns' Reliques" but a short time out, when Allan forwarded a small packet of old song to the house of the antiquary and engraver, in Newman-street, London. Cromek was all joy and gladness of heart upon perusal, and cried aloud, after the fashion of old Polyphemus

"More! give me more!-this is divine!"

More came, though in driblets, to prevent detection; till at last the volume appeared on the counter of Cadell and Davies, a goodly octavo, with the following title:"Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song; with Historical and Traditional Notices relative to the Manners and Customs of the Peasantry. Now first published by R. H. Cromek, F.A.S. Ed." 8vo, 1810.

The work made at once some stir. Bishop Percy pronounced the poems forgeries, affirming at the time that many of them were too good to be old. Hogg was all admiration, and anxiety, as we have seen, to lay bare the imposition. Scott expressed a wish to get so promising an author once more in the right path, while the reviews handled the work a little roughly, and Cromek acquired both notoriety and money.

66

a

In the meantime, and before the work appeared, Cromek had induced young Cunningham to try his fortunes in London. Allan, after some hesitation, set off for the south, and arrived in London the very day that Burdett was sent to the Tower-a young man of vigorous make, with a strong pair of hands, a trade to live by, and, as some one said of a fellow-countryman, good Scotch tongue in his head." But he had more than all this; he had a clear head, an honest heart, and a determination to do well-and he did do well. Young Cunningham, we are assured, stayed for some time in the house of Mr. Cromek, to assist in the publication of the volume; but when the work was out, Allan's time was out, his "services" were no longer of use, and he had