CUNNINGHAM

CUNNINGHAM, ALEXANDER, a celebrated critic and civilian, was the son of John Cunningham, minister of Cummock, in Ayrshire, and the owner of a small estate, named Block, and situated in the same county. He was

served heir to his father in the year 1677.¹ The time of his birth and the place of his education have not hitherto been ascertained. The earliest employment in which we find him engaged was that of tutor to Lord George Douglas, who was a younger son of the first duke of Queensberry, and died in the year 1693.² It was probably through the influence of this noble family that he was appointed professor of the civil law in the university of Edinburgh. In 1698 the Scottish parliament voted a salary of one hundred and fifty pounds sterling to Alexander Cunningham, as professor of the civil law, "nominat and designed to that profession." The act was to continue in force during the period of five years; and the same provision in his favour was, for the same period, renewed in 1704.³ On the 18th of October 1710, the magistrates of Edinburgh, without recognizing any former appointment, nominated James Craig professor of the civil law.⁴ He was a descendant of the famous Sir Thomas Craig, and is said to have filled his situation in a manner not unworthy of his ancestor.⁵ The city magistrates, regarding themselves as the proper patrons of the university, have always entertained the greatest jealousy of any interference on the part of the crown; and as Cunningham must have held a royal professorship, they would studiously decline to recognize his appointment. The payment of his salary must have ceased at the expiration of the second term of five years, that is, in 1709; and it was in the course of the ensuing year that the magistrates established another chair; nor is it superfluous to mention that this new foundation took place after the death of the duke of Queensberry, who had acted as her majesty's commissioner at the important crisis of the union.

So early as the year 1590, the judges, the magistrates, and the advocates and clerks to the signet, had raised a fund of £3000 for the endowment of a professorship of law in the university of Edinburgh; each of these three

parties contributing an equal portion. Adam Newton, an advocate, was first appointed to the office; but having neglected to obtain the approbation of the magistrates, he was dismissed in the year 1594. He afterwards procured better employment, and successively became tutor and secretary to Prince Henry.⁶ In the professorship he was succeeded by Hadrian Damman of Bisterveld, who was born in the neighbourhood of Ghent, and there was for some time employed in teaching the classics;⁷ he retained the chair for a few years, and was afterwards resident of the States-General at the court of Scotland. In the year 1597, after his resignation, the interest of one third of the sum formerly contributed was allotted for a professor of humanity, and the interest of the remainder for the maintenance of six exhibitioners. Newton and Damman had both taught humanity, without reading any public lectures on law.⁸ After the more recent foundation of a law-professorship, the resort of Scottish students to the foreign universities became somewhat less frequent, but the practice was never entirely discontinued; and of the present race of lawyers, several have studied at Leyden, Utrecht, and Göttingen.

It is highly probable that Cunningham had completed his academical course at Leyden or Utrecht.⁹ He had equally devoted his attention to the studies of philology and the civil law, which at that period were not very vigorously cultivated in his native country; and he at length fixed his residence in Holland, where those studies were prosecuted with uncommon ardour and success. A late writer has erroneously described him as an advocate: in the records of the faculty for that period, we find no advocate of the same name. He now settled at the Hague, where he appears to have resided during the remainder of his life; but we can discover no evidence of his having there taught "both the civil and canon laws." He apparently lived in Holland as a private gentleman, sup-

Cunningham. ported by the rent of his estate, and probably by an annuity from the noble family with which he had been connected. From a notice which occurs in a work of Best, published in the year 1707, it may perhaps be inferred that he was then residing in that country:¹ and a letter of Cuper, dated on the 12th of November 1709, mentions him as having been residing at the Hague.²

His edition of Horace made its appearance in the year 1721, but long before that period he enjoyed a very high reputation as a classical scholar. His notes are brief, and relate to the various readings; but he announced his intention of preparing another edition, illustrated with more copious annotations; and at the same time he published a separate volume, consisting of animadversions on the notes and emendations of Bentley, whose edition of Horace had been printed ten years before. To this volume, which displays much learning and sagacity, and evinces the author to have studied the art of criticism with uncommon assiduity and success, he has prefixed an address to Dr Bentley, whom he everywhere treats with much freedom, and even severity. Bentley was a man of great vigour of intellect, and of erudition not less accurate than extensive: of the Greek language he possessed a masterly knowledge; and he had studied the ancient metres with a degree of nicety unknown to former critics. His principal defect seems to have been a want of taste; for when he quits the mechanism and analogy of language, and the mere structure of verse, he cannot be regarded as a very safe guide in subjects of polite literature. His conjectural emendations, particularly of the Greek poets, often display singular felicity; but on some occasions they are chiefly remarkable for their audacity. Many of his rash conjectures on Horace are very successfully exposed by Cunningham. One of the emendations on which he seems to congratulate himself with most complacency, is the substitution of ter natos in the subsequent verse of the Art of Poetry:

Et male tornatos incudi reddere versus.

A reading more repugnant to every principle of taste could not easily have been devised; and yet his learned correspondent Grævius speaks of it in the following terms: "Eam qui videt et non probat, is in his litteris caecior est quam talpa. Quid enim torno cum incude?"³ Bentley professes to be offended with the incongruity of Horace's metaphor, and he asks the same question with Grævius; but he perceives no incongruity in an animal being produced at three births, and being moreover hammered upon an anvil. Cunningham, who was fully aware of this absurdity, has unnecessarily adopted the reading formatos, which appears somewhat flat. There is in reality no occasion for any change: when an artist has turned a piece of iron without being able to give it the shape or polish which he intended, he very naturally brings it back to the

anvil, and a second time prepares it for the lathe. The metaphor therefore which occurs in this passage, is at once consistent and expressive. The vanity and arrogance with which Bentley exercised his critical functions,⁴ are likewise exposed by this formidable antagonist. Cunningham appears to have been the friend of Le Clerc, and on that account he may have pointed his animadversions with more keenness.

Cunningham's animadversions excited no ordinary degree of attention, and he was acknowledged to be the most able of Bentley's critical antagonists. Jani, a recent editor of the odes of Horace, speaks of him in the following terms: "Omnium doctissime in hoc castigando versatus est Alexander Cuninghamius, vir summus et doctissimus, unus omnium qui in Horatium scripserunt criticorum princeps, ipsique Bentleio, si quid intelligo, anteferendus... Emendationes autem ejus fatendum est omnium doctissimas esse ac ingeniosissimas, saepe, si ad leges artis criticae executantur, pro unice veris lectionibus habendas. Sæpius tamen non minor in iis, quam in Bentleianis, audacia est, sed illa melior profecto aliorum indocta modestia."⁵ This estimate differs very widely from that of Wakefield, who styles Cunningham "ille criticus illaudabilis,"⁶ and repeatedly honours him with some of the peculiar graces of his elocution. Of his own character as a critic, the greatest of living scholars has pronounced no very favourable opinion.⁷ Klotz remarks that Sanadon has pilfered much from both Bentley and Cunningham.⁸

The Scottish critic appears to have been intimately connected with most of the eminent scholars and civilians who then flourished in Holland.⁹ In France he had several learned correspondents; and from a passage in his animadversions, it may be inferred that he was acquainted with Addison.¹⁰ Duker and various other critics mention him in friendly terms.¹¹ When Otto published his great collection of tracts on the civil law, he professed to have been chiefly indebted to Bynkershoek, Cunningham, and Brenkman. "Post virum illum primarium, alios quoque recedere juvat, qui re et iudicio suo hoc opus instruxerunt. Hos inter haud postremum locum obtinet Alexander Cuninghamus, et Henricus Brenkmannus, viri clarissimi, et optima fide de republica literaria pariter ac jurisprudentia merentes, qui repetitis deliberationibus ad delectum librorum institutis, adfuerunt, cognoscere cauti quid solidum crepet."¹² The chief labour of Cunningham's life was a critical edition of the Pandects, which however he did not live to publish. Of this long-meditated edition great expectations were formed. In a letter addressed to Cuper in the year 1709, Leibnitz, having mentioned his own project of remodelling the Pandects, expresses a wish to have his labours associated with those of Cunningham. "Nempe cuique auctoris libro sua redita sunt verba in Pandectas Justiniani relata. Tantum jam reliquum est, ut edantur haec Redigesta, sed sine ali-

quo cultu, itaque optandum foret emendationes ex Pandectis Florentinis accedere; et cum intellexerim Cunninghamum Scotum, doctrina et ingenio valentem, multum in constituendo textu laborasse, non video ubi melius emendationes vel collationes suas collocare posset.¹

Cunningham died in the year 1730. The auction of his library commenced on the 20th of November, and he may be supposed to have died some months before that period. His collection of books was very curious and valuable, particularly in the departments of philology and jurisprudence.² The printed catalogue describes it as a most splendid library, and mentions that the greater part of the books were in gilt vellum or calf. His real and personal property descended to his nephew, the Rev. George Logan, A. M., afterwards one of the ministers of Edinburgh. The estate of Block was at that time worth between fifty and sixty pounds a year, and may at present be worth five times as much. With respect to his papers, we find some information in a letter from Sir John Pringle to Forbes of Culloden.

"I wroto to Mr Logan of Dunbar, as I told you I would do, both in your name and mine, about his uncle Mr Cunningham's papers, and I have since had an evening's conversation with him; the sum of which was, that his uncle has not left one single scrape of any thing ready for the press, or even in any tolerable order. His notes on Horace are written on the margin of six volumes, whereof three are the text of Horace as he published it, and the other three are his animadversions on Bentley. The use of these I am promised again next week: the Lord have mercy on the patients till I have done with them! His notes on Phædrus are likewise only on the margins of two editions of Phædrus; but he thinks them fuller than the others, and is talking of giving them to Mr Ruddiman, if he will be at pains to put them in order and publish them. He has marginal notes upon several other authors, as Virgil, Statius, Quintilian, Cicero; any of which he offers to send me after I have done with Horace. His notes on the Corpus are larger than any of the rest, and not writt on the margin, as the rest. His copy of the Corpus is interleaved with clean paper; so that there is a leaf of written notes for every printed leaf. He told me the Advocates Library has applied to him to have it, but he has given the curators no answer as yet, nor did he seem determined when he spoke to me.—What will surprise you most is, that he has left nothing of his scheme of the Christian religion. Mr Logan told me he had inquired at him about it when he was in his perfect senses, but that he declared to him that he had never put it in writing, and that he would dictate it to him any day, for he had it all in his head, and that it could be contain'd in four or five sheets of paper; however, every day that Logan pressed him to do it, he found always some reason for shifting it, till he was incapable of doing any thing." This letter is dated at Edinburgh on the 13th of January 1731; and

on the 2d of February, he writes thus: "I have gott two volumes of Horace, with Cunningham's marginal notes; but the hand is so bad, and the lines so close on one another, that I have difficulty to make sense of them, tho' I perceive no sigla, or secret marks, among them. However, I design to give true pains, and you will see probably the fruit of my labours when you return."³

His speculations on the evidences of the Christian religion are mentioned in a letter from T. Burnet to Locke, dated at London on the 17th of March 1699. "I thought once of sending this packet with Mr Cunningham, who told me at my chambers some days ago he was to go out to you; but now, after waiting longer than his set time, I was resolved to delay no longer. I wish you would indulge him, before he leaves you, to piece together his proofs of the Christian religion, that the world may enjoy that light he hath so long promised."⁴

What became of the papers mentioned by Pringle, we have not been able to ascertain. In the Advocates Library there are copies of Vinnius's first edition of the Institutes, and Best's Ratio Emendandi Leges, with manuscript notes ascribed to Cunningham: they were presented in the year 1763 by David Clerk, M. D. the son of another physician to be afterwards mentioned. The greater part of the notes was apparently written by some other person. We subjoin a list of the publications which bear Cunningham's name.

1. Alexandri Cuningamii Animadversiones in Richardi Bentleii Notas et Emendationes ad Q. Horatium Flaccum. Hagæ Comitum, apud Thomam Jonsonium, 1721, 8vo.

2. Q. Horatii Flacci Poemata: ex antiquis codd. et certis observationibus emendavit, variasque scriptorum et impressorum lectiones adjecit Alexander Cuningamius. Hagæ Comitum, apud Thomam Jonsonium, 1721, 8vo.

3. P. Virgilii Maronis Bucolica, Georgica, et Æneis, ex recensione Alexandri Cuningamii Scoti, cujus emendationes subjiciuntur. Edinburgh, apud G. Hamilton et J. Balfour, 1743, 8vo.

4. Phædri Augusti Libertii Fabularum Æsopiarum libri quinque, ex emendatione Alexandri Cuningamii Scoti. Accedunt Publii Syri, et aliorum veterum Sententiae. Edinburgh, apud G. Hamilton et J. Balfour, Academiæ Typographos, 1757, 8vo.

Of this posthumous edition of Virgil, the preface was written by John Clerk, M. D.⁵ who is described as a physician of great learning and eminence, and of whom Dr Cullen has left an interesting account.⁶ He likewise published the edition of Phædrus,⁷ which contains a preface by the editor, but is without annotations. Some of the conjectural emendations are considered by Schwabe as too bold, and others as unnecessary.⁸ It appears from one of Drakenborch's letters to La Croze, that Cunningham had formed the design of attacking Bentley's edition of that poet, but finally abandoned it, lest he should interfere with a similar design of his friend Burman.⁹ (x.)