CUNNINGHAM, Allan, a poet and miscellaneous writer, was born of comparatively humble parentage, at Blackwood, Dumfriesshire, in 1784. Entering life as apprentice to a stone mason, he early displayed a promise of poetical talent, and happening to be introduced to the engraver Cromek, the editor of the "Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song," he undertook the collection of ballads for the work. He sent to Cromek, as genuine remains, his own imitations of the ancient ballad literature. These form the bulk of Cromek's work. The cheat was long unsuspected, but the sagacity of Bishop Percy, James Hogg, Walter Scott, and especially Professor Wilson (see Blackwood's Magazine, December 1819), ultimately demonstrated the imposition, much to the reputation of the real author.
Invited by Cromek to seek a higher sphere of fortune, he went to London in 1810. After a short period of employment with the sculptor Bubb, he devoted himself to newspaper reporting. This confining labour affected his health, and he was ultimately fortunate enough to obtain an engagement in Chantrey's studio. He became secretary or clerk of the works; and in this situation he continued till his death. Chantrey's gratitude to Cunningham's long and valuable services was displayed in his will. In this congenial position of comfort and independence, he enjoyed opportunities for the employment of his active pen, and for intercourse with men of kindred genius. His warm heart, his honest, energetic, upright, and earnest character, attracted the affectionate esteem and respect of all who enjoyed his acquaintance. He died at London in 1842.
Cunningham's poetry consists of songs, ballads, and kindred short pieces; a species of Epic, in Spenserian stanzas, "The Maid of Elvar," illustrative of Dumfriesshire scenery and society a few centuries ago; and "Sir Marmaduke Maxwell," a wild tumultuous collection of border superstition. His prose works include three novels, "Paul Jones," "Sir Michael Scott," and "Lord Roldan"; "Life of Burns," "Traditional Tales," "Lives of eminent British painters, sculptors, and architects," in Murray's Family Library; and he died in the act of finishing a "Life of Sir D. Wilkie." A very genial work of Cunningham is his "Songs of Scotland." He left, says his son, "some thirty volumes of works, and ample materials for perhaps ten more."
Cunningham's smaller poems are airy, natural, and intensely Scotch; vigorous, and even splendid in their higher moods, affectingly pathetic in their softer strains. His poetic wing was not formed, as the "Maid of Elvar" proves, for a long continued flight; the poem is weighed heavily down by its stanza and prolixity of description. Many of his "Tales" are pleasing, with a strong border relish about them, but
their features are often strained and violent. The same criticism is applicable to his novels, which are piles of glittering description, and exaggerated and unnatural characters, sufficient to furnish forth ornament for fifty fictions, and wonder for whole generations of boyhood. His judgment did not control the fervour of his genius, or corroborate the slenderness of his knowledge in the delineation of character, and the architecture of scenic combination. His critical power in the fine arts is directed in a great measure by his poetic faculty, and his reader feels that though he peruses a pleasing writer, he is undirected by an authoritative judge; nay, that his decision in the severer particularities of art and literature is the reflex of opinion derived from external sources. The cast of Cunningham's education and business in life necessarily prevented his learning on the subjects on which he writes from being minute and comprehensive. Hence he is too much inclined to generalize from isolated facts in history, and his conclusions are often felt to be wrought from too slender a thread of premises. But Cunningham is an eloquent and honest writer; and in the diffuse and brilliant stream of his style the reader forgets defects which are inexcusable only in the highest genius with the most unfettered opportunities.