one of the four bailiwicks in Scotland; and one of the three into which the shire of Ayr is subdivided. It lies north-east of Kyle. It contains the sea-port towns of Irvine and Saltcoats.

Alexander, author of a History of Great Britain from the Revolution to the accession of George I. was born in the south of Scotland about the year 1654, in the regency of Oliver Cromwell. His father was minister at Ettrick, in the presbytery and shire of Selkirk. He was educated, as was the custom among the Scottish presbyterian gentlemen of those times, in Holland; where he imbibed his principles of government, and lived much with the English and Scots refugees at the Hague before the revolution, particularly with the earls of Argyle and Sunderland. He came over to England with the prince of Orange, and enjoyed the confidence and intimacy of many leading men among the whig party, that is, the friends and abettors of King William and the revolution. He was employed, at different times, in the character of a travelling companion or tutor; first, to the earl of Hyndford, and his brother Mr William Carmichael, solicitor-general, in the reign of Queen Anne, for Scotland; secondly, with the lord Lorne, afterwards so well known under the name of John duke of Argyle; and thirdly, with the lord viscount Lansdale. In his travels, we find him, at the German courts, in company with the celebrated Mr Joseph Addison, whose virtues he celebrates.

Lord Lorne, at the time he was under the tuition of Mr Cunningham, though not seventeen years of age, was colonel of a regiment, which his father, the earl of Argyle, had raised for his majesty's service in Flanders. Mr Cunningham's connection with the duke of Argyle, with whom he had the honour of maintaining an intimacy as long as he lived, together with the opportunities he enjoyed of learning, in his travels, what may be called military geography, naturally tended to qualify him for writing on military affairs.

Mr Cunningham, both when he travelled with the nobleman above mentioned, and on other occasions, was employed by the English ministry in transmitting secret intelligence to them on the most important subjects. He was also, on sundry occasions, employed by the generals of the confederate armies, to carry intelligence, and to make representations to the court of Britain. In Carstairs's State Papers, published by Dr Macormick, principal of the United College of St Andrew's, in 1774, there are two letters from our author, dated Paris the 22d and 26th of August 1701, giving an account of his conferences with the marquis de Torcy, the French minister, relative to the Scots trade with France. This commercial negotiation, from the tenor of Cunningham's letters compared with his history, appears to have been only the ostensible object of his attention: for he sent an exact account to King William, with whom he was personally acquainted, of the military preparations throughout all France.

Mr Cunningham's political friends, Argyle, Sunderland, Sir Robert Walpole, &c. on the accession of George I. sent him as British envoy to the republic of Venice. He arrived in that city in 1715; and continued there, in the character of resident, till the year 1720, when he returned again to London. He lived many years after, which he seems chiefly to have passed in a studious retirement. In 1735, he was visited in London by Lord Hyndford, by the direction of his lordship's father, to whom he had been tutor, when he appeared to be very old. He seems to have lived about two years after: for the body of an Alexander Cunningham lies interred in the vicar chancel of St Martin's church, who died in the 83d year of his age, on the 15th day of May 1735; and who was probably the same person.

His "History of Great Britain, from the revolution in 1688 to the accession of George I." was published in two volumes 4to, in 1787. It was written by Mr Cunningham in Latin, but was translated into English by the reverend William Thomson, L.L.D. The original manuscript came into the possession of the reverend Dr Hollingberry, archdeacon of Chichester, some of whose relations had been connected with the author. He communicated it to the earl of Hardwicke, and to the reverend Dr Douglas, now bishop of Carlisle, both of whom recommended the publication. In a short preface to the work, the archdeacon says, "My first design was to have produced it in the original; but knowing how few are sufficiently learned to understand, and how many are indisposed to read two quarto volumes in Latin, however interesting and entertaining the subject may be, I altered my purpose, and intended to have sent it into the world in a translation."