truth. Be it so; we must be content with | Article lying as yet among the dim possisimple reality, the downright prose of tene- bilities of the Future, we shall once more ments unburnt and throats safe, until the conduct our readers— spell be cast upon us from some other region of Fancy, when in some unborn "To fresh fields and pastures new." From the British Quarterly Review. ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. Poems and Songs by Allan Cunningham, now first collected, with an Introduction and Notes. By PETER CUNNINGHAM. London: John Murray, 1845. THE late Allan Cunningham was one of tionable. But his lyrics in the mass must those men of genius, whose aspirings were unquestionably derived from their intense admiration of the muse of Robert Burns. That Cunningham lighted the torch of his poesy at that of the gifted ploughman of Ayrshire cannot be doubted; but we may add that, in our opinion, he is the brightest star of that galaxy of which Burns is the centre. Deriving much of his peculiar manner from a contemplation of the works of his great prototype, he is not an imitator in any servile sense of the word, but stands forth an original poet, upon the pedestal of his own fine and ardent intellect. Next to Cunningham, perhaps, comes the Ettrick Shepherd; but to the poetry of the former we must award the preference. There is, in almost every effort of Hogg, an inequality, and often a coarseness, from which the poems of Cunningham are free. As lyrists, both of them are far below their great leader, Burns; but such songs as Cunningham has written are better than those of Hogg. We may say the same of Cunningham's Ballads (a much inferior species of composition), most of which are exquisite, and will bear a comparison with the few ballads (proper) which Burns has written. We have already stated that with the exception of the exquisite Burns and the living Thomas Moore, neither Great Britain nor Ireland has produced a great song-writer. Before the time of Burns, the compositions that passed for songs in England, such as those of Carew, Suckling, Prior, &c., were merely elegant and witty, or prettily pointed copies of verses. The rest were mere insipidities moulded into metre, without one requisite of " song" but the name. Within the rigid line we have drawn, as to song-writers, we cannot admit Allan Cunningham. He has written a few real and beautiful lyrics; that is unques class as ballads and not as songs, exquisite as most of them are in poetry and in feeling. Allan Cunningham has fallen short as a lyrical writer, in the same way that other aspirants to this difficult species of writing have failed. He has not been sufficiently steeped in the music to which he ought to have written. In this lay the excellence of Burns. The air, with him, inspired the song. He "crooned" over it, until his inflammable soul caught fire; and in this way his inimitable lyrics had birth. The inspiration of Burns was through the ear. That of Moore is evidently the same. Other song-writers have written to the eye; and a set of verses written to the eye, no matter by whom, can only turn out to be a song by mere accident. The ballad is less difficult. It has less dependence upon its air. The union between the two is less intimate. The ballad-tune partakes more of the nature of a chant than of an air, and the ancient ones are all of one single strain. In ballad writing we are inclined to place Allan Cunningham in the van of Scotch poets. In this line he need not fear a comdone little, and he has done much. parison with Burns; for in this Burns has him, however, speak for himself. The admirable strains of the "Lord's Marie," and of "Bonnie Lady Anne," have been so often quoted, that we pass them over, as familiar to many of our readers. The following, however, which purports to be a relic of the times of" the Covenant," is less known. Thou hast sworn by thy God, my Jeannie, That thou wad aye be mine! Let "I' the very third lilt o' that sweet sang, The "young Cowehill" cannot resist the magic influence of the melody; and in spite of the warnings of his page, he hur "The morn-wind is sweet mang the beds o' new ries down to the shore, to see and speak to flow'rs, The wee birds sing kindly on hie, Our gude-man leans o'er his kail-yard dyke, And a blythe auld bodie is he. The book maun be ta'en when the carle comes hame, Wi' the holy psalmodie; And thou maun speak o' me to thy God, And I will speak o' thee!" This is a most touching and beautiful strain; but it is, perhaps, inferior to three simple stanzas that follow it: they are supposed to be the last words murmured by a child lost in the snow, ere its eyes are closed in the deep sleep of death by cold. "Gane were but the winter cauld, "Cauld's the snaw at my head, And cauld at my feet, The finger o' Death's at my een, Closing them to sleep. "Let nane tell my father Or my mither sae dear, I'll meet them baith in Heav'n At the spring o' the year." Here is a simple pathos never excelled; but of all Mr. Cunningham's lyrics, the most pre-eminently poetical is, perhaps, the "Mermaid o' Galloway." We hardly know anything in ballad with which to compare it. It is far superior to Scott's "Glennlas," and even more wildly fanciful than Hogg's "Kilmenie;" as a tale of unearthly terror, it may stand beside the "Ancient Mariner" of Coleridge. The story is as old as that of the sirens; but never was it so told. A young and ardent chieftain on the wild coasts of Galloway is lured by the strains, and next by the blandishments of a mer-maiden to a mysterious death. first hears her strain in the woods on a He the creature who can produce such strains. He finds a beautiful and artful woman in becomes a ready victim, newly wed as he is. appearance, and to her blandishments he "But first come take me 'neath the chin, "Sae first he kissed her dimpled chin; Like heather-hinnie sweet!" The fate of the rash and unfortunate youth is quickly sealed. Nothing can be more striking than the stanzas descriptive of the sad catastrophe. "She tied a link of her wet yellow hair Amang his curling haffet locks She knotted knurles three. "She weav'd owre his brow the white lilie, Wi' witch-knots mae than nine: 'Gif ye were seven times bridegroom owre, This night ye shall be mine." "O! twice he turn'd his sinking head, An twice he lifted his ee; O! twice he sought to loose the links Were knotted owre his bree." The remainder is soon told. The rash and erring "young Cowehill" is no more seen, and his young bride mourns in the bridal chamber. At the dead hour of midnight, "when night and morning meet,"— "There was a cheek touch'd that lady's, "O! cauld is thy hand, dear Willie; O! cauld, cauld is thy cheek; An wring these locks o' yellow hair Frae which the cauld drops dreep.' "O! seek anither bridegroom, Marie, the traitress, who sends him to his contrived doom. The ballad thus touchingly concludes: "O! cam ye by Brackley, An what saw ye there? There was mirth, there was feasting, As a rose bloom'd the lady And she feasted him there As she ne'er feasted lord, "There's grief in the cottage, And tears in the ha', The poet's youngest son, to whom we owe this publication of his father's poems and songs, has, we see, divided them into three series. We have first the ballads. Next the poems and miscellaneous verses. Last, and best, the songs. This distribution is a judicious one; but our young friend's success in the division has not been quite equal to his good sense in determining so to divide his matter. In sooth it was a difficult and delicate task; and, in our humble notion, some one or two of the effusions, classed as miscellaneous, might have been better classed amongst the ballads; such, for instance, as "Gordon of Brackley;" whilst others, perhaps, might take rank as songs; as why not the "Farewell to Dalswinton," through every stanza of which one feeling flows? The first-mentioned strain is, in our notion, one of the most spirited ballads ever achieved by the genius of the poet. It is full of fire; and we regret that our limits do not permit us to give the We now come to the songs, properly so whole of it. The story is a sad one. The called. As in a galaxy, it is by no means false spouse of "Gordon of Brackley" is be- easy to fix upon some bright particular loved by Inveraye, and returns his unlawful star," and award it the preference; so passion. The guilty pair contrive his death. where almost all is beautiful, selection is Inveraye comes before the gate of Brackley not easy. Of the songs which Cunningham Castle and insults Gordon, who, having a has thrown off, perhaps the finest are those slender retinue, hesitates to attack the well-relating to the sea and maritime adventure. attended traitor Inveraye; the ballad From the ocean and its changes, its waves ing thus:and its winds; its wildest frowns and most deceitful smiles; he seemed ever to derive inspiration. Throughout the entire range of his works, whether they be verse or prose, let him catch sight of the waste of waters, whether it be the Northmen's sea ploughed by the Danish " Vikings," or his own "Down Dee side came Inveraye 'Come, Gordon of Brackley, Proud Gordon, come down; A sword's at your threshold Mair sharp than your own!' open Gordon, who is almost alone, declines the challenge, until stung to madness by his treacherous partner. "Arise all my maidens Had I married a man. The generous chieftain, touched to the quick by this insidious appeal, rushes on his ate, having first kissed and taken leave of "Solway, white with foam, and sunshine, and seamews," แ (a line in itself transcendently descriptive), Wild as the waves such as that known by the style and title of THE PIRATE'S SONG. "O lady, come to the Indies with me, "A gallant ship and a boundless sea, A piping wind and the foe on our lee, "The Bourbon lilies wax wan as I sail; "Thy shining locks are worth Java's isle: This is a song in truth and in spirit. The sentiment of a reckless exultation in lawless power pervades every stanza, and breathes in almost every line. It is never overborne by description, the ordinary fault of ordinary attempts at this species of composition. The simple light-heartedness of the following is as different from the wild and reckless exultation of the first as gaiety is from madness. It reminds one of the beautiful pastoral of Burns, "Now westlin winds," and might be, and probably ought to be, affixed to the same air. "The lav'rock dried his wings i' the sun, Aboon the bearded barley, When a shepherd lad to my window came O are ye sleeping, my lovesome lass, "First I pat on my jupes o' green, And kilted my coaties rarely, "The sun he raise--an better raise; The wee lark sung--and higher sung He woo'd sae lang on the sunny-knowe side In pecially to that specimen of true Scotch ALLAN A MAUT. "Gude Allan a Maut lay on the rigg, Ane callen him bear, ane call'd him bigg; "Gude Allan a Maut grew green and rank, Such are the lyrics of Allan Cunningham; and we believe we shall meet with few dissentients when we say that they are the best of his poetical works. His longer poems, "Sir Marmaduke Maxwell" and the "Maid of Elvar," are each defective as a whole, although they embody passages of great poetical power and beauty. He wanted somewhat of the art of properly constructing and skilfully conducting a story, and hence both his longer poetical pieces and his novels lack an interest which all their other merits, and they are many, cannot give them. We learn from the modest and too brief Memoir of Mr. Peter Cunningham, the poet's youngest son,-to whom the public is indebted for this little volume, that his gifted parent was born at Blackwood, near Dumfries, in 1784. He was brought up to the trade of a stone-mason, but soon beAllan, with all his sentimentality and wild came distinguished for his remarkable poetry, had no small snatch of dry humor talents in the vicinity of the place of his in his composition, and, when he chose it, birth. Having been applied to by Mr. could be "a bit of a wag." Of this peril- Cromek, who was engaged in collecting reous gift one or two of the songs in this col- mains of ancient ballads of Ayrshire and lection afford proofs. We allude more es-Galloway, Mr. Cunningham soon furnished that gentleman with various specimens from dren. The profile which adorns the titleNithsdale and the dales of the adjoining page of the present volume is a striking county, which he took or affected to take likeness, as far as features are concerned. for genuine remains of Border poetry. His remarkably fine and brilliant or rather These Mr. Cromek published in a volume, lustrous eye is, however, wanting to comwith annotations, under the title of plete the portrait. Mr. Cunningham's "Relics of Nithsdale and Galloway Song." manners were simple and unaffected; his Amongst them are the Mermaid of Gallo- conversation racy, manly, and enthusiastic, way, Bonnie Lady Anne, Carlisle Yetts, when the topic excited him; nor was a the Lord's Marie, the Lass o' Prestonhill, snatch of dry, sarcastic humor wanting, and others of Cunningham's most exquisite when the occasion required it. We have ballads. Competent judges, however, speed- said that his Lyrics were written without ily detected the ruse," ingeniously as it sufficient reference to the musie to which was managed. Bishop Percy declared the they ought to be adapted; but we do not ballads too beautiful to be ancient. Sir mean to say that Allan Cunningham had Walter Scott shook his head in utter incre- not a high appreciation of the melodies of dulity. The Ettrick Shepherd pronounced his country. On the contrary, we have seen them at once to be the work of Cunning- the stirring appeal of some of those airs fill ham; and last, but not least, Professor his eye with unbidden dew, and enchain his Wilson asserted the truth in a critique pub- nature as by a spell of power. His sensilished in Blackwood's Magazine. When bilities were, however, more excited by the the fact became known, it at once estab- gentler and more pastoral than by the more lished the poet's fame as a man of genius: passionate of the old airs of Scotland; and, a character which his varied works have to the last, he preferred the airs of "Tweedconfirmed. For some time after the pub- side" and the "Bush aboon Traquair" to lication of the "Relics" by Cromek, the the deeper pathos of melodies such as author was employed by some of the Lon-"Gilderoy," or the spirit-stirring tones of don journals; but his latter years were passed in the service of Sir Francis Chantrey, an early and attached friend of the poet. Allan Cunningham died October the 20th, 1842, and was buried at the cemetery at Kensall-green, where his last resting-place is marked by a tomb of solid granite, erected by his wife and five surviving chil such strains as "Bruce's Address to his Troops." In truth his love of picturesque and romantic scenery was stronger than his love of pathos; and this is apparent in the finest of his effusions, some of which will live as long as Scotland has a literature or a name. From Tait's Magazine. THE TWO MILLIONAIRES. TRANSLATED FROM THE German of zsCHOKKE, BY SARAH FRY. THE readers of this Magazine will remem- "Besides Morn did not reject the world till the world rejected him." "That is, he was cheated by a few knaves, from whom no one in their senses would have expected anything else, and he did not find everybody ready to make prompt acknowledgment of his merits and services, some of them being, by the by, known only to those interested in concealing them." "Was he the only person who, because his situation was subordinate, has been obliged to submit in silence, while others engrossed the fruits of his labors? Right doing would be a mighty easy thing, if applause and profit were its certain rewards." These words produced a second dispute. Each defended his own views with warmth, if not with judgment; and the party separated more confirmed, or at least more obstinate, in their own opinion than ever. At the next weekly meeting at the Forest Concillor's, some of the disputants took up |