CUNEGO, DOMENICO. 



CUNNINGHAM, PETER, 



402 



establishment Dr. Cumming's published works are numerous, including 

 three volumes of discourses on the Book of Revelations, Daily Bible 

 Readings, and a variety of practical and devotional religious works. 

 Of the peculiar views developed in many of these works the reader is 

 left to form his own opinions. One of his published sermons, entitled 

 ' Salvation,' was preached by command before the Queen in the parish 

 church of Crathie, when her Majesty was residing at Balmoral. 



CUNE'GO, DOME'NICO, a distinguished Italian engraver, and one 

 of the best of the 18th century, waa born at Verona in 1727. He 

 commenced to study as a painter under Francesco Ferrari, but he 

 found engraving more suited to his taste, and at the age of eighteen 

 he adopted it as his profession. Being a correct draftsman, he was 

 enabled himself to make, from the pictures he engraved, the drawings 

 from which he worked. Cunego settled in Rome in 1761, where his 

 first works were a series of Roman ruins after Clerisseau, for the 

 Count Girolamo dal Pozzo. In 1773 Gavin Hamilton published his 

 ' Schola Italica,' of which the beet and the greater part of the plates 

 were engraved by Cunego. He engraved twenty-two, including the 

 three creations of the water, of the sun and the moon, and of Adam, 

 from the frescoes of Michel Angeio on the ceiling of the Sistine 

 Clmpel; 'La Fornarina' of Raflaelle, from the Barberini portrait; and 

 ' Galatea,' from the fresco of Raffaelle in the Farnesina. The others 

 are from Giorgione, Titian, the Caracci, Domenichino, Guido, and 

 other celebrated painters. 



In 1785 Cunego was invited to Berlin to superintend an Engraving 

 Institute (Kupfer-tich-Institute), which was established by a merchant 

 of the name of Pascal ; but after a trial of four years the undertaking 

 was abandoned, and Cunego returned in, 1789 to Rome. He however 

 executed a great many plates, chiefly portraits, during his sojourn in 

 Berlin, including several mezzotint and Hue portraits of Frederic II. 

 and the royal family of Prussia, after E. F. Cunningham, a Scotch 

 painter, then in repute at Berlin. Besides the works already men- 

 tioned, Cunego engraved eleven mythological subjects after Gavin 

 Hamilton, and numerous other works, religious and profane, after 

 various masters. He engraved also an outline of the great fresco of 

 the ' Last Judgment ' by Michel Angelo, in the Sistine Chapel. He 

 died at Rome in 1791. Cunego'g execution, as far as respects the 

 mere line, was not the most perfect ; but his style was light, elegant, 

 and correct ; and he wag perhaps the best historical engraver in Italy 

 of his immediate time, until he was surpassed in his later years by his 

 junior and rival Volpato. His two sons, Aloisi and Giuseppe, likewise 

 practised engraving with success. 



(Gandelliui, Pfolizie Istoriche degli Intagliatori, itc. ; Huber, Manuel 

 da Amateurt, etc. ; Qbthe, Winckelmann und tein Jahrkundert ; 

 Ticozzi, Diziionario degli Arckitetti, etc.) 



CUNITZ, MARIA, born at Schweulnitz, in Silesia, about the 

 beginning of the 17th century. She was remarkable, according to 

 report, for the great variety of her knowledge, but the only published 

 specimen is her ' Urania Propitia, five Tabulae Astronomicie,' 4c., 

 printed at Oels in 1G50, and at Frankfurt in 1651. This work was 

 composed in a Polish convent, the civil troubles having driven the 

 authoress from her country. It is an attempt to simplify the methods 

 derived from Kepler's laws, and in particular to avoid the use of loga- 

 rithms ; more remarkable from the circumstance of the writer being a 

 female than from any particular merit. 



The principal instructor of Maria Cunitz in astronomy was a 

 countryman of her own named Loewen, whom she married on the 

 death of her father. The preface and dedication of the tables were 

 written by him. She died at Pitechen in Silesia, probably after 1669. 



(Delambre, Aitron. Moderne ; Lalande, Bibliog. Attron. The latter 

 cites Desvignolee, BM. Germ., vol. iiL, and Scheibel, li'M. Attron., 

 pp. 861-378.) 



CUNNINGHAM, JOHN, the son of a Scotchman settled in Dublin 

 as a wine-merchant, was born there in 1729. An ill-judged passion 

 for the stage tempted him away from home at an early age. His father 

 afterwards became insolvent; and a pride not discreditable to him 

 forbade him to return and be a burden on bis family. Accordingly 

 he continued during his short life to pursue the precarious career of 

 an itinerant player. For a good many of his later years he was chiefly 

 employed at Kdinburgh and in the north of England, where his per- 

 sonal character was highly respected. He was the author of a farce 

 now quite unknown, and of several small volumes of poetry, chiefly 

 pastoral, whose sweetness has obtained for gome of them a corner in 

 popular collections, and entitles their author to a place in the list of 

 minor Bnigliah poets. 



CUNNINGHAM, ALLAN, was born at Blackwood in Dumfries- 

 shire, in 1785, of parents in humble circumstances, though not of 

 humble descent, -as one of his ancestors lost the family patrimony in 

 Ayrshire by taking the side of Montrose in the time of the Common- 

 wealth. "Ilia father," Bays Allan Cunningham, "was a man fond of 

 collecting all that was characteristic of his country;" an inquiry 

 which the son appears to have prosecuted, if not with more zeal, at 

 least with more effect. Young Allan was taken away from school at 

 the early age of eleven, and was bound to a stonemason. Hogg gives 

 u some account of Allan's appearance and character in early life in 

 hi* ' Kcmini?cence of Former Days.' He describes him at the age of 

 eighteen a " a dark ungainly youth, with a broadly frame for his age, 

 and strongly-marked manly features, the very model of Burns, and 



exactly such a man." Hogg continues, that young as Allan Cunning- 

 ham then was, he had heard of the name, and he thought he had seen 

 one or two of his juvenile pieces. 



In 1810 he came to London, and his name first appeared in print afc 

 the same time, as a contributor in the collection of Cromek's 'Remains 

 of Nithsdale and Galloway Song.' This collection, purporting to be 

 the Nithsdale and Galloway relics, was entirely recast and much of it 

 written by Allan Cunningham ; and Hogg states that when he first 

 saw the book he perceived at once the strains of Allan Cunningham, 

 especially in the ' Mermaid of Galloway,' from the peculiarity of his 

 style, which he had already noticed, and he adds that "Allan Cunning- 

 ham was the author of all that was beautiful in the work." 



For some time after his arrival in London, Allan Cunningham 

 maintained himself by reporting for newspapers, and contributing to 

 periodicals, especially the ' London Magazine,' to which he was one of 

 the principal supports. At a later period, the situation which he 

 obtained in Chantrey's studio, as foreman or principal assistant in 

 working the marble, and. for many years the confidential manager of 

 his extensive statuary establishment, enabled him to prosecute hia 

 literary taste without hazard. The following are his chief works : 

 ' Sir Marmaduke Maxwell,' a drama ; ' Paul Jones ' and ' Sir Michael 

 Scot,' novels ; ' Songs of Scotland, ancient and modern, with Intro- 

 duction and Notes, Historical and Critical, and Characters of the Lyric 

 Poets," 4 vols. 8vo, 1825; 'The Lives of the most eminent British 

 Painters, Sculptors, and Architects,' in Murray's 'Family Library,' 

 6 ?ols. 12mo, 1829-33; the Literary Illustrations to Major's 'Cabinet 

 Gallery of Pictures,' 1833-34; 'The Maid of Elvar,' a poem; 'Lord 

 RolHan,' a romance ; ' The Life of Burns ; ' and ' The Life of Sir 

 David Wilkie,' 3 vols. Svo, 1843, a posthumous publication. Allan 

 Cunningham died on the 5th of November 1842, aged fifty-seven. 



Allan Cunningham was highly valued by his literary contemporaries, 

 and especially so by Sir Walter Scott. Hogg, after recounting his 

 first meeting with him, says, "I never missed an opportunity of 

 meeting with Allan when it wag in my power to do BO. 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." His "style of poetry is greatly 

 changed of late for the better. I have never seen any style improved 

 BO much. It is free of all that erudeness and mannerism that once 

 marked it so decidedly. He is now uniformly lively, serious, descrip- 

 tive, or pathetic, as he changes his subject ; but formerly he jumbled 

 all these together, as in a boiling cauldron, and when once he begau 

 it was impossible to calculate where or when he was goiug to end." 



Allan Cunningham's 'Lives of the Painters' was a very popular 

 work. It contains memoirs of Hogarth, Wilson, Reynolds, Gains- 

 borough, West, Barry, Blake, Opie, Morland, Bird, Fuseli, Jamesone, 

 Ramsay, Romney, Kunciman, Copley, Mortimer, Raeburn, Hoppner, 

 Owen, Harlow, Bonington, Cosway, Allan, Northcote, Sir G. Beau- 

 mont, Lawrence, Jackson, Liverseege, and James Burnet, painters ; of 

 Gibbons, Gibber, Roubiliac, Wilton, Banks, Nollekens, Bacon, Mrs. 

 Duiner, and Flaxman, sculptors; and of William of Wykeham, Inigo 

 Jones, Wren, Vanbrugh, Gtbbs, Kent, Earl of Burlington, and Sir W. 

 Chambers, architects. It is written in an easy, fluent, and forcible 

 style. The less satisfactory lives are those of West, Blake, Bird, 

 Fuseli, Jamesone, Cosway, Northcote, Wilton, and Bacon ; in some of 

 these there is the occasional appearance of a spirit of critical severity, 

 remarkable in a man of great kindness of disposition. 



CUNNINGHAM, PETER, the eldest son of Allan Cunningham, 

 was born in Pimlico, April 7, 1816. He was educated at a private 

 school, and when only eighteen years of ae he entered the public 

 service as a junior clerk in the Audit Office, a situation bestowed 

 upon him by Sir Robert Peel as a tribute to the merits of his father. 

 The duties of his office were so efficiently fulfilled as to occasion his 

 promotion in 1854 to one of the chief clerkships. Mr. P. Cunningham 

 commenced his literary career before entering office by the publication 

 in 1833 of 'The Life of Drummond of Hawthornden.' This was 

 followed in 1835 by 'Songs of England and Scotland,' in 2 vols. ; and 

 in 1841 by a new edition of Campbell's 'Specimens of the British 

 Poets,' with additions, in 1 vol. In 1849 his 'Handbook of London' 

 was published, in 2 vols. ; and a second edition with additions and 

 corrections, in 1 vol., in 1850. This work, though condensed in ita 

 descriptions, is fuller of valuable information founded upon extensive 

 research than many works far more voluminous. But, at the same 

 time, it is not a dry catalogue of places and persons; it abounds in 

 brief but valuable anecdotes that illustrate political and literary 

 history, and present curious pictures of manners. For these we are 

 always referred to authorities, with precise dates. No topographical 

 work was ever compiled with greater care. Mr. Cunningham has also 

 edited, for Mr. Murray's ' Library of British Classics,' the ' Works of 

 Oliver Goldsmith,' in 4 vols., 1854; and 'Johnson's Lives of the Poets,' 

 with additional lives, in 3 vols., 1854. 



Mr. Cunningham has, in addition to being a contributor to many 

 periodical works ' Fraser'a Magazine,' 'Household Words,' the 

 ' Athenceum,' the ' Illustrated News,' &o. &c. written the following 



