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RUNCIMAN, ALEXANDER. 



RUNJEET SINGH. 



H 



Rumohr's last literary production was a preface to ' Kampf Demok- 

 ratischer und Aristokratischer Principien zu Anfang des sechszehnten 

 Jahrhunderts,' Liibeck, 1843. It is a translation from three papers 

 presented to him by Professor Altmeyer of Brussels. His ' Italienische 

 Forschungen' will remain as a monument of his judgment and industry 

 when probably nearly all his other works are forgotten. It is one of 

 the best documentary works in the literature of art, and at the same 

 time abounds in critical and theoretical reflections ; it is likewise a 

 work of great interest, though there may be different opinions about 

 the correctness of Rumohr's theories. The two first volumes are upon 

 modern art in Italy generally, from its origin to its decline in the 16th 

 century, which is distributed under fourteen distinct heads ; many 

 errors in Vasari are corrected; much obscurity of the 12th, 13th, 14th, 

 and 15th centuries is cleared up by authentic documents; and various 

 false notions concerning the development of art are dissipated by critical 

 reflections : the third volume is under two heads only, which treat 

 chiefly of Raffaelle and the architecture of the middle ages. 



RUNCIMAN, ALEXANDER, an eminent Scotch painter, was born 

 at Edinburgh in 1736. His father was an architect, and Runcimau, 

 who was brought up to the arts from his childhood, made coloured 

 sketches in the fields as early as his twelfth year. At the age of 

 fourteen he was placed in the studio of John and Robert Norris, John 

 being considered in his day a famous landscape-painter. When only 

 nineteen years of age he set up as an independent landscape-painter in 

 Edinburgh ; but he found, it seems, the people of Edinburgh, like 

 those of many other places, lavish of their praises but very cautious 

 in their purchases. This state of affairs continued for about five years, 

 when in 1760 he took to historical painting ; and though he had more 

 ability for this line of art, his fortune seems to have been very little if 

 at all improved. In 1766 he visited Italy, and at Rome made the 

 acquaintance of Fuseli. Their tastes in art were very similar : both 

 were absorbed by what is termed the sublime, and both were alike 

 wild and extravagant in their execution. Runciman remained five 

 years in Rome, and when he returned home he carried from Fuseli a 

 letter of introduction to a friend, in which was the following passage : 

 " I send this by the hands of Runciman, whom I am sure you will 

 like : he is one of the best of us here." 



He arrived at Edinburgh in 1771, a fortunate time for him, for 

 Pavillion, the director of the new academy of the arts which had been 

 established at -Edinburgh in 1760, had very recently died, and 

 Runciman was appointed to fill his place, with a salary of 120?. per 

 annum, then a sufficient income in Scotland. He was further fortunate 

 in finding two generous patrons in Sir J. Clerk, of Pennycuick, and 

 Robert Alexander, an Edinburgh merchant. The former employed 

 him on an extensive work at Pennycuick, suggested by himself the 

 decoration of the hall of that place with twelve great compositions 

 from Macpherson's ' Osaian.' The subjects are Ossian singing to 

 Malvina; the Valour of Oscar; the Death of Oscar; the Death of 

 Agandecca ; the Hunting of Catholda ; the Finding of Corban Cargloss ; 

 Qolchossa mourning over Lamderg ; Oina Morval ; Cormac attacking 

 the Spirit of the Waters ; the Death of Cormac ; Scandinavian Wizards 

 making Incantations ; and Fingal engaging the Spirit of Loda. The 

 picture of Agandecca is reckoned the best ; but as works of art they 

 are extravagant in treatment and in composition, and incorrect in 

 design. While engaged in this work, Runciman painted also 'The 

 Ascension ' on the ceiling over the altar of the episcopal chapel in the 

 Cowgate of Edinburgh. He painted also King Lear ; Andromeda ; 

 Nausicaa and her Nymphs surprised at the Water-Side by Ulysses ; 

 and Agrippina landing with the Ashes of Germanicus. 



Runciman visited London in 1772, and exhibited some pictures 

 there ; but all that is remembered of him, says Allan Cunningham, is 

 that he took up his quarters with the widow of Hogarth, who was 

 in those days reduced to let lodgings for subsistence. Runciman died 

 suddenly before his own door in West Nicholson-street, October 21, 

 1785, in his forty-ninth year. He had contracted an illness while 

 painting the Pennycuick cupola, being forced to lie much on his back, 

 and to this is attributed the shortness of his life. 



Runciman's best works are his sketches ; his faults are only multi- 

 plied in his pictures. The most offensive of his peculiarities of design 

 is his huge length and uniformity of limb, the glaring defect also of 

 the works of Fueeli ; he was also invariably extravagant, in his attitudes, 

 and was conventional, mannered, and unnatural in his draperies. In 

 execution he was least defective in his colouring, but in composition 

 he was ever ready, and his invention was bold and fertile. There are 

 a few etchings by him from his own designs : the best is considered to 

 be ' Sigismunda weeping over the Heart of Tancrcd.' He is said to 

 have been lively and agreeable in conversation : Hume, Robertson, 

 Lord Kames, and Monboddo were among his associates. 



*RUNEBERG, JOHAN LUDVIG, the most popular living poet 

 in the Swedish language, has never been in Sweden. He was born on 

 the 5th of February 1804, at Jakobstad in Finland, one of a numerous 

 family which his father, a sea-captain in poor circumstances, found a 

 difficulty in bringing up. Johan was sent to an uncle, a toll-collector, 

 at Uleaborg, where he heard so much on all sides of Franze'n 

 [FBANZEN] the Swedish poet, who was born there, that he was early 

 led to form a high notion of poetic fame. The death of his uncle 

 returned him on his father's hands at Jakobstad, and it was only by 

 a subscription of friends and neighbours that an opportunity was 



obtained of sending him to the school of Gamla Carleby. In 1822 he 

 Btudied at the University of Abo, he took his desrree in 1827, and in 

 1830 he became teacher of ./Esthetics at Helsingfors, to which place 

 the university had been transferred after the destruction of Abo by 

 fire. In 1837 he removed to the Gymnasium, or grammar-school, of 

 Borgo, in a somewhat similar capacity, and in 1842 he became the 

 teacher of Greek at Borgo, a post which we believe he still retains, 

 with, since 1844, the title of ' Professor.' Professor Runeberg, like 

 Professor Wilson of Edinburgh, is of tall stature and athletic make, 

 and fond of field sports ; he is considered the best fisherman as well as 

 the best poet in Finland. 



The literary position of Finland is very singular. Up to the year 

 1809, in which the 'Great Principality,' as it is called, belonged to 

 Sweden, it somewhat resembled that of Wales the Finnish language, 

 like the Welsh, being that of the lower, the Swedish, like the English, of 

 the upper and educated classes. The conquest of Finland by Russia in 

 1809 transferred the political allegiance of the Finlanders from Stock- 

 holm to St. Petersburg, and since that event there has been a marked 

 revival of the cultivation of the Finnish language, aa well as an intro- 

 duction to a certain extent of the Russian ; but Swedish still remains 

 in Finland the main language of science, of learning, and of literature, 

 its empire being shared however with Latin in the first two cases, 

 and with Finnish in the last. Franze"n, after the conquest, removed 

 to Sweden, and spent the rest of his life there ; Runeberg, who has 

 never been to Sweden, writes in Swedish only, and we have seen it 

 stated in a Swedish magazine that he is unable to hold a conversation 

 in Finnish. 



Runeberg's first poems appeared in 1830, and a collective edition of 

 them which was published at Orebro in 1851-52, occupies three 

 volumes. The first volume comprises ' Elgskyttarne,' (' The Elk- 

 shooters ') in nine cantos, ' Hanna,' in three cantos, and ' Nadeschda,' 

 in nine, three narrative poems, or tales in verse. The two first of these 

 tales, which are in hexameters, are of the same description as Voss's 

 'Luise ' in German, delineations of daily life, such as in English literature 

 have hitherto been successful only in prose a something resembling 

 the ' Vicar of Wakefield ' or ' Cranford ' in hexameters. Such poems 

 have an ethnological as well as a poetical value, throwing a strong 

 light on the peculiar manners and customs of the country they pourtray. 

 As a tale ' Nadeschda ' is considered more successful than the others ; 

 but, in this, the poet places his scene in Russia, and the interest lies 

 more in the narrative. The second volume commences with the most 

 original of Runeberg's poems, ' Fiinrik Stals Siigner,' (' The Stories of 

 Ensign Stal '), in which he tells in a singularly original and striking 

 manner and in a vein of the most fervent patriotism, a number of 

 anecdotes of the conquest of Finland in 1809, and the brave defence 

 of the Finlanders against the Russians when abandoned to their own 

 resources by the imbecility of Gustavus IV. of Sweden. The intro- 

 duction, in which the poet gives an account of his becoming acquainted 

 when a student with the old ensign from whom he had the tales, is 

 translated in verse in the 'History of Scandinavian Literature' by 

 the Howitts ; but, though the translation is on the whole a good one, 

 it is singular to remark how invariably some of the spirit of the 

 original is lost in every stanza. The other works of Runeberg were 

 originally published at Helsingfors or Borgo ; this first appeared at 

 Stockholm in 1849, and we do not observe that a promised continua- 

 tion has appeared, or that the book has been reprinted in Finland, 

 where the Russian authorities, which in 1841 assigned a yearly 

 pension of one thousand rubles to the poet from the Finnish 

 finances, must have been not a little startled at the tone and ten- 

 dency of his outburst. The rest of Runeberg's compositions are 

 of a shorter kind, comprising several amatory poems, and idyls of 

 remarkable beauty and tenderness, and a number of translations, 

 including ' Chevy Chace,' and many Servian ballads, all of which how- 

 ever Runeberg has transferred, not from the originals, but from 

 German versions. Many of these shorter poems are well rendered in 

 Howitt, and in an article in ' Household Words ; ' the general character 

 of the whole is very pleasing, and there are probably few living 

 foreign poets whose works would be more likely to become popular 

 in English. The last production of Runeberg is a volume entitled 

 ' Smarre Beriittelser ' (' Short Narratives '), published at Helsingfors 

 in 1854. King Oscar of Sweden named him in 1844 a knight of the 

 order of the North. Star, and Runeberg received on one occasion the 

 award of a poetical prize from the Swedish Academy. Nearly all of 

 his works have been translated into German. 



RUNJEET SINGH, MAHA RAJAH, chief of Lahore and Cash- 

 mere, and the founder of the Sikh empire, was born at Gfugaranwala, 

 sixty miles west of Lahore, on the 2nd of November 1780. The 

 natural interest attached to an energetic man, who ruled almost with- 

 out opposition for forty years over so many turbulent provinces, has 

 induced diligent inquiries to retrace the Maha Rajah's descent, for more 

 than two centuries. But his real history begins with his bold and 

 enterprising grandfather, Churruth Singh, who from a low condition 

 and a vagrant life, became master or sirdar of Sookur Chukeea, in the 

 Punjab. The son of Churruth, Maha Singh, extended his power, and 

 though he died before he was thirty, he had carried on a species of 

 warfare with his neighbours for about fourteen years, commanding at 

 one time, it is said, 60,000 horsemen. He captured Rusoolgur, in 

 1780, and his son and successor being born about the same time, Malm 



