His chief studies were the grammatical 
construction of the English language and 
logic, while a love for argument and close 
He was, in his boyish days, a warm admirer 
of the works of our standard English writ- 
_ ers, and would peruse with the utmost at- 
- tention, the productions of the Immortal 
_ Bard, of Milton, Addison, Pope, Goldsmith, 
. and their contemporaries; to all which, 
his master, perceiving his assiduity, granted 
him free access in his own library. 
It was a remark often made by his school- 
fellows, and not unworthy of notice here, 
that whilst Richard’s brother, who evinced 
far less application to study of any de- 
scription, aspired, during his hours of re- 
creation, to the society of the elder boys, 
who were far advanced in the Greek and 
Latin Classics, as well asthe higher branches 
of Mathematics, and who walked and talked 
differently and separately from all others 
of the school, the subject of our memoir 
was uniformly to be observed in some snug 
corner of the ample play-ground, where 
mut amusement, not in tops, marbles, 
rige and such trifling matters, but in the 
ies rational exercise of playing Vil- 
~ Er hoolmaster. There he might be 
een, in the midst of a little circle, con- 
sting of a few lads of his own age, or 
a and about of his own standing, 
he had, by his agreeable manner, 
persuaded to 
"ed rad engaged between school- 
aec hap and listen with atten- 
ee Dokii oo from Shakespeare 
Which he oa : iani of each passage, 
No hc n s — with force and 
Ni pub! ded on one or other of 
be ioe A itors, to contribute some- 
he nsn = om respective readings, on 
garded ciet : bdsm of which, as re- 
Mim i; Fase nflection, emphasis, and 
na T he = the right of de- 
by ..en he would vary the scene, 
: y stg the school-ground Course of 
E NM ree citations into a de- 
d bie dir was then just advanced 
ight mas e year, end his great do- 
ite little discussions on sub- 
THE LATE MR. RICHARD CUNNINGHAM. 
quit the gambols in which. 
211 
jects within the grasp of his companions, 
whom he would adroitly lead into some 
fallacy, and then, in the warmth of their 
controversy, just before the school-bell 
again rang to recal them to study, he 
would step in, and in two words, point out 
the line of argument that should have been 
pursued in order to afford a satisfactory 
solution of the question. 
Now, how readily do we discern in this 
little anecdote of Richard Cunningham's 
ays at school, the dawning of that cast of 
mind in the mere boy, which so fully de- 
veloped itself afterwards in the full-grown 
man! To the truth of this fact, many of 
our readers, who may have been intimately 
acquainted with Mr. Cunningham during 
the last twenty years of his residence in 
England, can bear full and ample testimony. 
At the age of fifteen years, he entered 
the service of W. T. Aiton, Esq., at Ken- 
sington, who was then engaged in publish- 
ing a second edition of Hortus Kewensis, 
With that gentleman he continued as a 
clerk for nearly six years, until the whole 
of that long-looked-for work appeared, and 
an epitome of the same for the use of gar- 
deners, in one small 8vo. volume, was pub- 
lished. He then removed to the Royal 
Botanic Garden at Kew, and there, as an 
amanuensis attached to that establishment, 
almost wholly immured from the world, 
and cut off from personal intimacy with 
men of science, although known by name 
to many British and Continental Botanists, 
eighteen of the best years of his life were 
suffered to roll by! During nearly the 
whole of this time, his elder brother was 
labouring in New South Wales and else- 
where in the southern hemisphere, to ad- 
vance the Botanic, Geographic, and other 
Sciences. But that brother came home in 
the summer of 1831, and from that period 
the thread of the spell by which Mr. Rich- 
ard Cunningham had so long been bound 
to the King’s Garden, as a monk to his 
cloister or cell, may be said to have been - 
broken. | 
One of the earliest, and, it may be add- 
ed, one of the most earnest solicitudes of 
Mr. Allan Cunningham was to see his bro- 
