Can any of your correspondents communicate information respecting a Mr. P.
Cunninghame, who was employed in the Heralds' Office in the years 1768-69,
and who appears to have left his situation there in order to enter the
church? Mr. Cunninghame, from a MS. volume of his letters now before me,
had friends and correspondents of the names of Towne, Dehane, Welsh,
Cockell, Bawdwen, Wainman, Haggard, Hammond, Neve, Gathorne, Innes, Connor,
&c., and relations of his own name resided at Deal. One of his letters is
addressed to his cousin, Captain George Cunninghame, General Majoribanks'
regiment, in garrison at Tournay, Flanders.
Two gentlemen of the names of Bigland and Heard (probably Sir Isaac Heard,
who died a few years since at a very advanced age) were his superiors in
the Heralds' Office at the time of his being there. A former possessor of
this MS. volume has written in it as follows; and so warm a tribute of
praise from a distinguished scholar and late member of this university, has
induced me to send you his remarks, and to make the inquiry suggested by
them.
"I esteem myself fortunate in having purchased this volume of letters,
which I met with in the shop of Mr. Robins, bookseller, at Winchester,
in January, 1808. They do credit to the head and the heart of the
author. He seems to have been a man whose imagination was lively, and
whose mind was capacious, as well as comprehensive. His remarks on
different subjects betray reading and reflection. His mental powers,
naturally vigorous, he appears to have cultivated and improved by as
much reading as his employments and his agitation of mind would allow.
I wish that he had committed to this volume some specimens of his
poetry, as it would have been more than mechanical, or partaking of
common-place, for he writes in a style at once vigorous, lively, and
elegant, and gives proofs of a correct taste. He had a manly spirit of
independence, a generous principle of benevolence and a prevailing
habit of piety. The first of these qualifications did not in him (as it
is too frequently apt to do) overleap the bounds of prudence, or the
still more binding ties of duty, as is exemplified in the excellent
letters to his father, and Mr. Dehane. It is to be hoped that he
entered into that profession from which he was so long and so
perversely excluded; a profession suited to his genius and inclination,
which would open an ample field for his benevolence, and which would
receive additional lustre from the example of so much virtue and so
much industry exerted in the cause of truth. It is to be hoped that he
gained that competence and retirement to which the wishes of the
interested reader must follow him, regretting that he knows not more of
a man, who, from those amiable dispositions and those eminent talents,
pourtrayed in this correspondence, would indeed--
'Allure to brighter worlds, and lead the way.'
R. F."