ALLAN CUNNINGHAM was born in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, December 7th, 1784, from a peasant family, and during his boyhood was apprenticed to a stone mason. He had the faculty of setting words to music so developed that some of the songs he wrote in his youth have a most exquisite melody. The same faculty appears in his prose—even where his critics pronounce it “too ambitious.” Leaving Scotland for London, he earned a living first as a stone worker in a sculptor’s studio and afterwards as a newspaper reporter and writer for London publishers. His “Songs of Scotland, Ancient and Modern” are still in print. His “Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters” afford examples of the best style of essay writing—that in which ideas are developed by the picturesque handling of fact and incident. His “Critical History of the Last Fifty Years” was greatly admired by Sir Walter Scott. In addition to his work as an editor he wrote numerous poems, sketches, and several novels. He died October 30th, 1842.