John Cunningham<\/b>
\n
<\/b>
\n(Born in Dublin in 1729; for many years connected with the North of<\/i>
\nEngland\u2014first as a Comedian at the Theatres of Alnwick, Darlington,<\/i>
\nDurham, Harrogate, Liverpool, Newcastle-on-Tyne, North Shields,<\/i>
\nScarborough, Stockton-on-Tees, Sunderland, Whitby, and York, and<\/i>
\nafterwards as a fellow-labourer with Mr. Slack on \u201cThe Newcastle<\/i>
\nChronicle,\u201d from its commencement, March 24th, 1764, to his Death,<\/i>
\nunder the hospitable roof of his Employer, Sept. 18th 1773,\u00c6 44.)<\/i>
\nI.
\nSweet is the Shepherd\u2019s pastoral Pipe, when blown
\nBy lips like thine: for Nature in repose
\nIs ever lovely. In fancy, at the close
\nOf day\u2014again at morn or noon\u2014I own
\nThy muse has led me oft to sylvan scenes, 5
\nThat cheered my soul, when I was forced to breathe
\nA poison\u2019d air, and almost sank beneath
\nThe effluvia all around me. Ways and means
\nTo mingle town and country more, to me
\nSeems practicable, and I hold the hope 10
\nThat Man with every evil yet will cope,
\nAnd learn to look on Nature like to thee.
\nBy many a \u201cPile of Ruins\u201d I have stood,
\nAnd mused with thee in true poetic mood.<\/p>\n
II.
\nThy \u201coaten reed\u201d has potent power to charm 15
\nThy heart attuned to Nature. Purity and Peace
\nLive in thy hymnings, and I will never cease
\nTo cherish righteous thoughts, and shield from harm
\nThy lovers of thy sweet and gentle Muse.
\nNo mawkish Swains and Shepherdesses gay, 20
\nFitter to flit in drawing-rooms, are they
\nWhom thou depicts in thy Arcadian views,
\nBut sterling Men and Women, such as live
\nAmidst green fields, tending their flocks and herds;
\nLoving the trees and flowers, and songs of birds, 25
\nAnd all the simple joys that such can give;
\nAnd when thou sings of dear Freemasonry,
\nThou proves thy theme one of true po\u00ebsy.<\/p>\n
George Markham Tweddell<\/b>
\n
<\/b>
\nNOTE ON JOHN CUNNINGHAM TOMB.<\/b>
\nIn The Freemasons\u2019 Magazine and Masonic Mirror, London,
\nDecember 3rd 1859, I wrote as follows:\u2014\u201cCan any Brother inform
\nme, When and Where John Cunningham, the Pastoral Poet, was
\nInitiated into Freemasonry, and what progress he made in the science?
\nThe date of his Initiation can not be earlier than 1750, in which he
\nbecame \u2018of the full age of twenty-one\u2019; and it will be some years
\nprevious to 1773, as on the 18th of September, in that year, he died.\u2014I
\nshould also be glad to know that the Mr. Slack, in conjunction with
\nwhom the Poet laboured to establish The Newcastle Chronicle, in
\n1764, was a brother Mason. It was to the humanity and benevolence of
\nMr. Slack that poor Bro. Cunningham owed all his subsistence in his
\nlatter days; it was under Mr. Slack\u2019s hospitable roof-tree that the Bard
\nwas nursed in his last illness, and it was there that he died; and it was
\nMr. Slack who erected that now dilapidated Monument over the
\nPoet\u2019s Grave, in the unpoetical-looking Churchyard of St. John, at
\nNewcastle-upon-Tyne,\u2014the future care and restoration of which
\nTomb I beg most fraternally to recommend to our Brethren of the
\nProvince of Northumberland\u201d. I was in hope that so wealthy a body
\nwould have generously responded to my appeal; but I might just have
\nwhistled to the wind. Perhaps they never read the only Masonic
\nPeriodical then published in England. In honouring the Poet, (even if
\nhe had not been a Brother of the Craft) they would have helped to
\nspread the pure principles of Freemasonry; and, if necessary, every
\ngood Brother would have freely given his mite, on the proposal having
\nbeen properly put before him. I am very sorry to see that an appeal has
\nbeen made to \u201cthe outer world who are not Freemasons,\u201d to do a
\ntrifling act of courtesy to the Tomb of one of the purest of Masonic
\nPoets after Twenty-Eight Years have elapsed since I humbly
\nattempted to have regarded as a sacred Masonic Duty, as well as a<\/p>\n
Privilege.<\/p>\n