sea as a cabin boy, on board of a Leith merchant ship, but soon after entered the royal navy. Before he was eighteen years of age, he, by good conduct and attention to his duties, raised himself to the position of second mate, in the Britannia, a vessel that traded to the Levant. The vessel was, however, soon after shipwrecked off Cape Colonna, as described in his poem; and Falconer returned to Edinburgh, where, in 1751, he published his first attempt at poetry, in the form of a monody on the death of Frederick, Prince of Wales. The choice of such a subject by a young friendless sailor, was as singular as is the depth of grief he describes in his poem.
In 1757 Falconer was promoted to the quarter-deck of the Ramilies, and being now in a superior situation for cultivating his taste for learning, he was an assiduous student. Three years afterwards he suffered a second shipwreck, as the Ramilies, while endeavoring to make the harbor of Plymouth, struck upon the shore; and out of a crew of seven hundred and thirty-four men, the poet and twenty-five others were all that escaped.
In 1762 Falconer published his great poem The Shipwreck, with a dedication to the Duke of York. The work was eminently successful, and his royal highness procured him the appointment of midshipman on board the Royal George, whence he was subsequently transferred to the Glory, a frigate of thirty-two guns, on board of which he held the situation of purser. The peace between England and France relieved him, for a short time, from active service, during which he resided in London, wrote an indifferent satire upon Wilkes, Churchill, and their associates, and compiled a valuable Marine Dictionary. In September, 1769, the poet again went to sea, sailing from England in the Aurora frigate, bound to India. The vessel reached the Cape of Good Hope the following December, but was afterwards lost in Mosambique Channel, and no 'tuneful Arion' escaped to commemorate the sad calamity.
'The Shipwreck' possesses the rare merit of being a pleasing and interesting poem, and, at the same time, a safe guide to practical seamen. Its nautical rules and directions are approved of by all naval officers. In his first edition the author merely described, in nautical phraseology and simple narrative, the melancholy disaster he had witnessed in connection with the loss of the Britannia. The characters of Albert, Rodmond, Palemon, and Anna, were added in a subsequent edition of the work. By choosing the shipwreck of the Britannia, Falconer imparted a train of the most interesting recollections and images to his poem. The wreck occurred off Cape Colonna, one of the fairest portions of the beautiful shores of Greece. 'In all Attica,' says Lord Byron, 'if we except Athens itself and Marathon, there is no scene more interesting than Cape Colonna. To the antiquary and artist, sixteen columns are an inexhaustible source of observation and design; to the philosopher, the supposed scene of some of Plato's conversations will not be unwelcome; and the traveller will be struck with the beauty of the prospect over 'isles that crown the Ægean deep;' but for an Englishman, Colonna has yet an additional interest, as the actual spot of
Falconer's shipwreck. Pallas and Plato are forgotten in the recollection of Falconer and Campbell
Here in the dead of night by Lonna's steep,
The seaman's cry was heard along the deep.
Falconer was not insensible to the charms of these historical and classic associations, and he was still more alive to the impressions of romantic scenery and genial climate.
In the delineation of character Falconer particularly excels. ters of his naval officers are finely discriminated. Albert, the commander, is brave, liberal, and just, with feeling softened and refined by domestic ties and superior associations: Rodmond, the next in rank, is coarse and boisterous, yet of a kind compassionate nature, as is evinced by the following striking incident:
And now,
while winged with ruin from on high,
Through the rent cloud the ragged lightnings fly,
A flash quick glancing on the nerves of light,
Struck the pale helmsman with eternal night:
Rodmond, who heard a piteous groan behind,
Touched with compassion, gazed upon the blind;
And while around his sad companions crowd,
He guides the unhappy victim to a shroud.
'Hie thee aloft, my gallant friend,' he cries,
'Thy only succour on the mast relies.'
Palemon, charged with the commerce,' is the lover of the poem, and his passion for Albert's daughter is drawn with truth and delicacy
'Twas genuine passion, Nature's eldest born.
The truthfulness of the whole poem is, indeed, one of its greatest attractions. We feel that it is a passage of real life; and even where the poet seems to violate the principles of taste and criticism, allowance is liberally made for the peculiar situation of the author, while he rivets our attention to the scenes of trial and distress which he so fortunately survived, and afterwards so vividly described.
With mournful look the seamen eyed the strand,
Where death's inexorable jaws expand;
Swift from their minds elapsed all dangers past,
As, dumb with terror, they beheld the last.
Now on the trembling shrouds, before, behind,
In mute suspense they mount into the wind.
The genius of the deep, on rapid wing,
The black eventful moment seemed to bring.
The fatal sisters, on the surge before,
Yoked their infernal horses to the prore.
The steersman now received their last command
To wheel the vessel sidelong to the strand.
Twelve sailors, on the foremast who depend,
High on the platform of the top ascend:
Fatal retreat! for while the plunging prow
Immerges headlong in the wave below,
Down-pressed by watery weight the bowsprit bends,
And from above the stem deep crashing rends.
Beneath her beak the floating ruins lie;
The foremast totters, unsustained on high;
And now the ship, fore-lifted by the sea,
Hurls the tall fabric backward o'er her lee:
While, in the general wreck, the faithful stay
Drags the main-topmast from its post away.
Flung from the mast, the seamen strive in vain
Through hostile floods their vessel to regain.
The waves they buffet, till, bereft of strength,
O'erpowered, they yield to cruel fate at length.
The hostile waters close around their head,
They sink forever, numbered with the dead!
Those who remain their fearful doom await,
Nor longer mourn their lost companions' fate.
The heart that bleeds with sorrows all its own,
Forgets the pangs of friendship to bemoan.
Albert and Rodmond and Palemon here,
With young Arion, on the mast appear;
Even they, amid the unspeakable distress,
In every look distracting thoughts confess;
In every vein the refluent blood congeals,
And every bosom fatal terror feels.
Inclosed with all the demons of the main,
They viewed the adjacent shore, but viewed in vain.
Such torments in the drear abodes of hell,
Where sad despair laments with rueful yell;
Such torments agonize the damned breast,
While fancy views the mansions of the blest.
For Heaven's sweet help their suppliant cries implore;
But Heaven, relentless, deigns to help no more!
And now, lashed on by destiny severe,
With horror fraught the dreadful scene drew near!
The ship hangs hovering on the verge of death,
Hell yawns, rocks rise, and breakers roar beneath!
In vain, alas! the sacred shades of yore,
Would arm the mind with philosophic lore;
In vain they'd teach us, at the latest breath,
To smile serene amid the pangs of death.
Even Zeno's self, and Epictetus old,
This fell abyss had shuddered to behold.
Had Socrates, for godlike virtue famed,
And wisest of the sons of men proclaimed,
Beheld this scene of frenzy and distress,
His soul had trembled to its last recess !
O yet confirm my heart, ye powers above,
This last tremendous shock of fate to prove!
The tottering frame of reason yet sustain !
Nor let this total ruin whirl my brain!
In vain the cords and axes were prepared,
For now the audacious seas insult the yard;
High o'er the ship they throw a horrid shade,
And o'er her burst, in terrible cascade.
Uplifted on the surge, to heaven she flies,
Her shattered top half buried in the skies,
Then headlong plunging thunders on the ground,
Earth groans, air trembles, and the deeps resound!
Her giant bulk the dread concussion feels,
And quivering with the wound, in torment reels;
So reels, convulsed with agonizing throes,
The bleeding bull beneath the murderer's blows.
Again she plunges; hark! a second shock
Tears her strong bottom on the marble rock!
Down on the vale of death, with dismal cries,
The fated victims shuddering roll their eyes
In wild despair; while yet another stroke,
With deep convulsion, rend the solid oak:
Till, like the mine, in whose infernal cell
The lurking demons of destruction dwell,
At length asunder torn her frame divides,
And crashing spreads in ruin o'er the tides.
O were it mine with tuneful Maro's art,
To wake to sympathy the feeling heart;
Like him the smooth and mournful verse to dress
In all the pomp of exquisite distress!
Then, too severely taught by cruel fate
To share in all the perils I relate,
Then night I with unrivalled strains deplore
The impervious horrors of a leeward shore.
As o'er the surf the bending mainmast hung,
Still on the rigging thirty seamen clung;
Some on a broken crag were struggling cast,
And there by oozy tangles grappled fast;
Awhile they bore the o'erwhelming billows' rage,
Unequal combat with their fate to wage;
Till all benumbed and feeble, they forego
Their slippery hold, and sink to shades below;
Some, from the main yard-arm impetuous thrown
On marble ridges, die without a groan;
Three with Palemon on their skill depend,
And from the wreck on oars and rafts descend;
Now on the mountain-wave on high they ride,
Then downward plunge beneath the involving tide;
Till one, who seems in agony to strive,
The whirling breakers heave on shore alive:
The rest a speedier end of anguish knew,
And pressed the stony beach-a lifeless crew!
Next, O unhappy chief! the eternal doom
Of heaven decreed thee to the briny tomb:
What scenes of misery torment thy view!
What painful struggles of thy dying crew!
Thy perished hopes all buried in the flood,
O'erspread with corses, red with human blood!
So pierced with anguish hoary Priam gazed,
When Troy's imperial domes in ruin blazed;
While he, severest sorrow doomed to feel,
Expired beneath the victor's murdering steel-
Thus with his helpless partners to the last,
Sad refuge! Albert grasps the floating mast.
His soul could yet sustain this mortal blow,
But droops, alas! beneath superior woe;
For now strong nature's sympathetic chain
Tugs at his yearning heart with powerful strain
His faithful wife, forever doomed to mourn
For him, alas! who never shall return;
To black adversity's approach exposed,
With want and hardships unforeseen inclosed;
His lovely daughter, left without a friend
Her innocence to succour and defend,
By youth and indigence set forth a prey
To lawless guilt, that flatters to betray-
While these reflections rack his feeling mind,
Rodmond, who hung beside, his grasp resigned,
And, as the tumbling waters o'er him rolled,
His outstretched arms the master's legs infold.
Sad Albert feels their dissolution near,
And strives in vain his fettered limbs to clear,
For death bids every clinching joint adhere.
All faint, to heaven he throws his dying eyes,
And 'Oh protect my wife and child,' he cries-
The gushing streams roll back the unfinished sound;
He gasps! and sinks amid the vast profound.
Cunningham, Scott, Bishop, and Lloyd, though poets of less genius than Falconer, were still writers of very considerable merit. Of their lives, with the exception of the last, little is known, and even that little does not involve much of deep interest.
JOHN CUNNINGHAM, the son of a wine-cooper, was born in Dublin, in 1728. He early became familiar with the stage, and at the age of seventeen produced a farce under the title of Love in a Mist, which was quite successful. He then joined Digges's company, at Edinburgh, with which he remained for several years. The latter part of his life was passed at the house of a 'generous printer,' who resided at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and by whose hospitality he was supported until his death, which occurred in 1773.
Cunningham's poems are full of pastoral simplicity and lyrical melody; and, as he aimed at nothing higher, he was uniformly successful. The following Pastoral is a gem of rare beauty :
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