Allan Cunningham ended his literary life by preparing the “Memoirs” of his friend Sir David Wilkie.  Shortly before he undertook the work he had been prostrated by a stroke of paralysis, but on his partial recovery he proceeded with the memoirs, and the enfeebling effects of his attack may be traced in portions of the work.  Towards the close of his life Wilkie had made a journey to the East, had painted the Sultan at Constantinople, and afterwards made his way to Smyrna, Rhodes, Beyrout, Jaffa, and Jerusalem.  He returned through Egypt, and at Alexandria he embarked on board the Oriental steamship for England.  While at Alexandria, he had complained of illness, which increased, partly in consequence of his intense sickness at sea, and he died off Gibraltar on June 1, 1841, when his body was committed to the deep.  Turner’s splendid picture of the scene was one of Wilkie’s best memorials.  A review of Allan Cunningham’s work, by Mr. Lockhart, appeared in the Quarterly, No. 144.  Previous to its appearance he wrote to Mr. Murray as follows: 

Mr. Lockhart to John Murray.

February 25, 1843.

DEAR MURRAY,

I don’t know if you have read much of “The Life of Wilkie.”  All Cunningham’s part seems to be wretched, but in the “Italian and Spanish Journals and Letters” Wilkie shines out in a comparatively new character.  He is a very eloquent and, I fancy, a deep and instructive critic on painting; at all events, Vol. ii. is full of very high interest....  Is there anywhere a good criticism on the alteration that Wilkie’s style exhibited after his Italian and Spanish tours?  The general impression always was, and I suppose will always be, that the change was for the worse.  But it will be a nice piece of work to account for an unfortunate change being the result of travel and observation, which we now own to have produced such a stock of admirable theoretical disquisition on the principles of the Art.  I can see little to admire or like in the man Wilkie.  Some good homely Scotch kindness for kith and kin, and for some old friends too perhaps; but generally the character seems not to rise above the dull prudentialities of a decent man in awe of the world and the great, and awfully careful about No. 1.  No genuine enjoyment, save in study of Art, and getting money through that study.  He is a fellow that you can’t suppose ever to have been drunk or in love—­too much a Presbyterian Elder for either you or me.

Mr. Murray received a communication (December 16, 1841), from Mr. John Sterling, Carlyle’s friend, with whom he had had transactions on his own account.  “Not,” he said, “respecting his own literary affairs, but those of a friend.”  The friend was Mr. John Stuart Mill, son of the historian of British India.  He had completed his work on Logic, of which Mr. Sterling had the highest opinion.  He said it had been the “labour of many years of a singularly subtle, patient, and comprehensive