VICAR JOHN WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM
“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John William Cunningha HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM JOHN WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM
1780
January 3, Monday: John William Cunningham was born at Stewarton, Ayrshire, Scotland. He would become Vicar of St Mary’s at Harrow on the Hill, Middlesex, England. He would acquire the nickname “Velvet Cunningham.” Frances Trollope would lampoon this evangelical minister, a member of the Clapham sect, in THE VICAR OF WREXHILL.
NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT
John William Cunningham “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM JOHN WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM
1802
After a private school education completed under the tutor Reverend H. Jowett of Little Dunham, Norfolk, John William Cunningham had matriculated at St John’s College of Cambridge University, where in this year he became 5th wrangler, was elected to a fellowship, and was ordained to the curacy of Ripley, Surrey. He would become curate to John Venn, vicar of Clapham, who was prominent in the Clapham Sect that centered upon the guidance of William Wilberforce.
William Wilberforce postponed a general abolition motion. RACE SLAVERY
LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John William Cunningha HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1805
July 30, Tuesday: Three days after arriving in Vienna, Luigi Cherubini conducted a performance of Les Deux Journées. The composer’s reputation had preceded him, several of his operas having already been performed in the city, and the day was a success with public and press.
At Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, England the Reverend John William Cunningham got married with Sophia Williams, daughter of Robert Williams of Moor Park, Surrey. The couple would produce: • 1802 (?) — Louisa Byren Cunningham at Hertford, Hertfordshire, England • 1806 — Sophia Noel Cunningham at Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, England (died as infant) • November 25, 1808 — Harriet Cunningham at Moor Park, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, England • 1811 — Charles Thornton Cunningham at Harrow, Middlesex, England • 1813 — Oliva Fanny Cunningham at Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, England • About 1815 — Mary Anne Cunningham at Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, England • 1816 — Francis Macaulay Cunningham at Harrow on the Hill, Middlesex, England • May 1, 1818 — John William Cunningham at Harrow on the Hill, Middlesex, England HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1810
The Reverend John William Cunningham’s A WORLD WITHOUT SOULS (Boston: Manning & Loring). From a partial index of college reading made in about 1836, we find that at one point or another college student David Henry Thoreau consulted this volume. A WORLD WITHOUT SOULS
DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.
John William Cunningham “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1811
The Reverend John William Cunningham became Vicar of St Mary’s at Harrow on the Hill, London, Harrow (a presentation which had been purchased for him by his father-in-law). Frances Trollope would lampoon him in THE VICAR OF WREXHILL.
CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT
John William Cunningham “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1814
Vicar John William Cunningham’s THE VELVET CUSHION (London: Printed for T. Cadell and W. Davies, Strand; by G. Sidney, Northumberland-street). “This wonderfully readable (and once very popular) novel tells the story of English church history from the viewpoint of a church cushion.” This publication would spawn two 1815 publications in which the Vicar would be assisted by John Styles, entitled A NEW COVERING TO THE VELVET CUSHION (London: Gale, Curtis, and Fenner) and THE LEGEND OF THE VELVET CUSHION: IN A SERIES OF LETTERS TO MY BROTHER JONATHAN, WHO LIVES IN THE COUNTRY (Printed by J. Dennett for Williams and Sons ...). The Vicar would acquire a nickname, “Velvet Cunningham.” VELVET CUNNINGHAM
WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF
John William Cunningham “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1821
Sophia Williams Cunningham, wife of the Reverend John William Cunningham, died at about the age of 45 at Harrow, England after having created a family of children. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1822
End of April: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Claire Clairmont desired that their illegitimate daughter Allegra be buried in the churchyard of St Mary’s at Harrow on the Hill, London, England. The aristocratic Anglicans of Harrow School were not opposed to this, and the evangelicals of the Clapham sect agreed with
this hidebound religious group that in order properly to safeguard the morals of the school’s scholar boys, there could be no tombstone. However, the Vicar, the Reverend John William Cunningham, then blundered into something strange by asking Byron’s friend Henry Drury, a tutor at Harrow School, to convey to the poet his compliments on the recently published CAIN: A MYSTERY. Drury was not discrete in his conversations and rumors about this obsequious behavior spread. Henry Drury’s friend Frances Trollope would create a satirical poem in which the good vicar for this blunder would be made to appear ridiculous. This sort of publicity would not help him one little bit in the ongoing struggle between his evangelical friends of the Clapham sect and the Anglicans who had set out to control Harrow School (and were well on their way to making themselves “high- church”).
THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John William Cunningha HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1827
July 24, Tuesday: The widower Vicar John William Cunningham remarried with Mary Calvert, a daughter of General Sir Harry Calvert, 1st Bt. and Caroline Hammersley. The couple would produce 3 additional children over and above the existing numerous children by the deceased 1st wife. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM JOHN WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM
1836
At Harvard College the Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, John Farrar, resigned his chair for reasons of health. Mrs. Eliza Ware Rotch Farrar would be beside her invalid husband both in Cambridge and abroad until his finally succumbing to this ailment, in 1853.
From a partial index of college reading made in about this year, we learn that at one point or another Harvard College undergraduate David Henry Thoreau had accessed Vicar John William Cunningham’s A WORLD WITHOUT SOULS (Boston: Manning & Loring, 1810). A WORLD WITHOUT SOULS
In about this year Thoreau cited his reading of Antoine Court de Gébelin, in “Miscellaneous Extracts.”
Mrs. Eliza Ware Rotch Farrar’s manual of advice for aspiring young ladies of the middle class, THE YOUNG LADY’S FRIEND (this would be being reprinted both in America and in England as late as 1880). Women, it seems, have a “peculiar calling,” and it is one the proper fulfilment of which required a great deal of cautious HDT WHAT? INDEX
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common sense.
Sit not with another in a place that is too narrow; read not out of the same book; let your eagerness to see anything induce you to place your head close to another person’s. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM JOHN WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM
1839
Three years after Christopher Wordsworth had become headmaster at Harrow School near London, Vicar John William Cunningham of St Mary’s at Harrow on the Hill opposed the building of a school chapel — lest the boys should become Papists.
THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John William Cunningha HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1851
The popularity of the aged Vicar John William Cunningham of St Mary’s at Harrow on the Hill, London, England, author of numerous hymns such as “As the sweet flower that scents the morn,” “Dear is the hallowed morn to me,” “From Calvary a cry was heard,” and “How cheering the thought, that the spirits in bliss,” was demonstrated by three successive Sunday worship services, at which there appeared congregations of 1,500, 750, and 750 worshipers.
The popularity of this Reverend’s hymns would persist for many decades: HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM JOHN WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM
September 30, Tuesday: John William Cunningham died. His parishioners would follow his funeral procession “like one great family mourning for a father.” A lychgate would be erected, to his memory.
Henry Thoreau surveyed the Acton/Concord boundary in the northwest part of Concord. This survey showed Damon’s Factory, farms of John Brown, John Hosmer, Joseph Derby, Harrington, Samuel Lees, as well as Fort Pond Brook, and roads to Stow, South Acton, and Main Street in the western part of Concord. According to the Concord Town Report for 1850-51, for perambulating the town line and erecting stones at Acton and Bedford lines he was paid a total of $18.00. Thoreau had already perambulated part of this area while checking Concord boundary markers on September 15th.
September 30, Tuesday: To Powder mills & set an intermediate boundstone on the new road there. Saw them making hoops for powder casks of alder & the sprouts of the white-birch which are red with whitish spots. How interesting it is to observe a particular use discovered in any material. I am pleased to find that the artizan has good reason for preferring one material to another for a particular purpose. I am pleased to learn that a man has detected any use in wood or stone or any material–or in other words its relation to man. The white ash has got its autumnal mulberry hue– What is the autumnal tint of the black ash– The former contrasts strongly with the other shade trees on the village streeet–the elms & buttonwoods–at this season– looking almost black at the first glance– The diffirent characters of the trees appear at this season when their leaves so to speak are ripe than at any other–than in the winter for instance when they are little remarkable– & almost uniformly grey or brown or in the spring & and summer when they are undistinguishably green. Now a red maple–an ash–a white birch–a populus grandidentata &c is distinguished almost as far as they are visible. It is with leaves as with fruits & woods–& animals & men–when they are mature their different characters appear. The sun has been obscured much of the day by passing clouds–but now at 5 Pm the sun comes out & by the very clear & brilliant light though the shadows begin to fall long from the trees, it is proved how remarkably clear or pure the atmosphere is– According to all accounts an hour of such a light would be something quite memorable in England. As the wood of an old Cremona its very fibre perchance harmoniously transposed & educated to resound HDT WHAT? INDEX
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melody has brought a great price–so methinks these telegraph posts should bear a great price with musical instrument makers– It is prepared to be the material of harps for ages to come, as it were put a soak in & seasoning in music. Saw a hornets nest on a tree over the road near the Powder Mills 30 or 40 feet high. Even the pearl–like the beautiful galls on the oaks–is said to be the production of diseaseas or rather obstruction–the fish covering as with a tear some rough obstruction that has got into his shell.
“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING, HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John William Cunningha HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM JOHN WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2014. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at
“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST
Prepared: June 23, 2014 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT
GENERATION HOTLINE
This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM JOHN WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM
Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.
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