DRUMMOND

DRUMMOND, WILLIAM, was born at Hawthornden on the 13th of December 1585. His father was Sir John Drummond, descended from the family of Carnock, a branch of the more illustrious family of Stobhall, from which the king derives his remote lineage through Anabella Drummond, the mother of James the First. The poet's mother was Anne the daughter of William Fowler; and she is described as "a woman of excellent breeding, and of a good and virtuous life." William was the eldest of four sons, and there were three daughters by the same marriage. The earlier part of his education he received at the High School of Edinburgh, where he began to distinguish himself by the superiority of his talents; and being afterwards removed to the university, which was then a very recent institution, he took the degree of A. M. in the year 1605. We are particularly informed that he did not confine his attention to the metaphysical learning commonly taught in the schools, but likewise applied himself to the study of mathematics and of ancient authors. During the following year, his father sent him to complete his education in France; and in the university of Bourges he is said to have devoted himself with great assiduity and success to the study of the civil law; a study necessary to a lawyer, and useful to a scholar. After an absence of four years, he returned to his native country in 1610; and his friends now expected that he would devote himself to the practice of a lucrative profession, for which he seemed eminently qualified by his talents and learning.¹ The bar must however have presented very few attractions to a youth of his elegant taste and delicate sensibility: the municipal law was then but a dreary path, beset with thorns which never blossomed; and, what was particularly discouraging, there was not a single elementary book, there were no institutions of our law, from which a young student could derive a comprehensive knowledge of those principles which were afterwards to direct his practice. His systematic doctrines were indeed to a great extent borrowed from the ancient civilians, and the study of the civil law was generally prosecuted in some foreign university; but, besides an indispensable attendance in the courts, his final preparation for the practice of his profession consisted in reading the statute law, and such collections of maxims and reports as were then circulated in manuscript. Nor was Drummond compelled by any domestic considerations to overcome his repugnance: he was beyond the reach of that original impulse which has directed many a lawyer to reputation and emolument; for, about the period of his return from the continent, the death of his father left him in possession of an estate sufficient to maintain him in the liberal style of a gentleman.

Drummond. He now retired to his family residence at Hawthornden, six miles from Edinburgh, and resumed the study of the Greek and Latin classics. The immediate vicinity presents an air of such romantic beauty, that a poet could scarcely have found a more suitable habitation: his house is erected on the edge of a woody cliff which overhangs the river Esk; and at one extremity of the variegated and sequestered glen stand the ruins of the baronial castle and the collegiate church of Roslin. The ancient caves of Hawthornden, and the adjacent moor of Roslin, where Comyn and Fraser gained a signal victory over the English, have likewise their peculiar effect in impressing the imagination. Near the poet's house is a seat hewn in the solid rock, and still described by the name of the Cypress-grove; a name which it obtained from the circumstance of his having frequented this spot when engaged in the composition of a work which bears that title.

Here Damon 'sat' whose songs did sometime grace
The murmuring Esk; may roses shade the place.

In this delightful seclusion he devoted himself to the general improvement of his mind, and to the occasional exercise of his fine talents; and many of his poems appear to have been composed about this period of his life.¹ He chiefly cultivated the familiarity of the university men, and other individuals of genius and learning: among his own countrymen, he enjoyed the particular friendship of the earl of Stirling, the earl of Ancrum, Arthur Johnston, and John Adamson; and among the English poets, his greatest intimacy and correspondence was with Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton. The grandfather of Jonson was originally from Annandale, where Johnstone is still a very prevalent name. In the year 1619, when this celebrated poet had attained the age of forty-five, he travelled from London on foot, for the express purpose of paying Drummond a visit; and at Hawthornden he spent three or four weeks with every appearance of satisfaction.² The heads of some of Jonson's conversations on subjects of literature, together with his own impressions of Jonson's character, he committed to writing, with the manifest intention of occasionally referring to this as a private record: many years after his death, this paper was communicated to the public, apparently in a somewhat mutilated form; and as it does not represent his distinguished guest as altogether faultless, the amiable and esteemed writer has incurred the virulent and unmeasured censure of Mr Gifford, the late editor of Jonson's works.³ If Drummond had resembled some more recent authors, who have violated all the decencies of private life by ministering to the gross appetite of the public with ridiculous or disparaging tales of their friends and acquaintance, the justice of this strong condemnation could not safely have been disputed; but what person of ordinary can-

dour will thus censure an act which, to all human appearance, was entirely unconnected with malevolent or ungenerous motives?

The poet's tranquillity was exposed to a severe interruption from the unfortunate issue of his first love. He became deeply enamoured of a beautiful young lady, the daughter of Cunningham of Barns; he met with a suitable return, and a day was fixed for their nuptials, but before that day arrived, her life was terminated by a rapid fever. Such an event as this, which would have affected a lover of the most ordinary sensibility, could not but sink deeply into the heart of one who had assiduously cherished the softer feelings, and whose habits of seclusion were so directly calculated to preserve a lasting impression of melancholy. He was so overwhelmed with grief that he found it necessary to try the effect of a change of objects; and he accordingly retired to the continent, where he spent about eight years. His longest residence was at Paris and Rome; but he travelled through France, Germany, and Italy, visited the most celebrated universities, and conversed with men of learning. In the course of his peregrinations, he is said to have formed an excellent collection, not only of the ancient classics, but likewise of the best writers in the French, Italian, and Spanish languages. He presented to the university of Edinburgh a collection of books and manuscripts, of which he printed a catalogue in the year 1627, prefixing to it an appropriate preface written in Latin. Of this well-known collection, the value, that is, the extrinsic or pecuniary value, which was far from being inconsiderable at first, has been immensely increased by the lapse of two centuries. It contains many Scottish and English publications of singular rarity. When Drummond returned to Scotland, he found his countrymen divided by fears and animosities. He now spent some time at the residence of his brother-in-law Sir John Scot of Scotstarvet, a learned man, and an encourager of learning. Having continued in a state of celibacy till the age of forty-seven, he in 1632 married Elizabeth Logan; a lady in whom he traced a strong resemblance to his first mistress. She is commonly represented as the grand-daughter of Sir Robert Logan of Restalrig; but, according to Hay, her father, who was altogether unconnected with that family, was minister of Edleston in the county of Peebles, and her mother was the daughter of a shepherd.⁴ Of this marriage there were five sons and four daughters. John, the eldest son, died in his youth; William was knighted by Charles the Second, and lived to an advanced age.⁵ Robert was married, but died about the age of forty without children; the two youngest, Richard and James, died in their infancy. The eldest daughter Elizabeth was married to Dr Henryson, an eminent physician in Edinburgh;⁶ but the other three, Margaret, Anabella, and Jane, died very young.⁷ The father was a decided

Then will I dress once more the faded lower,
Where Jonson sat in Drummond's classic shade.

COLLINS'S ODE TO JOHN HOME.

cavalier, and wielded his pen, though not his sword, in the king's service; and being reputed a malignant, he was exposed to some of the usual molestations of those unhappy times. The tragical fate of his sovereign is said to have hastened his own dissolution: we are informed by Bishop Sage that Drummond, being weakened by hard study and disease, was so overwhelmed with extreme grief and anguish that he died on the 4th of December 1649.¹ But as the king was executed on the 30th of January, an interval of more than ten months must have occurred between his death and that of his faithful subject; an interval so long as to render the biographer's inference somewhat questionable. He had nearly completed the sixty-fourth year of his age. His remains were interred in the church of Lasswade, which stands at the distance of about a mile from Hawthornden. He appears through life to have maintained a character of uniform respectability; uniting with his other qualities that of consistent piety, and blending morality with his devotion. His death was affectionately lamented by his friend Colonel Lauder of Hatton, who has left several other specimens of his poetical talents, and who was not the only Scottish soldier of this period that evinced his love of the Muses.

Drummond was evidently a man of superior talents and accomplishments. We are informed that he was familiarly acquainted with the best Greek and Latin authors; his long residence on the continent afforded him an excellent opportunity of acquiring a knowledge of the living languages; and he is said to have spoken French, Italian, and Spanish, as fluently as his native tongue. To his graver qualifications he added no mean proficiency in music; and he occasionally sought a relaxation from his studies by playing on the lute, "which he did to admiration." He seems to have devoted a considerable portion of his time to the invention or improvement of various instruments and machines, applicable to various purposes of peace or war. They are curiously enumerated, to the extent of sixteen, in a patent which he obtained in the year 1627, and which secured to him the sole right and property within the kingdom of Scotland for the space of twenty-one years.²

His literary productions exhibit considerable variety. His compositions in prose chiefly consist of the Cypress Grove, some political tracts, and the History of the five Jameses; a work which embraces the history of Scotland from 1423 to 1542.³ "The best of Drummond's prose works," says Mr Headley, "is his Cypress Grove, which, though quaint in its style, is worth reading for its vein of dignified morality." His history, which has alternately been the object of extravagant commendation and unsparing censure, cannot now be regarded as a work of much value or interest: the author's materials are not generally drawn from recondite sources, and his manner is too rhetorical. For the reputation which he still retains, Drummond is chiefly indebted, not to his historical, but to his poetical excellence; and, in the opinion of competent judges, he is entitled to a distinguished place among the English poets of that age. As few of his poems extend to a considerable length, his genius cannot be esti-

mated by the success of any great and continued effort; but notwithstanding the shortness of his flights, he generally soars on bright and steady wings. He is conspicuous for his delicate sensibility and warmth of fancy; and with these qualities, so essential in an amatory poet, he unites uncommon skill in versification. His taste seems in a great measure to have been formed upon the Italian model, nor are his compositions entirely free from Italian conceits; but he commonly maintains a degree of elegant simplicity to which few English poets of that age have attained.

The reputation which Drummond enjoyed during his life, appears to have suffered some diminution after his death. He was a gentleman, says Edward Phillips, "who imitating the Italian manner of versifying, vented his amours in sonnets, canzonets, and madrigals, and, to my thinking, in a style sufficiently smooth and delightful; and therefore why so utterly disregarded and laid aside at present, I leave to the more curious palati in poetry."⁴ After an interval of more than a century, the same complaint of unmerited neglect was repeated by Mr Headley. "Without ostentatious praise (which is always to be suspected), it is but truth to observe that many of his sonnets, those more especially which are divested of Italian conceits, resemble the best Greek epigrams in their best taste, in that exquisite delicacy of sentiment, and simplicity of expression, for which our language has no single term, but which is known to all classical readers by the word ἀφελία. It is in vain we lament the fate of many of our poets, who have undeservedly fallen victims to a premature oblivion, when the finished productions of this man are little known and still less read."⁵

Drummond's sonnets form a very considerable proportion of his poetical works. The following four may be selected as a specimen of the entire collection; and they are here exhibited in modern orthography.

I know that all beneath the moon decays,
And what by mortals in this world is brought,
In Time's great periods shall return to nought;
That fairest states have fatal nights and days:
I know how all the Muse's heavenly lays,
With toil of spright which are so dearly bought,
As idle sounds, of few or none are sought,
And that nought lighter is than airy praise:
I know frail beauty like the purple flower,
To which one morn oft birth and death affords;
That love a jarring is of minds' accords,
When sense and will invassal reason's power.
Know what I list, this all cannot me move
But that, O me! I both must write and love.

With flaming horns the Bull now brings the year,
Melt do the horrid mountains' helms of snow,
The silver floods in pearly channels flow,
The late-bare woods green anndems do wear:
The nightingale, forgetting winter's woe,
Calls up the lazy morn her notes to hear:
Those flowers are spread which names of princes bear,
Some red, some azure, white, and golden grow.
Here lies a helper, there bewailing strays
A harmless lamb, not far a stag rebounds;
The shepherds sing to grazing flocks sweet lays,
And all about the echoing air resounds.

Hills, dales, woods, floods, and every thing doth change,
But she in rigour, I in love am strange.

Trust not, sweet soul, those curled waves of gold,
With gentle tides which on your temples flow,
Nor temples spread with flakes of virgin snow,
Nor snow of cheeks with Tyrian grain enroll'd;
Trust not those shining lights which wrought my woe,
When first I did their burning rays behold,
Nor voice, whose sounds more strange effects do show
Than of the Thracian harper have been told.
Look to this dying lily, fading rose,
Dark hyacinth, of late whose blushing beams
Made all the neighbouring herbs and grass rejoice,
And think how little is 'twixt life's extremes.
The cruel tyrant that did kill those flowers,
Shall once, aye me! not spare that spring of yours.

What doth it serve to see sun's burning face,
And skies enamel'd with both the Indies' gold,
Or moon at night in jetty chariot rolled,
And all the glory of that starry place?
What doth it serve earth's beauties to behold,
The mountains' pride, the meadows' flowing grace,
The stately comeliness of forests old,
The sport of floods, which would themselves embrace?
What doth it serve to hear the Sylvans' songs,
The wanton merle, the nightingale's sad strains,
Which in dark shades seem to deplore my wrongs?
For what doth serve all that this world contains,
Sith she, for whom those once to me were dear,
No part of them can have now with me here?

To some of his compositions, which he has described as songs, this title is by no means applicable; it is neither applicable to the vein of poetry, nor to the measure of the verse. One striking poem, which he entitles a song, is written in heroic couplets, and contains such passages as this:

And tell me, thou who dost so much admire
This little vapour, smoke, this spark or fire,
Which life is call'd, what doth it thee bequeath
But some few years which birth draws out to death?
Which if thou paragon with lustres run,
And them whose career is but now begun,
In day's great vast they shall far less appear,
Than with the sea when match'd is a tear.
But why would'st thou here longer wish to be?
One year doth serve all nature's pomp to see,
Nay, even one day and night: this moon, that sun,
Those lesser fires about this round which run,
Be but the same which, under Saturn's reign,
Did the serpentine seasons interchain.
How oft doth life grow less by living long,
And what excelletth but what dieth young?

His collection of sacred verses, which he entitles Flowres of Sion,² contain much poetical imagery and expression. Some of the topics cannot be very safely approached by a poet, who must place his chief reliance on the exercise of his fancy; and the subsequent lines of this writer may sometimes occur to the recollection of his reader:

Who would this Eden force with wit or sense,
A cherubim shall find to bar him thence.

One of the longest poems in this collection, entitled a Hymne on the fairest Faire, contains the following among many other striking passages:

Ah! as a pilgrim who the Alps doth pass,
Or Atlas' temples crown'd with winter's glass,
The airy Caucasus, the Apennine,
Pyrenes cliffs where sun doth never shine,
When he some heaps of hills hath over-went,
Begins to think on rest, his journey spent,
Till, mounting some tall mountain, he doth find
More heights before him than he left behind:
With halting pace so while I would me raise
To the unbounded circuits of thy praise,
Some part of way I thought to have o'er-run,
But now I see how scarce I have begun,
With wonders new my spirits range possess,
And wand'ring wayless in a maze them rest.

It has been suggested by Mr Headley that one would be induced to suppose Pope must have remembered these lines when he wrote a well-known passage in his Essay on Criticism. The subsequent couplet, which occurs in the same hymn, is remarkable for its energetic simplicity:

Uncomprehensible by reachless height,
And unperceived by excessive light.

Another poem of considerable length he entitles the Shadow of the Judgment. It is left in an unfinished state, and is not included in the collection published under the direction of Sir John Scot,³ but it nevertheless contains many passages worthy of the author's reputation. An elegant critic has remarked that the following verses, describing God moved to wrath, are in Milton's manner:

So seeing earth, of angels once the inn,
Mansion of saints, defoured all by sin,
And quite confus'd by wretches here beneath,
The world's great sovereign moved was to wrath.
Thrice did he rouse himself, thrice from his face
Flames sparkle did throughout the heavenly place:
The stars, though fixed, in their rounds did quake,
The earth, and earth-embracing sea did shake:
Carmel and Hæmus felt it, Athos' tops
Affrighted shrunken, and near the Ethiops
Atlas, the Pyrenes, the Apennine,
And lofty Grampius, which with snow doth shine.
Then to the synod of the spirits he swore,
Man's care should end, and time should be no more.

Drummond's poem in commemoration of Prince Henry⁴ commences in a strain somewhat bombastic, but it contains some elegant and striking passages. The subsequent lines exhibit a very favourable specimen of his versification; and it is proper to recollect that the poem was printed so early as the year 1613. He describes the lamented youth as rejoicing to look down to the azure bars of heaven,

And in their turning temples to behold,
In silver robe the moon, the sun in gold,
Like young eye-speaking lovers in a dance,
With majesty by turns retire, advance.
Thou wonderest earth to see hang like a ball,
Clos'd in the ghastly cloister of this all;

And that poor men should prove so madly fond
To toss themselves for a small foot of ground;
Nav, that they even dare brave the powers above,
From this base stage of chance that cannot move.
All worldly pomp and pride thou seest arise
Like smoke, that scatt'reth in the empty skies.
Other hills and forests, other sumptuous tow'rs,
Amaz'd thou find'st excelling our poor bow'rs;
Courts void of flattery, of malice minds,
Pleasure which lasts, not such as reason blinds.

Forth Feasting, a poem written in the year 1617 on the king's visit to his native country,¹ may be considered as his best performance; it abounds with poetical imagery, and the versification possesses uncommon terseness and harmony. In all poems of the same age and denomination, the reader must necessarily expect a certain sprinkling of mythology; this is a prevailing vice, an endemic disease, among the poets of that period; but Forth Feasting is enlivened by an elegant vein of fancy, and contains various passages of distinguished felicity. In the following nervous lines, he pays a warm and not unmerited compliment to the monarch's love of peace:

Now, where the wounded knight his life did bleed,
The wanton swain sits piping on a reed,
And where the cannon did Jove's thunder scorn,
The gaudy huntsman winds his shrill-tun'd horn;
Her green locks Ceres without fear doth dye,
The pilgrim safely in the shade doth lie.
Both Pan and Pales careless keep their flocks,
Seas have no dangers save the winds and rocks;
Thou art this isle's Palladium, neither can,
While thou art kept, it be o'erthrown by man.
Let others boast of blood and spoils of foes,
Fierce rapines, murders, Illads of woes,
Of hated pomp, and trophies reared fair,
Gore-splunged ensigns streaming in the air,
Count how they make the Scythian them adore,
The Gaditan, the soldier of Aurora;
Unhappy vaunting! to enlarge their bounds,
Which charge themselves with cares, their friends with wounds,
Which have no law to their ambitious will,
But, man plagues, born are human blood to spill;
Thou a true victor art, sent from above,
What others strain by force to gain by love;
World-wand'ring Fame this praise to thee imparts,
To be the only monarch of all hearts.

When the successor of this king visited his northern dominions in the year 1633, Drummond contributed the verses for the pageants which welcomed his arrival in Edinburgh.² These verses, although they do not exhibit passages equal to those which we have lately examined, are not destitute of merit. Of the frequent compression and harmony of his couplets, every reader must be sufficiently aware; and the excellence of his versification has been highly extolled by an English critic. Waller and Denham are often regarded as the great improvers of a mode of versification which was carried to greater perfection by Dryden; but the Tears on the Death of Meliades, and Forth Feasting, were composed several years before either of those poets had reached the age of manhood.³ J. N. E.