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WILLIAM

T

DRUMMOND of

HAWTHORN DEN Efq;

HIS gentleman was a native of Scotland, and a poet of no inconfiderable rank. We had at first fome doubt whether he fell within our defign, as being no Englishman, but upon obferving that Mr. Langbaine has given a place to the earl of Stirling, a man of much inferior note; and that our author, though a Scotchman, wrote extremely pure and elegant English, and his life, that is fruitful of a great many incidents, without further apology, it is here prefented to the reader.

He was born the 13th of November, 1585; his father was Sir John Drummond of Hawthornden, who was Gentleman Ufher to King James VI. but did not enjoy that place long, being in three months after he was raifed to his new dignity, taken away by death. The family of Drummond in the arcle of antiquity is inferior to none in Scotland, where that kind of diftinction is very much regarded.

The first years of our author's youth were spent at the high school at Edinburgh, where the early promises of that extraordinary genius, which afterwards appeared in him, became very confpicuous. He was in due time fent to the univerfity of Edinburgh, where after the ordinary ftay, he was made Mafter of Arts. When his course at the univerfity was finished, he did not, like the greatest part of giddy students, give over reading, and vainly imagine they have a fufficient ftock

*The reader will pleafe to obferve, that I have taken the moft material part, of this account of Mr. Drummond, from a Life of him prefixed to a 4to Edition printed at Edinburgh, 1711.

of

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of learning he had too much fenfe thus to deceive himself; he knew that an education at the univerfity is but the ground-work of knowledge, and that unless a man digefts what he has there learned, and endeavours to produce it into life with advan... · tage, fo many years attendance were but entirely thrown away. Being convinced of this truth, he continued to read the beft authors of antiquity, whom he not only retained in his memory, but fo digested, that he became quite mafter of them, and able to make fuch obfervations on their genius and writings, as fully fhewed that his judgment had been fufficiently exercifed in reading them.

In the year 1606 his father sent him into France, he being then only twenty-one years old. He ftudied at Bourges the civil law, with great diligence and applause, and was mafter not only of the dictates of the profeffors, but made alfo his own obfervations on them, which occafioned the learned prefident Lockhart to obferve, that if Mr. Drummond had followed the practice, he might have made the beft figure of any lawyer in his time; but like all other men of wit, he faw more charms in Euripides, Sophocles, Seneca, and other the illuftrious ancients, than in the dry wranglings of the law; as there have been often inftances of poets, and men of genius being educated to the law, fo here it may not be amifs to obferve, that we remember not to have met with one amongst them who continued in that profeffion, a circumftance. not much in its favour, and is a kind of proof, that the profeffors of it are generally compofed of men who are capable of application, but without genius. Mr. Drummond having, as we have already obferved, a fovereign contempt for the law, applied himself to the fublimer ftudies of poetry and history, in both which he became very emi

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Having relinquished all thoughts of the bar, or appearing in public, he retired to his pleasant feat at Hawthornden, and there, by reading the Greek and Latin authors, enriched the world with the product of his folitary hours. After he had recovered a very dangerous fit of fickness, he wrote his Cypress Grove, a piece of excellent profe, both for the fineness of the ftile, and the fublimity and piety of the fentiments: In which he represents the vanity and inftability of human affairs; teaches a due contempt of the world; propofes confolations against the fear of death, and gives us a view of eternal happiness. Much about this time he wrote the Flowers of Sion in verfe. Though the numbers in which thefe poems are wrote are not now very fashionable, yet the harmony is excellent, and during the reign of King James and Charles I. we have met with no poet who feems to have had a better ear, or felt more intimately the paffion he defcribes. The writer of his life already mentioned, obferves, that notwithstanding his clofe retirement, love ftole upon him, and entirely fub. dued his heart. He needed not to have affigned retirement as a reason why it should seem ftrange that love grew upon him, for retirement in its own nature is the very parent of love. When a

pre

man converfes with but few ladies, he is apt to fall in love with her who charms him moft; whereas were his attention diffipated, and his af'fections bewilde ed by variety, he would be ferved from love by not being able to fix them ; which is one reafon why we always find people in the country have more enthufiaftic notions of love, than those who move in the hurry of life. This beautiful young lady, with whom Mr. Drummond was enamoured, was daughter of Mr. Cunningham of Barnes, of an ancient and honourable family. He made his addreffes to her in the true fpirit of gallantry, and as he was a gentle

man

man who had feen the world, and confequently was accomplished in the elegancies of life, he was not long in exciting proper returns of paffion; he gained her affections, and when the day of the marriage was appointed, and all things ready for its folemnization, fhe was feized with a fever, and fnatched from him, when his imagination had figured thofe fcenes of rapture which naturally fill the mind of a bridegroom. As our author was a poet, he no doubt was capable of forming ftill a greater ideal fealt, than a man of ordina ry genius, and as his mistress was, as Rowe expreffes it, more than painting can exprefs, or youthful poets fancy when they love, thofe who have felt that delicate paffion, may be able in fome measure to judge of the feverity of distress into which our poetical bridegroom was now plunged After the fervours of forrow had in fome meafure fubfided, he expreffed his grief for her in feveral letters and poems, and with more paffion and fincerity celebrated his dead miftrefs, than others praise their living ones. This extraordinary fhock occafioned by the young lady's death, on whom he doated with fuch exceffive fondness, fo affected his fpirits, that in order as much as pof. fible to endeavour to forget her, he quitted his retirement, and refided eight years at Paris and Rome; he travelled through Germany, France and Italy, where he vifited all the famous universities, converfed with the learned men, and made an excellent collection of the best ancient Greek, and of the modern Spanish, French, and Italian books. Mr. Drummond, though a scholar and a man of genius, did not think it beneath him to improve himself in thofe gay accomplishments which are fo peculiar to the French, and which never fail to fet off wit and parts to the best advantage. He studied mufic, and is reported to have

poffeffed

poffeffed the genteel accomplishment of dancing, tổ no inconfiderable degree..

After a long ftay of eight years abroad, he returned again to his native country, where a civil war was ready to break out. He then found that as he could be of no fervice by his action, he might at least by his retirement, and during the confufion, he went to the feat of his Brother-in-law, Sir John Scott, of Scotts Tarvat, a man of learning and good fenfe. In this interval it is fuppofed he wrote his Hif. tory of the Five James's, fucceffively Kings of Scotland, which is fo excellent a work, whether we confider the exact conduct of the ftory, the judicious reflections, and the fine language, that no Hiftorian either of the English or Scotch nation (the lord Clarendon excepted) has fhewn a hap pier talent for that fpecies of writing, which tho' it does not demand the higheft genius, yet is as difficult to attain, as any other kind of literary excellence. This work was received in England with as much applause, as if it had been written by a countryman of their own, and about English affairs. It was firft published fix or feven years after the author's death, with a preface, or introduction by Mr. Hall of Grays-Inn, who, tho not much difpofed to think favourably of the Scotch nation, has yet thus done juftice to Mr. Drummond; for his manner of writing, fays he, "though he treats of things that are rather many "than great, and rather troublesome than glorious;

yet he has brought fo much of the main toge"ther, as it may be modeftly faid, none of that "nation has done before him, and for his way of

handling it, he has fufficiently made it appear, "how converfant he was with the writings of ve"nerable antiquity, and how generously he has "emulated them by a happy imitation, for the

purity of that language is much above the di.

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