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 DRUMMOND,
WILLIAM, of Hawthornden, a celebrated poet and historian, was born on the
13th of December, 1585. His father, Sir John Drummond of
Hawthornden, was gentleman usher to king James VI., a place which he had
only enjoyed a few months before he died. His mother, Susanna Fowler, was
daughter to Sir William Fowler, secretary to the queen, a lady much
esteemed for her exemplary and virtuous life.
The family of our poet was
among the most ancient and noble in Scotland. The first of the name who
settled in this country, came from Hungary as admiral of the fleet which
conveyed over Margaret, queen of Malcolm Canmore, at the time when
sirnames were first known in Scotland. Walter de Drummond, a descendant of
the original founder, was secretary, or as it was termed clerk-register,
to the great Bruce, and was employed in various political negotiations
with England, by that prince. Annabella Drummond, queen of king Robert II.
and mother of James I., was a daughter of the house of Stobhall, from
which were descended the earls of Perth. The Drummonds of Carnock at this
early time became a branch of the house of Stobhall, and from this branch
William of Hawthornden was immediately descended.
The poet was well aware,
and indeed seems to have been not a little proud of his illustrious
descent. In the dedication of his history to John earl of Perth, whom he
styles his "very good lord and chief," he takes occasion to
expatiate at some length on the fame and honour of their common ancestors,
and sums up his eulogium with the following words: - "But the
greatest honour of all is (and no subject can have any greater), that the
high and mighty prince Charles, king of Great Britain, and the most part
of the crowned heads in Europe, are descended of your honourable and
ancient family." His consanguinity, remote as that was to James I.,
who was himself a kindred genius and a poet, was the circumstance,
however, which Drummond dwelt most proudly upon; and to the feelings which
this gave rise to, we are to attribute his history. He indeed intimates
himself, that such was the case, in a manner at once noble and delicate: -
"If we believe some schoolmen," says he, "that the souls of
the departed have some dark knowledge of the actions done upon earth,
which concern their good or evil; what solace then will this bring to
James I., that after two hundred years, he hath one of his mother’s name
and race, that hath renewed his fame and actions in the world?"
Of the early period of our
author’s life few particulars are known. The rudiments of his education
he received at the high school of Edinburgh, where we are told, he
displayed early signs of that worth and genius, for which at a maturer age
he became conspicuous. From thence, in due time, he entered the university
of the same city, where, after the usual course of study, he took his
degree of master of arts. He was then well versed in the metaphysical
learning of the period; but this was not his favourite study, nor was he
ever after in his life addicted to it. His first passion, on leaving
college, lay in the study of the classical authors of antiquity, and to
this early attachment, we have no hesitation in saying, is to be
attributed the singular purity and elegance of style to which he attained,
and which set him on a level, in that particular, with the most classical
of his English contemporaries.
His father, intending him
for the profession of the law, he was, at the age of 21 years, sent over
into France to prosecute that study. At Bourges, therefore, he applied
himself to the civil law under some of the most eminent professors of his
age, with diligence and applause; and it is probable, had a serious
intention of devoting his after life to that laborious profession. In the
year 1610, his father, Sir John, died, and our author returned to his
native country, after an absence from it of four years. To his other
learning and accomplishments, which there is every reason to suppose were
extensive and varied beyond those of most young men of his age in
Scotland, he had now added the requisites necessary to begin his course in
an active professional life. That he was well fitted for this course of
life, is not left to mere conjecture. The learned president Lockhart is
known to have declared of him, "that had he followed the practice of
the law, he would have made the best figure of any lawyer in his
time." The various political papers, which he has left behind him,
written, some of them, upon those difficult topics which agitated king and
people, during the disturbed period in which he lived, attest the same
fact; as displaying, along with the eloquence which was peculiar to their
author, the more forensic qualities of a perspicuous arrangement, and a
judicious, clear, and masterly management of his argument.
It was to the surprise of
those who knew him that our author turned aside from the course, which,
though laborious, lay so invitingly open to his approach; and preferred to
the attainment of riches and honour, the quiet ease and obscurity of a
country gentleman’s life. He was naturally of a melancholy temperament;
and it is probably, that like many others, who owe such to an over
delicate and refined turn of sentiment, he allowed some vague disgust to
influence him in his decision. His father’s death, at the same time,
leaving him in easy independency, he had no longer any obstruction to
following the bent of his inclination. That decidedly led him to indulge
in the luxury of a literary life, certainly the most dignified of all
indolencies, when it can be associated with ease and competence. He had a
strong desire for retirement, even at this early period of his life, and
now, having relinquished all thoughts of appearing in public, he would
leave also even the bustle and noise of the world.
No poet, in this state of
mind, perhaps, ever enjoyed the possession of a retreat more favoured by
nature than is that of Hawthornden – so well fitted to the realization
of a poet’s vision of earthly bliss. The place has been long known to
every lover of the picturesque, and, associated as it has become, with the
poetry and life of its ancient and distinguished possessor, is now a
classical spot. Upwards of a hundred years ago, it is pleasing to be made
aware that this feeling was not new. The learned and critical Ruddiman, at
no time given to be poetical, has yet described Hawthornden as being
"a sweet and solitary seat, and very fit and proper for the muses."
It was here that our author passed many of the years of his early life,
devoted in a great measure to literary and philosophical study, and the
cultivation of poetry. We cannot now mark with any degree of precision,
the order of his compositions at this period. The first, and only
collection published in his lifetime, containing the "Flowers of Sion,"
with several other poems, and "A Cypress Grove," appeared in
Edinburgh in the year 1616; and to this publication, limited as it is, we
must ascribe in great part, the literary fame which the author himself
enjoyed among his contemporaries.
Of the poems we shall speak
afterwards; but the philosophical discourse which accompanies them, it may
be as well to notice in the present place. "A Cypress Grove" was
written after the author’s recovery from a severe illness; and the
subject, suggested we are told, by the train of his reflections on a bed
of sickness, is Death. We have often admired the splendid
passages of Jeremy Taylor on this sublimest of all earthly topics, and it
is if anything but a more decided praise of these to say, that Drummond at
least rivalled them. The style is exalted, and classical as that of the
distinguished churchman we have named; the conception, expression, and
imagery, scarcely inferior in sublimity and beauty. That laboured display
of learning, a fault peculiar to the literary men of their day, attaches
in a great measure to both. In this particular, however, Drummond has
certainly been more than usually judicious. We could well wish to see this
work of our author, in preference to all his others, more popularly known.
It is decidedly of a higher cast than his other prose pieces; and the
reading of it, would tend, better than any comment, to make these others
relished, and their spirit appreciated.
Not long after the
publication of his volume, we find Drummond on terms of familiar
correspondence with several of the great men of his day. It would be
impossible, considering our materials, to be so full on this head as we
could have wished. The information can only be gathered from the
correspondence which has been published in his works; and the very great
imperfection of that, as regards the few individuals which it embraces,
plainly indicates that other, and perhaps, great names have been omitted,
and that much that may have been curious or important, is lost. Among the
names which remain recorded, the principal are Ben Jonson, Michael
Drayton, Sir Robert Kerr, afterwards earl of Ancrum, Dr Arthur Johnston,
and Sir William Alexander, afterwards earl of Stirling.
For the last mentioned of
those, our author seems to have entertained the most perfect esteem and
friendship. Alexander was a courtier, rather than a poet, though a man not
the less capable of free and generous feelings. Had king James VI. not
been a poet, it is to be doubted if Sir William would have had so much
devotion to the divine art. His assumed passion for poetry, however, led
him to cultivate the society of his ingenious contemporaries, by whom he
is mentioned with respect, as much, we may believe, on account of the real
excellence of the man, as of the poet. His poems, indeed, though those of
an amateur, and now read only by the curious, are some of them, far from
being deficient in poetical merit. His correspondence with our author,
which extends through many years, is of little interest, referring almost
entirely to the transmission of poetical pieces, and to points of minor
criticism.
Michael Drayton, in an
elogy on the English poets, takes occasion to speak of Drummond with much
distinction. In the letters of this pleasing and once popular poet, there
is a frank openness of manner, which forms a refreshing contrast to the
stiff form and stiffer compliment of the greater part of the ‘familiar
epistles,’ as they are termed, which passed between the literary men of
that period, not excepting many of those in the correspondence of the poet
of Hawthornden. – "My dear noble Drummond," says he, in one of
them, "your letters were as welcome to me, as if they had come from
my mistress, which I think is one of the fairest and worthiest living.
Little did you think how oft that noble friend of yours, Sir William
Alexander, and I, have remembered you, before we trafficked in friendship.
Love me as much as you can, and so I will you: I can never hear of you too
oft, and I will ever mention you with much respect of your deserved worth,
&c."- "I thank you, my dear sweet Drummond, for your good
opinion of ‘Poly-Olbyon:’ I have done twelve books more; that is, from
the eighteenth book, which was Kent, (if you note it) all the east parts,
and north to the river Tweed; but it lyeth by me, for the booksellers and
I am in terms: they are a company of base knaves, whom I both scorn and
kick at," &c. One other passage we shall quote, which, though
euphuistic, has yet as much affection as conceit in it:—"I am oft
thinking whether this long silence proceeds from you or me, whether
(which) I know not; but I would have you take it upon you, and excuse me;
and then I would have you lay it upon me, and excuse yourself: but if you
will (if you think it our faults, as I do) let us divide, and both, as we
may, amend it. My long being in the country this summer, from whence I had
no means to send my letter, shall partly speak for me; for, believe me,
worthy William, I am more than a fortnight’s friend; where I love, I
love for years, which I hope you shall find, &c."
Only two of Drummond’s
letters in return to this excellent poet and agreeable friend have been
preserved. We shall make a brief extract from one of them, as it seems to
refer to the commencement of their friendship, and to be in answer to that
we have first quoted of Drayton: - "I must love this year of my life
(1618) more dearly than any that forewent it, because in it I was so happy
as to be acquainted with such worth. Whatever were Mr Davis’ other
designs, methinks some secret prudence directed him to those parts only:
for this, I will in love of you surpass as far your countrymen, as you go
beyond them in all true worth; and shall strive to be second to none, save
your fair and worthy mistress." John Davis had, it would seem, in a
visit to Scotland, become acquainted with Drummond, and on his return to
London did not fail to manifest the respect and admiration our poet had
inspired him with. Drayton communicates as much to his friend in the
following brief postscript to one of his letters: - "John Davis is
in love with you." He could not have used fewer words.
Sir Robert Ker was, like
Sir William Alexander, a courtier and a poet, though unlike him he never
came to be distinguished as an author. He is best known to posterity for
the singular feat which he performed, by killing in a duel the
"giant," Charles Maxwell, who had, with great arrogance and
insult, provoked him to the combat. There is a letter from our poet to Sir
Robert, on this occasion, in which philosophically, and with much
kindness, he thus reprehends his friend’s rashness and temerity: -
"It was too much hazarded in a point of honour. Why should true
valour have answered fierce barbarity; nobelness, arrogancy; religion,
impiety; innocence, malice; - the disparagement being so vast? And had ye
then to venture to the hazard of a combat, the exemplar of virtue, and the
muses’ sanctuary? The lives of twenty such as his who hath fallen, in
honour’s balance would not counterpoise your one. Ye are too good for
these times, in which, as in a time of plague, men must once be sick, and
that deadly, ere they can be assured of any safety. Would I could persuade
you in your sweet walks at home to take the prospect of
court-ship-wrecks."
There is another letter of
Drummond’s to this gentleman which wee need not here notice, but rather
pass to the one, for there is only one preserved, from the pen of Sir
Robert, as it tends some little to explain the footing in which he stood
related to our poet. This, which is dated from "Cambridge, where the
court was the week past, about the making of the French match, 16th
Dec. 1624," (about four years after the date of that above quoted,)
– sets off in the following strain: - "Every wretched creature
knows the way to that place where it is most made of, and so do my verses
to you, that was so kind to the last, that every thought I think that way
hastes to be at you: it is true I get leisure to think few, not that they
are cara because rara, but indeed to declare that my
employment and ingine concur to make them, like Jacob’s days, few and
evil"—"The best is, I care as little for them as their fame;
yet if you do not mislike them, it is warrant enough for me to let them
live till they get your doom. In this sonnet I have sent you an
approbation of your own life, whose character, howsoever I have mist, I
have let you see how I love it, and would fain praise it, and, indeed,
fainer practice it." The poem thus diffidently introduced, has had a
more fortunate fate than was probably contemplated for it by its author.
It is entitled "A Sonnet in praise of a Solitary Life;" and we
are gratuitously informed at the end, that "the date of this starved
rhyme, and the place, was the very bed-chamber where I could not
sleep." Sir Robert Kerr was indeed, a character for whom Drummond
might well entertain a high respect. In the remarkable adventure above
alluded to, and for which he became very famous, he was not only acquitted
of all blame by his own friends, but even lord Maxwell, the brother of the
gentleman killed, generously protested that they should never quarrel
with, nor dislike him on that account.
There is only one letter
recorded of Drummond to mark that an intimacy had existed between him and
his countryman the celebrated Arthur Johnston, the Latin poet. It is
rather a short essay, on the subject of poetry, indeed, than a letter,
written, says he, "not to give you any instruction, but to manifest
mine obedience to your request." We shall quote a passage or two from
this piece, not so much on account of any general excellence, as to show
that Drummond, though he tolerated, and in some few instances adopted
them, well understood the errors of the English poets of his time, and
that he properly appreciated the purer taste displayed in the earlier
models:—"It is more praiseworthy," thus it begins, "in
noble and excellent things to know something, though little, than in mean
and ignoble matters to have a perfect knowledge. Amongst all those rare
ornaments of the mind of man, poesy hath had a most eminent place, and
been in high esteem, not only at one time, and in one climate, but during
all times, and through all those parts of the world, where any ray of
humanity and civility hath shined: so that she hath not unworthily
deserved the name of the mistress of human life, the height of eloquence,
the quintessence of knowledge, the loud trumpet of fame, the language of
the gods. There is not anything endureth longer: Homer’s Troy hath
outlived many republics, and both the Roman and Grecian monarchies: she
subsisteth by herself; and after one demeanour and continuance, her beauty
appeareth to all ages. In vain have some men of late (transformers of
every thing) consulted upon her reformation, and endeavoured to abstract
her to metaphysical ideas and scholastical quiddities,
denuding her of her own habits, and those ornaments with which she hath
amused the world some thousand years." We might well quote more, or
indeed the whole of it, for the essay, if it may be called such, is very
short; but we must make this serve. It naturally occurs to notice how much
the classical taste of Johnston must have harmonized with that of his
contemporary,—and how in the junction of two such minds much mutual
benefit must have been communicated. In that language which became him as
his own, Johnston has written a few commendatory verses on his friend,
which, in the fashion of the time have been regularly prefixed to the
collections of Drummond’s poems.
The most remarkable
incident which has descended to us, connected with the literary life of
our poet, was the visit with which the well-known English dramatist, Ben
Jonson, honoured him, in the winter of 1618-19. Upon this, therefore, we
would desire to be somewhat particular, and the materials we have for
being so, are not so barren as those which refer to other passages. Ben
Jonson was a man of much decision, or what, on some occasions, might no
doubt be termed obstinacy, of purpose; and to undertake a journey on foot
of several hundred miles into a strange country, and at an unfavourable
season of the year, to visit a brother poet, whose fame had reached his
ears, was characteristic in every way of his constitutional resoluteness,
and of that sort of practical sincerity which actuated his conduct
indifferently either to friendship or enmity. We mean no disparagement by
these last words, to the character of a man acknowledgedly great, as every
one will allow Ben Jonson’s to have been; but merely allude to a trait
in that character, fully marked in the individual, and which he himself
never attempted to disguise. His drinking out the full cup of wine at the
communion table, in token of his reconciliation with the church of
England, and sincere renunciation of popery, is an anecdote in point; and
we need only hint at the animosities, one of them fatal, into which, in an
opposite way, the same zealousness of spirit hurried him. There is much
occasion to mark this humour throughout the whole substance of the
conversations which passed between Drummond and his remarkable visitor.
The curious document which
contains these, is in itself but a rough draught, written by Drummond when
the matters contained in it were fresh in his recollection, and intended
merely, it would seem, as a sort of memorandum for his own use. That its
author never intended it should become public is evident, not only from
the imperfect and desultory manner in which it is put together, but from
the unsophisticated and unguarded freedom of its personal reflections.
There is every proof that though it unhappily treats with much and almost
unpalliated severity the character and foibles of the English poet, the
truth is not, so far as it goes, violated. It is not kindly, nor can it be
said to be hostilely written. Inhospitably, we cannot allow it to be, as
it certainly never was intended to prove offensive to the feelings of the
person whom it describes, or his admirers.
Several of the incidents of
Ben Jonson’s life, as they were communicated by him to Drummond have
been given. These we have not occasion to notice; but we cannot pass over,
as equally out of place, some of the opinions entertained by that
remarkable man of his literary contemporaries. They are for the most part
sweeping censures, containing some truth, but oftener much illiberality;
pointed, and on one or two occasions coarse,—Jonson being at all times
rather given to lose a friend than a jest. Spenser’s stanzas we are
told, "pleased him not, nor his matter."—"Samuel Daniel
was a good honest man, had no children, and was no poet; that he had wrote
the ‘Civil Wars,’ and yet hath not one battle in his whole book."
Michael Drayton, "if he had performed what he promised in his
Polyolbion, (to write the deeds of all the worthies,) had been
excellent."—"Sir John Harrington’s Ariosto, of all
translations was the worst. That when Sir John desired him to tell the
truth of his epigrams; he answered him, that he loved not the truth, for
they were narrations, not epigrams."—"Donne, for not being
understood, would perish. He esteemed him the first poet in the world for
some things; his verses of Ohadine he had by heart, and that passage of the
Calm, that dust and feathers did not stir, all was so quiet." He
told Donne that his "Anniversary was profane and full of
blasphemies; that if it had been written on the Virgin Mary it had been
tolerable." To which Donne answered, "that he described the idea
of a woman, and not as she was."—"Owen was a poor pedantic
schoolmaster, sweeping his living from the posteriors of little children,
and has nothing good in him, his epigrams being bare narrations."-
"Sir Walter Raleigh esteemed more fame than conscience: the best wits
in England were employed in making his history. He himself had written a
piece to him of the Punic war, which he altered and set in his book."—"Francis
Beaumont was a good poet, as were Fletcher and Chapman whom he
loved."—"He fought several times with Marston. Marston wrote
his father-in-law’s preachings, and his father-in-law his comedies,
&c." The most, singular of all, to the modern reader, is what
follows regarding Shakespeare, who is introduced with fully as little
respect as is shown to any of the others mentioned;—He said,
"Shakespeare wanted art and sometimes sense; for in one of his plays,
he brought a number of men, saying they had suffered shipwreck in Bohemia,
where is no sea, near by one hundred miles." Shakespeare, it may be
remarked, though two years dead at the time of the conversation, was then
but little known out of London, the sphere of his original attraction. The
first, and well known folio edition of his plays, which may be said to
have first shown forth our great dramatist, to the world, did not appear
till 1623, several years after. Drummond merely refers to him as the
author of "Venus and Adonis," and the "Rape of Lucrece,"
pieces as little popularly known now, as his plays were then.
It is to Ben Jonson’s
honour, that, when he spared so little the absent poets of his country, he
did not altogether pass over the poet of Hawthorndon to his face. Our
author’s verses he allowed, "were all good, especially his epitaph
on prince Henry; save, that they smelled too much of the schools, and were
not after the fancy of the times: for a child, said he, may write after
the fashion of the Greek and Latin verses, in running; —yet, that he
wished for pleasing the king, that piece of Forth Feasting had been
his own."
So little did any
intercourse exist two hundred years ago between the then newly united
kingdoms of England and Scotland, and in particular, so unknown did the
latter kingdom then and long after remain to the sister islanders, that a
friendly or curious tour into Scotland, now become a matter of everyday
and fashionable occurrence, was by them looked upon as pregnant with every
species of novelty and adventure. Necessity or business could alone be
considered as an inducement to the prosecution of such a journey, attended
with so many supposed risks, and some real inconveniences; and, we can
well believe, in the wonder and delight which a devoted and adventurous
English angler is said to have experienced, when he began to reflect how,
almost unconsciously, the beauty and excellence of its fine rivers had
seduced him far into the heart of a peaceful and romantic land till then
thought savage and barbarous. Infected we may suppose with similar
fee1ings, Ben Jonson contemplated the design of writing "a Fisher or
pastoral play," the scene of which was to be the "Lomond
lake;" and he likewise formed the intention of turning to poetical
account his foot pilgrimage, under the form and title of a "Discovery
of Edinburgh"—
"The heart of Scotland,
Britain’s other eye."
A letter to our author,
upon his return to London, and the answer to it, almost entirely refer to
these two schemes.
We are informed, in the
first of these, that the laureate of his day returned safely from his long
journey, and met "with a most catholic welcome;" that his
reports were not unacceptable to his majesty;—"who," says he,
"professed (I thank God) some joy to see me, and is pleased to hear
of the purpose of my book." The letter concludes thus:—"Salute
the beloved Fentons, the Nisbets, the Scots, the Levingstons, and all the
honest and honoured names with you; especially Mr James Writh, his wife,
your sister, &c." ["No one," says a correspondent,
"can read the celebrated Heads of Conversation between
Drummond and Ben Jonson, without regretting that the former had not a
spice more of Boswell in him, so as to have preserved not only his visitor’s
share of the dialogue, but his own also. As it is, we have a meagre
outline of Jonson’s opinions, with no intermixture of Drummond’s
replies. What an interesting, discourse on the extravagant freaks of
imagination may we suppose to have accompanied Jonson’s statement ‘that
he had spent a whole night lying looking to his great toe, about which he
hath seen Tartars and Turks, Romans and Carthaginians, fight in his
imagination!’ Yet it is presented to us in an isolated paragraph, as if
the two bards had spent a whole evening together, and that was the only
thing that passed between them. Again, we have Jonson making the startling
declaration, ‘that he wrote all his verses first in prose, as his master
Camden taught him,’ and adding, ‘that verses stood by sense, without
either colours accent; ‘and we may be sure these annunciations did not
fall upon the ear of Drummond like the sound of a clock striking the hour
of midnight: but he tells us nothing to the contrary. Lastly, we know that
Drummond had weighed well the subject of astrology, and arrived at very
rational conclusions concerning the predictions pretended to be derived
from it,—namely, that they were aimed ‘by the sagacity of the
astrologer at the blockishness of the consulter;’ we might therefore
have expected from him something pertinent in relation to other occult
matters: but no; he gives without a word of comment the following story:
‘when the king came to England, about the time the plague was in London,
he (Ben Jonson) being in the country at Sir Robert Cotton’s
house, with old Camden, he saw in a vision his eldest son, then a young
child, and at London, appear unto him, with the mark of a bloody cross on
its forehead, as if it had been cut with a sword; at which amazed, he
prayed to God, and in the morning came to Mr Camden’s chamber to tell
him; who persuaded him it was but an apprehension at which he should not
be dejected. In the meantime there come letters from his wife of the death
of that boy in the plague. He appeared to him, he said, of a manly shape,
and of that growth he shall be at the resurrection.’ Whether Drummond
suspected that Ben exercised his invention upon this occasion cannot be
discovered; but such is the solution which he applies, in his History
of the Five Jameses, to two similar tales current regarding James V.:
‘both seem,’ he says, ‘to have been forged by the men of those
times, and may challenge a place in the poetical part of history.’ But
though thus provokingly silent concerning his own views of the greater
number of the subjects touched upon by his friend, some of the doctrines
of the latter seemed to Hawthornden too preposterous to be recorded
without some mark of disapprobation. It is amusing to find him expressing
his displeasure at the innovations which Jonson did not scruple to make
upon the classical model for the composition of pastorals. ‘He
bringeth in clowns,’ says Drummond, ‘making mirth and foolish sports, contrary
to all other pastorals!’ The decorous Scotsman would no doubt have
had him to continue to show off the stiff swain of antiquity, constructed
with his pipe in the accustomed mould,—thus precluding the pest not only
from the imitation of nature, but even from displaying any ingenuity of
art in the contrivance of new characters, just as if we should insist that
the sculptor’s skill ought not hereafter to aim at anything beyond
multiplying copies of certain groups of figures which the world may for
the time have agreed to call classical.
"Jonson’s unbridled
exuberance of fancy, bordering occasionally upon irreverence, appears to
have been a flight beyond what was calculated to please the pure mind of
the retired and philosophic Drummond; and his friend’s visit probably
opened to him a view of the jealousies of the poetical tribe, when
assembled in one place, and all struggling for pre-eminence, which made
him still more content with his own seclusion. The frankness with which
Jonson criticised the verses of Drummond, telling him ‘that they were
all good, especially his epitaph on prince Henry, save that they smelled
too much of the schools, and were not after the fancy of the times,—or
that a child might write after the fashion of the Greek and Latin verses
in running,’—may have piqued the author a little; and Ben’s
boisterous and jovial character may also have been offensive to the sedate
and contemplative solitary of Hawthornden. It is farther to be remembered,
that Drummond employed a severity in judging, the edge of which, a little
more intercourse with the world might have blunted. But with all these
allowances, the character he has drawn of his visitor is probably very
little if at all overcharged. ‘Ben Jonson,’ says he, ‘was a great
lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and scorner of others, given
rather to lose a friend than a jest; jealous of every word and action of
those about him, especially after drink, which is one of the elements in
which he lived; a dissembler of the great parts which reign in him; a
bragger of some good that he wanted; thinketh nothing well done but what
either he himself or some of his friends hath said or done; he is
passionately kind and angry, careless either to gain or keep; vindictive,
but, if he be well answered, at himself; interprets best sayings and deeds
often to the worst. He was for any religion, as being versed in both;
oppressed with fancy, which hath overmastered his reason,—a general
disease in many poets. His inventions are smooth and easy; but above all
he excelleth in a translation. When his play of The Silent Woman was
first acted, there were found verses after on the stage against him;
concluding that that play was well named The Silent Woman because
there was never one man to say Plaudite to it.
"Drummond has been
much blamed by some for leaving behind him those notes of the
conversation, and remarks on the character, of ‘his worthy friend Master
Benjamin Jonson;’ as if all the while that he entertained his guests, he
had been upon the watch for matter which might afterwards be reported to
his prejudice. Drummond was no doubt entirely innocent of any such
treacherous design; but being cut off from intercourse with men of genius,
and yet having a great liking to such society, the opportunity of hearing,
from the mouth of one of the most eminent wits of his time, a rapid sketch
of whatever was interesting in the literary world, seemed too high an
advantage not to be improved to the utmost; and Drummond wrote down notes
of what passed, that he might recur to them when he could no longer enjoy
the conversation of his visitor. If there happen to be some things which
Jonson’s biographers could wish had not been recorded against him, we
cannot join them in their regret. It is certainly a pity that great men
are not immaculate; but it is no pity that such faults as they are
chargeable with are made known. If we were to choose, we would have the
courses most frequented by our ships all clear of rocks and sands; but not
being able to get things to our mind in this respect, the only resource is
to mark them out as faithfully and conspicuously as possible, that those
who sail the same way in future, may know to keep clear of these dangerous
places. We trust the time is now nearly past for the biographer thinking
it his duty to preserve an unvarying whiteness in the character he
undertakes to draw. Cromwell’s injunction to his painter ought to serve
as a canon to all historians and writers of memoirs6: ‘I desire, Mr Lely,’
said the gruff protector, ‘that you will paint my picture truly like me,
and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples,
warts, and every thing as you see me: otherwise, I will never pay you a
farthing.’
"But all this, it may
be said, is nothing to the breach of private confidence: Drummond was not
Jonson’s biographer; and there was no occasion for his setting down
aught to his prejudice, of what passed in the course of social converse,
and was not expected by his guest ever to be repeated. To this it may be
answered, that probably Jonson cared very little whether his conversation
was repeated or not. His opinions must have been expressed with equal
freedom to many others besides Drummond; for he was not a man to carry
them about with him, locked up with difficulty in his own breast, till he
came down to Scotland, and then think he had got them safely buried in a
hole,—like that foolish servant of Midas, who could not rest till he had
dug a pit, whispered into it the portentous fact that his master had the
ears of an ass, and then retired, thinking his secret closed up under the
earth with which he had filled the pit again. If, then, Jonson did not
care whether what he said was repeated or not, there was no breach of
confidence towards him as an individual; and as for what is said of such
disclosures having the effect to put a stop to all freedom of intercourse
among literary men, since no one can be sure but that his friend is a
note-taker, and will exhibit his private conversations, why, every one
must take care for himself not to utter any thing upon these occasions
derogatory to his own character, or which he would be ashamed to avow
openly. This is a restraint, indeed, but it is one of a most salutary
kind; for it cannot be contended that the enjoyments of society—or at
least what ought to be its enjoyments—are abridged by the exclusion of
such talk as people would afterwards have the world believe they took no
part in. It is true, that in this way a man has no safeguard against a
malicious or ignorant representation of his words; because such things do
not usually come abroad till after the death of those persons to whom they
refer. But there is no help for it; every one must just oppose uprightness
of conduct and purity of conversation, to slanders present and posthumous.
Voltaire furnished the world with at least one safe maxim, when he said,
‘the only way to oblige people to speak well of us, is to deserve it.’"]
We now come to a
circumstance in the life of our poet which was destined, in its
consequences, to interrupt the quiet course in which his existence had
hitherto flowed, and to exercise over his mind and future happiness a deep
and lasting influence. This was the attachment which he formed for a young
and beautiful lady, daughter to Cunninghame of Barnes, an ancient and
honourable family. His affection was returned by his mistress; the
marriage day appointed, and preparations in progress for the happy
solemnization, when the young lady was seized suddenly with a fever, of
which she died. His grief on this event he has expressed in many of those
sonnets, which have given to him the title of this country’s Petrarch;
and it has well been said, that with more passion and sincerity he
celebrated his dead mistress, than others use to praise their living ones.
The melancholy temperament
of Drummond, we have before said, was one reason of his secluding himself
from the world, and the ease and relief of mind which he sought, he had
probably found, in his mode of life; but the rude shock which he now
received rendered solitude irksome and baneful to him. To divert the train
of his reflections, he resolved once more to go abroad, and in time,
distance, and novelty, lose recollection of the happiness which had
deluded him in his own country. He spent eight years in prosecution of
this design, during which he travelled through the whole of Germany,
France, and Italy; Rome and Paris being the two places in which he
principally resided. He was at pains in cultivating the society of learned
foreigners; and bestowed some attention in forming a collection of the
best ancient Greek and Latin authors, and the works of the esteemed modern
writers of Spain, France, and Italy. He afterwards made a donation of many
of these to the college of Edinburgh, and it formed, at the time, one of
the most curious and valuable collections in that great library. The
catalogue, printed in the year 1627, is furnished with a Latin preface
from the pen of our author, upon "the advantage and honour of
libraries."
After an absence of eight
years, Drummond returned to his native country, which he found already
breaking out into those political and religious dissentions, which so
unhappily marked, and so tragically completed the reign of Charles I. It
does not appear that he took any hand whatever in these differences till a
much more advanced period of his life. It would seem rather that other and
quieter designs possessed his mind, as he is said about this time to have
composed his history, during a stay which he made in the house of his
brother-in-law, Sir John Scot of Scotstarvet. The history of the reigns of
the five Jameses, as a piece of composition, is no mean acquirement
to the literature of this country; and for purity of style and elegance of
expression, it was not surpassed by any Scottish author of the age. In an
historical point of view, the spirit of the work varies materially from
that of preceding authors, who had written on the same period, and
especially from Buchanan, though in a different way. It is certainly as
free from bias and prejudice as any of these can be said to be, and on
some occasions better informed. The speeches invented for some of the
leading characters, after the fashion of the great Roman historian, and
his imitators, are altogether excellent, and, properly discarded as they
are from modern history, add much grace and beauty to the work. In short,
as an old editor has expressed himself; "If we consider but the
language, how florid and ornate it is, consider the order, and the prudent
conduct of the story, we will rank the author in the number of the best
writers, and compare him even with Thuanus himself." This work was
not published till some years after Drummond’s decease.
We have no reason to
believe that at this time he had relinquished the cultivation of poetry;
but can arrive at no certainty regarding the order of his compositions.
Our author seems throughout his life, if we except the collection, which
he made of his early poems, to have entertained little concern or anxiety
for the preservation of his literary labours. Many of his poems were only
printed during his lifetime, upon loose sheets; and it was not till 1650,
six years after his death, that Sir John Scot caused them to be collected
and published in one volume. An edition of this collection was published
at London in 1659, with the following highly encomiastic title:—"The
most elegant and elaborate Poems of that great court wit, Mr William
Drummond; whose labours both in verse and prose, being heretofore so
precious to prince Henry and to king Charles, shall live and flourish in
all ages, whiles there are men to read them, or art and judgement to
approve them." Some there were of his pieces which remained in
manuscript, till incorporated in the folio edition of his works in 1711.
The most popular of those detached productions, printed in Drummond’s
lifetime, was a macaronic poem entitled "Polemo-Middinia, or the
Battle of the Dunghill." This was meant as a satire upon some of the
author’s contemporaries; and contains much humour in a style of
composition which had not before been attempted in this country. It long
retained its popularity in the city of Edinburgh, where it was almost
yearly reprinted; and it was published at Oxford in 1691, with Latin notes
and a preface by bishop Gibson.
He had carefully studied
the mathematics, and in the mechanical part of that science effected
considerable improvements. These consisted principally in the restoring
and perfecting some of the warlike machines of the ancients, and in the
invention of several new instruments for sea and land service, in peace
and war. The names of the machines in English, Greek, and Latin, and their
descriptions and uses, may be found detailed in a patent granted to our
author by king Charles I., in the year 1626, for the sole making, vending,
and exporting of the same. This document has been published in the
collection of Drummond’s works, and is worthy of notice, as illustrating
that useful science, though then a neglected object of pursuit, was not
overlooked by our author in the midst of more intellectual studies.
Perhaps we might even be warranted in saying farther, that the attention
which he thus bestowed on the existing wants and deficiencies of his
country, indicated more clearly than any other fact, that his mind had
progressed beyond the genius of the ago in which his existence had been
cast.
Drummond lived till his
forty-fifth year a bachelor, a circumstance which may in great part be
ascribed to the unfortunate issue of his first love. He had, however,
accidently become acquainted with Elizabeth Logan, granddaughter to Sir
Robert Logan of Restalrig, in whom he either found, or fancied he had
found, a resemblance to his first mistress; and this impression, so
interesting to his feelings, revived once more in his bosom those tender
affections which had so long lain dormant. He became united, to this lady
in the year 1630. By his marriage he had several children. William, the
eldest son, lived till an advanced age, was knighted by Charles II., and
came to be the only representative of the knighted baronets formerly of
Carnock, of whom in the beginning of this article we have made mention. We
learn little more of the private life of our author after this period; but
that he lived retiredly at his house of Hawthornden, which he repaired; an
inscription to this effect, bearing date 1638, is still extant upon the
building.
Drummond has left behind
him many political papers, written between the years 1632 and 1646, in
which, if he has not approved himself a judicious supporter of king
Charles, and his contested rights and authority, he has only failed in a
cause which could not then be supported, and which has never since been
approved. That all his former feelings and habits should have inclined him
to the side of monarchy, in the great struggle which had then
commenced for popular rights, was natural, and to be expected; still it is
evident enough, that his strong inclination for peace, and philanthropic
desire of averting the impending miseries of civil war, actuated him in
his interference, as powerfully as did any spirit of partisanship even in
the cause of royalty itself. At a time when the grand principles of
constitutional freedom were unknown or undefined, and when no wisdom could
foresee the event to which new and uncertain lights regarding civil and
religious government might lead, the temporizing with old established
forms and customs, though it might seem to retard the spirit of
improvement so busily at work, might be called humane, if it was not
indeed expedient. It was not till very near the end of that century that
the universal sense of the nation was prepared for a decisive and
bloodless revolution.
"Irena, or a
remonstrance for concord among his majesty’s subjects," is the
first of these political tracts; and the picture which it draws of civil
strifes and disorders, and of men given to change, is set forth with much
eloquence and persuasive force. Though the doctrine of obedience is
enforced throughout, it is neither dogmatically nor offensively insisted
upon. This, and other papers of a similar tendency, Drummond wrote in the
years 1638-9; "but finding," as he informs us in one of his
letters, "his majesty’s authority so fearly eclipsed, and the
stream of rebellion swelled to that height, that honest men, without
danger dared hardly speak, less publish their conceptions in write, the
papers were suppressed."
We shall only notice one
other of these compositions on account of some passages contained in it,
which have been adduced as evidence of the political foresight and
sagacity of the writer. It is entitled "An address to the noblemen,
barons, gentlemen, &c., who have leagued themselves for the defence of
religion and the liberties of Scotland," and is dated 2d May, 1639,
ten years previous to the trial and execution of the king, to which, and
to events following, it has prophetic reference: "During these
miseries," says he, "of which the troublers of the state shall
make their profit, there will arise (perhaps) one, who will name himself
PROTECTOR of the’ liberty of the kingdom: he shall surcharge the people
with greater miseries than ever before they did suffer: he shall be
protector of the church, himself being without soul or conscience, without
letters or great knowledge, under the shadow of piety and zeal shall
commit a thousand impieties; and in end shall essay to make himself
king; and under pretext of reformation, bring in all confusion."—"Then
shall the poor people suffer for all these follie: then shall they
see, to their own charger, what it is to pull the sceptre from their
sovereign, the sword from the lawful magistrate, whom God hath set over
them, and that it is a fearful matter for subjects to degraduate their
king. This progress is no new divining, being approved by the histories of
all times." The general truth of this vaticination is amazing.
It was a saying of
Drummond, "That it was good to admire great hills, but to live in the
plains;" and, as in the earlier part of life he had resisted the
temptations of courtly or professional celebrity, which birth and talent
put alike in his way, so afterwards, he as carefully eschewed the more
easily attained, though more perilous distinctions of political faction.
His heart lay more towards private than public virtues; and his political
writings, it is probable, were intended by their author as much for the
instruction and satisfaction of a few intimate friends, as to serve (which
they never did) the more important ends for which they were ostensibly
written. He was a cavalier, and his principles, early prejudices, and
inclinations, led him to espouse the royal cause; but his patriotism and
good sense informed him correctly how far his support should be extended.
His prudential forbearance was indeed sometimes put to the test;
but though reputed a malignant, and more than once summoned before the
circular tables at Edinburgh for satirical verses, discourses, and
conversations, it does not appear that he ever seriously compromised his
safety or property.
The sarcasms and lampoons
of the cavalier came to be the most effective weapons they could employ
against their adversaries, as they were those for the use of which it was
most difficult to call them to account. Drummond, though free from the
licentiousness which marked his party in their lives and conversations,
could not fail of being infected somewhat with their prevailing humours.
One piece of his wit in this way has been preserved. Being obliged to
furnish men to the parliamentary army, it so happened, that, his estate
lying in three different shires, he had not occasion to send one entire
man from any of the parts of it. Upon his quota, therefore, of fractions
as they might be called, he composed the following lines addressed to his
majesty:
"Of all these forces
raised against the king,
‘Tis my strange hap not one whole man
to bring:
From diverse parishes, yet diverse men,
But all in halves and quarters;- great king, then,
In halves and quarters if they come ‘gainst thee,
In halves and quarters send them back to me."
The year 1649, in its
commencement, witnessed the tragical end of Charles I., that first great
and ominous eclipse of the Stuart dynasty. On the 4th December of the same
year, Drummond died, wanting only nine days to the completion of his
sixty-fourth year. His body had long been weakened by disease induced by
sedentary and studious habits, and the shock which the king’s fate gave
him is said to have affected his remaining health and spirits. His body
was interred in the family aisle in Lasswade church, in the neighbourhood
of the house of Hawthornden.
In respect of his virtues
and accomplishments, Drummond is entitled to rank high among his
contemporaries, not in Scotland only, but in the most civilized nations of
that day in Europe. Endowed with parts naturally excellent, and fitted for
almost every species of improvement, his philosophic temperament and
habits, and peculiar incidents of his life, tended to develope these in a
manner advantageous as it was original. His early education imbued his
mind deeply with the genius and classical taste of ancient Greece and
Rome, perfection in which studies then formed the almost exclusive
standard of literary excellence. A long residence in the more polished
countries of the continent familiarized his mind with those great works of
modern enlightenment, the knowledge of which had as yet made but obscure
progress in Britain. He not only read the works of Italian, French, and
Spanish authors, but spoke these different languages with ease and
fluency. He occasionally visited London, and was upon familiar terms, as
we have seen, with the men of genius of his own and the sister kingdom. He
added to his other high and varied acquirements, accomplishments of a
lighter kind, well fitted to enhance these others in general society, and
to add grace to a character whose worth, dignity, and intelligence have
alone gone down to posterity. "He was not much taken up (his old
biographer informs us) with the ordinary amusements of dancing, singing,
playing, &c. though he had as much of them as a well-bred gentleman
should have; and when his spirits were too much bended by severe
studies, he unbended them by playing on his lute." One of his sonnets
may be considered as an apostrophe, and it is one of singular beauty, to
this his favourite instrument: it adds to the effect of the address to
know, that it was not vainly spoken.
Of the private life and
manners of the poet of Hawthornden, we only know enough to make us regret
the imperfection of his biography. Though he passed the greater part of
his life as a retired country gentleman, his existence never could be, at
any time, obscure or insignificant. He was related to many persons of
distinguished rank and intimate with others. Congeniality, however, of
mind and pursuits, alone led him to cultivate the society of men of
exalted station; and, such is the nature of human excellence and dignity,
the poet and man of literature, in this case, conferred lustre upon the
peer and the favourite of a court. He was not a courtier, and he was, as
he has himself expressed it, even "careless and negligent about fame
and reputation." His philosophy was practical, not assumed; and we
cannot fail to be impressed with its pure and noble spirit in the tenor of
his life, no less than in the tone of many of his writings.
His natural disposition
certainly bordered upon the grave and contemplative; but it was free from
the reproach of morbid sentimentality or sourness of mind. "Contrary
to this," says his old biographer, whom on such points there is
satisfaction in quoting, "his humour was very jovial and cheerful
among his friends and comrades, with whom he sometimes took a bottle, only
ad hilaritatem, according to the example of the best ancient and
modern poets, for the raising his spirits, which were much flagged with
constant reading and meditating; but he never went to excess, or committed
anything against the rules of religion and good manners. He was very smart
and witty in his sayings and repartees, and had a most excellent talent in
extemporary versifying, above the most part of his contemporaries."
The instances given of our author’s pleasantry in this way are any thing
but well chosen, and their authenticity may be questioned. We may continue
the quotation, and present the following, not certainly for its merit,
but for the pleasure of the association which it gives rise to, and as the
only remaining trait which a scanty biography has left us to notice.
"Being at London, it is very creditably reported of him (though by
some ascribed to others) that he peeped into the room where Sir William
Alexander, Sir Robert Kerr, Michael Drayton, and Ben Jonson, these famous
poets, were sitting. They desired Bo-peep, as they called him, to come in,
which he did. They fell a rhyming about paying the reckoning; and all
owned their verses were not comparable to his, which are still remembered
by the curious:—
I, Bo-peep,
See you four sheep,
And each of you his fleece.
The reckoning is five shilling;
If each of you be willing
It’s fifteen pence a piece.’"
We have already alluded to
several of Drummond’s productions,—his "Cypress Grove," his
history, and his "Irena,"—and must now briefly refer to those
on which his fame as a poet is founded. They consist principally of
sonnets of an amatory and religious cast; a poem of some length entitled
"The river of Forth feasting;" and "Tears on the death of
Maeliades," anagrammatically Miles a Deo, the name assumed in
challenges of martial sport by Henry, prince of Wales, eldest son of king
James VI. This last piece was written so early as 1612. As a panegyric it
is turgid and overcharged; but it has been referred to by more than one
critic as displaying much beauty of versification.
The sonnet, about this time
introduced into our literature, must be supposed to owe somewhat of the
favour it received to the elegant and discriminating taste of Drummond. He
had a perfect knowledge of Italian poetry, and professed much admiration
for that of Petrarch, to whom he more nearly approaches in his beauties
and his faults, than we believe any other English writer of sonnets. This,
however, refers more particularly to his early muse, to those pieces
written before his own better taste had dared use an unshackled freedom.
We shall give two specimens, which we think altogether excellent, of what
we consider Drummond’s matured style in this composition. The first is
one of six sonnets entitled "Urania, or Spiritual Poems;" and
the second (already transiently alluded to) is a sonnet addressed by the
poet to his lute. The first, perhaps, refers to what Drummond considered
the political unhappiness or degradation of his country; though, in truth,
it may be made answerable to the state of humanity at all times;
the second, to the well known catastrophe of his first love, and
accordingly it has its place among the sonnets professedly written on that
topic.
I.
What hapless hap had I for to be born
In these unhappy times, and dying days
Of this now doting world, when good decays;—
Love’s quite extinct and Virtue’s held a scorn!
When such are only priz’d, by wretched ways,
Who with a golden fleece can them adorn;
When avarice and lust are counted praise,
AND BRAVEST MINDS LIVE ORPHAN-LIKE FORLORN!
Why was not I born in that golden age,
When gold was not yet known? and those black arts
By which base worldlings vilely play their parts,
With horrid acts staining earth’s stately stage?
To have been then, O Heaven, ‘t had been my bliss,
But bless me now, and take me soon from this.
II.
My lute, be as thou wert when thou did grow
With thy green mother in some shady grove,
When immelodious winds but made thee move,
And birds their ramage did on thee bestow.
Since that dear voice which did thy sounds approve,
Which wont in such harmonious strains to flow,
Is reft from earth to tune the spheres above,
What art thou but a harbinger of woe?
Thy pleasing notes be pleasing notes no more,
But orphan’s wailings to their fainting ear,
Each stroke a sigh, each sound draws forth a tear,
For which be silent as in woods before:
Or if that any hand to touch thee deign,
Like widowed turtle still her loss complain.
The "Forth Feasting"
is a poem of some ingenuity in its contrivance, designed to compliment king
James VI., on the visit with which that monarch favoured his native land in
1617. Of the many effusions which that joyous event called forth, this, we
believe, has alone kept its ground in public estimation; and, indeed, as a
performance professedly panegyrical, and possessing little adventitious
claim from the merit of its object, it is no ordinary praise to say that it
has done so. It attracted, lord Woodhouselee has remarked, "the envy as
well as the praise of Ben Jonson, is superior in harmony of numbers to any
of the compositions of the contemporary poets of England, and in its subject
one of the most elegant panegyrics ever addressed by a poet to a
prince."
Drummond of Hawthornden
Story of his Life and Writings by David Masson, M.A., LL.D. (1873) |
