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THE POEMS
WILLIAM DRUMMOND
VOL. I
THE POEMS OF WILLIAM DRUMMOND
OF HAWTHORNDEX
EDITED BY
WM. C. WARD
VOL. I
LONDON : GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LIMITED
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
<i 0 0^{)
V
CONTENTS
OF THE FIRST VOLUME
Preface . . . ; . . Introductory Memoir Tears on the Death of Mceliades Poems — The First Part Poems— The Second Part . Urania, or Spiritual Poems Madrigals and Epigrams . Forth Feasting .... Notes ..,..-
PAGE
ix
17 lOI
135
147
185
203
PREFACE
In preparing the Notes to this edition of the Poems of Wilham Drummond of Hawthornden, I have kept two objects especially in view : to trace the particulars of Drummond's indebted- ness to other poets, and to illustrate the philo- sophical side of his character as it is exhibited in his writings. It has been generally allowed that Drummond was strongly influenced by the Italian poets, of whom Petrarch and Guarini have been named as his models beyond the rest. Nevertheless, very few instances have hitherto been adduced in which he has directly borrowed from either of these masters. The course of my reading, however, has not only confirmed the general opinion, but has proved that the extent of his indebtedness to the Italians is very considerable indeed. It is not improbable that further instances of this in-
X PREFACE
debtedness may yet be discovered ; meanwhile, the Notes to the present edition contain above fifty poems or fragments of poems by Italian authors, which Drummond has imitated or paraphrased. Without undervaluing his obli- gations to Petrarch and Guarini, the reader will observe that he has borrowed more largely from Marino than from any other poet.
The influence of Sidney upon Drummond's writings has been scarcely noticed by former editors : it is very marked, nevertheless, and I have pointed out various passages in his poems in which it is unmistakable. And, lastly, our author's Platonism, which I venture to regard as an important feature in his character, is illustrated at some length in the Notes, and in the Introductory Memoir.
For the text of the present edition, I have chiefly relied upon the Poe?ns of 1616, the second (enlarged) edition of Floiuers of Sio7i^ 1630, and the magnificent edition of Drum- mond's complete Poejns, privately printed for the Maitland Club in 1832. Other editions have been consulted and frequently collated ; especially, Edward Phillips's edition of 1656, the Edinburgh Folio of 171 1, and Mr. Laing's
PREFACE XI
Extracts from the Hawthornden MSS. in Ar- cJi(Zologia Scotica^ vol. iv.
The principal recent authority for the Life of Drummond is Professor Masson's exhaustive work — DruniDiond of Hawthornden : the Story of his Life and Writings : London, Macmillan & Co., 1873. A few particulars which Pro- fessor Masson has omitted, and one or two which have come to light since the publication of his book, will be found in the Introductory Memoir. Further authorities are cited in the footnotes.
No really satisfactory portrait of Drummond exists. The portrait engraved by Gaywood, for the first edition of Drummond's History of Scot- land (London, 1655), is the most credible of those that I have seen, and has been repro- duced as a frontispiece to the present volume.
WM. C. WARD.
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR
"The sweetest names, and which carry a perfume in the mention, are, Kit Marlowe, Drayton, Drummond of Hawthornden, and Cowley." Thus wrote one of the sweetest of English essayists, not altogether fantastically, as himself suggested, but induced by that fine relish for the more recondite beauties of literary art which left upon his own writings so de- lightful an impress. Of the four poets whom Charles Lamb thus classes together, none but Kit Marlowe stands higher than Drummond of Hawthornden. Drayton is sweet indeed, but over long-winded, and apt at times to lose the poet in the chronicler : Cowley, the meta- physical Cowley, is subtle and fanciful, but too often harsh or merely ingenious. But Drum- mond is sweeter than Drayton, and more pro- foundly metaphysical than Cowley, without the harshness of the one, or the tediousness of the other. Gifted by nature with exquisite taste, imagination, and a contemplative disposition, he assiduously improved his genius by the study
xvi INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR
of the best models ; learning the art of verse from Petrarch and Philip Sidney ; drinking deep draughts of philosophy, wherein perhaps no other English poet of his time was equally versed, from its fountain-head, the divine Plato. Drummond's poetry has in full measure that " element of sensuous beauty " which William Morris affirms to be the essence of art.* In his sonnets he runs Sidney hard, if he do not at times outstrip him. These, however, with some of the madrigals, are the most perfect of his poems, and it is even questionable if there be any more beautiful sonnets in the English language than the best of Drummond's.
I.
William Drummond of Hawthornden was born of an ancient and distinguished Scottish family. The founder of the house was one Maurice, a Hungarian, who fled to Scotland with Edgar Atheling, shortly after the Norman conquest, and took service with the Scottish king, Malcolm. His descendants gradually spread into many branches — Drummonds of Stobhall, of Concraig, of Cargill, of Carnock,
* Preface to Ruskin's Nature of Gothic: Kelmscott Press, 1892.
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xvii
and the rest ; finally, Drummonds of Haw- thornden. But about the middle of the four- teenth century the chief representative of the family was Sir John Drummond of Stobhall, who had four sons and four daughters. The eldest daughter, Annabella, married Robert Stuart, afterwards King of Scotland by the title of Robert III., the second monarch of the Stuart line. By him she became the mother of the poet-king, James I,, and thereby ances- tress of the royal house of Stuart. From Sir Malcolm Drummond, the eldest son of Sir John, were descended in a direct line the Lords Drummond of Stobhall and the Earls of Perth, the heads of the house of Drummond. The third son of Sir John of Stobhall was Sir William Drummond, who acquired the lands of Carnock in Fifeshire by his marriage with Elizabeth Airth, and founded the branch known as Drummonds of Carnock. From this Sir William the fourth in descent was Sir Robert Drummond of Carnock, who had several sons. The eldest, Patrick, succeeded in due course to his father's title and estate ; the second be- came Sir John Drummond of Hawthornden, the father of our poet,*
* Douglas's Peerage of Scotland, and the Genealogy of the House of Drutnmond, by William Drummond, Viscount Strathallan : Edinburgh, 1831.
xviii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR
Concerning John Drummond of Hawthorn- den little has been recorded. What manner of man he was may be partly conjectured from his portrait at Hawthornden, which presents him, to quote Professor Masson's description, " as he must have been in the first days of his gentle- man-ushership to James VI, — the face light- complexioned, and very manly and handsome, with the light hair tinged to red round the mouth, and a most winning expression of sweet temper.""^ He was born in 1553; married Susanna Fowler ; and was appointed, not later than 1587, gentleman-usher to the King.t About 1590 his wife's brother, William Fowler, ob- tained the post of private secretary to Queen Anne. William Fowler, it is interesting to note, was a man of literary tastes, much addicted to the making of anagrams, but a producer also of sonnets and other miscellaneous verse, includ- ing some translations from Petrarch, which re- main unpublished. He was the author of one of the commendatory sonnets prefixed to King James's Essayes of a Prentise in the divine Art of Poesie^ published at Edinburgh in 1585. Many of Fowlei-'s papers were preserved by his
* Drumjtwnd of Hawthorndc7i : London, 1873: p. 453, f He was certainly usher to the King in July 1587.
^t& Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, ed. Masson,
vol. iv. p. 199.
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xix
nephew the poet, and are still extant among the Hawthornden MSS. in possession of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.*
By his acquisition of the Hawthornden estate, some seven miles south-east of Edinburgh, John Drummond became a laird, or landed proprietor. There, in the old house of Haw- thornden, overlooking the romantic glen of the North Esk, was born, on the 13th of December 1585, his eldest son, William. Three more sons — James, Alexander, t and John ; and three daughters — Anna, Jane, and Rebecca, followed.
* Two volumes of manuscript poetry by Fowler, in- cluding a translation of Petrarch's THzimphs, are in the Edinburgh University Library, to which they were pre- sented by the poet Drummond in 1627.
t Mention is made of the poet's brother Alexander in the Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, ed. Masson, vol. ix. p. 215. On the 9th of July 1611, Alexander Drummond and certain other gentlemen were committed to prison by the Lords of the Council for making "a verie grite trouble and commotioun " in the High Street of Edinburgh, even to the pursuing one another with drawn swords for their lives ! The disturb- ance originated in a feud between the Livingstons and the Cockburns, Alexander Drummond taking part with the former, of whose house the Earl of Linlithgow was the head. A little later the chiefs of the two parties and their friends, amongst whom Alexander Drumn-iond is again mentioned, appeared before the Council to make a formal renunciation of their quarrel, having "choppit handis and imbraceit ane another" {Ibid. p. 240).
XX INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR
The second son, James, alcne of the family, survived the poet. Anna married a Mr. John Scot, whom we shall know hereafter as Sir John Scot of Scotstarvet ; Rebecca married a Mr. William Douglas of Bonjedwart.
William Drummond received his education at the Edinburgh High School, and subsequently at the new University of Edinburgh, where he took the degree of M.A., July 27, 1605. One of his teachers at the university, the Professor of Humanity, Mr. John Ray, was long after- wards commemorated by him in a sonnet overflowing with grateful enthusiasm. " Bright Ray of learning ! " he terms his old master, in the punning fashion of the time. And Drum- mond was doubtless an apt pupil. Throughout his life the love of books and study was strong within him, and, as his earliest biographer notes, "his greatest familiarity and conversa- tion was with the university men and men of learning." *
But while Drummond was still pursuing his studies at the university, all Scotland had been agitated by a great political change. In 1603, by the death of Queen Elizabeth, the King of Scots had become also King of England, and the Court had been in consequence removed
* Memoir by Bishop Sage, prefixed to the folio edi- tion of Drummond's Woris: Edinburgh, 1711 : p. vii.
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xxi
to London. With the Court went Dnimmond's father and his uncle Fowler. John Drummond was knighted at Whitehall on the 23rd of July 1603,* and probably passed much of the re- mainder of his life in attendance upon the King. At all events, we find him with the Court at Greenwich some three years later, when his son W^illiam paid his first visit to London.t The young man had completed his studies at the university, and it had been decided that he should enter the legal profession ; though one may doubt whether Drummond himself re- garded that decision with unqualified approval. Moreover, Edinburgh not affording at that time sufficient advantages for the training of a lawyer, it was settled that he should go to France to study his profession. This scheme he accord- ingly carried out, though in somewhat leisurely fashion ; proceeding by way of England, and spending the summer of 1606 in London and its vicinity on his way to the Continent.
The period of his stay in London must indeed have passed all too quickly. In this new experience of life there would be much to gratify the taste and captivate the fancy
* Nichols's Progresses of King Jajnes the First, vol. i. p. 208.
t Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. vii. p. 490.
xxii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR
of a romantic young student, fresh from the schools. Drummond had an artist's love of pageantry and splendid spectacles, and he could now indulge this liking to his heart's content. His connections gave him the free- dom of the Court, and he would probably find little difficulty in procuring some glimpses at least of the literary circles of the metropolis. Six letters written by him at this period to a noble friend in Scotland have been published.* They contain a lively description of the revels and festivities prepared to celebrate the visit of the Queen's brother^ King Christian of Den- mark. Some of the passages read almost like pages from Amadis of Gaul. There is " the challenge of the Errant Knights, proclaimed with sound of trumpet before the palace gate of Greenwich." The challengers offered to maintain " by all the allowed ways of knightly arguing," viz., by lance and sword, four " in- disputable propositions" in praise of Love and Beauty. The tourney was to take place irf the valley of Mirefleur — romantic for Greenwich Park. One of the challengers, as Drummond
* Drummond*s Works, folio, 1711 : pp. 231-233. These six letters were written from Greenwich, where the Court was. Drummond was doubtless staying with his father, the King's gentleman-usher. The first letter is dated June i, the last August 12, 1606.
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xxiii
would doubtless remark with interest, was Sir Philip Sidney's nephew, William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, a man only less generally be- loved and admired than his glorious uncle. A quarter of a century earlier Sidney himself had taken part in a similar display, in the presence of the Maiden Queen. It is not in- excusable, perhaps, to note even so trifling a circumstance as this, which connects in some way the names of Sidney and Drummond ; for the resemblance between the two men was con- siderable. The same high-minded, chivalrous disposition prevailed in both, although Sidney's character had a practical side which was want- ing to the contemplative Drummond. This, too, is certain : that Sidney's influence is more strongly and unmistakably apparent in the writings of Drummond than that of any other English poet. But to return to our pageant.
Besides the tourney, the royal visitor was to be regaled with "the mai-vellous adventures of the Lucent Pillar," which were at length to be revealed to the wonder of men, as Merlin had prophesied of old. Possibly the period of Merlin's prediction had not been correctly com- puted ; at all events, we hear nothing more from Drummond of the Lucent Pillar. But when the Danish King arrived, about the middle of July, there were abundant splendours for his
xxiv INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR
delectation : " nothing to be heard at Court but sounding of trumpets, hautboys, music, revel- lings, and comedies." On the 5th of August, moreover, there was tilting at Greenwich, where King Christian, mounted on a dapple-gray, and wearing sky-coloured armour spangled with gold, with a bunch of blue and white plumes in his helm, " broke some staves with a marvel- lous grace, and great applause of the people."
With all this chivalric display young Drum- mond was evidently delighted. But alas for the evanescence of earthly joys ! On the 12th of August he writes : " None of our pleasures are lasting ; they, as all human things, have their end. The King of Denmark, the 9th of this month, taking his leave of his sister and His Majesty (who with tears in their eyes re- turned), went towards his ships to Gravesend " : has departed, in fact, leaving " a general com- mendation in this island of his virtues."
A clearer insight into the tastes and disposi- tion of Drummond may be derived from the lists of books which he read from 1606 to 1614 : lists still extant at Edinburgh in his own hand- writing.* As might be anticipated, works of
* Printed among Mr. David Laing's Extracts from the Hawthornden MSS., in Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland {ArchcBologia Scotica), vol. iv. pp. 73-76.
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xxv
poetr)^ predominate. There is a good sprink- ling of romance, and a modest choice of mis- cellaneous literature, including some books of histor\' and theology. Among the books read by Drummond in the year 1606, we note with particular interest Shakespeare's /Borneo, Love's Labour's Lost^ Midsummer Nighfs Dreayn, Lucrece, and the Passionate Pilgriinj Knox's Chro7iicles (i.e., LListory of the Refor7natio7i in Scotland) ; Alexander's Aurora; Sidney's Ar- cadia; Lyly's Euphues ; and certain volumes of Amadis and of the Dia?ia of Montemayor. Nor, even thus early, was Drummond's love of poetry evinced in his reading alone. It is beyond doubt that he was already in the habit of scribbling verses ; among his posthumous works are printed three or four little poems, or fragments of poems, which date back in all probability to his boyhood.
Drummond now proceeded to France, where he appears to have remained for two or three years, studying civil law at Bourges — with great diligence, according to Bishop Sage. !More congenial studies, however, were by no means neglected. In his lists for the years 1607-1609 we note the names of Rabelais, of Ronsard, of Du Bartas, Muret, and Pontus de Tyard ; of Tasso and Sanazzaro (these in French transla- tions) ; the Orla?ido Furioso. also in French ;
xxvi INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR
Latin poems of Cardinal Bembo and other Italian writers; Ainadis of Gaul 2LX\d the Diana^ in French ; the tragedies of Seneca ; and Oracula SibyllcE^ in Greek. In 1609 we again find Eng- lish books on the list: Sidney's Arcadia^ for the second time of reading ; the poems of Samuel Daniel ; and Davison's Poetical Rhapsody ; but these Drummond probably read after his return from the Continent. Only one work is included which has even the most distant connection with his intended profession — the Institutes of Justifiian.
A long letter of Drummond's, dated Paris, February 12, 1607, and addressed to. his friend Sir George Keith of Powburn, affords the only picture which remains to us of his life abroad.* This letter is in several respects highly charac- teristic of the writer. A stately diction, recall- ing the language of his favourite romances ; a love of beauty, which peeps out in a hundred picturesque touches in Drummond's verse ; a fanciful vein of moralising : these are the marked features of the young student's letter, and not less of the maturer writings of the poet.
* Printed in the folio edition of Drummond's Works, pp. 139-141. The year is not given, but was supphed by Mr. David Laing from the MS. (See Arch-cEologia Scotica, vol. iv. p. 98.)
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xxvii
" Sir," he begins, " when, out of curiosity, this last week I had entered those large and spacious galleries in which the Fair of St. Ger- mains is kept, and had viewed the diverse merchandise and wares of the nations at that mart, above the rest I was much taken with the daintiness of the many portraits there to be seen- The devices, posies, ideas, shapes, and draughts of the artificers were various, nice, and pleasant. Scarce could the wander- ing thought light upon any story, fable, or gaiety which was not here represented to the view. If Cebes, the Theban philosopher, made a table hung in the temple of Saturn the argu- ment of his rare moralities ; and Jovius and Marini, the portraits in their galleries and libraries the subject of some books ; I was brought to think I should not commit a great fault if I sent you for a token, from this mart, a scantling of this ware, which affordeth a like contentment to the beholder and pos- sessor."
After enumerating various paintings, histori- cal or mythological, Drummond continues : " The father of our fictions, Meonides himself, was here represented, with closed eyes, and a long beard of the colour of the night ; to whom was the honour of Mantua adjoined, his head wreathed with bays, his face was somewhat
xxviii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR
long, his cheeks scarce with a small down descrying his sex. . . . The Cyprian goddess was in diverse shapes represented. The first was naked as she appeared on the hills of Ida, or when she arose from her foamy mother ; but that she should not blush, the painter had limned her entering a green arbour, and look- ing over her shoulder, so that there were only seen her back and face. . . . The third had drawn her lying on a bed with stretched-out arms ; in her hand she presented to a young man (who was adoring her, and at whom little Love was directing a dart) a fair face, which with much ceremony he was receiving ; but on the other side, which should have been the hinder part of that head, was the image of Death ; by which Mortality he surpassed the others, more than they did him by Art. It were to be wished this picture were still before the eyes of doting lovers."
Further on he describes "the picture of a young lady, whose hair drew near the colour of amber, but with such a bright lustre that it was above gold or amber ; her eyes were some- what green, her face round, where the roses strove to surpass the lilies of her cheeks ; and such an one she was limned as Apelles would have made choice of for the beauty of Greece. She was said to be the Astrea of the Marquis
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xxix
D'Urfe."* Bright amber hair, greenish eyes, and cheeks of roses and hHes, remained, as we find by his poems, Drummond's ideal of feminine beauty.
The concluding paragraph of the letter is this : " Now when I had considered all (for these galleries were a little All, if you please), casting mine eyes aside, I beheld on a fair table the portraits of two, which drew my thoughts to more seriousness than all the other. The first, clothed in a sky-coloured mantle, bordered with some red, was laughing, and held out his finger, by way of demonstration, in scorn to another, in a sable mantle, who held his arms across, declined his head pitifully, and seemed to shed tears. The one showed that he was Democritus, the other that he was Heraclitus. And truly considering all our actions, except those which regard the service and adoration of God Almighty, they are either to be lamented or laughed at ; and man is always a fool, except in miser}', which is a whetstone of judg- ment."
Drummond returned to Scotland in 1609. He seems, after all, to have made some pro-
* Astrie, D'Urf^'s famous pastoral romance, was not yet published, though it is evident from Drummond's allusion, that it was already talked about. The first volume appeared in 1610.
XXX INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR
gress m the study of the law, and "brought home not only the dictates of the professors, but also his own observations on them ; which the worthy, learned, and judicious President Lockhart seeing, said, that if our author had followed the practice, he might have made the best figure of any lawyer in his time." * But the Fates had otherwise decreed. In 1610 Drummond again visited London. The same year his father died, and was buried in the Abbey of Holyrood. Whereupon the young man renounced for ever all thoughts of a legal career, to cultivate retired leisure and the Muse in his quiet home at Hawthomden.
IL
The heroic age of Scottish poesy had passed away when Drummond entered the field. To the sturdy singers of the old school, the Dun- bars and Lindsays, no successor had appeared. Indeed, for many years the troubled condition of the nation had been unfavourable to the cultivation of poetry. More than all besides, the stem Calvinism of the Scots, "as killing as the canker to the rose,'' had contributed to
* Dnimmond's Works, folio, 171 1 : Memoir, p. ii.
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xxxi
its decline. Here and there a scholar still found occasional relaxation in the turning of Latin verses, or a courtier wrote sonnets in the vernacular of England, which was gradually replacing the Scottish idiom as a means of literary expression ; but as a national art, Scottish poetry was practically extinct at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The most distinguished, perhaps the most meri- torious, Scottish poet of this time was William Alexander of Menstrie, who wrote in English as unprovincial as Sidney's own, and whose style shows clearly the influence of Italian models. Nor was Drummond, who was already the admirer and soon to become the bosom friend of Alexander, better qualified to aid in the resuscitation of a national art. Endowed by nature with a far richer vein of poetry than Menstrie's, his Muse, like his friend's, was completely exotic. It could not well be other- wise. Scotsman at heart, and true lover of his countr}', as he was, he had few feelings in common with the vast majority of his country- mxen. Their religious fanaticism, the breath of their national life, was hateful to him, and as his years increased the difference grew ever wider and more hopeless.
But we anticipate. Drummond was now established at his "sweet and solitary seat" of
xxxii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR
Hawthornden, studying the Greek and Latin authors, as well as the Italian poets whose in- fluence upon his own writings was so marked. Among the books which he read during the years 1610-1612, we note the J^tme of Petrarch, the Pastor Fido of Guarini, Riine and Arcadia of Sanazzaro, with various works of Tasso, Bembo, Rinaldi, Contarini, and Coquinato. Of English books read during the same period the most noteworthy are Spenser's Faery Queen, Ainoretti, and Epithalainiu}>i, poems of Drayton and Alexander, Ben Jonson's Epi- grams, Bacon's Essays, and Puttenham's Art of English Poesy. The Hawthornden MSS. include lists, in Drummond's handwriting, of the books which constituted his library at Hawthornden in 161 1. Of Italian books there are 61 ; of Spanish, 8 ; of French, 120 ; of English, 50 ; of Greek, 35 ; of Hebrew, 11 ; of Latin, 164, comprising 31 of theology, 24 of law, 54 of philosophy, and 55 of poetry : lastly, there is "an additional list, chiefly of classics or miscellaneous Latin authors, con- taining 103 books." "^ A total of 552 books in seven languages.
Drummond's love of retirement was certainly unaffected. It is evinced not only by many
* Archceologia Scotica, vol. iv. p. jj.
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xxxiii
passages in his writings, but by the whole tenor of his life. That Court preferment was open to him, had he cared to accept it, can hardly be doubted. His family connections, his influential friends, his notorious royahsm, his fame as a poet, to say nothing of certain effusive bits of adulator}^ verse addressed to King James and King Charles, had surely made smooth for him the path to worldly honours if he had chosen to follow it. But he seems at no time to have sought or desired such vain distinc- tions ; appraising them rather at their true worth, as " gilded glories which decay." In the sweet seclusion of Hawthornden, amid his books and papers, he led a life contemplative and studious, but, in these early years at least, by no means gloomy. " He was not much taken up," writes his old biographer, " with the ordinary amusements of dancing, singing, play- ing, &c., tho' 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, which he did to admiration. But the most part of his time was spent in reading the best books, and conversing with the learnedest men, which he improved to great advantage." * And again :
* Drummond's Works, 171 1 : Memoir, p. iii.
xxxiv INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR
" He never sought after riches and honours, but rather decHned them. ... He used always that of Mirandola, in his free discourse, Meis libris^ vieis oculis contentus^ a puero usque infra fortu- na7n vivere didici; et quantum possum apud me habitayis^ nihil extra 7ne aut suspiro aut ambioJ'' *
It was probably in the year 1612 that Drummond became personally acquainted with William Alexander of Menstrie, whose poems he had long known and admired. Alexander was some seventeen years the elder, having been born about 1568. He was Sir William now ; knighted in 1609 ; and gentleman of the chamber to the King's eldest son, Prince Henry. Better than this, he was a poet of established reputation, and of some real merit, albeit his vein was not of the richest. Having Court duties to fulfil, Sir William resided for the most part in England ; but it so happened that he was at his house of Menstrie, in Clackmannanshire, at a time when fortune brought Drummond into that neighbourhood. The story of their meet- ing is told by Drummond in a letter (undated) to a friend.
" Fortune this last day was so favourable as b)y plain blindness to acquaint me with that
* Drummond's Works, 171 1 : Memoir, p. x.
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most excellent spirit and rarest gem of our north, S. W. A. [Sir W. Alexander]; for, coming near his house, I had almost been a Christian father to one of his children. He accepted me so kindly, and made me so good entertainment (which, whatsomever, with him I could not have thought but good), that I can- not well show. Tables removed, after Honier's fashion well satiate, he honoured me so much as to show me his books and papers. This much I will say, and perchance not without reason dare say, if the heavens prolong his days to end his Day, he hath done more in one Day than Tasso did all his life, and Bartas in his two weeks, though both the one and the other be most praiseworthy. I esteemed of him before I was acquaint with him, because of his works ; but I protest henceforth I will esteem of his works because of his own good, courteous, meek dis- position. He entreated me to have made longer stay ; and, believe me, I was as sorry to depart as a new-enamoured lover would be from his mistress." *
* A7-ch(Eologia Scotica, vol. iv. p. 83, The date of this meeting is unknown, but it was certainly not later than 1612. Professor Masson gives the year 1614, but on the supposition that Alexander was knighted in that year ; Drumniond referring to him in the letter above quoted as S[ir] W. A. It now appears, however, that he was knighted in 1609 : see the article Alexander,
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The words "hath done more in one Day" refer to a poem entitled Doomsday, which Alexander had evidently shown to Drummond in the manuscript, and which he published in 1614. I am afraid no one will now be found of Drummond's mind as to its merits.
The acquaintance thus happily begun soon ripened into an intimacy which endured until the death of Alexander. The two poets ad- dressed each other by the title of brother : they wrote verses to one another under the names of Alexis and Damon ; and when Alexis obliged the world with the first edition of his Doomsday, Damon commended the per- formance in a sonnet in which he compared his friend to Phoebus.
In 1613 Drummond made his first public appearance as a poet. The occasion was an event which cast a real gloom over the English and Scottish nations — the death, on the 6th of
by Dr. Grosart, in the Diet, of National Biography. A commendatory sonnet by Alexander is prefixed to the first edition of Drummond's Tears on the Death of Moeliades, which must have been pubUshed early in 1613. In Arch. Scot. (iv. p. 84) is printed a letter from Drummond to Alexander, which the editor, David Laing, conjectures, with great probability, to have been written shortly after the death of Prince Henry (Nov. 6, 1612) ; though the allusion is too vague to pronounce positively upon.
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November 1612, of Henry, Prince of Wales ; a gallant and promising youth, by all accounts, who had not completed his nineteenth year. The poets, as was then expected of them, came forward in crowds, each with his bit of memorial verse, and Drummond, almost as a matter of course, added his tribute to the rest. An Elegie on the Death of Prince Henrie^ by Sir William Alexander, was published about the end of 16 12 by the leading bookseller of Edinburgh, Andro Hart. Alexander's concern was indeed personal, for he had long been intimately connected with the young Prince. A little later appeared Drummond's contribu- tion to the national lamentation. It consisted of a pastoral elegy, entitled Tears 07t the Death of Mceltades, and three shorter pieces. The elegy was published by Andro Hart, "at his shop on the north side of the High Street, a little beneath the Cross," in 161 3, and was generally admired, a second edition being issued the same year, and a third in 1614.
Nor was the general admiration ill deserved. In Tears on the Death of Ma;liades the fervour of a poet is combined with the skill of an accomplished artist. The versification is flow- ing and melodious, but without monotony ; the words are nicely adapted to the sense, now heavy with lamentation, now echoing the
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clangour of "shrill-sounding trumpets" and the confused clash of arms, and again pulsing in solemn cadence as the poet sings of that un- imagined world where the freed spirit is at rest. Especially beautiful are the last two para- graphs, where Drummond's religious sentiment finds noble expression, and where, too, we may recognise a premonition of that philosophic strain of thought which holds so promment a place in some of his later writings.
The poems which Drummond next produced were written upon a subject nearer to his heart. Apart from such intimations as his verses afford, all that we know of the story of his love is contained in the following extract from the memoir prefixed to the folio edition of his works : " Notwithstanding his close retirement and serious application to his studies. Love stole in upon him, and did entirely captivate his heart ; for he was on a sudden highly enamoured of a fine, beautiful young lady, daughter to Cunningham of Bams, an ancient and honourable family. He met with suitable returns of chaste love from her, and fully gained her affections ; but when the day for the mar- riage was appointed, and all things ready for the solemnisation of it, she took a fever, and was suddenly snatched away by it, to his great grief and sorrow."
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xxxix.
Barns, the seat of the young lady's father, lies on the north coast of the Firth of Forth, between Crail and Kilrenny, in the eastern part of Fife. Drummond's brother-in-law, John Scot, with his wife and family, resided in the same county, at no great distance from the Cunninghams. In the autumn of 1611, John Scot, then a young lawyer of five and twenty, and Director of the Scottish Chancery, had acquired considerable landed property in Fife, including the barony of Tarvet, near Cupar, from which he gave the general name of Scots- tarvet to the whole of his Fifeshire estates. He was a man of education and literary pro- pensities,^ shrewd and thrifty w^ithal, and in many respects unlike Drummond, though be- tween them there subsisted a mutual regard and some community of tastes. A part of Scotstar\-et's estate lay in the immediate vicinity of Barns, and it is likely enough that Drummond was on a visit to his brother-in-law when he
* Still remembered as the author of Scot of Scotstarvet' s Staggering State of Scots Statesmen: "a. Homily on Life's Nothingness, enforced by examples ; gives in brief compass, not without a rude laconic geniality, the cream of Scotch Biographic History in that age, and uncon- sciously a curious self-portrait of the writer withal" (Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. i. p. 315, note; ed. 1857). Some Latin poems by Scot of Scotstarvet are printed in. DeliticB Poetarum Scotorinn : Amsterdam, 1637.
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made the acquaintance of the beautiful Miss Cunningham. The lady, if we may trust a poet's description of his mistress, had just such golden hair and greenish eyes as had charmed him, years before, in the Astrea of the St. Germains galleiy. Seldom has lady fair been celebrated by her sei-vant in sweeter and more musical verse than that which Drummond penned to perpetuate her beauty and his pas- sion. There is yet extant a letter of his, sent to some lady with an offering of verse — a letter undated and unaddressed, which nevertheless I refer with confidence to Miss Cunningham of Barns. "Here," he writes, "you have the poems, the first fruits your beauty and many, many good parts did bring forth in me. Though they be not much worth, yet (I hope) ye will, for your own dear self's sake, deign them some favour, for whom only they were done, and whom only I wish should see them. Keep them, that hereafter, when Time, that changeth everything, shall make wither those fair roses of your youth, among the other toys of your cabinet they may ser\'e for a memorial of what once was, being so much better than little pictures, as they are like to be more lasting ; and in them are the excellent virtues of your rare mind limned, though, I must confess, as painters do angels and the celestial world.
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which represent them no ways as they are, but in mortal shapes and shadows," "^
A short year or two of happiness, and then the blow fell, and the lover's life was shadowed with a lasting gloom. Probably in 1615, Miss Cunningham died.t Drummond continued to write, immortalising his sorrow as he had im- mortalised his hopes. In the little volume of verse which he published with Andro Hart in 1 6 16, the principal place is given to a sequence of poems— sonnets, songs, and madrigals — divided, as Petrarch had divided the stoiy of
* ArchcEologia Scotica, vol. iv. p. 83.
t The only positive intelligence which we have of Drummond in 1615 is contained in the following extract from the Register of the Privy Council of Scotland (vol. X. p. 831), dated Edinburgh, March 2, 1615 : — ' ' The Lordis of Secreit Counsaill, for ressonable causis moving thame, hes gevin and grantit, and be thir presentis gevis and grantis, licence and libertie to Mr. Johnne Scott of Scottistarvatt, Director of his Majes- teis Chancellarie, and to Mr, William Drummond of Hathorndaill, to eatt fleshe at all times quhen they sail think expedient during this forbiddin time of Lentroun, fra the xxi day of Februer lastbipast to the feist of Pasche nixttocum " [next to come!]. The editor, Professor Masson, conjectures from this that Scot and Drummond were spending Lent together, and wished to enjoy themselves without the drawback of Lenten fare. Accepting this conjecture, I should be inclined to put the death of Miss Cunningham later in the year. Drummond's uncle, William Fowler, had died in the preceding year, 1614.
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his love and grief, into two parts ; in the first of which the poet sings the praises of his Hving mistress, in the second laments her untimely- death. These poems include many of the ripest and most finished productions of Drum- mond's Muse. His studies in Italian poetry had- borne good fruit. Not only is his verse cast in an Italian mould, but it is largely im- pregnated with Italian sentiment. He follows Petrarch both in the general arrangement and in particular instances. Nor does he restrict himself to imitation, but often translates directly from the Italian, especially from the poems of Petrarch, Tasso, Marino, Sanazzaro, and Guarini. From the frequency of his transla- tions from Marino, it appears that the latter was an especial favourite with him ; partly, I believe, on account of a certain metaphysical tendency which finds expression in some of Marino's pieces, and which was nearly akin to Drummond's own way of thinking. It is some- what remarkable, by the way, that Drummond scarcely ever adopts the true Italian form of the sonnet, preferring to end with a rhymed couplet, as Shakespeare and Sidney had done before him. He says of himself "that he was the first in the Isle that did celebrate a mistress dead, and Englished the madrigal." "^
* Folio, 171 1 : Memoir, p. v.
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I have already adverted to the fact that Drummond was influenced by Sidney, who, like himself, owed much to the Italians. Upon the whole, Drummond's poems to his mistress bear a closer resemblance, both in manner and matter, to the splendid sequence of sonnets which has immortalised the names of Astrophel and Stella, than to any other production of an English poet. It were perhaps rash to assert that Sidney is the only English poet to whom Drummond, in a literary point of view, was seriously indebted ; but I find in his writings few traces of the influence of others. On two or three occasions he has borrowed from Shake- speare, and a curious search may reveal some kindred touches in Daniel's Son7iets to Delia. He had long known Alexander's Aurora: a series of Petrarchan sonnets, &c., addressed to a lady whom the poet had loved and lost ; not indeed by death, but through her prefer- ence for another. But Alexander's Aurora^ though Drummond admired the poetry and loved the poet, w^as hardly a source from whence his own far stronger oMuse could derive much inspiration. His models, then, were Sidney and the Italians. At times he would take Sidney's very phrases, as his wont was with his favourite poets, and weave them cun- ningly into the web of his own verse. In a
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more general way, his affinity to Sidney is often strikingly displayed in the style and matter of his poems : some of his sonnets would not seem at all out of place among those sonnets to Stella.
But with all these influences and imitations, the term plagiarist, in a derogatory sense, can- not with justice be applied to Drummond. If he sometimes deck himself in borrowed plum- age, he wears it with a grace which is altogether his own. In the closest of his translations he never allows us to forget that the translator also is a poet. The many productions of his pen which are wholly original, afford ample proof that it was not from poverty of invention that he became a borrower. His was the full equipment of the poet, and what he took from others he had made already his own by sym- pathy and delight. In one respect he was greater than his models, if not as a poet, yet as a thinker. Certain pieces in the volume of 1616 — especially the beautiful " Song" in which he describes the apparition of his mistress after her death — already show a depth of philosophic thought unusual among poets of any age, perhaps unique as regards those of his own time. At a later period this characteristic of Drummond was more fully developed. It found, perhaps, its completest expression in his prose essay.
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A Cypress Grove^ which proves him to have been deeply influenced by the philosophy of Plato. It is shown, too, in several of the poems in his Flowers of Sion, though always coloured to some extent, as was indeed inevitable, by the Christianity in which he was a devout, though for his time a singularly open-minded believer. Drummond had in him, in fact, the making of a Platonic philosopher ; but, as Sir Thomas Browne would have said, he " Christianised his notions."
Besides the poems on his mistress, the little quarto of 1616 contains a reprint of Tears 011 the Death of Mcelzades, with a sonnet and a " pyra- midal " epitaph on the same subject ; a few religious or philosophical pieces under the title of Urania, or Spiritual Poe7ns ; and a collection Df Madrigals atid Epigrams. The Madrigals and Epigrams are probably, for the most part, of an earlier date than the rest of the book : many of them are translations from the Italian. The poems latest written I should judge to be the Urania, in which Drummond's Christianity is for the first time in his writings clearly pro- nounced. But to this subject we shall revert hereafter.
On page 226 of the folio edition of his works is printed, urder the title of A Character of Several Authors, a fragment of criticism by
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Drummond, some extracts from which will not 'be without interest to the reader. It appears from internal evidence to have been written after the publication of the first part of Dray- ton's Polyolbio7i in 1612, and before the death of Shakespeare in 1616. Drummond writes : — "The authors I have seen on the subject of Love are the Earl of Surrey, Sir Thomas Wyat (whom, because of their antiquity, I will not match with our better times), Sidney, Daniel, Drayton, and Spenser. He who writeth The .Art of E7iglish Poesy* praiseth much Raleigh and Dyer ; but their works are so few that have come to my hands, I cannot well say anything of them. The last we have are Sir William Alexander and Shakespeare, who have lately published their works. . . . The best and most exquisite poet of this subject, by consent of the whole senate of poets, is Petrarch. S. W. R.,t in an epitaph on Sidney, calleth him our English Petrarch ; and Daniel regrets he was not a
* Attributed to George Puttenham.
f Sir Walter Raleigh, whose epitaph on Sidney is printed on pp. 5-7 of the Aldine edition of his poems, London, 1875. The expression alluded to by Drum- imond occurs in the last stanza, which is as follows : —
"That day their Hannibal died, our Scipio fell, — Scipio, Cicero, and Petrarch of our time ; Whose virtues, wounded by my worthless rhyire. Let angels speak, and heaven thy praises tel, *
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Petrarch, though his Deha be a Laura."^ . . . The French have also set him before them as a paragon ; whereof we still find that those of our English poets who have approached nearest to him are the most exquisite on this subject [Love]. When I say approach him, I mean not in following his invention, but in forging as good ; and when one matter cometh to them all at once, who quintessenceth it in the finest substance.
"Among our English poets Petrarch is imi- tated, nay surpassed in some things, in matter and manner : in matter, none approach him to Sidney, who hath songs and sonnets inter- mingled : in manner, the nearest I find to him is \V. Alexander, who, insisting in these same steps, hath sextains, madrigals and songs, echoes and equivoques, which he [Petrarch] hath not ; whereby, as the one hath surpassed him in matter, so the other in manner of writing, or form. . . . After which two, next, methinks, foUoweth Daniel, for sweetness in rhyming second to none. Drayton seemeth rather to have loved his Muse than his mistress, by I know not what artificial similes ; this showeth well his mind, but not the passion. . . . Donne, among the Anacreontic lyrics, is second to none,
* In the fortieth of his Sonnets to Delia. VOL. I. d
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and far from all second ; but as Anacreon doth not approach Callimachus, though he excels in his own kind, nor Horace to Virgil, no more can I be brought to think him to excel either Alexander's or Sidney's verses. They can hardly be compared together, treading diverse paths ; the one flying swift, but low ; the other; like the eagle, surpassing the clouds. I think, if he would, he [Donne] might easily be the best epigrammatist we have found in English ; of which I have not yet seen any come near the ancients. . . . Drayton's Polyolbion is one of the smoothest pieces I have seen in English, poetical and well prosecuted ; there are some pieces in him I dare compare with the best transmarine poems. ... I find in him, which is in most part of my compatriots, too great an admiration of their country ; on the history of which whilst they muse, they forget sometimes to be good poets."
III.
In May 1617, King James visited Scotland for the first time since his departure to assume the crown of England. Among the memorials of his visit is a poem by Drummond, published the same year by Andro Hart, under the title of
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Forth Feasting : a Panegyric to the King's most excellent Majesty. It is in the form of an ad- dress to the King, supposed to be spoken by the river Forth, and the beauty of the verse is ex- ceeded only by the rankness of the adulation. Professor Masson is of opinion that Drummond "need not be thought of as even smilingly dis- honest " on this occasion,* but I am unable to take quite so lenient a view of the matter. The evil custom of the time may fairly be pleaded in palliation, but it is not an excuse. Drummond's royalism, always intense and chivalrous, would naturally incHne him to elevate his sovereign, even against his reason, into a sort of Divtis Jacobus. Moreover, James, disreputable as he was, had some redeeming qualities : he was a man of letters for one thing, and he undoubtedly possessed a good deal of shrewd sense, which might, without very gross flattery, be dignified by the name of wisdom. Perhaps, too, the ancient alliance between the houses of Drum- mond and Stuart, of which our Scottish poet was by no means unmindful, may have influ- enced him in some slight measure. On the other hand, it is to be feared that Drummond understood only too well the character of the man whom he was belauding as the pattern of
* Drummond of Hawthor}iden, p. 59.
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all perfections. Among his posthumous poems is a little piece called T/ie Five Senses,"^ in uhich the most secret vices of poor King James are mercilessly exposed. In any case, it is strange that so retiring a man as Drummond,. who really seems neither to have expected nor desired any favour from James, as he certainly received none, should have condescended to such outrageous flattery. One small incident of the King's visit to Scotland is not without interest for us. Drum- mond's brother-in-law was knighted, and ap- pointed a member of the Scottish Privy Council: Sir John Scot of Scotstarvet henceforward.
I have before cited Drummond's favourable opinion of the poetical works of his contempo- rary, Michael Drayton. In the year 1618 he was visited at Hawthomden by one Joseph Davis, bringing an introduction from Drayton, who already knew him well by report, through their common friend Sir William Alexander, and was doubtless acquainted with his poems. Drum- mond's pleasure in this opening intercourse is vividly expressed in the following letter : —
"To the Right Worshipful Mr. Michael Dray- ton, Esq.
" Sir, — I have understood by Mr. Davis the direction he received from you to salute me
* I am not fully convinced of its authenticity, however.
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here ; which undeserved favour I value above the commendations of the greatest and mightiest in this Tsle. Though I have not had the for- tune to see you (which sight is but Hke the near view of pictures in tapestry), yet, almost ever since I couid know any, ye have been to me known and beloved. Long since your amorous (and truly HeroicaV) Epistles did ravish me ; and lately your most happy Albion \Polyolbioji\ put me into a new trance : works (most excel- lent portraits of a rarely endued mind) which, if one may conjecture of what is to come, shall be read, in spite of envy, so long as men read books. Of your great love, courtesy, and generous dis- position, I have been informed by more than one of the worthiest of this country ; but what before was only known to me by fame I have now found by experience: your goodness pre- venting me in that duty which a strange bash- fulness, or bashful strangeness, hindered me to offer unto you. You have the first advantage : the next should be mine ; and hereafter you shall excuse my boldness if, when I write to your matchless friend Sir W. Alexander, I now and then salute you, and in that claim, though unknown, to be — Your loving and assured friend "W. D."*
* Folio of 171 1, pp. 233, 234.
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The two poets were never to meet in this hfe ; but a lasting friendship was established between them, and a correspondence by letter, which continued to the last year of Drayton's life. " My dear noble Drummond," writes Drayton, in a letter dated London, November 9, 161 8, " 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" [the good Drayton was then fifty-five years old]. " Little did you think how oft that noble friend of yours. Sir William Alexander (that man of men), 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."* " Joseph Davis is in love with you," he adds in a postscript. Drummond, not to be outdone in politeness, replies on the 20th of December : "If my letters were so welcome to you, what may you think yours were to me, which must be so much more welcome in that the conquest I make is more than that of yours ? They who by some strange means have had conference with some of the old heroes, can only judge that delight I had in reading them ; for they
* Folio of 1711, p. 153.
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were to me as if they had come from Virgil, Ovid, or the father of our sonnets, Petrarch." "^
Drayton was just then " in terms," to use his own phrase, which means rather "out of terms," with the London booksellers : " a company of base knaves," he calls them, "whom I both scorn and kick at." He was entertaining, in consequence, a project of getting the second part of his Polyolbion published at Edinburgh by Andro Hart, and wrote repeatedly to Drum- mond upon the subject ; Drummond, of course, doing gladly all in his power to further the business. " How would I be overjoyed to see our north once honoured with your works, as before it was with Sidney's ! " he writes to Drayton, alluding to an edition of the Arcadia published at Edinburgh in 1599. The project, however, came to nothing : the second part of Polyolbion was published at London, by one of those same "base knaves," in the year 1622.
Of Drayton the little that remains to be told may perhaps most conveniently be told at once. The correspondence between him and Drummond continued on the same friendly terms, though with occasional long intervals of silence, partly due, it would seem, to Drum- mond's visits to the Continent. The last extant
* Folio of 171 1, p. 234.
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letter of Drayton to his " most worthy and ever honoured friend, Mr. WilHam Drummond," is dated July 14, 163 1.* In December of the same year he died. Drummond v/rites of him in a letter to Alexander, then Viscount Stirling : "The death of M. D., your great friend, hath been veiy grievous to all those which love the Muses here. ... Of all the good race of poets who wTote in the time of Queen Elizabeth, your Lordship now alone remains. Daniel, Sylvester, King James, Donne [are gone and now Dray- ton ; who, besides his love and kindly observance of your Lordship, hath made twice honourable mention in his works of your Lordship : long since in his Odes, and lately in his Elegies. ... If the date of a picture of his be just, he hath lived three score and eight years, but shall live, by all likelihood, so long as men speak English, after his death. I, who never saw him save by his letters and poesy, scarce be- lieve he is yet dead, and would fain misbelieve verity if it were possible." t
In the same year in which his correspon- dence with Drayton commenced, Drummond made the personal acquaintance of a still more famous English poet. The story of Ben Jon- son's visit to Hawthomden is familiar to every
* Printed in the Folio of 1711, p. 154. t Archaologia Scoiica, vol. iv. p. 93.
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reader. The old tradition, however, that the great dramatist undertook his Scottish journey for the express purpose of visiting Drummond has been long since discredited. That visit of one or two weeks was but a brief episode of a tour which, from Jonson's departure from London to his return thither, lasted some ten months in all, six of which v\'ere passed in Scotland ; and of those six months, five, or nearly five, had elapsed before he became Drummond's guest. Nevertheless, we can hardly doubt that to Jonson himself his sojourn with the Scottish poet must have been one of the most memorable incidents of his tour. To us, indeed, it is the one incident which makes that tour at all memorable ; for Drummond profited by the great man's presence beneath his roof to take notes of his conversation, " which notes," says Professor Masson, " since their recovery and publication in complete form by Mr. David Laing, have been known to all literary antiquaries as the richest repertory of English literary gossip and tradition that has come down to us concerning the reigns of Elizabeth and James, and also the most valu- able of all extant contributions to the biography of Ben Jonson."*
* "Ben Jonson in Edinburgh," by David Masson, in Blackwood's Magazine for December 1893, where the
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About the end of June 1618, Jonson set out on foot from London, and probably arrived in Scotland by the beginning of August. We have scarcely any information as to what he was doing during the months of August and September. He certainly visited Loch Lomond ; possibly St. Andrews ; but at the end of September he was residing at Leith, in the house of "one Master John Stuart," and there, or in that neighbourhood, he con- tinued, much honoured and entertained by the Edinburgh folk, until he started for Eng- land again. At Leith or in Edinburgh, there can be no doubt, he first made Drummond's acquaintance, and accepted his invitation to pass a few quiet days with him at Hawthorn- den. To Hawthornden, accordingly, about the end of December, Ben Jonson repaired, and gossiped freely about himself, his con- temporaries, and his predecessors in English poesy, during his stay there. His contem-
reader will find some new and interesting information concerning Ben Jonson's journey to Scotland. An ab- stract of Drummond's Notes appeared in the Folio of 1711, pp. 224-227. They were first published in com- plete form by Mr. Laing, from a manuscript copy in the handwriting of Sir Robert Sibbald, in ArchcBol. Scot. , vol. iv. pp. 241-270 ; and have since been reprinted, as a separate volume, for the Shakespeare Society, London, 1842 ; 8vo.
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poraries and predecessors, indeed, appear to have been but a poor lot, even the best of them, in Ben's estimation. Spenser pleased him not ; Sidney did not keep a decorum ; Shakespeare wanted art ; Daniel was a good, honest man, but no poet ; and so forth. Alto- gether, though Drummond surely felt both honoured and interested in entertaining under his roof the most famous of living English poets, his esteem for Ben Jonson was not much increased by this visit. The two men indeed were as ill adapted to one another as two men of genius could well be. As poets, they had little in common : the eminent qualities of the one were usually those in which the other was deficient. As indivi- duals, they were even wider apart. This loud, blustering, hard-drinking Englishman, with all his solid worth and real magnanimity, was not a man to attract the gentle, studious, retiring, and perhaps fastidious poet of Haw- thomden. The impressions of Ben Jonson's character which Drummond committed to paper are unfavourable and one-sided ; but this must have been largely Ben's own fault, for we may be certain that Drummond was not consciously unjust.
A letter written by Drummond to Ben Jonson, which bears the date of January 17,
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1619, proves that the latter had then quitted Hawthomden. He set out from Leith on his homeward journey on the 25th of that month. For a little while after his return to London the two pdets corresponded in the most friendly terms, the last letter which is extant of those that passed between them being written by Drummond, and dated July i, 161 9. No further correspondence between them is re- corded, and I doubt if there were much more to record.* As a man, and probably also as a poet, the sweet-minded Drayton was more congenial to Drummond than this dogmatising Ben. From Drummond's Notes I extract the following sentences, containing Ben Jonson's criticisms upon Drummond's own poetry : —
" His censure of my verses was that they were all good, especially my Epitaph of the Prince \Mceliades\ save that they smelled too much of the schools, and were not after the fancy of the time ; for a child, says he, may write after the fashion of the Greek and Latin verses in running : yet that he wished, to please the King, that piece of Forth Feasting had been his own.
* Their correspondence is printed in the folio edition of Drummond's Works, pp. 137, 154, 155, and Archceo- logia Scotica, vol. iv. p. 86 ; and reprinted, almost entire, in Masson's Drummond of Hawtho7-nden^ pp. 105-110.
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" He recommended to my reading Quin- tilian, who, he said, would tell me the faults of my verses as if he lived with me ; and Horace, Plinius Secundus' Epistles, Tacitus, Juvenal, Martial, whose epigram Viiani qiicc faciimt beat ior 6711^ Sec, he hath translated.
" He said to me, that I was too good and smiple, and that oft a man's modesty made a fool of his wit.
" He dissuaded me from poetry-, for that she beggared him, when he might have been a rich lawyer, physician, or merchant,"
One or two incidents of the year 1620 maybe briefly noticed. Among Drummond's friends at Court, Sir Robert Kerr of Ancrum, who was himself a poet in a small way, held a high place in his esteem. Early in 1620 this gentle- man had the misfortune to kill his man in a duel. His antagonist appears to have been a worth- less fellow ; but Kerr found it necessary to with- draw for a time to Holland. The following passage from one of Drummond's letters to him on this occasion is so characteristic of the writer's philosophic way of looking at things, that I cannot refrain from transcribing it.
" However Fortune turn her wheel, I find you still yourself, and so ballasted with your own worth that you may outdare any stomi.
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This is that jewel which neither change of Court nor climates can rob you of; of what is yours you have lost nothing. By this quadrant I have ever measured your height ; neither here could the vapours of Court make me err. Long since I learned not to esteem of any golden butterflies there but as of counters, whose places give them only worth." "^
At a later date Drummond writes to the same friend : " Brave minds, like lamps, are discerned when they are canopied with the night of affliction, and, like rubies, give the fairest lustre when they are rubbed. The sight of so many stately towns and differ- ing manners of men, the conquest of such friends abroad, and trial of those at home, the leaving of your remembrance so honourable to after times, have made you more happy in your distress than if, like another Endymion, you had slept away that swift course of days in the embracements of your Mistress the Court." t
A still dearer friend of Drummond's, Sir William Alexander, was even now sleeping away his days, with much discontent, in the embracements of the Court. Honours and high political preferment awaited him in the future ;
* Folio, 171 1, p. 141. f /did. p. 142.
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but as yet his greatness had not ripened, and his most important duty was to assist King James in translating the Psalms. In the spring of 1620, Alexander made an attempt to engage Drummond in the same work, no doubt, as Professor Masson suggests, with the view of doing his friend a good turn by introducing him to the King^s notice. The attempt failed signally ; probably not at all to Drummond's regret. He did, however, translate a Psalm, and sent his version to Alexander, from whom he received the following reply : —
" Brother, — I received your last letter,, with the Psalm you sent ; which I think very well done. I had done the same long before it came, but he [the King] prefers his own to all else, though perchance, when you. see it, you will think it the worst of the three. No man must meddle with that subject, and there- fore I advise you to take no more pains therein ; but I, as I have ever wished you, would have you to make choice of some new subject, worthy of your pains, which I should be glad to see, I love the Muses as well as ever I did, but can seldom have the occasion to frequent them. All my works are written over in one book, ready for the press ; but I want leisure to print them. So, referring all further to our
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old friend, Sir Archibald Acheson, who is coming home, I continue — Your loving friend, "W. Alexander."^ " London, April i8, 1620."
The same year Alexander was seriously ill of tertian ague. Drummond's letters to him upon his recover}'- bear eloquent testimony both to the sincerity of his friendship and the de- voutness of his disposition. Had Alexander died, he writes, " how miserable had the estate of so rhany been, which all love your life ; for, none being so well loved, this grief had been universal." t And again : " That ye are relieved of your tertian ague et tibi et inihi gratulor. Ye should not despair of your fortunes. He who drew you there and fixed me here contrary to our resolutions. He only from all danger may vindicate our fortunes, and make us sure. He to this time hath brought me in the world to be, without riches, rich ; and then most happily did it fall out with me when I had no hope in man left me ; and this came to me because on Him, and not on man, my hopes relied. And therefore, that now I live, that I enjoy a dear idleness, sweet solitariness, I have it of Him, and not from man. Trust in Him ;
* Folio, 1711, p. 151.
f Archceologia Scotica, vol. iv. p. 89.
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prefer not to certainties uncertain hopes. Con- spiravit in dolores nostras hccc CEstas : sola dies potent tantum lenire dolorem ; for we have what to plain and regret together, and I what alone I must lament."*
In the autumn Drummond himself was pro- strated by long illness. In a letter to Alex- ander, dated November 1620, he complains of the ignorance of his physicians: "My disease being a pain of the side, they cannot tell to what to ascribe the cause, nor how to help me. If it shall happen me now to die, ye have lost a great admirer of your worth ; and the greatest conquest I have made on earth is that I am assured ye love my rem>embrance." t About this time he wrote the beautiful and touching sonnet to Alexander, which ends with the Her- rick-like couplet —
" Here Damon lies, whose songs did sometime g^ace The murmuring Esk : may roses shade the place ! "
The next two or three years present nothing that needs be recorded. Drummond was living quietly at Hawthornden, preparing for publica- tion a new volume of poems. In 1623 the new work appeared : a small quarto volume en- titled Flowers of Sion, published at Edinburgh
* Arckceologia Scotica, vol. iv. p. 89. t Ibid. p. 87. VOL. r. c
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by John Hart, the son and successor of old Andro Hart, who had died in December 162 1. Nearly all the pieces in this volume appear to be original : a very few translations from the Italian of Marino are in perfect consent with the prevailing tone of the book. Most of the poems which Drummond had formerly pub- lished under the title of Urania were here in- cluded, with certain alterations : the rest of the collection was new.
The whole book is an expression of the most serious and exalted mood of its author. Drum- ,mond here reveals himself as a profoundly religious man, a Christian in the truest sense of the word. To his gentle and tolerant nature the hard bigotry of Scottish Calvinism was utterly repugnant. In the great religious struggle of his time he sided with the bishops ; partly, of course, from his loyalty to the King ; partly also because he thought, and thought justly, that the prelatists, with all their zeal for out- ward confonnity, threatened less real danger to liberty of conscience than the prying Presby- terians. But he was no lover of priestcraft, of whatever complexion, as he subsequently proved very plainly. The reader will not fail to be struck by the freedom from narrow dog- matism which characterises Flowers of Sion, especially if he regard the time and place of
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its production. It appeals, upon the whole, to Christians of all shades of opinion ; more particularly, perhaps, to Christians of a meta- physical turn ; and much of it should appeal to non-Christians also. It treats of the sublimest themes — divine love and mercy, the beauty of virtue, the vanity of earthly things, the exalta- tion of the soul to God. One theme there is which, more than all the rest, kindles the poet's enthusiasm ; and a considerable portion of the book is, in fact, a sermon, in sweet and fervid verse, upon the text, " God is Love."
But there is something more to be noted. Drummond"s mind was enlarged, and his re- ligious views v/ere certainly modified, by the study of Plato. In many places of these Flowers of Sion his philosophic bent is mani- fest. The beautiful Hymn of the Fairest Fair, for example, is the production of a Christian as- suredly, but of a singularly Platonic Christian : indeed, from certain passages in this poem it appears to me probable that Drummond was acquainted with the writings of Plotinus, "that new Plato, in whom the mystical element in the Platonic philosophy had been worked out to the utmost limit of vision and ecstasy," as Mr. Pater finely says."^ Drummond's philo-
* The Renaissance, second edition, p. 40.
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sophy finds, however, its fullest expression in his prose essay, A Cypress Grove, which was appended to Flowers of Sion. Simply as a piece of literary work this essay deserves high praise : Professor Masson likens its stately and melodious style to that of Sir Thomas Browne *'in the finest parts of his Urn-Bu7'ialP But if as a master of style Drummond was not far inferior to the Norwich physician, as a thinker he was perhaps his superior. A Cypress Grove is a treatise upon Death, which the author con- siders both as it appears to be and as it really is. Tried by the test of philosophy, its fictitious terrors vanish ; it is " a piece of the order of this All, a part of the life of this World."
His reflections are noble, and often profound. Here, for instance, is part of an address to the soul, instinct with the true spirit of Platonism : "Thou seemest a world in thyself, containing heaven, stars, seas, earth, floods, mountains, forests, and all that lives ; yet rests thou not satiate with what is in thyself, nor with all in the wide universe, until thou raise thyself to the contemplation of that first illuminating in- telligence, far above time, and even reaching eternity itself, into which thou art transformed." Here, as elsewhere, he scruples not to borrow when it suits his purpose. Witness the follow- ing passage : " God containeth all in Him, as
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the beginning of all ; man containelh all in him, as the midst of all ; inferior things be in man more nobly than they exist, superior things more meanly ; celestial things favour him, earthly things are vassalled unto him; he is the knot and band of both."* This, again, is a pregnant sentence which he has upon riches : "They are Jike to thorns, which, laid on an open hand, are easily blown away, and wound the closing and hard-gripping."
But it is needless to multiply quotations. These few sentences it seemed desirable to introduce by way of illustrating Drummond's character and philosophic turn of mind ; but the reader will find a reprint of the entire essay in the second volume. I cannot help thinking that Sterne, who was notoriously a lover of out-ol'-the-way books, had certain passages of this Cypress Grove in his mind when he wrote Mr. Shandy's oration upon the death of his son.
IV.
A sonnet which Drummond wrote upon the death of King James, in March 1625, is in the old strain of panegyric ; not to be read without
* Translated, almost literally, from the Heptaplus of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, book v. c. 6 and 7.
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regret, though wc doubt not Di-ummond's dis- interestedness. During the first year or two of Charles's reign, he seems to have been absent from Scotland. His next appearance is in a very unexpected character. On the 29th of September 1626 letters patent "to Mr. William Drummond for the making of military machines" were issued at Hampton Court; and the patent was sealed at Holy rood on the 24th of December 1627."* After premising that "our faithful subject, Mr. William Drummond of Hawthornden, has expended very much time, labour, and money in the devising and fabricating of various machines, which may be of use and profit to the State in the affairs both of peace and war," the patent proceeds to recount the particulars of the various inven- tions. There are fifteen in all, each distin- guished by a long Greek appellation, as well as an English name for common use. Some of the " warlike engines " look alarming enough upon paper. Number Nine, for example, is " a new kind of vessel, which will be able, without check from any strength of chains, bars, or batteries, to enter any harbours, and either
* The original Latin text of this curious document is printed in the foho edition of Drummond's JVorks, pp, 235. 236. I quote from Professor Masson's translation {Drummond of Hawthornden^ pp. 156-161).
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destroy all the shipping by fire, or capture them by force ; which vessel, from its truly stupen- dous and terrible effect, and its dreadful de- structiveness to ships and harbours, deser^^es to be called Ai^evokod pevrrjs [///. destroyer of harbours], vulgarly LeviathaiiP Number Seven is an adaptation to modern warfare of the ancient Helepohs, under the name of the Ele- phant or the Cavalier Errant. The Box-Pistol^ Pike-Arquebuss^ Fiery Waggon.^ Open Orditance^ Flat-Scourer^ and Cutter., are the vulgar appel- lations of the other military machines. Besides these, the patent includes an instrument for observing the strength of winds ; a new kind of light craft, to be called, from its swiftness, the Sea-Postilion; an instrument for reckoning the longitude ; an instrument for converting salt water into fresh ; a set of burning glasses, to be called Glasses of Archimedes ; a kind of telescope, called Lynxe^ Eyes ; and lastly, a machine for producing, ''from a natural and never wearied cause," perpetual motion. The patent secures to Mr. William Drummond and his assigns the sole right of making and selling these various machines for the space of twenty- one years, "inasmuch as the said Mr. William Drummond has, with singular industry, and no common ingenuity, thought out these, and not a few inventions besides, and justice and right
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demand that each one shall enjoy the rewards of his own virtue." The final paragraph, how- ever, provides that the patent shall be of no force with regard to any of the machines which shall not have been reduced to practice within three years of its date. There is no reason to believe that any one of the machines was reduced to practice within three years, or at any subsequent period. Our ingenious poet had evidently a turn for theoretical mechanics, but the history of his inventions begins and ends with the letters patent.
In 1627, Drummond bestowed a handsome gift upon his Alma Mater ^ the University of Edin- burgh, in the form of a collection of some five hun- dred books and manuscripts, which are still kept in a separate cabinet of the library. A catalogue of this collection was published the same year by John Hart, with an excellent little dissertation on libraries by Drummond, by way of preface.
He was again absent from home, and pro- bably on the Continent, during the years 1628 and 1629, and we hear no more of him until the spring of 1630, when he writes from Haw- thornden to a kinsman at Court — one Sir Maurice Drummond, gentleman-usher to the Queen.* It is likely that he visited Barns in
* Letter printed in the Folio of 171 1, pp. 145, 146. It is dated May 12, 1630, and contains some characteristic
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the following winter. At all events, he speaks of the prospect of such a visit in a letter dated December 1630, "to his loving friend A. Cun- ningham, Laird of Barns ; " probably a brother of the young lady whom he had hoped to wed. She had been dead now fifteen years, and Drummond w^as still a bachelor, though not much longer to rem.ain so. The following, from the Memoir prefixed to the Folio of 171 1, is what brief account we have of his marriage, which took place in the year 1632."^ "By acci- dent he saw one Elizabeth Logan, grandchild of Sir Robert Logan of Restalrig, a great and ancient family in this place, and fancying she had a great resemblance of his first mistress (whose idea had been deeply impressed, and stuck long in his mind), he fell in love with her, and married her after he was forty-five [read, forty-six] years of age."
There is some uncertainty, nevertheless, re- garding the extraction of Elizabeth Logan, although it seems probable that the above account is correct. The Memoirs of Father Augustin Hay, Canon of Ste. Genevieve, Paris,
advice. Drummond tells his kinsman that he is too honest for preferment at Court, and recommends him to return to his native country.
* The date from Douglas's Baronage of Scotland, Art. Drummond of Hawthornden.
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contain some interesting particulars as to the family of our poet — interesting, at least, if they may be relied upon ; but they appear set down in so malicious a spirit that they deserve to be received with great circumspection.*" Here, however, to be taken for what it is worth, is Father Hay's account of Drummond's marriage. " Att 45 years of adge, he married unexpectedly Elisabeth Logan, a minister's daughter of Edlis- ton [Eddleston in Peeblesshire], which church is within a quarter of a mile of Damhill [Darn- hall], principal dwelling-house to Blackbarrony. Her mother was a shepherd's daughter. The family of Hawthornden pretends that she was daughter to the Laird of Cottfeild, and grand- child to Sir Robert Logan of Restalrig : but no sutch matter."
Drummond's career as a poet was now well- nigh at an end. It is true he continued occa- sionally to produce verses to the last year of his life, and was yet to publish one or two such productions, of little importance ; but Flowers ofSio?ij of which a second edition had appeared in 1630, was his last poetical publication of real value. Not that his literary productivity was less than heretofore, but from this time onward
* See the extracts from these Memoirs (1700) printed in Appendix II. to the Genealogy of the House of Drum- man d : Edinburgh, 1831.
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it was chiefly exercised in prose, and in works of a political or historical character. With the exception of yl Cypress Grove, none of Drum- mond's prose works was printed during his lifetime, although certain of his political pieces appear to have circulated to some extent in m.anuscript.
His earliest incursion into the distressful region of politics was made soon after his mar- riage. In December 1632 he wrote a short paper, entitled Consideratio7is to the Kmg,'^ and evidently designed for Charles's perusal. The subject is not of much present interest, and may be dismissed in a few sentences. William Graham, Earl of Menteith, had put forward a claim to the long-disused title of Earl of Stratherne, on the ground of his descent from David Stuart, Earl of Stratherne, a son of Robert II. of Scotland; and the claim having been made good, the title was duly granted by the King. The mischief lay in this : that the revival of the ancient earldom of Stratherne opened the way to a revival of an ancient con- troversy concerning the pretended illegitimacy of Robert III., and the prior right to the throne of his half-brother David, the Earl of Stratherne aforesaid. Robert's illegitimacy being estab- lished, it would follow that not he alone, but all
* Printed in the Folio of 1711, pp. 129-131.
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the succeeding Scottish monarchs were no better than usurpers, and that the true right to the crown of Scotland rested with the descen- dants of David Stuart, at that time represented by the Earl of Menteith. Such pretensions were no doubt far enough from Menteith's mind, but he had been heard to speak indis- creetly upon the subject. Now the poet of Hawthornden was keenly alive to anything affecting the honour of Annabella Drummond's posterity, and his paper of Considej'ations con- tains a serious expostulation with the King upon the impoHcy of admitting Menteith's claim. Whether the paper was shown to Charles, we know not ; but by some means his jealousy was aroused, and the unfortunate descendant of David Stuart found himself deprived, not only of his new title, but of his earldom of Menteith into the bargain.
In the summer of 1633, King Charles, long expected, came to Scotland to be crowned. His entry into Edinburgh, on the 15th of June, was graced with a pageant of surpassing magnifi- cence, prepared by George Jamesone, the most distinguished Scottish painter of the day. The speeches for the pageant were written by Drum- mond, and published the same year in a little volume entitled 1 he Entertainment of the High and Mighty Monarch Charles, Ki?ig of Great
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Brzfain, France^ and Ireland^ info his ancient and royal city of Edinburgh. There is still something of the old melody in Drummond's verses, but the Entertai7tment falls far short of the beautiful Forth Feasting in every respect but that of adulation. The coronation over (June 1 8), the King opened his Scottish Parlia- ment in person ; got certain acts relating to Church matters carried, though not without strong opposition ; and the next month departed for England, in a very ill humour at the obsti- nate Presbyterianism of his Scottish subjects. He had distributed honours pretty freely during this visit ; to two of Drummond's friends, among the rest. One of these was Sir Robert Kerr, now created Earl of Ancrum ; the other deserves a paragraph to himself.
As far back as the year 1620 we left Sir William Alexander grumbling about his pros- pects, and versifying Psalms with King James. His prospects had since considerably bright- ened ; had become indeed no longer prospects merely, but accomplished facts. The star of his worldly fortunes had been in the ascendant from 1 621, when he obtained a grant, by royal charter, of the territory of New Scotland, com- prising not only the present Nova Scotia, but an immense tract of the mainland north of New England. Upon the accession of Charles this
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charter was confirmed, and although, by the treaty of peace in 1629, most of the territory was ceded to France, which indeed had a prior claim to it, Sir William's efforts to colonise were thought to hav^e added considerably to his wealth. In January 1626 he was appointed principal Secretary of State for Scotland, which office he held during the remainder of his life. In 1630 he was created Lord Alexander of Tullibody and Viscount Stirling ; and lastly, on the occasion of Charles's coronation at Edin- burgh, he was further dignified by the titles of Earl of Stirling and Viscount Canada. His " works," which were so long since " written over in one book, ready for the press," were not yet published : to be published, however, in 1637, under the title of Recreations with the Muses J the volume containing little of impor- tance which had not previously appeared.
The Entertainment of Ki?2g Cha?ies was not the only literary v.-ork upon which Drummond was this year engaged. By far the longest of his productions, a History of Scotla?id from the year 1433 uiitil the year 1542 — i.e.^ from the accession of King James I. to the death of King James V. — was begun in 1633, during a visit, it is said, to his brother-in-law, Scot of Scotstarvet. It was completed some ten or eleven years later, and dedicated by the author
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to the Earl of Perth ; but was not published until 1655, more than five years after Drum- mond's death. For the student of history- Drummond's narrative has little value, but it is pleasantly written, and may still be read with some interest. Following the example of Livy, he introduces imaginary orations, in which he sometimes takes occasion to air his own views, especially upon the questions of submission to the sovereign and religious toleration, A privy councillor of James V., for example, is made to declare, in the course of a long speech to his master, that "religion cannot be preached by arms," and that "force and compulsion may bring forth hypocrites, not true Christians."
It was probably also in 1633 that our poet compiled a genealogical table of the house of Drummond, which he sent to the Earl of Perth. A few sentences from the letter which accom- panied it may be quoted. " My noble Lord," it begins, "though, as Glaucus says to Diomed in
Homer —
— ' Like the race of leaves The race of man is, that deserves no question ; nor
receives Hisbeingany other breath. The wind in autumn strews The earth with old leaves, then the spring the woods
with new endows ; ' *
* From Chapman's translation of the //iad, book vi. 11. 141-144.
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yet I have ever thought the knowledge of kindred, and the genealogies of the ancient families of a country, a matter so far from con- tempt that it deserveth highest praise. Herein consisteth a part of the knowledge of a man's own self. It is a great spur to virtue to look back on the worth of our line. . . . This moved me to essay this Table of your Lordship's House ; which is not inferior to the best and greatest in this is!e. It is but roughly (I confess) hewn, nakedly limned, and, after better infor- mations, to be amended." "^ The amendment of this Table was, in fact, one of the poet's occupa- tions during the last year of his life.t
Royalist and anti-Presbyterian as Drummond was, it is odd that his first intervention in the growing dispute between Charles and his Scottish subjects shouM have taken the form of a remonstrance against the policy of the King. Certain lords and gentlemen of the Presbyterian party (the Earl of Rothes at their head), who had been zealous in opposi- tion to the Kirk Acts which Charles had
* Letter printed in the Folio of 171 1, p. 136.
t Drummond's Table, with later interpolations, is printed, under the title of a History of the Family of Perth, as Appendix I. to the Genealoj:^y of the House of Drummond by William Drummond, Viscount Strath- allan: Edinbiu"gh, 1831.
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forced through the Scottish Parliament imme- diately after his coronation, had drawn up a " Supplication,"' which they purposed to present to His Majesty. Herein they apologised for their resistance of the King's measures, pro- tested their good affection, hinted at various grievances, and finally implored the King not to insist upon introducing into the Scottish Church innovations which did not stand with the conscience of the Scottish people. The tone of the paper was throughout loyal and respectful. Upon second thoughts, however, the petitioners decided not to present it, and nothing would have been heard of the matter had not one of them, Lord Balmerino, un- luckily preserved a copy. Through some carelessness this fact became known, and a copy of the document found its way to the hands of John Spotswood, Archbishop of St. Andrews, the head of the Anglican party in Scotland. The Archbishop at once com- municated his discovery to the King, and the result was, briefly, that in June 1634, Lord Balmerino was arrested and thrown into prison, to await there his trial on the capital charge of possessing and being concerned in an Infamous Libel against the King's govern- ment. The trial did not take place until the 8th of March 1635, when Lord Balmerino was
VOL. I. /
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convicted by the casting vote of the chairman of the jury, the Earl of Traquair.
Now Drummond, as we know, had not the shghtest sympathy with Bahnerino and his party. But if he disHked Presbyterianism, he detested tyranny. Therefore he wrote a paper, which is published among his works under the title of An Apologeiical Letter* and is dated March 2, 1635, six days before the trial. This paper he addressed to his friend Kerr, Earl of Ancrum, that the latter might com- municate its contents to the King if he deemed it advisable. And as Professor Masson observes, "there was real courage in this, inasmuch as the paper is a ten times sharper and more out- spoken remonstrance with His Majesty than the * Infamous Libel' which is the subject of it." t
Drummond has nothing to say in favour of the libel : " an idle piece of paper," he calls it ; " such a paper should have been answered by a pen, not by an axe." But he has much to say in favour of the right to freedom of speech, and adduces many historical examples of the ill eftects of interfering with that right. It is wiser in a prince, and more fitting his fame, to slight and contemn libels, than to be too curious in searching out the authors.
* Folio, 171 1, pp. 132-134.
t Drummond of HazvthonideTi, p. 237.
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Besides, " if they be presented by way of sup- plications for redressing of errors in the state, it is a question whether they be libels or not." " No prince, how great soever, can abolish pens ; nor will the memorials of ages be ex- tinguished by present power." Upon "errors in the state" of Scotland he writes in a strain to which King Charles was as yet little accus- tom.ed. "There is none in all his kingdom here can reckon himself lord of his own goods amongst so many taxes and taillages, so much pilling and polling," "It hath often been found that nothing hath sooner armed a people than poverty, and poverty hath never so often been brought upon a nation by the unfruitfulness of the earth, by disasters of seas, and other human accidents, as by the avarice of the officers and favourites of princes ; who are brought foolishly to believe that by tearing off the skins of the flock, they shall turn the shepherd rich. It is no property of a good shepherd to shear often his flock, and ever to milk them. Nor is it of a prince to gall and perpetually afflict a people by a terrible ex- chequer. Ih'utoruni se regem facif qui premit suosr He concludes with this noble sentence: " A prince should be such towards his subjects as he would have God Eternal towards him, who, full of mercy, spareth peopled cities, and
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darteth His thunders amongst the vast and wild mountains.'"'
Balmerino was ultimately released, though not until more than four months after his trial. But the glaring iniquity of proceeding to the death-penalty for such an offence was too much for the King's advisers, especially in view of the state of popular feeling in Scotland ; and even Laud was now on the side of mercy.
The year 1637 brought matters in Scotland to a crisis. Laud's attempt to introduce the new liturgy failed ignominiously, and the riots in Edinburgh were the signal for universal revolt. It seemed at first as if the obstinacy of the King would keep pace with the resolution of his subjects. Their protests were answered by menaces and royal proclamations, until in March 1638 the Scottish people solemnly banded themselves toge her by a renewal of the Covenant to defend their national religion, and resist innovations to the utmost of their power. Charles hungered for war, but for war he was not prepared, and the only alternative was to treat with the Covenanters. He accord- ingly despatched the Marquis of Hamilton to
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Scotland to make what ininiumm of concession was absolutely unavoidable, and this minhmnn proved to be a full acceptance of the Scottish terms, announced by the King's proclamation of September 22. The obnoxious innovations were abolished, the new liturgy was revoked ; the King consented to a limitation of episco- pacy, and to the summoning of a General Assembly at Glasgow in the month of Novem- ber following.
Upon this occasion Drummond produced one of the longest and most important of his prose treatises. It is entitled ''''Irene [Peace]. A Remonstrance for Concord, Amity and Love, amongst his Majesty's Subjects ; writ t eft after his Declaration publish d at Edinburgh, I27td of September 1638 ;''* and it is in substance a very eloquent and earnest appeal to the author s countrymen of all classes, to forget their differ- ences, and unite in a general reconciliation upon the basis of His Majesty's gracious con- cessions. But Drummond can hardly have been very sanguine as to the event of his appeal. Had the King's concessions been made in good faith, or had the Covenanters been content with the liberty of worshipping their
* Irene was not published until 171 1. It is in the folio edition of Drummond's Works, pp. 163-173, and has never been reprinted.
c
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God after their own fashion, a settlement might have been hoped for. But the facts were far otherwise. Charles had simply yielded for the moment to superior force, while to the Cove- nanters the right to liberty of conscience was a thankless gift, unless it were joined with the right to deny that liberty of conscience to very one besides.
Ire^ie begins in Drummond's most picturesque manner : " As pilgrims, wandering in the night by the inconstant glances of the moon, when they behold the morning gleams ; as mariners, after tempests on the seas, at their arrival in safe harbours ; as men that are perplexed and taken with some ugly visions and affrightments in their slumbers, when they are awaked and calmly roused up ; so did this kingdom, state, nay, the whole isle, amidst those suspicions, jealousies, surmises, misrepresentations, terrors more than panic, after the late declaration of the King's Majesty find themselves surprised and over-reached with unexpected and inex- pressible joys. Religion was mourning, Justice wandering. Peace seeking whither to fly ; a strange, hideous, grim, and pale shadow of a government was begun to crawl abroad, put- ting up a hundred headsj Men's courages were growing hot, their'^^tred kindled, all either drawing their swords or laying hands
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upon them. The enemy was the country ; the quarrel, differences of opinions. Towns were pestered with guards of armed citizens, the country and villages thralled with dormant musters ; the danger seemed great, the fear greater : all expected the prince would enter the lists. And so he did ! Mean things must yield unto the more noble ; zna'^ amor fatricej that same wind which gathered the clouds did dissipate them. He not only giveth way to our zeal, graciously assenting to all our desires, but condescendeth, nay commandeth, that our own writ should be current, and embraced by all his subjects. To human eyes a perfect conclusion of our wretched distractions."
"The quarrel, differences of opinions," says Drummond, and truly ; but there was another question involved : was the countiy to be ruled by the will of the people, or by that of the King ? On this point Drummond is perfectly clear. He stands for the principle of unconditional submis- sion to the will of the sovereign. " Obedience being the strongest pedestal of concord, and concord the principal pillar of state, we should always embrace and follow her if we would enjoy a civil happiness." If there be that which displeases us in the edicts of the prince, "let us apply the remedies of patience and obedience." "It is not lawful for a subject to
/
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be a syndic of the actions of his prince in matters of state, being for the most part ignorant of the secret causes and motives upon which they are grounded ; it belonging only to God Almighty, the searcher of all hearts, to censure and judge the actions of princes, from whom alone they have their royal power and sovereignty."
There is much more to the same efifect, all, doubtless, very mistaken ; yet the loyal poet was not wholly without apology. If he pre- ferred the despotism of one man to the tyranny of a multitude, we ought to consider, before condemning him, the character of the multitude which he had in view, and what kind of tyranny theirs was likely to prove. The Scottish Presby- terians did not stand, as the Enghsh Indepen- dents, for liberty of conscience, but for a hierarchy far more oppressive than that of Laud. Never, in the days of her worst despotism, had the Church of Rome exercised a more arbitrary control over the words and actions of her subjects than was now claimed by the Presby- terian Kirk of Scotland. Drummond knew already the truth which Milton afterwards ex- pressed— that new Presbyter was but old Priest writ large. Perhaps, too, he had seen that the influence of Calvinism upon the lives of the people was not such as to afford a very strong-
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argument in its favour. Here is a curious little bit of evidence on this point, from an unbiassed witness : " I thought I should have found in Scotland," wrote Oliver Cromwell in 1 650, "a con- scientious people and a barren country : about Edinburgh, it is as fertile for corn as any part of England ; but the people generally are so given to the most impudent lying, and frequent swearing, as is incredible to be believed." *
In freeze Drummond charged the Covenanting nobles, and certainly not without some know- ledge of the matter, with using religion as a cloak to cover worldly ends. He warned them that in warring against monarchy they were compassing their own destruction : " Ye may one day expect a Sicilian evensong." The common people he regarded as imposed upon by their leaders ; but his keenest satire and invective were levelled against the Presbyterian clergy. I purpose to quote a few more sen- tences from Irene: meanwhile, to finish Drum- mond's apology, let us take notice that there was a wide difference in the position of affairs in Scotland and in England. In England there was actually a party which professed, as Cromwell nobly said, " in things of the mind to look for no compulsion but that of light and
* Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 218 : ed. 1857.
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reason." Not that Drummond could have been other than a royalist, had he been an English- man ; his royalism was far too deeply rooted. But in Scotland he had no choice but of two evils. There was no middle way between the King and the Covenant, and considering all that the Covenant implied, we cannot wonder, nor greatly blame him, if he preferred the King.
The address to the clergy in Irejie contains some home-truths capable of a wide applica- tion, Drummond apostrophises them in a tone of the bitterest irony. " Ye lights of the world, examples of holiness and all virtues, you living libraries of knowledge, sanctuaries of goodness, look upon the fragility of mankind ! . . . Pity the human race, spare the blood of man ; the earth is drunk with it, the waters empurpled, the air empoisoned ; and all by you. ... By you kingdom hath been raised against kingdom, citizens against themselves, subjects against their sovereigns. . . , Our God left duty for a law ; ye teach cruelty for God's service. Your cruelty, many hundred years since, moved a heathen to write, that no savage beasts were so noisome and hurtful to men as Christians were to themselves."
Not the Presbyterian clergy alone were in Drummond's thoughts when he thus addressed them. But further : '' Sacred race ! have you
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no remorse when ye enter into the cabinets of your own hearts, and there, for arras and por- traits, find millions of Christians represented unto you disfigured, massacred, butchered, and made havoc of in all the fashions the imagina- tions of wicked mankind could devise, for the maintaining of those opinions and problems which ye are conscious to yourselves are but Centaurs' children, the imaginations and fancies of your own brains, concerning which ye would argue with and chide one another, but never shed one ounce of your blood ? . . . Our Master said. He sent out His disciples as sheep amongst wolves ; but now of many churchmen it may be said, they come out as wolves in the midst of sheep, that for bread they have given stones to their children, and for fishes serpents. With what countenances can ye look upon your Master, at whose nativity angels proclaimed the joyful embassy of peace unto men and glory to God ; whose last will was love and peace ; who so often recommended patience and suffering; whose example in all His actions ever crieth peace ? But ye have transformed truth into rhetoric, by your commentaries de- stroyed the texts ; the shadows have deprived us of the bodies."
He gives them excellent advice. " Compound your differences and controversies ; study unity
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and not distractions ; seek not so much cun- ningly to make men know what goodness is, as to make them embrace and cheerfully follow it. A little practice of goodness is many degrees above abstract contemplations, disputes, and your learned orations ! ... Of the diversity and variety which is in this world ariseth that beauty so wonderful and amazing to our eyes. We find not two persons of one and the same shape, figure, and lineaments of the face, much less of the same conditions, qualities, and humours, though they be of the self-same parents ; and why do we seek to find men all of one thought and one opinion in formalities and matters disputable ? Why should we only honour and respect those of our opinions as our friends, and carry ourselves towards others as if they were beasts and trees, nay, as our enemies ? Were it not more seemly and meet to make a difference between men according to their vice or virtue ? There be many wicked men of our profession, and a great number of good and civil men of other professions. Siia- de?ida est religio^ non imperanda. The con- sciences of men neither should nor will be forced by the violence of iron and fire ; nor will souls be compelled to believe that which they believe not : they are not drawn nor sub- dued but by evidence and demonstrations."
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In conclusion, Dmmmond addresses the King himself in words of warning as well as of entreaty. He tells him it was not religion alone which occasioned these troubles : they were partly due to misgovernment. Above all things, he cautions him not to attempt the subduement of his people by force of arms. " If you should, Sir, you shall make your power odious every way .... The drawing of your sword against them shall be the drawing of it against yourself." Clemency is with kings a kind of justice. If his subjects have lost any- thing of what they feign to be liberty, let the King restore it to them ; let him " change their troubles into rest, their miseries into prosperity, their dissensions into concord and peace."
It had been well for Charles if he could have taken to heart some such advice as this ; but on both sides Drummond was casting his pearls before persons incapable of perceiving their value. The Glasgow Assembly met on the 2 1st of November 1638, and it was quickly evident that the breach was widening instead of closing. Not satisfied with the limitation of episcopacy to which Charles had already consented, the Assembly determined upon its total extirpation, and summoned the bishops to appear before its tribunal. Thereupon the Marquis of Hamilton, acting for the King,
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pronounced the Assembly dissolved ; and the Assembly, continuing to sit in defiance of the Marquis, deposed and excommunicated the Scottish bishops,abolishedtheEpiscopal Church, and established Presbyterianism as the national form of religion. There could be no doubt as to the event of these proceedings, and the Scots accordingly prepared for war. Castles were seized and garrisoned, an army was raised, and the command was entrusted to P^ield-Marshal Lesley, an officer who had served with dis- tinction in Germany under the King of Sweden, the famous Gustavus Adolphus.
It was during this year that Drummond completed the rebuilding, or partial rebuild- ing, of his house at Hawthornden. " The mansion of Hawthornden which tourists now admire, peaked so picturesquely on its high rock in the romantic glen of the Esk, is not the identical house which Ben Jonson saw, and in which he and Drummond had their immortal colloquies, but Drummond's enlarged edifice of 1638, preserving in it one hardly knows what fragments of the older building."* Above the doorway of the new house the poet caused the following inscription to be car\'ed : Diviiio v2U7iere Guiiebniis DriDiiniondus ab
* "bAsjisoii's Dnanmond of Hawf/iorndeft, p. 289.
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//aii>//iornden, /oanm's, Equitis Aicrati^ Filius^ ut Jionesto otio qidescercf, sibi ei successoribus instaicravit^ 1638.
Ut honesto otio quiesceret J Alas, poor Drummond !
There is no need to dwell here upon the details of the first Bishops' War. All the histories tell how Charles, with great difficulty, assembled an army in the spring of 1639, and came northward to chastise his rebellious sub- jects ; how the Scottish general marched his forces to the border, and encamped on Dunse Law ; and how^ after all, the King would not venture to attack the Scots, but consented to a treaty (June 18), which left them masters of the situation. But what was Drummond doing the while.'* He had been taxed, with the rest of Scotland, for the maintenance of the army^ and had received orders from the Covenanting Committee to proceed to the border wich a party of gentlemen, to resist the English ; which orders, as we gather from a letter of his to the Marquis of Douglas, "-^ he thought fit to disobey. He was compelled, however, to sign the Covenant, probably in the spring of 1639, and we may reasonably suppose that he owed
* Printed in Archceologia Scoiica, vol. iv. pp. 97, 98.
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his exemption from severer treatment to the good offices of his old friend Ancrum's son, the Earl of Lothian, who was a leading man among the Covenanters, and a near neighbour of Drummond's. Meanwhile he relieved his feelings by the composition of various bits of satirical epigram in verse, and three or four longer pieces in prose.
T/ie Magical Alirror; or^ a Declaration upon the Rising of the Nobleine7i^ Barons^ Gejitlemen^ and Burgesses^ in Anns, April i, 1639,"^ is the title of the first of these prose pieces, and its authorship being considered, a very singular produc<-'on it is ! A temperate and candid defence of the people for taking up arms in behalf of their religion, without the least ap- parent irony, is not precisely the kind of paper we should have expected from Drummond ; yet this is an exact description of The Magical Mirror. There is an appendix, however, en- titled Queries of State^\ which explains the riddle. Drummond's design was, to bring together all the arguments which could be adduced in support of the popular cause, and to present them as fairly and forcibly as possible ; trusting to his appended queries to indicate their weak points and insufficiency. But on
* Printed in the Folio of 171 1, pp. 174-176. t Ibid. pp. 177, 178.
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this occasion he certainly overshot the mark. The case for the Covenanters is so impartially stated and so admirably argued, as scarcely to be shaken by the brief and inadequate queries which follow.
The second paper is more in the old vein. This is entitled A Speech to the Nobleme7i^ Barons^ Gentle?7ien^ &=€., who have leagued themselves for the Defence of the Religion and Liberty of Scotland, and is dated May 2, 1639.* It contains an eloquent protest against the war, and a setting -forth of the miseries likely to ensue upon it. A third paper, called The Idea^\ is unfinished, and was perhaps never intended for anything more serious than the fanciful speculation of an idle hour. The "idea" was, that the divisions and disorders in Great Britain were directly due to foreign intrigue, having been excited and fomented by French and Imperialist emissaries. The fourth and last of these prose pieces is called The Load Star^ or Directory to the New World a?id Transformations. X It consists of a series of satirical directions for the widening of the breach between Charles and the Scottish people. The irony, however, is not always
* Printed in the Folio of 1711, pp. 179-182. t Ibid. pp. 220, 221. X Ibid. pp. 183, 184. VOL. I. g
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very obvious, and some of the directions are such as any Presbyterian might have written in good earnest.
On the 1 2th of August 1639 a new General Assembly, and shortly afterwards a new Par- liament, met in Edinburgh, according to the terms of the treaty. The acts of the Glasgow Assembly were confirmed, and the signing of the Covenant was now made obligatory upon all Scotsmen. Again Drummond indulged his satirical bent in the writing of a paper entitled Consider at io7is to the Parliatnent^ September 1639.* This paper consists of a long series of proposed enactments, conceived in a spirit of rather clumsy humour. Drummond's satire is usually biting in proportion to its seriousness : of the lighter kind, which he here attempts, he was not a master. Two or three of the more humorous of the C outsider atio7is may, however, be given as specimens.
"That it shall be lawful, in time of trouble and necessity, for the Provost of Edinburgh to offer up his prayers in the Cathedral Church by shot of pistols, which are more conform to the times than organs.
" That, in time of war, it shall be lawful, for the weal of the kingdom, to the noblemen,
" Folio of 1711, pp. 185-187.
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barons, &c., to choose a Dictator, providing he . can neither read nor write. "^
"That no man stand bare-headed in the Presence Chamber or Parliament House of Scotland, or before any chair of state, since hereby open idolatry is committed, and a wor- ship of Lions and Unicorns.
" That no man swear the Oath of Supremacy, except in England ; yet it shall be lawful for any man to swear it to his wife, if he please."
VI.
Early in the next year (February 12, 1640) died Drummond's old and attached friend, Alexander, Earl of Stirling. His honours had not brought him much happiness. Private griefs and his increasing unpopularity with his countrymen had embittered his last years. His wealth, too, had melted away, and it appears that he died insolvent. In the spring of 163S he had lost his eldest son. Lord Alexander, a young man of great promise ; and his second son. Sir Anthony, had died but a few months earlier. The latter was commemorated by Drummond in a Pastoral Elegy ^ the last poem
* This, says Professor Masson, was a hit at Lesley, who was rather illiterate.
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which he gave to the public. Stirling had con- tinued to reside generally in London, in the capacity of Scottish Secretary, Of the manner in which he fulfilled the duties of that office Dr. Grosart speaks in terms of high, and pro- bably not wholly undeserved, eulogy, and we may agree with him that the secret of Stirling's unpopularity " is to be found in his width of view and fine impartiality." * But as a royalist and anti- Presbyterian, how could Stirling be other than unpopular in Scotland ? " Old and extremely hated," wrote Baillie the Covenanter of him, at the time of his eldest son's death. And now Stirling himself was dead, and there were no signs of that universal grief of which Drummond had so affectionately assured him twenty years before. Among Drummond's papers were found a few brief notes for an intended poem in memory of his friend ; but the intention was never carried out. The times were too out of joint for the writing even of Pastoral Elegies.
In 1640 occurred the second Bishops' War, still more disastrous to the King than the first had been. For now the Scots took the offen- sive ; crossed the Tweed (August 20), and meeting with little resistance, for the very
* Dicf. 0/ National Biography, art. ALEXANDER.
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soldiers of the King had no heart in the quarrel, gradually established themselves in the northern counties, with Newcastle for their headquarters. There for about a year they remained, no longer as enemies, but as allies to the Parlia- ment and people of England. "The whole body of English Puritans looked upon them as their saviours.''*
In this war, also, we find Drummond acting, or refusing to act, under orders from the Covenanting government. The following letter to his kinsman the Earl of Perth is dated Hawthornden, December i, 1640 : —
" My noble Lord, — In this storm of the state I had resolved to set my affairs in order, exposing all to the hazard of what might fall forth, and fly to the shadow of your Lordship ; finding, at this time, that not to prove true, Mz'm'ma paj'vitate sua tuta sunt j for the humility of my fortune, and my retired and harmless form of living, could not save me from being employed to serve here the ambition of the great masters of the state. As if I had no more to do with time, I was appointed to spend it in attending the Committee of the Shire ; at my first initiation, charged to be at that fata!
* Carlyle's Cromxvell, vol. i. p. 84.
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service and horrible execution of Dunglass,* they directed me to ravage and plunder the more peaceable neighbours about. This Trojan Horse laboured to give me a command over horses. All which employments, being contrary to my education and estate, knowing ihaX pareil sur pareil a nii lie puissance^ and that they were not my lawful masters, I shunned, and per- formed no more than pleased me ; which ac- quired me no small spite. If the Parliament of England, and matters since fallen forth, had not a little cooled this fervency or frenzy, I knew not where to have found sanctuary, save with your Lordship ; nor know I what thanks to render your Lordship for your gracious pro- tection and many courtesies offered me. If I should sacrifice my fortunes, liberty, and life, I would rather lose them for your Lordship than for any democracy. Your Lordship's favours shall ever be remembered, and sought to be deserved in what is within the compass of per- forming and the power of Your Lordship's Humble Servant, W. Drummond." +
* This refers to the blowing-up (August 30), whether by accidc-nt or design, of Dunglass Castle in Hadding- tonshire, where the Covenanters had a garrison, com- manded by the Earl of Haddington. Many persons, among them the Earl himself, perished in the ex- plosion.
+ Folio of 1711, p. 147.
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Of King Charles's conciliatory visit to Edin- burgh in the autumn of 1641, and of the " Inci- dent " which disturbed it, nothing need here be said. Drummond wrote a prose Speech for Eai7iburgh to the King on this occasion, but very certainly did not make it public* It is in the old, rather pathetic strain of hoping against hope. "A fatal necessity, contrary to our minds, did force us unto many things. . . . Doubts now are resolved, all damps and mists cleared, and we hope that saying shall prove true, Atnantiuin irce amor is redintegration''
The English civil war was the cause of fresh dissensions in Scotland. The aid of the Scots was sought both by the King and Parliament of England, and Charles having now conceded all the demands of the Covenanters, there were not wanting those among them who were in- clined to support a King of their own nation against the English rebels : nevertheless, the great majority of the Scots favoured the Parlia- ment. Shortly after the battle of Edgehill the English Lords and Commons concurred in a Declaration to their brethren of Scotland, in- viting their assistance towards the prosecution of the war. A little later the King, having perused this Declaration of the two Houses,
* Printed in the Folio of 1711, pp. 216, 217.
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sent, he also, a Declaration to the Scots, setting forth his own views upon the matter, and assuring them that he had been compelled to take up arms "for the defence of his person and safety of his life ; for the maintenance of the true Protestant religion ; for the preserva- tion of the laws, liberties, and constitution of the kingdom, and for the just privileges of Parliament" !* He desired that this Declara- tion might be communicated to his Scottish subjects, and it was accordingly published, not without much debate, by the Scottish Privy Council. Thereupon ensued a great commo- tion, and petitions against the King's message were presented both to the Lords of the Coun- cil and to the Commission for the Conservation of the Peace. On the other side, a "cross- petition" in favour of the King, promoted by the Marquis of Hamilton and other gentlemen of the royalist party, was also presented to the Council. But this was not to be tolerated. The great Presbyterian governing bodies, the Commissions for the Conservation of the Peace and for the Affairs of the Kirk, issued, on the 1 8th of Januar)^ 1643, an emphatic declaration against the cross-petition, which they charac- terised as "nothing else but a secret plot, and
* Clarendon's History of the Re.beUio?i, Oxford, 1705, &c. : vol. ii. p. 87.
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subtle undermining of all the present designs of this Kirk and Kingdom for unity of religion, and of all the work of God in this land."
To this declaration of the ruling bodies Diiim- mond replied, in the longest, and perhaps the most vehement, of his political treatises ; although the fact that he still remained at liberty makes it doubtful whether the paper was seen by any of the party against which it was directed. It is entitled ^Kiafxaxia [Fighting about Shadows] ; or a Defence of a Petition tendered to the Lords of the Council of Scotland by certain Noble77ten and Ge?ttlemen, January 1643.^ The Greek title is borrowed from Plato. The reader will recall that wonderful allegory in the seventh book of the Republic^ wherein the philosopher likens the state of mankind to that of men fettered in a cave, having behind them a great light. But between them and the light there are many objects, of which they see the shadows cast upon the opposite wall of the cave. And seeing nought but shadows, since their fetters hinder them from turning their faces, they believe these shadows to be real objects, and indeed the only reality. And thus, says he, "most cities are at present
* Printed in the Folio of 171 1, pp. 190-205. The declaration of the Commissioners against the cross-peti- tion is there appended to Skiamachia, pp. 206-211.
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inhabited by such as both fight with one an- other about shadows [a-Kiafxaxovvroiv], and raise sedition about governing, as if it were some /mighty good."*
/ So to our philosophic Drummond all this
l/ \ bitter contention of Kirk against Church, of
I Presbyter against Prelate, was simply Skia-
imachia, a fighting about shadows. His trea-
Itise is, above all things, a protest against the
^.tyranny of the clergy. It is aimed, of course,
especially at the Presbyterian ministers and
/the Commissioners for the Affairs of the Kirk,
whom he compares with the Spanish inquisitors
"Have we rejected the High Commission, to
set over us men more rigid, supercilious, and
severe than the Spanish inquisitors themselves?"
And he warns them, " Where by blood ye shall
make three proselytes, ye shall make a hundred
hypocrites." But here, as in Irene^ Drummond
does not confine his censures to the clergy of
his own time and country. The following
extract must suffice.
" Presumptuous churchmen in most parts of the kingdoms of Europe have proven worse than the foxes of Samson.t They but burnt
* Thomas Taylor's translation : Works of Plato, vol. i. p. 365.
t In the declaration against the cross-petition this comparison is used of the petitioners : " It will be ob-
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the corns when the fields were white for the harvest ; but these have burnt whole towns, male and female, children and old men, guilty or not guilty, holy or profane, turning all under the law of their spoil and licentiousness ; dyed the white fields in blood ; turned them into a Golgotha, as in our own country that one battle of Pinkie can testify, where a churchman was both the loss of the field and commonwealth. They are firebrands of strife, trumpets of sedi- tion, the Red Horses whose sitters have taken peace from the earth. There is no Christian country which hath not by their devices been wrapped in v/ars ; they carry the common people, like hawks, hooded, into dangers and destruction ; make them believe the mountains shake when the moles do cast up ; imposing upon their credulity with vain shadows."
The negotiations between the Parliament and the Scots terminated successfully on the 25th of September 1643, when the Commons, in a body, subscribed the Solemn League and Covenant, which pledged the two nations to mutual assistance, and to an endeavour to bring
served, that they who were of late at distance amongst themselves are now at agreement, and that, like Sam- son's foxes, they turn tail to tail, with firebrands in the midst, to burn up the husbandry of God, when now the fields are white for the harvest."
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about uniformity in matters of religion, i.e.^ Presbyterianism after the Scottish model Sub- scription to this Covenant was enjoined by the governing bodies upon every inhabitant of the two kingdoms. Again Drummond took up his pen. A short paper, entitled Remoras [Delays] for the National League between Scotland and England^ is published among his works,"^ but we need not quote from it here. In the follow- ing January a Scottish army of 21,000 men, under their old general, Lesley, now Earl of Leven, marched into England. They joined Fairfax in the siege of York, took part in the decisive battle of Marston Moor (July 2, 1644), carried Newcastle by storm in October, and then lapsed into inactivity, and increasing dis- gust with their allies. For there was a party in England which stood for that principle which to the Presbyterian mind meant the mere abomination of desolation — the principle of liberty of conscience ; and this party was daily gaining ground, especially in the army. By the end of 1644 the Independents had power enough in the House of Commons to carry their Self-denying Ordinance, of which one of the clauses provided that men might serve in the army without taking the Covenant. And
* Folio of 17T1, pp. 188, 189.
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in proportion as the party of tolerance, with Cromwell at its head, took more and more the lead, so did the zeal of the Scottish Presbyterians cool towards the English alliance.
Although Drummond had carried his outward confomiity to the extent of subscribing both Covenants, and although he had friends among the Covenanters — the Earl of Lothian for one, and his own brother-in-law, Scotstarvet, for another — it was not to be expected that he should remain altogether unmolested. " Being a reputed Malignant," says his old biographer, " he was extremely harassed by the prevailing party, and, for his verses and discourses, fre- quently summoned before their Circular Tables [the Covenanting Committees], as we may see by a discourse which he designed to have spoken to them.""^ This discourse is still ex- tant in print ; t but that it remained unspoken there can be no possible doubt. Drummond there shows his mind as plainly as ever, and in a manner apologises for his outward submis- sion to the Covenanters, making use of a meta- phor which, though exceedingly apt, was hardly calculated to commend itself or its author to the good graces of the Committee. " Should I," says he, " meet a number of madmen, and they
* Memoir prefixed to the Folio of 171 1, p. x. t Folio of 171 1, pp. 218, 219,
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were to have me to dance with them, I were the occasion of my own destruction if I opposed them." In this paper he alludes to his History of Scotland^ his Irene^ and " some other pieces of state," in terms which prove that, although these works were still unprinted, their contents must have been somewhat widely known, either from perusal or report. But the political papers of Drummond's which we now possess do not represent the whole of his labours in that kind. Says the biographer above quoted, " I am in- formed that there were a great many particular papers, wrote against the chief ringleaders of the rebellion, which, after his death, in those very severe times, were thought fit to be de- stroyed, for fear of doing harm to his friends or family."
The years 1644 ^^^ 1645 were those of the Marquis of Montrose's counter-revolution in favour of King Charles. To Drummond and the Scottish royalists it must have seemed that the tide had turned at last, for, by the summer of 164-, Montrose, after a series of unexampled suc- cesses, had reduced almost the entire kingdom of Scotland. With Drummond Montrose was doubtless already acquainted, and it has been reasonably conjectured that the anonymous nobleman to whom the poet sent a copy of his Irene^ together with a letter which is still extant,
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was no other than this brilliant young Marquis, at that time Earl of Montrose, and a leading man among the Covenanters.* Two letters which passed between them at the period of Montrose's triumph have been printed, t The Marquis had sent Drummond a "protection," for his better security, dated from " our leaguer at Bothwell, the 28th of August 1645," ^^^ com- manding all soldiers in his service not to " trouble or molest Mr. William Drummond of Haw- thornden," or anything that was his, as they should answer the contrary at their highest peril. Drummond hereupon writes to Montrose, suggesting that "since, by the mercy of God on your Excellency's victorious arms, the golden age is returned," it may be a fitting time for the publication of Irene^ " if that piece can do any service " ; and there is a brief note from Mon- trose in reply, requesting Drummond to bring the papers to him at Bothwell, that he may give order for the printing of them. But the star which shone so brightly proved to be but a meteor. A fortnight after this note was written Montrose was a fugitive. His forces had been surprised at Philiphaugh (September 13) by a
* See Masson's Drummond of Hawikornden, p. 346, and p. 273 for Drummonds letter. The letter was first printed in ArchcBolo^ia Scotica, vol. iv. p. 95.
t Folio of 1711, p. 157.
ex INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR
detachment from the army in England, and completely shattered. For about a year longer he remained in Scotland, endeavouring, though in vain, to retrieve his lost fortunes. Meanwhile the King surrendered himself to the Scots, and the war was brought to an end. Montrose was one of the last to submit, but he, too, at length laid down his arms, and went abroad, with leave from the Presbyterian government. A little before his departure from Scotland he wrote the following letter to Drummond : —
" Sir, — Having the occasion of this so trusty a bearer, I could not but remember to you all my best respects, and acknowledge your good affection, and all your friendly favours. For which, and your so constant loyalty towards his Sacred Majesty and his service, besides your own so much personal deserving, I must entreat you to believe that, in all times and fortunes, you shall find me ever. Sir, Your most affection- ate and faithful friend,
" Montrose.*
" MoNTROSF, August igih, 1646."
Bishop Sage's Memoir of Drummond con- tains an anecdote which I here transcribe, as it
* Folio of 1711, p. 158.
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR cxi
illustrates a side of Drummond's character of which we have seen very little.
"In the year 1645, when the plague was raging in Scotland, our author came accident- ally to Forfar, but was not allowed to enter any house, or to get lodging in the town, tho' it was very late. He went some two miles farther to Kirrimuir, where he was well received and kindly entertained. Being informed that the towns of Forfar and Kirrimuir had a contest about a piece of ground, called the Muirmoss, he wrote a letter to the Provost of Forfar, to be communicated to the town council in haste. It was imagined this letter came from the Estates, who were then sitting at St. Andrews : so the common council was called with all ex- pedition, and the minister sent for, to pray for direction and assistance in answering the letter, which was opened in a solemn manner. It contained the following lines :
' The Kirrimorians and Forfarians met at Muirmoss, The Kirrimorians beat the Forfarians back to the
Cross. Sutors ye ai-e, and sutors ye'll be ; F upon Forfar, Kirrimuir bears the gree.' " *
The war over, men's minds in Scotland were sorely exercised upon the question of sur-
■* Folio of 1711 : Memoir, p. ix. vol.. I. A
cxii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR
rendering the King to the English. Would His Majesty but take the Covenant, and consent to the establishment of Presbyterianism as the exclusive form of religion for the two kingdoms, the Scots would stand by him to the last. But His Majesty would do neither of these things, and finally, in January 1647, he was handed over to the Parliamentary Commissioners. Drummond, of course, had not been idle upon this occasion. The paper which he wrote is entitled Objections against the Scots answered^ and is in the form of a reply to certain charges brought against the Scots by the English Par- liament ; but its particular purpose was, to prevail with his countrymen to reject the Par- liament's demand for the surrender of the King. With much violence to his own feelings, he wrote as from the point of view of an orthodox Presbyterian ; but, had he othenvise written, he knew well that his pleading must have been even worse than useless.
From his confinement in the Isle of Wight the King did at length concede one of the points insisted on by the Scots. He accepted the Presbyterian establishment, though even now he was firm in refusing the Covenant. In Scotland opinions were sharply divided. Many
* Printed in the Folio of 1711, pp. 212-215.
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR cxiii
held that, since the King had so far pledged himself to the Presbyterian cause, it was their duty to support him against the English Inde- pendents : others maintained that the conces- sion was inadequate, that the King was not to be trusted, and that it was no part of honest Presbyterians to ally themselves with Prelatists and Papists, as must necessarily be the case did they resolve to restore the King by force of arms. The King^s party, however, prevailed. An army was raised, and sent into England in the summer of 1648, under the command of our old acquaintance the Marquis, now Duke of Hamilton ; with good hopes, and the sympathy of many among the English Presbyterians. Drummond's last political paper — A Vindica- tion of the IIa7nilto22s* — was written in answer to a pamphlet published about this time, in which the Duke was charged with treasonable aims. Whether the Vi?id catio7i was ever circu- lated is doubtful, for the Duke's much chequered career had now come to a sudden close. On the 17th of August, Cromwell burst upon him near Preston, and scattered his army to the four winds. Duke Hamilton himself was soon afterwards captured ; consigned to an English prison, and, finally, to the scaffold as a traitor —
* Printed in the Folio of 171 1, pp. 237-240.
cxiv INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR
being" a peer of England as well as of Scot- land.
The news of King Charles's execution, in January 1649, came as a terrible shock to Drummond, already "much weakened with close studying and diseases.'' He lived on, through th,e remaining months of the year, writing occasionally a bit of sad epitaphian verse, or revising his old Genealogy of the Drummonds. On the 4th of December 1649 he died ; " to the great grief and loss of all learned and good men : and was honourably buried in his own aisle in the church of Lass- wade, near to his house of Hawthornden." *
" The church and churchyard of Lasswade," writes Professor Masson, " are on a height over- looking the village, and about two miles and a half from Hawthornden. The present church was built about a hundred years ago ; t but in a portion of the well kept churchyard, railed in separately from the rest, as more select and important, there is the fragmentary outline of the smaller old church, with some of the se- pulchral monuments that belonged to it. Drum- mond's own aisle, abutting from one part of the ruined wall, is still perfect, a small arched space
* Memoir in the Folio of 1711, p. x. f In 1793, according to Lewis's Topographical Diet. 0/ Scotland : London, 1846.
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR cxv
of stone-work, with a roofing of strong stone slabs, and a grating of iron for doorway. With- in this small arched space Drummond's ashes certainly lie, though there is no inscription to mark the precise spot as distinct from the graves of some of his latest descendants who are also buried there." *
Until 1893 the little aisle was Drummond's only monument. In October of that year a memorial tablet was fixed to the outer wall of the aisle, above the iron grating. It consists of a bronze medallion of the poet's head, set in a tablet of freestone, with the arms of his family, and, by way of epitaph, the last two lines of the beautiful sonnet which he sent to Alexander in 1620. Roses have been planted there, in graceful recognition of the wish expressed in the epitaph :
" Here Damon lies, whose songs did sometime grace The murmuring Esk : may roses shade the place ! "
The widow, Elizabeth Logan, and three children survived the poet. Nine children in all had been born to them, but six had died young, the survivors being William, the second son ; Robert, the third son ; and Eliza- beth, the eldest daughter.t By his will, which
* Drummond of Hawthornden, p. 456.
t The names of Drummond's children were these: John, William, Robert, Richard, and James ; Elizabeth, Margaret, Annabella, and Jane.
cxvi INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR
is dated September i, 1643, Drummond be- queathed ^1000 apiece to his sons Robert and James, and 500 marks, with his " moveables," as a portion to his daughter EHzabeth : the rest of the estate would go to the eldest sur- viving son, William. The charge of the chil- dren was left to their mother, with whom were conjoined Drummond's kinsman, John Stirling of Birnay, and Richard Maitland ; but in the event of Elizabeth Logan's marrying or departing this life in the nonage of her chil- dren, the charge was to devolve upon Lord Drummond, George Preston of Craigmillar, and William Drummond of Riccarton, with the two gentlemen aforesaid.*
William Drummond, the poet's heir, was knighted by Charles IL, and died in I7i3> aged about seventy-five years. He got the title of justice of peace by Lord Lauderdale's favour, but was fitter, says malicious Father Hay, in the Memoirs already cited, "to ex- amine the condition of a pot of ale than the circumstances of any debate that comes before him." Professor Masson, with greater pro- bability, represents him in his last years as "a very respectable old Scottish gentleman," without any portion of his father's genius.
* See the abstract of Drummond's will in Archceologia Scotica, vol. iv. p. 229.
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR cxvii
Robert, the second surviving son, married Anna Maxwell, sister to the Laird of Hills ^ "died [about 1687] Roman Catholick, left noe childer- ing," says our malicious friend, who adds that Robert also " was mutch given to drinke." The daughter Elizabeth married Dr. Henry Hen- derson, a physician of Edinburgh, and died long before 171 1. The last lineal descendant of the poet was Barbara Mary Drummond, great-granddaughter of Sir William. She died in 1789, having been twice married : her only child, a daughter by her second husband, died at the age of thirteen, in 1777. This second husband of Barbara Drummond was Dr. William Abernethy, who, after his marriage, added the surname of Drummond to his own. He is noteworthy to us here on one account. In 1782, Dr. Abernethy Drummond presented to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland the whole of the poet's manuscripts at Hawthorn- den, consisting of transcripts of his poems and prose writings ; letters ; extracts from other authors, both in prose and verse, in Drum- mond's handwriting ; poems and fragments by Drummond's uncle, William Fowler ; and miscellaneous papers. Forty-five years later these manuscripts were carefully examined, and arranged in fifteen bound volumes, by Mr. David Laing, and the most interesting
cxviii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR
of the contents previously unpublished were printed, with annotations by Mr. Laing, in the fourth volume of Archceolo(ria Scotica ; or^ Trajisactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland: Edinburgh, 1831.
The following is a list, chronologically arranged, of the previous editions of Drummond's Works : —
Teares on the Death of Meliades. Edinbvrgh, printed by Andro Hart, and are to bee sold at his shop on the north side of the high streete, a litle beneath the Crosse. 161 3. 4to. Contains (i) the Sonnet to the Author by Alexander; (2) Tears 07i the Death of Meliades : (3) the '''' pyramid'''' in verse; (4) the epitaph be- ginnings " Stay, passenger." A copy of this first editioji^ presented by Dru7?i7}zond, is itz the Uni- versity Library at Edinburgh : there is none in the British Museum. Of the second edition of " Meliades " no copy is known to exist.
Mausolevm, or, The choisest Flowres of the Epitaphs, written on the Death of the neuer-too- much lamented Prince Henrie. Edinbvrgh, printed by Andro Hart. Anno Dom. 161 3. 4to. Three of the poe??is in this volume are by Drum-
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR cxix
tnond^ viz., the ^^ pyrajnid^^ aiid the epitaph fro ?n " Meliades^^ and the soiinet begi7ini7ig^ " A pass- ing glance," here first prijited. " There is little doubt that the present small tract was collected and sent forth by Druminond^ . . . and was probably published at the same time with the preceding work.'^ * // was reprinted in " Fugi- tive Scottish Poetry of the Seventeeiith Century;'' Edinbiirgh^ 1825.
Teares on the Death of Mceliades. By William Drummond of Hawthomden. The third Edition. Edinbvrgh, printed by Andro Hart. 1614. 4to.
Poems : Amorous, Funerall, Divine, Pas- torall, in Sonnets, Songs, Sextains, Madrigals. By W. D. the Author of the Teares on the Death of Mceliades. Edinbvrgh, printed by Andro Hart. 16 16. 4to, Co7ttains {\) Sonjiet to the Author^ by Parthenius ; (2) Poems. The First Part ; (3) Poc7ns. The Second Part ; (4) Sonnet to the Author of " Mceliades" reprinted ;
(5) Tears on the Death of Mceliades^ reprinted;
(6) So7inet, " A passing glance," reprinted; (7) a py7-a7}iid in ve7'se, reprinted ; (8) Urania, or Spiritual Poe77is ; (9) So7met to the Author, by
* Corser's Collectanea Anglo-Poetica, vol. iii. p. 313.
cxx INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR
Si?' D. Murray J (lo) Madrigals and Epigrams^ •with a Sonnet^ at the end, by Sir W. A lexander^ headed '''Alexis to Da?non"
Poems : By William Drvmmond of Haw- thorne-denne. The second Impression. Edin- bvrgh, printed by Andro Hart. 1616. 410. Typographically identical with the preceding^ and apparently no " second ifHpressio?i " at all^ but a reissue of the original impression with a new title-page.
Forth Feasting. A Panegyricke to the Kings Most Excellent Majestie. Edinbvrgh, printed by Andro Hart. 161 7. 4to. This was reprinted in " The Muses' Welcome to King Jafnes^^ Edinburgh, 1618, with the prefixed so7inet by Druminond, which does not appear in the original edition.
Flowres of Sion. By William Drummond of Hawthorne-denne. To which is adjoyned his Cypresse Grove. Printed 1623. 4to. Contains (i) Flowres of Sion ; {2) A Cypresse Grove; (3) " On the Report of the Death of the Author^' by Sir IV. Alexander ; (4) Sonriet, " To S. W. A."y (5) To the fnemory of Jane, Countess of Perth.
Flowres of Sion ; By William Drummond of Hawthorne-denne To which is adjoyned
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR cxxi
his Cypresse Grove. Edenbovrgh, printed by John Hart. 1630. Besides all the pieces in the preceding edition^ this contains four 7iew poe?ns, viz., ^^ An Hymn of the Ascensio7t^\' a Sonnet, ''Death's Last WiW ; ''The Shadow of the Judgment "; and a Sonnet to the Obsequies of King Ja?nes. It co7itai?ts also, at the end of the volume, " A Table of the Hymnes and Sonnets, with their Argujnentes^^ i.e. the headings of the poems, which are not given with the text, as in later editions. In some copies of this second edition the title-page bears the i7nprint, " Printed at Eden-Bourgh, by the Heires of Andro Hart. Anno 1630."
The Entertainment of the high and mighty Monarch Charles, King of Great Britaine, France, and Ireland, into his auncient and royall citie of Edinbvrgh, the fifteenth of June, 1633. Printed at Edinbvrgh by John Wreittoun. 1633. 4to. In additio7i to the description of the page- ant, and Dru7n7no7ids Speeches, &^c., in prose and verse, this volume contains a Panegyric on Ki7ig Charles, in verse, by Walter Forbes, which I have 7iot included in the prese7it editio7i.
To THE Exequies of the Honovrable Sr. Antonye Alexander, Knight, &c. A pastorall Elegie. Edinbvrgh, printed in King
cxxii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR
James his College, by George Anderson. 1638. 4to.
The History of Scotland, from the year 1423 until the year 1542, containing the Lives and Reigns of James the I, the II, the III, the IV, the V. With several Memorials of State during the Reigns of James VI and Charles I. By William Drummond of Haw- thomden. With a Prefatory Introduction by Mr. Hall, of Grays-Inn. London, printed by Henry Hills for Rich. Tomlins and himself, and are to be sold at their houses near Py- Corner. MDCLV. fol. T/ie '^Memorials of State"*^ are the two papers entitled'''' Considera- tions to the King'''' and ''''An Apologetical Letter ^^ with ^^ A7t Intettded Speech at the "West gate of Edinburgh to King Jajnes " (read ''''King Charles'''')^ i.e. the prose speech published in the " Entertain7nent of King Charles^ The volume cofttains also a selection of twenty -two " Familiar Epistles " of Drum7nond's^ and his essay ^ ''''A Cypress Grovel There is a second edition of this volume^ London, 1681.
Poems, By that most famous Wit, William Drummond of Hawthornden. London: Printed for Richard Tomlms, at the Sun and Bible, neare Pye- Corner. 1656. 8vo. With a preface
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR cxxiii
dy Edwaj-d Phillips^ Milto?i's nephew. It con- tains most of the poems previously published, and about sixty new poems ^ two of which are certainly not by Drummond. So7ne copies have the imprint — " London, printed by W. H. and are to be sold in the Company of Stationers, 1656." Scot of Scotstarvet was co7icerned i7i the publica- tiofi of this volume of 1656, and of the preced- ing volui7ie of prose : there exist copies of both volu7ties beari7ig a dedicatio7i to Scotstarvet.
The most Elegant and Elabovrate 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 K. Charles, shall live and flourish in all Ages whiles there are men to read them, or Art and Judgment to approve them, London, printed for Wilham Rands, Bookseller, at his House over against the Beare Taveme in Fleet-street. 1659. 8vo, Not anew edition at ally diet the re7n7tant of the edition of 1656, with a new and absurd title-page. A copy in the British Museum has both title-pages of 16^6 and 1659.
The Works of William Drummond, of Hawthomden. Consisting of Those which were formerly Printed, and Those which were de-
cxxiv INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR
sign'd for the Press. Now Published from the Author's Original Copies. Edinburgh : printed by James Watson, in Craig's- Closs, 171 1. fol. Edited by Bishop John Sage a?id Thomas Riiddiman. Co7itains all the pieces^ both in prose and verse, which had appeared in pre- vious editions; about forty additional poeins^ ma?7y of them of very doubt fid authe?iticity ; the various prose tracts me7itioned in the course of our " Introductory Memoir ^'^ and one or two other prose papers j a further selection from Drumjno7id^s correspondence j and a Memoir by Bishop Sage, which is the principal early authority for the life of Dru?n?nond.
The Poems of William Drummond, of Hawthornden. London, printed for E. Jeffery, Pall Mall, MDCCXCI. 8vo. In Cor- ser's " Collectanea " is catalogued a copy of this edition which bears the impri?it — " London, printed for J. Jeffery, Pall Mall. MDCCXC."
The Poetical Works of William Drum- mond, Esq. Edinburgh, 1793. ^^o. Forming part of the fourth volume of Anderson^ s " Works of the British Poeis^'' pp. 619-698,
The Poems of William Drummond. London, 18 10. 8vo, In Chal?ners's " Works of the English Poets, ^^ vol. v. pp. 637-712.
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR cxxt
The Poems of William Drummond of Hawthornden. Printed at Edinburgh : MDCCCXXXII. 4to. Privately printed for the Maitland Club. A 7nag7iifice7it volu7ne, edited with extre7ne care fro7ii the 07'igi7ial editioTis. Besides all the poe77is which had appeared in previous editions., a7td " A Cypress Grove ^^ this volu7ne contai7is certai7i Conmiendatory Verses by Dru77i77i07id 7iow first collected fro77i the volu772es to which they were prefixed ; a con- siderable nu7nber of poe77is f)077i the Haw- thornden MSS., 7-eprinted fro77i '''' Archceologia Scotica'''' ; '■''Lines on the Bishops^"^ fro77i a MS. in the Advocated Library.
The Poems of William Drummond, of Hawthornden : with Life, by Peter Cunning- ham. London, 1833. 8vo. Another edition^ Edinburgh, 1852,
The Poetical Works of WilliaiM Drum- mond OF Hawthornden. Edited by William B. Turnbull London, 1856. 8vo. Reissued^ London, 1890.
TEARS ON THE DEATH OF MCELIADES
TO THE AUTHOR OF
TEARS ON THE DEATH OF MGELIADES
In zvaves ofivoe thy sighs viy soul do toss. And do burst tip the conduits of my tears. Whose rankling tuotind no soothing balm long bears, But freshly bleeds when aught itpbraids my loss. Then thou so sweetly sorrow makes to sing. And troubled passions dost so well accord. That more delight thine anguish doth aff'ord^ Than others' joys can satisfactioii bring. What sacred wits, when ravisKd, do affect. To force affectionSy metamorphose minds. Whilst numbi'ous power the soul in secret binds ^ Thou hast performed, transforming in effect : For never plaints did greater pity ?nove. The best applause that can such notes approve.
SIR W. ALEXANDER.
TEARS ON THE DEATH OF MCELIADES
O Heavens ! then is it true that thou art gone,
And left this woful isle her loss to moan,
Mceliades,* bright day-star of the west,
A comet, blazing terror to the east ;
And neither that thy spright so heavenly wise, 5
Nor body, though of earth, more pure than skies,
Nor royal stem, nor thy sweet tender age,
Of adamantine Fates could quench the rage ?
O fading hopes ! O short-while-lasting joy
Of earth-born man, which one hour can destroy ! lo
Then even of virtue's spoils death trophies rears,
As if he gloried most in many tears.
Forc'd by grim Destines, Heavens neglect our cries.
Stars seem set only to act tragedies :
And let them do their worst, since thou art gone, 35
Raise whom they list to thrones, enthron'd dethrone ;
* The name which in these verses is given to Prince Henry, is that which he himself, in the challenges of his martial sports and masquerades, was wont to use, McF,LiADi:s, Prince of the Isles, which, in anagram, maketh Miles a Deo. [Noie by the author.'] s
6 TEARS ON THE
Stain princely bowers with Ijlood, and, even to
Gange, In cypress sad glad Hymen's torches change. Ah ! thou hast left to live, and in the time When scarce thou blossom'd in thy pleasant prime : 20 So falls by northern blast a virgin rose, At half that doth her bashful bosom close ; So a sweet flourish languishing decays, That late did blush when kiss'd by Phoebus" rays ; So Phcebus mounting the meridian's height, 25
Choked by pale Phoebe, faints unto our sight ; Astonish'd nature sullen stands to see The life of all this All so changed to be ; In gloomy gowns the stars about deplore, The sea with murnmring mountains beats the shore, so Black darkness reels o'er all, in thousand showers The weeping air on earth her sorrow pours, That, in a palsy, quakes to find so soon Her lover set, and night burst forth ere noon.
If Heaven, alas ! ordain'd thee young to die, 35 Why was it not where thou thy might did'st try, And to the hopeful world at least set forth Some little spark of thine expected worth? Moeliades, O that by Ister's streams. Amongst shrill-sounding trumpets, flaming gleams 40 Of warm encrimson'd swords, and cannons' roar. Balls thick as rain pour'd by the Caspian shore, Amongst crush'd lances, ringing helms, and shields, Dismember'd bodies ravishing the fields, In Turkish blood made red like Mars's star, 4.5
Thou ended hadst thy life, and Christian war I
DEATH OF MCELIADES 7
Or, as brave Bourbon, thou hadst made old Rome, Queen of the world, thy triumph's place and tomb ! So heaven's fair face, to the unborn v^^hich reads, A book had been of thine illustrious deeds ; so
So to their nephews * aged sires had told The high exploits performed by thee of old ; Towns raz'd, and rais'd, victorious, vanquish'd bands, Fierce tyrants flying, foil'd, kill'd by thy hands ; And in dear arras virgins fair had wrought 5.-.
The bays and trophies to thy country brought ; While some new Homer, imping pens to fame, Deaf Nilus' dwellers had made hear thy name. That thou didst not attain those honours' spheres. It was not want of worth, O no, but years. &•
A youth more brave pale Troy with trembling walls Did never see, nor she whose name appals Both Titan's golden bowers, for bloody fights Must'ring on Mars's field such Mars-like knights. The heavens had brought thee to the highest height 6-> Of wit and courage, showing all their might \\Tien they thee fram'd : ay me ! that what is brave On earth, they as their own so soon should crave ! Moeliades sweet courtly nymphs deplore, From Thule to Hydaspes' pearly shore. T'>
When Forth thy nurse. Forth where thou first didst pass Thy tender days (who smil'd oft on her glass To see thee gaze), meand'ring with her streams, Heard thou hadst left this round, from Phcebus' beams
* Nephews : grandchildren ; Lat. nepote$.
S TEARS ON THE
She sought to fly, but forced to return 73
By neighbour brooks, she gave herself to mourn ; And as she rush'd her Cyclades among, She seem'd to plain that Heaven had done her
wrong. With a hoarse plaint, Clyde down her steepy rocks, And Tweed through her green mountains clad with
flocks, 80
Did wound the ocean, murmuring thy death ;
The ocean that roar'd about the earth.
And it to Mauritanian Atlas told,
Who shrunk through grief, and down his white hairs
roll'd Huge streams of tears, that changed were in floods, 85 With which he drown'd the neighbour plains and
woods. The lesser brooks, as they did bubbling go, Did keep a consort unto public woe ; The shepherds left their flocks with downcast eyes. Disdaining to look up to angry skies ; 90
Some broke their pipes, and some in sweet-sad lays Made senseless things amazed at thy praise. His reed Alexis * hung upon a tree, And with his tears made Doven great to be. Moeliades sweet courtly nymphs deplore, ;«
From Thule to Hydaspes' pearly shore.
Chaste maids which haunt fair Aganippe's well, And you in Tempe's sacred shade who dwell,
* Sir William Alexander, who also wrote an elegy on Prince Henry's death.
DEATH OF MCELIADES 9
Let fall your harps, cease tunes of joy to sing, Dishevelled make all Parnassus ring kx.
With anthems sad ; thy music, Phoebus, turn In doleful plaints, whilst joy itself doth mourn : Dead is thy darling who decor'd thy bays, WTio oft was wont to cherish thy sweet lays, And to a trumpet raise thine amorous style, 105
That floating Delos envy might this isle. You Acidalian archers break your bows, Your brandons quench, with tears blot beauty's snows, And bid your weeping mother yet again A second Adon's death, nay Mars's plain. no
His eyes once were your darts, nay, even his name. Wherever heard, did every heart inflame : Tagus did court his love with golden streams, Rhine with his towns, fair Seine with all she claims. But ah ! poor lovers, death did them betray, 115
And, not suspected, made their hopes his prey. Tagus bewails his loss with golden streams, Rhine with his towns, fair Seine with all she claims. Moeliades sweet courtly nymphs deplore, From Thule to Hydaspes' pearly shore. i»'
Delicious ineads, whose chequer'd plain forth brings White, golden, azure flowers, which once were kings, In mourning black their shining colours dye. Bow down their heads, whilst sighing zephyrs fly. Queen of the fields, whose blush makes blush the morn, ]J5
Sweet rose, a prince's death in purple mourn ; O hyacinths, for aye your AI keep still, Nay, with more marks of woe your leaves now fill ;
lo TEARS ON THE
And you, O flower of Helen's tears first born,
Into those liquid pearls again you turn ; iso
Your green locks, forests, cut ; in weeping myrrhs,
The deadly cypress, and ink-dropping firs.
Your palms and myrtles change ; from shadows
dark, Wing'd syrens, wail ; and you, sad echoes, mark The lamentable accents of their moan, 135
And plain that brave Moeliades is gone. Stay, sky, thy turning course, and now become A stately arch unto the earth, his tomb ; Over which aye the wat'ry Iris keep, And sad Electra's «isters which still weep. i4o
Moeliades sweet courtly nymphs deplore. From Thule to Hydaspes' pearly shore.
Dear ghost, forgive these our untimely tears, By which our loving mind, though weak, appears ; Our loss, not thine, when we complain, we weep, 145 For thee the glist'ring walls of heaven do keep Beyond the planets' wheels, above that source Of spheres, that turns the lower in its course, Where sun doth never set, nor ugly night Ever appears in mourning garments dight ; iso
Where Boreas' stormy trumpet doth not sound, Nor clouds, in lightnings bursting, minds astound ; From care's cold climates far, and hot desire. Where time is banish'd, ages ne'er expire ; Amongst pure sprights environed with beams, i;5
Thou think'st all things below to be but dreams, And joy'st to look down to the azur'd bars Of heaven, indented all with streamincr stars ;
DEATH OF MCELIADES ii
And in their turning temples to behold,
In silver robe the moon, the sun in gold, iii>
Like young eye-speaking lovers in a dance,
With majesty by turns retire, advance.
Thou wond'rest 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, 165
To toss themselves for a small foot of ground,
Nay, that they even dare brave the powers above,
From this base stage of change that cannot move.
All worldly pomp and pride thou seest arise
Like smoke, that scatt'reth in the empty skies. iro
Other hills and forests, other sumptuous towers,
Amaz'd thou find'st, excelling our poor bowers ;
Courts void of flattery, of malice minds,
Pleasure which lasts, not such as reason blinds :
Far sweeter songs thou hear'st and carollings, 175
WTiilst heavens do dance, and quire of angels
sings. Than mouldy minds could feign : even our annoy. If it approach that place, is chang'd in joy.
Rest, blessed spright, rest satiate with the sight Of him whose beams both dazzle and delight, ]»>
Life of all lives, cause of each other cause, The sphere and centre where the mind doth pause ; Narcissus of himself, himself the well. Lover, and beauty, that doth all excel. Rest, happy ghost, and wonder in that glass iss
Where seen is all that shall be, is, or was. While shall be, is, or was do pass away, And nought remain but nn eternal day :
12 THE DEATH OF MCELIADES
For ever rest ; thy praise fame may enrol In golden annals, whilst about the pole The slow Bootes turns, or sun doth rise With scarlet scarf, to cheer the mourning skies The virgins to thy tomb may garlands bear Of flowers, and on each flower let fall a tear. Mojliades sweet courtly nymphs deplore. From Thule to Hydaspes' pearly shore.
SONNET
A PASSING glance, a lightning 'long the skies, That, ush'ring thunder, dies straight to our sight ; A spark, of contraries which doth arise, Then drowns in the huge depths of day and night ; Is this small Small call'd life, held in such price Of blinded wights, who nothing judge aright : Of Parthian shaft so swift is not the flight As life, that wastes itself, and living dies. O ! what is human greatness, valour, wit ? What fading beauty, riches, honour, praise ? To what doth serve in golden thrones to sit, Thrall earth's vast round, triumphal arches raise ? All is a dream, learn in this prince's fall. In whom, save death, nought mortal was at all.
EPITAPH
Stay, passenger, see where enclosed lies The paragon of princes, fairest frame Time, nature, place, could show to mortal eyes, In worth, wit, virtue, miracle to fame : At least that part the earth of him could claim This marble holds, hard like the Destinies : For as to his brave spirit and glorious name, The one the world, the other fills the skies. Th' immortal amaranthus, princely rose, Sad violet, and that sweet flower that bears In sanguine spots the tenor of our woes, Spread on this stone, and wash it with thy tears : Then go and tell, from Gades unto Ind, Thou saw where earth's perfections were confin'
A T
OF JET,
OR PORPHYRY,
OR THAT WHITE STON'E
PAROS AFFORDS ALONE,
OR THOSE IN AZURE DYE,
WHICH SEEM TO SCORN THE SKY ;
HERE MEMPHIS* WONDERS DO NOT SET,
NOR Artemisia's huge frame.
THAT KEEPS SO LONG HER LOVER's NAME:
MAKE NO GREAT MARBLE ATLAS TREMBLE W'lTH GOLD,
TO PLEASE A VULGAR EYE THAT DOTH BEHOLD:
THE MUSES, PHCEBUS, LOVE, HAVE RAISED OF THEIR TEARS
A CRYSTAL TOMB TO HIM, THROUGH WHICH HIS WORTH APPEARS
POEMS
VOL. 1.
TO THE AUTHOR
While thou dost praise the roses, HIies, gold, Which in a dangling tress and face appear, Still stands the sun in skies thy songs to hear, A silence sweet each whispering wind doth hold ; Sleep in Pasithea's lap his eyes doth fold, 5
The sword falls from the God of the fifth sphere. The herds to feed, the birds to sing, forbear, Each plant breathes love, each flood and fountain
cold ; And hence it is, that that once nymph, now tree, Who did th' Amphrysian shepherd's sighs disdain, 10 And scorn'd his lays, mov'd by a sweeter vein, Is become pitiful, and follows thee,
Thee loves, and vaunteth that she hath the grace, A garland for thy locks to interlace.
Parthenius.
19
POEM S
THE FIRST PART
SONNET I.
In my first years, and prime yet not at height,
When sweet conceits my wits did entertain,
Ere beauty's force I knew, or false delight,
Or to what oar she did her captives chain.
Led by a sacred troop of Phcebus' train, 5
I first began to read, then lov'd to write,
And so to praise a perfect red and while,
But, God wot, wist not what was in my brain :
Love smil'd to see in what an awful guise
I turn'd those antiques of the age of gold, ]o
And, that I might more mysteries behold,
He set so fair a volume to mine eyes,
That I (quires clos'd which, dead, dead sighs but breathe)
Joy on this living book to read my death.
22 POEMS
SONNET II.
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, Where sense and will invassal reason's power : Know what I list, this all can not me move, But that, O me ! I both must write and love.
POEMS 23
SONNET III.
Ve who so curiously do paint your ihoughts, Enlight'ning ev'ry line in such a guise, That they seem rather to have fall'n from skies, Than of a human hand be mortal draughts ; In one part Sorrow so tormented lies, As if his life at ev'ry sigh would part ; Love here blindfolded stands with bow and dart, There Hope looks pale. Despair with rainy eyes : Of my rude pencil look not for such art, My wit I find now lessened to devise So high conceptions to express my smart. And some think love but feign'd, if too too wise. These troubled words and lines confus'd you find, Are like unto their model, my sick mind.
24 POEMS
SONNET IV.
Fair is my yoke, though grievous be my pains, Sweet are my wounds, although they deeply smart, ^ly bit is gold, though shortened be the reins, My bondage brave, though I may not depart : Although I burn, the fire which doth impart Those flames, so sweet re\'iving force contains, That, like Arabia's bird, my wasted heart, Made quick by death, more lively still remains. I joy, though oft my waking eyes spend tears, I never want delight, even when I groan, Best companied when most I am alone ; A heaven of hopes I have midst hells of fears. Thus every way contentment strange I find. But most in her rare beauty, my rare mind.
POEMS 25
SONNET V.
How that vast heaven intitled First is roll'd,
If any other worlds beyond it lie.
And people living in eternity,
Or essence pure that doth this All uphold ;
What motion have those fixed sparks of gold, 5
The wand'ring carbuncles which shine from high,
By sprights, or bodies, contrare-ways in sky
If they be turn'd, and mortal things behold ;
How sun posts heaven about, how night's pale queen
With borrowed beams looks on this hanging round, 10
What cause fair Iris hath, and monsters seen
In air's large fields of light, and seas profound,
Did hold my wand'ring thoughts, when thy sweet eye Bade me leave all, and only think on thee.
26 POEMS
SONNET VI.
Vaunt not, fair heavens, of your two glorious lights Which, though most bright,yet see not when they shine, And shining, cannot show their beams divine Both in one place, but part by days and nights ; Earth, vaunt not of those treasures ye enshrine, 5
Held only dear because hid from our sights. Your pure and burnish'd gold, your diamonds fine, Snow-passing ivory that the eye delights ; Nor, seas, of those dear wares are in you found, Vaunt not, rich pearl, red coral, which do stir lo
A fond desire in fools to plunge your ground ; Those all, more fair, are to be had in her : Pearl, ivory, coral, diamond, suns, gold, Teeth, neck, lips, heart, eyes, hair, are to behold.
FOEMS 27
SONNET VII.
That learned Grecian,* who did so excel In knowledge passing sense, that he is nam'd Of all the after-worlds divine, doth tell, That at the time when first our souls are fram'd, Ere in these mansions blind they come to dwell, They live bright rays of that eternal light, And others see, know, love, in heaven's great height, Not toil'd with aught to reason doth rebel. Most true it is, for straight at the first sight My mind me told, that in some other place 1
It elsewhere saw the idea of that face, And lov'd a love of heavenly pure delight ; No wonder now I feel so fair a flame, Sith I her lov'd ere on this earth she came.
* Plato.
z8 POEMS
SONNET VIII.
Now while the night her sable veil hath spread, And silently her resty coach doth roll, Rousing with her from Tethys' azure bed Those starry nymphs which dance about the pole ; While Cynthia, in purest cypress clad, i
The Latmian shepherd in a trance descries, And whiles looks pale from height of all the skies. Whiles dyes her beauties in a bashful red ; While sleep, in triumph, closed hath all eyes, And birds and beasts a silence sweet do keep, n
And Proteus' monstrous people in the deep, The winds and waves, husht up, to rest entice ; I wake, muse, weep, and who my heart hath slain See still before me to augment my pain.
POEMS
29
SONNET IX.
Sleep, Silence' child, sweet father of soft rest,
Prince, whose approach peace to all mortals brings,
Indifferent host to shepherds and to kings,
Sole comforter of minds with grief opprest ;
Lo, by thy charming rod all breathing things
Lie slumb'ring, with forgetfulness posSvist,
And yet o'er me to spread thy drowsy wings
Thou spares, alas ! who cannot be thy guest.
Since I am thine, O come, but with that face
To inward light which thou art wont to show, 1
With feigned solace ease a true-felt woe ;
Or if, deaf god, thou do deny that grace,
Come as thou wilt, and what thou wilt bequeath,
I long to kiss the image of my death.
30
POEMS
SONNET X.
Fair Moon, who with thy cold and silver shine Makes sweet the horror of the dreadful night, Delighting the weak eye with smiles divine, Which Phoebus dazzles with his too much light ; Bright Queen of the first Heaven, if in thy shrine, By turning oft, and Heaven's eternal might, Thou hast not yet that once sweet fire of thine, Endymion, forgot, and lover's plight ; If cause like thine may pity breed in thee. And pity somewhat else to it obtain, Since thou hast power of dreams, as well as he Who paints strange figures in the slumb'ring brain, Now while she sleeps, in doleful guise her show These tears, and the black map of all my woe.
POEMS 31
SONNET XL
Lamp of heaven's crystal hall that brings the hours,
Eye-dazzler, who makes the ugly night
At thine approach fly to her slumb'ry bow'rs,
And fills the world with wonder and delight ;
Life of all lives, death-giver by thy flight z
To southern pole from these six signs of ours,
Goldsmith of all the stars, with silver bright
Who moon enamels, Apelles of the flow'rs ;
Ah ! from those watery plains thy golden head
Raise up, and bring the so long lingering morn ; 10
A grave, nay, hell, I find become this bed,
This bed so grievously where I am torn ;
But, woe is me ! though thou now brought the day. Day shall but serve more sorrow to display.
32 POEMS
SONG I.
It was the time when to our northern pole The brightest lamp of heaven begins to roll ; When earth more wanton in new robes appeareth, And, scorning skies, her flow'rs in rainbows beareth, On which the air moist sapphires doth bequeath, 5 Which quake to feel the kissing zephyrs' breath ; When birds from shady groves their love forth warble, And sea like heaven, heaven looks like smoothest
marble ; When I, in simple course, free from all cares. Far from the muddy world's captiving snares, lo
By Ora's flow'ry banks alone did wander, Ora that sports her like to old Meander ; A flood more worthy fame and lasting praise Than that which Phaethon's fall so high did raise,* Into whose moving glass the milk-white lilies is
Do dress their tresses, and the daffodillies. Where Ora with a wood is crown'd about, And seems forget the way how to come out, A place there is, where a delicious fountain Springs from the swelling paps of a proud mountain, 20
* The river Eridanus, or Po, into which Phaethon fell.
POEMS
33
Whose falling streams the quiet caves do wound,
And make the echoes shrill resound that sound.
The laurel there the shining channel graces,
The palm her love with long stretch'd arms embraces,
The poplar spreads her branches to the sky, 25
And hides from sight that azure canopy ;
The streams the trees, the trees their leaves still nourish,
That place grave winter finds not without flourish.*
If living eyes Elysian fields could see,
This little Arden might Elysium be. 30
Here Dian often used to repose her,
And Acidalia's queen with Mars rejoice her ;
The nymphs oft here do bring their maunds with flow'rs,
And anadems weave for their paramours ;
The Satyrs in these shades are heard to languish, 35
And make the shepherds partners of their anguish,
The shepherds who in barks of tender trees
Do grave their loves, disdains, and jealousies.
Which Phillis, when thereby her flocks she feedeth.
With pity whiles, sometime with laughter readeth. 40
Near to this place, when sun in midst of day In highest top of heaven his coach did stay. And, as advising, on his career glanced The way did rest, the space he had advanced + His panting steeds along those fields of light, 45
Most princely looking from that ghastly height ; W^hen most the grasshoppers are heard in meadows. And lofty pines have small or else no shadows,
* Flourish : flowers. Cf. Tears on the Death of Mceliades, line 23.
t As all along that morn he had advanced — Ed. 1656. vol.. I. c.
34
POEMS
Tt was my hap, O woful hap ! to bide Where thickest shades me from all rays did hide, m Into a shut-up place, some Sylvan's chamber, Whose ceiling spread was with the locks of amber Of new-bloom'd sycamores, floor wrought with flowers More sweet and rich than those in princes' bowers. Here Adon blush'd, and Clytia all amaz'd 55
Look'd pale, with him who in the fountain gaz'd ; The amaranthus smil'd, and that sweet boy Which sometime was the god of Delos' joy ; The brave carnation, speckled pink here shined, The violet her fainting head declined w
Beneath a drowsy chasbow, all of gold, The marigold her leaves did here unfold.
Now, while that ravish'd with delight and wonder, Half in a trance I lay those arches under, The season, silence, place, did all entice 65
Eyes' heavy lids to bring night on their skies. Which softly having stolen themselves together, Like evening clouds, me plac'd I wot not whither. As cowards leave the fort which they should keep, My senses one by one gave place to Sleep, ra
Who, followed with a troop of golden slumbers, Thrust from my quiet brain all base encumbers, And thrice me touching with his rod of gold, A heaven of visions in my temples roll'd, To countervail those pleasures were bereft me ; 75 Thus in his silent prison clos'd he left me.
Methought through all the neighbour woods a noise Of quiristers, more sweet than lute or voice
POEMS
35
(For those harmonious sounds to Jove are given
By the swift touclies of the nine-string'd heaven, so
Such are, and nothing else), did wound mine ear.
No, soul, that then became all ear to hear :
And whilst I list'ning lay, O ghastly wonder !
I saw a pleasant myrtle cleave asunder ;
A myrtle great with birth, from whose rent womb 85
Three naked nymphs more white than snow forth
come, For nymphs they seem'd ; about their heavenly faces In waves of gold did flow their curling tresses ; About each arm, their arms more white than milk, Each wore a blushing armelet of silk. 90
The goddesses were such that by Scamander Appeared to the Phrygian Alexander ; Aglaia, and her sisters, such perchance Be, when about some sacred spring they dance. But scarce the grove their naked beauties graced, 95 And on the amorous verdure had not traced. When to the flood they ran, the flood in robes Of curling crystal to breasts' ivory globes Who wrapt them all about, yet seem'd take pleasure To show warm snows throughout her liquid azure. 100
Look how Prometheus' man, when heavenly fire First gave him breath, day's brandon * did admire. And wond'red of this world's amphitheatre ; So gaz'd I on those new guests of the water. All three were fair, yet one excell'd as far io«
The rest as Phoebus doth the Cyprian star,
* Brandon : torch ; sc. the sun.
36 POEMS
Or diamonds small gems, or gems do other,
Or pearls that shining shell is call'd their mother.
Her hair, more bright than are the morning's beams, Hung in a golden shower above the streams, nn
And, sweetly tous'd, her forehead sought to cover, Which seen did straight a sky of milk discover, With two fair brows, love's bows, which never
bend But that a golden arrow fortli they send ; Beneath the which two burning planets glancing, ns Flash'd flames of love, for love there still is dancing. Her either cheek resembl'd a blushing morn, Or roses gules in field of lilies borne. Betwixt the which a wall so fair is raised, That it is but abased even when praised ; 120
Her lips like rows of coral soft did swell, And th' one like th' other only doth excel : The Tyrian fish looks pale, pale look the roses. The rubies pale, when mouth's sweet cherry closes. Her chin like silver Phoebe did appear 125
Dark in the midst to make the rest more clear ; Her neck seemed fi-am'd by curious Phidias' master. Most smooth, most white, a piece of alabaster. Two foaming billows flow'd upon her breast, Which did their tops with coral red encrest ; 130
There all about, as brooks them sport at leisure, W^ith circling branches veins did swell in azure : W^ithin those crooks are only found those isles Which Fortunate the dreaming old world styles. The rest the streams did hide, but as a lily 135
.Sunk in a crystal's fair transparent belly.
POEMS 37
I, who yet human weakness did not know, For yet I had not felt that archer's bow, Ne could I think that from the coldest water The winged youngling burning flames could scatter, ho On every part my vagabonding sight Did cast, and drown mine eyes in sweet delight. What wondrous thing is this that beauty's named ! Said I ; I find I heretofore have dreamed, And never known in all my flying days 145
Good unto this, that only merits praise. My pleasures have been pains, my comforts crosses, My treasure poverty, my gains but losses.
0 precious sight ! which none doth else descry, Except the burning sun, and quivering I. 150 And yet, O dear-bought sight I O would for ever
1 might enjoy you, or had joy'd you never ! O happy flood ! if so ye might abide !
Yet ever glory of this moment's pride,
Adjure your rillets all now to behold her, 155
And in their crystal arms to come and fold her ;
And sith ye may not aye your bliss embrace,
Draw thousand portraits of her on your face,
Portraits which in my heart be more apparent,
If like to yours my breast but were transparent. 16O
O that I were, while she doth in you play,
A dolphin to transport her to the sea !
To none of all those gods I would her render.
From Thule to Ind though I should with her
wander. Oh ! what is this ? the more I fix mine eye, i65
Mine eye the more new wonders doth espy ;
5H5*>0
38 POEMS
The more I spy, the more in imcouth fashion
My soul is ravish'il in a pleasant passion.
But look not, eyes : as more I would have said,
A sound of whirling wheels me all dismay'd, im
And with the sound forth from the timorous bushes,
With storm -like course, a sumptuous chariot rushes,
A chariot all of gold, the wheels were gold.
The nails, and axe-tree gold on which it roll d ;
The upmost part a scarlet veil did cover, 175
More rich than Danae's lap spread with her lover.
In midst of it, in a triumphing chair,
A lady sat, miraculously fair,
WTiose pensive countenance, and looks of honour,
Do more allure the mind that thinketh on her, iso
Than the most wanton face and amorous eyes.
That Amathus or flow'ry Paphos sees.
A crew of virgins made a ring about her.
The diamond she, they seem the gold without
her. Such Thetis is, when to the billows' roar jss
With mermaids nice she danceth on the shore : So in a sable night the sun's bright sister Among the lesser twinkling lights doth glister. Fair yokes of erm.elines whose colour pass The whitest snows on aged Grampius' face, iso
More swift than Venus' birds this chariot guided To the astonish'd bank whereas it bided : But long it did not bide, when poor those streams, Ay me ! it made, transporting those rich gems. And by that burthen lighter, swiftly drived 195
Till, as raethought, it at a tower arrived.
POEMS 39
Upon a rock of crystal shining clear, Of diamonds this castle did appear. Whose rising spires of gold so high them reared, That, Atlas-like, it seem'd the heaven they beared. 200 Amidst which heights on arches did arise, Arches which gilt flames brandish to the skies. Of sparkling topazes, proud, gorgeous, ample, Like to a little heaven, a sacred temple, Whose walls no windows have, nay all the wall -jog Is but one Nvindow ; night there doth not fall ]More when the sun to western worlds declineth, Than in our zenith when at noon he shineth. Two flaming hills the passage strait defend Which to this radiant building doth ascend, tm
Upon whose arching tops, on a pilaster, A port stands open, rais'd in love's disaster ; For none that narrow bridge and gate can pass, "VMio have their faces seen in Venus' glass. If those within but to come forth do venture, 215
That stately place again they never enter. The precinct strengthened with a ditch appears, In which doth swell a lake of inky tears Of madding lovers, who abide there moaning, And thicken even the air with piteous groaning. L-20 This hold, to brave the skies, the Destines fram'd, The world the Fort of Chastity it nam'd. The Queen * of the third Heaven once to appal it The god of Thrace here brought, who could not thrall it,
* Venus.
40 POEMS
For which he vow'd ne'er arms more to put on, 225 And on Rhipsean hills was heard to groan. Here Psyche's lover hurls his darts at random, Which all for nought him serve, as doth his brandon.
What bitter anguish did invade my mind. When in that place my hope I saw confin'd, 230
Where with high-tow'ring thoughts I only reach'd her, Which did burn up their wings when they approach'd
her ! Methought I set me by a cypress shade, And night and day the hyacinth there read ; And that bewailing nightingales did borrow 233
Plaints of my plaint, and sorrows of my sorrow. My food was wormwood, mine own tears my drink. My rest, on death and sad mishaps to think. And for such thoughts to have my heart enlarged. And ease mine eyes with briny tribute charged, 240 Over a brook, methought, my pining face I laid, which then, as griev'd at my disgrace, A face me show'd again so overclouded, That at the sight mine eyes afraid them shrouded. This is the guerdon. Love, this is the gain 245
In end which to thy servants doth remain, I would have said, when fear made sleep to leave me. And of those fatal shadows did bereave me ; But ah, alas ! instead to dream of love And woes, me made them in effect to prove ; 250
For what into my troubled brain was painted, I waking found that time and place presented.
POEMS 41
SONNET XII.
Ah ! burning thoughts, now let me take some rest,
And your tumultuous broils a while appease ;
Is 't not enough, stars, fortune, love molest
jVIe all at once, but ye must too displease ?
Let hope, though false, yet lodge within my breast, 5
INIy high attempt, though dangerous, yet praise.
What though I trace not right heaven's steepy ways?
It doth suffice, my fall shall make me blest.
I do not doat on days, nor fear not death ;
So that my life be brave, what though not long ? 10
Let me renown'd live from the vulgar throng.
And when ye list. Heavens ! take this borrowed breath.
Men but like visions are, time all doth claim ;
He lives, who dies to win a lasting name.
42
POEMS
MADRIGAL I.
A D^DAL * of my death,
Now I resemble that subtle worm on earth,
Which, prone to its own evil, can take no rest ;
For with strange thoughts possest,
I feed on fading leaves
Of hope, which me deceives,
And thousand webs doth warp within my breast
And thus in end unto myself I weave
A fast-shut prison, no, but even a grave.
* Dasdal • contriver.
POEMS 43
SEXTAIN I.
The heaven doth not contain so many stars,
So many leaves not prostrate lie in woods,
When autumn's old, and Boreas sounds his wars,
So many waves have not the ocean floods,
As my rent mind hath torments all the night, 5
And heart spends sighs, when Phcebus brings the lii^ht.
Why should I been * a partner of the light,
Who, crost in birth by bad aspects of stars,
Have never since had happy day nor night ?
Why was not I a liver in the woods, n
Or citizen of Thetis' crystal floods,
Than made a man for love and fortune's wars ?
I look each day when death should end the wars,
Uncivil wars, 'twixt sense and reason's light ;
My pains I count to mountains, meads, and floods, is
And of my sorrow partners make the stars ;
All desolate I haunt the fearful woods.
When I should give myself to rest at night.
With watchful eyes I ne'er behold the night, Mother of peace, but ah ! to me of wars, 20
* Why was I made — Ed. 1656.
44 POEMS
And Cynthia queen-like shining through the woods, When straight those lamps come in my thought,
whose light My judgment dazzled, passing brightest stars. And then mine eyes en-isle themselves with floods.
Turn to their springs again first shall the floods, 25
Clear shall the sun the sad and gloomy night,
To dance about the pole cease shall the stars,
The elements renew their ancient wars
Shall first, and be depriv'd of place and light,
Ere I find rest in city, fields, or woods. 30
End these my days, indwellers of the woods, Take this my life, ye deep and raging floods ; Sun, never rise to clear me with thy light, Horror and darkness, keep a lasting night ; Consume me, care, with thy intestine wars, 35
And stay your influence o'er me, bright stars !
In vain the stars, indwellers of the woods, Care, horror, wars, I call, and raging floods, For all have sworn no night shall dim my light.*
* Most editions (including that of 1616) read here "sight" for " light " ; bv;t surely the latter is the word required.
POEMS 45
SONNET XIII.
O SACRED blush, impurpling cheeks' pure skies With crimson wings which spread thee like the morn ; O bashful look, sent from those shining eyes. Which, though cast down on earth, couldst heaven
adorn ; O tongue, in which most luscious nectar lies, o
That can at once both bless and make forlorn ; Dear coral lip, which beauty beautifies. That trembling stood ere that her words were born ; And you her words, words, no, but golden chains, Which did captive mine ears, ensnare my soul, lo
Wise image of her mind, mind that contains A power, all power of senses to control ; Ye all from love dissuade so sweetly me, That I love more, if more my love could be.
46 POEMS
SONNET XIV.
Nor A.rne, nor Mincius, nor stately Tiber, Sebethus, nor the flood into whose streams He fell who burnt the world with borrow' d beams, Gold-roiling Tagus, Munda, famous Iber, Sorgue, Rhone, Loire, Garron, nor proud-banked Seine. i
Peneus, Phasis, Xanthus, humble Ladon, Nor she whose nymphs excel her who lov'd Adon, Fair Tamesis, nor Ister large, nor Rhine, Euphrates, Tigris, Indus, Hermus, Gange, Pearly Hydaspes, serpent-like Meander, lo
The gulf bereft sweet Hero her Leander, Nile, that far far his hidden head doth range, Have ever had so rare a cause of praise, As Ora, where this northern Phoenix stays.
POEMS 47
SONNET XV.
To hear my plaints, fair river crystalline, Thou in a silent slumber seems to stay ; Delicious flow'rs, lily and columbine, Ye bow your heads when I my woes display ; Forests, in you the myrtle, palm, and bay, 6
Have had compassion list'ning to my groans ; The winds with sighs have solemniz'd my moans 'Mong leaves, which whispered what they could not
say; The caves, the rocks, the hills, the Sylvans' thrones, (As if even pity did in them appear) lo
Have at my sorrows rent their ruthless stones ; Each thing I find hath sense except my dear, Who doth not think I love, or will not know My grief, perchance delighting in my woe.
48 POEiMS
SONNET XVI.
Sweet brook, in whose clear crystal I mine eyes Have oft seen great in labour of their tears ; Enamell'd bank, whose shining gravel bears These sad characters of my miseries ; High woods, whose mounting tops menace the spheres ; 5
Wild citizens, Amphions of the trees,* You gloomy groves at hottest noons which freeze, Elysian shades, which Phoebus never clears ; Vast solitary mountains, pleasant plains, Embroid'red meads that ocean-ways you reach ; 10 Hills, dales, springs, all that my sad cry constrains To take part of my plaints, and learn w^oe's speech,
Will that remorseless fair e'er pity show ?
Of grace now answer if ye ought know. No.
■ A rather far-fetched periphrasis for wood-birds !
POEMS 49
SONNET XVII.
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 anadems do wear ;
The nightingale, forgetting winter's woe, 5
Calls up the lazy morn her notes to hear ;
Those flow'rs are spread which names of princes bear,
Some red, some azure, white and golden grow ;
Here lows a heifer, there bea-wailing * strays
A harmless lamb, not far a stag rebounds ; lo
The shepherds sing to grazing flocks sweet lays,
And all about the echoing air resounds.
Hills, dales, woods, floods, and everything doth change,
But she in rigour, I in love am strange.
* The unusual spelling of the first syllable here was doubtless designed to suggest the bleating noise made by lambs.
50 POEMS
SONNET XVIII.
When Nature now had wonderfully wrought
All Auristella's parts, except her eyes,
To make those twins two lamps in beauty's skies.
She counsel of her starry senate sought.
Mars and Apollo first did her advise 5
In colour black to wrap those comets bright,
That Love him so might soberly disguise,
And unperceived, wound at every sight.
Chaste Phoebe spake for purest azure dyes,
But Jove and Venus green about the light lo
To frame thought best, as bringing most delight,
That to pin'd hearts hope might for aye arise :
Nature, all said, a paradise of green
There plac'd, to make all love which have them seen.
POEMS 51
MADRIGAL II.
To the delightful green
Of you, fair radiant eyne,
Let each black yield beneath the starry arch.
Eyes, burnish'd heavens of love,
Sinople * lamps of Jove, §
Save that those hearts vi'hich with your flames ye parch
Two burning suns you prove.
All other eyes compar'd with you, dear lights,
Be hells, or if not hells, yet dumpish nights.
The heavens, if we their glass 10
The sea believe, be green, not perfect blue :
They all make fair what ever fair yet was,
And they be fair because they look like you.
* Sinople : green.
52
POEMS
SONNET XIX.
In vain I haunt the cold and silver springs, To quench the fever burning in my veins ; In vain, love's pilgrim, mountains, dales, and plains, I overrun ; vain help long absence brings : In vain, my friends, your counsel me constrains To fly, and place my thoughts on other things. Ah ! like the bird that fired hath her wings, The more I move, the greater are my pains. Desire, alas ! Desire, a Zeuxis new, From Indies borrowing gold, from western skies i Most bright cynoper,* sets before mine eyes In every place, her hair, sweet look, and hue : That fly, run, rest I, all doth prove but vain, My life lies in those looks which have me slain.
* Cynoper : cinnabar ; vermilion.
POEMS
53
SONNET XX.
All other beauties, howsoe'er they shine In hairs more bright than is the golden ore, Or cheeks more fair than fairest eglantine, Or hands like hers who comes the sun before ; * Match'd with that heavenly hue, and shape divine, r, With those dear stars which my weak thoughts adore, Look but like shadows, or if they be more, It is in that, that they are like to thine. Who sees those eyes, their force and doih not prove, Who gazeth on the dimple of that chin, lo
And tinds not Venus' son intrench'd therein, Or hath not sense, or knows not what is love. To see thee had Narcissus had the grace, He sure had died with wond'ring on thy face.
* Aui-ora.
54 POEMS
SONNET XXI.
My tears may well Numidian lions tame,
And pity breed into the hardest heart
That ever Pyrrha did to maid impart,
When she them first of blushing rocks did frame.
Ah ! eyes which only serve to wail my smart,
How long will you mine inward woes proclaim ?
Let it suffice, you bear a weeping part
All night, at day though ye do not the same :
Cease, idle sighs, to spend your storms in vain.
And these calm secret shades more to molest
Contain you in the prison of my breast,
You do not ease but aggravate my pain ;
Or, if burst forth you must, that tempest move In sight of her whom I so dearly love.
POEMS
SONNET XXII.
Nymphs, sister nymphs, which haunt this crystal
brook, And, happy, in these floating bowers abide. Where trembling roofs of trees from sun you hide. Which make ideal woods in every crook ; Wbether ye garlands for your locks provide, 5
Or pearly letters seek in sandy book, Or count your loves when Thetis was a bride, Lift up your golden heads and on me look. Read in mine eyes mine agonising cares. And what ye read recount to her again : 10
Fair nymphs, say, all these streams are but my tears. And if she ask you how they sweet remain,
Tell, that the bitterest tears which eyes can pour, When shed for her do cease more to be sour.
S6 POEMS
MADRIGAL III.
Like the Idalian queen,
Her hair about her eyne,
With neck and breast's ripe apples to be seen,
At first glance of the morn,
In Cyprus' gardens gathering those fair flow'rs
Which of her blood were born,
I saw, but fainting saw, my paramours.
The Graces naked danc'd about the place,
The winds and trees amaz'd
With silence on her gaz'd ;
The flow'rs did smile, like those upon her face,
And as their aspen stalks those fingers band,
That she might read my case,
A hyacinth I wish'd me in her hand.
POEMS 57
SONNET XXIIL
Then is she gone ? O fool and coward I ! O good occasion lost, ne'er to be found 1 \\Tiat fatal chains have my dull senses bound, When best they may, that they not fortune try ? Here is the flow'ry bed where she did lie, With roses here she stellified the ground, She fix'd her eyes on this yet smiling pond, Nor time, nor courteous place, seem'd ought deny. Too long, too long. Respect, I do embrace Your counsel, full of threats and sharp disdain ; Disdain in her sweet heart can have no place, And though come there, must straight retire again Henceforth, Respect, farewell, I oft hear told Who lives in love can never be too bold.
58 POEMS
SONNET XXIV.
In mind's pure glass w hen I myself behold, And vively see how my best days are spent, What clouds of care alcove my head are roll'd, What coming harms which I can not prevent : My begun course I, wearied, do repent, And would embrace what reason oft hath told ; But scarce thus think I, when love hath controll'd All the best reasons reason could invent. Though sure I know my labour's end is grief. The more I strive that I the more shall pine, That only death can be my last relief: Yet when I think upon that face divine,
Like one with arrow shot in laughter's place, Malgr^ my heart, I joy in my disgrace.
POEMS 59
SONNET XXV.
Dear quirister, who from those shadows sends, Ere that the blushing dawn dare show her light, Such sad lamenting strains, that night attends (Become all ear), stars stay to hear thy plight ; If one whose grief even reach of thought transcends, s Who ne'er (not in a dream) did taste delight, May thee importune who like case pretends. And seems to joy in woe, in woe's despite ; Tell me (so may thou fortune milder tr}-, And long, long sing) for what thou thus complains, lo Sith, winter gone, the sun in dappled sky Now smiles on meadows, mountains, woods, and plains? The bird, as if my questions did her move. With trembling wings sobb'd forth, I love, I love !
6o POEMS
SONNET XXVI.
Trust not, sweet soul, those cuiied waves of gold, With gentle tides which on your temples flow, Nor temples spread with flakes of virgin snov,-. Nor snow of cheeks with Tyrian grain enroH'd ; Trust not those shining lights which wrought my woe. 3 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 lo
Made all the neighbouring herbs and grass rejoice, And think how little is 'twixt life's extremes : The cruel tyrant that did kill those flow'rs, Shall once, ay me ! not spare that spring of yours.
* Orpheus.
POEMS 6i
SONNET XXVII.
That I so slenderly set forth my mind, Writing I wot not what in ragged rhymes, And charg'd with brass into these golden times, When others tower so high, am left behind ; I crave not Phcebus leave his sacred cell To bind my brows with fresh Aonian bays ; Let them have that who tuning sweetest lays By Tempe sit, or Aganippe's well ; Nor yet to Venus' tree do I aspire, Sith she for whom I might affect that praise, My best attempts with cruel words gainsays, And I seek not that others me admire.
Of weeping myrrh the crown is which I crave, With a sad cypress to adorn my grave.
.62 POEMS
SONNET XXVIII.
Sound hoarse, sad lute, true witness of my woe, And strive no more to ease self-chosen pain With soul-enchanting sounds ; your accents strain Unto these tears incessantly which flow. Shrill treble, weep ; and you, dull basses, show 5
Your master's sorrow in a deadly vein ; Let never joyful hand upon you go. Nor consort keep but when you do complain. Fly Phoebus' rays, nay, hate the irksome light ; Woods' solitary shades for thee are best, lo
Or the black horrors of the blackest night. When all the world, save thou and I, doth rest : Then sound, sad lute, and bear a mourning part, Thou hell mayst move, though not a woman's heart.
POEMS 63
SONNET XXIX.
You restless seas, appease your roaring waves, And you who raise huge mountains in that plain, Air's trumpeters, your blust'ring storms restrain, And listen to the plaints my grief doth cause. Eternal lights, though adamantine laws Of destinies to move still you ordain. Turn hitherward your eyes, your axe-iree pau.-e, And wonder at the torments I sustain. Earth, if thou be not dull'd by my disgrace, And senseless made, now ask thost powers alcove, Why they so crost a wretch brought on thy face, Fram'd for mishap, th' anachorite of love ?
And bid them, if they would more y-Etnas burn. In Rhodope or Erymanthe me turn.
64 POEMS
SONNET XXX.
What cruel star into this world me brought ? What gloomy day did dawn to give me light ? What unkind hand to nurse me, orphan, sought, And would not leave me in eternal night ? What thing so dear as I hath essence * bought ? The elements, dry, humid, heavy, light. The smallest living things by nature wrought. Be freed of woe, if they have small delight. Ah ! only I, abandon'd to despair, Nail'd to my torments, in pale Horror's shade, Like wand'ring clouds see all my comforts fled, And evil on evil with hours my life impair :
The heaven and fortune which were wont to turn, Fixt in one mansion stay to cause me mourn.
* By " essence" he here intends "existence."