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though he corresponded frequently with Drayton and Ben Johnson; the latter of whom had so great a respect for his abilities, and so ardent a desire to see him, that at the age of forty-five he walked to Hawthornden to visit him.

The favourite seat of Ben Johnson, in the sequestered wood of Hawthornden, is yet known, and pointed out to visitors, where a bust of Johnson ought to be placed, to gratify the sentimental devotion of the admirers of exalted merit.

This would add something spiritual to the straw berry feasts of Roslin, and be worthy of a precious few in that wonderful little country that produced a Drummond and a Thomson..

Ben Johnson's father too was a Scot; and it is fit that be fhould be honoured in the land of his fathers.

Hawthornden is a lovely spot. The house hangs like an eagle's nest on the romantic banks of Efk. The ground is classic. The genius of his plaintive sonnets meets the fancy of the congenial soul. Here he addressed his Alexis, (lord Stirling),

Tho' I have twice been at the doors of death;

And twice found fhut those gates which ever mourn;;
This but a light'ning is,-a truce to breathe;

For late-born sorrows augur fleet retura.

Amid thy sacred cares, and courtly toils,

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Alexis! when thour fhalt hear wand'ring fame

Tell, death hath triumph'd o'er my mortal spoils,
And that on earth I am but a sad name;

If thou e'er hell me dear, by all our love,

By all that blifs, those joys heav'n here u: gave,

I conjure you, and by the maids of Jove,

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To 'grave this short remembrance on my grave:
Here Damon lies, whose songs did sometimes grace
The murmuring Efk.-May ros:s fhade the place!

toun, who presented the whole remaining manuscripts of the poet to the carl of Buchan, who deposited them in the museum of the Antiquariana Suciety at Edinburgh.

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Let us inquire for the venerable spot in which were placed the afhes of Hawthornden, and let these lines be sculptured on the belly of a lyre, that they may meet the eye of the traveller. Why should not this little speck of earth of ours, so near to Iceland, be warmed with something that may supply the want of better fkies!

Ben Johnson, too, ought to be characterised by a suitable inscription on his seat, that the offended dignity of his name in Westminster abbey may be worthily retrieved. Orare Ben Johnson! is an exclamation that admits too much an application to him who could only set the table in a roar, and too little to the superior merit of Ben Johnson. Hear what the great lord Clarendon says of him: "Ben Johnson's name can never be forgotten, having, by his very good learning, anď the severity of his nature and manners, reformed the Stage; and indeed the English poetry itself. His natural advantages were, judgement to order and govern fancy, rather than excefs of fancy,-his productions being slow, and upon deliberation, yet then abounding with great wit and fancy; and they will live accordingly. And surely as he did exceedingly exalt the English language in eloquence, propriety, and masculine exprefsions; so he was the best judge of, and fittest to prescribe rules to poetry and poets, of any man who had lived with, or before him, or since, if Mr Cowley had not made a flight beyond all men, with that modesty, however, as to ascribe. much of this to the example and learning of Ben Johnson." His conversation was very good, and with men of most nate; and he had for many years an

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extraordinary kindness for Mr Hyde*, till he found he betook himself to businefs, which he thought ought never to be preferred before his company.

Drummond loved Drayton, and a great and continued friendship subsisted between them, fanned by. frequent letters, as appears by his papers, which were presented to the earl of Buchan by the reverend Dr. Abernethy Drummond, already mentioned.

Drayton, sweet ancient bard! his Albion sung,
With their own praise her echoing vallics rung;
His bounding muse o'er ev'ry mountain rode,
And ev'ry river warbled where he flow'd †.

I have a copy of Latin verses addrefsed as I suppose to Drayton by Hawthornden, as it is in the hand-writing of the latter, and was found in a bundle of Drayton's letters to Drummond:

Dum tua melliflui specto pigmenta libelli
Pendet ab eloquio mens mei rapta tuo,

At sensum expendens tumque altæ pondera mentis
Sensus ab eximio me rapit eloquio;

Sed mage dædaleo miror te pectore qui sic
Cogis ad Italicos anglica verba modos..
Eloquium, sensus, mentis vis dædala longe

Tollit hurno ad superos te super astra Deo.

Drummond's family having been grafted as it were on the royal family of Scotland, by the marriage of king Robert III. and upheld by them, he was a steady royalist during the troubles of Charles I.; but does not appear ever to have armed for him. Yet it seems he had been much employed by the king in his uttermost distress, or by those immediately about his person, as among his papers. I found a prima cut of king Charles Ist's last appeal to the people of England, with corrections and marginal notes, in the.

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* Earl of Clarendon. † Sea, pieces, cantoji. by Mr John Kirkpatrick,

king's own hand-writing *, As Drummond had always been a laborious student, and had applied himself equally to history and politics, as to clafsical learning, his services were frequently rendered by occasional publications, in which, it must be confessed, he was not so happy as in the flights of his muse, which, as Pinkerton justly observes, amply establish his fame. Phillip's (adds he) who compiled his Thea trum Poetarum under Milton's own eye, and may be supposed to exprefs that great writer's opinion, upon · many occasions, observes with regret, "the strange neglect into which Drummond's poems- had even.. then fallen. But this was no wonder, when Milton's smaller poems met with the same fate. Now. it may be safely said, that if any poems possess a very high degree of that exquisite Doric delicacy, which we so much admire in Comus, and Lycidas, those of Drummond's do. Milton seems to have imitated. him, and certainly he had read and admired his works! Drummond was the first who introduced into English that fine Italian vein; and if we had had no Drummond, perhaps we should never have seen the delicacies of Comus, Lycidas, Il Penseroso, L'ALlegro. Milton has happened to have justice done him by posterity, while Drummond has been neglected."

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From the familiar letters of Drummond, printed in his works, and from those unpublished, it appears, that his most intimate and frequent correspondents, and friends, besides those already mentioned, were.

*This affecting paper was deposited in the library of the society of Antiquarians at Edinburgh.

Lord Buch in has the picture Old Store painted, of the king at Caris◄ brook castle.

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Arabella, or Annabella, countess of Lothian, daughter of Archibald earl of Argyll, the earl and countess of Perth, Robert Carre earl of Ancram, Dr Arthur Johnstone, phycisian to the king, author of that admirable piece of humour, Parerga, a fketch of whose life and writings I hope may sometime or other make its appearance in this Miscellany, Mr Cunningham of Barnes, and a few other relations.

In a survey of Drummond's poems two considerations must be had-the nation in which he lived, and the times in which he wrote. Yet these will be found, not offered to extenuate faults, but to increase admiration. His thoughts are generally bold and highly poetical; he follows nature, and his verses are delicately harmonious. On the death of Henry prince of Wales in 1612, he wrote an elegy entitled "Tears on the death of Moeliades," a name which that Prince had used in all his challenges of martiał sport, as the anagram of "Miles a Deo.". In this piece, according to Denham's epithets to the Thames, are thoughts as strong, as deep, as gentle, and as full, as any of his or Waller's

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When king James, after his accefsion to the English throne, returned to Scotland in the year 1617, his arrival was celebrated by every effort of poetical congratulation. Upon this occasion, Drummond composed a panegyrick entitled the Wandering Muses, in which are found four lines apparently imitated by Pope," To virgins flowery, &ct." Of these twe poems, it is observable, that they date earlier than any of Waller's, whose first was that to the king on Cursory Remarks, &c. + Vide Pope's third pastoral.

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