Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/113

Rh no hesitation in saying, is to be attributed the singular purity and elegance of style to which he attained, and which set him on a level, in that particular, with the most classical of his English contemporaries.

His father, intending him for the profession of the law, he was, at the age of 21 years, sent over to France to prosecute that study. At Bourges, therefore, he applied himself to the civil law under some of the most eminent professors of the age, with diligence and applause; and it is probable, had a serious intention of devoting his after life to that laborious profession. In the year 1610, his father, Sir John, died, and our author returned to his native country, after an absence from it of four years. To his other learning and accomplishments, which there is every reason to suppose were extensive and varied beyond those of most young men of his age in Scotland, he had now added the requisites necessary to begin his course in an active professional life. That he was well fitted for this course of life, is not left to mere conjecture. The learned president Lockhart is known to have declared of him, "that had he followed the practice of the law, he would have made the best figure of any lawyer in his time." The various political papers, which he has left behind him, written, some of them, upon those difficult topics which agitated king and people, during the disturbed period in which he lived, attest the same fact; as displaying, along with the eloquence which was peculiar to their author, the more forensic qualities of a perspicuous arrangement, and a judicious, clear, and masterly management of his argument.

It was to the surprise of those who knew him that our author turned aside from the course, which, though laborious, lay so invitingly open to his approach; and preferred to the attainment of riches and honour, the quiet ease and obscurity of a country gentleman's life. He was naturally of a melancholy temperament; and it is probable, that like many others, who owe such to an over delicate and refined turn of sentiment, he allowed some vague disgust to influence him in his decision. His father's death, at the same time, leaving him in easy independency, he had no longer any obstruction to following the bent of his inclination. That decidedly led him to indulge in the luxury of a literary life, certainly the most dignified of all indolencies, when it can be associated with ease and competence. He had a strong desire for retirement, even at this early period of his life, and now, having relinquished all thoughts of appearing in public, he would leave also even the bustle and noise of the world.

No poet, in this state of mind, perhaps, ever enjoyed the possession of a retreat more favoured by nature than is that of Hawthornden—so well fitted to the realization of a poet's vision of earthly bliss. The place has been long known to every lover of the picturesque, and, associated as it has become, with the poetry and life of its ancient and distinguished possessor, is now a classical spot. Upwards of a hundred years ago, it is pleasing to be made aware that this feeling was not new. The learned and critical Ruddiman, at no time given to be poetical, has yet described Hawthornden as being "a sweet and solitary seat, and very fit and proper for the muses." It was here that our author passed many of the years of his early life, devoted in a great measure to literary and philosophical study, and the cultivation of poetry. We cannot now mark with any degree of precision, the order of his compositions at this period. The first, and only collection published in his lifetime, containing the "Flowers of Sion," with several other poems, and "A Cypress Grove," appeared in Edinburgh in the year 1616; and to this publication, limited as it is, we must ascribe in great part, the literary fame which the author himself enjoyed among his contemporaries.

Of the poems we shall speak afterwards; but the philosophical discourse