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142 which accompanies them, it may be as well to notice in the present place. "A Cypress Grove" was written after the author's recovery from a severe illness; and the subject, suggested we are told, by the train of his reflections on a bed of sickness, is Death. We have often admired the splendid passages of Jeremy Taylor on this sublimest of all earthly topics, and it is if anything but a more decided praise of these to say, that Drummond at least rivalled them. The style is exalted, and classical as that of the distinguished churchman we have named; the conception, expression, and imagery, scarcely inferior in sublimity and beauty. That laboured display of learning, a fault peculiar to the literary men of their day, attaches in a great measure to both. In this particular, however, Drummond has certainly been more than usually judicious. We could well wish to see this work of our author, in preference to all his others, more popularly known. It is decidedly of a higher cast than his other prose pieces; and the reading of it, would tend, better than any comment, to make these others relished, and their spirit appreciated.

Not long after the publication of his volume, we find Drummond on terms of familiar correspondence with several of the great men of his day. It would be impossible, considering our materials, to be so full on this head as we could have wished. The information can only be gathered from the correspondence which has been published in his works; and the very great imperfection of that, as regards the few individuals which it embraces, plainly indicates that other, and perhaps, great names have been omitted, and that much that may have been curious or important, is lost. Among the names which remain recorded, the principal are Ben Jonson, Michael Drayton, Sir Robert Kerr, afterwards earl of Ancrum, Dr Arthur Johnston, and Sir William Alexander, afterwards earl of Stirling.

For the last mentioned of these, our author seems to have entertained the most perfect esteem and friendship. Alexander was a courtier, rather than a poet, though a man not the less capable of free and generous feelings. Had king James VI. not been a poet, it is to be doubted if Sir William would have had so much devotion to the divine art. His assumed passion for poetry, however, led him to cultivate the society of his ingenious contemporaries, by whom he is mentioned with respect, as much, we may believe, on account of the real excellence of the man, as of the poet. His poems, indeed, though those of an amateur, and now read only by the curious, are some of them, far from being deficient in poetical merit. His correspondence with our author, which extends through many years, is of little interest, referring almost entirely to the transmission of poetical pieces, and to points of minor criticism.

Michael Drayton, in an elogy on the English poets, takes occasion to speak of Drummond with much distinction. In the letters of this pleasing and once popular poet, there is a frank openness of manner, which forms a refreshing contrast to the stiff form and stiffer compliment of the greater part of the 'familiar epistles,' as they are termed, which passed between the literary men of that period, not excepting many of those in the correspondence of the poet of Hawthornden—"My dear noble Drummond," says he, in one of them, "your letters were as welcome to me, as if they had come from my mistress, which I think is one of the fairest and worthiest living. Little did you think how oft that noble friend of yours, Sir William Alexander, and I, have remembered you, before we trafficked in friendship. Love me as much as you can, and so I will you: I can never hear of you too oft, and I will ever mention you with much respect of your deserved worth, &c."—"I thank you, my dear sweet Drummond, for your good opinion of 'Poly-Olbyon:' I have done twelve books more; that is, from the eighteenth book, which was Kent,