Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/115

Rh (if you note it) all the east parts, and north to the river Tweed; but it lyeth by me, for the booksellers and I am in terms: they are a company of base knaves, whom I both scorn and kick at," &c. One other passage we shall quote, which, though euphuistic, has yet as much affection as conceit in it:—"I am oft thinking whether this long silence proceeds from you or me, whether [which] I know not; but I would have you take it upon you, and excuse me; and then I would have you lay it upon me, and excuse yourself: but if you will (if you think it our faults, as I do) let us divide, and both, as we may, amend it. My long being in the country this summer, from whence I had no means to send my letter, shall partly speak for me; for, believe me, worthy William, I am more than a fortnight's friend; where I love, I love for years, which I hope you shall find, &c."

Only two of Drummond's letters in return to this excellent poet and agreeable friend have been preserved. We shall make a brief extract from one of them, as it seems to refer to the commencement of their friendship, and to be in answer to that we have first quoted of Drayton:—"I must love this year of my life (1618) more dearly than any that forewent it, because in it I was so happy as to be acquainted with such worth. Whatever were Mr Davis' other designs, methinks some secret prudence directed him to those parts only: for this, I will in love of you surpass as far your countrymen, as you go beyond them in all true worth; and shall strive to be second to none, save your fair and worthy mistress." John Davis had, it would seem, in a visit to Scotland, become acquainted with Drummond, and on his return to London did not fail to manifest the respect and admiration our poet had inspired him with. Drayton communicates as much to his friend in the following brief postscript to one of his letters:—"John Davis is in love with you." He could not have used fewer words.

Sir Robert Kerr was, like Sir William Alexander, a courtier and a poet, though unlike him he never came to be distinguished as an author. He is best known to posterity for the singular feat which he performed, by killing in a duel the "giant," Charles Maxwell, who had, with great arrogance and insult, provoked him to the combat. There is a letter from our poet to Sir Robert, on this occasion, in which philosophically, and with much kindness, he thus reprehends his friend's rashness and temerity:—"It was too much hazarded in a point of honour. Why should true valour have answered fierce barbarity; nobleness, arrogancy; religion, impiety; innocence, malice;—the disparagement being so vast? And had ye then to venture to the hazard of a combat, the exemplar of virtue, and the muses' sanctuary? The lives of twenty such as his who hath fallen, in honour's balance would not counterpoise your one. Ye are too good for these times, in which, as in a time of plague, men must once be sick, and that deadly, ere they can be assured of any safety. Would I could persuade you in your sweet walks at home to take the prospect of court-shipwrecks."

There is another letter of Drummond's to this gentleman which we need not here notice, but rather pass to the one, for there is only one preserved, from the pen of Sir Robert, as it tends some little to explain the footing in which he stood related to our poet. This, which is dated from "Cambridge, where the court was the week past, about the making of the French match, 16th Dec. 1624," (about four years after the date of that above quoted,)—sets off in the following strain:—"Every wretched creature knows the way to that place where it is most made of, and so do my verses to you, that was so kind to the last, that every thought I think that way hastes to be at you: it is true I get leisure to think few, not that they are cara because rara, but indeed to declare,