Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/124

152 of the same year, Drummond died, wanting only nine days to the completion of his sixty-fourth year. His body had long been weakened by disease induced by sedentary and studious habits, and the shock which the king's fate gave him is said to have affected his remaining health and spirits. His body was interred in the family aisle in Lasswade church, in the neighbourhood of the house of Hawthornden.

In respect of his virtues and accomplishments, Drummond is entitled to rank high among his contemporaries, not in Scotland only, but in the most civilized nations of that day in Europe. Endowed with parts naturally excellent, and fitted for almost every species of improvement, his philosophic temperament and habits, and peculiar incidents of his life, tended to develope these in a manner advantageous as it was original. His early education imbued his mind deeply with the genius and classical taste of ancient Greece and Rome, perfection in which studies then formed the almost exclusive standard of literary excellence. A long residence in the more polished countries of the continent familiarized his mind with those great works of modern enlightenment, the knowledge of which had as yet made but obscure progress in Britain. He not only read the works of Italian, French, and Spanish authors, but spoke these different languages with ease and fluency. He occasionally visited London, and was upon familiar terms, as we have seen, with the men of genius of his own and the sister kingdom. He added to his other high and varied acquirements, accomplishments of a lighter kind, well fitted to enhance these others in general society, and to add grace to a character whose worth, dignity, and intelligence have alone gone down to posterity. "He was not much taken up (his old biographer informs us) with the ordinary amusements of dancing, singing, playing, &c. though 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." One of his sonnets may be considered as an apostrophe, and it is one of singular beauty, to this his favourite instrument: it adds to the effect of the address to know, that it was not vainly spoken.

Of the private life and manners of the poet of Hawthornden, we only know enough to make us regret the imperfection of his biography. Though he passed the greater part of his life as a retired country gentleman, his existence never could be, at any time, obscure or insignificant. He was related to many persons of distinguished rank and intimate with others. Congeniality, however, of mind and pursuits, alone led him to cultivate the society of men of exalted station; and, such is the nature of human excellence and dignity, the poet and man of literature, in this case, conferred lustre upon the peer and the favourite of a court. He was not a courtier, and he was, as he has himself expressed it, even "careless and negligent about fame and reputation." His philosophy was practical, not assumed; and we cannot fail to be impressed with its pure and noble spirit in the tenor of his life, no less than in the tone of many of his writings.

His natural disposition certainly bordered upon the grave and contemplative; but it was free from the reproach of morbid sentimentality or sourness of mind. "Contrary to this," says his old biographer, whom on such points there is satisfaction in quoting, "his humour was very jovial and cheerful among his friends and comrades, with whom he sometimes took a bottle, only ad hilaritatem, according to the example of the best ancient and modern poets, for the raising his spirits, which were much flagged with constant reading and meditating; but he never went to excess, or committed anything against the rules of religion and good manners, he was very smart and witty in his sayings and repartees, and had a most excellent talent in extemporary versifying, above the most part