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 story of his love for Mary Cunningham of Barns, who was about to become his wife when she died in 1615. The poems bear marks of a close study of Sidney, and of the Italian poets. He sometimes translates direct from the Italian, especially from Marini. Forth Feasting: A Panegyricke to the King’s Most Excellent Majestie (1617), a poem written in heroic couplets of remarkable facility, celebrates James’s visit to Scotland in that year. In 1618 Drummond began a correspondence with Michael Drayton. The two poets continued to write at intervals for thirteen years, the last letter being dated in the year of Drayton’s death. The latter had almost been persuaded by his “dear Drummond” to print the later books of Poly-Olbion at Hart’s Edinburgh press. In the winter of 1618–1619, Drummond had included Ben Jonson in his circle of literary friends, and at Christmas 1618 was honoured with a visit of a fortnight or more from the dramatist. The account of their conversations, long supposed to be lost, was discovered in the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh, by David Laing, and was edited for the Shakespeare Society in 1842 and printed by Gifford & Cunningham. The conversations are full of literary gossip, and embody Ben’s opinion of himself and of his host, whom he frankly told that “his verses were too much of the schooles, and were not after the fancie of the time,” and again that he “was too good and simple, and that oft a man’s modestie made a fool of his witt.” But the publication of what was obviously intended merely for a private journal has given Jonson an undeserved reputation for harsh judgments, and has cast blame on Drummond for blackening his guest’s memory.

In 1623 appeared the poet’s fourth publication, entitled Flowers of Sion: By William Drummond of Hawthornedenne: to which is adjoyned his Cypresse Grove. From 1625 till 1630 Drummond was probably for the most part engaged in travelling on the Continent. In 1627, however, he seems to have been home for a short time, as, in that year, he appears in the entirely new character of the holder of a patent for the construction of military machines, entitled “Litera Magistri Gulielmi Drummond de Fabrica Machinarum Militarium, Anno 1627.” The same year, 1627, is the date of Drummond’s munificent gift (referred to above) of about 500 volumes to the library of the university of Edinburgh.

In 1630 Drummond again began to reside permanently at Hawthornden, and in 1632 he married Elizabeth Logan, by whom he had five sons and four daughters. In 1633 Charles made his coronation-visit to Scotland; and Drummond’s pen was employed in writing congratulatory speeches and verses. As Drummond preferred Episcopacy to Presbytery, and was an extremely loyal subject, he supported Charles’s general policy, though he protested against the methods employed to enforce it. When Lord Balmerino was put on his trial on the capital charge of retaining in his possession a petition regarded as a libel on the king’s government, Drummond in an energetic “Letter” (1635) urged the injustice and folly of the proceedings. About this time a claim by the earl of Menteith to the earldom of Strathearn, which was based on the assertion that Robert III., husband of Annabella Drummond, was illegitimate, roused the poet’s pride of blood and prompted him to prepare an historical defence of his house. Partly to please his kinsman the earl of Perth, and partly to satisfy his own curiosity, the poet made researches in the genealogy of the family. This investigation was the real secret of Drummond’s interest in Scottish history; and so we find that he now began his History of Scotland during the Reigns of the Five Jameses, a work which did not appear till 1655, and is remarkable only for its good literary style. His next work was called forth by the king’s enforced submission to the opposition of his Scottish subjects. It is entitled Irene: or a Remonstrance for Concord, Amity, and Love amongst His Majesty’s Subjects (1638), and embodies Drummond’s political creed of submission to authority as the only logical refuge from democracy, which he hated. In 1639 Drummond had to sign the Covenant in self-protection, but was uneasy under the burden, as several political squibs by him testify. In 1643 he published  : or a Defence of a Petition tendered to the Lords of the Council of Scotland by certain Noblemen and Gentlemen, a political pamphlet in support of those royalists in Scotland who wished to espouse the king’s cause against the English parliament. Its burden is an invective on the intolerance of the then dominant Presbyterian clergy.

His later works may be described briefly as royalist pamphlets, written with more or less caution, as the times required. Drummond took the part of Montrose; and a letter from the Royalist leader in 1646 acknowledged his services. He also wrote a pamphlet, “A Vindication of the Hamiltons,” supporting the claims of the duke of Hamilton to lead the Scottish army which was to release Charles I. It is said that Drummond’s health received a severe shock when news was brought of the king’s execution. He died on the 4th of December 1649. He was buried in his parish church of Lasswade.

Drummond’s most important works are the Cypresse Grove and the poems. The Cypresse Grove exhibits great wealth of illustration, and an extraordinary command of musical English. It is an essay on the folly of the fear of death. “This globe of the earth,” says he, “which seemeth huge to us, in respect of the universe, and compared with that wide pavilion of heaven, is less than little, of no sensible quantity, and but as a point.” This is one of Drummond’s favourite moods; and he uses constantly in his poems such phrases as “the All,” “this great All.” Even in such of his poems as may be called more distinctively Christian, this philosophic conception is at work.

A noteworthy feature in Drummond’s poetry, as in that of his courtier contemporaries (q.v.), Lord Stirling and others, is that it manifests no characteristic Scottish element, but owes its birth and inspiration rather to the English and Italian masters. Drummond was essentially a follower of Spenser, but, amid all his sensuousness, and even in those lines most conspicuously beautiful, there is a dash of melancholy thoughtfulness—a tendency deepened by the death of his first love, Mary Cunningham. Drummond was called “the Scottish Petrarch”; and his sonnets, which are the expression of a genuine passion, stand far above most of the contemporary Petrarcan imitations. A remarkable burlesque poem Polemo-Middinia inter Vitarvam et Nebernam (printed anonymously in 1684) has been persistently, and with good reason, ascribed to him. It is a mock-heroic tale, in dog-Latin, of a country feud on the Fifeshire lands of his old friends the Cunninghams.

 DRUNKENNESS, a term signifying generally a state resulting from excessive drinking, and usually associated with alcoholic intoxication, or alcohol poisoning. It may represent either an act or a habit, the latter consisting in frequent repetitions of the former. As an act it may be an accident, most usually arising from the incautious use of one or other of the commonly employed intoxicating agents; as a habit (as in the form of chronic alcoholism) it is one of the most degrading forms of vice which can result from the enfeeblement of the moral principle by persistent self-indulgence.

What appears to be “intoxication” may arise from many different causes (e.g. epilepsy, fractured skull, intracranial haemorrhage, and the toxaemic coma of diabetes and uraemia), and the close resemblance between the pathological and the toxic phenomena has been the cause of many untoward accidents. Cold alone may produce such peculiar effects that Captain Parry said in his Journal, “I cannot help thinking that many a man may have been punished for intoxication who was only suffering from the benumbing effects of frost; for I have more than once