published, than they which wrote them. And these men have done what in them lay to make that paper public; and have recorded in the Annals of this kingdom, to all ages, what should have been smothered in the darkest pits of oblivion. They have often assembled the King's Majesty's subjects to the great charges and vain attendance of many noblemen and barons to see their passions put forward. They have busied the prince to condemn others by power (a minister of their attempts), and not purge himself to posterity; for such a paper should have been answered by a pen, not by an axe. There is no prince living, no, nor dead, but subjects have and do both write and speak of after their fantasies.

Wise Princes have never troubled themselves much about talkers; weak spirits cannot suffer the liberty of judgments, nor the indiscretion of tongues. To strive to restrain them is the work of busy bodies, who would fain have somewhat to do, but know not what, nor how to help Domitian to kill gnats with his dagger; having won points and conclusions heretofore in the state beyond their hopes, they begin to foster great and shameful hopes beyond the reach of all obtaining."

We must now, however, come to the more immediate purpose of this review, the poetry of Drummond. Jonson's judgment, which seems to imply that he confined himself too closely to an imitation of the ancients, we cannot think altogether just; and we incline to believe that Jonson thought rather of Drummond's opinions than of his works, given probably in conversations at Hawthornden, and as we collect them from a very clever letter addressed to his "much-honoured friend Arthur Johnston, physician to the King."

The character of Drummond's poetry is various, consisting of Sonnets, Madrigals, Epigrams, Epitaphs, religious and other Poems. The Sonnets and other minor pieces, wherein he bewails his lost mistress, we are inclined to think the most beautiful; and some of them are, indeed, in the highest degree beautiful. The great excellence of Drummond is unaffected feeling, and unaffected language;-conceits and crude thoughts could have no mastery over him, without his ceasing to be: and though he could not live in the age without some touch of its corruption, the simplicity of his own feeling has more frequently beautified and ennobled the vice, than the vice destroyed or corrupted his better nature. It will be evident to the reader, that Milton thought as highly of the following sonnet as we do:

"Dear chorister, who from those shadows sends,
Ere that the blushing morn dare shew her light,
Such sad lamenting strains, that night attends
(Become all ear), stars stay to hear thy plight;
If one whose grief even reach of thought transcends,

Who ne'er (not in a dream) did taste delight;
May thee importune, who like case pretends,
And seems to joy in woe, in woe's despite;
Tell me (so may thou fortune milder try,

And long, long sing!) for what thou thus complains,
Since winter's gone, and sun in dappled sky
Enamour'd smiles on woods and flow'ry plains?

The bird, as if my questions did her move,

With trembling wings, sigh'd forth, I love, I love."

The next, we acknowledge to believe one of the finest in the language:

"Now, while the Night her sable veil hath spread,

And silently her resty coach doth roll,

Rouzing with her from Thetis' azure bed,

Those starry nymphs which dance about the pole ;
While Cynthia, in purest cypress clad,
The Latmian shepherd in a trance descries,
And, looking pale from height of all the skies,
She dyes her beauties in a blushing red;

While Sleep, in triumph, closed hath all eyes,
And birds and beasts a silence sweet do keep,
And Proteus' monstrous people in the deep,
The winds and waves, hush'd up, to rest entice;
I wake, I turn, I weep, oppress'd with pain,
Perplex'd in the meanders of my brain."

Drummond loved the country with that deep and placid love which a calm and contemplative poet alone feels. He had suffered deeply, he possessed a rich store of learning,-he had a wise and thoughtful turn of mind,-and, feeling a lively relish for all the charms of nature, he indulged his genius in poetico-philosophical reflections upon life, its vicissitudes, hopes, sorrows, and vanities. To one of this mood, no form of poetry is so admirably adapted as the sonnet; the entire, the unique, the harmonious, the dignified sonnet, that little poem, big with one fine sentiment, richly adorned and delicately wrought, never-tiring,-never-flagging,-which bursts forth with an organ-like peal, and proceeds in a sustained and majestic march, until the soft and melodious close sweetly and gently winds up the whole. When a silver voice takes its course through a fine sonnet, like many of those of our author, we listen to it as to an oracle; when the sound ceases, we feel as if a revelation had been made, and the very silence becomes musical. No poem leaves the mind in a finer mood than the

grand and solemn sonnet.-Such a one is the following, albeit turning upon the vulgar and trivial passion of love:

"That learned Grecian, who did so excel

In knowledge passing sense, that he is nam'd
Of all the after world Divine, doth tell

That all the time when first our souls are fram'd,
Ere in these mansions blind they come to dwell,
They live bright rays of that Eternal Light,
And others see, know, love, in heaven's great height,
Not toil'd with aught 'gainst reason to rebel.
It is most true, for straight at the first sight
My mind me told that in some other place
It elsewhere saw th' idea of that face,

And lov'd a love of heavenly pure delight.
What wonder now I feel so fair a flame,

Since I her lov'd ere on this earth she came?"

In another fine sonnet, our poet expresses the natural disgust of life, that sickness of all mortal joy, which grief never fails to inspire. His is no feigned satiety; we perceive the dismal and dreary livery of wretchedness in every line:

"If crost with all mishaps be my poor life,
If one short day I never spent in mirth,
If my sp'rit with itself holds lasting strife,
If sorrow's death is but new sorrow's birth;
If this vain world be but a mournful stage,
Where slave-born man plays to the laughing stars,
If youth be toss'd with love, with weakness age,
If knowledge serves to hold our thoughts in wars,
If time can close the hundred mouths of Fame,
And make what's long since past, like that's to be,
If virtue only be an idle name,

If being born I was but born to die;

Why seek I to prolong these loathsome days?
The fairest rose in shortest time decays."

The next is a sonnet of sound,-not, however, merely of sound. Drummond, as well as Milton, knew, that the glorious march of fine names did something more than please the ear,they recal a crowd of the finest associations of history, poetry, and romance.

"Nor Arne, nor Mincius, nor stately Tiber,
Sebethus, nor the flood into whose streams

He fell who burnt the world with borrow'd beams,
Gold-rolling Tagus, Munda, famous Iber,

Sorgue, Rhone, Loire, Garron, nor proud-banked Seine,
Peneus, Phasis, Xanthus, humble Ladon,

Nor she whose nymphs excel her loved Adon,
Fair Tamesis, nor Ister large, nor Rhine,
Euphrates, Tigris, Indus, Hermus, Gange,
Pearly Hydaspes, serpent-like Meander,
The flood which robbed Hero of Leander,
Nile, that so far his hidden head doth range,
Have ever had so rare a cause of praise,

As Ora where this northern phoenix stays."

The following is one of the earlier sonnets, written before the loss, which he, in other places, so feelingly deplores

"I know that all beneath the moon decays,
And what by mortals in this world is brought
In time's great periods shall return to nought;
That fairest states have fatal nights and days.
I know that all the Muses' heavenly lays,
With toil of sprite, which are so dearly bought,
As idle sounds, of few, or none are sought,
That there is nothing lighter than vain praise.
I know frail beauty's like the purple flow'r,
To which one morn oft birth and death affords,
That love a jarring is of mind's accords,
Where sense and will bring under reason's power:
Know what I list, this all cannot me move,
But that, alas, I both must write and love."

This is again the topic of another sonnet

"Ah me, and I am now the man whose muse
In happier times was wont to laugh at Love,
And those who suffer'd that blind boy's abuse,
The noble gifts were given them from above.
What metamorphose strange is this I prove?
Myself now scarce I find myself to be,
And think no fable Circe's tyranny,
And all the tales are told of changed Jove :
Virtue hath taught with her philosophy
My mind unto a better course to move:
Reason may chide her full, and oft reprove
Affection's power; but what is that to me,

Who ever think, and never think on aught

But that bright cherubim which thralls my thought?"

Of all the numerous addresses to sleep, there are few finer than this

66

Sleep, Silence' child, sweet father of soft rest,
Prince, whose approach peace to all mortals brings,
Indifferent host to shepherds and to kings,
Sole comforter of minds which are oppress'd;
Lo, by thy charming rod, all breathing things
Lie slumb'ring, with forgetfulness possess'd,"
And yet o'er me to spread thy drowsy wings
Thou spar'st, alas! who cannot be thy guest.
Since I am thine, O come, but with that face
To inward light, which thou art wont to shew,
With feigned solace ease a true-felt woe;
Or if, deaf god, thou do deny that grace,

Come as thou wilt, and what thou wilt bequeath,

I long to kiss the image of my death."

The solitude which he loved with all his heart is often very delightfully eulogized

"Dear wood, and you sweet solitary place,
Where I estranged from the vulgar live,
Contented more with what your shades me give,
Than if I had what Thetis doth embrace:
What snaky eye, grown jealous of my pace,
Now from your silent horrors would me drive,
When sun advancing in his glorious race
Beyond the Twins, doth near our pole arrive?
What sweet delight a quiet life affords,

And what it is to be from bondage free,

Far from the madding worldling's hoarse discords,
Sweet flow'ry place, I first did learn of thee.

Ah! if I were mine own, your dear resorts

I would not change with princes' stateliest courts."

The pleasures of a lonely life in a rural retreat are contrasted with those of a court, with considerable force

"Thrice happy he, who by some shady grove,
Far from the clamorous world, doth live his own,
Though solitary, who is not alone,

But doth converse with that eternal love.