When Albumazar was revived at Oxford, Dryden wrote an occafional prologue to it, in which he says,

Subtle was got by our Albumazar;

That Alchymift by this Aftrologer.

Whereas he might have seen, by the titlepages of the first editions of these plays, if he had no otherwise known it, that Albumazar was not acted till 1614, and that the Alshymift had been acted in 1610.

DRUM MON D.

A

MONG all the writers, at the begin

ning of the last century, who florished after the death of Shakspeare, there is not one, whom a general reader of the English poetry of that age will regard, with fo much, and so deserved attention, as William Drummond. He was born at Hawthornden in Scotland, in 1585, and was the son of Sir John Drummoud, who, for ten or twelve years, was ufher, and afterwards knight of the black-rod, to James VI.

His family became firft diftinguished by the marriage of Robert III. whofe queen was fifter to William Drummond of Carnock, their anceftor; as appears by the patents of that king and James I.; the one calling him our brother," the other, "our uncle."

Drummond

Drummond was educated at Edinburgh, where he took the degree of A. M. In 1606, he was fent by his father to study civil law, at Bourges in France; but, having no tafte for the profeffion of a lawyer, he returned to Hawthornden, and there applied himself with great affiduity to claffical learning and poetry.

Having propofed to marry a lady, to whom retirement and her own accomplishments had entirely attached him, and who died after the day of marriage was appointed, he again quitted his native country, and refided eight years on the Continent, chiefly at Rome and Paris.

In 1620, he married Margaret Logan, a grand-daughter of Sir Robert Logan, by whom he had feveral children; the eldest of whom, William, was knighted by Charles II.

He spent very little time in England; though he correfponded frequently with Drayton and Ben Jonfen; the latter of whom had fo great refpect for his abilities, and fo ardent

4

ardent a defire to fee him, that, at the age of forty-five, he walked to Hawthornden to vifit him.

Having been grafted, as it were, on the royal family of Scotland, and upheld by them, he was a steady royalist in the troubles of Charles I.; but does not appear ever to have armed for him. As he had always been a laborious ftudent, and had applied himself equally to history and politics as to claffical learning, his fervices were better rendered by occafional publications; in which he feveral times diftinguished himself.

His attachment to that king and his cause was fo ftrong, that, when he heard of the fentence being executed on him, he was overwhelmed with grief, and lifted his head

no more.

He died in 1649.

In a furvey of Drummond's poetry, two confiderations must be had, viz.-The nation, of which he was; and the time, when he wrote. Yet will these be found, not offered

fered to extenuate faults; but to encrease admiration. His thoughts are often, nay generally, bold and highly poetical; he follows nature; and his verses are delicately harmonious. As his poems are not easily met with, and have perhaps by many readers never been heard of, a few extracts may be excufed.

On the death of Henry Prince of Wales, in 1612, Drummond wrote an elegy, entitled, Tears on the Death of " Mceliades ;" a name, which that prince had ufed in all his challenges of martial fport, as the anagram of "Miles a Deo." In this poem are lines, according to Denham's terms, as strong, as deep, as gentle, and as fuil, as any of his, or Waller's. The poet laments the fate of the prince, that he died not in fome glorious cause of war: "Against the Turk, he fays, "thou had'st ended thy life and the Chrif"tian war together;

Or, as brave Bourbon, thou had'ft made old Rome, Queen of the world, thy triumph and thy tombe.

Of