William Drummond

William Drummond of Hawthornden, son of John Drummond, gentleman-usher to James VI and the nephew of the poet William Fowler, was knighted upon the succession of James to the English throne. He took his M.A. from Edinburgh (1605), studied law abroad, and became laird of Hawthornden in 1610. Drummond was devoted to the Stuart dynasty and was said to have died for grief at the death of Charles I. His poetry was particularly in vogue during the Elizabethan revival at the end of the eighteenth century.

TEXT RECORDS:

1613Teares on the Death of Meliades.
1615To the Author [Patrick Gordon].
1617Forth Feasting.
1619Heads of a Conversation betwixt the famous Poet Ben Johnson and William Drummond, January, 1619.
1638To the Exequies of Sr. Antonye Alexander: a Pastorall Elegie.

PUBLICATIONS:

Teares on the death of Meliades. 1613.
Mausoleum: or the choisest flowres of the epitaphs. 1613.
Poems. 1616.
In pious memorie of ... Euphemia Kyninghame. 1616.
Forth feasting: a panegyricke to the King's most excellent Majestie. 1617.
A midnight's trance. 1619.
Flowres of Sion: to which is adjoyned his Cypresse grove. 1623.
Auctarium bibliothecae Edinburgenae. 1627.
The entertainment of the high and mighty monarch Charles King of Great Britaine. 1633.
To the exequies of the honourable Sr Antonye Alexander, knight: a pastorall elegie. 1638.
Polemo-Medinia inter Vitarvam et Nebernam. 1645?
The history of Scotland, from the year 1423 until the year 1542. 1655.
Poems. 1656.
Works, ed. John Sage and Thomas Ruddiman. 1711, 1791.
Poems, ed. Peter Cunningham. 1833.
Poems, ed. William C. Ward. 2 vols, [1894].
Poetical works, ed. L. E. Kastner. 2 vols, 1913.
Ben Jonson's Conversations with William Drummond, ed. Richard F. Patterson. 1923.
Poems and prose, ed. Robert H. MacDonald. 1976.

PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:

Scottish
Episcopalian

Edinburgh High School
Edinburgh University
Bachelor of Arts
Master of Arts

lawyer
poet
historian

William Alexander
Michael Drayton
William Fowler
Ben Jonson
John Leech

REFERENCE:

DNB; NCBEL; DLB.

Edward Phillips, Theatrum Poetarum (1675); Life in Works (1711); Cibber-Shiels, Lives of the Poets (1753); James Granger, Biographical History (1769; 1824) [portrait]; Henry Headley, Select Beauties of Ancient English Poetry (1787); "William Drummond" Town and Country Magazine 20 (October 1788) 462-63 [from Headley]; Philip Neve, Cursory Remarks on Ancient English Poets (1789) 44-52; George Ellis, Specimens of Early English Poetry (1790; 1801); "Drummond of Hawthornden" The Bee 9 (16 May 1792) 41-51; "William Drummond" The Tablet [Boston] (30 June 1795) 26-27; Robert Anderson, British Poets (1795); Alexander Campbell, Introduction to the History of Poetry in Scotland (1798); Thomas Park, "Some Sonnets by Drummond" Gentleman's Magazine 70 (1800) ii 1131-32; "Drummond of Hawthornden" Monthly Mirror 15 (January 1803) 17-20; Peter L. Courtier, ed., Lyre of Love (1806); Alexander Chalmers, English Poets (1810); "William Drummond" Port Folio [Philadelphia] S3 6 (December 1811) 578-81; Earl of Buchan, "Remarks on the Character and Writings of William Drummond" Scots Magazine 74 (September 1812) 770-74; Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); "Vindication of Drummond against Mr. Gifford in his Edition of Ben Jonson" Blackwood's Magazine 2 (February 1818) 497-501; Thomas Campbell, Specimens of the British Poets (1819); Ezekiel Sanford, British Poets (1819); Joseph Robertson, Lives of Scottish Poets (1821-22) 1:2:114-38; "William Drummond the Poet" The Minerva [New York] 2 (8 November 1823) 244-45; Retrospective Review 9 (1824) 351-70; Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Charles Knight, "Drummond of Hawthornden" London Magazine S3 (November 1828) 476-81; Anna Brownell Jameson, Loves of the Poets (1829); Robert Southey, British Poets, Chaucer to Jonson (1831); Robert Chambers, revised Thomson, Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen (1832-35; 1870); Robert Aris Willmott, Lives of Sacred Poets (1834); Richard Cattermole, Sacred Poetry of the Seventeenth Century (1836); Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); Edward Farr, Select Poetry, chiefly sacred, of the Reign of King James the First (1847); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Andrew R. Bonar, Poets and Poetry of Scotland (1864); William Anderson, Scottish Nation (1859-63); David Masson, Drummond of Hawthornden (1873); James Grant Wilson, Poetry of Scotland (1876) [Portrait]; Thomas Corser, Collectanea Anglo-Poetica 6 (1877) 311-24; The English Poets, ed. Thomas Humphry Ward (1880); George Eyre-Todd, in Scottish Poetry of the Seventeenth Century (1895); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); R. F. Patterson, Ben Jonson's Conversations with William Drummond (1923); A. Joly, Drummond (1935); Earl R. Wasserman, "Elizabethan Poetry 'Improved'" Modern Philology 37 (1940) 357-69; Bush, OHEL (1945); French Rowe Fogle, A Critical Study of William Drummond of Hawthornden (1952); Robert H. MacDonald, The Library of Drummond of Hawthornden (1971); R. M. Macdonald, William Drummond of Hawthornden: Poems and Prose (1976); Alastair Fowler and Michael Leslie, "Drummond's Copy of the Faerie Queene" TLS (17 July 1981) 821-22; Saunders, Renaissance Poets (1983) Spenser Encyclopedia, "Drummond" (1990) 228; Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995).

COMMENTARY RECORDS
for William Drummond:

1.	1610 ca.  John Leech, "The Dream, addressed to W. Drummond, of Hawthornden, from the Latin of J. Leech" Scots Magazine 64 (August 1802) 692-93.
2.	1614  William Alexander, "To the Author" Drummond, Teares on the Death of Moeliades (1614) sig. Av.
3.	1619  Ben Jonson, Conversation with Drummond (1619); Drummond, Works (1711) 226.
4.	1627  Michael Drayton, in "To Henry Reynolds" in Battaile of Agincourt (1627) 208.
5.	1656  Mary Oxlie of Morpeth, "To William Drummond of Hawthornden" Drummond, Poems (1656) sig. A8-A8v.
6.	1656  Edward Phillips, "Upon the incomparable Poems of Mr. William Drummond" Drummond, Poems (1656) sig. A5-A5v.
7.	1656  John Spotswood, "To W. D." Drummond, Poems (1656) sig. A7-A7v.
8.	1729  Joseph Mitchell, in "To Aaron Hill, Esq." Poems (1729) 1:309.
9.	1778  Thomas Percy to John Pinkerton, 27 November 1778; in Nichols, Illustrations (1817-58) 8:95.
10.	1792  William Cowper to Thomas Park, 10 March 1792; in Southey, Life and Works of Cowper (1835-37) 7:325.
11.	1794  Robert Alves, in Sketches of a History of Literature (1794) 135-36.
12.	1795  Robert Anderson, in Works of the British Poets (1795) 4:623-25.
13.	1800  Nathan Drake, in Literary Hours (1800) 1:112.
14.	1818  Thomas Park, "On Reading the Poems of Drummond" in Nugae Modernae (1818) 102.
15.	1822  Charles Lamb, in "Detached Thoughts on Books" (1822); Works of Charles Lamb, ed. Lucas (1903-05) 2:174.
16.	1823  David Macbeth Moir, "Hawthornden — A Sketch" Blackwood's Magazine 13 (March 1823) 343.
17.	1824  Anonymous, in Retrospective Review 9 (1824) 352, 366.
18.	1824  Bryan Waller Procter, in Effigies Poeticae, or, the Portraits of the British Poets (1824) 37.
19.	1825  Henry Mackenzie, Anecdotes and Egotisms, 1825 ca.; ed. Thompson (1927) 154-55.
20.	1826  Richard Ryan, in Poetry and Poets: being a Collection of the choicest Anecdotes relative to the Poets of every Age and Nation (1826) 3:164-66.
21.	1829  Anna Brownell Jameson, in Loves of the Poets (1829; 1857) 203-05.
22.	1836  Richard Cattermole, in Sacred Poetry of the Seventeenth Century (1836) 2:119.
23.	1847  Edward Farr, in Select Poetry, chiefly sacred, of the Reign of King James the First (1847) xxxiv.
24.	1851  Robert Pearse Gillies, in Memoirs of a Literary Veteran (1851) 2:7-10.
25.	1860  George Gilfillan, in Specimens with Memoirs of the less-known British Poets (1860) 1:296-97.
26.	1866  John Payne Collier, "Forth Feasting" in Bibliographical and Critical Account of the Rarest Books (1866) 1:290-91.
27.	1868  George Macdonald, in England's Antiphon (1868; 1890) 146-48.
28.	1880  Thomas Humphry Ward, in The English Poets: Selections with Critical Introductions, ed. Thomas Humphry Ward (1880) 2:24-27.

BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for William Drummond:

1.	1675  Edward Phillips, in Theatrum Poetarum (1675) 2:192.
2.	1753  Anonymous, in Cibber-Shiels, Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) 1:302-12.
3.	1769  James Granger, in Biographical History of England (1769; 1824) 3:142.
4.	1787  Henry Headley, in Select Beauties of Ancient English Poetry (1787) 1:xliv-v.
5.	1789  Philip Neve, in Cursory Remarks on Ancient English Poets (1789) 44-52
6.	1806  Peter L. Courtier, in Lyre of Love (1806) 1:49-50.
7.	1812  Alexander Chalmers, in General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17) 12:336-41.
8.	1817  Nathan Drake, in Shakespeare and his Times (1817; 1838) 299-300.
9.	1819  Thomas Campbell, in Specimens of the British Poets (1819; 1845) 194.
10.	1820  William Hazlitt, in Lectures chiefly on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth (1820; 1845) 142-43, 147.
11.	1831  Robert Southey, in British Poets, Chaucer to Jonson (1831) 798.
12.	1834  Robert Aris Willmott, in Lives of Sacred Poets (1834) 59-60.
13.	1844  Robert Chambers, in Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844; 1850) 1:158-59.

AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)

1.	1616  Patrick Gordon:   William Drummond, "To the Author" in Gordon, Penardo and Laissa (1616) Sig. *8v.
2.	1619  Michael Drayton:   William Drummond, in "Heads of a Conversation [with] Ben Jonson" (1619); Works (1711) 226.
3.	1619  Ben Jonson:   William Drummond, in "Heads of a Conversation [with] Ben Jonson" (1619); Works (1711) 224, 226.
4.	1619  Joshua Sylvester:   William Drummond, in "Heads of a Conversation [with] Ben Jonson" (1619); Works (1711) 227.