Ayton, the Earl of Ancrum, the Earl of Stirling, Drummond, and Doc tor Arthur Johnston, close the brief list of Scottish poets whom this important period in English literature produced.

ROBERT AYTON was born in Fifeshire in 1570. He was well educated, a devoted courtier, and enjoyed the advantages of foreign travel and intercourse with the poets of other nations, particularly with those of England. After king James succeeded to the English crown, he invited Ayton to that court, appointed him one of the gentlemen of the bed-chamber, and private secretary to the queen, besides conferring upon him the honor of knighthood. In England, Ayton, unlike the majority of his countrymen, was very popular; and even Ben Jonson was so proud of his friendship and affection that he boasted of it to Drummond. His death occurred in 1638, but under what circumstances is unknown.

Sir Robert Ayton was the author of only a comparatively limited number of poems, but the few that we have are written in very pure English, and evince a smoothness of style and delicacy of fancy that have rarely been surpassed. To illustrate this remark the following stanzas will be sufficient:

WOMAN'S INCONSTANCY.

I lov'd thee once, I'll love no more,
Thine be the grief as is the blame;
Thou art not what thou wast before,
What reason I should be the same?
He that can love unlov'd again,
Hath better store of love than brain:
God send me love my debts to pay,
While unthrifts fool their love away.

Nothing could have my love o'erthrown,
If thou hadst still continued mine;
Yea, if thou hadst remain'd thy own,
I might perchance have yet been thine.
But thou thy freedom did recall,
That if thou might elsewhere inthrall;
And then how could I but disdain
A captive's captive to remain ?

When new desires had conquer'd thee,
And chang'd the object of thy will,

It had been lethargy in me,

Not constancy to love thee still.

Yea, it had been a sin to go

And prostitute affection so,

Since we are taught no prayers to say.

To such as must to others pray.

Yet do thou glory in thy choice,

Thy choice of his good fortune boast;

I'll neither grieve nor yet rejoice,

To see him gain what I have lost;

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EARL OF ANCRUM.-EARL OF STIRLING.

[LECT. X)

The height of my disdain shall be,
To laugh at him, to blush for thee;
To love thee still, but go no more
A begging to a beggar's door.

The EARL OF ANCRUM was a younger son of Sir Andrew Ker of Ferneihurst, and was born in 1578. He early became a very great favorite with king James, and was held in equal esteem by that monarch's son and successor Charles the First. He was possessed of a competent fortune, and his life seems to have passed calmly and smoothly along until an advanced age. His death occurred in 1654.

The Earl's poems are generally brief fugitive pieces, and the following sonnet, which he addressed to Drummond the poet in 1624, shows how greatly the union of crowns under James had contributed toward the cultivation of the English style and language in Scotland:

IN PRAISE OF A SOLITARY LIFE.

Sweet solitary life! lovely, dumb joy,

That need'st no warnings how to grow more wise,
By other men's mishaps, nor the annoy

Which from sore wrongs done to one's self doth rise.
The morning's second mansion, truth's first friend,

Never acquainted with the world's vain broils,
When the whole day to our own use we spend,

And our dear time no fierce ambition spoils.

Most happy state, that never tak'st revenge

For injuries received, nor dost fear

The court's great earthquake, the griev'd truth of change,
Nor none of falsehood's savoury lies dost hear;

Nor knows hope's sweet disease that charms our sense,
Nor its sad cure-dear-bought experience.

WILLIAM ALEXANDER, afterward Earl of Stirling, was born at Menstrie, in 1580. Having received a liberal education, he travelled abroad with the Duke of Argyle, either as his tutor or his companion; and upon his return to Scotland he selected, as his residence, a rural retreat, where he passed some time in study, and in the composition of the Aurora, his first important poem. On leaving his rural abode, Alexander repaired to Edinburgh, with the design of devoting himself exclusively to poetical pursuits. Here he composed his four tragedies, Darius, Croesus, Alexander, and Julius Caesar, which were published in London, in 1607, with a dedication to the King. In 1613, Alexander published a sacred poem in twelve books on the Day of Judgment; and during the same year he was appointed one of the gentlemen ushers to Prince Charles, and knighted.

Relinquishing, soon after these events occurred, the character of the poet, and assuming that of the statesman, Sir William was appointed by Charles the First, in 1626, secretary of state for Scotland; and with such faithfulness and fidelity did he discharge the duties of this important office, that in

1633, the king created him, by letters patent, Earl of Stirling. He continued to fill the important office which he had so long held, for seven years after this last honor was conferred upon him, and died in his own castle, on the twelfth of February, 1640, in his sixty-first year.

The Earl of Stirling published in 1637, a complete edition of his works under the title of Recreations with the Muses, embracing, in addition to the productions already mentioned, a heroic poem entitled Jonathan, and an address to Prince Henry. Julius Cæsar,' one of the Earl's tragedies, contains several passages resembling parts of Shakspeare's tragedy of the same name; but it can not be ascertained which was first published. The genius of Shakspeare did not disdain to gather hints and expressions from comparatively obscure authors-the lesser lights of the age-and a famous passage in the 'Tempest' is supposed to have been also derived from the Earl of Stirling. In the play of Darius, occurs the following reflection :--

Let greatness of her glassy sceptres vaunt,

Not sceptres, no, but reeds, soon bruised, soon broken:
And let this worldly pomp our wits enchant,

All fades, and scarcely leaves behind a token.

The lines of Shakspeare will, of course, instantly suggest themselves----And like this insubstantial pageant, faded,

Leave not a wreck behind.

None of the productions of the Earl of Stirling, touch the heart or entrance the imagination. He has nothing of the humble, but genuine inspiration of Alexander Hume; yet he was a calm aad elegant poet, with considerable fancy, and an ear for refined metrical harmony. The following is one of his best sonnets:

TO AURORA.

I swear, Aurora, by thy starry eyes,

And by those golden locks, whose lock none slips,

And by the coral of thy rosy lips,

And by the naked snows which beauty dyes;

I swear by all the jewels of thy mind,
Whose like yet never worldly treasure bought,
Thy solid judgment, and thy generous thought,
Which in this darken'd age have clearly shin'd;
I swear by those, and by my spotless love,
And by my secret, yet most fervent fires,
That I have never nurst but chaste desires,

And such as modesty might well approve.

Then, since I love those virtuous parts in thee,
Should'st thou not love this virtuous mind in me?

WILLIAM DRUMMOND, a contemporary of the Earl of Stirling, and a poet of greatly superior genius, was born at Hawthornden, on the thirteenth of November, 1585. His father, Sir John Drummond, was gentleman usher to James the Sixth, and the future poet received his education, first at the uni

R

versity of Edinburgh, and afterward in France. In 1606 he commenced the study of the civil law, with the intention of following the legal profession ; but in 1611, on the death of his father, he succeeded to an independent estate, and immediately took up his residence at Hawthornden. 'If beautiful and romantic scenery,' remarks a writer of that period, 'could create or nurse the genius of a poet, Drummond was peculiarly blessed with the means of inspiration. In all Scotland, there is no spot more finely varied— more rich, graceful, or luxuriant-than the cliffs, caves, and wooded banks of the river Esk, and the classic shades of Hawthornden. In the immediate neighbourhood is Roslin Castle, one of the most interesting of Gothic ruins; and the whole course of the stream and the narrow glen is like the groundwork of some fairy dream.'

Drummond had been in the habit of relieving the oppressive weight of his legal studies in France by occasionally courting the muse; but it was not until after he was established at Hawthornden that he assumed a distinct position as an author. His first publication was a volume of miscellaneous poems; to which soon after succeeded a moral treatise in prose, entitled, the Cypress Grove, and another poetical work termed the Flowers of Zion. The death, which occurred about this time, of the young lady to whom he was betrothed, affected him so deeply that he sought relief in change of scene and the excitement of foreign travel. He first visited Paris, and thence passed to Rome, spending, between those two cities, and the intermediate countries, Germany and Switzerland, nearly eight years. He embraced the opportunity also, thus afforded, of making a large collection of the choicest works to be obtained in the Greek, the Latin, the French, and the Italian languages; and enriched with the literary lore of both the ancient and the modern world, he returned to Scotland, and resumed his abode at Hawthornden. On his way thither, he met, by accident, a young lady named Logan, who bore so strong a resemblance to the former object of his affections, that he solicited and obtained her hand in marriage. From this period Drummond passed many years in his delightful retreat at Hawthornden, relieving the sameness of a retired abode by occasional visits to his brother bards of England, and receiving visits in return from Ben Jonson, Drayton, and others, at his hospitable home.

Drummond inherited from his father, the deepest reverence for royalty, and the trial and execution of Charles the First, is said to have so deeply affected him as to hasten his own death, which occurred in the latter part of the same year 1649, and in the sixty-fifth year of his age.

The poetry of Drummond has singular sweetness and harmony of versification. His Tears on the Death of Mocliades, or Prince Henry, was written in 1612; his Wandering Muses, or The River of Forth Feasting, a congratulatory poem to King James The First on his revisiting Scotland, appeared in 1617, and placed him among the greatest poets of the age. His sonnets are of a still higher cast, have fewer conceits, and more natural feeling, elevation of sentiment, and grace of expression. The general purity

of his language, the harmony of his verse, and the play of fancy in all his principal productions, are his distinguishing characteristics. With more energy and force of mind he would have been a greater favorite both with his contemporaries and with posterity. We shall close our notice of this eminent Scottish poet with a few of his Sonnets, and an extract from the River of Forth Feasting.

EPITATH ON PRINCE HENRY.

Stay, passenger, see where inclosed lies
The paragon of Princes, fairest frame
Time, nature, place, could show to mortal eyes,
In worth, wit, virtue, miracle of fame :

At least that part the earth of him could claim
This marble holds (hard like the Destinies):
For as to his brave spirit, and glorious name,
The one the world, the other fills the skies.
Th'immortal amaranthus, princely rose,
Sad violet, and that sweet flower that bears
In sanguine spots the tenor of our woes,1
Spread on this stone, and wash it with your tears;
Then go and tell from Gades unto Ind

You saw where Earth's perfections were confin'd.

TO HIS LUTE.

My lute, be as thou wert when thou didst grow
With thy green mother in some shady grove,
When immelodious winds but made thee move,
And birds their ramage2 did on thee bestow.
Since that dear voice which did thy sounds approve,
Which wont in such harmonious strains to flow,
Is reft from earth to tune the spheres above,

What art thou but a harbinger of woe?

Thy pleasing notes be pleasing notes no more,

But orphan wailings to the fainting ear,

Each stroke a sigh, each sound draws forth a tear;
For which be silent as in woods before:

Or if that any hand to touch thee deign,
Like widow'd turtle still her loss complain.

THE PRAISE OF A SOLITARY LIFE.

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

But doth converse. with that eternal love.

O how more sweet is bird's harmonious moan,
Or the hoarse sobbings of the widow'd dove,

Milton has copied this image in his Lycidas:

'Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge
Like to that sanguine flower, inscribed with woe'

2 Warbling: from ramage, French.