lt of his (Jonson's) visit to Drummond
is considered:--but there is one _evil that walks_, which keener eyes
than John's have often failed to discover.--I have only to add, in
justice to this honest man (Taylor) that his gratitude outlived the
subject of it. He paid the tribute of a verse to his benefactor's
memory:--the verse indeed, was mean: but poor Taylor had nothing better
to give."--Lt. Col. Francis Cunningham's edition of Gifford's Ben
Jonson's Works, p. xli.

"In the summer of 1618 Scotland received a visit from the famous Ben
Jonson. The burly Laureate walked all the way, among the motives for a
journey then undertaken by few Englishmen, might be curiosity regarding
a country from which he knew that his family was derived, his
grandfather having been one of the Johnsons of Annandale. He had many
friends too, particularly among the connections of the Lennox family,
whom he might be glad to see at their own houses. Among those with whom
he had amicable intercourse, was William Drummond, the poet, then in the
prime of life, and living as a bachelor in his romantic mansion of
Hawthornden, on the Esk, seven miles from Edinburgh. It is probable that
Drummond and Jonson had met before in London, and indulged together in
the "wit-combats" at the Mermaid and similar scenes. Indeed, there is a
prevalent belief in Scotland that it was mainly to see Drummond at
Hawthornden that Jonson came so far from home, and certain it is, from
Drummond's report of his '_Conversations_,' that he designed 'to write a
Fisher or Pastoral (Piscatory?) Play--and make the stage of it on the
Lomond Lake--he also contemplated writing in prose his 'Foot Pilgrimage
to Scotland,' which, with a feeling very natural in one who found so
much to admire where so little had been known, he spoke of entitling 'A
DISCOVERY.' Unfortunately, this work, as well as a poem in which he
called Edinburgh--

'The Heart of Scotland, Britain's other eye,'

has not been preserved to us. We can readily see that the work
contemplated must have been of a general character, from Jonson's
letters to Drummond on the subject of it. How much to be regretted that
we have not the Scotland of that day delineated by so vigorous a pen as
that of the author of _Sejanual_"--_Chambers'_ Domestic
Annals of Scotland, vol. 1.

Whether Taylor's "Penniless Pilgrimage" really did interfere with, and
prevent the publication of Ben Jonson's 'Foot Pilgrimage' would now be
difficult