surveying stations visible. In 1825,
when he was assisting Colby in the Irish survey, his lime-light
apparatus ("Drummond light") was put to a practical test, and enabled
observations to be completed between Divis mountain, near Belfast, and
Slieve Snaght, a distance of 67 m. About the same time he also devised
an improved heliostat, and in 1829 he was employed in adopting his light
for lighthouse purposes. In 1831 he entered political life and was
appointed superintendent of the boundary commission. Four years later he
was made under-secretary of state for Ireland, where he proved himself a
most successful administrator, and did much to promote law and order. It
was he who in 1838 told the Irish landlords that "property has its
duties as well as its rights." In 1836 he proposed the appointment of a
commission on railways in Ireland, and took a large share in its work,
which resulted in the recommendation, not, however, carried out, that
the state should construct a system of lines throughout the island.
Drummond's health was undermined by overwork, and he died at Dublin on
the 15th of April 1840.

See _Life_ by J. F. M'Lennan (1867); _Life and Letters_ by R. Barry
O'Brien (1889); and Sir T. A. Larcom in _Papers on the Duties of the
Royal Engineers_, vol. iv. (1840).

DRUMMOND, WILLIAM (1585-1649), called "of Hawthornden," Scottish poet,
was born at Hawthornden, near Edinburgh, on the 13th of December 1585.
His father, John Drummond, was the first laird of Hawthornden; and his
mother was Susannah Fowler, sister of William Fowler (q.v.), poet and
courtier. Drummond received his early education at the high school of
Edinburgh, and graduated in July 1605 as M.A. of the recently founded
university of Edinburgh. His father was a gentleman usher at the English
court (as he had been at the Scottish court from 1590) and William, in a
visit to London in 1606, describes the festivities in connexion with the
visit of the king of Denmark. Drummond spent two years at Bourges and
Paris in the study of law; and, in 1609, he was again in Scotland,
where, by the death of his father in the following year, he became laird
of Hawthornden at the early age of twenty-four. The list of books he
read up to this time is preserved in his own handwriting. It indicates a
strong preference for imaginative literature, and shows that he was
keenly interested in contemporary verse. His collection (now in the
library of the university of Ed