inburgh) contains many first editions of
the most famous productions of the age. On finding himself his own
master, Drummond naturally abandoned law for the muses; "for," says his
biographer in 1711, "the delicacy of his wit always run on the
pleasantness and usefulness of history, and on the fame and softness of
poetry." In 1612 began his correspondence with Sir William Alexander of
Menstrie, afterwards earl of Stirling (q.v.), which ripened into a
life-long friendship after Drummond's visit to Menstrie in 1614.

Drummond's first publication appeared in 1613, an elegy on the death of
Henry, prince of Wales, called _Teares on the Death of Meliades_
(_Moeliades_, 3rd edit. 1614). The poem shows the influence of Spenser's
and Sidney's pastoralism. In the same year he published an anthology of
the elegies of Chapman, Wither and others, entitled _Mausoleum_, or _The
Choisest Flowres of the Epitaphs_. In 1616, the year of Shakespeare's
death, appeared _Poems: Amorous, Funerall, Divine, Pastorall: in
Sonnets, Songs, Sextains, Madrigals_, being substantially the story of
his love for Mary Cunningham of Barns, who was about to become his wife
when she died in 1615. The poems bear marks of a close study of Sidney,
and of the Italian poets. He sometimes translates direct from the
Italian, especially from Marini. _Forth Feasting: A Panegyricke to the
King's Most Excellent Majestie_ (1617), a poem written in heroic
couplets of remarkable facility, celebrates James's visit to Scotland in
that year. In 1618 Drummond began a correspondence with Michael Drayton.
The two poets continued to write at intervals for thirteen years, the
last letter being dated in the year of Drayton's death. The latter had
almost been persuaded by his "dear Drummond" to print the later books of
_Poly-Olbion_ at Hart's Edinburgh press. In the winter of 1618-1619,
Drummond had included Ben Jonson in his circle of literary friends, and
at Christmas 1618 was honoured with a visit of a fortnight or more from
the dramatist. The account of their conversations, long supposed to be
lost, was discovered in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, by David
Laing, and was edited for the Shakespeare Society in 1842 and printed by
Gifford & Cunningham. The conversations are full of literary gossip, and
embody Ben's opinion of himself and of his host, whom he frankly told
that "his verses were too much of the schooles, and were not after the
fancie of the time," and again that he