much more rude, and much less complicated, than those of Hawthornden. The entrance to these caves was of late laid bare, by the fall of a part of the cliff in which they are hewed.

On the south side of the house of Hawthornden, and so situated as to have contributed in some sort for its defence, stand the ruins of an old tower, the abode of the poet's ancestors; and save that they enjoyed the benefit of God's daylight, it seems, one which cannot have been much more comfortable than the caverns themselves. Through this lies the entrance to the more modern house; and the neighbourhood of the rude and ruinous pile adds much to the romance of the whole situation. A sort of seat, cut in the rock adjacent to the house, is called the Cypress-grove, because frequented by Drummond while engaged in composing a moral treatise on the vanity of human life, to which he gave that name.

It is impossible to see Hawthornden, and mention its poetical owner, without thinking upon the time when

"Jonson sate in Drummond's social shade."

and lamenting the loss of Ben's

"journey into Scotland song,

With all the adventurers.".

And from thence it is with anxiety that we find ourselves urged upon something like a controversy with the learned, acute, and ingenious editor of Jonson's works, who, in his zeal to do full justice to his subject, has, we think, offered some undue injury to the memory of Drummond. The attempt has indeed been prohibited to us, under a heavy denunciation.* We presume, nevertheless, in all honourable courtesy, to take up the gage which is thus thrown down, and venture the following remarks on the memorable interview of Drummond of Hawthornden and the great English dramatist, and the brief account which the former has left of the manners and opinions of Ben Jonson.

That Ben Jonson did Drummond the distinguished honour of visiting Scotland, partly with a view of spending some time with a man whom he esteemed-that he accordingly lived about three weeks at Hawthornden, and was gratified by Drummond's hospitality-that they parted friends, and remained in an amicable intercourse until death-are facts on which all are agreed; as also, that in the shape of loose memoranda, Drummond has preserved some severe censures passed by Jonson upon other poets, and added a very unfavourable picture of the dramatist's self-opinion, as well as of his intemperance, his literary jealousies and peculiarities, the laxity of his speculative

"Enough of Drummond, with whose 'friendship' for our author the common sense of the reader will, I trust, no longer be insulted, except from the lips of hopeless idiotismlonga manantia lubri saliva."-Memoirs of Ben Jonson, p. cxxxv. GIFFORD's edition of Jonson's Works, vol. i.

opinions, and other foibles which darkened his great qualities. "Hinc ille lachrymæ."

These scraps of information, for they are nothing more, may be considered in two points of view, as they affect the character of Jonson, or that of Drummond; in other words, as they contain truth with respect to the former, or as they infer malice and calumny (whether in themselves true or false) on the part of him who recorded them.

On the first point, it is not easy to discover Mr Gifford's opinion. He seems to receive as truth what circumstances Drummond has narrated concerning Jonson's birth, parentage, and earlier adventures; and far from doubting the accuracy of his report concerning Jonson's criticisms on contemporary authors, he only regrets that they are not sufficiently detailed. It is therefore apparently only where Drummond bears testimony to Jonson's failings, that the editor, in laudable zeal forhe honour of his author, is disposed to impugn his testimony.

If this scepticism were limited to the supposition that Jonson's deficiencies were considerably exaggerated in Drummond's mode of viewing them, we consider it as highly justifiable. They met, probably for the first time, in close and prolonged collision; and it happens almost universally, that disappointment ensues when such familiarity takes place betwixt an author of genius and one of his ardent admirers. Trifling defects, which in other men we do not notice, because they are what we expect to find, strike us powerfully when attached to characters, which, judging from their writings, one would desire to find perfect; as vanity and epicurism, slight faults in ordinary persons, disgust us when we find them unexpectedly united with high intellectual powers and moral qualities. Drummond probably felt disappointed at finding so much genius as Jonson possessed marred by the usual mixture of human frailty; and it might be said in this case, as in a thousand, Minuit præsentia famam. Again, it must be allowed, that Drummond and Jonson were men so different in genius and situation, that it may have been difficult for the former to attain a just, or at least an accurate, estimate of the latter. His own powers did not much exceed a decent mediocrity, while Jonson had all the eccentricity of genius. Drummond had lived a retired scholar, within his paternal shades; Jonson was a man of the world, a man of the town, accustomed to the freedoms of the Mermaid, and whom, without doing him much injustice, we may suppose scarce amenable at all times to the rules of strict etiquette. As a person of some quality, and rather an amateur of letters than a professed author, Drummond probably might be cautious and punctilious, timid in delivering his opinions, and apt to be surprised, and even shocked, at the uncompromising strength of conception and expression natural to Jonson, who had struggled during a long life for the character of intellectual superiority,

amid a body of competitors as bold and as zealous, if not as deserving, as himself. The essential points of difference, without diminishing what regard they had for each other, may have caused Drummond to consider Jonson as an imperious egotist; and perhaps, were we in possession of the Scottish Journal, or the facts on which it was founded, we might learn that Jonson considered his host as pedantic, limited in his views, and attached to the trifling punctilios of ceremony and aristocratic society.

If we allow for the exaggerations arising from these discrepancies, we may perhaps be of opinion that the character of Jonson, as drawn by Drummond, contains much in which we are apt to acquiesce, after perusing his life and his works. He is described as opinionative, and disposed to snatch the laurel, if it was not conceded-such is the tone of his prologues, in which he "swears his play is good." His panegyrics and satires are such, as might well entitle us to think him. a partial friend, and a bitter antagonist. Drummond does justice to the generosity of his temper, when he describes him as hasty in censure, but turning his resentment on himself if he was well answered; his being of "imagination all compact," and inclined to hypochondria, is proper to him, both as a poet, and as having a constitution affected by scrofula; his attachment to sack he himself has confessed, and it is recorded by his biographer. Some indifference, if not as to religion, at least as to the distinguishing tenets of the English and Roman, may be allowed to belong to him who changed his faith twice. If these points are admitted, and united with a temper hasty and prone to satire, we see not that Drummond has done Jonson much injustice in what he has recorded concerning him.

It has been, however, very strongly urged, that Drummond, in preserving these memoranda respecting Jonson's manners and disposition, acted with base treachery towards one who had unbosomed himself before him in all the full assurance of confiding friendship, for such a degree of intimacy is assumed to have subsisted between them. Indeed, this seems to be the principal object in the ingenious editor's reasoning, as a skilful counsel, when a hard fact is proved against his client, endeavours to get rid of it by throwing discredit on the evidence. And here we will frankly admit, that if we saw the least purpose, on the part of Drummond, to make these remarks public to the prejudice of Jonson, either before or after his own death, we should think him guilty of a very gross abuse of hospitality. The editor of Jonson seems, indeed, to allege that this latter was Drummond's intention; and he quotes the well-known story of Bolingbroke's legacy to Mallet, which has no other connexion with the case in point, than in so far as there was a Scotchman in both.* And if

*

[Lord Bolingbroke bequeathed his library, and the property of all his own writings, to David Mallet the poet, for posthumous publication. "The wild and pernicious ravings,

Drummond's birth-place is to be considered as a misfortune, it is some consolation that it is one which Jonson narrowly escaped.* But not only is there no evidence whatever, that these notes were designed for publication, but every inference, from internal evidence, goes to establish the contrary. Drummond appears to have been, like most authors of his class, rather feverishly anxious about the correction of such works as he designed for the press; and there is a large collection of them in the library of the Antiquarian Society of Edinburgh. But in these the heads of his conversation with Jonson are not found; nor have they, in any respect, the appearance of having been fairly engrossed or prepared for the press. They are, on the contrary, meagre commonplaces, irregularly and carelessly jotted down as they occurred to the author's recollection, and without the least attempt at those ornaments of style and expression, which Drummond peculiarly affects in the discourses which he designed for the public. Nay, farther, carelessly as they are thrown together and expressed, there is great reason to doubt whether we have them at present in the form in which they were left by the author; for the remarks of the editors are mingled with those of Drummond in such a manner, as to give us no assurance that they either tell us all which he said, or in the order in which he said it. It is therefore not only imperfect as left by the writer, but most probably garbled as published by his executors, with whom accuracy does not seem to have been exactly respected. And this being the case, Drummond, who neither published these obnoxious notices himself, nor left them in a shape to be published by others, may be fairly exculpated from charge of treachery, which has been so harshly urged against him.

If we might hazard a conjecture concerning the purpose of these memoranda, it would be that they were designed, in the first place, to assist the author's own recollections of the conversation and manners of his distinguished guest, and perhaps with the purpose, at some future period, of putting those recollections in a shape fit for publication, when, doubtless, the description of Jonson would have received those softening and alleviating touches, by means of which a painter converts the original caricatured sketch of his portrait into a perfect and pleasing resemblance. We can conceive nothing more reasonable or proper than to have meditated such a design, and nothing

under the name of Philosophy,' which were thus ushered into the world, gave great offence to all well-principled men. Johnson hearing of their tendency, which nobody disputed, was roused with a just indignation, and pronounced this memorable sentence upon the noble author and his editor: Sir, he was a scoundrel aud a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger after his death,'"-CROKER'S Boswell, vol. i., p. 255.]

By the way, if Jonson's grandfather actually came from Annandale, his name must have been anglicized on his expatriation. There are no Jonsons, or Johnsons, in that district, but Johnstones full many.

more natural, than that the author should have neglected to execute it, and left his materials in their original crude state.

With respect to the kind of friendship in which Jonson and Drummond seem to have lived, it was a literary intimacy only; and what is the friendship of wits, no one, says Dr Johnson, was ever fool enough to enquire. These letters, so far as preserved, relate chiefly to literary subjects; nor are we disposed to attach much value to the occasional complimentary expressions, which probably meant no more than similar turns of civility in modern correspondence. Drummond's letters appear to be considerably colder than Jonson's; but, so far as the hospitality of Hawthornden created any obligation (on which we are little disposed to insist), that obligation was conferred by the host, and received by the guest.

We have only to add, that the idea of attaching cold-blooded, premeditated, motiveless calumny to Drummond, on account of his having judged of the manners of a man of genius, with whom he was well acquainted, more harshly than we are disposed to view them at the distance of two centuries, and surrounded with the halo of well-earned reputation, is totally inconsistent with all we know of his life and habits. His memory has been uniformly handed down to us as that of an amiable and retired scholar, loved by his friends, and respected by the literary men of his time. There were other points of his character which should entitle him to a candid construction from the ingenious critic, for he did not hesitate to wield his pen in defence of the falling monarchy; and his loyal grief for the death of Charles I. is said to have hastened his own.

Thus much, while strolling around the ruins of Hawthornden, we should have said to any Southern visitor, in defence of its elegant and accomplished owner. There are so many-so very many points on which we should distrust our own judgment, and defer to that of the editor of Jonson, that we may be excused for differing from him respecting the character of Drummond. If Ben Jonson has suffered by the means of these unfortunate memoranda, time has made him amends, by affording him the assistance of the most acute, accurate, and intelligent editor, that ever used his pen in illustration of dramatic antiquity.

"Claudite jam rivos

PALACE OF LINLITHGOW.

LINLITHGOW, distinguished by the combined strength and beauty of its situation, must have been early selected as a royal residence. David, who bought the title of Saint by his liberality to the church,