Drummond, WILLIAM, OF HAWTHORNDEN, a poet of considerable celebrity, was descended from an ancient Scottish family, and was born at his father's seat at Hawthornden, near Edinburgh, 13th December 1585. He was educated at the High School of Edinburgh, and afterwards at the university of that city, where he graduated Master of Arts in 1605. He next studied law and general literature at Bourges and Paris, and on his father's death in 1610 retired to Hawthornden, which, according to the learned Ruddiman, 'was a sweet and solitary seat, and very fit and proper for the muses.' There he married (1614), but lost his wife within the year, married again eighteen years later, and spent the rest of his life there between poetry and mechanical experiments. He had to subscribe to the Covenant, but abhorred the cause, and witnessed its triumph with a sinking of heart that the most sarcastic verses in manuscript could not relieve. He died 4th December 1649; his death, it is said, being hastened by his excessive grief for the fate of Charles I. Drummond enjoyed the friendship of many of his contemporaries, including Drayton, Montrose, and the great Ben Jonson, the last of whom paid him a memorable visit at Hawthornden in 1618–19. The two men were unlike in everything save that both were genuine poets, and Drummond's Notes of the greater man's conversation (printed 1842) is one of the most interesting chapters of literary history. His principal works are Tears on the Death of Mæliades—Prince Henry, son of James I.—(1613); Poems: Amorous, Funerall, Divine, Pastorall, in Sonnets, Songs, Sextains,
Madrigals (1616); Forth Feasting (1617); and Flowers of Zion (1623). His prose writings include a History of Scotland, known as the History of the Five Jameses, as well as some political tracts.
Drummond's verse abounds in the conceits, antitheses, and hyperboles of the period, and gives indication of a mind given to the luxury of melancholy. His sonnets are the best specimens of his muse, although even in these one looks in vain for sustained harmony or great originality of thought. His mastery of different rhythms reveals his learning and the labour he gave to his verse.
Reissues of his poems appeared in 1832 (Maitland Club), in 1833 (by Peter Cunningham), in 1857 (by W. D. Turnbull), and in 1894 (by Wm. C. Ward). The rude macaronic, Polemo-Middinia, often attributed to Drummond, is almost certainly not his. See the learned and exhaustive Life by Professor Masson (1873).