The morning's second mansion, truth's first friend, The court's great earthquake, the griev'd truth of change, Nor none of falsehood's savoury lies dost hear; Nor knows hope's sweet disease that charms our sense, Nor its sad cure-dear-bought experience! The Earl of Stirling (William Alexander of Menstrie, created a peer by Charles I.) was a more prolific poet. In 1637, he published a complete edition of his works, in one volume folio, with the title of Recreations with the Muses, consisting of tragedies, a heroic poem, a poem addressed to Prince Henry (the favourite son of King James), another heroic poem entitled Jonathan, and a sacred poem, in twelve parts, on the Day of Judgment. One of the Earl of Stirling's tragedies is on the subject of Julius Cæsar. It was first published in 1606, and contains several passages resembling parts of Shakspeare's tragedy of the same name, but it has not been ascertained which was first published. The genius of Shakspeare did not disdain to gather hints and expressions from obscure authors-the lesser lights of the age-and a famous passage in the Tempest is supposed (though somewhat hypercritically) to be also derived from the Earl of Stirling. In the play of Darius, there occurs the following reflection Let Greatness of her glassy sceptres vaunt, The lines of Shakspeare will instantly be recalled And like this insubstantial pageant, faded, None of the productions of the Earl of Stirling touch the heart or entrance the imagination. He has not the humble but genuine inspiration of Alexander Hume. Yet we must allow him to have been a calm and elegant poet, with considerable fancy, and an ear for metrical harmony. The following is one of his best sonnets: I swear, Aurora, by thy starry eyes, And by those golden locks, whose lock none slips, And by the coral of thy rosy lips, And by the naked snows which beauty dyes; I swear by all the jewels of thy mind, Whose like yet never worldly treasure bought, The lady whom the poet celebrated under the name of Aurora, did not accept his hand, but he was married to a daughter of Sir William Erskine. The earl concocted an enlightened scheme for colonising Nova Scotia, which was patronised by the king, yet was abandoned from the difficulties attending its accomplishment. Stirling held the office of secretary of state for Scotland for fifteen years, from 1626 to 1641-a period of great difficulty and delicacy, when Charles attempted to establish episcopacy in the and English poetry, and imbued with true literary taste and feeling, Drummond soared above a mere local or provincial fame, and was associated in friendship and genius with his great English contemporaries. His father, Sir John Drummond, was gentleman usher to king James; and the poet seems to have inherited his reverence for royalty No author The River of Forth Feasting. What blustering noise now interrupts my sleeps! the most interesting of Gothic ruins; and the whole | timent, and grace of expression. Drummond wrote course of the stream and the narrow glen is like a number of madrigals, epigrams, and other short the ground-work of some fairy dream. The first pieces, some of which are coarse and licentious. The publication of Drummond was a volume of occasional general purity of his language, the harmony of his poems; to which succeeded a moral treatise in verse, and the play of fancy, in all his principal proprose, entitled, the Cypress Grove, and another poeti-ductions, are his distinguishing characteristics. With cal work termed, the Flowers of Zion. The death of a more energy and force of mind, he would have been lady, to whom he was betrothed, affected him deeply, a greater favourite with Ben Jonson-and with posand he sought relief in change of scene and the ex- terity. citement of foreign travel. On his return, after an absence of some years, he happened to meet a young lady named Logan, who bore so strong a resemblance to the former object of his affections, that he solicited and obtained her hand in marriage. Drummond's feelings were so intense on the side of the royalists, that the execution of Charles is said to have hastened his death, which took place at the close of the same year, December 1649. Drummond was intimate with Ben Jonson and Drayton; and his acquaintance with the former has been rendered memorable by a visit paid to him at Hawthornden, by Jonson, in the spring of 1619. The Scottish poet kept notes of the opinions expressed by the great dramatist, and chronicled some of his personal failings. For this his memory has been keenly attacked and traduced. It should be remembered that his notes were private memoranda, never published by himself; and, while their truth has been partly confirmed from other sources, there seems no malignity or meanness in recording faithfully his impressions of one of his most distinguished contemporaries. The poetry of Drummond has singular sweetness and harmony of versification. He was of the school of Spenser, but less ethereal in thought and imagination. His Tears on the Death of Moeliades (Prince Henry, son of James I.) was written in 1612; his Wandering Muses, or the River Forth Feasting (a congratulatory poem to King James, on his revisiting Scotland), appeared in 1617, and placed him among the greatest poets of his age. His sonnets are of a still higher cast, have fewer conceits, and more natural feeling, elevation of sen This golden people glancing in my sight? Nile marvels, Serap's priests entranced rave, Let mother earth now deck'd with flowers be seen, And birds their ramagel did on thee bestow, Each stroke a sigh, each sound draws forth a tear; Which Jove rain'd when his blue-eyed maid was born. Or if that any hand to touch thee deign, May never hours the web of day outweave; To virgins flowers, to sun-burnt earth the rain, [Epitaph on Prince Henry.] Stay, passenger, see where enclosed lies At least that part the earth of him could claim You saw where Earth's perfections were confin'd. To his Lute. My lute, be as thou wert when thou didst grow * Milton has copied this image in his Lycidas ⚫ Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge Tike to that sanguine flower, inscribed with woe. Like widow'd turtle still her loss complain. [The Praise of a Solitary Life.] Thrice happy he who by some shady grove, But doth converse with that eternal love. Which good make doubtful, do the evil approve! [To a Nightingale.] Sweet bird! that sing'st away the early hours [Sonnets.] In Mind's pure glass when I myself behold, I know that all beneath the moon decays, 1 Warbling: from ramage, French. I know frail beauty like the purple flower, SIR ROBERT AYTON, SIR ROBERT AYTON, a Scottish courtier and poet (1570-1638), enjoyed, like Drummond, the advantages of foreign travel and acquaintance with English poets. The few pieces of his composition are in pure English, and evince a smoothness and delicacy of fancy that have rarely been surpassed. The poet was a native of Fifeshire, son of Ayton of Kinaldie. James I. appointed him one of the gentlemen of the bed-chamber, and private secretary to his queen, besides conferring upon him the honour of knighthood. Ben Jonson seemed proud of his friendship, for he told Drummond that Sir Robert loved him (Jonson) dearly. [On Woman's Inconstancy.] I lov'd thee once, I'll love no more, He that can love unlov'd again, That if thou might elsewhere inthral; When new desires had conquer'd thee, It had been lethargy in me, Yea, it had been a sin to go Since we are taught no prayers to say The height of my disdain shall be, [I do Confess Thou'rt Smooth and Fair.] I do confess thou'rt smooth and fair, And I might have gone near to love thee; Had I not found the slightest prayer That lips could speak had power to move thee: But I can let thee now alone, As worthy to be loved by none. I do confess thou'rt sweet, yet find Thee such an unthrift of thy sweets, That kisses every thing it meets. The morning rose, that untouch'd stands, When thou hast handled been awhile, And I will sigh, while some will smile, G Buchanan mer is noticed among our prose authors. His great work is his paraphrase of the Psalms, part of which was composed in a monastery in Portugal, to which he had been confined by the Inquisition about the year 1550. He afterwards pursued the sacred strain in France; and his task was finished in Scotland when Mary had assumed the duties of sovereignty. Buch *It is doubtful whether this beautiful song (which Burns destroyed by rendering into Scotch) was actually the composition of Ayton. It is printed anonymously in Lawes's Ayres and Dialogues, 1659. It is a suspicious circumstance, that in Watson's Collection of Scottish Poems (1706-11), where several poems by Sir Robert are printed, with his name, in a cluster, this is inserted at a different part of the work, without his name. But the internal evidence is strongly in favour of Sir Robert Ayton being the author, as, in purity of language, elegance, and tenderness, it resembles his undoubted lyrics. Aubrey, in praising Ayton, says, Mr John Dryden has seen verses of his, some of the best of that age, printed with some other verses.' 11 anan superintended the studies of that unfortunate princess, and dedicated to her one of the most finished and beautiful of his productions, the Epithalamium, composed on her first nuptials. The character and works of Buchanan, who was equally distinguished as a jurist, a poet, and a historian, exhibit a rare union of philosophical dignity and research with the finer sensibilities and imagination of the poet. Arthur Johnston was born at Caskieben, near Aberdeen, in 1587. He studied medicine at Padua, and resided for about twenty years in France. On his return to Britain, he obtained the patronage of Archbishop Laud, and was appointed physician to Charles 1. He died at Oxford in 1641. Johnston wrote a number of Latin elegies and epigrams, a paraphrase of the Song of Solomon, a collection of short poems (published in 1637), entitled, Musa Aulica, and (his greatest work, as it was that of Buchanan) a complete version of the Psalms. He also edited and contributed largely to the Delicia Poetarum Scotorum, a collection of congratulatory poems by various authors, which reflected great honour on the taste and scholarship of the Scottish nation. Critics have been divided as to the relative merits of Buchanan and Johnston. We subjoin the opinions of a Scottish and an English scholar :- If we look into Buchanan,' says Dr Beattie, what can we say, but that the learned author, with great command of Latin expression, has no true relish for the emphatic conciseness and unadorned simplicity of the inspired poets? Arthur Johnston is not so verbose, and has, of course, more vigour; but his choice of a couplet, which keeps the reader always in mind of the puerile epistles of Ovid, was singularly injudicious. psalms may, in prose as easily as in verse, be adapted to music, why should we seek to force those divine strains into the measures of Roman or of modern song? He who transformed Livy into iambics, and Virgil into monkish rhyme, did not, in my opinion, act more absurdly. In fact, sentiments of devotion are rather depressed than elevated by the arts of the European versifier.'* The following is the testimony of Mr Hallam:-The Scots certainly wrote Latin with a good ear and considerable elegance of phrase. A sort of critical controversy was carried on in the last century as to the versions of the Psalms by Buchanan and Johnston. Though the national honour may seem equally secure by the superiority of either, it has, I believe, been usual in Scotland to maintain the older poet against all the world. I am, nevertheless, inclined to think that Johnston's Psalms, all of which are in elegiac metre, do not fall short of those of Buchanan, either in elegance of style or correctness of Latinity. In the 137th, with which Buchanan has taken much pains, he may be allowed the preference, but not at a great interval, and he has attained this superiority by too much diffuseness.' [The 137th Psalm, by Buchanan.] Dum procul à patria mosti Babylonis in oris, * Beattie's Dissertations, Moral and Critical. As Quale canebamus, steterat dum celsa Sionis Audiat et sanctos terra profana modos ? Equaque (clamabant) reddite tecta solo. Tu quoque crudeles Babylon dabis impia poenas: Et rerum instabiles experiere vices. Felix qui nostris accedet cladibus ultor, Reddet ad exemplum qui tibi damna tuum. Felix qui tenero consperget saxa cerebro, Eripiens gremio pignora cara tuo. The First of May. [Translated, as is the subsequent piece, from the Latin Buchanan, by the late Mr Robert Hogg.] All hail to thee, thou First of May, When Spring's mild air at Nature's birth Hail! glory of the fleeting year! On Neæra. My wreck of mind, and all my woes, Like stars that shine, At first, with hapless fond surprise, When my glance met her searching glance, |