WILLIAM DRUMMOND, “of Hawthornden,” the most noted Scottish poet of the Shakespearean age, was born at Hawthornden, near Edinburgh, December 13th, 1585. He was one of the most highly educated literary men of his day, having graduated at the University of Edinburgh in 1605, and spent several years studying on the continent. He corresponded with Drayton and Ben Jonson, and the esteem in which he was held is suggested by the fact that in 1619 Jonson made the journey to Scotland to visit him—the visit being the occasion of the celebrated impromptus exchanged between them on meeting: “Welcome, welcome, royal Ben!” “Thank ye, thank ye, Hawthornden!” Drummond died December 4th, 1649, after having been involved in the troubled politics of the struggle between Charles I. and the Puritans. His best poems are no doubt his sonnets, which keep their place in every representative collection. His “Cypress Grove,” a series of essays on Death, has been called “one of the noblest prose poems in literature.”