challenges of martial sport by Henry, Prince of | He became first slightly known to the world in 1794, Wales, eldest son of King James VI. This last piece was written so early as 1612. As a panegyric it is turgid and overcharged; but it has been referred to by more than one critic as displaying much beauty | of versification. The sonnet, about this time introduced into our literature, must be supposed to owe somewhat of the favour it received to the elegant and discriminating taste of Drummond. He had a perfect knowledge of Italian poetry, and professed much admiration for that of Petrarch, to whom he more nearly approaches in his beauties and his faults than, we believe, any other English writer of sonnets. This, however, refers more particularly to his early muse, to those pieces written before his own better taste had dared use an unshackled freedom. We shall give two specimens, which we think altogether excellent, of what we consider Drummond's matured style in this composition. The first is one of six sonnets entitled Urania, or Spiritual Poems; and the second, already transiently alluded to, is a sonnet addressed by the poet to his lute. The first perhaps refers to what Drummond considered the political unhappiness or degradation of his country, though, in truth, it may be made answerable to the state of humanity at all times; the second, to the well-known catastrophe of his first love, and accordingly it has its place among the sonnets professedly written on that topic. I. "What hapless hap had I for to be born In these unhappy times, and dying days Of this now doting world, when good decays;- When avarice and lust are counted praise, parts, To have been then, O heaven, 't had been my bliss, II. "My lute, be as thou wert when thou did grow Thy pleasing notes be pleasing notes no more, Or if that any hand to touch thee deign, DRUMMOND, SIR WILLIAM, a distinguished scholar and philosopher. The date of his birth seems not to be ascertained, nor does any memoir of which we are aware describe his early education. from publishing A Review of the Government of Sparta and Athens. It was probably a juvenile perform. ance, which would not have been recollected but for the later fame of its author, and it is not now to be met with in libraries. In 1795 he was elected representative of the borough of St. Mawes; and in 1796 and 1801 he was chosen for the town of Lostwithiel. In the meantime he was appointed envoy-extraordi nary to the court of Naples, an office previously filled by a countryman celebrated for pursuits not dissimilar to some of his own-Sir William Hamilton; and he was soon afterwards ambassador to the Ottoman Porte. Of his achievements as an ambassador little is known or remembered, excepting perhaps an alleged attempt, in 1808, to secure the regency of Spain to Prince Leopold of Sicily. Nor as a senator does he appear to have acquired much higher distinction; from being a regular and zealously-labouring political partizan, his studious habits and retired unbending disposition prevented him, but such political labours as he undertook were on the side of the government. In 1798 he published a translation of the Satires of Perseus, a work which, especially in fidelity, has been held to rival the contemporaneous attempts of Gifford, and it established him in the unquestioned reputation of a classical scholar. In 1805 appeared his Academical Questions, the first work in which he put forward claims to be esteemed a metaphysician. Although in this work he talks of the dignity of philosophy with no little enthusiasm, and gives it a preference to other subjects, more distinct than many may now admit; yet his work has certainly done more for the demolition of other systems than for instruction in any he has himself propounded. He perhaps carried the sceptical philosophy of Hume a little beyond its first bounds, by showing that we cannot comprehend the idea of simple substance, because, let the different qualities which, arranged in our mind, give us the idea of what we call an existing substance, be one by one taken away,—when the last is taken nothing at all will remain. To his doctrine that the mind was a unity, and did not contain separate powers and faculties, Locke's demolition of innate ideas must have led the way; but that great philosopher has not himself been spared from Sir William's undermining analysis, with which he attempted indeed to destroy the foundations of most existing systems. In 1810 Sir William, along with Mr. Robert Walpole, published Herculanensia, containing archæological and etymological observations, partly directed towards a MS. found in the ruins of Herculaneum. During the same year he published an Essay on a Punic Inscription found in the island of Malta. The inscription was interesting from its twice containing the name Hanni-Baal, or Hannibal; but it seems to have been merely used by Sir William as a nucleus round which he could weave an extensive investigation into the almost unknown and undiscoverable language of the Carthaginians. He proposed two methods of analytically acquiring some knowledge of this obscure subject; first, through the Phoenician and Punic vocables scattered through the works of Greek and Roman authors; and second, through the dialects cognate to the Phoenician, viz., the Arabic or ancient Syriac, the Samaritan, the Ethiopian, the fragments of Egyptian to be found in the modern Coptic, and the Hebrew. In 1811 he printed the most remarkable of all his works, the Edipus Judaicus. It was not published, and probably had it been so it would have brought on the author, who did not entirely escape criticism by his concealment, a torrent of censure which might SIR WILLIAM DRUMMOND ·WILLIAM DUNBAR. 491 have rendered life uncomfortable. It was Sir William | best derivation, the question must be left to the Drummond's object to take the parts of the Old judgment of others: it is impossible to prove that he Testament commonly commented on by divines as is wrong. In some old monkish histories the word purely historical, and prove them to be allegories. Briton is derived from Brutus, a supposed descendPerhaps the following extract contains a greater por- ant of Æneas: now, we may produce reasons withtion of the meaning which the author had in view out end for disbelieving any connection to have sub. than any other of similar brevity:-"When we con- sisted between Britain and a person named Brutus; sider the general prevalence of Tsabaism among the and for either acquiescing in our inability to derive neighbouring nations, we shall wonder less at the the word at all, or for greatly preferring some other proneness of the Hebrews to fall into this species of mode of deriving it; but we can do no more; we idolatry. Neither shall we be surprised at the cannot confute the person who maintains that it ceranxious efforts of their lawgiver to persuade and con- tainly is derived from Brutus, and that every other vince them of the vanity of the superstitions, when mode of deriving it is comparatively forced and imwe recollect that, though he could command the probable. Precisely in the same manner, when our elements, and give new laws to nature, he could not author affirms that the word 'Amorites' is derived impose fetters on the free-will of others. With such from a Hebrew word signifying a ram, the astroa power as this he was by no means invested; for the nomical sign of Aries; that 'Balaam' comes from a Almighty, in offering to the Hebrews the clearest word signifying 'to swallow,' with allusion to the proofs of his existence, by no means constrained their celestial Dragon; 'Deborah' from Aldebaran, the belief. It cannot be doubted that by any act of great star in the Bull's-eye-so we cannot possibly power God might have coerced submission, and have confute him, or positively prove that he is wrong: commanded conviction; but had there been no choice, we can only hint that these derivations are not very there could have been no merit in the acceptance of obvious or probable, and refer the matter to the his law. common sense of mankind." "Since then Jehovah did not compel the people to acknowledge his existence, by fettering their free will; it was natural for his servant Moses to repre- | sent, by types and by symbols, the errors of the Gentile nations; and it is in no manner surprising that the past, the existing, and the future situation of the Hebrews, as well as the religious, moral, and political state of their neighbours, should be alluded to in symbolical language by a historian who was also a teacher and a prophet. "Above all things, however, it is evident that the establishment of the true religion was the great object of the divine legation of Moses. To attain this purpose it was not enough that he performed the most surprising miracles. His countrymen acknowledged the existence of Jehovah; but with him they reckoned, and were but too willing to adore, other gods. Is it then surprising that the false notions of religion entertained by the Gentiles should be pointed out in the writings of Moses, and that their religious systems should be there made to appear what they really are the astronomical systems of scientific idolaters?" To institute a critical investigation of the points discussed in such a book as the Edipus would require more learned investigation than is expected to be met with in a casual memoir. But with deference, we believe a mere ordinary reader may take it on him to say that Sir William has run riot on the dangerous and enticing ground of philology. It will be difficult to convince ordinary minds that the book of Joshua allegorically represents the reform of the calendar, or that the name Joshua is a type of the sun in the sign of the Ram; and when he finds the twelve labours of Hercules and the twelve tribes of Israel identified with the twelve signs of the zodiac, one feels regret that he did not improve the analogy by the addition of the twelve Cæsars. It was with some truth that D'Oyly, in his Remarks on Sir William Drummond's Edipus Judaicus, thus characterized the species of philology in which Sir William indulged:-"It is in the nature of things impossible to disprove any proposed method of deducing the etymology of a word, however absurd, fanciful, and strained it may appear to every considerate mind. We may give reasons for rejecting it as highly improbable, and for receiving another, perhaps as drawn from a far more obvious source; but this is all that we can do; if any person should persevere in maintaining that his own is the Sir William was not likely to create friends to his views by the tone he adopted, which was occasionally (especially in the introduction) such as he should not have used till the world had acknowledged his own system, and should not have been applied to anything held in reverence. In 1818 Sir William Drummond published the first part of a poem, entitled Odin, which was never popular. The first of the three volumes of his Ori gines, or Remarks on the Origin of several Empires, States, and Cities, appeared in 1824. Of the varied contents of this very eminent historio-critical work, we shall spare our readers any analysis, as it is well known to the reading world, preferring to refer to the article on Sir William Drummond in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Towards the latter period of his life Sir William was a martyr to gout. His habits were retired, and by some considered reserved. For instance, when on a visit he would seldom make his appearance after dinner, spending the afternoon in the library or study. But while he was in company his manners were bland and courteous, and his conversation was enriched by classical and elegant in. formation. He died in the year 1828. DUNBAR, WILLIAM, "the darling of the Scottish Muses," as he has been termed by Sir Walter Scott, was born about the middle of the fifteenth century. Mr. David Laing suggests the year 1460 as about the date of his birth. The place of his nativity is not more accurately known. In the Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy, a series of satires which these two poets interchanged with each other, the former speaks of the "Carrick lips" of his antagonist, a bona fide allusion to the provincial vernacular of that poet, and, within three lines, he uses the adjec tive Lothian in the same way, respecting a part of his own person; thereby, apparently, indicating that he was a native of that district. Unless Dunbar here meant only to imply his habitual residence in Lothian, and his having consequently contracted its peculiar language, he must be held as acknowledging himself a native of the province. The early events of the poet's life are unknown. In 1475, when he must have reached his fifteenth or sixteenth year, he was sent to the university of St. Andrews, then the principal seat of learning in Scotland. name of William Dunbar is entered in the ancient registers of the university, in 1477, among the Determinantes, or Bachelors of Arts, in St. Salvator's Col The lege, a degree which students could not receive till the third year of their attendance. His name again occurs in 1479, when he had taken his degree of Master of Arts, in virtue of which he was uniformly styled Maister William Dunbar, a designation which was exclusively appropriated till a late period to persons who had taken that degree at a university. Of his subsequent history, from 1480 to 1499, no trace remains. He became an ecclesiastic at an early age, having entered the mendicant order of St. Francis, which had an establishment of Grey Friars at Edinburgh. In his poem entitled How Dunbar was desyred to be ane Frier, he gives the following intimation on this subject, as reduced to prose, by Dr. Irving:-"Before the dawn of day, methought St. Francis appeared to me with a religious habit in his hand, and said, 'Go, my servant, clothe thee in these vestments, and renounce the world.' But at him and his habit I was scared like a man who sees a ghost. And why art thou terrified at the sight of the holy weed?' 'St. Francis, reverence attend thee. I thank thee for the good-will which thou hast manifested towards me; but with regard to these garments, of which thou art so liberal, it has never entered into my mind to wear them. Sweet confessor, thou needs not take it in evil part. In holy legends have I heard it alleged that bishops are more frequently canonized than friars. If, therefore, thou wouldest guide my soul towards heaven, invest me with the robes of a bishop. Had it ever been my fortune to become a friar, the date is now long past. Between Berwick and Calais, in every flourishing town of the English dominions, have I made good cheer in the habit of thy order. In friars' weed have I ascended the pulpit at Dernton and Canterbury; in it have I crossed the sea at Dover, and instructed the inhabitants of Picardy. But this mode of life compelled me to have recourse to many a pious fraud, from whose guilt no holy water can cleanse me. It is probable that he did not long continue his connection with this order, as he informs us that the studies and life of a friar were not suited to his dis | performed mass in the king's presence. In 1507 we find that his pension was newly eiked, or augmented, to the sum of twenty pounds a year; and in 1510, to eighty pounds. On the marriage of James IV. to Margaret of England, Dunbar celebrated that event, so auspicious of the happiness of his country, in a poem entitled The Thistle and the Rose, in which he emblematized the junction and amity of the two portions of Britain. In the plan of this poem, he displays, according to Dr. Irving, "boldness of invention and beauty of arrangement, and, in several of its detached parts, the utmost strength and even delicacy of colouring." Dunbar seems to have afterwards been on as good terms with the queen as he had previously been with the king, for he addresses several poems in a very familiar style to her majesty. In one, moreover, "on a daunce in the queene's chalmer," where various court personages are represented as coming in successively and exhibiting their powers of saltation, he thus introduces himself: "Than in cam Dunbar the Makar;1 On all the flure there was nane fracar, The next person introduced was Mrs. Musgrave, probably an English attendant of the queen, and, as the poet seems to have admired her, we shall give the stanza in which she is described: "Then in cam Maestres Musgraeffe: Scho micht haff lernit all the laeffe. Quhen I saw her sa trimlye dance, Hir gud convoy and contenance, Than for hir saek I wissit to be The grytast erle, or duke, in France: A mirrear dance micht na man see." Notwithstanding the great merit of Dunbar as a poet, he seems to have lived a life of poverty, with perhaps no regular means of subsistence but his pension. He appears to have addressed both the king and the queen for a benefice, but always without success. How it came to pass that King James, who was so kind a patron to men professing powers of amusement, neglected to provide for Dunbar is not to be accounted for. The poet must have been singularly disqualified, indeed, to have been deemed unfit in those days for church preferment. It ap pears that the queen became more disposed to be his patron than the king, for he writes a poem in the form of a prayer, wishing that the king were John Thomson's man, that is, subservient to the views of his consort, so that he might obtain what the queen desired his majesty to bestow upon him. The poor poet tells the king that his hopes were in reality very humble: position. It is no doubt to his having been a travel- In the books of the treasurer of Scotland, we find that Dunbar enjoyed a pension from his sovereign. Under date May 23, 1501, occurs the following entry: "Item, to Maister William Dunbar, in his pension of Martymes by past, 5." Another entry occurs December 20, "quhilk was peyit to him eftir he com furth of England." If these were half-yearly payments, the pension must have been one of ten pounds, which cannot be deemed inconsiderable, when we take into account the resources of the king, the probable necessities of the bard, and the value of money at that time. In March, 1504, he first His "Greit abbais graith I nill to gather, Bot ane kirk scant coverit with hadder; Quhilk to considder is ane pane." poetry is full of pensive meditations upon the "I knaw nocht how the kirk is gydit, He also reflects much upon the vanity of all sub- "This waverand warldis wretchidnes, 1 Writers of verses were so termed in the sixteenth century. |