, with a preface,
or introduction by Mr. Hall of Grays-Inn, who, tho' not much disposed
to think favourably of the Scotch nation, has yet thus done justice to
Mr. Drummond; for his manner of writing, says he, "though he treats of
things that are rather many than great, and rather troublesome than
glorious; yet he has brought so much of the main together, as it may
be modestly said, none of that nation has done before him, and for his
way of handling it, he has sufficiently made it appear, how conversant
he was with the writings of venerable antiquity, and how generously
he has emulated them by a happy imitation, for the purity of that
language is much above the dialect he wrote in; his descriptions
lively and full, his narrations clear and pertinent, his orations
eloquent, and fit for the persons who speak, and his reflections solid
and mature, so that it cannot be expected that these leaves can be
turned over without as much pleasure as profit, especially meeting
with so many glories, and trophies of our ancestors." In this history
Mr. Drummond has chiefly followed bishop Elphiston, and has given a
different turn to things from Buchanan, whom a party of the Scotch
accuse of being a pensioner of Queen Elizabeth's, and as he joined
interest with the earl of Murray, who wanted to disturb the reign of
his much injured sister Mary Queen of Scots, he is strongly suspected
of being a party writer, and of having misrepresented the Scotch
transactions of old, in order to serve some scheme of policy.

In the short notes which Mr. Drummond has left behind him in his
own life, he says, that he was the first in the island that ever
celebrated a dead mistress; his poems consist chiefly of Love-Verses,
Madrigals, Epigrams, Epitaphs, &c. they were highly esteemed by his
contemporaries both for the wit and learning that shone in them.
Edward Philips, Milton's nephew, writes a preface to them, and
observes, 'that his poems are the effects of genius, the most polite
and verdant that ever the Scots nation produced, and says, that if he
should affirm, that neither Tasso, Guarini, or any of the most neat
and refined spirits of Italy, nor even the choicest of our English
poets can challenge any advantage above him, it could not be judged
any attribute superior to what he deserves; and for his history he
says, had there been nothing else extant of his writings, consider
but the language how florid and ornate it is; consider the order and
pru