een
dissatisfied with the prudence of the Duke of Hamilton, whose policy it
had been to postpone the risk of a precarious undertaking, and whose
foresight was acknowledged when it was too late. Lord John Drummond,
Lord Kilsyth, and Lord Linlithgow, had been all deeply concerned in the
schemes and speculations which had been formed in 1707, on the subject
of the Restoration; but the zeal of Lord Kilsyth had been doubted, from
his intimacy with the Duke of Hamilton, who was then objectionable to
the violent Jacobite leaders.[80]

These chieftains were not unworthy to come into the same field with
Tullibardine, Nithisdale, Marischal, and their brave associates. A still
nobler band of associates was formed in the different members of the
house of Drummond, a family who could boast of being derived from "the
ancient nobility of the kingdom of Hungary:" and from the daughters of
whose house Charles the Second was lineally descended in the ninth and
sixth degree. Well may it be called "the splendid family of Drummond,"
even if we regard only its proud antiquity, or the singular
"faithfulness of the family, or the accomplishments and virtues which
characterised many of its members." Nothing can be finer than the manner
in which the claims of birth are placed before us, in the address of
William Drummond of Hawthornden to "John Earle of Perthe," in his
manuscript "Historie of the Familie of Perthe:"

"Though, as Glaucus sayes to Diomed (in Homer),

'Like the race of leaves
The race of man is, that deserves no question: nor receaves
His being any other breath; the wind in autumn strowes
The earth with old leaves; then the spring the woods with new endowes,'

"yet I have ever thought the knowledge of kindred and genealogies of the
ancient families of a country a matter so far from contempt, that it
deserveth highest praise. Herein consisteth a part of the knowledge of a
man's own selfe. It is a great spurr to vertue to look back on the worth
of our line. In this is the memory of the dead preserved with the
living, being more firm and honourable than any epitaph. The living know
that band which tyeth them to others. By this man is distinguished from
the reasonless creatures, and the noble of men from the base sort. For
it often falleth out (though we cannot tell how) for the most part, that
generositie followeth good birth and parentage."[81] The two members of
the Drummond family who attende