To which Jonson quickly replied replied—
“Thankee, thankee, Hawthornden!”
Upon which they both laughed and felt well acquainted at once.
The contrast between these two men, as they stood under the old sycamore, must have been strongly marked. Drummond, quiet, reserved, and gentle in manner—Jonson, boisterous and offensively vulgar: Drummond, well dressed and refined in appearance—Jonson, fat, coarse, and slovenly; Drummond, a country gentleman, accustomed to live well, but always within his means, caring little for society, a man of correct habits and strict piety, and later in life a loving husband and a tender father—Jonson, the dictator of literary London, who waved his scepter in the “Devil Tavern” in Fleet Street, egotistical and quarrelsome, self-assertive, a bully in disposition, his life a perpetual round of dissipation and debt, his means of livelihood dependent on luck or favor, and his greatest enjoyment centering in association with those who, like himself, were most at home in the theaters and taverns of the great bustling city.
Yet both were poets and men of genius, though in different ways. In spite of his peculiarities, Drummond found “rare Ben Jonson” a most interesting companion. He kept a close record of the conversations which passed between them, and might well be called the father of modern interviewing. But unlike the interviewer of to-day, Drummond did not rush to the nearest telegraph station to get his story “on the wire” and “scoop” his contemporaries. There were no telegraphs nor newspapers to call for such effort, and Drummond had too much respect for the courtesy due a guest to think of publishing their private talks. But a portion of the material was published in 1711, long after Drummond’s death, and probably the whole of it in 1832. These conversations with one who knew intimately most of the literary leaders of his time have proved invaluable. They contain Ben’s opinions of nearly everybody—Queen Elizabeth, the Earl of Leicester, King James, Spenser, Raleigh, Shakespeare, Bacon, Drayton, Beaumont, Chapman, Fletcher, and many other contemporaries. Most of all they contain his opinion of himself and his writings, which needless to say is quite exalted.
With no thought of his notes being published, Drummond allowed himself perfect frankness in writing about his guest. His summary of the impression made by Ben’s visit is as follows:—
He is a great lover and praiser of himself; a contemner and scorner of others; given rather to lose a friend than a jest; jealous of every word and action of those about him (especially after drink, which is one of the elements in which he liveth); a dissembler of ill parts which reign in him, a bragger of some good that he wanteth; thinketh nothing well but what either he himself or some of his friends and countrymen hath said or done: he is passionately kind and angry; careless either to gain or keep; vindictive, but, if he be well answered, at himself. For any religion, as being versed in both. Interpreted best sayings and deeds often to the worst. Oppressed with phantasy which hath ever mastered his reason, a general disease in many poets.... He was in his personal character the very reverse of Shakespeare, as surly, ill-natured, proud and disagreeable as Shakespeare, with ten times his merit, was gentle, good-natured, easy, and amiable.
Jonson expressed with equal frankness his opinion of Drummond, to whom he said that he “was too good and simple, and that oft a man’s modesty made a fool of his wit.”
Drummond as a poet was classed by Robert Southey and Thomas Campbell in the highest rank of the British poets who appeared before Milton. His sonnets, which are remarkable for their exquisite delicacy and tenderness, won for him the title of “the Scottish Petrarch.” It has been said that they come as near to perfection as any others of this kind of writing and that as a sonneteer Drummond is surpassed only by Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth among the poets who have written in English.