I know, that all beneath the moon decays,
  And what by mortals in this world is brought,
  In times great period shall return to nought;
  That fairest states have fatal nights and days;
  I know that all the Muses heavenly lays,
  With toil of spirit, which are so dearly bought. 
  As idle sounds, of few or none are sought,
  That there is nothing lighter than vain praise. 
  I know frail beauty like the purple flower,
  To which one morn, oft birth, and death affords,
  That love a jarring is, of minds accords,
  Where sense, and will, bring under reason’s
  power: 
  Know what I lift, all this cannot me move,
  But, that alas, I both must write and love.

[Footnote 1:  The reader will please to observe, that I have taken the most material part, of this account of Mr. Drummond, from a life of him prefixed to a 4to Edition printed at Edinburgh, 1711.]

[Footnote 2:  Shoemakers.]

* * * * *

William Alexander, Earl of Stirling.

It is agreed by the antiquaries of Scotland, where this nobleman was born, that his family was originally a branch of the Macdonalds.  Alexander Macdonald, their ancestor, obtained from the family of Argyle a grant of the lands of Menstry, in Clackmananshire, where they fixed their residence, and took their sirnames from the Christian name of their predecessor[1].  Our author was born in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and during the minority of James VI. of Scotland, but on what year cannot be ascertained; he gave early discoveries of a rising genius, and much improved the fine parts he had from nature, by a very polite and extensive education.  He first travelled abroad as tutor to the earl of Argyle, and was a considerable time with that nobleman, while they visited foreign countries.  After his return, being happy in so great a patron as the earl of Argyle, and finished in all the courtly accomplishments, he was caressed by persons of the first fashion, while he yet moved in the sphere of a private gentleman.

Mr. Alexander having a strong propensity to poetry, he declined entering upon any public employment for some years, and dedicated all his time to the reading of the ancient poets, upon which he formed his taste, and whose various graces he seems to have understood.  King James of Scotland, who with but few regal qualities, yet certainly had a propension to literature, and was an encourager of learned men, took Mr. Alexander early into his favour.  He accepted the poems our author presented him, with the most condescending marks of esteem, and was so warm in his interest, that in the year 1614, he created him a knight, and by a kind of compulsion, obliged him to accept the place of Master of the Requests[2]; but the King’s bounty did not stop here:  Our author having settled a colony in Nova Scotia in America, at his own expence, James made him a grant of it, by his Royal Deed, on the 21st of September, 1621, and intended to have erected the order of Baronet, for encouraging and advancing so good a work; but the three last years of that prince’s reign being rendered troublesome to him, by reason of the jealousies and commotions which then subsisted in England, he thought fit to suspend the further prosecution of that affair, ’till a more favourable crisis, which he lived not to see.