dents. Sir Robert Kerr (afterwards Earl of Ancrum), Sir Robert Aytoun, and Sir David Murray were also friendly with him, and interested him in English and Scottish politics. But Drummond rarely left Hawthornden, and divided his time between poetry and mechanical experiments. About 1614 he fell in love with the daughter of one Cunningham of Barns (near Crail, Fifeshire). A marriage was arranged, but she died in 1615, before it could take place. In 1616 he published a book of poems embodying his love and grief, together with some earlier songs and madrigals. A second edition quickly followed.
In 1617 Drummond celebrated James I's visit to Scotland with a long poetic panegyric entitled ‘Forth Feasting.’ Henceforth London society interested itself in his poetic efforts, and in the summer of 1618 he was cheered by a visit from one Joseph Davis, who brought a flattering message from Michael Drayton, one of Drummond's favourite authors. An amiable correspondence followed. In one letter Drummond suggested that Drayton, who had quarrelled with his London publishers, should publish the last books of the ‘Polyolbion’ with his own publisher, Andro Hart of Edinburgh. In his ‘Epistle on Poets and Poetry’ Drayton speaks highly of ‘my dear Drummond.’ Late in 1618 Drummond made the personal acquaintance of Ben Jonson. Jonson had walked from London to Edinburgh in August, but there is no proof that the expedition was made, as Drummond's early biographers assert, in order to make Drummond's acquaintance. Before Christmas Jonson visited Drummond at Hawthornden, and remained for two or three weeks. Drummond took careful notes of his conversation, which chiefly turned on literary topics, and although they corresponded in effusive terms subsequently, Drummond's private impression of Jonson was not favourable. When leaving Edinburgh in January 1619, Jonson promised Drummond that if he died on the road home, all that he had written while in Scotland should be forwarded to Hawthornden. At the same time Drummond undertook to send to London accounts of Edinburgh, Loch Lomond, and other notable Scottish scenes, for Jonson to incorporate in a projected account of his Scottish tour; but this work was not completed. In 1620 Drummond was seriously ill. Three years later fire and famine devastated Edinburgh, and Drummond in deep depression issued a volume of religious verse (‘Flowers of Zion’), together with a philosophic meditation on death (in prose) entitled ‘The Cypresse Grove.’ A second edition appeared in 1630. Meanwhile Drummond was corresponding with Sir William Alexander about James I's translation of the Psalms, and some of his suggestions were adopted. An extravagantly eulogistic sonnet commemorated James's death in 1625.
On 29 Sept. 1626 a draft of a three years' patent was prepared for certain mechanical inventions which Drummond had recently perfected. Sixteen were specified, and most of them were military appliances. The first was described as a cavalry weapon, or box-pistol; among the others were new kinds of pikes and battering-arms, telescopes and burning-glasses, together with instruments for observing the strength of winds, for converting salt water into sweet, and for measuring distances at sea. The patent was finally granted 24 Dec. 1627. In the same year (1627) Drummond presented to Edinburgh University a collection of five hundred books, which are still kept together in a separate room of the university library. A catalogue drawn up by the donor was printed by John Hart, Andro Hart's successor. Drummond was out of Scotland in 1628 and in 1629, but was at home in May 1630, and soon afterwards paid a visit to his dead wife's relations at Barns. In July 1631 Drayton wrote to Drummond renewing their old acquaintanceship, and early in 1632 Drummond, on learning of Drayton's death, expressed deep grief in a letter to Alexander, then Viscount Stirling. In the same year he married, his wife being Elizabeth, sister of James Logan of Monarlothian, and granddaughter of Sir Robert Logan of Restalrig.
Soon after his second marriage Drummond's pride in his ancestry was hurt by a claim put forth by William Graham, earl of Menteith, to the earldom of Strathearn. Menteith's pretensions reflected on the legitimacy of Robert III of Scotland, the husband of Drummond's ancestress Annabella Drummond. The poet opened a correspondence on the subject with the head of his clan, John Drummond, earl of Perth; drew up a genealogy of the family, and sent a tractate in manuscript to Charles I in December 1632, entitled ‘Considerations to the King,’ in which he tried to confute Menteith's claim, and suggested that Menteith should be punished for his presumption. After preparing for his kinsman an essay on ‘Impreses,’ he set to work on a ‘History of Scotland [1424–1542] during the Reigns of the Five Jameses,’ all of whom were direct descendants of Robert III and Annabella Drummond. His brother-in-law, Scot of Scotstarvet, encouraged him in the work, but it was not printed until after Drummond's death. In May 1633 he furnished the speeches and poems for the entertainment which celebrated Charles I's long-delayed coronation at
