Hawthornden. 1 THE CAVERNS. 355
Druminond wrote most of his works in Hawthornden.
In the year 1643 he met accidentally Elizabeth
Logan, daughter of Sir Robert Logan of Restalng,
who so closely resembled the girl he had loved
and mourned so deeply, that he paid his addresses
to and married her,
When the civil war broke out Drummond
espoused the cause of the king, not in the field
with the sword, but in the closet with his pen. He
was constantly exposed, in consequence, to hostility
and annoyance from the Presbyterian party.
On leaving the house visitors are conducted
round the precipitous face of the rock on which
it stands, by a mere ledge, to a species of cavern.
There are seen an old table and seat. It was the
poet?s favourite resort, and in it he composed him
Cypress Grove,? after recovering from a danger.
ous illness. No place could be better adapted foi
poetic reveries. ? In calm weather the sighing oi
the wind along the chasm, the murmur of the
stream, the music of the birds around, above,
beneath, and the uttqr absence of an intimation ol
the busy world, must have often evoked the poet?:
melancholy, and brought him back the delightful
hopes that thrilled his youthful heart. There werz
other times and seasons when it must indeed haw
been awful to have sat in that dark and desolatt
cavern: when a storm was rushing through tht
glen, when the forked lightning was revealing it!
shaggy depths, and when the thunder seemed tc
shake the cliff itself with its reverberations.?
Drummond was the first Scottish poet who wrotc
in pure English ; his resemblance to Milton, whon
he preceded, has often been remarked. Thc
chivalrous loyalty that filled his heart and inspire(
his muse received a mortal shock by the death o
Charles I., and on the 4th of December, 1649, hi
died where he was born, and where he had spen
the most of his life, in his beautiful house of Haw
thornden, and was buried in the sequestered ant
Iree-shaded churchyard of Lasswade, on the soutl
slope of the brae, and within sound of the murmu
of his native Esk.
An edition of his poems was printed in 165t
8vo ; another appeared at London in 1791 ; whil
since then others have been published, notabl
that under the editorship of Peter Cunninghau
London, 1833, An edition of all his works, undc
the superintendence of Ruddiman, was brougk
out at Edinburgh in folio in 17 I I.
Over the door of the modem house, which j
defended by three loopholes for musketry, and is th
only way by which the edifice can be approachec
are the arms of the Right Reverend Williar
Lbernethy, titular Bishop of Edinburgh ; and near
hem is a panel with an inscription, placed there
by the poet when he repaired his dwelling.
??DIVINO MUNERE GULIELYUS DRVYYONDUS JOHANNIS
URATI FILIUS Ur HONESTO OTIO QUIESCERET SIB1 ET
UCCESSORIBUS INSTAURAVIT, ANNO 1638.?
In the house is preserved a table with a marble
lab, dated 1396, and bearing the initials of King
tobert 111. thereon, with those of Queen Anna-
,ells Drummond, and on it lies a two-handed
word of Robert Bruce, which is five feet two
nches in length, with quadruple guard which
neasures eleven inches from point to point. There
s also a clock, which is said to have been in the
amily since his time; there are a pair of shoes
md a silk dress that belonged to Queen Anna-
Iella; the long cane of the Duchess of Lauderlale,
so famous for her diamonds and her furious
emper; and a dress worn by Prince Charles in
1745.
Below the house are the great caverns for which
3awthomden is so famous. They are artificial,
md have been hollowed out of the rock With
xodigious labour, and all communicate with each
ither by long passages, and possess access to a
vel1 of vast depth, bored from the courtyard of
he mansion. These caverns are reported by
radition and believed by Dr. Stukeley to have
xen a stronghold of the Pictish kings, and in three
nstances they bear the appropriate names of the
King?s Gallery, the King?s Bedchamber, and the
Suard-room ; but they seem simply to have been
hewn out of the solid rock, no one can tell when
x by whom. They served, however, as ample and
secret places of refuge and resort during the destructive
wars between Scotland and England,
especially when the troops of the latter were in
possession of Edinburgh ; and, like the adjacent
caves of Gorton, they gave shelter to the patriotic
bands of Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie and
the Black Knight of Liddesdale, and, by tradition,
to Robert Bruce, as a ballad has it :-
?Here, too, are labyrinthine paths
To caverns dark and low,
Found refuge from the foe.?
Wherein, they say, King Robert Bruce
The profusion of beautiful wood in the opulent
landscape around Hawthornden suggested to Peter
Pindar his caustic remark respecting Dr. Johnson,
that he
?Went to Hawthornden?s fair scenes by night,
Lest e?er a Scottish tree should wound his sight.?
Half a niile up the Esk is Wallace?s Cave-so
called by tradition, and capable of holding seventy
