Chapter 41 of 49 · 3914 words · ~20 min read

Part 41

Drummond's first publication appeared in 1613, an elegy on the death of Henry, prince of Wales, called _Teares on the Death of Meliades_ (_Moeliades_, 3rd edit. 1614). The poem shows the influence of Spenser's and Sidney's pastoralism. In the same year he published an anthology of the elegies of Chapman, Wither and others, entitled _Mausoleum_, or _The Choisest Flowres of the Epitaphs_. In 1616, the year of Shakespeare's death, appeared _Poems: Amorous, Funerall, Divine, Pastorall: in Sonnets, Songs, Sextains, Madrigals_, being substantially the story of his love for Mary Cunningham of Barns, who was about to become his wife when she died in 1615. The poems bear marks of a close study of Sidney, and of the Italian poets. He sometimes translates direct from the Italian, especially from Marini. _Forth Feasting: A Panegyricke to the King's Most Excellent Majestie_ (1617), a poem written in heroic couplets of remarkable facility, celebrates James's visit to Scotland in that year. In 1618 Drummond began a correspondence with Michael Drayton. The two poets continued to write at intervals for thirteen years, the last letter being dated in the year of Drayton's death. The latter had almost been persuaded by his "dear Drummond" to print the later books of _Poly-Olbion_ at Hart's Edinburgh press. In the winter of 1618-1619, Drummond had included Ben Jonson in his circle of literary friends, and at Christmas 1618 was honoured with a visit of a fortnight or more from the dramatist. The account of their conversations, long supposed to be lost, was discovered in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, by David Laing, and was edited for the Shakespeare Society in 1842 and printed by Gifford & Cunningham. The conversations are full of literary gossip, and embody Ben's opinion of himself and of his host, whom he frankly told that "his verses were too much of the schooles, and were not after the fancie of the time," and again that he "was too good and simple, and that oft a man's modestie made a fool of his witt." But the publication of what was obviously intended merely for a private journal has given Jonson an undeserved reputation for harsh judgments, and has cast blame on Drummond for blackening his guest's memory.

In 1623 appeared the poet's fourth publication, entitled _Flowers of Sion: By William Drummond of Hawthornedenne: to which is adjoyned his Cypresse Grove_. From 1625 till 1630 Drummond was probably for the most part engaged in travelling on the Continent. In 1627, however, he seems to have been home for a short time, as, in that year, he appears in the entirely new character of the holder of a patent for the construction of military machines, entitled "Litera Magistri Gulielmi Drummond de Fabrica Machinarum Militarium, Anno 1627." The same year, 1627, is the date of Drummond's munificent gift (referred to above) of about 500 volumes to the library of the university of Edinburgh.

In 1630 Drummond again began to reside permanently at Hawthornden, and in 1632 he married Elizabeth Logan, by whom he had five sons and four daughters. In 1633 Charles made his coronation-visit to Scotland; and Drummond's pen was employed in writing congratulatory speeches and verses. As Drummond preferred Episcopacy to Presbytery, and was an extremely loyal subject, he supported Charles's general policy, though he protested against the methods employed to enforce it. When Lord Balmerino was put on his trial on the capital charge of retaining in his possession a petition regarded as a libel on the king's government, Drummond in an energetic "Letter" (1635) urged the injustice and folly of the proceedings. About this time a claim by the earl of Menteith to the earldom of Strathearn, which was based on the assertion that Robert III., husband of Annabella Drummond, was illegitimate, roused the poet's pride of blood and prompted him to prepare an historical defence of his house. Partly to please his kinsman the earl of Perth, and partly to satisfy his own curiosity, the poet made researches in the genealogy of the family. This investigation was the real secret of Drummond's interest in Scottish history; and so we find that he now began his _History of Scotland during the Reigns of the Five Jameses_, a work which did not appear till 1655, and is remarkable only for its good literary style. His next work was called forth by the king's enforced submission to the opposition of his Scottish subjects. It is entitled _Irene: or a Remonstrance for Concord, Amity, and Love amongst His Majesty's Subjects_ (1638), and embodies Drummond's political creed of submission to authority as the only logical refuge from democracy, which he hated. In 1639 Drummond had to sign the Covenant in self-protection, but was uneasy under the burden, as several political squibs by him testify. In 1643 he published [Greek: Skiamachia]: _or a Defence of a Petition tendered to the Lords of the Council of Scotland by certain Noblemen and Gentlemen_, a political pamphlet in support of those royalists in Scotland who wished to espouse the king's cause against the English parliament. Its burden is an invective on the intolerance of the then dominant Presbyterian clergy.

His later works may be described briefly as royalist pamphlets, written with more or less caution, as the times required. Drummond took the part of Montrose; and a letter from the Royalist leader in 1646 acknowledged his services. He also wrote a pamphlet, "A Vindication of the Hamiltons," supporting the claims of the duke of Hamilton to lead the Scottish army which was to release Charles I. It is said that Drummond's health received a severe shock when news was brought of the king's execution. He died on the 4th of December 1649. He was buried in his parish church of Lasswade.

Drummond's most important works are the _Cypresse Grove_ and the poems. The _Cypresse Grove_ exhibits great wealth of illustration, and an extraordinary command of musical English. It is an essay on the folly of the fear of death. "This globe of the earth," says he, "which seemeth huge to us, in respect of the universe, and compared with that wide pavilion of heaven, is less than little, of no sensible quantity, and but as a point." This is one of Drummond's favourite moods; and he uses constantly in his poems such phrases as "the All," "this great All." Even in such of his poems as may be called more distinctively Christian, this philosophic conception is at work.

A noteworthy feature in Drummond's poetry, as in that of his courtier contemporaries Ayton (q.v.), Lord Stirling and others, is that it manifests no characteristic Scottish element, but owes its birth and inspiration rather to the English and Italian masters. Drummond was essentially a follower of Spenser, but, amid all his sensuousness, and even in those lines most conspicuously beautiful, there is a dash of melancholy thoughtfulness--a tendency deepened by the death of his first love, Mary Cunningham. Drummond was called "the Scottish Petrarch"; and his sonnets, which are the expression of a genuine passion, stand far above most of the contemporary Petrarcan imitations. A remarkable burlesque poem _Polemo-Middinia inter Vitarvam et Nebernam_ (printed anonymously in 1684) has been persistently, and with good reason, ascribed to him. It is a mock-heroic tale, in dog-Latin, of a country feud on the Fifeshire lands of his old friends the Cunninghams.

Drummond's _Poems_, with _Cypresse Grove_, the _History_, and a few of the minor tracts, were collected in 1656 and edited by Edward Phillips, Milton's nephew. _The Works of William Drummond, of Hawthornden_ (1711), edited by Bishop Sage and Thomas Ruddiman, contains a life by the former, and some of the poet's letters. A handsome edition of the _Poems_ was printed by the Maitland Club in 1832. Later editions are by Peter Cunningham (1833), by William R. Turnbull in "The Library of Old Authors" (1856), and by W. C. Ward (1894) for "The Muses' Library." The standard biography of Drummond is by David Masson (1873). Extracts from the Hawthornden MSS. preserved in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland were printed by David Laing in _Archaeologia Scotica_, vol. iv.

DRUNKENNESS, a term signifying generally a state resulting from excessive drinking, and usually associated with alcoholic intoxication, or alcohol poisoning. It may represent either an _act_ or a _habit_, the latter consisting in frequent repetitions of the former. As an act it may be an accident, most usually arising from the incautious use of one or other of the commonly employed intoxicating agents; as a habit (as in the form of chronic alcoholism) it is one of the most degrading forms of vice which can result from the enfeeblement of the moral principle by persistent self-indulgence.

What appears to be "intoxication" may arise from many different causes (e.g. epilepsy, fractured skull, intracranial haemorrhage, and the toxaemic coma of diabetes and uraemia), and the close resemblance between the pathological and the toxic phenomena has been the cause of many untoward accidents. Cold alone may produce such peculiar effects that Captain Parry said in his _Journal_, "I cannot help thinking that many a man may have been punished for intoxication who was only suffering from the benumbing effects of frost; for I have more than once seen our people in a state so exactly resembling that of the most stupid intoxication, that I should certainly have charged them with the offence had I not been quite sure that no possible means were afforded them on Melville Island to procure anything stronger than snow water." The same confusion is frequently found in cases which come before the police-courts, people being arrested as "drunk and disorderly" who can prove that the symptoms were not due to over-indulgence in drink at all. Some individuals have, moreover, a special idiosyncrasy or susceptibility to alcohol, due to heredity or to one of the sequelae of sunstroke or cranial injury. The children of drunkards are usually very susceptible to the poison, becoming intoxicated by a far smaller quantity than is needed by a normal person.

But, as a rule, the phenomena of drunkenness are actually due to excessive consumption of some intoxicating liquid. The physiological

## action of all such agents may be described as a cumulative production of

paralysis of various parts of the nervous system, but this effect results only in doses of a certain amount--a dose which varies with the agent, the race and the individual. Even the cup so often said to "cheer, but not inebriate," cannot be regarded as altogether free from the last-named effect. Tea-sots are well known to be affected with palpitation and irregularity of the heart, as well as with more or less sleeplessness, mental irritability and muscular tremors, which in some culminate in paralysis; while positive intoxication has been known to be the result of the excessive use of strong tea. In short, from tea to haschisch we have, through hops, alcohol, tobacco and opium, a sort of graduated scale of intoxicants, which stimulate in small doses and narcotize in larger,--the narcotic dose having no stimulating properties whatever, and only appearing to possess them from the fact that the agent can only be gradually taken up by the blood, and the system thus comes primarily under the influence of a stimulant dose. In certain circumstances and with certain agents--as in the production of chloroform narcosis--this precursory stage is capable of being much abbreviated, if not altogether annihilated; while with other agents--as tea--the narcotic stage is by no means always or readily produced.

No subject in modern times has led to more extreme opinions than this of indulgence in "intoxicants" to any degree whatever. It is well to remember that (in spite of apparently authoritative modern views to the contrary) there is not a shadow of proof that the moderate use of any one of these agents as a stimulant has any definite tendency to lead to its abuse; it is otherwise with their employment as narcotics, which, once indulged in, is almost certain to lead to repetition, and to a more or less rapid process of degradation, though there are many exceptions to this latter statement. It is interesting to know that a former English judge, who lived to nearly ninety years of age, believed he had prolonged his life and added greatly to his comfort by the moderate use of ether, which he was led to employ because neither wine nor tobacco agreed with him; while the immoderate use of the same agent has given rise to a most deleterious form of drunkenness, both in parts of Ireland and in some of the large industrial centres in Great Britain.

Various modern biologists have discussed, with more or less acceptance in certain circles, the historical conditions in various races and in different countries as to the use and abuse of intoxicants, and have drawn varying conclusions from their theories. It has even been contended, with much show of learned authority, that since drunkenness leads to disease and early death, the proneness to strong drink in the long run causes the elimination of the unfit, and results in a general sobering of the community, a race being therefore temperate in proportion to its past sufferings through alcohol. But on this subject it may be said that, at least, no agreement has been reached.

The effects of intoxicants are variously modified by the temperament of the individual and the nature of the inebriant. When that is alcohol, its action on an average individual is first to fill him with a serene and perfect self-complacency. His feelings and faculties are exalted into a state of great activity and buoyancy, so that his language becomes enthusiastic, and his conversation vivacious if not brilliant. The senses gradually become hazy, a soft humming seems to fill the pauses of the conversation, and modify the tones of the speaker, a filmy haze obscures the vision, the head seems lighter than usual, the equilibrium unstable. By-and-by objects appear double, or flit confusedly before the eyes; judgment is abolished, secretiveness annihilated, and the drunkard pours forth all that is within him with unrestrained communicativeness; he becomes boisterous, ridiculous, and sinks at length into a mere animal. Every one around him, the very houses, trees, even the earth itself, seem drunken and unstable, he alone sober, till at last the final stage is reached, and he falls on the ground insensible--_dead drunk_ (alcoholic coma)--a state from which, after profound slumber, he at last awakes feverish, exhausted, sick and giddy, with ringing ears, a throbbing heart and a violent headache.

The poison primarily affects the cerebral lobes, and the other parts of the cerebro-spinal system are consecutively involved, till in the state of _dead-drunkenness_ the only parts not invaded by a benumbing paralysis are those automatic centres in the medulla oblongata which regulate and maintain the circulation and respiration. But even these centres are not unaffected; the paralysis of these as of the other sections of the cerebro-spinal system varies in its incompleteness, and at times becomes complete, the coma of drunkenness terminating in death. More usually the intoxicant is gradually eliminated, and the individual restored to consciousness, a consciousness disturbed by the secondary results of the agent he has abused, which vary with the nature of that agent. Whether, however, directly or indirectly through the nervous system, the stomach suffers in every case; thus nutrition is interfered with by the defective ingestion of food, as well as by the mal-assimilation of that which is ingested; and from this cause, as well as by the peculiar local action of the various poisons, the various organic degenerations are induced (cirrhosis of the liver, &c.) which in most cases shorten the drunkard's days.

The primary discomforts of an act of drunkenness are readily removed for the time by a repetition of the cause. Thus what has been an act may readily become a habit, all the more readily that each repetition more and more enfeebles both the will and the judgment, till they become utterly unfit to resist the temptation to indulgence supplied by the knowledge of the temporary relief to suffering which is sure to follow, and in spite of the consciousness that each repetition of the act only forges their chains more tightly. From this condition there is no hope of relief but in enforced abstinence; any one in this condition must be regarded as temporarily insane (see INSANITY and NEUROPATHOLOGY), and ought to be placed in an inebriate asylum till he regain sufficient self-control to enable him to overcome his love for drink. Numerous "cures" have been started in recent years, which have often succeeded in individual cases. An anti-alcoholic serum obtained from alcoholized horses has been advocated by Dr Sapelier.

For the law concerning drunkenness the reader is referred to INEBRIETY, LAW OF. Its prevalence as a vice has varied considerably according to the state of education or comfort in different classes of society. In considering the extent to which intemperance has prevailed, the statistics of prosecutions upon which such comparisons are usually based are far from being completely satisfactory, but, inasmuch as they constitute the only possible data for such comparisons, we are compelled to accept them. The following table gives the average number of persons per 1000 of the population proceeded against for drunkenness in England and Wales for quinquennial periods, dating from 1857, the first year of the Judicial Statistics:--

1857-1861 4.28 1862-1866 4.78 1867-1871 5.47 1872-1876 7.83 1877-1881 7.25 1882-1886 6.90 1887-1891 6.19 1892-1896 5.84 1897-1901 6.42 1902-1906 6.51

The figures, it will be seen, show a steady decline from 1872-1876 (when the consumption of alcohol was quite abnormal) to 1892-1896. After that year, however, the figures again rose. The increase was especially marked in 1899, when a tide of exceptional prosperity was again accompanied by great drunkenness. It is also disquieting to discover that the average number of prosecutions for drunkenness in the three years 1897-1899 was 51% higher than the average for 1857-1861, and 35% higher than the average for 1862-1866. That the increase was partly due to more efficient police administration is probable, but that this is not a complete explanation of the figures is made evident by an analysis of the general statistics of crime during the same period, from which it may be seen that, while crime generally (excluding drunkenness) decreased 28% in England and Wales since 1857-1861, drunkenness increased 51%. Speaking generally, it may be said that in the United Kingdom drunkenness appears chiefly prevalent in the seaport and mining districts. If a line be drawn from the mouth of the Severn to the Wash, it will be found that the "black" counties, without exception, lie to the north-west of this line. The worst counties in England and Wales in the matter of drunkenness are Northumberland, Durham and Glamorganshire, while Pembrokeshire and Lancashire follow close behind. The most sober counties, on the other hand, are Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire. Averages based upon the returns of entire counties do not, however, afford a complete guide to the distribution of drunkenness, inasmuch as offences are not equally distributed over the whole area of a county. A heavy ratio of drunkenness in a small district may often give a county an unfavourable position in the general averages, notwithstanding favourable conditions in the rest of its area.

Analysis of the prosecutions for drunkenness shows that about 24% of the total number of offences are committed by women. In the larger towns the proportion, as a rule, is higher. In London, 38% of the drunkenness is attributable to women; in Manchester, 36%; in Belfast and Glasgow, 32%. In Liverpool, on the other hand, the proportion is only 24%. The much-controverted question as to whether intemperance is increasing among women can hardly, however, be decided by an appeal to the criminal statistics. So far as these statistics throw any light at all upon the question, they suggest important local differences. A more direct clue is afforded by the registrar-general's annual returns of deaths directly attributed to intemperance. The figures are given below. In order to eliminate accidental variations, the comparison is based upon the average mortality during consecutive periods:--

+---------------+----------------------+----------+----------+ | Years. | Average No. of deaths| Males | Females | | | (England and Wales). | per cent.| per cent.| +---------------+----------------------+----------+----------+ | 1877-1881 | 1071 | 69 | 31 | | 1882-1886 | 1320 | 66 | 34 | | 1887-1891 | 1710 | 64 | 36 | | 1892-1896 | 2044 | 61 | 39 | | 1897-1899 | 2577 | 61 | 39 | | 1899 | 2871 | 60 | 40 | +---------------+----------------------+----------+----------+

For the ten years ending 1904, out of 26,426 deaths from alcoholism, 59.34% were males and 40.66% females.

The figures are certainly striking. They show, it will be noticed, that out of every 100 deaths from alcoholic excess in England and Wales women contributed nine more at the end of the century then they did in 1880. If, instead of taking the total number of deaths, we take the ratio per million persons living, the increase is seen even more clearly:--

+------------------+----------------+----------------+ | Years. | Males per | Females per | | | million living.| million living.| +------------------+----------------+----------------+ | 1877-1881 | 60 | 25 | | 1882-1886 | 67 | 32 | | 1887-1891 | 79 | 42 | | 1892-1896 | 86 | 51 | | 1897-1899 | 103 | 63 | | 1899 | 112 | 70 | +------------------+----------------+----------------+

It appears that, while the ratio of mortality from alcoholic excess increased 87% among males during the last two decades of the century, among females it increased by no less than 180%.