A Cypress Grove Introd and Notes by Samuel Clegg

by William Drummond of Hawthornden

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

76 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1623

About the author

William Drummond of Hawthornden was a Scottish poet. He received his early education at the Royal High School of Edinburgh, and graduated in July 1605 as Magister Artium of the recently founded University of Edinburgh.

Drummond's first publication appeared in 1613, an elegy on the death of Henry, Prince of Wales, called Teares on the Death of Meliades. 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.

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Reviews

[Steve]

My ears picked up when I heard my good friends James Boswell and Samuel Johnson discuss William Drummond of Hawthornden’s Cypress Grove. Both were familiar with this prose volume and both had opinions for it. Certainly, I too must read this previously unknown Hawthornden to keep up pretenses. And so I now have.

Rather than relying on my words regarding this very short work, it’s best to let Boswell and Johnson have their say. In his Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, Boswell wrote:

I mentioned Hawthornden's Cypress Grove, where it is said that the world is a mere show; and that it is unreasonable for a man to wish to continue in the show-room, after he has seen it. Let him go cheerfully out, and give place to other spectators.

Johnson responded:

Yes, sir, if he is sure he is to be well, after he goes out of it. But if he is to grow blind after he goes out of the show-room, and never to see any thing again; or if he does not know whither he is to go next, a man will not go cheerfully out of a show-room. No wise man will be contented to die, if he thinks he is to go into a state of punishment. Nay, no wise man will be contented to die, if he thinks he is to fall into annihilation: for however unhappy any man's existence may be, he yet would rather have it, than not exist at all.

I’m in agreement with the learned Dr. Johnson. I would add an additional comment: Imagine in our rush for the afterlife we find a realm where we are in the perpetual company of folks we have spent the better part of a lifetime avoiding. Reason enough to live as long as possible and then to remain on life support with a backup generator, I suspect.

[Jacob]

Supermundane & sublime.