Note 497 — Chapter XXII

I concur in this with Mr. Campbell, iv., 343. Mr. Southey thinks Drummond “has deserved the high reputation he has obtained;” which seems to say the same thing, but is, in fact, different. He observes that Drummond “frequently borrows and sometimes translates from the Italian and Spanish poets.” Southey’s British Poets, p. 798. The furious invective of Gifford against Drummond, for having written private memoranda of his conversations with Ben Jonson, which he did not publish, and which, for aught we know, were perfectly faithful, is absurd. Anyone else would have been thankful for so much literary anecdote.