It seems to be the mission of many writers to illuminate contemporary literature and so to light the way for future students, rather than to make any vital contribution to the achievement of their time. Such writers reflect the culture of their own day and represent its ideals; and although their creative work may be slight, their loss to literature would be serious. Among these lesser men stands that sincere poet, Drummond of Hawthornden. In Scotland under the Stuarts, when the vital energy of the land was concentrated upon politics and theology, native literature was reduced to a mere reflection of the pre-Spenserian classicism of England. Into this waste of correct mediocrity entered the poetry of William Drummond, an avowed and enthusiastic follower of the Elizabethan school, a finished scholar, one of the typical Scottish gentlemen who were then making Scottish history. Courtier and trifler though he was, however, he showed himself so true a poet of nature that his felicities of phrase seem to anticipate the sensuous realism of Keats and his successors. William Drummond, born in 1585, was a cadet of the historic house which in 1357 gave in marriage to King Robert III. the beautiful Annabella Drummond, who was destined to become the ancestress of the royal Stuarts of Scotland and England. In his own day the family, whose head was the Earl of Perth, was powerful in Scottish affairs, and the history of the clan Drummond would be largely a history of the events which led to the Protectorate. Throughout the storm and stress that preceded the civil war Drummond was a loyalist, though at one time he appeared to be identified with the Covenanters. His literary influence, which was considerable, was always thrown on the side of the King, while the term "Drummondism" was a popular synonym for the conservative policy. Throughout the struggle, however, Drummond seems to have been forced into activity by circumstances rather than by choice. He had the instincts of a recluse and a scholar. He delighted in the society of literary men, and he was much engrossed in philosophical speculations.