SOURCE: Sidney, Philip. Introduction to Conversations of Ben Jonson with William Drummond of Hawthornden, edited by Philip Sidney, pp. 1-9. London: Gay and Bird, 1900.

In the following excerpt, Sidney details the circumstances surrounding Drummond's meeting with Ben Jonson, which is recorded in Notes of Ben Jonson's Conversations with William Drummond of Hawthornden.

The Conversations of Ben Jonson with his brother poet, William Drummond, Laird of Hawthornden, are of an immense literary and historical value. From the notes recorded by Drummond of these Conversations we derive an insight into the characteristics of the majority of the most illustrious celebrities that flourished during the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. It is, in fact, impossible for either a student of the politics and the letters of that period, or for a would-be biographer of Ben Jonson, to acquire a satisfactory comprehension of his subject without reference to this information bequeathed...