The list of books he read up to this time is preserved in his own handwriting. It indicates a strong preference for imaginative literature, and shows that he was keenly interested in contemporary verse. His collection (now in the library of the University of Edinburgh) contains many first editions of the most famous productions of the age. On finding himself his own master, Drummond naturally abandoned law for the muses; "for," says his biographer in 1711, "the delicacy of his wit always run on the pleasantness and usefulness of history, and on the fame and softness of poetry". In 1612 began his correspondence with Sir William Alexander of Menstrie, afterwards Earl of Stirling, which ripened into a lifelong friendship after Drummond's visit to Menstrie in 1614.