IV
THE KING'S VERSE AND CRITICISM
"For such a poet, while thy days were green, Thou wert, as chief of them are said t' have been."
JONSON.
The discussion of the King's theory and practice of poetry is made appropriate at this point by the fact that most of his verse, as he remarks in the preface to the Exercises at vacant houres, was written in his "verie young and tender yeares : wherein nature, (except shee were a monster) can admit no perfection." All of his poems, save three or four sonnets and the revisions of his early paraphrases of the psalms, belong to the period of his reign in Scotland ; and the greater portion of them were composed either before the publication of the first volume of his poems in his nine- teenth year, or in the time of romantic enthusiasm excited by his marriage.
With this early verse should be connected the translations and sonnets of Montgomerie, Fowler, and the Hudsons, the whole representing an attempt, feeble indeed and abortive, to introduce new fashions of poetry into Scotland. In the little group which surrounded the King, there were frequent discussions of literary themes. Translations and para- phrases were planned and carried out. There were sym- posiums in which the excellence of the classical writers was considered, and the desirability of making it known to the "facound" wits of Scotland.[1]
- ↑ Cf. the quotation from Hudson, p. xxxv. Doubtless these dinner-table conversations were a development from the devotional reading which had accompanied his repasts from the time of his childhood. In an account of The Present State of Scotland, 1586 (Roy. Hist. Soc., Vol. II, p. 262), it is recorded that there was a "chapter of the bible read with some exposition after each meal."
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