New Poems by James I/Poets in the English Court, 1603-1625
VI
POETS IN THE ENGLISH COURT, 1603-1625
"He leades the lawlesse poets of our times,
To smoother cadence, to exacter rimes."
—Sir John Beaumont, To the Glorious
Of the two writers considered in the preceding chapter, Barclay held the rank of a groom of the privy chamber, and Donne, according to Walton, was one of the King's chaplains-in-ordinary. In general, patronage during the reign — aside from small gifts for dedications — was distributed in this way, either by means of a pension or a place in one of the households into which the court was divided. The royal family lived much apart; the establishments of the King and the Queen, of Prince Henry (prior to his death, November 6, 1612), and of Prince Charles (after his creation, November 4, 1616), were distinct from each other, and separate accounts were kept of wages, fees, annuities, and similar disbursals. A pension or even a nominal position in one of the households meant that the holder, if he were a man of letters, would regard its head as his special patron, to whom tribute in the form of verse or dedication might properly be directed, and would be in a kind of family relationship with others in the same service.
THE COURT OF PRINCE HENRY
Prince Henry's household was established immediately after his arrival from Scotland, and before the end of 1603 numbered one hundred forty-one members, fifty-six above stairs and eighty-five below.[1] At its head was Sir Thomas Chaloner, formerly an English agent abroad, and in Scotland during the winter preceding the death of Elizabeth. He was a gentleman of scholarly parts, author of one of the elegies in Sylvester's Lachrymæ Lachrymarum on the death of Henry, and in his later years interested especially in scientific studies. Adam Newton, the Prince's tutor, acted as secretary; and Sir David Murray, who like others of his kindred seems to have possessed both practical and poetical talents, was groom of the stole and keeper of the privy purse.
It was the King's wish, expressed to Chaloner when he first signed his book, that "the forme of the Prince's house should rather imitate a colledge then a court,"[2] by which he must have meant that it should be given to scholarly pursuits and composed in part of students and men of culture. To this policy may be due in some measure his son's reputation as a friend of the arts, though as he grew older the Prince himself showed the benefits of his excellent training by a personal interest in literature and by the expenditure of large sums for books and pictures.
Another reason for the modern favorable opinion of the Prince in this respect is the preservation of a detailed record of all his gifts, purchases, and other expenditures during the last four years of his life. These are contained in two account books of Sir David Murray, one among the Declared Accounts, Pipe Office, Roll 2794, and the other among the Exchequer Accounts, Bundle 433, No. 8. The first of these, entitled "The Accompte of the Money Expended by Sir David Murray Kt Keaper of the Privie Purse to the late Noble Prynce Henry, Prynce of Wales, from the first of October 1610 to the sixth of November 1612 (the daye of the decease of the said Prynce) as lykewise for certaine paymentes made after the deathe of the saide Prynce in the monethes of November and December 1612," is given I think completely, though with changes in the order and errors in the amounts of the payments, in Cunningham's Extracts from the Accounts of the Revels at Court.[3] It is a pleasant and illuminating record of the Prince's pastimes and studies, his expenditures for jewels, horses, plays, tiltings, books and paintings, "guyftes and rewardes." The chief items of literary interest are gifts of 30 to "Mr. Owen the latyne poett," of 10 to "Mr. Coryatt," and pensions to "Mr. Silvester at xx li. per ann. [for two years] . . . xl li.," and to "Mr. Drayton a poett for one yeare . . . x li."[4] It need not cause surprise that the payments for tennis balls were over three times as great as the sums spent in support of literature ; it might be shown that the expenditures of his royal father for his "privie buckehoundes " during any one year would have kept alive all the worthy poets in London for the same length of time.
The second of Murray's books, preserved among the Exchequer Accounts, bears the heading, "The Accounts of Sir David Murray, Master of the Robes to Prince Henry, from June 24, 1608 - September 29, 1609." So far as the writer is aware, no extracts from this have been printed. It has a special value, since, with the account printed by Cunningham, it is the fullest record of the patronage of any member of the royal family. One may infer from it that, if we had Sir John Murray's records of the King's privy purse, we should find frequent payments to scholars and needy poets. The following extracts are the only ones in any way connected with books or writers:—
July 13, 1608. To one who presented a booke to his highnes contayning all the walkes and parkes of Windsor |
5 li. |
August 26, 1608. To one who presented two bookes to his highnes |
li.10 s. |
October 10, 1608. To Mr. Browne 1 for a booke
. given to his highnes 5 li.
October 25, 1608. To a poor scholer with a booke to
his highnes 3 li.
December 28, 1608. To Mr. Silvester yearlie be his
highnes comand 20 li.
January 3, 1608 (09). To Mr. Daniell 2 be comand 7 li. January 5, 1608 (09). To one Mr. Cotton . . . January n, 1608 (09). To Mr. Hall's 3 man with a 10 li.
booke to his highnes i li.
January 16, 1608 (09). To the Schoolmaster of
Sant Martins who presented the Kings book in
emblems and pictures, to his highnes ... 5 li. February i, 1608 (09). For the great Spanish bible
at his highnes command 20 li.
February 2, 1608 (09). To Sir Thomas Pavies man
with bookes to his highnes i li. 10 s.
April 27, 1609. To a Duchman 4 that presented a
book of the law dedicated to his highnes . . . 5 li. June 14, 1609. To Daniell the Italian by command i li. 10 s. July 7, 1609. To the Bishop of Chichesters 5 man
with a booke to his highnes i li.
1 This could hardly have been William Browne the poet, who, according to the accepted date of his birth, was at this time not over eighteen. The first part of his Britannia's Pastorals, however, seems to have been written before he was twenty. His elegy on the death of Henry was published, with another by Christopher Brooke, in 1613.
2 Cf . p. Ixxv.
8 Joseph Hall, Dean of Gloucester (1617) and Bishop of Exeter (1627), was Henry's favorite chaplain. His Epistles (1608) were dedicated to the Prince, and contain letters to Chaloner, Newton, and Murray. His Char- acters of Vertues and Vices, dedicated to Lords Denny and Hay, appeared in the same year.
4 Paul Buys's (Busius) commentary on the Pandects was dedicated to the Prince and sent to him with a letter dated April n, 1609. (Birch, Life of Henry, p. 158.)
6 Launcelot Andrewes. His Tortura torli: sive; Ad Matthcei Torti Librum Responsio, in answer to Cardinal Bellarmine's attack on James's Apologie, appeared in this year. July 23, 1609. To Mr. Cheek for a booke of Emblems 1 .............. 3 li.
Of the gifts and pensions bestowed in the years 1610-1612 the only one which appears in this earlier record is Syl- vester's, the payment of which indicates that it ran over the year 1608. It is probable, however, that it was granted still earlier, as a reward, perhaps, for the collected edition of his translations from Du Bartas, which appeared in 1605-1607 with a remarkable apparatus of dedicatory sonnets in English, French and Itj^an, a chorus of the muses, and a series of cones, pillars ^and other geometrical forms of poetry in honor of the King. 2 After Henry's death, Sylvester published his Lachrima Lachrymarum (1612), entered in the Stationers' Register as "A Viall of house- hold teares ... by his highnes fyrst worst Poett and pensioner," 3 and containing in the third edition elegies by Donne, 4 Sir W. Cornwallis, Joseph Hall, Sir Edw. Herbert, Sir Henry Goodyer, Geo. Gerard, S. T. C. (Sir Thomas Chaloner), Henry Burton (Clerk of the Closet), and other members of a literary group which was composed in part of gentlemen of the Prince's household. To the Princess
This may have been a MS. copy of a book entitled Anagrammata et Chron-Anagrammata regia, nunc primum in hâc formâ in lucem emissa, Lon- don, 1613. The author was William Cheeke, who took the degree of B.A. from Oxford in 1595. (D. N. B.)
2 The opening of his translation of the Furies has a characteristic reference to the King's earlier version :
"... But yer we pass, our slender Bark Must here strike top-sails to a Princely Ark Which keeps these Straights : Hee hails us threatf ully, Star-board our helm ; come underneath his Lee.
Vouchsafe to togh us at your Royall Stern."
3 Arber's Transcripts, Vol. Ill, p. 230.
4 An earlier evidence of Donne's connection with this circle is given by the verses he contributed to Coryat's Crudities (1611). Coryat had been in the household and dedicated his volume to the Prince, who was in the joke of the mock-laudatory poems, and insisted on their publication. Donne also sent Prince Henry a copy of The Pseudo-Martyr, accompanied by a letter which is still preserved (MSS. of Marquis of Bath, Hist. MSS. Comm. Re- ports, III, p. 196). Elizabeth Sylvester later dedicated his Little Bartas (1614), and to Prince Charles The Parliament of Vertues Royall (1614-1615) and Maiden's Blush (1620). The dedicatory sonnet of the 1614-1615 poem ends with the following picturesque appeal:
"You you alone (Great Prince) with Pities Grace,
Have held my Chin above the Waters brinke :
Hold still, alas ! hold stronger or I sinke,
Or haile me up into som safer place,
Som Privie Groom, som Room within your doores
That, as my Heart, my Harpe may all be yours."
Peacham's assertion that Sylvester received "little or no reward, either for his paines or dedications,"[5] if true at all, can be true only of this later period ; the poet at least did not fail for lack of perseverance.
There is no reference to the poet George Chapman in either of the accounts, a fact which serves to illustrate the incompleteness of the data they furnish. In a letter of appeal written to the King in 1613, Chapman states that "serving above nine yeares the late Prince Henry in place of a sewer in ordinary," he had been "put from his place under Prince Charles." He adds that having "four years attended the late Prince, he was commanded to continue his Homer," the 1609 and 1611 editions of which are dedicated to Henry. Chapman's name should thus be joined to those of Coryat, Sylvester, Owen, Lydyat, Hall, Drayton, and Daniel in the list of unequal but not unrepresentative Jacobean men of letters who were under the Prince's patronage.[6]
THE COURT OF QUEEN ANNE
For the patronage of the Queen, evidence similar to that in Murray's records is supplied by a document with the heading, Accounts of the Queen's Household April-Jan. 1615 [16], the only one with details of this kind which the writer has found among the household accounts of James and Anne. Though it covers a period of less than a year, this gives a good idea of the character of the Queen's expenditures and the nature of her tastes. It is clear that she took especial pleasure in small charities, and her devotion to music is shown not only by the large yearly wages of the members of her French orchestra, but by daily gifts to strolling singers and musicians of every description. The following are the only items of literary significance:—
Baltassar Nardi, 1 Italian poett for so much paid and given unto him by warrant signed by her highnes dated at Greenwch the xxiiith of November 1615 . . . . xxx li.
Ellis Worth, one of her Mate plaiers for so much paid unto him in the behalfe of himselfe and the rest of his fellowes of that companie for one plaie acted before her Matie Queenes Court the xvii th of December 1615. By warrant . . . viith of Januarie, 1615 2 x li.
John Heminge one of the Kinge Ma te plaiers for as much paid unto him in the behalfe of himselfe and the rest of his fellowes of that companie for one plaie acted before her Matie at Queenes Court on St Thomas daye at night being the xxith of December 1615. By warrant . . . xxii th of Januarie 1615 [16] ........ ; . ... x li.
John Florio 3 one of the groomes of the Privie Chamber to her Ma tie for so much paid unto him and allowed for money by him disbursed for diverse necessaries for her Ma tie [Nov. i, 1614 Nov. i, 1615, in all] . . . . vii li. v s.
Nardi was a theologian as well as poet, and author of a defense of Roman supremacy, Expunctiones locorum falsorum de papatu romano, Paris, 1616, in refutation of the writings of Marcantonio de Dominis, Bishop of Spalato (Tiraboschi, Storia detta Letteratura Italiana, 1780, p. 79). The latter was also in England, and was rewarded for his desertion of the Roman church by the Deanery of Windsor (Docquets, June, 1619) and the Mastership of the Savoy. The patronage extended to the two writers illustrates the divergence between the Queen and King in matters of religion.
Neither this nor the following performance is recorded in the lists of Fleay or Murray (English Dramatic Companies).
After the Queen's death Florio was granted a pension of £100 (Cal. S. P. Dom. January 21, 1620). John Florio Groome of the privie chamber to her Ma tie for his Annuitie or pension at c li. and for one whole yeare ended at Michmas 1615 aforesaid and here allowed and paid by virtue of her Ma ties 1'res patente hereof to him made dated at Whitehall the v th of August Anno sixo Re. Ja- cobi c li.
Samuell Daniell Groome of the said privie chamber to her Ma tie as well for his wages at xiii li. vi s. viii d. p. anno as for his liverie at vi li. xiii s. iiii d. p. anno due for one whole yeare ended at Michas 1615 aforesaid, w th xl li. of increase and here allowed and paid as well according to the orders and directions before mentioned as also by a warrant signed by her highnes and dated the day of [blank] . . . Ix li.
Sir Robert Aiton knight her Ma te Secretarie and Maister of Requeste for his wages at c li. p. anno for one whole yeare ended at Michmas 1615 c li.
Aytoun, who had written Latin verses on the King's accession, and carried the Premonition abroad in 1609, was the successor of Sir William Fowler as the Queen's secretary. He held the post from October 20, I6I2, 1 until the Queen's death, and afterward received a pension of 500 2 and under Charles the same position in the household of Henrietta Maria.
The service of the poet Daniel under Queen Anne was of longer duration, extending from the time of her arrival in England until her death. His name first appears in this connection in a license, dated January 31, 1604, to Edward Kirkham and others to train up a company "to be called Children of the Revelle to the Queen," in which it is stipu- lated that no plays be "presented by them before the Queen or publicly acted but by the allowance of Samuell Daniel, whom her Ma ties pleasure is to appoint for that purpose." 3 As early as 1607 he was in possession of his place as a groom
Deputy Keeper's Reports, II, p. 79.
2 "... in consideration of his service to his Matie and the late Queen Anne." Docquets (Cal. S. P. Dom., July, 1620).
1 Devon, Issues of the Exchequer in the Reign of James I, 1836. of the Queen's chamber, with the annual fee of 60. Among his pieces written for the Queen are the masque entitled The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, presented January 8, 1603 ; The Queen's Arcadia, presented at Oxford, August 30, 1605, before the King and Queen; Tethys Festival, June 5, 1610; and Hymen's Triumph, February 3, 1614, before the King by the Queen's Court at the marriage of Lord Roxburghe. In the Accounts, Daniel is the only groom with an increase in addition to his regular wage, and almost the only one who receives no reimbursement for payments made in behalf of his mistress. Apparently, therefore, his position was nominal and did not require constant attendance. It is significant that his name appears, as it is here given, just after that of his friend Florio.
At this point it is necessary to return to two items in Murray's accounts of the Prince's household, one January 3, 1609, "To Mr. Daniell ... 7 li.," and the other June 14, 1609, "To Daniell the Italian . . . i li. 10 s." The first of these undoubtedly refers either to the poet or to his brother, John Daniel, the musician, who was later master of the Queen's choir boys of Bristol.[7] 1 The second might be passed over as insignificant, especially since there are numerous similar payments to poor scholars, artists of all kinds and degrees, and in one case to "an Italian jugler," were there not other evidence of considerable weight to connect it with the poet.
In the first place, there is his close friendship with the Italian language-master John Florio. Two of his sonnets written for Florio's works are addressed "To my deare friend ..." and a third "To my deare friend and brother. . . ." Florio, it will be recalled, was the son of a Florentine Protestant who came to England shortly before the reign of Edward VI. The term "brother" no doubt refers merely to their fellowship in the Queen's service; but it seems likely that the poet helped Florio into this service, and that their friendship was the result of family intimacy and common race.
Other of Daniel's friends were Italians. In Wright's Elizabeth and her Times (Vol. II, p. 315), we hear of a Samuel Daniel abroad and in the company of an Italian doctor, Julio Marino. His Description of Beauty translated out of Marino can hardly be connected with the doctor, since the poet's given name was Giambattista, but it serves to illustrate Daniel's knowledge of Italian and interest in Italian literature. That he travelled in Italy in his youth is shown by the headings of two sonnets in the Delia sequence, "At the Author's going into Italie" (sonnet LII), and "This Sonnet was made at the Author's beeing in Italie" (sonnet LI). His first published work, entitled Imprese, was a translation of a Latin tract on crests and seals by the contemporary Italian historian, Paulus Jovius. His friendship with the poet Guarini is indicated by the following sonnet addressed to Sir Edward Dimmock, Daniel's first patron, on an English translation of Guarini's Il Pastor Fido:—
"I do rejoyce learned and worthy Knight,
That by the hand of thy kinde Country-man
(This painfull and industrious Gentleman)
Thy deare esteem'd Guarini comes to light;
Who in thy love I know tooke great delight
As thou in his, who now in English can
Speake as good English as Italian,
And here enjoyes the grace of his owne right.
Though I remember he hath oft imbas'd
Unto us both the vertues of the North,
Saying our costes were with no measures grac'd,
Nor barbarous tongues could any verse bring forth.
I would he sawe his owne, or knew our store,
Whose spirits can yield as much, and if not more."[8]
Lines 9-12 of the sonnet refer clearly to conversation with Guarini, and apparently to a personal friendship. Furthermore, though "our costes" in line n means England, it seems very unlikely that "thy kinde Country-man" in the second line would have been written by one who had every reason to consider the English translator quite as much his own countryman as Dimmock's.
Sidney or a dozen other Elizabethans might be proved Italians by such evidence as this. But it should be remembered that Daniel's brother and perhaps his father were musicians in an age when most musicians were foreigners; Ferrebosco, Bassano, Lupo, and others were all Italians. The name Daniel, or Daniell, should cause no difficulty, since it was borne by the Italian mentioned in the payment, and since it differs but slightly from the Italian forms Daniele, Danielli, or Danielle.
In short, the value of the evidence depends on its cumulative effect. We have a payment to an Italian named Daniel from the same source and not long after a payment to the poet; we know that the latter came of a family of musicians, that he traveled in Italy, translated from Italian writers, spoke the language, and had as his best friend a man of the same stock. In the absence of exact information regarding his birth and parentage, these seem sufficient reasons for assuming that the styh'stic purity of "well-languaged" Daniel was that of a writer for whom English was not strictly the mother tongue.
If this be true, it may help to explain the statement of a German traveler in England in 1615 that the Queen's household, with the exception of the secretary and comptroller, was largely French and Italian.[9] The motive for such a choice of servants would be her half open acceptance of the Catholic faith. Daniel himself, according to Wood, was "in animo catholicus."
THE COURT OF KING JAMES
During his reign in England, as has already been pointed out, James took no very active interest in poetry, being content, apparently, that his reputation should rest on the accomplishments of bis greener years. He and Alexander still at times pottered with the psalms, but, aside from these, only two or three fragments of his verse are of a later date than 1603. Even the collection of poems now printed, though perhaps intended for publication at the same time as the folio volume of his prose, does not seem to have been generally known during his life.
Obviously, therefore, whatever influence the King may have had on the trend of English poetry was not by direct example, but by the effect of his personal likes and dislikes on the taste of the court and on the work of writers whose verse was intended partly to meet his approval. It would of course be absurd to attribute to any single influence, and in particular to an influence so limited as that of the King, fashions so widespread as those of the so-called "metaphysical school," which prevailed during his reign; and, as will appear, though his verse and prose have some of the defects of this school, his later views were distinctly opposed to its subtlety of thought and rough obscurity of style. But on the other hand, the opposite tendency, toward more familiar themes and a more conventional treatment of metre and diction, shown especially in a preference for the closed and regular or 'classical' pentameter couplet, developed chiefly among a group of court poets, who catered to a small body of courtly readers and who would have special reason to make their verse conform to the tastes of royalty. A priori, at least, there is nothing unreasonable in the postulate that in the reign of James, as in France during the same period[10] and later in England during the Restoration, the taste of King and court had a definite and marked influence on contemporary literature.
Among English poets who sought court favor, Ben Jonson's way was made easy by his Scottish extraction, scholarship, and a bluff joviality of disposition, not by any means above gross flattery. His five years spent in the household of d'Aubigny, the King's cousin, may be considered a sign of this favor, as well as the pension of one hundred marks (100 after 1630) and the tierce of canary which he received from 1616 until his death. The story that the King would have knighted the poet, had the latter been willing,[11] has every mark of probability in its favor. Jonson's duties as deviser of masques must have required frequent attendance at court and on royal progresses ; and if the King retained as lively an interest in these entertainments as he had formerly shown in Scotland, he would have been eager to discuss and plan them with his poet laureate.
Casual remarks of the latter recorded in Drummond's Conversations suggest such intercourse, though no great respect on the part of the poet for the opinions of his sovereign. On one occasion, according to Jonson, the King expressed the view that "Sir P. Sidney was no poet. Neither did he see ever any verses in England equal to the scullor's [Taylor the Water Poet]."[12] The natural inference from this is that James was no critic, but it may well be rather that the remark was not intended seriously or that Jonson was a malicious reporter. There is abundant evidence that Sidney was the one English poet of the preceding generation to whom the King felt free to pay tribute. Spenser's treatment of Mary and her son in The Faërie Queene made him impossible, and who else was there to set over against Ronsard and Du Bartas and the long line of Italian poets? According to Henry Leigh's report of an interview with James, September, 1599, the latter "comended Sir Philip Sydney for the best and swetest wryter that ever he knewe surely it seemeth he loved him muche."[13] It is noteworthy in this connection that Drummond pronounced Spenser's Amoretti "childish," but considered Sidney's Arcadia "the most excellent work that, in my Judgement, hath been written in any language that I understand."[14]
On another occasion, Ben told the King plainly that "his master, M. G. Buchanan, had corrupted his eare when young, and learned him to sing verses when he should have read them."[15] One may infer that there had been a discussion of the old question as to whether verse stands by metre or sense, in which the King's position was not so ill-taken as in his remarks on English writers. One of Jonson's epigrams, To King James (No. IV), plays on the familiar theme of his excellence as prince and poet:
"How, best of kings, dost thou a scepter bear ?
How, best of poets, dost thou laurel wear ?
But two things rare the Fates had in their store,
And gave thee both, to show they could no more.
For such a poet, while thy days were green,
Thou wert, as chief of them are said t' have been.
And such a prince thou art, we daily see,
As chief of those still promise they will be.
Whom should my muse then fly to, but the best
Of kings, for grace; of poets, for my test."
Tribute of this sort may be discounted; but it is more significant that the copy of the Poeticall Exercises at vacant houres which Gillies used in preparing his reprint contained the inscription,—
"Tanquam Explorator.
Ben. Jonson."
—and numerous corrections of spelling in the handwriting of the poet.[16] "I am arrived safely," wrote Jonson to Drummond (May 10, 1619) on his return from Scotland, "with a most Catholick Welcome, and my Reports not unacceptable to His Majesty: He professed (I thank God) some Joy to see me, and is pleased to hear of the Purpose of my Book."[17] This last was no doubt the
"... journey into Scotland sung,
With all the adventures,[18]
which was destroyed by fire with other of his manuscripts. On Drummond's verses his critic in the Conversations passed the general censure that "They were all good, especially my 'Epitaph of the Prince,' save that they smelled too much of the schools . . . yett that he wished for pleasing the King, that Piece of Forth Feasting had been his own."[19] The last remark has a twofold significance, since while it illustrates, with the ones preceding, the regard attached to the good opinion of the King, it suggests also the kind of poem which might be expected to win it. Forth Feasting, written for the King's return to Edinburgh, is not more grossly flattering than a hundred others, and is a model of smoothly flowing, neatly confined couplets.
Flattery somewhat more subtle than Jonson's, and additional evidence that the King's verse and criticism had some circulation in England, is contained in a poem by Sir John Beaumont, consisting of sixty-six carefully polished lines To his late Maiesty, concerning the True Forme of English Poetry.[20] The piece need not be considered insincere, since the views expressed are in accord with the author's practice in his early and later verse, but it is clear, nevertheless, that he had just been reading the Reulis and cautelis, and sought to echo in his tribute the opinions there set forth. His source is referred to in the tenth line,
"When your judicious rules have been my guide,"
— and is evident enough in his vague allusions to "colors" and "flowing," with which in the sense of rhyme and metre he was perhaps unfamiliar. The following are the more important parallels:—
R. and C., Chap. I. "That you "keip just cullouris"; i.e. avoid rhyming with the same word, rhyme on the accented syllable and from there to the end, and avoid rhymes of three or even two syllables, the last of which are "eatin in the pronounceing." Beaumont repeats this idea, but appears uncertain about the meaning of the word "cullouris":
"Vouchsafe to be our Master, and to teach Your English poets to direct their lines, To mixe their colours, and expresse their signes."
—ll. 4-6. -
"Our Saxon shortness hath peculiar grace, In choice of words, fit for the ending place,
These must not be with disproportion lame, Nor should an eccho still repeate the same."
—ll. 39-44.
Chap. II. That 'y u keep "the flowing"; i.e. avoid variant feet and other irregularities. This must have suggested :
"When verses like a milky torrent flow, They equall temper in the poet show."
—ll. 13-14.
"On halting feet the ragged poem goes With^accents, neither fitting verse nor prose."
—ll. 23-24.
Chap. III. Avoid padding, and "frame your wordis and sentencis according to the mater." A passage of similar import occurs in the Basilikon Doron, where the Prince is warned against "book-language and pen and ink-horn termis, and least of all mignard and effeminate termis." Further: "If ye would write worthily choose subjects worthy of you, that be not full of vanity but of virtue, eschewing obscurity, and delighting ever to be plain and sensible. And if ye writis in Verse, remember that it is not the principal part of a poem to rime right and flow well with many pretty wordis, but the chief commendation of a poem is, that when the verse shall be shaken sundrie in prose, it shall be found so rich in quicke inventions, and poetick flowers, and in faire and pertinent comparisons, as it shall retaine the lustre of a Poem, although in prose." Compare with this the following lines from Beaumont:
'Pure phrase, fit epithet, a sober care
Of metaphors, descriptions cleare, yet rare, Similitudes contracted smooth and round, Not vext by learning, but with nature crown'd."
11. 51-54.
"To easie use of that peculiar gift, Which poets in their raptures hold most deare, When actions by their lively sound appeare."
11. 60-62
"For though in termes of art their skill they close, And joy in darksome words as well as those : They yet have perfect sense more pure and cleare Than envious Muses, which sad garlands weare Of dusky clouds, their strange conceits to hide."
11. 27-31.
After the third chapter, James has four shorter ones on comparisons and ornaments, and ends with an interesting list of "the kyndis of versis." It is notable that while he condemns the pentameter couplet as "ryme quhilk servis onely for lang histories, and yet are nocht verse," Beaumont considers it the best of metres and in his published verse
uses it almost exclusively : "The relish of the Muse consists in rime,
One verse must meete another like a chime.
In many changes these may be exprest :
But those that joyne most simply, run the best."
—ll. 37-49.
In his practice, the poet conforms to these conservative precepts by the avoidance of the metrical irregularities and to a lesser extent of the conceitfulness of his fellow-poets. "No one, indeed," says Mr. Gosse, " was in 1602 writing the heroic couplet so 'correctly' as the author of the Metamorphosis [of Tobacco]"[21] l This early piece was published anonymously, but there is little doubt of Beaumont's authorship.
It has, I think, not been pointed out that his historical poem entitled Bosworth Field, his lost Crown of Thorns,[22] all of his so-called "Royal and Courtly Poems," in short, the greater number of the pieces gathered together in the first (posthumous) edition of 1629, were written much later, dur- ing the closing years of James's reign, when the good will of his kinsman George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, drew him out of his long retirement and led him to seek favor at court with his pen :
"My Muse, which tooke from you her life and light Sate like a weary wretch, whome suddaine night
1
2 Had overspred: your absence casting downe
The flow'rs and Sirens' feathers from her crowne;
Your favour first th' anointed head inclines
To heare my rurall songs and reade my lines:
Your voyce, my reede with lofty musick reares
To offer trembling songs to princely eares."[23]
Buckingham's mother (created Countess of Buckingham in 1618) was of the Beaumonts of Cole-Orton, and thus connected with the family of the poet. The latter, though Grosart speaks of his Puritanism, was in point of fact a Catholic,[24] and it is likely, therefore, that his retirement on his estate at Gracedieu did not end much before 1618, when the whole court veered toward Catholicism in view of the approaching Spanish marriage. In February, 1617, Buckingham's mother changed her faith, and became, according to Wilson, "the cynosure that all the Papists steered by."
Beaumont's poems in these years were all of the courtly and occasional character which Waller later made popular, on such themes as the twentieth anniversary of James's reign (1623), his deliverance from a dangerous accident (January 8, 1622), his glorious memory, the Prince's journey and return, his marriage, etc. Bosworth Field is of the same period, since a dozen or more lines are devoted to praise of James and "hopefull Charles,"
"... born t'asswage
The winds that would disturb this golden age."
Of the favorable reception of these poems there can be little question. My Lord of Buckingham's Welcome to the King at Burley, written by Beaumont, was answered in verse by the King (App. II, VI, VII), and these in turn called forth Beaumont's sonnet Of his Majestie's Vow for the Felicity of My Lord Marquesse of Buckingham, in which, as in those of James, there are only five rhymes. The dates of his poems and the circumstances in which they were written are of considerable importance in connection with his claims as one of the early polishers of the couplet.
Whether Waller was at court in these years his biographers do not make clear; but it is thought that he sat, as a youth of sixteen, in the parliament of 1621, and it was at the close of either this parliament or that of 1624 that he went "either out of curiosity or respect, to see the King at dinner, with whom were Dr. Andrews, Bishop of Winchester, and Dr. Neal, Bishop of Durham, standing behind his Majesty's chair." His verses Of the Danger his Majesty (being Prince] Escaped in the Road at Saint Andrews refer to an event which occurred in 1623, but allusions to the French marriage make it possible that the poem was not written before 1625. It was at least not later than this year that he began his series of occasional pieces, addressed to royalty, on themes of current and courtly interest, and in a style which in the next generation was to gain general acceptance. This handsome, pliant-tempered, "brisk young spark" of twenty was scarcely the one to create a new fashion in poetry, though he would be among the first to adapt his muse to a manner which had received the proper sanction. It is doubtful, therefore, if one need seek even so far as the stanzas of Fairfax's Tasso for the models which guided him in his earliest verse.[25]
Aside from Jonson and Beaumont, the men of literary accomplishments who were in the King's immediate circle were for the most part Scotchmen, long in the service of the King, and with tastes and training similar to his own. To this group belong several members of the Murray family: Sir David, Prince Henry's master of the robes; Sir Thomas, tutor and secretary to Charles, and the predecessor of Wotton as Provost of Eton; John Murray, a gentleman of the King's privy chamber; and Sir Patrick Murray, also a member of the royal household. Their verse which has survived is of little interest, chiefly dedicatory sonnets and pieces in Latin, but Byron's line,
"And 'tis some praise in peers to write at all,"
— may be applied to courtiers of every rank. On the death of John Murray, April 17, 1615, Sir William Alexander was stirred to sing of him in terms of high praise:
"Mourn Muses, mourn, your greatest Gallant dies,
Who still in State did court your sacred Train;
Your Minion Murray, Albion's sweetest Swain."
The King commended these lines, but thought they gave Murray too much praise.[26]
Sir Robert Ker, remembered chiefly for his friendship with Donne and Jonson, was another of the King's familiars. In one of his letters to Drummond is A Sonnet in praise of a Solitary Life, written from "the very Bed-chamber, where I could not sleep"[27] presumably the king's chamber, since he was at this time one of his regular attendants. Another letter, April, 1624, is accompanied by ten verse paraphrases of the Psalms.[28]
These may have been written in connection with the paraphrase over which James occupied his spare moments before and after his coming to England. His chief collaborator, however, was Sir William Alexander (1567 ?-i646), who was created Earl of Stirling in 1633. Alexander began his career at Court as tutor and afterward gentleman of the chamber to Prince Henry. In 1614 he was appointed master of requests, and rose to high rank and responsibility in the courts of James and Charles. The correspondence which he kept up after 1614 with the poet Drummond in Scotland contains frequent references to his association with James in literary exercises. "I received your last Letter," he writes, April 18, 1620, "with the Psalm you sent, which I think very well done ; I had done the same, long before it came, but he [James] prefers his own to all else, tho' perchance, when you see it, you will think it the worst of the Three. No man must meddle with that Subject, and therefore I advise you to take no more Pains therein."[29] Opinions so frank as this Alexander probably did not express in the presence of majesty.
The paraphrase on which they were engaged seems to have been intended by James as a supplement to the King James version of the Bible an undertaking which (it may be noted) he had broached before the General Assembly at Burntisland as early as 1601. On coming to England, according to Spottiswoode, he "set the most learned divines of that church a-work for the translation of the Bible . . . but the revising of the Psalms he made his own labour, and . . . went through a number of them, commending the rest to a faithful and learned servant, who hath therein answered his M. expectation."[30]
Having obtained a privilege from Charles in 1627, Alex- ander published in that year and reissued in 1631 what purported to be King James's paraphrase, and another entirely different version in i636.[31] Neither of these is at all like the MS. paraphrase in the British Museum, which contains rough drafts in the King's hand (with fair copies in some cases) of Psalms 1-7, 9-21, 29, 47, 100, 125, 128, 133, 148, 150, Eccles. xii, the Lord's Prayer (cf. App. II, IX) and Deut. xxxii. The initials J. D. R. S. (Jacobus Dominus Rex Scotia?), frequently signed to the rough drafts, indicate that they were made before the King left Scotland. It is not impossible, therefore, that Alexander's first edition was based on a later paraphrase in which he and James collaborated; the royal recommendation opposite the title-page of the 1631 edition testifies explicitly to James's authorship.
Another of Alexander's letters, dated February 4, 1616, contains the King's sonnet Against the Could that was in January 1616, and his own verses suggested by it. The letter deals also with a literary discussion in which they had engaged: "The last Day being private with his Majesty, after other Things, we fortuned to discourse of English Poesy, and I told one Rule that he did like of exceedingly, which was this; That, to make a good Sound there must still be first a short Syllable, and then a long, which is not positively long of itself, but comparatively, when it followeth a shorter; so that one Syllable may be long in one Place and short in another, according as it is matched; for a Syllable seems short when it is as it were born down with a longer."[32]
With this comment on a point of prosody may be joined James's sonnet (XLVI) on Sir William Alexander's Harshe Verses after the Ingliche Fasone, the clearest expression of his distaste for the rough obscurity of the metaphysical poets:
". . . Although your neighbours have conspir'd to spill
That art which did the Laurel crowne obtaine
And borrowing from the raven there ragged quill
Bewray there harsh, hard trotting tumbling wayne
Such hamringe hard the metalls hard require
Our songs are fil'd with smoothly flowing fire."
This may have no definite reference, but it is in keeping with James's views elsewhere disclosed, and would be an appropriate condemnation of the unconventionally affected by Donne and his followers. In a letter to Arthur Johnston, one of the royal physicians, Drummond voices still more explicitly the views of the older school. The letter is undated, but Johnston was physician to James for some time before the latter's death. The writer speaks first of the eminence and permanence of poetry. "In vain," he continues, "have some Men of late, (Transformers of every Thing) consulted upon her reformation, and endeavoured to abstract her to Metaphysical Idea's, and Scholastical Quiddities, denuding her of her own Habits, and those Ornaments with which she hath amused the World some Thousand Years. Poesy is not a Thing that is yet in the finding and search, or which may be otherwise found out, being already condescended upon by all Nations, and as it were established jure Gentium, amongst Greeks, Romans, Italians, French, Spaniards. Neither do I think that a good Piece of Poesy, which Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Petrarch, Bartas, Ronsard, Boscan, Garcilasso, (if they were alive, and had that Language) could not understand, and reach the Sense of the Writer. . . . What is not like the Ancients and conform to those Rules which hath been agreed unto by all Times, may (indeed) be something like unto Poesy, but it is no more Poesy than a Monster is a Man."[33] This is probably the first use of the term metaphysical in connection with the group of poets to which it was afterward applied by Dryden, Pope, and Dr. Johnson. While the passage consists of traditional classical formulae, these for the writer were by no means dead or empty; and they express the attitude of himself and his friends as clearly as they anticipate the view of poetry which was to prevail during the next hundred and fifty years.
Though not in the court, Drummond was in close touch with it, and would voice its tastes so far as these were determined by the King and his household intimates. The verse of these writers, it is true, was in many ways different from that of Waller and the later school, especially in the absence of stereotyped epithet, smart antithesis, and a general air of urbanity. But conservatism is not innovation, and so far as the correctness of the later poets was a return to accepted tradition, it found sanction in the theory and practice of the court poets of the reign of James. Drummond, Jonson, and George Sandys have usually been considered as the immediate precursors of Waller, especially in the use of the confined or classical heroic couplet. Sandys, it will be remembered, was a gentleman of the chamber to Charles, and wrote a part of his translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses in the early twenties of the century. Waller also was about the court when the opposition to the school of conceits was gathering head.
All of this evidence is intended chiefly to support two conclusions: (1) that during James's reign there was a well-defined sentiment at court in favor of a smooth, clear style in poetry (and also in prose); (2) that the writers who anticipated the manner and matter of later classicism came directly under this influence. It need not be assumed that James himself was in any large way responsible for these changes, save as an instrument or as one who adopted and spread abroad the theories he had been trained to accept. But his place made his views very influential, while his natural gifts were not contemptible; and there is little in the so-called innovations of Waller which could not have been derived from the formal views of poetry held by the King, and put in practice, partly on this account, but chiefly through personal preference, by the poets with whom he was associated.
- ↑ T. Birch, Life of Henry Prince of Wales, London, 1760, p. 32. Its size increased rapidly, until at the Prince's creation in 1610 there were 426 in the household, 297 with wages and 129 without (Archeologia, Vol. XII, p. 8). Positions were often bartered and distributed without much regard for the wishes of Henry or his immediate guardians.
- ↑ An Account of the Revenues of . . . Prince Henry, Archeologia, Vol. XV, p. 22.
- ↑ Shakespeare Society, 1842, Introd., pp. vii-xviii.
- ↑ The continuance of the pensions to Sylvester and Drayton is recommended in a note at the end of the account.
- ↑ Truth of our Times, 1638 (Sylvester's Poems, ed. Grosart, Introd., p. xix).
- ↑ Athenæum, April, 1901, p. 433.
- ↑ "A license unto John Daniel to form a company of children to be called The Children of her Matie Royall Chamber of Bristol. . . ." — Docquets, June, 1615. Another license was granted to Daniel and others in May, 1622.
- ↑ Works, ed. Grosart, Vol. I, p. 263.
- ↑ Zur Geschichte Jacob I, Oppelin, 1857, p. 15.
- ↑ "L'ordre et la discipline, l'exacte probité que le roi s'efforçait d'introduire dans les affaires et dans les mœurs, Malherbe eut comme la mission de les faire, lui, introduire pour le premier fois dans 1'empire du caprice même, et de la fantasie (Brunetière, "La Reforme de Malherbe," Revue des Deux Mondes, December 1, 1892).
- ↑ Jonson's Works, ed. Cunningham, Introd., p. cxx.
- ↑ Ibid., Vol. IX, p. 398.
- ↑ Calendar of Border Papers, Vol. II, p. 649. Cf. also James's epitaph on Sidney (XXX), and note. The second edition of the Arcadia was published in Edinburgh in 1599.
- ↑ Works, ed. 1711, p. 161. For his borrowings from Sidney, cf. Kastner, Modern Language Review, January, 1911.
- ↑ Jonson's Works, Vol. IX, p. 407.
- ↑ Gillies, Preface, p. xviii.
- ↑ Drummond's Works, ed. 1711, p. 154.
- ↑ An Execration upon Vulcan, 11. 98-99.
- ↑ Drummond, p. 226.
- ↑ Poems, ed. Grosart, p. 118. The piece was of course written before the King's death, the title being added in the first edition of 1629.
- ↑ The Jacobean Poets, p. 107.
- ↑ This was dedicated to the Earl of Southampton, who was released from
imprisonment in 1621 and died in 1624. Cf. Beaumont's Elegy:
"He is a father to my crowne of thornes :
Now since his death how can I ever look,
Without some teares, upon that orphan booke?"The suggestion may be ventured that the poem had some connection with the King's Meditation on Matthew xxvii. 27-29, with sub-title A paterne for a Kings inauguration (1620), a lengthy sermon and application of the narrative of Christ's coronation by Pilate. A monarch, writes James, "must not expect a soft and easie croune, but a croune full of thornie cares yea of platted and intricate cares. . . ."
- ↑ To the Duke of Buckingham on his Return from Spain (1622).
- ↑ Cf. Col. S. P. Dom., November 14, 1607 : "Gift ... of the late dissolved monastery of Grace Dieu, and other lands in Leicester, in the hands of the Crown by the recusancy of John Beaumont."
- ↑ It is noteworthy that Fairfax also was given royal approval. James is said to have valued his Tasso above all other poetry (Jonson, Works, ed. Cunningham, Vol. IX, p. 366). The second edition of Fairfax (1624), which probably attracted Waller's attention,"was printed at the command of James, and was dedicated to Prince Charles.
- ↑ Drummond's Works, ed. 1711, p. 151.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 153.
- ↑ Arch. Scot., Vol. IV, p. 93.
- ↑ Drummond's Works, p. 151.
- ↑ History of the Church of Scotland, ed. 1847, Vol. III, p. 99.
- ↑ Bound up in 1637 with the Book of Common Prayer … for the Use of the Church of Scotland. The attempt to enforce the use of this service caused the Edinburgh Presbyterian Riot of July 23, 1637.
- ↑ Drummond's Works, p. 149. For the first part of the letter, cf . XL VII, note.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 143.