II.—AS POET
The "bagage littéraire" of James VI is but slight, and if the profound indifference of all and the absolute ignorance of most as to its very existence be taken as representing a fair estimate of its merit it must in truth be worthless. But if, on the other hand, we consult his contemporaries we must, unless we are prepared to dismiss them all as more shamelessly fulsome in their adulation than the average of courtly flatterers, at least recognize the possibility of his having been a little better than posterity has been taught to believe. Long before James VI became James I his reputation as a poet had reached England, and helped to swell the chorus of welcome that greeted him on his arrival. In 1598 Barnfield made the King's love of poetry the point of one of his sonnets:—
And you, that discommend sweet Poesie, (So that the Subject of the same be good) Here may you see your fond simplicitie, Sith Kings have favored it, of royal Blood. The King of Scots—now living—is a poet, As his "Lepanto" and his "Furies" show it.[251]
Before this, Harvey in his Pierce's Supererogation, had already proclaimed the poetical merit of "Lepanto", declaring it, in his high-flown style, to be "a short, but heroicall worke, in meeter, but royall meeter, fitt for a David's harpe".[252] Two years later the judgment of Vaughan was that "James is a notable Poet, and daily setteth out most learned poems, to the admiration of all his subjects".[253] In 1600 Allott gave ten quotations from James in his England's Parnassus, and Bodenham claims that in "The Garden of the Muses", from "what workes of Poetrie have been put to the world's eye by that learned and right royall King and Poet, James King of Scotland, no one sentence of worth has escaped".[254] After the accession to the English throne, Jonson addressed "To King James" an epigram of ten lines, in which he expanded the idea of the monarch's excellence as both prince and poet:—
"How, best of kings, dost thou a scepter bear? How, best of poets, dost thou the 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?"[255]
And Sir John Beaumont, in a carefully polished poem written before, but published after James's death, and entitled "To His late Maiesty, concerning the True Forme of English Poetry", bestowed upon him the more subtle flattery of calling him the Master whose "judicious rules" have been his guide.[256] Here the reference is to James, not only as a poet but as a critic also. For one of his early prose treatises was entitled Reulis and Cautelis to be Observit and Eschewit in Scottis Poesie. This was the manifesto of a group of poets, amongst whom were, in addition to the King himself, Alexander Montgomerie, the author of The Cherry and the Slae; Fowler, and the Hudsons, and whose aim was to found a school of Scottish poetry. This document contained a passage which is interesting enough to be quoted. Setting forth the "twa caussis" that have induced him to compose his treatise, the Royal lawgiver of Parnassus says: "The ane is; as for thame that wrait of auld, lyke as the tyme is changeit sinsyne, so is the ordour of poesie changeit. The other cause is; that as for thame that has written in it of late, there has never ane of thame written in our (Scottis) languag. For albeit sindrie hes written of it in English, quhilk is lykest to our language, zit we differ from thame in sindrie reulis of poesie, as ze will find be experience."[257] And we believe there are Scotsmen who will account it to James for righteousness that he at least made an attempt, abortive though it proved, to maintain Scotland's autonomy in language and in poetry.
In forming an estimate of the King's poetical productions, it is but fair to bear in mind that "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 that "the greater portion of them were composed either before the publication of the first volume of his poems in his nineteenth year or in the time of romantic enthusiasm excited by his marriage".[258] We have "The First Verses that ever the King Made". They are written in a sententious vein which might be looked upon as characteristic of the author, were it not that this special feature "is one of the commonest in Scottish poetry of the Chaucerian tradition". And if, on the one hand, it cannot be claimed for them that they bear evidence of exceptional talent, on the other it must be admitted that, as the production of a lad of fifteen, they were quite creditable:—
Since thought is free, thinke what thow will, O troubled heart, to ease thy paine! Thought unreveeled can doe no ill, But words past out turne not again. Be cairfull, ay, for to invent The way to gett thyne owne intent.
To play thyself with thy conceate, And lett none know what thow doth meane; Hope ay at last, though it be lait, To thy intent for to atteane: Whiles, lett it breake furth in effect, By ay lett witt thy will correct.
Since fool-haste is not greatest speed, I would thou shouldest learne to know How to make vertue of a need, Since that necessitie hath no law. With patience, then, see thow attend, And hope to vanquishe in the end.[259]