The Douglas independent. [volume] (Roseburg, Or.) 187?-1885, 1879-09-06
King James !.


The first half of the seventeenth
century was an age of learned men
in England, and at the head of them
it may be appropriate to mention
King James I. He had received in
early life the best possible instruc-
ton from Buchanan and Others. He
WIS clumsy boy, with ungainliness
produced by physical defect, q
tongue too large for his mouth, and
t, o mind in which oil depths that that
there could ever be must be made
artificially. Good workmen dug and
shaped; the boy was good-tempered,
picked up some shrewdness, lived a
ereditable life, had respect for knowl-
edge, and . good appetite for it,
though bad digestion. He had d
pleasant type OF it before him in
CHEEKY, impressible Geo Buchanan;
o Presbyterian, austere but half way
through, with o face like Scotch
Socrates, although more apt than
Socrates to take offense, familiar
with Latin as with his native tongue,
full of anecdote and good talk, fa-
miliar also with languages and peo
pie round about. and liking Scotland
all the better for experience in other
lands. But for James, the horizon
did not widen as he climbed the hill
of knowledge, his heart did not swell
as he rose to higher sense of har.
mony and beauty; he hammered at
the big Jumps about him, and was
proud of being so far up. In 1885
when his age was only nineteen, be
| published at Edinburg "The Essayes
of Premise in the Divine Art o.
Poesie." In the preliminary sonnets
of compliment, the MUSES., though VA
rious courtly representations, sough,
| to
.'Tell how he doeth in tender years es
say
| Above his age with skill our arts t.
blaize,
Tell how he doeth with gratitude repa,
The crowns he won for his deserved
praise.
Tell how of Jove, of Mars, but more o
God,
The glorie of grace he hath proclaimed
| abrod."
/ The "Essayes" opened with twelv,
sonnets of invocation to the gods
namely: Jove, Apollo, each of tn,
four seasons, Neptune, Tritons ant
their kin, Pluto, Mars, Mercury, ane
finally, for the twelfth sonnet
I'm short, you all forenamed gods
For to concur with one accord AM
That all my works may perlyte be al
Which if ye doe, then swear for t.
My works immortal with your praise
still;
, I shall your names eternall ever sing,
shall tread downe the grasse on Par
mass hill
By making with your names the worl
to ring;
I shall your names from all oblivio
bring;
, I lofty Virgil shall to life restoir.'
, After these twelve sonnets of in
vocation the King placed transla
!, ton of "The Heavenly Muse" OF ID
. Bartas; then dim allegory, il
, Chaucer's stanza, "Ane Metaphorical
Invention of a Tragedie called Pho
Nix" with preface of eighteen ba,
! lines, arranged first as shaped verse
in the form of a lozenge upon a littl
pedestal, then as q compound acros
tic. Then followed a short bit o
translation out of the "Fifth Book o
, Lucan;" and then, lastly, "Ane Shor
, Treatise, containing some Roulis an,
: Cautelis to be observit and eschewi
I in Scottis Poesie." In 1891, wa
published "His Majesties Poetical
Exercises at Vacant Houres;" and il
1916 appeared a collected edition, ii
folio, of his prose writings, consist
ing of theological and metaphysical
/, discussions, containing his most ia
!, nous production, "a Counterblast
) to Tobacco. Henry Morley's Manua
, of English Literature.
I