Page:New Poems by James I.djvu/92

 "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]" 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, 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

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