Page:New Poems by James I.djvu/94

 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.

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