Page:New Poems by James I.djvu/99

 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.