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verse, is doubtless suggested by their frequent occurrence in the writings of the "master poet." James is, I think, the only Elizabethan critic who explicitly condemns "rhymes-in-terms" (e.g. prove . . . disprove), and it is notable that the fault occurs but once in Montgomerie's poems and twice in his own (sonnets XXXIV and XXXVI). In all of these respects the practice of James conspicuously resembles that of the older poet. Of the quotations in the Reulis, three are from the author's own works, three unidentified, and seven from Montgomerie.
An examination of the treatise[1] shows that the King, as an apprentice in the divine art, is interested not so much in the high purposes of poetry as in details of verse-making and diction. While it is not enough, it is still his chief concern that a poem shall "flow well, with many pretie wordes." In matters of technique he prefers the definite and positive rule. The cesura must fall in the middle and must follow an accented syllable; there must be a pause at the end of every line; weak endings, faulty rhymes, misplaced accents are to be avoided. On all these points he is a stickler for metrical propriety. In his practice, though he cannot strictly obey his precepts, he is reasonably correct. But one of his sonnets contains more than five rhymes, albeit the difficulty of the scheme often contorts his syntax and renders his phrasing grotesque. While it is true that the Reulis and cautelis was the work of his boyhood, and was written at a time when the confusion of poetic standards made dogmatism desirable, while the scantiness of contemporary poetry made the establishment
- ↑ 1 The most interesting portion of the Reulis is Chap. VIII, "tuiching the kyndis of versis." His application there of the term verse heroicall to a stanza of nine lines, aab, aab, bab, may explain Ludovick Briskett's statement, before 1589, that The Faerie Queene was written in heroicall verse (Spenser, Globe ed., p. xxxiv). His condemnation of the iambic pentameter, or heroic couplet, as "ryme quhilk servis onely for lang historeis, and yit are nocht verse," may perhaps be traced to Montgomerie's avoidance of the metre, or to Ronsard's remark that he preferred the Alexandrine, though he wrote La Franqiade in pentameter at the desire of the King (Preface to La Françiade. (Œuvres, ed. Marty-Lavaux, Vol. III, p. 516; and cf. Abrege, Vol. VI, p. 455).
