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see me, and is pleased to hear of the Purpose of my Book."[1] This last was no doubt the
"... journey into Scotland sung,
With all the adventures,[2]
which was destroyed by fire with other of his manuscripts. On Drummond's verses his critic in the Conversations passed the general censure that "They were all good, especially my 'Epitaph of the Prince,' save that they smelled too much of the schools . . . yett that he wished for pleasing the King, that Piece of Forth Feasting had been his own."[3] The last remark has a twofold significance, since while it illustrates, with the ones preceding, the regard attached to the good opinion of the King, it suggests also the kind of poem which might be expected to win it. Forth Feasting, written for the King's return to Edinburgh, is not more grossly flattering than a hundred others, and is a model of smoothly flowing, neatly confined couplets.
Flattery somewhat more subtle than Jonson's, and additional evidence that the King's verse and criticism had some circulation in England, is contained in a poem by Sir John Beaumont, consisting of sixty-six carefully polished lines To his late Maiesty, concerning the True Forme of English Poetry.[4] The piece need not be considered insincere, since the views expressed are in accord with the author's practice in his early and later verse, but it is clear, nevertheless, that he had just been reading the Reulis and cautelis, and sought to echo in his tribute the opinions there set forth. His source is referred to in the tenth line,
"When your judicious rules have been my guide,"
— and is evident enough in his vague allusions to "colors" and "flowing," with which in the sense of rhyme and metre
