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the King's privy chamber; and Sir Patrick Murray, also a member of the royal household. Their verse which has survived is of little interest, chiefly dedicatory sonnets and pieces in Latin, but Byron's line,
"And 'tis some praise in peers to write at all,"
— may be applied to courtiers of every rank. On the death of John Murray, April 17, 1615, Sir William Alexander was stirred to sing of him in terms of high praise:
"Mourn Muses, mourn, your greatest Gallant dies,
Who still in State did court your sacred Train;
Your Minion Murray, Albion's sweetest Swain."
The King commended these lines, but thought they gave Murray too much praise.[1]
Sir Robert Ker, remembered chiefly for his friendship with Donne and Jonson, was another of the King's familiars. In one of his letters to Drummond is A Sonnet in praise of a Solitary Life, written from "the very Bed-chamber, where I could not sleep"[2] presumably the king's chamber, since he was at this time one of his regular attendants. Another letter, April, 1624, is accompanied by ten verse paraphrases of the Psalms.[3]
These may have been written in connection with the paraphrase over which James occupied his spare moments before and after his coming to England. His chief collaborator, however, was Sir William Alexander (1567 ?-i646), who was created Earl of Stirling in 1633. Alexander began his career at Court as tutor and afterward gentleman of the chamber to Prince Henry. In 1614 he was appointed master of requests, and rose to high rank and responsibility in the courts of James and Charles. The correspondence which he kept up after 1614 with the poet Drummond in Scotland contains frequent references to his association with James in literary exercises. "I received your last Letter," he writes, April 18, 1620, "with the Psalm you sent,
