LUSUS REGIUS.
Lusus Regius : being Poems and other Pieces by King James the First. Now first set forth and edited by Robert S. Reit, Fellow of New College, Oxford. (I Constable and Co. .C2 2s.)—In 1900 Mr. Falconer Madan came across two MS. volumes in the Bodleian Library, which had been part of the collection bequeathed by Dr. Rawlinson to the University of Oxford in 1755. The volumes contained nineteen unpublished piece? of James I., twelve of which bad never been published before. They are now printed in a sumptuous volume, and edited by Mr. Bait, of New College, one of the most distinguished of our younger historians. They belong almost entirely to the early years of the King's life, that melancholy, motherless boyhood in Stirling Castle spent in the acquisition of the humanities under the iron discipline of George Buchanan. "They wad haiff me learn Latin before I can speak Scots," the poor child had scribbled on the margin of one of his copy-books. The various pieces show a considerable mastery over the Scots language, a wide reading, some ear for rhythm, and a love for sententious philosophy. "They serve to illustrate," says Mr. Bait, "his knowledge of classical mythology, and his appre- ciation of classical literature, and they reveal an interested and ingenuous mind." We cannot expect more from a King, least of all that King whom his great contemporary called "the wisest fool in Christendom." There are a masque, quite in the fashion- able pastoral convention ; an admonition to Alexander Mont- gomerie, the poet, to leave off boasting; a sonnet ; a love poem to the Princess Anne of Denmark, whom he afterwards married by proxy ; and an attack on women, a subject of which the poor child could know nothing. There are some curious verses on the dignity of kingship, which show that the sentiment of the " Basilicon Doran" had been an early growth; and a poem on his destiny, to comfort his doubting subjects. There is also a versi- fication of the 101st Psalm, as befitted a pupil of Buchanan. On the whole, we think the collection was worth rescuing from MS., and we agree with Mr. Bait that they exhibit the young King in a very axiable light.
Previous page
