LIVES

OF

EMINENT SCOTSMEN.

Poets.

JAMES THE FIRST.

Amid the bards whom Scotia holds to fame,
She boasts, nor vainly boasts, her James's name;
And less, sweet bard! a crown thy glory shews,
Than the fair laurel that adorns thy brows.

G. DYER.

FEW characters in history present greater claims to *admiration and sympathy, than James the First, King of Scotland. With a right by birth to supreme rule, he possessed all the qualities by which it is most deservedly, but rarely, acquired. Far advanced beyond the lights of the age in which he lived, in knowledge and refinement; of a creative genius and cultivated taste; of talents fitted equally to charm and to command to brighten the sunshine of repose, and to rule amid the whirlwind and the tempest; wise, genePART 1.]

B