Note (return) — NEW BOOKS.

But during the leisure which was afforded by his tedious captivity, it is certain that James applied himself to severer studies than either his military exercises or his cultivation of music. He was acquainted with the Latin language, as far, at least, as was permitted by the rude and barbarous condition in which it existed previous to the revival of letters. In theology, oratory, and grammar, in the civil and the canon laws, he was instructed by the best masters; and an acquaintance with Norman French was necessarily acquired at a court, and amongst a people, where it was still currently spoken, and highly cultivated. Devoted, however, as he was to these pursuits, James appears to have given his mind with a still stronger bias to the study of English poetry, choosing Chaucer and Gower for his masters in the art, and entering with the utmost ardour into the great object of the first of these illustrious men,—the improvement of the English language, the production of easy and natural rhymes, and the refinement of poetical numbers, from the rude compositions which had preceded him.23 In the concluding stanza of the King's Quair, a work composed by the Scottish King shortly before his return to his kingdom, he apostrophizes Gower and Chaucer as his dear masters, who sat upon the highest steps of rhetoric, and whose genius as poets, orators, and moralists, entitled them to receive the most exalted honour.