As a knowledge of James's character would suggest, his interest in the art of poetry was mainly directed to the details of verse making and diction, and it seems natural in such a stickler for metrical propriety that in his shorter poems his favourite form should have been the sonnet. His highest achievement in this department has always been considered to be the sonnet to his son Henry, at the beginning of the _Basilicon Doron_:-- God gives not Kings the stile of Gods in vaine, For on his Throne his Scepter doe they swey: And as their subjects ought them to obey, So Kings should feare and serve their God againe: If then ye would enjoy a happie raigne, Observe the Statutes of your heavenly King, And from his Law make all your Lawes to spring: Since his Lieutenant here ye should remaine, Reward the just, be stedfast, true and plaine, Represse the proud, maintayning aye the right, Walk alwayes so, as ever in his sight, Who guardes the godly, plaguing the prophane; And so ye shall in Princely virtues shine, Resembling right your mightie King Divine. Of this poem Bishop Percy said that it would not dishonour any writer of that time, and a later critic has pronounced that it is by far James's best performance, "which just misses being really fine". By the side of it there may now be placed, by reason of their "sustained music, conformity to the technique of the sonnet, and prettiness of fancy, if not elevation", at least three others which figure amongst the twenty-six hitherto unpublished poems included in the manuscript which Mr. Westcott has discovered. One of them refers to a lady, probably the daughter of Sir John Wemyss, whose name was Cicely:-- Faire famous Isle, where Agathocles rang; Where sometymes, statly Siracusa stood; Whos fertill feelds were bathed in bangster's blood When Rome and ryvall Carthage strave so lang: Great Ladie Mistriss, all the Isles amang, Which standes in Neptune's, circle mouving, flood; No, nather for thy frutefull ground nor good; I chuse the, for the subject of my sang: Nor for the ould report, of scarce trew fame; Nor heeretofore, for farelies in the found; But, for the sweet resemblance of that Name, To whom thou seemest, so sibb, at least, in sound; If then, for seeming so, thy prays bee such, Sweet She herselfe, dothe merit more than much.[262]