The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). Volume VII. Cavalier and Puritan. III. Writers of the Couplet. § 2. Sir John Beaumont. Sir John Beaumont, in a set of couplets addressed to James I, lamented the prevailing formlessness of English poetry, demanding, in place of “halting feet” and defective accents, “ragged rime,” “fetter’d staves” and obscure language, a type of verse the requirements of which are most nearly met by the closed couplet.   3   The lines To His Late Majesty, concerning the True Forme of English Poetry, not published till 1629, were, probably, written soon after the publication of the works of James I in 1616. Sir John Beaumont was a friend of Drayton, and may have had the characteristics of Englands Heroicall Epistles before his mind as he wrote.   4