BY JOHN WILLCOCK MA B.D. I I SIR THOMAS URQUHART OF CROMARTIE SIR THOMAS URQUHART. hi B it B B if n B ii B n H n n n n n B n B n n n n n n n I IROU BY JOHNW1LLCOCK M.A.B.D. LERWICK. G\ EDINBURGH , LONDON . OUPMANT ANDERSON CFERRIER ?Nf ^ 7 SIGNATURE OF SIR THOMAS URQUHART, SLIGHTLY ENLARGED. [All Rights Reserved] 606028 PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED, EDINBURGH TO A. B. W. WHOSE rRAISE, SO FREELY GIVEN, IH THE AUTHOR'S MOST COVETED REWARD. PREFACE EW persons who take an interest in general literature are wholly un- acquainted with the name of Sir Thomas Urquhart, as that of the translator of a great French classic. Only the more erudite can tell how the name of another literary man, Pierre Antoine Motteux, comes to be associated with his in connexion with the translation in question, and are aware that the Scottish knight is the author of original compositions in such diverse departments as poetry, trigonometry, genealogy, and biography, and that he played a prominent part in the public life of his time. It has been my object to bring together in the following volume all the materials which are available for giving a vivid picture of the personality of Sir Thomas Urquhart, and of the circumstances in which his life was passed, as I think it would be a pity if his romantic, fantastical figure were to pass into oblivion. The materials for his life are fairly abundant, though they have to be sought for in many out-of-the-way corners. The slight but fairly accurate sketch prefixed to his Works in the xii PREFACE Maitlaiid Club edition, and the carefully written articles in Dr Irving's Scottish Writers, and the Dictionary of National Biography, contain the only previous attempts which have been made to give his history. The limits within which the authors of these notices had to work, have, however, prevented their giving more than a bare outline of his career. I have attempted, with what success it is for my readers to say, to clothe the skeleton with sinews and flesh, and to impart to the figure some measure of animation. As I have had to do my work at a great distance from public libraries, I have been obliged to enlist the services of friends, more fortunately situated, in the task of looking up multitudinous references and allusions, which bore upon the history of the person in whom I was interested, or of the time in which he lived. Miss Kemp, James Walter, Esq., and Alexander Middlemass, Esq., Edinburgh, have been extremely serviceable to me in this way. A variety of details of historical and biographical interest has been furnished me by Dr Milne, King- Edward ; Garden A. Duff, Esq., Hatton Castle, Turriff ; Capt. Douglas Wimberley, Inverness ; J. L. Anderson, Esq., Edinburgh ; and P. J. Anderson, Esq., of Aberdeen University Library. Professors Crum Brown, Saintsbury, Butcher, and Eggeling of my own Alma Mater have been very willing to give the information I have sought from them; and through Professor Grierson of Aberdeen I have had the loan of many books containing material of value for my purpose. PREFACE xiii Sheriff Mackenzie, Wick, and Sheriff Shennan, Lerwick, have aided me in questions of literary taste and of legal information ; and from W. F. Smith, Esq., Fellow of St John's College, Cam- bridge, I have received valuable help in writing the chapter on the translation of Eabelais. From the latter's scholarly volumes upon the great French- man I have borrowed some notes, which appear with his initials attached to them. To Professor Ferguson of Glasgow I am indebted for the photo- graph of Urquhart's handwriting. In the work of correcting proofs a somewhat laborious task in the present case I have had kindly assistance from Dr Milne, above mentioned, and also from A. J. Tedder, Esq., London, Eev. T. Mathewson, Kev. D. Houston, M.A., and J. M. Goudie, Esq., Lerwick. If I have omitted the name of any helper, or if by frivolous comment I have done wrong to the shade of Sir Thomas, I would adopt the language of Mr Collins in Pride and Prejudice. "We are all liable to err," he says. " I have certainly meant well through the whole affair ; . . . and if my manner has been at all reprehensible, I here beg leave to apologize." JOHN WILLCOCK. UNITED PRES. MANSE, LERWICK, SHETLAND. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE xi CHAPTER I The Urquharts and their Predecessors in Cromartie Sir Thomas Urquhart, senior Birth of our Author- School and University Days Pecuniary and other Troubles at Home The Castle of Cromartie Our Author's Studious Bent Foreign Travel The English- man Abroad The Scot Abroad 1 CHAPTER II Recalled Home The Covenanting Movement The Trot of Turriff Our Author escapes to England Is Knighted Publishes his Epigrams His Father's Embarrassments increase Lesley of Findrassie Death of Sir Thomas Urquhart, senior Our Author struggles in vain to keep his Creditors at bay Other Wrongs and Losses On bad Terms with the Church 30 CHAPTER III Unsuccessful Rising in the North Sir Thomas makes his Peace with the Church Return of Charles n. to Scot- land Invasion of England Battle of Worcester Sir Thomas a Prisoner in the Tower Makes Friends Is liberated on Parole Great Literary Activity Revisits Scotland Dies Later History of the Urquharts of Cromartie Characteristics of our Author Glover's Portraits of him . 69 xvi CONTENTS CHAPTER IV PAGE EPIGRAMS: DIVINE AND MORAL THE TRISSO- TETRAS Ill CHAPTER V HANTOXPONOXANON, OK THE PEDIGREE . . .128 CHAPTER VI EK2KTBAAATPON, OR THE JEWEL LOGOPANDEC- TEISION, OR THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE . . 148 CHAPTER VII TRANSLATION OF RABELAIS 184 APPENDICES 209 ILLUSTRATIONS 1. PORTRAIT OF SIR THOMAS URQTJHART 2. SIGNATURE OF SIR THOMAS URQUHART . . Page vii 3. THE POET SURROUNDED BY THE MUSES . Facing page 109 4. FAC-SIMILE OF HIS HANDWRITING . 116 5. SCULPTURED STONE AT KINBEAKIE HOUSE ,, 137 SIR THOMAS URQUHART CHAPTER I The Urquharts and their Predecessors in Cromartie Sir Thomas TJrquhart, senior Birth of our Author School and University Days Pecuniary and other Troubles at Home The Castle of Cromartie Our Author's Studious Bent Foreign Travel The Englishman Abroad The Scot Abroad. HE right of Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie to be included in the list of famous Scots will scarcely be granted by many of his fellow- countrymen without some inquiry into the grounds upon which it is based. He himself, undoubtedly, would not have been backward in asserting his claim to such honourable distinction, though he would have entered a protest against the presence of some of those in whose company he would find himself. In the ecclesiastical and political controversies of the first half of the seventeenth century, he was, as an Episcopalian and a Cavalier, connected with 2 SIR THOMAS URQUHART the losing side, and, consequently, it is not to be expected that posterity should be so impartial as to cherish his name along with those of the victors in the conflict. It is to his literary, and not to his martial achievements, that he owes his fame. His translation of Rabelais is probably the most brilliant feat of the kind ever accomplished, and casts all his own original writings into the shade. The fantastical character of his own compositions, indeed, both in regard to their subject-matter and the diction in which they are clothed, forbids their ever having a large circle of readers. An author whose phraseology is like a combination of that used by Ancient Pistol with that of Sir Thomas Browne may have enthusiastic admirers, but they are almost certain to be few in number. Yet his works contain much interesting matter, and to them we are indebted for many details of the life of their author. Though it is hard to believe Sir Thomas Urquhart's assertion that the connexion of the Urquharts with the north-west of Scotland dates as far back as the year B.C. 554, when an ancestor of his named Beltistos crossed over from Ireland, and built a castle near Inverness, the family was of consider- able antiquity, and for many generations was one of the most distinguished in that part of the country. Nisbet, the great authority on heraldry, says that " they enjoyed not only the honourable office of hereditary Sheriff-Principal of the Shire of Crom- artie, but the far greater part, if not the whole of the said shire did belong to them, either in property MACBETH THANE OF CROMARTIE 3 or superiority, and they possessed a considerable estate besides in the Shire of Aberdeen." 1 The admiralty of the seas from Caithness to Inverness also belonged to them. The Urquharts were not, however, the earliest to bear rule in the part of Scotland with which their name is connected. Cromartie was originally the Crwmbawchty (or Crumbathy) of which Macbeth was reputed thane, before he became king. Wyntown in his Cronykil relates Macbeth's dream that he was first Thane of Cromartie, then Thane of Moray, and then King of Scotland. 2 After the first and second titles had been conferred upon him, he took steps to secure the third. Probably the mote-hill of Cromartie was the site 1 System of Heraldry, ii. 274. 2 Wyntown's narrative is as follows (quoted in Sir William Eraser's Earls of Cromartie} : "A nycht he thowcht in hys dreming, Dat syttand he wes besyd }>e Kyng At a Sete in hwnting ; swa Intil his Leisch had Grewlmndys twa. He thowcht, quhile he wes swa syttand, He sawe thre wemen by gangand ; And ai wemen pan thowcht he Thre werd Systrys mast lyk to be. De fyrst he hard say gangand by, 'Lo yhondyr >e Thayne of Crwmbawchty . ' De toyir woman sayd agayne, 'Of Morave yhondyre I se ]>e Thayne.' De thryd pan sayd, 'I se )>e Kyng.' All )>is he herd in hys dreming," Wyntown's Cronylcil, i. 225. Wyntown's date is about A.D. 1395. Macbeth was killed at Lumphanan by Macduff, 5th December A.D. 1056. 4 SIR THOMAS URQUHART of his official residence as thane of the district when he was at the beginning of his ambitious career. In the thirteenth century the family of Mouat (then de Monte Alto) were in possession, 1 but early in the following century the estate had accrued to King Robert the Bruce, probably because the Mouats had submitted to the English king, Edward I. King Robert granted Cromartie to Sir Hugh Ross, eldest son of William, Earl of Ross, in 1315, and by him it was afterwards, in the reign of King David Bruce (1329-70), given to an Adam of Urquhart (" de Vrquhartt "), 2 with whose descendants it remained for many generations. In 1357 he got from the Crown the hereditary sheriffdom of Cromartie, and eight years later the same Hugh Ross gave him the estate of Fisherie, in King-Edward, Aberdeen- shire. This Adam is the first of the family to emerge from the darkness of antiquity into the light of history, and probably his name, as the founder of the Urquhart fortunes, suggested the still more famous progenitor to whom our Sir Thomas traced back his pedigree link by link, as our readers will afterwards hear. 1 A charter of lands in Cromartie granted by William de Monte Alto, between 1252 and 1272, is still in existence. The granter of the charter, having been owner of Cromartie, was claimed by Sir Thomas Urquhart as one of his Urquhart ancestors, but with no better authority than the earlier ancestors who figure in our author's Pedigree. See Earls of Cromartie, by Sir William Eraser. 2 It would seem from this that Urquhart was originally a place- name, probably Gaelic. There were two parishes of Urquhart in the old province of Moray one with a priory near Elgin, and the other with a castle in what is now Inverness-shire. THE TUTOR OF CROMARTIE 5 Our author's father, also a Thomas, aiid the first of his line who was a Protestant in religion, was born in 1585. He succeeded to the property in 1603, and in 1617 was knighted by James vi. in Edinburgh. As he was left an orphan at an early age, he was brought up under the care of his grand-uncle, John Urquhart of Craigfintray, who has been commonly called from this circum- stance " the Tutor of Cromartie." l Hia great-grand- nephew, our Sir Thomas, has celebrated his praise in very high terms. " He was," he says, " over all Britain renowned for his deep reach of natural wit, and great dexterity in acquiring of many lands and great possessions, with all men's applause." 2 From all accounts, it seems that the " Tutor " was 1 "Tutor" here simply means "legal guardian "for boys until fourteen years of age, and for girls until twelve. After these ages and before that of twenty-one such wards are in the charge of "Curators." Owing to our author's having the same Christian name as his father, the mistake is often made of asserting that John Urquhart was his tutor. 2 Works, p. 172. In a MS. volume of unpublished poems by Sir Thomas, which is described on p. 116, there is the following : "Upon the tutor of Cromarty, my great-grandfather's younger brother, and my father's tutor : " The present tyme, the preterit, nor futur T' ourselves, our fathers, nor posteritie, Do now, have yet, nor will produce a tutor, For's Pupils weil of more dextevitie, For he left free th' estate he had in charge : And by meer Industrie did's own enlarge " (iii. 7). We are sorry to quote a poem of Sir Thomas's at this early stage, before the atmosphere has been created which is needed for per- ceiving and appreciating its true value. The judicious reader will, however, return to it with interest when that process has been completed. 6 SIR THOMAS URQUHART faithful in the discharge of all the duties belonging to his office, 1 though he did not succeed in imparting to his pupil the secret of acquiring landed property, either with or without applause. Sir Thomas Urquhart, senior, received his estates, we are informed, " without any burthen of debt, how little soever, or provision of brother, sister, or any other of his kindred or allyance wherewith to affect it." 2 He married Christian, the fourth daughter of Alexander, fourth Lord Elphinstone (15521638), and received with her a dowry of nine thousand merks Scots (i.e. 500 Sterling). The date of our author's birth is given by Maitland as 1605, but it is now certain that this is an error, and that the true date is 161 1. 3 Sir Thomas was the eldest of the family, and he tells us that he was born five years after the marriage of his parents. He also informs us that his mother's father, Lord Elphinstone, held the office of High Treasurer in Scotland at the time of the marriage. As that nobleman was High Treasurer only from just before 19th April, 1599, till 22nd September, 1601, it would not have been unreasonable to fix the date of the marriage as probably some time in 1600, if we had no other information on the subject. But it so happens that the marriage- 1 John Urquhart, "the Tutor of Cromartie," died in 1631, at the age of eighty-four, and was buried in the old church of King- Edward, Aberdeenshire, where there is a marble monument to his memory. 2 Works, p. 340. 3 Another erroneous date is in the edition of the Tracts of 1774, where 1613 is given as the year of our author's birth. CONTEMPORARY EVENTS 7 contract is in existence, 1 and is dated the 9th of July, 1606, and consequently Sir Thomas's birth would fall in the year 1611. Our author must therefore have been in error in describing his grand- father as being High Treasurer at the time of his daughter's marriage. He had, indeed, occupied this office some years before. Sir Thomas should have said " had been," instead of " was," but his lordly disposition of mind would probably make him con- temptuous of such trifles. In 1611, James vi. was drawing near to the end of the first period of his reign, during which he had been under the influence of the traditions of the days of Elizabeth and Burghley, and had not yet 1 This is now amongst the Gardenston papers, having been formerly in the possession of Mr Dunbar Dunbar. An account of its contents is given in Antiquarian Notes, by C. Eraser Mackintosh, p. 195. An independent corroboration of the above date of the marriage is given by a document now in the Register House in Edinburgh (Aberdeen Sasines), in which Sir Thomas Urquhart, senior, gives sasine of the barony of Fisherie to Lady Christian Elphinstoue. The "precept," or clause in the marriage- contract, which directs the notary to give sasine of the estate settled on the bride, is also dated the 9th of July, 1606, and in it she is described as being in sud purA viryinitate. Probably the marriage took place either on that day or very soon afterwards. The bridegroom was just of age, while Lady Christian was under sixteen, the date of her birth being 19th December, 1590 (The Loi'ds Elphinstone, Fraser, i. 167). The issue of this marriage were at least the following sons and daughters : (1) THOMAS ; (2) Alexander ; (3) George ; (4) John ; (5) [name unknown] ; (6) Henry ; and (7) Jane, m. Sir Alexander Abercromby of Birkenbog ; (8) Helen, tn. Sir James Gordon of Lesmoir ; (9) Annas, TO. Alexander Strachan of Glenkindie ; (10) Margaret, m. John Irving of Brucklay ; (11) [name unknown], m. Campbell of Calder. 8 SIR THOMAS URQUHART passed into his own keeping, and the hands of pro- fligate favourites. Bacon was still in the shade of distrust, from which, however, he was soon to emerge : he was now, indeed, Solicitor-General, but his ambition was not satisfied by this post. The heir-apparent to the throne was Prince Henry, who died in the following year. Charles, his brother, was now eleven years of age. Shakespeare brought out this year his play of The Winters Tale, and Ben Jonson his Catiline. Sir Walter Ealeigh was a prisoner in the Tower, and was busily engaged in writing his History of the World, which he com- pleted in the following year, though it was not published until 1614. The Authorised Version of the English Bible appeared this year. Milton was now a child of scarcely three years old, and Crom- well a boy of twelve. The birthplace of our author is unknown ; for though the castle of Cromartie was the official residence of the sheriffs, Sir Thomas Urquhart, senior, is known to have had several other manor- houses, one of which was Fisherie, 1 in the parish of King-Edward, Aberdeenshire, in which he resided from time to time. It is probable that the future translator of Kabelais laid the foundation of the erudition by which in after years he was distin- guished, in Banff, 2 which then possessed a grammar- 1 Fislierie is about six miles from Banff. 2 It is quite possible, however, that, in the parish school of King- Edward, our author could have got the rudiments of a classical education. In 1649 (15th Nov.), Mr James Petrie, who was school- master there, applied for the school of Bauff, and, as a test of his powers, " was ordeined to teache the sext satyr of Persius to- UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN 9 school, rather than in the more northern town which is associated with his name. Sir Thomas was only eleven years old when, in 1622, he entered the University of Aberdeen, 1 but there is no reason to believe that the average age of the " men " of his year would be in excess of his own. Donne was the same age as Urquhart when he entered Oxford. The famous Crichton went up to St Andrews at the age of ten, though up to that time he had not given evidence of any extraordinary precocity. A generation before, Montaigne had already completed his collegiate course when he attained his thirteenth year. It seems strange to us that boys of such tender age should have been found able to pass through a university curriculum ; and we are forced to conclude either that the boys of those days were intellectually superior to those with whom we are familiar, or that the studies which occupied them were less deep and severe than those which are now pursued in seats of learning. The latter is probably the true explana- tion of the matter. University education in Scot- morrow in the school of Bauf be nyne hours in presence of the bailyies and others in the toune who wer scholars." He passed through the test successfully, and was appointed to the office (Annals of Banff, ii. 30, New Spalding Club). 1 The entry of his name as a student on the roll is in the follow- ing terms: "In Academiam regiam Aberdonensem recepti sunt adolesceutes quorum noinina sequuntur, prseceptore Alexandro Luuano, Anno 1622. Thomas Urquhardus de Cromartie. Fasti Aberd&nenses, 1854. io SIR THOMAS URQUHART land had been remodelled, and adapted to the requirements of the time and of a Protestant society in the previous generation, and in this work Andrew Melville had a very notable part. In 1583 a new constitution had been drawn up for the University of Aberdeen, and the arrangements prescribed by it may have existed there when our author was a student. The Principal, according to this constitu- tion, was Professor of Theology, as well as incumbent of the parish of Old Machar, and was responsible for the government and discipline of the college. 1 Under him were four Eegents, one of whom was Sub-Principal, and to them was assigned the duty of training students in various departments of learning. Thus physiology, geography, astrology, history, and Hebrew were assigned to the Sub-Principal. An- other Eegent explained " the principles of reasoning from the best Greek and Latin authors, with prac- tice in writing and speaking"; while a third lectured upon Greek, and read the more elementary Latin and Greek authors. The fourth Eegent taught arithmetic and geometry, and, along with them, a portion of Aristotle's Organon, Jtthics, and Politics, and Cicero's De Officiis. This attempt to assign special departments to the various regents respectively, was a marked improvement upon the older system, under which they were each respons- ible for teaching all the subjects included in the curriculum. The students paid fees, which varied in amount 1 King's College : Officers and Graduates, by P. J. Anderson, M.A., pp. 347, 348. THE NOVA FUNDATIO n according to their social standing. On entering the university they were required to take an oath of loyalty to the Eeformed religion. None were allowed to carry arms, or to converse in any other tongue than Greek or Latin. Perhaps, however, this latter rule was merely an attempt to restrain the measureless tide of human speech. And in order that nothing might interfere with the progress of the students, the Nova Fundatio, or new constitu- tion of Aberdeen University, abolished all holidays (" omnes consuetas olim a studiis vacationes aboleri penitus "). 1 Sir Thomas Urquhart's name does not appear in 1 An " eminent Yorkshire educationist " introduced the same rule into the establishment under his charge. It is probable, however, that in Mr Squeers's case the arrangement was the result of inde- pendent research into methods of education, rather than a hint borrowed from Andrew Melville. "No holidays none of those ill-judged comings home twice a year that unsettle children's minds so ! " (Nicholas Nicklcly, chap. iv. ). It is only fair to say that there are doubts as to how far the arrangements under the Nova Fundatio, as above described, were in force in Sir Thomas Urquhart's student days. If the older system were still in operation, the Alexander Lunan, who is men- tioned as his preceptor, would virtually have taught our author all the subjects contained in the curriculum through which he passed. As there is no proof that Alexander Lunan was another Admirable Crichton, the fact of his doing so would strengthen what we have said above as to the comparative slightness of the erudition imparted in a university education in those days. Sir Thomas Urquhart speaks of having "learned the elements of his philosophy" in the University of Aberdeen under William Seaton ( Works, p. 263). It has been suggested that it is an error for John Seaton, and that it indicates that our author, like many other students of King's College, took a session or two at Marischal College (see Anderson's Fasti Acad. Marisc. ii. 34, 588). 12 SIR THOMAS URQUHART the list of graduates in 1626, so that there are no means of determining from the records of King's College how many years he spent there. For the city in which he had received his education he ever afterwards had a high regard. Thus he says of it : " For honesty, good fashions, and learning, Aberdeen surpasseth as far all other cities and towns in Scot- land, as London doth for greatness, wealth, and magni- ficence, the smallest hamlet or village in England." l He gives unmeasured praise to some of those eminent men who were associated with the fame of Aberdeen University in what has been called its " Augustan age " the first four or five decades of the seventeenth century. Thus, according to him, William Lesley, D.D., 2 was " one of the most pro- found and universal scholars then living" like Socrates in having published no works, but, un- fortunately, unlike that philosopher in not having among his disciples a Plato and an Aristotle to receive their master's knowledge and transmit it to future generations. 3 Of his successor in the prin- cipalship, Dr William Guild, he says : " He de- serveth by himself to be remembered, both for that he hath committed to the press many good books, tending to the edification of the soul, and bettering of the minde ; and that of all the divines that have lived in Scotland these hundred yeers, he hath been 1 Works, p. 395. 2 Dr Lesley was successively Humanist, Regent, Sub-Principal, and Principal of King's College. In 1639 he was deprived of his office by the Covenanting party. 3 Works, p. 262, PECUNIARY DIFFICULTIES 13 the most charitable, and who bestowed most of his own to publike uses." 3 At the time when he wrote these estimates of the sages at whose feet he had sat as a student, some of his old friends were under a cloud, and he had to be careful not to compromise them by his praise. And so he says of "Master William [?] Seaton," who had been his tutor, " [he was] a very able preacher truly, and good scholar, and [one] whom I would extoll yet higher, but that being under the consistorian lash, some critick Presbyters may do him injury, by pre- tending his dislike of them, for being praised by him who idolizeth not their authority." 2 At the time of the marriage of Sir Thomas Urquhart, senior, Lord Elphinstone, who was fully acquainted with the prosperous condition of his son-in-law's affairs, made him pledge himself to manage his property so that it might descend to his heir as he had himself received it. Unfortun- ately this pledge was not fulfilled. Through mis- management and neglect his affairs got into dis- order, and the later years of his life were troubled by pecuniary difficulties. 3 His son says of him : 1 Works, p. 263. The editor of the Book of Bon Accord gives a lower estimate of Dr Guild's character : he says that his works are of no literary merit, and that he got fame by his wealth and ostenta- tious liberality. He was minister of King-Edward before he went to Aberdeen ; and his widow, Catharine Holland, founded a bursary at the university for young men belonging to that parish. 2 Ibid. p. 263 ; see p. 11, note. 3 Lord Elphinstone died 14th January, 1638. During the four preceding years his son-in-law had "made ducks and drakes" of his ancestral possessions. His portrait, which is still preserved at Carberry Tower, is engraved in Sir William Eraser's work, The i 4 SIR THOMAS URQUHART " Of all men living [he was] the justest, equallest, and most honest in his dealings, [and] his humour was, rather than to break his word, to lose all he had, and stand to his most undeliberate promises, what ever they might cost ; which too strict adherence to the austerest principles of veracity, proved oftentimes dammageable to him in his negotiations with many cunning sharks, who knew with what profitable odds they could scrue themselves in upon the windings of so good a nature. ... By the unfaithfulnes, on the one side, of some of his menial servants, in filching from him much of his personal estate, and falsehood of several chamber- lains and bayliffs to whom he had intrusted the managing of his rents, in the unconscionable dis- charge of their receits, by giving up one account thrice, and of such accounts many ; and, on the other part, by the frequency of disadvantagious bargains, which the slieness of the subtil merchant did involve him in, his loss came unawares upon him, and irresistibly, like an armed man ; too great trust to the one, and facility in behalf of the other, occasioning so grievous a misfortune, which never- theless did not proceed from want of knowledge or abilitie in natural parts, for in the business of other men he would have given a very sound advice, and was surpassing dextrous in arbitrements, upon any Lords Elphinstone. It gives one the impression of a grave, melancholy man. He had fourteen sons and five daughters. It is to be hoped that none of his sons and no other of his sons-in- law had the faculty for getting into difficulties which Sir Thomas Urquhart, senior, displayed. A LETTER OF PROTECTION 15 reference submitted to him, but that hee thought it did derogate from the nobility of his house and reputation of his person, to look to petty things in matter of his own affairs." l One of the ways in which the elder Sir Thomas succeeded in impoverishing himself and his family was in becoming bail for people who absconded ; so, at least, we would infer from an entry in the Court-book of the Burgh of Banff, under date of 21st April, 1629, in which we find that "Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty, having become caution for the appearance of Alexander Forbes, merchant in Balvenye, alleged forestaller, and the said Alexander not having appeared, Sir Thomas is decerned to pay 40 Scots (3, 6s. 8d. Sterling)." 2 In 1637 we find that he was obliged to appeal to his sovereign against the urgency of his creditors, and a Letter of Protection was issued in his favour. It ran as follows : " Letter of Protection granted by King Charles the First, under his great seal, to Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty, from all dilligence at the instance of his creditors, for the space of one year, thereby giving him a persona standi in judicio, notwithstanding he may be at the horn, and taking 1 Works, p. 336. 2 The offence of forestalling consisted in buying merchandise, victuals, etc., before they appeared in a fair or market-place for sale, or in taking steps to raise the prices of such things, or in dissuading anyone coming to market from carrying his goods thither. The amount of fine for a first offence was, as above, 40 Scots (or 3, 6s. 8d. Sterling) ; for a second offence, 100 merks (or 5, lls. Id. Sterling) ; while for a third offence it was forfeiture of movable goods. 16 SIR THOMAS URQUHART him under his royal protection during the time. Dated at St James's, 20th March, 1637." l A somewhat humorous situation is suggested by this document. The creditors might " put him to the horn," i.e., according to the usual legal form, order him in the king's name to pay his debts on penalty of being outlawed as a traitor, while the king himself authorised him to take no notice of the proceedings. In the same year we have intimation of the elder Sir Thomas's pecuniary misfortunes being aggravated by domestic strife, for we find him instructing a high legal functionary to raise an action against his sons, Thomas and Alexander, for their unfilial conduct. The charge was that of " putting violent hands on the persone of the said Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie, Knycht, their father, taking him captive and prissoner, and detening him in sure firmance within ane upper chalmer, callit the Inner Dortour, within his place of Cromertie, tanquam in private carcere, fra the Mononday to the Fryday in the efter none therefter, committit in the moneth of December last, 1636." The case came up for trial before the Court of Justiciary on the 19th of July, and was postponed for a week, when it was abandoned. The Lords of Council had appointed a commission to settle all differences between the father and sons, and on receiving their report the Court dismissed the case. 2 We have no particulars as to the causes of 1 M'Farlane's Genealogical Collections, ii. 283. MS. Advocates' Library. Records of the Court of Justiciary. CASTLE OF CROMARTIE 17 disagreement which led to such an unhappy state of affairs, but we are not likely to be far wrong in assuming that the sons wished to prevent their father's taking some legal step which they con- sidered would be detrimental to his and their interests. The affectionate terms in which our author describes his father's character ten years after his death, in the words above quoted, make us sure that he sincerely regretted any wrong towards him of which he may have been guilty at this time. The old castle of Croinartie has now long dis- appeared, the stones of which it was built having been used for the erection of a modern house in 1772, after the estate had passed, by purchase, from the family of Urquhart to Mr George Eoss. It was a building of considerable antiquity. In 1470 a royal grant was made by James m. to William Urquhart of the Motehill, or Mount of Cromartie, with permission to erect on this a tower or fortalice. Advantage was taken of this per- mission to fortify the family mansion, and it was converted into a castle of considerable strength. 1 Sir Thomas says of it : " The stance thereof is stately, and the house it selfe of a notable good fabrick and contrivance." 2 An interesting description 1 It was built in the old turreted style, and defended on the south by a moat and high wall. When it was taken down, in the* surrounding ground were found human skeletons, and urns con- taining human remains, both enclosed in graves made of flags (Old Stat. Account}. 3 Works, p. 312. " The situation appears in every view most delightful " (Pococke's Tour, 1760). 2 i8 SIR THOMAS URQUHART of the building as it was just before its demolition is given by Hugh Miller. " Directly behind the site of the old town," he says, " the ground rises abruptly from the level to the height of nearly a hundred feet, after which it forms a kind of table- land of considerable extent, and then sweeps gently to the top of the hill. A deep ravine, with a little stream running through it, intersects the rising ground at nearly right angles with the front which it presents to the houses ; and on the eastern angle, towering over the ravine on the one side, and the edge of the bank on the other, stood the old castle of Cromarty. It was a massy, time-worn building, rising in some places to the height of six storeys, battlemented at the top, and roofed with grey stone. One immense turret jutted out from the corner, which occupied the extreme point of the angle, and looking down from an altitude of at least one hundred and sixty feet on the little stream, and the struggling row of trees which sprung up at its edge, commanded both sides of the declivity and the town below." Of the interior we are told by the same writer, on the authority of an old woman who, as a child, had lived in the castle, that " two threshers could have plied their flails within the huge chimney of the kitchen ; and that, in the great hall, an immense, dark chamber, lined with oak, a party of a hundred men had exercised at the pike." 1 The elder Sir Thomas had also a winter residence in Banff. 2 In the Court-book of the Burgh of Banff 1 Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland, pp. 78, 80. 2 This was a fortalice-tower, with gardens, orchards, dovecots, CONNEXION WITH BANFF 19 we have the following entry: "1630, July 21st, Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie gave in ane Act of the Session of Banff, geiveing licence to him to erect ane desk and loft in the kirk of Banff (seeing he is both a parochiner and resident within the said toun) for his accomodatione. The brethren gave their approbatione with express provision that neither the edifice nor lichtes of the said kirk suld be deteriorat." l Beyond the bare fact of his having been a student in the University of Aberdeen, we have no information concerning the manner in which the earlier years of our author's life were passed, or the etc., in the south part of Banff, which afterwards came into the possession of the Earl of Airlie. The bounds are thus described : "The common vennel at the north, the loch called the Saltlochs at the east, the lands called Little Guishauch at the south, and the road to Overak at the west." Shortly before its demolition it was the headquarters of the Duke of Cumberland's army on its passage to Culloden. Besides this house and the castle of Cromartie, the Urquharts occasionally occupied their mansion- house of Fisherie. This stood a few yards to the south-west of the present farmhouse of Mains of Fisherie. It was taken down some sixty years ago. Some old trees still stand near the site of the house and garden. 1 Annals of Banff (New Spalding Club), ii. 28. The old church in which Sir Thomas had a " desk" or pew, and a "loft" or small gallery, is now in ruins. Only the south transept is standing. In the parish church of King-Edward, Aberdeen shire, the handsome silver communion cups bear an inscription to the effect that they were a joint present from Dr William Guild, the then incumbent of the parish, Sir Thomas Urquhart, and his uncle John Urquhart of Craigfmtray. That the Sir Thomas Urquhart here named is not our author but his father, is evident from the date of the incumbency of his fellow-donor, Dr Guild, who was minister of King-Edward from 1608 to 1631. The cups bear date of 1619. 20 SIR THOMAS URQUHART circumstances in which he acquired the miscel- laneous erudition which his writings display. The only remark he makes about the education he received is to the effect that his father laid out but a very insignificant portion of his income upon this item of family expenses. Yet, however little the expenditure may have been, Urquhart evidently profited fully by the education which he had received, and attained to something more than a gentlemanly acquaintance with some of the abstruser departments of learning. The special bent of his mind in early years, and his love for study rather than sport, are shown in the following reminiscence of his youth, which he narrates with his characteristic diffuseness. " There happening," he says, " a gentleman of very good worth to stay awhile at my house, who, one day amongst many other, was pleased, in the deadst time of all the winter, with a gun upon his shoulder, to search for a shot of some wild-fowl ; and after he had waded through many waters, taken excessive pains in quest of his game, and by means thereof had killed some five or six moor fowls and partridges, which he brought along with him to my house, he was by some other gentlemen, who chanced to alight at my gate, as he entered in, very much commended for his love to sport ; and, as the fashion of most of our countrymen is, not to praise one without dispraising another, I was highly blamed for not giving my self in that kind to the same exercise, having before my eys so commendable a pattern to imitate ; I answered, though the gentleman deserved STUDIOUS TASTES 21 praise for the evident proof he had given that day of his inclination to thrift and laboriousness, that nevertheless I was not to blame, seeing whilst he was busied about that sport, I was imployed in a diversion of another nature, such as optical secrets, mysteries of natural philosophic, reasons for the variety of colours, the finding out of the longitude, the squaring of a circle, and wayes to accomplish all trigonometrical calculations by sines, without tangents, with the same compendiousness of com- putation, which, in the estimation of learned men, would be accounted worth six hundred thousand partridges, and as many moor-fowles." There can be little doubt that Sir Thomas had the best of the argument. But he was not satisfied with this : for nothing less would content him than vanquishing his opponent on his own ground, as well as with the weapons of logic. With the same lordliness of temper which had led him to re- capitulate the dignified subjects which had occupied his studious mind the squaring of the circle being but one of them he chose the breaking-in of a horse as a set-off against his friend's achievements of the day before. The success of the scientific student and the discomfiture of the mere sportsman are told in the conclusion of the story. "In the mean while," he says, " that worthy gentleman, being wet and weary after travel, was not able to eat of what he had so much toyled for, whilst my braine recreations so sharpened my appetite, that I supped to very good purpose. That night past, the next morning I gave six pence to a footman of mine, to 22 SIR THOMAS URQUHART try his fortune with the gun, during the time I should disport my self in the breaking of a young horse ; and it so fell out, that by [the time] I had given my selfe a good heat by riding, the boy re- turned with a dozen of wild fouls, half moor foule, half partridge, whereat being exceeding well pleased, I alighted, gave him my horse to care for, and forth- with entred in to see my gentlemen, the most especiall whereof was unable to rise out of his bed, by reason of the Gout and Sciatick, wherewith he was seized for his former daye's toyle." 1 In the early years of his manhood, before our author felt himself qualified to take part in public life, he spent some time in foreign travel. The kind of figure cut by a young English gentleman of that period upon the Continent we know from the testimony of Portia, for it can scarcely be that much change had taken place in the interval of a generation, between her time and the end of the first quarter of the seventeenth century. He was generally unversed in the languages of the countries he visited, and, from his lack of Latin, French, or Italian, was apt to fail in understanding the natives, or in making himself understood by them. He might be handsome in figure, but conversation with him was reduced to the level of a dumb-show. His dress was often very odd, and his manners eccentric, as though he had bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere. A strong contrast to him in the matter of language was the young 1 Works, p. 331. THE SCOT ABROAD 23 Scotchman of the period, if Sir Thomas Urquhart is to be taken as at all an average specimen of his nation, and if his account of himself can be relied upon. He says of himself that when he travelled through France, Spain, and Italy, he spoke the languages to such perfection that he might easily have passed himself off as a native of any one of these countries. Some advised him to do so, but his patriotic feelings were too strong to allow him to follow such a course : " he plainly told them (without making bones thereof), that truly he thought he had as much honour by his own country, which did contrevalue the riches and fertility of those nations, by the valour, learning, and honesty, wherein it did parallel, if not surpass them." 1 It is somewhat difficult for the mind to grasp the idea of a Scotchman in those days, when so many of the things which we now associate with the nationality were not in existence when his Church was Episcopalian in constitution, the Shorter Catechism not yet written by Englishmen for his use, Burns unborn, and distilled spirits not exten- sively used as a beverage. We could scarcely even know him by his costume. For no self-respecting representative of that country would assume the Highland garb which so many Englishmen believe to be generally worn north of the Tweed, if we are to credit the authoritative statement of Macaulay to the effect that " before the Union it was considered by nine Scotchmen out of ten as the dress of a thief." 2 The characteristics by which " a Scot 1 JVorks, p. 272. 2 History of England, chap. xiii. 24 SIR THOMAS URQUHART abroad " in those days was recognised, were, from some accounts, not shrewdness in making bargains, economical habits, indomitable perseverance, and unsleeping caution, but the pride and high-spirited- ness which made him keen in detecting and swift in avenging slights that might be cast upon the country from which he came. So deep was the impression made by these peculiarities upon foreign nations, that they became proverbial. " He is a Scot, he has pepper in his nose ! " 1 said they, some- what familiarly, yet with a touch of fear, when they noticed the flashing eye, and the hand instinctively seeking the sword-hilt. " High-spirited as a Scot ! " 2 they exclaimed with admiration, when among them- selves some soul was moved to unwonted courage. Such, at least, is the impression produced upon the mind by some of those novels in which Scott and his imitators trace the wanderings of their fellow- countrymen through European lands in those earlier times. That there is some foundation of truth for the lofty superstructure is rendered credible by the case of Sir Thomas Urquhart. " My heart," 3 he says, " gave me the courage for adventuring in a forrain climat, thrice to enter 1 " Scotus est, piper in naso," Mediaeval proverb. 2 " Fier comme un Ecossais," French proverb. 8 It may be as well to warn our readers at this point that Sir Thomas Urquhart's vanity, or what would be called vanity in any other man, was unbounded. So calm and unconscious is it, that it often seems to betray a disordered mind. Those who seek in his estimates of himself for illustrations of the grace of humility will seek in vain. They may, however, find other things, which, if not so edifying, are far more amusing. SHAKESPEARE'S SCOTCHMAN 25 the lists against men of three severall nations, to vindicate my native country l from the calumnies wherewith they had aspersed it ; wherein it pleased God so to conduct my fortune, that, after I had disarmed them, they in such sort acknowledged their error, and the obligation they did owe me for sparing their lives, which justly by the law of arms I might have taken, that, in lieu of three enemies that formerly they were, I acquired three constant friends, both to my selfe and my compatriots, whereof by severall gallant testimonies they gave evident proofe, to the improvement of my country's credit in many occasions." 2 The fair critic, whose estimate of the young Englishman has been referred to, gives her opinion also of his Scottish rival; but, strangely enough, she observes in him qualities of a kind opposite to those displayed by Sir Thomas Urquhart. She was struck by his neighbourly charity, " for he borrowed a box of the ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay him back again when he was able." 3 Can it be that the words put into her mouth are merely the ribald wit of an envious 1 The reader who has sufficient curiosity and leisure may compare with the above the account which his contemporary, Lord Herbert of (Jherbury (1581-1648), gives of his duels in his Autobiography. That nobleman was a kind of Sir Thomas Urquhart in water- colour, and his single combats are surrounded with a propor- tionately milder glow of romance. Indeed, they seem to have been generally undertaken in order to compel impudent young men to give back pieces of riband to charming young ladies from whom they had snatched them. 2 Works, p. 311. 3 Merchant of Venice, Act I. Scenje ii. 26 SIR THOMAS URQUHART Southron, or are we to understand that the spirit which triumphed over so many inferiors was yet wise enough to discern when it stood in the presence of a mightier than itself ? How a young man on his travels should occupy his time, had been laid down in a little volume which had been published just before Urquhart set out to see the world abroad. In this he might read a list of the things which should engage his attention, drawn up in sonorous language by no less a personage than a late Lord Chancellor of England a man who was ready to give advice to all his fellow-creatures in all conceivable circum- stances. " The things," says Lord Bacon, " to be seen and observed are : the courts of princes, especi- ally when they give audience to ambassadors ; the courts of justice, while they sit and hear causes ; and so of consistories ecclesiastic ; the churches and monasteries, with the monuments which are therein extant ; the walls and fortifications of cities and towns, and so the havens and harbours ; anti- quities and ruins ; libraries, colleges, disputations and lectures, where any are ; shipping and navies ; house and gardens of state and pleasure near great cities; armories, arsenals, magazines, exchanges, burses, warehouses ; exercises of horsemanship, fencing, training of soldiers, and the like ; comedies, such whereunto the better sort of persons do resort ; treasuries of jewels and robes, cabinets and rarities ; and, to conclude, whatsoever is memorable in the places where they go. ... As for triumphs, masks, feasts, weddings, funerals, capital executions, and GLEANINGS FROM TRAVEL 27 such shows, men need not be pufc in mind of them ; yet they are not to be neglected." 1 To what extent Urquhart followed a plan of this kind it is impossible to say; for, though his writings are so discursive that we might expect to find in them allusions to anything remarkable he had seen or heard, he has very little to say about his foreign experiences. Dr Johnson spoke with contempt of an English peer, who had extended his travels as far as Egypt, but who had brought back only one small contribution to the general stock of human information the fact that he had seen " a large serpent in one of the pyramids of Egypt." Urquhart was not quite so poverty- stricken as this; for he seems to have observed examples of mental infirmity, illustrations of which he might doubtless have found nearer home. " I saw at Madrid," he says, " a bald-pated fellow who beleeved he was Julius Cresar, and therefore went constantly on the streets with a laurel crown on his head ; and another at Toledo, who would not adventure to goe abroad unlesse it were in a coach, chariot, or sedane, for fear the heavens should fall down upon him. I likewise saw one in Sara- gosa, who, imagining himself to be the lawfull King of Aragon, went no where without a scepter in his hand ; and another in the kingdome of Granada, who beleeved he was the valiant Cid that conquered the Mores. At Messina, in Sicilie, I also saw a man that conceived himself to be the great Alex- ander of Macedone, and that in a ten years space he 1 Essays, Civil and Moral, xviii. 28 SIR THOMAS URQUHART should be master of all the territories which he subdued ; but the best is, that the better to resemble him he always held his neck awry, which naturally was streight and upright enough ; and another at Venice, who imagined he was Soveraign of the whole Adriatick Sea, and sole owner of all the ships that came from the Levante. Of men that fancied themselves to be women, beasts, trees, stones, pitchers, glasse, angels, and of women whose strained imaginations have falne upon the like extravagancies, even in the midst of fire and the extremest pains fortune could inflict upon them, there is such variety of examples, amongst which I have seen some at Eome, Naples, Florence, Genua, Paris, and other eminent cities, that to multiply any moe [more] words therein, were to load -your ears with old wives' tales, and the trivial tattle of idly imployed and shallow braind humorists." l He also tells, though not in the same connexion, of his having been witness of the honour and admiration lavished upon one of his fellow-country- men, Dr Seaton, by the {Lite of Parisian society. " I have seen him," he says, " circled about at the Louvre with a ring of French lords and gentlemen, who hearkned to his discourse with so great attention, that none of them, so long as he was pleased to speak, would offer to interrupt him, to the end that the pearles falling from his mouth might be the more orderly congested in the several treasures of their judgements." 2 Part of his time abroad was devoted to the 1 Works, p. 364. 2 Ibid. p. 256. SPOILS OF BOOK-HUNTING 29 fascinating occupation of book-hunting, and he had great pleasure in the spoils he had won. "When they were set in order on shelves in the library of the castle of Cromartie, he looked on them with the joy which only book-collectors know. " They were," he says, " like to a compleat nosegay of flowers, which, in my travels, I had gathered out of the gardens of above sixteen several kingdoms." l 1 Works, i>. 402. CHAPTER II Recalled Home The Covenanting Movement The Trot of Turriff Our Author escapes to England Is Knighted Publishes his Epigrams His Father's Embarrassments increase Lesley of Findrassie Death of Sir Thomas Urquhart, senior Our Author struggles in vain to keep his Creditors at bay Other Wrongs and Losses On bad Terms with the Church. HILE Urquhart was engaged in foreign travel, the ecclesiast- ical and political controversies in Scotland came to such a height, that it was evident that matters could only be settled by an appeal to the sword, and, accordingly, he returned home to assist the party to which his family adhered. He, doubtless, like Milton, considered it disgraceful that, while his fellow-countrymen were fighting at home for liberty, he should be travelling abroad for amusement and intellectual culture. His father, who had been the first of the Urquharts to give up Koman Catholicism for Protestantism, took the unpopular side in the conflict that agitated the Church of Scotland. He was a staunch Episco- palian, and refused to accept the National Covenant, when those who had voluntarily and enthusiastic- THE COVENANT 31 ally entered into it attempted to coerce others into following their example, and so turned it into an instrument of tyranny. The determined efforts of Charles I. and his advisers to make the Church of Scotland in all respects like the Church of England, were fiercely opposed, and, for a time, the party which was resolved to make them as dissimilar as possible prevailed. Episcopacy, liturgy, ancient ecclesiastical customs and rites, and all that savoured of Prelacy or Popery, were swept away by the rising flood. Yet, without committing oneself to the doctrine of passive obedience, it may be doubted whether the course of policy followed by the Covenanters was either wise or scriptural. For, notwithstanding the vehement protestations of loyalty expressed in the National Covenant, armed resistance to the royal authority was not obscurely hinted at in it. " We," said the subscribers, " promise and swear by the great name of the Lord our God to continue in the profession and obedience of the said religion ; and that we shall defend the same, and resist all those contrary errors and corruptions, according to our vocation, and to the utmost of that power which God hath put into our hands, all the days of our life." It is quite possible, it may be hoped, for one to be in sympathy with a certain political party, and yet to regret that the Church should identify itself with that party ; and it certainly was not in the end a good thing for the cause of religion that it should have been so closely allied as it was with party politics in the seventeenth century. " My 32 SIR THOMAS URQUHART kingdom is not of this world," said Christ ; " if My kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight." " Put up again thy sword into his place," He said to St Peter, " for all they that take the sword, shall perish with the sword." It is difficult to see how these clear and emphatic utterances can be made to harmonise with the resolution not only to use force in the correction of ecclesiastical abuses and religious errors, but also to coerce those who were not prepared to follow the same course of policy. 1 The Covenanting party were successful beyond their hopes. The influence of the Marquis of Argyle secured the allegiance to the cause of the Highlanders in the west of Scotland ; while, in Inverness and the region north of the Moray Firth, the movement was enthusiastically welcomed. Only one district in Scotland held aloof that of which Aberdeen was the centre. The community there had probably but little sympathy with the innovations which Laud was bent upon bringing in, but they had still less with the Covenant. They were attached to the modified form of Episco- pacy which had now existed in Scotland since the 1 The utter chaos which resulted from the fusion of religion and politics maybe estimated from the fact that, in the October of 1650, there were in the narrow bounds of Scotland four different armies, at enmity with each other, and each prepared to maintain with the sword a different cause, namely, the Scottish (Presbyterian) army under General Lesley, for King and Covenant combined ; the English (Independent) army, under Cromwell, which was against both ; the Highland army, under General Middleton, which was for the King without the Covenant ; and the Westland, or ultra-Covenanting army, which was for the Covenant without the King. THE MARQUIS OF HUNTLY 33 Reformation (with the exception of the years between 1592 and 1610), in which the bishops were little more than permanent moderators of Presbyteries, and were subject to the General Assembly, and in which the ritual was of a very simple character. As a University and Cathedral city, and the resid- ence of a large number of wealthy landed proprietors, Aberdeen occupied a position of great importance in Scotland, and was by no means under the command of the capital. The heads of the Covenanting party very speedily found it necessary to take steps for bringing this corner of the king- dom into subjection to themselves. They could scarcely hope to succeed in overcoming the powerful forces at the command of the English Government, if they were to allow this enemy to remain undis- turbed in their rear. Accordingly, at a very early stage in the pro- ceedings, they attempted to gain over to their side the great territorial magnate of the district, the Marquis of Huntly, who, from his rank and wealth and hereditary loyalty to the throne, was likely to be the leader of the King's party in the North. Had they succeeded, they would virtually have had the whole country at their back, for the community of Aberdeen, and the few neighbouring lairds, who, like Sir Thomas Urquhart, refused to accept the Covenant, would not have dared to resist the national policy by force of arms. In the negotia- tions between the Covenanting leaders and the Marquis of Huntly, we have an illustration of the very muddy roads along which religion is dragged, 3 34 SIR THOMAS URQUHART when it forms an alliance with a political party. It is certainly with somewhat of a shock that one who is under the impression that all the Cove- nanters were saints of a very spiritually-minded type, learns of the grim option which they offered to their possible opponent. Colonel Eobert Munro, who had seen service hi Germany, was appointed to wait upon the Marquis at Strathbogie, and to acquaint him with the resolutions to which the Covenanters had come. " The sum of his com- mission to Huntly was," we are told, " that the noblemen Covenanters were desirous that he should join with them in the common cause ; that, if he would do so, and take the Covenant, they would give him the first place, and make him leader of their forces ; and, further, they would make his state and his fortunes greater than ever they were ; and, moreover, they should pay off and discharge all his debts, which they knew to be about one hundred thousand pounds sterling; that their forces and associates were a hundred to one [in comparison] with the king; and, therefore, it was to no purpose to him to take up arms against them, for if he refused this offer and declared against them, they should find means to disable him for to help the king ; and, moreover, they knew how to undo him, and bade him to expect that they will ruinate his family and estates." The hands were, perhaps, the hands of Christian, the voice was certainly the voice of Mr Worldly Wiseman ! The reply of the Marquis was admirable for the ENVIRONED WITH COVENANTERS 35 spirit of generosity and chivalry which it breathed. " To this proposition," we are told, " Huntly gave a short and resolute repartee, that his family had risen and stood by the kings of Scotland ; and for his part, if the event proved the ruin of this king, he was resolved to lay his life, honours, and estate under the rubbish of the king's ruins." l Though Sir Thomas Urquhart, senior, was a staunch Episcopalian and a devoted Eoyalist, the circumstances in which he was placed forbade his aiding the ecclesiastical and political causes which were dear to him with more than good wishes. He was surrounded by neighbours of the opposite party, 2 and isolated from those with whom he would gladly have co-operated. Consequently, it remained for his eldest son, our author, who apparently was residing at that time at Balquholly Castle, in Aberdeenshire, where the adherents of the Eoyalist cause were numerous, to play a more heroic part. Between the date of the signing of the Covenant and that of the meeting of the General Assembly in Glasgow in 1638, The Tables, for such was the name by which the executive government estab- 1 Gordon's Scots Affairs, i. 49, 50. James Gordon (? 1615-1686) was minister of Rothiemay in Banffshire. His History of Scots A/airs from 1637 to 1641 is one of the principal authorities for this period. It has no pretensions to style, but is correct and impartial. It was first published in 1841 by the Spalding Club. 2 Early in the year 1638 some account was given to King Charles of the chief persons in the north of Scotland whom he might regard as faithful to his cause. " In Rosse," it was said, "Sir Thomas Urqhward, Sheriff of Cromerty, with his following, but they [are] environed with Covenanters, ther neighbours " (ibid. i. 61). 36 SIR THOMAS URQUHART lished by the revolutionary party was designated, decided to subdue the city of Aberdeen and the neighbouring country, and to compel the people there to accept the Covenant. Before resorting to force, however, an attempt was made to persuade. A committee of three eminent clergymen, Hender- son, Dickson, and Cant, with the Earl of Montrose as president, was sent north to deal with the somewhat unimpressible Aberdonians. The hos- pitable corporation of the northern city invited the visitors to a banquet of wine, but their invitation was scornfully declined. The deputation " would drink with none till first the Covenant was sub- scribed." Such incivility was new in the history of the city, and a very satisfactory rebuke was given to it by the materials for the proposed banquet being distributed among the poor. It can be easily imagined that after this unsatisfactory beginning the sermons delivered by the clerical deputation fell upon unsympathetic ears, and made but few converts. " The commissioners had one powerful ally in the town, in the person of Earl Marischal, the son of the founder of the College, who had died in 1623; and, when they were refused licence to preach in the city churches, they adjourned to his residence at the north end of what is now Marischal Street. The mansion consisted of several buildings with galleries sur- rounding a courtyard, and from these galleries the three Covenanting ministers held forth from eight o'clock in the morning till four in the afternoon, trying to convince the people of the truth of the THE ABERDEEN DOCTORS 3? Covenant. The children of granite, however, proved absolutely impervious to the ' apostles/ whom they scornfully pelted with mud." x A paper-war, which attracted considerable notice, sprang up between the commissioners and six of the Aberdeen clergy popularly designated in con- temporary literature as " the Aberdeen Doctors." 2 In this warfare the representatives of the Covenant- ing party came off rather badly. " The position taken by the Doctors," says John Hill Burton, " is the unassailable one of the dry sarcastic negative. Whatever the Covenant might be good or bad and whatever right its approvers had to bind themselves to it, how were they entitled to force it on those who desired it not ? And when their adversaries became eloquent on its conformity to Scripture and the privileges of the Christian Church, the Doctors ever went back to the same negative position even if it were so, which we do not admit, yet why force it upon us ? " 3 Early in the following year, 1C 39, The Tables resolved to suppress the northern Malignants, as they were called, before preparing to enter on a campaign against their enemy in the south, and 1 A History of the University of Aberdeen, 1495-1895, by J. M. Bulloch, p. 110. 2 These courageous worthies were the bishop's son, Dr John Forbes, Professor of Divinity in King's College ; Dr Robert Baron, Professor of Divinity, and minister in Aberdeen; Dr Alexander Scrogie, minister of Old Aberdeen ; Dr William Leslie, Principal of King's College; and Drs James Sibbald and Alexander Ross, both ministers in Aberdeen. 3 His'ory of Scotland, vi. 235. 38 SIR THOMAS URQUHART thus save themselves from the dangers involved in having an enemy in their rear. The Earl of Mon- trose went north at the head of a considerable body of troops, and took possession of Aberdeen. The opponents of the Covenant fled from the city, and Huntly, the leader of the Eoyalists, felt unable to offer effective resistance. In spite of a safe- conduct granted him by Montrose on his coming in to a conference, he was taken prisoner to Edin- burgh and lodged in the Castle. This kidnapping of the Koyalist chief caused great irritation ; and upon a rumour of the fleet's coming to the Firth of Forth, and of the Eoyal army's approach to the Scottish border, the northern Eoyalists, of whom our Sir Thomas Urquhart was one, resolved to take arms on the King's side. The first mention of our author in history is in connexion with this rising ; and the annalist Spalding relates two exciting incidents that occurred in one week, in both of which he took part. The first, which happened on Friday, the 10th of May, was an attempt made by him and some of the other Eoyalist lairds or " barons," as they are called, 1 to take the castle of Towie-Barclay, 2 in 1 See note on p. 123. 2 Towie-Barclay is the name of an estate in the south-east corner of Turriff parish, Aberdeenshire, near Auchterless Station, and four and a half miles south-east of Turriff. The castle is supposed to have been built in 1593. It remained pretty" perfect till 1792, was re-roofed in 1874, and retains a fine baronial hall with vaulted ceiling. From at least the beginning of the fourteenth century till 1733, the estate belonged to the Barclays, one of whose line was the celebrated Russian general, Prince Michael Barclay de THE FIRST SKIRMISH 39 Aberdcenshire. It seems that the lairds of Delgatie and Towie-Barclay had plundered the house of Balquholly, 1 which was occupied by our author, and carried off a large supply of " muskets, guns, and carabines." Sir Thomas was not a man to submit quietly to such an outrage as this ; and, doubtless, to his desire for vengeance was added a strong wish to get possession of the firearms, now that there was a good cause to be defended and brave men to use the weapons. They had intended to surprise the castle, but when they came to it they found the gates shut, and the place strongly guarded. Lord Fraser and the eldest son of Lord Forbes had already known that an attempt was to be made to recover the weapons, and had manned Tolly (1759-1818). In 1792 it was sold to the governors of Gordon's Hospital, Aberdeen, for 21,000. Towie is a corruption of Tolly. See Billing's Baronial Antiquities, vol. iv. 1 Balquholly, now Hatton Castle : a square, castellated mansion of 1814, with finely wooded grounds, in Turriff parish, three and a quarter miles south-east of Turriff. It comprises a considerable fragment of the ancient baronial castle of Balquholly (Gael, baile- coille, "town in the wood"), the seat of the Mowats from the thirteenth century till 1729, when the estate was sold to Alexander Dun", Esq. Sir Thomas Urquhart must either have rented the house from the Mowats, or have obtained leave to keep arms there. The cellars in which the arms were probably kept are exactly as they were in 1638, except that the old loop-holes are partly filled up. The name of the mansion was changed to Hatton Lodge in 1745, and to Hatton Castle in 1814, when the modern part was built Hatton being the name of the property in Auchterless, which previously belonged to the Duff family. The present pro- prietor is Garden Alexander Duff, Esq., who succeeded to the estates in 1866. There is behind Hatton Castle a small croft called Cromartie (see Ordnance Map), probably from our author's occupancy of Balquholly or connexion with it. 40 SIR THOMAS URQUHART the castle so effectually that the idea of storming it was out of the question. A few shots were exchanged, and then the attacking party rode away. The only casualty was the death of a David Prott, who was a servant of the laird of Gight, 1 one of Urquhart's friends. " This," the historian remarks, " was the first time that blood was drawn here since the beginning of the Covenant." 2 Four days after, a more serious encounter took place between the two forces. The Covenanters of the north had decided to assemble in force, and fixed upon Turriff, in Aberdeenshire, as their head- quarters. The Royalists drew to a head at Strath- bogie, some eleven miles off, and resolved to disperse their opponents. The Covenanting party was about twelve hundred strong, and the Eoyalists about eight hundred, but the latter had four brass cannon, which very materially strengthened them as an attacking force. They were under the leadership of skilful officers, among whom Arthur Forbes of Blacktown [in King-Edward] is speci- ally mentioned. Sir Thomas himself informs us that, " having obtained, though with a great deal of pain, a fifteen hundreth [hundred] subscrip- tions to a bond conceived and drawn up in opposition of the vulgar [popular] Covenant, he selected from amongst them so many as he thought fittest for holding hand to [taking in 1 An ancestor of Lord Byron. 2 Spahling's Memorials, i. 185. Until within living memory the exact site of Prott's [or Pratt's] grave was pointed out ; but it is now quite obliterated by being ploughed over repeatedly. THE TROT OF TURRIFF 41 hand] the dissolving of their committees and un- lawful meetings." l About ten o'clock on the night of Monday, the 13th of May, they started for Turriff, marching in a " very quiet and sober manner," and by day- break managed to steal upon the village by an unguarded path. The sound of trumpets and of drums aroused the unsuspecting Covenanters to the fact that they had been fairly surprised. " Some were sleeping, others drinking, and sinoak- ing tobacco, others walking up and down." A few volleys of musketry, and a few shots discharged from the cannon, served to disperse them, and the village was taken possession of by the attacking force. It was but a slight skirmish, 2 in which three men were killed, two of the Covenanters, and one of the Eoyalists ; but it was the first of the battles in the great Civil War, which raged for so many years, and deluged with blood 1 MS. Epigrams : The Animadversion. "Ther fell only two gentlemen upon the Covenanters syde ; one Mr James Stacker, a servant to the Lord Mucholles ; and one Alexander Forbesse, servante to Forbesse of Tolqhwone : upon the Gordons syde, one common foote souldiour killed, (by the unskilfullnesse of his owne comerades fyring ther musketts, as was tlioughte), whom the Gordons caused burye solemnly, that day, out of ane idle vante, in the buriall place of Walter Barcley of Towey, within the church of Turreffe ; not without great terror to the minister of the place, Mr Thomas Michell, who all the whyle, with his soune, disgwysd in a womans habite, had gott upp and was lurkinge above the s} 7 ling of the churche, whilst the soul- diotirs wer discharging volleyes of shotte within the churche, and peircing the syling with ther bulletts in severall places " (Gordon's Scots Affairs, ii. 258). The reader will keep in mind that Gordon was the family name of the Marquis cf Huntly. 42 SIR THOMAS URQUHART so many fruitful plains in each of the three king- doms. On this account " the Trot of Turriff," as it was called, should not be forgotten. After this victory, the Eoyalists being masters of the village, the common soldiers, who were hungry after their night's march, plundered the houses of those they thought were Covenanters, and supplied themselves with meat and drink. The greatest loss fell upon the minister, Mr Mitchell, who, however, received very liberal compensation from Parliament in the following year. They next gathered as many of the inhabitants of Turriff together as they could find, and made them accept and subscribe the King's Covenant. 1 This device for securing adherents was, however, ineffectual, for, a few weeks later, those 1 This was originally the King's Confession, and was drawn up in 1580 by John Craig, minister of Holyrood House, and subscribed by James vi. and his household on 28th January, 1580-81. It is printed at length in Row's Historic of the Kirk of Scotland. It reaffirms the Confession of Faith of 1560, but contains also a solemn renunciation in great detail of the errors of Popery. It was approved by the General Assembly in April, 1581. A "General Band [Bond] for Maintenance of the true Religion" was added in 1588. The National Covenant of 1637 was an ampli- fication of the previous Confessions, containing in addition an abjuration of Episcopal Church -government, as the King's Con- fession did of Popery. In September, 1638, Charles i. issued a proclamation for the Scottish people to subscribe this King's Con- fession and General Band, but the Covenanters regarded this as a subtle plot to divide them, and destroy the National Covenant, and, therefore, protested against the proclamation. The Confession and Band so subscribed, for it Avas subscribed by some, got the name of the " King's Covenant." It did not, of course, contain the abjuration of Episcopal Church -government. Those who adhered to it were called Malignants ; while the name Covenanters was applied to those who subscribed the National Covenant. ESCAPES TO ENGLAND 43 who had sworn to the King's Covenant, on a declaration that they had acted under compulsion, were solemnly absolved by their minister from all obligation to keep it. The Koyalist leaders now began to think of further projects, as the number of their followers increased after the victory at Turriff. They lost no time in marching upon Aberdeen, and in quarter- ing themselves upon its inhabitants, especially upon those who were known to belong to the Covenant- ing party. In a few days, however, they found their position untenable. A considerable number of their Highland forces disbanded, and marched away to their homes, plundering as they went " a thing," the historian remarks, " verye usuall with them." The others retreated from Aberdeen, when the Covenanting army under the Earl Marischal entered the city, on the 23rd of May, 1639. A small number of prominent Eoyalists, 1 of whom our Sir Thomas was one, now resolved to leave Scotland, where the cause to which they were devoted was at such a low ebb. A ship, belonging to one Andrew Findlay, had been kept in readiness for an emergency like this, and on it they embarked hastily, and sailed away to England, to offer their services to Charles I. " Urquhart," says Dr Irving, " who professes to have launched 1 Among those who made their escape from Aberdeen along with Urquhart were Adam Bellenden, the bishop of the diocese ; Alex- ander Innes, minister of Rothiemay ; Alexander Scrogie, a Regent of King's College ; together with the bishop's son, nephew, and servant (Spalding's Memorials). 44 SIR THOMAS URQUHART forth in the view of six hundred of his enemies, was, within two days, landed at Berwick, where he found the Marquis of Hamilton, and delivered to him a letter from the leaders of the northern Royalists. He had likewise undertaken to be the bearer of despatches to the King, containing the signatures of the same chieftains ; and, having proceeded to the royal quarters, he obtained an audience of His Majesty, and explained to him their past exertions and future plans for his service. He appears to have been satisfied with his own reception, and the written answer ' gave great con- tentment to all the gentlemen of the north that stood for the king.' " 1 In one of our author's tracts, published in 1652, we have a pedigree of the family of Urquhart. Under his own name he states that "he was knighted by King Charles, in Whitehall Gallery, in the yeer 16 41, the 7 of April." In the same year he first made his appearance as an author in the publication of his three books of Epigrams, Moral and Divine, of which a fuller notice will be found in a later chapter. Let us now for a little leave Sir Thomas, happy in his sovereign's favour, his head encircled with the ivy-wreath that clothes the brows of learned poets, and his eye fixed upon a prominent crag of Mount Parnassus as hence- forth specially his own, and turn to his father, whose golden dreams have long since fled away, and left him but the dreariest and shabbiest prose. 1 Lives of the Scottish Writers, vol. i. ; Urquhart's MS. Epigrams : The Animadversion. CIVIL WAR A RELIEF 45 For thirty-six years the elder Sir Thomas had been in possession of the ample estates of the house of Urquhart, and during nearly the whole of this time the country had been at peace, so that he had no one but himself to blame for the im- poverished condition in which they were when his son received them. The latter described the state of matters in the following terms : " All he be- queathed unto me, his eldest Son, in matter of worldly means, was twelve or thirteen thousand pounds sterling of debt, five brethren all men, and two sisters almost manageable, to provide for, and lesse to defray all this burden with by six hundred pounds sterling a year, although [i.e. even if] the warres had not prejudiced me in a farthing, then [than] what for the maintaining of himself alone in a peaceable age he inherited for nothing." l So exasperated was the old man by the impor- tunity of his creditors, that at last, we are told, the sound of one of their voices was in his ears as " the hissing of a basilisk." The great Civil War itself, which brought calamity and grief to so many homes, was almost welcomed by him for the relief it brought him from the " homings " and " apprisings," and other legal processes, which threatened him in times of peace. " The dis- orderly troubles of the land," says his son of him, " being then far advanced, though otherways he dis- liked them, were a kind of refreshment to him, and intermitting relaxation from a more stinging dis- quietnesse. For that our intestin troubles and dis- 1 Works, p. 340, 46 SIR THOMAS URQUHART tempers, by silencing the laws for a while, gave some repose to those that longed for a breathing time, and by hudling up the terms of Whitsuntide and Martimass, which in Scotland are the destinated times for payment of debts, promiscuously with the other seasons of the year, were as an oxymel julip wherewith to indormiat them in a bitter sweet security." l The most importunate of all the creditors, or, as Urquhart describes them, " the usurious cor- morants," who harassed the unhappy proprietor of Cromartie, was a certain Eobert Lesley of Findrassie. He held a mortgage upon the estate, and though he was indebted to its owner for many acts of kind- ness, he had been the first to foreclose upon the property, and had persuaded other creditors to join with him in taking this step. The annoyance and mortification caused by these proceedings hastened Sir Thomas's death. Two days before that event, animated by regret for the wrong he had done his heir by the impoverishment of the family property, he assembled his younger children, and bound them, " under pain of his everlasting curse and execration," to do all in their power to help their elder brother. The terms of this extraordinary bond, his son tells us, were these : " to assist, concur with, follow, and serve me, to the utmost of their power, industry, and means, and to spare neither charge nor travel, though it should cost them all they had, to release me from the un- deserved bondage of the domineering creditor, and 1 Works, p. 346. ATTEMPT TO REDUCE DEBTS 47 extricate my lands from the impestrements wherein they were involved ; yea, to bestow nothing of their owne upon no other use, till that should be done ; and all this under their own handwriting, secured with the clause of registration to make the oppro- brie the more notorious in case of failing, as the paper itself, which I have in rctcntis, together with another signed to the same sense, by my mother, and also my brothers and sisters, Dunbugar [Dun- lugas] 1 only excepted, will more evidently testifie." 2 Sir Thomas Urquhart, the elder, died in April [?], 1642, after a long and lingering illness. 3 Our author now returned home to enter on pos- session of his estates, and to attempt to reduce to something like order the chaos in which the family affairs were. He resolved to commit the manage- ment of his property to trustees, who, after paying his mother's jointure, were to devote the whole of the rest of the rents to the reduction of debt. He himself went to live on the Continent, in the hope 1 Dunlugas is in the parish of Alvah, close by the river Deveron, on the east side. 2 Works, p. 341. 8 "He was alive last Whitsuntide! said the coachman. . . . Whitsuntide ! alas ! cried Trim. . . . What is Whitsuntide, Jonathan, or Shrovetide, or any tide or time past, to this ! " (Tristram Shandy, vol. v. chap. vii.). Our author states (Works, p. 341) that "his father's death occurred in August in the year 1642, some four yeares after the hatching of the Covenant." He is, however, very careless in details of fact, and is in error concerning this date. Sir Thomas Urquhart, senior, is termed "umqll" (i.e. "the late") in the Burgess Roll of Banff, on 14th June, 1642 (Annals of Banff, ii. 418). Perhaps the date was April instead of August. The Covenant was signed 1st March, 1638, 48 SIR THOMAS URQUHART that in a few years he would be able to return home and enjoy his inheritance unencumbered by debt. These proceedings, with the disappointing results that followed them, are related in a pas- sage of his Logopandccteision, which is worth quot- ing. " Immediately after my father's decease," he says, " for my better expedition in the discharge of those burthens, having repaired homewards, I did sequestrate the whole rent (my mother's joynture excepted) to that use only, and, as I had done many times before, betook myself to my hazards abroad, that by vertue of the industry and diligence of those whom, by the advise and deliberation of my nearest friends, I was induced to intrust with my affairs, the debt might be the sooner defrayed, and the ancient house releeved out of the thraldome it was so unluckily fain into. But it fell out so far otherwayes, that after some few years residence abroad, without any considerable expence from home, when I thought, because of my having morti- fied and set apart all the rent to no other end then [than] the cutting off and defalking of my father's debt, that accordingly a great part of my father's debt had been discharged, I was so far disappointed of my expectation therin, that whilst, conform to the confidence reposed in him whom I had intrusted with my affairs, I hoped to have been exonered and relieved of many creditors, the debt was only past over and transferred from one in favours of another, or rather of many in the favours of one, who, though he formerly had gained much at my father's hands, was notwithstanding at the time of EGYPTIAN BONDAGE 49 his decease none of his creditors, nor at any time mine ; my Egyptian bondage by such means remain- ing still the same, under task masters different only in name, and the rents neverthelesse taken up to the full, to my no small detriment and prejudice of the house standing in my person. The aime of some of those I concredited [committed] my weightiest adoes [affairs] unto, being, as is most conspicuously apparent, that I should never reap the fruition nor enjoyment of any portion, parcell, or pendicle of the estate of my predecessors, imlesse by my fortune and endeavours in forrain countries, I should be able to acquire as much as might suffice to buy it, as we say, out of the ground. And verily," he concludes, " though not in relation to these ignoble and unworthy by-ends, it was my purpose and resolution to have done so, which assuredly, had not the turbulent divisions of the time been such as to have crossed and thwarted the atchieve- ments of more faisible projects, I would have accomplished two or three severall ways ere now." l One is inclined to wonder what the two or three lucrative undertakings were, which this High- land gentleman had in view when he spoke in this way of the practicability of making enough money to purchase back his estates. " What song the syrens sang," says Sir Thomas Browne, " or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions are not beyond all conjecture." But even as wise a man as Sir 1 Works, pp. 346, 347. 4 So SIR THOMAS URQUHART Thomas Browne might well pause before venturing on a conjecture in connection with this matter. In one of the official records of the time, 1 there is an entry which shows that Urquhart was resi- dent in London in 1644. On the 9th May of that year he is assessed for a forced loan at 1000; and, on the 16th of the same month, there is an order for him to be brought up in custody to pay his assessment; while, on the 21st, it is noted that his assessment is " respited till he shall speak with the Scottish committee and take further orders, he engaging to appear whenever required." He no doubt proved to the committee that he had no property in London, but was only a sojourner there, and was accordingly virtually discharged. His place of residence in London at this time was Clare Street, 2 then newly erected upon St Clement's 1 Calendar of Proceedings of Committee for Advances of Moneys- Taxes, i. 381. 2 The neighbourhood is now a cluster of narrow, dirty streets and passages, lined chiefly with butchers' and grocers' shops, which overflow into the adjacent streets, and are supplemented by fishmongers' and miscellaneous stalls and barrows a crowded, noisy, and unsavoury place on Saturday nights. In 1640, Charles I. granted his licence to Thomas York, his executors, etc. , to erect as many buildings as they thought proper upon St Clement's Inn Fields, the inheritance of the Earl of Clare. He issued another licence in 1642, permitting Gervase Holies, Esq., to make several streets of the width of thiity, thirty-four, and forty feet. These streets still retain the names and titles of their founders Clare Street, Denzil Street, and Holies Street. Clare Street is somewhat rich in interesting associations. % There is a letter of Steele's to his wife, dated from the Bull Head Tavern in this street, 24th August, 1710. It seems likely that he was hiding there. Mrs Bracegirdle, a celebrated actress of that time, "was in the habit of going into that neighbourhood, and giving money A BURDENED ESTATE 51 Inn Fields, on the east side of Drury Lane, and called after John Holies, 1 second Earl of Clare, whose town-house was near by. Sir Thomas Urquhart now resolved to take the management of his own affairs, and, if possible, so to conduct matters as to secure subsistence for himself, as well as satisfaction for his father's creditors; and, in the year 1645, he went to live in the ancestral home at Cromartie. His rental still amounted to 1000 Sterling a year, which represents about 7000 in our time, but a debt of twelve or thirteen years' income was a very serious burden upon such an estate. There can be little doubt that the entanglement in which the financial affairs of the house of Urquhart were involved became none the less con- fused and confusing when the gallant knight applied himself to unravel it. That was scarcely a task for which he was fitted. Much more appropriate would it have been for him to draw the sword, like Alexander, and cut the Gordian knot. Perhaps his failure, as in another well-known case, 2 is partly to to the poor basket-women, insomuch that she could not pass without having thankful acclamations from people of all degrees." It was to Clare Street and Clare Market that Jack Sheppard went, after his escape from Newgate : he there bought a butcher's frock and woollen apron, which he was wearing when captured at Fiuchley. Here was Johnson's Hotel, celebrated for upwards of seventy years for its d la mode beef. Isaac Bickerstaffe, too, lived in this street. 1 John Holies, created Baron Hough ton of Houghton, in the county of Nottingham, in 1616, and Earl of Clare in 1624. 2 "If I had known that young man [Uriah Keep]," said Mr Micawber, "at the period when my difficulties came to a crisis, all 52 SIR THOMAS URQUHART be attributed to his not having had a legal adviser, familiar with the intricacies of the law, and able to prevent his creditors getting more than their pound of flesh, if not to save even that from them. Charles I. once said that he knew as much law as a gentleman ought to know. Sir Thomas Urquhart seems to have had a somewhat similar acquaintance with the same subject, and this, like that of the person mentioned in the foot-note on the preceding page, was probably acquired "as a defendant on civil process." There can be no doubt that he "made an effort" more than once. In vain did he have recourse to " pecunial charms, and holy water out of Plutus' cellar." x The charms were indeed potent, but they were not applied long enough ; the holy water was composed of the right ingredients, but there was too little of it in the cellars at Cromartie. He could not, with all his struggles, succeed in curing what the Limousin scholar in Rabelais calls " the penury of pecune in the marsupie " [i.e. the want of money in the purse] that complaint which is so mortifying to the pride of any gentleman, but which is specially exasperat- ing to a Highland gentleman. His cares and dis- tresses, or, as he calls them, his " solicitudinary and luctiferous discouragements," were enough " to appall the most undaunted spirits, and kill a very Paphla- gonian partridge, that is said to have two hearts." 2 I can say is, that I believe my creditors would have been better managed than they were" (David Copperficld, chap. xvii.). 1 Works, p. 347. 2 Ibid. p. 346. For the authority on which this interesting ornithological statement is made the reader will overhaul his Pliny (H. N. xi. chap. 3). IMPORTUNATE CREDITORS 53 Probably Sir Thomas Urquhart was harshly dealt with by his father's creditors, though, of course, it is possible that in the story as told by them they would appear in a more favourable light. They had to do with a man who was unpractical and fantastical in the highest degree, and morbidly sensitive in all matters that seemed to lower his dignity or to cast a slur upon his honour. His brains seethed with plans for the improvement of agriculture, trade, and education, but none of these did the importunity of his creditors permit him to carry into effect. " Truly I may say," he complains, " that above ten thousand severall times I have by these flagitators been interrupted for money, which never came to my use, directly or indirectly one way or other, at home or abroad, any one time whereof I was busied about speculations of greater consequence then [than] all that they were worth in the world ; from which, had I not been violently pluck'd away by their importunity, I would have emitted to publick view above five hundred several treatises on inventions never hitherto thought upon by any." l Before his imagination there floated the dream of what he might have been, and his mind alternated between passionate remonstrances against his unfortunate circumstances and delusive hopes and anticipations. The editor of the Maitland Club edition of Urquhart's works truly remarks that there is a melancholy earnestness, almost approaching in- sanity, in his wild speculations on what he might 1 Wvrks, p. 326. 54 SIR THOMAS URQUHART have done for himself and his country but for the weight of worldly incumbrances. "Even so," he says, " may it be said of myself, that when I was most seriously imbusied about the raising of my own and countrie's reputation to the supremest reach of my endeavours, then did my father's creditors, like so many millstones hanging at my heels, pull down the vigour of my fancie, and violently hold that under, what [which] other wayes would have ascended above the subliniest regions of vulgar conception." 1 So convinced was he that the schemes and in- ventions with which his thoughts were occupied were of immense value, that he declared that he ought to have the benefit of that Act of James in. (36th statute of his fifth Parliament) which pro- vides that the debtor's movable goods be first " valued and discussed before his lands be apprised." He claimed this as a right from the State ; " and if," he says, " conform to the aforesaid Act, this be granted, I doe promise shortly to display before the world, ware of greater value then [than] ever from the East Indias was brought in ships to Europe." 2 But unfortunately the Philistines were too strong for him. To these pecuniary difficulties were added annoy- ances and wrongs, which the meekest of mankind, among whom Sir Thomas is not to be reckoned, would have found it hard to bear. Mention has already been made of Eobert Lesley of Findrassie, the most relentless of all the creditors, 1 Works, p. 328. " Mid. p. 325. LESLEY OF FINDRASSIE 55 who, according to Sir Thomas Urquhart's account of matters, made life bitter for him, and defeated his many schemes for the benefit of the human race. The injurious proceedings of this man form a sub- ject which our author can never leave for any length of time, and to which it is necessary for his biographer to revert occasionally. His unfortunate debtor found a certain grim satisfaction, as well as an opportunity for gratifying his taste for genea- logical research, in tracing Kobert's descent from a celebrated murderer that Norman Lesley whose hands were dipped in the blood of Cardinal Beaton. It is certain, however, that there was no real foundation for this opinion. 1 Unless Kobert Lesley is a much-maligned man, his conduct towards the son of his patron was both rapacious and ungrateful. On one occasion at least he acted in a very high-handed manner. " With all the horse and foot he was able to command," says Sir Thomas, " he came in a hostile manner to take possession of a farm of mine called Ardoch ; unto which ... he had no more just title then [than] to the town of Jericho mentioned in the Scriptures ; and at the offer of such an indignity to our house, some of the hot-spirited gentlemen of our name would even then have taken him, with his three sons, bound them hand and foot, and thrown 1 Norman Lesley, Master of Rothes, eldest son of George, fifth Earl of Rothes, died without issue in 1554. This disposes of Sir Thomas Urquhart's statement. The Lesleys of Findrassie them- selves claimed to be descended from Robert, the fourth son of Earl George. See Scotch Peerage Law, by J. Riddell, p. 190, 56 SIR THOMAS URQUHART them within the flood-mark, into a place called the Yares of Udol, there to expect the coming of the sea in a full tide, to carry him along to be seized in a soil of a greater depth, and abler to restrain the insatiableness of his immense desires, then [than] any of my lands within the shire of Cromartie." Sir Thomas, according to his own account, hindered the perpetration of this violence, and gave his enemy and those who accompanied him " a pass and safe-conduct to their own houses." 1 Yet so far was the caitiff creditor from being touched by this proof of magnanimity on the part of his debtor, that he applied himself with renewed vigour to the concoction of schemes for his total destruction. So at least Sir Thomas would have us believe. On one occasion Lesley tried to inveigle him to Inverness, with the intention of having him arrested at the suit of an accomplice James Sutherland, " Tutor of Duffus " and kept in dur- ance until he had satisfied all his enemy's demands. On another occasion Lesley managed to get a troop of horse quartered upon the tenants of Cromartie, till, says our author, " I should transact for a sum, of money to be paid to his son-in-law ; which verily was the greater part of his portion." 5 In addition to this, a garrison was stationed for nearly a year in the castle of Cromartie, where they conducted themselves in a way calculated to wound and humiliate the proud spirit of its proprietor. Among other wrongs and losses inflicted upon him was the sequestration of his library, which he had 1 W&rfo, p. 379. 2 Ibid. p. 380. LESLEY DEFENDS HIMSELF 57 collected with such pains. Sir Thomas says that he sought eagerly to be allowed to purchase back the precious volumes, but was hindered by the spitefulness and indifference of those to whom he made application, and was ultimately able to secure only a few of them, which had been stolen from the collection and dispersed through the country. 1 In an amusing passage in the Logopandecteision, our author gives us a specimen of the peculiarities of speech which distinguished his arch-enemy, Lesley of Fiudrassie. As we read it we seem to hear the very tones in which he enunciated or defended his " felonious little plans." " Several gentlemen of good account," he says, " and others of his familiar acquaintance, having many tunes very seriously expostulated with him why he did so im- placably demean himself towards me, and with such irreconciliability of rancor, that nothing could seem to please him that was consistent with my weal, his answers most readily were these : ' I have (see ye ?) many daughters (see ye ?) to provide portions for, (see ye ?), and that (see ye now ?) cannot be done, (see ye ?) without money ; the interest (see ye ?) of what I lent, (see ye ?), had it been termely [regu- larly] payed, (see ye ?), would have afforded me (see ye now ?) several stocks for new interests ; I have 1 One of these volumes containing the signature of our author is still in existence. It is a copy of Arthur Johnston's Latin poems, printed at Aberdeen by Raban, 1632, and is in the possession of the Rev. J. B. Craven, Kirkwall. It is a very fragile volume. The signature in this volume, and two others, attached to legal documents, are all that are known to be extant. We give a fac-simile of one of the latter on p. iv. 58 SIR THOMAS URQUHART (see ye ?) apprized 1 lands (see ye ?) for these summes (see ye ?) borrowed from me, (see ye now ?), and (see ye ?) the legal [time] being expired, (see ye now ?), is it not just (see ye ?) and equitable (see ye ?) that I have possession (see ye ?) of these my lands, (see ye ?), according to my undoubted right, (see ye now ?) ? ' With these over-words of ' see ye ' 1 "Apprising" is a legal process to which Sir Thomas several times refers with great horror, and it may be as well to explain to our readers what it was, for fortunately it is now a thing of the past. It was for long the only method of attaching a debtor's heritable property. By the Act, 1469, c. 36, when payment of a debt could not be obtained out of the debtor's movables (including rent), "the King's letters might be obtained, under which a debtor's land might be sold by the Sheriff to the amount of his debts, and the creditor paid out of the proceeds. If within six months no pur- chaser could be found, a portion of the land equal to the debt was to be apprised by thirteen men chosen by the Sheriff, and the portion apprised by them was to be made over to the creditor." The debtor could redeem within seven years. This procedure at first took place in the head burgh of the shire, where the jury probably knew enough to make a fair valuation of the land. But after a time the proceedings often took place in Edinburgh, where the jury had no special knowledge, and might be packed by the creditor. So that large estates were sometimes carried off in payment of trifling debts. The appriser at once entered into possession, and was not obliged to account for the rents (until 1621, c. 6). It was thus a powerful engine of oppression. If A. wished B.'s land, and B. owned land and nothing else, it was possible for A., if he could only get B. as his debtor even in a small sum, so to work matters that for the debt he might apprise all B.'s land. Being then in right of B.'s rents, he had B. completely in his power, and B. had no resources for gathering together the amount of the debt which he must pay in order to redeem his lands within the seven years allowed. The law was much relaxed by the Act, 1621, c. 6, but the above will enable us to understand how an unscrupulous creditor might get an easy-going, thriftless man into his clutches, and im- poverish him and his family. AN ACCUMULATION OF EVILS 59 and ' see ye now,' as if they had been no less material then [than] the Psalmist's Selah, and Hifjgaion Selali, did he usually nauseate the ears of his hearers when his tongue was in the career of uttering anything concerning me ; who al waves thought that he had very good reason to make use of such like expressions, ' do you see ' and ' do you see now/ because there being but little candour in his meaning, whatever he did or spoke was under some colour." l It must have been very hard for the proud- hearted chieftain to see his farms devastated, his tenants maltreated, his library thrown to the winds, a garrison placed in his house, and troops of horse quartered upon his lands without any allowance, in addition to all the misery and impoverishment which his father's wastefulness and neglect had brought down upon his head. In 1C 47 an event occurred which seriously 1 Works, p. 382. The evident meaning of the last sentence is that Lesley's ways were so dark that it was highly necessary for him often to ask, "See ye?" Yet one cannot help feeling that this relentless creditor may not have been solely animated by malignant hatred of his debtor. Even in the above speech there seem to be claims which cannot be lightly brushed aside. One is again reminded of Mr Micawber, and of the sudden and unex- pected glimpse of a better nature in his most truculent creditor, which was vouchsafed him when he got his discharge in bank- ruptcy. "Even the revengeful bootmaker," we are told, "de- clared in open court that he bore him [Mr M.] no malice, but that when money was owing to him he liked to be paid. He said he thought it was human nature" (David Copper field, chap. xii.). An eminent American philosopher has said that there is a great deal of human nature in man. There seems at any rate to have been a great deal in Mr Lesley of Firidrassie. 60 SIR THOMAS URQUHART affected the interests of our author, and placed him in a still more humiliating position. Sir Eobert Farquhar l of Mounie had " apprised " the estate and sheriffship of Cromartie, and was now confirmed in the possession of them. He proceeded to sell his rights to (Sir) John Urquhart of Craigfintray, the great - grandson of the Tutor of Cromartie. Immediately upon this (Sir) John purchased a com- mission from Charles i. to become hereditary Sheriff of Cromartie. In this way the ancestral domains and jurisdiction of which Sir Thomas Urquhart was so proud virtually passed out of his hands. It was not, however, till after the Eestoration apparently that the new proprietor entered into possession. He evidently allowed his claims to lie dormant until the death of his cousin, Sir Thomas, and then put them in force. Even if our author had no other troubles to contend with, the knowledge that this Damoclean sword was suspended above his head would have been enough to destroy his peace. No doubt Sir Thomas sometimes thought that he was the most unlucky chieftain the Urquhart race had yet known, that such a multitude of mis- fortunes had never come upon one who bore his name since that day when, on a sunny plain in Achaia, wild armed men first raised Esormon " aloft on the buckler-throne, and with clanging armour and hearts " hailed him as " fortunate and well- 1 In one of his queer Epigrams, after comparing the insatiable demands of his creditors to those of the grave and of the sea, he closes with the following alliterative litany : "Free me from Farcher, Fraser, Fendrasie." A ROYALIST'S LOSSES 61 beloved." J Sir Theodore Martin, indeed, says that Urquhart 's statements with regard to his misfortunes should not be construed to the letter, any more than should the announcements of his wonderful inven- tions and designs. They were both, he considers, in a great degree pet objects on whicli he had permitted his imagination to rest, till they had been transfigured into a magnitude to which the reality probably bore but a faint resemblance. 2 There is, however, ample evidence in what we have already quoted, to show that certain of the grievances he complained of were by no means imaginary. It is beyond dispute that he suffered heavily in his property in consequence of his adherence to the Koyalist cause. In 1663 his brother, Sir Alexander, presented a petition asking compensation for the losses suffered in the time of his father and brother. The Commissioners ap- pointed to examine into these claims reported that, before 1650, the damage inflicted upon the Urquhart property amounted to 20,303 Scots, and during 1651-52 to 39,203 Scots in all 59,506 Scots, which is almost 5000 Sterling. 3 The relations of Sir Thomas Urquhart with the ministers of the churches of which he was patron were unfortunately of a painful character. The grounds of misunderstanding and dispute were numerous. In addition to political and ecclesi- 1 "His subjects and familiars surnamed him [Esormon] ovpo- X&pros, that is [to] say, ' fortunate and well-beloved ' " ( Works, p. 156). 2 Rabelais, p. xv. 3 Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol. vii. 479, a, b. 62 SIR THOMAS URQUHART astical differences of opinion between the ministers of the three parishes l (of which Sir Thomas was the sole heritor) and himself, there were disputes about augmentation of stipends, 2 which they thought in- adequate but with which he had no fault to find, the abolition of his heritable right to the patronage of these churches, the legal proceedings taken by the incumbents to compel him to agree to arrangements decided upon by the Presbytery with regard to stipends and the upkeep of buildings, and there were also personal quarrels with the ministers themselves. In the following passage he tells his side of the story, and gives us a vivid, though not an edifying glimpse of the parochial politics of that far-off time and remote corner of Scotland. It is to be noticed 1 The parish of Cromartie consists of the north-east portion of the peninsula called the Black Isle, terminating eastward in the precipice called the Southern Sutor, and stretches for about four miles along the shore of the Moray Firth on the east, and about six along that of the Firth of Cromartie on the north and west. To the west of the parish of Cromartie were situated the joint parishes of Kirkmichael and Cullicudden, on the southern shore of the Cromartie Firth. In Sir Thomas Urqnhart's time these were separate parishes, but they were united in 1662, and a new church was built at Resolis, in Kirkmichael, near the border of Cullicudden. The newly- constituted parish bore and still bears the name of Resolis. 2 In his Logopandedcision he speaks of the " stipauctionarie tide" which began to overflow the land. He thought "with sufficient bulwarks of good argument to have stayed the inundation thereof from two of his churches" ; but, he says, "I was violently driven like a feather before a whirlewind, notwithstanding all my defences, to the sanctuary of an inforced patience " ( Works, p. 352). He does not, however, appear to have stayed long in this sanctuary, or else the shelter it alforded was but imperfect. His "stip- auctionarie" (i.e. stipend-increasing) reminds us of Mr Micawber's calling his salary his "stipendiary emoluments." ELOQUENCE OF GILBERT ANDERSON 63 that Sir Thomas writes of himself in the third person. " I think," says the supposed anonymous writer of him, " there be hardly any in Scotland that proportionably hath suffered more prejudice by the Kirk then [than] himself; his own ministers (to wit, those that preach in the churches whereof himself is patron, Master Gilbert Anderson, Master Robert Williamson, and Master Charles Pape by name, serving the cures of Cromartie, Kirkmichel, and Cullicudden), having done what lay in them for the furtherance of their owne covetous ends, to his utter undoing ; for the first of those three, for no other cause but that the said Sir Thomas would not authorize the standing of a certain pew (in that country called a desk), in the church of Cromarty, put in without his consent by a professed enemy to his House, who had plotted the mine thereof, and one that had no land in the parish, did so rail against him and his family in the pulpit at several times, both before his face and in his absence, and with such opprobrious termes, more like a scolding tripe-seller's wife then [than] good minister, squirt- ing the poyson of detraction and abominable fals- hood (unfit for the chaire of verity) in the eares of his tenandry, who were the onely auditors, did most iugrately and despightfully so calumniate and revile their master, his own patron and bene- factor, that the scandalous and reproachful words striving which of them should first discharge against him its steel-pointed dart, did oftentimes, like clusters of hemlock or wormewood dipt in vinegar, stick in his throat ; he being almost ready to choak 64 SIR THOMAS URQUHART with the aconital bitterness and venom thereof, till the razor of extream passion, by cutting them into articulate sounds, and very rage it self, in the highest degree, by procuring a vomit, had made him spue them out of his mouth into rude, indigested lumps, like so many toads and vipers that had burst their gall. 1 " As for the other two, notwithstanding that they had been borne, and their fathers before them, vassals to his house, and the predecessor of one of them had shelter in that land, by reason of slaughter committed by him, when there was no refuge for him anywhere else in Scotland ; and that the other had never been admitted to any church had it not been for the favour of his foresaid patron, who, contrary to the will of his owne friends and great reluctancy of the ministry it self, was both the nominator and chuser of him to that function ; and that before his admission he did faithfully protest he should all the days of his life remain contented with that competency of portion the late incumbent in that charge did enjoy before him ; they neverthe- less behaved themselves so peevishly and unthank- fully towards their forenamed patron and master, that, by vertue of an unjust decree, both procured and purchased from a promiscuous knot of men like themselves, 2 they used all their utmost endeavours, in absence of their above recited patron, to whom and 1 The attention of the reader is specially directed to the marvel- lous felicity and vigour of the above description. Sir Thomas himself has never written anything better in its way. 2 We fear that this is meant as a description of a presbytery. UNEDIFYING SERMONS 65 unto whose house they had been so much behold- ing, to outlaw him, 1 and declare him rebel, by open proclamation at the market-cross of the head town of his owne shire, in case he did not condescend [con- sent] to the grant of that augmentation of stipend which they demanded, conforme to the tenour of the above-mentioned decree ; the injustice whereof will appeare when examined by any rational judge. " Now the best is, when by some moderate gentle- men it was expostulated, why against their master, patron, and benefactor, they should have dealt with such severity and rigour, contrary to all reason and equity ; their answer was, They were inforced and necessitated so to do by the synodal and presbyterial conventions of the Kirk, under paine of deprivation, and expulsion from their benefices : I will not say, tfa/cpv Kopaicos tca/cov o6v [an evil egg of an evil crow^hut may safely think that a well-sanctified mother Will not have a so ill-instructed brat, and that injuria humana cannot be the lawfull daughter of a jure divino parent." 2 Sir Thomas Urquhart is not to be taken as infallible in the opinions which he formed and expressed concerning the quality of the sermons which were delivered from the Presbyterian pulpits of his time. But there can be no doubt that he hits upon one great fault by which many of them were marred that of being rather political harangues than exhortations to godliness after the Pauline fashion. Indeed, he goes so far as to say 1 The reference is to the process of f ' horning " described on p. 16. 2 Works, p. 280-282. 66 SIR THOMAS URQUHART that, as a rule, the preachers of his time seldom gave such exhortations, as they were " enjoyned by their ecclesiastical authority [authorities ?] to preach to the times, 1 that is, to rail against malignants and sectaries, or those whom they suppose to be their enemies." 2 Preaching " to the times " Sir Thomas found meant in his neighbourhood preaching against him; and one may be allowed, it is to be hoped, without unduly wounding the feelings of those who admire the Covenanters, to think sympathetically of his sufferings. Sydney Smith once spoke of a form of capital punishment in which the victim was to be " preached to death by wild curates." If the above description of Mr Gilbert Anderson's sermons be true, he certainly was eminently qualified to officiate as one of the executioners in carrying out such a death sentence. 3 1 That Sir Thomas Urquhart is not exaggerating matters in speaking of such injunctions being given by ecclesiastical author- ities, is proved by the following well-known passage in the memoir prefixed to the Works of Archbishop Leighton : "It was a Question asked at [of] the Brethren, both in the classical and pro- vincial Meetings of Ministers, twice in the Year, If they preached the Duties of the Times? And when it was found that Mr Leighton did not, he was quarrelled [sic] for this Omission, but said, If all the Brethren have preached to the TIMES, may not one poor Brother be suffered to preach on ETERNITY ? " 2 Works, p. 280. 3 The notice given us by Sir Thomas of Mr Anderson's preaching makes us desirous of knowing more about him ; but, unfortunately, only a very few facts concerning him are known. He was born in 1597 ; he graduated at Aberdeen in 1618 ; was settled at Cawdor, near Nairn, some time before 30th October, 1627 ; was transferred to Cromartie between 5th October, 1641, and llth January, 1642 ; died in November, 1655, and was succeeded in the benefice by his son Hugh (Scott's Fasti). LATITUDINARIAN OPINIONS 67 But though Sir Thomas Urquhart was a Koyalist in politics, and an Episcopalian in religion, he was certainly no bigot in his devotion to the King or the Church. In a passage in The Jewel, he plainly declares his belief " that there is no government, whether ecclesiastical or civil, upon earth that is jure divino, if that divine right be taken in a sense secluding all other forms of government, save it alone, from the privilege of that title." 1 Indeed, he treats such an idea as merely a pious fraud, by which despotism is established and maintained at a very cheap rate over tender consciences by threatening them with the vengeance of Heaven in case of disobedience. Such a man was not likely to be a blind partisan of any cause. Differences in religious beliefs and practices he attributed to differences of temperament among individuals, and to climatic and national peculiarities ; and in no obscure terms he hints that he was of the opinion of Tamerlane, " who believed that God was best pleased with diversity of religions, variety of wor- ship, dissentaneousness of faith, and multiformity of devotion." ' However powerfully such opinions may appeal to a certain class of minds, it is hard to conceive of their being associated with deep religious feeling ; and accordingly we can scarcely be wrong in concluding that one of the reasons why Sir Thomas Urquhart held aloof from the Covenanting movement was that he was at the antipodes to the majority of his fellow-countrymen in the matter of religious belief. A certain measure of aversion, 1 Works, p. 276. 2 Ibid. p. 261. 68 SIR THOMAS URQUHART suspicion, and horror is still manifested by many towards those whose creed is supposed to be of too limited and negative a character ; and we can easily believe that in the middle of the seventeenth century this attitude was taken up even more openly and emphatically. On a later occasion, when, as we shall relate, Sir Thomas Urquhart applied to the Commission of the General Assembly to pardon his having taken part in the capture of Inverness, his case was referred to the minister of that town, Mr John Annand, " that he might confer with him [Sir Thomas] concerning some dangerous opinions, which, as is informed, he hes sometimes vented." 1 In the view of the Commission of Assembly the guilt of cherishing " dangerous opinions" was as great as that of rekindling the flames of civil war, if, indeed, it did not surpass it. 1 See p. 83. CHAPTER III Unsuccessful Rising in the North Sir Thomas makes his Peace with the Church Return of Charles n. to Scotland Invasion of England Battle of Worcester Sir Thoinaa a Prisoner in the Tower Makes Friends Is liberated on Parole Great Literary Activity Revisits Scotland Dies Later History of the Urquharts of Cromartie Characteristics of our Author Glover's Portraits of him. HOIiTLY after the news of the execution of Charles I. reached Scotland, a rising on the part of some of the leading Cavaliers in the north took place, with the view of restoring the Boyal Family. The most prominent person in this attempt was Thomas Mackenzie of Pluscardine, a younger brother of George, the second Earl of Seaforth, who for nearly ten years past had managed the affairs of the family, and was looked up to, both on account of his ability and also on account of the great territorial influence he represented. He had seen a good deal of service abroad, and was at one time governor of Stralsund. 1 Along with him, and only second to him, was our Sir Thomas Urquhart, to whom even civil war was scarcely more fraught with anxiety and danger than was the life he had been forced to lead for 1 Antiquarian Notes, by C. Fraser- Mackintosh, p. 156. 70 SIR THOMAS URQUHART some time past. Together with them were as- sociated eight other Koyalists of good standing, among whom Colonel Hugh Fraser of Belladrum and John Munro of Lemlair had a certain pre- eminence, and these ten formed a kind of revolutionary committee for the control of the movement they had set on foot, and the govern- ment of the district that might become subject to them. Montrose had determined, on hearing of the execution of the King, to renew the war in Scot- land, but Pluscardine and his associates did not wait for his arrival. Charles was beheaded on Tuesday, the 30th of January, 1649, and, by the 22nd of the next month, the Scottish gentlemen in the north had already taken the field, and cap- tured Inverness. Four days after, on Monday, 26th February, a meeting of the Committee of War was held in that town, the minutes of which are still in existence, 1 and contain the name of our author next in order to that of Pluscardine him- self. The Committee passed certain enactments, by which they took into their own hands the customs and excise of the six northern counties Inverness, Sutherland, Cromartie, Caithness, Nairn, and Elgin. An inventory of all the ammunition of the garrison was ordered to be taken. It was also decided that Sir Thomas's house at Cromartie should be put in a state of defence, and that the work should be 1 Antiquarian Notes, pp. 155-158 ; History of the Clan Mac- kenzie, by Alex. Mackenzie. PROCLAIMED A TRAITOR 71 carried out by the tenants of Sir James Eraser, a bitter Parliamentarian, and opponent of the Stuarts in the north, and by those of our knight's old enemy, Lesley of Findrassie. 1 It is easy for un- regenerate human nature to understand the pleasure with which the members of the Committee of War would give this last order. By another enactment, the Committee declare that they consider it expedient for their safety that the works and forts of Inver- ness be demolished and levelled with the ground, and they ordain that each person appointed to this work should complete his proportion of it before eight days have passed, " under pain of being quartered upon and until the said task be per- formed." On the 2nd of March, Mackenzie of Plus- cardine, Sir Thomas Urquhart, and their associates, were proclaimed as rebels and traitors by the Estates of Parliament, 2 as " wicked and malignant persouns intending so far as in thame lyes, for 1 The enactment in question runs as follows: "It being thought expedient by the said Committee that the house of Cromartie be put in a posture of defence, and that for the doing thereof it is requisite some faill [turf] be cast and led, the said Committee ordains all Sir James Fraser's tenants within the parochins [parishes] of Cromartie and Cullicudden, together with those of the Laird of Findrassie, within the parochin of Rosemarkie, to afford from six hours in the morning to six hours at night, one horse out of every oxengait [= about 13 Scotch acres] daily for the space of four days to lead the same faill to the house of Cromartie." Of this enemy, Sir James Fraser, our author re- marked at a later time with regrettable bitterness, that he knew only one good thing about him, and that was that he was dead. 2 Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vi. 392. 72 SIR THOMAS URQUHART their own base ends to lay the foundation of a new bloodie and unnaturall warre within the bowells of this their native country," etc. etc. On the 1st of March the Commissioners of the General Assembly had written to Pluscardine and his associates expressing their wonder and grief at such a rising in the interests of " the Popish, Prelaticall and Malignant party," and threatening the penalty of excommunication within ten days if they would not " desist from and repent of that horrid insurrection." l The reply to this letter came in due time, and was signed by the principal leader in the insurrection, and by some other members of the Clan Mackenzie, and is, it must be confessed, a distinctly prevaricating and hypo- critical document. For one sentence at least in it our author was responsible, though he neither signs the letter nor is named in it. His pedantic phraseology reveals his hand in the construction of the reply to the Commissioners' remonstrances and threats. The letter is addressed " to the Honourable and Eight Eeverend," and begins as follows : " Wee have lately received yours of the first of Merch, 1649, for the which and your wisdomes Christian care of ws, and your fatherly admonition to ws, we humbly and heartily rander yow all possible thanks." This lamb-like tone is maintained with admirable gravity all through the epistle, and is combined with a canting phraseology which was meant to be impressive, but which must have 1 General Assembly Commission Records, 1648-49, p. 220. A DISINGENUOUS REPLY 73 entertained any members of the Commission of the General Assembly who originally possessed and still retained a sense of humour. " And quheras [whereas]," so it goes on, " your wisdomes taks it a matter of no lesse wonder then [than] greife that we, being vnder the oath of God and tye of our Nationall Covenant, would make insurrection and take armes against the Lords people, certainly, if it were so, we acknowledge your wisdomes had reason to wonder and to be grieved. And it is no lesse winder and griefe to ws, being wnder the said oath and tye of Covenant, furthering the same with all our power and meanes, and at all occasions desireing nothing els then [than] the enjoying of the liberty of the subject, and proprietie of our goods, intended and promised in and by our Cove- nant." No one who has read any of Sir Thomas Urquhart's original works can doubt that the next sentence was either composed or revised by him. The two phrases which we have taken the liberty of putting into italics could scarcely have occurred to any other member of the Committee of War. " Yet we find, that evill willers and envyous vnder- miners, in a singular and prcetextuous way aiming at our ruine, doe spend the quintessence of their wilts to find out means whereby, under specious pretences of the publick [good ?] to extermine ws with povertie, and by inventing fresh occasions to make ws odious, and bring ws vpon fresh stages [sic] vnder the base name of Malignancy." It is un- necessary to quote the whole of the letter, but a couple of sentences, which describe what the in- 74 SIR THOMAS URQUHART surgents had done at Inverness, deserve notice. " But the whole countrey of all degrees, being sensible of the oppression and insolency of the vnnecessary and vnprofitable garison of Innernes to Church or State, did heartily and vnanimously con- tribute to the demolishing thereof, which being done, all disbanded peaceablie, and the people retired peaceablie to their owne homes, without offence to any nighbour of any degree or condition. . . . And now, when the said garison is dis- mantled, we shall be found not only disposed to live peaceablie, hot also ready to obey all publick or dour s for the good of the Kingdome." The writers ask that " the taxes and impositions," which pressed with special severity on the class to which they belonged, should be remitted, and liberty given them to lead that religious, peaceful life, to which both by nature and by deliberate choice, they seem to say, they were strongly inclined. The sting of the letter is in its closing words. If these " evill willers " succeed in persuading the Commissioners of Assembly to go on with the sentence of ex- communication, as fully deserved, they (the writers) formally appeal against such a decision from the Commission to the next General Assembly. 1 The ecclesiastical court to which the above letter was sent may have contained a goodly sprinkling of fanatics, but it is certain that in it there were but few, if any, imbeciles ; so that the communication from the Committee of War did not succeed in imposing upon those to whom its contents were 1 General Assembly Commission Records, 1648-49, pp. 249, 250. ECCLESIASTICAL STATE-PAPERS 75 read. They did not condescend to answer it, but at once issued a pamphlet, entitled A Declaration and Warning to all Members of this Kirk, " to recover, if possible, the disturbers of the peace of God's people out of the snare of Sathan, and to prevent others from falling therein." The docu- ment displays very genuine indignation and dismay at the possibility of the negotiations which were being carried on for restoring Charles n. as a " covenanted king " to the throne of his ancestors, being defeated, and of his coming back as an arbitrary ruler and oppressor of the Church. Those who have any doubt about the deterioration of both religion and politics when they are fused together, should read this and other State Papers of the period, and their eyes would be opened. The calm assumption by the writers that political op- ponents are the enemies of God, the claim to knowledge of the Divine purposes and counsels, the free use of the most sacred words of Scripture, the dark fanaticism which inspires so many of the utterances, and the intense passion which makes so many of them sound like mere raving all combine to make these documents very painful reading. A circular letter of warning and exhortation was sent to Presbyteries, attempts were made to persuade individuals to disconnect themselves from the insurrectionary movement, and a message of en- couragement was sent to Lieutenant-General David Lesley to strengthen his hands in the work of putting it down by fire and sword. 1 1 General Assembly Commission Records, 1648-49, pp. 252-262. 76 SIR THOMAS URQUHART The insurgents, after demolishing the fortifica- tions of Inverness, retired before the troops sent to suppress them, and took refuge among the mountains of Koss-shire. Lesley advanced to Fort- rose and garrisoned the castle there, and then proceeded to endeavour to make terms with the leaders of the insurrection. The only one who would listen to no accommodation was Mackenzie of Pluscardine. Immediately on Lesley's return south, he descended from the mountains, and at- tacked and took the castle of Chanonry. Our Sir Thomas Urquhart was now safely out of the con- flict ; but our readers may wish to know what became of the insurrectionary movement which he had such a large share in setting on foot, and from which he found it prudent to retire at an early stage. Mackenzie's force was brought up to eight or nine hundred men by the accession of his nephew, Lord Reay, with three hundred followers. Soon afterwards he was joined by General Middleton and Lord Ogilvie, and advanced into Badenoch, with the view of raising the people in that and the neigh- bouring districts. In what is called the Wardlaw MS. a very vivid picture is given of the behaviour of the Highlanders from the Reay country, when they poured into Inverness on the morning of Sunday, the 2nd of May, 1649. "They crossed the bridge of Ness," says the Royalist minister of Kirkhill, " on the Lord's Day in time of divine service, and alarmed the people of Inverness, im- peding God's worship in the town. For instead of bells to ring in to service I saw and heard no other ENGAGEMENT AT BALVENIE 77 than the noise of pipes, drums, pots, pans, kettles, and spits in the streets to provide them victuals in every house. And in their quarters the rude rascal- ity would eat no meat at their tables until the land- lord laid down a shilling Scots upon each trencher, 1 calling this 'airgiod cagainn' (chewing-money), which every soldier got, so insolent were they." The campaign was a very brief one. The Eoyalists, joined by the Marquis of Huntly, at- tacked and took the castle of Kuthven, but, soon after, being hardly pressed by Lesley, they turned southwards and took up their quarters in Balvenie Castle. General Middleton and Mackenzie were despatched to treat with Lesley, but before they reached their destination, the troops from Fortrose, after a rapid march, surprised the Eoyalist forces at Balvenie. A fierce engagement took place, in which both sides suffered severely. 2 Eighty of the 1 Strangely enough, in Hope's Anastasius, a Tatar messenger travelling through Asia Minor to Constantinople is described as acting in the same insolent manner. "He would not," says Anastasius, " even after the daintiest meal in the world, forego the douceur he expected for what he used to call the wear and tear of his teeth " (ii. 320). 2 An account of the battle is given in a letter addressed by the victorious generals, Ker, Halket, and Strachan, to the Moderator of the Commission of Assembly, dated 9th May, 1649. In it they say: "We were in Innernes vpon Sunday at night, when we received intelligence that the enemie were come from Torespay to Balvine, presently to discusse ws (sic). "We could not hear from the Livetennent-Generall [Lesley], and the enemy was making himselfe strong in many severall quarters in [the] countrie. We conceived it better to suppresse nor [than] to be suppressed. We in our weak maner beged the Lords direction, that His blissing might wait His owne and our labours, and, with great freedome 78 SIR THOMAS URQUHART insurgents fell in defence of the castle. The High- landers were dismissed to their homes on swearing never again to take up arms against the Parliament; while their leaders were sent as prisoners to Edin- burgh, where most of them were set free soon after, on payment of fines, and on giving security that they would keep the peace. By sharp and vigorous action the remaining sparks of insurrection in the north were stamped out, and fresh bodies of troops were stationed in the principal strongholds of that part of the country. Thus ended a rising which would probably have had a very different result, if it had been postponed until the arrival of Montrose. The same writer l who gave an account of the riotous and insolent demeanour of the Highland soldiers in Inverness, furnishes us with a companion- concluded to march with all expedition to Torispay, intelligence having come certain e that they were lyeing in Balveine at a wood, where we engaged with them ; and there the Lord delivered them vnto our hands. We were not abone six score fighting horsemen and tuelfe inuskiteires. We had some more, but they were wearied. We have at this tyme about 800 prisoners, betuixt 3 or 4 scoir killed, and tuo or thrie hundred fled. My Lord Rae and all the officers are, according to the capitulatioun, prisoners ; the rest are to be conveyed to their countrey, after we receive order from the publick ; and therefore we shall expect such further directions from you as you shall thinke fit, for securing and obliging, by oath, such as shall returne to their countrey" (General Assembly Commission Records, 1648-49, p. 263). There is a genuine Cromwellian ring about the phrases "beged the Lord's direction," and " the Lord delivered them vnto our hands," which we cannot help admiring ; and there is a beauty of its own in the phrase ' ' with great freedome " in the connection in which it stands. 1 Wardlaw MS. DAY OF THANKSGIVING 79 picture that of them on their way back to their homes after their defeat at Balvenie. It is as follows : " Next twenty horse, and three companies of foot, were ordered to convey the captives back over the Spey, and through Moray to Inverness, where I saw them pass through ; and those men who, in their former march, would hardly eat their meat without money, are now begging food, and, like dogs, lap the water which was brought them in tubs and other vessels in the open streets. Thence they were conducted over the bridge of Ness, and dismissed everyone armless and harmless to his own house. This is a matter of fact which I saw and heard." The profound feelings of anxiety which this abortive attempt at insurrection had excited in the minds of the ecclesiastical rulers of Scotland are very clearly indicated by the exuberance of joy with which the tidings of the victory at Balvenie were received by the Commission of Assembly. 1 They instantly decided to appoint a solemn Day of Thanksgiving, on the 25th of May, for " the Lord's mercifull defeat of the enemies of the peace of this land." 2 They tacked on a postscript to the above- 1 The Commission of the General Assembly is each year nominated by that body, and is responsible to it, and is empowered to dispose of all items of business remitted to it, and to act in the interests of the Church during the months between the meeting of the Assembly which nominated them, and that to which they report their proceedings. They are authorised to meet on certain specific days, and oftener, when and where they think fit. The next General Assembly may reverse their sentences, if they have exceeded their powers, or have acted in any way which is con- sidered prejudicial to the interests of the Church. 2 General Assembly Records, 1648-49, p. 264. 80 SIR THOMAS URQUHART mentioned Declaration and Warning, containing a statement of the causes of the Thanksgiving, and ordered both to be read from all the pulpits in Scotland. Letters of congratulation were despatched to the victorious officers, and to others who had been faithful in the recent crisis, and full particulars of what had taken place were sent to the Commis- sioners of Scotland at the Hague, who were engaged in the negotiations with " the young man, Charles Stuart." In the last-mentioned document there is a flicker of grim humour, as the writers send intelligence of the destruction of the hopes which news of the rebellion might have excited in the minds of Charles and his friends. The last sentence in the letter can scarcely have been written or read without a smile. " We have appointed," they say, " the twenty-fift day of Maij for a solemn thanksgiving for this and other late mercies, where- with we thought good to acquaint yow, that yow manage this to the best advantage of the work in your hands, according as yow shall thinke fitt." l It was once said of a good man that he would have been better if he had had a little more of the devil in him ; and one is inclined to think more highly of these good men for the touch of malice, which relieves the sombre character of their communication. 2 1 General Assembly Records, 1648-49, p. 270. The instructions given to the Commissioners suggest the process known to us in modern times as "rubbing it in" (the phrase is a technical one). 2 In March of the following year, 1650, occurred the descent of Montrose on the north of Scotland, which ended so disastrously for him. After spending a few weeks in the Orkneys, where he collected a few recruits, he landed in Caithness, and proceeded COMMISSION OF ASSEMBLY 81 The threatened bolt of excommunication was not launched, but our author found it necessary to apply to the Commission of General Assembly in order to make his peace with the ecclesiastical power. Accordingly, on the 22nd of June, 1650, he appeared in Edinburgh before this body, and pre- sented his " supplicatioun " for pardon for the guilt of taking part in the Northern insurrection, and of assaulting and razing the walls of Inverness. The Commission met, doubtless, in that " little roome of [off] the East Church" of St Giles, which Baillie describes as having been " verie handsomelie dressed for our Assemblies in all time coming," 1 and from which, three years later, the English officers, under Cromwell's order, ejected the members of the General Assembly. The Commis- sion on that day, when our author appeared before them, consisted of twenty-four members the most distinguished divines and politicians in Scotland of the Covenanting party. The moderator, or chair- man, was Eobert Douglas, 2 " a great State preacher," into Sutherland, where he suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Strachan and Halket, the generals who had successfully suppressed the insurrection in the north in the previous year. Montrose was taken prisoner, and was executed in Edinburgh, on Tuesday, 21st May, 1650. 1 Baillie's Letters (Edinburgh, 1841), ii. 84. 2 Robert Douglas (1594-1674) had been chaplain to a brigade of Scottish auxiliaries, sent with the connivance of Charles I. to the aid of Gustavus Adolphus, in the Thirty Years' War. He was minister of the second charge of the High Church, Edinburgh, and then of the Tolbooth Church, and was five times Moderator of the General Assembly (1642, 1645, 1647, 1649, and 1651). "Wodrow says, " He was a great man for both great wit, and grace, 6 82 SIR THOMAS URQUHART who had been chaplain to the Scots troops in the service of Gustavus Adolphus, and had won the esteem of that monarch, and who in little more than six months' time would officiate at the corona- tion of Charles IL, for whom Sir Thomas Urquhart had prematurely drawn the sword. Beside him was Samuel Kutherford, the Principal of St Andrews, whose fervid piety has found no lack of admirers in every generation since his time. Eobert Baillie, the writer of the Letters which contain so many vivid pictures of events in that stirring period; David Dickson, Professor of Divinity in Glasgow, whose name we have heard as one of the deputation to persuade the people of Aberdeen to take the Covenant ; and James Guthrie, who died as a martyr, the year after the Kestoration, were present there that day. The contrast between these grave, dignified, saintly Covenanting leaders, and the brilliant Cavalier, Sir Thomas Urquhart, is one which, by its picturesqueness, strongly impresses the imagination. The Commission, after hearing the petitioner's statements, did not, apparently; treat the matter as of very serious moment. The dangerous crisis was over, and they could afford to be merciful. They seem to have condoned the political offence, but referred Sir Thomas to Mr John Annand, minister of Inverness, one of their number, " that he might and more than ordinary boldness and authority and awful majesty appearing in his very carriage and countenance." Burnet affirms that he had "much wisdom and though tfulness, but was very silent and of vast pride " (Dictionary of Nat. Biog. xv. 347). RETURN OF CHARLES II 83 confer with him concerning some dangerous opinions which, as was informed, he had sometimes vented." If these could be explained away, and no further complicity in disloyal schemes were brought home to him, Mr Annand was empowered, acting at all times under the advice of the Presbytery of Inverness, to receive his public " satisfaction " in the church of that city. How the matter ended we do not know. But there is very little doubt that Sir Thomas's nebulous heterodoxy proved no bar to his being freed from ecclesiastical censure, and that, in due course, according to the custom of that time, he stood, as a penitent, before the congregation of the Parish Church, in that city the walls of which he had assisted to assault and over- throw. A fortnight after Sir Thomas Urquhart's appearance before the Commission of the General Assembly, Charles n. landed in Scotland, and was accepted, though at first not without deep mis- givings, as " covenanted King." The party to which our author belonged was for a time excluded from all share in public life ; and even the army, which was to defend the sovereign against the English sectaries, was carefully sifted, to remove those whose presence might bring a curse upon it. So that, though the land resounded with war and the rumour of war, Sir Thomas remained in an enforced quietude in his castle at Cromartie. The effect of the battle of Dunbar (3rd September) was to depress the faction which had excluded the Eoyalist partisans from the army, and kept the King himself in something very 84 SIR THOMAS URQUHART like bondage. Charles n., indeed, is said to have given thanks to God for the victory of Cromwell over the Covenanting forces at this battle, and the only difficulty in the way of believing this statement lies in the fact that he so seldom gave thanks for anything, The Eoyalist party now began to rally about their sovereign. Charles II. was crowned at Scone on the 1st January, 1651, and in due time an army, which included many of the so-called Malignants, was ready for trying conclusions once again with the terrible English General. And now for the third time our author took up arms on behalf of the Stuarts. After some months of endless marchings and counter-marchings, in which Cromwell evidently endeavoured to provoke his enemies into a repetition of the blunder by which they had lost the battle of Dunbar, the Scottish forces found an opportunity of marching into England. The latter, under David Lesley, had taken up a strong position on the height of the Tor Wood, between Stirling and Falkirk, from which they refused to be drawn out to battle ; and Cromwell resolved to take up his post on the other side of the Eoyalist army. Accordingly, he crossed the Forth at Queensferry, and, after defeating an attempt to intercept him at Inverkeithing, reached and occupied Perth. The way to England was now open, and the Scottish army swiftly and silently entered upon it, resolved to stake every- thing upon a great battle. INVASION OF ENGLAND 85 Sir Thomas Urquhart left his castle of Cromartie, and took part in this expedition, though apparently he held no position of command in the army, and was very much out of sympathy with many of those who journeyed with him. Indeed, his un- fortunate prejudices against the Presbyterian and Covenanting party come out in the statement he makes, that many of those who started out to smite " the Midianites and Philistines," when it came to the push, managed to make their way home, " being loth to hazard their precious persons, lest they should seem to trust to the arm of flesh." 1 The mass of those, however, who formed the Scottish army were of very different mettle, and the battle in which they staked and lost everything was one of the fiercest in the whole of the great Civil War. The course of their journey southward was through Biggar and Carlisle, and then through Lancashire. To their disappointment, they re- ceived no great accession of Eoyalists, nor of any others who were inclined to join them in the attempt to overthrow the Commonwealth. " They marched," says the historian, "under rigorous discipline, weary and uncheered, south through Lancashire ; had to dispute ... the Bridge of Warrington with Lambert and Harrison, who attended them with horse - troops on the left ; Cromwell with the main army steadily advancing behind. They carried the Bridge at Warrington ; they summoned various Towns, but none yielded ; 1 Works, p. 279. 86 SIR THOMAS URQUHART proclaimed their King, with all force of lungs and heraldry, but none cried, God bless him. Summon- ing Shrewsbury, with the usual negative response, they quitted the London road ; bent southward towards Worcester, a City of slight Garrison and loyal Mayor ; there to entrench themselves, and repose a little." l Yet but slight opportunity for this was given them. The course taken by Crom- well was through York, Nottingham, Coventry, and Stratford-on-Avon, and when he arrived at Wor- cester with his army from Scotland, and with the county militias, who had risen at his summons, his forces numbered over thirty thousand men as against the enemy's sixteen thousand. Meantime Sir Thomas Urquhart had taken up his quarters in Worcester, in the house of a Mr Spilsbury, " a very honest sort of man, who had an exceeding good woman to his wife." His luggage, which was stored in an attic, consisted, besides " scarlet cloaks, buff suits, and arms of all sorts," of seven large " portmantles," three of which were filled with unpublished works in manuscript, and other valuable documents the amount of which he gives us in quires and quinternions, but which need not be repeated here. "Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war," sang Milton in his sonnet to the Lord General Cromwell ; and perhaps Sir Thomas Urquhart hoped, after achieving victory in war, to win a second set of laurels by means of the contents of the three " portmantles." 1 Carlyle's Oliver Cromwell, in. 148. BATTLE OF WORCESTER 87 On the evening of the 3rd September, the anni- versary of the battle of Dunbar, and afterwards to be the date of Cromwell's own death, the battle of Worcester was fought, and the Eoyalist cause utterly shattered. "The fighting of the Scots," says Carlyle, " was fierce and desperate. * My Lord General did exceedingly hazard himself, riding up and down in the midst of the fire ; riding, himself in person, to the Enemy's foot to offer them quarter, whereto they returned no answer but shot.' The small Scotch Army, begirdled with overpowering force, and cut off from help or reasonable hope, storms forth in fiery pulses, horse and foot ; charges now on this side of the River, now on that ; can on no side prevail. Cromwell recoils a little, but only to rally and return irresistible. The small Scotch Army is, on every side, driven in again. Its fiery pulsings are but the struggles of death : agonies as of a lion coiled in the folds of a boa. ' As stiff a contest,' says Cromwell, ' for four or five hours as ever I have seen.' " l The conquered lost six thousand men, and all their baggage and artillery ; and Charles only with difficulty, and after many romantic adventures, suc- ceeded in escaping to the Continent when the fight was over. Ten thousand prisoners, including eleven of the Scottish nobility, were taken. The sufferings of many of these brave men were severe in the extreme. Some perished from want of food and from gaol diseases, and large numbers of the survivors were shipped for the plantations, and sold as slaves. 1 Carlyle's Oliver Cromwell, iii. 154. 88 SIR THOMAS URQUHART Sir Thomas Urquhart, and, apparently, more than one of his brothers, were among the prisoners, but appeared to have fared better than many of their companions in arms. The greatest of the misfor- tunes that fell upon him was, in his estimation, the sad fate that overtook his precious manuscripts. The whole story, related in his own inimitable style, may be read in Chapter vi. It is enough to say here that a party of marauders broke into his quarters in search of valuables, that they forced open the " portmantles " and turned their contents out upon the floor, and afterwards carried off the papers to use them for wrapping up articles of plunder, and for lighting their pipes. Fortunately some bundles of these papers were afterwards picked up in the streets and brought back to him, and in due time found their way to the printer's. After the battle of Worcester, Sir Thomas Urquhart and some of the other Scottish gentlemen who had been taken prisoners there were confined in the Tower of London. He seems to have speedily gained the favour of his captors, and to have been treated with remarkable leniency. Indeed, he speaks in terms of affectionate respect of various officers of the Parliamentary army from whom he had received kindness, and acknowledges courtesies extended towards him by the Lord General himself. Thus he places on record his indebtedness to a " most generous gentleman, Captain Gladmon," for speaking in his favour to the Protector. And of another, whom he calls the Marshal-General, in whose charge he had been placed, he has set down ALLEVIATIONS OF CAPTIVITY 89 the praise in the following elaborate sentence : " The kindly usage of the Marshal - General, Captain Alsop, whilst I was in his custody,! I am bound in duty so to acknowledge, that I may without dissimulation avouch, for courtesies con- ferred on such as were within the verge of his authority, and fidelity to those by whom he was intrusted with their tuition [oversight of them] in that restraint, that never any could by his faithful- ness to the one and loving carriage to the other bespeak himself more a gentleman, nor in the discharge of that military place acquit himself with a more universally-deserved applause and commendation." 1 The severity of his imprisonment was soon abated ; and he was removed from the Tower to Windsor Castle, 2 and not long after, by the orders of Crom- well, was paroled de die in diem* The comparative liberty he now enjoyed enabled him to repair the loss of his manuscripts after the battle of Worcester, and he set himself to make the best of the frag- ments he had recovered, and to prepare them for publication, as well as to compose new material. A paragraph in the Epilogue of one of his works, in which he describes his warm appreciation of the measure of freedom he now enjoyed, is worth quoting. " That I, whilst a prisoner," he says, " was able to digest and write this Treatise, is an effect meerly proceeding from the courtesie of my Lord General Cromwel, by whose recommendation to the Councel of State my parole being taken for 1 Works, p. 408. 2 Cal. State Papers, Dom. 3 Ibid. 9 o SIR THOMAS URQUHART my true imprisonment, I was by their favour enlarged to the extent of the lines of London's communication ; for had I continued as before, coopt up within walls, or yet been attended still by a guard, as for a while I was, should the house of my confinement have never been so pleasant, or my keepers a very paragon of discretion, and that the conversation of the best wits in the world, with affluence of all manner of books, should have been allowed me for the diversion of my minde, yet such an antipathic I have to any kinde of restraint wherein myself is not entrusted, that notwithstand- ing these advantages, which to some spirits would make a jayl seem more delicious then [than] freedom without them, it could not in that eclipse of liberty lie in my power to frame myself to the couching of one sillable, or contriving of a fancie worthy the labour of putting pen to paper, no more then [than] a nightingale can warble it in a cage, or linet in a dungeon." 1 Another friend whom Sir Thomas Urquhart found in the time of need was the celebrated Eoger Williams, the apostle of civil and religious liberty, and the founder of the settlement of Pro- vidence, Ehode Island, and missionary to the Indians. In the Epilogue to the Logopandecteision he thus acknowledges his obligations to him : " [I cannot] forget my thankfulness to that reverend preacher Mr Koger Williams of Providence, in New England, for the manifold favours wherein I stood obliged to him above a whole month before 1 Works, p. 408. ROGER WILLIAMS 91 either of us had so much as seen other, and that by his frequent and earnest solicitation in iny behalf of the most especial members both of the Parliament and Councel of State ; in doing whereof he appeared so truely generous, that when it was told him how I, having got notice of his so un- deserved respect towards me, was desirous to embrace some sudden opportunity whereby to testitie the affection I did owe him, he purposely delayed the occasion of meeting with me till he had, as he said, performed some acceptable office worthy of my acquaintance ; in all which, both before and after we had conversed with one another, and by those many worthy books set forth by him, to the advancement of piety and good order, with some whereof he was pleased to present me, he did prove himself a man of such discretion and inimit- ably-sanctified parts, that an Archangel from heaven could not have shown more goodness with less ostentation." l 1 Works, p. 419. Roger Williams (c. 1600-c. 1684) was himself a remarkable man. He was a native of Wales, was educated at Oxford, and entered into holy orders ; but his aversion to the government and discipline of the Church of England led him to seek for greater freedom in America. He was a strenuous asserter of religious toleration at a time when it was little understood and less practised anywhere. His liberty of thinking and speaking led to his being banished from Massachusetts ; and, thereupon, he pur- chased a tract of land from the Indians, and founded a settlement, which he named Providence. At the time when he generously interceded in favour of Sir Thomas Urquhart, he was residing in London as the agent of the new settlement, of which he was after- wards chosen president. He was on intimate terms with Cromwell, Milton, and other leading Puritans, and consequently would be in a position to render great service to his friend Urquhart, 92 SIR THOMAS URQUHART The years 1652 and 1653 form a period of astonishing literary activity on the part of our author, for no fewer than five separate works were then published by him, two of which were of very considerable bulk. The motive that had led him to bring out his two former works the Epigrams and The Trissotetras had been a desire to benefit man- kind and to advance the glory of his native land. But now he had to consider his own interests, and to exert himself to promote them. Accordingly, his present aim was to convince his captors of his extra- ordinary merits and gifts, and of the incomparable glory of that family which he had the honour of representing. In 1652 he issued his IIANTOXPONO- XANON ; or, a Peculiar Promptuary of Time, of which a detailed description is given in Chapter v. The object of this treatise is to show the Protector and the English Parliament that the family of the Urquharts could be traced back, link by link, to the red earth out of which Adam was made, and to suggest how lamentable it would be, if the ruling power extinguished a race which had successfully resisted the scythe of Time, and was capable of rendering great services to the State. This small treatise was closely followed by a more important production, upon which Sir Thomas's fame as an author largely rests his EK2KTBA- A AT PON ; or, The Discovery of a most Exquisite Jewel. The title of this work is intended to be an abbreviation of a Greek phrase " Gold from a dunghill" and contains an allusion to the fact that RETURN TO SCOTLAND 93 the first half of it was, in its manuscript form, one of the bundles of paper which the soldiers treated with such disrespect after the battle of Worcester, and which, indeed, was found next day in a kennel of one of the streets of that city. This book, a fuller account of which we give later on, consists of an introduction to a work on a Universal Language, to which is added a rhapsodical pane- gyric on the Scottish nation, and an account of his fellow-countrymen who had been famous as scholars or soldiers during the previous fifty years. In the course of the early part of 1652 Urquhart had in some way excited the suspicions of the Government, and in the month of May his papers were seized by the authorities. Nothing treasonable, however, was found among them, and probably the harmless character of his pursuits, which was thus brought to light, made a favourable impression upon the Council of State. For, a few weeks later, he was allowed, in answer to a petition which he presented to the Council, and which was referred to Cromwell, to return to Scotland to arrange his private affairs, and to be absent for five months. 1 The only condition imposed upon him was that during this time he should do nothing to the prejudice of the Commonwealth. Sir Thomas Urquhart's creditors had been told 1 The leave granted was for five months from the 14th of July, 1652. Before the expiration of this time, Sir Thomas asked for liberty to stay for six weeks longer in Scotland, and this was granted (Acts of Parliament, vol. vi. pt. 2, p. 748&). 94 SIR THOMAS URQUHART that he had been killed at the battle of Worcester, and, as he says in his own characteristic way, " for gladness of the tidings [they] had maclified [moistened] their noils to some purpose with the liquor of the grape," 1 and had possessed themselves of all his property. When they were assured by letters from himself that he was still alive, they claimed payment for debts which had been long discharged, under the impression that the receipts had perished along with other papers after the battle. They even plotted, we are assured, to arrest our author in London, after he had been liberated upon parole. By the thoughtful dis- cretion of a Captain Goodwin, of Colonel Pride's regiment, the receipts in question had been saved out of the spoil of Worcester, and Sir Thomas Urquhart was able to display them to the unjust creditors. " And when," he says, " they saw that those their acquittances . . . were produced before them, they then, looking as if their noses had been ableeding, could not any longer for shame retard my cancelling of the aforesaid bonds." 5 In the midst of so many complaints of the iniquity of creditors, it is gratifying to find Sir Thomas acknowledging that there was one of that class who treated him with forbearance and even with kindness. His thankfulness at discovering this green oasis in the arid desert in which so much of his life had been passed, is expressed in his own characteristic way. " But may," he says, " William Robertson of Kindeasse, or rather Kindnesse (for so 1 Works, p. 377. - Ibid. p. 378. ROBERTSON OF KINDEASSE 95 they call this worthy man), for his going contrary to that stream of wickedness which carryeth head- long his fellow-creditors to the black sea of un- christian-like dealing, enjoy a long life in this world, attended with health, wealth, a hopeful posterity, and all the happiness conducible to eternal salvation ; and may his children after him, as heires both of his vertues and means, derive [transmit] his lands and riches to their sons, to continue successively in that line from generation to generation, so long as there is a hill in Scotland, or that the sea doth ebbe and flow. This hearty wish of mine, as chief of my kinred [kindred], I bequeath to all that do and are to carry the name of Urquhart, and adjure them, by the respect they owe to the stock whence they are descended, for my father's love and mine to this man, to do all manner of good offices to each one that bears the name of Bobertson." 1 His old enemy, Lesley of Findrassie, endeavoured in vain to persuade the officers of the English garrison, then stationed in Urquhart's house at Cromartie, to arrest him as a prisoner of war, and keep him in confinement " till he [Lesley] were contented in all his demands." 2 An attempt was also made to apprehend him at Elgin ; but he escaped all these machinations, and, after travelling in safety through many of the principal towns of Scotland, returned to London within the specified time, and gave himself up to the Council of State. 1 Works, p. 384. 2 Ibid. p. 380. 96 SIR THOMAS URQUHART In the course of the year 1653 Sir Thomas Urquhart published the last of his original works his Logopandecteision, and the translation of the first two books of Eabelais, in connection with which his name is best known. The object of the former of these was to suggest a wonderful scheme for a universal language, with the idea of being restored by the Government to the full possession of his liberty, and of being reinstated in the position of power and wealth, which he maintained was his by hereditary right, in order to carry out the scheme. His hopes and anticipations of success in this appeal to the English Government were not daunted by the fact that to do what he required would need several legislative changes, a reversal of proceedings in Scottish courts of law, and a sub- stantial grant from the Treasury. This, after all, he considered, was a very small price to pay for the benefits he would thereby confer upon the world. That the appeal was not successful needs scarcely be told. Probably in no country in the world, and at no period in history, could any be found more likely to turn a deaf ear to such requests, than such men as Cromwell, Fleetwood, and Over ton. Men like these were too practical, and of too hard a nature, to be impressed by any such visionary schemes as those which their prisoner delighted in constructing. A veil of obscurity hangs over the closing years of our author's life. His last appearance before the public was in the issuing of the books above mentioned. The only further record of him is in the OUR AUTHOR'S DEATH 97 continuation of the Pedigree of the Urquharts, which is contained in the Edinburgh edition of his Tracts. In this we read that "he was confined for several years in the Tower of London; from whence he made his escape, and went beyond seas, where he died suddenly in a fit of excessive laughter, on being informed by his servant that the King was restored." x If this account of matters be true, it would seem that Sir Thomas had forfeited some of those privi- leges which he had won so soon after he had become a State prisoner. It is quite possible that this was in consequence of having joined in some Eoyalist plot against the Commonwealth and for the restoration of Charles II. In the preface to the second book of Eabelais, Sir Thomas promises very speedily to translate the three remaining books of that author, so that the whole " Pentateuch of Eabelais," as he calls it, might be in the hands of English readers. But this design was never completed. The translation of the third book was found among his papers, and was published in 1693 by Pierre Antoine Motteux, but it is probable that the editor himself had some share in the work as issued to the public. Sir Theodore Martin considers that there is a strong presumption against the truth of the above account of Sir Thomas's death, in his entire silence during the long period which elapsed between the publication of his last work and 1660, the date of the Eestoration of Charles IT. " Men," he says, " so deeply smitten with the cacoethes scribendi as Urquhart was, do not thus readily cast the pen 1 P. 37. 98 SIR THOMAS URQUHART aside ; nor was the lack of a publisher likely to have stood in the way of his literary career. His writings, if for no other cause but the number of his friends, must always have been a safe specu- lation for a printer, at a time when printing was cheap and readers numerous. But the imperfect state of his translation of Eabelais is perhaps the best evidence of the inaccuracy of the current belief. . . . Motteux says that Urquhart's version { was too kindly received not to encourage him to English the three remaining books, or at least the third, the fourth and fifth being in a manner distinct, as being Pantagruel's voyage. Accordingly he trans- lated the third book, and would have finished the whole, had not death prevented him/ This bears hard against the supposition of that event having occurred upwards of six years after the two first books had been given to the world. It is probable that he died much sooner, a victim in all likelihood to that fiery restlessness of spirit, 'Which o'er-informs its tenement of clay, And frets the pigmy body to decay."' 1 This conjecture is, however, improbable. A petition from our author's brother, Sir Alexander Urquhart, is still in existence, in which he asks for a new commission of hereditary Sheriffship of Cromartie to be made out for him, on the ground of his being the eldest surviving son of the Sir Thomas Urquhart who died in 1642. 2 Though this document is undated, it is assigned by the editor of the volume of State Papers in which it is 1 Rabelais, p. xiv. 2 Gal. State Papers, Domestic, 1660-61, p. 237 . TRADITION PROBABLY CORRECT 99 to be found, to August of 1660. If this date be trustworthy, we may be almost sure that the traditional statement as to the year of our author's death is correct. The cause of his giving up his literary labours, and of omitting to carry through the work of translation on which he had entered, is, of course, unknown to us. His health, physical or mental, may have be- come seriously impaired, or his spirits may have been too much depressed by the misfortunes that crowded upon him, to allow him to engage in literary work. Indeed, the alleged cause of death from violent agitation of feeling caused by hearing of the Eestoration of Charles IL, argues in itself a previous condition of great physical weakness. There seems at first a certain grotesqueness in such a fatal exuberance of joy in connexion with such an event as Charles II. regaining the crown which his father had lost, and of which in another generation all of his blood were to be deprived. But we have to keep in mind that Sir Thomas was not alone in his folly, if folly it were ; for a great wave of exultation swept over the three kingdoms at that time. Our author had, like many of his fellow-Eoyalists, staked and lost everything he possessed in the defence of the House of Stuart, and one can have little difficulty in understanding how the announcement of the triumph of the cause, which was so dear to him, should have agitated him profoundly. 1 1 In the preface to a new translation of Rabelais by W. F. Smith, Esq. , Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, some doubt is cast upon the above narrative of Sir Thomas's death. Mr Smith ioo SIR THOMAS URQUHART Sir Alexander Urquhart failed to recover posses- sion of either the barony or the Sheriffship of Cromartie, and a year after the supposed date of remarks, ' ' This looks something like an imitation of Rabelais in his account of the death of Philemon." The reference is to the following passages in Rabelais, who alludes to the story no fewer than three times. In Book i. 10, we read: "Just so the heart with excessive joy is inwardly dilated, and suffereth a manifest resolution of the vital spirits, which may go so farre on, that it may thereby be deprived of its nourishment, and by consequence of life itself, by this Pericharie or extremity of gladnesse, as Galen saith . . . and as it hath come to passe in former times ... to Philemon and others, who died with joy." In chap. xx. some more particulars are given of the case: "As Philemon, who, for seeing an asse eate those figs, which were provided for his own dinner, died with force of laughing." But in Book iv. 17, we are told the whole story: "[Neither ought you to wonder at] the death of Philomenes, whose servant, having got him some new figs for the first course of his dinner, whilst he went to fetch wine, a straggling . . . ass got into the house, and, seeing the figs on the table, without further invitation, soberly fell to. Philomenes coming into the room, and nicely observing with what gravity the ass eat its dinner, said to his man, who was come back, ' Since thou hast set figs here for this reverend guest of ours to eat, methinks it is but reason thou also give him some of this wine to drink.' He had no sooner said this, but he was so excessively pleased, and fell into so exorbitant a fit of laughter, that the use of his spleen took that of his breath utterly away, and he immedi- ately died." The story is taken from Lucian (naKpopioi, c. 25) or from Valerius Maximus (ix. 12), in which in the Paris folio edition (1517) the name is given as Philomenes. There is un- doubtedly a resemblance between the account of Philemon's death and that of our author, but we think it can only be accidental. The editor of the Edinburgh edition of the Tracts is, as I have said, our only authority for the story of Urquhart's death ; but there is no adequate reason for doubting it. He seems to have been well versed in the history of the Urquhart family, which he brings up to date, and must have derived his information from some members of it. It would be strange if in little more than a century after our author's death, an utterly mythical account of it should have sprung up and found a place among the details of ESTATE PASSES TO COUSIN 101 his petition, he is said to have ratified his cousin's rights, 1 and in 1663 he formally " disponed " the estate (i.e. his title to it) to Sir John. 2 The new family history. According to Lowndes's Bibliographer's Manual, the editor of the volume was David Herd, the well-known antiquary. If this statement be correct, we have all the more reason to rely upon the supplementary information the volume contains, as Herd's acquaintance with Scottish history and bio- graphy was very extensive and accurate. In one of the Noctes Ambrosianse (Blackwood's Magazine, September, 1832), a highly extravagant version is given of Urquhart's death. It is intended to be humorous, but is merely flat and silly. Only those can smile at it who have been trained up to believe that the Noctes contain exquisite humour, and who have, therefore, been accus- tomed to welcome passages from it as mirth -inspiring. The state- ment made in this mention of Urquhart, that his deuth was caused by excessive alcoholic celebration of the happy event of the Restoration, is utterly baseless and offensive ; and it is a pity that in Allibone's Dictionary and in the Dictionary of National Biography this article in Blackwood's Magazine should be referred to as one of the sources of information concerning Urquhart. The author of it had not access to any other account of Sir Thomas's death than that given in the above-mentioned edition of the Tracts. 1 Acts of Parliament, vii. 70. 2 Inverness Sasines. The date when Sir Alexander Urquhart received knighthood seems to be approximately fixed by the fact that in a grant under the Privy Seal of 5th March, 1661, he is called Alexander, and in a notice of him of the 29th of the same month and year he appears as Sir Alexander (Acts of Parliament, vii. 93). From the fact that in this year the succession to the estates and hereditary Sheriffship of Cromartie were entered upon by his cousin Sir John Urquhart of Craigfintray, it was taken for granted by the editor of the Tracts (Edinburgh, 1774) that Sir Alexander had died. This error is repeated by Hugh Miller, and by most of those who have made any reference to him. He was still alive in 1667, for during that year he sold his salmon fishings in Over-rak and the King's Water to John Gordon (see also Acts of Parliament, vii. 537). He is spoken of as quondam in a charter of certain lands which had belonged to him, 19th June, 1668. His cousin, Sir John Urquhart, received knighthood about the same time ; at least he appears in Parliament as Sir John, 1st January, 1661 (Acts of Parliament, vii. 4). 102 SIR THOMAS URQUHART possessors were, however, as unfortunate as their immediate predecessors, for in no very long time they were overwhelmed by distresses like those which had burdened and embittered the lives of our author and his father. In 1682 the celebrated Sir George Mackenzie, whose name, like that of Queen Mary of England, is usually associated with an unenviable epithet, as that of a cruel persecutor, 1 "apprized" the estate from Sir John's 2 son, Jonathan. 3 1 "There was the Bluidy Advocate Mackenyie, who, for his worldly wit and wisdom, had been to the rest as a god " ("Wander- ing Willie's Tale" Rcdgauntlet, chap. xi.). 2 There is said to have been some tragedy in connection with the death of this Sir John Urquhart. According to Wodrow, as quoted by Hugh Miller, after having posed as an ultra-Presbyterian, he became the friend and counsellor of the Earl of Middleton, Charles H.'S Commissioner for Scotland, under whom Presby- terianism was overturned and Episcopacy set up in its place (1661). Tradition says that "about eleven years after the passing of the Act, he fell into a deep melancholy, and destroyed himself with his own sword in one of the apartments of the old castle. The sword, it is said, was flung into a neighbouring draw-well by one of the domestics, and the stain left by his blood on the walls and floor of the apartment was distinctly visible at the time the building was pulled down" (Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland, p. 111). Tradition is wrong, however, in saying eleven years after 1661; for on August 7th, 1677, Sir John, along with others, received a commission " for putting the laws against con- venticles and other disorders into execution" ( Wodrow, ii. p. 366). 3 On the death of Jonathan's son, Colonel James Urquhart, in 1741, the shadowy honour of the headship of the family passed to the Urquharts of Meldrum, who were descended from the Tutor of Cromartie by a third marriage with Elizabeth Seton, only daughter of Alexander Seton of Meldrum, and ultimately heiress of that estate. The last male representative of this line was Major Beauchamp Colclough "Urquhart, who closed a promising career by a heroic death at the battle of Atbara, in the Sudan, on 8th April, 1898. His sister, Isabel Annie, is wife of Garden Alexander Duff, Esq., Hatton Castle, Turriff. LATER HISTORY OF ESTATE 103 No one who knows what this means l will be sur- prised to hear that it soon afterwards passed into his possession. On his elevation to the peerage (1685) as Viscount Tarbat, first Earl of Croinartie, he put his third-born son, Sir Kenneth, into posses- sion of the estate, with the view of establishing a branch of his family to be known as the Mackenzies of Croinartie. This plan was doomed to be defeated, for Sir Kenneth's son George had no family, and sold the estate to Captain William Urquhart of Meldrum in 174 1. 2 The lands were again sold to Patrick, Lord Elibank, 3 in 1763, and by him to George Ross of Pitkerrie, nine years afterwards. Mr Koss had amassed a large fortune in England as an army agent, 4 and part of this he expended in the purchase of the estate, and in the extensive improvements which he effected in it. One wishes he had not thought it desirable to pull down the picturesque old castle, which had stood on the mote- hill of Cromartie for three hundred years, and which had sheltered so many generations of the 1 See p. 58. 2 Pococke, in his Tour through Scotland (1761), says of the castle of Cromartie : "It has fallen into the hands of one Mr Urquhart, who had commanded a Spanish Gaily, and died a Convert to Popery ; which slip his son, now eighteen years old, has in some degree recovered, by conforming to the Church of England" (p. 176 ; Scottish History Society). 3 In the old Statistical Account of Cromartie, and in the preface to the Maitlaud Club edition of Urquhart's Works, the estate is said to have passed into the hands of Sir William Pulteney. 4 Mr Ross is mentioned in the Letters of Junius (see those of 29th November and 12th December, 1769). He was succeeded by his nephew, from whom the present proprietor of Cromartie, Major Walter Charteris Koss, is descended. 104 SIR THOMAS URQUHART Urquhart family. Let us now, however, return to our author. In telling the story of Sir Thomas Urquhart's life, some of his most striking peculiarities have been displayed and illustrated, so that no one who has read the foregoing pages is altogether dependent upon what may now be said for forming an estimate of his character. His vanity is perhaps the most striking trait in it ; but only a very hard-hearted moralist would call it a vice in his case, for it is as artless- as it is boundless, and is combined with so much kindness of heart and generosity of feeling, that we are more entertained by it than indignant at it. No one who looks into his works can doubt the intensity of his patriotism. Indeed, his pas- sionate longing after personal fame is in all cases combined with the wish to confer additional glory upon the land of his birth. His devotion to the Koyalist cause l is of the purest and most heroic type, and the general tone of his character, as revealed to us in his books, is elevated and noble. At the same time there is an element of the grotesque in it, so that in his disinterested and chivalrous disposition he reminds us of Don Quixote, 2 1 Our Sir Thomas's memory should be cherished by defenders of the name and fame of Mary Queen of Scots, for he goes so far as to say that ' ' ignorance, together with hypocrisie, usury, oppression, and iniquity, took root in these parts [Scotland], when upright- ness, plain -dealing, and charity, with Astroea, took their flight with Queen Mary of Scotland into England." Probably few of her admirers would be so daring as to assert this, though many of them doubtless would be glad to hear the assertion made. 2 We take the liberty of extracting these few sentences from the letter of a friend, who has taken great interest in the execution of this work : " Sir Thomas would have been an original character in ABSENCE OF HUMOUR 105 while in his frequent allusions to struggles with pecuniary difficulties, as well as in his use of magniloquent language, he distinctly recalls Wilkius Micawber. A lively fancy, a strain of genuine erudition beneath his pedantry, and some sparks of insanity, are other elements in his fantastical char- acter. Only a mind like his own could trace the maze of its windings and turnings, and fathom the depths of its eccentricity. In his thoughts " truth is constantly becoming interfused with fiction, possibility with certainty, and the hyper- bolical extravagance of his style only keeps even pace with the prolific shootings of his imagination." 1 It is perhaps expected that one should, in a measure, apologize for the eccentricities of Urquhart's character and literary style, by explaining that he was a humourist. But, unfortunately, humour is a quality in which Urquhart was lacking, unless we understand by the word mere fantastical quaintness of thought and speech. In one passage of his works he speaks with contempt of " shallow-brained humourists," 2 and we should wrong his ghost by putting him among those whom he abhorred. Not a single trace of that subtle, graceful play of fancy and of feeling which enters into our conception of humour is to be found in his works. 3 His readers may smile as they almost any surroundings a kind of literary Quixote, with what may be called a 'parenthetical' genius, branching off at every comma into the fresh images furnished by a teeming imagination. He was more tbm a translator of Rabelais he seems to have been a kind of Rabelais himself." 1 Sir Theodore Martin, Rabelais, p. xix. 2 See p. 28. 3 A different opinion is expressed in the preface to W. Harrison Ainsworth's capital novel of Crichton. "Sir Thomas," he says, io6 SIR THOMAS URQUHART turn over his pages, but he is always in deadly earnest. The quality of wit he occasionally manifests in the form of keen sarcasm, when he gives full vent to his feelings of scorn and contempt ; as when, for example, he describes those who went out to fight, " but did not hazard their precious persons, lest they should seem to trust to the arm of flesh." 1 He can never give a simple statement of matters of fact. Thus in his account of the Admirable Crichton, instead of saying that the rector of the university addressed a few complimentary sentences to Crichton, and that the latter replied in the same vein, he says : " In complements after this manner, ultro citroque hdbitis, tossed to and again, retorted, contrerisposted, backreverted, and now and then graced with a quip or a clinch for the better relish of the ear, being unwilling in this kind of straining curtesie to yeeld to other, they spent a full half- hour and more." 2 Everything must be dressed up " with divers quaint and pertinent similes " before it is fit to be introduced to the reader's notice. To quote again from the most accomplished literary critic who has written upon him : " History, philosophy, science, literature are ransacked for illustrations of the commonest subject. His fancy is ever on the alert, and you are constantly surprised by some incongruous image, begotten in its wanton dalliance " is a joyous spirit a right Pantagruelist ; and if he occasionally 'Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba,' he has an exuberance of wit and playfulness of fancy that amply redeem his tendency to fanfaronade." Our readers have abundance of material before them for coming to a decision upon this question. 1 See p. 85. 2 Works, p. 226. PORTRAITS OF OUR AUTHOR 107 with knowledge the most heterogeneous. He has always an eye to effect. His own learning must be brought into play, rhetorical tropes must flourish through his periods, ' suggesting to our minds two several things at once,' and, of course, as diverse as possible, that ' the spirits of such as are studious in learning may be filled with a most wonderful delight.' " x His style reacts upon and controls his thoughts, and often carries him, as Ariosto's Hippogriff carried Astolfo, up into the skies, whither those are unable to follow him who are mounted on humbler animals, or have no other means than those with which they were born for plodding along the dusty roads of earth. If we can trust the two engraved portraits of Sir Thomas Urquhart which have come down to us, he was a man of handsome presence, and accustomed to deck himself in all the splendour of costume to which so many of his brother - cavaliers were addicted. George Glover, the famous engraver, drew both the portraits of him which are extant. One of these appears as a frontispiece to the Epigrams and to the Trissotetras. It is a small whole-length, and represents Sir Thomas in rich dress, 2 holding out his hand to receive from some 1 Sir Theodore Martin, Rabelais, p. xx. 2 In Granger's Biographical Dictionary (1779), this portrait is described erroneously, as Sir Thomas Urquhart is said in it to be dressed in armour. Probably the description was given from memory. In the second volume of Bohn's edition of Rabelais, the frontis- piece is a half-length portrait of the translator, evidently repro- duced from the above. The effect, however, is highly disagreeable, and the likeness must have produced an unfavourable opinion of our author in the minds of most of those who have looked upon it. io8 SIR THOMAS URQUHART allegorical personage a laurel wreath " for Armes and Artes." l On a table beside him are his hat and embroidered cloak. In the vacant spaces on each side of the upper part of the figure are his name and titles : " S r Thomas Urchard, Knight, of Bray and Udol, etc., Baron of Ficherie and Clohorby, etc., Laird Baron of Cromartie and Heritable Sheriff thereof, etc." The portrait is described as taken from the life, and engraved in 1641 ; 2 and beneath it is a couplet by W. S., as follows : "Of him whose shape this Picture hath design 'd, Vertue and learning represent the Mind." Who W. S. was we do not know. The date forbids our identifying him with the Bard of Avon. He was probably one of those mysterious personages, who were always at hand to write epistles of com- mendation to works by Sir Thomas, and to testify on their " book-oath " to his gifts and graces. The second engraved portrait is of great rarity, and only one impression of it is known to be in 1 In this engraving, which is our frontispiece, the Greek inscrip- tion runs thus : rots ae irt/jL\f/a oe? etfXoye /cat e^Trparre. London, Printed for Richard Baddeley, within the Middle Templegate. 1653." On the title-page of the second book are the translator's initials, S. T. V. C. (Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie). While on that of the third book we have his name in full : " Now faithfully translated into English by the unimitable pen of Sir Thomas Urvvhart, Kt. and Bar. The Trans- OBSCURITY OF RABELAIS 185 The difficulty, singularity, and obscurity of the writings of Eabelais had probably been hindrances in the way of their being presented to the English public in their own tongue ; for, though the register of the Stationers' Company preserves a record of two attempts at translation, these seem to have been but fragmentary, and to have dropped still-born from the press. The works themselves are not known to be extant, and nothing more than the bare name of them survives. The difficulties which lie in the way of the ordinary reader who wishes to become acquainted with the works of Rabelais are very considerable. 1 The fantastical style of the satirist, his countless allusions to contemporary persons and events, his lator of the Two First Books. Never before Printed. London : Printed for Richard Baldwin, near the Oxford Arms in Warwick Lane, 1693." Copies of the first and second books of the above date are in the British Museum, but erroneously catalogued not under Urquhart, but only under C., S. T. V. A second edition of them both seems from the Bodleian Catalogue to have been pub- lished in 1664. Both are very rare, it is said, owing to the destruction caused by the fire of London in 1666. 1 For those who are not special students, adequate information concerning Rabelais and extracts from his works are to be got in Sir Walter Besant's luminous and charming volume in the series of Foreign Classics for English Readers (Blackwood), and in Morley's Universal Library (Routledge). In one of his poems Browning describes the steps taken by a reader to banish the memory of a dreary pedant, whose book he had been perusing. He says : "Then I went indoors, brought out a loaf, Half a cheese, and a bottle of Chablis ; Lay on the grass, and forgot the oaf Over a jolly chapter of Rabelais." Some have turned over Rabelais and searched for the jolly chapter in vain, and have, perhaps, attributed their failure to the want of a bottle of Chablis. 1 86 SIR THOMAS URQUHART out-of-the-way learning, the care with which he conceals at such length the seriousness of his purpose, and the incredible grossness of manners which so often disfigures his pages, are obstacles which can with difficulty be surmounted. The last- mentioned characteristic is, indeed, a grave and in- grained fault, which must for ever be a slur upon the writer's fame. Yet we may say of him what Don Pedro says of Benedick, " The man doth fear God howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make"; or what Mrs Blower in St Ronaris Well says of her deceased husband, " He was a merry man, but he had the root of the matter in him for a' his light way of speaking." Coleridge " the brother," according to Mr Birrell, " whose praise is throughout all the churches" speaks of Eabelais in very high terms indeed ; " Beyond a doubt," he says, "he was among the deepest, as well as boldest thinkers of his age. His buffoonery was not merely Brutus' rough stick, which contained a rod of gold : it was necessary as an amulet against the monks and legates. 1 Never was there a more plausible, and seldom, I am persuaded, a less appro- priate line than the thousand times quoted 'Eabelais laughing in his easy chair' of Mr Pope. The caricature of his filth and zany- 1 This is somewhat doubtful. The Sorbonne and the Parliaments might have been moved by ultra-orthodox opponents to prosecute Rabelais on this account. The true explanation seems to be that the form of his book was popular, and the popular French litera- ture of the Middle Ages fableaux, farces, and burlesque romances can hardly be exceeded in the matter of coarseness (Ency. Brit., "Eabelais"), LIFE OF RABELAIS 187 ism show how fully he both knew and felt the danger in which he stood. I could write a treatise in praise of the moral elevation of Kabelais' work, which would make the church stare and the con- venticle groan, 1 and yet would be truth, and nothing but the truth. I class Eabelais with the great creative minds of the world, Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantes, etc." Fra^ois Eabelais was born in Touraine, accord- ing to the date usually given, and which there is no reason to question, in the same year as Luther and Kaphael, A.D. 1483, and died in Paris in 1553. His father had a small estate, and was an apothe- cary (or, as some say, a tavern-keeper) in the town of Chinon, at the foot of the castle where, three centuries before, our Henry n. had died, and whither, a little more than fifty years before Francois was born, Joan of Arc had come with promises of supernatural aid to Charles VII. He was the youngest of five sons, and, as was often the case in those days, was provided for by being made a monk, while the other members of the family divided amongst them the paternal estate. In one passage in his works he speaks of mothers who " cannot bear their children nor brook them in their houses nine, nay often not seven years, but by putting a shirt over their robe, and by cutting a few hairs on the top of their head . . . they transform 1 This is surely an early allusion to the superior sensitiveness on some points of the " Nmiconfmmist Conscience." The fact alluded to should inspire joy rather than call forth sneers, for when a conscience becomes sensitive on some points there are reasonable hopes of its becoming sensitive on others, i88 SIR THOMAS URQUHART them into birds," i.e., get rid of them as soon as possible, and thrust them into monasteries. This seems to have been his own sad fate. In course of time, after the schoolboy period of his life was past, he entered the order of Franciscan monks at the convent of Fontenay-le-Comte in Poitou, and took holy orders ; and it was here, dur- ing the next fifteen years (1509-1524), that he devoted himself to the acquisition of everything in the shape of literature or learning, and laid the foundation of the astonishing erudition which his works display. His long residence in the monas- tery had inspired Eabelais with a deep hatred of monasticism and monks, and, after being allowed to exchange the Franciscan for the Benedictine order, he laid down the regular habit and t6ok that of a secular priest, and left the convent without the sanction of his superior a breach of ecclesiastical discipline which exposed him to severe censure. After wandering hither and thither in the pursuit of medical knowledge, he entered the University of Montpellier, graduated as a physician, and practised there with credit and success. After being Hospital Physician at Lyons, he spent some time in Eome, as a medical attendant upon Jean du Bellay, Bishop of Paris. While here he succeeded in making his peace with the Church, and by a papal Bull (17th January 1536) was allowed to return to the Bene- dictine order and to practise physic according to canonical rules, i.e., to charge no fees and to use neither fire nor knife. This release from ecclesiast- ical disabilities allowed him to be appointed to a place in the abbey of St Maur-des-Fosses, near THE ENEMY OF HUMBUG 189 Paris. After another period of exile and wandering he was nominated cur of Meudon, an office which he resigned after two years. Three months afterwards he died in Paris (9th April, 1553), and was buried in the cemetery of the parish of St Paul's. The publication of the satirical writings of Eabelais was spread over a long series of years, from 1532 or 1533, when the first instalment, in his Garyantua, was brought out, down to 1564, eleven years after his death, when the fifth and concluding book of his Pantagruel was issued in its entirety. The main object of his satire was what used to be called " the intolerance, superstition, and disgusting follies and vices of the Komish Church," but, incidentally, pretenders to knowledge of every kind come under his lash. For when imposture, folly, and humbug grow too rank and noisome, there arise, it can scarcely be by acci- dent, men like Lucian, Rabelais, and Voltaire, whose calling it is to cut them down. That theirs is an ill-requited office is sufficiently plain from the odium which, in spite of their beneficent labours, is often associated with their names. " [Hast thou] only a torch for burning, no hammer for building ? " says the somewhat wearisome Herr Teufelsdrockh to the last named of these satirists, " take our thanks, then, and thyself away." 1 Yet the torch for burning is as necessary as the hammer for building, if the site for the Temple of Truth is to be pre- pared. It may well be that burning down and rooting up are needed before building can be begun, and some of those who have endeavoured to benefit 1 Sartor Resartus, chap. ix. SIR THOMAS URQUHART mankind have felt themselves called to the one sort of work rather than to the other. The form which Eabelais chooses for the frame- work of his satire is the burlesque adventures of the giant Gargantua, of whom many legends were current in Touraine, and of his son Pantagruel, sometimes spoken of as also a giant, and at others as a wise and virtuous prince of ordinary propor- tions. Along with the strange, tangled, and chaotic story of their exploits the writer from time to time enunciates admirable ideas, which must have seemed revolutionary to his contemporaries, and some of which even we have not yet realised. The translation of Eabelais by Sir Thomas Urquhart is his great literary achievement. " It is impossible," says Tytler, " to look into it without admiring the air of ease, freshness, and originality which the translator has so happily communicated to his performance. All those singular qualifica- tions which unfitted Urquhart to succeed in serious composition his extravagance, his drollery (?), his unbridled imagination, his burlesque and endless epithets are in the task of translating Eabelais transplanted into their true field of action, and revel through his pages with a licence and buoyancy which is quite unbridled, yet quite allowable. In- deed, Urquhart and Eabelais appear, in many points, to have been congenial spirits, and the translator seems to have been born for his author." l As might have been expected, the translation is not marked by painful exactness of rendering. On the contrary, evidences of carelessness and in- 1 Life of Crichton, p. 182. AN UNBRIDLED TRANSLATOR 191 accuracy are by no means uncommon, but yet the work is, as some one calls it, " one of the most perfect transfusions of an author from one language to another, 1 that ever man accomplished/' The great merits of the translation consist in its pre- serving the very air and style of the original, and in the astonishing richness of vocabulary which it manifests. Where Eabelais invents a word, Sir Thomas invents one, or two, or three ; and if the former has a list of twenty or thirty epithets, the latter has no hesitation in supplying his readers with forty or sixty, which seem quite as good as the original stock which he thus enlarges. Some- times, too, as Mr W. F. Smith, a very distinguished student of Eabelais, remarks, " in translating a single word of the French he often empties all the synonyms given by Cotgrave into his version." Mr Tytler, in the above-quoted criticism on Urquhart's translation, speaks of the peculiarities of his style as " revelling through his pages with a licence and buoyancy which is quite unbridled, yet quite allowable." One is obliged to demur to the last adjective. A translator, like a compositor, should be under some* obligation to adhere to the text before him ; and, as a matter of fact, the success of Urquhart's version is occasionally inter- fered with by this same " unbridled revelling." The style of Eabelais is graphic and vigorous, and 1 In addition to any aid Urquhart may have received from friends who were intimately acquainted with the French language, he was deeply indebted to Cotgrave's French Dictionary, published in 1611, and dedicated to "Sir William Cecil, Knight, Lord Burghley, and sonne and heir apparant unto the Earle of Exeter," i.e., the grandson of Queen Elizabeth's Lord Burghley. i 9 3 SIR THOMAS URQUHART at times exceedingly graceful, and occupies a high place in French literature. Any tampering with it, therefore, in the way of alteration or addition, was not likely to be an improvement. But, even after all deductions are made, the praise bestowed upon Urquhart's work has been fully deserved. "The buoyancy and unembarrassed sweep of its general character," says Sir Theodore Martin, " which gives his Rabelais more the look of an original than of a translation, its rich and well- compacted diction, the many happy turns of phrase that are quite his own, have fairly earned for it the high estimation in which it has long been held. His task was one of extreme difficulty, and there have perhaps been few men besides himself that could have brought to it the world of omnigenous knowledge which it required. It was apparently Urquhart's ambition to realise in his own person the ideal of human accomplishment, to be at once 'Complete in feature and in mind, With, all good grace to grace a gentleman.' He had left no source of information unexplored, few aspects of life unobserved, and, in the trans- lation of Rabelais, he found full exercise for his multiform attainments. Ably as the work has been completed by Motteux, one cannot but regret that the worthy Knight of Cromarty had not spared him the task." 1 The merits of the translation can scarcely be exhibited in selections torn from their context, and perhaps only partly intelligible ; but perhaps the 1 Rabelais, p, xxi. THE ABBEY OF THELEMA 193 following may be welcome to the reader. Let us take these extracts from the graceful and charming sketch of the Abbey of Thelema, which was to be different from all other monastic communities, and was to be the home of a society of young people living together in all innocence and joy, free from sordid cares, and devoted to the studies, exer- cises, and accomplishments which are appropriate to refined and noble spirits. " ' First, then/ said Gargantua, ' you must not build a wall about your convent, for all other abbies are strongly walled and mured about. . . . Moreover, seeing there are certain convents in the world, whereof the custome is, if any woman come in, I mean chaste and honest women, they immedi- ately sweep the ground which they have trod upon ; 1 therefore was it ordained, that if any man or woman, entered into religious orders, should by chance come within this new abbey, all the roomes should be thoroughly washed and cleansed through which they had passed. And because in all other monasteries and nunneries all is compassed, limited, and regulated by houres, it was decreed that in this new structure there should be neither clock nor dial, but that, according to the opportunities and incident occasions, all their hours should be dis- posed of ; for,' said Gargantua, ' the greatest losse of time, that I know, is to count the hours. What good comes of it ? Nor can there be any greater dotage in the world then [than] for one to guide and direct his courses by the sound of a bell, and not by his owne judgement and discretion.' 1 I.e. the Carthusians : like their impudence ! 13 i 9 4 SIR THOMAS URQUHART " Item, Because at that time they put no women into nunneries, but such as were either purblind, blinkards, lame, crooked, ill-favoured, misshapen, fooles, senselesse, spoyled, or corrupt ; nor en- cloystered any men, but those that were either sickly, ill-bred lowts, simple sots, or peevish trouble- houses ; . . . therefore was it ordained, that into this religious order should be admitted no women that were not faire, well featur'd, and of a sweet disposition; nor men that were not comely, per- sonable, and well conditioned. " Item, Because in the convents of women men come not but under-hand, privily, and by stealth, it was therefore enacted, that in this house there shall be no women in case there be not men, nor men in case there be not women. " Item, Because both men and women, that are received into religious orders after the expiring of their noviciat or probation-year, were constrained and forced perpetually to stay there all the days of their life, it was therefore ordered, that all whatever, men or women, admitted within this abbey, should have full leave to depart with peace and contentment, whensoever it should seem good to them so to do. "Item, for that the religious men and women did ordinarily make three vows, to wit, those of chastity, poverty, and obedience, it was therefore constituted and appointed, that in this convent they might be honourably married, that they might be rich, and live at liberty. " In regard of the legitimat time of the persons to be initiated, and years under and above which they were not capable of reception, the women were MANNER OF LIVING 195 to be admitted from ten till fifteen, and the men from twelve till eighteen." l After an elaborate description of the magnificence of the abbey and of its endowments, and of the apparel worn by the members of the new order, we are told of " how the Thelemites were governed, and of their manner of living" " All their life," we read, " was spent not in lawes, statutes, or rules, but accord- ing to their own free will and pleasure. They rose out of their beds, when they thought good ; they did eat, drink, labour, sleep, when they had a minde to it, and were disposed for it. None did awake them, none did offer to constrain them to eat, drink, nor to do any other thing ; for so had Gargantua established it. In all their rule, and strictest tie of their order, there was but this one clause to be observed, DO WHAT THOU WILT; Because men that are free, well-borne, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spurre that prompteth them unto vertuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honour. Those same men when by base subjection and constraint they are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that noble disposition, by which they formerly were inclined to vertue, to shake off and break that bond of servi- tude, wherein they are so tyrannously inslaved ; for it is agreeable with the nature of man to long after things forbidden, and to desire what is denied us. 2 1 Book i. chap. 52. 2 " Nitimur in vetitum, semper cupimus negate," (Ovid, Amor, iii. 4, 17). 196 SIR THOMAS URQUHART " By this liberty they entered into a very laud- able emulation, to do all of them what they saw did please one. If any of the gallants or ladies should say, Let us drink, they would all drink. If any one of them said, Let us play, they all played. If one said, Let us go a-walking into the fields, they went all. If it were to go a-hawking or a-hunting, the ladies mounted upon dainty, well- paced nags, seated in a stately palfrey saddle, 1 carried on their lovely fists, miniardly begloved every one of them, either a sparhawk, or a laneret, or a marlin, and the young gallants carried the other kinds of hawkes. So nobly were they taught, that there was neither he nor she amongst them but could read, write, sing, play upon several musical instruments, speak five or sixe several languages, and compose in them all very quaintly, both in verse and prose. Never were seen so valiant knights, so noble and worthy, so dextrous and skilful both on foot and a horseback, more brisk and lively, more nimble and quick, or better handling all manner of weapons then [than] were there. Never were seene ladies so proper 2 and handsome, so miniard and dainty, lesse froward, or more ready with their hand, and with their needle, in every honest and free action belonging to that sexe, then [than] were there. For this reason, when the time came, that any man of the said abbey, either at the request of his parents, or for some other cause, had a minde to go out of it, he 1 Avec leur palcfroy g worrier rather, "with their prancing palfrey." Guorrier from Gr. yavpos haughty. 2 Cf. Heb. xi. 23, "a proper child." PANURGE 197 carried along with him one of the ladies, namely, her whom he had before that chosen for his mis- tris, 1 and [they] were married together. And if they had formerly in Theleme lived in good devotion and amity, they did continue therein and increase it to a greater height in their state of matrimony : and did entertaine that mutual love till the very last day of their life, in no lesse vigour and fervency, then [than] at the very day of their wedding." 2 Such is the dream which floated before the mind of Eabelais, but, unhappily, it is still an airy fancy, and has never received a local habitation and a name. Mrs Grundy,the vegetarians, the teetotallers, the anti-tobacco people, and the enemies of " rational costume " have up to the present forbidden the erection of any such building. One of the most prominent figures in the story of Pantagruel is his favourite, Panurge, who is a rogue, a drunkard, a coward, and a malicious scoundrel, but who yet, like Falstaff, in spite of all his moral defici- encies, manages to appear as an amusing personage. Into his lips is put, with a fine disregard of congruity, an eloquent speech, which begins in praise of debt, and ends by setting forth the interdependence of all things in the universe. Panurge is represented as having threescore and three ways of making money, and two hundred and fourteen of spending it, so that he is always poor, and his sovereign Pantagruel re- monstrates with him on account of his prodigal habits. He replies as follows : " Be still indebted to some- 1 Celle laquelle Vauroit prim pour son devot rather, ' ' her, who had chosen him as her devoted servant." 2 Book i. chap. 57. 198 SIR THOMAS URQUHART body or other, that there may be somebody always to pray for you; [to pray] that the giver of all good things may grant unto you a blessed, long, and prosperous life ; fearing, if fortune should deal crossly with you, that it might be his chance to come short of being paid by you, he will always speak good of you in every company, ever and anon purchase new creditors unto you ; to the end, that through their means you may make a shift by borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, 1 and with other folk's earth fill up his ditch. When of old in the region of the Gauls, by the institution of the Druids, 2 the servants, slaves, and bondmen were burnt quick at the funerals and obsequies of their lords and masters, had not they fear enough, think you, that their lords and masters should die ? For, per force, they were to die with them for company. Did not they uncessantly send up their supplica- tions to their great God Mercury, 3 as likewise unto Dis, the Father of Wealth, 4 to lengthen out their days, and preserve them long in health ? Were not they very careful to entertain them well, punctually to look unto them, and to attend them faithfully and circumspectly ? For by those means were they to live together at least until the hour of death. Believe me your creditors with a more fervent devotion will beseech [Providence] to pro- 1 Fr.faire versure='La,i. facere versuram (Cic. Alt. v. 1, 2), to borrow money to pay another debt (F. "VV. S.). 2 Caes. B. G. vi. 19. 3 "Deum maxime Mercurium cohmt" (B. G. vi. 17) (Ibid.}. 4 " Galli se omnes ab Dite patre prognatos dicunt" (B. G. vi. 18). Dis is called ptre des escuz, as identical with Plutus, the god of hidden wealth (Ibid.). THE PRAISE OF DEBT 199 long your life, they being of nothing more afraid than that you should die. ... I, in this only respect and consideration of being a debtor, esteem myself worshipful, reverend, and formidable. For, against the opinion of most philosophers, that of nothing ariseth nothing, yet, without having bottomed on so much as that which is called the First Matter [Primary Matter], did I out of nothing become such [a] maker and creator, that I have created what ? a gay number of fair and jolly creditors. Nay, creditors, I will maintain it, even to the very fire itself exclusively, 1 are fair and goodly creatures. Who lendeth nothing is an ugly and wicked creature. . . . You can hardly imagine how glad I am, when every morning I perceive myself environed and surrounded with brigades of creditors, humble, fawning, and full of their reverences. And whilst I remark that, as I look more favourably upon, and give a chearfuller countenance to one than to the other, the fellow thereupon buildeth a conceit that he shall be the first dispatched, and the foremost in the date of pay- ment ; and he valueth my smiles at the rate of ready money. ... I have all my life-time held debt to be as an union or conjunction of the heavens with the earth, and the whole cement whereby the race of mankind is kept together ; 2 yea, 1 Exclusively, i.e., "I will affirm it, but not go to the stake for it"(F. W. S.). 2 A fine passage in one of South's Sermons was evidently sug- gested by the above chapter in Rabelais. " The World is main- tained by Intercourse ; and the whole Course of Nature is a great Exchange, in which one good Turn is and ought to be the stated Price of another. If you consider the Universe as one Body, you 200 SIR THOMAS URQUHART of such vertue and efficacy, that, I say, the whole pro- geny of Adam would very suddenly perish without it." He then goes on to describe a world in which there are no debtors and no debts. There will be no regular course among the planets, but all will be in disorder. Jupiter, reckoning himself to be nothing indebted to Saturn, will go near to thrust him out of his place ; Saturn and Mars will combine to promote the confusion ; Mercury, being debtor to no one, will no longer serve any ; Venus, because she shall have lent nothing, will no longer be venerated. " The moon," he says, " will remain shall find Society and Conversation to supply the Office of the Blood and Spirits ; and it is Gratitude that makes them circulate. Look over the whole Creation, and you shall see that the Band or Cement that holds together all the Parts of this great and glorious Fabric is Gratitude, or something like it : you may observe it in all the Elements, for does not the Air feed the Flame ? and does not the Flame at the same time warm and enlighten the Air ? Is not the Sea always sending forth, as well as taking in ? And does not the Earth quit scores with all the Elements, in the noble Fruits and Productions that issue from it ? And in all the Light and Influence that the Heavens bestow upon this lower World, though the lower World cannot equal their Benefaction, yet with a Kind of grateful Return, it reflects those Rays that it cannot recompense : so that there is some Return however, though there can be no Requital. ... In short, Gratitude is the great Spring that sets all the Wheels of Nature agoing ; and the whole Universe is supported by giving and returning, by Commerce and Commutation. And now, thou ungrateful Brute, thou Blemish to Mankind, and Reproach to thy Creation ; what shall we say of thee, or to what shall we compare thee ? For thou art an Exception from all the visible World ; neither the Heavens above nor the Earth beneath afford anything like thee : and therefore, if thou wouldest find thy Parallel, go to Hell, which is both the Region and the Emblem of Ingratitude ; for besides thyself, there is nothing but Hell that is always receiving and never restoring" (I. SEEM. xi. " Of 'the odious Sin of Ingratitude"). A WORLD WITHOUT LENDING 201 bloody and obscure. For to what end should the sun impart unto her any of his light ? l He owed her nothing. Nor yet will the sun shine upon the earth, nor the stars send down any good influence, 2 because the terrestrial globe hath desisted from sending up their wonted nourishment by vapours and exhalations, wherewith Heraclitus said, the Stoicks proved, Cicero maintained, they were cherished and alimented. . . . No rain will descend upon the earth, nor light shine thereon ; no wind will blow there, nor will there be in it any summer or harvest. . . . Such a world without lending will be no better than a dog-kennel, a place of contention and wrangling. . . . Men will not then salute one another ; it will be but lost labour to expect aid or succour from any, or to cry fire, water, murther, for none will put to their helping hand. Why ? He lent no money, there is nothing due to him. Nobody is concerned in his burning, in his shipwrack, in his ruine, or in his death ; and that because he hitherto hath lent nothing, and would never thereafter have lent anything. In short, Faith, Hope, and Charity would be quite banish'd from such a world for men are born to relieve and assist one another." 1 " N"ec fratris radiis obnoxia surgere Luna" (Virg. Geory. i. (F. W. S.). - Influence, much used as an astrological term. Cf. Milton : "taught the fix'd Their influence malignant when to shower." Par. Lost, x. 662. " Bending one way their precious influence." Hymn on the Nativity, 71. (Ibid.). 202 SIR THOMAS URQUHART " But, on the contrary," he went on to say, " be pleased to represent unto your fancy another world, wherein every one lendeth, and every one oweth, all are debtors, and all creditors. how great will that harmony be, which shall thereby result from the regular motions of the heavens ! Methinks I hear it every whit as well as ever Plato did. 1 What sympathy will there be amongst the elements ! how delectable then unto nature will be our own works and productions ! Whilst Ceres appeareth loaden with corn, Bacchus with wines, Flora with flowers, Pomona with fruits, and Juno fair in a clear air, wholsom and pleasant. I lose myself in this high contemplation. Then will among the race of mankind, peace, love, benevolence, fidelity, tranquillity, rests, banquets, feastings, joy, gladness, gold, silver, single money [small change], chains, rings, with other ware, and chaffer of that nature, be found to trot from hand to hand. No suits at law, no wars, no strife, debate, nor wrangling; none will be there an usurer, none will be there a pinch- penny, a scrape-good wretch, or churlish hard- hearted refuser. Will not this be the golden age in the reign of Saturn ? the true idea of the Olympick regions, wherein all [other] vertues cease, 1 Plato never pretends that the "music of the spheres" can be heard. He adopts the theory to some extent from the Pytha- goreans. Aristotle (de Coelo, ii. 9), that the noise caused by the movements of the heavenly bodies is so prodigious and continuous, that, being accustomed to it from our birth, we do not notice it. The only notice in Plato that can be construed into a statement about audible music of the spheres is in Rep. x., where he speaks of a siren standing upon each of the circles of the planetary system uttering one note in one tone ; and from all the eight notes there results a single harmony (F. "VV. S.). AMPLIFICATION OF THE TEXT 203 charity alone ruleth, governeth, domineereth, and triumpheth ? All will be fair and goodly people there, all just and vertuous. happy world ! people of that world most happy ! Yea, thrice and four times blessed is that people ! I think hi very deed that I am amongst them." l In one curious passage Sir Thomas Urquhart amplifies the text of the author whom he trans- lates, and supplies his readers with an astonishing list of onomatopoeic words, many of which will probably be new to those who have not come across this passage before. Rabelais has nine of these words, but the translator 2 enlarges the list to seventy-one. Pantagruel is arguing against fast- ing and solitude as aids to a contemplative life, and quotes the authority of his father Gargantua. " He [Gargantua] gave us also," he said, " the example of the philosopher, who, when he thought most seriously to have withdrawn himself unto a solitary privacy, far from the rusling clutterments of the tumultuous and confused world, the better to improve his theory, to contrive, comment, and ratiocinate, was, notwithstanding his uttermost endeavours to free himself from all untoward noises, surrounded and environ'd about so with the barking of currs [bawling of mastiffs, bleating of sheep, prating of parrets, tatling of jack-daws, grunting of swine, girning of boars, yelping of 1 Book iii. chaps. 3, 4. 2 It is quite possible that Motteux, who published the third book of Rabelais after Urquhart's death, is responsible for some of the interpolations. 204 SIR THOMAS URQUHART foxes, mewing of cats, cheeping of mice, squeaking of weasils, croaking of frogs, crowing of cocks, kekling of hens, calling of partridges, chanting of swans, chattering of jays, peeping of chickens, singing of larks, creaking of geese, chirping of swallows, clucking of moorfowls, cucking of cuckos, bumling of bees, rammage of hawks, chirming of linots, croaking of ravens, screeching of owls, whicking of pigs, gushing of hogs, curring of pigeons, grumbling of cushet-doves, howling of panthers, curkling of quails, chirping of sparrows, crackling of crows, nuzzing of camels, wheening of whelps, buzzing of dromedaries, mumbling of rabets, cricking of ferrets, humming of wasps, mioling of tygers, bruzzing of bears, sussing of kitnings, clamring of scarfes, whimpring of fullmarts, boing of buffaloes, warbling of nightingales, quavering of meavises, drintling of turkies, coniating of storks, frantling of peacocks, clattering of mag-pyes, murmuring of stock- doves, crouting of cormorants, cigling of locusts, charming of beagles, guarring of puppies, snarling of messens, rantling of rats, guerieting of apes, snuttering of monkies, pioling of pelicanes, quecking of ducks], yelling of wolves, roaring of lions, neighing of horses, crying of elephants, hissing of serpents, and wailing of turtles, that he was much more troubled than if he had been in the middle of the crowd at the fair of Fontenay or Niort." 1 In spite of the amplification of the 1 Book iii. chap. 13. Fontenay le Comte in Lower Poitou and Niort were noted for their busy yearly fairs. There can be doubt that the above passage was suggested to Rabelais by what St Jerome records of the experience of St Hilarion in the desert. "Sic atten- EARLIEST EDITIONS 205 original text of Kabelais, two of the sounds are omitted "the braying of asses," and the noise made by grass-hoppers (sonnent les cigales), which we might have called "chirping," if the swallows and sparrows had not taken possession of that term. As already stated, the first two books were all that were published in the lifetime of Sir Thomas Urquhart. They appeared as separate volumes in 1653. The unsold stock of each was reissued in tuatus," lie says, " [jejunio et vigiliis], et in tantum exeto corpore, ut ossibus vix haereret, quadam nocte ccepit infantum audire vagitus, balattis pecorum, mugitus bourn, planctum quasi mulierum, leonum rugitus, murmur exercitus, et prorsus variarum portenta vocum," etc. ( Vita Sancti Hilarionis). In Burton's Anatomy of Melan- choly (iii. 4. 1. 2) there is the following reference to the same passage: "Monks, Anachorites, and the like, after much empti- ness become melancholy, vertiginous, they think they hear strange noises, confer with Hob-goblins, Devils. . . . Hilarion, as Hierome reports in his life, and Alhanasius of Antonius, was so bare with fasting, that the skin did scarce stick to the bones; for want of vapours (sic) he could not sleep, and for want of sleep became idle-headed, heard every night infants cry, Oxen low, Wolves hmvl, Lions roar (as he thought), clattering of chains, strange voices, and the like illusions of Devils." It is probable also that Rabelais had read the following passage in the Life of Gi-fa, l.y ^Elius Spartianus (c. A.D. 317): "Familiare illi fuit has qutestiones grammaticis proponerc, ut dicerent, singula auinialia quomodo vocem emitterent, velut, Agni balant, porcelli grunniunt, palumbes minurriunt, ursi saeviunt, leones rugiunt, Icopardi rictant, elephant! barriunt, rante coaxant, equi hinniunt, asini rudunt, tauri mugiunt, casque de veteribus approbare." Nor is it likely that Rabelais was unacquainted with the verses in Teofilo Folengo's (1491-1544) Mcrlini Cocaii Macaronicon, which run thus : " Nam Leo rugitum mittit, Lupus ac ululatum, Bos boat, et nitrescit equus, Gallusque cucullat, Sgnavolat et Gattus, baiat Canis, Ursus adirat, Raucagat Oca, rudit Mullus, sed raggiat Asellus ; Denique quodque animal propria cum voce gridabat." Macaronea, xx. 206 SIR THOMAS URQUHART 1664, in one volume, an additional title-page, an extra preface, and a life of Kabelais being prefixed to them. The volume became very scarce, and in 169394 Pierre Antoine Motteux, a Frenchman, who was master of exceedingly racy and idiomatic English, published an edition containing the third book. This was extremely inaccurate, so far as typography was concerned, and gave the public the version of Sir Thomas Urquhart with certain unspecified changes made by the editor in order to impart to it additional "smartness." In 1708 Motteux published a complete translation of Eabelais, the version of the fourth and fifth books being supplied by himself, 1 as supplementary to Urquhart's work. After the death of Motteux, a somewhat pretentious editor named Ozell 2 brought out the combined versions, with notes principally taken from the French of Duchat, and this has 1 In the introduction to this volume Motteux says that Sir Thomas Urquhart was "a learned physician." It is difficult to understand what could have given rise to such a statement. Sir Thomas had many projects for the benefit of the human race, but there is no evidence of his ever having cherished that of combating disease. One cannot help thinking of the magniloquent terms in which he would have extolled his remedies, if the fates had led him to the concoction of patent medicines. It is doubtful, how- ever, whether he would have had what is technically known as "a good bed-side manner." It is quite possible that Motteux simply meant that Sir Thomas was well acquainted with medical science, and not that he was a physician by profession. Yet his words have often been understood as asserting the latter. Thus we find the erroneous statement in Granger's Biographical Dictionary, the Amsterdam (1741) edition of Rabelais, and Sir John Hawkins' Life of Johnson, p. 294. 2 Both Ozell and Motteux figure in Pope's Dunciad, in i. 296, and ii. 412, respectively. A LAST GLIMPSE 207 been reprinted time after time since its first appearance in 1737. At least seventeen editions of Urquhart's work, either by itself or with Motteux's supplementary matter, have been issued since his day, and there is no sign of its fame waxing dim through the lapse of time ; and therefore the immortality after which he longed has in a measure been won by him. And so, once more before we take our leave of him, we look again into the twilight of the past, and see his striking figure the soldier, the scholar, and the author crowned with the wreath which his own hands have placed upon his brows, but which succeeding generations declare him worthy to bear. APPENDICES I. PRIMITIVE FATHERS AND MOTHERS OF THE NAME OF URQUHART. II. THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON. APPENDIX I THE NAMES OF THE CHIEFS OF THE NAME OF URQUHART, AND OF THEIR PRIMITIVE FATHERS; as by Authentick Records and Tradition they were from time to time through the various Generations of that Family successively con- veyed, till the present yeer 1652 (p. 143). The ancestors of Sir Thomas, for whose existence there is evidence apart from his assertions, are indicated by their names being printed in italics. If the editor of the Tracts (1774) were to be believed, the italics would have to begin with George, No. 138 in the list. The fact that the names in this list are more numerous than those in the list which follows, is to be explained by brothers succeeding each other occasionally, when there was no son to inherit the dignity of chieftainship. 1. Adam. I 24. Phrenedon. 2. Seth. 25. Zameles. 3. Enos. 26. Choronomos. 4. Cainan. 27. Leptologon. 5. Mahalaleel. 28. Aglsetos. 6. Jared. 29. Megalonus. 7. Enoch. 30. Evemeros. 8. Methusalah. 31. Callophron. 9. Lamech. 10. Noah. 11. Japhet. 12. Javan. 13. Penuel. 14. Tyclieros. 15. Pasiteles. 32. Arthmios. 33. Hypsegoras. 34. Autarces. 35. Evages. 36. Atarbes. 37. Pamprosodos. 38. Getlion. 16. Esormon. 39. Holocleros. 17. Cratynter. 40. Molin. 18. Thrasymedes. 41. Epitomon. 19. Evippos. 42. Hypotyplios. 20. Cleotinus. 43. Melobolon. 21. Litoboros. 44. Propetes. 22. Apodemos. 45. Euplocamos. 23. Bathybulos. 46. Pliilophon. 212 APPENDIX I 47. Syngenes. 48. Polyphrades. 49. Cainotomos. 50. Rodrigo. 51. Dicarches. 52. Exagastos. 53. Denapon. 54. Artistes. 55. Thymoleon. 56. Eustochos. 57. Bianor. 58. Thryllumenos. 59. Mellessen. 60. Alypos. 61. Anochlos. 62. Homognios. 63. Epsephicos. 64. Eutropos. 65. Coryphaeus. 66. Etoimos. 67. Spudseos. 68. Eumestor. 69. Griphon. 70. Emmenes. 71. Pathomaehon. 72. Anepsios. 73. Auloprepes. 74. Corosylos. 75. Detalon. 76. Beltistos. 77. Horaeos. 78. Orthophron. 79. Apsicoros. 80. Philaplus. 81. Megaletor. 82. Noraostor. 83. Astioremon. 84. Phronematias. 85. Lutork. 86. Machemos. 87. Stichopseo. 88. Epaloinenos. 89. Tycheros(2). 90. Apechon. 91. Enacmes. 92. Javan(2). 93. Lematias. 94. Prosenes. 95. Sosomenos. 96. Philalethes. 97. Thaleros. 98. Polysenos. 99. Cratesimachos. 100. Eunaemon. 101. Diasemos. 102. Saphenus. 103. Bramoso. 104. Celanas. 105. Vistoso. 106. Polido. 107. Lustroso. 108. Chrestander. 109. Spectabundo. 110. Philodulos. 111. Paladino. 112. Comicello. 113. Regisato. 114. Arguto. 115. Nicarchos. 116. Marsidalio. 117. Hedumenos. 118. Agenor. 119. Diaprepon. 120. Stragayo. 121. Zeron. 122. Poly teles. 123. Vocompos. 124. Carolo. 125. Endymion. 126. Sebastian. 127. Lawrence. 128. Olipher. 129. Quintin. 130. Goodwin. 131. Frederick. 132. Sir Jaspar. 133. Sir Adam. 134. Edward. 135. Richard. 136. Sir Philip. 137. Robert. 138. George. 139. James. 140. David. APPENDIX I 213 141. Francis. 142. William. 143. Adam. 144. John. 145. Sir William. 146. William. 147. Alexander. 148. Thomas. 149. Alexander. 150. Walter. 151. Henry. 152. Sir Thomas. 153. Sir Thomas. THE NAMES OF THE MOTHERS OF THE CHIEFS OF THE NAME OF URQUHART, AS ALSO OF THE MOTHERS OF THEIR PRIMITIVE FATHERS. The authority for the truth thereof being derived from the same Authentick Eecords and Tradition on which is grounded the above- written Genealogie of their male collaterals. 1. Eva. 2. Shifka. 3. Mahla. 4. Bilha. 5. Timnah. 6. Aliolima. 7. Zilpa. 8. Noema. 9. Ada. 10. Titea. 11. Debora. 12. Neginothi. 13. Hottir. 14. Orpah. 15. Axa. 16. Narfesia. 17. Goshenni. 18. Briageta. 19. Andronia. 20. Pusena. 21. Emplianeola. 22. Bonaria. 23. Peninah. 24. Asymbleta. 25. Carissa. 26. Calaglais. 27. Theoglena. 28. Pammerisla. 29. Floridula. 30. Chrysocomis. 31. Arrenopas. 32. Tharsalia. 33. Maia. 34. Koma. 35. Termuth. 36. Vegeta. 37- Callimeris. 38. Panthea. 39. Gonima. 40. Ganymena. 41. Thespesia. 42. Hypermnestra. 43. Horatia. 44. Philumena. 45. Neopis. 46. Thyuielica. 47. Ephamilla. 48. Porrima. 49. Lampedo. 50. Teleclyta. 51. Clarabella. 52. Eromena. 53. Zocallis. 54. Lepida. 55. Nicolia. 56. Proteusa. 214 APPENDIX I 57. Gozosa. 58. Venusta. 59. Prosectica. 60. Delotera. 61. Tracara. 62. Pothina. 63. Cordata. 64. Aretias. 65. Musurga. 66. Romalia. 67. Orthoiusa. 68. Recatada. 69. Chariestera. 70. Rexenora. 71. Philerga. 72. Thomyris. 73. Varonilla. 74. Stranella. 75. ^Equanima. 76. Barosa. 77. Epimona. 78. Diosa. 79. Bonita. 80. Aretusa. 81. Bendita. 82. Regalletta. 83. Isumena. 84. Antaxia. 85. Bergola. 86. Viracia. 87. Dynastis. 88. Dalga. 89. Eutocusa. 90. Corriba. 91. Proecelsa. 92. Plausidica. 93. Donosa. 94. Solicaelia. 95. Bontadosa. 96. Calliparia. 97. Creleuca. 98. Pancala. 99. Dominella. 100. Mundala. 101. Pamphais. 102. Philtrusa. 103. Meliglena. 104. Philetium. 105. Tersa. 106. Dulcicora. 107. Gethosyna. 108. Collabella. 109. Eucnema. 110. Tortolina. 111. Ripulita. 112. Urbana. 113. Lampusa. 114. Vistosa. 115. Herrnosina. 116. Bramata. 117. Zaglopis. 118. Androlema. 119. Trastevole. 120. Suaviloqua. 121. Francoline. 122. Matilda. 123. Allegra. 124. Winnifred. 125. Dorothy. 126. Lawretta. 127. Genivieve. 128. Marjory. 129. Jane. 130. Anne. 131. Magdalen. 132. Girsel. 133. Mary. 134. Sophia. 135. Eleonore. 136. Rosalind. 137. Lillias. 138. Brigid. 139. Agnes. 140. Susanna. 141. Catherine. 142. Helen. 143. Beatrice. 144. Elizabeth. 145. Elizabeth. 146. Christian. APPENDIX II THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON (p. 157). " To speak a little now of his compatriot Crichtoun, I hope will not offend the ingenuous reader; who may know, by what is already displayed, that it cannot be heterogeneal from the proposed purpose, to make report of that magnanimous act atchieved by him at the Duke of Mantua's court, to the honour not only of his own, but to the eternal renown also of the whole Isle of Britain ; the manner whereof was thus : "A certain Italian gentleman, of a mighty, able, strong, nimble, and vigorous body, by nature fierce, cruell, warlike, and audacious, and in the gladiatory art so superlatively expert and dextrous, that all the most skilful teachers of Escrime, and fencing-masters of Italy, (which in matter of choice professors in that faculty, needed never as yet to yeild to any nation in the world), were by him beaten to their good behaviour, and by blows given in, which they could not avoid, enforced to acknowledge him their over comer; bethinking himself, how, after so great a conquest of reputation, he might by such means be very suddenly enriched, he projected a course of ex- changing the blunt to sharp, and the foiles into tucks. And in this resolution providing a purse full of gold, worth neer upon four hundred pounds English money, traveled alongst the most especial and considerable parts of Spaine, France, the Low- 216 APPENDIX II Countryes, Germany, Pole, Hungary, Greece, Italy, and other places, where ever there was greatest probability of encountring with the eagerest and most atrocious duellists. And immediately after his arrival to any city or town that gave apparent likeli- hood of some one or other champion that would enter the lists and cope with him, he boldly challenged them with sound of trumpet, in the chief market-place, to adventure an equal sum of money against that of his, to be disputed at the sword's point who should have both. There failed not several brave men, almost of all nations, who, accepting of his cartels,were not afraid to hazard both their person and coine against him ; but, (till he midled with this Crichtoun), so maine was the ascendant he had above all his antagonists, and so unlucky the fate of such as offered to scuffle with him, that all his opposing combatants, (of what state or dominion soever they were), who had not lost both their life and gold, were glad, for the preservation of their person, (though sometimes with a great expence of blood), to leave both their reputation and mony behind them. At last, returning homewards to his own country, loaded with honor and wealth, or rather the spoile of the reputa- tion of those forraginers, whom the Italians call Tra- montani, he, by the way, after his accustomed manner of abording other places, repaired to the city of Mantua, where the Duke, (according to the courtesie usually bestowed on him by other princes), vouch- safed him a protection and savegard for his person ; he (as formerly he was wont to do, by beat of drum, sound of trumpet, and several printed papers, disclos- ing his designe, battered on all the chief gates, posts, and pillars of the town), gave all men to understand, that his purpose was to challenge, at the single rapier, any whosoever of that city or country, that durst be so bold as to fight with him, provided he would deposite a bag of five hundred Spanish pistols APPENDIX II 217 over against another of the same value, which he himself should lay down, upon this condition, that the enjoyment of both should be the conqueror's due. His challenge was not long unanswered, for it happened, at the same time, that three of the most notable cutters in the world, (and so highly cryed up for valour, that all the bravos of the land were content to give way to their domineering, how insolent soever they should prove, because of their former constantly obtained victories in the field), were all three together at the court of Mantua, who, hearing of such a harvest of five hundred pistols to be reaped, (as they expected), very soon, and with ease, had almost contested amongst themselves for the priority of the first encounterer, but that one of my Lord Duke's courtiers moved them to cast lots for who should be first, second, and third, in case none of the former two should prove victorious. Without more adoe, he whose chance it was to answer the cartel with the first defiance, presented himself within the barriers, or place appointed for the fight, where, his adversary attending him, as soon as the trumpet sounded a charge, they jointly fel to work ; and, (because I am not now to amplifie the particulars of a combat), although the dispute was very hot for a while, yet, whose fortune it was to be first of the three in the field, had the disaster to be first of the three that was foyled ; for, at last, with a thrust in the throat, he was killed dead upon the ground. This, nevertheless, not a whit dismayed the other two, for, the nixt day, he that was second in the roll gave his appearance after the same manner as the first had done, but with no better success ; for he likewise was laid flat dead upon the place, by means of a thrust he received in the heart. The last of the three, finding that he was as sure of being engaged in the fight as if he had been the first in order, pluckt up his heart, knit his spirits together, 218 APPENDIX II and, on the day after the death of the second, most couragiously entering the lists, demeaned himself for a while with great activity and skill ; but at last, his luck being the same with those that preceded him, by a thrust in the belly, he within four and twenty hours after gave up the ghost. These (you may imagine), were lamentable spectacles to the Duke and citie of Mantua, who, casting down their faces for shame, knew not what course to take for reparation of their honour. The conquering duellist, proud of a victory so highly tending to both his honour and profit, for the space of a whole fortnight, or two weeks together, marched daily along the streets of Mantua, (without any opposition or controulment), like another Eomulus or Marcellus in triumph; which, the never too much to be admired Crichtoun perceiving, to wipe off the imputation of cowardise lying upon the court of Mantua, to which he had but even then arrived, (although formerly he had been a domestick thereof), he could neither eat nor drink till he had first sent a challenge to the con- queror, appelling him to repair with his best sword in his hand, by nine of the clock in the morning of the next day, in presence of the whole court, and in the same place where he had killed the other three, to fight with him upon this quarrel, that in the court of Mantua there were as valiant men as he ; and, for his better encouragement to the desired undertaking, he assured him that, to the aforesaid five hundred pistols, he would adjoyn a thousand more, wishing him to do the like, that the victor, upon the point of his sword, might carry away the richer bootay. The challenge, with all its conditions, is no sooner accepted of, the time and place mutually condescended upon, kept accordingly, and the fifteen hundred pistols hinc inde deposited, but of the two rapiers of equal weight, length, and goodness, each taking one, in presence of the Duke, Dutchess, with all the noble- APPENDIX II 219 men, ladies, magnificos, and all the choicest of men, women, and maids of that citie, as soon as the signal for the duel was given, by the shot of a great piece of ordnance of threescore and four pound ball, the combatants, with a lion-like animosity, made their approach to one another, and, being within distance, the valiant Crichtoun, to make his adversary spend his fury the sooner, betook himself to the defensive part ; wherein, for a long time, he shewed such excellent dexterity in warding the other's blows, slighting his falsifyings, in breaking measure, and often, by the agility of his body, avoiding his thrust, that he seemed but to play, while the other was in earnest. The sweetness of Crichtoun's countenance, in the hotest of the assault, like a glance of lightning on the hearts of the spectators, brought all the Italian ladies on a sudden to be enamoured of him ; whilst the sternness of the other's aspect, he looking like an enraged bear, would have struck terrour into wolves, and affrighted an English mastiff. Though they were both in their linens, (to wit, shirts and drawers, without any other apparel), and in all outward con- veniences equally adjusted, the Italian, with re- doubling his stroaks, foamed at the mouth with a cholerick heart, and fetched a pantling breath ; the Scot, in sustaining his charge, kept himself in a pleasant temper, without passion, and made void his designes ; he alters his wards from tierce to quart ; he primes and seconds it, now high, now lowe, and casts his body, (like another Prothee), into all the shapes he can, to spie an open on his adversary, and lay hold of an advantage, but all in vain ; for the invincible Crichtoun, whom no cunning was able to surprise, contrepostures his respective wards, and, with an incredible nimbleness of both hand and foot, evades the intent and frustrates the invasion. Now is it, that the never before conquered Italian, finding himself a little faint, enters into a consideration that 220 APPENDIX II he may be over-matched; whereupon a sad appre- hension of danger seizing upon all his spirits, he would gladly have his life bestowed on him as a gift, but that, having never been accustomed to yield, he knows not how to beg it. Matchless Crichtoun, seeing it now high time to put a gallant catastrophe to that so long dubious combat, animated with a divinely inspired servencie to fulfil the expectation of the ladies, and crown the Duke's illustrious hopes, changeth his garb, falls to act another part, and, from defender, turn assailant ; never did art so grace nature, nor nature second the precepts of art with so much liveliness, and such observancie of time, as when, after he had struck fire out of the steel of his enemie's sword, and gained the feeble thereof with the fort of his own, by angles of the strongest position, he did, by geometrical nourishes of straight and oblique lines, so practically execute the speculative part, that, as if there had been Eemoras and secret charms in the variety of his motion, the fierceness of his foe was in a trice transqualified into the numbness of a pageant. Then was it that, to vindicate the re- putation of the Duke's family, and expiate the blood of the three vanquished gentlemen, he alonged a stoccade de piedferme; then recoyling, he advanced another thrust, and lodged it home; after which, retiring again, his right foot did beat the cadence of the blow that pierced the belly of this Italian, whose heart and throat being hit with the two former stroaks, these three franch bouts given in upon the back of the other ; besides that, if lines were imagined drawn from the hand that livered them, to the places which were marked by them, they would represent a perfect isosceles triangle, with a perpendicular from the top angle cutting the basis in the middle ; they likewise give us to understand, that by them he was to be made a sacrifice of atonement for the slaughter of the three aforesaid gentlemen, who were wounded APPENDIX II 221 in the very same parts of their bodies by other such three venees as these, each whereof being mortal ; and his vital spirits exhaling as his blood gushed out, all he spoke was this, That seeing he could not live, his comfort in dying was, that he could not dye by the hand of a braver man ; after the uttering of which words, he expiring, with the shril clareens of trumpets, bouncing thunder of artillery, bethwacked beating of drums, universal clapping of hands, and loud acclamations of joy for so glorious a victory, the aire above them was so rarified by the extremity of the noise and vehement sound, dispelling the thickest and most condensed parts thereof, that (as Plutarch speakes of the Grecians, when they raised their shouts of allegress up to the very heavens at the hearing of the gracious proclamations of Paulus ^Emilius in favour of their liberty), the very sparrows and other flying fowls were said to fall to the ground for want of aire enough to uphold them in their flight. " When this sudden rapture was over, and all husht into its former tranquility, the noble gallantry and generosity, beyond expression, of the inimitable Crichtoun, did transport them all againe into a new exstasie of ravishment, when they saw him like an angel in the shape of a man, or as another Mars, with the conquered enemie's sword in one hand, and the fifteen hundred pistols he had gained in the other, present the sword to the Duke as his due, and the gold to his high treasurer, to be disponed equally to the three widows of the three unfortunate gentlemen lately slaine, reserving only to himself the inward satisfaction he conceived, for having so opportunely discharged his duty to the House of Mantua. " The reader perhaps will think this wonderful ; and so would I too, were it not that I know, (as Sir Philip Sydney sayes), that a wonder is no wonder in a won- derful subject, and consequently not in him, who for 222 APPENDIX II his learning, judgement, valour, eloquence, beauty, and good-fellowship was the perfectest result of the joynt labour of the perfect number of those six deities, Pallas, Apollo, Mars, Mercury, Venus, and Bacchus, that hath been seen since the dayes of Alcibiades; for he was reported to have been in- riched with a memory so prodigious, that any sermon, speech, harangue, or other manner of discourse of an hour's continuance, he was able to recite without hesitation, after the same manner of gesture and pronuntiation, in all points, wherewith it was de- livered at first; and of so stupendious a judgment and conception, that almost naturally he understood quiddities of philosophy ; and as for the abstrusest and most researched mysteries of other disciplines, arts, and faculties, the intentional species of them were as readily obvious to the interiour view and per- spicacity of his mind, as those of the common visible colours to the external sight of him that will open his eyes to look upon them ; of which accomplish- ment and Encyclopedia of knowledge, he gave on a time so marvelous a testimony at Paris, that the words of Admirabilis Scotus, the Wonderful Scot, in all the several tongues and idiomes of Europ, were, (for a great while together), by the most of the echos resounded to the peircing of the very clouds. To so great a hight and vast extent of praise did the never too much to be extolled reputation of the seraphick wit of that eximious man attaine, for his command- ing to be affixed programs on all the gates of the schooles, halls, and colledges of that famous univer- sity, as also on all the chief pillars and posts standing before the houses of the most renowned men for literature, resident within the precinct of the walls and suburbs of that most populous and magnificent city, inviting them all, (or any whoever else versed in any kinde of scholastick faculty), to repaire at nine of the clock in the morning of such a day, moneth, and APPENDIX II 223 yeer, as by computation came to be just six weeks after the date of the affixes, to the common schoole of the colledge of Navarre, 1 where, (at the prefixed time), he should, (God willing), be ready to answer to what should be propounded to him concerning any science, liberal art, discipline, or faculty, practical or theoretick, not excluding the theological nor juris- prudential habits, though grounded but upon the testimonies of God and man, and that in any of these twelve languages, 2 Hebrew, Syriack, Arabick, Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, English, Dutch, Flemish, and Sclavonian, in either verse or prose, at the discretion of the disputant ; which high enterprise and hardy undertaking, by way of challenge to the learndst men in the world, damped the wits of many able scholars to consider whether it was the attempt of a fanatick spirit, or lofty designe of a well-poised judgment ; yet after a few days enquiry concerning him, when information was got of his incomparable endowments, all the choicest and most profound philosophers, mathematicians, naturalists, mediciners, alchymists, apothecaries, surgeons, doctors of both civil and canon law, and divines both for contro- versies and positive doctrine, together with the pri- mest grammarians, rhetoricians, logicians, and others, professors of other arts and disciplines at Paris, plyed their studys in their private eels for the space of a moneth, exceeding hard, and with huge paines and labor set all their braines awork how to contrive the knurriest arguments, and most difficult questions could be devised, thereby to puzzle him in the re- solving of them, meander him in his answers, put 1 The College of Navarre was founded by Jeanne of Navarre, consort of Philippe the Fair, in 1305. Throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it was the foremost foundation of the University of Paris (F. W. S.). 2 John Hill Burton points out the somewhat curious fact that, among the hero's linguistic accomplishments, Gaelic, which must have been talked at his own door, does not appear. 224 APPENDIX II him out of his medium, and drive him to a non plus ; nor did they forget to premonish the ablest there of forraign nations not to be unprepared to dispute with him in their own material dialects, and that sometimes metrically, sometimes otherwayes, pro libitu. 1 All this while the Admirable Scot, (for so from thenceforth he was called), minding more his hawking, hunting, tilting, vaulting, riding of well- managed horses, tossing of the pike, handling of the musket, flourishing of colours, dancing, fencing, swim- ming, jumping, throwing of the bar, playing at tennis, baloon, or long catch ; and sometimes at the house games of dice, cards, playing at the chess, billiards, trou-madam, and other such like chamber sports, singing, playing on the lute and other musical instru- ments, masking, balling, reveling ; and, which did most of all divert, or rather distract him from his specula- tions and serious employments, being more addicted to, and plying closer the courting of handsome ladyes, and a jovial cup in the company of bacchanalian blades, then [than] the forecasting how to avoid, shun, and escape the snares, grins [gins ?], and nets of the hard, obscure, and hidden arguments, ridles, and demands, to be made, framed, and woven by the professors, doctors, and others of that thrice-renowned university. There arose upon him an aspersion of too great proness to such like debordings and youth- ful emancipations, which occasioned one less ac- quainted with himself then [than] his reputation, to subjoyn, (some two weeks before the great clay appointed), to that program of his, which was fixed on the Sorbone gate, these words: 'If you would meet with this monster of perfection, to make search for him ... in the taverne ... is the readyest way to finde him/ By reason of which expression, (though truly as I think, both scandalous and false), the eminent sparks of the university, (imagining that 1 In the matter of length this is surely a record sentence. APPENDIX II 225 those papers of provocation had been set up to no other end, but to scoff and delude them, in making them waste their spirits upon quirks and quiddities, more then [than] was fitting), did resent a little of their former toyle, and slack their studyes, becoming almost regardless thereof, till the several peals of bells ringing an hour or two before the time assigned, gave warning that the party was not to flee the barriers, nor decline the hardship of academical assaults; but, on the contrary, so confident in his former resolution, that he would not shrink to sus- taine the shock of all their disceptations. This sudden alarm so awaked them out of their last fort- night's lethargy, that, calling to minde, the best way they might, the fruits of the foregoing moneth's labour, they hyed to the fore-named schoole with all diligence ; where, after all of them had, according to their several degrees and qualities, seated themselves, and that by reason of the noise occasioned through the great confluence of people, which so strange a novelty brought thither out of curiosity, an universal silence was commanded, the Orator of the University, in most fluent Latine, addressing his speech to Crichtoun, extolled him for his literature, and other good parts, and for that confident opinion he had of his own sufficiency, in thinking himself able to justle in matters of learning with the whole university of Paris. Crichtoun answering him in no less eloquent terms of Latine, after he had most heartily thanked him for his elogies, so undeservedly bestowed, and darted some high encomiums upon the university and the professors therein; he very ingeniously [ingenuously] protested that he did not emit his programs out of any ambition to be esteemed able to enter in competition with the university, but meerly to be honoured with the favour of a publick confer- ence with the learned men thereof. In complements after this manner, idtro citroque habitis, tossed to and 15 226 APPENDIX JI again, retorted, contrerisposted, backreverted, and now and then graced with a quip or a clinch for the better relish of the ear, being unwilling in this kind of straining curtesie to yeeld to other, they spent a full half hour and more ; for he being the centre to which the innumerable diameters of the discourses of that circulary convention did tend, although none was to answer but he, any of them all, according to the order of their prescribed series, were permitted to reply, or commence new motions on any subject, in what language soever, and howsoever expressed ; to all which, he being bound to tender himself a respondent, in matter and form suitable to the im- pugners propounding, he did first so transcendently acquit himself of that circumstantial kinde of oratory, that, by well-couched periods, and neatly running syllables, in all the twelve languages, both in verse and prose, he expressed to the life his courtship [courtliness] and civility ; and afterwards, when the Kector of the university, (unwilling to have any more time bestowed on superficial rhetorick, or to have that wasted on the fondness of quaint phrases, which might be better employed in a reciprocacy of dis- cussing scientifically the nature of substantial things), gave direction to the professors to fall on, each according to the dignity or precedency of his faculty, and that conform to the order given. Some meta- physical notions were set abroach, then mathematical, and of those arithmetical, geometrical, astronomical, musical, optical, cosmographical, trigonometrical, statical, and so forth through all the other branches of the prime and mother sciences thereof ; the next bout was through all natural philosophy, according to Aristotle's method, from the acroamaticks, going along the speculation of the nature of the heavens, and that of the generation and corruption of sub- linary things, even to the consideration of the soul and its faculties ; in sequel hereof, they had a hint APPENDIX II 227 at chymical extractions, and spoke of the principles of corporeal and mixed bodies, according to the pre- cepts of that art. After this, they disputed of medicine, in all its thereapeutick, pharmacopeutick, and chirurgical parts ; and not leaving natural magick untouched, they had exquisite disceptations concern- ing the secrets thereof. From thence they proceeded to moral philosophy, where, debating of the true enumeration of all vertues and vices, they had most learned ratiocinations about the chief good of the life of man; and seeing the [that] cecumenicks and politicks are parts of that philosophy, they argued learnedly of all the several sorts of governments, with their defects and advantages ; whereupon per- pending, that, without an established law, all the duties of ruling and subjection, to the utter ruin of humane society, would be as often violated as the irregularity of passion, seconded with power, should give way thereto. The Sorbonist, canonical, and civilian doctors most judiciously argued with him about the most prudential maximes, sentences, ordin- ances, acts, and statutes for ordering all manner of persones in their consciences, bodyes, fortunes, and reputation ; nor was there an end put to those literate exercitations till the grammarians, rhetori- cians, poets, and logicians had assailed him with all the subtleties and nicest quodlibets their respective habits could afford. Now when, to the admiration of all that were there, the incomparable Crichtotm had, in all these faculties above written, and in any of the twelve languages wherein he was spoke to, whether in verse or prose, held tack to all the dis- putants, who were accounted the ablest scholars upon earth in each their own profession ; and pub- lickly evidenced such an universality of knowledge, and accurate promptness in resolving of doubts, dis- tinguishing of obscurities, expressing the members of a distinction in adequate terms of art, explaining 228 APPENDIX II those compendious tearms with words of a more easie apprehension to the prostrating of the sublimest mysteries to any vulgar capacity, and with all excogitable variety of learning, (to his own everlasting fame), entertained, after that kinde, the nimble witted Parisians from nine o'clock in the morning till six at night ; the Eector now finding it high time to give some relaxation to these worthy spirits, which, dur- ing such a long space, had been so intensively bent upon the abstrusest speculations, rose up, and saluting the divine Crichtoun, after he had made an elegant panegyrick, or encomiastick speech of half an houre's continuance, tending to nothing else but the extolling of him for the rare and most singular gifts wherewith God and nature had endowed him, he descended from his chaire, and, attended by three or four of the most especial professors, presented him with a diamond ring and a purse ful of gold, wishing him to accept thereof, if not as a recompense proportional to his merit, yet as a badge of love, and testimony of the universitie's favour towards him. At the tender of which ceremony, there was so great a plaudite in the schoole, such a humming and clapping of hands, that all the concavities of the colledges there about did resound with the echo of the noise thereof. " Notwithstanding the great honor thus purchased by him for his literatory accomplishments, and that many excellent spirits, to obteine the like, would be content to postpose all other employments to the enjoyment of their studyes, he, nevertheless, the very next day, (to refresh his braines, as he said, for the toile of the former day's work), went to the Louvre in a buff-suit, more like a favourite of Mars then [than] one of the Muses' minions; where, in presence of some princes of the court, and great ladies, that came to behold his gallantry, he carryed away the ring fifteen times on end, and broke as many lances on the Saracen. APPENDIX II 229 " When for a quarter of a yeer together he after this manner had disported himself, (what martially, what scholastically), with the best qualified men in any faculty so ever, that so large a city, (which is called the world's abridgement), was able to afford, and now and then solaced these his more serious recreations, (for all was but sport to him), with the alluring imbellishments of the tendrer sexe, whose inamorato that he might be, was their ambition ; he on a sudden took resolution to leave the Court of France, and return to Italy, where he had been bred for many yeers together ; which designe he pro- secuting within the space of a moneth, (without troubling himself with long journeys), he arrived at the Court of Mantua, where immediately after his abord, (as hath been told already), he fought the memorable combat whose description is above related. Here it was that the learned and valiant Crichtoun was pleased to cast anchor, and fix his abode ; nor could he almost otherwise do, without disobliging the Duke, and the Prince his eldest son ; by either whereof he was so dearly beloved, that none of them would permit him by any means to leave their Court, whereof he was the only privado, the object of all men's love, and subject of their discourse ; the example of the great ones, and wonder of the meaner people ; the paramour of the female sexe, and paragon of his own. In the glory of which high estimation, having resided at that Court above two whole yeers, the reputation of gentlemen there was hardly otherwayes valued but by the measure of his acquaintance ; nor were the young unmaryed ladies, of all the most eminent places thereabouts, any thing respected of one another, that had not either a lock of his hair, or copy of verses of his composing. Nevertheless it happening on a Shrove-tuesday at night, (at which time it is in Italy very customary for men of great 2 3 o APPENDIX II sobriety, modesty, and civil behaviour all the rest of the yeer, to give themselves over on that day of carnavale, as they call it, to all manner of riot, drunkenness, and incontinency, which that they may do with the least imputation they can to their credit, they go maskt and mum'd with vizards on their faces, and in the disguise of a Zanni or Pantaloon, to ventilate their fopperies, and sometimes intolerable enormities, without suspicion of being known), that this ever renowned Crichtoun, (who, in the after- noon of that day, at the desire of my Lord Duke, the whole court striving which should exceed each other in foolery, and devising of the best sports to excite laughter, neither my Lord, the Dutchess, nor Prince, being exempted from acting their parts, as well as they could), upon a theater set up for the purpose, begun to prank it, ii la Venetiana, with such a flourish of mimick and ethopoetick gestures, that all the courtiers of both sexes, even those that a little before were fondest of their own conceits, at the sight of his so inimitable a garb, from ravishing actors that they were before, turned them ravished spectators. with how great liveliness did he represent the con- ditions of all manner of men ! how naturally did he set before the eyes of the beholders the rogueries of all professions, from the overweening monarch to the peevish swaine, through all the intermediate degrees of the superficial courtier or proud warrior, dis- sembled churchman, doting old man, cozening lawyer, lying traveler, covetous merchant, rude seaman, pedantick scholar, the amourous shepheard, envious artisan, vainglorious master, and tricky servant ; he did with such variety display the several humours of all these sorts of people, and with a so bewitching energy, that he seemed to be the original, they the counterfeit ; and they the resemblance whereof he was the prototype. He had all the jeers, squibs, flouts, buls, quips, taunts, whims, jests, clinches, APPENDIX II 231 gybes, mokes, jerks, with all the several kinds of equivocations, and other sophistical captions, that could properly be adapted to the person by whose representation he intended to inveagle the company into a fit of mirth ; and would keep in that miscelany discourse of his, (which was all for the splene, and nothing for the gall), such a climacterical and mer- curially digested method, that when the fancy of the hearers was tickled with any rare conceit, and that the jovial blood was moved, he held it going with another new device upon the back of the first, and another, yet another, and another againe, succeeding one another for the promoval of what is a-stirring into a higher agitation; till in the closure of the luxuriant period, the decumanal wave of the oddest whimsy of all, enforced the charmed spirits of the auditory, (for affording room to its apprehension), suddenly to burst forth into a laughter, which commonly lasted just so long as he had leisure to withdraw behind the skreen, shift off, with the help of a page, the suite he had on, apparel himself with another, and return to the stage to act afresh ; for by that time their transported, disparpled, and sublimated fancies, by the wonderfully operating engines of his solacious inventions, had from the hight to which the inward scrues,wheeles, and pullies of his wit had elevated them, descended by degrees into their wonted stations, he was ready for the personating of another carriage; whereof to the number of fourteen several kinds, (during the five hours space that at the Duke's desire, the solicitation of the court, and his own recreation, he was pleased to histrionize it), he shewed himself so natural a representative, that any would have thought he had been so many several actors, differing in all things else, save only the stature of the body ; with this advantage above the most of other actors, whose tongue, with its oral implements, is the onely iustru- 232 APPENDIX II inent of their minds' disclosing, that, besides his mouth with its appurtenances, he lodged almost a several oratour in every member of his body; his head, his eyes, his shoulder, armes, hands, fingers, thighs, legs, feet, and breast, being able to decipher any passion whose character he purposed to give. " First, he did present himself with a crown on his head, a scepter in his hand, being clothed in a purple robe furred with ermyne ; after that, with a miter on his head, a crosier in his hand, and accoutred with a paire of lawn-sleeves ; and thereafter, with a helmet on his head, the visiere up, a commanding stick in his hand, and arayed in a buff-suit, with a scarf about his middle. Then, in a rich apparel, after the newest fashion, did he shew himself, (like another Sejanus), with a periwig daubed with Cypres powder ; in sequel of that, he came out with a three-corner'd cap on his head, some parchments in his hand, and writings hanging at his girdle like Chancery bills; and next to that, with a furred gown about him, an ingot of gold in his hand, and a bag full of money by his side ; after all this, he appeares againe clad in a country-jacket, with a prong in his hand, and a Monmouth-like-cap on his head ; then very shortly after, with a palmer's coat upon him, a bourdon in his hand, 1 and some few cockle-shels stuck to his hat, he look'd as if he had come in pilgrimage from St Michael; immediately after that, he domineers it in a bare unlined gown, with a pair of whips in the one hand, and Corderius in the other ; and in suite thereof, he honderspondered 2 it with a pair of pannier-like breeches, a mountera-cap on his head, and a knife in a wooden sheath dagger-ways by his 1 "A bourdon in Ms hand " "A musical instrument resembling a bassoon, in use with pilgrims who visit the body of St James at Compostella " (Sir John Hawkins). 2 ''Honders^toiidered" i.e. floundered. Fr. liondrespondres(Rab. iii. 42)" hundred-pounders," heavy, burly fellows. APPENDIX II 233 side ; about the latter end, he comes forth again with a square in one hand, a rule in the other, and a leather apron before him ; then very quickly after, with a scrip by his side, a sheep-hook in his hand, and a basket full of flowers to make nosegayes for his mistris ; now drawing to a closure, he rants it first in cuerpo, and vapouring it with gingling spurs, and his armes a kenbol like a Don Diego he strouts it, and by the loftiness of his gate, plaies the Capitan Spavento ; then in the very twinkling of an eye, you would have seen him againe issue forth with a cloak upon his arm, in a livery garment, thereby repre- senting the serving-man ; and lastly, at one time amongst those other, he came out with a long gray beard, and bucked ruff, crouching on a staff tip't with the head of a barber's cithern, 1 and his gloves hanging by a button at his girdle. " Those fifteen several personages did he represent with such excellency of garb, and exquisiteness of language, that condignely to perpend the subtlety of the invention, the method of the disposition, the neatness of the elocution, the gracefulness of the action, and wonderful variety in the so dextrous performance of all, you would have taken it for a comedy of five acts, consisting of three scenes, each composed by the best poet in the world, and acted by fifteen of the best players that ever lived, as was most evidently made apparent to all the spectators in the fifth and last hour of his action, (which, accord- ing to our western account, was about six a clock at night, and by the calculation of that country, half an hour past three and twenty, at that time of the yeer), for, purposing to leave off with the setting of the sun, with an endeavour nevertheless to make his 1 "Barber 's cithern" "The instrument now ignorantly called a guitar. It was formerly part of the furniture of a barber's shop, and was the amusement of waiting customers" (Sir John Hawkins). 234 APPENDIX II conclusion the master-piece of the work, he, to that effect, summoning all his spirits together, which never failed to be ready at the cal of so worthy a commander, did by their assistance, so conglomerate, shuffle, mix, and interlace the gestures, inclinations, actions, and very tones of the speech of those fifteen several sorts of men, whose carriages he did person- ate into an inestimable ollapodrida of immaterial morsels of divers kinds, suitable to the very ambrosian relish of the Heliconian nymphs, that, in the peripetia of this drammatical exercitation, by the inchanted transportation of the eyes and eares of its spectabundal auditorie, one would have sworne that they all had looked with multiplying glasses, and that, (like that angel in the Scripture whose voice was said to be like the voice of a multitude), they heard in him alone the promiscuous speech of fifteen several actors ; by the various ravishments of the excellencies whereof, in the frolickness of a jocund straine beyond expectation, the logofascinated spirits of the beholding hearers and auricularie spectators, were so on a sudden seazed upon in their risible faculties of the soul, and all their vital motions so universally affected in this extremitie of agitation, that, to avoid the inevitable charmes of his intoxicating ejaculations, and the accumulative influences of so powerfull a transportation, one of my lady Dutchess' chief maids of honour, by the vehemencie of the shock of those incomprehensible raptures, burst forth into a laughter to the rupture of a veine in her body ; and another young lady, by the irresistible violence of the pleasure unawares infused, where the tender receptibilitie of her too tickled fancie was least able to hold out, so unprovidedly was surprised, that, with no less impetuositie of ridibundal passion then [than], (as hath been told), occasioned a fracture in the other young ladie's modestie, she, not being APPENDIX II 235 able longer to support the well beloved burthen of so excessive delight, and intransing joys of such mercurial exbilations through the ineffable extasie of an overmastered apprehension, fell back in a swown, without the appearance of any other life into her then [than] what, by the most refined wits of theological speculators, is conceived to be exerced by the purest parts of the separated entelechises of blessed saints in their sublimest conversations with the celestial hierarchies ; this accident procured the incoming of an apothecary with restoratives, as the other did that of a surgeon with consolidative medica- ments. 1 The Admirable Crichtoun now perceiving that it was drawing somewhat late, and that our occidental rays of Phoebus were upon their turning oriental to the other hemisphere of the terrestrial globe ; being withall jealous that the uninterrupted operation of the exuberant diversitie of his jovial- issime entertainment, by a continuate winding up of the humours there present to a higher, yet higher, and still higher pitch, above the supremest Lydian note of the harmonic of voluptuousness, should, in such a case, through the too intensive stretching of the already super-elated strings of their imagination, 1 This incident reminds one of the effect produced upon the lawyers in court when "Pantagruel gave judgment upon the difference of the two lords." Our readers will remember that it is the author of the above description who is the translator of the narrative which tells of that wonderfully satisfactory decision. "As for the counsellors, and other doctors in the law that were there present, they were all so ravished with admiration at the more than humane wisdom of Pantagruel, which they did most clearly perceive to be in him, by his so accurate decision of this so difficult and thornie cause, that their spirits, with the extremity of the rapture, being elevated above the pitch of actuating the organs of the body, they fell into a trance and sudden extasie, wherein they stayed for the space of three long houres ; and had been so as yet, in that condition, had not some good people fetched store of vinegar and rose water to bring them again into their former sense and understanding, for the which God be praised every- where. And so be it." (Rabelais, ii. 13.) 236 APPENDIX II with a transcends n cie over-reaching Ela, and beyond the well concerted gam of rational equanimitie, in- volve the remainder of that illustrious companie into the sweet labyrinth and mellifluent aufractuosities of a lacinious delectation, productive of the same incon- veniences which befel the two afore-named ladies; whose delicacie of constitution, though sooner over- come, did not argue, but that the same extranean causes from him proceeding of their pathetick altera- tion, might by a longer insisting in an efficacious agencie, and unremitted working of all the consecu- tively imprinted degrees that the capacity of the patient is able to containe, prevaile at last, and have the same predominancie over the dispositions of the strongest complexioned males of that splendid society, did, in his own ordinary wearing apparel, with the countenance of a Prince, and garb befitting the person of a so well bred gentleman and cavalier, xar igo^,full of majestie, and repleat with all excogit- able civilitie, (to the amazement of all that beheld his heroick gesture), present himself to epilogate this his almost extemporanean comedie, though of five hours continuance without intermission ; and that with a peroration so neatly uttered, so distinctly pronounced, and in such elegancie of selected tearmes, expressed by a diction so periodically contexed with isocoly of members, that the matter thereof tending in all humility to beseech the highnesses of the Duke, Prince, and Dutchess, together with the remanent lords, ladies, knights, gentlemen, and others of both sexes of that honourable convention, to vouchsafe him the favour to excuse his that after- noon's escaped extravagancies, and to lay the blame of the indigested irregularity of his wits' excursions, and the abortive issues of his disordered brain, upon the customarily dispensed with priviledges in those Cisalpinal regions, to authorize such like impertin- encies at Carnavalian festivals ; and that, although, APPENDIX II 237 according to the most commonly received opinion in that country, after the nature of Load-him, (a game at cards), where he that wins loseth, he who, at that season of the year, playeth the fool most egregiously, is reputed the wisest man ; he, nevertheless, not being ambitious of the fame of enjoying good qual- ities, by vertue of the antiphrasis of the fruition of bad ones, did meerly undergo that emancipatorie task of a so profuse liberty, and to no other end embraced the practising of such roaming and ex- orbitant diversions but to give an evident, or rather infallible, demonstration of his eternally bound duty to the House of Mantua, and an inviolable testimony of his never to be altered designe, in prosecuting all the occasions possible to be laid hold on that can in any manner of way prove conducible to the advance- ment of, and contributing to, the readiest means for improving those advantages that may best promove the faculties of making all his choice endeavours, and utmost abilities at all times, effectual to the long-wished-for furtherance of his most cordial and endeared service to the serenissime highnesses of My Lord Duke, Prince, and Dutchess, and of conse- crating with all addicted obsequiousness, and sub- missive devotion, his everlasting obedience to the illustrious shrine of their joynt commands. Then incontinently addressing himself to the Lords, ladies, and others of that rotonda, (which, for his daigning to be its inmate, though but for that day, might be accounted in nothing inferior to the great Colisee of Home, or Amphitheater of Neems), with a stately carriage, and port suitable to so prime a gallant, he did cast a look on all the corners thereof, so bewitch- ingly amiable and magically efficacious as if in his eys had bin a muster of ten thousand cupids eagerly striving who should most deeply pierce the hearts of the spectators with their golden darts. And truly so it fell out, (that there not being so much as one 238 APPENDIX II arrow shot in vain), all of them did love him, though not after the same manner, nor for the same end ; for, as the manna of the Arabian desarts is said to have had in the mouths of the Egyptian Israelites, the very same tast of the meat they loved best, so the Princes that were there did mainly cherish him for his magnanimity and knowledge ; his courtliness and sweet behaviour being that for which chiefly the noblemen did most respect him ; for his pregnancie of wit, and chivalrie in vindicating the honour of ladies, he was honoured by the knights, and the esquires and other gentlemen courted him for his affability and good fellowship; the rich did favour him for his judgment and ingeniosity ; and for his liberality and munificence, he was blessed by the poor; the old men affected him for his constancie and wisdome, and the young for his mirth and gallantry; the scholars were enamoured of him for his learning and eloquence, and the souldiers for his integrity and valour; the merchants, for his upright dealing and honesty, praised and extolled him, and the artificers for his goodness and benignity; the chastest lady of that place would have hugged and imbraced him for his discretion and ingenuity ; whilst for his beauty and comeliness of person he was, at least in the fervency of their desires, the paramour of the less continent ; he was dearly beloved of the fair women, because he was handsome, and of the fairest more dearly, because he was handsomer : in a word, the affections of the beholders, (like so many several diameters drawn from the circumference of their various intents), did all concenter in the point of his perfection. After a so considerable insinuation, and gaining of so much ground upon the hearts of the auditory, (though in a shorter space then [than] the time of a flash of lightning), he went on, (as before), in the same thred of the conclusive part of his discourse, with a resolu- APPENDIX II 239 tion not to cut it, till the overabounding passions of the company, their exorbitant motions and discom- posed gestures, through excess of joy and mirth, should be all of them quieted, calmed, and pacified, and every man, woman, and maid there, (according to their humour), reseated in the same integrity they were at first ; which when by the articulatest elocution of the most significant words, expressive of the choisest things that fancie could suggest, and, conforme to the matter's variety, elevating or depress- ing, flat or sharply accinating it, with that proportion of tone that was most consonant with the purpose, he had attained unto, and by his verbal harmony and melodious utterance, setled all their distempered pleasures, and brought their disorderly raised spirits into their former capsuls, he with a tongue tip't with silver, after the various diapasons of all his other expressions, and making of a leg for the spruceness of its courtsie, of greater decorement to him then [than] cloth of gold and purple, farewel'd the companie with a complement of one period so exquisitely delivered, and so well attended by the gracefulness of his hand and foot, with the quaint miniardise of the rest of his body, in the performance of such ceremonies as are usual at a court-like departing, that from the theater he had gone into a lobie, from thence along three spacious chambers, whence descending a back staire, he past through a low gallerie which led him to that outer gate, where a coach with six horses did attend him, before that magnificent convention of both sexes, (to whom that room, wherein they all were, seemed in his absence to be as a body without a soul), had the full leisure to recollect their spirits, (which, by the neat- ness of his so curious a close, were quoquoversedly scattered with admiration), to advise on the best expediency how to dispose of themselves for the future of that [delightful] night." INDEX ABERDEEN, 43. Attitude towards Covenant, 32, 36. "Aberdeen Doctors," 37. Aberdeen Sasincs, 7 (note). Aberdeen University, 19. New constitution, 10, 11 (note). Abercrombie, Sir Alexander, 7 (note). Abernethie, Helen, wife of Thomas Urquhart, 141. Abraham, Patriarch, 133. Ads of the Parliament of Scotland, 61 (note 3), 71 (note 2), 93 (note), 101 (notes). Adam, 130, 146. Advancement of Learning, 118 (note). ^E^yptus* sons, 134. vl/jiianima, sister of Marcus Coriolanus, 136. Agamemnon, 135. Ainsworth, W. Harrison, Crichton, 105 (note 2). (: Airgiod cayaiun" (chewing- money), 77. Airlie, Earl of, 19 (note). Alcibiades, 136. Alexander of Macedon, 27, 51. Allibone, Dictionary, and Ur- quhart, 101. Alsop, Captain, treatment of Sir Thomas Urquhart, 89. Amadis of Gaul, 144 (note 2). Anastasius, quoted, 77 (note 1). Anderson, Gilbert, minister of Cromartie, 63, 66 (note 3). Hugh, 66 (note 3). P. J., 10, 11 (notes). Annals of Ban/ , quoted, 8 (note 2), 19. (note), 47 (note 3). 16 Annaiid, John, minister of Inver- ness, and Sir Thomas Ur- quhart, 68, 82. Antiquarian Notes, 7 (note), 69, 70 (note). Ajijirizing, 58 (note). Arcalaus, 144 (note). Archimedes, 124. Ardnamurchan, 136 (note 1). Ardoch farm, 55. Argyll, Marquis of, and Coven- anters, 32. Ariosto, 166. Hippogriff and Astolfo, 107. Aristotle, 124, 202 (note). Onjanvn, Elhics, and Politics, 10. Arnold, Matthew, standard for judging literature, 143. Arran, 136 (note 1). Arren, Earle of, 115. Aruudel, Earl of, 116. Astioremon, 137. Asymbleta, 144 (note). Atbara, battle of, 102 (note 3). Atropos, 129. BACCHUS, 202 ; conquers India, 135. Bacon, Lord, Solicitor-General, 8. On fate of solid and weighty things, 118. Rules for young travellers in Essays, Civil and Moral, 26. Baddeley, Richard, 128 (note), 149 (note). Badenoch, 76. Baillie, Robert, Letters, 81 (note 1), 82. Baldwin, Richard, 185 (note). 242 INDEX Balqnliolly Castle, 35, 39, 102 (note 3) : now Hatton Castle. Account of, 39 (note 1). Balvenie, battle at, 77 (and note 2), 79. Banff, 8, 18. Entry in Court-book of Burgh, 15, 19. Barclay, W alter, 41 (note 2). Barclays, 38 (note 2). Baron, Dr Robert, 37 (note 2). Basagante, 144 (note). Beaton, Cardinal, 55. Bedell, William, idea of universal language, 175. Belladrum, 70. Bellay, Jean du, Bishop of Paris, 188. Bellenden, Adam, 43 (note). Beltistos, 2. Bembo, 166. Berwick, 44. Besant, Sir Walter, 185 (note 2). Bickerstaffe, Isaac, 51 (note). Biggar, 85. Billing, Baronial Antiquities, 39 (note). Biographia Britannica, quoted, 144 (note 2), 158 (note 2). Birkenbog, 7 (note). Birrell, A., 186. Black Island, 62 (note 1). BlacJcwood's Magazine, quoted, 181 (note 2). (See also names of subjects.) Boece, Hector, fictions, 145. Book of Bon Accord, 13 (note 1). Bracegirdle, Mrs, 50 (note 2). Braughton discovers Sir Thomas Urquhart'sMSS., 155, 156. Brisena, 144 (note). Browne, Sir Thomas : Phraseology, 2. Quoted, 49, 137. Vulgar Errors, 126. Browning, Robert, 113. Bruce, James, 126 (note 1). King David, 4. King Robert, grants Crom- artie to Sir Hugh Ross, 4. Bruklay, 7 (note). Brydges, Sir Egerton, Auto- biography ; Mary de Clifford, 152 (note 1). Bullock, J. M., History of Univer- sity of Aberdeen, quoted, 36. Burghley, William Cecil, Lord, 191 (note). Burnet, quoted, 82 (note), 175. Burns, Robert, 23. Burton, John Hill : On "Aberdeen Doctors" in History of Scotland, 37. On description of Crichton's feats, 162, 223 (note 2). On Sir Thomas Urquhart's writings, 157, 159. Scot Abroad, quoted, 159. Burton, Robert, Anatomy of Melancholy, 205 (note). CAESAR, DeBello Gallico, 1 98 (note). Caithness, 3, 70, 80 (note 2). Calder, Campbell of, 7 (note). Calendar of Proceedings in Com- mittee for Advances of Moneys-Taxes, 50 (note). Culvert, Giles, 176 (note). Cambridge, Earl of, 115. Cant at Aberdeen, 36. Carberry Tower, 13 (note 3). Carlisle, 85. Carlyle, Thomas : Oliver Cromwell, quoted, 86, 87. Sartor Resartus, quoted, 189. Cartadaque, 144 (note). Castalia, 109. Cawdor, 66 (note 3). Chanonry Castle taken, 76. Charles I. : Endeavours to force Episcopacy on Scotland, 31. Execution of, 69, 70, 168. Letter of Protection to Sir Thomas Urquhart, senior, 15. Licence to T. York, 50 (note 2). On knowledge of law, 52. Charles n., 97, 99. Crowned, 84, 169. Lands in Scotland, 83. Charles vii., 187. Chatterton, 152 (note). INDEX 243 Chinon, 187. " Christianus Presbyteromastix," 150. Gibber, Apology, 170 (note). Cicero, 201 ; De Officiis, 10. Cid, The, 27. Clan Mackenzie, 72. Clanmolinespick, 135 (and note). Clanrurie, 136 (note 1). Clare, Earl of, 50 (note 2). Clare Street, 50 (note 2). Clio, 109 (note). Coleridge, on Rabelais' writings, 186. College of Navarre, 1 60, 223 (note). "Colophonian Poet," 109 (note). Colophos, 109 (note). Commission of General Assembly, 72, 79 (and note 1), 81. Constantinople, 77 (note 1). Cotgrave, French Dictionary, 191. Cottrel, James, 149 (note). Court of Session, Decisions of, 146. Covenant signed, 47 (note 3). Covenanting Movement, 31. Coventry, 86. Craig, John, 42 (note). Craigfintray, 5, 19 (note), 60, 101 (note 2). Cratynter, 132. Craven, Earl of, 116. Rev. J. B., 57 (note). Crawford, Earl of, 146. Crichton, James (the Admirable), 157, 158 (note 2). Age on entering St Andrews, 9. Sketch of, 159 ; Appendix ii. 215. Cromartie (Cnvmbawchty or Crumbathy), 3, 70. Castle, account of, 17 (and note 1), 18. Library, 29. Put in state of defence, 70, 71 (note 1). Siege of, 139. estate, proprietors of, 103. Lady Dowager of, 120. parish, 62 (note 1). Cromwell, Oliver, 8, 32 (note), 84, 86, 96. Cullicudden, 62 (note 1), 63, 71 (note 1). Culloden, 19 (note). Cumberland's, Duke of, head- quarters, 19. Curators, 5 (note). DANAUS' daughters, 133. Dante, 166. Quoted, 161 (note). Darisleta, 144 (note). Darwin, Charles, 131 (note). David Copper field, quoted, 51 (note 2), 59 (note), 62 (note). Debora, Judge and Prophetess, 135. Delgatie, Laird of, plunders Bal- quholly, 39. Delos, 119 (note). Demosthenes, 162 (note). Dickson, David, Professor of Di- vinity, Glasgow, 82. At Aberdeen, 36. Dictionary of National Bio- graphy, quoted, 82 (note), 101 (note). Diosa, daughter of Alcibiades, 136. Dis, Father of Wealth, 198. Don river, 126 (note 1). Don Quixote, 104 (and note 2). Donne, Age on going to Ox- ford, 9. Dorset, Earl of, 116. Douglas, Robert, Moderator of Commission of General As- sembly, 81 (and note 2). Dove, Dr, 114 (note). Duchat, Notes on Rabelais, 206. Duff, Garden Alexander, 39, 102 (note 3). Isabel Annie, 102 (note 3). Dunbar, Battle of, 83, 87. Dunlugas in Alvah, 47 (note 1). EDWARD, King, 138. Egypt, English peer in, 27. Elgin, 4 (note), 70, 95. Elibank, Patrick, Lord, buys Cromartie estate, 103. Eliock, Perthshire, 159. 244 INDEX Elphinstone, Alexander, Lord, 6, 13 (and note 3). Lady Christian, 6, 7 (note). Englishman abroad, 22. Eutelechia, Queen, 158 (note). Episcopacy in Scotland, 32, 102 (note 2). Erasmus, 145. Eromena, 144 (note). Errol, Earl of, 146. Esormon, Prince of Achaia, 131. Euclid, 124, 142. FALKIRK, 84. Faruongomadan, 144 (note). Farquhar, Sir Robert, of Mounie, and Cromartie creditors, 60. Fergus, King of Scots, 136, 145. Findlay, Andrew, 43. Findrassie. (See Lesley, Robert.) Firth of Cromartie, 62 (note 1). of Forth, 38. Fisherie, Barony of, 4, 8 (and note 1), 19 (note). Fleetwood, 96. Florence, 28. Folengo,T. , Macaronea, 205 (note). Fontenay - le - Comte, 188, 204 (note). Forbes, Alexander, 15, 41 (note 2). Arthur, of Blacktowu, 40. Dr John, 37 (note 2). Forestalling, 15 (note 2). Fortrose Castle garrisoned, 76. Fountainhall, Decisions, 14G (note) Fraser, (Colonel) Hugh, of Bella- drum, and Rising in North, 70. (Sir) James, 71 (note 1). Lord, garrisons Towie- Bar- clay Castle, 39. Sir William : Earls of Cromartie, quoted, 3 (note 2). The Lords Elphinslone, quoted, 7 (note), 13 (note 3). G. P., 128. Gardenstoun Papers, 7 (note). Gargantua, 190, 193. Gathelus, Mo. Gaurin (Gowran), Earl of, 116. General Assembly Commission Re- cords, 72 (note), 74 (note), 75 (note), 78 (note), 79 (note 2), 80 (note). Genoa, 28. Gight, Laird of, 40. Gladmon, Captain, 88. Glasgow, General Assembly in, 35. Glenkindie, 7 (note). Glover, George, portraits of Sir Thomas Urqubart, 107. Gonima, 144 (note). Gonzaga, Vincenzio de, 164. Goodwin, Captain, 94. Gordon, James, History of Sco's Affairs, 35 (notes), 41 (note 2), 132 (note) (Sir) James, of Le^moir, 7 (note). John, 101 (note 3). Granada, 27. Granger, Biographical Dictionary, 107 (note 2), 112 (note 1), 206 (note 1). Grimm, Household Talcs, 180. Guild, Dr William, 13 (note 1), 19 (note). Sir Thomas Urquhart's account of, 12. Gulliver'* Travels, 144 (note 2). Gustavus Adolphus, 81 (note 2). Guthrie, James, 82. HALKET, General, 77 (note 2), 81 (note). Hatton Castle. (See Balquholly. ) Hamilton, Marquis of, 111, 115. At Berwick, 44. Harrison, 85. Hawkins, Sir John, 232, 233 (notes). Life of Johnson, 208 (note). Hazlitt, quoted, 167 (note). Heine, Das Buck Le Grand, 182 (note). Henderson at Aberdeen, 36. Henry ii., 187. Henry, Prince, 8. Heraclitus the Obscure, 119 (note), 201. INDEX 2 45 Herbert of Cherbury, Lord, Auto- biography, 25 (note 1). Hercules Lybius, 133. Herd, David, 101 (note). Highland soldiers in Inverness, 76, 79. Hippocrene, 109. History of Clan Mackenzie, 70 (note). History of Scotland. (See under Burton, J. H.) History of Scots A/airs. ( See G or- don, James.) Holland, Earl of, 116. Holies, Gervase, 50 (note 2). - John, Earl of Clare, 51 (and note 1). Homer, Birthplace of, 109. Works, 166. Horace, Odes, quoted, 134 (note 1). Houghton, in Nottingham, 51 (note 1). Hiidibras, Alexander Ross men- tioned in, 126. Huntly, Second Marquis of, 116. Covenanters and, 33. Family name (Gordon), 41 (note 2). Taken prisoner, 38. - Third Marquis of, takes Ruthven Castle, 77. Hypermnestra, 133, 134. INNES, Alexander, 43 (note). Inverkeithing, 84. Inverness, 2, 32. Capture of, 68, 70, 81. Fortifications destroyed, 76. Highland soldiers at, 76, 78. tiasines, 101 (note 3). Irving, Dr : Account of SirThornasUrquhart leaving Scotland, 43. Lives of Scottish Writers, 44 (note), 149 (note). - John, of Bruklay, 7 (note). J. A., 124. James in.: Act of, 54. James in. continued. Grant of Motehill of Cromartie to William Urquhart, 17. James vi., 7, 147 (note). Japhet, 131. Jericho, 55. Joan of Arc, 187. Johnson, Dr, on Crichton in Adventurer, 159 (note 1). Traveller in Egypt, 27. Johnston and Mr Bedell, 175. Arthur, 112. Latin Poems, 57 (note). Jonson, Ben, Catiline, 8. Jovius, Paulus, 145. Julius Csesar, 27. KER, General, 77 (note 2). Kinbeakie, Stone lintel at, 137 (note). King-Edward, Aberdeenshire, 4, 8 (note 2), 19 (note). Kind's College : Officers and Grad- uates, 10 (note). King's Covenant, Account of, 42 (note 1). Kippis, Dr, 158 (note 2). On Urquhart's pedigree, 144 (note 2). Kirkhill, 76. Kirkmichael, 62 (note 1), 63. LAMB, Charles, 132 (note), 167 (note). Lambert, 85. Laud, Archbishop, 32. Leake, William, 116. Leighton, Archbishop, 66 (note 1). Lemlair, 70. Lesley, Lieut. -General David, 32 (note). March to England, 84. Message of encouragement to, 75. Takes Castle of Chanonry, 76. Norman, 55 (and note 1). Robert, of Findrassie, 59 (note), 71 (note 1). Conduct towards Sir Thomas Urquhart, 55, 95. 2 4 6 INDEX Lesley, Robert contd. Mortgage on Cromartie estate, 46. Dr William, Sir Thomas Urquhart's account of, 12 (and note 2), 37 (note 2). Letters of Junius, 103 (note 3). Lives of Eminent Men of Aberdeen, quoted, 126 (note 1). Lives of Scottish Writers. (See under Irving, Dr.) Logarithms, 123 (and note). Lowndes, Bibliographer's Manual, 101 (note). Lucian, 100 (note), 189. Lumphanan, 3 (note 2). Lunan, Alexander, 11 (note). Luther, Martin, 187. Lynceus, 134. MACAULAY, 174 (note). History of England, quoted, 23. Macbeth's titles, 3. Macduff, 3 (note 2). Mackenzie, Alexander, 70 (note). (Sir) George, 102. George, sells estate to Capt. W. Urquhart, 103. (Sir) Kenneth, 103. Thomas, of Pluscardine. Enters Inverness, 76. Proclaimed rebel and traitor, 71. Rising in North and, 69, 70, 76. Mackintosh, C. Fraser. (See Anti- quarian Notes. ) Macmillans of Knapdale, 135 (n.). Madanfabul, 144 (note). Madasima, 144 (note). Madrid, 27. M'Farlane, Genealogical Collec- tions, 16 (note 1). Maitland, on date of Sir Thomas Urquhart's birth, 6. Mantua, 163. Mantua, Duke of, 164, 215 seqq. Mantuanus, Baptista, 166. Marischal College, 11 (note). Marischal, Earl, 36, 146. Enters Aberdeen, 43. Martin, Sir Theodore, on Trissotetras 119 (note). Martin, Sir Theodore contd. Unpublished Epigrams of Sir Thomas Urquhart, 116. Urquhart's account of his mis- fortunes, 61. Death, 97. Translation of Rabelais, 192. Mary Queen of Scots, 104 (note 1). Maubert, Place, 161 (note). Meldrum arms, 139 (note). Melville, Andrew, assists to re- model University education, 10, 11 (note). Mercury, 198. Messina, 27. Micawber, Wilkins. (See David Copperficld. ) Middleton, General, 32 (note). Joins Mackenzie's force, 76. Earl of, 102 (note 2). Miller, Hugh, 102 (note 2). Description of Cromartie Castle, 18. On siege of Cromartie Castle, 140. On stone lintel at Kinbeakie, 138. OnUrquhart's inventive powers, 180. Reference to Sir Alexander Urquhart, 101 (note 3). (See also Scenes and Legends of North of Scotland.) Milton, John, 8, 30, 91. Hymn on Nativity, quoted, 201 (note 2). Paradise Lost, quoted, 201 (n. 2). Sonnet to Cromwell, quoted, 86. Miol, 145. Mitchell, Thomas, minister of Turriff, 41 (note 2), 42. Molinea, 133. Monboddo, Lord, on dual number, 182. Montaigne, age on completing collegiate course, 9. Montrose, Earl of, 36, 38, 78, 80 (note 2). Moral Tales, 113 (note). Moray, 3, 4 (note). Moray Firth, 32, 62 (note 1). INDEX 247 Morley, Universal Library, 185 (note 2). Morrison, Dictionary of Decisions, 146 (note). Motteux, Pierre A., 97, 184, 203 (note 2). Completes Urquhart's Trans- lation of Rabelais, 192, 206 (and note 1). On Urquhart's Translation of Rabelais, 98. Mouat (de Monte Alto) family in Cromartie, 4 (and note 1). William, takes part of King Robert Bruce, 138. Mounie, 60. Mucholles, Lord, 41 (note 2). Munro, John, of Lemlair, and rising in North, 70. Colonel Robert, Mission to Marquis of Huntly, 34. NAIRN, 70. Napier, John, of Merchiston, 119, 122 (and note 2), 124. Naples, 28. Narfesia, Sovereign of the Amazons, 132. National Covenant, quoted, 31. Newcastle, Earl of, 116. Nicholas NicJclcby, quoted, 11 (note). Nicolia, 136. Nimrod, 131. Niort, 204 (note). Nisbet, on Urquhart's property, 2. System of Heraldry, 3 (note 1). Noah, 131, 146. Nodes AmbrosiansR (Black wood), version of Urquhart's death, 101 (note). " Nonconformist Conscience," 187. Northumberland, Earl of, 116. Nottingham, 86. OGILVIE, Lord, joins Mackenzie's force, 76. Old Machar, 10. Orkneys, 80 (note 2). Orpah, 131. Overtoil, 96. Ovid, 195 (note). Metamorphosis, 133. Ozell, edition of Rabelais, 206. PADUA, 163. Pantagruel, 158 (note), 161, 190. (See also Urquhart, Sir Thomas, Translation of Rabelais.) Panthea, daughter of Deucalion and Pyrrha, 133. Panurge, 158 (note), 197. (See also Urquhart, Sir Thomas, Translation of Rabelais.) Pape, Charles, Minister of Culli- cudden, 63. Paris, 28. Parnassus, Mount, 44, 109. Pegasus, 109. Pembroke, Earl of, 116. Pentasilea, Queen of the Amazons, 135. Penuel, 131. Pericles, 149 (note). Persius, 8 (note 2) ; quoted, 162. Perth, 84. Petrarch, 166. Petrie, James, 8 (note 2). Pharaoh Amenophis, 133. Philemon (Philomenes), death of, 100 (note). Pillars of Hercules, 124. Pistol, Ancient, 2, 109 (note). Pitkerrie, 103. Plato, 124, 202 (and note). Pliny, 52 (note 2). Pluscardine. (See Mackenzie, Thomas.) Plutus, 52, 198 (note). Pococke's Tour, 17 (note 2), 103 (note 1). Pope, Alexander Dunciad, 206 (note 2). On Rabelais, 186. Portia, 22, 25. Portugal founded, 145. Pothina, niece of Lycurgus, 136. Prott, David, killed at Towie- Barclay, 40. Providence, Rhode Island, 90. 248 INDEX Pulteney, SirWilliam,103(note2). Pythagoras, 124, 202. QUEEN Elizabeth, 120. Mary, of England, 102. Mary, of Scotland, 104 (note 1), 168. Queensferry, 84. RABAN, printer, Aberdeen, 57 (n. ). Rabelais, 107 (note 2), 119 (note), 185 (and note 2), 192 (note), 235 (note). Rabelais, Fran9ois, sketch of, 187. Gargantua and Pantagruel,I89. (See Urquhart, Sir Thomas, Translation of Rabelais. ) Raleigh, Sir Walter, 120. History of the World. 8. Raphael, 187. Reay, Lord, joins Mackenzie's force, 76, 78 (note). Records of Court of Justiciary, 16 (note 2). Redgauntlet, quoted, 102 (note 1). Resolis, 62 (note 1). Riddell, J., Scotch Peerage Law, 55 (note). Rising of Cavaliers in North, 69. Robertson, William, of Kind- easse, Sir Thomas Urquhart' s account of, 94. Holland, Catharine, 13 (note 1). Rome, 28. Ross, Alexander (1), minister in Aberdeen, 37 (note 2). Alexander (2), 126 (note 1). Recommends Trissotetras, 126. Verses, 126, 127 (note). George, of Pitkerrie, buys Cromartie estate, 17, 103. (Sir) Hugh, owns Crom- artie, 4. (Major) Walter Charteris, of Cromartie, 103 (note 3). William, Earl of, 4. Rothes, Earls of, 55 (note). Rothiemay, Banffshire, 35 (note 1), 43 (note). Row, Historic of Kirk of Scotland, 42 (note). Royalists escape to England, 43 (note 1). Ruskin, John, 173 (note). Rutherford, Samuel, Principal of St Andrews, 82. Ruthven Castle taken by Marquis of Huntly, 77. ST ANDREWS, 82. St Hilarion, 204 (note). St Jerome, Vita Sancti Hil- arionis, 204 (note). St Ronarfs Well, quoted, 186. Salton, Lord, 141. Saragossa, 27. Scenes and Legends of North of Scotland, quoted, 18, 102 (note 2), 139 (note), 141 (note). Scota, daughter of Pharaoh, 145. Scotch army marches into Eng- land, 84. Scotch Peerage Law. (See Rid- dell, J.). Scotchman abroad, 24. Scotland : Episcopacy in, 32, 102 (note 2). Four armies in, 32 (note 1). Mythical history of, 145. University education in, 9. (See also Aberdeen University.) Scrogie, Dr Alexander, 37 (note 2), 43 (note). Seaforth, George, Earl of, 69. Seaton, Dr, in Paris, 28. John, 11 (note). William, 11 (note). Sir Thomas Urquhart's account of, 13. Seton, Alexander, of Meldrum, 102 (note 3), arms, 139 (note). Elizabeth, 102 (note 3). Shafton, Sir Piercie, 124. Shakespeare, William : Henry IV., 165 (note). Merchant of Venice, 25. Midsummer Night's Dream, 174 (note). Twelfth Night, 122 (note). Winters Tale, 8. INDEX 249 Sliephard, Jack, 51 (note). Shrewsbury, 86. Sibbald, Dr James, 37 (note 2). Smith, Sidney, "preaching to death by wild curates," 66. W. F., Translation of Rabelais, 158 (note 1), 99 (note 1), 191. Socrates, 119 (note), 124. Sodom and Gomorrlia, 133. Solvatius, Kino:, 137. Somerled, Lord of the Isles, 136 (note 1). South, Sermons, 199 (note). South cote, Joanna, 179 (note). Southey, Dr Dove, 114 (note), 178 (note). Spalding, mentions Sir Thomas Urquhart, 38. Memorials, quoted, 40, 43 (note). Spartiaims, yElius, Life of Geta, 205 (note). Spenser, 120. Spilsbury, Sir Thomas Urquhart stays with, 86, 153. Stacker, James, 41 (note 2). Steele, Richard, CO (note 2). Stirling, 84. Strachan, General, 77 (note 2), 81 (note). Strafford, Earl of, 116. Stralsund, 69. Stratford-on-Avon, 86. Strathbogie, 34. Strathearn, Earls of, family name, 135 (note). Sutherland, Earl of, action against Earls of Crawford, Errol, and Marischal, 146. James, "Tutor of Duffus," 56. TAMERLANE, 67. Tarbat, Viscount, First Earl of Cromartie, 103. Termuth, daughter of Pharaoh Amenophis, 133. Thaumast, 158 (note). The Lords JSlphinstone, quoted, 7 (note), 13 (note 3). The Tables and Aberdeen, 35, 37. Thelema, Abbey of, 193 seqq. Thelemites, 195 seqq. Through the Looking - Glass, quoted, 114 (note). Thucydides, 149 (note). Thymelica, daughter of Bacchus, 135. Toledo, 27. Torespay, 77 (note). Tor Wood, 84. Tomlins, Richard, 176 (note). To wie- Barclay Castle, 38 (note 2). laird of, plunders Balquholly, 39. Tristram Shandy, quoted, 47 (note 3). Trot of Turriff, 41 (and note 2). TurrilT, 38. Inhabitants subscribe King's Covenant, 42. "Tutor," Meaning of, 5 (note 1). Tycheros, 131. Tytler, Patrick F. : Life of the Admirable Crichton, 159, 165, 190. On Urquhart's Translation of Rabelais, 190. UNIVERSITY of Aberdeen, New Constitution, 10, 11 (note). Urquhart, Adam of, owns Crom- artie, 4. Sir Alexander, 16. Petition for compensation for losses, 61. Petition for Sheritfship of Cromartie, 98, 100. Annas, 7 (note). arms, 132, 133, 137 (and note 1). (Major) Beauchamp Col- clough, 102 (note 3). Cainotomos, 135. Euplocamos, 134. family, descent of, 130 seqq. George, 7 (note). Helen, 7 (note). Henry, 7 (note). Hypsegoras, 133. Colonel James, 102 (note 3). 2 5 INDEX Urquhart, Jane, 7 (note). John, 7 (note). Sir John, of Craigfintray, 101 (note 2). Hereditary Sheriff of Cromartie, 60. Death, 102 (note 2). John, of Craigfintray, "the Tutor of Cromartie," 5 (and note 1), 6 (and note 1), 19 (note), 102 (note 3). Jonathan, 102. Margaret, 7 (note). Mellessen, 136. Molin, 133. Names of Chiefs and Primitive Fathers, Appendix i. 211. Names of Mothers of Chiefs, Appendix i. 213. (de Vrquhartt), origin of name, 4 (note 2), 132 (note 1). Pamprosodos, 133. Phrenedon, 133. Propetes, 133. Rodrigo, 135. SIR THOMAS (Urchard, Urquhardus, Wrqhward,Wr- whart), 132 (note). Account of Aberdeen and emi- nent men, 12. Account of Admirable Crichton, 157. Account of impoverished estates, 45. Ancestry, 2. At Worcester, 86, 129. Birth, 6. Birthplace unknown, 8. Book-hunting, 29. Characteristics, 53, 104 (and notes 1, 2), 105, 130, 144 (note 2). Conduct of creditors, 94. Death, 97, 99 (note 1). Description of his father's character, 14. Enters University of Aberdeen, 9 (and note 1). Escapes to England, 43. Urquhart, Sir Thomas contd. Foreign Travel, 22, 25, 27. Knighted, 44. Lesley and, 55. Liberated on parole, 89. Literary achievements, 2, 148. Lives at Cromartie financial difficulties, 51. Loses ancestral domains and jurisdiction, 60. MS. of unpublished Poems quoted, 5 (note 2) ; described, 116. MSS. lost after Worcester, 88, 129, 154. On G. Anderson's preaching, 63, 66. Papers seized, 93. Portraits, 107. Praise of "the Tutor of Crom- artie," 5 (and note 2). Prepares MSS. for publication, 89. Prisoner in the Tower, 88. Proclaimed rebel and traitor, 71. Relations with Ministers of Church, 61. Religious belief, 67. Reminiscence of his youth, 20. Rental, 51. Reply to Commissioners' re- monstrances, 72. Resides in London, 50 (and note 2). Returns home, 30. Rising in North and, 69. Schemes and inventions, 53. Speed in composition, 117, 151. Succeeds to estates, 47. "Supplication" for pardon, 81. Takes up arms for Stuarts, 38, 69, 84, Vanity, 24 (note 3). Works : EKSKTBAAATPON: or, Discovery of a most ex- quisite Jewel, 92. Account of, 148 seqq, (and note 1). Description of Admirable Crichton, 157 seqq. INDEX 25 1 Urquhart, Sir Thomas conld. Works continued In contemporary politics, 168. On fame of Scots in battle, 157. Quoted, 67, 153, 165, 168, 170, 172, 174. Epigrams : Divine and Moral, 44. Account of, 111 scqq. Dedication, 111, 115. Quoted, 60 (note), 113, 114. MS., quoted, 109 (note). Logopandecteision] or, An In- troduction to the Uni- versal Language : Account of, 175 scqq. Published, 96. Quoted, 48, 57, 62 (note 2), 90. IIANTOXPONOXANON: Peculiar Promptuary of Time, 92. Account of, 128 scqq. Translation of Rabelais, 2, 96, 97, 161, 205. Account of, 184, 190 scqq. Exploits of Pan tagruel, 161 (note 2). Genealogy of Pantagruel, 144. Interpolations, 203. Panurge, Sketch of, 197. Sketch of Abbey of Thel- ema, 193. Various editions, 206. Trissotctras, 92, 114. Account of,117 (and note 1). Unpublished Epigrams, De- dications of, 116. Thomas, marries Helen Aber- nethie, their family, 141. Sir Thomas, senior- Action against his sons, 16. Becomes caution for Alexander Forbes, 15. Believes in long pedigree, 147. Death, 47 (and note 3). "Desk"orPew in Banff Church, 19 (and note 1). Urquhart, SirThos., sen. conld. Episcopalian, 30, 33, 35. Marriage-contract,7(andnotel). Pecuniary difficulties, 13, 15,45. Residence in Banff, 18 (and note 2). Sketch of, 5, 6. (Captain) William, of Meldrum, buys Cromartie estate, 103. William, receives grant of Motehill of Cromartie, 17. Urquhartsof Meldrum, 102(note 3). VALERIUS MAXIMUS, 100 (note). Venice, 28, 163. Virgil, 166, 201 (note 1). Vocompos, arms of, 137. Voltaire, 189. WALLACE, Professor of Mathe- matics, Edinburgh, on Tris- sotctras, 119. William, and William Mouat, 139. WardlawMS.,76, 78 (note). Warrington Bridge, 85. Westminster Abbey, 145. Whibley, Charles, New Review, quoted, 112. Williams, Roger, Missionary to Indians, 90, 91 (note 1). Williamson, Robert, Minister of Kirkmichael, 63. Windsor Castle, Sir Thomas Ur- quhart removed to, 89. Wodrow, quoted, 81 (note 2), 102 (note 2). Worcester, 86. Battle of, 87. Marquis of, Century of the Names and Scantling of . . . Inventions, 181 (note 2). Worldly Wiseman, 34. Wyntown's CronyTcil, quoted, 3 (note 2). YARES of Udoll, 56. York, 86. Thomas, 50 (note 2). Young, James, 118 (note). BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Second Thousand. In Fcap. 8vo, 174 pp. Cloth, 25. 6d. A Shetland Minister of the 1 8th Century. Being Passages in the Life of the Rev. John Mill. NOTICES OF THE PRESS. "We have read this little book with real pleasure, and we wish it well." Saturday Review. "John Mill was a character such as Robert Louis Stevenson would have rendered immortal, and that Mr. Willcock's well-written sketch portrays with skill." Pall Mall Gazette. "A very remarkable life-history." New Age. " A curious phase of Scottish life and character." Standard, "A most readable little book." Athenceum. 11 It is delightful to receive such a pretty book. ... It depicts a striking and interesting character and phase of life." British Weekly. "A readable and interesting life-story." Literary World. "The whole volume is very amusing reading." St. Martin" 1 s-le- Grand. "This is in every way a charming book. Its get-up is tastefully quaint, and the subject matter fresh and interesting." Scottish Notes and Queries. " A delightful little volume. ... A book of no ordinary interest." Presbyterian. 1 ' The picture of a man of remarkable vigour and individuality of character." Scotsman. "A really readable little book, which should find a considerably wider public than that of the Shetland Islands." Glasgow Herald. "Mill was a man of mark in his day, and his life-story is simply and worthily told in this little volume." Aberdeen Free Press. " Glimpses of old-world life in these remote islands." Scottish Pictorial. "A perspicuous and complete sketch." Dundee Advertiser. "A little volume which is full of charm and interest." John C? Groat Journal. A Shetland Minister of the \%th Century continued. "The work is one of high literary ability, is of more than ordinary value for the light it throws on the religious and moral condition of the times it covers, and is specially interesting from the uniqueness of the character of Mr. Mill." North British Daily Mail. "A curious and interesting picture 01 old Shetland life." Elgin Courant, " Mr. Mill's idiosyncrasies furnish an unfailing source of amuse- ment." United Presbyterian Magazine. 1 ' The whole work is excellent, and, we cannot doubt, will be welcomed in a wider area than the northern islands in which Mr. Mill spent his life. " Banffshire Journal. "A very interesting biography, which has already and deservedly attracted a good deal of attention." Northern Ensign. "We commend the perusal of the volume to all those in any way interested in Scotland and her past." Liverpool Daily Post. "We can recommend the book as interesting to many more than Shetland readers." Life and Work. "One can see what a romance Stevenson could have constructed out of Mill's diary, which seems incredibly old-fashioned and primitive." Sketch. "A most interesting and readable volume, containing many quaint and curious pictures of Shetland life and manners during last century." Orkney Herald. " Mr. Willcock has done well to provide this record of a man so memorable." United Presbyterian Record. "There is a great deal that is interesting in this book. . . . Mr. Willcock has done his work well, and we feel indebted to him for making us acquainted with a character which ought not to be forgotten." Free Church Monthly. "Mr. Mill stands out as quite a remarkable man. Though the volume will have a special interest to the people of the Shetland Isles, it will be read with much interest on the mainland." Perthshire Advertiser. "A succinct and readable account of Mill's life. . . . Nothing essential has been omitted, and nothing unnecessary has been retained. . . . The volume furnishes interesting reading from beginning to end." Shetland News. "The book is eminently readable, and will well repay perusal. . . . A vein of quiet humour, mingled with delicate satire, crops up every here and there in its pages." Shetland Times. To be had front OLIPHANT, ANDERSON & FERRIER, ST. MARY STREET, EDINBURGH; 21 PATERNOSTER SQUARE, LONDON, E.G. OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FURRIER'S "FAMOUS?? OTS" SERIES. Post 8uo, canuas binding, 1s. 6d.; extra gilt binding, gilt top, uncut, 2s. 6d. Thomas Carlylc. By HECTOR C. MACPHERSON. " One of the best books on Carlyle yet written." Literary World. Allan Ramsay. By OLIPHANT SMEATON. " Full of sound knowledge and judicious criticism." Scotsman. Hugh Miller. By W. KEITH LEASK. " Leaves on us a very vivid impression." Daily News. John KpOX. By A. TAYLOR INNES. " There is vision in this book as well as knowledge." Speaker. Robert Burns. By GABRIEL SETOUN. " A very valuable and opportune addition to a useful series." Bookman. The Ballad is ts. By JOHN GEDDIE. " One of the most delightful and eloquent appreciations of the ballad literature of Scotland that has ever seen the light." New Age. Richard Cameron. By Professor HERKLESS. " Interesting study of Cameron and his times." National Observer. Sir James Y. Simpson. By EVE , BLANTYRE SIMPSON. " It is indeed long since we have read such a charmingly-written biography as this little Life of the most typical and ' Famous Scot ' that his countrymen have been proud of since the time of Sir Walter. . . . There is not a dull, irrelevant, or superfluous page in all Miss Simpson's booklet, and she has performed the biographer's chief duty that of selection with consummate skill and judgment." Daily Chronicle. Thomas Chalmers. By Professor W. GARDEN BLAIK IE. "The most notable feature of Professor Blaikie's book and none could be more commendable is its perfect balance and proportion. In other words, justice is done equally to the private and to the public life of Chalmers, if possible greater justice than has been done by Mrs. Oliphant." Spectator. James Boswell. By W. KEITH LEASK, " One of the finest and most convincing passages that have recently appeared in the field of British Biography." Morning Leader. Tobias Smollett. By OLIPHANT SMEATON. " Mr. Smeaton has produced a very readable and vivid biography." Academy. Fletcher of Saltoun. By G. W. T. OMOND. " Unmistakably the most interesting and complete story of the life of Fletcher of Saltoun that has yet appeared." Leeds Mercury. The " Blackwood " Group. By Sir GEORGE DOUGLAS. " Sir George Douglas, in addition to summarising their biographies, criticises their works with excellent and well-weighed appreciation." Literary World. Norman IVIacIeod. By JOHN WELL-WOOD. " Its general picturesqueness is effective, while the criticism is eminently liberal and sound." Scots Pictorial. Sir Walter Scott. By GEORGE SAINTSBURY. " Mr. Saintsbury's miniature is a gem of its kind. Pall Mall Gazette. Kirkcaldy of Grange. By LOUIS A. BARBE. " A conscientious and thorough piece of work, showing wide and accurate knowledge." Glasgow Herald. Robert FergUSSOn. By A. B. GROSART, D.D., LL.D. " It is a creditable, useful, and painstaking book, a genuine contribution to Scottish literary history." British Weekly. James Thomson. By WILLIAM BAYNE. " The story of Thomson's claim to the disputed authorhip of ' Rule Britannia is sustained by his countryman with spirit and in our judgment with success." Literature. OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FERRIER'S "FAMOUS SCOTS" SERIES. IVlungfO Park. By T. BANKS MACLACIILAN. " Not only a charming life-story, if at times a pathetic one, but a vivid chapter in the romance of Africa." Leeds Mercury. David Hume. By HENRY CALDERWOOD, LL.D. " Fulfils admirably well the purpose of the writer, which was that of presenting in clear, fair, and concise lines Hume and his philosophy to the mind of his countrymen and of the world." Scotsman. William Dunbar. By OLIPHANT SMEATON. " A graphic and informed account not only of the man and his works, but of his immediate environment and of the times in which he lived." Bailie. Sir William Wallace. By Professor MURISON. " Mr. Murispn is to be heartily congratulated on this little book. After much hard and discriminate labour, he has pieced together by far the best, one might say the only rational and coherent, account of Wallace that exists." Speaker. Robert LouiS Stevenson. By MARGARET M. BLACK. " Certainly one of the most charming biographies we have ever come across. The writer has style, sympathy, distinction, and understanding. We were loth to put the book aside. Its one fault is that it is too short. "Outlook. Thomas Reid. By Professor CAMPBELL FRASER. " Supplies what must be allowed to be a distinct want in our literature, in the shape of a brief, popular, and accessible biography of the founder of the so-called Scottish School of Philosophy, written with notable perspicuity and sympathy by one who has made a special study of the problems that engaged the mind of Reid." Scotsman. PoIIOk and Aytoun. By ROSALINE MASSON. " Miss Masson tells the story of the lives of her two subjects in a bright and readable way. Her criticisms are sound and judicious, and altogether the little volume is a very acceptable addition to the series." North British Daily Mail. Adam Smith. By HECTOR C. MACPHERSON. " I have learned much from your sketch of Adam Smith's life and work. It presents the essential facts in a lucid and interesting way." Mr. HERBERT SPENCER to the Author. Andrew Melville. By WILLIAM MORISON. "The story is well told, and it takes one through a somewhat obscure period with which it is well to be acquainted. No better guide could be found than Mr. M orison." Spectator. James Frederick Ferrier. By E. s. HALDANE. " Ferrier the man, and even Ferrier the professor, Miss Haldane brings near to us, an attractive and interesting figure." Siotsinan. " This biography of him will be highly esteemed because of the grace and vigour with which Miss Haldane has done her work. To the ' Famous Scots' series of volumes there have been many excellent contributions, but not one of them is more interesting than this latest addition." Dundee Courier. King Robert the Bruce. By Professor MURISON. "Professor Murison has given us a book for which not only Scots, but every man who can appreciate a record of great days worthily told, will be grateful." Morning Leader. "The story of Bruce is brilliantly told in clear and flexible language, which draws the reader on with the interest of a novel. Professor Murison is a most impartial and thoroughly reliable critic, and may be followed with confidence by all who desire a truthful and unprejudiced picture of this greatest of the Scots." A berdeen Journal. James Hogg. By Sir GEORGE DOUGLAS. With Sketches of Tannahill, Motherwell, and Thorn. OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FERRIER, 30 ST. MARY STREET, EDINBURGH J 21 PATERNOSTER SQUARE, LONDON, E.C. RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT TO ^ 202 Main Library LOAN PERIOD 1 HOME USE 2 3 4 5 6 ~ ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS Renewals and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date. Books may be Renewed by calling 642-3405 APR D! 199o AS STAMPED BELOW FORM NO. DD6 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY BERKELEY, CA 94720 s YC 28589 GENERAL LIBRARY - U.C. BERKELEY B0008T5S07 606028 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY