Page images
PDF
EPUB

all comment for that purpose. We have only room for the following affecting close of a letter to James.

"I prostrate myself at your majesty's feet, I your ancient servant, now sixty-four years old in age, and three years five months old in misery. I desire not from your majesty means, nor place, nor employment, but only, after so long a time of expiation, a complete and total remission of the sentence of the upper-house, to the end that blot of ignominy may be removed from me, and from my memory with posterity; that I die not a condemned man, but may be to your majesty, as I am to God, nova creatura. Your majesty hath pardoned the like to Sir John Bennet, between whose case and mine, not being partial with myself, but speaking out of the general opinion, there was as much difference, I will not say as between black and white, but as between black and gray, or ash-coloured: look therefore down, dear sovereign, upon me also in pity. I know your majesty's heart is inscrutable for goodness; and my lord of Buckingham was wont to tell me you were the best natured man in the world; and it is God's property, that those he hath loved, he loveth to the end. Let your majesty's grace, in this my desire, stream down upon me, and let it be out of the fountain and spring-head, and ex mero motu, that, living or dying, the print of the goodness of king James may be in my heart, and his praises in my mouth. This, my most humble request, granted, may make me live a year or two happily; and denied, will kill me quickly. But yet the last thing that will die in me, will be the heart and affection of

Your majesty's most humble

and true devoted servant,

FR. ST. ALBAN."

LONDON:

PRINTED BY D. S. MAURICE, FENCHURCH-STREET.

THE

Retrospective Review.

VOL. VI. PART II.

ART. I. ΕΚΣΚΥΒΑΛΑΥΡΟΝ; or, The Discovery of a most exquisite Jewel, more precious than Diamonds inchased in Gold, the like whereof was never seen in any age; found in the kennel of Worcester streets, the day after the Fight, and six before the Autumnal Equinox, anno 1651. Serving in this place to frontal a Vindication of the honour of Scotland from that Infamy, whereinto the Rigid Presbyterian party of that Nation, out of their Covetousness and Ambition, most dissembledly hath involved it.

Distichon ad Librum sequitur, quo tres ter adæquant Musarum numerum, casus, et articuli.

[blocks in formation]

3 abl.

4 abl.

Done by and for the free'st-spoke Scot of any.

Efficiens et finis sunt sibi invicem causæ.

London. Printed by Ja: Cottrel; and are to be sold by Rich: Baddely, at the Middle Temple-gate. 1652.

We believe, that the expectation of posthumous fame which commonly animates the secret breast of the author, and which the poet sometimes boldly anticipates in his verses, was never more egregiously disappointed than in the case of Sir Thomas Urquhart, of Cromartie, Knight. In the opinion of his contemporaries, he must have been accounted a remarkable man;

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

his works possess a considerable portion of a wild and irregular talent, and, if we may be allowed to gather from his remaining writings the estimation in which he held them and himself, very different, indeed, ought to have been the treatment of posterity. When we meet with a book which appears to us to possess claims to notice, and of which we happen previously to know nothing, the natural process is to institute an inquiry concerning its author and his works. We soon learnt from the contents of this extraordinary little book itself, that its real, though not its pretended author, was Sir Thomas Urquhart, a name with which we had long been familiar, as the excellent translator of Rabelais; but of whose history or other works we were totally ignorant. We immediately applied to the Biographical Dictionary of Chalmers, in the full expectation of meeting a copious account of the life of this singular man, for such we had soon found him to be-our search was in vain ; and a similar search into every collection of biography, of which we know, has been likewise in vain, except that Granger has noticed his existence, because there happens to be a portrait of him prefixed to one of his works. The few particulars which we can pick up, under such circumstances, must, of course, be scanty, and are entirely gathered from his own works. In a strange pedigree of his family, from the creation of the world to the year of his own age, which he published under the title of A Peculiar Promptuary of Time,* he tells us, that he was knighted, at Whitehall, by Charles I. in 1641. From the book before us it appears, that he accompanied Charles II. from Scotland, in his invasion of England under Cromwell; that he was taken prisoner at the battle of Worcester, and detained in London on his parole, where he employed himself in composing the work itself. It is very clear, that he had travelled into most of the polished countries of Europe, and we have more than his own word for the belief that he was skilled in the modern languages, and accomplished in the fashionable arts of the time. His translation of Rabelais is accounted by the best judges to be the most perfect version of any author whatever-which is no mean praise, when we call to mind the obscurity, singularity, and difficulty of the original, in despite of which he has managed to transfuse the spirit of his author with undiminished force and vigour. His treatise on

ΠΑΝΤΟΧΡΟΝΟΚΑΝΩΝ, A Peculiar Promptuary of Time, wherein is displayed an exact Directory for all particular Chronologies in what Family soever, and that by shewing the Pedigree of the name of Urquhart in the house of Cromartie since the Creation to 1652. 8vo. Lond. 1652.

Trigonometry, a wild and intricate performance, proves his knowledge of mathematics, and a due reverence for the discovery of Napier, of whose system of logarithms he speaks in the most enthusiastic terms. Perhaps his Epigrams would prove him to have been a wit, if not a poet; but we have not had the good fortune to procure a sight of them. Motteux speaks of him as a physician, in his preface to Rabelais; and Granger mentions the same fact, but doubtingly.

This little work purports to be written with some wild design of recovering his paternal estates in Scotland, by a display of his superior talents and endowments. He declares that he has discovered and completed a universal language, the value and utility of which he calculates in pretty round numbers. Does he not, then, most richly merit the restoration of his acres in Cromartie, which, it seems, was in military occupation? Such reasoning, at no time we know of, was ever likely to prevail, and certainly it would be difficult to discover men more likely to turn a deaf ear to such an application than Cromwell, Ireton, Overton, and the fanatical body of Independents, even had the claim been well founded. But we are constrained to say, a program more full of quackery, folly, and nonsense, was never put together, than the early part of the book, which purports to have formed part of the papers of Sir Thomas Urquhart, found in the streets of Worcester after the battle. The rest of the volume is to be supposed as written by some friend and advocate of the Knight. The deceit is, however, soon seen through; but had it been maintained, in the most ingenious humour, it would not have been worth inventing.

This introduction on the scheme of a universal language only serves as a frontal, as the title expresses, to a eulogy on the Scottish nation. This part of the work is also intended as a recommendation of himself, for he felt apprehensive lest the general prejudice against the Scotch, in full force at the time, should operate to his disadvantage in recovering his property, and in procuring a remuneration for the work which was to confer so great a benefit upon his native country and the world at large. It is from this part of the book, alone, that we shall make our extracts. The style of Sir Thomas is of so singular a kind, he possesses such a copious fund of sesquipedalian eloquence, and stalks along his subject with such a rapid and

* The Trissotetras, or u most exquisite Table for resolving all manner of Triangles, &c. By Sir Thomas Urquhart, of Cromartie, Knt. London, 1645. Dedicated in a very fine style to " The right honourable and most noble lady, my dear and loving mother, the Lady Dowager of Cromartie."

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »