Or take this from the opposite page:—

"When a true Friend may be best knowne.

The fault of obscurity, of which the poet Browning has been accused, could not be laid to the charge of Sir Thomas Urquhart. Nor can it be said of him that he neglects truths that are obvious, and occupies himself in discovering and bringing forward those that are recondite. The sentiments to which he gives utterance seem those which spontaneously occur to the average mind; on reading the subject of the poem, as given in the title, and then the poem itself, we think

"A said whot a owt to 'a said,"

and we come away without any feverish mental agitation or accelerated movement of pulse.[156]

The sentiments which, from his own account, had, on more occasions than one, filled his mind, are expressed in the piece entitled "The generous Speech of a Noble Cavallier After he had disarmed his Adversary at the Single Combat." They are as follows:—

Another Epigram, which one critic regards as Urquhart's chef d'œuvre in this kind of composition. is the following:—

In a letter of commendation prefixed to his next work, The Trissotetras, Sir Thomas Urquhart says of himself: "This Mathematicall tractate doth no lesse bespeak him a good Poet and Orator, then [than] by his elaboured poems he hath showne himselfe already a good Philosopher and Mathematician." This self-criticism is all that could be desired. A work on mathematics that proves an author's possession of poetical and rhetorical gifts, and a volume of poetry which leads one to think that the singer is an accomplished mathematician, are gifts with which the world is but seldom favoured, and as it is likely that their merits will not instantly be observed, the zeal of the author in calling our attention to them is by no means unnecessary. But when he goes on to say, still speaking of himself in the third person, "The Muses never yet inspired sublimer conceptions in a more refined stile then [than] is to be found in the accurate strain of his most ingenious Epigrams," we feel that he is less felicitous. His first shot has hit the blank, but the second is wide of the target altogether.

In his dedication of the volume to "the Marquis of Hamilton, Earle of Arren and Cambridge, etc.," he describes its contents as "but flashes of wit." A modern reader will probably, however, be inclined to think that this modest opinion of them is far too flattering. At times there is a faint suggestion of a possible gleam of brightness, but this is instantly followed by Egyptian darkness, and one is reminded of a revolving light that has somehow gone wrong.

The volume closes with the somewhat liturgical formula, "Here end the first three Bookes of Sir Thomas Vrchard's Epigrams," and with a doxology, the latter being almost the only trace of matter in it to justify the use of "Divine" in the title. The author was evidently prepared to go on with more "bookes" of the kind, if he got any encouragement from publishers or public, but, probably, both thought it about time for him to stop. The fact that, in five years after this volume of poems had appeared, a second edition should apparently have been brought out, would seem at first to indicate that there must have been some little run upon the Epigrams. But the truth of the matter is, that one "William Leake" had evidently got the "remainder," and issued them in 1646 with a new title-page.

In the Introductory Notice to Sir Theodore Martin's edition of Rabelais, some information is given concerning a folio volume of unpublished Epigrams by Urquhart, which is still in existence.[158] It consists of ten books, called after Apollo and the Muses, each containing 110 Epigrams, except the last, which has 113. The MS. is dedicated to the Marquis of Hamilton; but, in addition to this, each book has a separate dedication to some one of the author's political associates or friends. The persons thus honoured are the Marquis of Huntly, the Earl of Arundel, the Earl of Northumberland, the Earl of Pembroke, the Earl of Dorset, the Earl of Holland, the Earl of Newcastle, the Earl of Stafford, Lord Craven, and Lord Gaurin (Gowran). According to the custom of that time, the reader finds his progress barred by several prefaces, respectively named, in this instance, as the "Isagoge," or "Introduction," the "Premonition," and the "Prolog," and cannot get away without a "Corollarie," an "Animadversion," several extra leaves of verses, "A Table for the more easie finding out of such Epigrams as treat of one subject," an "Index," and a "List of proper names." For one of these latter he has reason to be grateful to Sir Thomas, for the "Index" is a glossary of "the harshest and most difficult words contained in the preceding Epigrams."

The general character of the unpublished Epigrams does not seem to be higher than that of those which have seen the light of day, and consequently there is little likelihood of any anxiety being expressed by the general public for a sight of them. Some of them also are of a sportive turn, and are more in accordance with the standard of taste and manners which prevailed in the middle of the seventeenth century than with that, of our own day. From the "Animadversion" it seems that Urquhart "contryved, blocked, and digested these eleven hundred epigrams in a thirteen weeks tyme." This surely breaks the record in the matter of speed in producing epigrams. Had the results been better, one would have had more pleasure in supporting Sir Thomas against all-comers.

The second literary venture made by Sir Thomas Urquhart was the publication of a scientific work, entitled "The Trissotetras"[159]—a treatise which professed to simplify trigonometry. Yet, notwithstanding the statement on the title-page that the new method of working problems in that department of mathematical science would be found invaluable by soldiers, sailors, architects, astronomers, and others, the volume seems to have dropped at once into the depths of oblivion, without even having produced a ripple upon the surface of the waters. No one is known to have read it or to have been able to read it. Lord Bacon, indeed, says that things solid and weighty are drowned in the river of time, while things that are light and blown-up are carried down by its current.[160] A very comfortable theory would this be for those of us who write books that are found unreadable and drop at once out of notice, if only some trustworthy person could be found who would certify to the truth of Lord Bacon's assertion.

The editor of the Maitland Club edition of Sir Thomas Urquhart's Works has some qualms of conscience about reprinting this treatise. With a touch of humour, which only true Philistines will fully appreciate, he says that some apology may appear necessary, even to an Antiquarian Club,[161] for reprinting a work apparently so unintelligible and useless; and accordingly he shelters himself behind the opinion of Mr Wallace, the Professor of Mathematics in the University of Edinburgh at that time (1834). "I have," says Mr Wallace, who had been asked to examine the work, "looked at Sir Thomas Urquhart's Trissotetras, but I hardly know what to think of it. The book is not absolute nonsense, but is written in a most unintelligible way,[162] and so as never book was written before nor since. On this account it is truly a literary curiosity. There appears to have been a perverted ingenuity exercised in writing it, and I imagine that, with some patience, the author's plan might be understood, but I doubt if any man would take the trouble; for, after he had overcome the difficulty, there is nothing to reward his labour. I presume the object of the author was to fix the rules of Trigonometry in the memory, but no writer since his time has adopted his invention. Indeed, I do not observe the least mention of his book in the history of mathematical science. Yet, for his time, he seems not to have been a bad mathematician. Urquhart speaks in terms of great praise of Napier, yet not greater than he deserved. I infer from this that he was well acquainted with the subject as then known. The book in question is certainly a curious, if not a valuable relic of Scottish genius in the olden time, and it is a good specimen of the pedantry and fantastic taste of the Author. If, therefore, by reprinting his works, it be intended to give a true portraiture of him, The Trissotetras should on that account, and I see no better reason, again pass through the press."[163]

The volume is dedicated "To the right honourable and most noble lady, my dear and loving mother, the Lady Dowager of Cromartie." The "Epistle Dedicatory" is couched in the high-flown language which others would have had difficulty in concocting, but which seems to flow with ease from the lips of Sir Thomas. "Thus, Madam," he says, "unto you doe I totally belong; but so as that those exteriour parts of mine, which by birth are from your Ladiship derived, cannot be more fortunate in this their subjection, notwithstanding the egregious advantages of bloud and consanguinity thereby to them accruing, then [than] my selfe am happy, as from my heart I doe acknowledge it, in the just right your Ladiship hath to the eternall possession of the never-dying powers of my soule." The following passage from the same "Epistle" reminds one of the adulatory terms in which Sir Walter Raleigh and Spenser addressed Queen Elizabeth: "By vertue of your beloved society, your neighbouring Countesses, and other great dames of your kindred and acquaintance, become more illustrious in your imitation [i.e. in imitation of you]; amidst whom, as Cynthia amongst the obscurer planets, your Ladiship shines, and darteth the angelick rayes of your matchlesse example on the spirits of those who by their good Genius have been brought into your favourable presence to be enlightened by them." The concluding passage in his Dedication is still more remarkable: "I will here," he says, "in all submission, most humbly take my leave of your Ladiship, and beseech Almighty God that it may please his Divine Majesty so to blesse your Ladiship with continuance of dayes, that the sonnes or those whom I have not as yet begot, may attaine to the happinesse of presenting unto your Ladiship a braine-babe of more sufficiencie and consequence."[164]

The ordinary reader who looks into the volume cannot fail to be appalled by the new and mysterious terms with which its pages are crowded. Words like "proturgetick," "quadrobiquadræquation," "sindiforall," "eathetobasall," "loxogonosphericall," and "zetetick," are freely used, and many others equally hard and thorny. Even the author himself finds it necessary to append to the work a glossary, containing an explanation of a number of the words of which he had made use. "Being certainly perswaded," he says, "that a great many good spirits [i.e. worthy souls] ply Trigonometry that are not versed in the learned tongues, I thought fit for their encouragement to subjoyne here the explication of the most important of those Greek and Latin termes, which for the more efficacy of expression I have made use of in this Treatise."[165]

In some cases, however, the "explication," instead of dispelling the darkness, only renders it more visible, as when, e.g., we are told that "cathetobasall is said of the concordances of loxogonosphericall moods, in the datas of the perpendicular and the base, for finding out of the maine quæsitum." "Inversionall," we are told, "is said of the concordances of those moods which agree in the manner of their inversion; that is, in placing the second and fourth termes of the analogy, together with their indowments, in the roomes of the first and third, and contrariwise." Probably only those who are able to follow the statement that "oppoverticall is said of those moods which have a catheteuretick concordance in their datas of the same cathetopposites and verticall angles," will be qualified to give an intelligent assent to the statement that "sindiforall is said of those moods the fourth terme of whose analogie is onely illatitious to the maine quæsitum."[166]

Besides the Epistle of Dedication to the author's mother, there are two Epistles and some Latin verses addressed to the reader. The former of these last-mentioned Epistles is signed by Sir Thomas, and consists of a glowing tribute of respect to Napier, the inventor of logarithms. "To write of Trigonometry," he says, "and not make mention of the illustrious Lord Neper[167] of Marchiston, the inventer of Logarithms, were to be unmindfull of him that is our daily benefactor; these artificiall numbers by him first excogitated and perfected, being of such incomparable use,[168] that by them we may operate more in one day, and with lesse danger of errour, then [than] can be done without them in the space of a whole week; a secret which would have beene so precious to antiquity that Pythagoras, all the seven wise men of Greece, Archimedes, Socrates, Plato, Euclid, and Aristotle, had, if coævals, joyntly adored him, and unanimously concurred to the deifying of the revealer of so great a mystery." He concludes with the splendid sentence that Napier's "immortall fame, in spite of time, will out-last all ages, and look eternity in the face."[169]

The second Epistle to the reader is of a very startling kind. It professes to be by some one whose initials are J. A., and it is written in commendation of the book and its author, but there can be no doubt that it is the production of Sir Thomas himself. He could no more disguise his style of writing than Sir Piercie Shafton could lay aside his Euphuistic English. After reading the laudatory sentences bestowed upon the inventor of logarithms, it is very amusing to find J. A. remarking of Sir Thomas Urquhart, that "the praise he hath beene pleased to confer on the learned and honourable Neper, doth, without any diminution, in every jot as duly belong unto himselfe."[170] As all our author's eulogies are constructed on a vast scale, it is not surprising to read that the new method of measuring triangles, as compared with the old, is like the sea-journey between the Pillars of Hercules ("commonly called the Straits of Gibraltar"), as compared with the land-journey from the one to the other. In the one case, we have a short voyage of not more than six hours' sail; in the other case, a walk of some seven thousand long miles. The two concluding paragraphs of the Epistle are so extraordinary and so characteristic of our author, that we must be allowed to quote them at length.

"The secret unfolded in the following book," says J. A., "is so precious, that [the author's] countrey and kindred would not have been more honoured by him had he purchased [procured] millions of gold, and severall rich territories of a great and vast extent, then [than] for this subtile and divine invention, which will out-last the continuance of any inheritance, and remaine fresh in the understandings of men of profound literature, when houses and possessions will change their owners, the wealthy become poor, and the children of the needy enjoy the treasures of those whose heires are impoverished. Therefore, seeing for the many-fold uses thereof in divers arts and sciences, in speculation and practice, peace and war, sport and earnest, with the admirable furtherances we reape by it in the knowledge of sea and land, and heaven and earth, it cannot be otherwise then [than] permanent, together with the Author's fame, so long as any of those endure; I will, God willing, in the ruines of all these, and when time it selfe is expired, in testimony of my thankfulnesse in particular for so great a benefit, if after the resurrection there be any complementall [complimentary] affability, expresse myselfe then as I doe now, The Author's most affectionate, and most humbly devoted servant, J.A."[171]

Why our author should have resorted to this device for recommending himself and his book, we cannot tell. Perhaps he felt that some strong affirmations were needed in the case. Probably he agreed with the old saying that, if you wish work to be thoroughly done, you had better do it yourself. The moral aspect of the matter we leave in the hands of our readers for discussion.

In five Latin elegiac couplets of a very neat and polished kind, Alexander Ross[172] recommends The Trissotetras to the reader, and assures the author that Scotia, whom by his writings he was exalting to the stars, looked down upon him with a benignant smile. Ross himself is now only known to most of us from the mention made of him in Hudibras, in the well-known passage—

It is to be feared that Alexander Ross had not performed the same feat with regard to Sir Thomas Urquhart's treatise; for his verses[173] would have been equally appropriate if the subject of them had been a flying-machine or a water-tricycle invented by his friend.

At the end of the glossary in which the hardest words in The Trissotetras are explained, the author addresses a word in season to the persons into whose hands his book may fall. He expects that "learned and judicious mathematicians" will welcome it, and he promises them more of the same kind. His dignified attitude towards carping critics is very impressive. "But as for such," he says, "who, either understanding it not, or vain-gloriously being accustomed to criticise on the works of others, will presume to carp therein at what they cannot amend, I pray God to illuminate their judgments and rectifie their wits, that they may know more and censure lesse; for so by forbearing detraction, the venom whereof must needs reflect upon themselves, they will come to approve better of the endeavours of those that wish them no harme."[174]

CHAPTER V

ΠΑΝΤΟΧΡΟΝΟΧΑΝΟΝ, or The Pedigree

NE of the most characteristic of Sir Thomas Urquhart's works is his ΠΑΝΤΟΧΡΟΝΟΧΑΝΟΝ: or, A Peculiar PROMPTUARY of TIME.[175] This contains a complete pedigree of the Urquhart family from the creation of the world down to the year A.D. 1652. Prefixed to it is a letter to the reader by "a well-wisher," whose initials are G. P., into whose hands the pedigree had fallen by mere chance, and who had thought himself bound in duty to the public to see it safely through the press. According to the statements of this disinterested philanthropist, the work in question was but one of a large number of papers of very great importance, forming part of the author's baggage, which he had to abandon after the battle of Worcester. It is the habit, we know, of impecunious and importunate wayfarers to carry about with them documents of interest to which they solicit attention; but why a man in Sir Thomas Urquhart's position should have gone on a campaign, encumbered by various unpublished works in manuscript, it is difficult to say. Perhaps the simplest explanation is that he was different from other people.

The soldiers of Cromwell, we were told, made but light of this portion of the enemy's baggage, after "the fatal blowe given to the Royal party at Worcester"; indeed, but for "a surpassing honest and civil officer of Colonel Pride's regiment," the pedigree of the Urquharts would have been used by "a file of musquettiers to afford smoak to their pipes of tobacco."[176]

The fame of Sir Thomas as an author and as a soldier moved G. P., as he tells us, to commit this treatise to the press. With considerable ingenuity he remarks that, though the author is now in prison as a Royalist, he understands that his position is by no means "so desperate as that he thereby will be much endangered." If any doubt up to this point existed as to who G. P. might be, it is set at rest by the terms in which he pleads for favourable conditions being granted to the prisoner. "It is humbly desired," he says, "and, as I believe, from the hearts of all that are acquainted with him, that the greatest State in the world stain not their glory by being the Atropos to cut the thred of that which Saturne's sithe hath not been able to mow in the progress of all former ages, especially in the person of him whose inward abilities are like to produce effects conducible to the State of as long continuance for the future."[177] Only Sir Thomas Urquhart himself had the secret of what we may call the "spacious" manner of self-eulogy, which by its very grandeur seems lifted up above all such petty feelings as pride or vanity.

The concluding passage in the address to the reader is also worth quoting, as it illustrates the magnanimous spirit in which the captive deprecates severity towards himself on the ground of the injury which would thereby redound to the State. "Considering," it says, "how formerly he hath been a Mæcenas to the scholar, a patron to the souldier, a favourer of the marchant, a protector of the artificer, and upholder of the yeoman, it were a thousand pities that by the austerity of a State, which dependeth in both its esse and bene esse upon the flourishing of these worthy professions, effects so advantagious thereto, should, by not conferring deserved courtesies on him, be extinguished in the very brood."[178]

In the True Pedigree and Lineal Descent of the Most Ancient and Honourable Family of the Urquharts in the House of Cromartie, we have a brief but surprisingly complete history of the family from the time of Adam[179] down to A.D. 1652. The line runs through the Sethite and not the Cainite branch of the human race, and, among the sons of Noah, it passes through Japhet. The story is told of a marginal note being found in the history of some ancient Highland family, to the effect that "about this time the Flood took place." Something like this is to be found in the document before us, for, under the date B.C. 2893, Sir Thomas adds to a mention of his ancestor Noah, a remark to the effect that "the Universal Deluge occurred in the six hundreth yeer compleat of his age."

The good fortune of his ancestors in their inheritances, marriages, and friendships is very remarkable. To one of them, Japhet, fell the inheritance of "all the regions of Europe"; Japhet's grandson Penuel was "a most intimate friend of Nimrod, the mighty hunter and builder of Babel"; while his great-grandson Tycheros was chosen by "Orpah, the daughter of Sabatius Saga, Prince of the Armenians, to be her husband, because of his gallantry and good success in the wars."[180]

The name Urquhart came into use at the comparatively late period of B.C. 2139, when the family had been in existence for over eighteen hundred years. It was first borne by Esormon. "He," we are told, "was soveraign Prince of Achaia. For his fortune in the wars, and affability in conversation, his subjects and familiars surnamed him ουροχαρτος, that is [to] say, fortunate well-beloved. After which time, his posterity ever since hath acknowledged him the father of all that carry the name of Urquhart.[181] He had for his arms, three banners, three ships, and three ladies, in a field d'or, with a picture of a young lady above the waste, holding in her right hand a brandished sword, and a branch of myrtle in the left, for crest; and for supporters, two Javanites, after the souldier-habit of Achaia, with this motto in the scroll of his coat-armour, ταυτα τα τρια αξιοθεατα; that is, These three are worthy to behold. Upon his wife Narfesia, who was soveraign of the Amazons, he begot Cratynter."[182]

The habits of the Urquharts to form alliances and friendships with persons afterwards famous in sacred and secular history is very marked. Thus, one of them, Phrenedon Urquhart, "was in the house of the Patriarch Abraham at the time of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha." At a later period, another, named Hypsegoras Urquhart, married a daughter of Herculus Lybius; while a descendant of theirs, Pamprosodos Urquhart, married Termuth, "who was that daughter of Pharaoh Amenophis which found Moses among the bulrushes, and brought him up as if he had been her own childe."

Another ancestor, Molin Urquhart (c. B.C. 1534), married Panthea, "the daughter of Deucalion and Pyrrha, of whom Ovid maketh mention in the first of his Metamorphoses." The genealogist goes on to say that "in that part of Africk which, after his name, is till this hour called Molinea, by cunning and valour together he killed in one morning three lions;[183] the heads whereof, when in a basket, presented to his lady Panthea, so terrified her, that (being quick with childe) for putting her right hand to her left side, with this sudden exclamation, O Hercules, what is this? the impression of three lions' heads was found upon the left side of the childe as soon as he was born." In consequence of this incident, the three banners, three ships, and three ladies in the Urquhart arms were exchanged for three lions' heads.

A century later, we find that Propetes Urquhart married Hypermnestra, "the choicest of Danaus' fifty daughters." This must have been some time after the little affair happened for which forty-nine of her sisters were condemned to draw water in sieves; for, as every schoolboy knows, the fifty daughters of Danaus were married to their cousins, the fifty sons of Ægyptus, and all of them, but one, at the bidding of their father, murdered their husbands on the evening of the marriage-day. Hypermnestra, however, had pity upon her cousin and husband, Lynceus, and spared him.[184] He must have died shortly after, probably from natural causes, as it is recorded in the work before us that she married Propetes Urquhart, and became the mother of Euplocamos Urquhart.

The thought of what the family to which Hypermnestra belonged were capable when their blood was up, must, one would think, have cast a slight shadow of apprehension upon the married life of Propetes Urquhart. A more cheerful tone must have pervaded that of his descendant Cainotomos Urquhart, for he, we are told, "took to wife Thymelica, the daughter of Bacchus, in recompense of his having accompanied him in the conquest of the Indies." Further interesting particulars, which are not elsewhere recorded, are related of this ancestor of Sir Thomas. On his return from the expedition in which he assisted Bacchus to conquer India, he "passed through the territories of Israel, where, being acquainted with Debora the Judge and Prophetess, he received from her a very rich jewel, which afterwards by one of his succession was presented to Pentasilea, that Queen of the Amazons that assisted the Trojans against Agamemnon."

Their son Rodrigo Urquhart (c. B.C. 1295) was, we are told, invited over by his kindred the Clanmolinespick,[185] the principal clan in Ireland, and "bore rule there with much applause and good success"—the one solitary instance of the kind, we suppose, which is to be found in the history of that "most distressful country." "From him," it is said, "is descended the Clanrurie,[186] of which name there were twenty-six rulers and kings of Ireland before the days of Ferguse the first, King of Scots in Scotland."

A slight degree of uncertainty hangs about the identity of the wife of Mellessen Urquhart (c. B.C. 1049). Her name was Nicolia, and before her marriage she "travelled from the remote Eastern countries to have experience of the wisdom of Solomon, and by many[187] is supposed to have been the Queen of Sheba." Her husband, however, must have considered that, though she loved wisdom, she had not acquired much of it, or, at any rate, of the kind which is needed for bringing up a young family; for the historian goes on to say that "Mellessen Urquhart nevertheless sent some of his children to Ireland and Britain, to be brought up with the best of his own father and mother's kindred."

Amongst other celebrated persons who had the honour of being enrolled amongst the ancestors of Sir Thomas Urquhart are Pothina, a niece of Lycurgus; Æquanima, the sister of Marcus Coriolanus; Diosa, the daughter of Alcibiades; and Tortolina, the daughter of King Arthur. It is observable that for a good many generations immediately preceding the author's time, the ladies who figure in the genealogy are of comparatively lowly birth—seldom, indeed, do they reach the rank of an earl's daughter. Either the supply of princesses was by this time somewhat exhausted, or the demands of the Urquharts were less exorbitant. The high-spirited character of the most remarkable scion of the family who drew up the genealogy forbids us to think that, with the lapse of time, they had suffered any diminution of courage. It rather seems as though the world had entered upon a less heroic stage. Perhaps, like Sir Thomas Browne in a later age, they had concluded that "it was too late to be ambitious, for the great mutations of the world were acted."