John Willcock

“ 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. ”

“ 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 Rabelais 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. ”

“ There is no evidence that Sir Thomas Urquhart ever really made a grammar or vocabulary of the new language. Indeed, he writes about it in such a manner as to lead one to think that he had made no way in the real working out of the scheme, but merely dreamed of what he was going to do. In the new tongue which was to supersede all others there were to be twelve parts of speech, all words would have at least ten synonyms, nouns and pronouns would have eleven cases and four numbers—singular, dual, plural, and redual—and verbs would have four voices, seven moods, and eleven tenses. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But though Sir Thomas Urquhart was a Royalist 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." ”

“ 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 ”

“ The charity which "believeth all things and hopeth all things," or the credulity which persuades itself of the truth of the things which it wishes to believe, is manifest in Sir Thomas Urquhart's estimate of the character of Charles II. Less charitable or more impartial critics are probably inclined to the opinion that the existence in that sovereign of a number of the above-mentioned virtues was as mythical as that of a good many of his "hundred and ten predecessors." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ In a postscript Sir Thomas Urquhart explains that he has just given his readers a sketch of the history of his family, but hopes to furnish them with a complete narrative as soon as he obtains his release from his parole, and is at liberty to attend to this and to other matters of greater importance. The thought of the delightful book in store for mankind is so attractive to him that he cannot help dilating upon it. ”

“ Sir Thomas does not let us off easily. After subjecting our credulity to a severe strain by one kind of statement, he unexpectedly increases the tension by another. Thus he says that an ancestor in the fifteenth century, Thomas Urquhart, had by his wife Helen Abernethie, daughter of Lord Salton, five-and-twenty sons, who grew up to manhood, and eleven daughters, all of whom found husbands. It would only have been kind of him to have reduced these numbers a little. But on one point he has spared us: we are not asked to believe that there were others who died in infancy. ”

“ In order to vindicate the honour of his country, Sir Thomas Urquhart tells at considerable length of the fame won by various compatriots of his in war in every part of Europe, during the earlier half of the seventeenth century, and he draws the attention of his readers to the fact that, at no battle in the period named, were all the Scots that fought overthrown and totally routed. The explanation of this statement is that there were always Scots on both sides, so that, if some were defeated and taken prisoners, others of that nation were victorious and givers of quarter. ”

“ 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. ”

“ PREFACE
EW persons who take an interest in general literature are wholly unacquainted 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Sir Thomas Urquhart's name does not appear in 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 Scotland, as London doth for greatness, wealth, and magnificence, the smallest hamlet or village in England." ”

“ 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 servitude, 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. ”

“ In one respect, at any rate, we have legitimate ground of triumph over our ancestors—we spell better than they did. Charles Lamb once lent a volume of the old dramatists to a friend, and asked him his opinion of it. The reply was that it contained a considerable amount of bad spelling! The name Urquhart, as thus written, occurs here in Sir Thomas's "Pedigree," and is, doubtless, the correct form of the name. In the Latinised shape of Urquhardus it occurs on the register of the University of Aberdeen, at which our author studied. ”

“ 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, however, 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. ”

“ 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 unfortunate 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." ”

“ The young people came west and founded Portugal (i.e. Port of Gathelus) , and then journeyed north to Scotland, bringing with them, as part of their baggage, the coronation-stone yet to be seen in Westminster Abbey. Their descendant Fergus, "the father of a hundred kings," was the founder of the Scottish monarchy. These shadowy persons appear again, "with the moonlight streaming through them," and play their parts in the genealogy of the Urquharts.
Some have thought that Sir Thomas believed devoutly in the genealogy himself, and was the dupe of his own imagination. ”

“ 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 ”

“ As a University and Cathedral city, and the residence 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 kingdom 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 undisturbed in their rear. ”

“ 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., [17] was "one of the most profound and universal scholars then living"—like Socrates in having published no works, but, unfortunately, 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. ”

“ 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, Aberdeenshire. 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ But the word is evidently αυρον—the Lat. aurum, "gold." In the "Postilla" to the Pedigree of the Urquharts, our author says that "the shire of Cromartie ... hath the names of its towns, villages, hamlets, dwellings, promontories, hillocks, temples, dens, groves, fountains, rivers, pools, lakes, stone heaps, akers, and so forth, of pure and perfect Greek." We need not be surprised that Sir Thomas's Greek has more affinity with the vernacular form of the language current in the Cromartie of his time than with the Attic of the age of Pericles,
"For Greke of Athenes was to him unknowé." ”

“ 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. ”

“ As might have been expected, the translation is not marked by painful exactness of rendering. On the contrary, evidences of carelessness and in [Pg 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, [238] that ever man accomplished." The great merits of the translation consist in its preserving the very air and style of the original, and in the astonishing richness of vocabulary which it manifests. Where Rabelais invents a word, Sir Thomas invents one, or two, or three ”

“ 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. ”

“ One's faith in the credibility of his narrative is, however, a little shaken by finding that in the second book of his favourite author, Rabelais, the genealogy of the giant Pantagruel is carried up to a period far beyond the Flood. It may be a mere coincidence, but it is one of those coincidences that make us very thoughtful. [196]
At the time when Sir Thomas Urquhart wrote, Scotland was supposed to have had a dynasty of kings and a connected political history dating far [Pg 145] back before the birth of Christ. ”

“ The calm assumption by the writers that political opponents 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. ”