To the king.

"This is the last suit I shall make to your majesty in this business, prostrating myself at your mercy-seat, after fifteen years service, wherein I have served your majesty in my poor endeavours with an entire heart, and, as I presumed to say unto your majesty, am still a virgin for matters which concern your person or crown; and now only craving, that after eight steps of honour I be not precipitated altogether.

"But because he that hath taken bribes is apt to give bribes, I will go farther, and present your majesty with a bribe. For if your majesty give me peace and leisure, and God give me life, I will present your majesty with a good history of England, and a better digest of your laws."

Again, to the king.

"I have borne your majesty's image in metal, much more in heart; I was never in nineteen years service chidden by your majesty, but contrariwise often over-joyed, when your majesty would sometimes say, I was a good husband for you, though none for myself: sometimes, that I had a way to deal in business suavibus modis, which was the way which was most according to your own heart: and other most gracious speeches of affection and trust, which I feed on to this day. But why should I speak of these things which are now vanished, but only the better to express the downfal?

"For now it is thus with me: I am a year and a half old in misery: though I must ever acknowledge, not without some mixture of your majesty's grace and mercy; for I do not think it possible, that any one whom you once loved should be totally miserable. Mine own means, through my own improvidence, are poor and weak, little better than my father left me. The poor things that I have had from your majesty, are either in question, or at courtesy. My dignities remain marks of your past favour, but burdens of my present fortune. The poor remnants which I had of my former fortunes, in plate or jewels, I have spread upon poor men unto whom I owed, scarce leaving myself a convenient subsistence."

He thus beseeches the king, who turned but a very negligent ear to his complaints.

"Help me (dear sovereign lord and master) and pity me so far, as that I, that have borne a bag, be not now in my age forced in effect to bear a wallet; not that I, that desire to live to study, may not be driven to study to live."

Our extracts have run out to so great a length, that we find it impossible to introduce all the interesting passages we had selected, though we have sacrificed the gratification of nearly

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. EKEKTBAAATPON; 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.

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;

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.