to preserve for future times the genuine breed and honourable traditions' of their extinct birthplace. For in less than six months from that time the sentence was pronounced-and Platea was blotted out of the roll of Grecian states. In the place of the familiar town, with its local traditions and its solemn sacrifices, the pilgrims who repaired thither found only a vast barrack for their reception, erected out of the materials of the destroyed dwellings round the temple of Juno-itself rebuilt and refurnished with the mournful relics of the domestic utensils and furniture of the ancient houses of the inhabitants. Theban tenants grazed and farmed the sacred land and burial-ground of Greece. Thebes, with her revenge satiated, retired from the war, and Platea continued to exist only in the persons of its citizens harboured at Athens-again to revive in later times to new vicissitudes of joy and sorrow. We leave Mr. Grote for the present, with the hope that the interest which he has so well sustained may not flag in the sequel of his labour. It is not impossible that, as we have barely glanced on this occasion at any of the contents of his eighth volume, we may in a future article invite the attention of our readers to certain subjects on which it offers new materials for judgment. There are some such of high consequence to which as yet we have made no reference; and we may hope that, as to the most interesting of them, we shall have the advantage of comparing Mr. Grote's conclusions with those of Colonel Mure, whose long-promised History of Greek Literature is now announced for early publication. ART. V.-1. The Works of Sir Thomas Urquhart, of Cromarty, Knight. Edinburgh. 4to. 1834. 2. The Pillars of Hercules; or, a Narrative of Travels in Spain and Morocco, in 1848. By David Urquhart, Esq., M.P. 2 vols. London. 1850. very E owe to the Maitland Club of Glasgow this WE handsome reprint of the rare and scattered Treatises of the Knight of Cromarty. His (unfinished) translation of Rabelais has never lost its just celebrity; but the original fruits of his genius had been less fortunate, and have demanded and deserved this pious attention. Excepting some disjecta membra of his biography of the Admirable Crichton, we should doubt if one in a thousand of -modern readers ever saw a scrap of the Works' resuscitated by the Maitlanders. Born in 1605, Sir Thomas Urquhart died in 1660-of excessive laughter, says one tradition, at learning the restoration restoration of Charles II., but more probably, according to another, of extra-libations on that auspicious intelligence. We trust that no immediate Cobdenisation of the Czar may bring Mr. David to a like untimely end-but there are so many points of resemblance between his literary vein and that of the once famous author of The Jewel, that we need offer no apology for combining two Urquharts in one article. · The erudite and genial old Cavalier records in one of his prefaces that, before his brains ripened for eminent undertakings,' he travelled much; and on his return, while perdricide brotherlairds hunted for coveys, sought the discovery of optical secrets, mysteries of natural philosophy, the finding out the longitude, squaring of a circle, and wayes to accomplish all trigonometrical calculations without tangents, with the same compendiousness of calculation; which, in the estimation of learned men, would be accounted worth six hundred thousand partridges and as many moor-fowles.' In his Proquiritations-metaphysical, moral, mythological, dialectical, chronological, and written in a way never trod by any,' his noble aim, he avows, was to purge the world's brain from ignorance.' His 'Trissotetras' was, says he, an invention that, compared with the old beaten path trod upon by Regiomontanus, Ptolemy, and other ancient mathematicians, is like the sea voyage in regard to that by land-betwixt the two Pillars of Hercules, commonly called the Straits of Gibraltar, whereof the one is but of six houres' sailing at most, and the other a journey of seven thousand long miles.' Touching this Trissotetras,' Mr. Wallace, professor of mathematics in the University of Edinburgh, observes, there appears to have been a perverted ingenuity exercised in writing it; and I imagine 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 would be nothing to reward his labour.' (Introduction, p. xvi.) We regret that Professor Wallace has not survived to pronounce a judgment on the octavos by which the Honourable Member for Stafford has illustrated the ancient affection of the clan for these wonderful Pillars. How and why Sir Thomas turned author is minutely told by himself. After the battle of Worcester, Sept. 3, 1651, his lodgings were sacked by some exquisite snaps and clean shavers, who handed over six score and eight quires and a half of his MS. to inferior and posterior uses;' but happily one quaternion' was picked up in the street, and thence called Ekskubalauron-being the discovery in the kennel of a most exquisite Jewel, more precious than diamonds inchased in gold, the like whereof was never seen of any;' a chosen specimen, in short, of his literary 'wares wares, brain-babes, of far greater value than ever from the East Indies were brought in ships to Europe'-its scope' being-as he further explains-partly epænetick, partly doxologetickal. Cromwell does not seem to have been aware of the important part the Knight had taken in the conflict at Worcester—at least we do not hear of any direct subsequent molestation of him by agents of Government-but at best he was down, and had no friends but such as were also in difficulty and discomfiture; wherefore creditors of Aberdeen, sharp as Israelites, seized the opportunity for importunity,' and their merciless writs of process hunting him from garret to cellar, wherever he bestowed himself, hung as millstones at his heels, pulling down the vigor of his fancie, what other wayes would have ascended above the sublimest regions of vulgar conception.' He once more changed his lodgings, and resolved, with the aid of a keenly royalist typographer-( worthy Master James Cottrel')—to turn his Jewel' into cash. Author and printer shut themselves up to see whether head or hand could compose the quickest; so, 'in the short space of fourteen working daies' their joint concern issued from the press. joying these details, we cannot but regret that the good Cavalier's modern representative has not on this occasion favoured us with the duet between himself and Mr. Bentley's devil; but we should not be surprised if it turned out that the Jewel of 1850 had been polished and set with rival alacrity. En The Knight proceeds to tell with a brave candour, that, having put forth his 'Jewel,' he did not neglect or disdain either to conciliate the professional reviewers, or in his own person to puff the work in the most approved methods of that period: 'Why I should extoll the worth thereof, without the jeopardy of vaine glorie, the reason is clear and evident. Being necessitated to merchandise it for the redintegrating of an ancient family, I went on in my laudatories, to procure the greater longing, that an ardent desire might stir up an emacity, to the furtherance of my proposed end. Thus the first step of this scale being to avoid the disputative censure of plebeculary criticks who use to vent quisquiliary diblaterations to the opprobrie of good spirits: the second step is my elogiarie interthets, in extolling the matter without any philotary presumption: whereof there wanteth not store of precedents. Moses intituled himself the meekest man upon the face of the earth; nor was David, for all his heinous transgressions, free from this manner of exalting himself.”— Works, p. 332.* * Sir Thomas patronizes the Euphuistic vocabulary-indeed his biographer, the late Mr. P. F. Tytler, calls him a sort of Ancient Pistol.' For the better understanding of his 'Works,' the English Dictionary' of Mr. Noah Webster will be useful. This diligent American has preserved every philological antediluvianism; words, it would seem, long called in and recoined in the old country are still current as cents at New York. It may be very possible-as is intimated in more than one of the laudatories' here referred to that in cases of superlative endowment the Knight's fiery processes' are the best;-granting such genius, more composition and fierce quality may go to the production of brain-babies than when gestation is prolonged to the ninth year of Horace. It is clear, however, that if length of parents' pedigree could ensure commensurate duration of offspring, the works of any Chief of Clan Urquhart would last longer than the world. Sir Thomas, in another of his Works,' traces every link of his descent from Adam with the decision of a Collins-we might even say, of a Sir Egerton Brydges, 'per legem terræ Lord Chandos of Sudeley.' We must transcribe the beginning of the document :'The true Pedigree and Lineal Descent of the most ancient and honorable Family of the Vrquharts, of the House of Cromartie, since the Creation of the World until this present Yeer of God, 1652. 'God did of nothing create red earth: of red earth framed Adam: and of a rib out of the side of Adam fashioned Eve. After which creation, plasmation, and formation, succeed the Generations as followeth : 'I. Anno Mundi 1.-Adam married Eve. He was surnamed the Protoplast, and on his wife Eve begot Seth. 'II. Anno Mundi 130.-Seth married Shefta, his own coenixed sister, on whom he begot Enos,' &c. &c. &c.— -And so on, through eighteen 4to. pages, to 'Sir THOMAS, agnamed Parresiastes, who was knighted by King Charles, in Whitehall Gallery, in the year 1641, the 7 April... The said Sir Thomas is from Adam by line the 143rd-by succession the 153rd.' He adds:This Genealogie was deduced But some of these æras will puzzle the million. Be it known then, that the surname of Urquhart was introduced into the family by Esormon (i. e. The Intruder), who, some little time after the ethnological developments of the tower of Babel-to be precise, nineteen hundred years before the birth of Herodotus-was king of Achaia, and called by his subjects 'Oupoxapros-which Sir Thomas translates the fortunate, the beloved one;' but which signifies literally 'the man with a stern-wind.' (See Liddell and Scott.) This regal Chief's coate-armoure did present three banners, three ships, and three ladies;' and that our ancient blazoun' was for ages adhered to. One of its august bearers, some 1125 years later, viz. Pamprosodos (or Whole-hog-going) Urquhart, married Termuth, Pharaoh's Pharaoh's daughter, the same that found Moses in the bulrushes. Their great-grandson, again, soon after marrying a daughter of Deucalion and Pyrrha, killed in Africa three lions, whose heads in a basket so frightened the pregnant Panthea, that she put her hand on her right side, exclaiming Oh! Hercules, what is this?' A triple-headed impression was found on the flank of her son, Epitemon (the Right Honourable): his seal sympathized, and the family coach exhibited new decorations. 454 years afterwards, Mellesen Urquhart (the Promising one) espoused Nicolia- by many thought to be the Queen of Sheba' who visited Solomon; their son, Alypos Urquhart (the one without a Grievance), founded York; 658 years after him, Astioremon Urquhart (i. e. the Courtly Orator) took as a new motto, ὁ Εὐνοεῖτω, ευλογε, καί EUTGITTE-Scotticè Meane weil, speake weil, and doe weil;' to which rule the heirs of said motto have conformed ever since. The family coat itself was for the third and last time changed in the eighth century of the vulgar era by a Chief well entitled to new æra-namely, Vocompos Urquhart (i. e. the one whose wishes were all fulfilled), which hero killed three bears before the King of Scotland, and substituted them-razed-for the three lions. 497 years later, Chief David Urquhart I. was 'agnamed Polydorus, from his great gifts.' Interesting as another more gifted David has now rendered this agname, nothing more is told about him; Sir Thomas does not even add the simple, touching Sus per coll,' so common in the necrological notices of the worthies of the Rolliad. In 1535 succeeded Walter Urquhart, 'agnamed Exaftallocrinus because he judged of other men by himself,' and grandfather to our own dear Sir Thomas, agnamed Parresiastes (or the Free-spoken), whose marking quality is proudly proclaimed on his 'Jewel's' title-page : 'Oh, thou 'rt a book in truth with love to many, These agnames, or distinguished and distinguishing epithets, have obtained with the Urquharts from the Deluge downwards. Tycheros (the one of a lucky chance) was fourth in descent from Noah. Those interested in the mooted questions of hereditary transmissions, superfetations, and so forth, will also find among our authors' indicative predecessors Thrasymedes, i. e. the plucky in statecraft; Litoboros, the bubble-swallower; Bathybulos, the artful dodger; Liptologon, the man of subtle inferences; Autarces, the self-sufficient; Holocleros, the man without a crack; Cainotomos, the cutter out of novelties; Spectabundo, the noticeable, or fit subject of review; and so on, until their quintessence concentrated in David II.-duly described in Dod's Parliamentary Companion as Chief of Clan Urquhart of Cromarty'-who well observes that |