Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 1.djvu/74

 should have place in all his majesty's and his successors' armies, near and about the royal standard for the defence thereof, with other honourable distinctions of precedency, to them, their wires, and heirs. The ceremony of inſeſtmentinsestment [sic] or seasine was decreed to take place on the Castle-hill of Edinburgh, the earth and stone of which were held, by a fiction, to represent the component particles of certain baronies and lordships on the other side of the Atlantic. For the amusement of the reader, we shall give an account of the equivocal mode of procedure adopted in this scheme, and of its shameful conclusion, from the fantastic pen of Sir Thomas Urquhart "It did not satisfy him," says Sir Thomas, in reference to Alexander, (Discovery of a most Exquisite Jewel, &c., 8vo, 1652,) "to have a laurel from the Muses, and be esteemed a lung among poets, but he must also be king of some new-found land; and, like another Alexander, indeed, searching after new worlds, have the sovereignty of Nova Scotia! He was born a poet, and aimed to be a king; therefore he would have his royal title from king James, who was born a king, and aimed to be a poet Had he stopped there, it had been well; but the flame of his honour must have some oil wherewith to nourish it; like another Arthur he must have his knights, though nothing limited to so small a number; for how many soever, who could have looked but for one day like gentlemen, and given him but one hundred and fifty pounds sterling (without any need of a key for opening the gate to enter through the temple of virtue, which, in former times, was the only way to honour,) they had a scale from him whereby to ascend unto the platforms of virtue; which they treading under their feet, did slight the ordinary passages, and to take the more sudden possession of the temple of honour, went upon obscure bypaths of their own, towards some secret angiports and dark postern doors, which were so narrow that few of them could get in, until they had left all their gallantry behind them: Yet such being their resolution, that in they would and be worshipful upon any terms; they misregarded all formerly used steps of promotion, accounting them but unnecessary; and most rudely pushing into the very sanctuary, they immediately hung out the orange colours," the colour of the ribbon by which the order was suspended, "to testify their conquest of the honour of knight baronet. Their king nevertheless, not to stain his royal dignity, or to seem to merit the imputation of selling honour to his subjects, did, for their money, give them land, and that in so ample a measure, that every one of his knight baronets had, for his hundred and fifty pounds sterling, heritably disposed to him six thousand good and sufficient acres of Nova Scotia ground; which being at the rate of but sixpence an acre, and not to be thought very dear; considering how prettily, in the respective parchments of disposition, they were bounded and designed; fruitful cornfields, watered with pleasant rivers, running along most excellent and spacious meadows; nor did there want abundance of oaken groves, in the midst of very fertile plains, or if it wanted anything it was the scrivener's or writer's fault, for he" [Alexander] "gave orders, as soon as he received the three thousand Scots marks, that there should be no defect of quantity, or quality, in measure or goodness of land, and here and there most delicious gardens and orchards; with whatever else could, in matter of delightful ground, best content their fancies; as if they had made purchase among them of the Elysian fields or Mahomet's paradise; and although there should have happened a thousand acres more to be put into the charter, or writing of disposition, than was agreed upon at first, he cared not; half a piece to the clerk was able to make him dispense with that. But at last when he had enrolled three hundred knights, who for their hundred and fifty pieces each had purchased among them several millions of New Caledonian acres, confirmed to them and theirs for ever, under the great seal, the affixing whereof was to cost each of them but thirty pieces more; finding that the society was not