Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/294

8 of Homer's works; and long after, liis picture had its place in the closets and galleries of the Italian nobility; representing him on horseback, with a lance in the one hand, and a book in the other. In a summary of excellences which we cannot help transcribing, the same author thus takes leave of the individual he has in so great a degree tended to exalt: "Crichton gained the esteem of kings and princes, by his magnanimity and knowledge; of noblemen and gentlemen, by his courtliness and breeding; of knights, by his honourable deportment and pregnancy of wit; of the rich, by his affability and good fellowship; of the poor, by his munificence and liberality; of the old, by his constancy and wisdom; of the young, by his mirth and gallantry ; of the learned, by his universal knowledge; of the soldiers, by his undaunted valour and courage; of the merchants and artificers, by his upright dealing and honesty; and of the fair sex, by his beauty and handsomeness, in which respect he was a masterpiece of nature."

Sir Thomas did not stand so altogether upon his own authority in this, as in other matters we have had to speak of; and he scarcely, indeed, required so to do. Imperialis, in his account of Crichton's death, declares, That the report of so sad a catastrophe was spread to the remotest parts of the earth; that it disturbed universal nature; and that, in her grief for the loss of the wonder she had produced, she threatened never more to confer such honour upon mankind. He was the wonder of the last age; the prodigious production of nature; the glory and ornament of Parnassus, in a stupendous and unusual manner; and farther, in the judgment of the learned world, he was the phoenix of literature, and rather a shining particle of the divine Mind and Majesty, than a model of what could be attained by human industry. After highly celebrating the beauty of his person, he asserts, that his extraordinary eloquence, and his admirable knowledge of things, testified that he possessed a strength of genius wholly divine.

Crichton is supposed to have been in the twenty-second year of his age at the time of his death. One or two pictures are preserved of him; and there is reason to believe, that they are originals. By these it would appear that his frame was well proportioned, and his head well shaped, though rather small than otherwise. His face is symmetrical and handsome, but has no particular expression of character. There is a print of him in the Museum Historicum et Physicum of Imperialis, which, though poorly executed, is probably authentic.

It now remains that something should be said regarding the truth or falsity of accounts so extraordinary as those which we have, with considerable fulness, presented to the reader; and in this we cannot do better than have recourse to the learned biographer, Dr Kippis, who has already been of so much service to us in the composition of this life. So full, indeed, has that author been upon the subject, and so complete, in his collection and arrangement of the authorities which bear upon it, that it would be difficult, or vain, to pursue another course. One work only, to our knowledge, attempting a refutation of the positions and inferences of the editor of the Biographia Britannica has appeared during a space of forty years. This is a Life of the Admirable Crichton, with an appendix of original papers by Mr P. F. Tytler. We can see no cause to incline us to give any weight to the arguments of this author; and should rather say, that the effect of his work, bringing forward and advocating as it does, all that can be advanced and urged in favour of the authenticity, has been to place in a more conspicuous point of view the error and falsity he would attempt to remove. There are few new facts adduced, and these not material They shall be noticed as they properly suggest themselves to our observation.