Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/298

12 confirmation of a suspicion long entertained, that Crichton's wonderful intellectual excellence did, in a great measure, consist in a most astonishing memory. With what discretion he used that faculty, there is not, and there cannot be, any satisfactory proof. His knowledge of so many languages, we at once admit; and this admission but makes the solution of the problem more easy. What mind, we would ask, so divinely endowed as Crichton's is represented to have been, could, in its, young feelings, have voluntarily submitted to the drudgery of these twelve tongues; unless memory had been the paramount and principal faculty which it possessed. The paper before us is satisfactorily explicit on this point: "His memory is so astonishing that he knows not what it is to forget; and whenever he has heard an oration, he is ready to recite it again, word for word, as it was delivered. He possesses the talent of composing Latin verses, upon any subject which is proposed to him, and in every different kind of metre. Such is his memory, that, even though these verses have been extempore, he will repeat them backwards, beginning from the last word in the verse." In a conference with the Greeks upon the Holy Spirit, he "exhibited an incalculable mass of authorities, both from the Greek and Latin fathers, and also from the decisions of the different councils." "He has all Aristotle and the commentators at his finger end; Saint Thomas and Duns Scotus, with their different disciples, the Thomists and Scotists, he has all by heart" With a memory so uncommon and astonishing, and it is within our compass to imagine such, it did not require that it should be conjoined with transcendent talent to produce effect.

One passage we ought by no means to omit quoting, as its effect is, in some measure, to bring more familiarly home to our ordinary conceptions, the life and feelings of a man whose fortune it has been to be made the subject of so many strange representations: "He has at present retired from town to a villa, to extend two thousand conclusions, embracing questions in all the different faculties, which he means, within the space of two months, to sustain and defend in the church of St John and St Paul; not being able to give his attention both to his own studies, and to the wishes of those persons who would eagerly devote the whole day to hear him."

Another thing we have to remark upon in this place, is the assertion that Crichton held a command in the French army. We would have inserted this piece of information in the narrative we have given of his life; but confess, that we were at a loss where it should be placed, and so, preferred the old tract as it was. What else remains, may be summed up in a few words. Crichton was handsome in his person; and his address that of a finished gentleman. He possessed also the accomplishments befitting a military man; was an expert swordsman, and rode well.

We shall not task the reader's patience much longer. Of Imperialis, Dr Black very truly remarks, that "his work is a collection of heads, with short eulogies, in which almost every person is represented as a phœnix: and a mass of pompous epithets are heaped together, less for the purpose of celebrating the person, than of showing the eloquence of the author;" and that is "useless for every biographical purpose," as containing the most absurd panegyric. The character of Crichton, by Imperialis, we have already quoted; and by re-considering that piece of silly extravagance, the reader may judge of the moderation of these observations. Independently of all this, Imperialis did not publish his "Museum Historicum" till the year 1640; nearly sixty years after the events recorded by him happened. Dr Kippis has remarked, that "the information this author derived from his father was probably very imperfect. Imperialis the elder was not born till 1568; and, consequently, was only thirteen