Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/57

 seem to have utilised the time to advantage as far as his creditors were concerned, and he surrendered to his parole in 1653, when he published in London his ‘Logopandecteision,’ being a continuation and expansion of his ideas on the subject of a universal language, interspersed with chapters of an autobiographical and declamatory nature, while the volume concludes with a fanciful summary of the author's demands or ‘proquiritations’ from the state.

The same year (1653) saw the appearance of Urquhart's admirable translation of the first book of Rabelais—‘one of the most perfect transfusions of an author from one language into another that ever man accomplished.’ In point of style Urquhart was Rabelais incarnate, and in his employment of the verbal resources, whether of science and pseudo-science or slang, he almost surpassed Rabelais himself. As for his mistakes, they are truly ‘condoned by their magnificence.’ He often met the difficulty of finding the exact equivalent of a French word by emptying all the synonyms given by Cotgrave into his version; thus on one occasion a list of thirteen synonyms in Rabelais is expanded by the inventive Urquhart into thirty-six. Some of the chapters are in this way almost doubled in length.

After 1653 practically nothing is known of Urquhart, but it seems probable that he remained for some years longer in London, going on with his translation of Rabelais (a third book of which appeared after his death), a prisoner in name more than in reality. When he crossed the sea is not known, but tradition states that he died abroad on the eve of the Restoration. The mode of his death, as handed down apparently by family tradition, was that he died in an uncontrollable fit of laughter upon hearing of the Restoration. It is highly probable that he died in the early part of 1660, as on 9 Aug. in that year his brother (Sir) Alexander of Cromarty petitioned the council for a commission to execute the office of sheriff of Cromarty, held for ages by his predecessors, and belonging to him as eldest surviving son of Sir Thomas Urquhart who died in 1642. In 1663 Sir Alexander claimed compensation to the amount of 20,203l. (Scots) for the losses incurred by his brother during 1650, and 39,203l. (Scots) for the losses of 1651–2 (one pound Scots = one shilling and eightpence sterling). Sir Alexander's ‘pretty’ daughter, Christian, married before 1665 (, Diary, 3 Oct.) Thomas Rutherford, Lord Rutherford, elder brother of the third lord, who has been identified with Scott's ‘Master of Ravenswood.’ On Alexander's death the honours of the family and what estates were left passed to Sir John Urquhart, son of John Urquhart of Craigfintray, Laithers, and Craigston, who was the son of John Urquhart, the ‘Tutor of Cromarty,’ by his first marriage. Sir John's son Jonathan sold Cromarty in 1685 to Viscount Tarbat, first earl of Cromarty, and on the death of Jonathan's son James, in 1741, the ‘Tutor's’ descendant, William Urquhart of Meldrum, became the representative of the ancient house of Cromarty (see, Inverurie, 1878, pp. 468–9; , Antiquarian Notes, 1865, pp. 202–3).

Urquhart was a Scottish euphuist, with a brain at least as fertile and inventive as that of the Marquis of Worcester (many of whose hundred projects he anticipated). His sketch of a universal language exhibits rare ingenuity, learning, and critical acumen. Hugh Miller pointed out that the modern chemical vocabulary, with all its philosophical ingenuity, is constructed on principles exactly similar to those which Urquhart divulged more than a hundred years prior to its invention in the preface to his ‘Universal Language.’ His fantastic and eccentric diction, which accurately reflects his personality, obscures in much of his writing his learning and his alertness of intellect. Urquhart's singularities of mind and style found, however, their affinity in Rabelais, and conspired to make his translation of the great French classic a universally acknowledged ‘monument of literary genius.’

Two portraits of Urquhart by Glover, both representing a man with flowing locks, attired in the height of cavalier foppery, were finely engraved by Lizars for the Maitland Club's edition of Urquhart's ‘Works’ in 1834.

Urquhart's works are: 1. ‘Epigrams, Divine and Moral. By Sir Thomas Urchard, Knight, London. Printed by Barnard Alsop and Thomas Fawcet in the yeare 1641, 4to, 34 leaves,’ with an engraved portrait by G. Glover as frontispiece (Brit. Mus.). Another edition for William Leake, 1646, 4to (Brit. Mus., Bodl., Huth). 2. ‘The Trissotetras: or a most Exquisite Table for Resolving all manner of Triangles … with Greater Facility than ever hitherto hath been Practised. … By Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie, knight. Published for the benefit of those that are mathematically affected.’ London, printed by James Young, 1645, 4to, with full-length portrait by Glover (Brit. Mus. copy has no portrait). It was reissued in 1650 as ‘The Most Easy