Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie, Knight

The Urquharts and their Predecessors in Cromartie—Sir Thomas Urquhart, senior—Birth of our —School and University Days—Pecuniary and other Troubles at Home—The Castle of Cromartie—Our 's Studious Bent—Foreign Travel—The Englishman Abroad—The Scot Abroad. 

HE right of Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie to be included in the list of famous Scots will scarcely be granted by many of his fellow-countrymen without some inquiry into the grounds upon which it is based. He himself, undoubtedly, would not have been backward in asserting his claim to such honourable distinction, though he would have entered a protest against the presence of some of those in whose company he would find himself. In the ecclesiastical and political controversies of the first half of the seventeenth century, he was, as an Episcopalian and a Cavalier, connected with the losing side, and, consequently, it is not to be expected that posterity should be so impartial as to cherish his name along with those of the victors in the conflict. It is to his literary, and not to his martial achievements, that he owes his fame. His translation of Rabelais is probably the most brilliant feat of the kind ever accomplished, and casts all his own original writings into the shade.