Maitland Club > Works of Sir Thomas Urquhart

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glas, who to the States of Holland was often times serviceable, in discharging the
office and duty of general engineer ; whereof they are now so sensible, that, to have
him alive againe, and of that vigour and freshness in body and spirit, wherewith he
was endowed in the day he was killed on, they would give thrice his weight in gold ;
and well they might ; for some few weeks before the fight wherein he was slaine, he
presented to them twelve articles and heads of such wonderful feats for the use of the
wars both by sea and land, to be performed by him, flowing from the remotest springs
of mathematical secrets, and those of natural philosophy, that none of this age saw,
nor any of our fore-fathers ever heard the like, save what out of Cicero, Livy, Plu-
tarch, and other old Greek and Latin writers we have couched, of the admirable in-
ventions made use of by Archimedes in defence of the city of Syracusa, against the
continual assaults of the Romane forces both by sea and land, under the conduct of
Marcellus. To speak really, I think there hath not been any in this age of the Sco-
tish nation, save Neper and Crichtoun, who, for abilities of the minde in matter of
practical inventions useful for men of industry, merit to be compared with him ; and
yet of these two, notwithstanding their excellency in learning, I would be altogether
silent, because I made account to mention no other Scotish men here, but such as
have been famous for souldiery, and brought up at the schoole of Mars, were it not
that, besides their profoundness in literature, they were inriched with military qualifi-
cations beyond expression. As for Neper, otherwayes designed Lord Marchiston, he
is for his logarithmical device so compleatly praised in that preface of the author's,
which ushers a trigonometrical book of his, intituled The Trissotetras, that to add any
more thereunto, would but obscure with an empty sound, the clearness of what is al-
ready said ; therefore I will allow him no share in this discourse, but in so far as con-
cerneth an almost incomprehensible device, which being in the mouths of the most of
Scotland, and yet unknown to any that ever was in the world but himself, deserveth
very well to be taken notice of in this place ; and it is this : he had the skill, as is
commonly reported, to frame an engine, for invention not much unlike that of Archi-
tas Dove, which, by vertue of some secret springs, inward resorts, with other imple-
ments and materials fit for the purpose, inclosed within the bowels thereof, had the
power, if proportionable in bulk to the action required of it, for he could have made it
of all sizes, to clear a field of four miles circumference, of all the living creatures ex-
ceeding a foot of hight, that should be found thereon, how neer soever they might be
to one another ; by which means he made it appear that he was able, with the help of
this machine alone, to kill thirty thousand Turkes, without the hazard of one Chris-
tian. Of this it is said, that, upon a wager, he gave proof upon a large plaine in
Scotland, to the destruction of a great many herds of cattel, and flocks of sheep,
whereof some were distant from other half a mile on all sides, and some a whole mile.
To continue the thred of the story, as I have it, I must not forget, that, when he
was most earnestly desired by an old acquaintance and professed friend of his, even