Maitland Club > Works of Sir Thomas Urquhart

328 LOGOPANDECTEISION.
of the most faithfull, are oftentimes impedited from soaring to their intended height.
because of the clog of worldly incumbrances which depresseth them.
Xunquam 25. Even so may it be said of my self, that when I was most seriously imbusied
ptditati"^ aD0Ut tne ra i sm g of mv owto and countrie's reputation to the supremest reach of my
tis, nam cu- endeavours, then did my father's creditors, like so many millstones hanging at my
Ml est satis! nee ' s ' P u " down the vigour of my fancie, and violently hold at under what other wayes
would have ascended above the sublimest regions of vulgar conception.
mS "tins 26- ^ 1US * Dem £' as anotner Andromeda, chained to the rock of hard usage, and in
nullum est the view of all my compatriots, exposed to the merciless dragon usurie, I most humbly
KenuTquod Deseecn tne soveraign authority of the countrey, like another Perseus mounted on the
iam auri winged Pegasus of respect to the weal and honour thereof, to releeve me, by their
piditate in- P ower J f rom tne eminent danger of the jaws of so wild a monster.
tahescat. 27. Which maketh the very meanest and most frivolous summe of any, like the
.... _ „ giant Ephialtes, who grew nine inches every moneth, immensely to spread forth its
Art. )!. In. exuberant members, without any other sustenance or nourishment then the meer invi-
i ami1lat,lr sible flux of time, thatstarveth all things else, until it extend it self at last to a mighty
Jucro avari- o * o J
tia et ncr. huge Colossus of debt, able, like that of the Rhodes, to take fastning upon two terri-
^* lories at once.
dus quos. 28. And in recompence of a so illustrious and magnificent action, unto the State oi
ditatis ha- tn ^ s land, as fittest patron for such a present, will I tender some of the aforesaid move-
bet, et quo ables, whose value I doe warrantably make account to be of no less extent then in the
cenderit eo estimation of all the universities of both nations, and other pregnant spirits of approved
ad altiora literature, shall centuplate the worth of the whole money, that for debt can be asked
unde fit by those creditors, out of the profoundest exorbitancy of their covetousness.
^raviov 29. By my appealing thus to a judicatorie, conflated of the prime lights of the Isle,
Mtro. and who, as all wise men else, do more magnifie and extoll the endowments of the
mind, then those of either body or fortune, it is very perceptible unto which of these
three branches of good this offer of mine is to be reduced.
30. No man will deny, that is not destitute of common sense, but that Scotus and
Sacrobosco brought more reputation to Scotland by their learned writings, then if they
had enriched it with gallioons loaded full of gold, and that it had been better for that
nation to have lost many millions of angels then that, through penurie or any other
accident, the workes of those gallant men had been buried in oblivion.
31. For as in both body and mind, the instruments of the nobler faculties are
esteemed of the greater value, so in a politick incorporation so much the more should
be respected and dignified the advancers of the reputation thereof, then the accrescers
of its wealth, that of the three degrees of goodness, the qualifications of the mind
have the precedency.
Cum ava- 32. And although there be legions in Scotland of those Gadarenal swine that will
ritia alicui
dominant! prefer the taste of a skyball to the fragrancy of the most odiferous jasmin, who also