Niceron enumerates no fewer than twenty-nine works by him. Among them are: 1. ‘In felicem Ser. Poloniæ Regis inaugurationem Congratulatio,’ Paris, 1573, 4to. This is a poem on the election of Henri de Valois, duc d'Anjou. 2. ‘Selectiores notæ in Epigrammata è libro primo Græcæ Anthologiæ decerpta, et Latino carmine reddita,’ Paris, 1584, 4to. 3. ‘Laudatio funebris habita in exequiis Petri Ronsardi,’ Paris, 1586, 4to. 4. ‘Oratio de Apollinis Oraculis et de sacro Principis oraculo,’ Paris, 1596, 8vo. 5. ‘De Sortibus Homericis Oratio,’ Paris, 1597, 8vo. 6. ‘In Oppianum de Venatione prefatio,’ Paris, 1598, 8vo. 7. ‘Orationes duæ habitæ in auditorio regio, anno 1608,’ Paris, 1609, 8vo. One of these is on the laws of Draco and Solon, and the other on the title ‘De Judiciis’ in Harmenopulus.
[Niceron's Mémoires, xxxvii. 346–57; Moreri's Dict. Historique; Cat. of Printed Books in Brit. Mus.]
CRICHTON, JAMES, surnamed The Admirable (1560–1585?), born, probably at Eliock, on 19 Aug. 1560, was elder son of Robert Crichton of Eliock, Dumfriesshire, by his first wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir James Stewart of Beath, and Margaret, daughter of John, lord Lindsay, of the Byres. His mother traced her descent to the royal line of Scotland, and was related to many of the chief Scottish families. Robert Crichton, the father, descended from the Crichtons of Sanquhar, acted as lord advocate of Scotland jointly with John Spens from 1562 to 1573, and with David Borthwick from 1573 to 1581. On 1 Feb. 1581 he became sole advocate and senator of the College of Justice. He was at one time suspected of favouring the cause of Queen Mary; hence his slow promotion. He inherited the estate of Eliock, Dumfriesshire, and in 1562 was presented by a kinsman, Robert Crichton (of the Crichtons of Nauchton, Fifeshire), bishop of Dunkeld, with the estate of Cluny, Perthshire. Cluny was the property of the see of Dunkeld; but the chapter, anticipating a forfeiture by the crown, consented to the alienation. On 11 May 1566 the bishop granted a charter in which James (the Admirable) Crichton was designated the heir to the property, and this arrangement was confirmed by the next bishop on 22 March 1576. The father fell ill in June 1582, and made his will 18 June. Nine days later David m'Gill was appointed to succeed him as a lord advocate and senator. But from the fact that confirmation of his testament was not granted till 1586, it may be doubted whether he died, as the ordinary authorities state, in 1582. He married thrice. His first wife, the mother of the famous James and of a younger son, Robert, died before 1572; his second wife was Agnes, daughter of John Mowbray of Barnbougall; his third wife, Isobell Borthwick, survived him (see Brunton and Haig, College of Senators, p. 176; Omond, Lord Advocates of Scotland, i. 27–37; Proceedings of Soc. of Antiquaries of Scotland (1855), ii. 103–18).
Young Crichton was first educated either at Perth or Edinburgh, and in 1570, at the age of ten, entered St. Salvator's College, St. Andrews, where he proceeded A.B. 20 March 1573–4, and A.M. in 1575. Hepburn, Robertson, Rutherford, and George Buchanan were his chief tutors, and his studies covered the widest possible range. Sir Alexander Erskine, James VI's governor, married a relative of Crichton, and invited him about 1575 to become a fellow-pupil with the young king under George Buchanan. On 20 June 1575 Crichton signed a deed granting certain rights in the property of Cluny which was entailed upon him to his kinsman the Bishop of Dunkeld. The document is extant among the Cluny archives, now the property of the Earl of Airlie, and contains Crichton's only known signature. He subscribes himself ‘Mr. James Creichtone.’ In 1577 Crichton resolved to travel abroad. Although only seventeen his intellect seemed fully developed. He was reputed by foreign admirers to be master of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldaic, Italian, Spanish, French, Flemish, German, Scottish, and English. His memory was such that anything that he once heard or read he could repeat without an error. Nor were his accomplishments as a fencer and as a horseman stated to be less remarkable. It is very probable that he arrived at Paris at the end of 1577. That he visited France is undoubted, but the details are not very well ascertained. According to Sir Thomas Urquhart, a fanciful seventeenth-century writer, whose facts are to be treated with caution, Crichton gave proof of his precocity at Paris by issuing placards announcing that in six weeks he should present himself at the College of Navarre to answer orally in any one of twelve languages whatever question might be proposed to him ‘in any science, liberal art, discipline, or faculty, whether practical or theoretic.’ The appointed day arrived, and the youth acquitted himself admirably, to the astonishment of a crowded audience of students and professors. The next day he was victorious in a tilting match at the Louvre. Contemporary authorities are silent as to all this, but state that he enlisted in the French army. After less than two years' service he retired in 1579 and went to Genoa, where he arrived in a destitute condition in July. This is the
