Montaigne is doubtless principally responsible for the egotistic, rambling reflections of Burton and Browne. In Urquhart. the still more egotistical and much more eccentric Scotchman, Sir Thomas Urquhart[1] (1611-1660?), was found a felicitous translator of the other great French prose author of the sixteenth century. Indeed Urquhart translated Rabelais rather too literally into his own conduct and serious, or professedly serious, writings. Educated at Aberdeen, he spent some years abroad, when apparently he studied the histories of Gargantua and Pantagruel with the same perfervid enthusiasm as Drummond earlier had felt for Petrarch and Marino and Ronsard. On his return, he devoted such time as he could spare from struggles with creditors and the support of the royalist cause (for which he appeared in arms at the Trot of Turriff and the Battle of Worcester) to writings on very miscellaneous subjects, including epigrams and a treatise on trigonometry, but mainly concerned with himself, his pedigree, his learned projects, his persecutions at the hands of his creditors, and the famous exploits of the Scot abroad. His translation of the first two books of Rabelais' work appeared in 1653. The third by Pierre Antoine Motteux was not issued till 1693.
There was certainly a streak of madness in Urquhart, but there was also a strain of genius. His command of language is extraordinary, and shows to advantage
- ↑ Life, written with scholarship and humour by the Rev. John Willcock, Edin., 1899. Works, ed. Maitland Club, Edin., 1854. Rabelais, ed. Charles Whibley (Tudor Translations), Lond., 1900.
