'Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba,'
he has an exuberance of wit and playfulness of fancy that amply redeem his tendency to fanfaronade." Our readers have abundance of material before them for coming to a decision upon this question.
[144] See p. 85.
[145] Works, p. 226.
[146] Sir Theodore Martin, Rabelais, p. xx.
[147] In Granger's Biographical Dictionary (1779), this portrait is described erroneously, as Sir Thomas Urquhart is said in it to be dressed in armour. Probably the description was given from memory. In the second volume of Bohn's edition of Rabelais, the frontispiece is a half-length portrait of the translator, evidently reproduced from the above. The effect, however, is highly disagreeable, and the likeness must have produced an unfavourable opinion of our author in the minds of most of those who have looked upon it.
[148] In this engraving, which is our frontispiece, the Greek inscription runs thus: τοις σε πεμψασιυ και προστατασιυ ειχαριστω, and means, "I thank those who sent you and gave the order." These words are, of course, addressed to the messenger who has been commissioned by the Muses to convey the wreath to Sir Thomas. Above the wreath itself is an obscure phrase—Mουσαρυ[μ] στόλοϛ—which is evidently a mixture of Latin and Greek, musarum στολοϛ (=ἀπόστολοϛ?), "messenger of the muses." It may, however, be that στολος is to be taken as "equipment" or "decoration," as referring to the wreath. The courage with which Greek and Latin forms are mixed up, and an old word despatched on its way with a new meaning, of which this brief phrase gives evidence, is highly characteristic of Cromartian Greek. For further illustration of the peculiarities of this local variety or Hellenic speech, see p. 149.
[149] Sir Thomas, therefore, claims by anticipation the titles of Baron and Sheriff, which were afterwards to be his.
[150] This use of the quills is referred to in the following passage in Sir Thomas Urquhart's Epigrams (MS.):—
"The Invocation to Clio.
Book 2.