The sentiments which, from his own account, had, on more occasions than one, filled his mind, are expressed in the piece entitled "The generous Speech of a Noble Cavallier After he had disarmed his Adversary at the Single Combat." They are as follows:—
"Though with my raper, for the guerdon
Your fault deserveth, I may pierce ye,
Your penitence in craving pardon,
Transpassions my revenge in mercy;
And wills me both to end this present strife,
And give you leave in peace t' enjoy your life."
Another Epigram, which one critic regards as Urquhart's chef d'œuvre in this kind of composition. is the following:—
"Take man from woman, all that she can show
Of her own proper, is nought else but wo."[157]
In a letter of commendation prefixed to his next work, The Trissotetras, Sir Thomas Urquhart says of himself: "This Mathematicall tractate doth no lesse bespeak him a good Poet and Orator, then [than] by his elaboured poems he hath showne himselfe already a good Philosopher and Mathematician." This self-criticism is all that could be desired. A work on mathematics that proves an author's possession of poetical and rhetorical gifts, and a volume of poetry which leads one to think that the singer is an accomplished mathematician, are gifts with which the world is but seldom favoured, and as it is likely that their merits will not instantly be observed, the zeal of the author in calling our attention to them is by no means unnecessary. But when he goes on to say, still speaking of himself in the third person, "The Muses never yet inspired sublimer conceptions in a more refined stile then [than] is to be found in the accurate strain of his most ingenious Epigrams," we feel that he is less felicitous. His first shot has hit the blank, but the second is wide of the target altogether.
In his dedication of the volume to "the Marquis of Hamilton, Earle of Arren and Cambridge, etc.," he describes its contents as "but flashes of wit." A modern reader will probably, however, be inclined to think that this modest opinion of them is far too flattering. At times there is a faint suggestion of a possible gleam of brightness, but this is instantly followed by Egyptian darkness, and one is reminded of a revolving light that has somehow gone wrong.
The volume closes with the somewhat liturgical formula, "Here end the first three Bookes of Sir Thomas Vrchard's Epigrams," and with a doxology, the latter being almost the only trace of matter in it to justify the use of "Divine" in the title. The author was evidently prepared to go on with more "bookes" of the kind, if he got any encouragement from publishers or public, but, probably, both thought it about time for him to stop. The fact that, in five years after this volume of poems had appeared, a second edition should apparently have been brought out, would seem at first to indicate that there must have been some little run upon the Epigrams. But the truth of the matter is, that one "William Leake" had evidently got the "remainder," and issued them in 1646 with a new title-page.
In the Introductory Notice to Sir Theodore Martin's edition of Rabelais, some information is given concerning a folio volume of unpublished Epigrams by Urquhart, which is still in existence.[158] It consists of ten books, called after Apollo and the Muses, each containing 110 Epigrams, except the last, which has 113. The MS. is dedicated to the Marquis of Hamilton; but, in addition to this, each book has a separate dedication to some one of the author's political associates or friends. The persons thus honoured are the Marquis of Huntly, the Earl of Arundel, the Earl of Northumberland, the Earl of Pembroke, the Earl of Dorset, the Earl of Holland, the Earl of Newcastle, the Earl of Stafford, Lord Craven, and Lord Gaurin (Gowran). According to the custom of that time, the reader finds his progress barred by several prefaces, respectively named, in this instance, as the "Isagoge," or "Introduction," the "Premonition," and the "Prolog," and cannot get away without a "Corollarie," an "Animadversion," several extra leaves of verses, "A Table for the more easie finding out of such Epigrams as treat of one subject," an "Index," and a "List of proper names." For one of these latter he has reason to be grateful to Sir Thomas, for the "Index" is a glossary of "the harshest and most difficult words contained in the preceding Epigrams."
Fac-simile of Sir Thomas Urquhart's handwriting considerably reduced.