ever, he paraded on every titlepage of his books-baron of Muiresk and a claim which he prosecuted fitfully for many years, being, as he says, much handicapped by his steadfast adhesion to Romanism: but whether he was born in that faith or adopted it later in life he nowhere vouchsafes to tell us. As to the parricidal brother, his career was lurid. He turned pirate, burned the Bishop of Orkney out of house and home, and after repudiating his "impure Medea" of a wife, betook himself to the lowlands of Holland, the refuge at that time of such wastrels, entered some army or other, and for having assaulted his colonel was torn in pieces by wild horses. The cup of poetic justice is filled up by the fate of Medea, for whom an entirely new disease was devised, of which she died in torment, seven children and all.

From these family jars Thomas was fortunately removed. Feuds with Currers and the Grants had long before rendered the paternal roof no safe shelter for a child, and at the age of three he was sent to rusticate with relatives in the country. There he says he learned all the elements (apparently the alphabet) in a single hour, and was then sent to school at Turriff, where for a while he groaned under the lash of a furious martinet named Ogston, no doubt a forbear of the suffragette "Lady Lady with the whip," and then received some real instruction from a well-known schoolmaster, Thomas Cargill of Aberdeen, Still maintaining

his reputation as a "wonderchild," he proceeded to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, at the age of ten. In comparison with this, Wolsey's graduation at fifteen seems a poor thing. But at Cambridge Dempster made no long stay: it is possible that the conversion of the child was one of the trophies of the Romanist propaganda there: at all events, from henceforth he appears as a zealous adherent of the Roman Church, and to study under that Church's auspices he now betook himself, with a tutor, to France. Landing at Calais, he fell among thieves, lost his tutor by death, and all his possessions at the hands of marauding French soldiers. Thus stripped and destitute, he made his way to Montreux, where he was succoured by Walter Bruce, a Scot in the French service, and forwarded on to Paris, where other kindly compatriots helped him to begin his studies. Almost immediately he fell a victim to one of the maladies which were endemic in the squalid colleges of the University, and though his powerful physique enabled him to throw off the disease, he very sensibly changed his quarters, and made his way through lands impartially devastated by French and Spanish troops to Louvain, where the great Justus Lipsius was illuminating the University.

If Dempster heard him, it was not for long: he was presently selected by William Crichton, Principal of the Scots College, as one of four promising youths who were to be sent to Rome to study under

the Pope's own eye. Thither Thomas went, and on the road gained an idea of the miseries which war and pestilence-precursors of the hideous Thirty Years' devastation had inflicted on the fairest lands of Europe. But no sooner had he set to work on "poetry" at Rome than disease again seized him, and the Italian physicians, with a common-sense rare in their profession and in their times, instead of bleeding him to death, ordered him North again. North he went, enduring unheard-of toils among Swiss mountains on the way, and at Tournay fell in with James Cheyne, who had been famous as 8 rector of the Romanist College at Douai. Under his patronage, and with the help of a bursary granted him by Spain through the genial and kindly viceroy at Brussels, Archduke Albert of Austria, Thomas was enabled to study at the great seminary for three years. Here he began what was literally to him the battle of life he must needs publish a very scurrilous poem on the English Jezebel. Zealous Romanists as the students were, there were British hearts under the soutanes of Douai, and they must have beat fast at the news of the defeat of the dogs of Seville by their own co-religionist, Howard of Effingham. At all events they would not hear Gloriana insulted, and the good hater had to be protected from violence by "ecclesiastical authority." He took a degree indeed, but he had made the Netherlands too hot to hold him, and he journeyed back to Paris, where, at the age of

sixteen, as he assures us, he became a professor in the College of Navarre.

He seems to

From Paris, he says, he received a summons to the University of Toulouse, but, "starting too late," found himself at Saint Maixent, in Poitou, not exactly on the direct route. Here he published a Latin tragedy called "Stilicho," in the style then fashionable-an imitation of the dull iambics of Seneca; but to Toulouse he finally got, and at once became involved in controversy. have lit upon & town and gown row of no ordinary magnitude, and defending the privileges of the University with more zeal than discretion had to move on again, and this time, to the no small damage of his reputation as a faithful son of the Church, he fell among Protestants, being elected to a professorship of eloquence in the Huguenot Academy of Nismes. He gives no explanation: his whole concern is with the iniquitous conduct of Jacob Grasser of Basle, a rejected candidate, who, in the fashion of the times, took up arms to vindicate his claims: it seems very much as if Jacob had been a Protestant who felt aggrieved by the appointment of a Romanist. But he had mistaken his man. He was beaten in every arena, of arms and law alike, and finally was "cast into prison by the friends of Thomas," a statement which appears to indicate that the springs of justice had somehow been befouled. some reason or other the victorious Dempster found Nismes

But for

uncomfortable as a place of residence, and on he went again, this time to Spain: he must have been close upon twenty by now.

Spain traversed, he undertook the tutorship of a youthful abbot, Arthur d'Espinay, afterwards Bishop of MarMarseilles, and with him he succeeded well, but as usual terminated his employment with an altercation with a relative of his pupil at Breisach. He had now quarrelled in nearly every country of Western Europe, and it occurred to him that he had still a very pretty little wrangle awaiting him in Scotland whenever he chose to take it up. Thither he repaired, but could effect little by way of recovery of his estates on account of his religious opinions, so he says. Yet, should he leave the land without breaking a lance with some one? William Cowper, a base man and a turncoat to Episcopacy, was his victim. For three days he belaboured the runagate with arguments at Perth till the latter was hissed by his own crew of sectaries, and would have had to flee the country (had he been betting on the result and could not pay, we wonder) had he not been protected by stout heretic lords, his kinsmen. But even so, he was shamed through all his nature to have been beaten in theological controversy by a mere jurist, and when he published an account of the controversy (what did he do that for if he was beaten?) basely concealed the name of his adversary, like "the vile slave of Calvin, the very mouth

piece of Satan, and incarnation of impurity" that he was.

To all this there is an obverse side, which makes us regret that we have not poor Jacob Grasser's account of that little affair at Nismes. Cowper, about whom Thomas's remarks are not altogether undeserved, did publish an account of an (imaginary) argument between himself and a Romanist champion, but it is a seven days' contest, and of course the Papist is pulverised. What truth underlies Thomas Dempster's statement it is difficult to say. Whether in invective or invention he was always thorough. But Scotland could yield him no further laurels, and he returned to Paris, where he acted as regent in four colleges successively- those of Lisieux, Des Grassins, Du Plessis, and Beauvais,- which may mean that he was a very successful teacher, or quite the reverse.

At the college of Beauvais he created for himself the most picturesque situation in which he ever appears. During the absence of the principal he was left in charge as vicegerent, and there he had an opportu nity which he was not likely to miss. In spite of the diet of herring and onions imposed on the students, in some colleges at least, where, to quote the most recent chronicler of that sordid academic life, "Delicacy spelt death," the lads had some spirit left in them. They would have been no Frenchmen if they could not at times fight a duel or two. One of the alumni of Beauvais challenged a companion to fight, and Dempster

found it out. He had not had the advantage of reading another William Cowper's warnings as to "the punishment of tyros of eighteen," and he was nothing if not thorough. He had the culprit horsed, untrussed his points, and birched him with all pomp and circumstance. It was a terrible indignity for a youth who had just proposed to give proof of manhood, and the outraged victim called in his kinsmen, three officers of the King's Guard, who made a regular organised attack on the college. the college. But this was meat and drink for Dempster. The assailants began by tethering their horses outside—a bad piece of strategy and then burst in. Thomas armed porters and pedells, gyps, scouts, and bedmakers, and overwhelmed the invaders. Their horses he caused to be either hamstrung or killed (we trust the latter), and after half-throttling the three officers, laid them by the heels in the belfry of the college. Now, as usual, comes in the obverse of the medal. Instead of enjoying the fruits of victory, Dempster had to flee the country. He says he left to become historiographer royal to the King of England. The Irish in Paris, of whom we shall hear more presently, said he fled to avoid inquiries into his ways and works in the college.

-

In England he hints he might have obtained preferment had it not been for opposition to him as a sturdy Romanist, especially on the part of Richard Mountague, the famous Bishop of Bath and

not

Wells. There seems no reason to doubt his word, though we may discount the sturdiness of his Romanism. In his progress from university to university a kind of Crichton without Crichton's graces-he had already achieved a European reputation, and the whilome professor of eloquence at Huguenot Nismes was likely to hesitate over concessions which would have qualified him for a rich English sinecure. But it was not to be: he got nothing from England but a gift in money from the king, and a wife-"always a bad bargain," adds his scandalous Boswell; and unhappily Susanna Valeria (Susan Waller she may have been, so Latinised) proved to be such. Thomas left her at home when he left England, and it had been better for him had she remained there. But now he entered on the most prosperous period of his stormy life. To Rome he went, harassed on his way by the minions of those three outraged officers of the king's guard, whose open attacks, as he puts it, merely "accelerated his journey." For open fisticuffs he was always ready; but at Rome he found more subtle and dangerous enemies. Some one, probably on account of his dallyings with the Anglican Church, had delated him to the Pope as the bearer of "secret letters," and when he arrived he was promptly clapt in prison, for one night's "honourable tody" only, as he tells us. But he rose triumphant over his detractors, and armed with testimonials from Pope and

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