A wild legend, the origin of which is unknown, but which is utterly baseless, asserts that Urquhart "was laureated poet at Paris before he was three and twenty years of age."[153] We could hardly conceive of any responsible authorities being so far "left to themselves" as to do a deed like this. The story may be either the misapplication to Urquhart of some vague tradition of one of the feats of his hero, the Admirable Crichton, or of what he himself has actually recorded of the poet, Arthur Johnston.[154] A modern critic, who has given Urquhart a full measure of praise, finds himself unable to say a word in favour of his poems. "This slender volume," he remarks, "gives not the slightest promise of talent. Its stanzas are indistinguished and indistinguishable. There is no reason why anyone should have written them, but, on the other hand, there is no reason why anyone should not. They express the usual commonplaces: the inevitableness of death, and the worth of endeavour. A mildly Horatian sentiment is dressed up in the tattered rags of Shakespearianism, and the surprise is that the author, whose prose is restrained by no consideration of sound or sense, should have deemed it worth while to print so tame a collection of exercises."[155] A favourable specimen of the _Epigrams_ is the following from the first book:-- "HOW DIFFICULT A THING IT IS TO TREAD IN THE PATHES OF VERTUE. "The way to vertue's hard, uneasie, bends Aloft, being full of steep and rugged alleys; For never one to a higher place ascends, That always keeps the plaine, and pleasant valleyes: And reason in each human breast ordaines That precious things be purchased with paines." Or take this from the opposite page:-- "WHEN A TRUE FRIEND MAY BE BEST KNOWNE. "As the glow-worme shines brightest in the darke And frankincense smells sweetest in the fire; So crosse adventures make us best remarke A sincere friend from a dissembled lyer; For some, being friends to our prosperity, And not to us, when it failes, they decay." The fault of obscurity, of which the poet Browning has been accused, could not be laid to the charge of Sir Thomas Urquhart. Nor can it be said of him that he neglects truths that are obvious, and occupies himself in discovering and bringing forward those that are recondite. The sentiments to which he gives utterance seem those which spontaneously occur to the average mind; on reading the subject of the poem, as given in the title, and then the poem itself, we think "A said whot a owt to 'a said," and we come away without any feverish mental agitation or accelerated movement of pulse.[156]