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.