"Wouldst thou in safety trace ethereal ways, Or plough with daring keel the briny deep; Shouldst thou earth's wide expanses long to span, Come hither, make this learned book thine own. By it, without Dædalian wings, canst fly, And without Neptune, through the depths canst swim; By it thou canst subdue the Lybian heat, And bear the cruel cold of Scythian skies. On, Thomas! Scotia, whom unto the stars Thy writings raise, will yet rejoice in thee." [174] _Works_, p. 146. _N.B._--The attention of professional critics is respectfully directed to the above passage. CHAPTER V ΠΑΝΤΟΧΡΟΝΟΧΑΝΟΝ, OR THE PEDIGREE One of the most characteristic of Sir Thomas Urquhart's works is his ΠΑΝΤΟΧΡΟΝΟΧΑΝΟΝ: or, A Peculiar PROMPTUARY of TIME.[175] This contains a complete pedigree of the Urquhart family from the creation of the world down to the year A.D. 1652. Prefixed to it is a letter to the reader by "a well-wisher," whose initials are G. P., into whose hands the pedigree had fallen by mere chance, and who had thought himself bound in duty to the public to see it safely through the press. According to the statements of this disinterested philanthropist, the work in question was but one of a large number of papers of very great importance, forming part of the author's baggage, which he had to abandon after the battle of Worcester. It is the habit, we know, of impecunious and importunate wayfarers to carry about with them documents of interest to which they solicit attention; but why a man in Sir Thomas Urquhart's position should have gone on a campaign, encumbered by various unpublished works in manuscript, it is difficult to say. Perhaps the simplest explanation is that he was different from other people. The soldiers of Cromwell, we were told, made but light of this portion of the enemy's baggage, after "the fatal blowe given to the Royal party at Worcester"; indeed, but for "a surpassing honest and civil officer of Colonel Pride's regiment," the pedigree of the Urquharts would have been used by "a file of musquettiers to afford smoak to their pipes of tobacco."[176]