“The character of Sir Thomas Urquhart,” says a modern critic, “was singular in the extreme. To all the bravery of the soldier and learning of the scholar, he added much of the knight-errant, and more of the _visionnaire_ and projector. Zealous for the honour of his country, and fully determined to wage war, both with his pen and his sword, against all the defaulters who disgraced it--credulous yet sagacious--enterprising but rash, he appears to have chosen the Admirable Crichton as his pattern and model for imitation. For his learning he may be denominated the Sir Walter Raleigh of Scotland, and his pedantry was the natural fruit of erudition deeply engrained in his mind. To this I may add, he possessed a disposition prone to strike out new paths in knowledge, and a confidence in himself that nothing could weaken or disturb. In short, the characters of the humorist, the braggadocio, the schemer, the wit, the pedant, the patriot, the soldier, and the courtier, were all intermingled in his, and, together, formed a character which can hardly ever be equalled for excess of singularity, or excess of humour--for ingenious wisdom, or entertaining folly.” He is described by another writer as “not only one of the most curious and whimsical, but one of the most powerful also, of all the geniuses our part of the island has produced.” He was unquestionably an extraordinary man. There occur in some characters anomalies so striking, that, on their first appearance, they surprise even the most practised in the study of human nature. By a careful process of analysis, however, we may arrive, in most instances, at what may be regarded as the simple elements which compose them, and see the mystery explained. But it is not thus with the character of Sir Thomas. Anomaly seems to have formed its very basis, and the more we analyse the more inexplicable it appears. It exhibits traits so opposite, and apparently so discordant, that the circumstance of their amazing contrariety renders him as decidedly an original as the Caliban of Shakspere.