4 It is three years since my father, on deathbed in the chamber adjoyning, led my five brothers to swear, under pain of his everlasting curse and execration, to assist, concur with and serve me to the utmost of their power, industry and means, and to spare neither charge nor travel to release me from the undeserved bondage of the domineering Creditor, and extricate our crazed estate from the impestrements in which it hath been involved by his too good, too credulous, too hopeful nature; three years also since I voyaged beyond Byzantium, letting rents embank at home for the leniencing and clementizing of the Creditor.
5 It is one week since, homing it through London, I saw off the press my Trissotetras, wherein I lay the ground of an intirely new Science.
6 This day, having entered upon the family mansion, I discover that by false inept bailiffs and chamberlains, deputies and doers, my rents and receipts have been so embezzled, malingened, pauchled and mischarged that little or no moneys have accrued to me, while the creditors have sold their claims on the estate to usurers yet more fanged, pangastrical and Presbyterian than themselves. It is a well founded prevision of Jehovus that I am, since Neper of Marchiston, the foremost Apostle in Brittain of that Holy Minerva who inspired Moses, Aristotle, Julius Caesar and the mighty Rabelais, for were I not the wisest, therefor luckiest man I know, I would be the most miserably depressed and straightened. So I here cast an accompt of the great goods of my condition, balancing the bads against them to see which predominate.
spirit, or if they did, in what likeness they received him? To this both made reply that of all the nights they had ever enjoyed, it was that night respectively wherein the spirit was most intirely communicative in feats of dalliance, and that he acted in the guise of the boy and chambermaid whom I had appointed to await on them as they went to bed. This confirmed me in my former opinion, which certainly increased when I heard a short time after, that the imagination of two had become a regular fornication of four; by which (though I caused to punish them all) the fantasists were totally cured, who afterwards becoming yoke mates in wedlock to the two servants of our house, were in all times coming sound enough in fancie, and never more disquieted by diabolical apprehensions.
CONTRA SCOTIAM
Scotland would produce, for philosophy, astronomy, natural magick, poesie and other such like faculties, as able men as ever were:
Duns Scotus *
Sacroboscus *
Reginaldus Scotus *
and other compatriots of these three great Scots, whose name I do not insert in the roll of the rest, because they flourished before 1600. Only one Scot; of able intellectual parts, that I ever knew, had his sound mind unmobilated by money, and that through the corruptions of courtiership: Sir William Alexander, afterward Earl of Sterlin, who made an insertion to Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia, and composed several tragedies. He was born a poet, and aimed to be a king; therefor would he have his royal title from King James, who was born a king and aimed to be a poet; so Jamie Steward bestows on him the sovereignty of that tract of polar ice and rock recently named Nova Scotia. Had they stopped there, it had been well; but like King Arthur, he must have his knights, though not limited to so small a number. Whosoever wished to be a gentleman and gave King Sterlin one hundred and fifty Sterling pounds, could at once flaunt the orange riban to testify he was Knight Baronet. The King nevertheless, not to stain his royal dignity by awarding honour to meer wealth, also gave them land for their money at six pence an acre, which could not be thought very dear, considering how pretilly in the respective legal parchments of disposition they were described as fruitful corne land, watered with pleasant rivers running alongst most excellent and spacious meadows; and if they lacked an abundance of oaken groves in the midst of very fertil plains, it was the scrivener or writer’s fault; for his majestie ordered that, on the receipt of three thousand Scots marks, there should be no deficiency in quantity or quality, in measure or goodness of land, with here and there most delicious gardens and orchards and whatever else would be content their fancies, as if they were purchasing ground in the Elysian Fieldes, or Mahumet’s Paradise. And if the clerk writing the charter, on receipt of some small coin to himself, slipped in a thousand more acres than was agreed at first, he cared not. At last, when some two or three hundred Knights had among them purchased several million Neo-Caledonian acres, confirmed to them and their for ever under the great seal (the affixing thereof cost each of them but thirty pence more) finding that the company was not like to become more numerous, he bethought of a course more profitable for himself, and, without the advice of his Knights (who represented both his houses of parliament, clergy and all) like an absolute King indeed disponed heritably to the French both the dominion and property of the whole continent of that kingdom of Nova Scotia for a matter of five or six thousand pounds English.
And this is a true example of that charm, fascination, inchantment and infernal assistance of men’s imaginations by the gold of the Spanish conquerors, which makes many believe they may become magnates and grandees with no more labour than is needed to purchase a royal patent, fit a ship, navigate a passage, and plunder an astonished people by the power of artilleriendal assault. The followers of such adventurers may indeed reap good harvest abroad, but only by digging and planting, (in fear of the natives they have dispossessed) what could be cultivated at home with better advantage to themselves and their country. It is the greater readiness of Scottishmen to adventure abroad, rather than develop what we have, that is our nation’s ruin. By which I am reminded, that I have a certain harbour or bay, in goodness equal to the best in the world, adjacent to a place, which is the head town of the Shire; the shire and town being of one and the same name with the harbour or bay; whose promontaries on each side, vulgarly called Souters, from the Greek word σωτηρες, that is to say, Salvatores or Savers, from the safety that ships have when once they are entred within them, having had that name imposed on them by Nicobulus the Druyd, who came along with my predecessor Alypos in the dayes of Eborak, that founded York some 698 years before Ferguse the First; at which time that whole country, never before discovered by the Greeks, was named Olbion by the said Alypos.
This harbour, in all the Latine maps of Scotland, is called Portus Salutis; by reason that ten thousand ships together may within it ride in the greatest tempest that is as in a calm by vertue of which conveniency some exceeding rich men, of five or six several nations, masters of ships, and merchant adventurers, promised to bring their best vessels and stocks for trading along with them, and dwell in that my little town with me, who should have been a sharer with them in their hazard, and by subordinating factors to accompany them in their negotiations, admitted likewise for a partner in their profit and advantages.
By which means, the foresaid town of Cromarty, for so it is called, in a very short space, would have easily become the richest of any within threescore miles thereof; in the prosecuting of which designe, I needed not to question the hearty concurrence of Aberdeen, which, for honesty, good fashions and learning, surpasseth as far all other cities and towns in Scotland, as London doth for greatness, wealth, and magnificence, the smallest hamlet or village in England.
Nor was I suspicious of any considerable opposition in that project from any town, save Invernasse alone, whose magistrates, to the great dishonour of our whole nation, did most foully evidence their own baseness in going about to rob my town of its liberties and privileges.
Yet was that plague of flagilators, wherewith my house was infected, so pernicious to that purpose of mine, that some of them lying in wait, as a thief in the night, both for my person and means, cannibal-like to swallow me up at a breakfast; they did, by impediting the safety of my travelling abroad, arresting whatever they imagined I had right unto, inhibiting others from bargaining, most barbarously and maliciously cut off all the directory preparatives I had orderly digested for the advantage of a business of such main concernment, and so conducible to the weal of the whole Island, to the great discouragement of t
hose gallant forreners; of which that ever-renowned gentilman for wit and excellencie in many good parts, Sir Phillip Vernati by name, was one; who being of Italian parents, by birth a Dutchman, and by education expert in all the good languages of the Christian world, besides the Arabick and Sclavonian tongues, wherein he surpassed, had a great ascendent in counsel over all the adventrous merchants of what nation soever; whereof, without the foresaid lets of those barbarous obstructors, some by all appearance had so concurred with me, that by their assistance I would ere now have banished all idleness from the commons, maintained several thousands of persons of both sexes, from the infant to the decrepit age, found employments proportionable to their abilities, bastant to afford them both entertainment and apparel in a competent measure; educing from various multitudes of squameary flocks of several sizes, colours and natures, netted out of the bowels of the ocean both far and neer, and current of fresh water streams, more abundance of wealth than that whole country had obtained by such a commodity these many yeers past; erecting ergastularies for keeping at work many hundreds of persons in divers kindes of manufactures; bringing from beyond sea the skillfull’st artificers could be hired for money, to instruct the natives in all manner of honest trades; perswaded the most ingenious hammermen to stay with me, assuring them of ready coin for whatever they should be able to put forth to sale; addicting the abjectest of the people to the servitritiary duty of digging for coals and metals, of both which in my ground there is great appearance, and of the hitting of which I doubt as little, as of the lime and freestone quarries hard at my house of late found out, which have not been these two hundred years remarked; induced masters of husbandry to reside amongst my tenants, for teaching them the most profitable way, both for the manner and the season, of tilling, dig-
13 NOVEMBER 1651:
IN CUSTODY OF CAPTAIN ALSOP, THE TOWER OF WINDSOR CASTLE.
Logopandecteison is the name of that great work which, in my weary state, I could not recall, it being too large and near for recognition, as a man counting the chief features of his lands omits the tower he surveys them from, though that the chiefest feature of all.
2 This diurnal or day-book returns to me by the magnanimity of Master Braughton, an officer of Colonel Pryde’s regiment, who, perceiving it in the street-gutter of Worcester among a mixter-maxter of other papers, in a drizzling rain which had stuck the loose sheets fast to the ground, near by to a heap of seven and twenty dead men lying on one another, commanded that a servant of his take all up, cleanse off the mire and keep safe for his circumspection.
3 The separate sheets prove to be but a parcel of my preface to the Logopandecteison, over a thousand other manuscript pages of the grammar and lexicon, with mathematical, chronological, mythological, metaphysical and dialectical commentaries, all annotated for the printer, having been pillaged, pilfered, ravaged, robbed and rifled from seven large portmantles full of precious commodity, in the lodging I took at the house of Mr. Spilsbury, a very honest confectioner with a very good wife.
4 He learned that while the puritan souldiery were plundering the town, a string of exquisite sharks and clean shavers had broke into my baggage and, seizing the red cloaks, buff suits, armaments and other such rich chafer, straight dispersed my writings to their camerads outside for packeting up of raisins, figs, dates, almonds, caraway and other sweetmeat, while some did kindle pipes of tobacco with a great part while some did kindle pipes of tobacco with a great part thereof, and threw out all the remainder into the street, save what they reserved for inferiour employments and posteriour uses.
5 Of the dispersedly rejected bundles of paper most were gathered up by grocers, druggists, chandlers, pie-makers, or such as stood in need of any cartapaciatory utensil, to the utter undoing of the writing thereof, both in matter and order; so Master Braughton (who hath no cause to ly) doth inform me.
6 I lay for some hours in great dumps, though less sad than most of the Scots beaten, but not killed, in Worcester fight, for many thousands have been driven like cattel to London, and there inclosed in little room and treated with great rigour, many perishing for want of food, or dieing of all diseases, the survivors to be shipped to the American plantations and there sold as slaves. Is this not a new thing in warfare between Christian nations who talk with the same or similar tongues? But I am used with the clemency due to my rank, and talent, and the ransom they will get by me, though not called ransom, sequestration.
7 Since my last (and first) entry much has passed. The First Charles Steward has been uncapited to the middle bone in his neck. The rump of the Parliamentary party has proclaimed England a public thing, a res publica, a republick. For two years the Second Charles hath been King of Scotland only, and would be king there still, had not the Presbyterial part of his subjects decided to prove their faith in God by fighting the Cromwel army without their King’s advice, without help from allies who worship God differently, without obedience to their own general; for against orders they deserted a superior for an inferior place and engaged an out-manoeuvred enemy on such bad ground that the Almighty (who will not tolerate for ever those who scorn his Angel, commonsense) let them be slaughtered in great numbers. From which they drew this lesson, that their faith was not sufficiently pure. At last the King had no other course, but to leave Sterling, his securest Capital, and march upon England, there to recruit the saner support of the English Royalists. But at Worcester these did not join us. The Royal party in Brittain is utterly routed. The King escaped abroad. I did not. Perhaps Brittain will remain a public thing till the end of time.
8 It is growing clear to me that my future fame may be insured by this diurnal, if from now forward I each day indite in it a record of all public doings which reach my ear, or even eye, for my imprisonment is not strict. My parole allows me to wander some distance, and when I am moved to the Tower of London I will be within what is now, by grace of the army rather than God or parlement, the govourning Capital of the four ancient Kingdoms of England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland, with prospering colonies in Amerigo Vespucciland and many embattled trade-forts in the Barbadoes, East India, Malagask, Africa and Europe.
9 Who, loving knowledge, would not give all the wealth they possess, yea, and pawn their family inheritance till the end of time, to recover from the shades and hold in their hand, a daily record of things done, seen and heard by a percipient citizen of Periclean Athens, Caesarial Rome or any other heroickal time? How much more wealth would we give for such a diurnal in the manuscript of a Euclid, Vergil or Roland of Roncevalles?
10 Let me start, therefor, by stating that this morning
MIDSUMMER EVE 1653:
THE TOWER OF LONDON
This day concluded much. The Chief Secretary of State arrived soon after the board of this chamber had, by my command, been decked with wine, baked meats, pickles, fruit and other viands suited to a sckolastic colloquial symposiasmos, for his greek is not much inferiour to my own, though I exceed him utterly in power of invention, for like all politicians he is no philomathet, so cannot proconceive and concert well-measured symplasmical forms; in common english, his imagination is fanatick not poetick.
2 He entered to me peeringly, having the use of a single eye, and that a failing one, yet I saw it allowed him enough light to admire my figure, and this admiration I was able, in part, to return, for although neither of us very small men, we both lack that redundant height and girth which gross multitudes think commonplace: his manner also was pleasingly jocund and his voice familiar to my ear, for he pronounced his R, littera cannina, the latin dog-letter, extreme hard as we Scots do, a certain signe of a Satyricall Wit.
3 We furthered our amity by also discovering, beneath radically opposed views of church and state, an equal hatred of Presbyters (press-biters, he called them; I did not disclose that the like witticism had occurred to myself) I because of the malign difluence these coine-coursing collybists have cast upon my best endeavours, and because they have betrayed two kings, one of them unto death; he beca
use they have ignored or saught to censor his proposals to replace universities by simple, sensible foundations, and to make divorce of marriages an easy thing entirely dependant on the husband’s will, and also because (turning traitour to their own treason) they opposed the monarch’s juridicial apokakefalization.
4 He had himself been offered (I gathered) the office of state licenser of all Brittish bookes, and might be obliged to accept that post to prevent it falling into worse hands; though he was determined to pass without question every book submitted to him, excepting such as would foster naked libidinal lewdness and atheism.
5 He then turned the talk neatly to my own published Introduction to the Universal Language, prologueing his remarks with a disclaim, that he spoke as a publick officer; whereat I girded my intellects for a cruxiferous encounter.
6 I began by asserting that all men originally shared the same language, since mankind had been made in one place at one time: he nodded agreement.
7 And before I could say more, recited verbatim the first nine verses of the eleventh chapter of Genesis, first in the Hebrew, then (because he said, it contained no very glaring innacuracie) in that translitteration authorized for the press by King Jamie in 1608, the year of my birth.
And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.
4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of all the earth.
Every Short Story by Alasdair Gray 1951-2012 Page 12