HEPBURN, James Bonaventura, of the order of the Minims, said to have been an extensive linguist, lexicographer, grammarian, and biblical commentator. When the historian and biographer happens within the range of his subjects, to find accounts of occurrences evidently problematical, and as evidently based on truths, while he can discover no data for the separation of truth from falsehood, his critical powers are taxed to no inconsiderable extent. There are three several memoirs of the individual under consideration. The first is to be found in the Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Scotorum, of Dempster, an author whose veracity we have already had occasion to characterize. Another is in the Lives of Scots Writers, by Dr George M'Kenzie, a work to which we have made occasional allusions, and which shall hereafter receive due discussion; and the third is in the European Magazine for 1795, from the pen of Dr Lettice. Dempster's account is short and meagre, except in the enumeration of the great linguist's works; the second is as ample as any one need desire; and the third adds nothing to the two preceding, except the facetious remarks of the author. Among other authorities which might have given some account of his writings, or at least hinted at the existence of such a person, all we can discover bearing reference to any of his twenty-nine elaborate works, is the slight notice we shall presently allude to. According to M'Kenzie, "Dempster says that he is mentioned with great honour by Vincentius Blancus, a noble Venetian in his Book of Letters;" on reference to Dempster, the apparently extensive subject shrinks into "De Literis in manubrio cultelli sancti Petri." Now we might have suspected that Dempster had intended to perpetrate a practical joke in the choice of a name, had we not, after considerable research, discovered that there is such a discussion on the pen knife of St Peter in existence, from the pen of Vincerizo Bianchi, a Venetian;[1] to this rare work, however, we have not been so fortunate as to obtain access, the only copy of it, of which we have been enabled to trace the existence, being in the library of the British museum, and we must leave the information it may afford on the life of Hepburn to some more fortunate investigator. M'Kenzie farther states that "he is highly commended by that learned Dr of the canon law, James Gafferel, in his book of Unheard of Curiosities;" on turning to this curious volume, we find the author "highly recommending" Heurnius and his book, "Antiquitatum Philosophise Barbaricae."[2] But unfortunately for the fame of our linguist, the author of that book was Otho Heurnius, or Otho Van Heurn, a native of Utrecht, and son arid successor to the celebrated physician Ian Van Heurn. We now turn with some satisfaction to the only firm ground we have, on which to place the bare existence of Hepburn as an author. In the Bibliotheca Latin o-Hebraica of Imbonatus,[3] amidst the other numberless forgotten books and names, it is mentioned in a few words that "Bonaventura Hepbernus Scotus ord. min." wrote a small Hebrew lexicon, printed in duodecimo: its description shows it to have been a small and trifling
- ↑ Vincenzo Bianchi Parere intorno alii caratteri che sono sopra il manico del coltello di S. Pietro, 4to, Ven., 1620.
- ↑ Jacobi Gattarelli Curiositatcs inauditse, de figuris Persarum talismanicis, cum notis, &c., ex editione Gregorii Michaelis, Hamb, 1676, 2 vols., 12mo, vide pp. 22, 35, 61, 134.
- ↑ Bibliotheca Latino-Hebraica, sive de sciiploribus Latinis, qui ex diversis nationibus, contra Judseos, vel de re Hebraica utcumque scripsere, &c. auct. et vend. D. Carolo Joseph. Imbonato, Mediolanensi, p. 14.
editor, Dr Irving, abridged the above article. In the Lives of Scottish Worthies, Mr P. P. Tytler has entered at considerable length into the merits of Henryson's poetry, of which he gives copious extracts. He says "of the works of this remarkable man it is'diflicult, when we consider the period in which they were written, to speak in terms of too warm encomium. In strength, and sometimes even in sublimity of painting, in pathos and sweetness, in the variety and beauty of his pictures of natural scenery, in the vein of quiet and playful humour, which runs through many of his pieces, and in that fine natural taste, which rejecting the faults of his age, has dared to think for itself he is altogether excellent."
