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DEMPSTER, THOMAS, a learned
professor and miscellaneous writer, was born at Brechin, in the shire of
Angus, sometime in the latter part of the sixteenth century. Of his family
or education nothing certain has been preserved, farther than that he
studied at Cambridge. In France, whither he went at an early period of his
life, and where probably he received the better part of his education, he
represented himself as a man of family, and possessed of a good estate,
which he had abandoned for his religion, the Roman catholic. He was
promoted to a professor’s chair at Paris, in the college of Beauvais.
Bayle says, that though his business was only to teach a school, he was as
ready to draw his sword as his pen, and as quarrelsome as if he had been a
duellist by profession; scarcely a day passed, he adds, in which he did
not fight either with his sword or at fisty cuffs, so that he was the
terror of all the school-masters. Though he was of this quarrelsome temper
himself, it does not appear however that he gave any encouragement to it
in others; for one of his students having sent a challenge to
another, he had him horsed on the back of a fellow-student, and whipped
him upon the seat of honour most severely before a full class. To revenge
this monstrous affront, the scholar brought three of the king’s
lifeguards-men, who were his relations, into the college. Dempster,
however, was not to be thus tamed. He caused hamstring the
lifeguards men’s horses before the college gate; themselves he shut up
close prisoners in the belfrey, whence they were not relieved for several
days. Disappointed of their revenge in this way, the students had recourse
to another. They lodged an information against his life and character,
which not choosing to meet, Dempster fled into England. How long he
remained, or in what manner he was employed there, we have not been
informed; but he married a woman of uncommon beauty, with whom he returned
to Paris. Walking the streets of Paris with his wife, who, proud of her
beauty, had bared a more than ordinary portion of her breast and
shoulders, which were of extreme whiteness, they were surrounded by a mob
of curious spectators, and narrowly escaped being trodden to death.
Crossing the Alps, he obtained a professor’s chair in the university of
Pisa, with a handsome salary attached to it. Here his comfort, and
perhaps his usefulness was again marred by the conduct of his beautiful
wife, who at length eloped with one of his scholars. Previously to
this, we suppose, for the time is by no means clearly stated, he had been
professor in the university of Nimes, which he obtained by an
honourable competition in a public dispute upon a passage of Virgil
"This passage," he says himself, "was proposed to me as a
difficulty not to be solved, when I obtained the professorship in the
royal college of Nimes, which was disputed for by a great number of
candidates, and which I at once very honourably carried from the other
competitors; though some busy people would have had it divided among
several, the senate declaring in my favour, and not one among so many
excellent men, and eminent in every part of learning dissenting, besides
Barnier. The choice being also approved by the consuls, and the other
citizens, excepting some few whom I could name if they deserved it; but
since they are unworthy so much honour, I shall let their envy and sly
malice die with them, rather than contribute to their living by taking
notice of them." At this period Dempster must have professed to be a
Huguenot, the university of Nimes being destined solely for the professors
of the reformed religion. Be this as it may, Dempster, driven from Pisa by
the infidelity of his wife, proceeded to Bologna, where he obtained a
professorship which he held till his death in the year 1625.
Dempster was the author of
many books, and during his own life certainly enjoyed a most extensive
reputation. His powers of memory were so great, that he himself was in the
habit of saying, that he did not know what it was to forget. Nothing, it
was said by some of his encomiasts, lay so hidden in the monuments of
antiquity, but that he remembered it; and they gave him on this account
the appellation of a speaking library. He was also allowed to have been
exceedingly laborious, reading generally fourteen hours every day. If he
really devoted so large a portion of his time to reading, his knowledge of
books, even though his memory had been but of ordinary capacity, must have
been immense; but he wanted judgment to turn his reading to any proper
account. What was still worse, he was destitute of common honesty;
"and shamefully," says Bayle, "published I know not how
many fables." In his catalogue of the writers of Scotland, it has
been observed that he frequently inserted those of England, Wales, and
Ireland, just as suited his fancy; and to confirm his assertions, very
often quoted books which were never written, and appealed to authors which
never existed. "Thomas Dempster," says M. Baillet, "has
given us an ecclesiastical history of Scotland in nineteen books, wherein
he speaks much of the learned men of that country. But though he was an
able man in other respects, his understanding was not the more sound, nor
his judgment the more solid, nor his conscience the better for it. He
would have wished that all learned men had been Scots. He forged titles of
books which were never published, to raise the glory of his native
country; and has been guilty of several cheating tricks, by which he has
lost his credit among men of learning.
The catalogue of Dempster’s
works is astonishingly ample, and they undoubtedly exhibit proofs of
uncommon erudition. Of his numerous writings, however, his Historia
Ecclesiastica Genus Scotorum, is the most remarkable, though, instead
of being as its title would indicate, an ecclesiastical history of
Scotland, it is merely a list of Scottish authors and Scottish saints. The
work was composed in Italy, where, it is presumable, the works of Scottish
authors were not easily accessible; in consequence of which he could not
be expected to proceed with any very great degree of accuracy; but many of
his errors, even candour must admit, are not the result of inadvertency,
but of a studied intention to mislead. A more fabulous work never laid
claim to the honours of history. Of the names which he so splendidly
emblazons, a large proportion is wholly fictitious, and his anecdotes of
writers who have actually existed, are entitled to any kind of
commendation but that of credibility. In extenuation of this fabulous
propensity, however, it ought to be observed, that he lived in an age when
such fabrications were considered as meritorious rather than
reprehensible. The rage for legends framed for promoting the practice of
piety, as was foolishly imagined, gave a general obliquity to the minds of
men, rendering them utterly insensible to the sacred claims and the
immutable character of truth. The most impudent lie, if it was supposed to
favour the cause of religion, was dignified with the name of a pious fraud;
and the most palpable falsehood, if it was designed to promote national
glory, met, from the general impulse of national vanity, with the same
indulgence. Hence that contemptible mass of falsehood and of fiction,
which darkens and disfigures all, and has totally blotted out the early
history of some nations. Dempster had certainly an irritable, and,
in some degree, a ferocious disposition, but we do not see that he ought
to be charged with moral turpitude beyond the average of the men of his
own age and standing in society. Yet for the honour of his country, as he
foolishly imagined, he has amassed an immense mass of incredible fictions,
which he has gravely told; and seems to have hoped mankind in general
would receive as well authenticated historical facts. Losing in the
brilliancy of his imagination any little spark of integrity that illumined
his understanding, when the reputation of his native country was
concerned, he seems to have been incapable of distinguishing between truth
and falsehood. In this respect, however, he does not stand alone, the
earlier historians of every country being in some degree chargeable with
the same failing. Even in the most splendid works of the same kind,
written at periods comparatively late, many passages might be pointed out,
which there is no necessity for supposing their compilers seriously
believed. With all his faults, the reputation of Dempster certainly
extended itself to every country of Europe; and though his most elaborate
works are digested with so little care or so little skill, that they can
only be regarded as collections of ill assorted materials, exhibiting
little merit beyond assiduity of transcription; yet it would perhaps be
difficult to point out another Scottish writer who had the same intimate
acquaintance with classical antiquity. |
