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IRVINE, CHRISTOPHER, an
antiquary, philologist, and physician, lived in the seventeenth
century, and was a younger son of the family of Irvine of Bonshaw in
Lanarkshire. Like his relation, who rendered himself infamous in the cause
of royalty by seizing Donald Cargill, Christopher Irvine was a devoted
adherent of the Stuarts and of episcopacy. He was turned out of the college
of Edinburgh in 1638 or 1639, in consequence of his resisting the national
covenant; and by some connexion, the nature of which is not known, with the
Irish troubles, which happened not long after, he lost a plentiful
patrimony. Of these circumstances he himself informs us, in the address
appended to one of his works, as well as of the facts, that "after his
travels, the cruel saints were pleased to mortify him seventeen nights with
bread and water;" and even after having recalled an act of banishment which
they had formerly passed against him, subjected him to the fate of absolute
starvation, with only the dubious alternative of "teaching grammar." Having
adopted the latter course, we have ascertained from another source [Sibbald’s
Bibliotheca Scotica, MS. Adv. Lib.] that he was schoolmaster first at Leith,
and afterwards at Preston. In the course of his exertions in this capacity,
he was led to initiate his pupils in Scottish history; and it was out of the
information collected for that purpose, along with some notes he received
from Mr Alexander Home and Mr Thomas Crawford, formerly professors of
humanity in Edinburgh university, that he compiled his Nomenclature of
Scottish History, the work by which he is best known. Some time during the
commonwealth, he appears to have resumed the profession to which he was
bred, and practised first as a surgeon, and finally as a physician in
Edinburgh, at the same time that he held a medical appointment in the army
of general Monk, by which Scotland was then garrisoned.
We have not been able to discover
any earlier publication of Christopher Irvine than a small and very rare volume,
entitled Bellum Grammaticale, which appeared at Edinburgh in 1650, but of the
nature of which, not having seen it, we cannot speak. His second performance was
a small volume, now also very rare, having the following elaborate title: "Medicina
Magnetica; or the rare and wonderful art of curing by sympathy, laid open in
aphorisms, proved in conclusions, and digested into an easy method drawn from
both; wherein the connexion of the causes and effects of these strange
operations, are more fully discovered than heretofore. All cleared and
confirmed, by pithy reasons, true experiments, and pleasant relations, preserved
and published as a master-piece in this skill, by C. de Iryngio, chirurgo-medicine
in the army. Printed in the year 1656." The dedication, which is dated from
Edinburgh, June 3, 1656, and is signed "C. Irvine," is addressed to general
Monk, as "chief captain of those forces among whom for diverse years I have
served and prospered;" and speaking of the kindness of the commander toward
his inferiors, he continues—"This is observed by all; this hath been my
experience so oft as I had need of favour and protection." We may from these
passages argue, that, at the period when he composed this book, Irvine himself
was a man of respectable standing as to years, and had not found it inconsistent
with his loyalist principles to take office under Cromwell. The work itself is a
true literary curiosity. The monstrous and fanciful doctrines which crowd the
pages of Paracelsus and Cardan, and which had begun at that period to sink
before the demand for logical proof and practical experience, which more
accurate minds had made are here revived, and even exaggerated; while the
imagination of the writer seems to have laboured in all quarters of nature, to
discover grotesque absurdities. The book, it will be remarked, is a treatise on
animal magnetism. We would give his receipt for the method of manufacturing "an
animal magnet," did we dare, but propriety compels us to retain our comments for
the less original portion of the work. The principles of the author, de
omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis, are laid down in "an hundred aphorisms,"
which are of such a nature as following: "Neither souls, nor pure spirits, nor
intelligencies can work upon bodies, but by means of the spirit; for two
extremes cannot be joined together without a mean, therefore," it is justly and
conclusively argued, "demons appear not but after sacrifices used."— "He that
can join a spirit impregnat with the virtue of one bodie with another, that is
now disposed to change, may produce many miracles and monsters."—"He that can by
light draw light out of things, or multiply light with light, he knoweth how to
adde the universal spirit of life to the particular spirit of life, and by this
addition do wonders," &c. Nor is his method of supporting his aphorisms by proof
less original and conclusive. The readers of Hudibras will recollect the story
taken from Helemont, of the man who, having lost his nose, procured a new one to
be cut from the limb of a porter, on whose death the unfortunate nose grew cold
and fell off. The reasoning of Mr Christopher Irvine on this matter is
peculiarly metaphysical, "is not," he says, "all our doctrine here confirmed
clearer than the light? was not the insititious nose as animated at the first,
so still informed with the soul of the porter? Neither had it any from the man
whose nose now it was made, but only nourishment; the power of the assimilation
which it hath from its proper form, it took it not from him but from the porter,
of whom it was yet truly a part; and who dying, the nose became a dead nose, and
did immediately tend to corruption. But who doth not here see, most openly and
evidently, a concatenation? otherwise, how could the nose of one that was at
Bolonia, enform the nose of one that was at Brussels, but by means of a
concatenation?" The curiosity of the matter, presenting a specimen of the
speculations in which several Scottish philosophers at that period indulged, may
excuse these extracts.
The work to which Irvine’s name
is most frequently attached, is the "Historiae Scoticae Nomenclatura Latino-Vernacula;"
an explanatory dictionary of the Latin proper names made use of in Scottish
history, published at Edinburgh in 1682, and re-published in 1819. The editor of
the reprint observes, that he "intended, along with the present edition, to have
given the public a short sketch of the life of the author; but this intention he
has been obliged to relinquish from want of materials. To numerous enquiries, in
many directions, no satisfactory answer was procured, and the editor mentions
with regret, that he knows nothing more of this eminent literary character, and
profound philologist, than can be collected from his address to the reader." The
dedication is to the duke of York; and if we had not been furnished with vast
specimens of the capacity of royal stomachs at that period for flattery, we
might have suspected Mr Christopher of a little quizzing, when he enlarges on
the moderation, the generosity, the kindness to friends, the forgiveness, to
enemies, displayed by the prince, and especially on his having "so firmly on
solid grounds established the protestant religion." Among the other eulogiums is
one which may be interpreted as somewhat apologetical on the part of the author,
in as far as respects his own conduct. "The neglected sufferer for loyalty is
now taken into care and favour, and they that have recovered better
principles, are not reproached nor passed by; their transgressions are forgot,
and time allowed to take off their evil habit." The Nomenclature is a brief
general biographical and topographical dictionary of Scotland. With a firm
adherence to the fabulous early history, the author shows vast general reading;
but, like most authors of the age, he seems to have considered Scotland the
centre of greatness, and all other transactions in the world as naturally
merging into a connexion with it. Thus in juxtaposition with Argyle, we find "Argivi,
Argos, and Arii." And the Dee is discussed beside the Danube.
From the address attached to this
volume, we learn that its publication was occasioned by his recent dismissal
from the king’s service. "And now," he says, " being, as it seemeth by a cruel
misrepresentation, turned out of my public employment and livelyhood, which the
defender of the sincere will return, I have at the desire of the printer, in
this interval, revised, &c." Taking the dedication in connexion with this
circumstance, there can be little doubt as to the particular object of that
composition; and from another document it would appear that he was not
unsuccessful in his design. An act of parliament, dated three years later than
the publication of the Nomenclature, and ratifying an act of privy council,
which had reserved to Irvine the privilege of acting as a physician, independent
of the College of Physicians of Edinburgh, just established, proceeds upon a
statement by the learned man himself, that "he has been bred liberally in these
arts and places that fit men for the practice of physick and chirurgery, and has
received all the degrees of the schools that give ornament and authority in
these professions, and has practised the same the space of thertie years in the
eminentest places and among very considerable persons in this island, and has,
by vertue of commissions from his royal master, exerced the dutie of cherurgeon
of his guards of horse twenty-eight years together, and has had the charge of
chief physician and chirurgeon of his armie." [Acts of the Scottish parliament,
viii. 530-531.] He then states, that he wishes to practise his
profession in peace, in the city of Edinburgh, of which he is a burgess, and
hopes the council "would be pleased not to suffer him, by any new gift or patent
to be stated under the partial humors or affronts of (a) new incorporation or
college of physicians, composed of men that are altogether his juniors (save
doctor Hay) in the studies of phylosophie and practise of physick." |
