NOVEMBER 213 



over page after page, enchanted with the splendid 

 typography and ample margins. 



It was not to be. Timothy Font's strenuous labours 

 and frustrated hopes might have furnished a chapter 

 in Isaac Disraeli's Calamities of Authors. All the 

 more reason, therefore, for Scotsmen of the twentieth 

 century to join in the tribute pronounced by the 

 parson of Rothiemay on the value of Font's unrequited 

 service to science, and to endorse the verdict that ' it 

 would be an act of utmost ingratitude to allow the 

 memory of this man to sink into oblivion.' 



There is a story in Wodrow's Analecta about 

 Timothy Font's father, a man of much learning, who 

 declined the Bishopric of Caithness to which King 

 James nominated him. It is there stated that he ' had 

 a discovery of Queen Elizabeth's death that same day 

 she died ' ; that he sent to the King in Holyrood late 

 at night, insisted on being admitted to his presence, 

 and saluted him as King of Great Britain, France and 

 Ireland. 



' I still told you,' said the King, ' that you would go 

 distracted with your learning, and now I see that you 

 are so.' 



No, no,' persisted Pont, ' I am not distracted. The 

 thing is certain. She is dead, I assure you.' 



Wodrow refrains from committing himself to either 

 theory that Pont drew his intelligence from the stars, 

 or that he received direct revelation. 



