国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
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The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 | |
マルコ=ポーロ卿の記録 : vol.1 |
AGE, 6-8. HIS FATHER—RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD XXIX
1`
William Yule was a man of generous chivalrous nature, who
took large views of life, apt to be unfairly stigmatised as Radical
in the narrow Tory reaction that prevailed in Scotland during
the early years of the 19th century.? Devoid of literary
ambition, he wrote much for his private pleasure, and his know-
ledge and library (rich in Persian and Arabic MSS.) were
always placed freely at the service of his friends and corre-
spondents, some of whom, such as Major C. Stewart and Mr.
William Erskine, were more given to publication than himself.
He never travelled without a little 8vo MS. of Hafiz, which
often lay under his pillow. Major Yule's only printed work
was a lithographed edition of the Apothegms of 'Ali, the son of
Abu Talib, in the Arabic, with an old Persian version and an
English translation interpolated by himself. " This was pri-
vately issued in 1832, when the Duchesse d'Angoulême was
living at Edinburgh, and the little work was inscribed to her,
with whom an accident of neighbourhood and her kindness to
the Major's youngest child had brought him into relations of
goodwill." 8
Henry Yule's childhood was mainly spent at Inveresk. He
used to say that his earliest recollection was sitting with the
little cousin, who long after became his wife, on the doorstep
of her father's house in George Street, Edinburgh (now the
Northern Club), listening to the performance of a passing piper.
There was another episode which he recalled with humorous
satisfaction. Fired by his father's tales of the jungle, Yule
(then about six years old) proceeded to improvise an elephant
pit in the back garden, only too successfully, for soon, with
mingled terror and delight, he saw his uncle John 9 fall headlong
into the snare. He lost his mother before he was eight, and almost
his only remembrance of her was the circumstance of her having
given him a little lantern to light him home on winter nights
from his first school. On Sundays it was the Major's custom
7 It may be amusing to note that he was cor_sidered an almost dangerous person because he read the Scotsman newspaper !
8 Athenawm, 24th Sept. 1881. A gold chain given by the last Dauphiness is in the writer's possession.
9 I)r. John Yule (b. 176- d. 1827), a kindly old savant. Ile was one of the earliest
corresponding members of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and the author of some botanical tracts.
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