The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 / Page 37 (Color Image)

0037	The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1

AGE, 6-8. HIS FATHER—RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD XXIX

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.

National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books