Thomas Dempster - Publications

Publications

Dempster was equally at home in philology, criticism, law, biography, and history. He was a master of the Latin language and wrote in Latin, as was still the academic custom of the times. His works are:

• An edition of Rosinus' Antiquitatum Romanarum corpus absolutissimum "The Most Complete Body of Roman Antiquities" (Paris, 1613). Dedicated to James I. This is the work that came to the attention of the king.
• Panegyricus Jacobo M. (Magnae) Britanniae Regi, "Panegyric to James, King of Great Britain (London, 1616)"
• Poetic contributions In Obitum Aldinae Catellae: lachrymae poeticae, "On the Death of the Puppy Aldina: Poetic tears" (Paris, 1622).
• An edition of Benedetto Accolti's De bello a Christianis contra barbaros, "Of the Christian War against the Barbarians" (1623).
• Historia ecclesiastica gentis Scotarum, "Ecclesiastical History of the Scottish Nation" (Bologna, 1627). Morér asserts that this "is one of the most discredited works ever written in the field of Scottish history." The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica says: "In this he tries to prove that Bernard (Sapiens), Alcuin, Saint Boniface and Johannes Scotus Eriugena were all Scots, and even Boadicea becomes a Scottish author." The last chapter was intended as his autobiography, which Matteo Pellegrini, a friend at Bologna, completed posthumously. Much of what it says about him; for example, that his mother had 29 children and that he himself was one of triplets, is counted as prevarication. The low quality of this work after so much brilliance remains unexplained.
• Some of his Latin verse is printed in the first volume (pp. 306–354) of Delitiae poetarum Scotorum (Amsterdam, 1637).