James Crichton was born on August 19, 1560, probably in Eliock, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, United Kingdom; the son of Robert Crichton, Lord Advocate of Scotland, and Elizabeth Stewart, daughter of Sir James Stewart of Beath, through whom he claimed royal descent.
James received his early schooling either in Perth or Edinburgh.
When ten years old was sent to St Salvator's College, St Andrews, where he took his B. A. in 1574, obtaining his M. A. the following year.
Those works of his which have come down to us show few traces of Crichton's unusual ability; and the laudation of him as a universal genius by Sir Thomas Urquhart and Aldus Manutius requires to be discounted. Urquhart (in his Discovery of a most exquisite jewel) states that while in Paris Crichton successfully held a dispute in the college of Navarre, on any subject and in twelve languages, and that the next day he won a tilting match at the Louvre. There is, however, no contemporary evidence for this, the only certain facts being that for two years Crichton served in the French army, and that in 1579 he arrived in Genoa.
The latter event is proved by a Latin address (of no particular merit) to the Doge and Senate entitled Oratio J. Critonii Scoti pro Moderatorum Genuensis Reipubl.
electione coram Senatu habita (Genoa, 1579).
The next year Crichton was in Venice, and won the friendship of Aldus Manutius by his Latin ode In appulsu ad urbem Venetam de Proprio statu J. Critonii Scoti Carmen ad AldumManuccium (Venice, 1580).
This work is undoubtedly by Manutius, as it was reprinted with his name in as Relatione della qualitd di .
Crettone, and again in (reprinted Venice, 1831).
In Venice Crichton met and vanquished all disputants except Giacomo Mazzoni, was followed from place to place by crowds of admirers, and won the affection of the humanists Lorenzo Massa and Giovanni Donati.
In March 1581 he went to Padua, where he held two great disputations.
In the first he extemporized in succession a Latin poem, a daring onslaught on Aristotelian ignorance, and an oration in praise of ignorance.
In the second, which took place in the Church of St John and St Paul, and lasted three days, he undertook to refute innumerable errors in Aristotelians, mathematicians and schoolmen, to conduct his dispute either logically or by the secret octrine of numbers, etc.
In June Crichton was once more in Venice, and while there wrote two Latin odes to his friends Lorenzo Massa and Giovanni Donati, but after this date the details of his life are obscure.
Urquhart states that he went to Mantua, became the tutor of the young prince of Mantua, Vincenzo di Gonzaga, and was killed by the latter in a street quarrel in 1582.
