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against a charge of murder. Lord Eskgrove expressed his approval of the verdict with a hope "that the pannel, and all others, would be careful by their future conduct to avoid so illegal and dangerous a practice as that of duelling." With questionable taste, a dinner was given by Glengarry's friends to celebrate his acquittal, to which Erskine was invited, but his approval of his client's conduct was not sufficiently strong to admit of his being present. According to the strict laws of honor as understood when duelling was in vogue, a hostile meeting was hardly to be avoided; but assuming Glengarry to have been rightly advised in declining the required act of humiliation, he should certainly have fired in the air.

and consistency. Hope, the lord advocate, who had the prior official claim to the office, represented in the strongest terms that he would neither renounce his party nor hamper his future conduct by accepting it. "The place," writes his son, "would have been highly agreeable to him, and the salary was much needed; his ready generosity had forbidden him to lay by much more than he had engaged to pay as the price of Ammondell. But unfortunately, as I think, and as all but himself thought afterwards, a scruple of separating his fortunes from those with whom he had ever believed himself closely united by a common principle, was the uppermost idea in his mind."

His wife died early in 1804, and in less Instead of seeking occasions, like his than a year (Jan. 7, 1805) he married a more mercurial and excitable brother, to fascinating widow, Mrs. Turnbull, a sister inveigh against abuses of authority and of Sir Thomas Munro, and an intimate encroachments on constitutional rights, friend of Mrs. Grant of Laggan, who, after Erskine counselled prudence and concili- she had again become a widow, writes of ation to the clients who wished to make her: Except Mrs. Dunlop, Burns's him the organ of their discontent. Al-patroness, and Mrs. Henry Erskine, marmost anything in the nature of a combina- ried to the late lord advocate, I do not tion could be brought within the Seditious find a creature who has oil enough in the Meetings Act. Some shoemakers who lamp of enthusiasm to burn on to ad

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had formed themselves into a Benefit So-vanced life."

office, owing probably to the difficulty in procuring a seat in Parliament. This was removed by Lord Lauderdale, who (Feb. 20) writes:

ciety, were prosecuted and applied to The death of Pitt (Jan. 23, 1806) and Erskine; who advised them to plead the formation of the Cabinet of All the guilty, and trust to the leniency of the Talents placed Erskine once again in the court on the ground that they had uncon-high road of preferment. But there was sciously offended against the law. An a delay in his reappointment to his former incorporated body of tailors, whom he had saved from a threatened prosecution much in the same manner, insisted on giving him a dinner at which his health was drunk with due honors. Seeing when he I kissed hands to-day for the peerage (of rose to reply, that there were just eighteen the United Kingdom). His Majesty looked of them present, he concluded his speech very well, and received the citizens of London by wishing "health, long life, and pros- with the address, surrounded by the new Minperity to both of you," and vanished from isters. You would have hardly known the the room without waiting to see how the Chancellor (Lord Erskine), he looked so soljoke took. His sense of fun was abso-emn. I could not persuade myself I had ever lutely irrepressible. Having succeeded heard him joke in my life. in a cause in which his clients, a large coal company, were deeply interested, they invited him to a grand dinner, to celebrate their good fortune. The chairman having called on Erskine for a sentiment or toast, he gave them: "Sink your pits blast your mines dam your rivers !

the formation of a Government, consisting of There is no news but what you know. In various parties, there have necessarily occurred difficulties, but everything goes on well and smoothly; and it is to me surprising that there has not been more jarring in the course of the whole business.

Have you any plan for getting into Parlia ment immediately? I think I will manage, if you have no view of a seat, to get you in this session. You shall hear from me in a day or

two.

The offer of the post of lord justice clerk in 1804 by his political opponents was a handsome acknowledgment of his professional eminence, and the circum- The mode in which his lordship manstances under which it was declined re-aged this affair of a seat is an illustration flect credit on his firmness of principle of the state of the Scotch representative system prior to the Reform Bill of 1832. There was a group of royal burghs, con

• Townsend, vol. ii., p. 141.

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sisting of Dunbar, Lauder, North Ber-
wick, Haddington, and Jedburgh. The
Dalrymple family were all-powerful at
North Berwick, as were the Maitlands (of
which Lord Lauderdale was the head) at
Lauder and Dunbar: and having thus be-
tween them three of the five burghs, they
arranged that a Maitland nominee should
sit for two Parliaments and a Dalrymple
for one.
This arrangement, which com-
pletely excluded Haddington and Jed
burgh, had existed for centuries. When
Lord Lauderdale wrote, it was in expecta-
tion of a vacancy which it was his turn to
fill up. The vacancy occurred by the res-
ignation of Sir Hugh Dalrymple; and
Erskine's election was notified to him by
the agent in a letter dated April 18th,
1806:

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his Lordship can distinguish himself in the
present Parliament. The first that occurs is,
that his Lordship should seize the chief or
entire management of all Scots affairs, in the
he would become popular in the country, when
same way that Dundass formerly did, whereby
he could turn out the Dundass party, and put
in their places his own friends and well-wish-
ers. His Lordship has a large scale to go on.
He has the church, excise, custom-house, post-
office, and many other lucrative situations in
his power of gift, that we are unacquainted
with, and therefore shall not specify them.
The second is, that he should make some emi-
nent display of his great and unrivalled abili-
ties in Parliament; and how far the present
trial of Lord Melville would be a proper op-
is submitted to his Lordship's better judg-
portunity for such a display as we allude to,
ment.

His Parliamentary career
EDINBR., 18th April, 1806.

MY DEAR LORD, I have only one moment's leisure to congratulate your Lordship on your election, which took place at North Berwick yesterday; but there being no post for London, the return could only be made this day by the Sheriff.

It seems it has been the constant practice for the sitting member to send an English newspaper to each borough in the district, with the exception of Lauder, to which Mr. B― informed me that it had been in use to

was short. His connection with the Maitland burghs was terminated by the dissolution in the October following; and his connection with the Dumfries district of burghs, for which he was next elected, lasted only till the dissolution of April, 1807. He stood twice for Linlithgowshire, and failed. Neither was his official career sufficiently prolonged to enable him to carry out any of the useful measures he meditated. Even the abolition of the famous "fifteen" was reluctantly left to his successor.

send the Courant. This is an expense I could not have dreamed of, but so much is it understood, that James Dalrymple desired that, instead of the Courier the Globe should be sent His appointment as lord advocate was to North Berwick. The delegates for Had-gazetted on the 8th of March, and he dington, Dunbar, and Jedburgh, made choice immediately left Edinburgh for London. of the Star.

As Sir Hugh [Dalrymple] will instantly countermand these papers, it will be necessary for your Lordship to have an immediate communication with Lord Lauderdale upon this subject; and might I beg the favor of a single line in course, with your Lordship's instructions with regard to the Courant for Lauder ?

A group of royal burghs, which required only an English newspaper a piece, suggests the image of a model constitu ency, a shining example of purity and independence; but it would seem that the self-denial of the corporate body did not exclude a certain amount of self-seeking in the individual members. Not many weeks after his election, Erskine received an epistle beginning thus:

NORTH BERwick. Two of the burgess's of North Berwick beg leave to present their most respectful compliments to their representative in Parliament, the Lord Advocate. Conceiving ourselves not the least of his Lordship's constituents, we request to offer him a few remarks for his consideration. In the present state of things, there are only two ways in our opinion that

Alluding to his first appearance in London in a professional capacity, Lord Campbell says: "I remember hearing him plead a cause at the bar of the House of Hall being deserted from a curiosity to compare the two brothers and full justice was done to the elder." Lord Brougham also bears ample testimony to the same effect:

Lords. All the courts in Westminster

He was a most argumentative speaker; and if he sometimes did more than was necessary, he never for an instant lost sight of the point he could employ, and which really were every to be pressed on his audience by all the means weapon of eloquence except declamation and appeals to the tender feelings. Of course, a great cause placed him more under restraint, and more called forth his exertions; yet it was singular how much he would sometimes labor even in the most ordinary matters. However, if I were to name the most consummate exhibition of forensic talent that I ever witnessed, whether in the skilful conduct of the argument, the felicity of the copious illustrations, the cogency of the reasoning, or the dexterous appeal to the prejudices of the court, I should

470

without hesitation at once point to his address | him at the close of a debate." It was

(hearing in presence) on Maitland's case; and were my friend Lauderdale alive, to him I should appeal, for he heard it with me, and came away declaring that his brother Thomas (Lord Erskine) never surpassed-nay, he thought, never equalled it.

"He at that time" (continues Lord Campbell) "represented Dumfries, but he never opened his mouth in the House of Commons, so that the often debated question, how he was qualified to succeed there, remained unsettled." This is an unaccountable mistake. A lord advocate could not have remained mute, and the Parliamentary debates contain several speeches of his, of a not unambitious character, although, judging merely from the reports, we cannot say that they support his traditional reputation for excellence in debate, which Lord Jeffreys says died with him. The discussion on the Mutiny Bill of 1806 turned mainly on the advantages or disadvantages of short service, a question which has remained unsettled to this hour. Erskine spoke at some length on this subject, and gave free indulgence to his fondness for illustration, not, it must be owned, in his happiest vein :

Limited service was the most successful way of procuring men; and to suppose they could not judge of the advantage of limited service because they had not sustained the character, was as absurd as to imagine that a young woman could not tell the inducements that one of her sex might have in taking a husband, because she herself had not entered into the marriage state. In the country with which he was best acquainted, the men were not to be obtained by hanging a purse upon a halberd; they took a rational view of their situation and so formed their determination.

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When gentlemen talked of the future and remote disadvantages of the plan, they reminded him of a dispute regarding a Canal between Edinburgh and Glasgow for the supply of coals. In one direction it passed through a vale without the smallest interruption on a perfect level, and the tract through which it was to pass contained a supply of coals for three centuries; in another it was to be obstructed by sixty-seven locks, and to be elevated 750 feet above the surface of the sea, but the supply of coals was sufficient for five centuries! It was a disgrace to the good sense of the country that, like this Bill, the former channel had numerous opponents.

He had the qualification, highly esteemed by his countrymen, of a goodly presence. "We Scotchmen," said Ferguson of Pitfour, "always vote with the lord advocate, so we like to be able to see

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this Ferguson of Pitfour who boasted that he had heard many a speech which altered his opinion, never one that had the least effect upon his vote. "Sixty years since it was rare to find a Scotchman who had succeeded in throwing off his native dialect. Henry Dundas (Lord Melville) spoke broad Scotch, and Lord Braxfield accurately described the effect of Jeffrey's brief residence at Oxford on his accent by saying: "The laddie has tint his Scotch but fand nae English." The accent of both the Erskines was unexceptionable and Henry's diction classically pure. If he failed comparatively before so fastidious an audience as the House of Commons, it should be remembered that, as was said of Flood, he was an oak of the forest too old to be transplanted. He was sixty when he entered Parliament, but if the following story be accepted as told by Colonel Fergusson, the occasion mentioned by Lord Campbell could not have been the first on which he appeared in a professional capacity in the metropolis:

To this period of Mr. Erskine's official career belongs a story which has often been repeated, illustrative of a quaint mode of pronunciation of certain terms peculiar to the Scotch Law Courts.

...

kine was addressing a committee of the House On one occasion, it is related, Harry Ersof Lords 'regarding some trust business. In the course of his speech he had frequently occasion to mention the "curătors," always pronouncing the word in the manner approved that is, with the acin the Scottish Courts cent on the first syllable. One of the English judges — Mr. Erskine's son understood that it was Lord Mansfield who was so fastidiouscould stand this no longer, and exclaimed: ·

"Mr. Erskine, we are in the habit in this country of saying curator, following the analSy of the Latin, in which, as you are aware, the penultimate syllable is long."

"I thank your Lordship very much," was Erskine's reply; "we are weak enough in Scotland to think that in pronouncing the word curător, we follow the analogy of the English language; but I need scarcely say that I bow with pleasure to the opinion of so learned a senator, and so great an orator, as your Lordship."

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Lord Mansfield being himself an emigrant from Scotland, was doubtless not unwilling to show his own superior attainments in the direction of civilization, forgetful how ticklish a question is that of the quantities of classical words in English.

Lord Mansfield, the emigrant from Scotland, the silver-tongued Murray, died in 1793.

Erskine was in Edinburgh when the | Bar as well as I do, and that the talent is all news arrived of the downfall of the gov- in our quarter. So that your appt. is founded ernment, brought about by an injudicious in fitness, not politics. I have sd. I will not anattempt to introduce a small installment of swer for his not being circumvented and deCatholic emancipation. Referring to the feated, but I am sure of his good intentions and of my watchfulness. bigotry of some among their successors, he condoled with the Duchess of Gordon upon the death of her son, saying "it was much to be lamented that poor Lord George did not live in these times; he would have stood such an excellent chance of being in the Cabinet instead of in Newgate."

If the prime minister seriously wished it, and the regent's intentions were good, where was the hitch? But the office of president was conferred on Charles Hope, and that of lord justice clerk, which also had become vacant, on David Boyle. In a letter dated Harrowgate, October 30, 1811, to his friend, Cathcart, Erskine writes:

but I had resolv'd to go on to London to be
My object here was my daughter's health;
fully apprised of everything, and to take my
resolutions accordingly. One of them is, in
every event finally taken, never again to stand
at the Scots Bar. I trust you will be reliev'd
from that odious situation by the application
in your favor being successfull, tho', after what
has happen'd, I confess I speak more from my
wishes than my hopes. Having yielded to the
appointment of Boyle, and Ministers having
is to be expected of any signification of the
had the audacity to press that measure, what
Prince's will? He has signified to me that
the late arrangement was yielded to, not from
any abatement of his regard for me, or the
high
opinion he entertains of me, and that
when he has an opportunity he will himself
explain the whole. I think it right to give

Some bitterness of feeling may well have been inspired by a foreboding sense of the series of disappointments in store for him. There are few more disagreeable positions than that of a man in advancing age and failing health who, after filling the office of attorney-general or lord advocate, is thrown back upon the ordinary practice of the bar. His only hope of dignified retirement is the bench, and this hope Erskine was encouraged to form, not only by the general recognition of his professional claims, but by the attachment professed for him by the Prince of Wales, and the influence which some of his party, Lord Moira and Adam in particular, were still known or thought to possess at Carlton House. The manner in which the coveted elevation was kept dangling and flickering before his eyes till within a year of his death, may be col-him such opportunity. lected from the correspondence. Early In this letter he expresses some disin 1811 (precise date wanting), the office trust of Adam, which was speedily reof lord president of the Court of Session having become vacant by the death of moved, and (strange to say) in a letter to Cathcart, dated London, November 28, President Blair, Adam writes to say that, 1811, he says: in a very full conversation with the prince, he had dwelt upon the admitted fact that the Scotch lawyers of ability and legal knowledge are all on "our" side of the question; that he (Erskine) was at the head of them; and that the selection should be on the detur digniori principle. On May 23, 1811, he writes:

MY DR. HY., I have hardly time to do

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Of the unaltered state of the Regent's regard towards me I have no doubt, and, so far as I am individually concern'd, I am convinc'd his intentions are good. I do believe that, have driven the point, which I believe he had without resorting to a change, he could not earnestly in view.

In the same letter, referring to a possi ble change of government, he writes:

more than refer to what Gibson will have written to say that the Chanr. has just left me, and Should the change be a right one, the Court I have communicated the Prince's wishes to of Revision would undoubtedly take place, him that you shd. succeed to the Presidt's. and you need not doubt that the chair of that chair. He recd. it wt. great candour, and Court would be my object beyond all others. wh. an unqualified declaration that fitness, not That you will have the next gown, in all events, politics, shd. be the rule. Ld. Moira, Ld. Dun-I have not the least doubt. In that event, we das, and Ld. Keithe, were all of opinion that should be able to form a respectable Bench; this was the course to take valeat quantum. as the Court now stands, the plan would be Mr. P. (Percival) was most kind about you, impracticable. and seriously wishes it.

Again, June 6th, 1811:

It was about this time that an incident (related by the biographer) occurred, which

I have explained everything minutely. He ought to have undeceived him once for [the Prince] knows the state of the Scotch | all. One morning he met

at the Par

66

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liament House, and asked if he had any fertile, that he seemed really to believe the news from London. Excellent," was extraordinary_fictions which he delighted in the reply; "we shall all be sent for in a telling... The two celebrated lawyers, his short time," and the speaker threw down brothers, were not more gifted by nature than a letter for Mr. Erskine to read: but two I think he was, but the restraints of a profesletters, received that morning, had been order. Henry Erskine was the best-natured sion kept the eccentricity of the family in misplaced in their franked covers. Mr. man I ever knew, thoroughly a gentleman; Erskine reading the one not intended for his perusal, came upon the expresion, "We must at any rate get rid of the Erskines," when he discovered the mistake. Soon after this, he gave up the bar and retired to his country house at Ammondell, where he was visited in September, 1812, by Horner, who writes:

and with but one fault-he could not say no,
and this sometimes misled those who trusted
in him. Tom Erskine was positively mad. I
have heard him tell a cock-and-a-bull story of
having seen the ghost of his father's servant,
John Burnett, with as much gravity as if he
believed every word that he was saying. Both
Henry and Thomas were saving men, yet both
died very poor. The latter at one time pos-
sessed 200,000l.; the other had a considerable
fortune. The Earl alone has died wealthy.
is saving, not getting, that is the mother of
riches. They all had wit. The Earl's was
crackbrained, and sometimes caustic; Henry's
was one of the kindest, best-humored, and
gayest that ever cheered society: that of Lord
Erskine was moody and muddish. But I
never saw him in his best days.

It

He is living among the plantations he has been making for the last twenty years in the midst of all the bustle of business: he has the banks of the river Almond for about four miles he told me he had thrown away the law like a dirty clout, and had forgotten it altogether. It is delightful to see the same high spirits, which made him such a favourite in the world while he was in the career of ambition and prosperity, still attending him, after all the disappointments that would have chagrined another man to death. Such a temas gay and good-humored as his brothper is worth all that the most successful am

bition could ever bestow.

Apparently absorbed in rural pursuits, building, landscape-gardening, his violin, and his books, he never entirely lost the hope of reappearing in public life. Nor was he permitted to lose it. At one time he was led to expect a peerage; at another, so late as 1816, the office of lord clerk register. Lord Erskine writes to

Mrs. Erskine :

Everything possible was done. Adam had in the kindest manner laid the ground, and the Prince had not forgotten Harry, and, as Macmahon told me, most unwillingly relinquished the object; but Lord Liverpool had promised the Duke of Buccleugh, and before Lord Frederick [Campbell] was cold in his bed, Lord Sidmouth was sent from Lord Liverpool to claim it. There seems literally to be a spell upon our family; arising, however, from our continuing, after the death of Fox, to be connected with men who assume the name of a political party, but by their folly have ruined their . . . country along with

...

Lord Erskine's wit in his best days was

er's; and to talk of having seen a ghost as if he believed it, was surely no proof of madness. Dr. Johnson believed that he heard his mother's spirit calling to him. If both Henry and Thomas were saving men, and saving is the mother of riches, why and how did they die very poor if they did, which we doubt? Sir Walter places the trio in the best point of view by taking them together.

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66 How animated and excited a view of human nature," exclaims Lord Cullen, "is the contemplation of superior talent employed for the benefit of mankind, and how unique it is for three brothers to attain that preeminence! It is literally unique, unless we recognize the pretensions of the Dupins; and if Thomas (Lord) Erskine's career was the most brilliant, Henry's shone through life with a steadier, more sustained light, and his memory is most fondly cherished by his countrymen. was not merely his wit, his eloquence, his patriotism, his public services, that called forth the burst of popular enthusiasm at his death. It was the combination of The year following, Oct. 8, 1817, he head and heart that had endeared his died after a short illness: Lord Erskine name to all classes; and not a dissenting died in November, 1823: Lord Buchan invoice was heard when "To the best-beApril, 1829; when Sir Walter Scott sets loved man in Scotland was proposed as down his impression of all three in his the most appropriate motto for his monuDiary:

themselves.

April, 1829.-Lord Buchan is dead, a person whose immense vanity, bordering upon insanity, obscured, or rather eclipsed, very considerable talents. His imagination was so

ment.

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"A la mère des trois Dupins" is the inscription on a tombstone in Père la Chaise. Dupin ainé and the Baron Charies were men of undoubted eminence. The younger brother was a clever advocate.

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