play upon them-rarely, because in those days jury trial was confined to criminal cases; at all times a most subtle, close, and powerful arguer, with a force of language in which he resembled his brother, and far, very far, surpassed all his brethren of the Scottish bar-it is in vain to deny him a very high place among reasoners and among orators, merely because he had no talent for declamation, and had the good sense never once in his whole life to attempt it. But who ever heard his brother declaim, as far as energy of voice is concerned? and yet, who denies him a place amongst the greatest orators of the day, when the only doubt amongst orators is, whether or not he was the first of them all? It is true, however, that Henry Erskine, beside the want of a declaiming voice, was without the topics of which declamation is composed. So it is, if possible, yet more absurd and senseless to withhold from him his just place among reasoners and orators of a graver kind, merely because somewhat excited by his exuberant fancy, still more by the inferior taste of the audience whom he addressed, or of the provincial society in which he mixed, he, far more than was becoming, or expedient, or accorded with correct taste, indulged in jests, and particularly in a kind of merriment well enough suited to society, but impossible even to be attempted in the courts or the senate of our southern neighbours the relating of merry tales, more or less applicable to the subject in hand. It is quite certain, that much of his wit was, like Mr Fox's, closely connected with the argument, and bore upon it, and helped it onward. It is equally certain, that although none of it had touched the arguments, this surplusage, intended for mere amusement and relaxation, did in no wise prevent the rest of his discourse from being considered, as it was, a piece of close reasoning or happy illustration. Partly spoiled by the habits of society, partly by the indifferent taste of the court in which he practised, partly, too, seduced by his excellent and social nature to gratify those whom he saw delighted to hang upon his lips, and wishing every deviation from severe taste augmented and prolonged tenfold, he certainly did lower the standard of his oratory to suit inferior natures; and, though an universal favourite, failed to attain the celebrity of a first-rate orator, even among his own admiring countrymen.

As Henry Erskine did not come into Parliament until very late in life, it would be unfair to make any comments upon his political exhibitions. He did not, certainly, there much distinguish himself, less, indeed, even than his brother. In the debates of our General Assembly of the Church he loved to bear a part; but the nature of the subjects there discussed was rarely such as to excite or to reward the exertion of great debating

powers. Nevertheless, a most acute and sagacious judge of such talents,* and one as severe as discerning, affirmed that he never heard him speak and miss any of the points of the question; and that when he had handled any subject, though he might have said a good deal that could well have been spared, he had left nothing to any one who followed him in any view of the subject.

On the whole, it may safely be affirmed, that this eminent person wanted only a metropolitan theatre earlier in life, to rank him amongst the first orators of his time. But there wanted no such change in his position to make him a more delightful member of society, for that change was quite impossible. He was in all respects one the charms of whose social converse was unbounded. Of a demeanour that every instant showed his noble birth; in manners, of perfect ease, polish, and grace; of a temper the most sweet, and of spirits the most joyous and gay, without ever being turbulent, boisterous, or obtrusive; of conversation the most various, never refusing a serious turn, though delighting in every species of mirth, from refined comedy to broad farce-he was the life and soul of every circle with which he mixed. Affable to those below him; full of firmness and independence to his superiors; altogether without a particle of envy, or jealousy, or gall in his whole composition-no wonder that he was the darling of the age and the country in which he lived; and was most happily and most justly described by one who knew him well, as the best beloved man in all Scotland.' + It is truly painful to think, that the violence of political animosity should ever have interfered to darken the career of such a man. But the French Revolution had created almost a madness of party on opposite sides of the controversy which it engendered; and as those dismal times are past, far be it from us, by any word of ours, to revive their sad recollection.

The other great lawyer whom we have named, as cotemporary with Henry Erskine, eminent as he was, offers incomparably fewer points of description, because his endowments, however remarkable, were far less various. Mr Blair, so long SolicitorGeneral, and afterwards, during three years, Lord President of the Court of Session, had a mind singularly framed for the successful study and practice of the law, to which he devoted all his days; and, as far as an indolent nature would permit, all his faculties. His indolence, however, was rather the vis inertia

The late Rev. Sir Henry Moncrieff.

The late Lord Kinnaird in the House of Commons, himself amongst the most quick and delightful, as well as honourable of men.

that often attends genius, than the ordinary listlessness or aversion to labour that marks little minds. For he had been a steady and diligent student; had mastered all the principles of our jurisprudence in a manner little known among our professional men; and never failed to show whatever powers of application were required by any amount of business that could devolve upon the advocate most trusted and most followed by clients. His talents were peculiarly fitted for legal poursuits. His understanding was bold and masculine; his sagacity penetrating; his reflection profound. With much less quickness of perception than many otherswithout any of the subtilty that distinguished such men as Matthew Ross-with little of that quick and piercing acuteness for which William Tait was famous-with no fancy in discerning topics, and hardly any nimbleness in meeting or escaping objections-he yet brought to bear upon each subject a plain and homely vigour, to which all ordinary difficulties yielded, and before which almost all antagonists gave way. He thoroughly comprehended every portion of his subject, and he impressed his hearers with the intimate belief, that he both understood it and could master it. Despising the vulgar arts of ordinary advocates, he unfolded it to all as he saw it himself; and he commented upon it with such force, so plainly yet so strongly, so earnestly yet with so much gravity and sustained dignity both of thought and of expression, that it rather seemed as if a Daniel had come to judge, than an advocate to address his judges. Accordingly his sway over the bench was supreme; and there are many now alive who may recollect, that when the court found themselves compelled to decide against him, they faultered, paused, would fain have avoided the hard necessity,-seemed distrustful of their own opinion, and all but apologised for taking so extraordinary a liberty with such a great legal authority.

Of external qualities he had none, or next to none, that were calculated to deepen or even to sustain the impression which his matter was fitted to make. His diction, though quite correct and plain, was somewhat meagre and jejune; his ideas were constantly more and greater than he had the means of expressing ; often matter apparently good, struggled for birth, and was denied access to the mind of the hearer; much hesitation obstructed the flow of the discourse; and though the personal presence was fine, and the countenance expressive, the voice was guttural and harsh. When he ascended the bench, his talents for dispatching business were thought by some to have been rather overrated but his high and dignified demeanour commanded universal respect, whilst his judgments were marked by that great learning and ample capacity for which he had so long been famed.

;

We have been turned aside from our sketch of those with whom Lord Ellenborough came into political life, by the wish to render Scotland justice, and to show that she can boast of great men among the luminaries of her ancient republican bar. We now resume the thread where it was broken off, and recall to the recollection of our readers a distinguished person, who presided over the councils of this country for a longer period than any other minister, excepting Walpole and Pitt; and for a period incomparably more glorious, in all that is commonly deemed to constitute national renown.

Lord Liverpool was Prime Minister of England for fifteen years, after having filled in succession almost every political office, from under-secretary of state upwards; and passed his whole life, from the age of manhood, in the public service, save the single year that followed the death of Mr Pitt. So long and so little interrupted a course of official prosperity was never, perhaps, enjoyed by any other statesman. But this was not his only felicity. It happened to him, that the years during which the helm of the state, as it is called, was entrusted to his hands, were those of the greatest events, alike in negociation, in war, in commerce, and in finance, which ever happened to illustrate or to checker the annals of Europe. He saw the power of France attain a pitch altogether unexampled, and embrace the whole of the continent, except Russia alone, hitherto believed safe in her distant position and enormous natural strength; but he saw her too invaded, her numerous armies overthrown, her almost inaccessible capital destroyed. Then followed the insurrection of conquered Germany-the defeat of victorious France-the war pushed to her territory-the advance of the allies to the capitalthe restoration of the ancient dynasty. By a singular coincidence, having signalized his outset in political life by a supposition which he propounded as possible-a march to Paris-this was then deemed so outrageous an absurdity that it became connected with his name as a standing topic of ridicule; yet he lived to see the impossibility realized, was Prime Minister when the event happened, and did not survive the dynasty which he had mainly contributed to restore. Peace was thus brought back, but without her sister plenty; and intestine discord now took the place of foreign war. He saw the greatest distress which this country had ever suffered in all the departments of her vast and various industry; agriculture sunk down, manufactures depressed to the earth, commerce struggling for existence, an entire stop put to all schemes for lightening the load of the public debt, and a convulsion in the value of all property, in the relations of all creditors and all debtors, in the operation of all contracts between man and

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man-the inevitable effects of a sudden and violent alteration of the currency, of which his colleagues, twenty years before, had interfered to change the standard. Gradually he saw trade, and agriculture, and industry, in all its branches, again revive, but public discontent not subsiding; both in Ireland, which he mainly helped to misgovern, and in England, where he opposed all, political improvement, he witnessed the tremendous effects of a people becoming more enlightened than their rulers, and the last years of his life were spent in vain efforts to escape from a sight of the torrent which he could not stem. It made an interlude in this long and varied political scene, that he consented to the worst act ever done by any English monarch, the persecution of his Queen for acts of hers and for purposes of his own, connected with a course of maltreatment to which the history of conjugal misdemeanour furnishes no parallel. Yet, prodigious as is the importance, and singular as the variety of these events, which all happened during his administration,-and although party ran higher and took a far more personal turn during those fifteen years than at any other period of our political history,—no minister, nay, few men in any subordinate public station, ever passed his time with so little it! will directed towards himself, had so much forbearance shown him upon all occasions, nay, engaged uniformly so large a share of personal esteem. To what did he owe this rare felicity of his lot ? How came it to pass that a station, in all other men's cases the most irksome, in his was easy-that the couch, so thorny to others, was to him of down? Whence the singular spectacle of the Prime Minister-the person primarily answerable for any thing which is done amiss, and in fact often made to answer for whatever turns out unluckily through no possible fault of his own, or indeed of any man-should, by common consent, have been exempted from almost all blame; and that whoever attacked most bitterly all other public functionaries, in any department, should have felt it no business of his to speak otherwise than respectfully, if not tenderly, or if not respectfully, yet with mild forbearance of him, who, having been all his life in high office, a party to every unpopular and unfortunate proceeding of the government, and never a changeling in any one of his political opinions, even in the most unpopular of all, was now for so many long years at the head of the national councils, and in the first instance, by the ław of the constitution and in point of fact, answerable for whatever was done or whatever was neglected?

This question may perhaps be answered by observing, that the abilities of Lord Liverpool were far more solid than shining, and that men are apt to be jealous, perhaps envious, certainly distrustful, of great and brilliant genius in statesmen. Respectable