Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/217

Rh Mr Erskine, like his elder brother, had early embraced the principles of whiggism; and this distinguished family, during the progress of the American war, openly expressed their decided disapprobation of the course which ministers were pursuing in that unfortunate contest. Opposition was a more serious thing in these times, than it has since become; to oppose ministers was considered tantamount to disaffection to the constitution, and often exposed a man to serious loss and inconvenience. Mr Erskine's abilities, indeed, were beyond the reach of detraction ; aid his practice at the bar was founded upon a reputation too extensive to be easily shaken; but it cannot be doubted that, in espousing the liberal side of politics, he was sacrificing to no small amount his prospects of preferment. At the conclusion, therefore, of the American war, and the accession of the Rockingham administration, Mr Erskine's merits pointed him out as the fittest member of faculty, for the important office of lord advocate of Scotland, to which he was immediately appointed. But his opportunities to support the new administration were few, on account of its ephemeral existence; and on its retirement, he was immediately stripped of his official dignity, and even some years afterwards deprived, by the vote of his brethren, on account of his obnoxious political sentiments, of the honourable office of dean of faculty. On the return of the liberal party to office in 1 806, Henry Erskine once more became lord advocate, and was returned member for the Dumfries district of burghs, in the room of major general Dalrymple. This, however, like the former whig administration, was not suffered to continue long in power, and with its dissolution, Mr Erskine again lost his office and seat in parliament. Amid these disappointments, Mr Erskine remained not less distinguished by inflexible steadiness to his principles, than by invariable gentleness and urbanity in his manner of asserting them. "Such, indeed," says one of his most distinguished contemporaries, "was the habitual sweetness of his temper, and the fascination of his manners, that, though placed by his rank and talent in the obnoxious station of a leader of opposition, at a period when political animosities were carried to a lamentable height, no individual, it is believed, was ever known to speak or to think of him, with any thing approaching to personal hostility. In return it may be said, with equal correctness, that though baffled in some of his pursuits, and not quite handsomely disappointed of some of the honours to which his claim was universally admitted, he never allowed the slightest shade of discontent to rest upon his mind, nor the least drop of bitterness to mingle with his blood. He was so utterly incapable of rancour, that even the rancorous felt that he ought not to be made its victim."

Mr Erskine's constitution began to give way under the pressure of disease, about the year 1812; and he, thereupon, retired from professional life, to his beautiful villa of Ammondell in West Lothian, which originally formed part of the patrimonial estate, but was transferred to the subject of our memoir by his elder brother about the year 1795, to serve as a retreat from the fatigues of business during the vacation. "Passing thus," says the eloquent writer already quoted, "at once from all the bustle and excitement of a public life, to a scene of comparative inactivity, he never felt a moment of ennui or dejection; but retained unimpaired, till within a day or two of his death, not only all his intellectual activity and social affections, but, when not under the immediate affliction of a painful and incurable disease, all that gayety of spirit, and all that playful and kindly sympathy with innocent enjoyment, which made him the idol of the young, and the object of cordial attachment and unenvying admiration to his friends of all ages." The five remaining years of his life were consumed by a complication of maladies; and he expired at his country-seat on the 8th of October, 1817, when he had nearly completed the 71st year of his age.