Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/220

248 mother was a daughter of William, first lord Ruthven. In early life, he travelled for some time upon the continent, from which he returned in 1534, bringing with him a Frenchman, capable of teaching the Greek language, whom he established in the town of Montrose. Hitherto, this noble tongue was almost unknown in Scotland, and an acquaintance with it was deemed to imply a tendency to heresy. Erskine of Dun was the first man who made a decided attempt to overcome this prejudice, thereby foretelling his own fitness to hurst through moral clouds of still greater density, and far more pernicious. Previous to 1 540, he was one of the limited number of persons who, notwithstanding the persecuting disposition of James V., had embraced the protestant religion: in doing so, far from being led by mercenary motives, as many afterwards were, he and his friends were inspired solely with a love of what they considered the truth, and, for the sake of it, encountered very great dangers. His house of Dun, near Montrose, was constantly open to the itinerant preachers of the reformed doctrines, who, though liable to persecution in other places, seem to have always enjoyed, through the respectability of his personal character, as well as his wealth and baronial influence, an immunity for the time during which they resided with him. Though he must have been unfavourable to the war with England, commenced by the catholic party, in 1547, he appears to have been too much of a patriot to endure the devastations committed upon his native country by the enemy. His biographers dwell with pride on a very successful attack which he made, with a small party, upon a band of English, who had landed near Montrose for the purpose of laying waste the country. On this occasion, out of eighty invaders, hardly a third of them got back to their ships. When John Knox returned to Scotland in 1555, Erskine of Dun was among those who repaired to hear his private ministrations in the house of a citizen of Edinburgh. The reformer soon after followed him to Dun, where he preached daily for a month to the people of the neighbourhood; next year he renewed his visit, and succeeded in converting nearly all the gentry of (he district

In 1557, Erskine was one of the few influential persons who signed the first covenant, and established what was called the Congregation. In the succeeding year, he was one of the commissioners sent by the queen regent, Mary of Lorraine, to witness the marriage of her daughter Mary to the dauphin. While old English or Scottish airs;—sometimes, 'Let's have a dance upon the heath,' an air from the music in Macbeth, which he used to say was by Purcel, and not by Locke, to whom it has usually been ascribed—sometimes, 'The flowers of the forest,' or 'Auld Robin Gray'—and sometimes the beautiful Pastorale from the eighth concerte of Corelli, for whose music he had an enthusiastic admiration. But the greatest treat to me was when, after dinner, he took down from the top of his' bookcase, where it lay behind a bust, I think, of Mr Fox, his manuscript book, full of jeux d'esprit, charades, bon mots, &c., all his own composition. I was then too young, and, I trust, too modest, to venture any opinion upon their merits; but I well recollect the delight with which I listened, and Mr Erskine was not above being gratified by the silent homage of a youthful mind.

"Few men have ever enjoyed a wider reputation for wit than the Honourable Henry Erskine; the epithet then, and even now, applied to him, par excellence, is that of the witty Harry Erskine; and I do believe, that all the puns and bon mots which have been put into his mouth—some of them, no doubt, having originally come out of it—would eke out a handsome duodecimo. I well recollect, that nothing used to distress me so much as not perceiving at once the point of any of Mr Erskine's witticisms. Sometimes, half an hour after the witticism had been spoken, I would begin to giggle, having only then discovered the gist of the saying. In this, however, I was not singular. While Mr Erskine practised at the bar, it was his frequent custom to walk, after the rising of the courts, in the Meadows; and he was often accompanied by Lord Balmuto one of the judges, a very good kind of man, but not particularly quick in his perception of the ludicrous. His lordship never could discover at first the point of Mr Erskine's wit; and, after walking a mile or two perhaps, and long after Mr Erskine had forgotten the saying, Lord Balmuto—would suddenly cry out, I have you now, Harry—I have you now, Harry!'—stopping, and bursting into an immoderate fit of laughter."