Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/249

Rh that they are utterly unworthy of the gloriously divine originals; but it ought to be remembered, that he was put upon these labours by the urgency of his brethren, with a view to their being added to the psalmody, and that in this case, plainness and simplicity has always been aimed at, to a degree bordering on the bold, not to say the profane. Nor are these attempts, after all, beneath several of the same kind by the greatest names in English poetry.

ERSKINE,, sixth earl of Kellie, a distinguished musical genius, was born on September 1st, 1732. He was the eldest son of Alexander, fifth earl of Kellie, by Janet Pitcairn, daughter of the celebrated physician and poet. The earls of Kellie were a branch of the Marr family, ennobled through the favour of James VI. and I., which was acquired by the services of Sir Thomas Erskine of Gogar, in protecting his majesty from the machinations of the earl of Gowry and his brother. The father of the subject of this memoir, though possessed of a kind of rude wit, was always deemed a person of imperfect intellect, of which he seems to have been himself aware. Being confined in Edinburgh castle for his concern in the insurrection of 1745, he one morning came into the room occupied by his brethren in misfortune, showing a paper in his hand. This was a list of persons whom the government had resolved to prosecute no further, and while his lordship's name stood at the head, on account of his rank, it was closed by the name of a Mr William Fidler, who had been an auditor in the Scottish exchequer. "Oh, is not this a wise government?" cried the earl, "to begin wi' a fule and end wi' a fiddler!" On his lordship's death, in 1756, he was succeeded by his eldest son, who seems to have inherited the wit of his father, along with the more brilliant genius of his mother's family.

The earl of Kellie displayed, at an early period of life, a considerable share of ability; and it was anticipated that he would distinguish himself in some public employment worthy of his exalted rank. He was led, however, by an overmastering propensity to music, to devote himself almost exclusively to that art We are informed by Dr Burney, in his History of Music, that "the earl of Kellie, who was possessed of more musical science than any dilletante with whom I was ever acquainted, and who, according to Pinto, before he travelled into Germany, could scarcely tune his fiddle, shut himself up at Manheim with the elder Stamitz, and studied composition, and practised the violin with such serious application, that, at his return to England, there was no part of theoretical or practical music, in which he was not equally well versed with the greatest professors of his time. Indeed, he had a strength of hand on the violin, and a genius for composition, with which few professors are gifted." In the age during which the earl of Kellie flourished, it was unfortunately deemed an almost indispensible mark of a man of genius, either in literature or music, to devote himself much to the service of Bacchus. Hence this young nobleman, whose talents might have adorned almost any walk of life, identified himself with the dissolute fraternity who haunted the British metropolis, and of whom there was a considerable off-shoot even in Edinburgh. Thus he spent, in low buffooneries and debaucheries, time which might have been employed to the general advantage of his country. He, nevertheless, composed a considerable quantity of music, which, in its day, enjoyed a high degree of celebrity, though it is generally deemed, in the present age, to be deficient in taste and feeling. "In his works," says a late writer, "the fervidum ingenium of his country bursts forth, and elegance is mingled with fire. From the singular ardour and impetuosity of his temperament, joined to his German education, under the celebrated Stamitz, and at a time when the German overture, or symphony, consisting of a grand chorus of violins and wind instruments, was in its highest