Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/449

 on behalf of the popular part in Spain 1822 he published a letter to Lord Liverpool in behalf of the cause of Greek independence; in 1828 a letter of his to Prince Mavrocordato was published by the Greek committee, and in the same year he issued a pamphlet called ‘A Letter to the Proprietors of Land on Agricultural Prosperity.' He was quite estranged from the king, and had fallen into poverty and some social discredit. At various times, from as early as 1796, he had been accused of opium-eating, but without any foundation. He was living now partly at 13 Arabella Row, Pimlico, partly at a cottage, Buchan Hill, in Sussex. At some time not ascertainable he married at Gretna Green a Miss Mary Buck, by whom he had a son, Hampden, 5 Dec. 1821. She and her child were in very straitened circumstances after his death. In the autumn of 1823 he started for Scotland by sea to visit his brother the Earl of Buchan, at Drybugh Abbey, Berwickshire. Inflammation of chest attacked him on the voyage; he was landed at Scarborough and thence conveyed to Almondell, West Lothian, the residence of his brother Henry's widow, and died there 17 Nov. 1823. He was buried at the family burial-place, Uphall, Linlithgow. His character was amiable and elevated, but his distinguishing characteristic was an inordinate vanity, which perpetually made him ridiculous. Almost the best of Canning's 'Anti-Jacobin Papers' is a burlesque speech of Erskine's at the Whig Club in which he is made to point out that he was but a very little lower than the angels. He was caricatured as Counsellor Ego, and as Baron Ego of Eye, and Cobbett always wrote of him Baron Clackmannan. His wit was proverbial, and many of his epigrams are classic, but he especially excelled in puns. He was an honourable politician, an enthusiast for liberty, and an incomparable advocate and orator. Be was an enthusiastic student of English classics, and, in spite of sarcasm on himself, a great admirer of Burke. He knew by heart 'Paradise Lost,' 'Paradise Regained,' and Burke's speech against Warren Hastings. Lord John Russell's phrase sums up his character: 'The tongue of Cicero, and the soul of Hampden.' By his first marriage he had four sons and four daughters. His eldest and fourth sons, David Montagu, diplomatist, and Thomas, judge, are separately noticed. A portrait of him was painted by Sir. T. Lawrence, and there is another by Hopper at Windsor, a statue by Westmacott in Lincoln's Hall, and a bust by Nollekens at Holland House.

 ERSKINE, THOMAS (1788–1864), judge, fourth son of, first lord Erskine [q. v.], by his first wife, Agnes, daughter of Daniel Moore, was born 12 March 1788 at 10 Serjeants' Inn, Fleet Street. He was brought up at Hampstead and educated at the grammar school there, and at a Mr.Foothead's. and was afterwards under Drs. Drury and Butler at Harrow, where he was a school-fellow of Peel, Aberdeen, Palmerston, Byron, and Hook. On becoming lord chancellor his father made him, still a schoolboy, his secretary of presentations, which threw him much into fashionable society. He was, however, entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, and being a peer's son graduated M.A. without residence or examination in 1811, on the inauguration of the Duke of Gloucester as chancellor. In 1807 he was entered at Lincoln's Inn, and became a pupil of [q. v.] He became a special pleader in 1810, and practised with success; was called to the bar in 1813, and having first joined the home circuit transferred himself to the western. He took no part in politics but pursued his practice, became a king's counsel in 1827, and took a leading place on his circuit. He was clear and acute rather than rhetorical, and had a strong comprehension of technicalities, being thus in sharp contrast to his father. The Bankruptcy Act, 1 and 2 Wm. IV, c. 56, established a court of review of four judges, and Lord Brougham appointed him to the chief judgeship on 20 Oct. 1831, a post which he filled with credit. He was also sworn of the privy council. On the death of Alan Park, he succeeded him, 9 Jan. 1839, as a judge of the common pleas, but continued to hold his bankruptcy judgeship till November 1842. In his new capacity his chief act was presiding at the spring assizes at York in 1840, at the political trials, which he did so fairly as to receive the applause even of the 'Northern Star,' Feargus O'Connor's paper. In 1844 he was attacked by tubercular disease of the lungs, and resigned his judgeship in November, but lived,