Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/550

Rh 530 ERSKINE means of giving him liis first case, Rex v. Baillie, in which lie appeared for Captain Baillie, the lieutenant-governor of Greenwich Hospital, who had published a pamphlet ani- madvertinw in severe terms upon the abuses which Lord Sandwich, the first lord of the Admiralty, had introduced into the management of the hospital, and against whom a rule had been obtained from the Court of King s Bench to show cause why a criminal information for libel should not be filed. Erskine was the junior of five counsel ; and it was his good fortune that the prolixity of his leaders con sumed the whole of the first day, thereby giving the advan tage of starting afresh next morning. He made use of this opportunity to deliver a speech of wonderful eloquence, skill, and courage, which captivated both the audience and the court. The rule was discharged, and Erskine s fortune was made. He received, it is said, thirty retainers before he left the court. In 1781 he delivered another remarkable speech, in defence of Lord George Gordon a speech which gave the death-blow to the doctrine of constructive treason. In 1783, when the Coalition Ministry came into power, he was returned to parliament as member for Portsmouth. His first speech in the. House of Commons was a failure ; and he never in parliamentary debate possessed anything like the influence he had at the bar. He lost his seat at the dissolution in the following year, and remained out of parliament until 1790, when he was again returned for Portsmouth. But his success at the bar continued unimpaired. In 1783 he received a patent of precedence. His first special retainer was in defence of Dr Shipley, dean of St Asaph, who was tried in 1784 before Mr Justice Buller at Shrewsbury for seditious libel a case memorable for Erskine s bold yet dignified vindication of the indepen dence of the bar, and for the speech which he subse quently made before the court at Westminster against a motion for a new trial. In 1789 he was counsel for Stock- dale, a bookseller, who was charged with seditious libel in publishing a pamphlet in favour of Warren Hastings, whose trial was then proceeding ; and his speech on this occasion, probably his greatest effort, is a consummate specimen of the art of addressing a jury. Three years afterwards he brought down the opposition alike of friends and foes by defending Thomas Paine, author of The Eights of Man holding that an advocate has no right, by refusing a brief, to convert himself into a judge. As a consequence he lost the office of attorney-general to the Prince of Wales, to which he had been appointed in 1786; the prince, however, subsequently made amends by making him his chancellor. Among Erskine s later speeches may be mentioned those for Home Tooke and the other advocates of parliamentary reform, and that for Hadfield, who was accused of! shooting at the king. On the accession of the Grenville ministry in 1806, he was made lord chancellor, an office for which his training had in no way prepared him, but which he fortunately held only during the short period his party was in power. Of the remainder of his life it would be well if nothing could be said. Occasionally speaking in parliament, and hoping that he might return to office should the prince become regent, he gradually degenerated into a state of useless idleness. Never conspicuous for prudence, he aggravated his increasing poverty by an unfortunate second marriage. Once only in his conduct in the case of Queen Caroline does he recall his former self. He died at Almondel, Linlithgowshire, 17th November 1823, of inflam mation in the chest, caught on the voyage to Scotland. Erskine no doubt owed much to the period in which he lived. In another age his highest distinction would pro bably have been the barren and evanescent reputation of a successful verdict-getter. The political trials in which he was engaged not only handed him down to posterity as the vindicator of his country s liberties, but by inspiring him with the consciousness that he was defending his country and its constitution as much as if he were speaking in parliament or fighting in the field, developed, in a way that no ordinary trial could have done, that impassioned eloquence and undaunted courage which so often carried audience and jury and even court along with him. As a judge he did not succeed; and it has been questioned whether under any circumstances he could have succeeded. For the office of chancellor he was plainly unfit ; but it is difficult to believe that one who for so long was the ornament of the bar of the King s Bench could have pre sided over that court without adding fresh lustre to his name. As a lawyer he was well read, but by no means profound. His strength lay in the keenness of his reason ing faculty, in his dexterity and the ability with which he disentangled complicated masses of evidence, and above all in his unrivalled power of fixing and commanding the attention of juries. To no department of knowledge but law had he applied himself systematically, with the single exception of English literature, of which he acquired a thorough mastery in early life, at intervals of leisure in college, on board ship, or in the army. Vanity is said to Lave been his ruling personal characteristic ; but those who knew him, while they admit the fault, say that in him it never took an offensive form, even in old age, while the singular grace and attractiveness of his manner endeared him to all with whom he came in contact. In 1772 Erskine published Observations on the Prevailing Abuses in the British Army, a pamphlet which had a large circulation, and in later life, Armata, ail imitation of Gulliver s Travels. His most noted speeches have repeatedly appeared in a collected form. There is a good account of his life in Lord Campbell s Chancellors, aiid an interesting estimate of his chaiacter in Lord Abinger s recently published Memoir. (H. J. E. F.) ERSKINE, THOMAS, of Linlathen (1788-1870), a writer on theology and religion, son of David Erskine, writer to the signet in Edinburgh, and of Anne Graham, of the Grahams of Airth, was born 13th October 1788. He was a descendant of the earl of Mar, regent of Scotland in the reign of James VI., a grandson of John Erskine of Carnock, and a nephew of the Rev. Dr John Erskine, both noticed above. After being educated at the High School of Edinburgh and at Durham, he attended the literary and law classes at the university of Edinburgh; and becoming in 1810 a member of the Edinburgh faculty of advocates, he for some time enjoyed the intimate acquaintance of Cockburn, Jeffrey, Scott, and the other distinguished men whose talents then lent an unusual lustre to the Scotch bar. On the death of his elder brother in 1816 he succeeded to the family estate of Linlathen, near Dundee, and retired from the bar occupying the chief portion of his subsequent life in the management of his estate, in the intercourse of a few select friends, and in the discussion either by conversation, by letters, or by literary publications of those religious topics which he considered to have a vital relation to man s highest welfare. The writings of Erskine are perhaps deficient in robustness of thought, but they are clothed in a graceful style, and possess a certain originality and interest, due chiefly to his strong earnestness, unaffected sincerity, and fine moral insight. His theological views have a consider able similarity to those of Frederick Denison Maurice, who acknowledges having been indebted to him for his first true conception of the meaning of Christ s sacrifice. Erskine had little interest in the &quot; historical criticism&quot; of Chris tianity, and regarded as the only proper criterion of its truth its conformity or nonconformity with man s spiritual nature, and its adaptability or non-adaptability to man s universal and deepest spiritual needs. He considered the incarnation of Christ as the necessary manifestation to man of an eternal sonship in the divine nature, apart from which those filial qualities which God demands from man could