ever been delivered in that situation; though some hare objected that, both on this and on other occasions, his Scottish education inclined him too much towards the principles and modes of the civil law, inculcating greater latitude than by the precision of the English law was warranted.
In April, 1783, lord Loughborough united with his friend lord North in forming the celebrated Coalition ministry, in which he held the appointment of first commissioner for keeping the great seal; but the reflections so justly levelled at many of the coalesced leaders did not apply to the "wary Wedderburn," for he had never uttered any opinion depreciatory of the talents or character of Mr Fox. From the breaking up of this ministry, his lordship remained out of office till the alarm of the French revolution separated the heterogeneous opposition which its remnants had formed for nearly ten years against Mr Pitt, under whom he accepted office, January 27, 1793, as lord high chancellor. He filled that important station for eight years, "not perhaps, says Brydges," in a manner perfectly satisfactory to the suitors of his court, nor always with the highest degree of dignity as speaker of the upper house, but always with that pliancy, readiness, ingenuity, and knowledge, of which political leaders must have felt the convenience, and the public duly appreciated the talent. Yet his slender and flexible eloquence," continues this elegant writer, "his minuter person, and the comparative feebleness of his bodily organs, were by no means a match for the direct, sonorous, and energetic oratory, the powerful voice, dignified figure, and bold manner of Thurlow; of whom he always seemed to stand in awe, and to whose superior judgment he often bowed against his will."
Lord Loughborough having been twice married without issue, and his first patent having been limited to heirs-male, a new patent was granted to him in 1795, by which his nephew Sir James Sinclair Erskine of Alva, was entitled to succeed him. On resigning the chancellorship in April, 1801, his lordship was created earl of Rosslyn, in the county of Mid Lothian, with the same remainders. He now retired from public life, but continued to be a frequent guest of his sovereign, who never ceased to regard him with the highest esteem. During the brief interval allowed to him between the theatre of public business and the grave, he paid a visit to Edinburgh, from which he had been habitually absent for nearly fifty years. With a feeling quite natural, perhaps, but yet hardly to be expected in one who had passed through so many of the more elevated of the artificial scenes of life, he caused himself to be carried in a chair to an obscure part of the Old Town, where he had resided during the most of his early years. He expressed a particular anxiety to know if a set of holes in the paved court before his father's house, which he had used for some youthful sport, continued in existence, and, on finding them still there, it is said that the aged statesman was moved almost to tears.[1] The earl of Rosslyn died at Bayles in Berkshire, January 3, 1805, and was interred in St Paul's cathedral. A portrait of his lordship, painted by Reynolds, was engraved by Bartolozzi. He wrote, in early life, critiques on Barclay's Greek grammar, the Decisions of the Supreme Court, and the Abridgment of the Public Statutes, which appeared in the Edinburgh Review, 1755. In 1793, he published a treatise on the management of prisons, and subsequently a treatise on the English poor laws, addressed to a clergyman in Yorkshire.
WEDDERBURN, James, a poet of the sixteenth century, was born in Dundee
about the year 1500, and is supposed to have belonged to the family which afterwards produced the earl of Rosslyn. He wrote three poems, beginning respectively with the following lines: "My love was falss and full of flatterie,"
- ↑ The house was situated in Gray's close, opposite to tin; ancient Mint.
