Parliament House.] LORD HERMAND. I73
never fully recovered the shock, and died in July,
1824.
George Fergusson, Lord Hermand, succeeded
Lord Braxfield in 1799, and was on the Bench
during all the political trials connected with the
West Country seditions of 1817. He and Lord
Newton were great cronies and convivialists ; but
the former outlived Newton and all his old lastcentury
contemporaries of the Bar, and was the
last link between the past and present race of
Scottish lawyers. On the Bench he was hasty and
sarcastic. He was an enthusiast in the memories
of bygone days, and scorned as ?priggishness? the
sham decorum of the modem legal character.. He
with the strongest broad Scottish accent, and when
there was fond of indulging in pungent jokes. He
was made a judge in 1798, and officiated as such
till 1822. In the March of that year his friend
and kinsman Sir Alexander Boswell of Auchinleck
was mortally wounded in a duel with James
Stuart of Dunearn, about a mile from Balmuto
House, whither he was borne, only to die ; and the
venerable senator, who was then in his 83rd year,
he lugged in the subject, head and shoulders, in
the midst of a speech about some dry point oflaw
; nay, getting warmer every moment he spoke
of it, he at last fairly plucked the volume from his
pocket, and, in spite of all the remonstrances of?
his brethren, insisted on reading aloud the whole
passage for their edification. He went through the.
task with his wonted vivacity, gave great effect to
every speech, and most appropriate expression to.
every joke. During the whole scene Sir Walter
Scott was present-seated, indeed, in his official
capacity-close under the judge.?? He died at hislittle
estate of Hermand, near Edinburgh, in 1827~
I when in his 80th year.
is thus mentioned in ? Peter?s Letters to his Kinsfolk
:?-? When ? Guy Mannefmg ? came out the
judge was so delighted with the picture of the life
of the old Scottish judges in that most charming.
novel, that he could talk of nothing else but Pley--
dell, Dandie, and the high jinks, for many weeks.
He usually carried one volume of the book about.
with him; and one morning, on the Bench, his
~ love for it so completely got the better of him that
RUINS IN PARLIAMENT SQUARE AFTER THE GREAT FIRE, IN NOVEMBER, I824
