272 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street
lawyer and judge. Admitted an advocate at the
early age of nineteen, he obtained a full share of
practice, and the rooms of his mansion in Elphinstone
Court were frequently crowded byhis clients;
but having gained a cause in which the celebrated
Lockhart (Lord Covington) was the opposing
counsel, that eminent barrister, in bitter chagrin at
his signal defeat, styled him ?a presumptuous
boy.? Young Wedderburn?s reply was so terribly
sarcastic as to draw upon him a severe rebuke from
England, resided here while practising at the
Scottish Bar. He was born in East Lothian, in
1733, where his great-grandfather, Sir Peter Wedderburn
of Gosford, was a man of influence in the
reign of Charles II., and rose to be an eminent
courts for ever, was called to the English bar in
1753, and soon gained fresh fame as counsel for
the great Lord Clive ; and in I 768-9 his eloquence
in the famous Douglas cause won him the notice
of Lord Camden and the friendship of the Earls of
Bute and Mansfield. He sat in the Commons as
member for the Inverary Burghs, and for Bishop?s
Castle, and in 1780 was raised to the British peerage
as Lord Loughborough, in the county of
Leicester. In April, 1783, he united with Lord
one of the judges, on which he threw off his gown,
and declared that never again would he plead in a
place where he was subjected to insult.
A11 unaware of the brilliant future that awaited
him, with great regret he quitted the Scottish
ELPHINSTONE COURT.
