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.
High Street.] THE EARL OF ROSSLYN. 273
worn-out with the fatigues of a long and active.
career, he retired from public life.
When visiting his native capital for the last time,
after an absence of nearly fifty years, with an
emotion which did him honour, he caused himself
to be camed in a sedan chair to Elphinstone Court,
in that now obscure part of the city, that he might
again see the house in which his father dwelt, and
where his own early years as a boy and as a bamster
had been spent. He expressed particular anxiety
to know ?if a set of holes in the paved court before
his father?s door, which he had used for some youthful
sportwere still in existence; and finding them still
there intact, it is related that as all the past came
upon him, the veteran statesman burst into tears.
North in forming the celebrated Coalition Ministry,
in which he held the appointment of first Commissioner
for keeping the Great Seal. On its
dissolution, he joined the Opposition under Fox ;
but, amid the alarm of the expected French invasion,
he gave in his adhesion to the Administration
of Pitt, and on succeeding Lord Thurlow as Lord
High Chancellor, in April, 1801, was created Earl
of Xosslyn in Midlothian, and then, when nearly
and was interred in St. Paul?s Cathedral at London.
Shortly after the death of his father, Lord
Chesterhall, which occurred in 1756, he sold the
old mansion in Elphinstone Court to John Camp
bell, a senator under the title of Lord Stonefield,
who succeeded Lord Gardenstone as a justiciary
judge, and who retained his seat upon the bench
till his death in June, 1801. It is somewhat remarkable
that his two immediate predecessors
occupied the same seat for a period of ninety
years ; Lord Royston having been appointed a
judge in 1710, and Lord Tinwald in 1744. By
his wife, Lady Grace Stuart, daughter of John
third Earl of Bute, he had several sons, all of whom
pre-deceased him. The second of these w+s the
The memory of the early friendships he formed
with the ? select society ?? of Edinburgh, including
Darid Hume, Robertson, Adam Smith, and Blair,
he cherished with unceasing fondness. ?? His
ambition was great,? says Sir Egerton Bridges,
?and his desire of oflice unlimited. He could
argue with great ingenuity on either side, so that
it was difficult to anticipate his future by his past
opinions.? He died of an apoplectic fit in 1805~
THE EARL OF SELKIRK?S HOUSE, HYNDFORD?S CLOSE (south W-#).
(From fke Engraviwin Sir Wa&rScotfs ?Rrd?axntki,? byfirmission of Messn. A. and C. Black.)
