BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 381
sense of Dundas, would have been unable much longer to have withstood, when
the recovery of the King happily removed them from their difEculties.
The Chief Justice stood opposed to the administration of Pitt until the
violent nature of the Revolution in France induced him and other individuals
of his party to join the ministerial ranks. He was almost immediately invested
with the high office of Lord Chancellor ; and to the influence which- he thus
acquired in the councils of his Majesty are to be attributed many of those
vigorous and decisive measures which were subsequently adopted by the
Government.
Lord Loughborough held the Chancellorship till 1801, when he was created
Earl of Rosslyn, with a remainder to his two nephews ; and, nearly worn out
with the fatigues of a long and active career, he retired altogether from public
life, carrying with him the highest esteem of his sovereign, by whom he continued
to be honoured with every mark of respect. “ 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 hardIy 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 was said that the aged statesman
was moved almost to tears.’”
His demise is thus announced
in the journals of the period :-
“At his seat at Baylis, near Salthill, in Berkshire, aged seventy-two, the Right Hon. Alexander
Wedderhurn, Earl of Rosslyn, Baron of Loughborough, in Leicestershire, and Baron Loughborough,
in Surrey. His lordship had been long subject to the gout ; but for some weeks past he was so much
recovered as to visit round the neighbourhood j and on Tuesday night, January 1, accompanied the
Countess to her Majesty’s f6te at Frogmore.
“ Next morning his lordship rode on horseback to visit several of the neighbouring gentlemen ; and,
after his return to Baylis, went in his carriage to Bulstrode to visit the Duke of Portland, and
returned home apparently in perfect health. At six o’clock, as his lordship sat at table, he was
suddenly seized with a fit of the apoplectic kind, and fell speechless in his chair. At twelve o’clock
he expired.
“ His lordship married, 31st December 1767, Betty Anne, only daughter and sole heiress of
John Dawson, Esq. of Morley, in Yorkshire, who died 15th February 1781. He had no issue. His
second lady, whom he married 12th September 1782, vas the youngast daughter of William Viscount
Courtenay, by whom he had a son, horn 2d October 1793, and since dead. Ry a second patent,
October 31, 1795, he was created Baron Loughborongh, in the county of Surrey, with remainders
severally and successively to Sir James St. Clair Erskine, Bart., and to John Erskine, his brother ;
and, by tr patent, April 21, 1801, Earl of Rosslyn, in the county of Mid-Lothian, to him and his
heirs-male, with remainder to the heirs-male of Dame Janet Erskine, deceased, his sister. He
was succeeded in the title by his nephew, Sir Jam= St. Clair Erskine, Bart. The remains of the
Earl were interred in St. Paul’s Cathedral. ”
His lordship died on the 2d January 1805.
In private life Lord Loughborough was esteemed a most agreeable com-
Traditions of Edinburgh.--The house, which consists of four stories, and is dated 1679, was
situated in Elphinstone’s Court, South Gray’s Close, oppotlite the ancient Mint
382 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
panion. The early friendships which he formed during his connection with the
Select Society of Edinburgh, among whom were Robertson, Blair, Smith, and
Hume, he continued to cherish with fondness throughout the bustle of his after
life.’
The public character of his lordship has been variously represented, according
to the political sentiments and prejudices of his contemporaries. Few statesmen
during the “ chopping and changing ” of last century escaped the satirical
lash of the Opposition ; and with such men as the ‘( wary Wedderburn,” in the
absence of other topics, national reflections were found a never-failing resource
for the wits of the day ; hence he is described by Churchill as
“ A pert, prim prater, of the northern race ;
Guilt in his heart, and famine in his face. ”
Wra&l, who cannot be charged with too much partiality for the “northern
race,” in the Memoirs of his own Times, thus sums up the character of the
statesman :-“ Loughborough unquestionably was one of the most able lawyers,
accomplished parliamentary orators, and dexterous courtiers, who flourished
under the reign of George the Third ; yet, with the qualities here enumerated,
he never approved himself a wise, judicious, or enlightened statesman. His
counsels, throughout the whole period of the King’s malady, were, if not
unconstitutional, at least repugnant to the general sense of Parliament, and of
the country-violent, imprudent, and injurious to the cause that he espoused.
In 1793, when he held the Great Seal, and sat in cabinet, it was universally
believed that the siege of Dunkirk-one of the most fatal measures ever
embraced by the allies-originated with Lord Loughborough. Nevertheless, his
legal knowledge, experience, and versatile talents, seemed eminently to qualify
him for guiding the heir-apparent at a juncture when, if the King should not
speedily recover, constitutional questions of the most novel, difficult, and
important nature must necessarily present themselves.”
Here we find all that can be plausibly urged against the public character of
Lord Loughborough, while a great deal is admitted in his favour. The imprudence
attributed to his counsels is hypothetical, and might be urged with as
much propriety against any other public man of equal genius and decision of
character.
The only literary productions of his lordship were-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. [Only two
numbers of the Edinburgh Review were published. The editors were BliEir, Robertson, etc.]
