58 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
Some idea of Erskine’s appearance may be gathered from his friend$ reply :
‘‘ Now, my lieutenant with the dwky face;
For though you’re clothed in scarlet and in lace,
The gorgeous glare of which to art you owe,
Yet nature gave you not my snowy brow.’’1
As a specimen of the Lieutenant’s style and humour, we may quote the following
from one of his letters, dated from New Tarbat, where he appears to
have resided principally during the epistolary intercourse, and where Boswell
paid him a visit-the friends having previously met at Glasgow by appointment
:-
“ I have often wondered, Boswell, that a man of your taste in music cannot play upon the Jew’s
harp ; there are some of us here that can touch it very melodiously, I can tell you. Corelli’s solo
of Maggie Lauder, and Pergolesi’s sonata of the Curle he cum o’er the craft, are excellently adapted
to that instrument. The first cost is but three-halfpence, and they
last a long time. I have composed the following ode upon it, which exceeds Pindar as much as the
Jew’s harp does the organ.”
Let me advise you to learn it.
[We quote the last verse.]
“ Roused by the magic of the charming wire,
The yawning dogs forego their heavy slumbers ;
The ladies listen on the narrow stair,
And Captain Andrew straight forgets his numbers.
Cats and mice give o’er their battling,
Pewter plates on shelves are rattling ;
But falling down, the noise my lady hears,
Whose scolding drowns the trump more tuneful than the spheres.”
‘( Captain Andrew,” however, could ‘(touch it very melodiously” on other
instruments than the Jew’s harp. He was an excellent musician-little inferior
to the (‘ musical Earl ” himself-and composed several much-admired airs.
To Thomson’s Collection of Scottish Songs he contributed, among others, the
delightful air and words of
“ See the moon on the still lake is sleeping,” etc.
The Captain was an admirer of the drama, and wrote one or two pieces for
the Edinburgh stage. One of these, by no means deficient in spirit, published
in 1764 (Gd.), bears the title of ((She’s not Him, and He’s not Her-a farce,
in two acts, as it is performed in the Theatre in Canongate.”
Although a poet, Erskine does not appear to have been influenced by any
romantic adoration of the fair sex. On the subject of matrimony his notions were
very different from those of Boswell ; ’ and he remained all his life a bachelor.
On the death of Vice-Admiral Lord Colville, in 1790, he resided chiefly thereafter
with his sister Lady Colville, at Drumsheugh, near the Dean Bridge,
The fact was, they were both tinged with the complexion ascribed to the “daughters of
Jerusalem. ”
a In one of hia letters to Boswell, he says-“ When you and I walked twice round the Meadows
upon the subject of matrimony, I little thought that my difference of opinion from you would have
brought on your marriage so soon ”