Born in the same year as was Grattan, namely, in 1750, Lord Erskine
adorned the profession of the Bar with an eloquence that never
exhibited the slight tendency to be ponderous which sometimes was
displayed by his contemporaries.
Grace and refinement shine out in every one of his great speeches.
He was a young scion of the great house of Buchan, being the third son
of the tenth Earl. After being in the Navy for four years he left it
for the Army, and six years later he went to Trinity College,
Cambridge, and took his degree; thence he came to the Bar in 1778, and
at once displayed the most conspicuous ability as an advocate.
He appeared for Horne Tooke in a six-day trial for high treason, which
ended in an acquittal.
In 1806 he became Lord Chancellor and a peer.
I quote an indignant warning to the aristocracy of England which flamed
forth in one of his great speeches:--
"Let the aristocracy of England, which trembles so much for
itself, take heed to its own security; let the nobles of England,
if they mean to preserve that pre-eminence which, in some shape or
other, must exist in every social community, take care to support
it by aiming at that which is creative, and alone creative, of
real superiority. Instead of matching themselves to supply wealth,
to be again idly squandered in debauching excesses, or to round
the quarters of a family shield; instead of continuing their names
and honours in cold and alienated embraces, amidst the enervating
rounds of shallow dissipation, let them live as their fathers of
old lived before them; let them marry as affection and prudence
lead the way, and, in the ardours of mutual love, and in the
simplicities of rural life, let them lay the foundation of a
vigorous race of men, firm in their bodies, and moral from early
habits; and, instead of wasting their fortunes and their strength
in the tasteless circles of debauchery, let them light up their
magnificent and hospital halls to the gentry and peasantry of the
country, extending the consolations of wealth and influence to the
poor. Let them but do this,--and instead of those dangerous and
distracted divisions between the different ranks of life, and
those jealousies of the multitude so often blindly painted as big
with destruction, we should see our country as one large and
harmonious family, which can never be accomplished amidst vice and
corruption, by wars and treaties, by informations, _ex officio_
for libels, or by any of the tricks and artifices of the State."
Mr. Erskine was entitled, as the son of the tenth Earl of Buchan, to
speak such words of warning and exhortation to the aristocracy of
England to which he belonged, and the lapse of a century and a quarter
has not rendered the exhortation vain, though it may be hoped that the
condemnatory clauses of the speech would not at the present time be
so well justified as when they were delivered.
Great names carry great obligations, and, for the most part, those who
bear them to-day recognise those great obligations and endeavour
without ostentation to fulfil them.
The silly fribbles who posture before the photographic cameras for
penny newspapers do not represent the real aristocracy of England.
We must not, Antony, mistake a cockatoo for an eagle.
Your loving old
G.P.
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