The words ‘Trial by Jury’ were painted by way of motto on one of the windows of Erskine House.
It is well known that differences in their political feelings and opinions had alienated him from Burke, whom he much admired; but it is pleasant to learn that before the death of the latter their differences were adjusted, and Burke visited him at Hampstead. ‘He came to see me,’ says Lord Erskine, ‘before he died. I then lived at Hampstead Hill. “Come, Erskine,” said he, holding out his hand, “let us forget all. I shall soon quit this stage, and wish to die in peace with everybody, especially you.” I reciprocated the sentiment, and we took a turn round the grounds. Suddenly he stopped; an extensive prospect broke upon him.... He stood wrapped in thought, gazing on the sky as the sun was setting. “Ah, Erskine,” he said, pointing towards it, “you cannot spoil that, because you cannot reach it. It would otherwise go. Yes; the firmament itself you and your reformers would tear down.”’
Lord Erskine.
This is Mr. Rush’s account, but the Right Hon. T. Erskine says: ‘Mr. Rush has quite spoiled Mr. Burke’s sarcasm upon being conducted by my father to his garden through a tunnel under the road that divided the house from the shrubbery. All the beauty of Ken Wood, Lord Mansfield’s, and the distant prospect burst upon him. “Oh,” said Burke, “this is just the place for a reformer. All the beauties are beyond your reach; you cannot destroy them.”’
Miss Seward was much struck with Erskine’s fine face and elegant figure, his bonhomie and exuberant fun; but his egotism was wearisome, and, unfortunately, it grew upon him with years. Fanny Burney’s account of him runs pretty much on the same lines, but he was not, when she met him, so brilliant in conversation as he had been.
In 1805 he had lost his wife, to whom he was tenderly attached, and who had literally shared with him the ‘burden and heat of the day,’ as true and loving in comparative poverty as in affluence. She died in London, but is buried in Hampstead Church, where a fine monument by the younger Bacon, of which Park gives an engraving, perpetuates her memory as the ‘most faithful and affectionate of women.’
About 1821-23 Lord Erskine removed from his house at Hampstead, where he had resided from 1788, and on doing so transferred the copyhold to Lord Mansfield.
He subsequently resided in Arabella Row, Pimlico, and tarnished, it is said, the lustre of his declining years by a second marriage. ‘When, how, or with whom,’ Lord Campbell had not heard upon authority. It is also said that his bright spirits deserted him, and that, like S. T. Coleridge, he had recourse to opium. Sheridan charitably suggested
‘When men like Erskine go astray,