Since days when Sir Walter Scott gathered round him at the fireplace in the Parliament Hall of Edinburgh a company of young brother advocates to hear the latest of Lord Eskgrove's eccentric sayings from the Bench, that rendezvous has been the favourite resort for story-telling among succeeding generations of counsel. While the Court is in session, they vary their daily walk up and down the hall by lounging round the spot where the future Wizard of the North proved a strong counter-attraction to many an interesting case being argued before a Lord Ordinary in the alcoves on the opposite side of the hall, which was then the "Outer House." It is even asserted that this same fireplace is the hatchery of many of the amusing paragraphs daily appearing in a column of a certain Edinburgh newspaper. But of all the witticisms that have enlivened the dull hours of the briefless barrister in that historic hall during the past century, none will stand the test of time or be read with so much pleasure as those of that prince of wits, the Hon. Henry Erskine.
THE HON. HENRY ERSKINE, LORD ADVOCATE AND DEAN OF FACULTY OF ADVOCATES.
Hairry, as he was familiarly called both by judge and counsel, was in an eminent degree the "advocate of the people." It is said that a poor man in a remote district of Scotland thus answered an acquaintance who wished to dissuade him from "going to law" with a wealthy neighbour, by representing the hopelessness of being able to meet the expenses of litigation. "Ye dinna ken what ye're saying, maister," replied the litigious northerner; "there's no' a puir man in a' Scotland need want a freen' or fear a foe, sae lang as Hairry Erskine lives."
When the autocratic reign of Henry Dundas as Lord Advocate was for a time eclipsed, Henry Erskine was his successor in the Whig interest. In his good-humoured way Dundas proposed to lend Erskine his embroidered gown, suggesting that it would not be long before he (Dundas) would again be in office. "Thank you," said Hairry, "I am well aware it is made to suit any party, but it will never be said of me that I assumed the abandoned habits of my predecessor."
Having been speaking in the Outer House at the Bar of Lord Swinton, a very good, but a very slow and deaf judge, Erskine was called away to Lord Braxfield's Court. On appearing his lordship said: "Well, Dean" (he was then Dean of the Faculty of Advocates), "what is this you've been talking so loudly about to my Lord Swinton?"—"About a cask of whisky, my lord, but I found it no easy matter to make it run in his lordship's head."
He was once defending a client, a lady of the name of Tickell, before one of the judges who was an intimate friend, and he opened his address to his lordship in these terms: "Tickell, my client, my lord." But the judge was equal to the occasion and interrupted him by saying: "Tickle her yourself, Harry, you're as able to do it as I am."
Lord Balmuto was a ponderous judge and not very "gleg in the uptak" (did not readily see a point), and retained the utmost gravity while the whole Court was convulsed with laughter at some joke of the witty Dean. Hours later, when another case was being heard, the judge would suddenly exclaim: "Eh, Maister Hairry, a' hae ye noo, a' hae ye noo, vera guid, vera guid."