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215

No. XV.

THE RIGHT HON. DAVID STEWART ERSKINE,

ELEVENTH EARL OF BUCHAN, AND SIXTH LORD CARDROSS.

THE very ancient earldom of Buchan, created in 1469, came into the family of Erskine with Mary Douglas, Countess of Buchan, grand-daughter of the Honourable Robert Douglas, by Christian Stewart, who married Sir James Erskine, Knt., eldest son, by his second wife, of John the seventh Earl of Marr.

The noble Earl whose death we have now to record was born June 1. 1742 (O. S.). He was the second but eldest surviving son of Henry David the tenth Earl, by Agnes, second daughter of Sir James Steuart of Goodtrees, Bart., his Majesty's Solicitor for Scotland; and was the elder halfbrother of Thomas Lord Erskine, for a short time Lord High Chancellor of England.

66

From an account communicated by himself to Mr. Wood's edition of Douglas's " Peerage of Scotland," we learn that he "was educated by James Buchanan, of the family of the memorable poet and historian, under the immediate direction of his excellent parents. He was founded in the elements of the mathematics by his mother, who was a scholar of the great Maclaurin; by his father in history and politics; and by his preceptor in all manner of useful learning, and in the habits of rigid honour and virtue."

By a Memoir in the "Public Characters" of 1798, to which also it is probable that his Lordship contributed, we are further informed, that, " at the University of Glasgow, in early youth, he applied with ardent and successful dili

gence to every ingenious and liberal study. His hours of relaxation from science and literature were frequently passed in endeavours to acquire the arts of design, etching, engraving, and drawing, in the academy which the excellent but ill requited Robert Foulis for some time laboured to support in that western metropolis of Scotland." A specimen of his abilities in etching (a view of Icolmkill Abbey) was published in the first volume of the "Transactions of the Scottish Antiquaries,” as noticed hereafter.

Having completed his education, Lord Cardross was probably at first intended for the military profession, as we find that he held a half-pay Lieutenancy of the 32d foot, even to the period of his decease. It appears, however, that he repaired to London, to pursue the study of diplomacy under the patronage of the Earl of Chatham. Whilst resident in the metropolis, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies, in 1765. Of the latter, and perhaps of the former, he would, for some years before his decease, have been the senior member, had he not resigned the honour a few years after returning to Scotland.

His Lordship was appointed Secretary to the British Embassy in Spain in November, 1766; but losing his father, December 1. 1767, " withdrew from public life at a very early period after his succession to the title, and dedicated himself to the duties of a private station, the advancement of science and literature, and the improvement of his native country by the arts of peace." Such is his Lordship's own account. His political feelings, however, were strong; and several occasional manifestations of them are on record.

"The

One is thus noticed in the "Public Characters:" King's Ministers had been long accustomed, at each new election, to transmit to every Peer a list of the names of sixteen of his fellow-Peers, for whom he was required to give his vote, in the choice of the members who should represent the nobles of Scotland in the British Parliament; and to this humiliating usurpation the descendants of the most illustrious names had accustomed themselves tamely to submit! The

Earl of Buchan, with the spirit of an ancient Baron, took an early opportunity of declaring that he would oblige the Secretary of State, who should insult him with such an application, to wash away the affront with his blood. The practice from that time ceased; and Ministers were obliged to adopt some other less offensive mode of exercising their electioneering influence over the Caledonian Peerage."

Lord Buchan's "Speech, intended to have been spoken at the Meeting of the Peers of Scotland, for the General Election of their Representatives, in which a Plan is proposed for the better Representation of the Peerage of Scotland," was published in 4to., 1780. His Lordship never voted at subsequent elections of representative Peers.

To revert from these political efforts to those scenes where his zealous enthusiasm was more successfully and beneficially exerted, we will again take up the "Public Characters." "The Earl had two very promising brothers (the Chancellor and the witty Henry Erskine); and on their education he earnestly bestowed that care which was to be expected from the kindness and vigilance, not merely of a near relation, but of a prudent and affectionate parent. The fortunes of his family had been, from different causes, not dishonoured, indeed, but impaired so considerably, that they could no longer afford an annual income sufficiently ample to support its dignities with due splendour and to enable him to gratify all the generous wishes of a munificent spirit. Struck with this, he resolutely adopted a plan of economy, admirably fitted to retrieve and re-establish those falling fortunes; and his endeavours (perhaps the most honourable and difficult which a young and liberal-minded nobleman could resolve upon), without subjecting him to the imputation of parsimony, were crowned and rewarded with opulence.

"The High School of Edinburgh is confessedly one of the best seminaries in the kingdom for the initiation of youth in the first principles of the Latin language. By frequent visits to this seminary, the Earl of Buchan has sought every opportunity of recommending to public notice the skill and

attention of the teachers, as well as the happy proficiency of their pupils; and a premium, his gift, is annually bestowed at the University of Aberdeen, upon the successful competitor in a trial of excellence among the students.”

Of a school for students of more advanced years, the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, the Earl of Buchan may justly be styled the founder. The first meeting preparatory to its formation was held at his house, November 14. 1780; when he explained, in a pertinent discourse (printed that year in octavo), the general plan and intention of the proposed Association. A second meeting assembled at the same place a fortnight after: and at a third, on the 18th of October, the Society was instituted; when the Earl of Bute was elected President, and the Earl of Buchan the first of the five VicePresidents. A few weeks after, it was announced that "the Earl of Buchan has presented to the newly-instituted Society of Antiquaries of Scotland a correct life of the admirable Crichton, written by the Earl himself, in which many falsities relative to this prodigy of human nature are detailed. (This was afterwards employed in the "Biographia Britannica.") His Lordship has likewise deposited with the Society some valuable literary productions of Crichton.”

His Lordship's antiquarian pursuits at that period were principally confined to the collecting of curious missive letters elucidatory of Scottish biography, and in general characteristic letters of illustrious or learned persons. His objects were, first, as leading to a Biographia Scotica; secondly, Biography in general; and, thirdly, the printing of characteristic letters, by centuries, of the most eminent persons in the state, or in literature, since the restoration of letters in Europe.

In a letter to a London correspondent, in 1783, his Lordship thus speaks of his personal exertions in antiquarian researches: "I have seen a very good specimen of parochial history, by Mr. Warton, in that of Kiddington. I wrote one of my parish, (I mean, of that in which I reside,) which is a very small and uninteresting one, as an encouragement to others to proceed on a plan of that sort; and I am glad to find

the example has been made useful. . . . . . . If I had better health, and a little more ready money, I could have done more; but I have had much greater success, under all my obstacles, than my most sanguine expectations gave me reason to suppose some years ago. My insatiable thirst of knowledge, and a genius prone to the splendid sciences and the fine arts, has distracted my attention so much, that the candid must make allowances for me in any one department; but considering myself as a Nobleman, and not a Peer of Parlialiament (a piece of ornamental china as it were), I have been obliged to avail myself of my situation to do as much good as I possibly could without acting in a professional line, from which my rank and my fate excluded me. Our annual publication is gone to the press. The first volume of our Transactions will appear about the 14th of November."

In Dec. 1784, the Earl communicated to Mr. Nichols, the late venerable Editor of the "Gentleman's Magazine," two letters containing some "Remarks on the Progress of the Roman Arms in Scotland during the Sixth Campaign of Agricola," which, with a third by the Reverend Mr. Jamieson, and six plates, were published in 1786, as the 36th Number of the "Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica." The first letter begins in this singular manner, the quotation of which will impart some further idea of his Lordship's political sentiments:

66 Sir, -Next to the united loss of health and character, accompanied by the gnawing torments of an evil conscience, is the misfortune to a good man of surviving the virtue, the glory, and the happiness of his native country. This misfortune is ours; and such has been the accumulation of disgrace and discomfiture that has fallen on us as a people since the last wretched twenty-four years of the British annals, that I turn with aversion from the filthy picture that is before my eyes, and look back for consolation to the times which are past. It was in seeking, Sir, for such opiates to the watchful care of a good citizen in a falling empire that I fell into antiquarian research, and shall give you from time to time the results of it.”

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