CHAPTER CLXIII. CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD LOUGHBOROUGH TILL CHAP. CLXIII. tinues three years at the Scotch bar. FOR three whole years Wedderburn continued regularly and energetically to ply his profession in Scotland, except that each spring he slipped away for a few weeks to London, 1754-1757. to eat dinners in the Inner Temple Hall, so that he might He constill have the English bar as a resource. In 1755 he was supposed to gain a great advantage by the elevation of his father to the bench, from succeeding to the business of certain family clients, and from the expected favour of the court to the causes patronised by the son of a judge — a feeling much more prevalent in Scotland than in England. Each successive year he was appointed by the faculty one of the advocates for the poor-one of the fifteen public examiners and impugners - and one of the curators of the Advocates' Library. The following is the account he gave of his maiden brief:-. His first "Knowing the character of my countrymen at that time, I was at great pains to study and assume a very grave, solemn deportment for a young man, which my marked features, notwithstanding my small stature, would render more imposing. Men then wore in winter small muffs, and I flatter myself that as I paced to the Parliament House, no man of fifty could look more thoughtful or steady. My first client was a citizen whom I did not know. He called upon me in the course of the cause, and becoming familiar with him, I asked him, 'how he came to employ me?' The answer was, 'Why I had noticed you in the High-street going to Court * • To understand this thoroughly, the habits of Edinburgh in the middle of the last century-the groups assembled for conversation near the Cross, and the practice of shopkeepers to stand at their shop-doors, and to notice all who passed, saluting those whom they knew. should be kept in remembrance. I myself, when a boy, have witnessed a remnant of such habits whereas now VOL. VI. C CHAP. CLXIII. His eloquence in the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. He is or the most punctual of any as the clock struck nine, and you looked so grave and business-like, that I resolved from your appearance to have you for my advocate."" He spoke with great satisfaction of the success resulting from the deportment he had assumed. Although he seems to have excited a very considerable sensation in his own country, while he remained there, I can find no trace of his eloquence in the Court of Session till the very close of his career there*, and my southern readers will be astonished to hear, that the great theatre for his rhetorical displays was the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland-not as counsel at their bar, but as a Ruling Elder, leading their deliberations on grave questions of heresy and church discipline. At this time, in the absence of a Parliament, the General Assembly was considered a sort of national representative body, and many of the nobility and gentry sat in it as lay members, after being ordained elders-being deputies of presbyteries, royal burghs and universities. But next to the venerable fathers of the Kirk, the great speakers were young advocates, who contrived to be sent up as elders, — I am afraid, less with a view to further the objects of religion, thau to gratify their own vanity, and to show how well qualified they were to manage causes before the Courts of Session and Justiciary. Wedderburn was of a Presbyterian family, and to be quadained an lified for the General Assembly, immediately after he was elder, and returned called to the bar, at the age of twenty-one, he was privately for the ordained an elder of the parish in which his father resided in burgh of Inverkeith-East Lothian, and for the General Assembly, which was to meet in the month of May following, he was elected representative by the royal burgh of Inverkeithing. ing. Proceed Scotland was at this time in a state of extraordinary ferings against ment from the philosophical writings of David Hume, and a David Hume and the great shopkeepers read the newspapers in a counting-house elegantly fitted up, and the lawyers drive to the Parliament House in their coaches. There is a bare mention of his name once or twice in the Faculty Reports, the last as counsel in Hunter v. Aitkin, 6th July, 1757. Morrison's Dictionary of Decisions, p. 3448. CLXIII. Kames. work of Henry Home, just made a judge under the title of CHAP. Lord Kames, which was supposed to contain doctrines little less pernicious.* The zeal of the orthodox was quickened A. D. 1755. by a proceeding in England which they wished to outdo. Lord About a year before there had been a presentment by the Grand Jury of the city and liberty of Westminster against Mallet for publishing the works of Lord Bolingbroke. In the north such offences were considered more properly within the cognizance of the ecclesiastical courts, and a certain Reverend Dr. Anderson, who published many pamphlets on the subject, resolved now to have the two great delinquents at the bar of the supreme sacred tribunal on earth, and to launch against them the terrors kept in store by those vested with the true power of the keys. I have not been able to find any record of the maiden speech May, 1755. of the Elder for Inverkeithing, or the part which he took in the proceedings of this assembly; but the probability is that he seconded the efforts of the more moderate and discreet friends of religion, who succeeded in suppressing the introduction of the names of any particular writers for public discussion, and who acquiesced in a general expression of opinion against prevailing infidelity and immorality.† Anderson, however, was by no means satisfied, and as soon as the Assembly was dissolved, he published another pamphlet, which ran through many editions, attempting to prove "Nature and Obligations of Morality." The Assembly passed unanimously the following " Act against Infidelity and Immorality.". The General Assembly being filled with the deepest concern on account of the prevalence of Infidelity and Immorality; the principles whereof have been to the disgrace of our age and nation, so openly avowed in several books published of late in this country, and which are but too well known amongst us; do therefore judge it proper and necessary for them at this time to express the utmost abhorrence of these impious and infidel principles, which are subversive of all religion, natural and revealed, and have such pernicious influence on life and morals. And they do earnestly recommend it to all the Ministers of this Church to exercise the vigilance and to exert the zeal which becomes their character, to preserve those under their charge from the contagion of these abominable tenets, and to stir up in them a solicitous concern to guard against them, and against the influence of those who are infected with them." It has been stated to me that "Wedderburn, for the sake of his friends, who were well known to be struck at, wished to move the previous question, but found that he was struggling against a stream which would have overwhelmed him and said he was sure, while their names were not mentioned, they would consider the general censure brutum fulmen.” Act of the General Assembly against Infidelity, 28 May, 1755. CLXIII. A. D. 1756. CHAP. by texts of scripture, that it was the imperative duty of the Church, for the reformation of the wicked, for the protection of the unwary, and in the due exercise of the power vested in true believers constituting the visible Church, to cut off from its communion and to hand over to the Devil those who had violated their baptismal vow; and that a great national sin would be incurred unless personal proceedings were instituted and sternly carried on against the individuals who were now misleading so many, and who were little better than that Antichrist from whom their fathers, under the pious and unflinching Knox, had delivered the land. Their alarm. They are protected by Wedderburn. David Hume and Lord Kames became seriously alarmed. The former was then Keeper of the Advocates' Library and candidate for the chair of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. The latter, clothed in ermine, was not yet warm in his seat as a judge. Sentence of the "greater excommunication" would not only have exposed them to a vast deal of social annoyance,-causing them to be regarded with horror by the godly and with ridicule by the profane,—but might have very seriously injured them in their worldly interests. Their main reliance was on the good sense of Dr. Robertson, and the influence he had established in the Church, but they were likewise solaced by the friendly zeal and enterprising activity of Wedderburn. Having, for some unexplained reason, quarrelled with Inverkeithing to secure himself another seat in the General Assembly, our Elder contrived to make himself Provost of Dunfermline, and he acquired a complete ascendancy over the council of this burgh. He was unanimously elected their representative for the Assembly summoned to meet in May, 1756,— from which greater things were expected than had been achieved for the true faith since the Reformation. As the time approached, Anderson and his associates varied their plan of operations, and letting alone for the present Lord Kames, whose book was liable to the charge of heterodoxy rather than of infidelity, they resolved to bend all their efforts against David Hume, -to summon him to the bar,-to examine him viva voce respecting his writings and religious opinions, and if he proved contuma cious, to make a great example by inflicting upon him the highest censures of the Church. CHAP. CLXIII. against Accordingly, on the 28th of May, 1756, an overture or A. D. 1756. motion was made, that "The General Assembly, judging it Overture their duty to do all in their power to check the growth and Hume. progress of infidelity; and considering that as infidel writings have begun of late years to be published in this nation, against which they have hitherto only testified in general, so there is one person, styling himself 'DAVID HUME, Esq.,' who hath arrived at such a degree of boldness, as publicly to avow himself the author of books containing the most rude and open attacks upon the glorious gospel of Christ, and principles evidently subversive even of natural religion and the foundations of morality, if not establishing direct atheism: therefore the Assembly appoint a Committee to inquire into the writings of this author, to call him before them, and prepare the matter for the next General Assembly." burn's The speech of the mover was alarmingly well received; Wedderand it contained arguments which there was great difficulty speech in in answering without being subjected to the popular reproach the General of "latitudinarianism," or of " indifference about religion." for David " Assembly Wedderburn (I hope and believe from sincere conviction, and Hume. at all events from prudence) would have been very sorry to have been supposed to share the speculative doubts of the individual to be defended; but knowing that he was to be supported by men of unsuspected orthodoxy and piety, warmed by the recollection of the kindness for which he might now make some return, and no doubt excited by the favourable opportunity of gaining distinction,-rose to move what amounted to the previous question, - very properly not venturing upon a direct negative. The following is a short sketch of his speech on this occasion. In reading it, we are surprised at the sarcasms on which he ventured, and it rather corroborates the opinion of his eloquence given to me by a venerable father of the Church, who still lives and recollects it.* "I trust, Moderator," said the youthful elder for Dun The Very Reverend Principal Lee, who writes, "Wedderburn was not a favourite speaker in the General Assembly. He was disliked for his occasional |