inflict personal chastisement upon him; and there were some
circumstances in his domestic life supposed to render his re-
putation vulnerable. At last four junior advocates, of whom
Wedderburn was one, entered into a mutual engagement that
he among them who first had the opportunity should resent
the arrogance of the Dean, and publicly insult him.
It was
by mere accident that the opportunity occurred to Wedder-
burn, who certainly made a good use of it.*

CHAP.

CLXIII.

A. D. 1757.

the Par

In the very end of July or beginning of August, 1757, Scene in (the exact day I have not been able to ascertain)†, Wedder- liament burn was opposed in the Inner House as counsel to Lockhart, House. and was called by him a " presumptuous boy," experiencing from him even more than his wonted rudeness and superciliousness. When the presumptuous boy came to reply he delivered such a furious personal invective as never was before or since heard at the Scottish bar. A lively impression still remains of its character; but newspaper reporting was then unknown in Edinburgh, and oral tradition has preserved only one sentence of that which probably was the meditated part of the harangue :-"The learned Dean has confined himself on this occasion to vituperation; I do not say that he is capable of reasoning, but if tears would have answered his purpose I am sure tears would not have been wanting." Lockhart here started up and threatened him with vengeance. Wedderburn: "I care little, my lords, for what may be said or done by a man who has been disgraced in his person and dishonoured in his bed." Lord President Craigie, being afterwards asked why he had not sooner interfered, answered, "Because Wedderburn made all the flesh creep on my bones." But at last his lordship declared in a firm tone, that "this was language unbecoming an advocate and unbecoming a gentleman." Wedderburn, now in a state of such excitement as to have lost all sense of decorum and propriety, exclaimed that "his lordship had said as a judge what he could not justify

Letter to me from the Ex-Lord Justice General HOPE. - He adds, "I do not now recollect the names of all the young men, but the late Sir Wm. Pultney, then Mr. Johnstone, was one of them."

I know that it must have been after the 26th of July, for on that day he was reappointed by the Faculty one of the Advocates for the poor and it must have been before the 10th of August, when the summer session ended.

CLXIII.

A D. 1757.

CHAP. as a gentleman." The President appealed to his brethren as to what was fit to be done,-who unanimously resolved that Mr. Wedderburn should retract his words and make an humble apology, on pain of deprivation. All of a sudden, Wedderburn seemed to have subdued his passion, and put on an air of deliberate coolness, when, instead of the expected retractation and apology, he stripped off his gown, and holding it in his hands before the judges, he said, "My Lords, I neither retract nor apologise, but I will save you the trouble of deprivation; there is my gown, and I will never wear it more; virtute me involvo." He then coolly laid his gown upon the bar, made a low bow to the judges, and before they had recovered from their amazement, he left the court, which he never again entered.

He sets off for London.

He is su

Curator

of the Advocates' library.

That very night he set off to London. I know not whether he had any apprehension of the steps which the judges might have taken to vindicate their dignity, or whether he was ashamed to meet his friends of the Parliament House, but he had formed a resolution, which he faithfully kept, to abandon his native country, and never more to revisit it.*

That I may conclude all that I have to say of him connected perseded as with Scotland, I may here notice that on the anniversary meeting of the Faculty, on the 3d of Jan. 1758, “It being represented that Mr. Alexander Wedderburn, a curator of the library, was now residing in London, and therefore that it would be proper to name some person in his room, the Faculty deferred to appoint a successor to him, until they should understand from himself whether he intended to return soon to this country, and appointed that Mr. Andrew Pringle, His Majesty's solicitor, the now senior curator, should write to Mr. Wedderburn for information on that matter." suspect that no answer was returned; and that nevertheless

I

* Lockhart was afterwards, at the age of seventy-five, promoted to the Bench, and (as it is said) on the recommendation of Lord Loughborough. He was a very useful Judge for some years. It is also said that Lord Loughborough gave a gown to Lord Polkemmet as a compensation for having given him bad advice to try a cause, and appeal it to the House of Lords. Baillie v. Tennant, 17th June, 1766. Morrison, 1491. This was more questionable, both in principle and in result.

CHAP.

CLXIII.

a year of grace was allowed him; for under date Jan. 2. 1759, there is the following entry in the minutes of the Faculty," Mr. Alexander Wedderburn, one of the curators A. D. 1757. of the library, being now resident in London, and unable to attend to the duties of this office, Mr. Adam Fergusson is

substituted in his room."

pro

ther his

gown was tated with a view to

My own opinion is, that Wedderburn's exit from the Q. WheParliament House was unpremeditated. Many suppose, throwing however, that it was contrived to give greater éclat to his off his change of destination. Lord Commissioner Adam says, premedi"He always intended to quit Scotland, and pursue the fession in England; and he is believed to have taken that opportunity of showing his determination by stripping gown from his shoulders and laying it on the bar." He himself was conscious that his conduct was wholly unjustiable as regarded Lockhart, and still more as regarded the Lord President Craigie. "I lived," adds the Lord Commissioner, "in great intimacy with Lord Loughborough

for

his

very many years, and he never came upon this part of his life in Scotland. Mr. Lockhart's eldest son, a very sensible man, who was at the English bar, received great attention from his lordship; and it always struck me that he had particular pleasure, from his natural kindness of disposition, in making amends for any wrong that had been done to the father."

his removal to Eng

land?

CHAP.

A. D. 1757. Wedderburn's journey to London.

CHAPTER CLXIV.

CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD LOUGHBOROUGH TILL HE
BECAME A PATRIOT.

*

TRAVELLING by a heavy stage coach which carried six CLXIV. inside passengers the swiftest public conveyance then known between the two capitals of Britain - Wedderburn reached his destination early in the morning of the sixth day after his departure from Edinburgh. We are left to conjecture what his feelings were as the clumsy vehicle rattled down the High-street, whose lofty houses he was to behold no more as he caught the last glimpse of Arthur's Seat, from which he had so often admired the beautiful environs of his "own romantic town" as he crossed the bridge over the Tweed, and recollected that, however he might fare in his great adventure, there was no retreat for him as in the grey light of the last dawn that was to break upon him in his fatiguing journey, he descried from Highgate the towers of Westminster Abbey, near which was the scene of all his hopes and fears. He had given orders for his books to follow him by a Leith trader, and his wardrobe accompanied him in his portmanteau. These constituted the great bulk of his wealth, for his father had left Chesterhall burdened by debt to the full amount of its value, and his scanty earnings at the Scotch bar had been insufficient to maintain him without the assistance of his family. But he brought with him not only brilliant talents and varied accomplishments,

*When I first reached London I performed the same journey in three nights and two days, Mr. Palmer's mail coaches being then established; but this swift travelling was considered dangerous as well as wonderful, and I was gravely advised to stop a day at York, "as several passengers who had gone through without stopping had died of apoplexy from the rapidity of the motion." The whole distance can now be accomplished with ease and safety in fourteen hours, and very soon intelligence may be communicated from the one capital to the other in as many seconds.

CHAP.

but an unconquerable resolution to justify to his friends and CLXIV.

He

to the world the hazardous step which he was taking.
had screwed his courage to the sticking place, and he could
not fail.

A. D. 1757..

in the

He was set down at the Bull and Mouth Inn, behind His arrival there. St. Paul's, and he remained quartered there for a few days, till he was lucky enough to be able to hire on moderate He takes terms a small set of chambers in the Temple. The City he chambers found in the noisy bustle by which it is characterised at all Temple. seasons of the year; but beyond Charing Cross he found shutters all closed, and grass beginning to grow in the streets. However, he little regretted the absence of gay company, for he was eager to devote himself day and night to the preparation for his call to the English bar. Dr. Clephane was in town, and received him kindly; but he now seldom indulged in a visit to the old physician, who, although of a highly cultivated understanding and agreeable manners, had been born in the county of Fife, and spoke in a Scottish dialect peculiarly broad and drawling. Wedderburn's desire to purify his own accent had grown into a passion, and for this purpose there was no exertion or privation to which he was not willing to submit. Scotchmen he long avoided, as if he had been afraid of some contagious disease by shaking hands with them.

To his great delight he found that Sheridan, in whose Becomes a tùm-ti-tùm he still placed entire confidence, was in London, Sheridan. pupil of negotiating an engagement on the stage, and superintending the publication of his "Lectures on Elocution." The old gentleman was much flattered by the homage he received from the Scotch advocate, whom he had seen holding such a high position at Edinburgh, and, in consideration of this rather than of the pecuniary compensation offered to him, agreed to take him as a pupil, and to give up to him the greatest portion of his time. Sheridan came daily to the Temple at an early hour in the morning, and with a short interval for breakfast, they continued talking, reading, reciting, and declaiming together during the greater part of the day. It being now the depth of the long vacation,