erty of his own observation. Cicero, in his speech for Archias,
appeals to the judges whether he could possibly supply the demands upon
him for daily exertions of eloquence, unless he assidiously refreshed his
mind with studies, in which he was assisted by Archias and other
rhetoricians, and that he read copiously is manifested in all his works.
The accomplished academician, the able balancer of the different schools
of philosophy and morals, and the studied Rhetor is obtruded upon us. He
was, in every sense of the term, learned; Erskine, on the contrary,
cannot be discovered by any of his speeches, or writings, to have read
much, and most probably had read very little. He was in no sense of the
word learned. He has, indeed by acuteness of observation, vigour of
combination, and the ready power of deduction that he possessed, been
able to produce and leave behind him what will become the learning of
others, but he was not learned himself. His qualities, from his earliest
years were quickness and acuteness, unchecked and insatiable curiosity,
retentive memory, and busy reflection; his mind was never still. In the
coffee-room he conversed and indulged in humour with all round him.
However important or heavy the causes which were to occupy him in court,
they never oppressed his mind with a load of anxiety; his was not like
ordinary minds under great affairs, so absorbed that he could perceive
nothing round him; his, till the hour of solemn exertion arrived, was
disengaged and indulged in pleasantry; after the toil of the day, the
passion of eloquence and the intensity of technical argument, he was full
of spirits and waggery at dinner and in the evening. And light as his
topics sometimes were, his thoughts were always distinct, and his
expressions full; you never from him heard any imperfect thoughts
expressed, that (like tadpoles, before they are complete, must go through
other processes of animation) required the exertion of your own
conceptions to attain their sense and spirit. The activity of his mind
was like that of the swallow, which either in sport or pursuit is upon
the wing for ever. With this character it may readily be believed that
young Erskine received his discharge with feelings like those that attend
the cessation of a long and painful disease from a state which called for
no exercise of his great talents, and, neither yielded scope for the
communication of his own attainments nor opportunity to incr