se, addicted himself to any out of door's sports whatever. He
would, I fancy, as soon have thought of slaying his own mutton as of
handling a fowling-piece; he used to shudder when he saw a party
equipped for coursing, as if murder was in the wind; but the cool,
meditative angler was in his eyes the abomination of abominations. His
small elegant features, hectic cheek and soft hazel eyes, were the
index of the quick, sensitive, gentle spirit within." "He would
dismount to lead his horse down what his friend hardly perceived to be
a descent at all; grew pale at a precipice; and, unlike the white lady
of Avenel, would go a long way round for a bridge." He shrank from
general society, and lived in closer intimacies, and his intimacy with
Scott was of the closest. He was Scott's confidant in all literary
matters, and his advice was oftener followed on questions of style and
form, and of literary enterprise, than that of any other of Scott's
friends. It is into Erskine's mouth that Scott puts the supposed
exhortation to himself to choose more classical subjects for his
poems:--

"'Approach those masters o'er whose tomb
Immortal laurels ever bloom;
Instructive of the feebler bard,
Still from the grave their voice is heard;
From them, and from the paths they show'd,
Choose honour'd guide and practised road;
Nor ramble on through brake and maze,
With harpers rude of barbarous days."

And it is to Erskine that Scott replies,--

"For me, thus nurtured, dost thou ask
The classic poet's well-conn'd task?
Nay, Erskine, nay,--on the wild hill
Let the wild heath-bell flourish still;
Cherish the tulip, prune the vine,
But freely let the woodbine twine,
And leave untrimm'd the eglantine:
Nay, my friend, nay,--since oft thy praise
Hath given fresh vigour to my lays;
Since oft thy judgment could refine
My flatten'd thought or cumbrous line,
Still kind, as is thy wont, attend,
And in the minstrel spare the friend!"

It was Erskine, too, as Scott expressly states in his introduction to
the _Chronicles of the Canongate_, who reviewed with far too much
partiality the _Tales of my Landlord_, in the _Quarterly Review_, for
January, 1817,--a review unjustifiably included among Scott's own
critical essays, on the very insufficient ground that the MS. reached
Murray in Scott's own handwriting. There can, however, be no doubt at
all that Scott copied out