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6

We have factious men among us, as you have here, but they are neither many, nor very respectable.' 'O yes,' said the Prince, some few among them are good men. I know I have disobliged and disappointed some whom I really value. It has given me much pain. But I had a hard task to perform. I had duties to discharge to the country,-to my Father, to myself. I wish they had considered this.' 'Every good man,' said I, 'and every good subject does consider this.' 'I have acted,' said he, from conscience. GOD knows I have felt the truth of what the poet says, Uneasy is the brow that wears a crown!"-But you say the people with you think well of me? The Scotch are a loyal people.' I replied,- The country at large does your Royal Highness ample justice. They are your friends as they were your Father's. There will always be factious men, who will sacrifice everything to self-interest and ambition: but their motives are seen, and they are estimated accordingly. The mass of the nation has right feelings.'-He then talked of the changes in our Court of Session. 'Cullen is dead, -Newton is dead. What a strange man that was! great abilities, I am told; but all I know about him is, that he had almost killed me. I believe that he could have drank out a tun of claret, and at the end of the night be as sober as I am at this moment. Cullen was a delightful man. The Duchess of Gordon had often told me of his powers as a mimic, and I got him once in the right key. I never saw Dr. Robertson, but I knew him. as well as if I had seen him, from Cullen's picture of him. Have you seen Henry Erskine since you came to town? What a change!' 'He has been in miserable health, poor fellow,' I said; but I dined with him a few days ago, and was happy to see him in very good spirits.' 'O spirits,' said the Prince, it is quite astonishing. Poor Erskine! he has been very unlucky.

I had a long con

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WITH THE PRINCE REGENT.

75

'Yes,' said I, 'the Ex'It is now,' said the Prince.

versation with him t'other day, and I admired his equanimity. He has the temper of an angel. I like him much better than Tom. Perhaps he mayn't be such a lawyer, but I am sure he is a pleasanter man.' I said I believed his abilities were fully equal to his brother's in every respect. 'Your lordship must know him better than I,' said the Prince, 'but I have seen enough of him to admire and love him. You know William Adam, no doubt?' I said—'Yes, Sire, Adam is one of my oldest friends.' So is he of mine, and a better man does not exist. He is a true Scotchman: he wishes to get back among you.' chequer I believe is his object.' 'But pray, how is the Chief Baron? he has got round again I hear. Are not his complaints somewhat imaginary ?' I said I had never heard so, I knew he had frequently spit blood, and was obliged to confine himself to a very strict regimen. But I suppose,' said the Prince, you know that Adam had a much higher object in view, and missed it only by a hair's breadth ?' 'Yes,' I said, 'I believed Lord him Chancellor of Scotland.' 'But your lordship and your brethren had no good opinion of that measure?' I said, 'No, we want no Court of Review in Scotland. We are very well under the present order of things, and don't like changes.' 'You are quite right,' said the Prince; but has not the division of your

Grenville wanted to make

Bench been of service?'

I said it certainly had, but this

was no material change: our laws and our forms are still the same. It was only an internal arrangement, for the greater despatch of business. But, (I repeated,) we hated innovations, and were just as jealous of our forms, as the English were. 'You are a wise people.-Do you often come to London ?' I said very seldom; and perhaps this may be the last time. I hope not,' said his Royal Highness; 'I shall always be glad to see you.' I understood this as a

signal to take my leave; so I knelt down, and he gave me his hand, which I kissed, and then made my bows and departed.

"This conversation, of which I have given the contents, and as near as I can remember the very words, lasted for above half an hour. I was quite alone with him; and his manner was so easy and so ingratiating, that I felt not the smallest embarrassment. He certainly is the finest gentleman I have ever seen. His person, though too full, is still very handsome; and his countenance manly, and expressive both of sense and sweetness."

Mr. Alison relates that " some time after the interview with the Prince Regent, it was intimated to Lord Woodhouselee, that, if agreeable to him, the dignity of Baronet would be conferred on him; which he requested permission to decline, an instance of modesty, which surprised no one to whom Lord Woodhouselee was known; and which (I am proud to say) was to none so acceptable as to his own family, to whom no illustration could be so dear as that of their Father's name."

This visit, the last he was destined ever to make to the metropolis, (and he seems, from his language to the Prince, to have had a presentiment that such it would prove,) was spent in a whirl of society and distracting engagements, from which it must have been a delight unspeakable for one of Lord Woodhouselee's disposition to escape, and regain the seclusion of his own fire-side.

It was on his way home, that Lord Woodhouselee composed the address to his family burial-place in the GreyFriars' Churchyard which may be seen in Mr. Alison's Memoir. He had for some time believed that the disease under which he laboured would prove fatal; and, in 1807, had caused the sacred enclosure to be arched over with stone and repaired, adding an epitaph full of filial piety to the

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LORD WOODHOUSELEE'S LAST ILLNESS.

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memory of his Father and Mother. "In leaving London for the last time, and returning to his own country, it was natural for him to look forward to the event which he had long thought approaching, and to that final home where he was to rest with his Father. Under these impressions the verses alluded to were composed." Nor did the presentiment of their admirable author prove unfounded. On the 4th of the ensuing month (June, 1812,) he over-fatigued himself by superintending some work-people at his countryhouse; and in a few days, was obliged to repair to Edinburgh, where he was again confined to his bed with the same painful complaint from which he had recovered so slowly in 1796. "We trust soon to have him out to Woodhouselee," (writes his son ;) "and in the meantime mamma, Aunt Christy, and I are constantly with him. He is busy at present preparing the Essay on Translation for a third edition, and Lord Kames for a second edition. Aunt reads aloud to him during the day, while I study; and at night, I read Gil Blas or Miss Edgeworth." At the end of six weeks, he was conveyed back to his beloved Woodhouselee in a sedan-chair; and, cheered by the literary occupation which he found himself as capable as ever of pursuing, he cherished a humble hope that he might yet recover; in a spirit of the most healthy piety, wishing for life only that it might prolong his opportunities of serving GOD. The severity of the disease had abated; and, at the request of his physician, he wrote that manly inscription which is found at the base of the statue of Lord Melville, in the Great Hall of the Parliament House in Edinburgh. † But his life was now "a period of continued pain and increased debility,borne, indeed, with the most calm and even cheerful re

*To his sister Ann, 27th June, 1812.

An interesting memorandum on the subject is found in his Common-place Book, under date 4th August, 1812.

signation, and relieved by everything that filial and conjugal tenderness could apply; yet too visibly approaching to a period which neither tenderness nor magnanimity could avert."

The closing scene of this good man's life has been described with such affecting simplicity by the author of the Memoir so often already quoted, that I shall simply transfer it to my pages:-"In the beginning of winter, he was prevailed upon to leave his favourite Woodhouselee, and to remove into town; * and from this time his disease appeared to make a more rapid progress. On the 4th of January 1813, he felt himself more than usually unwell; and in the evening, when his family, with their usual attentions, were prepared to read to him some work of amusement, he requested that they would rather read to him the evening service of the Church, and that they might once more have the happiness of being united in domestic devotion. When this was finished, he spoke to them with firmness, of the events for which they must now prepare themselves assured them that, to him, Death had no sorrow, but that of leaving them: he prayed that Heaven. might reward them for the uninterrupted happiness which their conduct and their love had given him; and he concluded by giving to each of them his last and solemn blessing.

"After the discharge of this last paternal duty, he retired to rest, and slept with more than his usual tranquillity, and in the morning, (as the weather was fine,) he ordered his carriage, and desired that it might go out on the road towards Woodhouselee. He was able to go so far as to come within sight of his own grounds; and then, raising himself in the carriage, his eye was observed to kindle as he

*He resided at No. 108 Prince's Street,- -a house which, by an earlier method of numbering the houses, was reckoned in his time as No. 65.