approved of the plan; and, between jest and earnest, she said he must be Lord Chancellor. Accordingly, having formed his plans, he was admitted as a student of law at Lincoln’s Inn, and, at the same time, entered himself as a fellow-commoner of Trinity College, Cambridge, where in spite of narrow means, his wit and talent soon brought him into notice. The sale of his military commission produced him a serviceable sum of money; and, divesting himself of scarlet uniform, he proceeded to accomplish himself in the composition of English. An amusing specimen of his skill in versifying is a parody of Gray’s “Bard,” which gained him some applause. It was produced on the occasion of his being detained from dinner at the College hall by the tardiness of his hair-dresser, and begins with this not very complimentary stanza: “Ruin seize thee, scoundrel Coe! Confusion on thy frizzing wait! Hadst thou the only comb below, Thou never more should’st touch my pate. Club, nor queue, nor twisted tail, Nor e’en thy chatt’ring, barber, shall avail, To save thy horse-whipped back from daily fears, From Cantab’s curse, from Cantab’s tears!” Having taken the honorary degree of A.M. in 1778, the future defender of Lord George Gordon was called to the bar in the same year. When settled in London, he practiced his oratorical powers at debating-clubs, and pursued his legal studies in the chambers of a special pleader; yet it does not appear that his knowledge of the law was ever very profound, notwithstanding his possessing, in some measure, a legal intellect. His domestic arrangements were on the most economical principle; there is even a tradition to the effect that his honorable spouse was under the necessity of acting as washerwoman for their family. His fare was of the humblest description; his dress was remarkable only for its shabbiness; he frequently found it no easy matter to provide the necessaries of life for the passing day; and he was heard thanking God that, out of his own family, he did not know a lord. It appears that his acquaintance with attorneys was still more limited in extent. Being complimented on his health and spirits, he answered sportively that he ought to look well, having nothing else to do, as had been remarked of somebody’s trees. But a man with the blood of a long line of earls in his veins, and with the consciousness of already having given proof of superior endowments, was not likely, while enduring galling poverty, to be wanting in aspirations after fame, or to lose an opportunity of winning a name and bettering his circumstances. Erskine felt within him both the stirrings of ambition and the capacity to do and dare with success, if an occasion were presented. His affairs were probably at the worst, when accident threw Captain Baillie in his way.