Miss Seward was much struck with Erskine’s fine face and elegant figure, his bonhomie and exuberant fun; but his egotism was wearisome, and, unfortunately, it grew upon him with years. Fanny Burney’s account of him runs pretty much on the same lines, but he was not, when she met him, so brilliant in conversation as he had been. In 1805 he had lost his wife, to whom he was tenderly attached, and who had literally shared with him the ‘burden and heat of the day,’ as true and loving in comparative poverty as in affluence. She died in London, but is buried in Hampstead Church, where a fine monument by the younger Bacon, of which Park gives an engraving, perpetuates her memory as the ‘most faithful and affectionate of women.’ About 1821-23 Lord Erskine removed from his house at Hampstead, where he had resided from 1788, and on doing so transferred the copyhold to Lord Mansfield. He subsequently resided in Arabella Row, Pimlico, and tarnished, it is said, the lustre of his declining years by a second marriage. ‘When, how, or with whom,’ Lord Campbell had not heard upon authority. It is also said that his bright spirits deserted him, and that, like S. T. Coleridge, he had recourse to opium. Sheridan charitably suggested ‘When men like Erskine go astray, Their stars are more in fault than they.’ The house next the Evergreens, Heath End House, was in 1811 in the possession of Edward Coxe, Esq., the author of various poems, many of them referring to the Heath;[138] and the large square one opposite the beautiful grove of pine-trees (which Constable painted, and which were raised from seeds of the stone-pine brought from Ravenna,[139] and planted by that ancient Sylvanus of the Heath, Mr. Turner, a retired tobacconist of Thames Street) originally belonged to him, but at the date above mentioned was the residence of Charles Bosanquet, Esq. It stands on an eminence, and is said to command beautiful and extensive views. These houses have had various tenants since then, but not one who has conferred such lasting benefits on the Heath as Mr. Turner, who appears to have devoted his retired leisure to beautifying it. The groups of ash and elm and horse-chestnut trees, now railed in (thanks to the Board of Works) for their better preservation, are of his planting. He also made the road, the Sandy Road, as it is called, from this point to North End. Hereabouts is the scene of that charming bit of nature, to which we have already referred, ‘Taking out a Thorn,’ which had for its point of view, the late Mr. Charles Collins tells us, the clump of fir-trees near the Spaniards, looking towards North End. ‘There, upon the bank, sits the old furze-cutter, extracting a thorn from the finger of a chubby urchin, who rubs his eye dolefully during the operation with the corner of his pin-before.’ [Illustration: _North Heath._]