out, “I want Christian broth! Get me a lass that can plain-boil a potato, if she was a whüre off the streets.” That story is more in the true Braxfield manner than any of the authentic utterances recorded of the judge himself, but now we look at Braxfield through Stevenson’s spectacles. To this strong judge succeeded Sir David Rae, Lord Eskgrove. The anecdotes about him are really farcical. He was grotesque, and though alleged very learned was certainly very silly, but there was something irresistibly comical about his silliness. Bell initiated a careful series of law reports in his time. “He taks doun ma very words,” said the judge in well-founded alarm. Here is his exhortation to a female witness: “Lift up your veil, throw off all modesty and look me in the face”; and here his formula in sentencing a prisoner to death: “Whatever your religi-ous persua-sion may be, or even if, as I suppose, you be of no persuasion at all, there are plenty of rever-end gentlemen who will be most happy for to show you the way to yeternal life.” Or best of all, in sentencing certain rascals who had broken into Sir James Colquhoun’s house at Luss, he elaborately explained their crimes; assault, robbery and hamesucken, of which last he gave them the etymology; and then came this climax—“All this you did; and God preserve us! joost when they were sitten doon to their denner.” [Illustration: JOHN CLERK, LORD ELDIN] The two most remarkable figures at the Scots bar in their own or any time were the Hon. Henry Erskine and John Clerk, afterwards Lord Eldin. Erskine was a consistent whig, and, though twice Lord Advocate, was never raised to the bench; yet he was the leading practising lawyer of his time, and the records of him that remain show him worthy of his reputation. He was Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, but he presided at a public meeting to protest against the war, and on the 12th January 1796 was turned out of office by a considerable majority. A personal friend of Erskine, and supposed to be of his party, yielded to the storm and voted against him. The clock just then struck three. “Ah,” murmured John Clerk, in an intense whisper which echoed through the quiet room, “when the cock crew thrice Peter denied his Master.” But most Erskine stories are of a lighter touch. When Boswell trotted with Johnson round Edinburgh, they met Erskine. He was too independent to adulate the sage but before he passed on with a bow, he shoved a shilling into the astonished Boswell’s hand, “for a sight of your bear,” he whispered. George III. at Windsor once bluntly told him, that his income was small compared with that of his brother, the Lord Chancellor. “Ah, your Majesty,” said the wit, “he plays at the guinea table, and I only at the shilling one.” In a brief interval of office he succeeded Henry Dundas, afterwards Lord Melville. He told Dundas he was about to order the silk gown. “For all the time you may want it,” said the other, “you had