better borrow mine.” “No doubt,” said Harry, “your gown is made to fit any party, but it will never be said of Henry Erskine that he put on the abandoned habits of his predecessor.” But he had soon to go, and this time Ilay Campbell, afterwards Lord President, had the post, and again the gown was tossed about in verbal pleasantries. “You must take nothing off it, for I will soon need it again,” said the outgoer. “It will be bare enough, Henry, before you get it,” was the neat reply. Rather tall, a handsome man, a powerful voice, a graceful manner, and more than all, a kindly, courteous gentleman, what figure so well known on that ancient Edinburgh street, walking or driving his conspicuous yellow chariot with its black horses? Everybody loved and praised Harry Erskine, friends and foes, rich and poor alike. You remember Burns’s tribute: “Collected, Harry stood awee.” Even the bench listened with delight. “I shall be brief, my Lords,” he once began. “Hoots, man, Harry, dinna be brief—dinna be brief,” said an all too complacent senator—a compliment surely unique in the annals of legal oratory. And if this be unique, almost as rare was the tribute of a humble nobody to his generous courage. “There’s no a puir man in a’ Scotland need to want a friend or fear an enemy, sae long as Harry Erskine’s to the fore.” Not every judge was well disposed to the genial advocate. Commissary Balfour was a pompous official who spoke always _ore rotundo_: he had occasion to examine Erskine one day in his court, he did so with more than his usual verbosity. Erskine in his answers parodied the style of the questions to the great amusement of the audience; the commissary was beside himself with anger. “The intimacy of the friend,” he thundered, “must yield to the severity of the judge. Macer, forthwith conduct Mr. Erskine to the Tolbooth.” “Hoots! Mr. Balfour,” was the crushing retort of the macer. On another occasion the same judge said with great pomposity that he had tripped over a stile on his brother’s property and hurt himself. “Had it been your own style,” said Erskine, “you certainly would have broken your neck.”