Alas! Harry was an incorrigible punster. When urged that it was the lowest form of wit, he had the ready retort that therefore it must be the foundation of all other kinds. Yet, frankly, some of those puns are atrocious, and even a century’s keeping in Kay and other records has not made them passable. Gross and palpable, they were yet too subtle for one senator. Lord Balmuto, or tradition does him wrong, received them with perplexed air and forthwith took them to _Avizandum_. Hours, or as some aver, days after, a broad smile relieved those heavy features. “I hae ye noo, Harry, I hae ye noo,” he gleefully shouted; he had seen the joke! All were not so dull. A friend pretended to be in fits of laughter. “Only one of your jokes, Harry,” he said. “Where did you get it?” said the wit. “Oh, I have just bought ‘The New Complete Jester, or every man his own Harry Erskine.’” The other looked grave. He felt that pleasantries of the place or the moment might not wear well in print. They don’t, and I refrain for the present from further record. When Lord President Blair died suddenly on 27th November 1811, a meeting of the Faculty of Advocates was hastily called. Blair was an ideal judge, learned, patient, dignified, courteous. He is the subject of one of those wonderful Raeburn portraits (it hangs in the library of the Writers to the Signet), and as you gaze you understand how those who knew him felt when they heard that he was gone forever. Erskine, as Dean, rose to propose a resolution, but for once the eloquent tongue was mute: after some broken sentences he sat down, but his hearers understood and judged it “as good a speech as he ever made.” It was his last. He was neither made Lord President nor Lord Justice-Clerk, though both offices were open. He did not murmur or show ill-feeling, but withdrew to the little estate of Almondell, where he spent six happy and contented years ere the end.