Echoes of the 18th Centlry. 91 



Eliock was not only a distinguished lawyer, he was also an 

 accomplished scholar and linguist, and of such commanding 

 appearance that Frederick the Great had been very urgent with 

 him, when he was at the Prussian Court, to enter his famous 

 regiment of Guards. It was on the 6th of March, 1760, he took 

 his seat on the bencli as Lord Eliock, so the romantic incident 

 set fortli in the letters I am about to read must have occurred 

 immediately previous to that event, when he had passed his half 

 century of life. His sister, Miss Mary Veitch, kept house for 

 him. From Edinburgh she writes to him as follows, he being 

 then in London : — 



Edinburgh, 16th February, 1760. 



Dear Jamie, — I am about to write you the oddest story, with 

 a good deal of reluctance, but I thought myself obliged to do it, 

 so take it as follows. Ko doubt you'll rememlier Lady Harriott 

 Gordon, Lord Aberdeen's sister. You'll also, perhaps, remember 

 that I told you of an old courtship between hei and Mr Gordon 

 of Whitely, which is long over, and him railing against her to 

 everybody, particularly her own relations, writing the ill-treat- 

 ment he had received from her to her mother and brother, and 

 notwithstanding of whicli they are of the same degree of intimacy 

 with him, and he is as frequently with them as ever, except her. 

 She rails at him in her turn, and runs out of a room as he comes 

 in. Friday night, before you set out this winter for London, she 

 arrived from Glasgow, where she had been keeping her Christmas. 

 She called at our house on the Saturday night, where Miss Craik 

 was. I got none of her history that night. Miss Craik and she 

 tried who should set the other out, but Miss Craik got the better, 

 and Mrs Baillie and Lady Harriott went away. I tell you all 

 this previous to the main story that you may understand it the 

 better. There is a man of the name of Gordon, his title Hal- 

 head, who has an estate near Haddo House. Tiiis man was born 

 in Scotland, but has got his education somewhere in France, and 

 has been there, and sometimes in Italy, since he was a boy — that 

 is to say he has been 16 years abroad, and is 26 or 28 years old. 

 He came from Nice last harvest, took London and Edinburgh on 

 his way to the north, where his estate is, from thence he 

 returned to Edinburgh, about the time Lady Harriott returned 

 from Glasgow as above, at least she did not see him till 

 some time after. He soon, I understand, became her suitor for 



