‘ 
Goner Temple, May 8, 1753+ 
42 
office of Lord Prefident, was the ultimate 
hope of his ambition. He was, accord- 
ingly, admitted a member of the faculty 
of advocates, and appears to have been 
invefted with the gown in 1752, a period 
when he had not attained the age of 
twenty. 
At this time Mr. Lockhart, a very ce- 
lebrated pleader, who, we believe, was 
afterwards elevated to the bench, bore 
away all the laurels and all the emolu- 
melts of the bar. He appears to have ex- 
celled chiefly in the pathetic, and it was 
jocularly remarked of him, that the. 
amount o! his honsrarium, or fee, could 
be eafily difcovered in his countenance ; 
for if handfcme, he appeared deeply af 
fected at the juftice of his client’s cafe, 
but if unexpectedly great, he regularly 
melted into tears. Again# fuch an anta- 
gonit Mr. Wedderburn brought into the 
field a fine claffical tafte, conhderable elo- 
quence, gradually improved by practice, 
and no {mali fhare of a happy verfatility, 
which, like the former quality, was not 
fuffered to abste by tranfpofiticn. 
His profp<&s were now fair, and he 
began to be confidered as a youth of con- 
fiderable promife, cn whom the important 
office of Lord Advocate (an office of fo 
 extracrdinary 2 nature, that one of them, 
in extenuation of a ftretch of authority, 
Jately declared he did not know how far it 
might extend) would, fume day, probably 
devolve. Bot an infult from the berch 
produced a fudden change in the determi- 
nations of this young and fpirited advo- 
cate; who is faid to have pulled cff his 
gown in open Court, and declared pub- 
licly, that, from th-t moment, he aban- 
dened his country and his profeffion fer 
éver. 
It has already been ftated, that Mr. 
Wedderburn’s anceftors emigrated to- 
wards the north—bhe, too, was deter- 
mined to emigtace; but, luckily for him. 
felf, he moved in a contrary direction, 
The fame and fuccefs of the Eatl of 
Mansfield, at this period in full poff-ffion 
of all his celebrity, and at the head of the 
Jaw in England, 2s Lord Chief Juftice of 
the King’s Bench, nodoubt, excited the 
attenticn and the ambition of his coun- 
frymen, while the ring influence of the 
Earl of Bute pointed ovt a new avenge 
te power anc emolument; nor was he de- 
ceived, for both thefe great men proved 
Propitious to him, and were not woced in 
vain. 
He, accordingly, repaired to London, 
and enro'i:d khimfelf a member of the 
After 
z 
Memoirs of the Earl of Rofshn. 
[Feb. i, 
eating commons (for mocting was by that 
time left off) in the pretty little hall of 
this Inn of Court, he was called to the 
bar November 23, 1757. Atthis period, 
notwithftanding the refpe€tability of his 
family and connexions, his finances were 
far from being in a flourifhing fituation 5 
and the author of. this article has been ins 
formed, by a gentieman who vifited him 
in chambers, that, lrke fome of the he- 
roes of antiquity, he waited upon himéfelf, 
and helped his guefts, without any incum. 
brance from domeitics. Notwithftanding 
the res anguffa domus, fach was his ho= 
‘nourable perfeverance, that he found 
means to retain the firft mafters of that 
day, on purpofe to fubdue the inveterate 
accent he had contracted at home, and 
which, by laying him open to the moft 
obvious ridicule, would, affuredly, have 
precluded his fuccefs at the Englifh bar. 
The gentlemen in queition were, Mr. 
Sheridan, the father of the celebrated 
Member of. that name, and Charles 
Macklin, the comedian; men who, with 
unequal merits and talents, aimed at the 
fame object, as they profefled to teach the 
language of a country in which they had 
not been born; and even to transfufe all 
the delicacy and graces of an inhabitant 
of the banks of the Thames into the 
mouth of a young northern, bred on the 
fide of the Tweed: but this was not ail 3 
for they were firft to corre& a radical de- 
fect in the pronunciation, and remove a 
drawl, which appeared fonorous at Edin- 
burgh, but barbarous in London. Not- 
withftanding the manifold obfacles, both 
on the part of thefe modern ¢rammarians 
and their pupil, the miracle was, at 
length, effetted, and they completely fuc- 
ceeded. 
One of them (Mr. Sheridan), while 
mentioning the extreme difficulty alluded 
to here, expreffes himfelf in the following 
manner :—‘* However, there are net want- 
ing examples to- ft:mulate thofe who are 
in purfuit of this object, and to infure 
fuccefs to their endeavours. ‘There is, — 
at this day, a gentleman of tha: country, 
naw in London, in an high office of the 
law (Mr. Wedderburn was at this tinve 
S-liciter Generai), who did not leave 
Scotiand till aiter he bad been fome years 
advanced in inanhcod; and. yet, ‘after 
having received intiru€tion for a few 
months only, according to the methd 
laid down in this work, his-fpéech was 
not to be diftinguifhed from that of the 
moft polifhed natives in Engiand, bothin 
point of pronunciation and intonation ; 
and he iss perhaps, at this day, the beft 
pattern 
