He would, I fancy, as soon have thought of slaying his own mutton as of handling a fowling-piece; he used to shudder when he saw a party equipped for coursing, as if murder was in the wind; but the cool, meditative angler was in his eyes the abomination of abominations.

His small elegant features, hectic cheek and soft hazel eyes, were the index of the quick, sensitive, gentle spirit within." "He would dismount to lead his horse down what his friend hardly perceived to be a descent at all; grew pale at a precipice; and, unlike the white lady of Avenel, would go a long way round for a bridge." He shrank from general society, and lived in closer intimacies, and his intimacy with Scott was of the closest.

He was Scott's confidant in all literary matters, and his advice was oftener followed on questions of style and form, and of literary enterprise, than that of any other of Scott's friends.

It is into Erskine's mouth that Scott puts the supposed exhortation to himself to choose more classical subjects for his poems:-- "'Approach those masters o'er whose tomb Immortal laurels ever bloom; Instructive of the feebler bard, Still from the grave their voice is heard; From them, and from the paths they show'd, Choose honour'd guide and practised road; Nor ramble on through brake and maze, With harpers rude of barbarous days." And it is to Erskine that Scott replies,-- "For me, thus nurtured, dost thou ask The classic poet's well-conn'd task?
Nay, Erskine, nay,--on the wild hill Let the wild heath-bell flourish still; Cherish the tulip, prune the vine, But freely let the woodbine twine, And leave untrimm'd the eglantine: Nay, my friend, nay,--since oft thy praise Hath given fresh vigour to my lays; Since oft thy judgment could refine My flatten'd thought or cumbrous line, Still kind, as is thy wont, attend, And in the minstrel spare the friend!" It was Erskine, too, as Scott expressly states in his introduction to the _Chronicles of the Canongate_, who reviewed with far too much partiality the _Tales of my Landlord_, in the _Quarterly Review_, for January, 1817,--a review unjustifiably included among Scott's own critical essays, on the very insufficient ground that the MS.

reached Murray in Scott's own handwriting.