by the diminution of envy which attended
it.

Of his very early years, I am unable to supply the public with any
information, and I regret it,--not that any very important lesson of
utility can be derived from the anecdotes of childhood, but they are
amusing, and amusing without harm; and I agree with Dr. West that he has
a very imperfect knowledge of human nature who is not convinced, that in
a state of refined society, it is impossible to amuse innocently. All
that I have been able to learn distinctly, is, that the most playful
vivacity, and the same good humour, which ever after accompanied him even
in the keenest rivalry of the bar, displayed itself in his words and
actions, and made him the delight of all, but those who morose and
splenetic, from their own disgust of existence, conceive offence at
others for that enjoyment of the present, which can only subsist upon
ignorance, and the hope of the future that MUST BE disappointed. To this
vivacity, he, perhaps, owed as much as to those endowments, which are
deemed more solid qualifications for the bar. It imparted itself to his
eye, his mouth, his tone, and his action, and held his hearers engaged,
when his periods were such as pronounced by an ordinary speaker, would
not have preserved the audience from that listnessness, which is
instantly seen and felt by the speaker, and soon adds embarrassment and
confusion to feebleness. In private society, to the last months of his
existence, it gave him rather the air of a youth inexperienced in the
realities of life, and entering it under the ardour of hope, than of a
man who had almost reached the limits of human existence, in the exercise
of a profession, which lays the human breast naked to inspection. It was
said of Pope, from his primitive habits of reflection and gravity, that
he was never young; and, on the contrary, it may be said with equal
justice, from the playfulness and vivacity of Erskine, that he was never
old. At the age of he entered the navy as a midshipman, and served in
the ---, commanded by Captain ---, in America. While in this station he
was employed in making a survey under one of the lieutenants of the ship,
off the coast of Florida. He had some acquaintance with geometry; and,
as he tells us himself in his "Armata," always retained a fondness for
that science. Whether this fondness grew in acquiring the knowledge of
navigation, indispensable to his profession, or subsequently at the
unive