ERSKINE, Jeux, of Carnock, and afterwards of Cardross, an eminent Scottish jurist, and professor of Scots law. in the university of Edinburgh, was the son of the Hon. John Erskine of Carnock, third son of lord Cardross, whose descendants hare now succeeded to the earldom of Buchan. John Erskine, the father, was a man of impor tance in his day, not only on account of the family to which he belonged, which even then had been prolific in historical characters, but in consequence of his personal quali ties and the positions which lie held. Having been forced to quit Scotland from his attachment to the Presbyterian religion, he retired to Holland, and became an officer in the service of the prince of Orange. At the revolution, he accompanied William to England, and as a reward for his services, was appointed lieutenant-governor of Stirling castle and lieut.col. of a regiment of foot. John E., the younger, born 1695, became a. member of the faculty of advocates iu 1719, but did not succeed as a practitioner of the law. On the death of Alexander Bain in 1737, Mr. E. was nominated to succeed him in the chair of Scots law, an office the duties of which he performed with great reputation for 28 years. For ninny years Mr. E. made use of sir George Mackenzie's (q.v.) insti tutions of the Law of Scotland as his text-book; but in 1754 he published his well-know• Principles of the Law of Scotland, which were thenceforth used for that purpose by him self and by his various successors down to the present time. On his retirement from the professorship in 1765, Mr. E. occupied himself in preparing his more important
work, The Institutes of the Laws of Scotland, but it was not published till 1773, five years after his death. Mr. E. was twice married—first to Miss Melville, of the noble family of Leven and Melville, by whom he left the afterwards celebrated clergyman, John Erskine; and, second, to Ann, second daughter of Stirling of Keir, by whom lie had four sons and two daughters. As a legal writer, Mr. E. is inferior to none of our Scottish jurists, with the single exception of lord Stair, who had the benefit of the more learned and wider judicial training of our earlier lawyers, who were educated in a con tinental school. In consequence of the extent to which lands changed bands in Scot land subsequent to the rebellions, feudal conveyancing became the most prominent sub ject of study amongst the lawyers of Mr. E.'s day, and the principles of commercial law, of which Stair laid the foundation, and which have become so important in our own time, were somewhat thrown into the shade. The labors of Mr. Bell in these departments have again brought the law of Scotland into connection with the general current of European law and mercantile practice throughout the world. But of all those departments which constitute the law of Scotland, as developed by the usages and forms of society in the country itself, there is at the present day no clearer, sounder, or more trustworthy expositor than Mr. Erskine.