William Erskine, Lord Kinneder

He was educated at the University of Glasgow; while there he boarded in the house of Andrew Macdonald, episcopalian clergyman and author of Vimonda, from whom, according to Lockhart, he derived a strong passion for old English literature.

Soon after Scott began his great career as an author, he resolved to trust to the detection of minor inaccuracies to two persons only, James Ballantyne and Erskine, the latter being "the referee whenever the poet hesitated about taking the advice of the zealous typographer".

The friends joined in keeping up the delusion that Erskine and not Scott was the author of the portions of The Bridal of Triermain, and wrote a preface intended to "throw out the knowing ones".

Lockhart ascribes to Erskine the critical estimate of the Waverley novels included in Scott's own notice in the Quarterly Review of Old Mortality, in answer to the sectarian attacks of Thomas M'Crie the Elder against his representation of the covenanters.

The charge against him of an improper liaison, a sex scandal with Mrs Burt, a well known prostitute from Edinburgh, so seriously affected his health and spirits that, though it was proved to be utterly groundless, he never recovered from the shock caused by the accusation.

Lockhart thought that Erskine was "the only man in whose society Scott took great pleasure, during the more vigorous part of his life, that had neither constitution nor inclination for any of the rough bodily exercise in which he himself delighted."