David Ross, Lord Ankerville

The accompanying text in the volume states as follows:

"LORD ANKERVILLE, son of David Ross of Inverchasley, was born in 1727. After following the usual routine of studies, he was admitted to the bar in 1751. In 1756 he obtained the office of Steward-Depute of Kirkcudbright; and, in 1763, was appointed one of the Principal Clerks of Session. This situation he continued to fill with all due credit till 1776, when, on the death of Lord Alemore, he was promoted to the bench by the title of Lord Ankerville. He sat on the bench for twenty-nine years, during which long period we are not aware that he was distinguished for any thing very extraordinary, either in the line of his profession or out of it. There was, to be sure, one characteristic which he possessed in common with the most profound of his legal brethren-we mean his unswerving devotion to the "pleasures of the table," and claret he preferred above any other species of wine; nay, so anti-national was his taste, that his own mountain Glenlivet, even when presented in the alluring medium of a flowing bowl, and prepared in the most approved manner of the "land o cakes," held only a secondary place in his estimation.

Every year Lord Ankerville travelled north to his seat of Tarlogie, near Tain, in Ross-shire. This long journey he performed in a leisurely manner, by short and easy stages; and, as he dined and slept all night at the end of each, his hosts of the Highland road were careful always to have a select portion of their best claret set apart for their guest. To choose the line of road—to regulate the distance of each day's progress, so that he might bivouac to best advantage in the evening, had been an object of great consequence to the judge; and, it may be supposed, of some difficulty at that time in the north. The acute judgment and good generalship, however, of the propounder of law, after a few experimental journeys, soon enabled him to make the most satisfactory arrangements. The annual migration of the judge from north to south, and from south to north, thus became a matter of as nice regularity as the cuckoo's song in spring; and as well did the Highland innkeeper, at half-a-mile's distance, know the rumbling, creaking chaise of the one, as he did the monotonous note of the other. The quantity of claret drank by his lordship on these annual journeys has been variously estimated; and, although no satisfactory statement has ever been given, all agree in saying that it must have been immense.

The old judge's love of claret did not abate with his increase of years. A gentleman of our acquaintance relates that he one day happened to pounce upon him at his seat of Tarlogie. Lord Ankerville had then reached his seventy-fifth year. Being alone, he had just sat down to dinner; and not having expected a stranger, he apologised for his uncropped beard. Our friend was, of course, welcomed to the board, and experienced the genuine hospitality of a Highland mansion. After having done ample justice to the table, and when his lordship had secured a full allowance of claret under his belt, he went to his toilette, and, to the astonishment of his guest, appeared at supper cleanly and closely shaved, to whom he remarked, that his hand was now more steady than it would have been in the morning. Lord Ankerville died at his seat of Tarlogie on the 16th August 1805, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. His residence in Edinburgh was in St. Andrew Square."