Lord Auchinleck.

“Cullen, the mimick,[193] was excessively ugly, having most horrible teeth, and, upon the whole, a physiognomy worse than Wilkes’s. His own manner, as has been observed, was also wretched. One morning when he was grinning and pleading a cause, I stood by and observed, ‘Whom is Cullen taking off? He is taking off the devil.’”

“Sinclair, of Briggend, a Caithness laird, was telling that a gentleman with whom he had played at loo had a way of keeping Pam in the head of his boot, and bringing him out when he found him necessary. ‘Ay,’ said Andrew Erskine, ‘it seems he played booty with you.’”

I was present.

“I was defending one day poor Mrs. C—— at the time when her husband was suing her for a divorce, and saying that she was no worse than the Miss V——s, for all her faults were only innocent improprieties. ‘No worse!’ said Andrew Erskine, ‘she is ten times better; she only intrigued with certain people, but the Miss V——s did it with everybody that was near her, and would have done it with everybody at a distance had it been possible.’”

“Cullen, the mimick, as has been more than once observed, had a wretched manner of his own. I was one day to walk out with him to dine at Craig House with Mr. Lockhart,[194] the Dean of Faculty. I was saying to a lady that I wondered what characters he would give me by the road. ‘Oh,’ said she, ‘no matter, providing you have not himself. As Sir John Falstaff said to the hostess, when she offered the fat knight a hog’s countenance, “Any countenance but thy own.”’”

“John Home showed the Lord Chief Baron Orde a pair of pumps he had on, and desired his lordship to observe how well they were made, telling him at the same time that they had been made for Lord Bute,[195] but were rather too little for him, so his lordship had made John a present of them. ‘I think,’ said the Lord Chief Baron, ‘you have taken the measure of Lord Bute’s foot.’”

Lord Chief Baron Orde.[196]

“A very awkward fellow was dancing at the Edinburgh Assembly. Matthew Henderson[197] said, ‘He looks like a professor of dislocation.’”