[188] John Lord Hope succeeded his father in 1742 as second Earl of Hopetown. A nobleman of considerable parts, he was appointed one of the lords of police in Scotland, and in 1754 was nominated Lord High Commissioner to the Church of Scotland. He died 12th February, 1781, aged seventy-seven.
[189] Robert Cullen, advocate, was eldest son of William Cullen, M.D., the celebrated physician. He was called to the Scottish bar in 1764, and was early noted for his forensic talents. Contrary to the estimate formed of him by Boswell, he was held in general esteem for his courteous manners, while his powers of mimicry were of a first order. He was appointed a Lord of Session in 1796, by the title of Lord Cullen. He died at Edinburgh on the 28th November, 1810.
[190] Boswell’s allusion to Frederick the Great is evidently founded on a remark of Dr. Johnson’s. Conversing with Dr. Robertson, the historian, in 1778, Johnson remarked, “The true strong and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small. Now I am told the King of Prussia will say to a servant, ‘Bring me a bottle of such a wine, which came in such a year; it lies in such a corner of the cellar.’ I would have a man great in great things, and elegant in little things.”
[191] The Rev. John Pettigrew, A.M., was minister of Govan, Lanarkshire, from 1688 to 1712; he died in March, 1715, in his seventy-eighth year. He was remarkably facetious; a number of his witty sayings have been preserved. (Dr. Scott’s “Fasti,” vol. ii., p. 69.)
[192] The Rev. William Love, A.M., ministered at Cathcart, Renfrewshire, from 1710 to 1738, when he died at the age of fifty-seven. He made a monetary bequest to the poor of Paisley. (Dr. Scott’s “Fasti,” vol. ii., p. 61.)
[193] A portrait of Cullen in “Kay’s Portraits” (vol. ii., p. 331) does not warrant Boswell’s assertion as to his extreme ugliness. He was plain-looking, as was his father before him, but his aspect was not repulsive.
[194] Son of George Lockhart, of Carnwath, and Lady Euphemia Montgomery, daughter of the Earl of Eglinton, Alexander Lockhart passed advocate in 1722. He distinguished himself in defending the unfortunate persons who were taken at Carlisle and subjected to trial for taking part in the rebellion of 1745. Elected Dean of Faculty in 1764, he was raised to the bench in 1775 by the title of Lord Covington. He died 10th November, 1782, aged eighty-two.
[195] John, third Earl of Bute, the favourite minister of George III., a munificent patron of literature, and himself an accomplished scholar and man of science. Lord Bute died 10th March, 1792.
[196] In his “Scottish Tour” Boswell thus refers to the Lord Chief Baron Orde:—“This respectable English judge will be long remembered in Scotland, where he built an elegant house and lived in it magnificently. His own ample fortune, with the addition of his salary enabled him to be splendidly hospitable.... Lord Chief Baron Orde was on good terms with us all, in a narrow country, filled with jarring interests and keen parties.”
[197] A native of Ayrshire, Matthew Henderson long resided in Edinburgh, where his society was much cherished. Allan Cunningham relates on the authority of Sir Thomas Wallace, who knew him personally, “that he dined regularly at Fortune’s Tavern, and was a member of the Capillaire Club, which was composed of all who inclined to be witty and joyous.” When Robert Burns visited Edinburgh in 1787, Matthew Henderson was one of his chief associates; he subscribed for four copies of the second edition of his poems, and by his pleasing and beneficent manner gained a deep place in his affections. Henderson died in the summer of 1790, and his memory was celebrated by the Ayrshire bard in an elegiac poem, of which the following stanzas are familiar:—