Robert Cullen, the son of the physician, made a great impression
on Edinburgh society by his many delightful social qualities, and
particularly his powers as a mimic of the Mathews genus. He manifested
this gift in his earliest years, to the no small discomposure of his
grave old father. One evening, when Dr Cullen was going to the theatre,
Robert entreated to be taken along with him, but for some reason was
condemned to remain at home. Some time after the departure of the
doctor, Mrs Cullen heard him come along the passage, as if from his own
room, and say at her door: ‘Well, after all, you may let Robert go.’
Robert was accordingly allowed to depart for the theatre, where his
appearance gave no small surprise to his father. On the old gentleman
coming home and remonstrating with his lady for allowing the boy to go,
it was discovered that the voice which seemed to give the permission
had proceeded from the young wag himself.
In maturer years, Cullen could not only mimic any voice or mode of
speech, but enter so thoroughly into the nature of any man that
he could supply exactly the ideas which he was likely to use. His
imitations were therefore something much above mimicries—they were
artistic representations of human character. He has been known in a
social company, where another individual was expected, to stand up,
in the character of that person, and return thanks for the proposal
of his health; and this was done so happily that when the individual
did arrive and got upon his legs to speak for himself, the company
was convulsed with an almost exact repetition of what Cullen had
previously uttered, the manner also and every inflection of the voice
being precisely alike. In relating anecdotes, of which he possessed a
vast store, he usually prefaced them with a sketch of the character
of the person referred to, which greatly increased the effect, as the
story then told characteristically. These sketches were remarked to be
extremely graphic and most elegantly expressed.
When a young man, residing with his father, he was very intimate
with Dr Robertson, the Principal of the university. To show that
Robertson was not likely to be easily imitated, it may be mentioned,
from the report of a gentleman who has often heard him making public
orations, that when the students observed him pause for a word, and
would themselves mentally supply it, they invariably found that the
word which he did use was different from that which they had hit
upon. Cullen, however, could imitate him to the life, either in his
more formal speeches or in his ordinary discourse. He would often, in
entering a house which the Principal was in the habit of visiting,
assume his voice in the lobby and stair, and when arrived at the
drawing-room door, astonish the family by turning out to be—Bob
Cullen. Lord Greville, a pupil of the Principal’s, having been one
night detained at a protracted debauch, where Cullen was also present,
the latter gentleman next morning got admission to the bedroom of the
young nobleman, where, personating Dr Robertson, he sat down by the
bedside, and with all the manner of the reverend Principal, gave him
a sound lecture for having been out so late last night. Greville, who
had fully expected this visit, lay in remorseful silence, and allowed
his supposed monitor to depart without saying a word. In the course of
a quarter of an hour, however, when the real Dr Robertson entered, and
commenced a harangue exactly duplicating that just concluded, he could
not help exclaiming that it was _too bad_ to give it him twice over.
‘Oh, I see how it is,’ said Robertson, rising to depart; ‘that rogue
Bob Cullen must have been with you.’ The Principal became at length
accustomed to Bob’s tricks, which he would seem, from the following
anecdote, to have regarded in a friendly spirit. Being attended
during an illness by Dr Cullen, it was found necessary to administer
a liberal dose of laudanum. The physician, however, asked him, in the
first place, in what manner laudanum affected him. Having received his
answer, Cullen remarked, with surprise, that he had never known any one
affected in the same way by laudanum besides his son Bob. ‘Ah,’ said
Robertson, ‘_does the rascal take me off there too_?’
Mr Cullen entered at the Scottish bar in 1764, and, distinguishing
himself highly as a lawyer, was raised to the bench in 1796, when he
took the designation of Lord Cullen. He cultivated elegant literature,
and contributed some papers of acknowledged merit to the _Mirror_ and
_Lounger_; but it was in conversation that he chiefly shone.
The close adjoining to the Mint contains several old-fashioned houses
of a dignified appearance. In a floor of one bearing the date 1679,
and having a little court in front, Alexander Wedderburn, Earl of
Rosslyn and Lord Chancellor of England, resided while at the Scottish
bar. This, as is well known, was a very brief interval; for a veteran
barrister having one day used the term ‘presumptuous boy’ with
reference to him, and his own caustic reply having drawn upon him a
rebuke from the bench, he took off his gown, and making a bow, said
he would never more plead where he was subjected to insult, but would
seek a wider field for his exertions. His subsequent rapid rise at
the English bar is matter of history. It is told that, returning to
Edinburgh at the end of his life, after an absence of many years, he
wished to see the house where he had lived while a Scotch advocate. Too
infirm to walk, he was borne in a chair to the foot of the Mint Close
to see this building. One thing he was particularly anxious about.
While residing here, he had had five holes made in the little court to
play at some bowling game of which he was fond. He wished, above all
things, to see these holes once more, and when he found they were still
there, he expressed much satisfaction. Churchill himself might have
melted at such an anecdote of the old days of him who was
‘Pert at the bar, and in the senate loud.’
About midway up the close is a turreted mansion, accessible from
Hyndford’s Close, and having a tolerably good garden connected with it.
This was, in 1742, the residence of the Earl of Selkirk; subsequently
it was occupied by Dr Daniel Rutherford, professor of botany. Sir
Walter Scott, who, being a nephew of that gentleman, was often in the
house in his young days, communicated to me a curious circumstance
connected with it. It appears that the house immediately adjacent was
not furnished with a stair wide enough to allow of a coffin being
carried down in decent fashion. It had, therefore, what the Scottish
law calls a _servitude_ upon Dr Rutherford’s house, conferring the
perpetual liberty of bringing the deceased inmates through a passage
into that house and down _its_ stair into the lane.