Chapter M: E. W (3)

“I was told a young man wished to see me, and when he came into the room I at once saw it was no other than the young Scotch poet. It was a light, well-built, but somewhat stooping figure, with a countenance that at once brought strongly to my recollection a cast of a face of Shelley in his youth, which I had seen at Mr. Leigh Hunt’s. There was the same full brow, out-looking eyes, and sensitive melancholy mouth.”

[Sidenote: Hedderwick’s _Memoir of David Gray_.]

“In person, the deceased poet was tall, with a slight stoop. His head was not large, but his temperament was of the keenest and brightest edge. With black curling hair, eyes dark, large, and lustrous, and a complexion of almost feminine delicacy, his appearance never failed to make a favourable impression on strangers.”

THOMAS GRAY

1716-1771

[Sidenote: Gosse’s _Gray_. *]

“In one of Philip Gray’s fits of extravagance he seems to have had a full-length of his son painted about this time, by the fashionable portrait-painter of the day, Jonathan Richardson the elder. This picture is now in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge. The head is good in colour and modelling; a broad pale brow, sharp nose and chin, large eyes, and a pert expression, give a lively idea of the precocious and not very healthy young gentleman of thirteen. He is dressed in a blue satin coat, lined with pale shot silk, and crosses his stockinged legs so as to display dapper slippers of russet leather.”--1729.

[Sidenote: Warburton’s _Horace Walpole and his contemporaries_. *]

“Gray, judging from his portrait by Echardt, lately at Strawberry Hill, was eminently the poet and the scholar in his appearance. A delicate frame, a pale complexion, an expansive forehead, clear eyes, a small mouth, and regular features, bearing the general impression of thoughtfulness and melancholy, surrounded by his own hair, worn long, prepossessed the spectator in his favour, and charmed those who were already his admirers.”

[Sidenote: Gosse’s _Gray_.]

“Mr. Gray’s singular niceness in the choice of his acquaintance makes him appear fastidious in a great degree to all who are not acquainted with his manner. He is of a fastidious and recluse distance of carriage, rather averse to all sociability, but of the graver turn, nice and elegant in his person, dress, and behaviour, even to a degree of finicality and effeminacy.”--1770.

HENRY HALLAM

1777-1859

[Sidenote: S. C. Hall’s _Memories of Great Men_.]

“Hallam was a tall and remarkably handsome man, very stately in look and manner. His countenance was thoughtful and intelligent, yet by no means stern. On the contrary, he was kindly and condescending. I had once occasion to apply to him for information. He gave it graciously and gracefully, and appeared as if he had received instead of conferred a compliment.”

[Sidenote: George Ticknor’s _Life_.]

“Mr. Hallam is, I suppose, about sixty years old, gray-headed, hesitates a little in his speech, is lame, and has a shy manner which makes him blush frequently, when he expresses as decided an opinion as his temperament constantly leads him to entertain. Except his lameness, he has a fine dignified person, and talked pleasantly, with that air of kindness which is always so welcome to a stranger.... He is a wise man, a little nervous in his manner and a little fidgety, yet of a sound and quiet judgment.”--1838.

[Sidenote: Jerdan’s _Men I have known_.]

“A statue of him by Mr. Theed was sculptured for St. Paul’s Cathedral, and a good copy was exhibited at the last National Exhibition, though I was not altogether satisfied with the likeness, nor thought the accessories well chosen and happy; for a standing figure, nevertheless, it has the great merit of simplicity.

“Though habitually rather grave, the pleasant smile best became his features, and I do not think he was often guilty of audible laughter.”

WILLIAM HAZLITT

1778-1830

[Sidenote: Patmore’s _Personal Recollections_.]

“The truth is, that for depth, force, and variety of intellectual expression, a finer head and face than Hazlitt’s were never seen. I speak of them when his countenance was not dimmed and obscured by illness, or clouded and deformed by those fearful indications of internal passion which he never even attempted to conceal. The expression of Hazlitt’s face, when anything was said in his presence that seriously offended him, or when any peculiarly painful recollection passed across his mind, was truly awful, more so than can be conceived as within the capacity of the human countenance; except, perhaps, by those who have witnessed Edmund Kean’s last scene of ‘Sir Giles Overreach’ from the front of the pit. But when he was in good health, and in a tolerable humour with himself and the world, his face was more truly and entirely answerable to the intellect that spoke through it, than any other I ever saw, either in life or on canvas; and its crowning portion--the brow and forehead--was, to my thinking, quite unequalled for mingled capacity and beauty.

“For those who desire a more particular description, I will add that Hazlitt’s features, though not cast in any received classical mould, were regular in their formation, perfectly consonant with each other, and so finely ‘chiseled’ (as the phrase is), that they produced a much more prominent and striking effect than their scale of size might have led one to expect. The forehead, as I have hinted, was magnificent; the nose precisely that (combining strength with lightness and elegance) which physiognomists have assigned as evidence of a fine and highly cultivated taste, though there was a peculiar character about the nostrils like that observable in those of a fiery and unruly horse. The mouth, from its ever-changing form and character, could scarcely be described, except as to its astonishingly varied power of expression, which was equal to, and greatly resembled, that of Edmund Kean. His eyes, I should say, were not good. They were never brilliant, and there was a furtive and at times a sinister look about them, as they glanced suspiciously from under their overhanging brows, that conveyed a very unpleasant impression to those who did not know him. And they were seldom directed frankly and fairly towards you, as if he were afraid that you might read in them what was passing in his mind concerning you. His head was nobly formed and placed, with (until the last few years of his life) a profusion of coal-black hair, richly curled; and his person was of middle height, rather slight, but well formed and put together.”

[Sidenote: Bryan Procter’s _Recollections of Men of Letters_.]

“My first meeting with Mr. Hazlitt took place at the house of Leigh Hunt, where I met him at supper. I expected to see a severe, defiant-looking being. I met a grave man, diffident, almost awkward in manner, whose appearance did not impress me with much respect. He had a quick, restless eye, however, which opened eagerly when any good or bright observation was made; and I found at the conclusion of the evening, that when any question arose, the most sensible reply always came from him.... Hazlitt was of the middle size, with eager, expressive eyes, near which his black hair, sprinkled sparely with gray, curled round in a wiry, resolute manner. His gray eyes, not remarkable in colour, expanded into great expression when occasion demanded it. Being very shy, however, they often evaded your steadfast look. They never (as has been asserted by some one) had a sinister expression, but they sometimes flamed with indignant glances when their owner was moved to anger, like the eyes of other angry men. At home, his style of dress (or undress) was perhaps slovenly, because there was no one to please; but he always presented a very neat and clean appearance when he went abroad. His mode of walking was loose, weak, and unsteady, although his arms displayed strength, which he used to put forth when he played at racquets with Martin Burney and others.”

[Sidenote: The Cowden Clarkes’ _Recollections of Writers_.]

“The painting ... was standing on an old-fashioned couch in one corner of the room leaning against the wall, and we remained opposite to it for some time, while Hazlitt stood by holding the candle high up so as to throw the light well on to the picture, descanting enthusiastically on the merits of the original. The beam from the candle falling on his own finely intellectual head, with its iron-gray hair, its square potential forehead, its massive mouth and chin, and eyes full of earnest fire, formed a glorious picture in itself, and remains a luminous vision for ever upon our memories.”--About 1829.

FELICIA HEMANS

1794-1835

[Sidenote: Hughes’s _Memoir of Mrs. Hemans_.]

“The young poetess was then only fifteen; in the full glow of that radiant beauty which was destined to fade so early. The mantling bloom of her cheeks was shaded by a profusion of natural ringlets, of a rich golden brown, and the ever-varying expression of her brilliant eyes gave a changeful play to her countenance, which would have made it impossible for any painter to do justice to it. The recollection of what she was at that time, irresistibly suggests a quotation from Wordsworth’s graceful poetic picture:--

‘She was a Phantom of delight,
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely Apparition, sent
To be a moment’s ornament.

* * * *

A dancing Shape, an Image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and waylay.’”

1809.

[Sidenote: Moir’s _Memoirs of Mrs. Hemans_.]

“Mrs. Hemans was about the middle height, and rather slenderly made than otherwise. To a countenance of great intelligence and expression, she united manners alike unassuming and playful, and with a trust arising out of the purity of her own character--which was beyond the meanness of suspicion in others--she remained untainted by the breath of worldly guile.”

[Sidenote: Rossetti’s _Notice of Mrs. Hemans_. *]

“An engraved portrait of her by the American artist William E. West--one of three which he painted in 1827, shows us that Mrs. Hemans, at the age of thirty-four, was eminently pleasing and good-looking, with an air of amiability and sprightly gentleness, and of confiding candour which, while none the less perfectly womanly, might almost be termed childlike in its limpid depth. The features are correct and harmonious; the eyes full; and the contour amply and elegantly rounded. In height she was neither tall nor short. A sufficient wealth of naturally clustering hair, golden in early youth, but by this time of a rich auburn, shades the capacious but not over-developed forehead, and the lightly pencilled eyebrows. The bust and form have the fulness of a mature period of life; and it would appear that Mrs. Hemans was somewhat short-necked and high-shouldered, partly detracting from delicacy of proportion, and of general aspect of impression on the eye. We would rather judge of her by this portrait (which her sister pronounces a good likeness) than by another engraved in Mr. Chorley’s Memorials. This latter was executed in Dublin in 1831, by a young artist named Edward Robinson. It makes Mrs. Hemans look younger than in the earlier portrait by West, and may on that ground alone be surmised unfaithful, and, though younger, it also makes her heavier and less refined.”

JAMES HOGG

1770-1835

[Sidenote: Lockhart’s _Peter’s Letters_.]

“Although for some time past he has spent a considerable portion of every year in excellent, even in refined society, the external appearance of the man can have undergone but very little change since he was ‘a herd on Yarrow.’ His face and hands are still as brown as if he had lived entirely _sub dio_. His very hair has a coarse stringiness about it, which proves beyond dispute its utter ignorance of all the arts of the _friseur_, and hangs in playful whips and cords about his ears, in a style of the most perfect innocence imaginable. His mouth which, when he smiles, nearly cuts the totality of his face in twain, is an object that would make the Chevalier Ruspini die with indignation; for his teeth have been allowed to grow where they listed, and as they listed, presenting more resemblance, in arrangement (and colour too), to a body of crouching sharp-shooters, than to any more regular species of array. The effect of a forehead, towering with a true poetic grandeur above such features as these, and of an eye that illuminates their surface with genuine lightenings of genius ... these are things which I cannot so easily transfer to my paper.”--1819.

[Sidenote: S. C. Hall’s _Memories of Great Men_.]

“The Rev. Mr. Thomson, his biographer, thus pictures him:--‘In height he was five feet ten inches and a half; his broad chest and square shoulders indicated health and strength; while a well-rounded leg, and small ankle and foot, showed the active shepherd who could outstrip the runaway sheep.’ His hair in his younger days was auburn, slightly inclining to yellow, which afterwards became dark brown, mixed with gray; his eyes, which were dark blue, were bright and intelligent. His features were irregular, while his eye and ample forehead redeemed the countenance from every charge of common-place homeliness.”

[Sidenote: Froude’s _Life of Carlyle_.]

“Hogg is a little red-skinned stiff sack of a body, with quite the common air of an Ettrick shepherd, except that he has a highish though sloping brow (among his yellow grizzled hair), and two clear little beads of blue or gray eyes that sparkle, if not with thought, yet with animation. Behaves himself quite easily and well; speaks Scotch, and mostly narrative absurdity (or even obscenity) therewith.... His vanity seems to be immense, but also his good-nature.”--1832.

THOMAS HOOD

1798-1845

[Sidenote: _The Gentleman’s Magazine_, 1872.]

“As he entered the room my first impression was that of slight disappointment. I had not then seen any portrait of him, and my imagination had depicted a man of the under size, with a humorous and mobile mouth, and with sharp, twinkling, and investigating eyes. When, therefore, a rather tall and attenuated figure presented itself before me, with grave aspect and dressed in black, and when, after scrutinising his features, I noticed those dark, sad eyes set in that pale and pain-worn yet tranquil face, and saw the expression of that suffering mouth, telling how sickness with its stern plough had driven its silent share through that slender frame, all the long train of quaint and curious fancies, ludicrous imageries, oddly-combined contrasts, humorous distortions, strange and uncouth associations, myriad word-twistings, ridiculous miseries, grave trifles, and trifling gravities--all these came before me like the rushing event of a dream, and I asked myself, ‘Can this be the man that has so often made me roll with laughter at his humour, chuckle at his wit, and wonder while I threaded the maze of his inexhaustible puns?’ When he began to converse in bland and placid tones about Germany, where he had for some time lived, I became more reconciled to him.”

[Sidenote: S. C. Hall’s _Memories of Great Men_.]

“In person Hood was of middle height, slender and sickly-looking, of sallow complexion and pale features, quiet in expression, and very rarely excited so as to give indication of either the pathos or the humour that must ever have been working in his soul. His was, indeed, a countenance rather of melancholy than mirth; there was something calm, even to solemnity, in the upper portion of the face, seldom relieved, in society, by the eloquent play of the mouth, or the sparkle of an observant eye. In conversation he was by no means brilliant. When inclined to pun, which was not often, it seemed as if his wit was the issue of thought, and not an instinctive produce, such as I have noticed in other men who have thus become famous, who are admirable in crowds, whose animation is like that of the sounding-board, which makes a great noise at a small touch, when listeners are many and applause is sure.”

[Sidenote: Rossetti’s _Memoir of Hood_. *]

“The face of Hood is best known by two busts and an oil-portrait, which have both been engraved from. It is the sort of face to which apparently a bust does more than justice, yet less than right,--the features, being mostly by no means bad ones, look better when thus reduced to the more simple and abstract contour than they probably showed in reality, for no one supposed Hood to be a fine-looking man; on the other hand, the _value_ of the face must have been in its shifting expression--keen, playful, or subtle--and this can be but barely suggested by the sculptor. The poet’s visage was pallid, his figure slight, his voice feeble; he always dressed in black, and is generally spoken of as presenting a generally clerical appearance.”

THEODORE HOOK

1788-1841

[Sidenote: Leigh Hunt’s _Autobiography_.]

“I remember, one day at Sydenham, Mr. Theodore Hook coming in unexpectedly to dinner, and amusing us very much with his talent at extempore verse. He was then a youth, tall, dark, and of a good person, with small eyes, and features more round than weak; a face that had character and humour, but no refinement.”--1809.

[Sidenote: S. C. Hall’s _Memories of Great Men_.]

“When I first saw him, he was above the middle height, robust of frame, and broad of chest; well-proportioned, with evidence of great physical capacity; his complexion dark, as were his eyes. There was nothing fine or elevated in his expression; indeed, his features when in repose were heavy; it was otherwise when animated; yet his manners were those of a gentleman, less, perhaps, from inherent faculty than the polish which refined society ever gives.”--1828.

[Sidenote: Barham’s _Life of Hook_.]

“In person Theodore Hook was above the middle height, his frame was robust and well-proportioned, possessing a breadth and depth of chest which, joined to a constitution naturally of the strongest order, would have seemed, under ordinary care, to hold out promise of a long and healthy life. His countenance was fine and commanding, his features when in repose settling into a somewhat stern and heavy expression, but all alive and alight with genius the instant his lips were opened. His eyes were dark, large, and full--to the epithet [Greek: boôpis] he, not less justly than the venerable goddess, was entitled. His voice was rich, deep, and melodious.”

DAVID HUME

1711-1776

[Sidenote: Chambers’s _Eminent Scotsmen_.]

“Lord Charlemont, who at this period met with Mr. Hume at Turin, has given the following account of his habits and appearance, penned apparently with a greater aim at effect than at truth, yet somewhat characteristic of the philosopher: ‘Nature, I believe, never formed any man more unlike his real character than David Hume. The powers of physiognomy were baffled by his countenance; neither could the most skilful in the science pretend to discover the smallest trace of the faculties of his mind in the unmeaning features of his visage. His face was broad and fat, his mouth wide, and without any other expression than that of imbecility. His eyes vacant and spiritless; and the corpulence of his whole person was far better fitted to communicate the idea of a turtle-eating alderman than of a refined philosopher. His speech in English was rendered ridiculous by the broadest Scotch accent, and his French was, if possible, still more laughable, so that wisdom most certainly never disguised herself before in so uncouth a garb.’”

[Sidenote: Lockhart’s _Peter’s Letters_.]

“The prints of David Hume are, most of them, I believe, taken from the very portrait I have seen; but of course the style and effect of the features are much more thoroughly to be understood when one has an opportunity of observing them expanded in their natural proportions. The face is far from being in any respect a classical one. The forehead is chiefly remarkable for its prominence from the ear, and not so much for its height. This gives him a lowering sort of look forwards, expressive of great inquisitiveness into matters of fact and the consequences to be deduced from them. His eyes are singularly prominent, which, according to the Gallic system, would indicate an extraordinary development of the organ of language behind them. His nose is too low between the eyes, and not well or boldly formed in any other respect. The lips, although not handsome, have in their fleshy and massy outlines abundant marks of habitual reflection and intellectual occupation. The whole had a fine expression of intellectual dignity, candour, and serenity. The want of elevation, however, which I have already noticed, injures very much the effect even of the structure of the lower part of the head.... It is to be regretted that he wore powder, for this prevents us from having the advantage of seeing what was the natural style of his hair--or, indeed, of ascertaining the form of any part of his head beyond the forehead.”

[Sidenote: David Hume’s _Life_.]

“To conclude historically with my own character. I am, or rather was (for that is the style which I must now use in speaking of myself, which emboldens me the more to speak my sentiment); I was, I say, a man of mild dispositions, of command of temper, of an open, social, and cheerful humour, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of enmity, and of great moderation in all my passions. Even my love of literary fame--my ruling passion, never soured my temper, notwithstanding my frequent disappointments. My company was not unacceptable to the young and careless, as well as to the studious and literary; and as I took a particular pleasure in the company of modest women, I had no reason to be displeased with the reception I met with from them.”

LEIGH HUNT

1784-1859

[Sidenote: Son’s preface to _Autobiography of Leigh Hunt_.]

“It was at this period of his life” (_as a young man_) “that his appearance was most characteristic, and none of the portraits of him adequately conveyed the idea of it. One of the best, a half-length chalk drawing, by an artist named Wildman, perished. The miniature by Severn was only a sketch on a small scale, but it suggested the kindness and animation of his countenance. In other cases, the artists knew too little of their sitter to catch the most familiar traits of his aspect. He was rather tall, as straight as an arrow, and looked slenderer than he really was. His hair was black and shining, and slightly inclined to wave; his head was high, his forehead straight and white, his eyes black and sparkling, his general complexion dark.... Few men were so attractive ‘in society,’ whether in a large company or over the fireside. His manners were peculiarly animated; his conversation varied, ranging over a great field of subjects, was moved and called forth by the response of his companion, be that companion philosopher or student, sage or boy, man or woman; and he was equally ready for the most lively topics or for the gravest reflections--his expression easily adapting itself to the tone of his companion’s mind. With much freedom of manners, he combined a spontaneous courtesy that never failed, and a considerateness derived from a ceaseless kindness of heart that invariably fascinated even strangers.”

[Sidenote: Bryan Procter’s _Recollections of Men of Letters_.]

“Hunt was a little above the middle size, thin and lithe. His countenance was very genial and pleasant. His hair was black; his eyes were very dark, but he was short-sighted, and therefore, perhaps, it was that they had nothing of that fierce glance which black eyes so frequently possess. His mouth was expressive, but protruding, as is sometimes seen in half-caste Americans.”--1817.

[Sidenote: Haydon’s _Autobiography_.]

“I afterwards met Hunt, and reminded him of Wilkie’s intention, and Hunt, with a frankness I liked much, became quite at home, and as I was just as easily acquainted in five minutes as himself, we began to talk, and he to hold forth, and I thought him, with his black bushy hair, black eyes, pale face, and ‘nose of taste,’ as fine a specimen of a London editor as could be imagined; assuming yet moderate, sarcastic yet genial, with a smattering of everything and a mastery of nothing, affecting the dictator, the poet, the politician, the critic, and the sceptic, whichever would, at the moment, give him the air, to inferior minds, of being a very superior man. I listened with something of curiosity to his republican independence, though hating his effeminacy and cockney peculiarities. The fearless honesty of his opinions, the unscrupulous sacrifice of his own interests, the unselfish perseverance of his attacks on all abuses, whether royal or religious, noble or democratic, ancient or modern, so gratified my mind, that I suffered this singular young man to gain such an ascendancy in my heart, as justified the perpetual caution of Wilkie against my great tendency to become acquainted too soon with strangers, and like Canning’s German, to swear eternal friendship with any spirited talented fellow after a couple of hours of witty talk or able repartee.”

ELIZABETH INCHBALD

1753-1821

[Sidenote: Kavanagh’s _English Women of Letters_. *]

“Miss Simpson ... was ... tall and slender, with hair of a golden auburn, and lovely hazel eyes, perfect features, and an enchanting countenance.”--1771.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Inchbald’s _Memoirs_.]

“DESCRIPTION OF ME.

_Age._--Between 30 and 40, which, in the register of a lady’s
birth, means a little turned of 30.

_Height._--Above the middle size, and rather tall.

_Figure._--Handsome, and striking in its general air, but a little
too stiff and erect. _Shape._--Rather too fond of sharp angles.

_Skin._--By nature fair, though a little freckled, and with a tinge
of sand, which is the colour of her eyelashes, but made coarse by
ill-treatment upon her cheeks and arms.

_Bosom._--None; or so diminutive, that it’s like a needle in a
bottle of hay.

_Hair._--Of a sandy auburn, and rather too straight as well as thin.

_Face._--Beautiful in effect, and beautiful in every feature.

_Countenance._--Full of spirit and sweetness; excessively
interesting, and, without indelicacy, voluptuous.

_Dress._--Always becoming; and very seldom worth so much as
_eightpence_.”--About 1788.

FRANCIS, LORD JEFFREY

1773-1850

[Sidenote: Geo. Ticknor’s _Life_.]

“You are to imagine then, before you, a short, stout little gentleman, about five and a half feet high, with a very red face, black hair and black eyes. You are to suppose him to possess a very gay and animated countenance, and you are to see in him all the restlessness of a will-o’-wisp, and all that fitful irregularity in his movements which you have heretofore appropriated to the pasteboard Merry Andrews whose limbs are jerked about with a wire. These you are to interpret as the natural indications of the impetuous and impatient character which a farther acquaintance developes. He enters the room with a countenance so satisfied and a step so light and almost fantastic, that all your previous impressions of the dignity and severity of the _Edinburgh Review_ are immediately put to flight, and, passing at once to the opposite extreme, you might, perhaps, imagine him to be frivolous, vain, and supercilious. He accosts you too, with a freedom and familiarity which may, perhaps, put you at your ease and render conversation unceremonious; but which, as I observed in several instances, were not very tolerable to those who had always been accustomed to the delicacy and decorum of refined society.”--1814.

[Sidenote: Lockhart’s _Peter’s Letters_.]

“I had not been long in the room, however, when I heard Mr. J---- announced, and as I had not seen him for some time, resolved to stay, and if possible, enjoy a little of his conversation in some corner.... I have seldom seen a man more nice in his exterior than Mr. J---- now seemed to be. His little person looked very neat in the way he had now adorned it. He had a very well-cut blue coat,--evidently not after the design of any Edinburgh artist,--light kerseymere breeches and ribbed silk stockings, a pair of elegant buckles, white kid gloves, and a tricolour watch-ribbon. He held his hat under his arm in a very _dégagée_ manner--and altogether he was certainly one of the last men in the assembly, whom a stranger would have guessed to be either a great lawyer or a great reviewer. In short, he was more of a dandy than any great author I ever saw--always excepting Tom Moore and David Williams.”

[Sidenote: _New Monthly Magazine_, 1831.]

“He is of low stature, but his figure is elegant and well proportioned. The face is rather elongated, the chin deficient, the mouth well formed, with a mingled expression of determination, sentiment, and arch mockery; the nose is slightly curved; the eye is the most peculiar feature of the countenance; it is large and sparkling. He has two tones in his voice--the one harsh and grating, the other rich and clear.”--1831.

DOUGLAS JERROLD

1803-1857

[Sidenote: Hodder’s _Personal Reminiscences_.]

“To my great delight, ... I had not been in the room many minutes before I was introduced to Douglas Jerrold, who was flitting about with that peculiar restlessness of eye, speech, and demeanour, which was amongst his most marked characteristics. I confess I was not surprised to find him a man of small stature, as I had heard before that his proportions were rather those of Tydeus than of Alcides; but I was a little astonished when I saw in the author of _Black-eyed Susan_, _The Rent Day_, and _The Wedding Gown_, (all of which pieces and many others he had then produced), an amount of boyish gaiety and a rapidity of movement which one could hardly expect from a writer who had risen to high rank as a moralist and censor.”

[Sidenote: W. B. Jerrold’s _Life of Douglas Jerrold_.]

“He had none of the airs of success or reputation, none of the affectations, either personal or social, which are rife everywhere. He was manly and natural; free and off-handed to the verge of eccentricity. Independence and marked character seemed to breathe from the little, rather bowed figure, crowned with a lion-like head and falling light hair--to glow in the keen, eager, blue eyes glancing on either side as he walked along. Nothing could be less commonplace, nothing less conventional, than his appearance in a room or in the streets.”

[Sidenote: S. C. Hall’s _Memories of Great Men_.]

“He was a very short man, but with breadth enough, and a back excessively bent--bowed almost to deformity; very gray hair, and a face and expression of remarkable briskness and intelligence. His profile came out pretty boldly, and his eyes had the prominence that indicates, I believe, volubility of speech; nor did he fail to talk from the instant of his appearance; and in the tone of his voice, and in his glance, and in the whole man, there was something racy--a flavour of the humourist. His step was that of an aged man, and he put his stick down very decidedly at every foot-fall; though, as he afterwards told me, he was only fifty-two, he need not yet have been infirm.”--1856.

SAMUEL JOHNSON

1709-1784

[Sidenote: Boswell’s _Life of Dr. Johnson_.]

“Miss Porter told me, that when he was first introduced to her mother, his appearance was very forbidding; he was then lean and lank, so that his immense structure of bones was hideously striking to the eye, and the scars of the scrofula were deeply visible. He also wore his hair, which was straight and stiff, and separated behind; and he often had, seemingly, convulsive starts and odd gesticulations, which tended to excite at once surprise and ridicule. Mrs. Porter was so much engaged by his conversation that she overlooked all these external disadvantages, and said to her daughter, ‘This is the most sensible man that I ever saw in my life.’”--1731.

[Sidenote: Boswell’s _Life of Dr. Johnson_.]

“His chambers were on the first floor of No. 1 Inner Temple Lane.... He received me very courteously; but it must be confessed that his apartment and furniture and morning dress was sufficiently uncouth. His brown suit of clothes looked very rusty; he had on a little old shrivelled unpowdered wig, which was too small for his head; his shirt neck and knees of his breeches were loose, his black worsted stockings ill drawn up, and he had a pair of unbuckled shoes by way of slippers. But all these slovenly peculiarities were forgotten the moment he began to talk.”--1763.

[Sidenote: Croker’s _Johnsoniana_.]

“The day after I wrote my last letter to you I was introduced to Mr. Johnson by a friend. We passed through three very dirty rooms to a little one that looked like an old counting-house, where this great man was sat at breakfast.... I was very much struck with Mr. Johnson’s appearance, and could hardly help thinking him a madman for some time, as he sat waving over his breakfast like a lunatic. He is a very large man, and was dressed in a dirty brown coat and waistcoat, with breeches that were brown also (although they had been crimson), and an old black wig; his shirt collar and sleeves were unbuttoned; his stockings were down about his feet, which had on them, by way of slippers, an old pair of shoes.... We had been with him some time before he began to talk, but at length he began, and, faith, to some purpose; everything he says is as _correct_ as a _second edition_; ’tis almost impossible to argue with him, he is so sententious and so knowing.”--1764.

BEN JONSON

1574-1637

[Sidenote: Aubrey’s _Lives of Eminent Persons_. *]

“He was (or rather had been) of a clear and faire skin, his habit was very plaine. I have heard Mr. Lacy, the player, say that he was wont to weare a coate like a coach-man’s coate with slitts under the arme-pitts. He would many times exceed in drinke. Canarie was his beloved liquer.... Ben Jonson had one eie lower than t’other and bigger, like Clun, the player.”

[Sidenote: Anderson’s _Poets of Great Britain_. *]

“The character of Jonson, like that of most celebrated wits, has been drawn with great diversity of lights and shades, according as affection or envy guided the pencil. His person, as he has himself told us, was corpulent and large. His disposition seems to have been reserved and saturnine, and sometimes not a little oppressed with the gloom of a splenetic imagination.... Stern and rigid as his virtue was, he was easy and social in the convivial meetings of his friends; and the laws of his _Symposia_, inscribed over the chimney of the Apollo, a room in the Devil Tavern, near Temple Bar, where he kept his club, show that he was neither averse to the pleasures of conversation, nor ignorant of what would render it agreeable and improving.”

[Sidenote: Lafond, _Notice sur Ben Jonson_. *]

“Il est clair pour nous que Ben Jonson avait une nature violente dans un corps robuste et athlétique; son portrait nous le montre avec une énorme face, une vigoureuse mâchoire, des yeux profonds et durs, un cou de taureau. Sa peau avait été, de bonne heure, couturée par le scorbut; et lui-même dit quelque part qu’il eut, dans le milieu de sa vie, une montagne pour ventre et un dandinement disgracieux pour démarche. Tous ses traits fortement accentués, anguleux ou carrés, dénoncent l’énergie, l’orgueil et l’amour des luttes de toute nature. Il aimait la bonne chère et le vin; sa prédilection pour le vin des Canaries avait, disait il, pour excuse la nécessité de sa constitution scorbutique. Il avait l’esprit semblable au corps; malgré ses études classiques, il était loin d’être un Athénien, c’était un Anglo-Saxon enté sur un Romain de la décadence. Généreux, libéral, prodigue, il tint toujours table ouverte, même lorsque la misère était devenue l’hôte de son foyer.”

JOHN KEATS

1795-1821

[Sidenote: Bryan Procter’s _Recollections of Men of Letters_.]

“I was first introduced to him (Keats), by Leigh Hunt, and found him very pleasant, and free from all affectation in manner and opinion. Indeed it would be difficult to discover a man with a more bright and open countenance.... I can only say that I never encountered a more manly and simple young man. In person he was short, and had eyes large and wonderfully luminous, and a resolute bearing, not defiant but well sustained.”

[Sidenote: Monckton Milnes’s _Life of Keats_.]

“His eyes were large and blue, his hair auburn, he wore it divided down the centre, and it fell in rich masses on each side his face, his mouth was full, and less intellectual than his other features. His countenance lives in my mind as one of singular beauty and brightness,--it had an expression as if he had been looking on some glorious sight. The shape of his face had not the squareness of a man’s, but more like some women’s faces I have seen--it was so wide over the forehead, and so small at the chin. He seemed in perfect health, and with life offering all things that were precious to him.”--1818.

[Sidenote: The Cowden Clarkes’ _Recollections of Writers_.]

_In reviewing this portrait, Mrs. Cowden Clarke, while admitting that much of it is_ “excellent” _and_ “true,” _goes on to add these words_: “But when our artist pronounces that ‘his eyes were large and _blue_,’ and that ‘his hair was _auburn_,’ I am naturally reminded of the ‘Chameleon’ fable--‘they were _brown_, ma’am--_brown_, I assure you!’... Reader, alter, in your copy of the _Life of Keats_, vol. i. page 103, ‘eyes’ light hazel, ‘hair’ _lightish brown and wavy_.”

[Sidenote: Leigh Hunt’s _Autobiography_.]

“Keats, when he died, had just completed his four and twentieth year. He was under the middle height, and his lower limbs were small in comparison with the upper, but neat and well-turned. His shoulders were very broad for his size; he had a face in which energy and sensibility were remarkably mixed up; an eager power, checked and made patient by ill-health. Every feature was at once strongly cut, and delicately alive. If there was any faulty expression, it was in the mouth, which was not without something of a character of pugnacity. His face was rather long than otherwise; the upper lip projected a little over the under; the chin was bold, the cheeks sunken; the eyes are mellow and glowing, large, dark, and sensitive. At the recital of a noble action, or a beautiful thought, they would suffuse with tears, and his mouth trembled. In this there was ill-health as well as imagination, for he did not like these betrayals of emotion; and he had great personal as well as moral courage. He once chastised a butcher, who had been insolent, by a regular stand-up fight. His hair, of a brown colour, was fine, and hung in natural ringlets. The head was a puzzle for the phrenologists, being remarkably small in the skull--a singularity which he had in common with Byron and Shelley, whose hats I could not get on. Keats was sensible of the disproportion above noticed between his upper and lower extremities, and he would look at his hand, which was faded, and swollen in the veins, and say it was the hand of a man of fifty.”--1826.

JOHN KEBLE

1792-1866

[Sidenote: J. Coleridge’s _Memoir of the Rev. John Keble_.]

“To me both the portraits are full of deep interest” (_these portraits of Keble, the one in the prime of manhood and the other in old age, were drawn by Richmond_), “the earlier and the later both--each brings him back to me as he was; in the earlier, he has some of the merry defiance he could assume in argument; in the latter, I see the sad tenderness of his advanced years. Keble had not regular features; he could not be called a handsome man, but he was one to be noticed anywhere, and remembered long; his forehead and hair beautiful in all ages; his eyes, full of play, intelligence, and emotion, followed you while you spoke; and they lighted up, especially with pleasure, or indignation, as it might be, when he answered you. The most pleasing photograph is one in which he is standing by Mrs. Keble’s side; she is sitting with a book in her hand. The later photographs are to me very unpleasant. I will attempt no more particular description, for I feel how little definite I can convey in writing.”

[Sidenote: _The Christian Observer_, 1871.]

“Mr. Keble greeted us, emerging from his little study, the door of which, as I afterwards noticed, oftener than not, stood open.... His features, indeed, were familiar to us, as to most people, from the engraving of Richmond’s first portrait of him, taken in middle life for Sir John Coleridge. Now the original stood before me, and I saw at a glance that face and figure had been faithfully portrayed. The forehead was pale and serene, the hair silvery; doubtless this token of advancing years must have helped to give softness and refinement to the features; eyebrows, sprinkled with white, shaded eyes of singular brilliancy and depth of expression, as ready (I afterwards well knew) to light up with mirth and mischief while playful talk was going on, as they were to melt into mournful earnestness when graver topics were broached. He habitually wore glasses, but used often to take them off and hold them in his hand when conversing with animation. A dear and old friend of his has told me that he ‘looked almost boyish till about fifty, and after that rapidly aged in personal appearance.’ At this time he was in his sixty-first year, healthy and strong and active.... In appearance he was quite one’s ideal of an old-fashioned country clergyman, but of one whose Oxford days were still fresh in his mind; there was a touch of _vieille cour_ in his manner, which added, I think, to its charm. His voice in speaking was rather low, and especially so when the subject of conversation was very near his heart. It often struck me, when listening to him, that without the slightest effort or aim at effect, he always hit upon the most suitable and telling words, (and the shortest), in which to clothe his ideas. This unconscious beauty of language, coupled with the originality and wisdom of the ideas themselves, riveted them in one’s memory; the look, too, with which they were uttered, could not be forgotten, and rises as vividly before my mind’s eye ‘through the golden mist of years’ as though it belonged to the present, instead of the ‘long ago.’”--1852.

[Sidenote: L. A. Huntingford: private letter.]

“People who went to look at Mr. Keble as a ‘lion’ were, I think, disappointed to see a very simple old-fashioned clerical gentleman, with very little manner, and so completely unconscious of self that as he talked of common things, they were inclined to think as little of him as he thought of himself. He used to come down early and stand writing at a side-table till it was quite time for prayers and breakfast, and then sit down anywhere and, with a little peculiar jerk of the head and shoulders, read a short ‘Instruction,’ almost as if he were reading it to himself. Certain people even called his reading bad, for his voice was weak, and he had a slight cough which never wholly left him; but he brought out the meaning of Holy Scripture in a manner which I never heard surpassed. Mr. Keble was of middle height, very thin, with a splendid forehead, bright eyes which were rather hidden by his spectacles, and a sweet merry smile. Those who knew him well must remember the way in which he used to pull himself together, as if he were a boy obeying a well-known rule to ‘hold up his head.’ His manner was nervous, so much so that people who were not intimately acquainted with him were rarely quite at their ease when in his presence. The two pictures of Mr. Keble by Richmond are both good likenesses; but the lithograph of the head which was taken from the then-unfinished picture which, in its completed form, now hangs in Keble College, Oxford, has caught the peculiar intelligence of the eyes when lighted up with the eager brightness his friends knew so well. He had the unusual power of being able to write upon one subject and listen to the discussion of another at the same time; and he would often glance up from the paper in which he was apparently immersed, and pushing up his spectacles join eagerly in the conversation.”

CHARLES KINGSLEY

1812-1875

[Sidenote: Caroline Fox’s _Journals and Letters_.]

“Torquay, _January 30th_.--Charles Kingsley called, but we missed him.

“_February 3d._--We paid him and his wife a very happy call; he fraternising at once, and stuttering pleasant and discriminating things concerning F. D. Maurice, Coleridge and others. He looks sunburnt with dredging all the morning, has a piercing eye under an overhanging brow, and his voice is most melodious and his pronunciation exquisite. He is strangely attractive.”--1854.

[Sidenote: _The Galaxy_, 1872.]

“I was present at a meeting not long since where Mr. Kingsley was one of the principal speakers. The meeting was held in London, the audience was a peculiarly Cockney audience, and Charles Kingsley is personally little known to the public of the metropolis. Therefore when he began to speak there was quite a little thrill of wonder and something like incredulity through the listening benches. Could that, people near me asked, really be Charles Kingsley, the novelist, the poet, the scholar, the aristocrat, the gentleman, the pulpit-orator, the ‘soldier--priest,’ the apostle of muscular Christianity? Yes, that was indeed he. Rather tall, very angular, surprisingly awkward, with thin staggering legs, a hatchet face adorned with scraggy gray whiskers, a faculty for falling into the most ungainly attitudes, and making the most hideous contortions of visage and frame; with a rough provincial accent and an uncouth way of speaking which would be set down for absurd caricature on the boards of a comic theatre. Such was the appearance which the author of _Glaucus_ and _Hypatia_ presented to his startled audience. Since Brougham’s time nothing so ungainly, odd, and ludicrous had been displayed upon an English platform. Needless to say, Charles Kingsley has not the eloquence of Brougham. But he has a robust and energetic plain-speaking which soon struck home to the heart of the meeting. He conquered his audience. Those who at first could hardly keep from laughing, those who, not knowing the speaker, wondered whether he was not mad or in liquor, those who heartily disliked his general principles and his public attitude, were alike won over, long before he had finished, by his bluff and blunt earnestness and his transparent sincerity.”

[Sidenote: _Fraser’s Magazine_, 1877.]

“For nine years the portrait of Kingsley, close to that of John Parker, has looked down from the wall of the room in which I write. It is a large photograph, taken, while he was on a visit to the house, by an amateur of extraordinary ability, the late Dr. Adamson of St. Andrews. It is the best and most lifelike portrait of Kingsley known to me. It has the stern expression, which came partly of the effort, never quite ceasing, to express himself through that characteristic stammer which quite left him in public speaking, and which in private added to the effect of his wonderful talk. Photography caught him easily. Those who look at the portrait prefixed to Volume I. of the _Life_ see the man as he lived. Mr. Woolner’s bust, shown at the beginning of Volume II., shows him aged and shrunken, not more than he was but more than he ought to have been; and the removal of all hair from the face is a marked difference from the fact in life; yet the likeness is perfect too. That somewhat severe face belied one of the kindest hearts that ever beat: yet the handsome and chivalrous features unworthily expressed one of the truest, bravest, and noblest of souls. Kingsley could not have done a mean or false thing: by his make it was as impossible as that water should run uphill.”

CHARLES LAMB

1775-1834

[Sidenote: de Quincey’s _Life and Writings_.]

“Lamb, at this period of his life, then passed regularly, after taking wine, under a brief eclipse of sleep. It descended upon him as soft as a shadow. In a gross person laden with superfluous flesh, and sleeping heavily, this would have been disagreeable; but in Lamb, thin even to meagreness, spare and wiry as an Arab of the desert, or as Thomas Aquinas, wasted by scholastic vigils, the affection of sleep seemed rather a net-work of aerial gossamer than of earthly cobweb,--more like a golden haze falling upon him gently from the heavens than a cloud exhaling upwards from the flesh. Motionless in his chair as a bust, breathing so gently as scarcely to seem entirely alive, he presented the image of repose midway between life and death like the repose of sculpture, and to one who knew his history, a repose contrasting with the calamities and internal storms of his life. I have heard more persons than I can now distinctly recall, observe of Lamb when sleeping, that his countenance in that state assumed an expression almost seraphic, from its intellectual beauty of outline, its childlike simplicity, and its benignity. It could not be called a transfiguration that sleep worked in his face; for the features wore essentially the same expression when waking; but sleep spiritualised that expression, exalted it, and also harmonised it. Much of the change lay in that last process. The eyes it was that disturbed the unity of effect in Lamb’s waking face. They gave a restlessness to the character of his intellect, shifting, like northern lights, through every mode of combination with fantastic playfulness; and sometimes by fiery gleams obliterating for the moment that pure light of benignity which was the predominant reading on his features.”--1822.

[Sidenote: Froude’s _Life of Carlyle_.]

“He was the leanest of mankind; tiny black breeches buttoned to the knee-cap and no further, surmounting spindle-legs also in black, face and head fineish, black, bony, lean, and of a Jew type rather; in the eyes a kind of smoky brightness, or confused sharpness; spoke with a stutter; in walking tottered and shuffled, emblem of imbecility, bodily and spiritual (something of real insanity, I have understood), and yet something, too, of human, ingenuous, pathetic, sportfully much enduring. Poor Lamb! he was infinitely astonished at my wife, and her quiet encounter of his too ghastly London wit by a cheerful native ditto. Adieu! poor Lamb!”

[Sidenote: Talfourd’s _Reminiscence of Charles Lamb_.]

“Methinks I see him before me now, as he appeared then, and as he continued with scarcely any perceptible alteration to me, during the twenty years of intimacy which followed, and were closed by his death. A light frame, so fragile that it seemed as if a breath would overthrow it, clad in clerklike black, was surmounted by a head of form and expression the most noble and sweet. His black hair curled crisply about an expanded forehead; his eyes, softly brown, twinkled with varying expression, though the prevalent feeling was sad; and the nose slightly curved, and delicately carved at the nostril, with the lower outline of the face regularly oval, completed a head which was finely placed on the shoulders, and gave importance and even dignity to a diminutive and shadowy stem. Who shall describe his countenance, catch its quivering sweetness, and fix it for ever in words? There are none, alas, to answer the vain desire of friendship. Deep thought striving with humour, the lines of suffering wreathed into cordial mirth, and a smile of painful sweetness, present an image to the mind it can as little describe as lose. His personal appearance and manner are not unfitly characterised by what he himself says in one of his letters to Manning, of Braham, ‘a compound of the Jew, the gentleman, and the angel.’”--_Written shortly after Lamb’s death._

LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON

1802-1838

[Sidenote: Crabb Robinson’s _Diary_.]

“... Miss Landon, a young poetess--a starling--the L. E. L. of the _Gazette_, with a gay good-humoured face, which gave me a favourable impression.”--1826.

[Sidenote: Blanchard’s _Life of L. E. L._]

“Her hair was ‘darkly brown,’ very soft and beautiful, and always tastefully arranged; her figure, as before remarked, slight, but well-formed and graceful; her feet small, but her hands especially so, and faultlessly white and finely shaped; her fingers were fairy fingers; her ears also were observably little. Her face, though not regular in ‘every feature,’ became beautiful by expression,--every flash of thought, every change and colour of feeling lightened over it as she spoke,--when she spoke earnestly. The forehead was not high, but broad and full; the eyes had no overpowering brilliancy, but their clear intellectual light penetrated by its exquisite softness; her mouth was not less marked by character, and, besides the glorious faculty of uttering the pearls and diamonds of fancy and wit, knew how to express scorn, or anger, or pride, as well as it knew how to smile winningly, or to pour forth those short, quick, ringing laughs which, not excepting even her _bon-mots_ and aphorisms, were the most delightful things that issued from it.”--1832.

[Sidenote: S. C. Hall’s _Retrospect of a Long Life_.]