Chapter M: E. W (5)

[Sidenote: _The Cornhill Magazine_, 1874. *]

“Pepys spent part of a certain winter Sunday, when he had taken physic, composing ‘a song in praise of a liberal genius (such as I take my own to be) to all studies and pleasures.’ The song was successful, but the diary is, in a sense, the very song that he was seeking; and his portrait by Hales, so admirably reproduced in Mynors Bright’s edition, is a confirmation of the diary. Hales, it would appear, had known his business, and though he put his sitter to a deal of trouble, almost breaking his neck ‘to have the portrait full of shadows,’ and draping him in an Indian gown hired expressly for the purpose, he was preoccupied about no merely picturesque effects, but to portray the essence of the man. Whether we read the picture by the diary, or the diary by the picture, we shall at least agree, that Hales was among the numbers of those who can ‘surprise the manners in a face.’ Here we have a mouth pouting, moist with desires; eyes greedy, protuberant, and yet apt for weeping too; a nose great alike in character and dimensions, and altogether a most fleshly, melting countenance. The face is attractive by its promise of reciprocity. I have used the word _greedy_, but the reader must not suppose that he can change it for that closely kindred one of _hungry_, for there is here no aspiration, no waiting for better things, but an animal joy in all that comes. It could never be the face of an artist; it is the face of a _viveur_--kindly, pleased, and pleasing, protected from excess and upheld in contentment by the shifting versatility of his desires. For a single desire is more rightly to be called a lust; but there is health in a variety, where one may balance and control another.”

ALEXANDER POPE

1688-1744

[Sidenote: _The Guardian_, 1713.]

“Dick Distich ... we have elected president, not only as he is the shortest of us all, but because he has entertained so just a sense of his stature as to go generally in black, that he may appear yet less. Nay, to that perfection is he arrived, that he stoops as he walks. The figure of the man is odd enough; he is a lively little creature, with long arms and legs: a spider is no ill emblem of him. He has been taken at a distance for a small windmill.”--1713.

[Sidenote: Johnson’s _Life of Pope_.]

“The person of Pope is well known not to have been formed on the nicest model. He has, in his account of the Little Club, compared himself to a spider, and, by another, is described as protuberant behind and before. He is said to have been beautiful in his infancy; but he was of a constitution originally feeble and weak; and, as bodies of a tender frame are easily distorted, his deformity was, probably, in part the effect of his application. His stature was so low, that to bring him on a level with common tables it was necessary to raise his seat. But his face was not displeasing, and his eyes were animated and vivid.... His dress of ceremony was black, with a tie-wig and a little sword.... He sometimes condescended to be jocular with servants or inferiors; but by no merriment, either of others or of his own, was he ever seen excited to laughter.”

[Sidenote: Tyer’s _Historical rhapsody on Mr. Pope_.]

“Pope, as Lord Clarendon says of (the ever memorable) Hales of Eaton, was one of the least men in the kingdom; who adds of Chillingworth, that he was of a stature little superior to him, and that it was an age in which there were many great and wonderful men of that size.... He inherited his deformity from his father, who turns out at last, from the information of Mrs. Racket his relation, to have been a linen-draper in the Strand.

‘My friend, this shape which you and I will admire,
Came not from Ammon’s son, but from my sire,’

as he expresses himself in his first epistle to Arbuthnot. He was protuberant behind and before, in the words of his last biographer. But he carried a mind in his face, as a reverend person once expressed himself of a singular countenance. He had a brilliant eye, which pervaded everything at a glance.”

BRYAN WALLER PROCTER

1787-1874

[Sidenote: Froude’s _Life of Carlyle_.]

“I have also seen and scraped acquaintance with Procter--Barry Cornwall. He is a slender, rough-faced, palish, gentle, languid-looking man, of three or four and thirty. There is a dreamy mildness in his eye; he is kind and good in his manners and, I understand, in his conduct. He is a poet by the ear and the fancy, but his heart and intellect are not strong.”--1824.

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

“A decidedly rather pretty little fellow, Procter, bodily and spiritually: manners prepossessing, slightly London-elegant, not unpleasant; clear judgment in him, though of narrow field; a sound, honourable morality, and airy friendly ways; of slight, neat figure, vigorous for his size; fine genially rugged little face, fine head; something curiously dreamy in the eyes of him, lids drooping at the _outer_ ends into a cordially meditative and drooping expression; would break out suddenly now and then into opera attitude and a _Là ci darem là mano_ for a moment; had something of real fun, though in London style.”

[Sidenote: Fields’s _Yesterdays with Authors_.]

“The poet’s figure was short and full, and his voice had a low, veiled tone habitually in it, which made it sometimes difficult to hear distinctly what he was saying. When he spoke in conversation, he liked to be very near his listener, and thus stand, as it were, on confidential grounds with him. His turn of thought was apt to be cheerful among his friends, and he entered readily into a vein of wit and nimble expression. Verbal facility seemed natural to him, and his epithets, evidently unprepared, were always perfect. He disliked cant and hard ways of judging character. He praised easily. He impressed every one who came near him as a born gentleman, chivalrous and generous in a high degree.”

THOMAS DE QUINCEY

1786-1859

[Sidenote: Masson’s _de Quincey_.]

“In addition to the general impression of his diminutiveness and fragility, one was struck with the peculiar beauty of his head and forehead, rising disproportionately high over his small, wrinkly visage and gentle, deep-set eyes. His talk was in the form of really harmonious and considerate colloquy, and not at all in that of monologue.... That evening passed, and though I saw him once or twice again, it is the last sight I remember best. It must have been, I think, in 1846, on a summer afternoon. A friend, a stranger in Edinburgh, was walking with me in one of the pleasant, quiet, country lanes near Edinburgh. Meeting us, and the sole living thing in the lane beside ourselves, came a small figure, not untidily dressed, but with his hat pushed far up in front of his forehead, and hanging on his hindhead, so that the back rim must have been resting on his coat-collar. At a little distance I recognised it to be De Quincey; but, not considering myself entitled to interrupt his meditations, I only whispered the information to my friend, that he might not miss what the look at such a celebrity was worth. So we passed him, giving him the wall. Not unnaturally, however, after we passed, we turned round for the pleasure of a back view of the wee, intellectual wizard. Whether my whisper and our glance had alarmed him, as a ticket-of-leave man might be rendered uneasy in his solitary walk by the scrutiny of two passing strangers, or whether he had some recollection of me (which was likely enough, as he seemed to forget nothing), I do not know, but we found that he, too, had stopped, and was looking round at us. Apparently scared at being caught doing so, he immediately wheeled round again, and hurried his face towards a side-turning in the lane, into which he disappeared, his hat still hanging on the back of his head. That was my last sight of De Quincey.”--1846.

[Sidenote: Page’s _de Quincey_.]

“Pale he was, with a head of wonderful size, which served to make more apparent the inferior dimensions of his body, and a face which lived the sculptured past in every lineament from brow to chin. One seeing him would surely be tempted to ask who he was that took off his hat with such grave politeness, remaining uncovered if a lady were passing almost until she was out of sight, and would get for an answer likely enough, ‘Oh, that is little De Quincey, who hears strange sounds and eats opium. Did you ever see such a little man?’ Little he was, indeed, like Dickens and Jeffrey, the latter of whom had so little flesh that it was said that his intellect was indecently exposed.”

[Sidenote: James Payn’s _Literary Recollections_.]

“In the ensuing summer, after the publication of another volume of poems, I visited Edinburgh, and called upon De Quincey, to whom I had a letter of introduction from Miss Mitford. He was at that time residing at Lasswade, a few miles from the town, and I went thither by coach. He lived a secluded life, and even at that date had become to the world a name rather than a real personage; but it was a great name. Considerable alarm agitated my youthful heart as I drew near the house: I felt like Burns on the occasion when he was first about ‘to dinner wi’ a Lord.’... My apprehensions, however, proved to be utterly groundless, for a more gracious and genial personage I never met. Picture to yourself a very diminutive man, carelessly--very carelessly--dressed; a face lined, careworn, and so expressionless that it reminded one of ‘that chill changeless brow, where cold Obstruction’s apathy appals the gazing mourners heart’--a face like death in life. The instant he began to speak, however, it lit up as though by electric light; this came from his marvellous eyes, brighter and more intelligent (though by fits) than I have ever seen in any other mortal. They seemed to me to glow with eloquence. He spoke of my introducer, of Cambridge, of the Lake Country, and of English poets. Each theme was interesting to me, but made infinitely more so by some apt personal reminiscence. As for the last-named subject, it was like talking of the Olympian gods to one not only cradled in their creed, but who had mingled with them, himself half an immortal.”

ANN RADCLIFFE

1764-1823

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

“Ann Ward’s education was plain and somewhat formal. She was shy; she showed no extraordinary genius, and the times were not propitious to the development of female intellect. The young girl’s person was probably more admired than her mind. She was short, but exquisitely proportioned; she had a lovely complexion, fine eyes and eyebrows, and a beautiful mouth. She had a sweet voice too, and sang with feeling and taste.”

[Sidenote: Scott’s _Memoir of Ann Radcliffe_.]

“This admirable writer, whom I remember from about the time of her twentieth year, was, in her youth, of a figure exquisitely proportioned, while she resembled her father and his brother and sister in being low of stature. Her complexion was beautiful, as was her whole countenance, especially her eye, eyebrows, and mouth.”

[Sidenote: _Memoir of Mrs. Ann Radcliffe._]

“Mrs. Radcliffe, though a giant in intellect, was low in stature, and of a slender form, but exquisitely proportioned: her countenance was beautiful and expressive.”

SIR WALTER RALEIGH

1552-1618

[Sidenote: _The Nineteenth Century_, 1881. *]

“In appearance what manner of man was Raleigh when in Ireland? There was much change, of course, from the dashing captain of eight and twenty, when he was putting the unarmed men to the sword and hanging the women in Dingle Bay, to the admiral of sixty-five who, between the Tower and the scaffold, visited his old haunts in the county of Cork for the last time in the three summer months of 1617.

“But all accounts agree in giving him a commanding presence, a handsome and well-compacted figure, a forehead rather too high; the lower part of his face, though partly hidden by the moustache and peaked beard, showing rare resolution. His portrait, a life-sized head, painted when he was Major of Youghal, was recently presented to the owner of his house, where it had been years ago, by the senior member for the county of Waterford; and another original picture of him when in Ireland is in the possession of the Rev. Pierce W. Drew of Youghal. Both these Irish pictures show the same lofty brow and firm lips. There is an old and much-prized engraving by Vander Werff of Amsterdam that seems to combine all his characteristic features--the extraordinarily high forehead, the moustache and peaked beard, ill-concealing a too determined mouth. The likeness is most striking.”

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

“He was a tall, handsome, and bold man; but his _næve_ was, that he was damnably proud.... In the great parlour at Downton, at Mr. Ralegh’s, is a good piece (an originall) of Sir W. in a white sattin doublet, all embroidered with rich pearles, and a mighty rich chaine of great pearles about his neck. The old servants have told me that the pearles were neer as big as the painted ones. He had a most remarkable aspect, an exceedingly high forehead, long-faced, and sourlie-bidded, a kind of pigge-eie.... He spake broad Devonshire to his dye-ing day. His voice was small, as likewise were my schoolfellowes, his gr. nephews.”

[Sidenote: _Publications of the Prince Society._ *]

“In all the pictures we have of him, there is almost nothing to suggest the typical Englishman. Burly and robust. About six feet in height, he is rather thin than corpulent, and in the vivacity of expression and the nervous cast of his features he resembles rather the modern New-Englander than the old-time Englishman. He was nineteen years younger than Elizabeth, and had, as Naunton describes him, ‘a good presence in a handsome and well-compacted person.’ Fuller has already told us that at the time of his entrance at the court his clothes made a ‘considerable part of his estate.’ He seems to have had an innate love for the luxury and splendour of dress. He lived at a period when gentlemen as well as ladies indulged in all the glory of gay colours. Edwards, describing some of the more noted pictures of him, says: ‘In another full-length, which long remained in the possession of his descendants, he is apparelled in a white satin pinked vest, close sleeved to the wrists with a brown doublet finely flowered and embroidered with pearls, and a sword, also brown and similarly decorated. Over the right hip is seen the jewelled pommel of his dagger. He wears his hat, in which is a black feather with a ruby and pearl drop. His trunk hose and fringed garters appear to be of white satin. His buff-coloured shoes are tied with white ribbons.’”

CHARLES READE

1814-1884

[Sidenote: Coleman’s _Personal Reminiscences_.]

“On arriving at Bolton Row I was shown into a large room littered over with books, MSS. agenda, newspapers of every description from the _Times_ and the _New York Herald_ down to the _Police News_. Before me stood a stately and imposing man of fifty or fifty-one, over six feet high, a massive chest, herculean limbs, a bearded and leonine face, giving traces of a manly beauty which ripened into majesty as he grew older. Large brown eyes which could at times become exceedingly fierce, a fine head, quite bald on the top but covered at the sides with soft brown hair, a head strangely disproportioned to the bulk of the body; in fact I could never understand how so large a brain could be confined in so small a skull. On the desk before him lay a huge sheet of drab paper on which he had been writing--it was about the size of two sheets of ordinary foolscap; in his hand one of Gillott’s double-barrelled pens. (Before I left the room he told me he sent Gillott his books, and Gillott sent him his pens.)

“His voice, though very pleasant, was very penetrating. He was rather deaf, but I don’t think quite so deaf as he pretended to be. This deafness gave him an advantage in conversation; it afforded him time to take stock of the situation, and either to seek refuge in silence or to request his interlocutor to propound his proposal afresh. At first he was very cold, but at last, carried away by the ardour of my admiration for his works, he thawed, and in half an hour he was eager, excited, delighted and delightful.”--1856.

[Sidenote: _The Contemporary Review_, 1884.]

“The man in truth justified Lavater, for his physiognomy was noble, and his body the perfection of symmetry and grace. Nature gave him a forehead as high as Shakespeare’s, but broader; the mild, pensive ox-eye so dear to the old Greek æsthetes; a marble skin, a mouth that was sarcasm itself. His personal attractiveness was phenomenal. In any roomful of people, however illustrious, he became involuntarily--for he was as little self-asserting off his paper as he was dogmatic on it--the centre. Living immersed in Bohemianism, and in the society of a large-hearted, yet not very cultured woman, he never parted company with his Ipsden breeding, and his natural bearing was that of one born to command.”

[Sidenote: _Eclectic Magazine_, 1880.]

“In personal appearance Mr. Reade is tall, erect, of a commanding presence, with a full, expressive brown eye and a noble brow. His manner is singularly dignified without being arrogant, and in society he sustains an enviable reputation as a conversationalist.”

SAMUEL RICHARDSON

1689-1761

[Sidenote: Barbauld’s _Life of Richardson_. *]

“Richardson was, in person, below the middle stature, and inclined to corpulency; of a round, rather than oval face, with a fair, ruddy complexion. His features, says one who speaks from recollection, bore the stamp of good nature, and were characteristic of his placid and amiable disposition. He was slow in speech, and, to strangers at least, spoke with reserve and deliberation; but in his manners was affable, courteous, and engaging, and when surrounded with the social circle he loved to draw around him, his eye sparkled with pleasure, and often expressed that particular spirit of archness which we see in some of his characters, and which gave, at times, a vivacity to his conversation not expected from his general taciturnity and quiet manners.”

[Sidenote: Richardson’s _Correspondence_.]

“Short, rather plump, about five feet five inches, fair wig, one hand generally in his bosom, the other a cane in it, which he leans upon under the skirts of his coat, that it may imperceptibly serve him as a support when attacked by sudden tremors or dizziness; of a light brown complexion; teeth not yet failing him. Looking directly foreright as passengers would imagine, but observing all that stirs on either hand of him, without moving his short neck; a regular even pace, stealing away ground rather than seeming to rid it; a gray eye, too often overclouded by mistiness from the head, by chance lively, very lively, if he sees any he loves; if he approaches a lady, his eye is never fixed first on her face, but on her feet, and rears it up by degrees, seeming to set her down as so and so.”--1749.

[Sidenote: Stephen’s _Richardson_. *]

“He looks like a plump white mouse in a wig, with an air at once vivacious and timid, a quick excitable nature, taking refuge in the outside of a smug, portly tradesman. Two coloured engravings in Mrs. Barbauld’s volumes give us Richardson amidst his surroundings.... One introduces us to Richardson at home. Half a dozen ladies and gentlemen are sitting by the open window in his bare parlour looking out into the garden. There is only one spindle-legged table, and a set of uncompromising wooden chairs, just enough to accommodate the party.... Miss Highmore, whose hoop can scarcely be squeezed into her straight-backed chair, is quietly sketching the memorable scene. We are truly grateful to her, for there sits the little idol of the party in his usual morning dress, a nondescript brown dressing-gown with a cap on his head of the same materials. His plump little frame fills the chair, and he is apparently raising one foot for an emphatic stamp, as he reads a passage of _Sir Charles Grandison_. We can see that as he concludes he will be applauded with deferential gasps of heartfelt admiration.”

SAMUEL ROGERS

1763-1855

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

“His countenance was the theme of continual jokes. It was ‘ugly,’ if not repulsive. The expression was in no way, nor under any circumstances, good; he had a drooping eye and a thick underlip; his forehead was broad, his head large--out of proportion indeed to his form; but it was without the organs of benevolence and veneration, although preponderating in that of ideality. His features were ‘cadaverous.’ Lord Dudley once asked him why, now that he could afford it, he did not set up his hearse; and it is said that Sydney Smith gave him mortal offence by recommending him, ‘when he sat for his portrait, to be drawn saying his prayers, with his face hidden by his hands.’”

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

“His personal appearance was extraordinary, or rather his countenance was unique. His skull and facial expression bore so striking a likeness to the skeleton pictures which we sometimes see of Death, that the facetious Sydney Smith (at one of the dressed evening parties ...) entitled him the ‘Death dandy.’ And it was told (probably with truth), that the same satirical wag inscribed upon the capital portrait in his breakfast-room, ‘Painted in his lifetime.’”

[Sidenote: Mackay’s _Forty Years’ Recollections_.]

“My first look at the poet, then in his seventy-eighth year, was an agreeable surprise, and a protest in my mind against the malignant injustice which had been done him. As a young man he might have been uncomely, if not as ugly as his revilers had painted him, but as an old man there was an intellectual charm in his countenance, and a fascination in his manner which more than atoned for any deficiency of personal beauty.”--1840.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

1828-1882

[Sidenote: William Sharp’s _Dante Gabriel Rossetti_.]

“According to a sketch by Mr. Eyre Crowe, dated about this time, Rossetti must have had anything but a robust appearance, being very thin and even somewhat haggard in expression. He went about in a long swallow-tailed coat of what was even in 1848 an antique pattern. That his appearance in his twentieth and some subsequent years was that of an ascetic I have been told by several, including himself, and in addition to such pen-and-ink sketches as the above, and of himself sitting to Miss Siddall (his future wife) for his portrait, there are the perhaps more reliable portraitures in Mr. Millais’s _Isabella_ (painted in 1849), and Mr. Deverell’s _Viola_. On the other hand, a beautifully-executed pencil head of himself in boyhood shows him much removed from the ascetic type of later years, not unlike and strongly suggestive of a young Keats or Chatterton; while in maturer age he carefully drew his portrait from his mirrored image, the result being a highly-finished pen-and-ink likeness. While speaking of portraits, I may state that Rossetti was twice photographed, once in Newcastle (which is the one publicly known, and upon which all other illustrations have been based), and once standing arm-in-arm with Mr. Ruskin, the latter being the best likeness of the poet-artist as he was a quarter of a century ago. There is also an etching by Mr. Menpes, which, however, is only founded on the well-known photograph; and, finally, there is a portrait taken shortly after death by Mr. Frederick Shields.”

[Sidenote: Hall Caine’s _Recollections of Rossetti_.]

“Very soon Rossetti came to me through the doorway in front, which proved to be the entrance to his studio. Holding forth both hands and crying, ‘Hulloa!’ he gave me that cheery hearty greeting which I came to recognise as his alone, perhaps, in warmth and unfailing geniality among all the men of our circle. It was Italian in its spontaneity, and yet it was English in its manly reserve, and I remember with much tenderness of feeling that never to the last (not even when sickness saddened him, or after an absence of a few days or even hours), did it fail him when meeting with those friends to whom to the last he was really attached. Leading the way to the studio, he introduced me to his brother, who was there upon one of the evening visits, which at intervals of a week he was at that time making with unfailing regularity. I should have described Rossetti, at this time, as a man who looked quite ten years older than his actual age, which was fifty-two, of full middle height and inclining to corpulence, with a round face that ought, one thought, to be ruddy but was pale, large gray eyes with a steady introspecting look, surmounted by broad protrusive brows and a clearly-pencilled ridge over the nose, which was well cut and had large breathing nostrils. The mouth and chin were hidden beneath a heavy moustache and abundant beard, which grew up to the ears, and had been of a mixed black-brown and auburn, and were now streaked with gray. The forehead was large, round, without protuberances, and very gently receding to where thin black curls, that had once been redundant, began to tumble down to the ears. The entire configuration of the head and face seemed to me singularly noble, and from the eyes upwards full of beauty. He wore a pair of spectacles, and, in reading, a second pair over the first: but these took little from the sense of power conveyed by those steady eyes, and that ‘bar of Michael Angelo.’ His dress was not conspicuous, being however rather negligent than otherwise, and noticeable, if at all, only for a straight sack-coat buttoned at the throat, descending at least to the knees, and having large pockets cut into it perpendicularly at the sides. This garment was, I afterwards found, one of the articles of various kinds made to the author’s own design. When he spoke, even in exchanging the preliminary courtesies of an opening conversation, I thought his voice the richest I had ever known any one to possess. It was a full deep baritone, capable of easy modulation, and with undertones of infinite softness and sweetness, yet, as I afterwards found, with almost illimitable compass, and with every gradation of tone at command, for the recitation or reading of poetry.”--1880.

[Sidenote: William Sharp’s _Dante Gabriel Rossetti_].

“As to the personality of Dante Gabriel Rossetti much has been written since his death, and it is now widely known that he was a man who exercised an almost irresistible charm over most with whom he was brought in contact. His manner could be peculiarly winning, especially with those much younger than himself, and his voice was alike notable for its sonorous beauty and for a magnetic quality that made the ear alert, whether the speaker was engaged in conversation, recitation, or reading. I have heard him read, some of them over and over again, all the poems in the _Ballads and Sonnets_; and especially in such productions as _The Cloud Confines_ was his voice as stirring as a trumpet tone; but where he excelled was in some of the pathetic portions of the _Vita Nuova_, or the terrible and sonorous passages of _L’Inferno_, when the music of the Italian language found full expression indeed. His conversational powers I am unable adequately to describe, for during the four or five years of my intimacy with him he suffered too much from ill-health to be a consistently brilliant talker, but again and again I have seen instances of those marvellous gifts that made him at one time a Sydney Smith in wit, and a Coleridge in eloquence. In appearance he was, if anything, rather over middle height, and, especially latterly, somewhat stout; his forehead was of splendid proportions, recalling instantaneously to most strangers the Stratford bust of Shakespeare; and his gray blue eyes were clear and piercing, and characterised by that rapid penetrative gaze so noticeable in Emerson. He seemed always to me an unmistakable Englishman, yet the Italian element was frequently recognisable. As far as his own opinion is concerned, he was wholly English.”--1878.

RICHARD SAVAGE

1697-1743

[Sidenote: _Dublin University, Magazine_, 1858. *]

“His companion, Who is he? He looks a little older, and is a great deal slenderer, and very much better dressed; that is, his clothes are well made, but alas! they are also well worn. He has an air of faded fashion about him. There is decision in every line of the lank, and long, and melancholy visage; it is a veritable Quixotic face. Meagre and proud, and high and pale. An exceeding ‘woeful countenance,’ which sadness and scorn alternately cloud and corrugate. It is mixed up with extreme diversities. The brow and eye are intellectual and bright, while the lower features are sensual and coarse: humour and passion both lurk in the mouth, yet few smiles expand those lips from which laughter seems altogether banished, while the voice is sweet, soft, and lute-like; the pace is slow, and the gait has a certain pretension to importance, which ill harmonises with the rest of his appearance. This person is Richard Savage, a man whose rare talents might have brought him poetic immortality, and a lofty pedestal in the muse’s temple, had not his coarser vices, together with his pride and his ingratitude, dragged him down to the lowest moral depth, and buried the many bright things he had in brain and bosom, head and heart, in the same mud-heap.”

[Sidenote: Johnson’s _Life of Savage_.]

“He was of a middle stature, of a thin habit of body, a long visage, coarse features, and melancholy aspect; of a grave and manly deportment, a solemn dignity of mien, but which, upon a nearer acquaintance, softened into an engaging easiness of manners. His walk was slow, and his voice tremulous and mournful. He was easily excited to smiles, but very seldom provoked to laughter.”

SIR WALTER SCOTT

1771-1832

[Sidenote: Lockhart’s _Life of Scott_.]

“His personal appearance at this time was not unengaging. A lady of high rank, who remembers him in the Old Assembly Rooms, says, ‘Young Walter Scott was a comely creature.’ He had outgrown the sallowness of early ill-health, and had a fresh, brilliant complexion. His eyes were clear, open, and well set, with a changeful radiance, to which teeth of the most perfect regularity and whiteness lent their assistance, while the noble expanse and elevation of the brow gave to the whole aspect a dignity far above the charm of mere features. His smile was always delightful; and I can easily fancy the peculiar intermixture of tenderness and gravity, with playful innocent hilarity and humour in the expression, as being well calculated to fix a fair lady’s eye. His figure, excepting the blemish in one limb, must in those days have been eminently handsome; tall, much above the usual standard, it was cast in the very mould of a young Hercules; the head set on with singular grace, the throat and chest after the truest model of the antique, the hands delicately finished; the whole outline that of extraordinary vigour, without as yet a touch of clumsiness. When he had acquired a little facility of manner, his conversation must have been such as could have dispensed with any exterior advantages, and certainly brought swift forgiveness for the one unkindness of nature. I have heard him, in talking of this part of his life, say, with an arch simplicity of look and tone which those who were familiar with him can fill in for themselves--‘It was a proud night with me when I first found that a pretty young woman could think it worth her while to sit and talk with me, hour after hour, in a corner of the ball-room, while all the world were capering in our view.’”--1790.

[Sidenote: Froude’s _Life of Carlyle_.]

“I never spoke with Scott.... Have a hundred times seen him, from of old, writing in the Courts, or hobbling with stout speed along the streets of Edinburgh; a large man, pale, shaggy face, fine, deep-browed gray eyes, an expression of strong homely intelligence, of humour and good-humour, and, perhaps (in later years amongst the wrinkles), of sadness or weariness.... He has played his part, and left _none like_ or second to him. _Plaudite!_”

[Sidenote: Sir John Bowring’s _Autobiographical Recollections_.]

“More eloquent men I have known, I think, but I never knew any one so attractive. The variety of his conversation is stupendous, while it overflows with the most agreeable anecdotes, and almost every person who has figured in modern times has in some way or other been connected with him. His manner of talking is without the smallest pretence, and is gentle and humorous. His eye has a constant play upon it, and around it. His dress is that of a substantial farmer,--a short green coat with steel buttons, striped waistcoat and pantaloons, and he put on light gaiters when we sallied forth.”

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

1564-1616

[Sidenote: E. T. Craig’s _Portraits of Shakespeare_. *]

“The portrait of Martin Droeshout” (_published with the first folio edition of Shakespeare’s works in 1623_) “has a greater claim to attention, as it was engraved by a well-known artist at the time when published by Shakespeare’s contemporaries, Heminge and Condell, and has the additional testimony of the poet’s friend, Ben Jonson, in its favour, in the following lines inscribed opposite to the engraving of the portrait:--

‘This figure, that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;
Wherein the graver had a strife
With Nature, to out-doo the life.
O, could he but have drawne his wit
As well in brasse as he hath hit
His face, the print would then surpasse
All that was ever writ in brasse;
But since he cannot, reader, looke
Not on his picture, but his booke.’

These lines would indicate that the portrait of the face was represented with some degree of truth. It may be observed here that until within the last few years artists were less exact and minute in the delineation of the head than the face; and the head appears unusually high for its breadth, and impresses you with the semblance of a form more like Scott than Byron, of Canova than Chantrey.

“The features of Droeshout’s engraving bear a closer resemblance to the plaster cast than to the Stratford bust. The nose has the same flowing outline, well defined, prominent, yet finely chiselled, and the nostrils rather large. There is the same long upper lip, and a general correspondence with the mouth of the cast. The eye is large and round, and in life would be mild and lustrous. The hair is thin and not curled, and the head is high but comparatively narrow. There would be moderate secretiveness, less destructiveness, small constructiveness, and little acquisitiveness. There is an ample endowment of the higher sentiments. The imaginative and imitative faculties are represented as very large. Ideality, wonder, wit, imitation, benevolence, and veneration, comparison and causality, are all very large. The perceptive region is scarcely sufficiently indicated for the powers of mind possessed by Shakespeare, in his vast and ready command of view over the range of natural objects so evident in his works. This may be the fault of the engraver. It is the opposite in this respect to the cast from the face. There is one feature in the portrait which harmonises with Milton’s praise and Jonson’s worship and Spenser’s admiration,--his large benevolence, veneration and ideality, and his small destructiveness and acquisitiveness, leading to the control over his feelings and generous sympathy with others, manifested by his quiet manner and gentle nature. Men of strong passions like Jonson and Byron have very different heads to this portrait, which presents a great contrast both to the bust and the Chandos portrait” (_said to be painted by Burbage, a player contemporary with Shakespeare_). “The physical proportions of the Droeshout figure harmonise better with a fine temperament and an intellectual head than the Stratford bust with Shakespeare’s mental activity.”

[Sidenote: Halliwell-Phillipps’s _Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare_. *]

“The exact time at which the monument was erected in the church” (_Stratford-on-Avon_) “is unknown, but it is alluded to by Leonard Digges as being there in the year 1623. The bust must, therefore, have been submitted to the approval of the Halls, who could hardly have been satisfied with a mere fanciful image. There is, however, no doubt that it was an authentic representation of the great dramatist, but it has unfortunately been so tampered with in modern times that much of the absorbing interest with which it would otherwise have been surrounded has evaporated. It was originally painted in imitation of life, the face and hands of the usual flesh colour, the eyes a light hazel, and the hair and beard auburn. The realisation of the costume was similarly attempted by the use of scarlet for the doublet, black for the loose gown, and white for the collar and wristbands.”

[Sidenote: E. T. Craig’s _Portraits of Shakespeare_. *]

“It only remains to examine the cast from the face of Shakespeare. The documentary statements published by Mr. Friswell tend to establish a claim to attention. It was left in the possession of Professor Owen by Dr. Becher, the enterprising botanist, who fell a victim to his zeal in the unfortunate Australian expedition under Burke. The cast, it appears, originally belonged to a German nobleman at the Court of James I., whose descendants kept it as an heirloom till the last of the race died, when his effects were sold. Mr. Friswell observes that ‘the cast bears some resemblance to the more refined portraits of the poet. It is not unlike the ideal head of Roubillac, and bears a very great resemblance to a fine portrait of the poet in the possession of Mr. Challis.’ It has some of the characteristics of Jansen’s portrait. The mask has a mournful aspect, and sensitive persons are affected when they look at it.... There are indications visible ... of wrinkles and ‘crow’s feet’ at the corners of the eyes. It is utterly destitute of the jovial physiognomy of the Stratford bust and portrait. It is certainly the impress from one who was gifted with great sensibility, great range of perceptive power, a ready memory, great facility of expression, varied power of enjoyment, and great depth of feeling. The year 1616, when Shakespeare died, is recorded on the back of the cast. Hairs of the moustache, eyelashes, and beard still adhere to the plaster, of a reddish brown or auburn colour, corresponding with several portraits and the Stratford bust.... The cast presents to view finely formed features, strongly marked, yet regular. The forehead is well developed in the region of the perceptive powers; but scarcely so high as the Droeshout, and the coronal region is much lower than in that of the Felton head. The sides of the head are well developed, and there is a large mass of brain in the front. The moustache is divided, and falls over the corners of the mouth, and the beard, or imperial, is a full tuft on the chin, which, as well as the moustache, appears to be marked with a tool since taken. The face is a sharp oval, that of the bust is a blunt or round one. The chin is rather narrow and pointed, yet firm; that of the bust well rounded. The cheeks are thin and fallen; in those of the bust full, fat, and coarse, as if ‘good digestion waited on appetite,’ without thought, fancy, or feeling, troubling either. The mask has a moderate-sized upper lip, the bust a very large one, although Sir Walter Scott lost his wager in asserting that it was longer than his own. The lips of the cast are thin and well marked; those of the bust present a rude opening for the mouth. The nostrils are drawn up, and this feature is exaggerated in the bust. The nose of the cast is large, finely marked, aquiline, and delicately formed. That of the bust is short, mean, straight, and small. In their physiognomy and phrenology they are utterly different. The cast indicates the man of thought, emotion, and suffering; the bust, of ease, enjoyment, and self-satisfaction. If the bust is to represent the living image of the dead poet, the answer is, death does not immediately alter the language once written on the ivory gate at the temple of thought. It has been said by John Bell that the Stratford bust was cut from a mask, but by a clumsy sculptor, who modified his work. A monument, erected as a memorial of Shakespeare, should therefore avoid the evident discrepancies that already exist, and perpetrate no repetition of forms inconsistent with nature, truth, and beauty.”

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY

1798-1851

[Sidenote: _Anecdote Biography of P. B. Shelley._]

“... At the time I am speaking of, Mrs. Shelley was twenty-four. Such a rare pedigree of genius was enough to interest me in her, irrespective of her own merits as an authoress. The most striking feature in her face was her calm gray eyes; she was rather under the English standard of woman’s height, very fair and light-haired, witty, social, and animated in the society of friends, though mournful in solitude.”--1821.

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

“Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley, with her well-shaped, golden-haired head, almost always a little bent and drooping; her marble-white shoulders and arms statuesquely visible in the perfectly plain black velvet dress, which the customs of that time allowed to be cut low, and which her own taste adopted; ... her thoughtful, earnest eyes; her short upper lip and intellectually curved mouth, with a certain close compressed and decisive expression while she listened, and a relaxation into fuller redness and mobility when speaking; her exquisitely formed, white, dimpled, small hands, with rosy palms, and plumply commencing fingers, that tapered into tips as slender and delicate as those in a Vandyck portrait,--all remain palpably present to memory.”--About 1824.

[Sidenote: _The Cornhill_, 1875.]

“Shelley’s second love, who was five years his junior, is described as ‘rather short, remarkably fair, and light-haired with brownish gray eyes, a great forehead, striking features, and a noticeable air of sedateness.’ One writer has compared her with the classic bust of Clytie.”

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

1792-1822

[Sidenote: Stoddard’s _Anecdote Biography of Percy Bysshe Shelley_.]

“As I felt in truth but a slight interest in the subject of his conversation, I had leisure to examine, and, I may add, admire the appearance of my very extraordinary guest. It was a sum of many contradictions. His figure was slight and fragile, and yet his bones and joints were large and strong. He was tall, but he stooped so much that he seemed of a low stature. His clothes were expensive, and made according to the most approved mode of the day; but they were tumbled, rumpled, unbrushed. His gestures were abrupt and sometimes violent, occasionally even awkward. His complexion was delicate and almost feminine, of the purest red and white; yet he was tanned and freckled by exposure to the sun, having passed the autumn, as he said, in shooting. His features, his whole face, and particularly his head, were, in fact, unusually small; yet the last _appeared_ of a remarkable bulk, for his hair was long and bushy, and in fits of absence, and in the agonies (if I may use the word) of anxious thought, he often rubbed it fiercely with his hands, or passed his fingers quickly through his locks unconsciously, so that it was singularly wild and rough. In times when it was the mode to imitate stage-coachmen as closely as possible in costume, and when the hair was invariably cropped, like that of our soldiers, this eccentricity was very striking. His features were not symmetrical (the mouth, perhaps, excepted), yet was the effect of the whole extremely powerful. They breathed an animation, a fire, an enthusiasm, a vivid and preternatural intelligence, that I never met with in any other countenance.”--1810.

[Sidenote: The Cowden Clarke’s _Recollections of Writers_.]

“Shelley’s figure was a little above the middle height, slender, and of delicate construction, which appeared the rather from a lounging or waving manner in his gait, as though his frame was compounded barely of muscle and tendon; and that the power of walking was an achievement with him and not a natural habit. Yet I should suppose that he was not a valetudinarian, although that has been said of him on account of his spare and vegetable diet; for I have the remembrance of his scampering and bounding over the gorse-bushes on Hampstead Heath late one night--now close upon us, and now shouting from the height like a wild school-boy. He was both an active and an enduring walker,--feats which do not accompany an ailing and feeble constitution. His face was round, flat, pale, with small features; mouth beautifully shaped; hair bright brown and wavy; and such a pair of eyes as are rarely in the human or any other head,--intensely blue, with a gentle and lambent expression, yet wonderfully alert and engrossing; nothing appeared to escape his knowledge.”

[Sidenote: Leigh Hunt’s _Autobiography_.]

“Shelley, when he died, was in his thirtieth year. His figure was tall and slight, and his constitution consumptive. He was subject to violent spasmodic pains, which would sometimes force him to lie on the ground until they were over; but he had always a kind word to give to those about him when his pangs allowed him to speak. In this organisation, as well as in some other respects, he resembled the German poet Schiller. Though well-turned, his shoulders were bent a little, owing to premature thought and trouble. The same causes had touched his hair with gray; and though his habits of temperance and exercise gave him a remarkable degree of strength, it is not supposed that he could have lived many years. He used to say that he had lived three times as long as the calendar gave out; which he would prove, between jest and earnest, by some remarks on Time,

‘That would have puzzled that stout Stagyrite.’

Like the Stagyrites, his voice was high and weak. His eyes were large and animated, with a dash of wildness in them; his face small, but well shaped, particularly the mouth and chin, the turn of which was very sensitive and graceful. His complexion was naturally fair and delicate, with a colour in the cheeks. He had brown hair, which, though tinged with gray, surmounted his face well, being in considerable quantity, and tending to a curl. His side face, upon the whole, was deficient in strength, and his features would not have told well in a bust; but when fronting and looking at you attentively, his aspect had a certain seraphical character that would have suited a portrait of John the Baptist, or the angel whom Milton describes as holding a reed ‘tipt with fire.’”--1822.

RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN

1751-1816

[Sidenote: Moore’s _Life of Sheridan_.]

“It has been seen, by a letter of his sister already given, that, when young, he was generally accounted handsome; but in later years his eyes were the only testimonials of beauty which remained to him. It was, indeed, in the upper part of his face that the spirit of the man chiefly reigned; the dominion of the world and the senses being rather strongly marked out in the lower. In his person, he was above the middle size, and his general make was, as I have already said, robust and well-proportioned. It is remarkable that his arms, though of powerful strength, were thin, and appeared by no means muscular. His hands were small and delicate; and the following couplet, written on the cast of one of them, very livelily enumerates both its physical and moral qualities:--

‘Good at a fight, better at a Play,
God-like in giving, but--the Devil to pay!’”

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

“I have seen his large beautiful eyes speak sadly, even while his brilliant tongue was rehearsing the gayest sentiments and the finest wit.... What a portrait to pronounce of intellect is that by Sir Joshua! The head so fine, the expression so brilliant, and the lower part of the countenance, in the prime of life, without the sensuous encroachment of luxurious indulgence upon later years. And how light-hearted the look.”

[Sidenote: Gantter’s _Standard Poets of Great Britain_.]

“Sheridan was above the middle size, and of a make robust and well-proportioned. In his youth, his family said, he had been handsome; but in his latter years he had nothing left to show for it but his eyes. ‘It was, indeed, in the upper part of his face,’ says Mr. Moore, ‘that the spirit of the man chiefly reigned; the dominion of the world and the senses being rather strongly marked out in the lower.’”

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

1554-1587-8

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

“He was not only an excellent witt, but extremely beautiful; he much resembled his sister but his haire was not red, but a little inclining; viz., a darke amber colour. If I were to find a fault in it, methinkes ’tis not masculine enough; yett he is a person of great courage.... My great-uncle Mr. T. Browne, remembered him, and sayd that he was wont to take his table-booke out of his pocket and write downe his notions as they came into his head, when he was writing his _Arcadia_ (which was never finished by him) as he was hunting on our pleasant plaines.”

[Sidenote: The Worthie Sir Phillip Sidney, Knight, his Epitaph.]

“A man made out of goodliest mould
As shape in ware were wrought,
Or Picture stoode in stampe of gold
To please each gazer’s thought....
... His silent lookes sayd wisdome great
Did lodge in loftie brow:
His patient heart (in chollers heate)
Supprest all passion’s throw.
... A portly presence passing fine
With beautie furnisht well,
Where vertues buds and grace divine
And daintie gifts did dwell.”

[Sidenote: _The Edinburgh Review_, 1876. *]

“He was tall, shapely, and muscular, with large blue-gray eyes, a long aquiline nose, hair of a dark auburn tint, and full sensitive lips, the slightly pensive expression of which was relieved by the decision of the jaw and chin.”

HORACE SMITH

1779-1849

[Sidenote: Leigh Hunt’s _Autobiography_.]

“Horace was delicious.... A finer nature than Horace Smith’s, except in the single instance of Shelley, I never met with in man; nor even in that instance, all circumstances considered, have I a right to say that those who knew him as intimately as I did the other, would not have had the same reasons to love him.... The personal appearance of Horace Smith, like that of most of the individuals I have met with, was highly indicative of his character. His figure was good and manly, inclining to the robust; and his countenance extremely frank and cordial; sweet without weakness. I have been told he was irascible. If so, it must have been no common offence that could have irritated him. He had not a jot of it in his appearance.”--1809.

SYDNEY SMITH

1771-1845

[Sidenote: Duycknick’s _Memoir of Sydney Smith_. *]

“In person, Sydney Smith, as he has been described to us by those who knew him, was of the medium height; plethoric in habit though of great activity, of a dense brown complexion, a dark expressive eye, an open countenance, indicative of shrewdness, humour, and benevolence. There is a look too, in the English engraved portraits, of a thoughtful seriousness. His ‘sense, wit, and clumsiness,’ said a college companion, gave ‘the idea of an Athenian carter.’”

[Sidenote: Reid’s _Life and Times of Sydney Smith_. *]

“Strangers entering St. Paul’s ... would have witnessed a burly but active-looking man of sixty-three, of medium height, with a dark complexion and iron-gray hair, ascend the pulpit. When he stood up to preach, the shapely and well-carried head, the fine eyes, with their quick and penetrating glance, the expression of thorough benevolence which lit up the sensitive yet boldly chiselled features of the strong and intellectual face, would all contribute to heighten favourably the first general impression concerning a man whose every movement suggested intelligence, determination, and kindliness.”--1834.

[Sidenote: Reid’s _Life and Times of Sydney Smith_.]

“Very distinctly do I recall the portly figure of Sydney Smith seated in his large yellow chariot--then a fashionable style of carriage--the full-sized head, the face indicative, as it now presents itself to my mind’s eye, of mental power, of kindliness, and of the spirit of humour which possessed him.... This brilliant man was not brilliant only; there was in his character, as I conceive, an unusually substantial basis of sound common sense.”

TOBIAS SMOLLETT

1721-1771

[Sidenote: Chalmers’s _Life of Smollett_.]

“The person of Smollett was stout and well-proportioned, his countenance engaging, his manner reserved, with a certain air of dignity that seemed to indicate that he was not unconscious of his own powers.”

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