Part 3

“He deserved ... worship better than most idols. Gentle, affectionate, unassuming towards the members of his own family, he was also dignified, polished, and courteous in his manner to all the rest of mankind. Nature had stamped the noblest impress of genius on his wrinkled brow, and time had slowly conferred a grace on his address which made him appear singularly pleasing and lovable. In the House of Commons only the fiercer peculiarities of his character were now seen; while at home he seemed the mildest and kindest, as well as one of the best and greatest of human beings. He poured forth the rich treasures of his mind with the most prodigal bounty. At breakfast and dinner his gaiety, wit, and pleasantry enlivened the board, and diffused cheerfulness and happiness all round.”

ROBERT BURNS

1759-1796

[Sidenote: Currie’s _Life of Burns_.]

“Burns ... was nearly five feet ten inches in height, and of a form that indicated agility as well as strength. His well-raised forehead, shaded with black curling hair, indicated extensive capacity. His eyes were large, dark, full of ardour and intelligence. His face was well-formed, and his countenance uncommonly interesting and expressive. His mode of dressing, which was often slovenly, and a certain fulness and bend in his shoulders, characteristic of his original profession, disguised in some degree the natural symmetry and elegance of his form. The external appearance of Burns was most strikingly indicative of the character of his mind. On a first view, his physiognomy had a certain air of coarseness, mingled, however, with an expression of deep penetration, and of calm thoughtfulness, approaching to melancholy.... His dark and haughty countenance easily relaxed into a look of good-will, of pity, or of tenderness, and, as the various emotions succeeded each other in his mind, assumed with equal ease the expression of the broadest humour, of the most extravagant mirth, of the deepest melancholy, or of the most sublime emotion. The tones of his voice happily corresponded with the expression of his features, and with the feelings of his mind. When to these endowments are added a rapid and distinct apprehension, a most powerful understanding, and a happy command of language--of strength as well as brilliancy of expression--we shall be able to account for the extraordinary attractions of his conversation--for the sorcery which in his social parties he seemed to exert on all around him.”

[Sidenote: Lockhart’s _Life of Scott_.]

“His person was strong and robust; his manners rustic, not clownish; a sort of dignified plainness and simplicity, which received part of its effect, perhaps, from one’s knowledge of his extraordinary talents. His features are represented in Mr. Nasmyth’s picture, but to me it conveys the idea that they are diminished, as if seen in perspective. I think his countenance was more massive than it looks in any of the portraits. I would have taken the poet, had I not known what he was, for a very sagacious country farmer of the old Scotch school; _i.e._ none of your modern agriculturists, who keep labourers for their drudgery, but the _douce gudeman_ who held his own plough. There was a strong expression of sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments; the eye alone, I think, indicated the poetical character and temperament. It was large, and of a dark cast, and glowed (I say literally _glowed_) when he spoke with feeling or interest. I never saw such another eye in a human head, though I have seen the most distinguished men in my time. His conversation expressed perfect self-confidence, without the slightest presumption. Among the men who were the most learned of their time and country, he expressed himself with perfect firmness, but without the least intrusive forwardness; and when he differed in opinion, he did not hesitate to express it firmly, yet, at the same time, with modesty. I do not remember any part of his conversation distinctly enough to be quoted, nor did I ever see him again, except in the street, where he did not recognise me, as I could not expect he should.”--1787.

[Sidenote: _Dumfries Journal_, 1796.]

“His personal endowments were perfectly correspondent to the qualifications of his mind, his form was manly, his action energy itself, devoid in a great measure perhaps of those graces, of that polish, acquired only in the refinement of societies where in early life he could have no opportunities of mixing; but where, such was the irresistible power of attraction that encircled him, though his appearance and manners were always peculiar, he never failed to delight and to excel. His figure seemed to bear testimony to his earlier destination and employments. It seemed rather moulded by nature for the rough exercises of agriculture, than the gentler cultivation of the _Belles Lettres_. His features were stamped with the hardy character of independence, and the firmness of conscious, though not arrogant, pre-eminence; the animated expressions of countenance were almost peculiar to himself; the rapid lightenings of his eye were always the harbingers of some flash of genius, whether they darted the fiery glances of insulted and indignant superiority, or beamed with the impassioned sentiments of fervent and impetuous affections. His voice alone could improve upon the magic of his eye; sonorous, replete with the finest modulations, it alternately captivated the ear with the melody of poetic numbers, the perspicuity of nervous reasoning, or the ardent sallies of enthusiastic patriotism.”

SAMUEL BUTLER

1612-1680

[Sidenote: Aubrey’s _Lives of Eminent Men_.]

“He is of a middle stature, strong sett, high-colored, a head of sorrell haire, a severe and sound judgement: a good fellowe.”

[Sidenote: Aubrey’s _Lives of Eminent Men_.]

“He was of a leonine-colored haire, sanguine, cholerique, middle-sized, strong; a boon and witty companion, especially among the companie he knew well.”

GEORGE, LORD BYRON

1788-1824

[Sidenote: Moore’s _Life of Byron_.]

“Among the impressions which this meeting left upon me, what I chiefly remember to have remarked was the nobleness of his air, his beauty, the gentleness of his voice and manners, and--what was naturally not the least attraction--his marked kindness to myself. Being in mourning for his mother, the colour, as well of his dress as of his glossy, curling, and picturesque hair, gave more effect to the pure, spiritual paleness of his features, in the expression of which, when he spoke, there was a perpetual play of lively thought, though melancholy was their habitual character when in repose.”--1811.

[Sidenote: Geo. Ticknor’s _Life_.]

“I called on Lord Byron to-day, with an introduction from Mr. Gifford. Here, again, my anticipations were mistaken. Instead of being deformed, as I had heard, he is remarkably well-built, with the exception of his feet. Instead of having a thin and rather sharp and anxious face, as he has in his pictures, it is round, open, and smiling; his eyes are light, and not black; his air easy and careless, not forward and striking; and I found his manners affable and gentle, the tones of his voice low and conciliating, his conversation gay, pleasant, and interesting in an uncommon degree.”--1815.

[Sidenote: Moore’s _Life of Byron_.]

“It would be to little purpose to dwell upon the mere beauty of a countenance in which the expression of an extraordinary mind was so conspicuous. What serenity was seated on the forehead, adorned with the finest chestnut hair, light, curling, and disposed with such art, that the art was hidden in the imitation of most pleasing nature! What varied expression in his eyes! They were of the azure colour of the heavens, from which they seemed to derive their origin. His teeth, in form, in colour, in transparency, resembled pearls; but his cheeks were too delicately tinged with the hue of the pale rose. His neck, which he was in the habit of keeping uncovered as much as the usages of society permitted, seemed to have been formed in a mould, and was very white. His hands were as beautiful as if they had been the works of art. His figure left nothing to be desired, particularly by those who found rather a grace than a defect in a certain light and gentle undulation of the person when he entered a room, and of which you hardly felt tempted to inquire the cause. Indeed it was hardly perceptible,--the clothes he wore were so long.... His face appeared tranquil like the ocean on a fine spring morning, but, like it, in an instant became changed into the tempestuous and terrible, if a passion (a passion did I say?), a thought, a word occurred to disturb his mind. His eyes then lost all their sweetness, and sparkled so that it became difficult to look on them.”--1819.

THOMAS CAMPBELL

1777-1844

[Sidenote: Leigh Hunt’s _Autobiography_.]

“They who knew Mr. Campbell only as the author of _Gertrude of Wyoming_, and the _Pleasures of Hope_, would not have suspected him to be a merry companion, overflowing with humour and anecdote, and anything but fastidious.... When I first saw this eminent person, he gave me the idea of a French Virgil. Not that he was like a Frenchman, much less the French translator of Virgil. I found him as handsome as the Abbé Delille is said to have been ugly. But he seemed to me to embody a Frenchman’s ideal notion of the Latin poet; something a little more cut and dry than I had looked for; compact and elegant, critical and acute, with a consciousness of authorship upon him; a taste over-anxious not to commit itself, and refining and diminishing nature as in a drawing-room mirror. This fancy was strengthened, in the course of conversation, by his expatiating on the greatness of Racine. I think he had a volume of the French poet in his hand. His skull was sharply cut and fine; with plenty, according to the phrenologists, both of the reflective and amative organs; and his poetry will bear them out. For a lettered solitude, and a bridal properly got up, both according to law and luxury, commend us to the lovely _Gertrude of Wyoming_. His face and person were rather on a small scale; his features regular; his eye lively and penetrating; and when he spoke, dimples played about his mouth, which, nevertheless, had something restrained and close in it. Some gentle puritan seemed to have crossed the breed, and to have left a stamp on his face, such as we often see in the female Scotch face rather than in the male. But he appeared not at all grateful for this; and when his critiques and his Virgilianism were over, very unlike a puritan he talked! He seemed to spite his restrictions, and, out of the natural largeness of his sympathy with things high and low, to break at once out of Delille’s Virgil into Cotton’s, like a boy let loose from school. When I had the pleasure of hearing him afterwards, I forgot his Virgilianisms, and thought only of the delightful companion, the unaffected philanthropist, and the creator of a beauty worth all the heroines in Racine.”--About 1809.

[Sidenote: Patmore’s _Sketch from Real Life_.]

“The person of this exquisite writer and delightful man is small, delicately formed, and neatly put together, without being little or insignificant. His face has all the harmonious arrangement of features which marks his gentle and refined mind; it is oval, perfectly regular in its details, and lighted up not merely by ‘eyes of youth,’ but by a bland smile of intellectual serenity that seems to pervade and penetrate all the features, and impart to them all a corresponding expression, such as the moonlight lends to a summer landscape; the moonlight, not the sunshine; for there is a mild and tender pathos blended with that expression, which bespeaks a soul that has been steeped in the depths of human woe, but has turned their waters (as only poets can) into fountains of beauty and of bliss.”

[Sidenote: Beattie’s _Life and Letters of Thomas Campbell_.]

“He was generally careful as to dress, and had none of Dr. Johnson’s indifference to fine linen. His wigs were always nicely adjusted, and scarcely distinguishable from natural hair. His appearance was interesting and handsome. Though rather below the middle size, he did not seem little; and his large dark eye and countenance bespoke great sensibility and acuteness. His thin quivering lip and delicate nostril were highly expressive. When he spoke, as Leigh Hunt has remarked, dimples played about his mouth, which, nevertheless, had something restrained and close in it.... In personal neatness and fastidiousness--no less than in genius and taste--Campbell in his best days resembled Gray. Each was distinguished by the same careful finish in composition--the same classical predilections and lyrical fire, rarely but strikingly displayed. In ordinary life they were both somewhat finical--yet with greater freedom and idiomatic plainness in their unreserved communications--Gray’s being evinced in his letters, and Campbell’s in conversation.”

THOMAS CARLYLE

1795-1881

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

“Carlyle soon appeared, and looked as if he felt a well-dressed London crowd scarcely the arena for him to figure in as a popular lecturer. He is a tall, robust-looking man; rugged simplicity and indomitable strength are in his face, and such a glow of genius in it,--not always smouldering there, but flashing from his beautiful gray eyes, from the remoteness of their deep setting under that massive brow. His manner is very quiet, but he speaks like one tremendously convinced of what he utters.... He began in a rather low nervous voice, with a broad Scotch accent, but it soon grew firm, and shrank not abashed from its great task.”--1840.

[Sidenote: Froude’s _Carlyle_.]

“He was then fifty-four years old; tall (about five feet eleven), thin, but at the same time upright, with no signs of the later stoop. His body was angular, his face beardless, such as it is represented in Woolner’s medallion, which is by far the best likeness of him in the days of his strength. His head was extremely long, with the chin thrust forward; the neck was thin; the mouth firmly closed, the under lip slightly projecting; the hair grizzled and thick and bushy. His eyes, which grew lighter with age, were then of a deep violet, with fire burning at the bottom of them, which flashed out at the least excitement. The face was altogether most striking, most impressive in every way. And I did not admire him the less because he treated me--I cannot say unkindly, but shortly and sternly. I saw then what I saw ever after--that no one need look for conventional politeness from Carlyle--he would hear the exact truth from him and nothing else.”--1849.

[Sidenote: Wylie’s _Carlyle_.]

“The maid went forward and said something to Carlyle and left the room. He was sitting before a fire in an arm-chair, propped up with pillows, with his feet on a stool, and looked much older than I had expected. The lower part of his face was covered with a rather shaggy beard, almost quite white. His eyes were bright blue, but looked filmy from age. He had on a sort of coloured night-cap, a long gown reaching to his ankles, and slippers on his feet. A rest attached to the arm of his chair supported a book before him. I could not quite see the name, but I think it was Channing’s works. Leaning against the fireplace was a long clay pipe, and there was a slight smell of tobacco in the room.... His hands were very thin and wasted, he showed us how they shook and trembled unless he rested them on something, and said they were failing him from weakness.... He seemed such a venerable old man, and so worn and old looking, that I was very much affected. Our visit was on Tuesday, 18th May 1880, at about 2 P.M.”

THOMAS CHATTERTON

1752-1770

[Sidenote: Wilson’s _Chatterton_. *]

“It is to be feared that no authentic portrait of Chatterton exists; and even the accounts furnished as to his appearance, only partially aid us in realising an idea of the manly, handsome boy, with his flashing, hawklike eye, through which even the Bristol pewterer thought he could see his soul. His forehead one fancies must have been high; though hidden, perhaps, as in the supposed Gainsborough portrait, with long flowing hair. His mouth, like that of his father, was large. But the brilliancy of his eyes seems to have diverted attention from every other feature; and they have been repeatedly noted for the way in which they appeared to kindle in sympathy with his earnest utterances. Mr. Edward Gardner, who only knew him during his last three months in Bristol, specially recalled ‘the philosophic gravity of his countenance, and the keen lightening of his eye.’ Mr. Capel, on the contrary, resided as an apprentice in the same house where Lambert’s office was, and saw Chatterton daily. His advances had been repelled at times with the flashing glances of the poet; and the terms in which he speaks of his pride and visible contempt for others show there was little friendship between them. But he also remarks: ‘Upon his being irritated or otherwise greatly affected, there was a light in his eyes which seemed very remarkable.’ He had frequently heard this referred to by others; and Mr. George Catcott speaks of it as one who had often quailed before such glances, or been spell-bound, like Coleridge’s wedding guest by the ‘glittering eye’ of the Ancient Mariner. He said he could never look at it long enough to see what sort of an eye it was; but it seemed to be a kind of hawk’s eye. You could see his soul through it.”

[Sidenote: Gregory’s _Life of Chatterton_. *]

“The person of Chatterton, like his genius, was premature; he had a manliness and dignity beyond his years, and there was a something about him uncommonly prepossessing. His more remarkable feature was his eyes which, though gray, were uncommonly piercing; when he was warmed in argument or otherwise, they sparked with fire, and one eye, it is said, was still more remarkable than the other.”

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

ABOUT 1340-1400

[Sidenote: Nicholas’s _Life of Chaucer_. *]

“The affection of Occleve” (_his contemporary and dear friend_) “has made Chaucer’s person better known than that of any individual of his age. The portrait of which an engraving illustrates this memoir, is taken from Occleve’s painting already mentioned in the Harleian MS. 4866, which he says was painted from memory after Chaucer’s decease, and which is apparently the only genuine portrait in existence. The figure, which is half-length, has a background of green tapestry. He is represented with gray hair and beard, which is bi-forked; he wears a dark-coloured dress and hood, his right hand is extended, and in his left he holds a string of beads. From his vest a black case is suspended, which appears to contain a knife, or possibly a ‘penner’[2] or pencase. The expression of the countenance is intelligent, but the fire of the eye seems quenched, and evident marks of advanced age appear on the countenance. This is incomparably the best portrait of Chaucer yet discovered.”

[Sidenote: Nicholas’s _Life of Chaucer_. *]

“There is a third portrait in a copy of the _Canterbury Tales_ made about the reign of King Henry the Fifth, being within twenty years of the poet’s death, in the Lansdowne MS. 851. The figure, which is a small full-length, is placed in the initial letter of the volume. He is dressed in a long gray gown, with red stockings, and black shoes fastened with black sandals round the ankles. His head is bare, and the hair closely cut. In his right hand he holds an open book; and a knife or pencase, as in the other portraits, is attached to his vest.”

_Tradition asserts that Chaucer merged his own personality in that of the Poet in his_ Canterbury Tales.

[Sidenote: Prologue to _The Rime of Sire Thopas_.]

“... Our Hoste to japen he began, And than at erst he loked upon me, And saide thus; ‘What man art thou?’ quod he; ‘Thou lokest, as thou woldest finde an hare, For ever upon the ground I see thee stare.

‘Approche nere, and loke up merily. Now ware you, sires, and let this man have place. He in the waste is shapen as wel as I: This were a popet,[3] in an arme to enbrace For any woman, smal and faire of face. He semeth elvish[4] by his contenance, For unto no wight doth he daliance.’”

PHILIP, LORD CHESTERFIELD

1694-1773

[Sidenote: _Life and Letters of Lord Chesterfield._]

“Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, was a slight-made man, of the middle size; rather genteel than handsome either in face or person: but there was a certain suavity in his countenance, which, accompanied with a polite address and pleasing elocution, obtained him in a wonderful degree the admiration of both sexes, and made his suit irresistible with either. He was naturally possessed of a fine sensibility; but by a habit of mastering his passions and disguising his feelings, he at length arrived at the appearance of the most perfect Stoicism: nothing surprised, alarmed, or discomposed him.”

[Sidenote: Hayward’s _Lord Chesterfield_. *]

“The name of Chesterfield has become a synonym for good breeding and politeness. It is associated in our minds with all that is graceful in manner and cold in heart, attractive in appearance and unamiable in reality. The image it calls up is that of a man rather below the middle height, in a court suit and blue riband, with regular features wearing an habitual expression of gentleman-like ease. His address is insinuating, his bow perfect, his compliments rival those of _Le Grand Monarque_ in delicacy; laughter is too demonstrative for him, but the smile of courtesy is ever on his lips; and by the time he has gone through the circle, the great object of his daily ambition is accomplished--all the women are already half in love with him, and every man is desirous to be his friend.”

[Sidenote: _Blackwood’s Magazine_, 1868.]

“... Lord Hervey pauses in his story of Queen Caroline and her Court to describe with cutting and bitter force the character and appearance of his rival courtier.... ‘His person was as disagreeable as it was possible for a human figure to be without being deformed,’ he says. ‘He was very short, disproportioned, thick and clumsily made, with black teeth, and a head big enough for a Polyphemus. One Ben Ashurst, who said few good things though admired for many, told Lord Chesterfield once that he was like a stunted giant, which was a humorous idea, and really apposite.’... The defects of his personal appearance are evidently exaggerated in this truculent sketch; but his portrait by Gainsborough, which is said to be the best, affords some foundation for the picture. The face is heavy, rugged, and unlovely, though full of force and intelligence; and his unheroic form and stature are points which Chesterfield himself does not attempt to conceal.”

WILLIAM COBBETT

1762-1835

[Sidenote: Bamford’s _Passages in the Life of a Radical_.]

“Had I met him anywhere else save in the room and on that occasion, I should have taken him for a gentleman farming his own broad estate. He seemed to have that kind of self-possession and ease about him, together with a certain bantering jollity, which are so natural to fast-handed and well-housed lords of the soil. He was, I should suppose, not less than six feet in height, portly, with a fresh, clear, and round cheek, and a small gray eye, twinkling with good-humoured archness. He was dressed in a blue coat, yellow swan’s-down waistcoat, drab kerseymere small-clothes, and top-boots. His hair was gray, and his cravat and linen fine, and very white.”--1818.

[Sidenote: Hazlitt’s _Table Talk_.]