Part 8

“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_.]

“Small of person, but well formed. Her dark silken hair braided back over a small, but what phrenologists would call a well-developed head; her forehead full and open, but the hair grew low upon it; the eyebrows perfect in arch and form; the eyes round--soft or flashing as might be--gray, well formed, and beautifully set; the lashes long and black, the under lashes turning down with delicate curve, and forming a soft relief upon the tint of her cheek, which, when she enjoyed good health, was bright and blushing; her complexion was delicately fair; her skin soft and transparent; her nose small (_retroussé_), slightly curved, but capable of scornful expression, which she did not appear to have the power of repressing, even though she gave her thoughts no words, when any despicable action was alluded to.”--About 1835.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

1775-1864

[Sidenote: Crabb Robinson’s _Diary_.]

“He was a man of florid complexion, with large full eyes, and altogether a _leonine_ man, and with a fierceness of tone well suited to his name; his decisions being confident, and on all subjects, whether of taste or life, unqualified, each standing for itself, not caring whether it was in harmony with what had gone before or would follow from the same oracular lips. But why should I trouble myself to describe him? He is painted by a master hand in Dickens’s novel _Bleak House_, now in course of publication, where he figures as Mr. Boythorn. The combination of superficial ferocity and inherent tenderness, so admirably portrayed in _Bleak House_, still at first strikes every stranger,--for twenty-two years have not materially changed him,--no less than his perfect frankness and reckless indifference to what he says.”--1830.

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

“... He was at that time sixty years of age, although he did not look so old; his form and features were essentially masculine; he was not tall, but stalwart; of a robust constitution, and was proud even to arrogance of his physical and intellectual strength. He was a man to whom passers-by would have looked back and asked, ‘Who is that?’ His forehead was high, but retreated, showing remarkable absence of the organs of benevolence and veneration. It was a large head, fullest at the back, where the animal propensities predominate; it was a powerful, but not a good head, the expression the opposite of genial. In short, physiognomists and phrenologists would have selected it,--each to illustrate his theory.”--1836.

[Sidenote: Harriet Martineau’s _Biographical Sketches_.]

“His tall, broad, muscular, active frame was characteristic, and so was his head, with the strange elevation of the eyebrows which expresses self-will as strongly in some cases as astonishment in others. Those eyebrows, mounting up until they comprehend a good portion of the forehead, have been observed in many more paradoxical persons than one. Then there was the retreating but broad forehead, showing the deficiency of reasoning and speculative power, with the preponderance of imagination and a huge passion for destruction. The massive self-love and self-will carried up his head to something more than a dignified bearing--even to one of arrogance. His vivid and quick eye, and the thoughtful mouth, were fine, and his whole air was that of a man distinguished in his own eyes certainly, but also in those of others. Tradition reports he was handsome in his youth. In age he was more.”

CHARLES LEVER

1806-1872

[Sidenote: Fitz-Patrick’s _Life of Lever_.]

“I found him seated at an open window, a bottle of claret at his right hand, and the proof-sheets of _Lord Kilgobbin_ before him.... At the date of our visit he looked a hale, hearty, laughter-loving man of sixty. There was mirth in his gray eye, joviality in the wink that twittered on his eyelid, saucy humour in his smile, and _bon-mot_, wit, repartee, and rejoinder in every movement of his lips. His hair very thin, but of a silky brown, fell across his forehead, and when it curtained his eyes he would jerk back his head--this, too, at some telling crisis in a narrative, when the particular action was just the exact finish required to make the story perfect. Mr. Lever’s teeth were all his own and very brilliant, and whether from accident or habit, he flashed them on us in conjunction with his wonderful eyes, a battery at once powerful and irresistible.... Mr. Lever made great use of his hands, which were small and white and delicate as those of a woman. He made play with them, threw them up in ecstasy, or wrung them in mournfulness, just as the action of the moment demanded. He did not require eyes or teeth with such a voice and such hands; they could tell and illustrate the workings of his brain. He was somewhat careless in his dress, but clung to the traditional high shirt-collar, merely compromising the unswerving stock of the Brummell period.”

MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS

1775-1818

[Sidenote: _The Southern Literary Messenger_, 1849.]

“In person, Mat Lewis (as his intimate friends at first termed him) was quite ordinary; his stature was rather diminutive; his face was almost an ellipse, looking upon it from the side, and his features though pleasant were not to be regarded as handsome. His forehead, however, was high and his eyes very lustrous.”

[Sidenote: Jeaffreson’s _Novels and Novelists_.]

“Lewis’s personal appearance was not prepossessing. He describes himself as

‘Of passions strong, of hasty nature, Of graceless form and dwarfish stature.’

He had, moreover, large gray eyes, thick features, and an inexpressive countenance. When he talked he had an insufferable habit of drawing the fore-finger of his right hand across his eyelid, and in conversation he was guilty of the absurd affectation of a drawling tone such as was popular with dandies.”

[Sidenote: _New Monthly Magazine_, 1848.]

“Matthew Gregory Lewis. Of this gentleman I knew but little, not having encountered him half a dozen times after my introduction to him at the house of Nat Middleton, the banker. With a short thick-set figure, unintellectual features, and a disagreeable habit of peering, being very short-sighted, his aspect was by no means prepossessing; but as he had ‘that within which passeth show,’ he recovered the ground lost at starting as rapidly as Wilkes could have done.”

JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART

1794-1854

[Sidenote: _The Times_, 9th Dec. 1854.]

“Endowed with the very highest order of manly beauty, both of features and expression, he retained the brilliancy of youth and a stately strength of person comparatively unimpaired in ripened life; and then, though sorrow and sickness suddenly brought on a premature old age which none could witness unmoved, yet the beauty of the head and of the bearing so far gained in melancholy loftiness of expression what they lost in animation, that the last phase, whether to the eye of painter or of anxious friend, seemed always the finest.”

SIR RICHARD LOVELACE

1618-1658

[Sidenote: Anthony Wood’s _Athenæ Oxonienses._]

“Richard Lovelace ... became a gent-commoner of Glo’cester Hall in the beginning of the year 1634, and in that of his age 16, being then accounted the most amiable and beautiful person that ever eye beheld, a person also of innate modesty, virtue, and courtly deportment, which made him then, but especially after, when he retired to the great city, much admired and adored by the female sex.... Accounted by all those that well knew him, to have been a person well vers’d in the Greek and Latin poets, in music, whether practical or theoretical, instrumental or vocal, and in other things befitting a gentleman. Some of the said persons have also added in my hearing, that his common discourse was not only significant and witty, but incomparably graceful, which drew respect from all men and women.”--1634 and 1658.

[Sidenote: _The Gentleman’s Magazine_, 1884. *]

“The personal attractions of Richard Lovelace have been much extolled by his contemporaries; nor is this matter for wonder. A picture of the poet by an unknown painter, preserved in the old college at Dulwich, to which it was bequeathed by Cartwright the actor, in 1687, represents him as a very handsome man. The face is oval, the hair, worn Cavalier fashion, long, is of a dark brown colour and falls down in abundant masses, while the mustachios are small and thin. The small, well-formed mouth is perhaps a trifle voluptuous, but is nevertheless suggestive of firmness of character. The eyes are large and dark, and the well-arched and delicately pencilled eyebrows are unusually far apart; the general expression of the face is singularly sweet and winning. The hand is small, well formed and aristocratic. Lovelace is attired in armour, with a white collar, and across the breast is thrown a red scarf. The picture is inscribed ‘Col. Lovelace.’”

EDWARD, LORD LYTTON

1803-1873

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

“A young man whose features, though of a somewhat effeminate cast, were remarkably handsome. His bearing had that aristocratic something bordering on hauteur, which clung to him during his life. I never saw the famous writer without being reminded of the passage, ‘Stand back; I am holier than thou.’--1826.

“The last time I saw him was in his then residence, No. 12 Grosvenor Square. It was growing towards fifty years since first we had met, and there were more changes in him than those that time usually brings. His once handsome face had assumed the desolation without the dignity of age. His locks, once brown, inclining to auburn, were shaggy and grizzled; his mouth, seldom smiling even in youth, was close shut; his whole aspect had something in it at once painful and unpleasant.”--About 1872.

[Sidenote: _Appleton’s Journal_, 1873.]

“Bulwer is described as having been, at this period of his first brilliant triumph, rather taller than the middle height, with a graceful, slender figure, well-proportioned limbs, and a countenance stamped with distinctly aristocratic features and expression. His dark-brown, curly hair, his large and bright blue eye, his decided, though delicately-formed aquiline nose, his rather full and handsome mouth, his patrician, almost haughty pose and manner, as seen at that time, are dwelt on, with true feminine enthusiasm, by a lady who frequented the circles of which he was regarded as one of the most shining ornaments.”--1828.

[Sidenote: _Appleton’s Journal_, 1873.]

“It was my fortune to see Bulwer in the House of Commons in 1863 and 1865, and in the House of Lords, to which he had recently risen, in 1868. He then had the appearance of being a man of some fifty years, tallish, straight, stiff, and proudly sedate. His long, sombre face was no longer ‘fair,’ but was yellow and wrinkled, while the almost cadaverous aspect of his features added to the really far from proportionate prominence of his long, aquiline nose. He now wore a moustache with his ‘heavy red whiskers,’ which had themselves become a dull brown, plentifully sprinkled with gray; and upon his chin he grew an imperial. His hair was still thick, but no trace of its rich auburn hue of youth remained; it was a heavy gray in colour. Spectacles partially concealed the large but now dulled and glassy blue eyes; and the whole appearance was far from prepossessing. On the former occasion referred to, I heard him address the House in an eloquent and evidently carefully-prepared speech of half an hour. His manner was quiet and subdued, his voice no longer ‘lover-like and sweet,’ but rather harsh and grating, and his declamation humdrum; occasionally a spark of the old animation appeared, when he drew himself up to the full height, and, for the moment seemed a very orator in motion as in speech; but the spark soon vanished, and he was again Pelham grown old, the exhausted and melancholy beau and wit of the past, struggling through an imposed task.... His dress was conspicuously plain, almost stiff and ministerial; though there was something about the attire of the neck which seemed a suspicion of a relic of dandyism.”

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY

1800-1859

[Sidenote: Trevelyan’s _Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay_.]

“Macaulay’s outward man was never better described than in two sentences of Praed’s Introduction to Knight’s _Quarterly Magazine_. ‘There came up a short manly figure, marvellously upright, with a bad neckcloth, and one hand in his waistcoat pocket. Of regular beauty he had little to boast; but in faces where there is an expression of great power, or of great good-humour, or both, you do not regret its absence.’ This picture, in which every touch is correct, tells all that there is to be told. He had a massive head, and features of a powerful and rugged cast, but so constantly lit up by every joyful and ennobling emotion that it mattered little if, when absolutely quiescent, his face was rather homely than handsome. While conversing at table no one thought him otherwise than good-looking; but, when he rose, he was seen to be short and stout in figure. ‘At Holland House, the other day,’ writes his sister Margaret in September 1831, ‘Tom met Lady Lyndhurst for the first time. She said to him: “Mr. Macaulay, you are so different to what I had expected. I thought you were dark and thin, but you are fair, and really, Mr. Macaulay, you are fat!”’ He at all times sat and stood straight, full, and square; and in this respect Woolner, in the fine statue at Cambridge, has missed what was undoubtedly the most marked fact in his personal appearance. He dressed badly, but not cheaply. His clothes, though ill put on, were good, and his wardrobe was always enormously overstocked.”--1822 and 1831.

[Sidenote: Crabb Robinson’s _Diary_.]

“I went to James Stephen, and drove with him to his house at Hendon. A dinner-party. I had a most interesting companion in young Macaulay, one of the most promising of the rising generation I have seen for a long time. He has a good face,--not the delicate features of a man of genius and sensibility, but the strong lines and well-knit limbs of a man sturdy in body and mind. Very eloquent and cheerful. Overflowing with words, and not poor in thought. Liberal in opinion, but no radical. He seems a correct as well as a full man. He showed a minute knowledge of subjects not introduced by himself.”--1826.

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

“I never heard Macaulay speak in the House, where, although by no means an orator, he always made a strong impression. He spoke as he wrote,--eloquently in the choicest diction,--smooth, easy, graceful, and ever to the purpose, striving to convince rather than persuade, and grudging no toil of preparation to sustain an argument or enforce a truth. His person was in his favour; in form as in mind he was robust, with a remarkably intelligent expression, aided by deep blue eyes that seemed to sparkle, and a mouth remarkably flexible. His countenance was certainly well calculated to impress on his audience the classical language ever at his command--so faithfully did it mirror the high intelligence of the speaker.... I found him--as the world has found him--a man of rare intelligence, deep research, and untiring energy in pursuit of facts: also a kind, courteous, and unaffected gentleman. His memory is to me one of the pleasantest I can recall.”

WILLIAM MAGINN

1793-1842

[Sidenote: William Maginn’s _Miscellanies_.]

“All were standing, all were listening to some one who sat in the middle of a group. A low-seated man, short in stature, was uttering pleasantries and scattering witticisms about him with the careless glee of his country. His articulation was impeded by a stutter, yet the sentences he stammered forth were brilliant repartees uttered without sharpness, and edged rather with humour than with satire. His countenance was rather agreeable than striking; its expression sweet rather than bright; the gray hair, coming straight over his forehead, gave a singular appearance to a face still bearing the attributes of youth. He was thirty or thereabouts, but his thoughtful brow, his hair, and the paleness of his complexion, gave him many of the attributes of age. His conversation was careless and off-hand, and, but for the impediment of speech, would have had the charm of a rich comedy. His choice of words was such as I have rarely met with in any of my contemporaries.”--1824.

[Sidenote: _Bentley’s Miscellany_, 1842.]

“I dined to-day at the Salopian with Dr. Maginn. He is a most remarkable fellow. His flow of ideas is incredibly quick, and his articulation so rapid, that it is difficult to follow him. He is altogether a person of vast acuteness, celerity of apprehension, and indefatigable activity both of body and mind. His is about my own height; but I could allow him an inch round the chest. His forehead is very finely developed, his organ of language and ideality large, and his reasoning faculties excellent. His hair is quite gray, although he does not look more than forty. I imagined he was much older looking, and that he wore a wig. While conversing his eye is never a moment at rest: in fact his whole body is in motion, and he keeps scrawling grotesque figures upon the paper before him, and rubbing them out again as fast as he draws them. He and Gifford are, as you know, joint editors of the _Standard_.”

[Sidenote: _The Dublin University Magazine_, 1844.]

“Well does the writer of this notice recollect the feelings with which he first wended to the residence of his late friend. He was then but a mere boy, fresh from the university.... He went, and was shown upstairs; the doctor was not at home, but was momentarily expected.... Suddenly, when his heart almost sank within him, a light step was heard ascending the stairs--it could not be a man’s foot--no, it was too delicate for that; it must, certainly, be the nursery-maid. The step was arrested at the door, a brief interval, and Maginn entered. The spell vanished like lightning, and the visitor took heart in a moment. No formal-looking personage, in customary suit of solemn black, stood before him, but a slight, boyish, careless figure, with a blue eye, the mildest ever seen--hair, not exactly white, but of a sunned snow colour--an easy, familiar smile--and a countenance that you would be more inclined to laugh with than feel terror from. He bounded across the room with a most unscholar-like eagerness, and warmly welcomed the visitor, asking him a thousand questions, and putting him at ease with himself in a moment. Then, taking his arm, both sallied forth into the street, where, for a long time, the visitor was in doubt whether it was Maginn to whom he was really talking as familiarly as if he were his brother, or whether the whole was a dream. And such, indeed, was the impression generally made on the minds of all strangers--but, as in the present case, it was dispelled instantly the living original appeared. Then was to be seen the kindness and gentleness of heart which tinged every word and gesture with sweetness; the suavity and mildness, so strongly the reverse of what was to be expected from the most galling satirest of the day; the openness of soul and countenance, that disarmed even the bitterest of his opponents; the utter absence of anything like prejudice and bigotry from him the ablest and most devoted champion of the Church and State. No pedantry in his language, no stateliness of style, no forced metaphors, no inappropriate anecdote, no overweening confidence--all easy, simple, agreeable, and unzoned.”

FRANCIS MAHONY

(FATHER PROUT)

1805-1866

[Sidenote: The works of Father Prout.]

“Stooping his short and spare but thick-set figure as he walked, wearing his ill-brushed hat upon the extreme back of his head, clothed in the slovenliest way in a semi-clerical dress of the shabbiest character, he sauntered by with his right arm habitually clasped behind him in his left hand,--altogether presenting to view so distinctly the appearance of a member of one of the mendicant orders, that upon one occasion, in the Rue de Rivoli, an intimate friend of his found it impossible to resist the impulse of slipping a sou into the open palm of his right hand, with the apologetic remark, ‘You _do_ look so like a beggar.’ Apart, however, from his threadbare garb and shambling gait, there were personal traits of character about him which caught the attention almost at a glance, and piqued the curiosity of even the least observant wayfarer. The ‘roguish Hibernian mouth,’ noted in his regard by Mr. Gruneisen, and the gray piercing eyes, that looked up at you so keenly over his spectacles, won your interest in him even upon a first introduction. From the mocking lips soon afterwards, if you fell into conversation with him, came the ‘loud snappish laugh,’ with which, as Mr. Blanchard Jerrold remarks, the Father so frequently evinced his appreciation of a casual witticism--uproarious fits of merriment signalising at other moments one of his own ironical successes, outbursts of fun followed during his later years by the racking cough with which he was too often then tormented.”

[Sidenote: Blanchard Jerrold’s _Final Reliques of Father Prout_.]