Word Portraits of Famous Writers. Various

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.”

      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.”

      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

       Table of Contents

      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.

      Hazlitt’s

       Table Talk.

      “Mr. Cobbett speaks almost as well as he writes. The only time I ever saw him he seemed to me a very pleasant man, easy of access, affable, clear-headed, simple and mild in his manner, deliberate and unruffled in his speech, though some of his expressions were not very qualified. His figure is tall and portly. He has a good, sensible face, rather full, with little gray eyes, a hard square forehead, a ruddy complexion, with hair gray or powdered; and had on a scarlet broadcloth waistcoat with the flaps of the pockets hanging down, as was the custom for gentleman farmers in the last century, or as we see it in pictures of members of parliament in the reign of George I. I certainly did not think less favourably of him for seeing him.”

      Watson’s

       Biographies of Wilkes and Cobbett.

      “In stature the late Mr. Cobbett was tall and athletic. I should think he could not have been less than six feet two, while his breadth was proportionately great. He was indeed one of the stoutest men in the House. … His hair was of a milk-white colour, and his complexion ruddy. His features were not strongly marked. What struck you most about his face was his small, sparkling, laughing eyes. When disposed to be humorous yourself, you had only to look at his eyes, and you were sure to sympathise with his merriment. When not speaking, the expression of his eye and his countenance was very different. He was one of the most striking refutations of the principles of Lavater I ever witnessed. Never were the looks of any man more completely at variance with his character. There was something so heavy and dull about his whole appearance, that any one who did not know him would at once set him down for some country clodpole, to use a favourite expression of his own, who not only had never read a book, or had a single idea in his head, but who was a mere mass of mortality, without a particle of sensibility of any kind in his composition. He usually sat with one leg over the other, his head slightly drooping, as if sleeping, on his breast, and his hat down almost to his eyes. His usual dress was a light-gray coat of a full make, a white waistcoat, and kerseymere breeches of a sandy colour. When he walked about the House, he generally had his hands inserted in his breeches’ pocket. Considering his advanced age, seventy-three, he looked remarkably hale and healthy, and walked with a firm but slow step.”—1835.