been taken at a distance for a small windmill.'
Charles Kingsley appears as 'rather tall, very angular, surprisingly
awkward, with thin staggering legs, a hatchet face adorned with scraggy
gray whiskers, a faculty for falling into the most ungainly attitudes,
and making the most hideous contortions of visage and frame; with a rough
provincial accent and an uncouth way of speaking which would be set down
for absurd caricature on the boards of a comic theatre.' Lamb is
described by Carlyle as 'the leanest of mankind; tiny black breeches
buttoned to the knee-cap and no further, surmounting spindle legs also in
black, face and head fineish, black, bony, lean, and of a Jew type
rather'; and Talfourd says that the best portrait of him is his own
description of Braham--'a compound of the Jew, the gentleman, and the
angel.' William Godwin was 'short and stout, his clothes loosely and
carelessly put on, and usually old and worn; his hands were generally in
his pockets; he had a remarkably large, bald head, and a weak voice;
seeming generally half asleep when he walked, and even when he talked.'
Lord Charlemont spoke of David Hume as more like a 'turtle-eating
alderman' than 'a refined philosopher.' Mary Russell Mitford was ill-
naturedly described by L.E.L. as 'Sancho Panza in petticoats!'; and as
for poor Rogers, who was somewhat cadaverous, the descriptions given of
him are quite dreadful. 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 in his
hands,' christened him the 'Death dandy,' and wrote underneath a picture
of him, 'Painted in his lifetime.' We must console ourselves--if not
with Mr. Hardy's statement that 'ideal physical beauty is incompatible
with mental development, and a full recognition of the evil of things'--at
least with the pictures of those who had some comeliness, and grace, and
charm. Dr. Grosart says of a miniature of Edmund Spenser, 'It is an
exquisitely beautiful face. The brow is ample, the lips thin but mobile,
the eyes a grayish-blue, the hair and beard a golden red (as of "red
monie" of the ballads) or goldenly chestnut, the nose with
semi-transparent nostril and keen, the chin firm-poised, the expression
refined and delicate. Altogether just such "presentment" of the Poet of
Beauty par excell