Word Portraits of Famous Writers. Various
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cutting
1876.
“Standing in the narrow Gothic railed-off place reserved for the public—the throne at the opposite extremity of the House—you may see on one of the benches to the right, almost every forenoon, Saturday and Sunday excepted, during the session, a very old man with a white head, and attired in a simple frock and trousers of shepherd’s plaid. It is a leonine head, and the white locks are bushy and profuse. So, too, the eyebrows, penthouses to eyes somewhat weak now, but that can flash fire yet upon occasion. The face is ploughed with wrinkles, as well it may be, for the old man will never see fourscore years again, and of these, threescore, at the very least, have been spent in study and the hardest labour, mental and physical. The nose is a marvel—protuberant, rugose, aggressive, inquiring and defiant: unlovely, but intellectual. There is a trumpet mouth, a belligerent mouth, projecting and self-asserting; largish ears, and on chin or cheeks no vestige of hair. Not a beautiful man this, on any theory of beauty, Hogarthesque, Ruskinesque, Winclemenesque, or otherwise. Rather a shaggy, gnarled, battered, weather-beaten, ugly, faithful, Scotch-collie type. Not a soft, imploring, yielding face. Rather a tearing, mocking, pugnacious cast of countenance. The mouth is fashioned to the saying of harsh, hard, impertinent things: not cruel, but downright; but never to whisper compliments, or simper out platitudes. A nose, too, that can snuff the battle afar off, and with dilated nostrils breathe forth a glory that is sometimes terrible; but not a nose for a pouncet-box, or a Covent Garden bouquet, or a flacon of Frangipani. Would not care much for truffles either, I think, or the delicate aroma of sparkling Moselle. Would prefer onions or strongly-infused malt and hops; something honest and unsophisticated. Watch this old man narrowly, young visitor to the Lords. Scan his furrowed visage. Mark his odd angular ways and gestures passing uncouth. Now he crouches, very dog-like, in his crimson bench: clasps one shepherd’s plaid leg in both his hands. Botherem, q.c., is talking nonsense, I think. Now the legs are crossed, and the hands thrown behind the head; now he digs his elbows into the little Gothic writing-table before him, and buries his hands in that puissant white hair of his. The quiddities of Floorem, q.c., are beyond human patience. Then with a wrench, a wriggle, a shake, a half-turn and half-start up—still very dog-like, but of the Newfoundland rather, now—he asks a lawyer or a witness a question. Question very sharp and to the point, not often complimentary by times, and couched in that which is neither broad Scotch nor Northumbrian burr, but a rebellious mixture of the two. Mark him well, eye him closely: you have not much time to lose. Alas! the giant is very old, though with frame yet unenfeebled, with intellect yet gloriously unclouded. But the sands are running, ever running. Watch him, mark him, eye him, score him on your mind tablets: then home, and in after years it may be your lot to tell your children that once at least you have seen with your own eyes the famous Lord of Vaux; once listened to the voice which has shaken thrones and made tyrants tremble; that has been a herald of deliverance to millions pining in slavery and captivity; a voice that has given utterance, in man’s most eloquent words, to the noblest, wisest thoughts lent to this man of men by heaven; a voice that has been trumpet-sounding these sixty years past in defence of Truth, and Right, and Justice; in advocacy of the claims of learning and industry, and of the liberties of the great English people, from whose ranks he rose; a voice that should be entitled to a hearing in a Walhalla of wise heroes, after Francis of Verulam and Isaac of Grantham; the voice of one who is worthily a lord, but who will be yet better remembered, and to all time—remembered enthusiastically and affectionately—as the champion of all good and wise and beautiful human things—Harry Brougham.”
Temple Bar, 1868.
“The personal man, the bodily man, the private man, did not vary. From 1830 to 1866—the period between his brightest glow of fame and his mental eclipse—he was always the same gaunt, angular, raw-boned figure, with the high cheek-bones, the great flexible nose, the mobile mouth, the shock head of hair, the uncouthly-cut coat with the velvet collar, the high black stock, the bulging shirt front, the dangling bunch of seals at his fob, and the immortal pantaloons of checked tweed. It is said that one of his admirers in the Bradford Cloth Hall gave him a bale of plaid trousering ’a’ oo’’[1] in 1825, and that he continued until the day of his death to have his nether garments cut from the inexhaustible store. I have seen Lord Brougham in evening dress and in the customary black continuations; but I never met him by daylight without the inevitable checks.”
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
1809–1861
M. R. Mitford’s
Recollections of a Literary Life.
“My first acquaintance with Elizabeth Barrett commenced about fifteen years ago. She was certainly one of the most interesting persons that I had ever seen. Everybody who then saw her said the same; so that it is not merely the impression of my partiality, or my enthusiasm. Of a slight delicate figure, with a shower of dark curls falling on either side of a most expressive face, large tender eyes, richly fringed with dark eyelashes, a smile like a sunbeam, and such a look of youthfulness, that I had some difficulty in persuading a friend, in whose carriage we went together to Chiswick, that the translatress of the Prometheus of Æschylus, the authoress of the Essay on Mind, was old enough to be introduced into company, in technical language, was out.”—1835.
Sara Coleridge’s
Letters.
“She is little, hard featured, with long dark ringlets, a pale face, and plaintive voice, something very impressive in her dark eyes and her brow. Her general aspect puts me in mind of Mignon—what Mignon might be in maturity and maternity.”—1851.
Crab Robinson’s
Diary.
“Dined at home, and at eight dressed to go to Kenyon. With him I found an interesting person I had never seen before, Mrs. Browning, late Miss Barrett—not the invalid I expected; she has a handsome oval face, a fine eye, and altogether a pleasing person. She had no opportunity for display, and apparently no desire. Her husband has a very amiable expression. There is a singular sweetness about him.”—1852.
JOHN BUNYAN
1628–1688
Charles Doe’s Life of John Bunyan.
“He appeared in countenance to be of a stern and rough temper. He had a sharp, quick eye, accomplished, with an excellent discerning of persons. As for his person, he was tall of stature, strong-boned, though not corpulent; somewhat of a ruddy face, with sparkling eyes, wearing his hair on the upper lip after the old British fashion; his hair reddish, but in his later days time had sprinkled it with gray; his nose well set, but not declining or bending, and his mouth moderate large, his forehead something high, and his habit always plain and modest.”
Tulloch’s English Puritanism. *
“It is impossible to look at his portrait, and not recognise the lines of power by which it is everywhere marked. It has more of a sturdy soldier than anything else—the aspect of a man who would face dangers any day rather than shun them; and this corresponds exactly to his description by his oldest biographer and friend, Charles Doe. … A more manly and robust appearance cannot well be conceived, his eyes only showing in their sparkling depth the fountains of sensibility concealed within the roughened exterior. Here, as before, we are reminded of his likeness to Luther.”
Bunyan’s
Works, 1692.
“Give us leave to say his natural parts and abilities were not mean, his fancy and invention were very pregnant and fertile; the use he made of them was good, converting them to spiritual objects. His wit was sharp and quick; his memory tenacious;