Word Portraits of Famous Writers. Various

pleasing, so that a stranger was insensibly drawn to love before knowing how much reason there was to admire him.”

      JOANNA BAILLIE

       1762–1851

       Table of Contents

      Crabb

       Robinson’s

       Diary.

      “We met Miss Joanna Baillie, and accompanied her home. She is small in figure, and her gait is mean and shuffling, but her manners are those of a well-bred woman. She has none of the unpleasant airs too common to literary ladies. Her conversation is sensible. She possesses apparently considerable information, is prompt without being forward, and has a fixed judgment of her own, without any disposition to force it on others. Wordsworth said of her with warmth, ‘If I had to present any one to a foreigner as a model of an English gentlewoman, it would be Joanna Baillie.’ ”—1812.

      S. C. Hall’s

       Memories of Great Men.

      “Of the party I can recall but one; that one, however, is a memory—Joanna Baillie. I remember her as singularly impressive in look and manner, with the ‘queenly’ air we associate with ideas of high birth and lofty rank. Her face was long, narrow, dark, and solemn, and her speech deliberate and considerate, the very antipodes of ‘chatter.’ Tall in person, and habited according to the ‘mode’ of an olden time, her picture, as it is now present to me, is that of a very venerable dame, dressed in coif and kirtle, stepping out, as it were, from a frame in which she had been placed by the painter Vandyke.”—1825–26.

      Sara

       Coleridge’s

       Letters.

      “I saw Mrs. Joanna Baillie before dinner. She wore a delicate lavender satin bonnet; and Mrs. J. says she is fond of dress, and knows what every one has on. Her taste is certainly exquisite in dress though (strange to say) not, in my opinion, in poetry. I more than ever admired the harmony of expression and tint, the silver hair and silvery-gray eye, the pale skin, and the look which speaks of a mind that has had much communing with high imagination, though such intercourse is only perceptible now by the absence of everything which that lofty spirit would not set his seal upon.”—1834.

BENJAMIN, LORD BEACONSFIELD

       1804–1881

       Table of Contents

      Jeaffreson’s

       Novels and Novelists.

      “His ringlets of silken black hair, his flashing eyes, his effeminate and lisping voice, his dress-coat of black velvet lined with white satin, his white kid gloves with his wrist surrounded by a long hanging fringe of black silk, and his ivory cane, of which the handle, inlaid with gold, was relieved by more black silk in the shape of a tassel. … Such was the perfumed boy-exquisite who forced his way into the salons of peeresses.”—1829.

      Mill’s

       Beaconsfield.

      “In the front seat on the Conservative side of the House, may be observed a man who, if his hat be off, which it generally is, is sure to arrest one’s attention, and we need scarcely to be told after having once seen him that he is the leader of that great party. He is not old, just turned fifty we may suppose, but he bears his age well, whatever it may be. His face, which was once handsome, is now ‘sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.’ The head is long, and the forehead massive and finished. The eye is restless, but full of fire; the hair black and curly. Nature has evidently taken some pains to finish the exterior.”—about 1855.

      J. H. du Vivier,

       Portraits comparés des hommes d’état.

      “Certes, le premier aspect de Mr. Gladstone … réponds à l’idée qu’on peut se faire d’un chef doué d’un élan irrésistible, mieuxque l’attitude maladive de lord Beaconsfield, ses traits mous, son regard flétri et comme perdu dans l’abstraction ou dans une réverie hantée par la désillusion et la lassitude. … Chez le plus faible … on devine bientôt que si le fourreau est usé par la lame, c’est à raison de la dévorante activité de celle-ci. … La tête s’incline avec mélancholie, la bouche a pris l’habitude des contractions douleureuses; mais que de patience invincible dans cette attitude! quelle fécondité, quelle soudaineté d’inspirations marquées sur ces lèvres que plisse le rictus de l’ironie!”

      JEREMY BENTHAM

       1748–1832

       Table of Contents

      Sir John

       Bowring’s

       Autobiographical Recollections.

      “In the very centre of the group of persons who originated the Westminster Review stands the grand figure of Jeremy Bentham. Though closely resembling Franklin, his face expresses a profounder wisdom and a more marked benevolence than the bust of the American printer. Mingled with a serene contemplative cast, there is something of playful humour in the countenance. The high forehead is wrinkled, but is without sternness, and is contemplative but complacent. The neatly-combed long white hair hangs over the neck, but moves at every breath. Simplex munditiis best describes his garments. When he walks there is a restless activity in his gait, as if his thoughts were, ‘Let me walk fast, for there is work to do, and the walking is but to fit me the better for the work.’ ”

      Sir John Bowring’s

       Life of Bentham.

      “The striking resemblance between the persons of Franklin and Bentham has been often noticed. Of the two, perhaps, the expression of Bentham’s countenance was the more benign. Each remarkable for profound sagacity, Bentham was scarcely less so for a perpetual playfulness of manner and of expression. Few men were so sportive, so amusing, as Bentham—none ever tempered more delightfully his wisdom with his wit. … Bentham’s dress was peculiar out of doors. He ordinarily wore a narrow-rimmed straw hat, from under which his long white hair fell on his shoulders, or was blown about by the winds. He had a plain brown coat, cut in the Quaker style; light-brown cassimere breeches, over whose knees outside he usually exhibited a pair of white worsted stockings; list shoes he almost invariably used; and his hands were generally covered with merino-lined leather gloves. His neck was bare; he never went out without his stick ‘dapple,’ for a companion. He walked, or rather trotted, as if he were impatient for exercise; but often stopped suddenly for purposes of conversation.”

      Crabb

       Robinson’s

       Diary.

      “December 31st.—At half-past one went by appointment to see Jeremy Bentham, at his house in Westminster Square, and walked with him for about half an hour in his garden, when he dismissed me to take his breakfast and have the paper read to him. I have but little to report concerning him. He is a small man. He stoops very much (he is eighty-four), and shuffles in his gait. His hearing is not good, yet excellent considering his age. His eye is restless, and there is a fidgety activity about him, increased probably by the habit of having all round fly at his command.”—1831.

      RICHARD BENTLEY

       1662–1742

       Table of Contents

      R. C. Jebb’s

       Bentley. *

      “The pose of the head is haughty, almost defiant;