1856.] Personalities of Literati. 435 



other features. He spoke of ''Festus," and of its fame in America, 

 of which he seemed very proud. In England it has only reached its 

 third edition, while eight or nine have been published in the States. 



DE QUINCEY. 



He is one of the smallest legged, smallest bodied, and most attenu- 

 ated effigies of the human form divine, that one could meet in a crowded 

 city during a day's walk. And if one adds to this figure clothes that 

 are neither fashionably cut nor fastidiously adjusted, he will have a 

 tolerably rough idea of De Quincey's outer man. But then his brow, 

 that pushes his obtrusive hat to the back of his head, and his \hA\i 

 gray eyes that do not seem to look out, but to be turned inward, 

 sounding the depths of his imagination, and searching out the myste- 

 ries of the most abstruse logic, are something that you would search a 

 week to find the mates to, and then you would be disappointed. De 

 Quincey now resides at Lasswade, a romantic rural village, once the 

 residence of Sir AYalter Scott, about seven miles from Edinburgh, Scot- 

 land, where an afi'ectionate daughter watches over him, and where he 

 is the wonder of the country people for miles around. 



LAMARTINE. 



Lamartine is, — yes, young ladies, positively — a j-jnm-looking man, 

 with a long fiice, short gray hair, a slender figure, and a suit of black! 

 Put a pen behind his ear, and he would look like a "confidential 

 clerk." Give his face more character, and he would remind you of 

 Henry Clay, He has a fine bead, phrenologically speaking — large 

 and round at the top, with a spacious forehead, and a scant allotment 

 of cheek. Prim is the word, though. There is nothing in his appear- 

 ance which is ever so remotely suggestive of the romantic. He is not 

 even pale, and as for a rolling shirt collar, or a Byronic tie, he is 

 evidently not the man to think of such things. Romance, in fact, is 

 the article he lives by, and like other men, choses to " sink the shop," 

 at least when he sits for his portrait. 



D U INI A S , 



On the contrary, is a burly fellow. His large, red, round cheeks 

 stand out, till they seem to stretch the very skin that covers them, and 

 it looks as smooth as a polished apple. His black, crisped hair is piled 

 high above his forehead, and stands divided into two unequal masses, 

 one inclining to the right, and the other to the left. His eyes are 

 dark, and his mouth sensuous, but not to the degree of vulgarity. 



