LIFE AT ELLEBAY. 83 



a powerful expression of ardor and animated intelligence, mixed 

 with much good-nature. ' Mr. Wilso?i of Elleray 1 — delivered as 

 the formula of introduction, in the deep tones of Mr. Wordsworth — 

 at once banished the momentary surprise I felt on finding an un- 

 known stranger where I had expected nobody, and substituted a 

 surprise of another kind: I now well understood who it was that I 

 saw ; and there was no wonder in his being at Allanbank, Elleray 

 standing within nine miles ; but (as usually happens in such cases), 

 I felt a shock of surprise on seeing a person so little corresponding 

 to the one I had half unconsciously prefigured. . . . Figure to your- 

 self, then, a tall man, about six feet high, within half an inch or so, 

 built with tolerable appearance of strength ; but at the date of my 

 description (that is, in the very spring-tide and blossom of youth), 

 wearing, for the predominant character of his person, lightness and 

 agility, or (in our Westmoreland phrase) Mshness ; he seemed framed 

 with an express view to gymnastic exercises of every sort. . . . 

 Viewed, therefore, by an eye learned in gymnastic proportions, Mr. 

 Wilson presented a somewhat striking figure ; and by some people 

 he was pronounced with emphasis a fine-looking young man ; but 

 others, who less understood, or less valued these advantages, spoke 

 of him as nothing extraordinary. Still greater division of voices I 

 have heard on his pretensions to be thought handsome. In my 

 opinion, and most certainly in his own, these pretensions were but 

 slender. His complexion was too florid ; hair of a hue quite unsuited 

 to that complexion ; eyes not good, having no apparent depth, but 

 seeming mere surfaces ; and, in fine, no one feature that could be 

 called fine, except the lower region of his face, mouth, chin, and the 

 parts -adjacent, which were then (and perhaps are now) truly elegant 

 and Ciceronian. Ask in one of your public libraries for that little 

 quarto edition of the Rhetorical Works of Cicero, edited by Shutz 

 (the same who edited ^Eschylus), and you will there see (as a front- 

 ispiece to the first volume), a reduced whole length of Cicero from 

 the antique ; which in the mouth and chin, and indeed generally, if 

 I do not greatly forget, will give you a lively representation of the 

 contour and expression of Professor Wilson's f:ice. Taken as a 

 whole, though not handsome (as I have already said), when vie wed 

 in a quiescent state, the head and countenance are massy, dignified, 

 and expressive of tranquil sagacity. . . . Note, however, that of all 



this array of personal features, as I have here described them, I then 

 4* 



