Coleridge was very luminous in conversation, and invariably commanded listeners; yet the old lady rated his talent very lowly, when she declared she had no patience with a man who would have all the talk to himself.
DR. CHALMERS IN LONDON.
When Dr. Chalmers first visited London, the hold that he took on the minds of men was unprecedented. It was a time of strong political feeling; but even that was unheeded, and all parties thronged to hear the Scottish preacher. The very best judges were not prepared for the display that they heard. Canning and Wilberforce went together, and got into a pew near the door. The elder in attendance stood alone by the pew. Chalmers began in his usual unpromising way, by stating a few nearly self-evident propositions, neither in the choicest language, nor in the most impressive voice. “If this be all,” said Canning to his companion, “it will never do.” Chalmers went on—the shuffling of the conversation gradually subsided. He got into the mass of his subject; his weakness became strength, his hesitation was turned into energy; and, bringing the whole volume of his mind to bear upon it, he poured forth a torrent of the most close and conclusive argument, brilliant with all the exuberance of an imagination which ranged over all nature for illustrations, and yet managed and applied each of them with the same unerring dexterity, as if that single one had been the study of a whole life. “The tartan beats us,” said Mr. Canning; “we have no preaching like that in England.”
ROMILLY AND BROUGHAM.
Hallam’s History of the Middle Ages was the last book of any importance read by Sir Samuel Romilly. Of this excellent work he formed the highest opinion, and recommended its immediate perusal to Lord Brougham, as a contrast to his dry Letter on the Abuses of Charities, in respect of the universal interest of the subject. Yet, Sir Samuel undervalued the Letter, for it ran through eight editions in one month.
PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTIONISTS.
It is remarkable, (says Bulwer, in his Zanoni,) that most of the principal actors of the French Revolution were singularly hideous in appearance—from the colossal ugliness of Mirabeau and Danton, or the villanous ferocity in the countenances of David and Simon, to the filthy squalor of Marat, and the sinister and bilious meanness of the Dictator’s features. But Robespierre, who was said to resemble a cat, and had also a cat’s cleanliness, was prim and dainty in dress, shaven smoothness, and the womanly whiteness of his hands. Réné Dumas, born of reputable parents, and well educated, despite his ferocity, was not without a certain refinement, which perhaps rendered him the more acceptable to the precise Robespierre. Dumas was a beau in his way: his gala-dress was a blood-red coat, with the finest ruffles. But Henriot had been a lacquey, a thief, a spy of the police; he had drank the blood of Madame de Lamballe, and had risen for no quality but his ruffianism; and Fouquier Tinville, the son of a provincial agriculturist, and afterwards a clerk at the bureau of the police, was little less base in his manners, and yet more, from a certain loathsome buffoonery, revolting in his speech; bull-headed, with black, sleek hair, with a narrow and livid forehead, and small eyes that twinkled with sinister malice; strongly and coarsely built, he looked what he was, the audacious bully of a lawless and relentless bar.