“His tall, broad, muscular, active frame was characteristic, and so was his head, with the strange elevation of the eyebrows which expresses self-will as strongly in some cases as astonishment in others. Those eyebrows, mounting up until they comprehend a good portion of the forehead, have been observed in many more paradoxical persons than one. Then there was the retreating but broad forehead, showing the deficiency of reasoning and speculative power, with the preponderance of imagination and a huge passion for destruction. The massive self-love and self-will carried up his head to something more than a dignified bearing—even to one of arrogance. His vivid and quick eye, and the thoughtful mouth, were fine, and his whole air was that of a man distinguished in his own eyes certainly, but also in those of others. Tradition reports he was handsome in his youth. In age he was more.”
CHARLES LEVER
1806-1872
Fitz-Patrick’s
Life of Lever.
“I found him seated at an open window, a bottle of claret at his right hand, and the proof-sheets of Lord Kilgobbin before him.... At the date of our visit he looked a hale, hearty, laughter-loving man of sixty. There was mirth in his gray eye, joviality in the wink that twittered on his eyelid, saucy humour in his smile, and bon-mot, wit, repartee, and rejoinder in every movement of his lips. His hair very thin, but of a silky brown, fell across his forehead, and when it curtained his eyes he would jerk back his head—this, too, at some telling crisis in a narrative, when the particular action was just the exact finish required to make the story perfect. Mr. Lever’s teeth were all his own and very brilliant, and whether from accident or habit, he flashed them on us in conjunction with his wonderful eyes, a battery at once powerful and irresistible.... Mr. Lever made great use of his hands, which were small and white and delicate as those of a woman. He made play with them, threw them up in ecstasy, or wrung them in mournfulness, just as the action of the moment demanded. He did not require eyes or teeth with such a voice and such hands; they could tell and illustrate the workings of his brain. He was somewhat careless in his dress, but clung to the traditional high shirt-collar, merely compromising the unswerving stock of the Brummell period.”
MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS
1775-1818
The Southern
Literary
Messenger,
1849.
“In person, Mat Lewis (as his intimate friends at first termed him) was quite ordinary; his stature was rather diminutive; his face was almost an ellipse, looking upon it from the side, and his features though pleasant were not to be regarded as handsome. His forehead, however, was high and his eyes very lustrous.”