“He was a tall, handsome, and bold man; but his næve was, that he was damnably proud.... In the great parlour at Downton, at Mr. Ralegh’s, is a good piece (an originall) of Sir W. in a white sattin doublet, all embroidered with rich pearles, and a mighty rich chaine of great pearles about his neck. The old servants have told me that the pearles were neer as big as the painted ones. He had a most remarkable aspect, an exceedingly high forehead, long-faced, and sourlie-bidded, a kind of pigge-eie.... He spake broad Devonshire to his dye-ing day. His voice was small, as likewise were my schoolfellowes, his gr. nephews.”
Publications of
the Prince Society.
*
“In all the pictures we have of him, there is almost nothing to suggest the typical Englishman. Burly and robust. About six feet in height, he is rather thin than corpulent, and in the vivacity of expression and the nervous cast of his features he resembles rather the modern New-Englander than the old-time Englishman. He was nineteen years younger than Elizabeth, and had, as Naunton describes him, ‘a good presence in a handsome and well-compacted person.’ Fuller has already told us that at the time of his entrance at the court his clothes made a ‘considerable part of his estate.’ He seems to have had an innate love for the luxury and splendour of dress. He lived at a period when gentlemen as well as ladies indulged in all the glory of gay colours. Edwards, describing some of the more noted pictures of him, says: ‘In another full-length, which long remained in the possession of his descendants, he is apparelled in a white satin pinked vest, close sleeved to the wrists with a brown doublet finely flowered and embroidered with pearls, and a sword, also brown and similarly decorated. Over the right hip is seen the jewelled pommel of his dagger. He wears his hat, in which is a black feather with a ruby and pearl drop. His trunk hose and fringed garters appear to be of white satin. His buff-coloured shoes are tied with white ribbons.’”
CHARLES READE
1814-1884
Coleman’s
Personal Reminiscences.
“On arriving at Bolton Row I was shown into a large room littered over with books, MSS. agenda, newspapers of every description from the Times and the New York Herald down to the Police News. Before me stood a stately and imposing man of fifty or fifty-one, over six feet high, a massive chest, herculean limbs, a bearded and leonine face, giving traces of a manly beauty which ripened into majesty as he grew older. Large brown eyes which could at times become exceedingly fierce, a fine head, quite bald on the top but covered at the sides with soft brown hair, a head strangely disproportioned to the bulk of the body; in fact I could never understand how so large a brain could be confined in so small a skull. On the desk before him lay a huge sheet of drab paper on which he had been writing—it was about the size of two sheets of ordinary foolscap; in his hand one of Gillott’s double-barrelled pens. (Before I left the room he told me he sent Gillott his books, and Gillott sent him his pens.)
“His voice, though very pleasant, was very penetrating. He was rather deaf, but I don’t think quite so deaf as he pretended to be. This deafness gave him an advantage in conversation; it afforded him time to take stock of the situation, and either to seek refuge in silence or to request his interlocutor to propound his proposal afresh. At first he was very cold, but at last, carried away by the ardour of my admiration for his works, he thawed, and in half an hour he was eager, excited, delighted and delightful.”—1856.
The Contemporary
Review,
1884.