Whenever it was my privilege to be admitted to the evening meetings at Highgate, I met some of the men who were then famous, and have since become parts of the literature of England.
I attended one of the lectures delivered by Coleridge at the Royal Institution, and I strive to recall him as he stood before his audience. There was but little animation; his theme did not seem to stir him into life; even the usual repose of his countenance was rarely broken up; he used little or no action; and his voice, though mellifluous, was monotonous: he lacked, indeed, that earnestness without which no man is truly eloquent.
At the time I speak of, he was growing corpulent and heavy: being seldom free from pain, he moved apparently with difficulty, yet liked to walk up and down and about the room as he talked, pausing now and then as if oppressed by suffering.
I need not say that I was a silent listener during the evenings at Highgate to which I have referred, when there were present some of those who now "rule us from their urns"; but I was free to gaze on the venerable man,—one of the humblest, but one of the most fervid, perhaps, of the worshippers by whom he was surrounded,—and to treasure in memory the poet's gracious and loving looks, the "thick, waving, silver hair," the still, clear, blue eye; and on such occasions I used to leave him as if I were in a waking dream, trying to recall, here and there, a sentence of the many weighty and mellifluous sentences I had heard,—seldom with success,—and feeling at the moment as if I had been surfeited with honey.
The portrait of Coleridge is best drawn by his friend Wordsworth, and it sufficiently pictures him:—
"A noticeable man, with large, gray eyes,
And a pale face, that seemed undoubtedly
As if a blooming face it ought to be;
Heavy his low-hung lip did oft appear,
Depressed by weight of moving phantasy;
Profound his forehead was, though not severe."
Wordsworth elsewhere speaks of him as "the brooding poet with the heavenly eyes," and as, "often too much in love with his own dejection." The earliest word-portrait we have of him was drawn by Wordsworth's sister in 1797:—"At first I thought him very plain,—that is, for about three minutes. He is pale, thin, has a wide mouth, thick lips, longish, loose-growing, half-curling, rough, black hair. His eye is large and full, and not dark, but gray;—such an eye as would receive from a heavy soul the dullest expression, but it speaks every emotion of his animated mind. He has fine, dark eyebrows, and an overhanging forehead."
This is De Quincey's sketch of him in 1807:—"In height he seemed about five feet eight inches, in reality he was an inch and a half taller.[K] His person was broad and full, and tended even to corpulence; his complexion was fair, though not what painters technically call fair, because it was associated with black hair; his eyes were soft and large in their expression, and it was by a peculiar appearance of haze or dimness which mixed with their light." "A lady of Bristol," writes De Quincey, "assured me she had not seen a young man so engaging in his exterior as Coleridge when young, in 1796. He had then a blooming and healthy complexion, beautiful and luxuriant hair, falling in natural curls over his shoulders."
Lockhart says,—"Coleridge has a grand head, but very ill-balanced, and the features of the face are coarse; although, to be sure, nothing can surpass the depth of meaning in his eyes, and the unutterable dreamy luxury of his lips."
Hazlitt describes him in early manhood as "with a complexion clear and even light, a forehead broad and high, as if built of ivory, with large projecting eyebrows, and his eyes rolling beneath them like a sea with darkened lustre. His mouth was rather open, his chin good-humored and round, and his nose small. His hair, black and glossy as the raven's wing, fell in smooth masses over his forehead,—long, liberal hair, peculiar to enthusiasts."