1838-1861
[Sidenote: Buchanan’s _Life of David Gray_.]
“At twenty-one years of age ... David was a tall young man, slightly
but firmly built, and with a stoop at the shoulders. His head was
small, fringed with black curly hair. Want of candour was not his
fault, though he seldom looked one in the face; his eyes, however,
were large and dark, full of intelligence and humour, harmonising well
with the long thin nose and nervous lips. The great black eyes and
woman’s mouth betrayed the creature of impulse; one whose reasoning
faculties were small, but whose temperament was like red-hot coal. He
sympathised with much that was lofty, noble, and true in poetry, and
with much that was absurd and suicidal in the poet. He carried sympathy
to the highest pitch of enthusiasm; he shed tears over the memories of
Keats and Burns, and he was corybantic in his execution of a Scotch
‘reel.’”--1859.
[Sidenote: R. M. Milnes’s _Notice on David Gray_.]
“I was told a young man wished to see me, and when he came into the
room I at once saw it was no other than the young Scotch poet. It was
a light, well-built, but somewhat stooping figure, with a countenance
that at once brought strongly to my recollection a cast of a face of
Shelley in his youth, which I had seen at Mr. Leigh Hunt’s. There was
the same full brow, out-looking eyes, and sensitive melancholy mouth.”
[Sidenote: Hedderwick’s _Memoir of David Gray_.]
“In person, the deceased poet was tall, with a slight stoop. His head
was not large, but his temperament was of the keenest and brightest
edge. With black curling hair, eyes dark, large, and lustrous, and a
complexion of almost feminine delicacy, his appearance never failed to
make a favourable impression on strangers.”