1770-1835
[Sidenote: Lockhart’s _Peter’s Letters_.]
“Although for some time past he has spent a considerable portion
of every year in excellent, even in refined society, the external
appearance of the man can have undergone but very little change since
he was ‘a herd on Yarrow.’ His face and hands are still as brown
as if he had lived entirely _sub dio_. His very hair has a coarse
stringiness about it, which proves beyond dispute its utter ignorance
of all the arts of the _friseur_, and hangs in playful whips and cords
about his ears, in a style of the most perfect innocence imaginable.
His mouth which, when he smiles, nearly cuts the totality of his
face in twain, is an object that would make the Chevalier Ruspini
die with indignation; for his teeth have been allowed to grow where
they listed, and as they listed, presenting more resemblance, in
arrangement (and colour too), to a body of crouching sharp-shooters,
than to any more regular species of array. The effect of a forehead,
towering with a true poetic grandeur above such features as these, and
of an eye that illuminates their surface with genuine lightenings of
genius ... these are things which I cannot so easily transfer to my
paper.”--1819.
[Sidenote: S. C. Hall’s _Memories of Great Men_.]
“The Rev. Mr. Thomson, his biographer, thus pictures him:--‘In height
he was five feet ten inches and a half; his broad chest and square
shoulders indicated health and strength; while a well-rounded leg, and
small ankle and foot, showed the active shepherd who could outstrip
the runaway sheep.’ His hair in his younger days was auburn, slightly
inclining to yellow, which afterwards became dark brown, mixed with
gray; his eyes, which were dark blue, were bright and intelligent. His
features were irregular, while his eye and ample forehead redeemed the
countenance from every charge of common-place homeliness.”
[Sidenote: Froude’s _Life of Carlyle_.]
“Hogg is a little red-skinned stiff sack of a body, with quite the
common air of an Ettrick shepherd, except that he has a highish though
sloping brow (among his yellow grizzled hair), and two clear little
beads of blue or gray eyes that sparkle, if not with thought, yet with
animation. Behaves himself quite easily and well; speaks Scotch, and
mostly narrative absurdity (or even obscenity) therewith.... His vanity
seems to be immense, but also his good-nature.”--1832.