1803-1857
[Sidenote: Hodder’s _Personal Reminiscences_.]
“To my great delight, ... I had not been in the room many minutes
before I was introduced to Douglas Jerrold, who was flitting about with
that peculiar restlessness of eye, speech, and demeanour, which was
amongst his most marked characteristics. I confess I was not surprised
to find him a man of small stature, as I had heard before that his
proportions were rather those of Tydeus than of Alcides; but I was a
little astonished when I saw in the author of _Black-eyed Susan_, _The
Rent Day_, and _The Wedding Gown_, (all of which pieces and many others
he had then produced), an amount of boyish gaiety and a rapidity of
movement which one could hardly expect from a writer who had risen to
high rank as a moralist and censor.”
[Sidenote: W. B. Jerrold’s _Life of Douglas Jerrold_.]
“He had none of the airs of success or reputation, none of the
affectations, either personal or social, which are rife everywhere.
He was manly and natural; free and off-handed to the verge of
eccentricity. Independence and marked character seemed to breathe from
the little, rather bowed figure, crowned with a lion-like head and
falling light hair--to glow in the keen, eager, blue eyes glancing on
either side as he walked along. Nothing could be less commonplace,
nothing less conventional, than his appearance in a room or in the
streets.”
[Sidenote: S. C. Hall’s _Memories of Great Men_.]
“He was a very short man, but with breadth enough, and a back
excessively bent--bowed almost to deformity; very gray hair, and a face
and expression of remarkable briskness and intelligence. His profile
came out pretty boldly, and his eyes had the prominence that indicates,
I believe, volubility of speech; nor did he fail to talk from the
instant of his appearance; and in the tone of his voice, and in his
glance, and in the whole man, there was something racy--a flavour of
the humourist. His step was that of an aged man, and he put his stick
down very decidedly at every foot-fall; though, as he afterwards told
me, he was only fifty-two, he need not yet have been infirm.”--1856.