1803-1873
[Sidenote: S. C. Hall’s _Retrospect of a long Life_.]
“A young man whose features, though of a somewhat effeminate cast,
were remarkably handsome. His bearing had that aristocratic something
bordering on hauteur, which clung to him during his life. I never saw
the famous writer without being reminded of the passage, ‘Stand back; I
am holier than thou.’--1826.
“The last time I saw him was in his then residence, No. 12 Grosvenor
Square. It was growing towards fifty years since first we had met,
and there were more changes in him than those that time usually
brings. His once handsome face had assumed the desolation without
the dignity of age. His locks, once brown, inclining to auburn, were
shaggy and grizzled; his mouth, seldom smiling even in youth, was
close shut; his whole aspect had something in it at once painful and
unpleasant.”--About 1872.
[Sidenote: _Appleton’s Journal_, 1873.]
“Bulwer is described as having been, at this period of his first
brilliant triumph, rather taller than the middle height, with a
graceful, slender figure, well-proportioned limbs, and a countenance
stamped with distinctly aristocratic features and expression. His
dark-brown, curly hair, his large and bright blue eye, his decided,
though delicately-formed aquiline nose, his rather full and handsome
mouth, his patrician, almost haughty pose and manner, as seen at that
time, are dwelt on, with true feminine enthusiasm, by a lady who
frequented the circles of which he was regarded as one of the most
shining ornaments.”--1828.
[Sidenote: _Appleton’s Journal_, 1873.]
“It was my fortune to see Bulwer in the House of Commons in 1863 and
1865, and in the House of Lords, to which he had recently risen, in
1868. He then had the appearance of being a man of some fifty years,
tallish, straight, stiff, and proudly sedate. His long, sombre face
was no longer ‘fair,’ but was yellow and wrinkled, while the almost
cadaverous aspect of his features added to the really far from
proportionate prominence of his long, aquiline nose. He now wore a
moustache with his ‘heavy red whiskers,’ which had themselves become
a dull brown, plentifully sprinkled with gray; and upon his chin he
grew an imperial. His hair was still thick, but no trace of its rich
auburn hue of youth remained; it was a heavy gray in colour. Spectacles
partially concealed the large but now dulled and glassy blue eyes; and
the whole appearance was far from prepossessing. On the former occasion
referred to, I heard him address the House in an eloquent and evidently
carefully-prepared speech of half an hour. His manner was quiet and
subdued, his voice no longer ‘lover-like and sweet,’ but rather harsh
and grating, and his declamation humdrum; occasionally a spark of the
old animation appeared, when he drew himself up to the full height,
and, for the moment seemed a very orator in motion as in speech;
but the spark soon vanished, and he was again Pelham grown old, the
exhausted and melancholy beau and wit of the past, struggling through
an imposed task.... His dress was conspicuously plain, almost stiff and
ministerial; though there was something about the attire of the neck
which seemed a suspicion of a relic of dandyism.”