1632-1703
[Sidenote: _The Cornhill Magazine_, 1874. *]
“Pepys spent part of a certain winter Sunday, when he had taken physic,
composing ‘a song in praise of a liberal genius (such as I take my
own to be) to all studies and pleasures.’ The song was successful,
but the diary is, in a sense, the very song that he was seeking; and
his portrait by Hales, so admirably reproduced in Mynors Bright’s
edition, is a confirmation of the diary. Hales, it would appear, had
known his business, and though he put his sitter to a deal of trouble,
almost breaking his neck ‘to have the portrait full of shadows,’ and
draping him in an Indian gown hired expressly for the purpose, he was
preoccupied about no merely picturesque effects, but to portray the
essence of the man. Whether we read the picture by the diary, or the
diary by the picture, we shall at least agree, that Hales was among
the numbers of those who can ‘surprise the manners in a face.’ Here we
have a mouth pouting, moist with desires; eyes greedy, protuberant,
and yet apt for weeping too; a nose great alike in character and
dimensions, and altogether a most fleshly, melting countenance. The
face is attractive by its promise of reciprocity. I have used the
word _greedy_, but the reader must not suppose that he can change
it for that closely kindred one of _hungry_, for there is here no
aspiration, no waiting for better things, but an animal joy in all
that comes. It could never be the face of an artist; it is the face of
a _viveur_--kindly, pleased, and pleasing, protected from excess and
upheld in contentment by the shifting versatility of his desires. For a
single desire is more rightly to be called a lust; but there is health
in a variety, where one may balance and control another.”