1770-1850
[Sidenote: Leigh Hunt’s _Autobiography_.]
“Mr. Wordsworth ... had a dignified manner, with a deep and roughish
but not unpleasing voice, and an exalted mode of speaking. He had a
habit of keeping his left hand in the bosom of his waistcoat; and
in this attitude, except when he turned round to take one of the
subjects of his criticism from the shelves (for his contemporaries were
there also), he sat dealing forth his eloquent but hardly catholic
judgments.... Walter Scott said that the eyes of Burns were the finest
he ever saw. I cannot say the same of Mr. Wordsworth; that is, not in
the sense of the beautiful, or even of the profound. But certainly I
never beheld eyes which looked so inspired and supernatural. They were
like fires half burning, half smouldering with a sort of acrid fixture
of regard, and seated at the further end of two caverns. One might
imagine Ezekiel or Isaiah to have had such eyes. The finest eyes, in
every sense of the word, which I have ever seen in a man’s head (and I
have seen many fine ones), are those of Thomas Carlyle.”--1815.
[Sidenote: S. C. Hall’s _Memories of Great Men_.]
“His features were large, and not suddenly expressive; they conveyed
little idea of the ‘poetic fire’ usually associated with brilliant
imagination. His eyes were mild and up-looking, his mouth coarse rather
than refined, his forehead high rather than broad; but every action
seemed considerate, and every look self-possessed, while his voice,
low in tone, had that persuasive eloquence which invariably ‘moves
men.’”--1832.
[Sidenote: Carlyle’s _Reminiscences_.]
“... He (Wordsworth) talked well in his way; with veracity, easy
brevity, and force, as a wise tradesman would of his tools and
workshop,--and as no unwise one could. His voice was good, frank, and
sonorous, though practically clear, distinct, and forcible, rather
than melodious; the tone of him business-like, sedately confident; no
discourtesy, yet no anxiety about being courteous. A fine wholesome
rusticity, fresh as his mountain breezes, sat well on the stalwart
veteran, and on all he said and did. You would have said he was a
usually taciturn man; glad to unlock himself to audience sympathetic
and intelligent when such offered itself. His face bore marks of much,
not always peaceful, meditation; the look of it not bland or benevolent
so much as close, impregnable, and hard: a man _multa tacere loquive
paratus_, in a world where he had experienced no lack of contradictions
as he strode along! The eyes were not very brilliant, but they had a
quiet clearness; there was enough of brow, and well-shaped; rather
too much of cheek (‘horse face’ I have heard satirists say); face of
squarish shape, and decidedly longish, as I think the head itself was
(its ‘length’ going horizontal); he was large-boned, lean, but still
firm-knit, tall, and strong-looking when he stood, a right good old
steel-gray figure, with rustic simplicity and dignity about him, and a
vivacious strength looking through him which might have suited one of
those old steel-gray markgrafs whom Henry the Fowler set up to ward the
‘marches’ and do battle with the heathen in a stalwart and judicious
manner.”