ceived, in recording all the various habitudes and whims by which the course of his every-day life was distinguished from that of other people. That the critics of the day should think it due to their own importance to object to trifles is naturally to be expected; but that, in other times, such minute records of a Byron will be read with interest, even such critics cannot doubt. To know that Catiline walked with an agitated and uncertain gait is, by no mean judge of human nature, deemed important as an indication of character. But far less significant details will satisfy the idolators of genius. To be told that Tasso loved malmsey and thought it favourable to poetic inspiration is a piece of intelligence, even at the end of three centuries, not unwelcome; while a still more amusing proof of the disposition of the world to remember little things of the great is, that the poet Petrarch's excessive fondness for turnips is one of the few traditions still preserved of him at Arqua.

The personal appearance of Lord Byron has been so frequently described, both by pen and pencil, that were it not the bounden duty of the biographer to attempt some such sketch, the task would seem superfluous. Of his face, the beauty may be pronounced to have been of the highest order, as combining at once regularity of features with the most varied and interesting expression. The same facility, indeed, of change observable in the movements of his mind was seen also in the free play of his features, as the passing thoughts within darkened or shone through them.

His eyes, though of a light gray, were capable of all extremes of expression, from the most joyous hilarity to the deepest sadness, from the very sunshine of

benevolence to the most concentrated scorn or rage. Of this latter passion, I had once an opportunity of seeing what fiery interpreters they could be, on my telling him, thoughtlessly enough, that a friend of mine had said to me- Beware of Lord Byron; he 'will, some day or other, do something very wicked.' Was it man or woman said so?' he exclaimed, suddenly turning round upon me with a look of such intense anger as, though it lasted not an instant, could not easily be forgot, and of which no better idea can be given than in the words of one who, speaking of Chatterton's eyes, says that 'fire rolled at the bottom of them.'

But it was in the mouth and chin that the great beauty as well as expression of his fine countenance lay. Many pictures have been painted of him (says a fair critic of his features) with various success; but the excessive beauty of his lips escaped every painter and sculptor. In their ceaseless play they ' represented every emotion, whether pale with anger, curled in disdain, smiling in triumph, or dimpled 'with archness and love.' It would be injustice to the reader not to borrow from the same pencil a few more touches of portraiture. This extreme facility ' of expression was sometimes painful, for I have seen 'him look absolutely ugly-I have seen him look so ' hard and cold, that you must hate him, and then, in a moment, brighter than the sun, with such playful 'softness in his look, such affectionate eagerness kindling in his eyes, and dimpling his lips into something more sweet than a smile, that you forgot the 'man, the Lord Byron, in the picture of beauty pre'sented to you, and gazed with intense curiosity—I ‹ had almost said-as if to satisfy yourself, that thus

'looked the god of poetry, the god of the Vatican, when he conversed with the sons and daughters of

'man.'

His head was remarkably small*,- so much so as to be rather out of proportion with his face. The forehead, though a little too narrow, was high, and appeared more so from his having his hair (to preserve it, as he said) shaved over the temples; while the glossy, dark-brown curls, clustering over his head, gave the finish to its beauty. When to this is added, that his nose, though handsomely, was rather thickly shaped, that his teeth were white and regular, and his complexion colourless, as good an idea perhaps as it is in the power of mere words to convey may be conceived of his features.

In height he was, as he himself has informed us, five feet eight inches and a half, and to the length of his limbs he attributed his being such a good swimmer. His hands were very white, and—according to his own notion of the size of hands as indicating birth -aristocratically small. The lameness of his right foot †, though an obstacle to grace, but little impeded

*Several of us, one day,' says Colonel Napier, tried on his hat, and ' in a party of twelve or fourteen, who were at dinner, not one could put it on, so exceedingly small was his head. My servant, Thomas Wells, 'who had the smallest head in the 90th regiment, (so small that he could hardly get a cap to fit him,) was the only person who could put ' on Lord Byron's hat, and him it fitted exactly."

In speaking of this lameness at the commencement of my work, I forbore, both from my own doubts on the subject and the great variance I found in the recollections of others, from stating in which of his feet this lameness existed. It will, indeed, with difficulty be believed what uncertainty I found upon this point, even among those most intimate with him. Mr. Hunt, in his book, states it to have been the left foot that was deformed, and this, though contrary to my own impression, and, as it appears also, to the fact, was the opinion I found also of others who had been much in the habit of living with him. On applying to his early friends at Southwell and to the shoemaker of that town who worked for him, so little prepared were they to answer with any certainty on the

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