But now, my dear Mr. Crisp, I am mortified to own—what you, who always smile at my enthusiasm, will hear without caring a straw for—that he is, indeed, very ill-favoured. Yet he has naturally a noble figure; tall, stout, grand, and authoritative: but he stoops horribly; his back is quite round: his mouth is continually opening and shutting, as if he were chewing something; he has a singular method of twirling his fingers, and twisting his hands: his vast body is in constant agitation, see-sawing backwards and forwards: his feet are never a moment quiet; and his whole person looked often as if it were going to roll itself, quite voluntarily, from his chair to the floor. Since such is his appearance to a person so prejudiced in his favour as I am, how I must more than ever reverence his abilities, when I tell you that, upon asking my father why he had not prepared us for such uncouth, untoward strangeness, he laughed heartily, and said he had entirely forgotten that the same impression had been, at first, made upon himself, but had been lost even on the second interview—how I long to see him again, to lose it, too!—for knowing the value of what would come out when he spoke, he ceased to observe the defects that were out while he was silent. But you always charge me to write without reserve or reservation, and so I obey, as usual. Else, I should be ashamed to acknowledge having remarked such exterior blemishes in so exalted a character. His dress, considering the times, and that he had meant to put on all his best _becomes_—for he was engaged to dine with a very fine party at Mrs. Montagu’s—was as much out of the common road as his figure. He had a large, full, bushy wig, a snuff-colour coat, with gold buttons (or, peradventure, brass), but no ruffles to his doughty fists; and not, I suppose, to be taken for a Blue, though going to the Blue Queen, he had on very coarse black worsted stockings. He is shockingly near-sighted; a thousand times more so than either my Padre or myself. He did not even know Mrs. Thrale, till she held out her hand to him, which she did very engagingly. After the first few minutes, he drew his chair close to the pianoforte, and then bent down his nose quite over the keys, to examine them, and the four hands at work upon them; till poor Hetty and Susan hardly knew how to play on, for fear of touching his phiz; or, which was harder still, how to keep their countenances; and the less, as Mr. Seward, who seems to be very droll and shrewd, and was much diverted, ogled them slyly, with a provoking expression of arch enjoyment of their apprehensions. When the duet was finished, my father introduced your Hettina to him, as an old acquaintance, to whom, when she was a little girl, he had presented his Idler.