Mr. Pinkney[119] is between fifty and sixty years of age; his form is sufficiently elevated and compact to be graceful, and his countenance, though marked by the lines of dissipation, and rather too heavy, is not unprepossessing or repulsive. His eye is rapid in its motion, and beams with the animation of genius; but his lips are too thick, and his cheeks too fleshy and loose for beauty; there is too a degree of foppery, and sometimes of splendor, manifested in the decoration of his person, which is not perfectly reconcileable to our {358} ideas of mental superiority, and an appearance of voluptuousness about him which cannot surely be a source of pride or of gratification to one whose mind is so capacious and elegant. It is not improbable, however, that this character is assumed merely for the purpose of exciting a higher admiration of his powers, by inducing a belief that, without the labour of study or the toil of investigation, he can attain the object of his wishes and become eminent, without deigning to resort to that painful drudgery by which meaner minds and inferior intellects are enabled to arrive at excellence and distinction. At the first glance, you would imagine Mr. Pinkney was one of those butterflies of fashion, _a dandy_, known by their extravagant eccentricities of dress, and peculiarities of manners; and no one could believe, from his external appearance, that he was, in the least degree, intellectually superior to his fellow men. But Mr. Pinkney is indeed a wonderful man, and one of those beings whom the lover of human nature feels a delight in contemplating. His mind is of the very first order; quick, expanded, fervid, and powerful. The hearer is at a loss which most to admire, the vigour of his judgment, the fertility of his invention, the strength of his memory, or the power of his imagination. Each of these faculties he possesses in an equal degree of perfection, and each is displayed in its full maturity, when the {359} magnitude of the subject on which he descants renders its operation necessary. This singular union of the rare and precious gifts of nature, has received all the strength which education could afford, and all the polish and splendour which art could bestow. Under the cloak of dissipation and voluptuousness his application has been indefatigable, and his studies unintermitted: the oil of the midnight lamp has been exhausted, and the labyrinths of knowledge have been explored.