"Lord Lovat," says another writer, "makes an odd figure, being generally more loaded with clothes than a Dutchman: he is tall, walks very upright, considering his great age, and is tolerably well shaped; he has a large mouth and short nose, with eyes very much contracted and down-looking; a very small forehead, covered with a large periwig,--this gives him a grim aspect, but on addressing any one, he puts on a smiling countenance: he is near-sighted, and affects to be much more so than he really is." "His natural abilities," remarks the editor of the Culloden Papers, "were excellent, and his address, accomplishments, and learning far above the usual lot of his countrymen, even of equal rank. With the civilized, he was the modern perfect fine gentleman; and in the North, among his people, the feudal baron of the tenth century."[126] It seems absurd to talk of the religious principles of a man who violated every principle which religion inculcates; yet the mind is naturally curious to know whether any bonds of faith, or suggestion of conscience ever checked, even for an instant, the career of this base, unprincipled man. After much deception, much shuffling, and perhaps much self-delusion, Lord Lovat was, by his own declaration, a Roman Catholic: his sincerity, even in this avowal, has been questioned. In politics, he was in heart (if he had a heart) a Jacobite; and yet, on his trial, he insisted strongly upon his affection for the reigning family. Such were the characteristics of Simon Fraser, when, by the death of Hugh Lord Lovat, his father and himself were raised from the subservience of clansmen to the dignity of chieftains. To these traits may be added a virtue rare in those days, and, until a long time afterwards, rare in Highland districts;--he was temperate: when others lost themselves by excesses, he preserved the superiority of sobriety; and perhaps his crafty character, his never-ending designs, his remorseless selfishness, were rendered more fatal and potent by this singular feature in his deportment. There was another circumstance, less rare in his country, the advantage of an admirable constitution. It was this, coupled with his original want of feeling, which sustained him in the imprisonment in the Tower, and enabled him to display, at eighty, the elasticity of youth. Lord Lovat was never known to have had the headache, and to the hour of his death he read without spectacles. A very short time after the death of Hugh Lord Lovat elapsed, before those relatives to whom he had bequeathed his estates were involved in the deadliest quarrel with the family of Lord Tullibardine.