The various descriptions of Mary Robinson are so conflicting that it is difficult, until one reads the impressions recorded from year to year by Wm. Green, to form an estimate of her personal appearance. It has been shown that Joseph Budworth, who first saw her in 1792, when she was fourteen, raves of her charms, and his second visit to Buttermere six years later did not disillusionise him. De Quincey, however, denies that she was beautiful, and does not praise even her figure. Yet he seems to be unconscious that he is describing, not the world-renowned ‘Maiden of Buttermere’ but a matron of thirty-five, who was now the wife of a prosperous farmer, and who had drank deeply of life’s sorrows. Mr Frederick Reed of Hassness, Buttermere, writing in August 1874 (_Notes and Queries_, Fifth Series, ii. 175), thirty-seven years after her death, states that “she was not the beauty she is represented to have been. She carried herself well, but got to be coarse-featured.” Still, as it is improbable that Mr Reed saw her till she was past her prime, his criticism is of little value. Sara Nelson, too, who was born during the year of Mary’s great trouble, did not meet her till her good looks had vanished. The _Morning Post_ of October 11, 1802, contains the following description from the pen of Coleridge:--“To beauty in the strict sense of the word she has small pretensions, being rather gap-toothed and somewhat pock-fretten. But her face is very expressive, and the expression extremely interesting, and her figure and movements are graceful to a miracle. She ought indeed to be called the Grace of Buttermere rather than the Beauty.”