It was not fully seven feet six inches high, and, in other respects, pretty nearly of the same dimensions as the rustic hall below. There was, however, in a small recess, a library of perhaps three hundred volumes, which seemed to consecrate the room as the poet's study and composing room; and such occasionally it was. But far oftener he both studied, as I found, and composed, on the high road. I had not been two minutes at the fireside, when in came Wordsworth, returning from his friendly attentions to the travellers below, who, it seemed, had been over-persuaded by hospitable solicitations to stay for this night in Grasmere, and to make out the remaining thirteen miles of their road to Keswick on the following day. Wordsworth entered. And "_what-like_"--to use a Westmoreland as well as a Scottish expression--"_what-like_" was Wordsworth? A reviewer in "Tait's Magazine," noticing some recent collection of literary portraits, gives it as his opinion that Charles Lamb's head was the finest among them.[96] This remark may have been justified by the engraved portraits; but, certainly, the critic would have cancelled it, had he seen the original heads--at least, had he seen them in youth or in maturity; for Charles Lamb bore age with less disadvantage to the intellectual expression of his appearance than Wordsworth, in whom a sanguine complexion had, of late years, usurped upon the original bronze-tint; and this change of hue, and change in the quality of skin, had been made fourfold more conspicuous, and more unfavourable in its general effect, by the harsh contrast of grizzled hair which had displaced the original brown. No change in personal appearance ever can have been so unfortunate; for, generally speaking, whatever other disadvantages old age may bring along with it, one effect, at least in male subjects, has a compensating tendency--that it removes any tone of vigour too harsh, and mitigates the expression of power too unsubdued. But, in Wordsworth, the effect of the change has been to substitute an air of animal vigour, or, at least, hardiness, as if derived from constant exposure to the wind and weather, for the fine sombre complexion which he once wore, resembling that of a Venetian senator or a Spanish monk. [96] Vol. iv. p. 793 (Dec. 1837).--So De Quincey notes; but I may add that the paper in _Tait_ referred to was a Review of Books of the Season, one of them being "Tilt's Medallion Portraits of Modern English Authors, with Illustrative notices by H. F. Chorley." The reviewer's words were "The finest head, in every way, in the series, is that of Charles Lamb."--M.