“William Wordsworth it was who ... did me the favour of making me known to John Wilson.... A man in a sailor’s dress, manifestly in robust health, _fervidus juventa_, and wearing upon his countenance a powerful expression of ardour and animated intelligence, mixed with much good nature. ‘Mr. Wilson of Elleray’--delivered as the formula of introduction, in the deep tones of Mr. Wordsworth--at once banished the momentary surprise I felt on finding a stranger where I had expected nobody, and substituted a surprise of another kind; and there was no wonder in his being at Allan Bank, Elleray standing within nine miles; but (as usually happens in such cases) I felt a shock of surprise on seeing a person so little corresponding to the one I had at first half-consciously prefigured. Figure to yourself a tall man about six feet high, within half an inch or so, built with tolerable appearance of strength; but at the date of my description (that is, in the very spring-tide and bloom of youth) wearing, for the predominant character of his person, lightness and agility or (in our Westmoreland phrase) _lishness_, he seemed framed with an express view to gymnastic exercises of every sort. Ask in one of your public libraries for that little quarto edition of the ‘_Rhetorical Works of Cicero_’ ... and you will there see ... a reduced whole-length of Cicero from the antique, which in the mouth and chin, and indeed generally, if I do not greatly forget, will give you a lively representation of the contour and expression of Professor Wilson’s face. Of all this array of personal features, however, I then saw nothing at all, my attention being altogether occupied with Mr. Wilson’s conversation and demeanour, which were in the highest degree agreeable; the points which chiefly struck me, being the humility and gravity with which he spoke of himself, his large expansion of heart, and a certain air of noble frankness which overspread everything he said; he seemed to have an intense enjoyment of life; indeed, being young, rich, healthy, and full of intellectual activity, it could not be very wonderful that he should feel happy and pleased with himself and others; but it was something unusual to find that so rare an assemblage of endowments had communicated no tinge of arrogance to his manner, or at all disturbed the general temperance of his mind.”--1808. [Sidenote: Harriet Martineau’s _Biographical Sketches_.]