“Mr. Collins was, in stature, somewhat above the middle size; of a brown complexion, keen expressive eyes, and a fixed sedate aspect, which, from intense thinking, had contracted an habitual frown. His proficiency in letters was greater than could have been expected from his years. He was skilled in the learned languages, and acquainted with the Italian, French, and Spanish.” WILLIAM COWPER 1731-1800 [Sidenote: Cowper’s _Letters_.] “As for me, I am a very smart youth of my years. I am not indeed grown gray so much as I am grown bald. No matter. There was more hair in the world than ever had the honour to belong to me. Accordingly, having found just enough to curl a little at my ears, and to intermingle with a little of my own that still hangs behind, I appear, if you see me in an afternoon, to have a very decent head-dress, not easily distinguished from my natural growth; which being worn with a small bag, and a black ribbon about my neck, continues to me the charms of my youth, even on the verge of age. Away with the fear of writing too often. “Yours, my dearest cousin, “W. C. “_P.S._--That the view I give you of myself may be complete, I add the two following items,--that I am in debt to nobody, and that I grow fat.”--1785. [Sidenote: H. F. Cary’s _Notice of Cowper_.] “Cowper was of a middle height, with limbs strongly framed, hair of light brown, eyes of a bluish gray, and ruddy complexion.” [Sidenote: Rossetti’s _Memoir of Cowper_. *] “The eager, sudden-looking, large-eyed, shaven face of Cowper is familiar to us in his portraits--a face sharp-cut and sufficiently well-moulded, without being handsome, nor particularly sympathetic. It is a high-strung, excitable face, as of a man too susceptible and touchy to put himself forward willingly among his fellows, but who, feeling a ‘vocation’ upon him, would be more than merely earnest,--self-asserting, aggressive, and unyielding. This is in fact very much the character of his writings.” GEORGE CRABBE 1754-1832 [Sidenote: _Life of Crabbe_, by his son.] “In the eye of memory I can still see him as he was at that period of his life,--his fatherly countenance unmixed with any of the less lovable expressions that in too many faces obscure that character; but pre-eminently _fatherly_, conveying the ideas of kindness, intellect, and purity; his manner grave, manly, and cheerful, in unison with his high and open forehead; his very attitudes, whether as he sat absorbed in the arrangement of his minerals, shells, and insects; or as he laboured in his garden until his naturally pale complexion acquired a tinge of fresh healthy red; or as, coming lightly towards us with some unexpected present, his smile of indescribable benevolence spoke exultation in the foretaste of our raptures.”--1789. [Sidenote: _Life of Crabbe_, by his son.]