“Though habitually rather grave, the pleasant smile best became his features, and I do not think he was often guilty of audible laughter.” WILLIAM HAZLITT 1778-1830 [Sidenote: Patmore’s _Personal Recollections_.] “The truth is, that for depth, force, and variety of intellectual expression, a finer head and face than Hazlitt’s were never seen. I speak of them when his countenance was not dimmed and obscured by illness, or clouded and deformed by those fearful indications of internal passion which he never even attempted to conceal. The expression of Hazlitt’s face, when anything was said in his presence that seriously offended him, or when any peculiarly painful recollection passed across his mind, was truly awful, more so than can be conceived as within the capacity of the human countenance; except, perhaps, by those who have witnessed Edmund Kean’s last scene of ‘Sir Giles Overreach’ from the front of the pit. But when he was in good health, and in a tolerable humour with himself and the world, his face was more truly and entirely answerable to the intellect that spoke through it, than any other I ever saw, either in life or on canvas; and its crowning portion--the brow and forehead--was, to my thinking, quite unequalled for mingled capacity and beauty. “For those who desire a more particular description, I will add that Hazlitt’s features, though not cast in any received classical mould, were regular in their formation, perfectly consonant with each other, and so finely ‘chiseled’ (as the phrase is), that they produced a much more prominent and striking effect than their scale of size might have led one to expect. The forehead, as I have hinted, was magnificent; the nose precisely that (combining strength with lightness and elegance) which physiognomists have assigned as evidence of a fine and highly cultivated taste, though there was a peculiar character about the nostrils like that observable in those of a fiery and unruly horse. The mouth, from its ever-changing form and character, could scarcely be described, except as to its astonishingly varied power of expression, which was equal to, and greatly resembled, that of Edmund Kean. His eyes, I should say, were not good. They were never brilliant, and there was a furtive and at times a sinister look about them, as they glanced suspiciously from under their overhanging brows, that conveyed a very unpleasant impression to those who did not know him. And they were seldom directed frankly and fairly towards you, as if he were afraid that you might read in them what was passing in his mind concerning you. His head was nobly formed and placed, with (until the last few years of his life) a profusion of coal-black hair, richly curled; and his person was of middle height, rather slight, but well formed and put together.” [Sidenote: Bryan Procter’s _Recollections of Men of Letters_.]