“Did I tell you that Lady Mary Wortley is here? She laughs at my Lady Walpole, scolds my Lady Pomfret, and is laughed at by the whole town. Her dress, her avarice, and her impudence must amaze any one that never heard her name. She wears a foul mob, that does not cover her greasy black locks, that hang loose, never combed or curled; an old mazarine blue wrapper, that gapes open and discovers a canvas petticoat. Her face swelled violently on one side with the remains of a ----, partly covered with a plaister, and partly with white paint, which for cheapness she has bought so coarse that you would not use it to wash a chimney.--In three words I will give you her picture as we drew it in the ‘Sortes Virgilianae’-- ‘Insanam vatem aspicies.’ I give you my honour we did not choose it; but Gray, Mr. Coke, Sir Francis Dashwood, and I, and several others, drew it fairly amongst a thousand for different people, most of which did not hit as you may imagine.”--1740. THOMAS MOORE 1779-1852 [Sidenote: Leigh Hunt’s _Autobiography_.] “Moore’s forehead was bony and full of character, with ‘bumps’ of wit, large and radiant enough to transport a phrenologist. Sterne had such another. His eyes were as dark and fine as you would wish to see under a set of vine-leaves; his mouth generous and good-humoured, with dimples; and his manner was as bright as his talk, full of the wish to please and be pleased. He sang, and played with great taste on the pianoforte, as might be supposed from his musical compositions. His voice, which was a little hoarse in speaking (at least I used to think so), softened into a breath, like that of a flute, when singing. In speaking he was emphatic in rolling the letter _r_, perhaps out of a despair of being able to get rid of the national peculiarity.” [Sidenote: S. C. Hall’s _Memories of Great Men_.] “His eyes sparkle like a champagne bubble; there is a kind of wintry red, of the tinge of an October leaf, that seems enamelled on his cheek; his lips are delicately cut, slight, and changeable as an aspen; the slightly-turned nose confirms the fun of the expression; and altogether it is a face that sparkles, beams, and radiates-- ‘The light that surrounds him is all from within.’” 1835. [Sidenote: S. C. Hall’s _Retrospect of a Long Life_.]