d of his powers. His
countenance struck me at a glance, as the most characteristic that I had
ever seen. Fancy may do much, but I thought that I could discover in his
physiognomy every quality for which he was distinguished: the pleasantry
of the man of the world, the keen observation of the great dramatist, and
the vividness and daring of the first-rate orator. His features were fine,
but their combination was so powerfully intellectual, that, at the moment
when he turned his face to you, you felt that you were looking on a man of
the highest order of faculties. None of the leading men of his day had a
physiognomy so palpably mental. Burke's spectacled eyes told but little;
Fox, with the grand outlines of a Greek sage, had no mobility of feature;
Pitt was evidently no favourite of whatever goddess presides over beauty
at our birth. But Sheridan's countenance was the actual mirror of one of
the most glowing, versatile, and vivid minds in the world. His eyes alone
would have given expression to a face of clay. I never saw in human head
orbs so large, of so intense a black, and of such sparkling lustre. His
manners, too, were then admirable; easy without negligence, and
respectful, as the guest at a royal table, without a shadow of servility.
He also was wholly free from that affectation of epigram, which tempts a
man who cannot help knowing that his good things are recorded. He laughed,
and listened, and rambled through the common topics of the day, with all
the evidence of one enjoying the moment, and glad to contribute to its
enjoyment; and yet, in all this ease, I could see that remoter thoughts,
from time to time, passed through his mind. In the midst of our gaiety,
the contraction of his deep and noble brows showed that he was wandering
far away from the slight topics of the table; and I could imagine what he
might be, when struggling against the gigantic strength of Pitt, or
thundering against Indian tyranny before the Peerage in Westminster Hall.

I saw him long afterwards, when the promise of his day was overcast; when
the flashes of his genius were like guns of distress; and his character,
talents, and frame were alike sinking. But, ruined as he was, and
humiliated by folly as much as by misfortune, I have never been able to
regard Sheridan but as a fallen star--a star, too, of the first magnitude;
without a superior in the whole galaxy from which he fell, and with an
original brilliancy perhaps more lustrous than