bill of
Constable's was suffered by Hurst & Robinson to be returned. And the
trials which followed, though they showed the strength, the nobleness,
the rare balance and solidity of his character, did not create these
virtues, which had been formed and established by habit long before.
_Respice finem_ is not here a wise, at least a sufficient, maxim: we
must look along the whole line to discern satisfactorily and thoroughly
what manner of man this was in life and in letters.

What manner of man he was physically is pretty well-known from his
originally numerous and almost innumerably reproduced and varied
portraits; not extremely tall, but of a goodly height, somewhat
shortened by his lameness and massive make, the head being distinguished
by a peculiar domed, or coned, cranium. This made 'Lord Peter' Robertson
give him the nickname of 'Peveril of the Peak,' which he himself after a
little adopted, and which, shortened to 'Peveril,' was commonly used by
his family. His expression, according to the intelligence of those who
saw him and the mood in which he found himself, has been variously
described as 'heavy,' 'homely,' and in more complimentary terms. But the
more appreciative describers recognise the curiously combined humour,
shrewdness, and kindliness which animated features naturally irregular
and quite devoid of what his own generation would have called 'chiselled
elegance.' He himself asserts--and it seems to be the fact--that from
the time of the disappearance of his childish maladies to the attack of
cramp, or gallstones, or whatever the evil was which came on in 1818,
and from which he never really recovered, his health was singularly
robust; and he appears as quite a young man to have put it to
considerable, though not excessive, tests.

His conversation, like his countenance, has been variously
characterised, and it is probable that the complexion of both depended,
even more than it does with most men, on his company. He is acknowledged
never to have 'talked for victory,' an evil and barbarous practice,
which the Edinburgh wits seem to have caught from their great enemy and
guest, Dr. Johnson; to have (like all good men) simply abominated
talking about his own works, or indeed bookishly at all, full as his
conversation was of literature; and, though a great tale-teller, to have
been no monopoliser of the conversation in any way. He admits having
been in youth and early middle age not disinclined to solitude,