ily be forgot, and of which no
better idea can be given than in the words of one who, speaking of
Chatterton's eyes, says that "fire rolled at the bottom of them."

But it was in the mouth and chin that the great beauty as well as
expression of his fine countenance lay. "Many pictures have been
painted of him," says a fair critic of his features, "with various
success; but the excessive beauty of his lips escaped every painter
and sculptor. In their ceaseless play they represented every emotion,
whether pale with anger, curled in disdain, smiling in triumph, or
dimpled with archness and love." It would be injustice to the reader
not to borrow from the same pencil a few more touches of portraiture.
"This extreme facility of expression was sometimes painful, for I
have seen him look absolutely ugly--I have seen him look so hard and
cold, that you must hate him, and then, in a moment, brighter than
the sun, with such playful softness in his look, such affectionate
eagerness kindling in his eyes, and dimpling his lips into something
more sweet than a smile, that you forgot the man, the Lord Byron, in
the picture of beauty presented to you, and gazed with intense
curiosity--I had almost said--as if to satisfy yourself, that thus
looked the god of poetry, the god of the Vatican, when he conversed
with the sons and daughters of man."

His head was remarkably small[1],--so much so as to be rather out of
proportion with his face. The forehead, though a little too narrow,
was high, and appeared more so from his having his hair (to preserve
it, as he said,) shaved over the temples; while the glossy,
dark-brown curls, clustering over his head, gave the finish to its
beauty. When to this is added, that his nose, though handsomely, was
rather thickly shaped, that his teeth were white and regular, and his
complexion colourless, as good an idea perhaps as it is in the power
of mere words to convey may be conceived of his features.

[Footnote 1: "Several of us, one day," says Colonel Napier, "tried on
his hat, and in a party of twelve or fourteen, who were at dinner,
_not one_ could put it on, so exceedingly small was his head. My
servant, Thomas Wells, who had the smallest head in the 90th regiment
(so small that he could hardly get a cap to fit him), was the only
person who could put on Lord Byron's hat, and him it fitted
exactly."]

In height he was, as he himself has informed us, five feet eight
inches and a half, and to the le