eserving family. You, I think, have sent me one letter
since I left London. I have nothing here to do but to write letters;
and, what is not very often the case, I have members of Parliament in
abundance to frank them, and abundance of matter to fill them with. My
Edinburgh expedition has given me so much to say that, unless I write
off some of it before I come home, I shall talk you all to death, and be
voted a bore in every house which I visit. I will commence with Jeffrey
himself. I had almost forgotten his person; and, indeed, I should not
wonder if even now I were to forget it again. He has twenty faces almost
as unlike each other as my father's to Mr. Wilberforce's, and infinitely
more unlike to each other than those of near relatives often are;
infinitely more unlike, for example, than those of the two Grants. When
absolutely quiescent, reading a paper, or hearing a conversation in
which he takes no interest, his countenance shows no indication
whatever of intellectual superiority of any kind. But as soon as he is
interested, and opens his eyes upon you, the change is like magic.
There is a flash in his glance, a violent contortion in his frown, an
exquisite humour in his sneer, and a sweetness and brilliancy in his
smile, beyond anything that ever I witnessed. A person who had seen him
in only one state would not know him if he saw him in another. For
he has not, like Brougham, marked features which in all moods of mind
remain unaltered. The mere outline of his face is insignificant. The
expression is everything; and such power and variety of expression
I never saw in any human countenance, not even in that of the most
celebrated actors. I can conceive that Garrick may have been like him.
I have seen several pictures of Garrick, none resembling another, and I
have heard Hannah More speak of the extraordinary variety of countenance
by which he was distinguished, and of the unequalled radiance and
penetration of his eye. The voice and delivery of Jeffrey resemble his
face. He possesses considerable power of mimicry, and rarely tells a
story without imitating several different accents. His familiar tone,
his declamatory tone, and his pathetic tone are quite different things.
Sometimes Scotch predominates in his pronunciation; sometimes it is
imperceptible. Sometimes his utterance is snappish and quick to the last
degree; sometimes it is remarkable for rotundity and mellowness. I can
easily conceive that two people wh