Peasanthood,
recognised his strong intellectual powers and strong character, but
thought him rather dull, bad-tempered, unproductive, and almost
wearisome, and found his divine reflections and unfathomabilities
stinted, scanty, uncertain, palish. From these and many other
disparagements, one gladly passes to the picture of the poet as he was
in the flesh at a breakfast-party given by Henry Taylor, at a
tavern in St. James's Street, in 1840. The subject of the talk was
Literature, its laws, practices, and observances:--"He talked well in
his way; with veracity, easy brevity and force; as a wise tradesman
would of his tools and workshop, and as no unwise one could. His voice
was good, frank, and sonorous, though practically clear, distinct,
and forcible, rather than melodious; the tone of him business-like,
sedately confident; no discourtesy, yet no anxiety about being
courteous: a fine wholesome rusticity, fresh as his mountain breezes,
sat well on the stalwart veteran, and on all he said and did. You
would have said he was a usually taciturn man, glad to unlock himself
to audience sympathetic and intelligent, when such offered itself. His
face bore marks of much, not always peaceful, meditation; the look of
it not bland or benevolent, so much as close, impregnable, and hard;
a man _multa tacere loquive paratus_, in a world where he had
experienced no lack of contradictions as he strode along! The eyes
were not very brilliant, but they had a quiet clearness; there
was enough of brow, and well shaped; rather too much of cheek
('horse-face,' I have heard satirists say), face of squarish shape and
decidedly longish, as I think the head itself was (its 'length' going
horizontal); he was large-boned, lean, but still firm-knit, tall, and
strong-looking when he stood; a right good old steel-gray figure, with
rustic simplicity and dignity about him, and a vivacious _strength_
looking through him which might have suited one of those old
steel-gray _Markgrafs_ [Graf = _Grau_,'Steel-gray'] whom Henry the
Fowler set up to ward the 'marches,' and do battle with the intrusive
heathen, in a stalwart and judicious manner."

Whoever might be his friends within an easy walk, or dwelling afar,
the poet knew how to live his own life. The three fine sonnets headed
_Personal Talk_, so well known, so warmly accepted in our better
hours, so easily forgotten in hours not so good between pleasant
levities and grinding preoccupations, show us how