“He was of a middle stature, and well proportioned; his features were handsome and expressive, and his countenance, until it was injured by politics and worldly warfare, singularly placid. There is a portrait of him when he was only eighteen now extant, on which the artist has recorded his despair of doing justice to his subject, by the inscription,—‘Si tabula daretur digna, animum mallem.’ His portraits differ beyond what may be considered a fair allowance for the varying skill of the artist, or the natural changes which time wrought upon his person; but none of them contradict the description given by one who knew him well, ‘That he had a spacious forehead and piercing eye, looking upward as a soul in sublime contemplation, a countenance worthy of one who was to set free captive philosophy.’”

“He had a delicate, lively hazel eie; Dr. Harvey told me it was like the eie of a viper.”

“All accounts represent him as a delightful companion, adapting himself to company of every degree, calling, and humour,—not engrossing the conversation,—trying to get all to talk in turn on the subject they best understood, and not disdaining to light his own candle at the lamp of any other.... Little remains except to give some account of his person. He was of a middling stature; his limbs well-formed though not robust; his forehead high, spacious and open; his eye lively and penetrating; there were deep lines of thinking in his face, his smile was both intellectual and benevolent; the marks of age were prematurely impressed upon him; in advanced life his whole appearance was venerably pleasing, so that a stranger was insensibly drawn to love before knowing how much reason there was to admire him.”