“I saw little of him in later days, but when I saw him in 1826, not long after he married the daughter of Ebers of New Bond Street, and ‘condescended’ for a brief time to be a publisher, he was a remarkably handsome young man—tall, graceful in deportment, and in all ways a pleasant person to look upon and talk to. He was, perhaps, as thorough a gentleman as his native city of Manchester ever sent forth.”

“Harrison Ainsworth was certainly a handsome man, but it was very much of the barber’s-block type of beauty, with wavy scented hair, smiling lips, and pink and white complexion. As a young man he was gorgeous in the outrÉ dress of the dandy of ’36, and, in common with those other famous dandies, d’Orsay, young Benjamin Disraeli, and Tom Duncombe, wore multitudinous waistcoats, over which dangled a long gold chain, numberless rings, and a black satin stock. In old age he was very patriarchal-looking. His gray hair was swept up and back from a peculiarly high broad forehead; his moustache, beard, and whiskers were short, straight, and silky, and the mouth was entirely hidden. His eyes were large and oval, and rather flat in form,—less expressive altogether than one would have expected in the head of so graphic a writer. The eyebrows were somewhat overhanging, and the nose was straight and flexible. Up to the day of his death he was always a well-dressed man, but in a far more sober fashion than in his youth.”

“What have we to add to what we have here ventured to record, which the engraving which accompanies this memoir will not more happily embody? (This refers to a portrait by Maclise which appeared in The Mirror.) Should that fail to do justice to his face—to its regularity and delicacy of feature, its manly glow of health, and the cordial nature which lightens it up—we must refer the dissatisfied beholder to Mr. Pickersgill’s masterly full-length portrait exhibited last year, in which the author of The Miser’s Daughter may be seen, not as some pale, worn, pining scholar,—some fagging, half-exhausted, periodical romancer,—but, as an English gentleman of goodly stature and well-set limb, with a fine head on his shoulders, and a heart to match. If to this we add a word, it must be to observe, that, though the temper of our popular author may be marked by impatience on some occasions, it has never been upon any occasion marked by a want of generosity, whether in conferring benefits or atoning for errors. His friends regard him as a man with as few failings, blended with fine qualities, as most people, and his enemies know nothing at all about him.”