Physical Peculiarities of Great Men.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 880, 11 January 1889, Page 9

Physical Peculiarities of Great Men.

W. H. D. Adams, in the ‘ Gentleman’s Magazine.’ I suspect that the men of the past, on an average, were no stronger than are their descendants ; but the strong were then selected for special esteem because strength was of such high importance, when a battle waa little better than a groupjof hand-to-hand combats. When William of Normandy mounted his war-horse to lead his army against King Harold and his Englishmen, his physical vigour and stately bearing elicited loud murmurs of applause. ‘ I have never seen a knight,’ cried the "icomte deThouars, ‘ who rode more boldly, or carried his armour so bravely. Kever did anyone bear lance more gracefully, or manage his horse with greater skill !’ There were few men living who could wield the heavy two-handed mace which was William's favourite weapon. Our English Harold, however, was little inferior in strength to his powerful antagonist; and in the great battle which decided his fate and that of his kingdom, olove, with a single

stroke of his axe, throngh a horse and its rider. How are we to account for the popuar prejudice against red hair ? Is it con* nected with the tradition that Judas Iscariot was red-haired, or is it of earlier origin ? So strong was the sentiment against it in the Middle Ages that one of the chroniclers denounces it as * a burning brand of infidelity.’ It may very well be that the hatred with which William Rufus was regarded owed an extra daßh of intensity to the colour of his tawny locks. Not a few famous personages, however, have been endowed by nature with hair of this fatal hue (which their flatterers, no doubt, persisted in describing as auburn ): for instance, Anne Boleyn (Mr Froude speaks of ‘ her fair hair flowing loose over her shoulders ’)Queen Elizabeth (Sir Richard Baker descrioes hers as ‘inclining to pale yellow ;’ Fuller uses the con* venient epithet, * fair ’); Columbus ; the poet Camoens, and Marshal Ney. One does not like to think of red-haired poets ; but the reader will find that auburn, which has at least a warm ting 6 on it, has not been uncommon among ‘ the brotherhood of the tune* ful lyre.’ Shakespeare’s hair and beard were auburn, if we may credit the original colouring of his bust in Stratford’s church, and Milton’s 1 hyacinthine locks ’ were of a similar colour. But Bhrns’a hair was black, and Byron’s of a dark brown. Milton, by the way, would seem to have almost realised that ‘accordance of personal appearance with genius,’ of which Heine speaks. In his youth he was eminently handsome, and was called ‘ the lady ’ of his college, and if he gained in dignity and manliness as his years increased, he did. not "’lose in comeliness, His complexion was fresh and fair ; his hair, parted in the front, hung down upon his shoulders, as he describes that of Adam in his ‘Paradise Lost.’ His eyes were of a grayish colour, and even when deprived of sight did not betray the loss. His voice and ear were musical. He Was of a moderate stature, with a well-knit and active frame. Altogether, he lopked the poet. Spenser’s favourite theory that the inner spiritual beauty findp expression in the outer material beauty, that the pure soul clothes itself in a garment worthy of it, is, unfortunately, not too often fulfilled, but it found a noble illustration in^Sir"'Philip Sidney. He, of whom it was jußtly said, that he had ‘the most rare virtues,’ ever found in any man, whose life has been desoribed as 'poetry put into action,’ was also endowed by nature with every physical attribute that could win attachment or command admiration. * The grave beauty of his presence ’ was felt by all observers—- * When he descended down the Mount His personage seemed most divine.’

He reminded his contemporaries, by the excellences of hi* mind and person, of the golden antique past. As Mr J,.A.ddington Symonds puts it: ‘ What the Athenians called that blending of physical and moral beauty and goodness in one pervasive virtue, distinguished, him from the, crowd of his countrymen, with whom goodness too often assumed an outer form of harshness, and beauty leaned to effeminaoy or softness.’ Perhaps we may claim, in support of Spenser’s theory, the author of ‘Endymion.’ Keats was not without some grave defects of character, but in the main his nature was a fine and manly ons, and that he was a true poet, and a great poet, whose lips had been touched with the sacred fire from Apollo’s altar, the world has long since agreed. That he looked a poet, his contemporaries have frankly informed ns. Haydon said he was the only man he had ever met, except Wordsworth, who seemefi and looked vonscious of a high calling." Handsome and ardent-looking, his figure compact and wellturned, with the neck thrust eagerly forward, carrying a strong and shapely head set off by thickly clustering gold-brown-hair ; the features powerful, finished, and mobile ; the mouth rich and wide, with an expression at once combative and 'sensitive in the extreme ; the forehead "not high, but broad and strong ; the eyebrows nobly arched, and eyes hazel-browD, liquid-flashing, visibly inspired—‘an eye that had an inward look perfectly divine, like a Delphian priestess who saw visions ;’ such is Professor Sidney Colvin’s description of him. His eyes were eminently those of a poet, ‘ mellow and glowing,’ says Leigh Hunt, ‘ large, dark and sensitive.’ And the late Mrs Proctor has recorded the impression they left upon her, as if they had been gazing on some glorious eight. It would seem indeed—and here we are still mindful of the Spenserian theory—that it is by the eye, the eloquent and radiant expression of the eye, the poet may at once be known. Everybody recalls the poet-eye of Robert Burns : ‘it was large,’ says Sir Walter Scott, ‘ and of a cast which glowed (I say literally glowed) when he spoke with feeling or interest. I never saw such another eye in a human head, though I have seen the most distinguished men of my time.’ And so says Professor Walker : ‘ln his large dark eye the most striking index of his genius resided.’’ It was said of the eyes of Chatterton, the * marvellous boy who perished in his pride,’ that ‘fire rolled at the bottom of them.’ And Moore tells us that Byron’s, though of a light grey, were capable of all extremes of expression, from mirth to melancholy, from benevolence to scorn or rage. As for Shelley, his blue eyes were very large and prominent. ' They were at times, when he was abstracted, as he often was in contemplation, dull, and, as it were, insensible to external objects ; at others they flashed with the fire of intelligence.’ In the face of Scott there was not much, I think, to indicate the author of ‘ Marmion ’ and ‘ Waverley,’ though it wore a general expression of power and resolution; but he had fine eyes, eyes so keen that, as his little son said, it was commonly he who saw ‘the bare sitting.’ Goldsmith’s eyes were the redeeming feature of his face. They lighted up like lamps when he grew animated in conversation. The fine portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, which is one of the glories of the gallery at Knole, is generally admitted to be largely idealised ; but, on the other hand, the sketch by his friend Bunbury, prefixed to the early editions of ‘ The Haunch of Vension,’ exaggerates all that was least comely in the plain countenance of that unhappy man of genius, ‘ a pale, melancholy visage,’ as he himself describes it, ‘ with two great wrinkles between the eyebrows, and an eye disgustingly severe.’