During that Spring which hallowed the last revolution in France, (that
of July, 1830,) I saw this bard of the lakes surrounded by his most
amiable and certainly beautiful family; one only individual of which,
his "Dark-eyed Birtha, timid as a dove," was then absent. I must
ever believe that a common reputation for beauty depends more on
circumstances than on any particular faultlessness in the person said
generally to be handsome.

Byron, in some one of the letters or conversations, written either
by or for him, says, or is said to say: "I saw Southey (naming the
time) at Lord Holland's, and would give Newstead for his head and
shoulders." This quotation is from memory, but, I trust, right in
sentiment, though it may not be perfectly so in words; but I have
seen little else concerning the physique either of him "Who framed of
Thalaba that wild and wondrous song," or of those to whom his blood is
transmitted. Still, at the time I have mentioned, it was impossible to
look unmoved upon so much perfection of color, sound and expression as
arrested my eyes at Keswick; in the tasteful and hospitable dwelling
of him who brought to earth that "Glendoveer," "one of the fairest
race of Heaven," (the heaven of India,) who averted the designs of
Arvalan, in that glowing and magnificent poem "The Curse of Kehama."

The Herodotus of Brazil, himself, had seen, when I first saw him,
fifty-seven winters; but his once dark locks, though sprinkled with
snow, were still curling as if childhood had not passed; and looked
wild and thick as those of his own Thalaba. A "chevelure" like this,
with black eyes, aquiline features, and figure tall and slender,
without attenuation, assisted in presenting such an image as is seldom
viewed in reality; while the effect of the whole was enhanced by easy,