Richard's dark eye shot fire, and he gnawed his lip as he answered,
"God hath not given to me the fair shape of my kinsmen."

"Thy pardon, dear boy," said Edward, kindly; "yet little needest thou
our broad backs and strong sinews, for thou hast a tongue to charm
women and a wit to command men."

Richard bowed his face, little less beautiful than his brother's,
though wholly different from it in feature, for Edward had the long
oval countenance, the fair hair, the rich colouring, and the large
outline of his mother, the Rose of Raby. Richard, on the contrary,
had the short face, the dark brown locks, and the pale olive
complexion of his father, whom he alone of the royal brothers
strikingly resembled. [Pol. Virg. 544.]

The cheeks, too, were somewhat sunken, and already, though scarcely
past childhood, about his lips were seen the lines of thoughtful
manhood. But then those small features, delicately aquiline, were so
regular; that dark eye was so deep, so fathomless in its bright,
musing intelligence; that quivering lip was at once so beautifully
formed and so expressive of intellectual subtlety and haughty will;
and that pale forehead was so massive, high, and majestic,--that when,
at a later period, the Scottish prelate [Archibald Quhitlaw.--"Faciem
tuam summo imperio principatu dignam inspicit, quam moralis et
heroica, virtus illustrat," etc.--We need scarcely observe that even a
Scotchman would not have risked a public compliment to Richard's face,
if so inappropriate as to seem a sarcasm, especially as the orator
immediately proceeds to notice the shortness of Richard's stature,--a
comment not likely to have been peculiarly acceptable in the Rous
Roll, the portrait of Richard represents him as undersized, but