That these are not a whit exaggerated, in comparison with what is recorded of his historic prototype, Lord Braxfield, is certain.

The _locus classicus_ in regard to this personage is in Lord Cockburn's _Memorials of his Time_.

"Strong built and dark, with rough eyebrows, powerful eyes, threatening lips, and a low growling voice, he was like a formidable blacksmith.

His accent and dialect were exaggerated Scotch; his language, like his thoughts, short, strong, and conclusive.

Illiterate and without any taste for any refined enjoyment, strength of understanding, which gave him power without cultivation, only encouraged him to a more contemptuous disdain of all natures less coarse than his own.