In one of his papers in the _Guardian_ he describes himself apparently as Dick Distich: "a lively little creature, with long legs and arms; a spider[7] is no ill emblem of him; he has been taken at a distance for a small windmill." His face, says Johnson, was "not displeasing," and the portraits are eminently characteristic.

The thin, drawn features wear the expression of habitual pain, but are brightened up by the vivid and penetrating eye, which seems to be the characteristic poetical beauty.
It was after all a gallant spirit which got so much work out of this crazy carcase, and kept it going, spite of all its feebleness, for fifty-six years.

The servant whom Johnson quotes, said that she was called from her bed four times in one night, "in the dreadful winter of Forty," to supply him with paper, lest he should lose a thought.

His constitution was already breaking down, but the intellect was still striving to save every moment allowed to him.

His friends laughed at his habit of scribbling upon odd bits of paper.