The party was large, and I was on the other side of the table, and a good way off, and I was very soon struck by the amazing number of subjects on which he seemed at home;--politics, home and foreign,--French literature, and Hebrew poetry;--and I remember thinking, 'This is a General with a singularly well-stored mind and badly tied neckcloth.' Till, at last, a remark on the prose of Dryden led me to conclude that it could be no one but the Great Essayist."] Of regular beauty he had little to boast; but in faces where there is an expression of great power, or of great good humour, or both, you do not regret its absence." This picture, in which every touch is correct, tells all that there is to be told.

He had a massive head, and features of a powerful and rugged cast, but so constantly lit up by every joyful and ennobling emotion that it mattered little if, when absolutely quiescent, his face was rather homely than handsome.

While conversing at table no one thought him otherwise than good-looking; but, when he rose, he was seen to be short and stout in figure.

"At Holland House, the other day," writes his sister Margaret in September 1831, "Tom met Lady Lyndhurst for the first time.

She said to him: 'Mr.Macaulay, you are so different to what I expected.