He was bald, with a good forehead, and sparkling moist eyes.

He was a clever man, and a pleasant companion, and always good-humoured when it so suited him.

He was a gentleman, too, of high breeding and good birth, whose ancestors had been known in that county--longer, the farmers around would boast, than those of any other land-owner in it, unless it be the Thornes of Ullathorne, or perhaps the Greshams of Greshamsbury--much longer than the de Courcys at Courcy Castle.
As for the Duke of Omnium, he, comparatively speaking, was a new man.

And then he was a member of Parliament, a friend of some men in power, and of others who might be there; a man who could talk about the world as one knowing the matter of which he talked.

And moreover, whatever might be his ways of life at other times, when in the presence of a clergyman he rarely made himself offensive to clerical tastes.