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The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 571 (Supplementary Number) by Various
page 42 of 50 (84%)
younger daughter, Anne. The death of Lady Scott occurred May 15, 1826.
Mrs. Lockhart's children are as yet the only descendants of Sir Walter
in the second generation.


PORTRAITS.


The reader may be somewhat familiar with the personal appearance of
Sir Walter Scott, through the several portraits which have from time
to time been painted and engraved of the illustrious Baronet. His
height is stated at upwards of six feet; and his frame was strongly
knit, and compactly built. His right leg was shrunk from his boyhood,
and required support by a staff. Mr. Cunningham describes the personal
habits of Sir Walter with his usual characteristic force: "his arms
were strong and sinewy; his looks stately and commanding; and his
face, as he related a heroic story, flushed up as a crystal cup when
one fills it with wine. His eyes were deep seated under his somewhat
shaggy brow;[15] their colour was a bluish grey--they laughed more
than his lips did at a humorous story. His tower-like head and thin,
white hair marked him out among a thousand, while any one might swear
to his voice again who heard it once, for it had a touch of the lisp
and the burr; yet, as the minstrel said, of Douglas, 'it became him
wonder well,' and gave great softness to a sorrowful story: indeed, I
imagined that he kept the burr part of the tone for matters of a
facetious or humorous kind, and brought out the lisp part in those of
tenderness or woe. When I add, that in a meeting of a hundred men, his
hat was sure to be the least, and would fit no one's head but his own,
I have said all that I have to say about his appearance."[16]

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