Laureate; and North added to his own his brother the Lord Keeper's experience of the King's character. From such writers as these, and with the aid of such incidental illustrations as a lengthened interest in the subject will supply, I propose to draw the portraiture of the King, using, where such fidelity is requisite, the very words of the authorities I employ.
His personal appearance was remarkable. He was five feet ten inches in height and well-made, with an expression of countenance somewhat fierce, and a great voice.[1] He was, says Saville, an illustrious exception to all the common rules of physiognomy; for, with a most saturnine, harsh countenance, he was both of a merry and merciful disposition. His eyes were large and fine; and his face so swarthy, that Monk, before the Restoration, used to toast him as "the black boy."[2] "Is this like me?" he said to Riley, who had just completed his portrait; "then, odd's fish! (his favorite phrase), I am an ugly fellow." Riley, however, must have done him an injustice: certainly, at all events, he is not an ugly fellow on the canvas of Lely, in the miniatures of Cooper, the sculpture of Gibbons, or the coins of Simon.
He lived a Deist, but did not care to think on the subject of religion, though he died professedly a
