the ladder, giving us some notion of his weighty body and sensible,

ingenious character, had highly whetted our curiosity; and it was

with something like excitement that we saw the beach and terrace

suddenly blacken with attendant vassals, the king and party embark,

the boat (a man-of-war gig) come flying towards us dead before the

wind, and the royal coxswain lay us cleverly aboard, mount the

ladder with a jealous diffidence, and descend heavily on deck.

Not long ago he was overgrown with fat, obscured to view, and a

burthen to himself. Captains visiting the island advised him to

walk; and though it broke the habits of a life and the traditions

of his rank, he practised the remedy with benefit. His corpulence

is now portable; you would call him lusty rather than fat; but his

gait is still dull, stumbling, and elephantine. He neither stops

nor hastens, but goes about his business with an implacable

deliberation. We could never see him and not be struck with his

extraordinary natural means for the theatre: a beaked profile like

Dante's in the mask, a mane of long black hair, the eye brilliant,

imperious, and inquiring: for certain parts, and to one who could

have used it, the face was a fortune. His voice matched it well,

being shrill, powerful, and uncanny, with a note like a sea-bird's.

Where there are no fashions, none to set them, few to follow them

if they were set, and none to criticise, he dresses--as Sir Charles

Grandison lived--'to his own heart.' Now he wears a woman's frock,

now a naval uniform; now (and more usually) figures in a masquerade

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