But he had a most commanding presence, and he was withal a picturesque--if it be not more accurate to say a statuesque--figure.

Some of the features, too, were good.

He had a very keen and intelligent blue eye, a mass of iron grey hair, lips, the scornful curl of which was terrible, and with all this a voice stentorian in its power, and yet flexible, with a flow of language rapid and abundant as the flow of a great river, and as unstemmable--the very _beau-ideal_ of a mob orator.
"In the evening," says my diary, "we drove out to Stayley Bridge to hear the preaching of Stephens, the man who has become the subject of so much newspaper celebrity," (Does any one remember who he was ?) "We reached a miserable little chapel, filled to suffocation, and besieged by crowds around the doors.

We entered through the vestry with very great difficulty, and only so by the courtesy of sundry persons who relinquished their places, on Doherty's representing to them that we were strangers from a distance and friends to the cause.

Presently Stephens arrived, and a man who had been ranting in the pulpit, merely, as it seemed, to occupy the people till he should come, immediately yielded his place to him.