Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew (1st ed. vol 3).djvu/237

 “It is now more than forty years since my first acquaintance with Mr Romaine commenced. . . . . His stature was of the middling size, his visage thin and marked; the lines of his face were strong; and, as he advanced in age, deeply furrowed; his eye was ijuick and keen, yet his aspect benign, and frequently smiling; his manners were plain; I thought his address rather rough than polished; he dressed in a way peculiar to himself; he wore a suit of blue cloth always, a grey wig without powder; his stockings were coarse and blue as his clothes.”

“He rose during the last fifty years at five o’clock, breakfasted at six, dined at one on some plain dish, and often (as I have seen) on cold meat and a pudding, drank little or no wine, supped at eight, and retired at nine.”

“His elocution was free and easy; his voice, though not sonorous, clear; and his articulation distinct. His sermons were neither so long, nor delivered with the same exertions, as those of many of his brethren; and I impute to this a measure of his uncommon health, as his bodily health was by this means less impaired Towards the end of his life I thought his voice somewhat lower, but he was exceedingly well heard to the last — preserved his teeth, spoke as distinctly as ever; his intellect and memory appeared not the least impaired, and except the wrinkles of his face, his body bore no mark of infirmity; he walked faster and more vigorously than I could.”

In his younger days he had been unfriendly to dissenters; but maturer consideration, though it did not change his own opinions, made him respectful to theirs. “Sir,” said he to a dissenting minister of Bristol, “I have been very high-church in the former years of my life, but the Lord has brought me down; and now I can rejoice in, and wish well to, the ministers of my Master, of whatever denomination.”

The following epitaph is in the church of St Anne’s, Blackfriars:—

