That he was a coxcomb and a bore, weak, vain, pushing, curious, garrulous, was obvious to all who were acquainted with him.
There is a legend that William Pitt the younger thought of her; the somewhat notorious lover of Mlle de Lespinasse, Guibert, a cold-hearted coxcomb of some talent, certainly paid her addresses.
Though no man was ever more free from anything like the egoism of the intellectual coxcomb, yet he abounded in that active self-confidence and self-assertion which is natural in men who are conscious of great powers, and strenuous in promoting great causes.