CHARLES BUTLER, who knew Thomas Hussey well, wrote of him that he ‘would long live the memory of his friends:—a man of great genius, of enlightened piety; with manners at once imposing and elegant; and enchanting conversation. He did not come into contact with many whom he did not subdue: the highest rank often sunk before him. One notes, straightaway, the language of avoirdupois: the man ‘imposes’, he ‘subdues’, and beneath him others ‘sink’. Thomas Hussey had weight. That is evident in the portrait which hangs today in the building that rests on his foundations, Spanish Place: it conveys the force of character of one who was, in the words of another acquaintance, ‘by talents, nerves, ambition and intrepidity fitted for the boldest enterprise’.