THE history of the late occupants of this beautiful little cottage is at
variance with the censure of the poet’s Angelina on the quality of
friendship. Lady Eleanor Butler, daughter of the Earl of Ormond, was
born in Dublin, and almost from her cradle had been an orphan. Wealthy,
beautiful, and nobly sprung, her hand was sought by persons of rank and
fortune equal to her own; but to all addresses of that description she
expressed at once her disinclination. Although she openly avowed this
taste for independence, no woman was ever more distinguished for
mildness, modesty, and all those feminine graces which adorn and give
interest to the sex. Miss Ponsonby, a member of the noble family of
Besborough, had been an early associate of Lady Eleanor; and, possibly,
it may have contributed in some degree to cement their growing
friendship, the incidental circumstance of both having been born in the
same city, upon the same day and year, and being both bereaved of their
parents at precisely the same period. Minds of so much sensibility soon
mistook their fancies for realities, and rapidly concluding that they
were destined for a life of independence, at the early age of seventeen
vowed eternal friendship and devotion to each other for the residue of
their lives. At the age of twenty-one, when the arm of the law rescued
them from the friendly detention of their relatives, they withdrew to the
solitary little cottage of Plas-Newydd, never to return again to the gay,
glittering world of fashion, or the country which gave them birth.
Having enlarged and decorated their rural dwelling, laid out and planted
their grounds, the selection of a library became an early care. Here
much time was spent; and the glowing language of Miss Seward, a friend
and frequent guest at Plas-Newydd, bears a high testimony to the
philosophic quality of their minds. “All that is grateful, all that is
attached, will be ever warm from my heart towards each honoured and
accomplished friend, whose virtues and talents diffuse intellectual
sunshine that adorns and cheers the loveliest of the Cambrian
vales.”—Letter 38.
The habits and manners of the “Llangollen ladies” were frank and open,
and their hospitality of the most liberal kind. They visited and
received the neighbouring gentry until the “weight of years pressed heavy
on them.” Madame de Genlis and the Mademoiselle D’Orleans, are to be
numbered amongst their visiters; and it was here that intellectual being
first heard the wild notes of our Æolian harp, of which she remarks, “it
is natural for such an instrument to have originated in a country of
storms and tempests, of which it softens the manners.”
Upwards of half a century these amiable companions graced the valley of
Llangollen, extending a cheerful hospitality to their numerous guests,
and exercising a benevolence the most unlimited towards the most
friendless of their neighbours. At length they were called before the
throne of brightness and purity, at the advanced ages of seventy-two and
seventy-seven. Their remains are deposited in a vault in Llangollen
cemetery, where the body of Mrs. Mary Carroll, their faithful servant,
had been laid at rest before them.