I first saw Lady Blessington under circumstances sufficiently
characteristic of her extraordinary personal beauty at the period in
question, to excuse my referring to them somewhat in detail. It was
on the opening day of that Royal Academy Exhibition which contained
Lawrence’s celebrated portrait of Lady Blessington--one of the
very finest he ever painted, and universally known by the numerous
engravings that have since been made from it. In glancing hastily
round the room on first entering, I had duly admired this exquisite
portrait, as approaching very near to the perfection of the art, though
(as I conceived) by no means reaching it, for there were points in the
picture which struck me as inconsistent with others that were also
present. Yet I could not, except as a vague theory, lay the apparent
discrepancies at the door of the artist....
Presently, on returning to this portrait, I saw standing before it,
as if on purpose to confirm my theory, the lovely original. She was
leaning on the arm of her husband, Lord Blessington. And then I saw
how impossible it is for an artist to flatter a really beautiful
woman.... I have seen no other instance so striking, of the inferiority
of art to nature when the latter reaches the ideal standard, as in
this celebrated portrait of Lady Blessington.... As the original stood
before it ... she fairly “killed” the copy, and this no less in the
individual details than in the general effect. Moreover, what I had
believed to be errors and shortcomings in the picture were wholly
absent in the original. There is about the former a consciousness, a
“pretension,” a leaning forward, and a looking forth, as if to claim or
court notice and admiration, of which there was no touch in the latter.
I have never since beheld so pure and perfect a vision of female
loveliness, in what I conceive to be its most perfect phase, that,
namely, in which intellect does not predominate over form, feature,
complexion, and the other physical attributes of female beauty, but
only serves to heighten, purify and irradiate them; and it is this
class of beauty which cannot be equalled on canvas.
At this time Lady Blessington was about six-and-twenty[11] years
of age; but there was about her face together with that beaming
intelligence which rarely shows itself upon the countenance till that
period of life, a bloom and freshness which as rarely survives early
youth, and a total absence of those undefinable marks which thought and
feeling still more rarely fail to leave behind them. Unlike all other
beautiful faces that I have seen, hers was, at the time of which I
speak, neither a history nor a prophecy; not a book to read and study,
a problem to solve, or a mystery to speculate upon, but a star to kneel
before and worship ... an end and a consummation in itself.
P. G. PATMORE: ‘My Friends and Acquaintance.’ London: Saunders & Otley,
1854.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Her beauty at twenty-eight.]
From the period of her marriage with the Earl of Blessington, her
intercourse with eminent men and distinguished persons of various
pursuits may be said to date.... She was then twenty-eight years of
age, in the perfection of natural beauty, that bright and radiant
beauty which derives its power not so much from harmony of features
and symmetry of form, as from the animating influences of intelligence
beaming forth from a mind full of joyous and of kindly feelings and of
brilliant fancies--that kind of vivid loveliness which is never found
where some degree of genius is not. Her form was exquisitely moulded,
with an inclination to fullness; but no finer proportions could be
imagined; her movements were graceful and natural at all times.
The peculiar character of Lady Blessington’s beauty seemed to be the
entire, exact, and instantaneous correspondence of every feature, and
each separate trait of her countenance, with the emotion of her mind,
which any particular subject of conversation or object of attention
might excite. The instant a joyous thought took possession of her
fancy, you saw it transmitted as if by electrical agency to her glowing
features; you read it in her sparkling eyes, her laughing lips, her
cheerful looks; you heard it expressed in her ringing laugh, clear and
sweet as the gay, joy-bell sounds of childhood’s merriest tones.
[Sidenote: Geniality and good humor.]
There was a geniality in the warmth of her Irish feelings, an
abandonment of all care, of all apparent consciousness of her powers of
attraction, a glowing sunshine of good-humor and of good-nature in the
smiles and laughter, and the sallies of wit of this lovely woman in her
early and happy days (those of her Italian life, especially from 1823
to 1826), such as have been seldom surpassed.... Her voice was ever
sweetly modulated and low. Its tones were always in harmonious concord
with the traits of her expressive features. There was a cordiality, a
clear, silver-toned hilarity, a correspondence in them, apparently
with all her sensations, that made her hearers feel “she spoke to them
with every part of her being.”... All the beauty of Lady Blessington,
without the exquisite sweetness of her voice, and the witchery of
its tones in pleasing or expressing pleasure, would have been only a
secondary consideration.
R. R. MADDEN: ‘Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of
Blessington.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Friendship with Lord Byron.]
It is clear that the peculiar charm of Lady Blessington’s manner
exercised its usual spell--that the cold, scorning, and world-wearied
spirit of Byron was, for the time being, “subdued to the quality” of
the genial and happy one with which it held converse--and that both the
poet and the man became once more what nature intended them to be.
Lady Blessington seems to have been the only woman holding his own
rank and station with whom Byron was ever at his ease, and with
whom, therefore, he was himself. With all others he seemed to feel a
constraint which irritated and vexed him into the assumption of vices
which did not belong to him.
P. G. PATMORE: ‘My Friends and Acquaintance.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: A Byronic jeu d’esprit.]
His lordship suffered Lady Blessington to lecture him in prose, and,
what was worse, in verse. He endeavored to persuade Lord Blessington
to prolong his stay in Genoa, and to take a residence adjoining
his own named “_Il Paradiso_.” And on a rumor of his intention to
take the place for himself, and some good-natured friend observing,
“_Il diavolo è ancora entrato in Paradiso_,” his lordship wrote the
following lines:
“Beneath Blessington’s eyes
The reclaimed Paradise
Should be free as the former from evil;
But if the new Eve
For an apple should grieve,
What mortal would not play the devil?”
R. R. MADDEN: ‘Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of
Blessington.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Lady Blessington’s apartments in Paris.]
“The whole fitting up,” says Lady Blessington, “is in exquisite taste;
and, as usual, when my most gallant of all gallant husbands that it
ever fell to the happy lot of woman to possess interferes, no expense
has been spared. The bed, which is silvered instead of gilt, rests on
the backs of two large silver swans, so exquisitely sculptured that
every feather is in _alto-relievo_, and looks as fleecy as those of
the living birds. The recess in which it is placed is lined with white
fluted silk, bordered with blue embossed lace; and from the columns
that support the frieze of the recess, pale blue silk curtains,
lined with white, are hung, which, when drawn, conceal the recess
altogether.... A silver sofa has been made, to fit the side of the
room opposite the fire-place, near to which stands a most inviting
_bergere_. An _escritoire_ occupies one panel, a book-stand the other,
and a rich coffer for jewels forms a pendant to a similar one for lace
or India shawls. A carpet of uncut pile, of a pale blue, a silver
lamp and a Psyche glass, the ornaments silvered to correspond with
the decorations of the chamber, complete the furniture. The hangings
in the dressing-room are of blue silk, covered with lace, and trimmed
with rich frills of the same material, as are also the dressing-stands
and _chaire longue_, and the carpet and lamp are similar to those
of the bedroom. A toilet-table stands before the window, and small
_jardinieres_ are placed in front of each panel of looking-glass, but
so low as not to impede a full view of the person dressing in this
beautiful little sanctuary. The _salle de bain_ is draped with white
muslin, trimmed with lace; and the sofa and the _bergere_ are covered
with the same. The bath is of marble, inserted in the floor, with which
its surface is level. On the ceiling over it is a painting of Flora,
scattering flowers with one hand, while from the other is suspended an
alabaster lamp in the form of a lotus.”
R. R. MADDEN: ‘Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of
Blessington.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Her Ladyship’s luxurious taste.]
Her taste in everything was towards the gay, the superb, the
luxurious; but, on the whole, excellently good. Here eye was as quick
as lightning; her resources were many and original. It will not be
forgotten how ... she astounded the opera-goers by appearing in her
box with a plain transparent cap, which the world in its ignorance
called a Quaker’s cap; and the best of all likenesses of her, in date
later than the lovely Lawrence portrait, is that drawing by Chalon, in
which this tire is represented, with some additional loops of ribbon.
So, too, her houses in Seamore Place and at Kensington Gore were full
of fancies which have since passed into fashions, and which seemed
all to belong to and to agree with herself. Had she been the selfish
sybaritic woman whom many who hated her, without knowing her, delighted
to represent her, she might have indulged these joys and costly humors
with impunity; but she was affectionately, inconsiderately liberal.
HENRY F. CHORLEY: ‘Autobiography, Memoir, and Letters,’ compiled by H.
G. Hewlett. London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1873.
* * * * *
The following sketch was taken from the “Ring” in Hyde Park:
[Sidenote: Her chariot.]
“Observe that green chariot just making the turn of the unbroken line
of equipages. Though it is now advancing towards us with at least a
dozen carriages between, it is to be distinguished from the throng by
the elevation of its driver and footman above the ordinary level of
the line. As it comes nearer, we can observe the particular points
that give it that perfectly _distingué_ appearance which it bears
above all others in the throng. They consist of the white wheels
lightly picked out with green and crimson; the high-stepping action,
blood-like shape and brilliant _manège_ of its dark bay horses; the
perfect style of its driver; the height (six feet two) of its slim,
spider-limbed, powdered footman, perked up at least three feet above
the roof of the carriage, and occupying his eminence with that peculiar
air of accidental superiority which we take to be the ideal of footman
perfection, and finally, the exceedingly light, airy, and (if we may
so speak) intellectual character of the whole set-out. The arms and
supporters blazoned on the centre panels, and the small coronet beneath
the window, indicate the nobility of station; and if ever the nobility
of nature was blazoned on the ‘complement extern’ of humanity, it is on
the lovely face within.”
P. G. PATMORE: ‘My Friends and Acquaintance.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Her receptions.]
Enter when you would the beautifully-arranged drawing-room of Lady
Blessington, with its gorgeous furnishing, resplendent lights, ample
mirrors, and all the accessories of value and taste, some one you were
sure to meet who was a Memory thenceforward. The list of her guests,
taking any one of her “evenings,” would comprise nearly all the leading
men of the time--Earl Grey, Lord Durham, Lord Brougham, the “Iron
Duke,” occasionally the elder and the younger Disraeli, Walter Savage
Landor, Edwin Landseer, James Smith, John Galt, “Barry Cornwall,”
Thomas Moore, Campbell, Lord Lytton and Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, Dr.
William Beattie, Colley Grattan--a number of names crowd upon my memory
as I write--statesmen, lawyers, artists, men of letters, and foreigners
of all countries. The Emperor Napoleon was a frequent guest, and here
I have met him more than once when there seemed little prospect indeed
that the silent, apparently ungenial, and seemingly unintellectual
man, who usually occupied a neglected corner, would fill the _premier
rôle_ on the great stage of the world.... It is true few women were
encountered there. I can recall none but her sister, Lady Canterbury;
another sister, much younger, married to a French count; and her two
nieces. I once saw “the Guiccioli” there.
S. C. HALL: ‘A Book of Memories of Great Men and Women of the Age.’
London: Virtue & Co., 1871.
[Sidenote: “Gore house, an impromptu.”]
Mild Wilberforce, by all beloved,
Once owned this hallowed spot,
Whose zealous eloquence improved
The fettered Negro’s lot;
Yet here still Slavery attacks,
When Blessington invites;
The chains from which _he_ freed the Blacks
_She_ rivets on the Whites.
JAMES SMITH: Quoted by R. R. Madden, in ‘Literary Life and
Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Influence among men of letters.]
Of Lady Blessington’s tact, kindness and remarkable beauty Procter
always spoke with ardor, and abated nothing from the popular idea of
that fascinating person. He thought she had done more in her time to
institute good feeling and social intercourse among men of letters than
any other lady in England, and he gave her eminent credit for bringing
forward the rising talent of the metropolis without waiting to be
prompted by a public verdict.
JAMES T. FIELDS: ‘Barry Cornwall and Some of His Friends.’ Boston:
James R. Osgood & Co., 1876.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: N. P. Willis describes her.]
A friend in Italy had kindly given me a letter to Lady Blessington, and
with a strong curiosity to see this celebrated lady, I called on the
second day after my arrival in London. It was “deep i’ the afternoon,”
but I had not yet learned the full meaning of “town hours.” “Her
ladyship had not come down to breakfast.” I gave the letter and my
address to the powdered footman, and had scarce reached home when a
note arrived inviting me to call the same evening at ten.
In a long library lined alternately with splendidly bound books and
mirrors, and with a deep window of the breadth of the room, opening
upon Hyde Park, I found Lady Blessington alone. The picture, to my eye,
as the door opened was a very lovely one. A woman of remarkable beauty,
half buried in a _fauteuil_ of yellow satin, reading by a magnificent
lamp suspended from the centre of the arched ceiling; sofas, couches,
ottomans, and busts, arranged in rather a crowded sumptuousness through
the room; enamelled tables, covered with expensive and elegant trifles
in every corner, and a delicate white hand relieved on the back of a
book, to which the eye was attracted by the blaze of diamond rings.
As the servant mentioned my name, she rose and gave me her hand very
cordially, and a gentleman entering immediately after, she presented me
to her son-in-law, Count D’Orsay, the well-known Pelham of London, and
certainly the most splendid specimen of a man, and a well dressed one,
that I had ever seen. Tea was brought in immediately, and conversation
went swimmingly on.
[Sidenote: Appearances at forty.]
The portrait of Lady Blessington in the ‘Book of Beauty’ is not unlike
her, but it is still an unfavorable likeness. A picture by Sir Thomas
Lawrence hung opposite me, taken, perhaps, at the age of eighteen,
which is more like her, and as captivating a representation of a just
matured woman, full of loveliness and love, the kind of creature
with whose divine sweetness the gazer’s heart aches, as ever was
drawn in the painter’s most inspired hour. The original is now (she
confessed it very frankly) forty. She looks something on the sunny
side of thirty. Her person is full, but preserves all the fineness of
an admirable shape; her foot is not crowded in a satin slipper for
which a Cinderella might be looked for in vain, and her complexion
(an unusually fair skin with very dark hair and eyebrows) is of even
a girlish delicacy and freshness. Her dress of blue satin was cut
low, and folded across her bosom, in a way to show to advantage the
round and sculpture-like curve and whiteness of a pair of exquisite
shoulders, while her hair dressed close to her head and parted simply
on her forehead with a rich _feronière_ of turquoise, enveloped in
clear outline a head with which it would be difficult to find a fault.
Her features are regular, and her mouth, the most expressive of
them, has a ripe fullness and freedom of play peculiar to the Irish
physiognomy, and expressive of the most unsuspicious good-humor. Add
to all this a voice merry and sad by turns, but always musical, and
manners of the most unpretending elegance, yet even more remarkable for
their winning kindness, and you have the most prominent traits of one
of the most lovely and fascinating women I have ever seen.
NATHANIEL P. WILLIS: ‘Pencillings by the Way.’ New York: Charles
Scribner, 1853.
* * * * *
Lady Blessington was fair, florid-complexioned, with sparkling eyes and
white, high forehead, above which her bright brown hair was smoothly
braided beneath a light and simple blonde cap, in which were a few
touches of sky-blue satin ribbon that singularly well became her,
setting off her buxom face and its vivid coloring.
MARY COWDEN CLARKE: ‘Recollections of Writers.’ New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Growing stout.]
She was inclined to _embonpoint_;[12] her hair abundant and of a
lightish brown; but she always wore caps fastened under the chin; her
complexion fair and healthily tinged, deriving no aid from art; she was
too stout to be graceful, but she had a natural grace that regulated
all her movements.
S. C. HALL: ‘Book of Memories.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Essentially Irish.]
At that period [1832] she was past her prime no doubt, but she was
still remarkably handsome; not so, perhaps, if tried by the established
canons of beauty; but there was a fascination about her look and manner
that greatly augmented her personal charms. Her face and features were
essentially Irish, and that is the highest compliment I can pay them.
S. C. HALL: ‘Retrospect of a Long Life.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Landor’s admiration.]
I went by Landor’s desire to Lady Blessington’s, to whom he had named
me. She is a charming and remarkable person.... Her dress rich, and her
library most splendid. Her book about Lord Byron (now publishing by
driblets in the _New Monthly Magazine_), and her other writings, give
her in addition the character of a _bel esprit_. Landor says that she
was to Lord Blessington the most devoted wife he ever knew. He says,
also, that she was by far the most beautiful woman he ever saw, and was
so deemed at the Court of George IV. She is now, Landor says, about
thirty, but I should have thought her older. [She was forty-five.] She
is a great talker, but her talk is rather narrative than declamatory,
and very pleasant.
HENRY CRABB ROBINSON: _Diary_, 1832, in ‘Diary, Reminiscences, and
Correspondence,’ edited by T. Sadler. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co., 1871.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Friendship of Count D’Orsay.]
Count D’Orsay was so little guided by principle that he could not
expect general credit for the purity of his relations with Lady
Blessington; yet, I think, he might honestly have claimed it.
S. C. HALL: ‘Retrospect of a Long Life.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Gore House demolished.]
On the 10th of May, 1849, I visited Gore House for the last time.
The auction was going on. There was a large assemblage of people of
fashion. Every room was thronged; the well-known library-saloon,
in which the conversationes took place, was crowded, but not with
guests.... People, as they passed through the room, poked the
furniture, pulled about the precious objects of art and ornaments of
various kinds that lay on the table.... It was a relief to leave that
room: I went into another, the dining-room, where I had frequently
enjoyed, “in goodly company,” the elegant hospitality of one who was
indeed “a most kind hostess.”... In another apartment, where the
pictures were being sold, portraits by Lawrence, sketches by Landseer
and Maclise, innumerable likenesses of Lady Blessington by various
artists; several of the Count D’Orsay, representing him driving,
riding out on horseback, sporting, and at work in his studio; his own
collection of portraits of all the frequenters of note or mark in
society of the villa Belvedere, the Palazzo Negroni, the Hotel Ney,
Seamore Place, and Gore House, in quick succession were brought to
the hammer.... This was the most signal ruin of an establishment of
a person of high rank I ever witnessed. Nothing of value was saved
from the wreck, with the exception of the portrait of Lady Blessington
by Chalon, and one or two more pictures. Here was a total smash, a
crash on a grand scale of ruin. To the honor of Lady Blessington be it
mentioned, she saved nothing, with the few exceptions I have referred
to, from the wreck.... I am able to state, on authority, that the
gross amount of the sale was £13,385, and the net sum realized was
£11,985 4s. The portrait of Lady Blessington, by Lawrence, which cost
originally only £80, I saw sold for £336. It was purchased for the
Marquis of Hertford.
R. R. MADDEN: ‘Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of
Blessington.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: A steady friend.]
She was a steady friend, through good report and evil report, for those
to whom she professed friendship.... The courage with which she clung
to her attachments long after they brought her only shame and sorrow,
spoke for the affectionate heart, which no luxury could spoil and no
vicissitude sour.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: A sunny nature.]
She must have had originally the most sunny of sunny natures. As
it was, I have never seen anything like her vivacity and sweet
cheerfulness during the early years when I knew her. She had a singular
power of entertaining herself by her own stories; the keenness of an
Irishwoman in relishing fun and repartee, strange turns of language,
and bright touches of character. A fairer, kinder, more universal
recipient of everything that came within the possibilities of her mind,
I have never known. I think the only genuine author whose merits she
was averse to admit was Hood; and yet she knew Rabelais, and delighted
in ‘Elia.’ It was her real disposition to dwell on beauties rather than
faults. Critical she could be, and as judiciously critical as any woman
I have ever known, but she never seemed to be so willingly. When a poem
was read to her, or a book given to her, she could always touch on the
best passage, the bright point; and rarely missed the purpose of the
work, if purpose it had.
HENRY F. CHORLEY: ‘Autobiography, Memoir and Letters.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: “The victim of circumstances.”]
Although I knew her history sufficiently well, I attributed to this
particular daughter of Erin her share of the “wild sweet briery fence
that round the flower of Erin dwells,” and felt conviction that for the
unhappy circumstances of Lady Blessington’s early life, the sins of
others, far more than her own, were responsible, and that she had been
to a great extent the victim of circumstances. To that opinion I still
hold--some thirty years after her death, and more than fifty since I
first saw her.
S. C. HALL: ‘Retrospect of a Long Life.’
FOOTNOTES:
[11] She was over twenty-eight; she seems always to have looked younger
than she actually was.
[12] Leigh Hunt describes her in ‘The Feast of the Violets,’ as
“A Grace after dinner--a Venus grown fat.”
MARY RUSSELL MITFORD.
1787-1855.
MARY RUSSELL MITFORD.