The brilliant Blessington,--brilliant in beauty and in intellect!
Throughout her life of romance she was fortunate in her literary
friendships, through whom a knowledge of her abilities has grown to
tradition, but most fortunate in the portrayer of her beauty. Lawrence
has painted a picture which it is a perpetual pleasure to behold,--the
superb arms and shoulders, the serene, steadfast gaze of the eyes, and
the conscious, yet confident, poise of the head forming a record to
justify the tradition of great personal beauty and alertness of mind.
Marguerite Blessington's youth was ill-regulated and penurious. She
was born in 1789, the second daughter of Edmund Power, of Knockbrit,
near Clonmel, in the county of Tipperary. Her father came of a good
family, as did also her mother, who spoke unduly often of her
ancestors, the Desmonds. Marguerite was not comely in her early
girlhood, though her sister Ellen and her brother Robert were handsome
children. As a child, she was sensitive and sentimental, and her
delight was to browse in a library,--and it was this taste that
equipped her for her later friendships. Her power of imagination was
uncommonly strong, and she became the entertainer of her
children-companions with stories of her own imagining, as well as by
her recitals of legends and romance learned in the library. Her father
removed to Clonmel, and became editor of a paper there. He was not
prosperous, and was a man of perverse temper, which grew with
adversity. Marguerite and her sister were fancied by some wealthy
maiden-lady relatives, and were taken by them to a home of comfort. On
their return to Clonmel,--beautiful, and with the distinction of
knowledge and a clever use of it,--they were a contrast to the
ordinary Irish country girl, whose whole equipment of dress and
accomplishments was "two washing gowns and a tune on the piano." The
girls took part in all the gayeties of the town, and, besides the
charm of their conversation, were graceful dancers; and though
Marguerite was less beautiful, she was most tasteful in dress, and
this became always a noted characteristic of hers. They became the
attraction of an English regiment recently stationed in the town, and
Marguerite was soon married, through the insistence of her father, to
a Captain Farmer, when less than fifteen years of age. This was the
great misfortune of her life.
Her husband was subject to fits of insanity, and her whole feeling
towards him was that of aversion. Cruelty and caprice were the chief
components of his character. From his tyranny she fled,--first to her
father's house, but was denied solace there, so sought it elsewhere.
She led a somewhat vagabond existence for about nine years, living
first with one friend, then with another; thankful for any home, and
accommodating herself to any companions. Of this period of her life
not much is recorded, save her beauty, for it was shortly after this
that her peerless portrait was painted, ere her sorrow and suffering
had time to efface the vivacity of youth, but only to give depth to
the eyes and interest to the face. She lived in London with her
brother Robert until in 1817, when her husband's death occurred by his
falling out of a window when in a state of drunken frenzy. Four months
after this she became the second wife of an Irish nobleman of a
dashing person and little brains, Charles John Gardiner, second Earl
of Blessington, when she was twenty-eight and he was thirty-five years
of age. With this marriage came a reversal of her misfortunes. Her
generosity, sympathy, and good heart soon prompted the improvement of
the conditions of her own family, and in this gave emphatic evidence
of that devotedness to duty and friends which became her strongest
trait. Her youngest sister, Marianne, was adopted and educated by her,
and became her travelling companion, and long afterwards her modest
biographer. Her sister Ellen married first, Mr. Home Purves, and
afterwards, Viscount Canterbury, speaker of the House of Commons.
Lord Blessington's income was great, but his tastes were extravagant
as were also his wife's, and luxurious was their home in St. James's
Square, and magnificent the manner in which they entertained the
brilliant society gathered there; and for three years their brilliant
companies of beauty and intellect outshone the congregations at
Holland House. In 1822, Count D'Orsay, a polished and accomplished
young Frenchman, visited London, and was made most welcome by the
Blessingtons. In August of that year they started for a leisurely tour
of the Continent. The Countess kept a diary during this journeying,
which was published in 1839, under the title of "The Idler in Italy,"
revealing a keen observation and a capacity for entertaining comment.
Her ladyship was ever ambitious of literary eminence. Possessed of
great beauty, and after a time high station and wealth, she yet
yearned for the recognition by great writers of her position as one of
them. She had published, previous to her continental trip, two
volumes,--one called "The Magic Lantern," the other, "Sketches and
Fragments," both being accounts of and comments upon London society;
both were unsuccessful. Her one book which will remain in literature
was consequent upon her meeting with Lord Byron in Genoa, in 1823, and
is a record of her conversations with the poet. She who aspired to
make her mark in literature has made it, but as the chronicler of the
sentiments, vanities, whims, and oddities of another. But it was no
ordinary ability that was competent to persuade the great poet,
usually unapproachable, to avow, in picturesque language, his opinions
on men, women, and manners,--to provide for later times the data from
which to gauge his strange personality.
She has written much of herself into her records; and calumny urged,
at the time of publication, that she insinuated in her writings a far
greater degree of friendship on the poet's part than really existed.
Yet, in refutation of this is Byron's letter to Moore:--
"I have just seen some friends of yours, who paid me a visit
yesterday, which, in honor of them and of yours, I returned to-day, as
I reserve my bear-skin and teeth and paws and claws for our enemies.
"Your allies, whom I found very agreeable personages, are Milor
Blessington and _épouse_, travelling with a very handsome companion,
in the shape of a 'French count' (to use Farquhar's phrase in the
'Beau's Stratagem'), who has all the air of a _cupidor déchaîné_.
Milady seems highly literary; to which, and your honor's acquaintance
with the family, I attribute the pleasure of having seen them. She is
also very pretty, even in a morning; a species of beauty on which the
sun of Italy does not shine so frequently as the chandelier."
The Countess Guiccioli was among those who depreciated the
Blessingtons' accounts of the conversations; but then, perchance,
there may have been some jealousy of the attractive English woman's
influence over the poet. The Blessingtons left Genoa in June of 1823,
and continued their journeyings throughout Italy until 1828. In the
preceding year, Count D'Orsay had become the husband of the Earl of
Blessington's daughter, Lady Harriet Frances Gardiner, when she was
but little over fifteen years of age; but they lived together but
three years. In 1829, the Earl died in Paris; and the Countess
continued there until after the Revolution of 1830, when she returned
to England. Her journal of the trip from Naples to Paris, and her stay
in that city, was published in 1841, under the title of "The Idler in
France." In England she took a house in Seamore Place, Mayfair, and
later removed to Gore House, Kensington, with which place is
associated the traditions of her elegant entertainings and her
intercourse with many men of eminence, but also with a course of
living which compromised her reputation in society. Her son-in-law,
the Count, continued to form one of her household, though separated
from his wife, the Lady Harriet. Though not received in general
society, the Countess surrounded herself with celebrities of all
nations; and it was at her house that Louis Napoleon was a cherished
guest in his years of exile, and from whence he proceeded to head the
government of France. Here Bulwer came as perhaps her most intimate
friend; here Thackeray was made most welcome, and Lord John Russell
and Lord Palmerston, Canning and Castlereagh were frequent guests.
Dickens,--then a dandy like unto D'Orsay, who seemed to be his
model,--"Rejected Addresses" Smith, the banker-poet Rogers, Kemble,
Wilkie, and Dr. Parr engaged in sparkling converse with their hostess,
who sat in a deep arm-chair while Tom Moore was privileged to perch
himself on a footstool at her feet; and by all these men she was
held in unqualified respect. Her income became impaired and unequal to
the expense of entertaining. She resorted to literature to add to her
resources. She was engaged by Heath, the engraver, to edit a certain
class of annuals popular in those days. For some years her income from
"The Keepsake" and "The Book of Beauty" exceeded one thousand pounds a
year. Her novels, too, were a source of some profit. For "Strathern"
she received about three thousand dollars. These romances were weak in
character and plot, but were fair pictures of society portrayed with
much piquancy. In one, "Grace Cassidy," she describes interestingly
scenes of her youth in Ireland. But interest in her work waned, and as
she seems not to have thought of retrenchment of her expenditure,
disaster rapidly descended. In 1849, she had perforce to sell out, and
then moved to Paris, where she died in the same year. She was buried
at Chambourcy, near St. Germain-en-Laye, the residence of the Duc and
Duchesse de Grammont, the sister and brother-in-law of Count D'Orsay.
She was a woman of great tact, of a sweet delicacy of manner, and of a
chivalrous devotedness to friendship. Her friends were carefully
chosen, and never deserted. Perhaps no woman of the century has had so
many men of mark as her friends and admirers. She had charity towards
others' failings. She gave pleasure where she could. She was elegant
and dignified in her bearing, though possessed of Irish wit withal.
She was very beautiful.
Lord Byron was induced to sing the praise of her picture here
given:--
"Were I now as I was, I had sung
What Lawrence has painted so well;
But the strain would expire on my tongue,
And the theme is too soft for my shell.
"I am ashes where once I was fire,
And the bard in my bosom is dead:
What I loved I now merely admire,
And my heart is as gray as my head.
"Let the young and the brilliant aspire
To sing what I gaze on in vain,
For sorrow has torn from my lyre
The string which was worthy the strain."
[Illustration: MARY ISABELLA DUCHESS OF RUTLAND by REYNOLDS]