been all my life." I am very glad to hear it, but did not know it before. Let me hear from you anon.
"Lady A. F—— was also very handsome. It is melancholy to talk of women in the past tense. What a pity, that of all flowers, none fade so soon as beauty! Poor Lady A. F— has not got married. Do you know, I once had some thoughts of her as a wife; not that I was in love, as people call it, but I had argued myself into a belief that I ought to marry, and, meeting her very often in society, the notion came into my head, not heart, that she would suit me. Moore, too, told me so much of her good qualities—all which was, I believe, quite true—that I felt tempted to propose to her, but did not, whether tant mieux or tant pis, God knows, supposing my proposal accepted."
(Lady Blessington's
Conversations
, pp. 108, 109).
Lady Adelaide Forbes, whom Byron in Rome compared to the "Belvedere Apollo," was the daughter of George, sixth Earl of Granard, and his wife, Lady Selina Rawdon, daughter of the first Earl of Moira. Born in 1789, she died at Dresden, in 1858, unmarried. Lord Moira was Moore's patron, and, through this connection and political sympathies, Moore was acquainted with Lord Granard and his family.