There is an ignorance with regard to the early history of this distinguished woman, and a degree of misrepresentation in the popular report of her life in later years, which a simple statement of the outline of her career will properly correct. Her death takes away from her friends the freedom of speaking carelessly of her faults, but it binds them, also, to guard her memory as far as Truth can do it, from injustice and perversion.
Lady Blessington’s maiden name was Margaret Power. She was born in Ireland, the daughter of the printer and editor of the Clonmel Herald, and up to the age of twelve or fourteen, (as we once heard her say) had hardly worn a shoe or been in a house where there was a carpet. At this age of her girlhood, however, she and her sister (who was afterwards Lady Canterbury) were fancied by a family of wealthy old maids, to whom they were distantly related, and taken to a home where they proved apt scholars in the knowledge of luxury and manners. On their return to Clonmel, two young girls of singular beauty, they became at once the attraction of a dashing English regiment newly stationed there, and Margaret was soon married to an officer by the name of Farmer. From this hasty connection, into which she was crowded by busy and ambitious friends, sprang all the subsequent canker of her life. Her husband proved to be liable to temporary insanity, and, at best, was cruel and capricious. Others were kinder and more attentive. She was but sixteen. Flying from her husband who was pursuing her with a pistol in his hand to take her life, she left her home, and, in the retreat where she took refuge, was found by a wealthy and accomplished officer, who had long been her admirer, and whose “protection” she now fatally accepted.
With this gentleman, Captain Jenkinson, she lived four years in complete seclusion. His return to dissipated habits, at the end of that time, destroyed his fortune and brought about a separation; and, her husband, meantime, having died, she received an offer of marriage from Lord Blessington, who was then a widower with one daughter. She refused the offer, at first, from delicate motives, easily understood: but it was at last pressed on her acceptance, and she married and went abroad.
Received into the best society of the continent at once, and with her remarkable beauty and her husband’s enormous wealth, entering upon a most brilliant career, she became easily an accomplished woman of the world, and readily supplied for herself, any deficiencies in her early education. It was during this first residence in Paris that Lord Blessington became exceedingly attached to Count Alfred D’Orsay, the handsomest and most talented young nobleman of France. Determined not to be separated from one he declared he could not live without, he affianced his daughter to him, persuaded his father to let him give up his commission in the army, and fairly adopted him into his family to share his fortune with him as a son. They soon left Paris for Italy, and at Genoa fell in with Lord Byron, who was a friend of Lord Blessington’s, and with whom they made a party, for residence in that beautiful climate, the delightful socialities of which are well described in her Ladyship’s “Conversations.”
A year or two afterwards, Lord Blessington’s daughter came to him from school, and was married to Count D’Orsay at Naples. The union proved inharmonious, and they separated, after living but a year together. Lord Blessington died soon after, and, on Lady Blessington’s return to England, the Count rejoined her, and they formed but one household till her death.
It was this residence of Lord Blessington’s widow and her son-in-law under the same roof—he, meantime, separated from his wife, Lady Harriet D’Orsay—which, by the English code of appearances in morals, compromised the position of Lady Blessington. She chose to disregard public opinion, where it interfered with what she deliberately made up her mind was best, and, disdaining to explain or submit, guarded against slight or injury, by excluding from her house all who would condemn her, viz:—her own sex. Yet all who knew her and her son-in-law, were satisfied that it was a useful and, indeed, absolutely necessary arrangement for him—her strict business habits, practical good sense, and the protection of her roof, being an indispensable safeguard to his personal liberty and fortunes—and that this need of serving him and the strongest and most disinterested friendship were her only motives, every one was completely sure who knew them at all. By those intimate at her house, including the best and greatest men of England, Lady Blessington was held in unqualified respect, and no shadow even of suspicion, thrown over her life of widowhood. She had many entreaties from her own sex to depart from her resolve and interchange visits, and we chanced to be at her house, one morning, when a note was handed to her from one of the most distinguished noble ladies of England, making such a proposal. We saw the reply. It expressed, with her felicitous tact, a full appreciation of the confidence and kindness of the note she had received, but declined its request, from an unwillingness to place herself in any position where she might, by the remotest possibility, suffer from doubt or injustice. She persevered in this to the end of her life, a few relatives and one or two intimates of her continental acquaintance being the only ladies seen at her house. When seized with her last illness, she had been dining with Count D’Orsay’s sister, the beautiful Duchess de Grammont.
Faulty as a portion of Lady Blessington’s life may have been, we doubt whether a woman has lived, in her time, who did so many actions of truest kindness, and whose life altogether was so benevolently and largely instrumental for the happiness of others. With the circumstances that bore upon her destiny, with her beauty, her fascination and her boundless influence over all men who approached her, she might easily, almost excusably, have left a less worthy memory to fame. Few in their graves, now, deserve a more honoring remembrance.
MOORE AND BARRY CORNWALL.
Well—how does Moore write a song?
In the twilight of a September evening he strolls through the park to dine with the marquis. As he draws on his white gloves, he sees the evening star looking at him steadily through the long vista of the avenue, and he construes its punctual dispensation of light into a reproach for having, himself a star, passed a day of poetic idleness. “Damme,” soliloquizes the little fat planet, “this will never do! Here have I hammered the whole morning at a worthless idea, that, with the mere prospect of a dinner, shows as trumpery as a ‘penny fairing.’ Labor wasted! And at my time of life, too! Faith!—it’s dining at home these two days with nobody to drink with me! It’s eyewater I want! Don’t trouble yourself to sit up for me, brother Hesper! I shall see clearer when I come back!