The Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Sarah Ponsonby mentioned in the above letter were at that time living at Llangollen, in Wales, and were known as the “Ladies of Llangollen,” their romantic attachment to each other having already become proverbial. When Miss Ponsonby was seventeen, and Lady E. Butler some twenty years older, they had run away from their respective and respectable homes in Ireland, and taking a cottage at Llangollen lived there, inseparable companions, for the rest of their lives. Letters and diaries of contemporary celebrities mention their romantic devotion. (The Duke of Wellington was among their visitors.) Lady Eleanor died in 1829, at the age of ninety; and Miss Ponsonby only survived her “beloved one” (as she always called her) by two years.
Byron’s Nisus and Euryalus
As to the allusion to Nisus and Euryalus, Byron’s paraphrase of the episode (from the 9th book of Virgil’s Æneid) serves to show his interest in it:—
“Nisus, the guardian of the portal, stood,
Eager to gild his arms with hostile blood;
Well-skilled in fight the quivering lance to wield,