The fond pair paid a visit to my lord’s estate in County Tyrone, and also to Dublin, where the appearance of my lady created no small stir. From the first day of their marriage Blessington exhibited a sumptuous extravagance in providing luxuries for Lady Blessington, who herself records:—“The only complaint I ever have to make of his taste, is its too great splendour; a proof of which he gave me when I went to Mountjoy Forest on my marriage, and found my private sitting-room hung with crimson Genoa silk velvet, trimmed with gold bullion fringe, and all the furniture of equal richness—a richness that was only suited to a state-room in a palace,” or to any other room seldom used or seen.
The wilds of Ireland, however, were not a fitting stage for one so ambitious to charm as was Lady Blessington, so after a short sojourn in Tyrone she and her husband returned to London, where they took up their residence at 10 St James’ Square, a house that had been dignified by the occupancy of Chatham and was to be by that of Gladstone.
Lady Blessington was as blest as was to be the Duke of Leeds’ bride, of whom the rhyme ran:—
“She shall have all that’s fine and fair,
And the best of silk and satin shall wear;
And ride in a coach to take the air,
And have a house in St James’ Square.”
The mansion was fitted and furnished in a style that only great wealth could afford or ill taste admire.
Lady Blessington with her “gorgeous charms” set the one-half of London society raving about her beauty and her extravagance; the other half avoided the company of a lady with so speckled a past.
There were at that time two great salons in London: the one at Holland House to which wit, beauty and respectability resorted; the second being at Lady Blessington’s house, to which only wit and beauty were attracted. Among the constant visitors to the latter may be named Canning, Castlereagh, who lived a few doors off; Brougham, Jekyll, Rogers, Moore, Kemble, Mathews the elder, Lawrence, Wilkie. Moore records a visit paid by him in May 1822, accompanied by Washington Irving. He speaks of Lady Blessington as growing “very absurd.”