The former establishment was presided over by the Countess of Blessington, at this time a widow, still young and still attractive, though beginning to be burdened with the care of an establishment too expensive for her means. She was the author of a good many novels, now almost forgotten—it is odd how well one knows the name of Lady Blessington, and how little is generally known about her history, literary or personal—and she edited every year one of the ‘Keepsakes’ or ‘Forget-me-Nots.’ From certain indications, the bearing of which her biographer, Mr. Madden, did not seem to understand, I gather that her novels did not prove to the publishers the literary success which they expected, and I also infer—from the fact that she was always changing them—that a dinner at Gore House and the society of all the wits after dinner were not always attractions strong enough to loosen their purse-strings. This lady, whose maiden name was Power, was of an Irish family, her father being engaged, when he was not shooting rebels, in unsuccessful trade. Her life was adventurous and also scandalous. She was married at sixteen to a Captain Farmer, from whom she speedily separated, and came over to London, where she lived for some years—her biographer does not explain how she got money—a grass widow. When Lord Blessington lost his wife, and Mrs. Farmer lost her husband—the gallant Captain got drunk, and fell out of a window—they were married, and went abroad travelling in great state, as an English milor of those days knew how to travel, with a train of half-a-dozen carriages, his own cook and valet, the Countess’s women, a whole batterie de cuisine, a quantity of furniture, couriers, and footmen, and his own great carriage. With them went the Count d’Orsay, then about two-and-twenty, and young Charles Mathews, then about twenty, a protégé of Lord Blessington, who was a friend and patron of the drama.
HOLLAND HOUSE
After Lord Blessington died it was arranged that Count d’Orsay should marry his daughter. But the Count separated from his wife a week or two after the wedding, and returned to the widow, whom he never afterwards left, always taking a lodging near her house, and forming part of her household. The Countess d’Orsay, one need not explain, did not visit her stepmother at Gore House.
Thomas Moore
-SAMUEL ROGERS-
Here, however, you would meet Tom Moore, the two Bulwers, Campbell, Talfourd, James and Horace Smith, Landseer, Theodore Hook, Disraeli the elder and the younger, Rogers, Washington Irving, N. P. Willis, Marryat, Macready, Charles Dickens, Albert Smith, Forster, Walter Savage Landor, and, in short, nearly every one who had made a reputation, or was likely to make it. Hither came also Prince Louis Napoleon, in whose fortunate star Count d’Orsay always firmly believed. The conversation was lively, and the evenings were prolonged. As for ladies, there were few ladies who went to Gore House. Doubtless they had their reasons. The outer circle, so to speak, consisted of such men as Lord Abinger, Lord Durham, Lord Strangford, Lord Porchester, Lord Nugent, writers and poetasters who contributed their illustrious names and their beautiful productions to Lady Blessington’s ‘Keepsakes.’ Thackeray was one of the ‘intimates’ at Gore House, and when the crash came in 1849, and the place was sold up by the creditors, it is on record that the author of ‘Vanity Fair’ was the only person who showed emotion. ‘Mr. Thackeray also came,’ wrote the Countess’s valet to his mistress, who had taken refuge in Paris, ‘and he went away with tears in his eyes; he is perhaps the only person I have seen really affected at your departure.’ In 1837 he was twenty-six years of age, but he had still to wait for twelve years before he was to take his real place in literature, and even then and until the day of his death there were many who could not understand his greatness.
As regards Lady Blessington, her morals may have been deplorable, but there must have been something singularly attractive about her manners and conversation. It is not by a stupid or an unattractive woman that such success as hers was attained. Her novels, so far as I have been able to read them, show no remarkable ability, and her portrait shows amiability rather than cleverness; yet she must have been both clever and amiable to get so many clever men around her and to fix them, to make them come again, come often, and regard her drawing-room and her society as altogether charming, and to write such verses upon her as the following:—
Mild Wilberforce, by all beloved,
Once owned this hallowed spot,
Whose zealous eloquence improved
The fettered Negro’s lot,
Yet here still slavery attacks
Whom Blessington invites;
The chains from which he freed the blacks
She rivets on the whites.