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skilfully concealed . Thia new system was the establishment by noble lafiies Welly , of Intellec'tual societies of select worshippers . The French Preceded us in this , and brilliant coteries existed in France from the Aws of la&mB 3 £ JM . down to the Empire , presided over by captivating women & «** Jflinba de iL . ? £ nelos to Meedames l&oamier and De StaeT Ajftwr tfeeatanner-of the Parisian salonsijf Madame Du DefFand and Madame € heoffiin arose in- England the great aristocrat Whig coterie of Holland House . & ¦ glance at the "biographies o nearly all pur literary celebrities of the eady part of this century , not irredeemably Tory , will show how indispensable admission into this coterie either was , or was thought to be , va deeper search will show how little patronage had mended in spirit by its chanee in form , wSJ show how much dirt an aspiring man of letters had to eat to keep ; this valuable auxiliary , this dangerous foe , on Ms side . As Hoiland House waned , acose the assemblies of Xiady Charieyille and Lady Blesstneton— thelatter the moreinfluential—and continued in Seamare-pluce and rf 2 m »> House , -while Jews and Bill Discounters permitted , to the threshold
of the immediate present . Wtten Gore House closed , therefore , an ancient institution m its latest modification ceased to be ; the last poor swaddling cloth was taken off the giant literature . We shall never see another Lady Blessington nor another Gore House ,. "but we shall see literature proceed to fresh strength a nd new powers ,, with more stalwart men of the press than the forced exotics of the saloru / It is only in this light , as the biography of Lady Blessington as reine de salon , that the publication of these massive volumes can be justified- As a iiterary character Lady Blesstngtou did not eaocel , and surely could not claim ike posthumous importance of three large volumes . But as the reported aiostbrfiUaat woman of her age , as the fiiend o nearly every celebrity of this century , beginning with Byron and ending with Dickens , Thackeray , sead Carlyle * the public had an expectation of some such work as this , and volumes not
though we are disposed to think that two , n one juaiciousry managed , would liave been sufficient , we will not quarrel with Dr . " Madden for what he has given us , but proceed to make the best of it . To do this , nowever , is no easy matter , a more entangled book it is impossible to conceive . Your information lies here , there , and everywhere ; ia texta , in extracts , in notes , in letters , in appendices , in every volume . It does not matter whether you begin with Volume III . and work backward , Tvath Vctame I . and go forward , oryrith the middle of Volome U . and work both ways ^ it ¦ will T > e equally intelligible to you . We propose , therefore , * o give a succinct account of Lady Blessington ' career , collected with some trouble from lihis imbroglio ; then to examine the mass of correspondence ftere printed , and , lastly , taofler a few critical observations onDr . Madden ' s aHxecutidn of liis-task . '>
- . __ _ . _ , , ; VMarffaret Power was "bom ei&er in 1 ^ 89 or 1790 . Her father , Edmund Power , was a perfect specimen of an Irish gentleman of the good old ifimes . Por interest ' s sake he sided with the Loyalists in the great Rebellion , jbecame the terror of Tipperary in behalf of Church and King , and -committed two murders by shooting down in cold blood a brace m peasant , whom Jie chose to consider ¦ rebels because tiiey ran away » t his sight . Margaret was not beautiful as a child , but * be ripened fete a beautiful maidenhood . She name out at fourteen , and two ^ officers o the 47 th , who met her at a Clonunel ball , fell in love with her . CJaptain Murray made hrve to her—Captain Farmer proposed to her father . The result was , that at fourteen and a half she married Captain FarmerEdmund Power not being a man to disobey . The marriage was
, aiot happy , and on Farmer going to India she separated from him on the plea of climate , pr ivately , however , intimating ill-usage and no-love as the cause . After a short residence with her father she pjroceeded to London to her brother , and lived with him until her marriage with Lord Btes * - ingtbn inr 1818 , T her formerfat «* andoaivingd ^ tmr 1817 . Ibl Lord filessington ' s hands Lady Blessingtom speedily became what , with all her good-nature , she continued to be till death , a thorough Sybarite . She was « saentiafly * spoiled by tins brief reign of lavish extravagance . With a rentroll of 80 , 0001 ., her husband not only contrived to spend his income , but to add to it encumbrances which , the moment the Encumbered Estates Act was passed , put an end for ever to the glory of the Mountjoys . Wljea he takes ner to his rural Iodize , he has l * er private sitting-room " Jhunff with ctimson
Oenoa silk velvet , trimmed with . gold bullion fringe , and all the fuunitwe of equal richness . " The same tiling occurred wherever they want . The palaces of Oriental despots were never more splendid than the boudoir of tiiis elevated Tipperary girl . JFrona Ireland tihey proceeded to the family mansion in St . James ' s-square , and hero Lady Blessington made her first acquaintance ¦ w ith the London world of literature and fashion , including D'Orsay , then a young man . In 1822 , fatigued with English f ashion , Lord and Lady Blessington turned to the Continent to seek new pastures for future exhaustie ® , accompanied by the public ' s best friend Charles Mathcws , then a lad , and by Lady Blessington ' s gister . Of course they " did" the usual round—France , Switzerland , Italy , In Avignon they added Count d'Orsay to their < sorte * ge , and from that day to her death he was scarcely ever separated from Lady Blessington . At Genoa she met Byron ; and considering that her supposed intimacy with him first gave hor any literary importance in Engmust she contrived to make return out
land , we say a large ox a very . small capital . It will hardly be believed that she only was acquainted with the poet for two months , and only saw him six times . At Naples the Blessihgtons resided a long time , the centre of its fashion , gathering around them all the English notabilities , in the character of My Lord and My Lady . Before leaving Italy Count d'Orsay was married to Lord Blessington ' only legitimate child , by his first wife ; an act which served to embitter the lives of all concerned in the transaction , to throw a scandal round them in virtuous scandal-loving England , and to limit Lady Blcssington ' s sphere of society . This marriage was a freak of Lord Blessington ' s . He sent for his daughter from England post hasto , compelled her to marry D 0 rflay , having previously bribed the Count by large settlements . This was in 1827 ; they lived together till 1831 , when they had a legal separation . The lady is still living , and remarried . Such is the exact truth of this little episode , and all manner of scand a lous variations can now dla . Prom Italy the Blcsslugtons returned to Paris , and took up their
abode therein the palace of Marshal -Ney on a scale of unparalleled splendour . . ' ' ¦ " . ¦; ' . ' ... '¦ .. ' . ' . ' ¦' . , " ' la 1829 Lord Blessington diedof afit of apoplexy in the Champs Elysees Shortly afterward , Lady Blessington came to London and commenced hex vocation as reine de salon in Seamore-place , with all the splendour her jointure of 2000 Z . per annum and liberal , borrowings would admit . Beautiful , accomplished , widow of a peer , and reputed intimate friend of Byron , the wit , ¦ rank , and talent of London soon , became habituated to the almost nightly reunions at Lady Blessington ' s . At first these meetings wer-e gathered together from an intellectual Sybaritism on Lady Blessing-ton ' s pact —a desire to be surrounded by the true aristocracy of London ,, the best minds and the best manners , for pure enjoyment ' s sake . Afterward , when she removed to Gore House , the motive and the meetings deteriorated . The motive then became a mere settled and ravenous desire to collect around
her all the notabilities of the season without regard to desert : and there is little disguising of the fact in these volumes , that in the end the Gore House soirees grew insincere , empty , and false—a race of -over-refined men , with no real energy or force 4 contributors to Annuals and Books of Beauty were puffed into celebrities there , puffing gratefully in their turn—worthy eccentricities , were invited solely to be quizzed by D'Orsay and the hostesa for the general amusement—and scandal , ever active in our moral land ,, kept away virtuous women and many sterner men , until the high comedy became a frothy vaudeville , and the impatient Jews brought the curtain down . To state who were Lady Blessington ' s acquaintances , visitors , and correspondents , would be to catalogue nearly every male celebrity of the nineteenth century . Politicians , lawyers , poets , philosophers , historians , and correct
painters , musicians , sculptors—revery notoriety , except parsons ladies -were her visitors and correspondents . How should it not be so ? Lady Blessington was ravenous for celebrities ou the one hand—on the other , it had become an indispensabUity to an aspiring witling to have the entree to Gore House . She removed to Gore House in 1836—Count d'Orsay living in a , -small house close by ; soon , however , they resided under the same xoof . To keep up this new establishment she was driven to literature , writ ing some twenty novels , editing innumerable annuals , &c , and making about 2000 Z . a year by her pen . But title and a clique cannot long carry off mediocrity—the public emphatically abstained from buying annuals- —the publishers lost by her novels and would publish no more—and poor Lady Blessington dwindled in
despair to the . Sunday Times and Lady ' s Newspaper , but all in vain . In 1849 Gore House was cleared out by auction , and Lady Blessington and Count d'Orsay proceeded to Paris toVsolve the dreadful problem of trying to live on 2000 Z . per annum . But it was not to be solved . " Put oat your ' faith in Princes "_ was once move to receive a cruel illustration * Among the favoured—nay , the protected guests of Gore House , was one Louis Bonapabte , a political refugee of the adventurous order , taking rank with disinherited Dukes of Brunswick , all stuck-with diamonds and made up with rouge , and regarded askance by the political aristocracy . He had not as yet won his spurs by tr iple perjury and by wholesale civic slaughter . He was then living " on his wits , " and was not yet known to Lord Derby as t ' that great man . " We need not here tell how that refugee became Prince-President , of the French Republic . What we have to relate in this
place is , that when his friend in adversity , whose house had been the home of his earile , called at the Elysee Palace in 1849 , the Prince » President was engaged , and amidst a crowd of place-hunters in the ante-chambers Lady Blessingfcon was invited to wait her turn ! With all her experience of the world ' s gratitude and fidelity it may be the repulse was felt . She did not wait her turn ! In four months she died with mysterious suddenness , and is i interred side by side with D'Orsay , -who soon followed her , after r «» pudiating " the Prince-President" as an ingrate , and showing M , de Perr signy " ' « fedoor . " Beautiful , ; captivatingr witk kindly iastincts and genial feelings , she will be a historic name in literature , not for what she wrote , this
but for what she was ; and her chequered destiny leaves behind moral —terrible totherich , solacing to the poor—that neither beauty nor talent , riches nor sumptuosity , not the most brilliant society , nor the purplest rai ment or finest linen , can render happy a life without a purpose . Two out of the three o these ponderous volumes are filled with letters written by and to Lady Blessington : the latter by far the most aumeroui . Of Lady Blessingtou ' s letters it will be sufficient * to say that they do not correspond to her literary reputation . The letters addressed to her comprise letters from every illustrious name who has taken a permanent or temporary seat in the Temple Fame , and from dozens of insects who have crawled in surreptitiously through its keyholes . The vast majority of them should never hare been printed , being mere empty notes of form , of
which the following is a specimen >—b l April 27 , 1838 . I am happy to say Sir J . Harvey has appointed your friend to an office in the department of the Crown lands . Gucnklo . Nor do any of the longer and seemingly important epistles add to their wr iters' reputations . Volume II . contains numerous letters from Sir William Gell , L . E . L ., and W . S . Landor . Gell ' s letters are the most amusing ; L . E . L . ' s have only a personal interest ,- Lander ' s are intrinsically the best , and the only letters that can be read with any profit . There is also a correspondence wUih the Guiccioli , interesting on Byron ' s account . 1 here is Countess America Ves
also a fine bold letter from that strange woman the - pucci . None of these letters admit of extract , except in their entirety , lor which they are too long . Volume III . contains shorter correspondence Witu everybody conceivable , from the Duke of Wellington to General 1 nippv from Charles Dickens to Mr , S . C . Hall . None are oi high merit , few should ha-ws bee * printed . It is a . great praise to these writers that they boar no trace of having been written for publication ; they ^ are generally free , careless notes dashed off at the moment ' s exigence , and their writeca are clearly not to be blamed or depreciated because they are not entertaining or clever as « ihe public would demand . In Charles Dickon * a letter * there is one touch only that reminds us of " Boz : 'I bog to be kindly remombored to your niocos . I waa goingto *» T"J « «" Power ? but It looks « o like tho blue board at a ludiea' achool , fl u * I stopped short .
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FEBggAgg 17 , 1855 . ] THI I / I 1 BEB , , * 63
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 17, 1855, page 163, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2078/page/19/
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