Marguerite, Lady Blessington, flitted across the field of English literature like a blue butterfly, and left no trace behind. She claims a place among our literary women, not by virtue of her many works, which are now forgotten, but rather as an influence among literary men; as the woman in whose sunny companionship Byron basked, and who had Landor and Procter to write her epitaphs.

She was born at Knockbrit, Tipperary, on the 1st of September, 1789. (The year, however, has been variously stated as 1787 and 1790.) She was the daughter of Edmund Power, a country gentleman and magistrate, a man of violent temper and without principle. In 1796 or ’97 the Powers removed to Clonmel. In 1804, when she was under fifteen years of age, Marguerite was forced by her father into a marriage with the vicious and half-insane Captain Maurice Farmer. Within a year they agreed to separate. Mrs. Farmer is spoken of as residing in Cahir, Tipperary, in 1807, and in Dublin in 1809. And now occurs that hiatus in the account of her life which has never been satisfactorily filled, and the existence of which the English women of her day refused to overlook. In 1816 she was established in Manchester Square, London; and in 1818, Captain Farmer having died the previous year, she married the Earl of Blessington. Her fashionable life, foreign travels, and literary career now began. In 1823, while at Genoa with her husband, she made the acquaintance of Lord Byron. In 1829 Lord Blessington died in the Hotel Ney, Paris, which had been sumptuously fitted up as his residence. Lady Blessington returned to London in 1830. She lived in Seamore Place, May Fair, until 1836, when she removed to Gore House, Kensington Gore. The extravagant splendor of her style of living, and the charm of her evenings, have often been described. The £2,000 a year which Lord Blessington had left her, even with the addition of the income received from her writings, was not sufficient to meet the expenses which long habit had rendered almost necessary to her; and in the spring of 1849 “the long-menaced break-up of the establishment at Gore House took place.” Lady Blessington left London, accompanied by her nieces, for Paris, where, on the 4th of June, 1849, she died very suddenly of “an apoplectic malady, complicated with disease of the heart.” Count D’Orsay, her husband’s son-in-law and her intimate friend, survived her but a few years, and was buried beside her at Chambourcy, where he had caused a huge monument to be erected to her memory.

The following are the works of Lady Blessington:

Lady Blessington’s strange life may be said to have been written in three chapters: the first as dark and terrible as any in ‘Wuthering Heights’; the second as gorgeous as any in the novels of D’Israeli; and the last like a handful of leaves torn from ‘Vanity Fair.’

Beauty, the heritage of the family, was, in her early youth, denied to Marguerite: her eldest brother and sister were singularly handsome and healthy children, while she, pale, weakly, and ailing, was for years regarded as little likely ever to grow to womanhood; the precocity of her intellect, the keenness of her perceptions, and her extreme sensitiveness, all of which are so often regarded, more especially among the Irish, as the precursive symptoms of an early death, confirmed this belief, and the poor, pale, reflective child was long looked upon as doomed to a premature grave.

The atmosphere in which she lived was but little congenial to such a nature. Her father, a man of violent temper, and little given to study the characters of his children, intimidated and shook the delicate nerves of the sickly child, though there were moments—rare ones, it is true—when the sparkles of her early genius for an instant dazzled and gratified him. Her mother, though she failed not to bestow the tenderest maternal care on the health of the little sufferer, was not capable of appreciating her fine and subtile qualities, and her brothers and sisters, fond as they were of her, were not, in their high health and boisterous gayety, companions suited to such a child.

At a very early age, the powers of her imagination had already begun to develop themselves. She would entertain her brothers and sisters for hours with tales invented as she proceeded; and at last, so remarkable did this talent become, that her parents, astonished at the interest and coherence of her narrations, constantly called upon her to improvise for the entertainment of their friends and neighbors, a task always easy to her fertile brain; and, in a short time, the little neglected child became the wonder of the neighborhood.

Miss Power: ‘A Memoir of Lady Blessington,’ quoted by R. R. Madden in ‘The Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington.’ New York: Harper & Bros., 1855.

Her father was in a ruined position at the time Lady Blessington was brought home from school, a mere child, and treated as such. Among his military friends, she then saw a Captain Farmer for the first time; he appeared on very intimate terms with her father, but when she first met him, her father did not introduce her to him; in fact, she was looked upon then as a mere school-girl, whom it was not necessary to introduce to any stranger. In a day or two her father told her she was not to return to school; he had decided that she was to marry Captain Farmer. This intelligence astonished her; she burst out crying, and a scene ensued in which his menaces and her protestations against his determination terminated violently. Her mother unfortunately sided with her father, and eventually, by caressing entreaties and representations of the advantages her father looked forward to from this match with a man of Captain Farmer’s affluence, she was persuaded to sacrifice herself, and to marry a man for whom she felt the utmost repugnance. She had not been long under her husband’s roof before it became evident to her that her husband was subject to fits of insanity, and his own relatives informed her that her father had been acquainted by them that Captain Farmer had been insane; but this information had been concealed from her by her father. She lived with him about three months, and during that time he frequently treated her with personal violence; ... he used to lock her up whenever he went abroad, and often has left her without food till she felt almost famished. He was ordered to join his regiment, which was encamped at the Curragh of Kildare. Lady Blessington refused to accompany him there, and was permitted to remove to her father’s house, to remain there during his absence. Captain Farmer joined his regiment, and had not been many days with it, when, in a quarrel with his colonel, he drew his sword on the former, and the result of this insane act (for such it was allowed to be) was, that he was obliged to quit the service, being permitted to sell his commission. The friends of Captain Farmer now prevailed on him to go to India; she, however, refused to go with him, and remained at her father’s.

Such is the account given to me by Lady Blessington, and for the accuracy of the above report of it I can vouch.

R. R. Madden: ‘Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington.’

I first saw Lady Blessington under circumstances sufficiently characteristic of her extraordinary personal beauty at the period in question, to excuse my referring to them somewhat in detail. It was on the opening day of that Royal Academy Exhibition which contained Lawrence’s celebrated portrait of Lady Blessington—one of the very finest he ever painted, and universally known by the numerous engravings that have since been made from it. In glancing hastily round the room on first entering, I had duly admired this exquisite portrait, as approaching very near to the perfection of the art, though (as I conceived) by no means reaching it, for there were points in the picture which struck me as inconsistent with others that were also present. Yet I could not, except as a vague theory, lay the apparent discrepancies at the door of the artist....

Presently, on returning to this portrait, I saw standing before it, as if on purpose to confirm my theory, the lovely original. She was leaning on the arm of her husband, Lord Blessington. And then I saw how impossible it is for an artist to flatter a really beautiful woman.... I have seen no other instance so striking, of the inferiority of art to nature when the latter reaches the ideal standard, as in this celebrated portrait of Lady Blessington.... As the original stood before it ... she fairly “killed” the copy, and this no less in the individual details than in the general effect. Moreover, what I had believed to be errors and shortcomings in the picture were wholly absent in the original. There is about the former a consciousness, a “pretension,” a leaning forward, and a looking forth, as if to claim or court notice and admiration, of which there was no touch in the latter.

I have never since beheld so pure and perfect a vision of female loveliness, in what I conceive to be its most perfect phase, that, namely, in which intellect does not predominate over form, feature, complexion, and the other physical attributes of female beauty, but only serves to heighten, purify and irradiate them; and it is this class of beauty which cannot be equalled on canvas.

At this time Lady Blessington was about six-and-twenty[11] years of age; but there was about her face together with that beaming intelligence which rarely shows itself upon the countenance till that period of life, a bloom and freshness which as rarely survives early youth, and a total absence of those undefinable marks which thought and feeling still more rarely fail to leave behind them. Unlike all other beautiful faces that I have seen, hers was, at the time of which I speak, neither a history nor a prophecy; not a book to read and study, a problem to solve, or a mystery to speculate upon, but a star to kneel before and worship ... an end and a consummation in itself.

P. G. Patmore: ‘My Friends and Acquaintance.’ London: Saunders & Otley, 1854.

From the period of her marriage with the Earl of Blessington, her intercourse with eminent men and distinguished persons of various pursuits may be said to date.... She was then twenty-eight years of age, in the perfection of natural beauty, that bright and radiant beauty which derives its power not so much from harmony of features and symmetry of form, as from the animating influences of intelligence beaming forth from a mind full of joyous and of kindly feelings and of brilliant fancies—that kind of vivid loveliness which is never found where some degree of genius is not. Her form was exquisitely moulded, with an inclination to fullness; but no finer proportions could be imagined; her movements were graceful and natural at all times.

The peculiar character of Lady Blessington’s beauty seemed to be the entire, exact, and instantaneous correspondence of every feature, and each separate trait of her countenance, with the emotion of her mind, which any particular subject of conversation or object of attention might excite. The instant a joyous thought took possession of her fancy, you saw it transmitted as if by electrical agency to her glowing features; you read it in her sparkling eyes, her laughing lips, her cheerful looks; you heard it expressed in her ringing laugh, clear and sweet as the gay, joy-bell sounds of childhood’s merriest tones.

There was a geniality in the warmth of her Irish feelings, an abandonment of all care, of all apparent consciousness of her powers of attraction, a glowing sunshine of good-humor and of good-nature in the smiles and laughter, and the sallies of wit of this lovely woman in her early and happy days (those of her Italian life, especially from 1823 to 1826), such as have been seldom surpassed.... Her voice was ever sweetly modulated and low. Its tones were always in harmonious concord with the traits of her expressive features. There was a cordiality, a clear, silver-toned hilarity, a correspondence in them, apparently with all her sensations, that made her hearers feel “she spoke to them with every part of her being.”... All the beauty of Lady Blessington, without the exquisite sweetness of her voice, and the witchery of its tones in pleasing or expressing pleasure, would have been only a secondary consideration.

R. R. Madden: ‘Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington.’

It is clear that the peculiar charm of Lady Blessington’s manner exercised its usual spell—that the cold, scorning, and world-wearied spirit of Byron was, for the time being, “subdued to the quality” of the genial and happy one with which it held converse—and that both the poet and the man became once more what nature intended them to be.

Lady Blessington seems to have been the only woman holding his own rank and station with whom Byron was ever at his ease, and with whom, therefore, he was himself. With all others he seemed to feel a constraint which irritated and vexed him into the assumption of vices which did not belong to him.

P. G. Patmore: ‘My Friends and Acquaintance.’

His lordship suffered Lady Blessington to lecture him in prose, and, what was worse, in verse. He endeavored to persuade Lord Blessington to prolong his stay in Genoa, and to take a residence adjoining his own named “Il Paradiso.” And on a rumor of his intention to take the place for himself, and some good-natured friend observing, “Il diavolo è ancora entrato in Paradiso,” his lordship wrote the following lines:

“Beneath Blessington’s eyes
The reclaimed Paradise
Should be free as the former from evil;
But if the new Eve
For an apple should grieve,
What mortal would not play the devil?”

R. R. Madden: ‘Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington.’

“The whole fitting up,” says Lady Blessington, “is in exquisite taste; and, as usual, when my most gallant of all gallant husbands that it ever fell to the happy lot of woman to possess interferes, no expense has been spared. The bed, which is silvered instead of gilt, rests on the backs of two large silver swans, so exquisitely sculptured that every feather is in alto-relievo, and looks as fleecy as those of the living birds. The recess in which it is placed is lined with white fluted silk, bordered with blue embossed lace; and from the columns that support the frieze of the recess, pale blue silk curtains, lined with white, are hung, which, when drawn, conceal the recess altogether.... A silver sofa has been made, to fit the side of the room opposite the fire-place, near to which stands a most inviting bergere. An escritoire occupies one panel, a book-stand the other, and a rich coffer for jewels forms a pendant to a similar one for lace or India shawls. A carpet of uncut pile, of a pale blue, a silver lamp and a Psyche glass, the ornaments silvered to correspond with the decorations of the chamber, complete the furniture. The hangings in the dressing-room are of blue silk, covered with lace, and trimmed with rich frills of the same material, as are also the dressing-stands and chaire longue, and the carpet and lamp are similar to those of the bedroom. A toilet-table stands before the window, and small jardinieres are placed in front of each panel of looking-glass, but so low as not to impede a full view of the person dressing in this beautiful little sanctuary. The salle de bain is draped with white muslin, trimmed with lace; and the sofa and the bergere are covered with the same. The bath is of marble, inserted in the floor, with which its surface is level. On the ceiling over it is a painting of Flora, scattering flowers with one hand, while from the other is suspended an alabaster lamp in the form of a lotus.”

R. R. Madden: ‘Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington.’

Her taste in everything was towards the gay, the superb, the luxurious; but, on the whole, excellently good. Here eye was as quick as lightning; her resources were many and original. It will not be forgotten how ... she astounded the opera-goers by appearing in her box with a plain transparent cap, which the world in its ignorance called a Quaker’s cap; and the best of all likenesses of her, in date later than the lovely Lawrence portrait, is that drawing by Chalon, in which this tire is represented, with some additional loops of ribbon. So, too, her houses in Seamore Place and at Kensington Gore were full of fancies which have since passed into fashions, and which seemed all to belong to and to agree with herself. Had she been the selfish sybaritic woman whom many who hated her, without knowing her, delighted to represent her, she might have indulged these joys and costly humors with impunity; but she was affectionately, inconsiderately liberal.

Henry F. Chorley: ‘Autobiography, Memoir, and Letters,’ compiled by H. G. Hewlett. London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1873.

The following sketch was taken from the “Ring” in Hyde Park:

“Observe that green chariot just making the turn of the unbroken line of equipages. Though it is now advancing towards us with at least a dozen carriages between, it is to be distinguished from the throng by the elevation of its driver and footman above the ordinary level of the line. As it comes nearer, we can observe the particular points that give it that perfectly distingué appearance which it bears above all others in the throng. They consist of the white wheels lightly picked out with green and crimson; the high-stepping action, blood-like shape and brilliant manège of its dark bay horses; the perfect style of its driver; the height (six feet two) of its slim, spider-limbed, powdered footman, perked up at least three feet above the roof of the carriage, and occupying his eminence with that peculiar air of accidental superiority which we take to be the ideal of footman perfection, and finally, the exceedingly light, airy, and (if we may so speak) intellectual character of the whole set-out. The arms and supporters blazoned on the centre panels, and the small coronet beneath the window, indicate the nobility of station; and if ever the nobility of nature was blazoned on the ‘complement extern’ of humanity, it is on the lovely face within.”

P. G. Patmore: ‘My Friends and Acquaintance.’

Enter when you would the beautifully-arranged drawing-room of Lady Blessington, with its gorgeous furnishing, resplendent lights, ample mirrors, and all the accessories of value and taste, some one you were sure to meet who was a Memory thenceforward. The list of her guests, taking any one of her “evenings,” would comprise nearly all the leading men of the time—Earl Grey, Lord Durham, Lord Brougham, the “Iron Duke,” occasionally the elder and the younger Disraeli, Walter Savage Landor, Edwin Landseer, James Smith, John Galt, “Barry Cornwall,” Thomas Moore, Campbell, Lord Lytton and Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, Dr. William Beattie, Colley Grattan—a number of names crowd upon my memory as I write—statesmen, lawyers, artists, men of letters, and foreigners of all countries. The Emperor Napoleon was a frequent guest, and here I have met him more than once when there seemed little prospect indeed that the silent, apparently ungenial, and seemingly unintellectual man, who usually occupied a neglected corner, would fill the premier rôle on the great stage of the world.... It is true few women were encountered there. I can recall none but her sister, Lady Canterbury; another sister, much younger, married to a French count; and her two nieces. I once saw “the Guiccioli” there.

S. C. Hall: ‘A Book of Memories of Great Men and Women of the Age.’ London: Virtue & Co., 1871.

Mild Wilberforce, by all beloved,
Once owned this hallowed spot,
Whose zealous eloquence improved
The fettered Negro’s lot;
Yet here still Slavery attacks,
When Blessington invites;
The chains from which he freed the Blacks
She rivets on the Whites.

James Smith: Quoted by R. R. Madden, in ‘Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington.’

Of Lady Blessington’s tact, kindness and remarkable beauty Procter always spoke with ardor, and abated nothing from the popular idea of that fascinating person. He thought she had done more in her time to institute good feeling and social intercourse among men of letters than any other lady in England, and he gave her eminent credit for bringing forward the rising talent of the metropolis without waiting to be prompted by a public verdict.

James T. Fields: ‘Barry Cornwall and Some of His Friends.’ Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 1876.

A friend in Italy had kindly given me a letter to Lady Blessington, and with a strong curiosity to see this celebrated lady, I called on the second day after my arrival in London. It was “deep i’ the afternoon,” but I had not yet learned the full meaning of “town hours.” “Her ladyship had not come down to breakfast.” I gave the letter and my address to the powdered footman, and had scarce reached home when a note arrived inviting me to call the same evening at ten.

In a long library lined alternately with splendidly bound books and mirrors, and with a deep window of the breadth of the room, opening upon Hyde Park, I found Lady Blessington alone. The picture, to my eye, as the door opened was a very lovely one. A woman of remarkable beauty, half buried in a fauteuil of yellow satin, reading by a magnificent lamp suspended from the centre of the arched ceiling; sofas, couches, ottomans, and busts, arranged in rather a crowded sumptuousness through the room; enamelled tables, covered with expensive and elegant trifles in every corner, and a delicate white hand relieved on the back of a book, to which the eye was attracted by the blaze of diamond rings. As the servant mentioned my name, she rose and gave me her hand very cordially, and a gentleman entering immediately after, she presented me to her son-in-law, Count D’Orsay, the well-known Pelham of London, and certainly the most splendid specimen of a man, and a well dressed one, that I had ever seen. Tea was brought in immediately, and conversation went swimmingly on.

The portrait of Lady Blessington in the ‘Book of Beauty’ is not unlike her, but it is still an unfavorable likeness. A picture by Sir Thomas Lawrence hung opposite me, taken, perhaps, at the age of eighteen, which is more like her, and as captivating a representation of a just matured woman, full of loveliness and love, the kind of creature with whose divine sweetness the gazer’s heart aches, as ever was drawn in the painter’s most inspired hour. The original is now (she confessed it very frankly) forty. She looks something on the sunny side of thirty. Her person is full, but preserves all the fineness of an admirable shape; her foot is not crowded in a satin slipper for which a Cinderella might be looked for in vain, and her complexion (an unusually fair skin with very dark hair and eyebrows) is of even a girlish delicacy and freshness. Her dress of blue satin was cut low, and folded across her bosom, in a way to show to advantage the round and sculpture-like curve and whiteness of a pair of exquisite shoulders, while her hair dressed close to her head and parted simply on her forehead with a rich feronière of turquoise, enveloped in clear outline a head with which it would be difficult to find a fault. Her features are regular, and her mouth, the most expressive of them, has a ripe fullness and freedom of play peculiar to the Irish physiognomy, and expressive of the most unsuspicious good-humor. Add to all this a voice merry and sad by turns, but always musical, and manners of the most unpretending elegance, yet even more remarkable for their winning kindness, and you have the most prominent traits of one of the most lovely and fascinating women I have ever seen.

Nathaniel P. Willis: ‘Pencillings by the Way.’ New York: Charles Scribner, 1853.

Lady Blessington was fair, florid-complexioned, with sparkling eyes and white, high forehead, above which her bright brown hair was smoothly braided beneath a light and simple blonde cap, in which were a few touches of sky-blue satin ribbon that singularly well became her, setting off her buxom face and its vivid coloring.

Mary Cowden Clarke: ‘Recollections of Writers.’ New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

She was inclined to embonpoint;[12] her hair abundant and of a lightish brown; but she always wore caps fastened under the chin; her complexion fair and healthily tinged, deriving no aid from art; she was too stout to be graceful, but she had a natural grace that regulated all her movements.

S. C. Hall: ‘Book of Memories.’

At that period [1832] she was past her prime no doubt, but she was still remarkably handsome; not so, perhaps, if tried by the established canons of beauty; but there was a fascination about her look and manner that greatly augmented her personal charms. Her face and features were essentially Irish, and that is the highest compliment I can pay them.

S. C. Hall: ‘Retrospect of a Long Life.’

I went by Landor’s desire to Lady Blessington’s, to whom he had named me. She is a charming and remarkable person.... Her dress rich, and her library most splendid. Her book about Lord Byron (now publishing by driblets in the New Monthly Magazine), and her other writings, give her in addition the character of a bel esprit. Landor says that she was to Lord Blessington the most devoted wife he ever knew. He says, also, that she was by far the most beautiful woman he ever saw, and was so deemed at the Court of George IV. She is now, Landor says, about thirty, but I should have thought her older. [She was forty-five.] She is a great talker, but her talk is rather narrative than declamatory, and very pleasant.

Henry Crabb Robinson: Diary, 1832, in ‘Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence,’ edited by T. Sadler. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co., 1871.

Count D’Orsay was so little guided by principle that he could not expect general credit for the purity of his relations with Lady Blessington; yet, I think, he might honestly have claimed it.

S. C. Hall: ‘Retrospect of a Long Life.’

On the 10th of May, 1849, I visited Gore House for the last time. The auction was going on. There was a large assemblage of people of fashion. Every room was thronged; the well-known library-saloon, in which the conversationes took place, was crowded, but not with guests.... People, as they passed through the room, poked the furniture, pulled about the precious objects of art and ornaments of various kinds that lay on the table.... It was a relief to leave that room: I went into another, the dining-room, where I had frequently enjoyed, “in goodly company,” the elegant hospitality of one who was indeed “a most kind hostess.”... In another apartment, where the pictures were being sold, portraits by Lawrence, sketches by Landseer and Maclise, innumerable likenesses of Lady Blessington by various artists; several of the Count D’Orsay, representing him driving, riding out on horseback, sporting, and at work in his studio; his own collection of portraits of all the frequenters of note or mark in society of the villa Belvedere, the Palazzo Negroni, the Hotel Ney, Seamore Place, and Gore House, in quick succession were brought to the hammer.... This was the most signal ruin of an establishment of a person of high rank I ever witnessed. Nothing of value was saved from the wreck, with the exception of the portrait of Lady Blessington by Chalon, and one or two more pictures. Here was a total smash, a crash on a grand scale of ruin. To the honor of Lady Blessington be it mentioned, she saved nothing, with the few exceptions I have referred to, from the wreck.... I am able to state, on authority, that the gross amount of the sale was £13,385, and the net sum realized was £11,985 4s. The portrait of Lady Blessington, by Lawrence, which cost originally only £80, I saw sold for £336. It was purchased for the Marquis of Hertford.

R. R. Madden: ‘Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington.’

She was a steady friend, through good report and evil report, for those to whom she professed friendship.... The courage with which she clung to her attachments long after they brought her only shame and sorrow, spoke for the affectionate heart, which no luxury could spoil and no vicissitude sour.

She must have had originally the most sunny of sunny natures. As it was, I have never seen anything like her vivacity and sweet cheerfulness during the early years when I knew her. She had a singular power of entertaining herself by her own stories; the keenness of an Irishwoman in relishing fun and repartee, strange turns of language, and bright touches of character. A fairer, kinder, more universal recipient of everything that came within the possibilities of her mind, I have never known. I think the only genuine author whose merits she was averse to admit was Hood; and yet she knew Rabelais, and delighted in ‘Elia.’ It was her real disposition to dwell on beauties rather than faults. Critical she could be, and as judiciously critical as any woman I have ever known, but she never seemed to be so willingly. When a poem was read to her, or a book given to her, she could always touch on the best passage, the bright point; and rarely missed the purpose of the work, if purpose it had.

Henry F. Chorley: ‘Autobiography, Memoir and Letters.’

Although I knew her history sufficiently well, I attributed to this particular daughter of Erin her share of the “wild sweet briery fence that round the flower of Erin dwells,” and felt conviction that for the unhappy circumstances of Lady Blessington’s early life, the sins of others, far more than her own, were responsible, and that she had been to a great extent the victim of circumstances. To that opinion I still hold—some thirty years after her death, and more than fifty since I first saw her.

S. C. Hall: ‘Retrospect of a Long Life.’