82

CHAPTER III.

BYRON AND THE BLESSINGTONS AT GENOA.

THE 1st of April, 1823, Lady Blessington's strong desire was gratified-she saw Byron. But the lady was disappointed, and there is reason to believe that the lord, always indisposed abroad to make new acquaintances with his countrymen or women, was, on the occasion of this interview, taken by surprise, and not so highly gratified by it as might have been expected, when the agrèmens and personal attractions of the lady are taken into consideration.

Lady Blessington's expression of disappointment has a tincture of asperity in it, which is seldom indeed to be found in her observations. There are very evident appearances of annoyance of some kind or another in the account given by her of this interview, occasioned either by the reception given her by Byron, or at some eccentricity, or absence of mind, that was unexpected, or apparent want of homage on his part, to her beauty or talents on this occasion, to which custom had habituated her.

It must also be observed, that the interview with her Ladyship is described as having been sought by Lord Byron. It is more than probable, however, a little ruse was practised on his Lordship to obtain it. Lord Blessington having been admitted at once, on presenting himself at Byron's door, was on the point of taking his departure, apologizing for the briefness of the visit, on account of Lady Blessington being

left in an open carriage in the court-yard, the rain then falling, when Byron immediately insisted on descending with Lord Blessington, and conducting her Ladyship into his house.

"When we arrived," says Lady Blessington, "at the gate of the court-yard of the Casa Saluzzo, in the village of Albano,* where he resides, Lord Blessington and a gentleman of our party left the carriage, and sent in their names.† They were admitted immediately, and experienced a very cordial reception from Lord Byron, who expressed himself delighted to see his old acquaintance. Byron requested to be presented to me; which led to Lord Blessington's avowing that I was in the carriage at the gate, with my sister, Byron immediately hurried out into the court, and I, who heard the sound of steps, looked through the gate, and beheld him approaching quickly towards the carriage without his hat, and considerably in advance of the other two gentlemen."

The visit was a long one: and many questions were asked about old friends and acquaintances. Lady Blessington says, Byron expressed warmly, at their departure, the pleasure which the visit had afforded him-and she doubted not his sincerity; not that she would arrogate any merit in her party, to account for his satisfaction; but simply because she could perceive that Byron liked to hear news of his old associates, and to pass them en revue, pronouncing sarcasms on each as he turned up in conversation.

In a previous notice of this interview, which bears some internal evidence of having been written long after the period it refers to lamenting over the disappointment she felt at finding her beau ideal of a poet by no means realized, her

About a mile and a half from Genoa.-R. R. M.

The gentleman's name will be found in a letter of Byron to Moore, dated 2nd April, 1823.

Ladyship observes: "Well, I never will allow myself to form an ideal of any person I desire to see; for disappointment never fails to ensue."

Byron, she admits, had more thanusual personal attractions, "but his appearance nevertheless had fallen short of her expectations." There is no commendation, however, without a concomitant effort at depreciation. For example, her Ladyship observes" His laugh is musical, but he rarely indulged in it during our interview; and when he did, it was quickly followed by a graver aspect, as if he liked not this exhibition of hilarity. Were I asked to point out the prominent defect of Byron's manner, I should pronounce it to be a flippancy incompatible with the notion we attach to the author of Childe Harold and Manfred; and a want of self-possession and dignity, that ought to characterise a man of birth and genius. Notwithstanding this defect, his manners are very fascinating -more so, perhaps, than if they were dignified: but he is too gay, too flippant for a poet."*

Lady Blessington was accompanied on this occasion by her sister, Miss Mary Anne Power, now Comtesse de St. Marsault. Byron, in a letter to Moore, dated April 2nd, 1823, thus refers to this interview :

"Your other allies, whom I have found very agreeable personages, are Milor Blessington and èpouse, travelling with a very handsome companion, in the shape of a 'French Count' (to use Farquhar's phrase in the Beaux Stratagem), who has all the air of a Cupidon déchainé, and is one of the few specimens I have seen of our ideal of a Frenchman before the Revolution, an old friend with a new face, upon whose like I never thought that we should look again. Miladi seems highly literary, to which, and your honour's acquaintance with the family, I attribute the pleasure of having seen them. She is also very pretty, even in a morning,-a species of beauty

* Idler in Italy, p. 392.

་

on which the sun of Italy does not shine so frequently as the chandelier. Certainly English women wear better than their continental neighbours of the same sex. Mountjoy seems very good-natured, but is much tamed since I recollect him in all the glory of gems and snuff-boxes, and uniform, and theatricals, and speeches in our house- I mean of peers,'— I must refer you to Pope, whom you don't read, and won't appreciate for that quotation (which you must allow to be poetical), and sitting to Stroelling, the painter, (do you remember our visit, with Leckie, to the German ?) to be depicted as one of the heroes of Agincourt, with his long sword, saddle, bridle, Whack fal de, &c. &c."

We thus find, from the letter of Byron to his friend Moore, that the Blessingtons were accompanied by the Count Alfred D'Orsay, in their visit to his Lordship, and that he was one of the party on their arrival, and at their departure from Genoa.

It is probable that the arrangements for the Count's journey to Italy with the Blessingtons had been made in Paris, though he did not accompany them from that city, but joined them first at Valence on the Rhone, and subsequently at Avignon.

D'Orsay, who had been attached to the French army of the pretended expedition against Spain, abandoned his profession, in an evil hour, for the career of a mere man of pleasure and of fashion.

Byron and the Blessingtons continued to live on the most intimate terms, we are told by Lady Blessington, during the stay of the latter at Genoa; and that intimacy had such a happy influence on the author of Childe Harold, that he began to abandon his misanthropy. On the other hand, I am assured by the Marquise de Boissy, formerly Countess of Guiccioli, that the number of visits of Byron to Lady Blessington during the entire period of her sojourn in Genoa,

did not exceed five or six at the utmost; and that Byron was by no means disposed to afford the opportunities that he believed were sought, to enable a lady of a literary turn to write about him. But D'Orsay, she adds, at the first interview, had struck Byron as a person of considerable talents and wonderful acquirements for a man of his age and former pursuits. 'Byron from the first liked D'Orsay; he was clever, original, unpretending; he affected to be nothing that he was not."

Byron sat for his portrait to D'Orsay, that portrait which subsequently appeared in the New Monthly Magazine, and afterwards as a frontispiece of her Ladyship's work, "Conversations with Lord Byron.'

His Lordship suffered Lady Blessington to lecture him in prose, and what was worse-in verse. He endeavoured to persuade Lord Blessington to prolong his stay in Genoa, and to take a residence adjoining his own, named "Il Paradiso." And a rumour of his intention to take the place for himself, and some good-naturned 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?

But the original conceit was not in poetry.

Lady Blessington informed me, that on the occasion of a masked ball, to be given in Genoa, Byron stated his intention of going there, and asked her Ladyship to accompany him: en badinant about the character she was to go in, some one had suggested that of Eve-Byron said, "As some one must play the devil, I will do it."