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interfere with the prospects, and advancement in life, of her sisters. It was supposed that one of the military friends of Mr. Power, and a frequent visitor at his house, Captain Jenkins, then stationed at Tullow, had been disposed to pay his addresses to Miss Ellen Power, and to have married her, and was prevented by other stronger impressions, made on him by one then wholly unconscious of the influence exerted by her."* The supposition, however, as far as Miss Ellen Power was concerned, was an erroneous one.

Captain Jenkins was brought up in the expectation of inheriting a large fortune in Hampshire, and was ultimately disappointed in that expectation. For several years he had a large income, and having expended a great deal of money, upwards of £100,000, 'previously to his marriage, had been for many years greatly embarrassed. His embarrassments, however, did not prevent him from retaining the esteem and regard of all who had known him in his more prosperous circumstances; and amongst the rest, the Earl of Blessington, to whom he was indebted for assistance on a single occasion, and in one sum at that time, to the amount of £10,000. Captain Jenkins was a generous man, an amiable

The officer above referred to, was a Captain Thomas Jenkins, of the 11th Light Dragoons; a gentleman of a good family in Hampshire, and of very large expectations of fortune. He had a brother in the same regiment with him, who remained in Ireland some years subsequently to his departure for England.

By the Army List we find this gentleman entered the army in December, 1801. He held the rank of Lieutenant in the 11th Light Dragoons in January, 1802. In December, 1806, he obtained a Captaincy, and continued to hold the same rank in that regiment till after the peace in 1815. In 1809 he was domiciled in Dublin, in Holles Street, and Mrs. Farmer was then also residing in Dublin. In 1816 his name disappears from the Army Lists. He had an establishment at Sidmanton, in Hampshire, for three or four years previously to 1814. He served with his regiment in the latter part of the Peninsular campaign, and was absent from Sidmanton nearly two years.—R. R. M.

and kindly-disposed person, of very prepossessing appearance, elegant manners, and pleasing address. He married, when rather advanced in years, the Baroness Calabrella-a sister of a gentleman of some notoriety in his day, Mr. Ball Hughes -the widow first of a Mr. Lee, and secondly of a Mr. De Blaquiere. This lady, who was possessed of considerable means, purchased a small property on the continent, with some rights of Seigniorage appertaining to it, from which the title is derived which she now bears.

She resided for some years in Abbeville, up to a short period, I believe, of her second husband's death, which took place in Paris.

"was

This lady is the talented authoress of several remarkable productions, was long intimately acquainted with Lady Blessington, and held in very high estimation by her Ladyship. "The house of Mr. Power," Mr. Sheehy states, made so disagreeable to Mrs. Farmer, that she might be said to have been driven to the necessity of seeking shelter elsewhere.

"He remembers Mrs. Farmer residing at Tullow, in the county of Waterford, four miles from Lismore. His own family was then living at Cappoquin, within seven miles of Tullow. Mrs. Farmer wrote to her uncle and his daughters; but he disapproved of her separation from Captain Farmer, and refused, on that account, to allow his daughters to visit her."

Previously to her marriage with Captain Farmer," he adds, "idle persons gossiped about her alleged love of ballroom distinction, and intimacy with persons remarkable for gaiety and pleasure. But there was no ground for the rumour.”

Another gentleman, well acquainted with the family, Alderman H-, says : "Mrs Farmer lived for nearly three years with her husband at different places. After the separation,

she sojourned for some time with her aunt, Mrs. Gleeson, the wife of Dr. Gleeson, and sister of her father, who lived at Ringville, near Dungarvan (and is still living there). She resided also occasionally at her father's with her sister Ellen, sans reproche (but not without great trials); her husband treated her badly."

Mr. Jeremiah Meagher, British Vice-Consul at Lisbon, informed me that he was in the employment of Mr. Power, in connection with the Clonmel Gazette, in 1804, at the period of the marriage of Marguerite Power with Captain Farmer. That subsequently to it, he knew her when she was residing at Cahir. Another acquaintance of Lady Blessington in early life, remembers her and her sister Ellen residing, at the period referred to, in Felhard, and has a recollection of meeting them at the shop of a Mr. Byrne, in that town.

Mr. Meagher speaks in terms of the strongest regard for her. “He never knew a person so inclined to act kindly towards others, to do anything that lay in her power to serve others; he never knew a person naturally better disposed, or one possessing so much goodness of heart. He knew her from childhood, to the period of her marriage, and some years subsequently to it; and of all the children of Mr. Power, Marguerite was his favourite."

This is the testimony of a very honest and upright man

Mr. Meagher says-" She resided at Cahir so late as 1807. He thinks Captain Jenkins' intimacy with the Power family commenced in 1807." And another informant, Mr. Wright, son of Bernard Wright, states that Mrs. Farmer, while residing at Cahir, visited frequently at Lord Glengall's. Other persons have a recollection of Colonel Stewart, of Killymoon, being a favourite guest at the house of Mr. Power, at many entertainments, between 1805 and 1807, and a supposed admirer of Miss Ellen Power.

The Tyrone militia was stationed at Clonmel, or in its vici

nity, about the period of Captain Farmer's marriage with Miss Power, or not long after that event.

The Colonel of this regiment was the Earl of Caledon (date of appointment, 11th of August, 1804). The LieutenantColonel, Lord Mountjoy (date of appointment, 28th of September, 1804). His lordship was succeeded in the LieutenantColonelcy by William Stewart, Esq., son of Sir J. Stewart, of Killymoon (date of appointment, 16th of April, 1805), and continued to hold that rank from 1805 to 1812. As an intimate friend of Miss Ellen Power and her sister, a few words of Colonel Stewart may not be out of place.

He was a descendant of the junior branch of the Stewarts of Ochiltree, who were related to the royal line, and who received large grants from James I., after his accession to the British throne. Colonel Stewart's splendid mansion (built by Nash), and magnificent demesne of Killymoon, were hardly equalled, for elegant taste and beauty of situation and scenery, in the county of Tyrone. The library, the remains of which I saw immediately after the sale of the property in 1850, was one of the richest in Ireland, in Italian literature. The Colonel had been much in Italy, and had carried back with him the tastes and habits of an accomplished traveller, and a lover of Italian lore. His personal appearance and manners were remarkable for elegance, and were no less prepossessing and attractive than his mental qualities and accomplishments. Sir John Stewart, the father of the late Colonel Stewart, died in October, .825, at his seat, Killymoon. He had been a distinguished member of the Dungannon volunteer convention. "Sir John had been returned six times for the county Tyrone, and had been a member of the Irish and Imperial Parliament for forty years, during which time he was a steady, uniform, and zealous supporter of the constitution in church and state. He filled the offices of counsel to the Revenue Board, Solicitor-General, and Attorney-General; and

of him it was truly observed, by an aged statesman, that he was one of the few men who grew more humble the higher he advanced in political station.' Sir John was married in the year 1790, to Miss Archdale, sister of General Archdale, M.P. for the county of Fermanagh, by whom he had two sons and a daughter."*

In the several notices of Lady Blessington that have been published, there is a hiatus in the account given, that leaves a period of about nine years unnoticed.

In 1807 she was living at Cahir, in the county Tipperary, separated from her husband; in 1809 she was sojourning in Dublin; a little later, she was residing in Hampshire; in 1816, we find her established in Manchester Square, London; and at the commencement of 1818, on the point of marriage with an Irish nobleman.

The task I have proposed to myself does not render it necessary for me to do more than glance at the fact, and to cite a few passages more from the Memoir of Miss Power]

"Circumstances having at last induced Mrs. Farmer to fix upon London as a residence, she established herself in a house in Manchester Square, where, with her brother, Robert (Michael had died some years previously), she remained for a considerable period.

"Notwithstanding the troublous scenes through which she had passed, the beauty denied in her childhood had gradually budded and blossomed into a degree of loveliness which many now living can attest, and which Lawrence painted, and Byron sung."

[Among the visitors at her house, we are told by Miss Power, was the Earl of Blessington, then a widower. And on the occurrence of an event in 1817, which placed the destiny of Mrs. Farmer in her own hands, his Lordship's ad

* Annual Register, Appendix to Chronicle, 1825, p. 286.

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