w, in picturesque language, his opinions
on men, women, and manners,--to provide for later times the data from
which to gauge his strange personality.

She has written much of herself into her records; and calumny urged,
at the time of publication, that she insinuated in her writings a far
greater degree of friendship on the poet's part than really existed.
Yet, in refutation of this is Byron's letter to Moore:--

"I have just seen some friends of yours, who paid me a visit
yesterday, which, in honor of them and of yours, I returned to-day, as
I reserve my bear-skin and teeth and paws and claws for our enemies.

"Your allies, whom I found very agreeable personages, are Milor
Blessington and _epouse_, travelling with a very handsome companion,
in the shape of a 'French count' (to use Farquhar's phrase in the
'Beau's Stratagem'), who has all the air of a _cupidor dechaine_.
Milady seems highly literary; to which, and your honor'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 on which the
sun of Italy does not shine so frequently as the chandelier."

The Countess Guiccioli was among those who depreciated the
Blessingtons' accounts of the conversations; but then, perchance,
there may have been some jealousy of the attractive English woman's
influence over the poet. The Blessingtons left Genoa in June of 1823,
and continued their journeyings throughout Italy until 1828. In the
preceding year, Count D'Orsay had become the husband of the Earl of
Blessington's daughter, Lady Harriet Frances Gardiner, when she was
but little over fifteen years of age; but they lived together but
three years. In 1829, the Earl died in Paris; and the Countess
continued there until after the Revolution of 1830, when she returned
to England. Her journal of the trip from Naples to Paris, and her stay
in that city, was published in 1841, under the title of "The Idler in
France." In England she took a house in Seamore Place, Mayfair, and
later removed to Gore House, Kensington, with which place is
associated the traditions of her elegant entertainings and her
intercourse with many men of eminence, but also with a course of
living which compromised her reputation in society. Her son-in-law,
the Count, continued to form one of her household, though separated
from his wife, the Lady Harriet. Though not received in general
society, the Countess surrounded hers