BOOKS.

MADDEN'S LIFE AND COD.HESPO.NDENCE OF LADY BLESSINGTON.$ THE acquaintance of Dr. Madden with Lady Blessington began in 1823, at Naples, and continued with increasing intimacy till her death, in 1849. This friendship, "and the advantage of possess- ing the entire confidence of that lady, are the circumstances which induced the friends of Lady Blessington to commit to him the task of editing an account of her Literary Life and Correspond- ence." In some respects the choice was advantageous. Besides Dr. Madden's intimacy with the lady and her family, he had an acquaint- ance with many of the habitués of her establishment both in London and on the Continent. An Irishman himself, and acquainted with Irish society at the latter end of the last and beginning of this cen- tury, he is enabled by observation, tradition, and study, to exhibit the unpropitious circumstances of Lady Blessington's early years, and adduce them as excuses for her after life. On the other hand, the Doctor's early literary fluency and spirit have degenerated into an extraordinary discursiveness as regards topics, and great verboseness of style. The time which has elapsed since Lady Blessington's death renders any plea for haste un- tenable; the rbPetition of the same story in different words, or the repetitimr:of the same composition, and a general laxity thrOuWout, must be attributed to carelessness. The greatest lite- 1.-4*r-defect of the publication, however originates in a want of dlItical acumen, and in the mistaken notions of the editor as to the importancnettached to Lady Blessington. He expands his three thick volarns with Avecounts not only of her own family and the families of her husbands, but of people who somehow or other had some connexion with them. He quotes copiously from her Lady- ship's published works; he prints at large the complimentary verses, addressed to her by. poetasters as well as by poets, and publishes -without much judicious selection whole pages of commonplace let- ters from herself or her friends on personal matters, very atm without the•interearrhich attaches to trifles thrOugh a greatitanm, In another pdini of liew Dr. Madden falls into a :graver mistake: The :" Literary Life" of his heroine did not begin till after hir marriage with the Earl of Blessington. The terms of his title might" properly have limited him to the meridian splendour and decline of this literary meteor of fashion; without leading the. reader to•trace its origin. But had the early part been done at all, it had better have been done frankly.. Dr. Madden introduces the reader to the birth and early years of Margaret Power—to the evil influences which surrounded her—to her disastrous marriage; and early separation from her first husband—and then drops the subject mysteriously, leaving a long gap of years undescribed, till he presents his heroine as a widow residing in London, and on friendly terms with Lord Blessington. Spite of its glaring faults, the book has considerable interest. The reader catches glimpses of that. curious state'of social rank- nem which was found in Ireland some sixty or. seventy years ago. He is introduced to many of the male and female celebrities of literature, art, rank, and fashion, during the last thirty years, and to some persons of singularity rather than celebrity, of whom Dr.. Madden gives a sufficient account. The unnecessary or „tedious matter is easily'skipped ; and the correspondence, embracing two- thirds of the whole, is fragmentary in its form, and not ill adapted for reading-by bits.- On the great feature of every biography—the moral it points—Dr. Maddenis definite enough. There is nothing in Juvenal or Pope that more distinctly impresses the worldly punishment of worldly vanity, and of something more than worldly weakness, than the facts of this book. - The life of Lady Blessington, as presented by an avowed- partisan, exhibits not so much the vanity of human wishes in some, of the most general

ce

forms of wishing; as the consequences- of an 'abuse-of the gifts of fortune and a misuse of the gifts of nature. For Lady Blessington's errors, however, there was much excuse: She was born in 1790. Her father was about the worst of a very bad race, the Irish squire of the last century; dissipated, reckless, extravagant, and a domestic tyrant. Thus the childhood of Mar- garet Power passed in a home—or rather a house— where the mo- ther was a nonentity and the .father a terror. The household management would appear to have resembled what we read of in novels deseriptive of the period : an indiscriminate reception of guests, an effort to compete with the " quality " in entertain= ments, while the. family were stinted, in comfort and education, and even the hospitality aimed at :was An incongruous mixture of the lavish and the mean: Mr. Powerrair; in our author's phrase. "Edmund Power, Esq., of Knockbrit; near .Clonmel, in the count; of Tipperary," was by birth a Romanist ; but he, apostatized, and • The Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blebsineton. By R. B. Madden, M.E.I.A.; Author of "Travels in the East," "Shiines and Sepul- chres," &c., &c. In three volumes. Published by Newby. became a vehement Orangeman, hunting down " rebels" with- out mercy. On one of these occasions he shot a peasant youth, with so little ground for the deed, that even in those days the zealous magistrate was obliged to stand his trial for murder; though a jury of " the right sort %acquitted him. He was a friend or an instrument of Lord Donoughmore, and not only received his Lordship as a guest, but started a newspaper at his instigation, and being prosecuted for a libel of my Lord's :ntii,,!:^27.:r.-

was left to pay damages and costs. On better eat practical many Irish politicians he expected "a place "' ...truiar-t3ina

get one. He embarked in business • but his partners - -cc obliged to get rid of him, at considerable loss, to protect tuer selves. After staving of the effects of ruin as only an Irishman of that day could stave them off, he subsisted for manryaars on an allowance from his daughters, Lady Blessington andMady : Canterbury. In youth and middle age 'was, says DeMaddee, " a fine-looking man, of an imposing appearance,, showy, and of an aristocratic air, very demonstrative of frills and ruffles, much given to white cravats and the wearing of leather breeches and top-boots. He was known to the Tipperary,,bloods as a Buck,' as Shiver the Frills,' Beau Power,' and other appellations complimentary to his sporting characterOxklicking disposition, and very remarkable cos- tume." Whether " Shiver the Frills" was acquainted with the Horatian maxim touching A dramatic character, may be doubted ; but he certainly maintained his own consistency to the last.

"Mr. Power, at the time of his decease, (in 1837,) was seventy years; of age. A youth passed without the benefit of experience had merged into,. manhood without the restraints of religion, or the influences of kindly home. affections, and terminated in age without wisdom, or honour, or respect, and death without solemnity, or the semblance of any becoming fitness for its encounter. The day before he died, the only thing he could boast of to a friend who visited him was, that he had been able to take his four or fire tumblers of punch the evening before."

By this unworthy parent his daughter Margaret was sacrificed, if not sold, in her fifteenth. year. Captain Farmer, . with other officers of the Forty-seventh Regiment, were frequent guests of Mr. Power ; and Farmer was so smitten with Margaret, then 1 tle more than fourteen, that he proposed, and was accepted. It waroismall consequence that the suitor was of violent temper and reported_ to lie tainted.with insanity ; of no consequence at all that Margaret _ had an instinctive aversion to him : he was a man of propertyrand therefore even her mother forwarded the match. At the wedding, says Dr. Madden, " the bride-groom (meaning, we suppose, grooms,-, man) of. Captain Farmer was a Captain Hardinge, of the, Fortf.-/ seventh regiment. , The Captain became a General, and is now a, Lord." It might as well have been said that he was the present Commander-in-chief.

The, marriaoe turned out as might have been expected. Ac cording to ;Lady Blessington's account, to Dr. Madden, her bus- hand,. from, the beginning, " frequently treated. her with personal violence."

"He used to-strike her on the face, pinch her till her arms were black and blue, 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 per- mitted to sell his commission. The friends of Captain Farmer now prevailed on him to go to India, I think Lady Bleasington said in the Company's service she, however, refused to go with him, and remained at her fitheeti. "

- There are other versions of the latter part of this story.; the . biographer's zeal and industry having induced him to celled and•

collate various reports" from diving persons who remembered the separation: From these it would appear that Mrs. Farmer found herself so uncomfortable at her father's, that she left his house, and resided, some say at Cahir, some at Ringville, and some at Tallow; but she may have resided at each in turn. Her uncle disapproved of her separation; and forbade his daughters to visit her; and she seems to haire been talked about.. Her residence at Cahir is traced up to.1807 ; after which matters are summarily dismissed. • "In the several notices of Lady.Blessington that have linen pub.140, there is a hiatus in the account given, that leaves a period,of aboutarne years unnoticed. "In 1807 she was living at Cahir, in the county Tipperary; sepaiated from her husband; in 1809 she was sojourning in • Dublin ;ra-liitle Tater she was-. residing 'in Hampshire ; in 1816,' we find lei established in Manchester Square, London ; and at the commencement 4;1818 on the point of mar-

riage with an Irish nobleman." [Farmer had been killed in 1817, by drop- ping from a two-pair-of-stairs window, in a state of drunkenness, when on a visit to some congenial souls in the Bench.]

The Irish nobleman was the Earl of Blessington ; a man who seems to have been as foolishly mad as Captain Farmer was mad mis- chievously. He succeeded to the title in 1798, on the death aids father. On attaining his majority, he came into possession of a

rental of 30,0001. a year, two sinecures as it would appear, and very probably accumulations of money. Of all these vast posses- sions scarcely anything appears:to remain. The. Encumbered Es-

tates Act, according to Dr. Madden, but we rather think a special ant of Parliament in aid of a Chancery suit, finally scattered the splendid fortune of the Mountjoys. The Earl, indeed, was an adept at parting with his money.

" In squandering wealth was his peculiar art;

Nothing went unrewarded but desert."

His grand attraction in youth was private theatricals, and the sort of company connected with them. It does not appear that he

ever attained much distinction as a histrio. Dr. Madden says, "he took parts which required to be gorgeously apparelled." The role which receives specific mention was the rather appropriate charac- ter of the Green Knight in " Valentine and Orson." The bio- grapher has hunted up two old tenants who remember the private theatricals at Mountjoy Forest. They were admitted to see his Lord- ship act. "The dresses he wore were very grand and fine " ; and he was thought a fine actor. They saw him in "some great parts "; but they could not tell whether they were tragic or comic. Perhaps the audience might have been equally at a loss as regards hialarciship's "reading." The Fain of Blessington was a widower when he married Mrs. 1411:th ar-iis first marriage having taken place under circum- stemma which left him two legitimate and two illegitimate chil- dren. His second wife, the subject of these volumes, appears to have turned the Peer's ambition from theatrical to social distinc- tion. A large mansion was taken in St. James's Square, and fur- nished in a style of princely splendour. It was the splendour of this mansion and a corresponding style of living that probably laid the foundation of Lady Blessington's future social celebrity, as much as the literary abilities or social fascinations to which daqueurs have attributed her success. No thought of means ever stood in Lord Blessington's way for a moment : if the income did not suffice and credit failed there was the resource of borrowing. The rank and presence of the Earl, the fascinations or the feminine flatteries of his wife, the splendour of the establishment, with the excellence of the cook, drew to St. James's Square a number of visitors, emi- nent for rank, politics, literature, and art, and evidently of a more select class than the " wits of undistinguished race " who were received at Seymour Place and Gore House on Lady Blessington's return from the Continent after the Earl's death, in 1829.

"Two Royal English Dukes condescended not unfrequently to do homage at the new shrine of Irish beauty and intellect in St. James's Square. Can- ning, Lord Castlereagh, the Marquis of Lansdowne, and Lords Palmerston and Russell, Burdett and Brougham, Scarlett and Jekyll, Erskine, and many other celebrities, paid their devoirs there. Whig and Tory politicians and lawyers, forgetful of their party feuds and professional rivalries for the nonce, came there as gentle pilgrims. Kemble and Matthews, Lawrence and Wilkie, eminent divines too, Dr. Parr and others. Rogers, Moore, and Lut- trel, were among the votaries who paid their vows in visits there, not angel- like, for theirs were neither 'few nor far between.' But among all the dis- tinguished persons who visited Lady Blessington, none were more devouees in their attachment, or ardent in their admiration of the talents and traits, intellectual and personal, of the fair lady, than the late Earl Grey."

Dr. Madden thinks there was greater economy practised by the Earl after his second marriage, owing to the influence of his wife. We doubt it. In fifteen years—from 1803 to 1818—Lord Blessing- ton not only spent his annual income, but managed to reduce it by some 60001. a year. In the twelve years of his marriage with the subject of this memoir, three-and-twenty thousand a year did not suffice to avert final ruin. Subject to legacies and some life interests, there was little left at last, and his affairs were so inex- tricably involved that a " vigour beyond the law " was necessary to wind them up. In fact, Dr. Madden admits the luxurious recklessness of the once penniless Margaret Power.

" On the 14th of July, nine days after her arrival in Rome, Lady Blessing- ton writes in her diary—' Left Rome yesterday ; driven from it bv oppres- sive heat, and the evil prophecies dinned into my ears of the malaria. I have no fears of the effect of either for myself, but I dare not risk them for others.'

"There were other circumstances besides those referred to, in all probabi- lity, which determined the precipitate departure from Rome. All the appli- ances to comfort, or rather to luxury, which had become necessary to Lady Blessington, had not been found in Rome. Her Ladyship had become exceed- ingly fastidious in her tastes. The difficulties of pleasing her in house ac- commodation, in dress, in cookery especially, had become so formidable, and occasioned so many inconveniences, that the solicitude spoken of, for the safety of others, was only one of the reasons for the abrupt departure re- ferred to."

It is but fair to mention that upwards of 100,0001. of the wreck of the fortune went to Count D'Orsay, or rather to the Count's creditors, as a discharge of all his claims on the estate of the Earl in right of D'Orsay's wife under her father's will. This marriage with the (only) legitimate daughter of Lord Bles- sington by his first wife, took place in 1827, having been concocted several years before. The circumstances were somewhat different from what has been asserted, and even more discreditable. The conduct of Lord Blessington Dr. Madden plainly ascribes to in- sanity. The motive of Count D'Orsay appears to have been un- disguised cupidity. The Earl drew up two wills, with clauses similar to those which form the groundwork of some plays and no- vels, imposing a pecuniary penalty in case the marriage did not take place. In order to make assurance doubly. sure, however, he hurried on the 'marriage to a mere school-girl, who, when the scheme was first conceived, was only eleven years old. The document may be read in the book; we extract Dr. Madden's com- ments and general picture of the victim. " The Count D'Orsay had been married the 1st of December 1827, to Lady Harriet Frances Gardiner, who was then fifteen years of age and four months.

" It was an unhappy marriage ; and nothing to any useful purpose can be said of it, except that Lord Blessington sacrificed his child's happiness, by causing her to marry without consulting her inclinations or her interests. " Taken from school without any knowledge of the world, acquaintance with society, or its usages and forms—wholly inexperienced—transferred to the care of strangers, and naturally indisposed to any exertion that might lead to efforts to conciliate them—she was brought from her own country to a distant land, to wed a man she had never seen up to the period of her arrival in Italy, where, within a few weeks of her first meeting with that foreign gentleman who had been on terms of intimacy with her father, she was destined to become his bride.

" Lady Harriet was exceedingly girlish-looking; pale, and rather inani- mate in expression, silent and reserved: there was no appearance of fami- liarity with any one around her ; no air or look of womanhood, no semblance of satisfaction in her new position, were to be observed in her demeanour or deportment. She seldom or ever spoke ; she was little noticed ; she was looked on as a mere school-girl. I think her feelings were crushed, repressed, and her emotions driven inwards, by the sense of slight and indifference, and by the strangeness and coldness of everything around her ; and she became indifferent and strange and cold, and apparently devoid of all vivacity and interest in society or in the company of any person in it. People were mis- taken in her, and she perhaps was also mistaken in others. Her father's act had led to all these misconceptions and misconstructions, ending in sus- picions, animosities, aversions, and total estrangements."

In 1831 Lady Blessington returned to London; where she con- tinued to reside till the embarrassment of her affairs compelled her to leave England, in 1849. She lived first at a house in Seymour Place, and subsequently at Gore House ; striving after the same style as she had enjoyed in St. James's Square ten years earlier. Her income under her husband's will, including her jointure, was not in proportion to her lately acquired tastes or her late habits of life, being only 20001. a year. According to her editor, she must have spent 4000/. ; and, from his description of her mode of life, that estimate is probably too little. Further she would seem to have embarrassed herself at starting by the extravagance of an outlay that could only be properly met by capital in hand, furnish- ing her house in a rich not to say a gaudy manner. Her old acquaintances of St. James's Square still kept up the con- nexion, but the bulk of her visitors would seem to have been of an inferior grade, though perhaps better answering the purpose of extended notoriety than the more select class. American litterateurs with a roving commission, like N. P. Willis, could spread her fame in both hemispheres, in return for an invitation. Writers considerably below even DT. P. Willis could blow the trumpet in her praise at home; all receiving skilful if somewhat wholesale doses of flattery in return. Publishers themselves were influenced by flattery and feasting : " With authors, stationers obeyed the call." And some expense in this way was justifiable, if not necessary. Notwithstanding the "light literature " merit of one or two of her earlier works, the real interest felt at the time in her " Conversations " with Lord Byron, the factitious interest of her " revelations " of fashionable life, and the incessant and somewhat fulsome praises of a portion of the press, her Ladyship's works seldom paid. " In fact, of late years it was with the utmost difficulty she could get a publisher to undertake at his own risk the publication of a work of hers." The belief of her niece Miss Power, that she made a thousand a year, and sometimes more, by her pen, would seem to be confined to a brief period.

The book abounds with praises both of Lady Blessington and Count D'Orsay. To the merit of kindly feeling and a wil- lingness to serve others at the expense of time or trouble, the lady is undoubtedly entitled. Her powers of fascination seem resolvable into hilarious good-humour, the art of dex- terous flattery, and a knack of drawing every one out till he was pleased with himself. The exceeding good-nature and po- liteness of both are dwelt upon. The fullest and most definite ac- counts of the entertainments at Gore House, however, refer to the making of somebody a butt for the amusement of the company, who perhaps were made to do service in a quieter way in their turn. An unfortunate Frenchman, who had " assisted " at the first French Revolution, seemed to furnish a standing joke of this kind; and was rather a poor joke too, as reported by our author. The reader will suppose that M. Julien has arrived, paid his devoirs, and been asked by D'Orsay to favour Lady Blessington and the company with another canto of his (MS.) "Chagrins Politiques."

"There was one present, the Count observed, who had never heard the Chagrins,' long and earnestly as he desired that gratification. rest cc pas, Madden, vous n'avez jamais entendu lea Chagrins Politiques de noire cher ami Monsieur Julien ? '

"All the reply that could be given was in a single word, Jamais:

" Aliens, mon ami,' continued D'Orsay ; ce pauvre Madden a Ilea be- soin d'entendre yes Chagrins Politiques—il a les suns aussi—(I had been re- cently reviewed and reviled in some periodicals)—il a suffert—lui—il a des sympathies pour les blesses, it faut le donner cette triste plaisir—n'est oe pas, Madden ? '

"Another dire effort to respond in the affirmative : 'Coal, Monsieur le Comte.'

" Monsieur Julien, after playing off for some minutes all the diffident airs of a bashful young lady dying to sing and protesting she cannot, placed him- self at the upper end of the room, near a table with wax lights, pulled the roll of paper from his breast-pocket, and began to recite his Chagrins Poli- tiques; in a most lugubrious tone, like Mademoiselle Duchesnois—avec les pleura dans la vela. The saloon was crowded with distinguished guests. On the left hand of the tender-hearted poet and most doleful reciter of his own sorrows—this quondam secretary of Robespierre—was Lady Blessington in her well-known fauteuil, looking most intently, and with apparent anxious solicitude, full in the face of the dolorous reciter. But it would not do for one listening to the Chagrins' to look too curiously into the eyes of that lady, lest he might perceive any twinkling there indicative of internal hilarity of a communicative kind. On the other side of Monsieur Julien, but somewhat in front of him, sat Count D'Orsay, with a handkerchief oc- casionally.lifted to his eyes ' • and ever and anon a plaudit or an exclama- tion of pain was uttered by him at the recital of some particular Chagrin.' At the very instant when the accents of the reciter were becoming most exceedingly lugubrious and ludicrous, and the difficulty of refraining from laughter was at its height, D'Orsay was heard to whisper in a sotto vooe, as he leaned his head over the back of the chair I sat on, Pleurez done ! ' "Doctor Quin, who was present at this scene, one of the richest, certainly, I ever witnessed, during the recital contributed largely to its effect. When- ever D'Orsay would seize on some particular passage, and exclaim, ' Ah, qua c'est beau!' then would Quin's ' magnifique !" superbe ! "vraiement beau!' be intonated with all due solemnity ; and a call for that moving pas- sage over again would be preferred, and kindly complied with; so that there was not one of Monsieur Julien's ' Chagrins Politiques' which was not re- ceived with the most marked attention and applause.

"At the conclusion of each 'Chagrin,' poor Julien's eyes were always sure to be bathed with tears, and as much so at the latest recital of his oft-re- peated griefs as at the earliest delivery of them. "It was always in this melting brood, at the conclusion of a recital, he was again conducted by the hand to the fauteuil of Lady Blessington by D'Orsay ; and there bending low, as the noble lady of the mansion graciously smiled on him, he received compliments and consolations, moat liberally be- stowed on his 'Chagrins Folitiques: "

And what was the end of all this splendid pleasure ? what did the enjoyment itself amount to even at the moment ?

" In the spring of 1849, the long-menaced break-up of the establishment of Gore House took place. Numerous creditors, bill-discounters, money- lenders, jewellers, lace-venders, tax-collectors, gas-company agents, all per- sons having claims to urge, pressed them at this period simultaneously. An execution for a debt of 40001. was at length put in by a house largely en- gaged in the silk, laoe, India shawl, and fancy jewellery business. * * •

" For about two years previous to the break-up at Gore House, Lady Bles- sington lived in the constant apprehension of executions being put in, and unceasing precautions in the admission of persons had to be taken both at the outer gate and hall-door entrance. For a considerable period, too, Count D'Orsay had been in continual danger of arrest, and was obliged to confine himself to the house and grounds, except on Sundays, and in the dusk of the evening on other days. All those precautions were, however, at length baffled by the ingenuity of a sheriff's-officer, who effected an entrance in a disguise, the ludicrousness of which had some of the characteristics of farce, which contrasted strangely and painfully with the denouement of a very serious drama.

" Lady Blessington was no sooner informed 'by a confidential servant of the fact of the entrance of a sheriff's-officer and an execution being laid on her property, than she immediately desired the messenger to proceed to the Count's room, and tell him that he must immediately prepare to leave Eng- land, as there would be no safety for him once the fact was known of the execution having been levied. The Count was at first incredulous : 'Bah!' after ' bah !' followed each sentence of the account given him of the en- trance of the sheriff's-officer. At length, after seeing Lady Blessington, the necessity for his immediate departure became apparent. The following morning, with a single portmanteau, attended by his valet, he set out for Paris ; and thus ended the London life of Count D'Orsay. • * *

" 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 other pictures.. Here was a total smash, a crash on a grand scale of ruin, a compulsory sale in the house of a noble lady, a sweeping clearance of all its treasures. To the honour of Lady Blessington be it mentioned, she saved nothing, with the few exceptions I have referred to, from the wreck. She might have preserved her pictures, objects of virtd, bijouterie, &c. of con- siderable value ; but she said all she possessed should go to her creditors.

a * * * a se

" Several of the friends of Lady Blessington urged on her pecuniary assist- ance, which would have prevented the necessity of breaking up the esta- blishment ; but she declined all offers of this kind. The fact was, that Lady Blessington was sick at heart, worn down with cares and anxieties' wearied out with difficulties and embarrassments daily augmenting, worried with in- cessant claims, and tired to death with demands she could not meet. For years previously, if the truth was known she was sick at the heart's core of the splendid misery of her position, of the false appearances of enjoyment in it, of the hollow smiles by which it was surrounded, of the struggle for celebrity in that vortex of fashionable life and luxury in which she had been plunged, whirling round and round in a species of continuous delirious ex- citement, sensible of the madness of remaining in the glare and turmoil of such an existence, and yet unable to stir hand or foot to extricate herself from its obvious dangers."

Perhaps unwilling rather than unable. No sooner had Lady Blessington arrived at Paris, than she began again to furnish splendidly ; and she would probably have run a similar course on a smaller scale, but disease of the heart, aggravated, no doubt, by her anxieties, brought death to her relief, in June 1849. A sketch Of the life of Count D'Orsay succeeds the Memoir of Lady Blessington ; and shows in still sadder colours the termina- tion of a vain and worldly career. Broken in health, ruined in circumstances, ungratefully treated by the man who, in our author's opinion, was indebted to him (! for one of the proudest thrones in Europe, and forsaken by e "world," to which he had devoted his life,- " No wit to flatter left of all his store; No fool to laugh at,.which he valued more,"—

he sank neglected into the grave. Dr. Madden, however, ascer- tained by direct personal inquiry, that the Count had become pious; a matter which in the case of Lady Blessington was open to more than doubt.

The correspondence which follows the lives, though overdone in many instances, will be found interesting. Almost every man of mark in the iiparld of intellect or fashion appears with more or less of prominence; and with the effect of a gallery of celebrated portraits, Dr. Madden prefixing biographical notices to every writer. There is an appendix to each volume, containing letters or illustrative information relating to subjects mentioned in the text, and often of a curious kind. It should be added, that although the editor exhibits want of skill, or rather, we imagine, want of care, and overrates the importance of his subject in the eye of the world at large, the book contains a variety of matter bearing upon the social history of the century, which it is as well to have pre- served. Spite of his partiality for the heroine, Dr. Madden, when he really enters upon a subject, does not allow his moral sense to be perverted. His literary estimate of Lady Blessington is fair and just.