The Press. — London, England, 1855-03-31 00:00:00

f i t tr a tit r t. The Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington. By R. R. Madden, M.R.1.41.. London : Newby. [Second Notloa] THE story of Lady Blessington's life is not half so curious as Mr. Madden's manner of telling it, which would be very inadequately represented by the Falstathan figure—an ocean of extraneous people to a pennyworth of Lady Blessington. It, more closely resembles Sylvester Daggerwood's stage directions for a novel moonlight effect, to be produced by con cealing the moon behind a cloud. Mr. Madden's moon is behind a cloud all through the book. The consequence is that the few rays of biography that straggle out are re markably scant and partial. According to a memoir written by Miss Power, and quoted at large by Mr. Madden, Lady Blessington was born in 1790, at a place ominously called Knockbrit, in the county of Tipperary. Her father was a Power, her mother a Sheehy, both old Roman Catholic families, and both distinguished by pre eminently Irish qualities. Riot and rebellion, even in Ireland, had few such conspicuous supporters as they found in the Powers and Sheehys. Lady Blessington's father is de scribed as "a country gentleman occupied " with field sports and agricultural pursuits." As a sample of his field sports, we are told that one of his favourite amusements was hunting—not foxes, but men and boys ' • and that on one occasion he " shot a flying peasant;" which we imagined to be a mis print for pheasant, till we found that he seized the wounded man and carried him bleeding on the back of his horse to his own house to regale the eyes of his wife and daughters. On another occasion he took a shot at a lad at an angle of a road, and killed him on the spot. His agricultural pursuits appear to have con sisted in setting up country newspapers, for which he did not possess a single requisite, and entering into some mercantile business, in which he ruined himself and his partners by overdrawing the capital. Mr. Power was much given to dogs, horses, and wine, wore white cravats, leather breeches, and top-boots, was what was called a " Buck " among the Tipperary bloods, and was familiarly known as " Beau Power " and " Shiver the Frills." Nothing in his.life became this gentleman so well as his leaving it. After a oireer of unex ampled turpitude and violence, he was reduced at last to subsist upon the bounty of his daughters, and died in great misery and degradation in Dublin, not, however, without being able to boast to a friend of the enormous quantity of punch he had drunk the night before. Lady Blessington was still more illustriously descended on her mother's side. The pedigree of the Sheehys abounds in famous men. Her maternal grandfather, also one of the " Bucks " of his day, was hanged for murder; and his cousin, a priest, under went the same sentence for Whiteboyism. If ever," exclaims Mr. Madden, in a trans port of virtuous indignation, "if ever affrighted " justice might be said to swing from her " moorings,' and, passion-driven, to be left at "the mercy of the winds and waves of party "violence, it was surely in these iniquitous " proceedings." There may be a difference of opinion as to the literary taste of this passage, but most readers will discern a peculiar propriety in the metaphor of justice and the " swing." The kind of fruit likely to be produced by the graft of these two genealogical trees may leated • , rid the heated atmo was brought Too soon .otten. While Tmed, was yet At the task we find her len at the becoming lle people im distinc re markabl e attraction lay for she was be easily predicated ; and the heat sphere in which Lady Blessington wa up forced it into early maturity. ripe, says the proverb, too soon rotte Marguerite Power, we arc informed an infant, a worthy woman undertool of her e • • • iin t pick At..fo.Fteen w operatin : • • MA gentleml weekly • •,• '• 7114 clop el, and so co 0 . : l e • pgpvipuf)lllp at idl " gos , ; • liotalmtlove Of 11-roof " Lion • • •• •y, ons re " for : . , ' 74 ". flasure.": er attr, in her •• - • • 'clah g; foi • .1 M THE PRESS. not so handsome in her youth as either of her two sisters. At this time the 47th regi ment was quartered in the town, and two of the officers Captain Murray and Captain Farmer—fell in love with her. The young lady of fourteen preferred the former ; but fathers have flinty hearts, and Farmer was the parental favourite. Upon this followed the usual romantic distress. " Tears, prayers, and " entreaties," were all in vain. Buck Power was steeped in debt, and Captain Farmer bribed him with liberal proposals, being, ac cording to the narrative before us, a man of good fortune. The sequel was inevitable : The unfortunate girl was compelled to yield to the com mands of her inexorable parents ; and, at fourteen and a half, she was united to a man who inspirel her with no thing but feelings of terror and detestation. Dramatic propriety demanded that she should loathe this gentleman, and that he should be a man of violent temper, subject to paroxysms of rage and jealousy. After living with him only a few weeks, she made up her mind that he was insane, and determined to run away from him—a resolution which she at once carried into effect. Hero, it must be re membered, there is a discrepancy between Lady Blessington's statement and that of her niece, Miss Power. Lady Blessington in formed Mr. Madden that when she left her husband she went to reside with her father, who was now a ruined man ; Miss Power, on the contrary, says that her father refused to receive her, and that at last " she fled from " the roof of her husband to return no more," but to what refuge the young wife of fourteen and a half fled does not appear. A Mr. John Sheehy supplies a third version. This gentle man delares that he has a perfect recollection of the circumstances, and bears testimony to the fact that she returned home, where she was very unhappily circumstanced, being con sidered an interloper; adding, rather myste riously, that there was a visitor at the house, a Captain Jenkins, who had been disposed to pay his addresses to her sister, but was pre vented by other stronger impressions made on him by one then wholly unconscious of her influence. Mr. Madden observes that this supposition was erroneous, without favouring us with a scintilla of evidence in disproof of it ; and then proceeds to give a minute account of Captain Jenkins' movements, stating, amongst the rest, that " in 1809 he was domi " ciled in Dublin, and Mrs. Farmer was also " then residing in Dublin." It would have been more discreet in Mr. Madden to have allowed Mr. Sheehy to tell the story in his own way. " Affrighted justice "—to make use of our biographer's phrase—demands that we should now look at the other side of the picture. ' Hitherto we have heard only the statements of Lady Blessington and her niece ; and it is fitting we should glance at the testimony of the brother of Captain Farmer, who contradicts them in nearly every essential particular. This gentleman asserts that the young lady's alleged repugnance to the union is pure fable ; that the marriage was a love-match ; that Captain Farmer had no means whatever beyond his commission, and that he not only made no settlement, but that Mr. Power promised his daughter a fortune of 1,0001., a shilling of which was never paid ; that, relying upon this fortune, the young couple got into debt, which compelled Farmer to sell out; that he after wards got a commission in the East. India Company's service, and, his wife refusing to go out with him, ho divided the surplus with her, amounting to 5001. each ; that up to this time Farmer never showed any symptoms of insanity ; but that the misconduct of his wife. coupled with the effects of a coup de soleil, led him afterwards into excesses, which ended in his death. Leaving these conflicting accounts to the judgment of the reader, we proceed with the biography, as it is unfolded by Mr. Madden. In the previously published notices of Lady Blessington's life, there was an hiatus, after her flight from Captain Farmer, of nine years. This hiatus Mr. Madden fills with the following information . In 1807 iihe was living at Cahir, in Tipperary, separated from her husband ; in 181 , 9 she was sojourning in Dublin ; a little later she was residing in Hampshire ; in 1816 we find her established in Manchestensguare, London; and at the oommencement of 1818 on the point of marriage with an Irish nobleman. SATURDAY, Putting together the scattered hints which are sown broad-cast through this most un skilful biography, we find that Captain Jen kins was residing in Dublin in 1809, when Mrs. Farmer was " sojourning " there, and that he had " an establishment at Sidmanton, " in Hampshire. for three or four years pre " viously to 1814;" we also find that the gen tleman had a large income for several years, but that, having expended a great deal of money, he became at last involved in em barrassments. There would be no difficulty in composing a piquant dish of scandal out of Mr. Madden's broken scraps ; but our business is to exhibit the book as it is, not to connect its links, or supply its lacuna. Mr. Madden knows nothing, of affects to know nothing, or professes to maititain a dis creet silence—let him take his choice of these three escapes from responsibility— respecting Lady Blessington's life iu the in terval between her desertion of Captain Farmer, who died iu 1817, and her marriage with Lord Blessiugton in 1818. Yet he fur nishes us with the following hints towards the means of filling up this gap in her history, which he makes unnecessarily conspicuous by circumstantial and repeated allusions. In the latter part of 1815 Lord Blessington gave a dinner party in Dublin, at which some half-dozen gentlemen, including Captain Jenkins, and one or two ladies, were present. The purpose for which Mr. Madden introduces this incident must be gathered from the con cluding sentence : Captain Jenkins left the company at an early hour to proceed that evening to England, and parted with his friends not without apparent emotion. We next learn that in the latter part of 1815 Mrs. Farmer made London her place of residence, and " had a house taken for " her iu Manchester•square in 1816." Here Lord Blessington was a frequent visitor, but, being a man .of the strictest morals, he was always accompanied by a mutual friend. In September, 1816, Lurd Blessington went to his estate in Ireland, and invited some friends on a visit ; and here, again, we find Captain Jenkins, who by this time seems to have quite recovered from his emotion : Amongst the guests, I was informed by tenant farmers on the estate, who have a recollection of these circum stances, were Mr. Corry, Major and Mrs. Purvis, Colonel Stewart of Killymoon, Mrs. Farmer, and also Captain Jenkins. The italics are Mr. Madden's ; but why he confers that distinction on Major Purvis, and denies it to Mrs. Purvis, who in all probability was better entitled to it, must be left to the reader's sagacity. From this period we hear uo more of Captain Jenkins. He vanishes from the scene just before the marriage with Lord Blessington, which took place in February, 1818. It is unnecessary to observe that a person entirely ignorant of Lady Blessington's ante cedents could not follow these incidents with out perceiving the role assigned to Captain Jenkins. How, then, has Mr. Madden dis charged the function he undertook? After hinting at the leading circumstances, and leaving no doubt whatever concerning that passage in the biography which he affects out of tenderness to pass over, he has the coolness to add, " This work is not intended " to be a biography of Lady Blessington, but " to present a faithful account of her literary " life and correspondence." Why, if Mr. Madden had explored in detail the whole narrative of Lady Blessington's relations with Captain Jenkins, he could not have heaped such obloquy upon her memory as he has effectually done by the intimations conveyed in these fragmentary allusions. Here we have Captain Jenkins originally prevented from prosecuting his addresses to Miss Ellen Power, by the superior attractions of Mrs. Farmer, who had just left her husband. Not long afterwards we find Mrs. Farmer residing in Dublin, where, we are informed in the same sentence, Captain Jenkins was also residing ; next we are told that Mrs. Farmer removed to Hampshire, where we are apprised at the same time that Captain Jenkins had an " establishment ;" then we find Captain Jenkins dining with Lord Blessington in Dublin, and leaving the company in great emotion ; subsequently he is on a visit with