Lord Blessington’s income was great, but his tastes were extravagant as were also his wife’s, and luxurious was their home in St. James’s Square, and magnificent the manner in which they entertained the brilliant society gathered there; and for three years their brilliant companies of beauty and intellect outshone the congregations at Holland House.  In 1822, Count D’Orsay, a polished and accomplished young Frenchman, visited London, and was made most welcome by the Blessingtons.  In August of that year they started for a leisurely tour of the Continent.  The Countess kept a diary during this journeying, which was published in 1839, under the title of “The Idler in Italy,” revealing a keen observation and a capacity for entertaining comment.

Her ladyship was ever ambitious of literary eminence.  Possessed of great beauty, and after a time high station and wealth, she yet yearned for the recognition by great writers of her position as one of them.  She had published, previous to her continental trip, two volumes,—­one called “The Magic Lantern,” the other, “Sketches and Fragments,” both being accounts of and comments upon London society; both were unsuccessful.  Her one book which will remain in literature was consequent upon her meeting with Lord Byron in Genoa, in 1823, and is a record of her conversations with the poet.  She who aspired to make her mark in literature has made it, but as the chronicler of the sentiments, vanities, whims, and oddities of another.  But it was no ordinary ability that was competent to persuade the great poet, usually unapproachable, to avow, 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.”