Chapter 2

It was during the period of her posing for Dr. Graham, that Romney became enamoured of her beauty, and painted for us more than a dozen important pictures of her. Those were the days when ladies of rank and beauty were deified; and, following this fashion, Romney rendered "Fair Emma" in many guises. Her ability in acting made her a most useful model. Her features had much mobility, and were capable of expressing, with facility, all gradations of passion and niceties of feeling. Emma took pride and pleasure in serving Romney. He repeated to his friend, the poet Hayley, her request, that in the biography of the painter, Hayley would have much to say of her. One of his earliest classical conceptions painted from her, was a full length of Circe with her wand. Following this was a "Sensibility," which became the property of Hayley. Though we remember Romney chiefly in connection with his Lady Hamiltons, yet he had acquired his reputation and much fortune ere he met her. The great bulk of his portrayals of the nobility preceded his classical subjects, which took form from his superb model. She was Cassandra; she was Iphigenia, St. Cæcilia, Bacchante, Calope, The Spinstress, Joan of Arc, The Pythian Princess Calypso, and Magdalene,--the two latter subjects painted to order for the then Prince of Wales.

Allan Cunningham has this to say in his sketch of Romney's life: "A lady in the character of a saint. This sort of flattery, once so prevalent with painters, is now nearly worn out: we have now no Lady Betty's enacting the part of Diana; no Lady Jane's tripping it barefoot among the thorns and brambles of this weary world, in the character of Hebe. We have none now who either 'sinner it or saint it' on canvas; the flattery which the painter has to pay is of a more scientific kind,--he has to trust alone to the truth of his drawing and the harmony of his colors."

Romney was a transgressor in this way at times; but Lady Hamilton's form was used to impart correct form to the conceptions of the painter,--not the theme used merely to exploit the beauty of the lady. In the exhibition of fair women in the Grafton Gallery in London this summer, she greeted us in the guise of Ariadne. In this the painter's use of the title was apt and justifiable. Here is the lady wholly clothed in the dress of the time,--a dress superb in its simplicity; but her pose and mien is indicative of the forsaken, the forlorn, despairing woman abandoned by her lover,--the fate of which the old story of the Greeks is the eternal epitome. The pathos of the pose, it may have been, as well as the classic face, allured the wanderer in the galleries, and anchored him before this canvas.

The fame of Romney has steadily risen in the several generations from the beginning to the end of the century. Though the painter of many men of fame and ladies of fashion, his work was not held in the greatest regard in his lifetime. Though often spoken of as the rival of Reynolds, he had not the president's grasp of character or his ability in giving classic grace to the dress of the period, and he was never admitted as a member to the Academy.

When Lady Hamilton commenced posing for him, he, perhaps wisely for his fame, reduced the number of his ordinary sitters, receiving none until afternoon. The picturing of what he termed "her divine beauty" became a passion with him; and the enthusiasm of the sitter was nearly as great as that of the painter, and she enacted his classic conceptions. The result is a superb series of pictures of faultless female form, and loveliness of feature. Of the model's immoral career we have naught now to do. Here is perpetual beauty, and it is ours to enjoy.

ST. CÆCILIA

There are few names more associated with the brilliant days of Bath, the days of its social and artistic prominence, than those of Thomas Linley, the composer, and of his daughter, Eliza Anne, known abroad as "the Fair Maid of Bath." Linley was born there, in 1735; and after his studies in music on the Continent, under Paradies, he returned to the then fashionable city on the Avon. He conducted oratorios and concerts there, and became a power in the community. Delicacy, tenderness, simplicity, and taste were the characteristics of his compositions. It was said of him, that as Garrick had restored Shakspeare, so Linley has restored the sublime music of Handel. He trained his family to take part in the performances. His son Thomas, born in 1756, developed a marvellous ability in music,--playing the violin with great brilliancy and expression. He was the friend of Mozart, and took at times his father's place as conductor of the oratorios. His career was cut short by drowning, in 1778.

But it was his beautiful daughter Eliza, born in 1754, who made the sensation of the time, when she sang with her sister, afterwards Mrs. Tickell. "A nest of nightingales," the family was termed. Walpole writes, in 1773: "I was not at the ball last night, and have only been to the opera, where I was infinitely struck with the Carrara, who is the prettiest creature upon earth. Mrs. Hartley I own to still find handsomer, and Miss Linley, to be the superlative degree. The king admires the last, and ogles her as much as he dares to do in so holy a place as an oratorio, and at so devout a service as 'Alexander's Feast.'" Musical prominence and personal beauty in this maid of but twenty made her an attractive flower in bloom to others than the king. The wits and gallants of the gay city sought and courted her. The family of Tom Sheridan, the Irish actor, and then a teacher of elocution in Bath, was intimate with the Linley family. Richard, who was born in Dublin in 1751, his elder brother Charles, and Nathaniel Halhed, a companion and literary partner with Richard, all admired the daughter Eliza. Halhed went to India,--afterwards becoming a judge there,--and Charles Sheridan retired from the race, and left the literary youth to win as pure a heart as ever cheered incipient genius to works of worth. She was lauded in verse by her young Irish suitor, and championed in deed. He asserts his constancy in a poem, of which the first stanza is--

"Dry that tear, my gentlest love; Be hushed that struggling sigh; Nor seasons, day, nor fate shall prove More fixed, more true than I. Hushed be that sigh, be dry that tear; Cease boding doubt, cease anxious fear; Dry be that tear."

He proves his devotion by his action when appealed to by his divinity.

A certain Captain Matthews, one of a numerous breed in Bath in those days,--that is, a fashionable scoundrel and a married man,--made himself obnoxious to Miss Linley by improper addresses. He annoyed and harassed her, threatening to destroy himself unless she gratified him, and later attempted to sully her reputation by calumnies. This brought about the culmination of her attachment to Sheridan. She fled her father's house and sought the protection of her lover. Accompanied by a chaperon, they left for France. After some romantic adventures, they were married in March, 1772, at a little village near Calais; but it was a wedding without the wherewithal to maintain a home, so the bride entered a convent, and, later, the house of an English physician, until literature should be remunerative. The eloping lady's father sought the runaways; and, after some explanations, they returned with him to England. It was shortly after this that Sheridan fought two duels with Matthews, being wounded in the later one to such an extent that his recovery was doubtful. "Sweet Betsy" claimed the right of a wife to tend her hurt husband, and so revealed the fact of the marriage in France. The old actor rejected his impulsive son, but Linley's aversion to the union of his daughter being at last set aside, the pair were re-married in England in April, 1773.

The sweet singer had been admired by another, an elderly suitor of much fortune, whom her father had approved, but to whom she was averse. This gentleman now became the benefactor of the pair. He settled a moiety of three thousand pounds on the bride. Her father retained half of this as compensation for the loss of the services of his daughter. On the balance, the youthful couple lived. Sheridan had entered himself a student of the Middle Temple shortly before his marriage. Though their income was small, he would not allow his wife to accept several proffered professional engagements; he did not wish his helpmeet to become a servant of the public. This action incited some discussion, and much acrimonious comment, in her family and among their friends. Johnson upheld his course. Sheridan, in this instance, understood himself and understood the times. He knew of the flippant attitude of the young blades of the town toward all public performers; so he sought to save her, who was so sacred to him, from such insult, insincere adulation, and insinuation as she had heretofore suffered from. They retired to a cottage at East Burnham; and there she, who had received the plaudits of the public as a vocalist, won as noble a name in the character of the ideal wife, one in whom were united all the attributes of loveliness,--temper, manners, virtues, and surpassing beauty. What the then public lost, later generations have gained in the picture of that lovable woman, making a golden age of happiness for her greatly-gifted husband in the little cottage at East Burnham.

Fanny Burney records her pleasant impressions of the bride,--"I was absolutely charmed at the sight of her. I think her quite as beautiful as ever, and even more captivating; for she has now a look of ease and happiness that animates her whole face. Miss Linley was with her; she is very handsome, but nothing near her sister; the elegance of Mrs. Sheridan's beauty is unequalled by any I ever saw, except Mrs. Crewe. I was pleased with her in all respects. She is much more lively and agreeable than I had any idea of finding her; she was very gay, and very unaffected, and totally free from airs of any kind."

In 1775, the husband's genius was acknowledged by the town; for in January, that year, was first presented "The Rivals." In that play he draws from the material displayed by the superficial, flashing, and piquant society of the day at Bath, and from his own experience the inimitable duel scene therein.

Much success followed for the dramatist. In the following year, in conjunction with his father-in-law, he purchased from Garrick the Drury Lane Theatre. They brought out several operas together; Linley's music in "The Duenna" and "The Beggar's Opera," being especially fine. Hazlitt speaks of the songs in them as having a joyous spirit of intoxication, and strains of the most melting tenderness.

In 1777, appeared "The School for Scandal," a theme also suggested by scandal-mongering Bath. His fond and faithful wife lived not to see the dimming of the genius that produced these classics; she died of a decline, at Bristol, in 1792. Her daughter, too, died within the same year. Two of her accomplished descendants, through her son, have displayed some of her romantic taste and charm of manner to a generation just preceding our own,--her granddaughters, Lady Dufferin, mother of the English ambassador to France, and Hon. Caroline Norton, author of "Love not, love not, ye hapless sons of men."

Though she whom he had adored was but three years dead, Sheridan married, in 1795, Esther Jane Ogle, daughter of the Dean of Winchester. With her he obtained some money and this, added to his own, purchased the estate of Polesdon, in Surrey. His wife was, at that time, spoken of as young, amiable, and devoted to him. She died at about the same time as he, in 1816.

In the first flush of those romantic wedded days of their youth how impressive must have been the appearance of that markedly clever young man, eager in the fight for fame, and of his beauteous bride from Bath. Reynolds painted, in 1779, the standard presentment of Sheridan. Walpole's comment on it was: "Praise cannot overstate the merits of this portrait. It is not canvas and color, it is animated nature--all the unaffected manner and character of the great original." The artist said that among all his sitters none had such large pupils of the eyes. With the brilliance of that mind informing the face, his features, though not regular, were handsome. Of all the portraits of Miss Linley, perhaps the one by Gainsborough, in which she is portrayed with her young brother, gives the best idea of the special character of her type of beauty. Here are the large lustrous eyes and the very delicately modelled, sensitive, refined features; here, the luxuriant hair, the slender neck, and the sloping shoulders; and here, the superb poise of head and of mind. There is another fine picture of her by Gainsborough, for this painter was one of the brilliant men who frequented her father's house at Bath. A musician he was, too, and an excellent performer on the violin, so was congenial company in that musical family. He admired the daughter, and wrought for us the delightful records of her beauty. His change of residence, from Bath to London, coincided in date with that of the Sheridans. Opie, too, painted her portrait; not an ideal one, but good in respect to her eyes. And Romney has given us good pictures both of her and Mrs. Tickell. Reynolds's portrayal is supreme in indicating the exaltation of spirit, by the poise of head and perfection of profile. This picture of her as the patron saint of song was exhibited at the Academy, in 1775, just about the time its subject had abandoned public singing. It has been most beautifully engraved by Bartolozzi, and ranks as one of his best plates. When the days of sorrow came to Sheridan,--when his weaknesses of character brought him to a low estate; when poverty became his portion, and the long lost days of romantic love became but a memory; when treasure after treasure, manuscripts, and sumptuous books were disposed of, and presentation pictures were pawned,--this picture of St. Cæcilia, a reminder of the days that had vanished, was the last valued possession to be parted with.

LADY BLESSINGTON

The brilliant Blessington,--brilliant in beauty and in intellect! Throughout her life of romance she was fortunate in her literary friendships, through whom a knowledge of her abilities has grown to tradition, but most fortunate in the portrayer of her beauty. Lawrence has painted a picture which it is a perpetual pleasure to behold,--the superb arms and shoulders, the serene, steadfast gaze of the eyes, and the conscious, yet confident, poise of the head forming a record to justify the tradition of great personal beauty and alertness of mind.

Marguerite Blessington's youth was ill-regulated and penurious. She was born in 1789, the second daughter of Edmund Power, of Knockbrit, near Clonmel, in the county of Tipperary. Her father came of a good family, as did also her mother, who spoke unduly often of her ancestors, the Desmonds. Marguerite was not comely in her early girlhood, though her sister Ellen and her brother Robert were handsome children. As a child, she was sensitive and sentimental, and her delight was to browse in a library,--and it was this taste that equipped her for her later friendships. Her power of imagination was uncommonly strong, and she became the entertainer of her children-companions with stories of her own imagining, as well as by her recitals of legends and romance learned in the library. Her father removed to Clonmel, and became editor of a paper there. He was not prosperous, and was a man of perverse temper, which grew with adversity. Marguerite and her sister were fancied by some wealthy maiden-lady relatives, and were taken by them to a home of comfort. On their return to Clonmel,--beautiful, and with the distinction of knowledge and a clever use of it,--they were a contrast to the ordinary Irish country girl, whose whole equipment of dress and accomplishments was "two washing gowns and a tune on the piano." The girls took part in all the gayeties of the town, and, besides the charm of their conversation, were graceful dancers; and though Marguerite was less beautiful, she was most tasteful in dress, and this became always a noted characteristic of hers. They became the attraction of an English regiment recently stationed in the town, and Marguerite was soon married, through the insistence of her father, to a Captain Farmer, when less than fifteen years of age. This was the great misfortune of her life.

Her husband was subject to fits of insanity, and her whole feeling towards him was that of aversion. Cruelty and caprice were the chief components of his character. From his tyranny she fled,--first to her father's house, but was denied solace there, so sought it elsewhere. She led a somewhat vagabond existence for about nine years, living first with one friend, then with another; thankful for any home, and accommodating herself to any companions. Of this period of her life not much is recorded, save her beauty, for it was shortly after this that her peerless portrait was painted, ere her sorrow and suffering had time to efface the vivacity of youth, but only to give depth to the eyes and interest to the face. She lived in London with her brother Robert until in 1817, when her husband's death occurred by his falling out of a window when in a state of drunken frenzy. Four months after this she became the second wife of an Irish nobleman of a dashing person and little brains, Charles John Gardiner, second Earl of Blessington, when she was twenty-eight and he was thirty-five years of age. With this marriage came a reversal of her misfortunes. Her generosity, sympathy, and good heart soon prompted the improvement of the conditions of her own family, and in this gave emphatic evidence of that devotedness to duty and friends which became her strongest trait. Her youngest sister, Marianne, was adopted and educated by her, and became her travelling companion, and long afterwards her modest biographer. Her sister Ellen married first, Mr. Home Purves, and afterwards, Viscount Canterbury, speaker of the House of Commons.

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 _épouse_, 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 déchaîné_. 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."