was in other respects an unhappy one, and a separation took place soon after the death of Lord Blessington, which occurred in 1829. When the widowed countess returned to England she was accompanied by Count D Orsay, and the two lived under the same roof, first at Seamore Place and then at Kensington Gore. Their house soon became a resort of the fashionable literary and artistic society of London, which found an equal attraction in host and in hostess. The count s charming manner, brilliant wit, and artistic faculty were accompanied by benevolent moral qualities, which endeared him to all his associates. His skill as a painter and sculptor was shown in numerous por traits and statuettes representing his friends, which were marked by great vigour and truthfulness, if wanting the finish that can only be reached by persistent discipline. Count D Orsay had been from his youth a zealous Bonapartist, and one of the most frequent guests at Gore House was Prince Louis Napoleon. It was to Paris, there fore, that he naturally resorted in 1849, after the breaking up of the establishment at Gore House in consequence of his bankruptcy. The countess of Blessington, who had accompanied him, died a few weeks after their arrival, and he endeavoured to provide support for himself by adopting the profession of a portrait painter. He was deep in the counsels of the prince president, but the relation between them was less cordial after the coup d etat, of which the count had by anticipation expressed his strong disapproval. His appointment to the post of director of fine arts was announced only a few days before his death, which occurred
on the 4th August 1852.
Much information as to the life and character of Count D Orsay is to be found in Madden s Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington (1855).
DORSET, an English county, situated on the south western coast. In British times, previous to the land ing of Caesar, it was inhabited by a tribe which Ptolemy calls the Durotriges, and which, upon no good authority, but not without probability, has been identified with the Morini, the occupants of a part of the opposite coast (extremi hominum Morini, jEn. viii. 727), the two appellations being apparently of similar import, and refer ring to their location on the sea-shore. Under the Romans this county constituted a portion of Britannia Prima ; and the Saxons called it Dornsceta, or Dorsseta (a word in volving the same root, Dwr, water), and included it in the kingdom of Wessex.
On the north Dorsetshire is bounded by Somersetshire and Wiltshire, on the east by Hampshire, on the west by Devonshire and a part of Somersetshire, whilst the British Channel washes the whole of its southern coast. Its form is very irregular ; the northern boundary has a considerable angular projection in the middle ; its southern coast runs out into various points and headlands ; and the western inclines towards Devonshire with an uneven line. Its greatest breadth from north to south is about 35 miles, and its length from east to west 55. Its circumference, including 627,265 acres, is nearly 160 miles. In 1871 the population was found to be 195,537, having in creased from 114,452 in 1801 and 175,054 in 1841. 111,731 acres were under corn-crops, and 60,633 under green-crops. The males numbered 95,616, the females 99,921
Dorset is divided into 35 hundreds, containing more than 300 parishes, 8 boroughs, 22 liberties, and 12 market towns, the principal of which are Dorchester, Bridport, Sherborne, Lyme-Regis, Shaftesbury, Weymouth and Melcombe-Regis, Poole, and Blandford. Only 10 members are returned to parliament, instead of 20 as before the first Reform Act. The county itself sends three ; Dorchester, Bridport, Poole, Shaftesbury, and Warehana one each, and Melcombe-Regis aud Weymouth two between them, Dorsetshire forms a part of the see of Salisbury. It originally fell under the wide jurisdiction of the ancient sees of Dorchester in Oxfordshire and of Winchester, till the foundation of the bishopric of Sherborne, 705 A.D., and when that see was transferred to Salisbury it still remained a part of it, till in 31st Henry VIII. it was annexed to the newly-erected bishopric of Bristol, and so continued till 1836, when its ancient connection with Salisbury was revived, and still continues.
Branches of the London and South- Western Railway, or in connection with it, enter the county from Southampton, Salisbury, and Bath, meet near Wimborne, and continue to Poole, Wareham, Dorchester, and Weymouth, which last two places are also reached by a branch of the Great- Western from Yeovil, with a drop-line to Bridport at Maiden-Newton. The main line of the London aud South western likewise touches the north of the county near Shaftesbury, Gillingham, and Sherborne.
The surface of Dorsetshire is hilly and uneven. Throw ing out for the present the consideration of the coast-line in Purbeck, Portland, and to the westward, and proceeding in the direction of from S.E., to N.W., we find a descending series of formations, commencing from the Tertiaries, which occupy an almost equilateral triangle, and include the towns of Wareham, Poole, Wimborne, and Cranborne ; passing through a band of Chalk some ten or twelve miles in breadth, in which the chief town Dorchester and Blandford are situated, and which is fringed by a thin belt of Greensand ; and thence to the Oolitic beds in the north-east, and the Lias at Bridport and the south-west. The three systems thus roughly indicated have been popularly divided into the Sands, the Chalks, and the Clays. It is, of course, the last which has won for this county the somewhat exaggerated, and not uncontested, designation of " the garden of England;" though the rich wide vale of Blackmore, ai;d the luxuriant pastures and orchards of the extreme wett may fairly support the claim. The Downs of the Chalk district, formerly so celebrated as sheep-walks, have been rapidly disappearing of late years under the influence of a more scientific system of agriculture, though still the stock of sheep pastured in the county amounts to between 500,000 and 600,000. Even in the sandy region, cultiva tion is advancing, and detached portions are improved, though there is still much waste land, dreary and barren, hardly supporting, even in the summer months, a few sheep and cattle, and supplying the scattered cottars with heath and turf for fuel.
Dorsetshire is not generally speaking a well-wooded county, though much fine timber may be seen, not only in the richer and deeper soils, but likewise in the sheltered valleys of the Chalk district, and more especially upon the Greensand. The views from some of the higher hills, which constitute, as it were, the back-bone of the county, are often vastly extensive, ranging on many points from the Needles to the very utmost limit of the Mendip and Quantock Hills, where they sink into the Bristol Channel.
The Dorsetshire air is remarkably mild aud salubrious, and in some sunnier spots of the coast, such as Abbotsbury, even tropical plants are found to flourish. Weymouth has long been celebrated as a watering-place, and owing to the general calmness of the sea there, its pleasant situation, and commodiousness for bathing, it still maintains con siderable consequence. The sea-side villages of Swanage, Lulworth, and Charmouth also, though more difficult of access, and affording less accommodation for visitors, abound with many quiet and enjoyable charms.
estuary formed by the mouth of the Frame. Its entrance
is defended by Brownsea Castle, not, however, a military