'was between '82 and '98, and it was a time when a man almost lived with a pistol in his hand. Grattan's dying advice to his son was, "Be always ready with the pistol!" He himself never hesitated a moment . . . .'
"Talking of Grattan, is it not wonderful, with all the agitation in Ireland, we have had no such man since his time? You can scarcely reckon Shiel of the calibre of her spirits of old, and O'Connell, with all his faults, stands alone in his glory.
"The conversation I have given is a mere skeleton of course . . . .
"This discussion may be supposed to have occupied the hour after Lady Blessington retired from the table; for with her vanished Moore's excitement, and everybody else seemed to feel that light had gone out of the room. Her excessive beauty is less an inspiration than the wondrous talent with which she draws from every person around her his peculiar excellence. Talking better than any body else, and narrating, particularly, with a graphic power that I never saw excelled, this distinguished woman seems striving only to make others unfold themselves; and never had diffidence a more apprehensive and encouraging listener. But this is a subject with which I should never be done.
"We went up to coffee, and Moore brightened again over his chasse-café, and went glittering on with criticisms on Grisi, the delicious songstress now ravishing the world, whom he placed above all but Pasta; and whom he thought, with the exception that her legs were too short, an incomparable creature. This introduced mu-
