sic very naturally, and with a great deal of difficulty he was taken to the piano. My letter is getting long, and I have no time to describe his singing. It is well known, however, that its effect is only equalled by the beauty of his own words; and, for one, I could have taken him into my heart with my delight. He makes no attempt at music. It is a kind of admirable recitative, in which every shade of thought is syllabled and dwelt upon, and the sentiment of the song goes through your blood, warming you to the very eyelids, and starting your tears, if you have a soul or sense in you. I have heard of women's fainting at a song of Moore's; and if the burden of it answered by chance to a secret in the bosom of the listener, I should think, from its comparative effect upon so old a stager as myself, that the heart would break with it.
"We all sat around the piano, and after two or three songs of Lady Blessington's choice, he rambled over the keys a while, and sang 'When first I met thee' with a pathos that beggars description. When the last word had faltered out, he rose and took Lady Blessington's hand, said good-night, and was gone before a word was uttered."[1]
But Lady Blessington aspired to be something more than merely their hostess. She had in 1822 published a couple of volumes of Sketches, and in 1832 she fairly entered upon her career of authorship by contributing to the "New Monthly Magazine" a journal of conversations with Lord Byron. She became acquainted with
- ↑ Pencillings by the Way, pp. 360 to 367.
