and genius. Notwithstanding this defect, his manners are very fascinating—more so, perhaps, than if they were dignified; but he is too gay, too flippant for a poet."[1]
Lady Blessington was accompanied on this occasion by her sister, Miss Mary Anne Power, now Comtesse de St. Marsault. Byron, in a letter to Moore, dated April 2, 1823, thus refers to this interview:—
"Your other allies, whom I have 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 Beaux Stratagem,) who has all the air of a Cupidon déchainé, and is one of the few specimens I have seen of our ideal of a Frenchman before the Revolution, an old friend with a new face, upon whose like I never thought that we should look again. Miladi 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. Certainly English women wear better than their Continental neighbors of the same sex. Mountjoy seems very good-natured, but is much tamed since I recollect him in all the glory of gems and snuff-boxes, and uniform, and theatricals, and speeches in our house—'I mean of Peers'—I must refer you to Pope, whom you don't read and won't appreciate, for that quotation (which you must allow to be poetical)—and sitting to Stroelling,
- ↑ Idler in Italy, p. 392.
