her glory. Numerous were the offers, made with a delicacy which invariably clothes such offers, of pecuniary aid, but they were gratefully declined; and the eyes of the satirist, standing amidst the crowd of Jew dealers, tradesmen, and idle gazers, who with ribald talk surveyed the treasures of the deserted mansion on the days previous to the auction, glistened with emotion when he thought of her who in those sumptuous rooms had given happiness to so many, for whose trials and sufferings the world has so little sympathy-men of unappreciated merit, struggling genius, and exiled patriotism.

Lady Blessington and Count D'Orsay, worldly as they had been for years, had so little knowledge of human nature as to anticipate a cordial welcome in Paris by Prince Louis Napoleon, President of the Republic. D'Orsay, in contradiction to all popular conceptions of a man of fashion, always took a bright view of mankind, and from first to last gave all persons credit for the virtues which only a few possess. From his bosom friend, then, whom he had cherished in the hour of need, and had assisted, indeed one may say raised, to a proud eminence, he did not expect ingratitude,-but he found it. Louis Napoleon, indeed, requested the honour of a call from Lady Blessington, at the Elysée, to which place she went with her nieces and Count D'Orsay; and the Prince afterwards invited the party to dinner; but his manner clearly indicated that the Prince President and future Emperor did not intend to be grateful for favors received. "Ah, ah, Lady Blessington," said the President, when the open carriage in which he was seated, shortly after the manifestation of his base ingratitude, was locked in a street-stoppage with that of Lady Blessington," are you going to stop long in Paris?" With an arch look of merriment she replied, with felicitous satire, "I dont know—are you?" There were many around who witnessed this passage of arms and the Prince's defeat, and ere sunset the polished sarcasm had been repeated in

every salon in Paris. In the new life before her, preparing for a fresh career of triumph, and with a prospect, now that the worst had fallen, of a distinguished position in Paris, Lady Blessington's spirits rose, and she was observed to assume the airy cheerfulness and light-hearted merriment which for years she had laid aside. Her jointure of £2,000 per annum was secure; she was hopeful that her pen would still do her good service; and though no longer young she was still lovely and admired. She busied herself with fitting up, in the old style of luxury and wanton magnificence, a handsome apartment in the Rue du Cerq, close to the Champs Elysées; and the thoughts of seclusion from worldly pleasure and of pious preparation for death, which in the bitter moments of her disappointment she had cherished, were dismissed, and again she pined for the terrible excitement which had destroyed the fineness of her moral sense. But suddenly death came; and she had scarcely entered her new home, when an affection of the heart, which had been progressing for at least twenty-five years, though neither she nor her physicians had detected it, carried her off without warning into the dim world, on the 4th of June, 1849.

The consternation of Count D'Orsay at this bereavement is indescribable. He never recovered from the blow. From the day of her death he was a doomed man; his hitherto extraordinary health failed, his frame became the seat of a complication of disorders; disease of the spine declared itself, and eventually, after bearing with manly fortitude acute and prolonged sufferings, he expired on the 4th of August, 1852, in his 52nd year. During the three years and two months intervening between the death of the woman he had loved so passionately and his own, he displayed in no ordinary way that nobility which makes even those who do not reverence God, pay homage to our common nature. To the last he was devoted to art. Poor, and stricken with painful disease, he bravely exerted the

great mental faculties with which he was endowed, and in the studio in which he worked and slept and died, he received the distinguished visitors-princes, nobles, poets, painters, sculptors, historians, and orators—who paid him the attentions of reverential affection. His excruciating bodily torments never extracted from him a groan; resigned and patient he exhibited a gentle consideration for those around him, which was womanly in its tenderness and pathos sometimes he would be overcome by a paroxysm of grief, but the violent emotions were always caused by thinking of her. When it was known he could not recover, Louis Napoleon, with a hand red with the massacre of the coup d'état sent him the appointment to the nominal post of Director of Fine Arts, and when it was known that the Count no longer lived the paltry juggler lamented that he had lost his "best friend!"

The great work of D'Orsay's genius, in his last days, was a mausoleum, at Chambourcy, "a pyramid of granite, standing on a square platform, on a level with the surrounding ground, but divided from it by a deep fosse, whose sloping sides are covered with green turf and ivy, transplanted from the garden of the house where Lady Blessington was born. It stands on a hill side, just above the village cemetery, and overlooks a view of exquisite beauty and immense extent, taking in the Seine winding through the fertile valley, and the forest of St. Germain; plains, villages, and far distant hills; and at the back and side it is sheltered by chesnut trees of large size and great age; a more picturesque spot it is difficult to imagine."

"Solid, simple, and severe," says Mrs. Romer, "it combines every requisite in harmony with its solemn destination; no meretricious ornament, no false sentiment, mar the purity of its design. The genius which devised it has succeeded in cheating the tomb of its horrors, without depriving it of its imposing gravity. The simple portal is

All

surmounted by a plain massive cross of stone, and a door secured by an open-work of bronze, leads to a sepulchral chamber, the key of which has been confided to me. within breathes the holy calm of eternal repose: no gloom, no mouldering damp, nothing to recall the horrible images of decay. An atmosphere of peace pervades the place, and I could almost fancy that a voice from the tomb whispered in the words of Dante's Beatrice :-

"Io sono in pace?'

"The light of the sun, streaming through a glazed aperture above the door, falls like a ray of heavenly hope upon the symbol of man's redemption--a beautiful copy, in bronze, of Michael Angelo's crucified Saviour-which is affixed to the wall facing the entrance. A simple stone sarcophagus is placed on either side of the chamber, each one surmounted by two white marble tablets, encrusted in the sloping walls." In the one sarcophagus lies Marguerite, Countess of Blessington; in the other, Alfred, Count D'Orsay.

With hearts glowing with tender regret, commiseration, and charity, as best becomes weak and erring men, let us leave undivided in death those two who, whatever were their sins, were so steadfast in their love, and who were never careless of the happiness of those to whom they extended their widely embracing friendship-those two, whom our judgment may condemn, but our affections must defend.

CHAPTER X.

LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON.

MISS LANDON's fame was won by her poetry; it was in her metrical compositions that her genius displayed itself: her prose-writings are lively, dramatic, forcible, but they contain nothing distinctive,-differing as they do but little from the productions of many other artists far less richly endowed, and marked by no signs of that passion and depth of pathetic feeling which inspired her melodious verses. Still her novels are interesting, and bristle with the indications of rare intellect; and they will long continue to be read, both for their own merits, and because every fact connected with the sad history of their author will for many a day be attractive.

Miss Landon was of respectable extraction. Hergreat-grandfather, the rector of Nursted and Ilsted, in Kent, was in his day active in polemical literature. On his mural tablet in Tedstone Delamere Church, Herefordshire, is the following nervous inscription, "The Revd. John Landon, rector of Nursted and Ilsted, in Kent, died June 3rd, 1777, aged 77. His religious principles and literary abilities were evident from what he did and wrote in vindication of the religion he professed, to the utter confutation of all Dissenters." The son of this worthy man, who utterly confuted all dissenters, was like his father, a beneficed clergyman, for he was rector of Tedstone Delamere for more than thirty years, till the year 1782-when he died, leaving a family of eight children, very badly provided for. The eldest of his three sons was John, L. E. L.'s father; another was Whittington, who did something towards restoring the fortunes of the family-for he