She wore a delicate lavender satin bonnet; and Mrs. J---- says she is fond of dress, and knows what every one has on. Her taste is certainly exquisite in dress. I more than ever admired the harmony of expression and tint, the silver hair and silvery gray eye, the pale skin, and the look which speaks of a mind that has had much communing with high imagination, though such intercourse is only perceptible now by the absence of everything which that lofty spirit would not set his seal upon.... Age has slackened the active part of genius, and yet is in some sort a substitute for it. There is a declining of mental exercitation. She has had enough of that; and now for a calm decline, and thoughts of Heaven. SARA COLERIDGE: _Letter to her husband_, 1834, in, ‘Memoir and Letters,’ edited by her daughter. * * * * * [Sidenote: Enthusiasm for Scott.] She talked of Scott with a tender enthusiasm that was contagious, and of Lockhart with a kindness that is uncommon when coupled with his name, and which seemed only characteristic of her benevolence. It is very rare that old age, or, indeed, any age, is found so winning and agreeable. I do not wonder that Scott in his letters treats her with more deference, and writes to her with more care and beauty, than to any other of his correspondents. GEORGE TICKNOR: _Diary_, 1838, in ‘Life, Letters and Journals.’ * * * * * [Sidenote: Disposition of her earnings.] Unlike Zaccheus the publican in every other respect, she followed his rule with respect to the earnings of her pen--half of her goods she gave to feed the poor. This arrangement was made and adhered to, when the Baillies’ income, never a very large one, was at its minimum; and it was not departed from when increased funds brought in their train increased expenditures and a host of additional wants. SARAH TYTLER AND J. L. WATSON: ‘Songstresses of Scotland.’ FOOTNOTES: [9] Mr. Hall’s testimony on this point differs from that of all others who have described Miss Baillie. [10] An error. Miss Baillie died at eighty-nine. MARGUERITE, LADY BLESSINGTON. 1789-1849. MARGUERITE, LADY BLESSINGTON. Marguerite, Lady Blessington, flitted across the field of English literature like a blue butterfly, and left no trace behind. She claims a place among our literary women, not by virtue of her many works, which are now forgotten, but rather as an influence among literary men; as the woman in whose sunny companionship Byron basked, and who had Landor and Procter to write her epitaphs.