[Sidenote: Her receptions.] Enter when you would the beautifully-arranged drawing-room of Lady Blessington, with its gorgeous furnishing, resplendent lights, ample mirrors, and all the accessories of value and taste, some one you were sure to meet who was a Memory thenceforward. The list of her guests, taking any one of her “evenings,” would comprise nearly all the leading men of the time--Earl Grey, Lord Durham, Lord Brougham, the “Iron Duke,” occasionally the elder and the younger Disraeli, Walter Savage Landor, Edwin Landseer, James Smith, John Galt, “Barry Cornwall,” Thomas Moore, Campbell, Lord Lytton and Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, Dr. William Beattie, Colley Grattan--a number of names crowd upon my memory as I write--statesmen, lawyers, artists, men of letters, and foreigners of all countries. The Emperor Napoleon was a frequent guest, and here I have met him more than once when there seemed little prospect indeed that the silent, apparently ungenial, and seemingly unintellectual man, who usually occupied a neglected corner, would fill the _premier rôle_ on the great stage of the world.... It is true few women were encountered there. I can recall none but her sister, Lady Canterbury; another sister, much younger, married to a French count; and her two nieces. I once saw “the Guiccioli” there. S. C. HALL: ‘A Book of Memories of Great Men and Women of the Age.’ London: Virtue & Co., 1871. [Sidenote: “Gore house, an impromptu.”] Mild Wilberforce, by all beloved, Once owned this hallowed spot, Whose zealous eloquence improved The fettered Negro’s lot; Yet here still Slavery attacks, When Blessington invites; The chains from which _he_ freed the Blacks _She_ rivets on the Whites. JAMES SMITH: Quoted by R. R. Madden, in ‘Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington.’ * * * * * [Sidenote: Influence among men of letters.] Of Lady Blessington’s tact, kindness and remarkable beauty Procter always spoke with ardor, and abated nothing from the popular idea of that fascinating person. He thought she had done more in her time to institute good feeling and social intercourse among men of letters than any other lady in England, and he gave her eminent credit for bringing forward the rising talent of the metropolis without waiting to be prompted by a public verdict. JAMES T. FIELDS: ‘Barry Cornwall and Some of His Friends.’ Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 1876. * * * * * [Sidenote: N. P. Willis describes her.]