The portrait of Lady Blessington in the ‘Book of Beauty’ is not unlike her, but it is still an unfavorable likeness. A picture by Sir Thomas Lawrence hung opposite me, taken, perhaps, at the age of eighteen, which is more like her, and as captivating a representation of a just matured woman, full of loveliness and love, the kind of creature with whose divine sweetness the gazer’s heart aches, as ever was drawn in the painter’s most inspired hour. The original is now (she confessed it very frankly) forty. She looks something on the sunny side of thirty. Her person is full, but preserves all the fineness of an admirable shape; her foot is not crowded in a satin slipper for which a Cinderella might be looked for in vain, and her complexion (an unusually fair skin with very dark hair and eyebrows) is of even a girlish delicacy and freshness. Her dress of blue satin was cut low, and folded across her bosom, in a way to show to advantage the round and sculpture-like curve and whiteness of a pair of exquisite shoulders, while her hair dressed close to her head and parted simply on her forehead with a rich _feronière_ of turquoise, enveloped in clear outline a head with which it would be difficult to find a fault. Her features are regular, and her mouth, the most expressive of them, has a ripe fullness and freedom of play peculiar to the Irish physiognomy, and expressive of the most unsuspicious good-humor. Add to all this a voice merry and sad by turns, but always musical, and manners of the most unpretending elegance, yet even more remarkable for their winning kindness, and you have the most prominent traits of one of the most lovely and fascinating women I have ever seen. NATHANIEL P. WILLIS: ‘Pencillings by the Way.’ New York: Charles Scribner, 1853. * * * * * Lady Blessington was fair, florid-complexioned, with sparkling eyes and white, high forehead, above which her bright brown hair was smoothly braided beneath a light and simple blonde cap, in which were a few touches of sky-blue satin ribbon that singularly well became her, setting off her buxom face and its vivid coloring. MARY COWDEN CLARKE: ‘Recollections of Writers.’ New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. * * * * * [Sidenote: Growing stout.] She was inclined to _embonpoint_;[12] her hair abundant and of a lightish brown; but she always wore caps fastened under the chin; her complexion fair and healthily tinged, deriving no aid from art; she was too stout to be graceful, but she had a natural grace that regulated all her movements. S. C. HALL: ‘Book of Memories.’ * * * * * [Sidenote: Essentially Irish.]