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198

MEAN-SOULED TYRANTS.

power to produce.

The indisputable fact that she rejected one or more advantageous offers of marriage that would leave her open to the persecutions of her enemy, and finally accepted another she could not have listened to under happier circumstances, that apparently would move her far from his sphere of influence, is all the confirmation I required.

Lady Blessington has put it on record that two editors, both elderly men, enjoyed the credit or discredit of having been Miss Landon's seducers. They were both men of profligate habits, though married, and while expressing her conviction of her friend's innocence, she does not hazard a remark that such acts were then in the slightest degree at variance with editorial privileges. I shall be glad to know if nothing of the kind has occurred before or since, and if the necessities of female authors, and their natural desire for success, have never been taken advantage of by men in a position to forward their views.

The tone employed by respectable critics in dealing with an offending brother of the guild, may be seen in the burlesque epitaph on Miss Landon's murderer, written by the then editor of the "Quarterly Review:"

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Here, early to bed, lies kind William Maginn,

Who with genius, wit, learning-Life's trophies to win,
Had neither great lord, nor rich cit of his kin,

Nor discretion to set himself up as to tin.

No, his portion soon spent-like the poor heir of Lynn,
He turned author, ere yet there was beard on his chin;

And whoever was out, and whoever was in,
For your Tories his fine Irish brains he would spin ;

A PLEASANT EPITAPH.

Who received prose and rhyme with a promising grin—
'Go ahead, you queer fish, and more power to your fin!'
But to save from starvation stirred never a pin.

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Light for long was his heart, though his breeches were thin,

And his acting for certain was equal to Quin;

But at last he was beat, and sought help of the bin

(All the same to the Doctor from claret to gin), Which led swiftly to jail and consumption therein. It was much when the bones rattled loose in the skin, He got leave to die here, out of Babylon's din. Barring drink and the girls, I ne'er heard a sin: Many worse, better few, than bright broken Maginn." Worn out by his excesses, the subject of these lines. by his brother editor died at Walton-on-Thames, where he was buried. "Barring drink and the girls" is merely euphuistic for the habitual drunkenness and debauchery that brought his existence to a close several years after the death of his victim.

Mr. Lockhart must have had the worst possible opinion of his fraternity when he penned the last line of the foregoing "epitaph." epitaph." He declares that there were many worse and few better than this man. God help the poor authoresses who are doomed to come within the sphere of their influence! No wonder that some of them have become notorious for "extreme imprudence."

The worst feature in this melancholy case is the general apathy of the journalists to the shameful abuse of power it demonstrates. Instead of properly condemning a bad system, they foolishly attempt to throw discredit on my exposure of it. The powerful approval of the general public, evinced by the extraordinary patronage they have given to my work, has made me, however, ample amends for such pitiful annoyances;

200 HAWKS WONT PICK OUT HAWKS' EYES.

and the spirit in which the present volumes are written, I hope, will satisfy my friends that I am not to be deterred from the performance of a duty by even much more formidable attacks.

An anonymous assailant is a coward, and a coward is the next most despicable thing on earth to the scoundrel who, failing in all personal attraction, employs an influential position to the prejudice of a clever and aspiring woman!

CHAPTER X.

GORE HOUSE.

'Shiver the Frills"-Early life of Margaret Power in TipperaryHer first marriage and early separation-Mrs. Farmer's equivocal life-Lord Mountjoy, afterwards Earl of BlessingtonCaptain Farmer's widow becomes a countess-Irish extravagance-Lady Blessington a lionne-Her first acquaintance with Comte D'Orsay-The Count accompanies her to Italy-Her imaginative accounts of herself-The Blessingtons abroad-Lady Blessington's depreciation of Lord Byron-His indifference. to her charms-Lord Blessington's will, and marriage of his daughter to Comte D'Orsay-The Blessingtons at ParisDeath of Lord Blessington-His insolvency-Lady Blessington at Seamore Place and Gore House-Her "Conversations with Lord Byron," imaginary-Her admirers-Hoaxing one's friends -Waning splendour-D'Orsay's and Lady Blessington's debts -Her novels-They fly to Paris-Their deaths-Napoleon's supposed ingratitude.

THERE is a peculiar kind of romance in the early history of Lady Blessington to which justice has hitherto never been done. It could only have occurred in one part of the world-Ireland; indeed, I am inclined to think only in one particular portion of it-Tipperary. Margaret was one of the children of what is there styled "a squireen," known far and wide as Buck Power, alias "Shiver the Frills "—a fine gentleman, with small means in a rapid state of diminution, after a fashion familiar to Irish bucks in

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"SHIVER THE FRILLS."

general. I use the term not in any disparagement of Irish gentlemen.

His wife's father, also a buck, as Dr. Madden, her biographer, states, was "an ill-fated gentleman." In ordinary English, he was hanged, which misfortune also happened to a cousin-a Popish priest: one of these worthies for being concerned in a rebellion, the other in a murder. "Shiver the Frills" had a narrow escape from the same fate, he having deliberately shot and killed a peasant, for which crime he had to take his trial on a charge of murder, at Clonmel, on the 23rd of April, 1807.

The first had been reputed rebels and Whiteboys; but the latter had become a Protestant and a J. P. "Buck Sheehy" was executed sans ceremonie

at Clogheen of the famous old song

"Twas in the town of nate Clogheen,

That Sergeant Snap met Paddy Carey."

The head of the priest was put upon a pike, after he had been hanged, drawn, and quartered, at Clonmel, where it remained, we are assured, for twenty years. But as to "Buck Power," he being a magistrate, justice, like charity, was expected to cover a multitude of sins, and did.

By this time he had not only dissipated his small patrimony but had entered into business as a cornmerchant and butter-buyer; he had also started a newspaper called "The Clonmel Gazette, or Munster Mercury;" but occupied what leisure he had in hunting down his rebellious countrymen, with the

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