were handsome.  Of all the portraits of Miss Linley, perhaps the one by Gainsborough, in which she is portrayed with her young brother, gives the best idea of the special character of her type of beauty.  Here are the large lustrous eyes and the very delicately modelled, sensitive, refined features; here, the luxuriant hair, the slender neck, and the sloping shoulders; and here, the superb poise of head and of mind.  There is another fine picture of her by Gainsborough, for this painter was one of the brilliant men who frequented her father’s house at Bath.  A musician he was, too, and an excellent performer on the violin, so was congenial company in that musical family.  He admired the daughter, and wrought for us the delightful records of her beauty.  His change of residence, from Bath to London, coincided in date with that of the Sheridans.  Opie, too, painted her portrait; not an ideal one, but good in respect to her eyes.  And Romney has given us good pictures both of her and Mrs. Tickell.  Reynolds’s portrayal is supreme in indicating the exaltation of spirit, by the poise of head and perfection of profile.  This picture of her as the patron saint of song was exhibited at the Academy, in 1775, just about the time its subject had abandoned public singing.  It has been most beautifully engraved by Bartolozzi, and ranks as one of his best plates.  When the days of sorrow came to Sheridan,—­when his weaknesses of character brought him to a low estate; when poverty became his portion, and the long lost days of romantic love became but a memory; when treasure after treasure, manuscripts, and sumptuous books were disposed of, and presentation pictures were pawned,—­this picture of St. Caecilia, a reminder of the days that had vanished, was the last valued possession to be parted with.

[Illustration:  Marguerite Countess of Blessington by Lawrence]

LADY BLESSINGTON

The brilliant Blessington,—­brilliant in beauty and in intellect!  Throughout her life of romance she was fortunate in her literary friendships, through whom a knowledge of her abilities has grown to tradition, but most fortunate in the portrayer of her beauty.  Lawrence has painted a picture which it is a perpetual pleasure to behold,—­the superb arms and shoulders, the serene, steadfast gaze of the eyes, and the conscious, yet confident, poise of the head forming a record to justify the tradition of great personal beauty and alertness of mind.

Marguerite Blessington’s youth was ill-regulated and penurious.  She was born in 1789, the second daughter of Edmund Power, of Knockbrit, near Clonmel, in the county of Tipperary.  Her father came of a good family, as did also her mother, who spoke unduly often of her ancestors, the Desmonds.  Marguerite was not comely in her early girlhood, though her sister Ellen and her brother Robert were handsome children.  As a child, she was sensitive and sentimental, and