Genoa was reached on the last day of March 1823, and Lady Blessington, as also doubtless D’Orsay, because of the sweet sympathy between two hearts that beat as one, was enraptured with the beautiful situation of the town, in her Journal breaking forth into descriptive matter which must be the envy of every conscientious journalist. Their entrance was made by night, and they found lodging at the Alberga del la Villa, a house situated upon the sea front, bedecked with marble balconies and the rooms adorned with a plenitude of gilding that brought comfort to the simple heart of Lady Blessington. But it was not by matters so material as its beauties or the comforts of its inns that her soul was really touched. To be in Genoa was to be in the same place as Byron, of whom the very morrow might bring the sight. The only fly in the honey was that the poet might still be fat, as, alack, Tom Moore had reported him to be when at Venice. An imperfect peer is sad enough; but an obese poet—Oh, fie!

On April first, auspicious date, the fair inspirer of poems met with the writer of them, the vision being not entrancing but disappointing to the eager lady. What it was to the poet we do not know, though there are, indeed, quite firm grounds for surmising that Byron was not entirely pleased by the invasion of the privacy which he so jealously guarded, by the intrusion upon his retirement of the Blessingtons even when accompanied by D’Orsay.

Ingenuity was practised in order to secure admission. The day selected for the drive out to Albano was rainy, a circumstance which it was calculated would compel even the most curmudgeonly of poets to offer hospitality and shelter. The event proved the soundness of the calculation. The carriage drew up to the gates of the Casa Saluzzo; the two gentlemen alighted, sent in their names, were admitted, were cordially welcomed. Outside in the downpour sat the two pretty ladies. We know not what emotion, if any, agitated Marianne Power; but who can doubt that painful anxiety and doubt fluttered in the bosom of her sister? Would Byron, or would Byron not? To be admitted or not to be admitted? Of what count were all the charms of Genoa, what weighed all the joys of illicit love, if she could not gain admission to the presence of the poet whose conversation—and her own—she was destined to record?

Slowly the minutes passed. Then at last came relief. Byron had learned that the ladies were at his gates; breathless, hatless, he ran out.

“You must have thought me,” he gasped, “quite as ill-bred and sauvage as fame reports in having permitted your ladyship to remain a quarter of an hour at my door: but my old friend Lord Blessington is to blame, for I only heard a minute ago that it was so highly honoured. I shall not think you do not pardon (sic) this apparent rudeness, unless you enter my abode—which I entreat you will do.”

So the lady reports his speech, the which is precisely the manner in which Byron would have expressed himself—more or less.

Lady Blessington was quite easily mollified, granting the pardon so gracefully sought, accepting his assisting hand, and, crossing the courtyard, passed into the vestibule. Before them bowed the uniformed chasseur and other obsequious attendants, all showing in their faces the surprise they felt at their master displaying so much cordiality in his reception of the visitors.

The whole account in her Journal gives promise of the eminence to which Lady Blessington afterward attained as a writer of fiction.

Lady Blessington was disappointed in Byron as Oscar Wilde was by the Atlantic and Mr Bernard Shaw is by the world. He did not reach the ideal she had framed of the author of Childe Harold and Manfred. He was a jovial, vivacious, even flippant man of the world. His brow should have been gloomy with sardonic melancholy, and his eyes shadowed by a hidden grief which not even love or the loveliness of Lady Blessington could assuage. But, alas, for the evanescence of ideals!

Of this meeting we also have Byron’s version. He writes to Moore:—

“Miladi seems highly literary, to which and your honour’s acquaintance with the family, I attribute the pleasure of having seen them. She is also very pretty, even in a morning,—a species of beauty on which the sun of Italy does not shine so frequently as the chandelier. Certainly English women wear better than their Continental neighbours of the same sex.”

Accounts differ as to whether Byron did or did not extend familiar friendship to the Blessingtons; it really does not much matter—if at all. But it is of importance to know that he fell before the charms of the irresistible D’Orsay. Indeed so blinded was he with admiration that he not only discovered the young Frenchman to be “clever, original, unpretending,” but also stated that “he affected to be nothing that he was not.” We fancy D’Orsay would not have counted an accusation of modesty as a compliment. In such a man, properly conscious of his gifts, modesty can only be a mockery. Mock modesty is to the true what mock is to real turtle—an insolent imitation. D’Orsay was above all things candid, when there existed no valid reason for being otherwise.

While at Genoa D’Orsay drew Byron’s portrait, which afterward formed the frontispiece to Lady Blessington’s Conversations of Lord Byron, which is quite the most realistic and skilful of her ladyship’s works of fiction. The poet gave the painter a ring, a souvenir not to be worn for it was too large. It was made of lava, “and so far adapted to the fire of his years and character,” so Byron wrote to Lady Blessington, through whose hand he conveyed the gift, perchance deeming that by so doing he would enhance its value.

Byron’s yacht, the Bolivar, was purchased by Blessington for £300, having cost many times that sum. The vessel was fitted in the most sumptuous manner; soft cushions, alluring couches, marble baths, every extravagance that the heart of a woman could conceive or the purse of man pay for; suitable surroundings for our modern Antony and Cleopatra.