Blessington, MARGUERITE, COUNTESS OF, was born September 1, 1789, at Knockbrit, near Clonmel, Tipperary, where her father, Edmund Power, owned a small property. At the early age of fourteen she was forced into marrying a worthless Captain Farmer. She quitted him in three months' time, and in 1818, shortly after his death, married Charles Gardiner, Earl of Blessington. With him in 1822 she set out on a long tour on the Continent, where, as well as in London, she gathered around her all the most distinguished men of the time. In Genoa she formed an intellectual friendship with Lord Byron; afterwards she resided in
Paris, until the death of her husband in 1829. He left her a large fortune; and she held a little court of her own at her Kensington mansion, Gore House, Kensington, her celebrated soirées being frequented by many of her distinguished contemporaries. Her connection with Count d'Orsay (q.v.), which dated from 1822, placed her in an equivocal position as regards society, and her lavish expenditure overwhelmed her in debt, though for nearly twenty years she was making an extra income of more than £2000 per annum as author of a dozen most trashy novels. She was the authoress of The Idler in France, The Idler in Italy, and Conversations with Lord Byron (1834; new ed. 1894), which placed the poet in a more favourable light before his countrymen. At length in April 1849 she and D'Orsay had to flee from their creditors to Paris, and there on 4th June she died of apoplexy. See her Life by Madden (3 vols. 1855).