contributor. That year also she republished, from the ‘New Monthly,’ her ‘Conversations with Lord Byron,’ 8vo. In 1835 appeared her novel, in 3 vols., ‘The Two Friends,’ descriptive of society in the Faubourg St.-Germain. In 1836 were published her ‘Flowers of Loveliness,’ 4to, and her ‘Confessions of an Elderly Gentleman,’ illustrated by Parris, 8vo. Early in that year she moved into Gore House, Kensington, where for thirteen years she gathered around her the most distinguished men of intellect of that time. In 1837 she published ‘The Victims of Society;’ and in 1838 the ‘Gems of Beauty,’ and the ‘Confessions of an Elderly Lady,’ illustrated by Parris, 12mo. ‘The Works of Lady Blessington’ were issued from the press in a collected form in 2 vols. 8vo in 1838 at Philadelphia. In 1839 she produced ‘The Governess’ and ‘Desultory Thoughts and Reflections,’ besides two volumes of the most successful of all her writings, ‘The Idler in Italy.’ A third volume of that work appeared in 1840. In that year she also published, in a quarto volume illustrated by Chalons, her story in verse, ‘The Belle of a Season.’ In 1841 she produced her ‘Idler in France,’ and began her ten years' editorship of ‘The Keepsake.’ By that work in 1848 she was a loser to the extent of 700l. through the death, in a state of bankruptcy, of Charles Heath the engraver. In 1842 appeared, in 3 vols., her ‘Lottery of Life and other Tales,’ and in 1843, in 4 vols., ‘Strathern, or Life at Home and Abroad: a Story of the Present Day.’ From this work, although only four hundred copies of it were sold, she realised nearly 600l., it having first appeared as a serial in the ‘Sunday Times.’ When the ‘Daily News’ was started, in January 1846, the Countess of Blessington was engaged to contribute to it, at the rate of 500l. a year, ‘exclusive intelligence.’ At the end of six months, however, she withdrew from that engagement. In 1846 she published her novel, in 3 vols., ‘The Memoirs of a Femme de Chambre,’ and (edited by her) ‘Lionel Deerhurst, or Fashionable Life under the Regency.’ In 1847 appeared, in 3 vols., her novel founded on fact, ‘Marmaduke Herbert, or the Fatal Error.’ One other work only appeared from her hand, and that posthumously in 1850, her novel in 3 vols., ‘Country Quarters.’ For nearly twenty years she had been earning an income, according to Jerdan (Autobiography, iv. 320–1), of between 2,000l. and 3,000l. a year. Her annual expenditure at Gore House, however, exceeded 4,000l., and from 1843 her pecuniary difficulties were perpetually increasing. In 1845 the potato disease seriously affected her jointure, which, after rapidly dwindling, in 1848 finally disappeared. Count d'Orsay, meanwhile, who but a few months after his marriage had been separated from his young wife, had for the last dozen years been living at Gore House with the Countess of Blessington. In April 1849 the long-impending crash came upon both. To escape arrest Count d'Orsay, on the night of the 1st, fled to Paris, taking with him his valet and a single portmanteau. On the 14th Lady Blessington followed him thither. From the auction which took place at Gore House on 10 May 1849 less than 12,000l. was realised. Within a month from that time, on 4 June 1849, the Countess of Blessington died very suddenly in her sixtieth year in her apartments in the Rue du Cercle, near the Champs-Elysées, from an apoplectic seizure, complicated by heart disease. She was buried at Chambourcy, near St.-Germain-en-Laye, the residence of her most intimate friends during many years, the Duke and Duchess de Grammont.
[Memoir prefixed to Country Quarters, vol. i. pp. iii–xxiii, 1850; Madden's Life of the Countess of Blessington, 3 vols. 8vo, 1855; Chorley's Authors of England, pp. 28–30, 1861; Grantley Berkeley's Recollections, vol. iii. ch. x. ‘Gore House,’ pp. 201–31, 1865; Jerdan's Autobiography, iv. 320–1; C. Mathews's Autobiography, i. 60–165; Annual Register for 1849, pp. 245–6; Gent. Mag. August 1849, pp. 202–3; Morning Post, 5 June 1849; Athenæum, 9 June, 1849, p. 599; Illustrated London News, 9 June, 1849, p. 396.]
BLETHYN, WILLIAM (d. 1590), bishop of Llandaff, was born in Wales, and educated at Oxford, at either New Inn Hall or Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College). Having taken orders he became archdeacon of Brecknock, and in 1676 bishop of Llandaff, holding at the same time several livings in order to add to the scanty endowments of the see. He died in October 1590, leaving three sons, and was buried in the church of Mathern, Monmouthshire, where was his episcopal residence.
[Godwin's Comm. de Præsulibus Angliæ, p. 612; Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses, ii. 827 ]
BLEWITT, JONAS (d. 1805), was one of the most distinguished organists of the latter half of the eighteenth century. He was a pupil of Samuel Jarvis, and about 1795 was organist of the united parishes of St. Margaret Pattens and St. Gabriel Fenchurch, and also of St. Catherine Coleman, Fenchurch Street. He was the author of a 'Complete Treatise on the Organ,' of 'Ten Voluntaries and Twelve Preludes ' for the
