born 1807. died 1867.

BETTER known by her name of Lady Dufferin, the Countess of Gifford was the eldest daughter of Thomas Sheridan, and grand-daughter of the famous Richard Brinsley Sheridan. This family has been almost unique in the brilliancy and attractiveness of its members, from the witty dramatist down to his three grand-daughters: “The beautiful sisters,” Lady Dufferin, the Hon. Mrs. Norton, and the Duchess of Somerset.

Helen Selina Sheridan—who afterwards became successively Lady Dufferin and Countess of Gifford—was born in 1807. Whilst she and her sisters were yet children, their father died at the Cape of Good Hope, whither he had gone in the hope of renovating his failing health; and henceforth their mother devoted herself to their education. They lived at Hampton Court, and here the genius of the two gifted elder sisters first found vent in poetry. They produced, jointly, the “Dandie's Rout,” in which the foppery of the day was quizzed by both pen and pencil.

In 1825, Helen Selina Sheridan married Captain the Honourable Price Blackwood, who subsequently became Lord Dufferin and Clandeboye; and by whom she had a son, the present Lord Dufferin. Her husband died in 1841, not very long after he had succeeded to the title; and in October, 1862, Lady Dufferin married, secondly, the late Earl of Gifford, eldest son of the Marquis of Tweeddale, who died in the December of the same year.