3-052-506 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The late Lady Charlotte Bacon (Byron's "Ianthe") - aged sixteen, 1880. 'The late Lady Charlotte Bacon, widow of General Anthony Bacon and daughter of the fifth Earl of Oxford, died on the 10th March, at the age of seventy-nine. Lady Charlotte Harley, as she was called in her youth, was the person to whom Byron, in the prologue to "Childe Harold," addressed the following lines, disguising her name under that of "Ianthe": "Ah! may'st thou ever be what now thou art, Nor unbeseem the promise of thy spring; As fair in form, as warm yet pure in heart; Love's image upon earth without his wing! 'Tis well for me, My years already doubly number thine; My loveless eye, unmoved, may gaze on thee, And safely view thy ripening beauties shine: Happy, I ne'er shall see them in decline". Such were the thrilling lines Lord Byron wrote to this lady as she appeared at the budding age of sweet sixteen. The likeness of her at that age is copied from the picture taken of her in oils, in 1817, by Westall, at Lord Byron's special desire'. From "Illustrated London News", 1880.