Memoirs of Emma, lady Hamilton, the friend of Lord Nelson and the court of Naples; (37 page)

1 Morrison MS. 539, Nelson to Lady H., March 6, 1801.

gi8 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON

But the part of Sir William in this strange alliance formed, perhaps, its strangest element. Throughout, even after Greville and the caricatures in the shop windows must have opened his eyes, he deliberately shut them. He never ceased his attachment to Emma or abated his chivalrous fealty to Nelson. Those feelings, incredible as it may sound, were genuinely reciprocated by both of them. He seems almost to have more than accepted that veil of mystification with which the next year was to shroud their intimacy. Indeed, it was Emma's care for Nelson's career, and Nelson's for her good name, that constrained the fiction. That a woman should join a daughter's devotion to an old husband with a wife's devotion to the lover of her choice, is a phenomenon in female psychology. Swift towards Stella and Vanessa, Goethe towards Mina and Bettina, are not the only men who have cherished a dual constancy; but, as a rule, the woman inconstant to one will prove inconstant to many others.

Miss Knight noticed how low-spirited Emma seemed on the return passage to Palermo. Indeed, the familiar stanzas of her composing, " Come, cheer up, fair Emma "—a line often repeated in Nelson's later letters—were prompted by this unaccountable melancholy. 1 Such dispiritment hardly betokens the mood of an adventuress intriguing to secure a successor to the fading Hamilton. Yet such was Lord Minto's conviction two years later. It is curious that the im-puters of craft always deny her a spark of cleverness, and they must certainly have thought Nelson much

1 Nelson, writing to Lady Hamilton in the following year (only three days before Horatia's birth), says: "When I consider that this day nine months was your birthday, and that although we had a gale of wind, yet I was happy and sang ' Come, cheer up, fair Emma,' etc., even the thoughts compared with this day make me melancholy."—Morrison MS. 503, January 26, 1801.

stupider than themselves. Worldlings do not always know the world, still less the world of such a complex heart as Emma's. Her feelings may perhaps be best imagined by her little poem sent to Nelson at the opening of his last year on earth.

" I think I have not lost my heart,

Since I with truth can swear, At every moment of my life, I feel my Nelson there.

If from thine Emma's breast her heart

Were stolen or thrown away, Where, where should she my Nelson's love

Record, each happy day?

If from thine Emma's breast her heart

Were stolen or flown away, Where, where should she engrave, my Love,

Each tender word you say?

Where, where should Emma treasure up

Her Nelson's smiles and sighs, Where mark with joy each secret look

Of love from Nelson's eyes?

Then do not rob me of my heart,

Unless you first forsake it; And then so wretched it would be,

Despair alone will take it." 1

In these lines, surely, there is a ring of " les larmes dans la voix."

In sixteen days the Maltese episode was over, but Palermo was not reached for eleven days more. Nelson had pleaded complete exhaustion as his reason for being unable to continue at present in his subordinate command. Lord Spencer sent him a dry and suspicious answer. Nelson desired to recruit his health at home. He bemoaned the supineness of those who

1 Nelson Letters, vol. ii. p. 127.

might have prevented the fresh invasion of Italy. Already he had bidden his friend Davison to announce his impending return to Lady Nelson: " I fancy," the mutual friend wrote to her, " that your anxious mind will be relieved by receiving all that you hold sacred and valuable." She " alternated between a menace and a sigh." But she was not to behold him so soon as had been expected, or to test the truth of what had been darkly hinted. The Hamiltons were to be his companions, and the Queen had for the last three months been preparing a plan for their joint convenience. Now wholly bereft of her power over and the affection of her husband, vainly exerting herself to induce Lord Grenville to retain Hamilton at his post, dreading that England would withdraw her fleet, suspicious, too, that Britain might rob the Sicilies of Malta, she resolved, in her isolation, to visit her relatives at Vienna, after a private and political visit to Leghorn. The three princesses and Prince Leopold were to go with her, and Prince Castelcicala, bound on a special mission to the Court of St. James, was to head the train of a numerous suite. The French were now once more beginning to defeat the Austrians, and she longed to set off before it might be too late. What so natural as that the Tria juncta in uno should accompany her till the inevitable wrench of parting?

One of her letters to Emma three months previously reveals at once the state of her own perplexed and perplexing mind, her reliance on Emma's counsel, and the cause of Castelcicala's mission. So much depends on the point of view. Throughout, hers had been utterly alien to the average Englishwoman's:—

" MY DEAR LADY, —I have been compelled by a painful affair to delay my reply, and I write this, my dear friend, in great pain. . . . Do you remember that

on Tuesday evening I asked you if you had received any letter; you told me no: my eyes filling with tears, I was obliged to leave you. I wrote that I was dreadfully depressed. ... I send you the substance of my letter from Circello. The official one seems to contain no more, but as this fatal packet from Paget appears to hinge upon our not being left here without a minister during your husband's absence, I think it may yet be remedied. I am in despair. I am excessively angry with Circello for not having more strongly opposed it, and if you, my good, honest, true friends, quit us, let them leave Keith in the Mediterranean. We begin by losing you, our good friends, then our hero Nelson, and finally, the friendship and alliance of England; for a young man [Paget?] liable to misbehave himself through the temptations of wrong-headed men who will induce him to abuse his power, will not be tolerated, and troubles will arise from it. I grieve to cause you uneasiness; my own is concealed, but bitterly felt. I send you, my good friend, the original letter from Circello. Do not let Campbell see it, or know that you have seen it, and return it to-morrow morning. . . . Suggest to me what should be done to prevent this misfortune . . . both for the State and for my feelings. ... 7 will do whatever you counsel me. ... Do not afflict yourself. Tell the Chevalier I have never felt till now how much I am attached to him, how much I owe him. My eyes swim with tears, and I must finish by begging you to suggest to me what to do, and believe that all my life happy or wretched, wherever it may be, I shall be always your sincere, attached, tender, grateful, devoted, sorrowful friend."

None the less, the anniversary of King George's birthday was celebrated with undiminished fervour at Palermo. Every member of the royal family ad-

dressed separate letters of compliment to Lady Hamilton. Their Anglomania .still prevailed.

Among these valedictions is a letter of less formal interest. Lady Betty Foster had commended a protegee—Miss Ashburner—to Emma's protection. She had married a Neapolitan, and, as Eliza Perconte, was now governess to one of the princesses. " With me," she says, " the old English proverb, ' out of sight, out -of mind,' will never find a place." Emma had conciliated all but the Jacobins. Her unceremonious kindness had endeared her to many loving friends among the lowest as well as the highest. The sailors and the common people would have died for her. Her absence made a real void. Lord Bristol was now once more at Naples—it is a pity that the farewell of one so unaccountable is missing. Prince Belmonte's, however, is not, though it was addressed from Petersburg to Vienna. " I am so indebted to you," he writes in English, " and you deserve so much to be loved, that my gratitude and sincere friendship will last till my tomb. God bless you in your long travels."

Farewell was now said not only to Palermo, but to Italy. Nevermore did Emma behold " the land of the cypress and myrtle," the land of her hero's laurels, of her husband's adoption, of her own zenith. It must often hereafter have haunted her dreams.

She, with her husband, mother, and Miss Knight, accompanied the Queen and Nelson to Leghorn. They sailed on June 10, and anchored five days later, though Nelson's usual tempest prevented a landing for two days more. This marks the last of the Foudroyant for the chief actors in the memorable scenes of this and the previous year. It had proved a ship of history and of romance. Nelson had pressed the Government to put it at the Queen's disposal as far as Trieste, but it was promptly requisitioned for repairs; Mrs.

EMMA, LADY HAMILTON '323

Grundy, in the person of Queen Charlotte, may have intervened. Bitterly disappointed, its barge's crew at once petitioned to be allowed to serve in any ship which their great Admiral might still choose for his homeward journey. The news that on July II Nelson had struck his flag spread consternation at Palermo.

For three weeks more they all tarried at Leghorn. Nelson and his party met with a royal welcome, and were conducted in state to the Cathedral with the Queen. All received splendid memorials from Maria Carolina. Emma's was a diamond necklace with ciphers of the royal children's names intertwined with locks of their hair. The Queen, in presenting it, assured her that it was she who had been their means of safety. Nor were they safe at present. The French army was gradually advancing towards Lucca in their immediate neighbourhood. Nelson sent a line of assurance to Acton that till safety was secured and plans were settled, he would not desert the Queen. Emma was still paramount; nor was it long before, and for the last time, she displayed that ready presence of mind, and power of popularity with crowds that had often astonished Maria Carolina, and contributed so much to Nelson's admiration. She had armed the Lazzaroni at Naples, she harangued and pacified the insurgents during their stay at Leghorn.

On July 17 they started together for Vienna by way of Florence, Ancona, and Trieste.

This journey, with its after stages of fresh pomp and pageant at Prague, at Dresden, and at Hamburg, was the most ill-advised step that Nelson and the Ham-iltons could have taken. Had they proceeded, according to their original plan, by sea, they would never have so irritated the motherland which, after long absence, they were all revisiting. They were, indeed,

Memoirs —Vol. 14—11

quite ignorant of the prejudices which they would be called upon to combat. They deemed themselves children of the world by virtue of their association with great events, great persons, and a great career; but of our island-world they had grown curiously forgetful. Well, indeed, would it have been for them if they had remembered. They had lived in a hot-house; they were going into the fog. They had long been closely isolated in an inner, as well as an outer, world of their own. Every one, except the detestable Jacobins, had hymned their praises. Nelson's supreme renown had coloured every word and every action. For them the Neapolitan and Sicilian court stood for every court elsewhere. As it had been with the allies of Britain, so would it prove in Britain itself. They hugged their illusions. They were aware, of course, of whispers and comments and suspicions, but these they derided as the makeshifts of envious busybodies. 1 Even now Sir William gave out that he would shortly return, a more youthful Ambassador than ever, though he was even more worn out than Nelson. He and Emma were under the wing of the greatest hero on earth, who had only to sound the trumpet of his fame for the ramparts of official Jericho to fall. Emma herself was

1 Lord Minto, writing from Vienna in March, 1800, and hoping that Nelson, who was worn to a shadow, would take Malta before returning home, says: " He does not seem at all conscious of the sort of discredit he has fallen into, or the cause of it, for he writes still not wisely about Lady Hamilton and all that. But it is hard to condemn and use ill a hero, as he is in his own element, for being foolish about a woman who has art enough to make fools of many wiser than an Admiral. . . . Sir William sends home to Lord Grenville the Emperor of Russia's letter . . . [about the Maltese decoration for the Maltese service]. All this is against them, but they do not seem conscious." — Minto Life and Letters, vol. ii. p. 114. On p. 139 Lady Minto writes, " His zeal for the public service seems entirely lost in his love and vanity, and they sit and flatter each other all day long."

in her most aggressive mood; " Nature " certainly now outweighed " Sensibility " : she would be an Ishmaelite in face of icy English officialism discrediting each of her words and suspecting her every step. She was at length conscious of what, in its very concealment, was about to rivet her for ever to her lover. She would brave it out with nerves of iron and front of brass, for that which other women were incapable of enduring, her strength and courage could achieve. At Vienna the Empress loaded Maria Carolina's intimate with attentions; with the Esterhazys she was the observed of all observers. The bitter parting with her Queen but nerved her to greater and louder demonstrations. When hushed diplomacy sneered and sniggered in pointedly remote corners, she raised her fine voice higher than ever to teach John Bull on the Continent a lesson of robustness. At the mere hint that English influence was hoping to dissuade the Saxon Elector from receiving one who was the friend of a Queen and an Empress, she protested, with a laugh, that she would knock him down. In the Saxon capital she braced herself to perform her Attitudes to perfection; nobody should guess her real condition. She was ill at ease, and to mask it she was all retaliation and defiance. The finical got upon her nerves, and she on theirs.

And, added to this, the tour itself combined the features of a royal progress and of a travelling show. At Vienna no attentions sufficed to prove the gratitude to Nelson, ay, and to Emma, of the Austrian house. Lady Minto herself, an old ally, but the wife of an Ambassador, who soon made up his mind never to " countenance " her, stood her sponsor at the drawing-room. The Bathyanis vied with the Esterhazys. Emma was constantly with Maria Carolina at Schon-brunn as the tearful hour of separation approached.

The Queen's parting letter, which begins " My dear Lady and tender friend," contains one notable passage: " May I soon have the consolation of seeing you again at Naples. I repeat what I have already said, that at all times and places, and under all circumstances, Emma, dear Emma, shall be my friend and sister, and this sentiment will remain unchanged. Receive my thanks once more for all you have done, and for the sincere friendship you have shown me. Let me hear from you; I will manage to let you hear from me." We shall see how Maria Carolina kept her word. It was said that Emma refused from her the offer of a large annuity. It has, of course, been denied that Emma was ever endued with the grace of refusal. But, quite apart from the natural pride of independence, which characterised her from her girlhood to her grave, it is improbable that either Hamilton or Nelson would have permitted her to be the pensioner of a foreign court.

Banquets and functions abounded, and they were not restricted to the court. Banker Arnstein—" the Gold-smid," as Lady Hamilton afterwards called him, " of Germany"—showered his splendours upon them. There were endless concerts, operas, entertainments, excursions, visits of ceremony and of pleasure, shooting parties, water parties, and, it must be owned, parties of cards. One of their fellow-guests at St. Veit, a castle of the Esterhazys', has recorded his hostile impressions. He was Lord Fitzharris, naturally annoyed to see her with Nelson, and he may have lost his money in this encounter, and, possibly, his temper.

" Sunday, grand fireworks. Monday (the four de fete}, a very good ball. And yesterday, the chasse. Nelson and the Hamiltons were there. We never sat down to supper or dinner less than sixty or seventy

persons, in a fine hall superbly illuminated; in short, the whole in a most princely style. Nelson's health was drunk with flourish of trumpets and firing of cannon. Lady Hamilton is, without exception, the most coarse, ill-mannered, disagreeable woman we met with. The Princess with great kindness had got a number of musicians, and the famous Haydn, who is in their service, to play, knowing Lady H. was fond of music. Instead of attending to them, she sat down to the faro table, played Nelson's cards for him, and won between £300 and £400. . . ." Haydn, it must be thought, was hardly a suitable accompaniment to cards.

When, after Dresden with its fussy state and solemnity, they embarked on the Elbe for Hamburg, a stock passage in the diaries of a charming woman relates how that other Elliot, who was minister here (there was always an Elliot), was pained to the quick of his refinement by the noise of Emma and her party; how undignified Nelson's excitability appeared to all; how Sir William, to prove his nimbleness, " hopped " on " his backbone," his legs, star and ribbon " all flying about in the air "; how he and his friends withdrew shuddering at the shock of such breaches of taste; how relieved they were when bated breath was restored, and they were quit of these oddities and vulgarities; how, when the Nelsonians at last got on board, they looked like a troupe of strolling players; how Mrs. Cadogan immediately began to cook the Irish stew for which her daughter clamoured, while Emma's French maid bawled out coarse abuse about forgotten provisions. Most of this is probably true, but here again the point of view needs adjusting. Fastidiousness is as movable, and sometimes as unbearable, a term as vulgarity, and no doubt the stiff Elliot would have been equally troubled at a violent sneeze, at any undue

emphasis whatever, or infringement of etiquette. He had, it must be owned, good reason for being shocked at Emma's want of manners. But over-nicety has its own pitfalls also. There have been people who eat dry toast with a knife and fork. There are others who shiver at the stir of an unconventional footfall on the pile carpets of " culture." At any rate, till now nobody had ever reproached Sir William, a paragon of " taste," with violating the semblances of decorum. However we may regret Emma's unpolished " coarseness," at least this is true: blatant and self-assertive or not, she had certainly carried her own life and the lives of others in her hand. The daughter of the servants' hall had braved crisis without blenching. The son of the Foreign Office had of necessity performed its function of words, and had naturally sacrificed himself to the comme il faut.

But if Emma, at bay, thus misbehaved, whither were her inmost thoughts wandering?

She was thinking of how she could carry matters through, of what would become of her poor Sir William. She was thinking of Greville's reception, of Romney and Hayley and Flaxman, and her old friends. And of those new friends which Nelson had promised and described to her; of his pious and revered father, whose heart must be broken if ever he guessed the truth; of his favourite brother Maurice, whose poor, blind " wife," beloved and befriended by Nelson till she died, was no more his wedded partner than she was Nelson's; of his eldest brother—the pompous and bishopric-hunting " Reverend," a schemer and a gourmand, who added the sentimental selfishness of Harold Skimpole to the mock humility of Mr. Pecksniff; of that brother's cheery, bustling little wife; of their pet daughter Charlotte, whom the father always styled his " jewel"; of the son already destined for the

navy, and long afterwards designated by Nelson to marry Horatia; of his two plain-speaking, plain-living sisters—sickly Mrs. Matcham with her brood of eight, and a husband always absent, ever changing plans and abodes; of Mrs. Bolton, more prosperous and more ambitious, with the two rather quarrelsome daughters for whom she coveted an entry into the world of " deportment " and fashion; of Davison, the hero's fickle factotum, whom Nelson had already requested to find inexpensive lodgings in London. Beckford, the magnificent, had put his house in Grosvenor Square at the disposal of the Hamiltons. It was an offer of self-interest, for he was already manoeuvring to rehabilitate himself by bribing his embarrassed kinsman into procuring him a peerage, and the astute Greville suspected his generosity from the first. Indeed he wrote to Sir Joseph Banks that he had warned his uncle of " consequences," and that he " hoped to put him out of the line of ridicule," even if he could not " help him to the comfort and credit to whi^h his character and good qualities entitle him."

At Vienna Emma had found Nelson yet another factotum in the person of the interpreter Oliver, who during the next five years was so often to be the depositary of their secret correspondence.

From Dresden the Nelsonians repaired to Altona, from Altona to Hamburg. Their sojourn there was the most interesting of all, though it only lasted ten days, before the three embarked in the St. George packet-boat for London. There Emma, who had met the young poet Goethe, now met, and was appreciated by, the aged poet Klopstock. There Nelson met, and afterwards munificently befriended, the unfortunate General Dumouriez. There the Lutheran pastor hastened many miles to implore the signature of the great man for the flyleaf of his Bible. Hamburg was en-