Nelson's Lady Hamilton (3 page)

But it is easy to wax over-sarcastic towards Greville. He has been somewhat severely treated by several of the beauty's later champions, whose chivalry has carried them to the point of seeing him almost as an unnatural monster. He was really the saving of Emily Hart at a time

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when she was hovering on the verge of a very dark abyss, and though his motives do not stand close inspection, it is probable that he really pitied and liked the girl. It is obvious that his proposals to her are entirely lacking in any moral feeling; but it must be remembered that he belonged to a worldly and cynical age as regards women, also he knew very well that Emily Hart was not an innocent untempted girl, but one whose " reall distres " and lack of protection was in danger of pushing her down past the chance of recovery. Indeed, it might have been expected that a girl who had already tripped and fallen several times would have finally gone under and been no more seen. But Emma had a really marvellous power of recovery and a sort of ineradicable innocence—or, if that word is barely applicable, a kind of freshness like that of running water, for ever moving eagerly forward and for ever obliterating the traces of the past. She had something of Nature's own quality, turning one season's soilure and despair to " the music and the bloom and all the mighty ravishment of spring." Her terrified question, " Good God, what shall I dow ?" was not so much a voice from the depths, as the cry of a child in the dark—a child who is ready to smile again the instant the light returns, though the tears are yet wet on her lashes.

Greville's patronizing, kindly, immoral letter

was the light in the night of her distress. She came up to London from Flintshire as he advised her, and early in the spring of 1782 Greville had settled her and himself in a quiet little house in Edgware Row, with Emma's mother, now calling herself Mrs. Cadogan, to look after them generally. Mrs. Cadogan was an excellent woman, in spite of the complacent way in which she joined her daughter's different establishments when she was living first with Mr. Greville and afterwards with his uncle, as the wife of neither. She was a first-rate housekeeper and cook; Greville, as usual, knew what he was about when he told "his Emily" that "I would not be troubled with your connexions (excepting your mother) for the universe."

Edgware Row calls up an unattractive vision at the present day, but one hundred and twenty-five years ago it was quite a pretty country neighbourhood, close to Paddington Green—a region of " fresh woods and pastures new " to Emma, who spent some of the happiest, simplest, and most care-free years of her life there. The house was small and unassuming. Mr. J. C. Jeaffreson describes its interior minutely :—

" To visit this house, at any time of its tenancy by Mr. Greville, was to see he was a connoisseur. Together with fine examples of the Dutch school, the collector's choicest treasures comprised a few works by the best English

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painters. In the drawing-room, there was a portrait of Emily Bertie, in the character of Thais, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds for Mr. Greville, and re-touched in certain points by the famous artist before it left the easel, to put it altogether in harmony with the young connoisseur's conceptions of the beautiful and true. In this salon might also be seen folios of rare engravings and unsurpassably fine mezzotints, bits of sculpture in marble and bronze, the cabinet of antique coins which Mr. Greville had brought together with infinite trouble and pleasure, and the fine collection of mineralogical specimens, which showed that the gentleman, who was very much of a connoisseur, was also something of a savant."

But without doubt the " choicest treasure " of Mr. Greville's collection was neither the Sir Joshua nor the minerals, but Emma herself. At this time she was close upon eighteen years old, and her beauty was blossoming towards its most exquisite period—a beauty radiant and fresh as the lilies of the field, the kind of beauty that " so draws the heart out of itself as to seem like magic," in the words of Richard Jefferies. She had that rare loveliness which is at once classic in outline yet sensitively mobile and changing in expression. No wonder Sir William Hamilton said of her that she was " finer than anything in antique art. 1 ' Her gift for dramatising emotion in her famous "Attitudes" will be referred to

later; but it is sufficiently proved by the extraordinary variety and expressiveness of her poses in Romney's pictures: she personifies all the moods, and not as is done in so many conventional paintings, where an " Allegro " can hardly be distinguished from a " Penseroso," but with real feeling and exquisite adaptability. Hayley, who knew Emma well, says in his " Life of Romney," " The talents which nature bestowed on the fair Emma led her to delight in the two kindred arts of music and painting; in the first she acquired great practical ability; for the second she had exquisite taste, and such expressive powers as could furnish to an historical painter an inspiring model for the various characters, either delicate or sublime. . . . Her features, like the language of Shakespeare, could exhibit all the gradations of every passion with a most fascinating truth and felicity of expression. Romney delighted in observing the wonderful command she possessed over her eloquent features."

Her colouring was of the pure and perfect kind that goes with warm, auburn hair, and this same hair was almost the greatest of her many beauties, growing in delicious lines from the broad, low forehead, and flowing almost to her heels—the hair of a true " Bacchante." Her eyes were grey—the " colour of genius," as it has been called, and in her own way Emma certainly was

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a genius ; but her eyes must have been the kind of grey that was capable of deepening and brightening, for they have been described as both violet and blue. Some critics considered her " beautiful and uncommon mouth " the most exquisite of her features. Take her all in all, and it will be admitted that the old Bishop of Derry was right, if not particularly reverent, when he said that the Creator was in a " glorious mood" when He made Emma.

It was this radiant creature that Greville established in the retirement of Paddington Green. Pettigrew speaks of the "splendid misery" of her life at this time, but the words are singularly ill-chosen. Her life was neither splendid nor miserable, but probably as complete an example of simple domestic happiness, in spite of the lack of the proper domestic tie, as could be found in the London of that day. Only good management kept the household running, as Greville insisted it must be run, on about a hundred a year, while Emma's own allowance for dress, charity, and amusements, was some ^30 yearly. She had two maidservants, whose wages were £8 and £g a year— wages, it must be remembered, were much lower then than now. " Splendid misery " hardly fits this modest establishment and this strictly limited income. Some of the household account-books in Emma's handwriting remain, and the sums

AS A "BACCHANTE

GEORGE ROMNKY

spent are amusingly small: apples, 2\d. ; mangle, 5^f. ; cotton and needles, gd. ; coach, is. ; poor man, \d.

After living with her for three years, Greville was able to say of the girl whose wildness and extravagance had been too much for Sir Harry Fetherstonehaugh, " She does not wish for much society, but to retain two or three creditable acquaintances in the neighbourhood she has avoided every appearance of giddiness, and prides herself on the neatness of her person and the good order of her house; these are habits both comfortable and convenient to me. She has vanity and likes admiration; but she connects it so much with her desire of appearing prudent, that she is more pleas'd with accidental admira-' tion than that of crowds which now distress her. In short, this habit, of three or four years' acquiring, is not a caprice, but is easily to be continued/' And a little later he says, " She never has wished for an improper acquaintance. She has dropt every one she thought I could except against, and those of her own choice have been in a line of prudence and plainness, which, tho' I might have wished for, I could not have proposed to confine her." John Romney also said of her that " Her only resources were reading and music at home, and sitting for pictures."

Here was a discreet and transformed Emma! But the change, though genuine so far as it went,

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was more on the surface than fundamental. It was not that her nature—always expressive and struggling for expression—was altered, but that she had become much more accomplished and —imitative and susceptible as she was—had insensibly acquired a more refined restraint of manner from living with Greville, who all his life, put manners before morals and repressed unbecoming emotion. Greville would not have influenced Emma so strongly if it had not been that she was very deeply and truly devoted to him. In her grateful eyes he was a model of all the virtues, and though there were times when her impulsive temper chafed at the restraints of Greville's " system," times when there were little outbursts, quickly repented, she yet spent her days in trying to please him and follow his wishes.

When separated from him temporarily once, she wrote—

" Oh! Greville, when I think on your goodness, your tender kindness, my heart is so full of gratitude that I want words to express it. But I have one happiness in vew, which I am determined to practice, and that is eveness of temper and steadness of mind. For endead I have thought so much of your amiable goodness when you have been tried to the utmost, that I will, endead I will manege myself, and try to be like Greville. Endead I can never be like

! him. But I will do all I can towards it, and I am sure you will not desire more. I think if the

! time would come over again, I would be differant.

: But it does not matter. There is nothing like bying expearance. I may be happyer for it hereafter, and I will think of the time coming

; and not of the past, except to make comparra-sons, to shew you what alterations there is for the best. ... I will try, I will do my utmost; and I can only regrett that fortune will not put it in my power to make a return for all the kindness and goodness you have showed

me."

One little episode belonging to this time of her life with Greville shows what a natural and incurably impulsive creature she remained, in spite of his training and her own eager efforts after a demeanour fitted to his ideas. Greville one evening took the young beauty with him to Ranelagh Gardens, and the lights and the people, coupled with the excitement of being with her " dear Greville" (who was chary of taking her often to places of public amusement), were all supremely delightful to the volatile Emma. There was an open-air concert going on; she listened enchanted to the singing, and when it ceased, to the amazement of the people and the absolute horror of Greville, she suddenly broke into song herself—with all the joyous unconsciousness of an early morning lark pouring

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out her "full heart in profuse strains of unpremeditated art." She had a fine clear voice which had been under training for some time, and, like a very child, she stood up among the fashionable crowd at Ranelagh and sang the latest and the prettiest of her songs. She was applauded to the echo, but the only face there that mattered to her wore a look of severe displeasure. Greville hurried her out of the gardens and took her home, telling her that she had filled him with shame. Emma's spirits were easily dashed by those she loved, and she fled in tears to her room. She took off the finery which had given her such pleasure an hour or two ago and put on "a plain cottage dress." Then she went down to Greville and told him sadly that, as he was ashamed of her, he had better dismiss her, and she would go away as poor and as miserable as she came to him. Emma could play Beggar-maid or Ambassadress with equal charm.

She was very conscious of the defects of her own impulsive temper, and did what she could to curb it. She set great store by a didactic poem of Hayley's called " The Triumphs of Temper," and regarded its heroine, Serena, as an example of all that she herself vainly strove after. At this period of her life it might truly be said of her, as of Serena, that—

" Free from ambitious pride and envious care, To love and to be loved was all her prayer."

It was while living in Edgware Row with Greville that Emma and Romney became friends, and that she sat to him for the innumerable pictures and studies which have been such a joy to lovers of beauty ever since—for in her portraits she combines the double charm of art and nature. During the four years, from 1782 to 1786, Romney records nearly three hundred sittings given him by Emma—or " Mrs. Hart," as he called her. In his own words she was his "divine lady" and his "inspirer," and she certainly deserved these expressions—he found the purest joy and the utmost expression of his genius in painting her. It was not only the loveliness of her form and features that enraptured him, but also her warmth of heart and joyous disposition. Romney's son describes her as "a young female of an artless and playful character, of extraordinary elegance and symmetry of form, of a most beautiful countenance glowing with health and animation." This was the vision that two or three times a week burst on Romney's studio in Cavendish Square.