Nelson's Lady Hamilton (9 page)

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maner in which I did the honors, and then I made him allmost cry with Handels; and with the comick he could not contain himself, for he says he never saw the tragick and comick muse blended so happily together."

Emma certainly did not mind " the butter spread too thick ! "

In the late summer of 1787 she commenced writing again to Charles Greville, keeping a sort of journal-letter for his benefit which gives a vivacious account of her doings for about four months. She allows herself the luxury of a few reproaches at the beginning, but it should be remembered that the generous creature never said or did anything that could injure the nephew's prospects with his uncle, though it was fully in her power to have done so had she cherished a taste for revenge.

"Altho' you never think me worth writing to," she says, " yet I cannot so easily forget you, and whenever I have had any particular pleasure, I feil as tho' I was not right tell I had communicated it to my dearest Greville. For you will ever be dear to me, and tho' we cannot be together, lett ous corespond as freinds. I have a happiness in hearing from you, and a comfort in communicating my little storeys to you, because I flatter myself that you still love the name of that Emma, that was once very dear to you."

After this little outburst, she tells him of her

visits and her singing, and how she draws pictures of Vesuvius—all with a charming simplicity and friendliness that Greville certainly did not deserve. Then she goes on—

" We was last night up Vesuvus [if she could draw the mountain she couldn't spell its name!] at twelve a clock, and in my life I never saw so fine a sight. The lava runs about five mile down from the top; for the mountain is not burst, as ignorant people say it is. But, when we got to the Hermitage, there was the finest fountain of liquid fire falling down a great precipice, and as it run down it sett fire to the trees and brushwood, so that the mountain looked like one entire mountain of fire. We saw the lava surround the poor hermit's house, and take possession of the chapel, notwithstanding it was covered with pictures of Saints and other religios preservitaves against the fury of nature. For me, I was enraptured. I could have staid all night there, and I have never been in charity with the moon since, for it looked so pale and sickly; and the red-hot lava served to light up the moon, for the light of the moon was nothing to the lava. We met the Prince Royal on the mountain. But his foolish tuters onely took him up a little whay, and did not lett him stay 3 minuets; so, when we asked him how he liked it, he said, * Bella ma poca roba,' when, if they had took him five hundred yards higher, he would have seen the noblest, sublimest

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sight in the world. But, poor creatures, the[y] were frightened out of their sences, and glad to make a hasty retreat.—O, I shall kill my selfe with laughing! Their has been a prince paying us a visit. He is sixty years of age, one of the first families, and as all ways lived at Naples, and when I told him I had been to Caprea, he asked me if I went there by land. Only think, what ignorance! I staired at him and asked him who was his tutor."

It was very delightful to this daughter of a village blacksmith to be able to " stair " at princes and ask them who was responsible for their amazing ignorance! It was delightful, also, to be entertained as the guest of honour on board a Dutch man-of-war. She describes everything for Greville's benefit in the same lengthy letter—

" There was the Comodore, and the Captain and four more of the first officers waited to conduct ous to the ship. The 2 ships was dress'd out so fine in all the collowrs; the men all put in order; a band of musick and all the marrine did their duty, and when we went on board, twenty peices of cannon fired. But as we past the frigate, she fired all her guns, that I wish you had seen it. We sett down thirty to dine,— me at the head of the table, mistress of the feast, drest all in virgin white and my hair all in rinlgets, reaching allmost to my heals. I asure you it is so long, that I realy look'd and moved amongst

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it, Sir William said so. That night there was a great opera at St. Carlo's, in honor of the King of Spain's name-day. So St. Carlos was illu-manated, and everybody in great galla. Well, I had the finest dress made up on purpose, as I had a box near the King and Queen. My gown was purple sattin, wite sattin peticoat trimd with crape and spangles. My cap lovely, from Paris, all white fethers. My hair was to have been delightfully dres'd, as I have a very good hairdresser. But for me unfortunately, the diner on board did not finish tell half-past-five, English. Then the Comodore would have another bottle to drink to the loveliest whoman in the world, as the[y] cald me at least. I whispered to Sir William and told him I should be angry with him, if he did not get up to go, as we was to dress, and it was necessary to be at the theatre before the royal party. So at last the[y] put out the boat, to offer a salute from the 2 ships of all the guns. We arrived on shoar with the Comodore and five princapal officers, and in we all crowd into our coach, which is large. We just got in time to the Opera. The Comodore went with ous, and the officers came next and attended my box all the time, and behaved to me as tho' I was a Queen."

Emma's own letters and all the personal records of this time give the most brilliant picture of her success—she quotes with much satisfaction

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the praise of Prince Dietrichstein, " he says I am a dymond of the first watter, and the finest creature on the hearth." The praise of princes is not necessarily worth much, but in spite of her vanity there was a sort of native sweetness and overflowing kindness in Emma that won the praise of others than princes — servants and peasants loved her, good old priests and a whole convent-full of nuns were quite enchanted with her, and in spite of her reprehensible position and her amazing beauty society ladies admired and liked her, even when her unaided eyes outshone their diamonds, and her simple " wite sattin" put their expensive splendours in the shade. It was a real triumph for Emma—won by tact and an unaffected warm heart. Ladies of fashion, as a rule, are very merciless to a woman in the " Signora Hart's " position. Slights and stabs no doubt she had to endure, but they were comparatively few, and the real wonder is that her head was not completely turned by all the adulation she received. The Empress of Russia commissioned her portrait; and when Madame Vigee Le Brun, flying from distracted France, came to Naples, Sir William Hamilton invited her to paint his "fair Grecian," as he called Emma. She was painted once more as a Bacchante, resting on a leopard-skin in a cave by the sea, a wine-cup in her hand. It lacks the wild-wood grace and radiant charm of Romney's

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portraits, and is a little heavy. But though not conspicuously successful in the picture, Madame Le Brun described her looks with admiration, " Her lovely face was very animated. She had an enormous quantity of beautiful chestnut hair, which, when loose, completely covered her : thus, as a Bacchante, she was perfect."

But Emma Hart was not content to remain the "perfect Bacchante." New abilities and powers were making themselves felt through all ! her gaieties and love of admiration, new ambitions were stirring in her. She had conquered one position, she had become indispensable to Sir William Hamilton, who had told his remonstrating niece, Mrs. Dickenson, that Emma " was necessary to his happiness," as well as "the handsomest, loveliest, cleverest, and best creature in the world." But if she had conquered Sir William's heart it was by the warmth of her own, not by any calculating scheme of self-advantage, for she wrote in 1791 with her usual ardour of conviction, " I confess ... I doat on him. Nor I never can love any other person but him." Her affections pointed the same way as her dawning ambitions. She had not pressed the point, she had waited through several years, but she had never abandoned her intention to fulfil the statement she made to Greville in 1786, " I will make him marry me."

CHAPTER VI

MARRIAGE

WHEN the charming and gracious Elizabeth Gunning, Duchess of Argyll, died at the end of 1790, Emma had many reasons for sadness. She wrote to Greville, " You may think of my afflictions, when I heard of the Duchess of Argyll's death. I never had such a friend as her, and that you will know, when I see you and recount to you all the acts of kindness she shewd to me; for they where too good and numerous to describe in a letter. Think then to a heart of sensibility and gratitude, what it must suffer."

By her first marriage the Duchess was related to Sir William Hamilton, and when she came to Naples for her health in 1789, she met Emma, and took an immediate liking to her. She threw the whole weight of her great social influence into the scales on Emma's side, and by so doing easily made Emma's detractors—who were not so conspicuous for virtue as for small-mindedness and backbiting—of very little account. Emma was naturally grateful to the great lady and generous woman who had understood that though

unwedded she was not an abandoned creature— the more grateful as it was no condescending patronage the Duchess of Argyll gave her, but a genuine and affectionate friendship.