Memoirs of Emma, lady Hamilton, the friend of Lord Nelson and the court of Naples; (45 page)

Among the guests of this evening was their old acquaintance Lord Minto, formerly of Vienna. He was disgusted at the interior with its trophies and portraits, but, above all, with Emma herself. Doubtless

Memoirs—Vol. 14—13

the sight of him put her in her most self-assertive vein. The reader must form his own judgment; but at any rate the censor, in this record, seems mistaken in supposing that the Hamiltons were " living on " Nelson. The Merton accounts in the Morrison Collection prove that all expenses were scrupulously shared. And when he brands Emma's effusiveness to Nelson as flattery, what would he have said had he been able, as we are, to read Nelson's own outpourings to Emma? If hers was " flattery," then still more was his. But diplomats are not psychologists, nor have they always insight into such emotional temperaments.

". . . The whole establishment and way of life is such as to make me angry as well as melancholy; but I cannot alter it. I do not think myself obliged or at liberty to quarrel with him for his weakness, though nothing shall ever induce me to give the smallest countenance to Lady Hamilton. She looks eventually to the chance of marriage. ... In the meanwhile, she, Sir William, and the whole set of them are living with him at his expense. She is in high looks, but more immense than ever. She goes on cramming Nelson with trowelfuls of flattery, which he goes on taking as quietly as a child does pap. The love she makes to him is not only ridiculous, but disgusting. Not only the rooms, but the whole house, staircase and all, are covered with nothing but pictures of her and him, of all sizes and sorts, and representations of his naval actions, coats of arms, pieces of plate in his honour, the flagstaff of L J Orient, etc., an excess of vanity which counteracts its own purpose. If it was Lady H.'s house, there might be a pretence for it. To make his own a mere looking-glass to view himself all day is bad taste. Braham, the celebrated Jew singer, performed with Lady H. She is horrid, but he entertained me in spite of her. Lord Nelson explained to me a little

the sort of blame imputed to Sir Hyde Parker for Copenhagen. . . ."

It was certainly a queer household for seemly self-importance to enter. Without question, there was warrant for worse than such superficial strictures as those in which Elliot here indulged. Emma had deteriorated, and she had never fitted the formalities of English drawing-rooms. Average folk, as will be seen hereafter, she charmed. But the guest, though naturally affronted, was likely to be prejudiced. Emma was wholly offensive to him, and the patronising air of one whom Braham's pathos " entertained " may, after its own manner, have been irritating also. The ambassador was an official type of good taste, and of Emma, it must be thought, there was always overmuch in a room. His looks on this occasion must have been vinegar, and can have ill accorded with that natural sweetness of expression which, by consent of friend and foe alike, distinguished Emma from first to last. Officialism had set itself against Nelson like a flint, and, likely enough, his devotee was supercilious to her enemy, whom probably she mimicked after he had gone, as she certainly used to mimic Nelson's fussy brother. Still, however it may be deplored, the stubborn fact remains that Britain's deliverer loved this woman's reality, and misliked the spirit of officialism; that against him were arrayed the pettiest forces at home and the mightiest abroad. Nelson endures in history, and with him Emma, while patterns of the primmest diplomacy have long faded into the vagueness of distance. To appraise Emma, not defence but understanding is requisite. Antipathy, like flattery, is the worst critic; and pedantic antipathy is perhaps its worst form. Burleigh would have made a bad judge of the Queen of Scots, and Cicero of Cleopatra.

Emma's " immensity " had been for some time in

evidence, and was grossened in the caricatures. She affected to think that fatness became her fine stature and large proportions. It was due, partly, to the porter which she drank for the sake of her voice, and which, as appears in the earlier letters of the Morrison Collection, had been forwarded by Greville to his uncle long before Emma had entered his life at Naples.

In the June of this year, too, died Admiral Sir John Willet-Payne, who, after sitting in Parliament, had for some time been treasurer of Greenwich Hospital. Nelson must have known him, and curiosity is aroused as to whether Emma ever saw her first tempter again, and what he thought of her marvellous career.

And in November was to flicker out that sensitive genius and singular being to whom Emma had been so beholden in her girlhood. Romney, wasting with melancholy, had resought the refuge of the Kendal roof-tree and the ministering wife so long neglected. In one of his conversations with Hayley, he told him that he had always studied " Sensibility " by observing the fibrous lines around the mouth. It was Emma's mouth that had been a revelation to him. One cannot help wishing that some final correspondence between them may one day be discovered.

For the summer, Hamilton had planned a driving tour to the Mil ford property, where the nephew and steward wished to show his uncle the best work of his life—a flourishing settlement of labourers. Emma and Nelson accompanied him on the Welsh trip, which soon turned into a fresh triumphal progress for the hero of the Nile and of Copenhagen, who shamed the Government by remaining a Vice-Admiral. Greville's presence may be assumed. Certainly he was at Mil-ford. Before they started, William Nelson, who had just returned from bowing to " Billy " Pitt at Cambridge, his wife and their young Horatio, were added

to the group of travellers. It is strange on this occasion to find the triple alliance of Nelson and the Ham-iltons reinforced by Greville, before whom, Nelson had told Emma, conversation must be restrained; in his official presence they could not speak freely " of kings and beggars." This journey, like its continental predecessor, was certainly not calculated to allay irritation in high places.

They started on the Qth of July with Box Hill once more—" a pretty place, and we are all very happy." They went on to Oxford, where Nelson received the freedom of the city in a fine box to the music of finer orations, and where the Matchams joined the caravan. It was here that on a visit to Blenheim the Marlbor-oughs infuriated Emma by declining to receive her. She was determined to appeal, for herself and her hero, to the Caesar of the people. She performed her music both for the select and the vulgar. Everywhere Emma beat the big drum of popular enthusiasm. The long highroads, the swarming streets, the eager villages from Burford to Gloucester, from Gloucester to Ross, from Ross to Monmouth, Caermarthen and Milford, from Milford to Swansea, from Swansea to Cardiff, were thronged with stentorian admirers. On the return journey, from Cardiff to Newport and Chepstow, and so to Monmouth again, on to Hereford, Leomin-ster, Tenbury, Worcester, Birmingham, Warwick, Coventry, Dunstable, Watford, and Brentford, all turned out like one man to cheer the postilioned carriages. Bells were rung, factories and theatres visited, addresses read, speeches made, the National Anthem and " Rule Britannia " sung by the shouting crowds. Wherever they went, the neighbouring magnates loaded Nelson and his friends with invitations, and Payne-Knight implored Emma for a visit. And everywhere this exuberant daughter of democracy led

and swelled the chorus. Her Nelson should " be first." " Hip, hip, hip! " " God Save the King! " " Long live Nelson, Britain's Pride! "

"Join we great Nelson's name First on the roll of fame,

Him let us sing; Spread we his praise around, Honour of British ground, Who made Nile's shores resounds

God save the King!"

It was Naples over again, and Emma was in her true element. Let the whole official brotherhood look to themselves and dare their worst. They were routed now. The people were on the side of those who had toiled hard, of those who had really borne the brunt, who had risked their lives to save their homes from the bogey of Europe. " Hip, hip, hip, in excelsisl" No wonder that, when all was over and, hoarse but happy, Emma reposed at Merton once more, awaiting a fresh but private jubilation on Nelson's approaching birthday, she took up her pen with triumph:—

" We have had a most charming Tour which will Burst some of THEM. So let all the enimies of the GREATEST man alive [perish?] ! And bless his friends." In this same letter her native goodness of heart breaks out with equal vehemence about the death of " poor Dod," one of Nelson's countless proteges: " Anything that we can do to assist the poor widow we will." How this "we " reminds us of the " we " before Sir William married her, which had so annoyed Legge' And the sensation of this progress still tingled in the air. In October Lord Lansdowne begged in vain for a visit, should they stay again at Fonthill. While Banks sympathised with Greville's sigh of relief, Ball told Emma of his interest, smiled

over her huzzaings, and recalled her kindness to the Maltese Deputies. Her enthusiasm was still contagious.

But this trip did not close without a conjugal breeze easily raised and easily calmed.

Emma insisted on recruiting her health by her old remedy of sea-baths, probably at Swansea; Hamilton, however, longed to get home. He was exhausted, and she was petulant, as the following little passage at arms bears witness:—

" As I see it is pain to you to remain here, let me beg of you to fix your time for going. Weather I dye in Piccadilly or any other spot in England, 'tis the same to me; but I remember the time when you wished for tranquillity, but now all visiting and bustle is your liking. However, I will do what you please, being ever your affectionate and obedient E. H." On the back of it Sir William wrote :—

" I neither love bustle nor great company, but I like some employment and diversion. ... I am in no hurry, and am exceedingly glad to give every satisfaction to our best friend, our dear Lord Nelson. Seabathing is usefull to your health; I see it is, and wish you to continue a little longer; but I must confess that I regret, whilst the season is favourable, that I cannot enjoy my favourite amusement of quiet fishing. I care not a pin for the great w r orld, and am attached to no one as much as you." On its fly-leaf Emma added, " I go, when you tell me the coach is ready," to which Hamilton retorted: " This is not a fair answer to a fair confession of mine." So ended the last of their tiny quarrels. Nestor w^as reconciled to Penelope.

The sands of his life were fast running down, and he was soon to have that euthanasia which he had praised to Nelson. Emma's heart smote her as she beheld his fading powers. He suffered no pain, but he

gradually sank. He was removed to Piccadilly, and by the March of 1803 it was clear that his end was in sight. Both Emma and Nelson were constant in their attendance and attention. It had been Nelson who, in his passionate outpouring, occasionally speculated on " my uncle's " demise; but Emma, apart from gratitude and a sense of the wrong that she had done him, well knew that his death would remove a real friend and a loving counsellor. All the past rose up vividly, from the days of the selfishness of Greville, who was now again half-hardening himself against her, to those of the loving husband who had trusted and shielded her. Some feeling of sorrow, compunction, and forlornness possessed her. However grievously she had erred, she did her duty at the last. And at the last the old man's mind had wandered.

On April 6, 1803, at eleven o'clock, Nelson wrote this hurried note to Davison:—

" Our dear Sir William died at 10 minutes past Ten this morning in Lady Hamilton's and my arms without a sigh or a struggle. Poor Lady H. is as you may expect desolate. I hope she will be left properly, but I doubt."

Greville had once more succeeded.

Nelson would not so have written if Emma had not so felt. His feelings were coloured by hers. Among Nelson's papers remains one in Emma's handwriting intended for no eye but his, and to which no hypocrisy can be imputed:—

"April 6.—Unhappy day for the forlorn Emma. Ten minutes past ten dear blessed Sir William left me."

In all her private answers to condolence the refrain is the same—" What a man, what a husband." It can scarcely be called falsetto. Not until she had lost him did she realise all that he had been to her, and how she

had wronged him. Strange as it may sound, she was stricken indeed.

And yet her attitudinising heart soon alternated between different moods. She cut off her flowing locks and wore them a la Titus in the fashionable mode of mourning. When Madame Le Brun met her a few months afterwards, she sat down and sang a snatch at the piano. On a later occasion the French paintress noticed that she had put a rose in her hair, and inquiring the reason, was told, " I have just received a letter from Lord Nelson." Later on, she consented to oblige Madame Le Brun by privately showing before a few of the noblesse emigrce some of her " Attitudes," which she had never been willing to display in London.

" On the day appointed," notes the artist in her chronicle, " I placed in the middle of my drawing-room a very large frame, with a screen on either side of it. I had a strong lime-light prepared and disposed, so that it could not be seen, but which would light up Lady Hamilton as though she were a picture. . . . She assumed various attitudes in this frame in a way truly admirable. She had brought a little girl with her, who might have been seven or eight years old, and who resembled her strikingly. One group they made together reminded me of Poussin's ' Rape of the Sabines.' She changed from grief to joy, and from joy to terror, so that we were all enchanted."

Such a " lime-light," perhaps revealing without being seen, was Emma's own organisation unconsciously " lighting up " the possibilities of others. Her " Attitudes " were the expression of her successive and often self-deceiving emotions. In the old Indian music, we are told, are certain selected notes, called " ragas," that, separately and without harmonised relations, strike whole moods into the heart of the listener.

Such, it seems to me, was her temperament, and such its function.

Sir William Hamilton was buried by the side of his first wife, as he had promised her twenty-five years before.