The story of Lady Hamilton (2 page)

"THE TRIUMPHS OF TEMPER"

fected me when you wished me happiness. O, G., that I was in your posesion or in Sir H., what a happy girl would 1 have been ! Girl indeed ! What else am I but a girl in distress—in reall distress? For God's sake, G., write the minet you get this, and only tell me what I am to dow. Direct same whay. I am allmost mad. O, for God's sake, tell me what is to become of me. O, dear Grevell, write to me. Write to me. G., adue, and believe yours for ever, EMILY HART."

The poignancy of that unlettered cry, "What shall I dow ? Good God, what shall I dow?" still rings across the years, though it is probable that its pitifulness would be somewhat mitigated to the Honourable Charles Greville byits bad spelling,forhe was agentle-man of cold affections, fastidious taste, and close attention to his own welfare. But it is easy to imagine he would appear a mirror of all perfection to the uncritical Emma, for he was cultivated, well-born, well-bred, and withal distinguished and attractive inappear-ance.

THE STORY OF LADY HAMILTON

In answer to poor Emma's letter he wrote her a long epistle of advice, reproof, and worldly wisdom, which also contained the suggestion she was so evidently longing for, that she should come and live with him. But this offer was accompanied by warnings: he had never, he said, " seen a woman clever enough to keep a man who was tired of her." He tells her, in sentences which neatly reveal his own character, " If you do not forfeit my esteem perhaps my Emily may be happy. You know I have been so by avoiding the vexation which frequently arises from in-gratitudeand caprice. Nothing but your let-terand yourdistresscould inclineme to alter my system, but remember I never will give up my place, or continue my connexion one

moment after my confidence is betray'd

By degrees I would get you a new set of acquaintances, and by keeping your own secret, and no one about you having it in their power to betray you, I may expect to see you respected and admired."

It is hardly possible to imagine that

"A BACCHANTE"

From picture in the Vernon Gallery. Painted by Ro> engraved by C. Holl

"THE TRIUMPHS OF TEMPER'* Greville was much in love with Emma. Her warm and generous heart, her impulsive enthusiastic nature, would not have the appeal to him that they later had to Nelson. It was her extreme beauty that was the attraction to this connoisseur of the arts and made him willing to alter his " system " and admit her to his ordered existence. Also, as he was something of a pedant, though he was only a few years over thirty at this time, he had probably realised that she had natural talents and was docile and teachable. Whatever his motives in offering her the shelter of his roof it is obvious that, though the arrangement cannot meet with a moralist's approval, it was the saving of Emma from a darker fate. And it was the making of her too, in many ways, for she really loved her somewhat pedantic protector with a passionate gratitude and constant wish to earn his approval. If she had been "giddy" and extravagant, as he reproved her, she trained herself while she lived with him in quiet ways and simplicity; she practised small economies, and made 17 B

THE STORY OF LADY HAMILTON

pathetic efforts to restrain the impetuous outbursts which were natural to her.

Greville settled her near Paddington Green, in the spring of 1782, in a quiet little house in Edgeware Row, and there Emma spent some of the simplest, happiest, and best years of her life. Pettigrew speaks, with a curious exaggeration, of the "splendid misery " of this time. But as all the evidence showsshewasneither a splendid "nor "miserable "—on the contrary she was very happy in her quiet home, which was maintained on a strictly moderate sum, for Greville was by no meansarich man. Someof the household account books kept by Emma exist, and the sums put down are small and extremely domestic—apples, 2 Jd.; mangle, 5d.; cotton and needles, 9d.; coach, is.; poor man, Jd. She made excellent apple-pies and cultivated all the domestic virtues. After living with herthreeyearsGrevillesaid,"shehasavoided every appearance of giddiness, and prides herself on the neatness of her person and the good order of her house; these are habits

"THE TRIUMPHS OF TEMPER"

both comfortable and convenient to me." Greville's"system"mustsurelyattimeshave been a little trying to the ardent impulsive young creature, and there were occasionally small outbursts, quickly repented by her, for she was deeply attached to her somewhat cold mentor. Once when they were temporarily separated she wrote to him :—

" I have one happiness in vew, which I am determined to practice, and that is eveness of temper and steadness of mind. Forendead Ihavethoughtsomuchofyouramiablegood-ness when you have been tried to the utmost, that I will, endeed I will manage myself, and try to be like Greville."

She thought a great deal of a didactic poem of Hayley's called " The Triumphs of Temper," and was constantly endeavouring, with her youth beating unquiet wings in her breast, to attain the placid heights of its heroine Serena. But at least at this period of her life she resembled Serena in one aspect for " Free from ambitious pride and envious care, To love and to be loved was all her prayer." 19

THE STORY OF LADY HAMILTON

The quietness of her life at this time is shown in the saying of one who knew her that " her only resources were reading and music athome,and sitting forpictures." The " sitting for pictures " was a very important item, as during the four years from 1782 to 1786 Romney records nearly three hundred sittings given him by Emma, and the frequent shillings put down in her accounts for hackney coach were usually to convey her to the painter's studio in Cavendish Square. At this studio she met one or two people who interested and instructed her inquiring youth —had she only "had a goodeddecation," she cried when she was nineteen, "what a woman might she have been." To Romney himself she becamemuchattached,aswas her warmhearted way when people were kind to her, and there was a kinship between them as they were both children of the people. Though they knew it not then, their names were to be inseparably linked—the woman whose beauty inspired the artist, and the artist who perpetuated that beauty for future genera-

LADY HAMILTON (EMMA HART) After Romney, by J. Skelton

"THE TRIUMPHS OF TEMPER"

tions to rejoice over. Long after thesestudio days Hayleywroteof Romneyto Emmaand said : " You were not only his model but his inspirer, and he truly and gratefully said that he owed a great part of his felicity as a painter to the angelic kindness and intelligence with which you used to animate his diffident and tremulous spirits to the grand efforts of art."

There is an interesting little sketch which Romney made of his studio at this time, which shows his incomparable model sitting for the picture of " The Spinstress " by her spinning-wheel. Greville is entering the room and smiling, and Hayley is seated at a table—it gives a pleasant little peep into a long-vanished scene, but the fruit of the labour of that studio still survives.

These were quiet homely years—the last Emma wastoknowin her varied life—and she wasdailyimprovingin grace and accomplishments under Greville's careful training. But the herald of change was nearat hand, and in I784he arrived—quite unrecognised—in the

THE STORY OF LADY HAMILTON

person of Sir William Hamilton, Charles Gre-ville's uncle. He proved himself an agreeable addition to the amenities of the little household in Edgeware Row, and as the uncle of her " dear Greville " Emma was prepared to welcome him with affectionate fervour. At thistime Sir William Hamilton wasonly fifty-four, a handsome, soldierly, distinguished man, British Ambassador at Naples, antiquary and connoisseur of the Arts, with tastes in complete sympathy with those of his cultured nephew. His attitude towards life is wellshown in a letter he wrote to Emma some yearslater: "My study of antiquitieshas kept me in constant thought of theperpetual fluctuation of every thing. The whole art is,really, to live allthe^jj-of our life; and not, with anxious care,disturb the sweetest hour that life affords—which is the present. Admire the Creator, and all His works to us incomprehensible, and do all the good you can upon earth ; and take the chance of eternity without dismay."

Sir William's admiration for Emma," the

"THE TRIUMPHS OF TEMPER" fairtea-maker of Edgeware Row," as he called her, was instant. Never, he thought, had his nephew's taste been displayed to better advantage than in acquiring this delightful creature, this m odel of antique graces in a living form, to add to his collection of rare and beautiful objects. Emma might have been a statue from the way they talked of her, and there is something laughable in the picture of the two connoisseurs cataloguing her charms with as much precision as though she were a cameo or an Etruscan vase. But with all this there grew up on Emma's side a friendly bantering attachment towards Gre-ville's kind and courtly uncle, who told her of the wonders of Italy, admired her voice, and said she ought to go to that sunny land of music and art to have it properly cultivated. The summer of this year when Emmafirst met her messenger of destiny in Sir William Hamilton,brought a preliminary break up— significant of change to come—in the Edge-ware Row household. Emma was sent away to a watering-place for a change, while Gre-23

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ville and his uncle paid a round of visits at great houses in Scotland and elsewhere. The parting from her " ever-dear Greville " was painful to the affectionate Emma, and to beguile her temporary absence she wrote him immense, ill-spelt, exclamatory, delightful letters, which Greville on his part was somewhat slowtoanswer. "How teadousdoes the time pass awhay till I hear fromyou," sheex-claims in one ofthem. Furtheron inthesame letter there is this characteristic outburst— and Emma's letters are her very self: "I have done nothing but think of you since. And oh, Greville, did you but know, when I so think, what thoughts—whattenderthoughts, you would say,' Good God ! and can Emma have such feeling sensibility? No, I never could think it. But now I may hope to bring her to conviction, and she may prove a vallu-able and amiable whoman!' True, Greville, and you shall not be disappointed. I will be everything you can wish. But, mind you, Greville, your own great goodness has brought this about. You don't know what I am be-

LADY HAMILTON AS " NATURE 1 After painting ly Romney

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