Good God what shall I dow. ... I can't come to toun
for want of mony. I have not a farthing to bless my
self with, and I think my friends looks cooly on me.
I think so. O. G. what shall I dow? What shall I
dow ? O how your letter affected me when you wished
me happiness. O. G. that I was in your posesion or
in Sir H. what a happy girl would I have been ! Girl
indeed ! What else am I but a girl in distres in reall
distres? 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 allmos mad. O for God's sake tell me
what is to become on me. O dear Grevell, write to
me. Write to me. G. adue, and believe [me] yours
for ever Emly Hart.
" Don't tel my mother what distres I am in, and
dow afford me some comfort.
" My age was got out of the Reggister, and I now
send it to my dear Charles. Once more adue, O you
dear friend."
Who was this girl in " reall distres," what her past ?
who were the friends who looked " cooly " on her, and for what reasons? These questions will shortly be
answered so far as replies admit of real proof. But
first a brief space must be devoted to Greville himself, 1 Sir Harry Fetherstonehaugh, of Up Park, Sussex, who lived, to correspond in middle age with her in terms of deferential friendship. His name is thus spelt in his letters.
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 15
since his individuality is as necessary to the coming
plot as her own.
The Honourable Charles Francis Greville was now
thirty-two.
The second son of the Right Honourable Francis,
Earl of Brooke (afterwards Earl of Warwick), and
of Elizabeth Hamilton, one of Sir William's sisters, he
was born at Fulham on May 12, 1749, and baptised
on June 8 following. He was born prematurely old,
parsimoniously extravagant, and cautiously careless.
His cradle should have been garlanded with official
minutes, and draped with collectors' catalogues. From
his earliest days he was prim, methodical, and
pedantic beyond his years. The unlikelihood of sur-
viving his eldest brother had been ever before his eyes, and he was set on the emoluments of a political career,
promising much to one so highly connected. While
still in his teens he began amassing virtu with discern-
ment, and specimens of mineralogy on a " philo-
sophical " system. Some years before his majority he had struck up a brotherly affection with his free-hearted uncle, nearly twenty years his senior, who
relied on a precocious judgment, invaluable to one
compelled by long absences to entrust to others the
management of his wife's Pembrokeshire property,
indispensable also to both in the keen pursuit of their
common tastes, the one in Italy, the home of art, the
other in England, the nursery of science. From a
very early date the student of beauty and curios, the
investigator of shells, marine monsters, and volcanoes,
" Pliny the Elder," as he came to be called, was always exchanging rarities with " Pliny the Younger,"
or commissioning him to buy, sell, or raffle Dutch and
Italian pictures, Etruscan urns, Greek torsos, and Ro-
man vases.
Hamilton was a true man of science, and a really
16 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
great archaeologist. When he first came to Naples in
1764 he spent months in his Villa Angelica, on the
slopes of Mount Vesuvius, taking observations and ex-
cavating antiquities. He was far less a trafficker in
objects of art and learning than his nephew. He pre-
sented both books and specimens of value to the British
Museum. His aim, in his own words, was that of
" employing his leisure in use to mankind." Not quite so, however, was that of Pliny the Younger, who
in his turn bought crystals and works of art with equal
zest of connoisseurship. Greville was barely twenty-
one when he went the Italian tour, stayed with his
uncle at Naples, then in the full fever of unearthing
buried chefs-d'oeuvre at Herculaneum and Pompeii,
which were so soon to experience many fresh escapes
from re-destruction by earthquakes and eruptions.
From Rome, in this year, the nephew indited two of
the most self-assured letters of grave gossip and coun-
sel that any youngster has ever addressed to one nearly
twice his age. They are so like himself that a small
part of one must be given : " I begin with a subject that I have resolved every time I have wrote to mention, and now particularly I am under an obligation
to remember, as for the first time my handkerchief
1 Observations on Mount Vesuvius, etc. (1772). The villa was probably called after the artist. Hamilton constantly ran great danger in observing and recording violent eruptions. He was indefatigable in superintending excavations, and he mentions being present at Pompeii when a horse with jewelled trappings and its rider were unearthed. He was a munificent patron alike of discoverers, travelers, scientists, and artists, including Flaxman and Wedgwood. He was a trustee of the British Museum, and a vice-president of the Society of Antiquaries. A big book on his Greek and Roman antiquities was written by D'Harcau-ville (Naples, 1765-1775; Paris, 1787). Besides the book already mentioned, supplemented in 1779, Hamilton wrote Campi
Phlegrai (Naples, 1776-77), and the famous work on Greek and Etruscan urns, etc., illustrated by Bartolozzi. A Life worthy of him ought to be written.
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 17
has been knotted on the occasion. It is to desire you
to enquire for two books I left in my room at your
house; 2 pocket volumes of Milton's works. I bor-
rowed them, and left them with an intention they
should be sent to Mrs. Harfrere to whom they be-
long. . . . The ink bottle has this moment oversett,
but you see I am not disconcerted, so pray don't make
observations, and the letter is as good as it was. Pray
let me beg you to avoid every mention of prices, I
have done so once before. Pray let me send and be
favoured with the acceptance of some baubles. . . .
I am in the best of humours. I received this morning
a line from Lord Exeter, who informed me of the
Douglas cause being decided in his favour. ... I
am running about the antiquities from 9 to n with
Byres, from 11-12 with Miss A., so you see I gain
Horace's happiness, omne tulit punctum qui miscuit
utile dulci. . . . Pray let me lay on you a dis-
agreeable task, choose me a handsome pattern for an
applicee, have it wrought for me instantaneously, and
sent to Rome. I wish an Etrusc vase could be intro-
duced. It must be handsome and rich; as to its ele-
gance, anything, particularly Etrusc, conducted by
your taste cannot fail to be elegant. If a contrivance
could be hit on for making it less regular and straight,
... I should be pleased. Yours is charming, but
rather too much like a lace. . . . The spangles must
be caution'd against and well fastened. There have
been some fine conversations since the Emperor has
been here. The Grand Duke asked after you of me.
. . . The E. has lessened the talk ab
out the D.
However I like the D. best: more of engaging and
gentlemanlike deportment, and more of the world.
. . . By the Bye if you can pick up any vases, of
which you have duplicates, lay them aside for me, and
don't buy them if not well conserv'd and good; nor
i8 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
many of a shape, a few elegant and good. Adieu my
dear Hamilton."
Certainly Greville proved the Horatian mixer of
pleasure with profit; and since he, like his far franker uncle, was ever complaining of a narrow purse tantalised by the temptations of virtu, that other trite
Horatian maxim, Virtute me involve, would also ad-
mirably fit them. Wrapped in their mantles of Virtu,
they both bewailed means far too slender for their
tastes. The richer Sir William, indeed, expending in
antiquities what he retrenched elsewhere, seems in his
correspondence all debt and Correggio; while Greville
removed to his mansion under pretext of its size be-
ing a bargain. Each sought to serve the other, and
Greville in his youth persistently charged his uncle to be his depute. As time proceeded, Sir William with an
ailing wife and a buried daughter, his nephew ever on
his watch-tower for an heiress, confided to each other
their little gallantries, and peccadilloes also. As for
Greville, just as in the case of the " applicee," " contrivances " were soon " hit on " for making him " less regular and straight." Already, in 1781, this solemn frequenter of new Almack's had acquired the Reynolds picture of " Emily in the character of Thais,"
which had been left on Sir Joshua's hands. His char-
acter was that of a free-living formalist, the reverse of austere, but with all austerity's drawbacks.
Yet there were some excellent points in this queer
compound of the Pharisee and the Publican, something
between a Charles and a Joseph Surface. If none was
more prone to sin with self -righteousness, and to ex-
cuse to himself half-shabbiness as unselfish generosity, if none could write more glibly of a " good heart," he was not consciously a hypocrite ; though par excellence
the man of taste rather than the man of feeling.
He displayed scrupulous honour in all money trans-
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 19
actions, much dignity and reticence, with grace of
demeanour (if not always of behaviour) ; independence
too of mind, and a public-spirited industry that often
kept him sitting on important committees six hours
at a stretch. He was a steadfast friend, and the early
death of his Pylades, the brilliant Charles Cathcart,
was a real blow to him and an irretrievable loss. He
was an ideal trustee. He could say with truth, " I
am a good jobber for a friend, but an awkward one
for myself." He was worthy of his uncle's confidence, and to the last superintended his affairs and those
of others with integrity and tact. Nor did he neglect
the welfare of Hamilton's tenants at Milford. He was
capable of limited disinterestedness as well as of true
patriotism. His father's death and his brother's ac-
cession to estates and title in 1773 reduced his allow-
ance afresh, and all his resource was needed to repair
the deficiency.
Socially a disciple of the old-fashioned Chesterfield,
and affecting to flout the opinion of a world that he
was far from despising, politically he was a trimming
Whig, but an unbending supporter of all authority
and establishment. He throve on coalitions, and la-
mented with reason the near ing end of that coalition
ministry which was still in power when this chapter
opened.
Such is an epitome of the man who still holds the
soi-disant " Emily Hart's " letter in his hands. It is her origin and past that now demand re-investigation.
In view of her instinctive independence and her native
appetite for glory, the notion of which grew with her
expanding horizon, these trivial beginnings are not
unimportant, while some of her cousins played a
prominent part in the later scenes of her life.
Emily (or " Emy ") Lyon was born on April 26 in 1765, the year of her baptism, unless, without reason,
20 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
we are to assume her illegitimacy. The Neston parish
registers prove the marriage of her parents to have
taken place on June n, 1764. The rumours and fic-
tions about her early adventures, seemingly requiring
a longer space than her extreme girlhood affords, have
impelled certain biographers to antedate her birth by
so much as four years. But many references, both in
Greville's letters and Hamilton's, with other evidence
outside them, entirely tally with the date that I have
assigned. She was christened " Emily " (of which
" Emy " and not " Amy," as has been alleged, is the contraction), though from the "Emy" she may in childhood have been called " Amy " at times. The copy of the baptismal register sent to Greville is in-correct, as will be seen in the note below. Her mar-
riage register, it is true, is signed " Amy Lyons " according to the Marylebone clerk's information, but
this again seems a natural misreading of her rapid and
often indistinct handwriting for " Emy Lyon."
Her father was Henry Lyon, " Smith of Nesse,"
and her mother Mary Kidd of Hawarden, Flintshire.
In their marriage register both sign by marks, al-
though her mother soon afterwards became " a
scholar." Her father died, it is said, in the year of her birth; but there is no vestige of her mother's re-marriage to one " Doggan " or " Doggin," to which has been attributed her after-name of Mrs. Cadogan
from the present period in London to that when she
became " La Signora Madre deH'Ambasciatrice," and the esteemed friend both of Hamilton and of Nelson.
'" Emy " has always been described as an only child, but she seems to have had a brother or half -brother,
" Charles." Thomas Kidd, an old salt and cousin, writing from Greenwich in 1809, to thank for past and
beg for future favours, observes : " I have to inform you that your brother Charles is in Greenwich College
21
and has been here since the 6th inst. ;" but I can find no further trace of this " brother," nor is there any record of relatives on the father's side. 1 This Thomas
Kidd may well have been the son of a William Kidd,
"labourer," who, as "widower" in September, 1769, in the Ha warden registers, married one " Mary Pova."
And William Kidd is possibly Lady Hamilton's cousin
or uncle, who was at one time a publican, and who used
to complain that he was " never brought up to work."
If this be so, something of the paternal strain seems
to have descended to the son, who, in the letter just
mentioned, excuses his remissness in calling, as re-
quested, by the insinuating remark that " I declare my small cloaths are scandolous, and my hat has the crown
part nearly off " ; while he speaks pointedly of the attentions of a " Mr. Ingram," who in turn refers to his
" justifiable character " in " His Majesty's service,"
and suggests that, since both the porter of the west gate and the " roasting cook " of the college are infirm and ill, there is a choice of probable promotions awaiting
him. In after
years it was not only her humble kins-
folk, whom she never forsook, that were to importune
Emma for advancements.
The Kidds were mostly sailors or labourers. Lady
Hamilton's grandmother, with whom in girlhood she
often stayed, and whom she always cared for and cher-
ished, dwelt in one of some thatched cottages, two of
which still remain. That Mary Lyon, nee Kidd, was a
superior woman, is shown by her after-acquirements.
Tradition associates her both with dressmaking and
with domestic service. If tradition again is trust-
worthy, she may have been cook in the household of
Lord Halifax, who is also reported to have educated
both her and her child. But Lady Hamilton herself,
1 At the last moment I have been informed that Emma had a sister " Anna."
22 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
writing to Mr. Bowen of Portman Square (and of
Merton?) in 1802 about Charlotte Nelson's education,
declares that her own did not begin till she was seven-
teen that is to say, under Greville's auspices. I have
read none of her mother's letters before 1800, and it
is not improbable that mother and daughter began their
education together. She was always an energetic
housekeeper and a most resourceful home-physician.
Her letters to Emma, to George Rose, and others, seem
neither ill-worded nor ill-spelt. At Naples and Pa-
lermo we shall find her visited by the Queen. The
King of Naples was in the December of 1798 to call
her an " angel " for her services during the hurricane attending the royal escape to Palermo, though he also,
if we may trust the Marchioness of Solari, had be-
fore dubbed her " Ruffiana." The Duke of Sussex highly esteemed her. Nor can the accomplished Miss
Cornelia Knight have found her intolerable, for on
the return of Nelson, the Hamiltons, and herself to
London after the ill-starred continental tour of 1800,
she drove straight off and stayed with Mrs. " Cado-
gan " at the hotel in St. James's. There is no evidence as to how this homely and trustworthy woman came
by her grand name. Doggin, her second husband,
however, may not be a myth ; although the Marchioness
of Solari mentions that " Codogan " was the name by which " Emma's reputed mother " caused her to be known at Naples before her marriage ; and at any rate
it is a singular coincidence that Earl Nelson's com-
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