Full text of Memoirs of Emma, lady Hamilton, the friend of Lord Nelson and the court of Naples;

by Yelena Kopylova

  her. For she is sensible. So much for Beauty.

  Adue, I long to see you." *

  Empowered by the Sultan of Edgware Row, the

  two Emmas, to their great but fleeting joy, were suf-

  1 Morrison MS. 128. There is, of course, no conclusive evidence for identifying " little Emma " with the nameless child born early in 1782, but I can see no reason otherwise, or for supposing an earlier " Emma."

  58 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON

  fered to return in the middle of July. Sir William

  and his nephew were still on their provincial tour, when Emma, who fell ill again in town, thus addressed

  him for the last time before his own return. It shall

  be our closing excerpt :

  " I received your kind letter last night, and, my dearest Greville, I want words to express to you how

  happy it made me. For I thought I was like a lost

  sheep, and everybody had forsook me. I was eight

  days confined to my room and very ill, but am, thank

  God, very well now, and a great deal better for your

  kind instructing letter, and own the justice of your

  remarks. You shall have your appartment to your-

  self, you shall read, wright, or sett still, just as you pleas; for I shall think myself happy to be under the

  seam roof with Greville, and do all I can to make it

  agreable, without disturbing him in any pursuits that he can follow, to employ himself in at home or else whare.

  For your absence has taught me that I ought to think

  myself happy if I was within a mile of you; so as I

  cou'd see the place as contained you I shou'd think my-

  self happy abbove my sphear. So, my dear G., come

  home. . . . You shall find me good, kind, gentle, and

  affectionate, and everything you wish me to do I will

  do. For I will give myself a fair trial, and follow

  your advice, for I allways think it wright. . . . .Don't think, Greville, this is the wild fancy of a moment's

  consideration. It is not. I have thoughroly con-

  sidered everything in my confinement, and say nothing

  now but what I sliall practice. ... I have a deal to

  say to you when I see you. Oh, Greville, to think it is

  9 weeks since I saw you. I think I shall die with the

  pleasure of seeing you. ... I am all ways thinking of

  your goodness. . . . Emma is very well, and is allways

  wondering why you don't come home. She sends her

  duty to you. . . . Pray, pray come as soon as you

  EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 59

  come to town. Good by, God bless you! Oh, how I

  long to see you."

  It should be at once remarked that Greville conscien-

  tiously performed his promise. He put " little

  Emma " to a good school, and several traces of her

  future survive. Meanwhile, having won his point, and

  having also " prepared " her mind for another separation, of which she little dreamed, he came back to his

  bower of thankful worship and submissive meekness.

  He can scarcely have played often with the child,

  whose benefactor he was a dancing-master, so to

  speak, of beneficence, ever standing in the first posi-

  tion of correct deportment. In August he bade fare-

  well to his indulgent uncle, whom, indeed, he had " reason " to remember with as much " gratitude and affection " as Emma did. Romney was commissioned to

  paint her as the " Bacchante " for the returning Ambassador, who had reassured his nephew about the

  distant future. He had appointed him his heir, and

  offered to stand security if he needed to borrow. He

  had also joined Greville's other friends in advising him to bow to the inevitable and console his purse with an

  heiress. Whether he also had already contemplated an

  exchange seems more than doubtful. But the secretive

  Greville had already begun to harbour an idea, soon

  turned into a plan, and perpetually justified as a piece of benevolent unselfishness. While the ship bears the

  unwedded uncle to softer climes and laxer standards,

  while Greville, with a sigh of relief,, pores over his

  accounts, we may well exclaim of these two knowing

  and obliging materialists, par nobile fratrum a noble

  brace of brothers indeed !

  CHAPTER III

  " WHAT GOD, AND GREVILLE, PLEASES "

  To March, 1786

  *'"" REALY do not feel myself in a situation to accept favours." " I depend on you for some

  -* cristals in lavas, etc., from Sicily." These

  sentences from two long epistles to his uncle at the

  close of 1784 are keynotes to Greville's tune of mind.

  With the new year he became rather more explicit :

  " Emma is very grateful for your remembrance. Her

  picture shall be sent by the first ship I wish Romney

  yet to mend the dog. 1 She certainly is much improved

  since she has been with me. She has none of the bad

  habits which giddiness and inexperience encouraged,

  and which bad choice of company introduced. ... I

  am sure she is attached to me, or she would not have

  refused the offers which I know have been great ; and

  such is her spirit that on the least slight or expression of my being tired or burthened by her, I am sure she

  would not only give up the connexion, but would not

  even accept a farthing for future assistance."

  Here let us pause a moment. In the " honest bar-

  gain " shortly to be struck after much obliquity,

  Greville's shabbiness consists, if we reflect on the prevailing tone of his age and set, not so much in the dis-

  guised transfer a mean trick in itself as in the fact

  1 In the first picture of the " Bacchante." Some trace of a goat as well as of a dog figures in all the known versions.

  60

  EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 61

  that, while he had no reproach to make and was avow-

  edly more attached to her than ever, he practised upon

  the very disinterestedness and fondness that he praised.

  Had he been unable to rely on them with absolute confi-

  dence, so wary a strategist would scarcely have ven-

  tured on the attempt, since his future prospects largely depended on her never disadvantaging him with Sir

  William. That she never did so, even in the first burst

  of bitter disillusion; that she always, and zealously,

  advocated his interests, redounds to her credit and

  proves her magnanimity. A revengeful woman, whose

  love and self-love had been wounded to the quick,

  might have ruined him, as the censor of Paddington

  was well aware. That he continued to approve his part

  in these delicate negotiations is shown by the fact of

  preserving these letters after they came into his pos-

  session as his uncle's executor. He never ceased to pro-

  test that his motives in the transaction were for her own ultimate good. He was not callous, but he was Jesuit-ical. Let him pursue his scattered hints further :

  " This is another part of my situation. If I was independent I should think so little of any other con-

  nexion that I never would marry. I have not an idea

  of it at present, but if any proper opportunity offer'd

  I shou'd be much harassed, not know how to manage,

  or how to fix Emma to her satisfaction; and to forego

  the reasonable plan which you and my friends ad-

  vised is not right. I am not quite of an age to re-


  tire from bustle, and to retire into distress and poverty is worse. I can keep on here creditably this winter.

  The offer I made of my pictures is to get rid of the

  Humberston engagements which I told you of. I have

  a 1000 ready and 1000 to provide. I therefore am

  making money. If Ross will take in payment from

  me my bond with your security, I shall get free from

  Humberston affairs entirely, and be able to give them

  62 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON

  up. It is indifferent to me whether what I value is in

  your keeping or mine. I will deposit with you gems

  which you shall value at above that sum. ... It will

  be on that condition I will involve you, for favor I take as favor, and business as business."

  His subsequent communications dole out the grow-

  ing plot by degrees and approaches; he works by sap

  and mine. In March, 1785, after discussing politics

  at large, he doubts if his uncle's " heart or his feet "

  are " the lightest." He compliments him on his energy in sport, flirtation, and friendship " quests " not " in-compatible " in " a good heart." He moots his design in the light of Hamilton's welfare. " He must be a

  very interested friend indeed who does not sincerely

  wish everything that can give happiness to a friend."

  He is convinced that each of them can sincerely judge

  for the other. He does not, of course, venture to

  " suppose " an " experiment " for the diplomatist ; but he himself has made the happiest though a " limited "

  experiment, which, however, " from poverty . . . cannot last " ; his poverty but not his will consents. And then he opens the scheme. " If you did not chuse a

  wife, I wish the tea-maker of Edgware Rowe was

  yours, if I could without banishing myself from a visit

  to Naples. I do not know how to part with what I

  am not tired with. I do not know how to go on, and

  I give her every merit of prudence and moderation and

  affection. She shall never ^vant, and if I decide sooner than I am forced to stop by necessity, it will be that I may give her part of my pittance; and, if I do so it

  must be by sudden resolution and by putting it out of

  her power to refuse it for I know her disinterestedness

  to be such that she will rather encounter any difficulty than distress me. I should not write to you thus, if I

  did not think you seem'd as partial as I am to her. She

  would not hear at once of any change, and from no

  EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 63

  one that was not liked by her. I think I could secure

  on her near 100 a year. It is more than in justice

  to all I can do; but with parting with part of my virtu, I can secure it to her and content myself with the remainder. I think you might settle another on her.

  ... I am not a dog in the manger. If I could go on

  I would never make this arrangement, but to be re-

  duced to a standstill and involve myself in distress

  further than I could extricate myself, and then to be

  unable to provide for her at all, would make me mis-

  erable from thinking myself unjust to her. And as

  she is too young and handsome to retire into a con-

  vent or the country, and is honorable and honest and

  can be trusted, after reconciling myself to the neces-

  sity I consider where she could be happy. I know you

  thought me jealous of your attention to her; I can as-

  sure you her conduct entitles her more than ever to

  my confidence. Judge, then, as you know my satisfac-

  tion in looking on a modern piece of virtu, if I do not

  think you a second self, in thinking that by placing her within your reach, I render a necessity which would

  otherwise be heartbreaking tolerable and even com-

  forting."

  Havdng prepared the ground, he wrote again in the

  following May, " without affectation or disguise."

  Delicacy had prevented him from writing about " Lady C [raven] " who, Hamilton's friends were glad to

  learn, had departed. Would not all of them prefer one

  like Emma? The " odds " in their own two lives were not " proportioned to the difference " of their years; he was very " sensible " of his uncle's intentions towards him. At what followed Sir William must have smiled.

  The real reason for all his fencing emerges. Sir

  William's joint security on the pledge of half his

  minerals, the assurance that he was made his heir,

  were mere credentials to be shown by Greville to a

  64 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON

  prospective father-in-law. " Suppose a lady of 30,000

  was to marry me," and so forth a vista of married

  fortune. Even now the name of the lady thus hon-

  oured was withheld; but Hamilton must have known it

  perfectly: ". . . If you dislike my frankness, I shall be sorry, for it cost me a little to throw myself so open, and to no one's friendship could I have trusted myself

  but to yours, from which I have ever been treated

  with indulgence and preference."

  A month more and he disclosed a positive, if

  " distant and imperfect," prospect. Lord Middleton's youngest daughter was the favoured lady in the

  " requisites of beauty and disposition," " beyond the mark for a younger brother." The die was cast; he

  penned a formal proposal to her father. It may be

  gathered that the lady rejected him; Greville certainly

  never married. Often and often he must have wished

  his poor and unfashionable Emma back again, when

  she was poor and unfashionable no longer: his amour

  propre had been hurt, and, till he became vice-cham-

  berlain in 1794, to Lady Hamilton's genuine pleasure, 1

  his fortunes drooped.

  Greville's tentatives were now at an end. At length

  he laid a plain outline before Sir William : " If you 1 Cf . her letter of congratulation (Sept. 16, 1794), Morrison MS. 246, in answer to his letter of August 18 announcing his good fortune and claiming the approbation of such friends as herself, as the best reward for one who plumes himself on friendship [Nelson Letters (1814), vol. i. p. 265]: "I should not flatter myself so far," he writes, "if I was not very sincerely interested in }-our happiness and ever affectionately yours." " I congratulate you," she answers, " with all my heart on your appointment. . . . You have well merited it; and all your friends must be happy at a change so favourable not only for your pecuniary circumstances, as for the honner of the situation. May you long enjoy it with every happiness that you deserve ! I speak from my heart. I don't know a better, honester, or more amiable and worthy man than yourself; and if is a great deal for me to say this, for, whatever I think, I am not apt to pay compliments."

  EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 65

  could form a plan by which you could have a trial, and

  could invite her and tell her that I ought not to leave

  England, and that I cannot afford to go on ; and state

  it as a kindness to me if she would accept your invita-

  tion, she would go with pleasure. She is to be six

  weeks at some bathing place ; and when you could write

  an answer to this, and inclose a letter to her, I could

  manage it ; and either by land, by the coach to Geneva,

  and from thence by Veturine forward her, or else by

  sea. I must add that I could not manage it so well

  later; after a month, and absent from me, she would

  consider the whole more calmly. If there was in the

  world a person she loved so well as yourself after me,
>
  I could not arrange with so much sang-froid; and I am

  sure I would not let her go to you, if any risque of the usual coquetry of the sex being likely to give uneasiness or appearance. . . ."

  Sir William's " invitation " was to be perfectly innocent. She was to understand that her dear Greville's

  interest demanded a temporary separation; that she and

  her mother would be honoured guests at the Naples

  Embassy; that she could improve the delightful change

  of scene and climate by training her musical gifts un-

  der the best masters, by studying the arts in their

  motherland, by learning languages amid a cosmopol-

  itan crowd ; that by October her fairy-prince would re-

  appear, and, like another Orpheus, bring back his Eu-

  rydice. And all this she was to be told, after absence,

  that makes the heart grow fonder, had inured her to

  separation, softened her heart to self-sacrifice, and

  reconciled her to his lightest bidding when, in short,

  it would be easiest to practise on devotion. About

  these machinations Emma was presumably left in the

  dark; their windings took place behind her back. Her

  all-wise, all-powerful and tender Greville could never

  consult but for her good, while his real unselfishness

  66 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON

  towards the child forbade any suspicion of his pur-

  pose.

  To Emma his prim platitudes were the loving elo-

  quence of Romeo. And for the last few months he

  had been always preaching up to her the spotless ex-

  ample of a certain " Mrs. Wells," refined and accomplished, who, in Emma's own situation, had earned and

  kept both her own self-respect and that of more than

  one successive admirer; who had learned the art of re-

  taining the lover as friend, while she accepted his friend as lover. These innuendoes may well have puzzled

  her. Had she not realised a dream of constancy, and

  could that pass ? Had she not parted with the child she

  loved to please the man of her heart, and fasten his

  faith to hers? Yet all the time her dearest Greville

  could speak of " forwarding " her, just as if she were one of those crystals on which he doted.

  The fact was that, added to his embarrassments, his

  need for fortune with a wife, his wish at once to oblige Sir William and to preclude him from wedlock, his