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

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Full text of Memoirs of Emma, lady Hamilton, the friend of Lord Nelson and the court of Naples; Page 12

by Yelena Kopylova


  been reared in Sicily always jealous of Naples

  under the tutelage of Prince Caramanico, a minister

  of opera bouffe, and of Tenucci, a corrupt vizier of the old-world pattern, who preferred place to statesman-ship, and pocket to power. The young King, how-

  ever, was by no means so illiterate or unjust as has

  often been assumed, and, if he was " eight years old when he began to reign," the rest of the Scripture

  cannot then, at any rate, be justly applied to him.

  He remained throughout his life a kind of Italianised

  Tony Lumpkin, addicted to cards and beauty, de-

  voted to arms and sport. Indeed, in many ways he

  resembled a typical English squire of the period, as

  Lord William Bentinck shrewdly observed of him

  some twenty-five years afterwards. Music was also

  his hobby. He sang often, but scarcely well; and

  Emma, when he first began to practise duets with her,

  humorously remarked, " He sings like a King."

  The people that he loved, and who adored him,

  were the Neapolitan Lazzaroni- -not beggars, as the

  name implies, but loafing artisans, peasants, and fish-

  ermen, noisy, loyal, superstitious, rollicking, unthrifty, vigorous, in alternate spasms of short-li -ed work and

  easy pleasure the natural and ineradicable outcome

  of their sultry climate, their mongrel blood, their red-

  hot soil, and their pagan past. Motley was their wear.

  As happens to all peculiar peoples, they could not suf-

  fer or even fancy alien conditions. When the Grand

  Duke and Duchess of Russia visited Naples in 1782

  during an abnormal spell of February cold, they swore

  that the northerners had brought the accursed weather

  102 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON

  with them. They had their recognised leaders, their

  acknowledged improvisatores, their informal func-

  tions and functionaries, like a sort of unmigratory

  gypsy tribe. They had their own patois, their own

  customs, their own songs, their favourite monks. Such

  was the famous Padre Giordano, the six-foot portent

  of a handsome priest, the best preacher, the best singer, the best eater of macaroni in the King's dominions.

  They had, too, their own feuds, in a country where

  even composers like Cimarosa and Paisiello were al-

  ways at loggerheads and made separate factions of

  their own. All that they knew of England before

  1793 was that their own Calabria furnished the wood

  for its vaunted ships. With the Lazzaroni, Ferdinand

  early became a prime favourite. He was not only

  their king, but their jolly comrade. He was a Falstaff

  king, even in his gross proportions; a king of mis-

  rule in his boisterous humour. He was a Policinello

  king whose Bourbon nose won him the sobriquet of

  " Nasone " from his mountebank liegemen. He was a Robin Hood king, who early formed his own free-booting bodyguard; he was also King Reynard the

  Fox, with intervals of trick and avarice, although, un-

  like that jungle-Mephistopheles, Ferdinand could never

  cajole. He was, in truth, both cramped and spirited

  " a lobster crushed by his shell," as Beckford once termed him despite his defects both real and imputed, his want of dignity, his phlegmatic exterior and

  his rude antics. Every Christmas saw him in his box

  at San Carlo, sucking up macaroni sticks for their

  edification from a steaming basin of burnished silver,

  while the Queen discreetly retired to a back seat.

  Every Carnival witnessed him in fisher's garb playing

  at fish-auctioneer on the quay which served as market,

  bandying personal jests, indulging in rough horse-

  play, and driving preposterous bargains to their boister-EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 103

  ous delight. This picturesque if greasy court would

  strike up the chorus in full sight of their macaroni

  monarch :

  " S'e levata la gabella alia farina !

  Evviva Ferdinando e Carolina."

  He loved to play Haroun Alraschid to do justice in

  the gate and, when hunting, to pay surprise visits

  to the cabins of the peasantry and redress their

  wrongs; though when the fit was on him he could

  scourge them with scorpions. In his rambles on the

  beach the despot would toss the dirtiest of his rough

  adherents violently into the sea, and if he could not

  swim, would then himself plunge into the water and

  bring him laughing from his first bath to the shore..

  It was one of these sallies that suggested to Canova

  his marble Hercules throwing Lichas into the sea, ac-

  quired by the bankers Torlonia before they were styled

  princes; and, indeed, the coarser side of Hercules

  as Euripides portrays him in the Alcestis bears

  some resemblance to this uncouth and burly Nim-

  rod.

  While he was at first proud of his femme savante

  and left affairs of state until 1799 almost entirely in

  her hands and Acton's, his jealousy tended more and

  more to treat her as a prccieuse ridicule, and he grew

  fond of asserting his mastery by playing the

  Petruchio, sometimes to brutality.

  For a long time he was pro-Spanish, while his

  wife remained pro- Austrian, and came to abominate

  Spanish policy more than ever when in 1778 Charles

  IV. of Spain ascended the throne with a caballing

  consort whom Maria Carolina detested. Ferdinand

  boasted that his people were happy because each could

  find subsistence at home, and the time was still distant when to the proverb on his name of " Farina " and 104 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON

  " Feste," " Forca " was superadded. If he pauper-ised his people with farinaceous morsels and festiv-

  ities, he did not as yet execute them. Nor was

  he destitute of bluff wit and exceedingly common

  sense.

  There is a familiar anecdote which may illustrate his

  rough and ready humour as well as his favourite

  methods of government. On one occasion his pedantic

  brother-in-law Leopold asked Ferdinand what he was

  " doing " for the people. " Nothing at all, which is the best," guffawed the King in answer; "and the proof is that while plenty of your folk go wheedling

  and begging in my territory, I will wager anything,

  you like that none of mine are soliciting anything in

  yours." This was the same Leopold whom the royal

  pair visited in their " golden journey " of 1785 which paraded the new navy organised by Acton.

  The Queen, however, was an " illuminata " by bent and upbringing. She was always devising theories

  and executing schemes, and besides literature, botany,

  too, engrossed her attention. It is a mistake to judge

  either her or him in the light of after occurrences, and it is an error as misleading to judge even those events

  by the evidence of Jacobin litterateurs, one at least

  among the most violent of whom did not hesitate to

  recant. It was only long afterwards that she became

  lampooned, and that the " head of a Richelieu on a

  pretty woman " was held up to execration in the words of the ancient diatribe on Catherine of Medicis :

  " Si nous faisons 1'apologie

  De Caroline et Jezabel,

  L'une fut reine en Italic,

&
nbsp; Et 1'autre reine en Israel.

  Celle-ci de malice extreme,

  L'autre etait la malice meme." 1

  1 " Would casuists find excuses try

  EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 105

  Neither King nor Queen, though both have much

  to answer for at the bar of history, were ever the pan-

  tomime-masks of villainy and corruption that resent-

  ment and rumour, public and private, have affixed to

  their names.

  The Queen's full influence was not apparent until

  the birth of an heir in 1777, when by a clause of

  her marriage-settlement she became entitled to sit in

  council. But long before, she had begun to inspire

  reforms very distasteful to the feudal barons who at

  first composed her court. She endeavoured to turn a

  set of antiquated prescriptions into a freer constitu-

  tion, and to cleanse the Neapolitan homes. She limited

  the feudal system of rights odious to the people at

  large to narrow areas, and this popular limitation

  proved long afterwards the main cause of the nobil-

  ity's share in the middle-class revolution of 1799. The

  marriage laws were re-cast much on the basis of Lord

  Hardwick's Act in England. The administration of

  justice was purified. Besides locating the University

  in the fine rooms of the suppressed Jesuit monastery,

  to some of which she transferred the magnificent an-

  tiques of the Farnese and Palatine collections, she

  founded schools and new institutions for the encour-

  agement of agriculture and architecture. Even the

  hostile historian Colletta admits that she drew all the

  intellect of the age to Naples. Waste lands were re-

  claimed, colonies planted on uninhabited islands, ex-

  isting industries developed, and the coral fisheries on

  the African coasts converted into a chartered com-

  For Caroline and Jezebel,

  The one was queen in Italy,

  The other, queen in Israel.

  Extremes of malice marked the second,

  Malice itself the first was reckoned."

  Cf. Crimes et Amours des Bourbons de Naples, Paris, Anon., 1861.

  io6 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON

  pany. The evils of tax-gathering were obviated; the

  ports of Brindisi and Baia restored; highways were

  made free of expense for the poor; tolerance was uni-

  versally proclaimed; the Pope's right to nominate

  bishops was defied ; nor was she reconciled to Pius VI.

  till policy compelled her to kneel before him in her

  Roman visit of 1791. At the period now before us,

  most of the pulpits favoured her. Padre Rocco, the

  blunt reformer of abuses, Padre Minasi, the musical

  archaeologist, were loud in her praises. And this de-

  spite the fact that, though regular in her devotions

  and the reverse of a free-thinker, she resolutely op-

  posed the " crimping " system which from time to time reinforced the Neapolitan convents. She also

  bitterly offended the vested rights of the lawyers and

  the army. An enthusiast for freemasonry (and long

  after her death the Neapolitan lodges toasted her

  memory), she assembled around her through these so-

  cieties a brilliant throng of savants and poets, while

  it was her special aim to elevate the intellects of

  women. Among the circle of all the talents around

  her were the great economist and jurist Filangieri,

  revered by Goethe, but dead within two years after

  Emma's arrival ; the learned and ill-starred Cirillo and Pagano, who both perished afterwards in the Revolution; Palmieri, Galanti, Galiani, Delfico, the scientists; Caravelli, Caretto, Falaguerra, Ardinghelli, Pignatelli, all lights of literature; and Conforti, the his-

  torian. But perhaps the most interesting of all, and

  the most typical, was Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel,

  subsequently muse and victim of the outburst in

  1799.

  This remarkable poetess, Portuguese by origin,

  merits and has received a monograph. Up to 1793,

  indeed, this friend and disciple of Metastasio was the

  professed eulogist of the Queen. She styled her

  EMMA, LADY HAMILTON

  " La verace virtute, e di lei figlio

  II verace valor." 1

  She joined her in denouncing " Papal vassalage " in Italy. When the royal bambino died in 1778 she indited her " Orfeo " as elegy. When the " golden journey " was accomplished, the Miseno port re-opened,

  and the fleet re-organised, her " Proteus and

  Parthenope " celebrated the commencement of a golden age. But what most aroused her enthusiasm was the

  foundation of that singular experiment in monarchical

  socialism the ideal colony of San Leucio at Caserta

  between the years 1777 and 1779. This settlement

  was the first-fruits of the Queen's socialism, though its occasion was the King's liking for his hunting-box

  built in 1773 at the neighbouring Belvedere, and on

  the site of the ancient vineyard and palace of the old

  Princes of Caserta. A church was erected in 1776

  for a parish governed by an enlightened code of duties

  " negative and positive," and even then numbering no less than seventeen families. Some of the royal build-ings were converted into schools ; even the prayers and

  religious ordinances were regulated, as were all observ-

  ances of the hearth, and every distribution of property.

  Allegiance was to be paid first to God, then to the

  sovereign, and lastly to the ministers. Under Fer-

  dinand's nominal authorship a book of the aims, orders,

  and laws of the colony was published, of which a copy

  exists in the British Museum. On its flyleaf Lady

  Hamilton has herself recorded : " Given to me by the King of Naples at Belvedere or S. Leucio the i6th of

  May, 1793, when Sir William and I dined with his

  Majesty and the Duchess of Devonshire, Lady Webster,

  Lady Plymouth, Lady Bessborough, Lady E. Foster,

  Sir G. Webster, and Mr. Pelham. Emma Hamilton."

  '"True virtue, and the birth of virtue true,

  True courage."

  io8 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON

  These names are in no accidental association. The

  then and the future Duchesses of Devonshire headed a

  galaxy of which Charles James Fox was chief, and to

  which Sir William's devotees, Lady " Di " Beauclerk and the Honourable Mrs. Damer, also belonged.

  Eleonora's ode in its honour hymns the " royal

  city " where " nature's noble diadem " crowns " the spirit of ancient Hellas."

  But for all these undertakings, even before stress

  of invasion and vengeance for wrongs prompted large

  armaments and an English alliance, financial talent

  of a high order was needful; taxation had to be broad-

  ened, and it could not be enlarged without pressing

  heavily on the professional classes, for the Lazzaroni

  were always privileged as exempt. The necessities

  which led to the shameful tampering with the banks

  in 1792-93 had not yet arisen ; but organising talent

  was needed, and organising talent was wanting.

  Tenucci proved as poor a financier as once our own

  Godolphin or Dashwood. Jealous of Carolina's mani-

  fest direction, he caballed, and was replaced as first

  minister in 1776 by the
phantom Sambuca. Even

  then the pro-Spanish party among the grandees

  menaced the succession well-nigh as much as the pro-

  Jacobins did some five years later. Even then it was

  on very few of the numberless Neapolitan nobles (a

  " golden book " of whom would outdo Venice and equal Spain) that the perplexed Queen could rely.

  Caramanico was a mere monument of the past, and as

  such consigned to England as ambassador; while his

  young and romantic son Joseph was reputed the

  Queen's lover, and forbidden the court. The cox-

  comb and procrastinator, Gallo, who afterwards ratted

  to Napoleon, was already mismanaging foreign af-

  fairs. The old and respectable Caracciolo, father of

  that rebel admiral whom Nelson was to execute, was

  EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 109

  for the moment Minister of Finance, but approaching

  his end. That Admirable Crichton, Prince Belmonte,

  afterwards as " Galatone " ambassador at the crucial post of the Madrid Embassy, now preferred the office of Chamberlain to any active direction of affairs.

  Prince Castelcicala, twice ambassador to the court

  of St. James's, and nearly as acceptable to the Queen

  as Belmonte, had not yet been pressed into home con-

  cerns, nor had he disastrously earned his inquisitorial

  spurs of 1793. Sicigniano, who was to commit suicide

  when ambassador in London in the same year, be-

  longed to the same category; the young and accom-

  plished Luigi di Medici had not yet emerged into a

  prominence that proved his doom. Prince Torella

  was a nonentity; the Rovere family, which was to

  supply the Sidney or Bayard x of the Revolution, was

  not now of political significance. The professional

  classes were as yet excluded from government, and

  creatures like the notorious Vanni were denied power.

  Amid the general dearth the excitable Queen was at

  her wit's end for a capable minister. During her

  Vienna and Tuscan visits of 1778 she consulted, as

  always, her august relations; and the result was their

  recommendation of John Francis Edward Acton, whose

  younger brother had for some time been serving in the

  Austrian army. In consenting to the trial of an un-

  known man, middle-aged and a foreigner, the Queen

  hardly realised to what grave issues her random choice

  was leading.

  Acton, third cousin of Sir Richard Acton of Alden-

  ham Hall, Shropshire, to whose baronetcy and estates

 

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