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