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

by Yelena Kopylova

cavalier on whom she had conferred absolute power,

  was denounced by a mathematical professor. As

  " Regente della Vicaria " he was tried by the last novelty in tribunals, an invention of Acton. Besides other

  old hands like the inevitable Prince Pignatelli, it

  consisted of three principal assessors Guidobaldi, a

  judge; Prince Castelcicala, a prop always trusted; and

  lastly Vanni, a man of the people, a 1 " professional "

  whom the Queen had actually made Marquis. This

  trio was nicknamed " Cerberus." It was the reverse of former experiments: for the first time two members of the disaffected " professionals " were admitted into the bureaucracy. Vanni, a miniature Marat, who

  well merited his subsequent downfall, dictated; and his

  dictatorship stank in the nostrils of all Italy as " the white terror of Naples." Di Medici had himself

  headed a fresh conspiracy for the King's murder

  Lady Hamilton as Circe.

  From the original painting by George Romney.

  EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 163

  which for a long time simmered in the political caldron.

  He was imprisoned in the fortress of Gaeta, to re-

  appear, however, a few years later as a pardoned

  protege. Prince Caramanico, despatched after Sici-

  gniano's sad suicide to the Embassy in London, died be-

  fore starting, with the usual suspicion of poison. The

  execution in the " Mercato Vecchio " of the cultivated Tommaso Amato, who was deprived even of supreme

  unction, lent its first horror to the notorious death-

  chamber of the " Capella della Vicaria," and was soon followed by that of sixty more Jacobins. The cause

  of " order and religion " was publicly pitted against these damnable heresies. Even communications with

  the self-styled " Patriots " were to be punished. It was decreed treason for more than ten to assemble,

  save by license. The judges, it is true, were bidden

  to be " conscientious in equity and justice," but three witnesses sufficed for the death-sentence. Apart from

  capital sentences, the castles and prisons were crammed

  with suspects, so much so that those of Brindisi were

  requisitioned. Massacres desolated Sicily; blood ran

  in the Neapolitan streets. Ferdinand, who had been

  amusing himself by lengthened law-suits with the

  Prince of Tarsia over a silk monopoly, called on the

  clergy to expose the " French errors " ; and at Naples devotion and disaster ever trod closely on each other's

  heels. Three days of solemn prayer were once more

  decreed in the Metropolitan Church of St. Januarius.

  Both King and Queen were perpetually seen in devout

  attendance at the principal shrines. The pulpits

  preached " death to the French," and war against Jacobinism was declared religious. To be a " patriot "

  (an innocent fault in palmier days) was now sacrilege.

  A fresh eve of St. Bartholomew was feared. In a

  word, the methods of crushing rebellion and opinion

  were eminently southern, but they were also a counter-

  Memoirs Vol. 14 6

  164 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON

  blast to equal barbarities in the north. Save for the

  sansculottes and their propaganda, Naples would have

  escaped the fever and remained a drowsy castle of con-

  tented indolence.

  While, as queen, Maria Carolina cowed the city, as

  woman she was demented by Buonaparte's Italian vic-

  tories. Naples, alone of all Italy, still defied him.

  The Neapolitan royalties to their honour sacrificed

  fortune and jewels to dare the new Alexander. At

  the same time, they called on both nobles and ecclesi-

  astics to emulate their public spirit, and thereby unconsciously did much to hasten the " patriot " insurrection.

  One hundred and three thousand ducats were de-

  manded from the town, one hundred and twenty thou-

  sand from the nobles; church property was alienated.

  Everything was seized for the common cause. The

  news of Nelson's heroism and the English triumph in

  Corsica was received with rapture. And the Neapol-

  itan troops on this occasion shamed the general

  cowardice. By 1795 Prince Moliterno was acclaimed

  a national hero; the courage of General Cuto's three

  regiments in the Tyrol raised the Neapolitan name,

  while Mantua and Rome showed the white feather and

  necessitated the onerous peace of Brescia.

  It may now be guessed what agitated the Queen's

  bosom as day by day she sat down to pen her French

  missives to Emma, and what were the feelings natur-

  ally instilled in Emma by Hamilton, Nelson's letters,

  and the Queen. The Jacobin cause was the prime pest

  of Europe, to be crushed at all costs; Napoleon, an

  impudent upstart and usurper; the Neapolitan rebels,

  monsters of ingratitude and treachery. All these con-

  victions were as binding as articles of faith. Emma's

  own heart was tender to a fault. She detested blood-

  shed and liked to use her influence for mercy, as, to

  do her bare justice, was then the Queen's instinct, after EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 165

  the first spasm had passed. In Emma's eyes the Queen

  herself, so kind and good at home, so sincere and

  friendly, was " adorable." She could do no wrong.

  The past peccadilloes of this baffling woman, contrast-

  ing with her present domesticity, seemed to her, even

  if she believed them, merely a royal prerogative. She

  was as Emma assured Greville in a letter congratulat-

  ing him on his new vice-chamberlainship, " Every-

  thing one can wish the best mother, wife, and freind

  in the world. I live constantly with her, and have

  done intimately so for 2 years, and I never have in all

  that time seen anything but goodness and sincerity in

  her, and if ever you hear any lyes about her, contradict them, and if you shou'd see a cursed book written by

  a vile French dog, with her character in it, don't be-

  lieve one word." Hours passed with her were " enchantment." " No person can be so charming as the Queen. If I was her daughter she could not be

  kinder to me, and I love her with my whole soul." As she grew more influential on the stirring scene she

  caught and exaggerated her royal friend's effusiveness.

  " Oh that everyone," is her endorsement on a letter,

  " could know her as I do, they would esteem her as I do from my soul. May every good attend her and

  hers." Thus Ruth, of Naomi. From such a friend

  impartiality was no more to be expected than from

  such enemies as the " vile French dogs."

  The Queen's correspondence 1 with Emma opens

  earlier with a touching note about the fate of the poor

  Dauphin; a sweet little portrait still remains under its cover. This innocent child, she wrote, implores a sig-1 Most of her letters of this and the next five years are transcribed from the various Egerton MS. by R. Palumbo in his Maria Carolina and Emma Hamilton, which to much valuable material adds some of the old rumours about her earlier and later life.

  166 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON

  nal vengeance for the massacre of his parents before

  the Eternal Throne. His afflictions " have renewed

  wounds that will never heal." In January, 1794, a

  fete was given by the Hamiltons to Prince Augustus.

  It was a golden occas
ion for fanning the English fever,

  which by now had spread throughout the loyalist ranks.

  The Queen's letter of that afternoon begged the

  hostess to tell her company " God save great George our King," rejoiced over the Anglo-Sicilian alliance, and sent her compliments to all the English present.

  In the following June she exulted over George's speech

  to Parliament renewing the war. She longed for

  English news from Toulon. At his fete two years

  later, she was to protest that she loved the British

  prince as a son. She was perpetually anxious about

  Emma's health and prescribing remedies. As for her

  own " old health," it was not worth her young friend's disquietude. When Sir William lay at death's door

  she bade her " put confidence in God, who never forsakes those who trust in Him," and count on the

  " sincere friendship " of her " attached friend."

  Emma's performances she applauded to the skies, espe-

  cially that of " Nina," which had been Romney's favourite.

  In one of her constant billets she tenderly inquired

  after " ce cher aimable bienfaisant eveque " the flip-pant but kindly worldling and " Right Reverend Father in God " (as Beckford terms him) Lord Bristol, Bishop of Derry. Of this odd wit, erratic vagrant and sentimental scapegrace, so typical of a century that in-

  cluded both Horace Walpole and Laurence Sterne a

  veritable Gallio-in-gaiters, with his whimsical projects for endless improvements, his connoisseurship, his restlessness, his real pluck and independence, we have al-

  ready caught glimpses in eccentric attire at Caserta.

  One of his queerest features was the blended care

  EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 167

  and carelessness both of money and family. Attached

  to his devoted and economical daughter Louisa, he

  quarrelled with his son for not marrying an heiress.

  His bitterest reproach against his old wife was that

  she disbelieved " in the current coin of the realm."

  Lady Hamilton thus at this time described him to

  Greville : " He is very fond of me, and very kind.

  He is very entertaining and dashes at everything. Nor

  does he mind King and Queen when he is inclined to

  shew his talents." The French victories were soon

  to be fatal to the esprit moqueur, and to cool his volatile impatience for some eighteen months within the

  clammy walls of a Milanese fortress. Besides his

  autographs in the Morrison Collection, and two now

  belonging to the writer, a few letters from him to

  Emma exist in that surreptitious edition of the pilfered Nelson Letters which, in 1814, were to add one more

  drop to her cup of bitterness. They all show that he

  purveyed information, both serious and scandalous,

  through Emma to the Queen. They stamp the in-

  triguer, the patriot, and the friend. The first seems

  written among the embroilments of 1793.

  The sale and purchase of antiquities absorbed him

  like Sir William; unlike the Ambassador, he never

  shirked labour, but rather meddled officiously with the

  departments over which his leisurely friend had been

  up to now so disposed to loiter. In 1793 he is to be

  found spying on the spies who misled " the dear, dear Queen." At the opening, too, of 1794, he forwards

  Venetian secrets to be communicated " a la premiere des femmes, cette tnaltresse femme." " I have been in bed," he adds, " these four weeks with what is called a flying gout, but were it such it would be gone long

  ago, and it hovers round me like a ghost round its

  sepulchre." In 1795 again the nomad was at Berlin

  routing out State-secrets. The date of the following

  i68

  must be that of the shameful Austrian treaties in

  1797 which succeeded the galling peace of Brescia.

  " MY EVER DEAREST LADY HAMILTON, 1 should

  certainly have made this Sunday an holy day to me, and

  have taken a Sabbath day's journey to Caserta, had not

  poor Mr. Lovel been confined to his bed above three

  days with a fever. To-day it is departed; to-morrow

  Dr. Nudi has secured us from its resurrection; and

  after to-morrow, I hope, virtue will be its own reward.

  . . . All public and private accounts agree in the im-

  mediate prospect of a general peace. It will make a

  delicious foreground in the picture of the new year;

  many of which I wish, from the top, bottom, and

  centre of my heart, to the incomparable Emma qnella

  senza paragone." The next snatch is worth quoting

  for its humour : " I went down to your opera-box

  two minutes after you left ; and should have seen you

  on the morning of your departure but was detained in

  the arms of Murphy, as Lady Eden expresses it, and

  was too late. You say nothing of the adorable Queen ;

  I hope she has not forgot me. ... I veritably deem

  her the very best edition of a woman I ever saw I

  mean of such as are not in folio. . . . My duties ob-

  struct my pleasure. ... You see, I am but the sec-

  ond letter of your alphabet, though you are the first of mine."

  A last extract, penned a few months after his libera-

  tion, must complete this vignette : " I know not, dearest Emma, whether friend Sir William has been able

  to obtain my passport or not ; but this I know that

  if they have refused it, they are damned fools for their pains: for never was a Malta orange better worth

  squeezing or sucking ; and if they leave me to die, without a tombstone over me to tell the contents taut pis

  pour eux. In the meantime, I will frankly confess

  to you that my health most seriously and urgently re-

  EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 169

  quires the balmy air of dear Naples, and the more

  balmy atmosphere of those I love, arid who love me;

  and that I shall forego rriy garret with more regret

  than most people of my silly rank in society forego

  a palace or a drawing-room." He then sketched his

  tour on horseback to " that unexplored region Dal-

  matia " ; he described Spalato as " a modern city built within the precincts of an ancient palace." Spalato reminded him of Diocletian, the " wise sovereigti who quitted the sceptre of an architect's rule," and the two together, of a new project for a " packet-boat in these perilous times between Spalato and Manfredonia."

  The serious debut of Emma as " Stateswoman " (in the sense of England's spokeswoman at Naples) chimes

  with the episode of the King of Spain's secret letters

  heralding and announcing his rupture with the anti-

  French alliance during 1795 and 1796. But before

  dealing with that crisis, I may be pardoned for glanc-

  ing at one more picturesque figure among Emma's sur-

  roundings that of Wilhelmina, Countess of Lich-

  tenau.

  She was nobly born and bred ; but in girlhood, under

  a broken promise, it would seem, of morganatic mar-

  riage, had become mistress and intellectual companion

  of Frederick, King of Prussia a tie countenanced by

  her mother. Political intrigue drove her from Berlin

  to Italy, as it afterwards involved her in despair and

  ruin. She was cultivated, artistic, sensitive, and un-

  happy. She became the honoured correspondent of

  many distinguished statesmen and authors. Lavater

  and Arthur Paget were her fi
rm friends, as also the

  luckless Alexandre Sauveur, already noticed in his

  " hermitage " on Mount Vesuvius. Lord Bristol, naturally, knelt at her shrine. In her Memoires she

  frankly admits that she (like Emma) was vain; but

  maintains that all women are so by birthright. Lovel,

  170 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON

  the parson friend of the Bishop of Derry, used to sign

  himself her " brother by adoption," and address her as

  " a very dear sister " ; Paget corresponded with her as

  " dear Wilhelmina." Throughout 1795 she was at Naples, where her cicisbeo was the handsome Chevalier

  de Saxe, afterwards killed in a duel with the Russian

  M. Saboff. A letter from him towards the close of

  this year of Neapolitan enthusiasm for the English,

  when the Elliots among others were praising and ap-

  plauding Emma to the skies, describes the great ball

  given by Lady Plymouth in celebration of Prince

  Augustus's birthday. The supper was one of enthusi-

  asm and " God save the King." " They drank," he chronicles, "a I'Anglaise: the toasts were noisy, and the healths of others were so flattered as to derange our own." Sir William was constantly begging of her to

  forward the sale of his collections at the Russian cap-

  ital; nor was tea, now fashionable at court, the least

  agent for English interests. Emma herself had be-

  come the " fair tea-maker " of the Chiaja instead of, as once, of Edgware Row, and Mrs. Cadogan too held

  her own tea-parties. Emma often corresponded with

  the beautiful Countess, and one of her letters of this

  period, not here transcribed, supplies evidence of what

  kind of French she had learned to write by a period

  when she had mastered not only Neapolitan patois but

  Spanish and Italian. At the troublous outset of 1796

  Wilhelmina quitted Italy never to return.

  These characters are scarcely edifying. The scoff-

  ing Bishop, the frail Countess, however, were a typ-

  ical outcome of sincere reaction against hollow and

  hypocritical observance. There was nothing diabolical

  about them. The virtues that they professed, they

  practised; their faults, those of free thinkers and free livers, do not differentiate them from their contemporaries. It is surely remarkable that these, and such

  EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 171

  as these, paved the way for Nelson's vindication of

  Great Britain in the Mediterranean, far more than