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Please try again later. Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. Cute little quick read. Interesting premise, though I felt it could have been more fleshed out. The emotions felt very real, though. And the first sex scene was hat, hot, hot! Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway. Set up a giveaway.
Feedback If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us. Would you like to report poor quality or formatting in this book? Click here Would you like to report this content as inappropriate? Click here Do you believe that this item violates a copyright? There's a problem loading this menu right now. It must be added, however, that these writers differ considerably in their points of view and their knowledge, are often confused by passion, or are deliberately inaccurate through prejudice; therefore all, or nearly all, the evidence must be read, if an impartial judgment is to be formed on matters that have caused such bitter emotions and such fierce differences of opinion.
It is useless, for instance, to read Nelson and the Neapolitan Jacobins by H. Gutheridge, without reading Lady Hamilton et la Rivolution de Naples by Joseph Turquan and Jules d'Auriac, in which the English author's points are carefully dealt with, and his arguments often refuted. Further, it is impossible to understand the situation and sentiments of the Patriots of Naples and the Italian point of view without being acquainted with the Jacobins' own statements and the opinions of Italian historians, which may be found embodied in the writings of Vincenzo Cuoco, Francesco Lomanaco, Carlo Botta, P.
Arrighi, and in those of two modern Italian scholars of the first rank, who have made impartial and patient researches into the history of the Novantanove ; Benedetto Croce and Pasquale Villari. The latter, in his Nelson, Caracciolo, la Rivoluzione di Napoli , published in Discussioni critiche Discorsi , gives a masterly summing up of the whole controversy and of the works of all the writers who have discussed the questions raised by the part played by the English in the Bourbon reaction.
Another cool and detached account of the affair is given by Professor Huefer in his article La fin de la Ripublique Napolitaine , published in Nos. David Hannay, in his edition of Southey's Life of Nelson , is conspicuous for his fairness in dealing with the Neapolitan episode, while the chapter on Caracciolo, in J.
Cordy Jeafferson's Lady Hamilton and Lord Nelson , may be cited as an example of the kind of writing that has too often misled the English reader as to the characters and events of Naples in In conclusion, some words of personal explanation may be added. As very little is known of Emma Hamilton before , this account of her life begins in that year, and references to her early youth are given as rumours or gossip only. It is most likely that there was much truth in these tales—some such life as they indicate Amy Lyon must have led—but the evidence for this part of her career is flimsy and contradictory and many of the well-known anecdotes of her early life rest on very doubtful authority.
For the same reason several often-repeated stories relating to Lady Hamilton have been omitted from the later part of the book, but there is sufficient authentic material available from which to construct a portrait of this woman, remarkable in herself and extraordinary in her life and adventures. Why should a man whose blood is warm within sit like his grandsire carved in alabaster? When beauty passes nature it becomes art. It has been said that Cupid writes his epistles on the leaves of a ledger; at any rate this quarrel was about money. The great difference between the lovers was that, whereas Sir Harry could pay for at least some of his pleasures, Amy was penniless.
So, when the final quarrel came, the girl, who had only her personal charms, was utterly defeated by the young man who had birth, a title, relations, friends and property. The easy-going rake, who knew the ways of his world, certainly expected to have to pay in cash for five months of amorous felicity with the pretty creature who had such a lively tongue and such gay romping ways. But the bills were too high and came in far too frequently. Five guineas for coach hire! This was a piece of insolence not to be endured; and there were the milliners, dressmakers, haberdashers, all clamorous for their dues, and the house-keeping had reached those crazy figures which are only possible when a fashionable young bachelor entertains boon companions and ladies of the town.
Sir Harry protested sharply that he was ruined and that the fault lay with his wild, giddy mistress. She retorted insolently with t he assurance of the petted toy whose impertinent follies had always been applauded. But Sir Harry was in no mood to laugh at her flounces and grimaces; with the revulsion following infatuation he felt that the girl was not worth what she was costing him; even if he could afford so extravagant a companion, would it be worth while to empty his purse to pay the expenses of a creature whose favours he must share with all his friends?
In his opinion Amy had behaved exactly like the flower of the gutter she was, and to the gutter she might return. He was, besides, tired of her, sick of the long debauch of which Up Park had been the scene during the autumn and winter, jaded with the drink, the gambling, the din of the disorderly women, the tipsy men, the confusion arising from bad service, the nagging visits from duns, the insolence of unpaid servants. Amy played into his hands by losing her temper, by tossing her head and answering him in the rustic Welsh accent of which he was tired; he replied brutally, and they shouted, one at the other, amid the litter of the fashionable room in the smart mansion which occupied a hollow of the South Downs.
Bottles, decanters and glasses cumbered the sideboards, packs of fingered cards piled the small tables, wheezing lap-dogs sat on soiled lace caps and kerchiefs, flung over satin chairs; dirty clay pipes, tobacco-pouches, snuff-boxes, crowded the coquettish ornaments on the mantel shelf; there were fowling-pieces in one corner, whips in another, a basket of pups under the desk, a gross dog, smelling of the stable, before the log fire—and everywhere a confusion of unpaid bills— un odor di femina.
Amy, in stiff silks overtrimmed and gaudy, with stale powder dotted in her heavy hair, holes in her stockings and kicked-out shoes, with unpaid-for lace across her bosom, and a black velvet patch to show off a complexion not well cared for, held her own with coarse words, with violent gestures, maintaining her right as a young, seductive female, to spend what she pleased, to do as she pleased.
The baronet's polished exterior had once seemed very attractive to Amy; he had all the easy airs of his class and could be elegant when with ladies, but he took a gentleman's privilege and was crude enough with females who lived—as the term went—under his protection. When Amy, in a passion at his refusal to submit to her tantrums, screamed out that she would fling out of his house—he said that she not only might, but must, go. She could be packed off more easily than could a maidservant as she was without the written law.
The right of appeal to the unwritten law she had, in her lover's opinion, forfeited, when, in return for her keep and her amusements, she had not given even a brief fidelity. With such a mood on either side the scene could have but one ending; the pretty young girl tossed out of the dishevelled mansion which had been, for nearly half a year, a slut's paradise, and her whilom lover warned her not to return. In the brutal phrase of the time, she was turned out of keeping. Sir Harry Featherstonehaugh saw her departure with relief.
She was noisy, she was common, she was expensive, she was losing her figure and he was weary of her bright, pretty face, her cheerful ignorance, and the quick insolence with which she picked up the vices and the airs that belonged properly to gentlefolk. Amy's temper soon cooled when she found herself shut out of Up Park; she was good-humoured and had meant no harm by the outburst of rage that had cost her so dear. Once the gates of that dishevelled mansion were closed on her, she realized that she had forfeited an existence perfectly agreeable to her tastes.
What could have been pleasanter than that slipshod life where dozens of wax-candles guttered over the baize cloth, where guineas glittered and cards were piled in the evening, where satin curtains kept out the daylight in the morning while a lazy girl lay cosy in cambric and down! A life where there were gentlemen to kiss, to jest with, to banter and flatter; raised pies and spiced jellies to eat, champagne and fine red wine to drink! A life where, at the cost of a few tears, a few caresses, a pout, a jest, a girl might have shawls, gauzes, feathers and frocks.
Yes, a poor girl who knew all about poverty and hard work, who had been a servant on a Welsh farm, who had toiled in a London basement, might, at Up Park, enjoy all that ever gilded a kitchen-maid's dreams, just in return for being pleasant to the gentlemen. Amy began to see that she had been very wrong; she was quite ashamed of herself as she trudged to the turn in the bleak road where she must meet and stop the London coach.
It was the dead time of year, when English scenery is veiled and forbidding, when English towns are grey and chill, when a poor girl wants to be cherished indoors, in a warm bed, close to a roaring fire, with good food, glasses of wine, songs and games in the evenings and milliners' boxes in the mornings. No doubt there were other gallants besides Sir Harry, who would offer consolation to Amy Lyon, but there was a good reason why she should not engage in active adventure; for a few months at least she needed shelter and a quiet life.
She possessed only the clothes she stood up in and a few pounds, won at cards the night before, in her pocket; she thought of her mother, the comfortable widow, discreet and obliging, who was always able to earn her keep, if not much beside, with her excellent cooking; but Amy did not want to appeal to Mrs. Lyon, who had only a servant's wages to dispose of and could do nothing; besides had not the good mother given her some hints on how to handle gentlemen?
How disappointed she would be to hear of her daughter's mistake! Amy was very fond of her mother and did not want her to know the failure she had made of her splendid chance at Up Park. One other resource remained to the distracted damsel, the old grandmother who, in her mud-and-wattle cottage set in the dull street of the Flintshire village, had once before proved a friend to a girl in distress. Amy was already, at nineteen years of age, used to ups and downs, and had developed the simple philosophy of enjoying the former to the full and making the best of the latter.
So she paid out her remaining stock of money for coach fare to Hawarden, where Dame Kidd looked after a dark little girl whose origin was a matter for gossip among the neighbours. Amy knew and detested that Welsh village; she had been born at Neston in Cheshire and when she was three years old her mother, widow of Henry Lyon, blacksmith, had come to Hawarden to share the poverty of Dame Kidd's white-washed cottage, where the continuous mists from the gaunt moorlands soaked the thatch and stained the plaster, and the frequent rains spluttered on the one fire and slashed at the dirty panes of the windows shadowed by the eaves.
To this miserable refuge the downcast girl returned because there was nowhere else to go and her grandmother knew it; they kissed and cried together; there was no need to ask for explanations, the case was obvious. Amy Lyon sat down in her draggled silks and wondered what she should do, while the dark-eyed toddling child in the red shawls eyed her curiously. Dame Kidd regretted the fallen fortunes of her pretty grandchild who did not seem to know how to make the most of her opportunities, but she uttered no reproaches; the three women had lived together good-humouredly in the lazy squalor of a Welsh peasant's life until Mrs.
Lyon had gone to London to better herself, and Amy had followed soon after, seeking the fabled glories of the capital with the high heart of ignorant youth. And here she was, returned for the second time without a penny in her soiled pockets and with tears in her handsome eyes. What was to be done? The old woman and the girl faced one another in some dismay in the flicker of the scanty, cherished fire. Amy could not be considered to have made a wise investment of her charms; on her previous visit to Flintshire she had borne the swarthy child who now clung to her silk skirts and clutched at her fingers.
She was evasive about the father of this uninteresting infant. Dame Kidd understood that he had been a sailor on a pressgang ship at the Tower Wharf in London, the captain, Amy had hinted—but what did it matter? He had sailed away without leaving Amy a farthing and was quite outside the present calculations, which centred round the fact that in two months' time Amy would again be the mother of an unwanted child; nor was the delicate question of the paternity of the coming infant likely to be settled to the satisfaction of Amy, who, with tears, regrets, and a few outbursts against her ill luck, confessed to Dame Kidd that she had been so very wild and giddy at Up Park, had so romped and gambolled, been so anxious to please all the gentlemen that it was useless to expect any one of them to assume the responsibility for her trouble.
The poor cottage, the long, narrow, village street, with the squalid inn, the forge, the tiny post office, the wide moors beyond, the scattered farms, the straggling flocks of fat-tailed, silly-faced sheep, all blurred and sodden in the wet grey winter weather, depressed Amy's spirits to a melancholy most unusual to her cheerful temperament; she felt as desperate as if she had been thrown into a lazar-house or Cold Bath Fields Prison.
She wept for all she had so suddenly left, the warmth, the food, the drink, the games and caresses, the lazy ease of hours spent before a mirror, lolling on a sofa or flinging cards on the table where the rouleaux of guineas were piled. Dame Kidd had no consolation to offer; she knew that Amy's plight was a common case.
In the better farms hung series of cheap prints that told a story with a moral. One of these might have been Amy's story—at least in the first stages. There was a harsh title to these pictures, the first of which showed the fresh, smiling country-girl descending from the coach that had arrived in London from the provinces, looking about her on the bustle of London, all agog for fun and soft living and a fine young man to praise her and pay her bills. Even so had Amy at sixteen years of age tripped for the first time through the dubious London streets, nosing after pleasure.
Very quickly, both in Amy's case, and in that of the pictured belle, was the rich protector found—such fresh charms are easily marketed. There, in the print, she might be seen behaving as Amy had behaved at Up Park, fashionably dressed, pampered, petulant, kicking over the tea-table in a tantrum under her lover's nose. If Amy were not very careful, she might fulfil the destiny so graphically depicted in the first episodes of this savage warning to jolly country-girls eager for town delights, she too might come to beat hemp in Bridewell, to lie in a pauper's coffin with " anno vicesimo tertio aetatis suae " on the cheap lid.
The way of virtue was not only closed to her but exceedingly distasteful; she knew what it was to be a nursemaid in a Welsh farm, in the house of a fashionable London doctor, in decent establishments, where mistresses were careful of their maids' reputation; it would be quite impossible for her to return to so odious an existence—a scrubbing-brush would be no more incongruous in the hands of a nymph of Paphos than a serving-wench's cap on the well-set head of Amy Lyon.
Nor did it seem as if she would be welcomed back to the path of discretion and peace; Dame Kidd's neighbours looked askance at the returned prodigal; the girls who in homespun shawls had once herded sheep with her on the moors, sneered at the town finery that had so soon become soiled, that looked so foolish in the wattled cottage; married women who kept their own daughters respectable, wanted to know who was the teasing baby who ran after Dame Kidd and who was sometimes kissed and sometimes slapped by the despondent Amy.
Only one thing seemed possible in such a plight, an appeal to the late protector, who might surely be won round from his ill-humour by cajolery, by entreaties, as he had been won before. Amy had learned, when in London, to read a little, to spell a little, and she sat down in despair and wrote to Sir Harry Featherstonehaugh seven letters, one after another; the gossips lounging at the village post office grinned when they read the superscription and sniggered as the days went by without a reply.
In the seven unanswered letters was all her story. Amy Lyon had learned some other things besides how to misspell a love-letter; she had gathered a miscellaneous knowledge of the ways of the world from the city streets, and at Up Park she had found she had a good seat in the saddle, a quick hand with the cards, a ready tongue to answer impudent gentlemen in their cups and the insolence to order servants about as she had once been ordered.
There she had learned to like champagne, dainty food, silk next to her skin and luxurious beds, to replace the slang of the kitchen by the slang of the aristocrat, the jargon of the tavern by the jargon of the stable, and the gambling-room; she had learned the intimate details of the private lives of English gentlemen taking their ease. There, too, she had learned that these same gentlemen, however spendthrift and gay they might be, however reckless with their bets, their stakes, however extravagant in self-indulgence, yet objected strangely when the bills came in and were not prepared to ruin their fortunes for the sake even of the prettiest and most harming dears.
Amy, in the gloom of the Hawarden cottage, where a farthing dip was the only light in the winter evenings, and a child and an old woman her sole company, bitterly repented of her mistake. The seven letters were full of humility, of pleas for pardon, of promises for the future; never, oh! But the letters remained unanswered and Amy thought of one of the other gentlemen who had shared those pleasant parties at Up Park—one a little stiff and proud—who had never been really jolly nor roaring drunk, nor had joined in the most reckless amusements, but who had, nevertheless, shown himself susceptible to her enticements, her whims and ways.
She considered him more than a little formidable with his cold face and precise air and his hint of a sneer at the coarse frivolity of his friends, but for these very reasons she respected him—besides she knew that he had his yielding moments—if only he would deign to remember now how she had sometimes, when Sir Harry's luck was turned, known how to please him when he was a guest at Up Park.
He had given her a franked envelope addressed to himself; there was hope in that. In her distress, struggling with poor scholarship, she wrote a letter, put it in the envelope addressed to the Hon. Charles Greville at Portman Square, London. It was answered with non-committal kindness and Amy wrote again in the last days of the year. She signed this frantic appeal with the romantic version of Amy which she had picked up in her adventures—Emily, the favourite name of circulating- library heroines, and Hart, a tender allusion to the warm emotions she felt and aroused.
It put me in some spirits; for, believe me, I am allmost distrackted. I have never hard from Sir H. What shall I dow? I have wrote 7 letters, and no answer. I can't come to town caus I am out of money. I have not a farthing to bless my self with, and I think my friends looks cooly on me.
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O Grevell, what shall I dow? O how your letter affected me, when you wished me happiness. For God's sake, Grevell write the minet you get this, and only tell me what I am to dow I am allmos mad. O, for God's sake, tell me what is to become on me. O dear Grevell, write to me. Grevell adue, and believe me yours for ever—Emly Hart.
Charles Greville was gratified to receive this letter; he had not forgotten Emily Hart; he had often congratulated himself on the knowledge and cleverness that had, on so many occasions, enabled him to secure a treasure cheaply. He was used to bargaining for his pleasures, for he was a poor man of elegant tastes, a collector of objets d'art , a Maecaenas with a flat purse. It had amused him to notice Sir Harry's blunder about Amy Lyon; the stupid young baronet had picked her up and turned her off, just as if she had been a mere good-for-nothing off the streets, and Mr.
Greville knew that she was a great deal more than that. Sir Harry and the crew at Up Park had thought Amy merely pretty—like any other girl who could be had for the asking. And so perhaps she was in the silly finery that she did not know how to wear, with her hair stuck with pomade, rouge and white on her face, her rustic accent and loud voice; but Mr. Greville was an expert, he could detect a masterpiece even under a smear of thick disfiguring varnish, he could recognize the gem even before it was cut and polished. He laughed in his sleeve at Sir Harry and answered the letter of the girl in distress, not, however, impetuously, nor with the least touch of impudence, nor with any disloyalty to his sex or his class.
Amy had behaved badly, even though he had received some benefit from her naughtiness, and must be scolded. Sir Harry had been injured in a way he could not be expected to overlook—infidelity and extravagance, insolence and ingratitude! Amy had much to learn and Mr. Greville was quite willing to teach her; he believed she would be docile; he smiled over the sentence: Well, he was willing to see what he could make of Amy Lyon, but there must be reform, a proper bargain; he loathed establishments like those of Up Park and liked every penny of his income accounted for; he wrote to Amy in a tone of gentle reprimand; nothing must be expected from Sir Harry, least of all an acknowledgment of the unlucky child—but, if she were patient, penitent and promised good behaviour for the future, he, Charles Greville, would generously assist a naughty girl in distress.
Amy accepted the gracious offer with passionate gratitude—she would have accepted something much less inviting in order to escape from the monotony, the poverty, the hostility of Hawarden; her spirits soared at the prospect of London again; she was ready to promise anything. Two months after her hasty retreat to Dame Kidd's cottage, Amy's second child was born without drawing breath; no one had wanted it to live, least of all the mother who found her little girl a sufficiently difficult problem; but Greville was equal to that difficulty—let the child remain with Dame Kidd, who should receive a small allowance for her keep.
Charles Greville was the second son of the Earl of Warwick; his party being in power, a small post had been found for him in the Foreign Office. It was not quite good enough for a second son of an earl, who was always on the look out for a plump sinecure—since it was a mere a year; but better things might be looked for; if Mr. Greville's Government friends were not able to find him something more worthy of his merits, he had two pleasant prospects; his uncle Sir William Hamilton, a rich and childless widower, had taken him under his wing and had half promised to make him his heir.
Then, whenever he chose, Mr. Greville, elegant, personable, well connected, could follow this same uncle's example and marry a woman with a comfortable income. In the meanwhile he arranged his life with fastidious selfishness, so as to obtain the utmost satisfaction for himself out of his means and opportunities.
He had remarked Amy Lyon among the disorders of Up Park and had had the curiosity to acquaint himself with her circumstances, but he did not know much of how she had spent the time since she had come to London; rumour credited her with many adventures and Mr. Greville was surprised that she could have found time for such varied experiences; she seemed so young. He wrote to her for a copy of the entry of the record of her birth, and received that of her baptism.
There were two crosses, one for the father, one for the mother. Flow old had Amy been when she was baptized? Greville did not pursue his enquiries further—it was sufficient that Amy was very young—say, nineteen years old. Nor was he much interested in learning of her adventures; she had been a nursemaid with a Mrs. Thomas in Hawarden, a servant in the employ of the fashionable and successful Dr.
Bartholomew's Hospital, in the well-kept establishment his wife ran in Blackfriars—what then? Employment in a tavern, in a shop, a brief sojourn with a lady of the half-world, adorning a shoddy salon , an even briefer episode as the companion of a sailor on leave, a mother at seventeen or less, an exhibit in the Temple of Hymen run by Dr. Graham in the Adelphi and Holborn. Greville was not sure if the lovely Vestina, standing in a glass case feeding a serpent from a cup, had really been Amy Lyon; was she the fair female who had advertised the properties of the beautifying mudbath, by sitting in it up to her shoulders, her smiling face surrounded by a structure of powdered curls, braids of false pearls, rose feathers and velvet flowers?
Had the Welsh servant-girl played Hebe Vestina in this dubious temple where the virtues of the Electrical Throne and the Celestial Bed were demonstrated—in the words of the charlatan's advertisement—to the " Amateurs des dilices exquises de Venus "? If she had assisted at these catch-penny shows where quackery and science were impudently mingled, it was odd that she had not secured a more useful admirer than the commonplace Sussex baronet from the crowd of leering spectators.
Greville did not trouble to investigate further his charmer's past—it was her future that was to be his concern. With a delibration that was almost solemn Amy Lyon was installed in Edgeware Row, there to live under the protection of the Hon. Charles Greville—upon terms which he sternly dictated and she humbly accepted. There was to be no more wildness and giddiness, no more tempers and whims, above all, no extravagance. Amy must forget her common ways, her coarse language, she must lower her voice, restrain her gestures, drop any vulgar acquaintances who might claim her from the past, she must be very careful, very quiet, faithful and docile.
Amy promised everything; she was anxious to put herself in the hands of this kind master; she arrived from Hawarden rosy with retrieved health and brilliant with good resolutions. The austere country life, the pure moorland air had renewed the charms that had been slightly tarnished in the close atmosphere of Up Park; far from modish shops Amy had not been able to purchase tinsel or patches, gewgaws or pomade; the finery for which Sir Harry had paid, had been shorn of tattered trimmings and turned about into a neat, plain garment; Mr.
Greville was pleased with his blooming prize when she stood modestly before him in the neat house off Paddington Green. This was no little bounding rustic agape for crude adventure, but rather a tender dryad fresh from the woodlands; she had an air of candour that Mr. Greville found as gratifying as astonishing—with a little more training she might be made to appear positively virginal.
Patriotic Lady
Greville, most suave of dilettantes, looked Amy up and down through his quizzing glass. The expert was pleased with his purchase, lucky as he was, never had he made such a good bargain. It was decided that Amy Lyon should be forgotten and that Emma Hart should take her place—a new name for a new part and a blotting out of a past that it might not be convenient to recall.
Emma, then, to Mr. Greville, and Miss Hart to whatever world there might be for the mistress of an aristocratic civil servant to move in. Alexander Pope wrote—"out of a handmaiden we must make a Helen" and Charles Greville set himself zealously to make a Beauty out of a pretty Welsh peasant somewhat blown upon by town airs. First, he set his house in order; he could not afford a mistress and a housekeeper, and Amy was impossible for the latter role, so, by a stroke of careful art, Mr. Greville added Mary Lyon to the establishment, a trained manager of genteel households, an excellent cook, a duenna whose personal interest would be in guarding her charge, a factotum who would be economical and grateful.
She came eagerly, humble and thankful, dropping her curtsey, promising obedience to Mr. Greville, a strict watch over Amy, a stern eye to the pence; since there must be no connection with any little errors that might be associated with the name of Lyon, Amy's facile parent was re-named Mrs. Cadogan; two maidservants were engaged, one at nine pounds, and one at eight pounds a year, and the elegant faux minage was complete.
Greville moved from Portman Square and rented a modest brick house, which stood in Paddington near the spot where the rich outlines of the baroque church showed attractively incongruous on the prim sweep of the village-green; it had a neat secluded garden, looked on trees back and front; the neighbours were quiet, genteel, and not too close, the tradesmen conveniently at hand and obsequious, as befitted those who served an Earl's son who paid cash—at least for his smaller needs.
The interior of the house was well kept and contained some treasures, the result of Mr. Greville's fine taste and careful buying. The panelled walls were dark and the furniture had a masculine severity, walnut and mahogany without cushions or fripperies, but in the parlour was a Correggio where the tones of the hyacinth and the violet, the May rose and the Italian skies melted on the canvas in voluptuous harmony. This was balanced by a modern masterpiece that Mr. Greville had obtained cheaply, a work by Sir Joshua Reynolds, the President of the Royal Academy, of which a story was told to set the gossips sniggering.
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Emily Bertie had engaged the fashionable artist, whose prices had lately risen, to paint her portrait, had paid half the fee—seventy-eight guineas—in advance and given Sir Joshua several sittings when some crisis in her domestic affairs caused the lady to change her plans abruptly, and her portrait remained unfinished in the studio. Such was too often the end of the paintings of frail beauties, who lost their protectors before their features could be completely transferred to canvas. Sir Joshua, irritated by the unfinished bargain, and by hearing that Miss Bertie was sitting for George Romney, had completed the picture and sent it to the Royal Academy under the unkind title of Thais Setting Light to the Temple of Chastity at Persepolis.
This direct allusion to Miss Bertie's profession amused the critics, but was considered a piece of unnecessary spite on the part of a rich man towards a fine girl who had paid him nearly a hundred guineas for which she had had no return. Greville had enjoyed the scandal, admired the picture, asked Sir Joshua to retouch it here and there, according to his own ideals of beauty and had bought it cheaply.
Besides the Correggio and the Reynolds there were other treasures for Emma to admire, a cabinet of coins and medals, where the flattened, polished profiles of Kings, Queens, Popes and worthies gleamed in gold and silver from their padded drawers, a case of sparkling mineral specimens, that Mr. Greville valued very highly, some spoils from the vineyards of Tuscany in the shape of urns and vases, some curios from the sulphurous earth of Sicily and the lava of Vesuvius.
Emma was not impressed when Mr. Greville tried to refine and widen her mind by showing her the lovely curve of an Etruscan vase, the delicate modelling of a royal medallion, or the manner in which Sir Joshua had handled his flesh tints, but when he told her that she herself might become a work of art, she began to be extremely interested, her vanity, hitherto that of any pretty wench, took a higher turn, and she saw herself, through Mr. Greville's eyes, as a potential beauty. With gratifying intelligence she grasped the ideal he set before her, and what she must do to achieve it; her behaviour became exemplary, she watched Charles Greville with the pathetic keenness of the dancing-dog balancing on a pole and eyeing the master who has the sugar and the stick.
Greville said was law to Emma; her quick docility gave him much pleasure and he was patient at his task, though he did not forgo long lectures, which Emma only half understood, on propriety, decorum, genteel behaviour, good taste, what was and what was not done in polished circles and by the mistresses of well-bred men. Emma was taught to disdain finery; no tawdry ornaments, cheap showy dresses, no fard, patches, curls stretched over pads or frames, no beads nor posies; Mr. Greville chose her dresses himself, found her a dressmaker and did not allow her a single flower for her bosom or hair.
He engaged masters to teach her singing, playing on the harpsichord, deportment and dancing; he encouraged her to read refined and moral books, he taught her how a gentlewoman entered a room, how she poured out tea, how she listened to the conversation of gentlemen. There were no more rich dishes nor glasses of champagne, Emma might have one half-pint of beer daily, and that was all; she must take frequent exercise, go to bed early, rise early, she must, above all, learn to consider money with respect, to lay out every farthing to the best advantage. Cadogan helped her there with the anxiety of a woman who knew that her livelihood depended on her zeal, neither mother nor daughter ever forgot that they might be turned off at a moment's notice; Mrs.
Cadogan had only to think of the kitchen basements from which she had been rescued, and Emma of that odious cottage at Hawarden, for them to redouble their efforts to please kind Mr. No marriage could have been quite so dull in its setting; Emma saw no one outside the house beyond the tradespeople, the milliner and the dressmaker; when she went for her dutiful walks, either her mother or her lover accompanied her, when she was at home she must read an improving book or study her music, or listen to Charles Greville's discourses on manners and refinement, or admire the treasures of virtu that she did not understand.
Further, she had to keep her accounts very carefully indeed; she had an allowance of 20 a year, for her mother and herself and every item of expenditure had to be noted down; she did this dutifully, "a mangle 5d. This was all a vast change from life at Up Park, from anything that life had meant to her before; but she was not dull; she had two objects with which to fill her days, Charles Greville, the god of her little secluded universe, and the pursuit of beauty.
Her mirror assured her that she had improved under her lover's handling; her teachers assured her that she might be not only a beauty, but an accomplished beauty; she had a strong voice, sweet and powerful, she sang with an emotional stress on moods and melody that disguised the deficiency of her ear, her fingers learned to trip over the keys as quickly as they learned to move among the tea equipage of egg-shell china, beaten silver and lacquered caddy.
She could strike an attitude with rather more than the usual zest and grace of the servant girl portraying a romantic heroine in a cracked mirror. Greville noticed her poses and quietly encouraged her; he bought her a plain robe, made her knot up her hair and asked her to stand in the position of one of the figurines on the orange-ochre antique vases.
He was astonished at the ease and elegance with which she assumed the classic pose; he began to think that Emma Hart was even a greater bargain than he had at first supposed; surely no man had ever achieved material comfort and ecstatic delight, gratification of body and mind, at a cheaper rate. Cadogan's exquisite little dinners were as perfect in their way as Emma's caresses—and the whole establishment including the fees of the teachers of accomplishments, cost no more than a year. Emma was touchingly happy in the charming little house, she was fonder of Charles Greville than she had been of Sir Harry, he was so much kinder, such a superior being to the sporting baronet with his low tastes; she believed her master to be vastly superior to herself, and she thought all his priggish airs and cold moralizings proofs of his wisdom and goodness.
She learned from him to talk of Virtue—she did not know quite what this wonderful quality was, but she was sure that Charles Greville had it in abundance. She had neither opportunity nor temptation to be unfaithful to her lover, but she did not wish to be; he was young, personable, flattered while he taught, caressed while he admonished, and raised her self-esteem.
He had, also, with his aristocratic good looks, his charming manners, his fastidious habits captured her senses, she was as much in love with him as her nature would permit, more in love with him than his nature could understand. Greville had given his Emma, rescued from the scrap-heap, at least a superficial polish, and he wished to have his good taste and his labour applauded; he was in every thing a man of his world and he followed the fashionable course of taking his mistress to the studio of a popular painter in order that her charms might be immortalized in some modish guise.
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So Emma, one blowing blue day, tripped along gaily to No. Greville accompanied her and preceded her up the wide stair to the studio that had for long been the scene of the successful career of Francis Cotes, the charming portraitist and had for eight years been the workshop of George Romney.
Emma was carefully dressed, according to Mr. Greville's direction, in a long plain gown of white cambric, fastened under the bosom with a wide blue ribbon, with a low bodice and short sleeves; the line of the shoulders and bust was broken only by a light scarf, the girl's hair hung in ringlets round her neck and a wide Leghorn straw-hat, with a low crown shaded her face. The painter was instantly and for ever enthralled by what nature and Charles Greville had made of Amy Lyon, who, under the pretty name of Emma Hart stood meekly in the large studio at Cavendish Square.
George Romney was a melancholy man gnawed by the bitter dissatisfaction of the artist who had given up everything for art and did not find it sufficient to fill his life. When Emma was brought into his presence by her complacent protector, the painter was forty-eight years of age, dark, stooping, with blunt features, and a manner shy to uncouthness. His birth was little higher than that of the blacksmith's daughter; both were close to the English peasantry; they came, on the male side, from the same part of the country; George Romney's father had been a small statesman of Walton-in-Furness, Lancashire, who worked at cabinet-making and knew something of architecture; the painter's childhood had been passed in the North, his youth in severe study of his chosen art.
He felt keenly that his lack of education, his limited social opportunities had handicapped him as both man and artist; he had married early in life a faithful woman who had borne him two children, and whom he had left behind in the North when he started out to seek his fortune in the city; that had been twenty years ago and it was fifteen years since he had revisited Mary Romney, who remained silent, with an odd patience, in the Cumberland farm that seemed so far from London. George Romney had been successful; even when working in competition with the fashionable, genial and magnificent Sir Joshua Reynolds, he had earned enough by his portraits to enable him to travel in Italy, where he had studied his art with exhausting concentration.
The patronage of the Duke of Richmond and of Charles Greville's brother, the Earl of Warwick, had enabled him, on his return to London, to set up in the studio of Francis Cotes, and to become, with great rapidity, one of the most sought-after portraitists of the day. His life remained gloomy; apart from a few friends such as William Hayley, who flattered, pestered and bored him, and Richard Cumberland, who admired and encouraged him, he had no intimates, and he avoided acquaintances, diversions and distractions with a nervous dislike of his fellow-men and a gloomy mistrust of himself that were fast developing into hypochondria.
He had toiled for years at the development of his art with a passionate, impatient industry that had brought about the achievement of a perfect, if limited technique. Enraptured by the genius of Raphael and Titian, he remained for ever dissatisfied with his own efforts, and the studio, where Emma entered like a goddess, was littered by portfolios bulging with unfinished sketches, jottings for pictures never begun, while the walls were encumbered with incomplete canvases; some laid aside because a sitter had failed or a model not been procurable, some abandoned in mere impatience while the painter made another effort with equally short-lived enthusiasm.
He made more than a handsome income by his portraits, but the money brought him little pleasure; he was open-handed and had generously supported a talented wastrel of a brother until death had relieved him of that burden, and it concerned him little whether his portraits were paid for promptly or indeed paid for at all; and his prices never rose to more than half the fees demanded by Sir Joshua Reynolds, President of the Royal Academy, from which George Romney stood nervously aloof.
When Charles Greville took Emma to the studio in Cavendish Square, he brought much happiness to the painter and conferred a very great benefit on posterity. The Grevilles had always admired and patronized Romney who, in his Italian travels, had carried about with him a letter of introduction to Sir William Hamilton, the British Minister at Naples, written by Charles Greville but never presented by the painter, who did not go so far south; the frigid dilettante had a genuine liking for the uncouth artist with his gipsy blood, his gloomy face and his incomparable talent for depicting the robust beauty of English women and children.
Greville, who always closely supervised Emma's wardrobe, had taught her to dress in the style in which Romney painted his sitters, so that everything about his patron's mistress enchanted the artist—the girl herself and the taste with which she was set off. George Romney fell in love with Emma, with all that Emma symbolized; he had painted many fair and charming women, but so strong was his sense of an ideal beauty that he had, perhaps, unconsciously, made these sitters look much the same when he put them on canvas. In the case of Emma there was no need of this infidelity to nature that was fidelity to an inner vision, the girl was what all painters long to find, the ideal woman in human flesh and blood.
When Emma stepped on the model's block and under the careful directions of Charles Greville assumed her classic poses, Romney knew that he had met the creature necessary for the fullest expression of his art; she excited him as had Titian's canvases which he had seen in Venice, the Raphael masterpiece he had copied in Rome; she was at once a stimulus, an inspiration, a seal of his achievement—she would take his art as far as it could go.
And Emma, reading the plain, sad man's honest rapturous delight in her charms as she posed in the becoming studio light, found herself exalted, lifted out of herself, never more to be a pretty girl, a naughty girl, a girl in distress, but for ever—a beauty. Greville was well pleased with the success of his experiment; the enthusiasm of George Romney confirmed his own judgment, rewarded his labour, his expense; he was gratified to find himself the possessor of a Thais in the flesh who far outshone the pictured charmer whom he had been so proud to have on his walls.
Emma was more beautiful than Emily Bertie, more beautiful than any woman in town. Romney proclaimed this truth in canvas after canvas, in hundreds of sketches and drawings. For the first time in his sombre, lop-sided life the painter was happy, for the first time in a vagrant existence the model felt self-justification, self-respect; they combined to produce works of art that were, within definite limits, flawless.
Emma embodied Romney's faults as well as his merits; she was well within his powers of achievement; she had no charm that it was not within his perception to seize on and within his skill to reproduce. He was lucky to find a model that not only inspired but flattered his art, and she was lucky to find a painter who could celebrate her beauty with complete acquiescence in its perfection. Emma Hart, as set out by Charles Greville and painted by George Romney, was, perhaps, as completely beautiful as any woman who has ever filled a painter's imagination, and it was a beauty for every eye.
She was not the woodland lily visited by moonlight loveliness of Simonetta Vespucci, celebrated by Sandro Botticelli, that some people might have found fantastic and wan, nor the high-bred grace of the Lombard ladies with the smile of the Grecian Hermes that soothed, if it did not satisfy, the yearnings of Leonardo da Vinci.
Emma's charms neither raised nor solved any problem; she was neither wistful, tormented, nor aspiring, her fine features did not hint at any world of the spirit or at any whimsy of dreams. There was nothing of an enigma in her smooth contours, no question in her eyes, no puzzle on her lips, no subtlety in anything she did or was. Therefore she was completely within the range of George Romney, who had his yearnings after poetry and fancy, after "subject" pictures and illustrations of Shakespeare and Milton, but who never was completely successful save when dealing with the obvious graces of wholesome human nature.
Emma was the type to which he had already made some of his sitters conform; an oval face, small features in exact proportion, large dark eyes under sweeping brows, a fully curved mouth, a warm complexion richly flushed with rose, a profusion of red-brown hair, falling in heavy tresses. To these rare beauties Emma added a tall, finely shaped figure with a generously rounded bust and shoulders and swift, lovely movements. Her defects were slight; extremely young as she was, she had more the solidity of a statue than the fragility of a flower; she was large-boned and her feet were clumsy; the face was slightly too broad, the neck slightly too long.
George Romney presented her under many names but with the fewest possible accessories, a classic robe, a muslin frock, or chemise, a sash, a Leghorn hat, a scrap of cambric to embroider, a spinning-wheel by which to sit; he painted her direct from life, taking three or four sittings of an hour or so each and finishing robes, hands and details from a professional model.
He never allowed his work to be touched by pupils, and worked with great rapidity, often leaving one portrait unfinished, in his haste to begin the next. In these beloved studies his painfully acquired technique was never pushed beyond its limits; in painting Emma he was always well within the bounds of what he could do, not only easily, but almost unconsciously.
Greville was highly pleased that his mistress should be painted by so admirable and fashionable an artist, and disdained any jealousy of George Romney's open infatuation for the Emma who was partly his own creation. Her lover often accompanied her to Cavendish Square, and helped to swathe the gauze round her face, to dispose the ribbons round her waist, to tilt the broad-brimmed hat over her face; often he advised this pose or that, until Emma, under his guidance and that of the painter, could herself take a pose to admiration, simulating by the position of her limbs, the turn of her head, characters she never understood, emotions she was never to experience.
Greville was occupied with his affairs or wished for the company of his social equals, Mrs. Cadogan played the duenna and accompanied her daughter, who had suddenly become so important and so precious, from Paddington to Cavendish Square; it was all very decorous, the neat civil servant liked his Thais to have the outward gloss of an English gentlewoman; there was no touch of Sal Brazen or Moll Tawdry about Emma now.
Yet, for all that, the gossips had their say; the painter was obviously in love, the profession of the model was to be pleased with those whom she pleased—by this alone she lived, and the mother who was the servant in the establishment where her daughter was the kept woman could not be supposed to be a very vigilant guardian of female fidelity or honour. Romney, too, passed for a morose queer fellow, with a forsaken wife, whom no one had seen, who led a secretive life, who was not a gentleman nor bound by any social conventions, and who, well out of all ordinary restrictions or obligations, might do as he pleased.
Greville, who was a gentleman and had his own code, trouble himself if Emma's old giddy wildness flared up in the presence of this new admirer, a man of her own class, of something of her own experience, yet rich and famous. Think what you will, this is what the town thought, and with no peculiar cynicism—that when Emma went from Mr. Greville's house to that of George Romney, she went from one lover to another. Why should she be more faithful to Mr. Greville than to any of her former lovers, and why should George Romney resist the charms that had never been resisted before?
There might be reasons but they were not on the surface and the question was one of little matter; what was important was that a beauty had been created and endowed with as much immortality as ever falls to the lot of mortals. While Emma, who continued to behave herself to her master's liking, to study music and water-colour drawing, to keep her accounts, and to lead a very modest life in Edgeware Row, Romney painted her in at least thirty completed canvases. To these he gave haphazard titles; classicism was the fashion, and Emma's features were superbly classic, so Romney, with a little smattering of knowledge, named the poses Cassandra, Bacchante, Diana, Euphrosyne, Alope or Ariadne.
She was Sensibility ; she was painted as the Spinstress and The Seamstress , and knew how to imitate the modesty she had never known and the industry she detested. She was painted as a Wood-nymph , as Saint Cecilia , as The Comic Muse , as Nature , with a dog, with a goat, with a gazelle, in the Welsh hat of her mother's country-women, and simply as Emma. This last is the just title of all her portraits; the fancy labels make little difference, it was always Emma, in one of her poses, whom Romney painted. Much was made of Emma's marvellous change of expression, which her admirers so extolled, but neither Romney nor any other painter ever put on canvas Emma's features distorted or transfigured by real emotion; portrait after portrait shows the same smooth regular face undisturbed by any feeling, the eyes sometimes open wide, sometimes cast down, the lips sometimes parted, sometimes closed, now a look of gravity, now a smile, but never anything but the most superficial change on the flawless unlined countenance, which never showed either the dreadful grandeur of a Cassandra, or the lofty exaltation of a Joan of Arc, but a certain mildness, shallow loveliness that might pass for virginal candour.
Romney's technique was devoid of tricks; he made no dangerous experiments, as did Sir Joshua, his downright style was suited to the obvious beauty of his model, with clear steady sweeps of his facile brush, with an expert curve of a limited palette, he placed on his canvas the madders and umbers, the crimson lakes and siennas of his home-ground paints and reproduced with them the firm, rosy flesh tints, the lustrous blue-brown eyes, the auburn locks of Emma. This method suited his talent, his highly finished work was inclined to be hard, lacking in atmosphere and rather like a painting on porcelain; but in these rapid studies there was breadth and freedom, and they satisfy the eye even when they are unfinished.
In common with the portraitists of his day Romney painted his sitters in a steady studio light that cast only a pale shadow on the face and with imaginary backgrounds, like drop-cloths, that had no relation to the subjects of the picture, but which were hastily roughed in to throw up the figures to advantage.
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In his ardent studies of Emma, Romney kept to the Titian-like colourings of which he was fond, solid, rich, a golden cream, a rosy white in the carnation, fresh crimson lips, and hair varying according to the scheme of the picture, but always warm in tone, even too hot in the shadows. Sometimes the Emma pictures were clumsy in finish, the face appearing like a mask, the arms and hands boneless, the figure without structure, the drapery wooden, but this body of work represented a definite achievement in art, which must be credited to both painter and model.
Possibly the most beautiful of all these portraits of Emma is the Ariadne , an exquisite, tender painting where the simple, downcast girl in her plain English attire is as delicate as a rose-petal blown on the canvas. Romney admired what he considered a natural beauty; he disliked the great ladies of Francois Boucher, product of the dressmaker and the dancing master, the grisettes and villagers of Greuze, product of the theatre and the circulating-library novel, and he painted his Emma without frippery or adornment.
Her loveliness was indeed natural, that of the moorland, not the Court, the dairy, not the drawing-room, and even those who found it lacking in breeding, subtlety or refinement had to admit that it owed nothing to the cosmetic box, the hairdresser, the jeweller, or the costumier; Emma's beauty shone most triumphantly in a gown cut like that of a servant-maid with a yard of gauze for a scarf or a milkmaid's straw for a hat.
Romney, himself a peasant, saw no defect that needed softening in the robust and lustrous Emma, when during four years she made his life happy by posing to him, but it is possible that Charles Greville, looking at her with the critical eye of familiarity, and the detached appraisal of the expert, began to perceive the coarseness of the country-girl beneath the glow of the Hebe, the vulgarity of the servant beneath the rich outlines of the goddess; certain it is that after two years' possession of this treasure, he began to scheme how he might be rid of her with full advantage to himself.
Greville believed that his Emma loved him; she had so dutifully kept the promises she had made when he had rescued her from the squalor of Hawarden; she had never even asked for anything more than the one or two "creditable companions" he had been induced to allow her; she had worked so hard at her music, her poses, her pencil, she had jotted down so anxiously all her little items of expense. When she had had a little rash on her elbows he had sent her to the seaside with her mother, directing that her child was to accompany her; he thought that maternal emotion might give another turn to her charms; if the child was pretty what a subject for Romney!
Emma and her offspring as Motherhood or Venus and Cupid! Emma went dutifully and reluctantly from Paddington to Park-gate, trying to amuse herself with little Emma as the child was named, but all the while yearning to be home again with an impatience very gratifying to her lover. The distant coast was dull indeed after the cosy life in London; and the contrast was the sharper as a new and delightful companion had lately enlivened the neat establishment at Edgeware Row; one who amused and flattered Emma and admired her with open, if respectful, rapture.
Greville's wealthy and famous uncle, Sir William Hamilton, was on leave from his post at Naples and a frequent visitor at Paddington, he had been very flattering to "the fair tea-maker" as Mr. Greville named his mistress and she had found him delightfully kind and entertaining. Greville's mother; Sir William was descended from two branches of the noble and ancient family whose name he bore, but had not inherited any great wealth. Pursuing fortune on the field of glory, he had served in the Foot Guards under Prince Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, until delayed promotion caused him to resign his commission in disgust.
At the age of twenty-eight, it seemed prudent to him to marry an heiress, though this was, in his own words, "something against his inclination. Greville, who had for some years been tacitly regarded as his uncle's heir, was disturbed by the persistent rumours that Sir William, with his tidy little fortune, his elegant sinecure at Naples, his fine manners and well-preserved charms, would soon contract a second marriage. This growing anxiety was hidden under the cold serenity of the young man, when he sent Emma off to cure the rash on her elbows in her native air and doubtless absorbed him so much that he was not able to answer her loving letters with the promptitude their devotion deserved, though the post was something to blame for the delays that distracted Emma.
The truth was, that, despite his removal to Paddington from Portman Square, despite Emma's care with the pence and Mrs. Cadogan's kitchen economies, Mr.
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Charles Greville was in money difficulties. And there was no sign that the long-promised Government sinecure was coming his way. Marriage with an heiress was the obvious solution to this difficulty, but nothing less than a fortune of 20, to 30, would do, and this was not so easily to be found. Greville accompanied his uncle on visits to the great houses where these gentlemen were welcome guests and confided to him his situation—his inevitable debts, the inevitable crisis ahead—a state of affairs by no means his own fault since he had lived so prudently, indulging even his antiquarian tastes very cheaply.
With these same tastes Sir William had every sympathy; he was himself a most distinguished virtuoso with a taste for the more sensational aspects of science; he had ascended Vesuvius twenty-four times, visited Etna and written a book on volcanoes and in he had presented to the British Museum a collection of volcanic earths and minerals. Foster-brother of George III and an intimate of the Royal Family, Sir William Hamilton had used his influence with the Prince of Wales to obtain a pension of a year for a certain Father Antonio Piaggi; this he had increased by the same amount from his own pocket and had employed the learned monk to work on the Herculaneum papyri.
Taking advantage of his comfortable income, his fine taste, his position as British Minister at Naples, Sir William had enriched his country with the Porticinari collection of Greek vases, which he had purchased in , added to, and sold at a handsome profit for over 8, to the British Museum. He was at present engaged in forming another collection of vases found in Sicilian tombs, which he hoped to dispose of for a handsome sum to the King of Prussia.
Sir William possessed, not merely an eye for a bargain, but an eye for beauty, grace and fitness, and he had added to his enthusiasm a careful knowledge; his high position among the cognoscenti of his day had been recognized by an appreciative Government; the Star and Ribbon of the Order of the Bath had brought him his title and the most fastidious of learned English societies had been honoured to receive him as a member; he was a Fellow of the Royal Society, of the Society of Antiquaries, and a member of the Dilettante ; a man of the world, well-bred, tactful, amiable and used to making himself acceptable to the frivolous and the ignorant.
Sir William was nothing of a pedant, and had indeed trained his monkey to quizz through a glass at a statue or a coin in mockery of the dry antiquaries who wearied with their inelegant jargon. Beauty was Sir William's idol, that beauty which, as Leonardo da Vinci wrote, passes nature and becomes art; he received the most exquisite pleasure from painting, sculpture, music, fine scenery, poetry and all objects of virtu ; in particular he was enamoured of the rich grace and vivid colourings of the mural designs being brought to light as the once gay city of Pompeii was excavated from the lava of centuries, and of the voluptuous shapes and precise features of the statues being discovered in distracting profusion on the sites of ancient cities and patrician villas in Italy.
Sir William, who had already resided twenty years at Naples, was Italianate to the core, and his antiquarian researches had produced in him the same kind of renaissance as the discovery of classic treasures had created in the refined minds of the fifteenth century; everything with him, in order to be tolerated, must be antique, and he was as much at home with the dancing-girls and nymphs of the Pompeian frescoes as with the tight-laced, powdered ladies of his own world.
For the rest, he was a Sybarite, with no strong feelings, who had never experienced a powerful emotion, bon viveur , an expert in fastidious pleasures, alive to all the tricks and tones of an idle aristocratic society, inoffensive, never meaning any harm, loyal to a gentleman's indefinable code of honour, and perfectly satisfied with the golden sinecure his embassy represented. His modest ambitions had all been fulfilled; he was not vexed that he had been passed over when important posts were being assigned to likely diplomats, nor stung by the fact that, had his talents been brighter, or his zeal more striking, he would not have been left so long at a Court which was off the political map.
Indeed, the elegant Scotsman was only too happy to be left in his brilliant backwater; he was credited with the saying: In appearance he was tall, well made, with features like those of his nephew, Charles Greville, neat and ordinary, but set off by powder, curls, ribbons and smiles, to appear quite distinguished.
His manners were lively, racy with the gentlemen, arch with the ladies, and flattering to everyone. He did not deceive himself when he glanced in his mirror and thought that he appeared no more than in the prime of life. He had always tried to balance self-indulgence with prudence whenever prudence was not too galling; in his military youth, his elegant debauchery had gone with a healthy devotion to athletics; he was a good horseman, a graceful dancer, and when in Naples obtained exercise by slaughtering animals in the great battues in the royal parks.
In brief, Sir William Hamilton put up a very fine appearance indeed, was a vast credit to his class, his country, his family, fulfilled strictly all the obligations the world required of a fine gentleman, and was everywhere admired. But the brilliancy, both of appearance and of attainments, was only superficial; behind that smooth fagade of wit and taste, there was fast setting in a rapid decay of a feeble character; behind that air of vigour were many symptoms of encroaching ill-health.
Sir William, who appeared so jocund, so youthful at fifty-five, was in reality fast approaching premature senility. Emma had enraptured her lover's uncle; he had rather enviously congratulated Mr. Greville on the possession of a real treasure; Charles simpering a little over his good taste had declared: But Sir William's praise went higher—"She is better than anything in nature, she is as good as anything to be found in antique art. He gazed enthralled as this Pompeian nymph in flesh and blood posed for him in the attitudes which Mr.
Greville and George Romney had taught her—a shawl, a tambourine, a tossing of a fleece of rich curls, a downward or an upward glance, and the enraptured connoisseur gazed at one of his favourite statues come to life, with as much enthusiasm as ever Pygmalion watched his Galatea throb from alabaster into flesh. In the studio in Cavendish Square he admired the brilliant canvases on which the gloomy painter had cast the radiance of glowing young womanhood.
The ageing gentleman was in every way pleased, in his artistic taste, in his classical knowledge, in his old man's relish for a bouncing merry wench; why this was Ariadne, Cassandra, Diana, Alope, the Comic Muse!