Nelson's Lady Hamilton by Meynell, Esther (surface ebook reader txt) 📕

fury of nature. For me, I was enraptured. I could have staid all night there, and I have never been in charity with the moon since, for it looked so pale and sickly; and the red-hot lava served to light up the moon, for the light of the moon was nothing to the lava. We met the Prince Royal on the mountain. But his foolish tuters onely took him up a little whay, and did not lett him stay 3 minuets; so, when we asked him how he liked it, he said, * Bella ma poca roba,' when, if they had took him five hundred yards higher, he would have seen the noblest, sublimest

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sight in the world. But, poor creatures, the[y] were frightened out of their sences, and glad to make a hasty retreat.—O, I shall kill my selfe with laughing! Their has been a prince paying us a visit. He is sixty years of age, one of the first families, and as all ways lived at Naples, and when I told him I had been to Caprea, he asked me if I went there by land. Only think, what ignorance! I staired at him and asked him who was his tutor."

It was very delightful to this daughter of a village blacksmith to be able to " stair " at princes and ask them who was responsible for their amazing ignorance! It was delightful, also, to be entertained as the guest of honour on board a Dutch man-of-war. She describes everything for Greville's benefit in the same lengthy letter—

" There was the Comodore, and the Captain and four more of the first officers waited to conduct ous to the ship. The 2 ships was dress'd out so fine in all the collowrs; the men all put in order; a band of musick and all the marrine did their duty, and when we went on board, twenty peices of cannon fired. But as we past the frigate, she fired all her guns, that I wish you had seen it. We sett down thirty to dine,— me at the head of the table, mistress of the feast, drest all in virgin white and my hair all in rinlgets, reaching allmost to my heals. I asure you it is so long, that I realy look'd and moved amongst

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it, Sir William said so. That night there was a great opera at St. Carlo's, in honor of the King of Spain's name-day. So St. Carlos was illu-manated, and everybody in great galla. Well, I had the finest dress made up on purpose, as I had a box near the King and Queen. My gown was purple sattin, wite sattin peticoat trimd with crape and spangles. My cap lovely, from Paris, all white fethers. My hair was to have been delightfully dres'd, as I have a very good hairdresser. But for me unfortunately, the diner on board did not finish tell half-past-five, English. Then the Comodore would have another bottle to drink to the loveliest whoman in the world, as the[y] cald me at least. I whispered to Sir William and told him I should be angry with him, if he did not get up to go, as we was to dress, and it was necessary to be at the theatre before the royal party. So at last the[y] put out the boat, to offer a salute from the 2 ships of all the guns. We arrived on shoar with the Comodore and five princapal officers, and in we all crowd into our coach, which is large. We just got in time to the Opera. The Comodore went with ous, and the officers came next and attended my box all the time, and behaved to me as tho' I was a Queen."

Emma's own letters and all the personal records of this time give the most brilliant picture of her success—she quotes with much satisfaction

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the praise of Prince Dietrichstein, " he says I am a dymond of the first watter, and the finest creature on the hearth." The praise of princes is not necessarily worth much, but in spite of her vanity there was a sort of native sweetness and overflowing kindness in Emma that won the praise of others than princes — servants and peasants loved her, good old priests and a whole convent-full of nuns were quite enchanted with her, and in spite of her reprehensible position and her amazing beauty society ladies admired and liked her, even when her unaided eyes outshone their diamonds, and her simple " wite sattin" put their expensive splendours in the shade. It was a real triumph for Emma—won by tact and an unaffected warm heart. Ladies of fashion, as a rule, are very merciless to a woman in the " Signora Hart's " position. Slights and stabs no doubt she had to endure, but they were comparatively few, and the real wonder is that her head was not completely turned by all the adulation she received. The Empress of Russia commissioned her portrait; and when Madame Vigee Le Brun, flying from distracted France, came to Naples, Sir William Hamilton invited her to paint his "fair Grecian," as he called Emma. She was painted once more as a Bacchante, resting on a leopard-skin in a cave by the sea, a wine-cup in her hand. It lacks the wild-wood grace and radiant charm of Romney's

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portraits, and is a little heavy. But though not conspicuously successful in the picture, Madame Le Brun described her looks with admiration, " Her lovely face was very animated. She had an enormous quantity of beautiful chestnut hair, which, when loose, completely covered her : thus, as a Bacchante, she was perfect."

But Emma