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

the enforced and hurried parting from the larger portion of his carefully collected treasures. In one of her letters his wife says, " We have left everything at Naples but the vases and best pictures. 3 houses elegantly furnished, all our horses and our 6 or 7 carriages, I think is enough for the vile French. For we cou'd not get our things off, not to betray the royal family." Some of the most valuable things in the collection, which had been packed to send to England were lost at sea in the Colossus. In later years, when appealing for a pension, Emma made some extravagant statements as to her own and her husband's losses: " When the many, I may say hair-breadth risks, we ran in our escapes are considered, it must be obvious that to cover and colour our proceedings we were compelled to abandon our houses and our valuables as they stood, without venturing to remove a single article. My own private property thus left, to effect this great purpose, was little if any short of ,£9,000, and Sir William's not less than ,£30,000, which sum, had he bequeathed, might naturally have been willed to me in whole or part." It is exceedingly unlikely that Emma's private property, which would consist principally of dresses and jewels, came anywhere near the sum she set down. She certainly saved a portion

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of her things, and any loss she suffered was fully made up by the Queen's lavish generosity. As! to Sir William, though he undoubtedly lost seriously in the Coloss^is, that was owing to the hand of accident, and not to voluntary abandonment in a "great purpose," as Emma, always emotional and inaccurate, claims.

Nelson and the Hamiltons shared a house at Palermo, Nelson paying fully his share of the expenses, for when they all returned to England together, in 1800, Sir William owed the admiral ^2000.It was probably in thus setting up house together— Tria juncta in uno,as both Sir William and Emma were fond of calling their three-sided friendship—that the first faint breaths of scandal began to dim the shining mirror of Nelson's fame.No doubt Emma's fine conduct during the stormy passage from Naples tc Palermo had made a considerable impressioi upon Nelson, who loved courage, especially whei joined to such " feeling sensibility " and lovelinej as Lady Hamilton's.In his letters of this tim< she is wreathed in many adjectives." Our deai Lady Hamilton," he calls her in one of thei "whom to see is to admire, but, to know, are be added honour and respect; her head and he; surpass her beauty, which cannot be equalled b] anything I have seen."In his letters to his wife he praised the fascinating Emma with moi warmth than wisdom.Some time before the

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flight to Palermo Lady Nelson had shown signs of uneasiness, and expressed her wish to come out and join him. It is very plain that Nelson would have found her a burthen on his hands, for in rebuking her for the very natural suggestion he says, "You would by February have seen how unpleasant it would have been had you followed any advice which carried you from England to a wandering sailor. I could, if you had come, only have struck my flag, and carried you back again, for it would have been impossible to have set up an establishment at either Naples or Palermo. 0

It is a little difficult to see where the impossibility comes in. If he could set up house with Sir William and Lady Hamilton, why not with his own much more frugal and careful wife ? But already he was slipping almost unconsciously into the toils—to his battle-wearied frame and craving heart the enchantment of Emma's sympathetic adoration was potent. On her side the enchantment she wielded was almost as unconscious as his yielding to it; nature gave her the spell, and it was as natural to her to use it as to breathe or smile.

From Palermo onwards may be traced a certain slackening of moral fibre in Nelson—he is no longer quite the same Nelson we have known. This is said with reserve and a recognition of its seriousness, but the fact remains.

He is as lovable as ever, and more pitiable; as a o

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sea-officer his genius knows no dimming till his sun goes down in splendour off Cape Trafalgar; but as a man he is henceforth to know a moral struggle and a moral defeat to which he had hitherto been a stranger. Captain Mahan's verdict, if severe, is substantially just, and it is trifling with the truth to pretend otherwise. " The glory of the hero," he says, " brought a temptation which wrecked the happiness of the man. The loss of serenity, the dark evidences of inward conflict, of yielding against conviction, of consequent dissatisfaction with self and gradual deterioration, make between his past and future a break as clear as, and far sharper than, the startling increase of radiancy that attends the Battle of the Nile, and thenceforth shines with undiminished intensity to the end. The lustre of his well-deserved and worldwide renown, the consistency and ever-rising merit of his professional conduct, contrast painfully with the shadows of reprobation, the swerving, and the declension, which begin to attend a life heretofore conformed, in the general, to healthy normal standards of right and wrong."

Under the combined influence of Lady Hamilton and the Queen of Naples, Nelson consented to fetter himself with promises—a thing he would have scorned a