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

as an adversary to be crushed, instead of a woman wronged in her tenderest feelings. Sir William Hotham, who knew her, said, "His conduct to Lady Nelson was the very extreme of unjustifiable weakness, for he should

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at least have attempted to conceal his infirmities, without publiclywounding the feelings of a woman whose own conduct he well knew was irreproachable." In attempted justification of her own and Nelson's conduct, Emma Hamilton laid stress on Lady Nelson's temper, declaring that it drove her Lord into wandering wretchedly all one night through the streets of London, till at last in his despair he sought refuge at her and Sir William's house in Grosvenor Square.The story may have some truth in it, but it bears evident marks of exaggeration.And if Frances Nelson was driven to tears, reproaches, anger, was it surprising ?Maybe it was not the way to win back her husband's strayed affection, but it was the way that many a woman, more loving than wise, has been driven to in similar wretched circumstances.Her spirit, her self-respect, her very affection as a good wife, forbade her to submit silently.Nelson had made her a peeress, but such an honour proved paltry when the giver proved unkind.Lady Nelson was not a specially large-souled or large-hearted woman, but at least she was above the meanness of being content with worldly advantages when the very spirit and essence which would have made them sweet was withdrawn.

But his wife's sufferings and his wife's wrongs were microscopic in Nelson's eyes. For him it was Emma, and nothing but Emma, His honour

gone awry and falsely true, he felt it necessary, as Miss Cornelia Knight says in her "Autobiography," "to devote himself more and more to Lady Hamilton, for the purpose of what he called supporting her." All the deeper tenderness of his nature, all the passionate desire—which had hitherto gone unsatisfied—for a child of his own, was called out by the fact that Emma was expecting shortly to become a mother. So with the object of " supporting " her, and in almost direct insult to his own wife, Nelson went with her and Sir William Hamilton to spend Christmas with " Vathek " Beckford at Fonthill Abbey, leaving Lady Nelson behind in lodgings at Arlington Street. This is perhaps the most callous action of which Nelson was ever guilty ; and yet it was not deliberate cruelty to his wife, but the blind passion which put Emma and her need before all the world.

William Beckford was naturally anxious to welcome the Hero of the Nile to his house, and a flavour of scandal in the attendant circumstances mattered little to him. On the 24th of November he wrote to Lady Hamilton and said, " I exist in the hopes of seeing Fonthill honoured by his victorious presence, and if his engagements permit his accompanying you here, we shall enjoy a few comfortable days of repose, uncon-taminated by the sight and prattle of drawing-room parasites." While Emma could procure

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him any advantages, he did not scruple to address her with extravagant flattery, speaking of her as a " superior being," and saying, " You must shine steadily. . . . That light alone which beams from your image, ever before my fancy, like a vision of the Madonna della Gloria, keeps my eyes sufficiently open to subscribe myself with

tolerable distinctness ." But his real opinion

of the beauty came out many years later in his " Memoirs," where, replying to the question whether Lady Hamilton was a fascinating woman, he says—

" I never thought her so. She was somewhat masculine, but symmetrical in figure, so that Sir William called her his Grecian. She was full in person, not fat, but embonpoint. Her carriage often majestic, rather than feminine. Not at all delicate, ill-bred, often very affected, a devil in temper when set on edge. She had beautiful hair and displayed it. Her countenance was agreeable,—fine, hardly beautiful, but the outline excellent. She affected sensibility, but felt none—was artful; and no wonder, she had been trained in the Court of Naples—a fine school for an English woman of any stamp. Nelson was infatuated. She could make him believe anything."

The strain of such a situation could not go on indefinitely, though it appears that Lady Nelson consented to overlook her husband's conduct in

I

AS "CIRCE"

GEORGE RO.MNEY

visiting Fonthill Abbey with Emma, for after his return they still lived together for a time in Arlington Street. Lord Nelson's solicitor, i William Haslewood, was present when the final rupture came.

" In the winter of 1800, 1801," he says, " I was breakfasting with Lord and Lady Nelson, at their lodgings in Arlington Street, and a cheerful conversation was passing on indifferent subjects, when Lord Nelson spoke of something which had been done or said by ' dear Lady Hamilton;' upon which Lady Nelson rose from her chair, and exclaimed, with much vehemence, * I am sick of hearing of dear Lady Hamilton, and am resolved that you shall give up either her or me/ Lord Nelson, with perfect calmness, said: 'Take care, Fanny, what you say. I love you sincerely; but I cannot forget my obligations to Lady Hamilton, or speak of her otherwise than with affection and admiration/ Without one soothing word or gesture, but muttering something about her mind being made up, Lady Nelson left the room, and shortly after drove from the house. They never lived together again."

Such was the end of the marriage founded on "esteem." Nelson