On Michaelmas-day in the year 1758, the wife of the rector of Burnham
Thorpe was delivered of a sickly boy. At that moment Anson was in
command of the Channel fleet, and there were old men then in England
who had seen Prince Rupert. Exactly a quarter of a century had elapsed
since Admiral Byng had surrendered life. Russell, who beat Tourville
at La Hogue, had been asleep in the grave for more than thirty years.
Churchill, and Dilkes, the terror of Frenchmen and Spaniards in his
day, had been at rest for just half a century. These were great men;
but in 1758 a greater than all was born in the quiet rectory of
Burnham Thorpe. That feeble boy, accepted and tolerated rather than
welcomed and cherished, grew up in the possession of all the virtues
of the above heroes and with but few of their failings: he had the
dashing spirit of Rupert without his imprudence: he possessed the
wisdom and valour of Byng without his cold-heartedness: he was as
persevering as Anson and in no wise so foolish—as rapid as Russell,
but not so rapacious: he was even more enterprising and successful
than Dilkes; and, as with the gallant brother of Marlborough, his
services claimed high honours long before he obtained them. This puny
fragile child, born to achieve such greatness—this almost neglected
son of a Norfolk parson, and, by his mother, grandson of a Westminster
prebendary—designed, as it were, by nature to be a student, ‘sicklied
o’er with the pale cast of thought,’ and to cultivate learned leisure
in trim gardens—this feeble instrument was born with a great mission:
let the splendour of its fulfilment make us forgetful of his very few
errors!
Yes: when he first saw the light there were old men in England who had
seen Prince Rupert beneath the beeches at Windsor. It was but the other
day that Nelson’s sister died. Thus is he connected with two periods
when the people were at issue with sovereigns: his figure stands
half-way between the time, when Roundheads were assailing cavaliers and
royalty; and the present period, when democracy, more despotic than
any aristocracy, is again howling at palace gates and the hearths of
nobles. In his own days the same struggle was going on; but the scene
of the struggle was not now within our boundary of home. He was the
great champion of royalty, and never had crowned king so unconquerable
a champion as he. There was not a democrat abroad who did not hate
his name as much as he feared it. For the French democrats his own
hatred was in equal measure intense; and, if it be suggested that his
contempt was not less intense for French aristocrats, we answer that
he lived at a period when the vices, the selfishness, and the tyranny
of that aristocracy justified the insurrection, which annihilated one
bad system to give temporary life to a worse. He did not despise the
dissolute men and the more dissolute women of Naples less than he
despised the French; but, in supporting the one and destroying the
other, he was the great antagonist of anarchy, and the great promoter
of order at home. Loyalty here flourished by the blood of his
victories. The veriest would-be rebel in England was proud of the pale
warrior whose feeble arm upheld a world of thrones; a defeat at Aboukir
might have made him a Republican. But we are hurried from Nelson’s
cradle to his glories and his grave. Let us sketch his wondrous career
in a more orderly spirit.
She who bore the perils of his birth did not survive to be glad at
his greatness. At nine, Nelson was motherless—at twelve he quitted
school—and some of his playfellows were yet launching their paper
galleons on Norfolk ponds when Nelson had gained respect and reputation
for his name. A trip of a few brief months’ duration with his maternal
uncle, Captain Suckling, just introduced him to naval life without
affording him instruction. The latter he derived under Captain John
Rathborn, a naval officer, engaged for the time in the West India
trade, under whom Nelson acquired a thorough acquaintance with
practical seamanship, and was ever ready to acknowledge his obligation.
The writer of this acknowledges his pride, too, in telling his son
that his mother is the granddaughter of Nelson’s tutor. Horatio began
his real service in the royal navy by entering the Triumph, rated
as ‘captain’s servant.’ In a year or so he became midshipman, the
duties of which office he efficiently performed during four or five
years on board the same vessel, and in the Carcass, the Seahorse,
and the Dolphin. During this period, he saw active service in every
climate, from the North Pole to Bagdad and Bussorah. We next find him
as lieutenant on board the Worcester and the Lowestoft. While on
board the last-mentioned vessel he made his first prize, gallantly
boarding and capturing an American privateer, from an attempt at
which the first lieutenant had retired unsuccessful; and this was
accomplished when he was only nineteen years of age! So fond was he
of this branch of his profession that he changed to the schooner
Lucy, with a sort of roving commission, of which the American traders
soon became tremblingly conscious. He subsequently served in the
Bristol (the flag-ship of Sir Peter Parker), in the three degrees of
lieutenancy; and, in 1778, ere he was yet twenty, the boy was captain
of the Badger brig, and with men eager to obey him. But his just
ambition was not yet satisfied; and when in his twenty-first year
he had the delight of finding himself posted, and in command of the
Hinchinbrook, his whole course of daring and dangerous service in
the Gulf of Mexico plainly manifested that he was ever keeping in view
that ‘top of the tree,’ whose leafy honours first invited him from his
father’s rectory. The service alluded to seriously affected his own
health and cost the lives of one hundred and ninety out of his crew
of two hundred men. On his return home he rested at Bath for a year.
He had no long leisure to be ill, for the following year saw him in
the old French Albemarle, carrying terror along the Spanish main.
In 1782, he was employed in convoy service; and, having occasionally
some idle time on shore at Quebec, the young commander got into
mischief—that is, he fell most imprudently into love. His friends
carried him by violence on board: the sea air cured his passion; and
his lucky joining with Hood’s fleet and his subsequent busy time in the
West Indies effectually kept his thoughts from any lady then on land.
It was at this period that he became known to the Duke of Clarence. The
royal sailor thought him the merest boy of a captain that had ever been
seen, and could not but laugh at the gigantic and endless queue that
hung down his back and seemed to be pulling all the lank unpowdered
hair off his head after it. But this plain-looking and youthful
commander was then remarkable for being as well acquainted with all
naval matters as the oldest and most experienced captain in the fleet.
The piping time of peace put him for a season on half-pay. A portion of
1783, and of the year following it, was passed in France. With idleness
came evil; and, having nothing better to do, Nelson fell desperately in
love with the dowerless daughter of an English clergyman, who, there is
some reason to believe, was little affected by the magic he could offer
her of half-pay and love in a cottage. The sea again stood his friend.
In 1784, the Boreas carried him to the Leeward Islands, where, at
great risk of purse and person, he was actively engaged in supporting
those Navigation Laws which our modern Whigs have so ruthlessly
abolished.
In this matter (says Dr. Pettigrew) he was also opposed by
Major-General Sir T. Shirly, the governor of the Leeward Islands,
who took in dudgeon the advice of Nelson, and assured him that
old generals were not in the habit of taking advice from young
gentlemen. Upon which Nelson, with much promptitude and ingenuity,
replied—‘Sir, I am as old as the Prime Minister of England, and
think myself as capable of commanding one of his Majesty’s ships
as that Minister is of governing the State.’
He was engaged in putting down the illicit traffic sought to be carried
on by the Americans (whom successful rebellion had made foreigners) in
the West Indies, and also in dragging into light the frauds practised
by some English officials of no inconsiderable dignity in the islands.
He succeeded in all he undertook, but got small thanks and no profit
for any service which, in this respect, he rendered to his country.
He was much on shore, too; and it is a fact that his foot no sooner
touched the land than his good genius left him. He fell in love with a
widow; and, what is much worse, married her. In the island of Nevis he
became acquainted with Mrs. Nisbet, the widow of a surgeon who had died
insane a year and a half after their marriage, leaving her with one
son, Josiah, who subsequently owed so much to Nelson and thanked him so
little for it. At this time the captain of the Boreas was a man at
whom Fame held her finger; he never drank wine save to the healths of
his sovereign, the royal family, and his admiral, and these were always
bumper toasts to him. He was reserved, grave, and silent; and it was
only occasional flashes that gave evidence of the brilliancy within.
The narrow-minded people of Nevis could not make him out; and Mrs.
Nisbet was set at him, as she was expected to make something of him,
because ‘she had been in the habit of attending to such odd sort of
people.’ Unfortunately she made a husband of him. She, perhaps, thought
it a condescension to marry a man who was of ‘puny constitution—who
was reduced to a skeleton—and who put his hopes of recovery in
asses’ milk and doctors.’ However this may be, she never looked upon
him as a hero, nor was she worthy of being a hero’s wife. She would
have been exemplary as the spouse of a village apothecary: she was
highly virtuous, very respectable, and exceedingly ill-tempered. The
ill-assorted pair were united in 1786: they reached England in 1787, in
which year Nelson was kept for months on board his ship at Sheerness,
merely taking in slops and lodging pressed seamen. And then ensued the
quietest six years of his life: they were passed at Burnham Thorpe, and
they were got through with tolerably good success. As a quiet country
couple, there was nothing to disturb their stagnant felicity. Nelson
busied himself in gardening, getting birds’ nests, and fretting for
employment.
It came in 1793; when in place of capturing birds’ nests, Nelson, in
the Agamemnon, was with the fleet at the capture of Toulon, its
forts, and its navy. But other things came in 1793, too. Nelson was
sent to Naples with despatches for our Minister, Sir William Hamilton.
He was much on shore, and mischief came of it, of course. Sir William
told his wife, the too famous, too erring, and yet much sinned-against
Lady Hamilton, that a little man was coming to dine with him who was
infirm and ill-looking, but who had in him the stuff of a hero, and
who was undoubtedly destined to be the man for the difficulties
coming. If Emma Hamilton loved a virtue it was that of courage and
ability in man: she loved heroes, and her ardent feelings were soon
interested in Nelson.
From this period we must speak more generally of Nelson’s great deeds
that we may have fuller space to treat of matters less known, and in
the revealing of which lie the chief merit and the chief recommendation
of Dr. Pettigrew’s excellent volumes. Lord Howe appointed him (over
five senior captains) to blockade Genoa. In 1794 he was active against
the French in Corsica, and his men so entered into his own spirit that,
as he said himself, they minded shot no more than peas. But for him,
Bastia would not have been taken, nor perhaps Calvi, where he received
the injury to his right eye which ultimately deprived it of sight.
His labour was incessant and his health most wretched; but he was too
busy to be invalided. ‘The plan I pursue (said he) is never to employ
a doctor;’ and, consequently, though he was ill, he kept himself from
the peril of growing worse. In 1795 he had his first ‘brush’ with the
French fleet. He thus modestly calls a battle, in which he laid the
Agamemnon between the Ça Ira and the Censeur and forced both to
yield. The former was large enough to put the Agamemnon in her hold.
He was now fully in that vein of conquest which never left him when a
French vessel was before him as an antagonist. He now dared to disobey
orders when he judged that circumstances authorised him, and he was no
bad judge. He had by this time been engaged one hundred times—he was
literally the hero of a hundred fights. His ship when docked, in order
to be refitted, had neither mast, yard, sail, or rigging, that did not
need repair in consequence of the shot she had received: her hull had
long been secured by cables sewed around her. Nelson exhibited such
discretion in disobeying orders, and success so invariably followed
action that resulted from judgment of his own, that at length his
admirals ceased to give him any close orders at all. Sir John Jervis
left him to act as he thought best: the result was that, in two years,
Nelson captured fifty French vessels; and the navy itself, under
Jervis and his pale captain, became perfectly invincible. Up to 1797
victory followed victory: there was abundance of honour and salt-beef;
but neither prize-money nor even notice in the ‘Gazette.’ He consoled
himself by saying that he would one day have a ‘Gazette’ of his own and
all to himself. He had well-nigh deserved it for the crowning fight
at St. Vincent: he was in the thickest of the struggle where the odds
against us were twenty-seven to fifteen. It made Jervis an earl and
Nelson a knight, and it opened a new era in naval strategy; for never
from that day has British captain bent upon victory paused to count his
enemy, or deferred his triumph in calculating the disparity of power
except Lord Gambier at Aix.
Honours were both lavished on, and conferred by, the frail conqueror
of the San Josef and the San Nicolas. Corporations flung their
municipal freedoms at his feet, and gave him endless invitations to
dinner. The only thing that he ever designated as dreadful was
meeting a provincial mayor and alderman! They voted him more swords
than he could ever hope to employ; but they were all outweighed by
that which he himself presented to the Corporation of Norwich—the
sword which had been surrendered to him by his gallant but vanquished
foe on board the San Josef. Norwich will be proud of her trophy
when no memory remains of her crapes and bombazeens or of the fair
forms that wore them. The Government, too, made him rear-admiral of
the blue. He was not an idle one: he went to sea in the Theseus
surrounded by men whose hearts, though turbulent, beat in unison
with the pulsations of his own: he twice bombarded Cadiz—lost his
right arm before Teneriffe—reposed awhile at Bath to recruit his
strength—received some pecuniary reward for the loss of it; and, after
publicly thanking the Almighty for all His mercies and acknowledging
the lightness of His visitations, was again entrusted to save his
country by destroying the then enemies of all mankind. With a squadron
of observation he scoured the Mediterranean, and after a search
unparalleled in its nature, and carrying despair to every heart but
his own, he came upon the French at Aboukir and made 1798 for ever
memorable in England by the well-won victory which he achieved at
the Nile. If honours poured on him after the affair at St. Vincent,
they descended now in an avalanche. His king made him a peer who
among men was peerless. Parliament thanked him: the nation adored
him. Russia endowed him with coloured ribbands—the Sultana stuffed
his mouth with sugar-candy—public companies enrolled him among their
members. ‘Nelson-squares,’ and ‘streets,’ and ‘terraces,’ arose without
number; and curates were weary of christening an endless succession of
Horatios. As for Naples, which country he had saved from the very jaws
of the French, the people there when he landed nearly killed him with
kindness, and did all but devour him. The king, queen, and the entire
court, kissed his very feet. He turned with something like disgust from
all their homage, and his honest tongue confessed that he despised
those whom it was his duty to save, and that he loathed in his very
soul the entire court, if not the universal people. He designated the
men as scoundrels: the women were what the author of the old ballad of
‘Nancy Dawson’ says that well-known lady was, and they cared as little
to keep it from their neighbours; and he brushed away the imprecation
on his lips, launched against the Neapolitan ladies, to kiss the hand
of Emma Hamilton! But there was a distinction, though we are not
going to show where it lay.
From the same year to that which closed the century, 1800, his presence
was all but ubiquitous in the Mediterranean, and his name was uttered
with awe and reverence all over the world. Within this period he
became rear-admiral of the red, and Naples made him Duke of Bronté,
in return for his having saved the nation from entire destruction.
Within the same period is on record that dark event connected with the
name of Carracciolo, to which we will hereafter allude: let it suffice
to say here that after sweeping the Mediterranean of the enemies of
England, and doing a world of good to those who were not worthy of
being reckoned her friends—after executing all entrusted to him to
accomplish, and rendering the name of England a tower of strength and
pride throughout the world—Nelson returned home across Europe. He did
not set out without first writing a sensible letter to the Pope, whom
he had restored to Rome, in better fashion than Oudinot lately followed
in behalf of Pio Nono. According to the prophecy of honest old Father
M’Cormick, Nelson may be said to have taken Rome with his ships—a feat
of which he reminds the Pope and remains his ‘very obedient servant.’
That his progress from Leghorn to Hamburgh was one of such triumph
as the world had never seen may be readily believed; for no human
being had ever deserved such ovation. When he landed at Yarmouth the
earth seemed to heave to salute him. Myriads of men blessed him, wept
over him, hailed him with shouts—in the warmth of their welcome they
did all but pay him divine honours. And his wife—how did she spring
forward in exultation and enduring love, impatient to meet the boat
that bore her heroic husband? Alas! Lady Nelson was quietly awaiting
his arrival at Nerot’s hotel in town, and so cold and unsatisfactory
was her greeting when the idol of the nation stepped into her presence
that the incense of London adulation must have proved savoury by
comparison.
Ere he had leisure to sun his laurels he was again afloat, and in
the first year of the present century he passed the wild and stormy
steep of Elsinore. The battle was a Titanic struggle, and giants of
the same blood grappled with each other. Equal was the valour, and if
our compelled rather than willing foes had the advantage in means of
assault the better wisdom was ours, without which prowess is but a
flail apt to wound the skull of him who wields it. The battle of the
Baltic, so gigantically fought and inimitably won, placed on Nelson’s
brow the coronet of a viscount; but he did not quit the Baltic until
he had fluttered the Russian fleet at Revel, and, when he returned to
give a report of his mission accomplished, England already needed him
for the fulfilment of another. Napoleon was at Boulogne, and, with a
French army, threatening invasion. What the feeling of the times was in
the parsonages on the Sussex coast—is it not written in the letters
of Peter Plimley? What Nelson’s feelings were may be divined from that
saying of his, that the French might come any way they pleased, but
that they should not come by sea! England trusted him, and he kept
his word as far as in him lay. If he did not destroy the Boulogne
flotilla, he at least demonstrated that it could not issue from harbour
without his permission nor put out to sea without being destroyed.
Boulogne has, in some degree, benefited by the rough messengers which
he flung into the port as visiting cards to intimate that he and his
followers were outside. Some hundred weights of good English iron were
projected into the town, and out of them are the gaspipes constructed
which are now laid down in the Bassa Ville and the suburb of Capecure!
While thus giving peace to innumerable homes in England, he was
ever, amidst war’s loudest thunder, endeavouring to found a home
of peace for himself: that home was at Merton, in Surrey, where it
was vouchsafed to him for a very brief season. The name of Merton is
more closely connected with great men and great acts than many of
our readers may be aware, and it was the fitting resting-place for a
man who desired to gain breathing time between his heroic deeds. It
was the birthplace of that Walter de Merton to whose liberality some
of our readers may possibly be indebted for the instruction they may
have received at Oxford—not that Merton College has been very famous
for turning out good, at least great, scholars. According to a witty
master of that College, it ought to have possessed more learning than
any other in the University; for, said he, ‘many scholars brought much
knowledge there and left it all behind them.’ Their founder, however,
possessed both legal learning and religious wisdom. The law boasts of
him as one of the great Chancellors, and the Church approvingly points
to him as an exemplary Bishop of Rochester. For much of his learning,
and something of his wisdom, he is indebted to the accomplished
Augustine canons who cultivated both in the old convent founded by
Gilbert Norman in 1115, and the prior of which sat in Parliament as a
mitred abbot. It was at Merton that the early French invasion under
Louis the Dauphin, made with the intent of driving Henry III. from
his inheritance, was compensated for in 1217, by the treaty of peace
forced upon the French prince. It was at Merton that the able De Burgh
found refuge from his insatiable enemies; above all, it was here that
were enacted the famous statutes of Merton. The Parliament of Henry
III., which enacted those statutes, will be further ever-memorable for
the unshakable firmness with which the barons—those reformers before
the Reformation—withstood the insidious overtures of the ambitious
prelates for the introduction of the imperial and canon laws. It was
at Merton that was uttered a cry as famous, as significant, and as
important in its result as the battle signal of Trafalgar. It was
there that the barons shouted that famous shout—‘Nolumus leges Angliæ
mutari!’
Of all these things which have conferred undying celebrity on the
banks of the little river Wandle, Nelson probably knew nothing, and,
if possible, cared less. But, notwithstanding this, we repeat that
the locality which had been illustrated by humanity, by patriotism,
by liberality, and by love of freedom, was a becoming spot whereon to
spread the carpet of repose for him whose humanity was as great as his
courage—whose patriotism was without a stain—whose liberality was
ever extended without selfishness, and whose love of freedom made him
the invincible foe of the nation that was endeavouring to enslave the
world.
Had he been less liberal and more considerate for himself than for
others he might have preserved Merton for his daughter—he would not
have been compelled to sell his diamonds—and Merton itself need
not have passed to those inheritors of other men’s patrimony—the
money-lending Israelites.
For the fearful fight at Copenhagen, in which never were greater perils
of navigation overcome, nor had there ever been in sea-fight more
of English blood profusely shed—for this fight and victory Nelson
received a token of honour from the Sultan; but his own Government
granted no medals to the victors. They were permitted to wear the
orders sent them by foreign princes, but no such honours awaited them
at the hands of those who interpreted, and, perhaps, influenced, the
will of King George. The people gave what the Ministry denied; and
when the father of Nelson calmly closed his eyes on this world, in
the year 1802, almost the last sounds that fell upon his ear were
sounds of praise for his noble son. Nelson’s brother, the Rev. Dr.
William Nelson, thought Lord Walpole cared little for his connection
with the Nelson family, or he would have conferred Burnham Thorpe
on the son of the late incumbent—that is to say, on himself. This
reverend gentleman certainly does little credit to his profession,
even taking him by his own description. When there was a report of
his becoming successor to the yet living, but indisposed, Dean of
Exeter, he wrote to his brother—‘I wish it may be so. If you see
Mr. Addington soon, you may offer my vote for the University of
Cambridge for members of Parliament, and for the county of Norfolk to
any candidate he may wish.’ ‘The dean’ (adds Dr. Pettigrew) ‘died on
July 15, and Nelson applied to Mr. Addington, but Dr. Nelson was not
appointed. Exeter failing, in a short time he directed his views to
Durham,’ and he hinted his wishes in a letter to Lady Hamilton. After
reminding her that he is a Doctor of Divinity of the University of
Cambridge, and that such a dignified personage is as much superior
to a mere Scottish M.D. ‘as an arch-angel is to an arch-fiend,’ this
man, who had little in him of the angelic and still less of the
arch-angelic, offers the lady a bribe of Norfolk beafins; and, having
thus impressed her with his dignity, and purchased as he thought her
good will for ‘half-a-dozen apple-trees,’ thus concludes his very
undignified epistle:—‘I see by the papers that there is a stall
vacant at Durham—I suppose worth a thousand a year—in the gift of
the Bishop (Barrington). I remember some years ago, when the Duke
of Portland was Prime Minister, he secured one for Dr. Poyntz, at
Durham. There is another vacant at York (if not filled up), in the
gift of the archbishop; but I don’t know the value—no very great sum,
I believe.’ So very illogical a person was as unsuccessful as he
deserved to be. Lord Nelson’s chaplain on board the Vanguard at the
Nile fared better, and merited so to fare. On Nelson’s application,
Lord Eldon thought himself bound in public duty to pass over his own
personal wishes and also the strong claims which individuals had upon
him to be attentive to their welfare. Nelson’s chaplain at the Nile
had a prior claim: and the Rev. Mr. Comyn received his appointment
accordingly to the living asked for—that of Bridgham. While treating
of the clerical connections of Nelson, we cannot omit noticing another
trait in the brother who so little resembled him. He thus writes to
Lady Hamilton:—‘The election for the University took place yesterday
(July 5, 1802): the whole was over in five minutes: Mr. Pitt and Lord
Euston are re-elected. I had a bow this morning from Billy in the
Senate-house—so I made up to him and said a word or two to him.’
Soon after this, Lord Nelson was made a D.C.L. by the University of
Oxford. The hero was with the Hamiltons and a party of relatives on
a tour to Wales: they took Blenheim in their way. The duke was at
home—he declined receiving them; but he sent them out something to
eat! The descendant of Marlborough had not been introduced to the man
as great as he from whom alone the duke possessed the only greatness
he enjoyed, and, therefore, he would not shake hands with him! His
grace, with the spirit of a Frenchman, kept himself as secure from the
defender of his country as he well could; he rolled himself up like a
hedgehog and kept his prickles erect. Had it not been for Nelson, he
might not then have had Blenheim wherein to nurture his absurd shyness
or absurder pride. Blenheim was the only hearth in England at which
Nelson was churlishly received, and its master the only man in the
kingdom who did not feel on speaking terms with the hero of the Nile.
Nelson paid no fee, touched no food, and turned from the dwelling of
him who owned none of his great ancestor’s characteristics, save his
meanness, with calm contempt.
In 1802 hostilities were again renewed, and, as a matter of course,
all eyes were turned to the defender of his country. His eyesight was
failing: he had actual fears of becoming blind, but all his fears
were suppressed in his eagerness to be of use to his native land. It
may be noticed that, in this year, Sir William Hamilton died; and the
fact that Nelson’s continued correspondence with the graceful widow
is, from this time, no longer addressed to her as ‘dear friend,’ but
‘dearest Emma,’ plainly, perhaps too plainly, denotes the nature of
the connection by which they were now bound. To judge of him by what
he effected and what he endured during this year, we might assert that
he never took rest nor thought of anything save the welfare of his
country and the fighting condition of his fleet; but he had leisure
devoted to further the welfare of private friends and other deserving
individuals, and he could turn from devising plans for crushing the
French to the arrangement of a paddock. All that he immediately cared
for was lest his sight should entirely leave him before he could fall
upon the French, who had a design upon Naples and Egypt. After he had
beaten them, he felt almost certain that his eyes would be in total
eclipse: he was resigned to the prospective fate, and contemplated it
with a grave but manly resignation.
In a note on a paragraph in a letter written at this time by Lord
Nelson, in which he says to Lady Hamilton that she will be sorry but
not surprised to hear of Lord Bristol’s death, Dr. Pettigrew informs us
that—
—— this nobleman was fourth Earl of Bristol and was also Bishop
of Derry. He died on July 8, 1803. To avoid any superstitious
exhibition on the part of sailors, who entertain a dread of having
a corpse on board, his lordship’s body was packed up in a case and
shipped as an antique statue. Could he have anticipated such a
circumstance, it would have offered him a capital subject to have
written upon.
In 1804, his harassing life in the Mediterranean received something to
make it tolerable by his triumph in his case for prize-money against
Lord St. Vincent. It was money fairly won after St. Vincent gave up
the command; and his award was 13,000l. The sum rescued him from
debt and from anxiety; but the enjoyment of it could not relieve him
of his most anxious desire to destroy the French fleet, which wanted
no inducement to leave Toulon, only that Nelson was waiting outside to
receive them. His vigilance had to be doubled, but he had enough for
the emergency, and to spare. Suspicions existed that Spain was about
to enter into an armed coalition with France against England, and,
without increase to his force, Nelson was ready to meet and confident
of annihilating both. With all their advantage of superior strength,
the French not only lingered in Toulon, but spread forged intelligence
all over Europe that, on their making preparations for sea, Nelson had
precipitately fled; but the avenger was still there; and, as now and
then a French vessel would occasionally show her bowsprit outside of
the harbour and retire in all speed at the sight of the flaunting Jack
defying them from seaward, Nelson would say that, if the whole fleet
did not soon come out and stand a contest, he should go in and try the
effect of putting salt upon their tails!
But his own countrymen, or rather the Government which did not
represent the feelings of his countrymen, wounded him more deeply
than his worst enemies. Nelson was poor, considering the rank he had
to maintain and the heavy charges, some voluntarily assumed and all
honourably acquitted, on his income. The Ministry knew he was poor;
but, because he was not ashamed of his poverty, they kept him plunged
in it. In the Mediterranean, with war declared against Spain, there was
a prospect of rich prizes being made and some substantial reward being
given to him and his gallant band for their labours, their devotedness,
and their blood. But between these deserving men and their right,
evil influences interposed: unknown to Nelson, another admiral and a
small squadron were stationed off Cadiz: their office was to capture
all the commercial vessels they could: they performed the office to
its uttermost letter—hurried to England with the golden argosies,
and divided the proceeds so easily and bloodlessly won. When the fact
became known to Nelson it severely shook his manly heart: he continued
as steadfast as ever in the fulfilment of his duty, endured reiterated
disappointment at not meeting with the French, and sealing his course
of victory by a final triumph ere he found refuge in his home from
the ingratitude of man, and at length returned to England, on leave,
determined to enjoy his sweet reward at Merton, since he was denied any
by an ungrateful Ministry.
He arrived at Merton on August 20, 1805. On the 13th of the following
month, Captain Blackwood called on Nelson at five in the morning
with news that the French and Spanish fleets were in the harbour of
Cadiz: Nelson got up, dressed, and was ready to start to ‘give Monsieur
Villeneuve a drubbing.’ The two proceeded to the Admiralty, the lords
of which were now all eager to grant whatever Nelson asked. The latter
knew he must rest satisfied with fifteen or sixteen sail of the line
less than his enemies would have in array against him; but with these
odds, backed by God’s blessing, he only knew of a full victory as the
glorious result. He made some arrangements for those who depended on
his bounty—some preparations in case of the sorrowful event that
did cloud the general triumph—and, between ten and eleven at night,
took his last farewell of Merton and of her who had so long kept him
in sweet bonds—gazed once on his sleeping child, breathed a prayer
over her, and went forth to death—to death the most glorious that was
ever accorded to mortal man whereby to make his passage from time into
eternity.
On October 21, he went into battle after fervent prayer to God. How,
under fearful odds, he beat his enemy, is known to every schoolboy.
Since that day Spain has almost ceased to be a naval power, and France
is only now recovering the position from which the hero of that day
flung her down. It was a day, the issues of which were left humbly to
God, but which were struggled for as though they depended on the arm
of mortal man alone. The triumphant result was purchased at a costly
rate—the life of England’s dearest son; his mission was fulfilled: he
had destroyed the last coalition made to enslave the world, and he died
at the fitting moment of certain victory, leaving all dear to him on
earth as a legacy to his native country. May his name live for ever!
Almost the last words uttered by Nelson were the expression of a hope
that his country would provide for Lady Hamilton and for his adopted
daughter. Nelson’s wife was alive, and the marriage had been without
issue. Who, then, was this stranger that so closely occupied the last
thoughts of the hero—and who the ‘adopted daughter’?—for such was the
designation that engaged so engrossing a share of his love.
As for Lady Nelson, she was indeed alive, but she had long been dead
to him. The pair, from the first, had been ill-matched; and what
began ill begot no happy consequences. Nelson himself had warmth enough
of temperament for two: his wife had none. She was, if we may judge
by what is written, unmoved at his great triumphs, without pride in
his great fame, and she was the last to welcome him when he came home
crowned with great deeds: she was the last woman in the world fitted
to be the wife of a hero, and perfectly incapable of controlling a
hero’s weaknesses. When Nelson on one occasion was speaking warmly in
his wife’s presence of the talents and beauty of Lady Hamilton, and
of the immense services she had rendered his king and country through
him, the hot Creole blood fired up: she rose in a whirlwind of passion,
exclaiming that she was sick at hearing the name and praises of Lady
Hamilton, and that Nelson must either desist from eulogising her or
cease to live with his wife. Nelson defended his favourite with good
humour; but from that hour utter estrangement ensued between himself
and Lady Nelson, resulting in a separation which, once determined on,
was never followed by opportunity or inclination for a reconciliation.
The remarkable individual—as remarkable for her great sufferings and
great sorrows as for her great errors—who was in a certain degree the
cause of breaking up the indifferent home which Nelson found in the
companionship of his wife, may be said to have been the last of a race
proverbial for bewitching and irresistible beauty—viz., the Lancashire
witches. She was born at Preston, in 1764; her father’s name was Lyon,
and her parents were of menial condition. The child, named Emma, was,
on the early death of her father, taken by her mother to Hawarden,
in Flintshire, where her remaining parent sought to support both by
industry, and where Emma grew every day in beauty and ignorance.
When old enough she was sent forth to earn her own livelihood. She
commenced life in the humble condition of a nursery-maid in a family
at Hawarden: subsequently she was engaged in the same capacity in the
family of Dr. Budd, Chatham-place, Blackfriars. The good doctor little
suspected that he possessed two servants in his house destined to
achieve celebrity for themselves, and thus lend something of perpetuity
to his own name. The nursemaid was Emma Lyons: the housemaid was Jane
Powell, who, in her after career as an actress, was a fine interpreter
of Shakespeare, could give interest to the bombast of Nat Lee, and
make endurable the platitudes of Rowe—just as Rachel, in our own
day, interpreted Racine and endowed with life the metrical dulness
of Merope and Chimène. From Dr. Budd’s to the family of a dealer in
St. James’s Market was a change from the east to the court end of the
town, and it had its consequences. She attracted the attention and won
the good-will of a lady of fashion, who withdrew her from servitude
and elevated her to what is often more degrading and worse paid, the
dignity of a companion. The education she received here was such as
might be expected at the hands of a fine lady of the last century.
She read all the stilted and not too delicate romances of the day—a
course of reading which not only kills time, but which generally
destroys the student. It at least did not improve the spelling of the
now ‘young lady’; for to the last, though she talked like Aspasia,
she spelled as badly as Caroline of Brunswick—a light fault in a day
when countesses spelt Physician with an F, and thought G was
the first letter of Augustus! The house of Emma’s patroness was the
resort of all the great players, poets, and literati of the day. It was
the ‘Gore House’ of its time: perhaps, its glories ended as ignobly.
As a home and an asylum for a young girl full of beauty, and given to
impulses which she knew not how to govern, it deserved not the name.
The poor thing was made the Cynthia of the minute: the Trissotins
dedicated sonnets to her; her beauty was deified; incense was daily
offered to her by fools and knaves, and even by those who were neither:
but yesterday she was toiling for wages, and perhaps complacently
receiving the coarse compliments of liveried worshippers: to-day she
was tended on by delicate hands, her smiles eagerly sought after, her
presence acknowledged by a buzz of admiration, her wit celebrated
by the ecstatic praises of the witty, and her intellect directed to
everything save to the study of divine things. She loved the refinement
which concealed the vice yet unknown to her: what was so pleasant could
hardly be sinful, for it brought no remorse. The foolish virgin lacked
a man at hand to tell her that she was neglecting her lamp; and it
was only in after life, when intellect was superseded by cleverness
and reflection made her matured beauty all the more radiant, that
she sorrowingly acknowledged that to her first patroness had been
sacrificed the morning of her youth, and that every opportunity
neglected had been fruitful in a multitude of after sorrows.
The first public sin, if we may so express it, was the consequence of
the exercise of a great virtue. It was the time of the first American
war. The press-gangs were in active pursuit of their terrible calling,
and by one of these a humble acquaintance had been captured, and was
confined on board a tender in the Thames. She personally interceded
to procure his liberty: the officer to whom the application was made
was Captain, afterwards Admiral, Willet Payne, the companion of the
Prince of Wales. This man drove a bargain and became what is cruelly
called the ‘protector’ of the friendless Emma. The first false step
made, the descent was rapid. From the dissolute seaman she was won
by a profligate squire, Sir Harry Fetherstonehaugh; and she speedily
enraptured a whole shire of country gentlemen by her bold and graceful
riding, subdued them by her wit, and charmed them, they knew not
wherefore, by the refinement of her manners. It is a curious trait
marking such a career that, though the baronet was nearly ruined by
the extravagant profusion into which he plunged for her sake, to
the end of life he spoke of her and wrote to her in terms of the
profoundest respect. It was a period when provincial squires were not
noted for much delicacy of manner: they had not yet adopted the advice
of Lord Chesterfield, and become gentlemanlike in their vices; but
nevertheless, like the Athenians of old, they could praise a virtue
which they did not practise: not decent themselves, they could admire
decency in others.
The unfortunate and fallen woman, on her separation from her ruined
admirer, soon learned a deeper misery than she had endured in her
native home and early privations. She was at length on the point of
being turned into the street by her landlord, who had no admiration
for penniless tenants, however greatly endowed with beauty, when
she fell in the way of the most stupendous quack that ever gulled
the most gullible of patient publics. We need hardly name the once
famous Dr. Graham,[2] who, with his mysterious chambers, golden
beds, seraphic music, and impudent medical lectures, for some time
persuaded the people that he could lead them to the fountain where
played the waters endowing man with eternal and vigorous youth. That
he was mysterious only proved that he had a secret, and that it was
well worth knowing and richly worth paying for. This quack hired the
hungry and heart-broken beauty, exhibited her as the ‘Goddess of
Health,’ lectured upon her as the result of his system, and made half
the fashionable women of his day mad to become like her, glowing with
health and splendid with beauty. This public exhibition gave her a
particular fame among artists: she became the eagerly sought after
and highly purchased model of the day. In Romney’s pictures more
especially she is constantly repeated, and the eternal sameness is
ever varied and charming: she was, indeed, Romney’s inspiration rather
than model: he had but to state what he desired or dreamed of, and the
vision stood a breathing reality before him. Heroic, as Joan of Arc;
crushed by her grief, as a Magdalene; joyous, as a Bacchante; sublime,
as Cassandra; winning, as a Wood Nymph; making sorrow graceful, as
Calypso; giving rapture double interpretation—first as the Pythian
priestess on her tripod, and next as St. Cecilia—gentle, as Serena;
lovely, as Sensibility; and perhaps more intellectually lovely still,
as Miranda—we can hardly wonder, as we look on these characters, that
Hayley, who saw the original stand for them all, rushed into rhyme to
immortalise them, and perpetrated verse that was almost tolerable and
very nearly worth reading.
We do not know that we may say that she was rescued from this sort
of life by meeting with Mr. Charles Fulke Greville. He was not a mere
squire, but a gentleman and a connoisseur: he so loved beauty that
when he beheld Romney’s model he longed to possess it as he would
have longed to possess a Grecian statue. In this case the matter was
negotiable: she passed from the studio to the bower. Mr. Greville
discovered her mental powers as well as admired her material beauty,
and he was humane enough to do—what no human being had ever thought of
doing—educate her. It came of the latest, when the tares had choked
the wheat. She progressed, indeed, rapidly in all she studied, and in
music she attained a wonderful perfection: her voice, even in speaking,
was one to melt the heart: in singing it fairly carried it off by
magic. If vanity accompanied the possession of powers such as no one
has since possessed—not even our now silent Nightingale—her apology
is in her course of life, for much of which others were responsible.
This vanity reached its culmination one night at Ranelagh, when,
intoxicated by the remarks flung in her way like flowers as she passed,
she electrified the entire crowd by breaking forth into song, and,
by the exercise of her unequalled vocalisation, flung uncontrollable
ecstasy over the idle public of the place. ‘Mr. Greville’ (says Dr.
Pettigrew, in his interesting ‘Sketch of Lady Hamilton’) ‘had gone
farther than he intended, and became alarmed at her fondness for
admiration, and ventured to reproach her for her indiscretion. She
retired to her room, threw off the elegant attire in which she was
clothed, and, presenting herself before him in a plain cottage dress,
proposed to relieve him of her presence. This act, however, served
only the more securely to bind him in his chains, and a reconciliation
took place.’ It is reported that three children were the fruit of
this connection; but there is a letter from Nelson to Lady Hamilton
extant, which, if it does not prove the contrary, shows at least that
Nelson knew nothing of it—a not likely circumstance if the alleged
fact were one in reality. However this may be, Dr. Pettigrew adds, ‘In
the splendid misery in which she lived she hastened to call to her her
mother, to whom she was through life most affectionate and attentive.’
In 1789, the year of many sorrows, Mr. Greville found himself, by the
French Revolution and other accidents, a nearly ruined man. His uncle,
Sir William Hamilton, our minister at Naples, stepped in to relieve
him of many of his embarrassments—among them of the lady to whom
perhaps some of them might be traced. Dr. Pettigrew says:—‘It is only
charitable to suppose Sir William to have been ignorant of his nephew’s
connection with Emma, but there have not been wanting reports that the
condition of the engagement between Sir William and the lady was the
payment of the nephew’s debts.’ At this time Sir William was within a
year of threescore. He was neither the Pericles of his age, nor was
Emma quite the Aspasia; but when we remember the bond which bound the
great statesman and refined lover of refined art to the most beautiful
and most accomplished woman in Greece—when we remember that in his
home intellect and skill were almost deified—that to it her presence,
her powers, and even her virtues (for all were not wanting because one
was absent) gave its chiefest charm—that without her the war against
Samos would not have been a matter of history—that she inspired great
commanders, and that but for her, much eloquence would have been mute,
which, through her, fired Greece to deeds of noble daring—with these
memories about us, we say, there is much in the persons and lives of
Sir William Hamilton and his wife that reminds us of Pericles and
Aspasia, even down to the very circumstance that the great lawgiver
took the courtesan to wife after she had been his mistress.
Dr. Pettigrew thus describes Sir William himself:—
Sir William Hamilton was a native of Scotland, born in 1730, and
was Minister at Naples for the long period of thirty-six years.
He was a distinguished antiquary, remarkable for his taste in,
and appreciation of, the fine arts. He possessed also scientific
acquirements, and had some knowledge of mineralogy: he was a
Trustee of the British Museum, Fellow of the Royal Society, and
a Vice-President of the Society of Antiquaries: he was also a
distinguished member of the Dillettanti Club, and appears among
their portraits in their meeting-room at the Thatched House
Tavern. A portrait of him, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, one of his
intimate friends, may be seen in the National Gallery. He is known
as an author by his works. With the King of Naples he was a great
favourite, and largely shared with him the enjoyment of the chase
and other sports, to which the sovereign is well known to have
been egregiously addicted.
Such was the sexagenarian philosopher. At this period the Aspasia
of his affections, if we may indeed use such a word, was just
five-and-twenty. She is thus limned by her biographer:—
Already familiarised to the studies of the painter, and, according
to Romney and his biographer, no mean judge of the arts, with
Sir William she had in Italy many opportunities of enjoying her
taste, of improving herself, and also of imparting knowledge.
This she is said to have practically evinced; for with a common
piece of stuff she could so arrange it and clothe herself as
to offer the most appropriate representations of a Jewess, a
Roman matron, a Helen, Penelope, or Aspasia. No character seemed
foreign to her, and the grace she was in the habit of displaying
under such representations excited the admiration of all who
were fortunate enough to have been present on such occasions.
The celebrated ‘Shawl Dance’ owes its origin to her invention;
but it is admitted to have been executed by her with a grace and
elegance far surpassing that with which it has ever been rendered
on the stage of any of our theatres. Under the tuition and
government of Sir William she improved so greatly, and obtained
such complete sway over him, that he resolved upon making her
his wife. They came to England, and on September 6, 1791, she,
writing the name of Emma Harte (an assumed name under which she
had long been known), he married her at the Church of St. George,
Hanover Square, resolving to return with her to Naples that she
might there be recognised by the Neapolitan Court. But prior to
quitting London to return to Naples she was doomed to experience
disappointment; for although she had, through the position of Sir
William Hamilton and his high connections, together with her own
attractions and accomplishments, gained admission into a very high
circle of society, she was very properly refused admission into
the Court of St. James’s, which Sir William in vain endeavoured
most assiduously to effect. In the society, however, in which she
now moved, she became distinguished for her great accomplishments;
and the dulness of fashionable life was greatly relieved by her
displays as a singer and as an actress. The admiration she excited
was universal. It is said that at first, upon the return of Sir
William Hamilton to Naples, there was some difficulty in the way
of her introduction to the Queen, not having been received at the
Court of her own country; that, however, was soon removed, and in
a short time she maintained the confidential intercourse with her
Majesty. That the Queen of Naples should have become intimately
attached to Lady Hamilton cannot be a matter of surprise when we
recollect the calamities her family had sustained by the French
Revolution. To seek consolation in the bosom of the wife of the
English Minister—the Minister of that country which almost stood
alone in its opposition to the principles and conduct of the
French Revolution—seems natural. Friendship is often created
by sympathetic associations called forth under the pressure of
affliction, and is sustained by the consolations of hope derived
from them. There are many letters in my possession from the
Queen of Naples to the Lady Hamilton breathing the most ardent
attachment, the most unbounded friendship, and expressing eternal
gratitude to her.
It was in the year 1793 that Nelson first saw this dangerous beauty.
From the period of her arrival up to this time, she appears to have
been the only source of joy and admiration to the Neapolitan Court.
The Duke of Sussex retained to the last lively recollections of her
charms, and of the effect she produced when singing with the famous
Mrs. Billington. In the eventful year last named Nelson landed at
Naples with despatches from Lord Hood. Sir William, as we have said,
on returning home after his interview with Nelson, told Lady Hamilton
that he was about to introduce to her a little man who could not boast
of being very handsome, but who would be the greatest man that England
ever produced. ‘I know it’ (said Sir William) ‘from the very few
words of conversation I have already had with him. I pronounce’ (said
the Minister) ‘that he will one day astonish the world. I have never
entertained any officer in my house, but I am determined to bring him
here: let him be put in the room prepared for Prince Augustus.’ Nelson
is stated to have been equally impressed with Sir William Hamilton’s
merits. ‘You are’ (he said) ‘a man after my own heart: you do business
in my own way. I am now only captain; but, if I live, I will be
at the top of the tree.’ The impression produced upon him by Lady
Hamilton, and her kindness towards the son of Nelson’s’ wife by her
first marriage, he thus simply describes in one of his letters:—‘Lady
Hamilton has been wonderfully kind and good to Josiah. She is a young
woman of amiable manners, and who does honour to the station to which
she is raised.’
The early attachment entertained by the Queen of Naples for Lady
Hamilton admits of ready and natural explanation. Sir William after his
marriage conducted his young bride to Naples by way of Paris, where she
was received by the ill-fated Marie-Antoinette. This unhappy queen was
sister to the Queen of Naples; and to Lady Hamilton she entrusted the
last letter she ever wrote to her scarcely less unhappy relative. The
wife of the British Minister became at once the personal friend of the
Neapolitan Queen, and her influence so great that the King himself said
of her that she had de-Bourbonised them and made them all English. It
was from this period that her patriotic mission commenced—a mission
which she carried out regardless of personal expense or personal peril,
and for the performance of which, though so great in its results, she
obtained slight acknowledgment and no recompense.
It was for no individual, but for her country solely, that she
exercised her unbounded influence when at Naples. Sir John Jervis named
her the ‘patroness of the navy;’ and when he was engaged upon the
reduction of Corsica he depended upon Lady Hamilton for despatching
to him all the necessaries he required from Naples: he subsequently
confessed that the reduction of the island was facilitated and
expedited by her aid and energy. At a time when British interests were
at stake and nearly all Europe was engaged in destroying them, she was
unceasingly wakeful to maintain and strengthen them. We had about this
time a most uncertain ally in Spain. It came to the knowledge of Lady
Hamilton that a Spanish courier had arrived at Naples with a letter
for the King: she forthwith repaired to the Queen, and so exercised
the power she possessed over even the powerful mind of that Sovereign
that she induced her to repair to the King’s cabinet and abstract
the important document from the monarch’s possession. The letter was
obtained: it was from the King of Spain himself, and it announced his
determination to break up his old alliance and to unite with France
against England. Sir William Hamilton was sick and incapable of action;
but ‘our General’s wife was now the General;’ and she further prevailed
on the Queen to allow her to take a copy of the document. This copy
she transmitted by a secure but costly method to Lord Grenville. To
effect its safe arrival cost her out of her own private purse not less
than four hundred pounds sterling. She was hardly thanked and was never
remunerated.
But ingratitude did not render her patriotism weary or unwilling: year
after year the British flag in the Mediterranean was indebted to her
for triumphs which it achieved, because without her aid the English
could not have profited even by opportunity. It must be remembered,
too, as Dr. Pettigrew justly remarks, ‘that at this period so high were
French ascendency and revolutionary principles in Naples that it was
absolutely dangerous for the British Minister to go to court.’
Her greatest service, though not her last, remains to be mentioned. It
is of that importance that it merits being mentioned in detail, and
the details are so clearly and concisely told by Dr. Pettigrew that
we cannot do better than adopt them. Never was service more greatly
needed: its having been rendered saved England, changed the aspect of
European politics, and gave to Lady Hamilton a branch of the showers of
laurel that fell to the victors at the Nile:—
In June, 1798, about three days after the French fleet had passed
by for Malta, Sir William and Lady Hamilton were awakened one
morning about six o’clock by the arrival of Captain Trowbridge
with a letter from Sir Horatio Nelson, then with the fleet lying
off the bay near to Capri, ‘requesting that the ambassador would
procure him permission to enter with his fleet into Naples or
any of the Sicilian ports to provision, water, &c., as otherwise
he must run for Gibraltar, being in urgent want; and that,
consequently, he would be obliged to give up all further pursuit
of the French fleet which he had missed at Egypt on account of
their having put into Malta.’ At this time Naples had made peace
with France, and an ambassador was resident then at Naples. One
of the stipulations of the treaty which had been entered into was
to the effect that no more than two English ships of war should
enter into any of the Neapolitan or Sicilian ports. However,
Sir William Hamilton called up Sir John Acton, the Minister, who
immediately convened a council at which the King was present. This
was about half-past six. Lady Hamilton went immediately to the
Queen, who received her in her bed-room: she represented to her
Majesty that the safety of the two Sicilies now depended upon her
conduct, and that should the council, as she feared that under the
circumstances they must do, decide on negative or half measures,
the Sicilies must be lost if Nelson were not supplied agreeably
to his request, by which he would be enabled to follow the great
French force which had passed in that direction only a few days
before. Nothing could exceed the alarm with which the Queen
received this intelligence: she urged that the King was in council
and would decide with his Ministers. Lady Hamilton dictated, and
the Queen wrote a positive order, ‘directed to all governors of
the two Sicilies to receive with hospitality the British fleet to
water, victual, and aid them.’ In every way this order, as Lady
Hamilton well knew, would be more respected than that which might
emanate from the King. The council did not break up until eight
o’clock, and Lady Hamilton attended Captain Trowbridge and her
husband to their residence! The faces of the King, of Acton, and
Sir William too plainly told the determination at which they had
arrived, and that they could not then break with France. On the
way home Lady Hamilton told Sir William and Captain Trowbridge
that she had anticipated the result and provided against it;
that, whilst they were in council debating on the application,
she had been with the Queen and had not without effect implored
her Majesty to render the aid required: she then, to his great
astonishment and delight, produced the order in question. Nothing
could exceed the gladness this occasioned. Trowbridge declared
that it would ‘cheer Nelson to ecstasy;’ and that by this means
they should be enabled to pursue and conquer the French fleet,
otherwise they must have gone for Gibraltar. Sir William Hamilton
wrote to Sir Horatio Nelson, communicating to him the formal
decision of the council; but added, ‘You will receive from Emma
herself what will do the business and procure all your wants.’
Lady Hamilton enclosed to the admiral the order, praying him ‘that
the Queen might be as little committed in the use of it as the
glory and service of the country would admit of.’ To this Nelson
replied that he received the precious order, and that if he gained
the battle it should be called hers and the Queen’s; for to Lady
Hamilton he should owe his success, as without the order their
return to Gibraltar was decided upon; but, he added, ‘I will now
come back to you crowned with laurels or covered with cypress.’
It was more especially for this service rendered when he was in his
utmost need that Nelson, while dying, recommended Lady Hamilton to
the memory and gratitude of his country. The effect of this service
we need not repeat. The British ships watered and victualled at
Syracuse, spread their huge wings in pursuit of their foe, and at
the Nile launched their heavy thunder to his destruction. On the
20th of September the triumphant squadron arrived at Naples, where
ships, officers, and men found every want supplied and every wish
anticipated. ‘But especially’ (says Dr. Pettigrew) ‘were the broken
health and wounded body of the valorous chief regarded. Nelson was
taken into the British Minister’s house, and there personally tended by
her whose sympathies had been so awakened, and by whose attentions he
was after a time restored to health.’ Her services did not terminate
here. While all at Naples were at the very high top-gallant of their
joy, Lady Hamilton induced the court to break altogether with the
French. The ambassador of the Republic was consequently dismissed with
scanty courtesy and in considerable haste. When, at a later period,
a French army marched on Naples itself and the royal family were
reduced to fly to Palermo, the chief arrangements for the safety of
the lives and properties of others were made or carried out by Lady
Hamilton: she privately removed from the palace the royal jewels and
thirty-six barrels of gold. These were marked ‘Stores for Nelson,’ and
under that device were safely shipped. Indeed, it was not till the
treasure was secured that the King consented to embark. In a despatch
to the Admiralty Lord Nelson says, ‘Lady Hamilton seemed to be an
angel dropped from heaven for the preservation of the royal family.’
To effect that preservation she was regardless of her own. On the
night in which she personally assisted the King, Queen, and children
to escape, she attended a party given by Kelim Effendi: she withdrew
from this party on foot, leaving her equipage in front of the house,
hastened to the place of meeting, conducted the royal family by a
subterranean passage to Nelson’s boat waiting to receive them, embarked
with the fugitives, and with them went before the storm that blew them
to Palermo. To accomplish this Sir William and his wife voluntarily
abandoned their entire possessions in their house at Naples: they did
not convey away one single article. The whole of their private property
was thus left behind in order to prevent discovery of their proceedings
in behalf of the royal family. The value of Lady Hamilton’s portion
thus abandoned amounted to 9,000l.; not less than 30,000l.’s worth
of property was sacrificed which belonged to Sir William. The virtue of
this sacrifice was the sole reward gained by those who made it.
It was in this year (1799) that Sir Alexander Ball, who held a part of
Malta, the French occupying another part, sent despatches to Nelson
at Palermo for provisions, without which he would be compelled to
surrender. Nelson was absent at his old occupation looking after the
enemies of England. Lady Hamilton opened the despatches, purchased
several entire cargoes of corn at her own risk, and forwarded them to
the half-starved English in Malta. She expended 5,000l., of which
not one shilling was ever returned to her. All that she profited
thereby was in receiving the order of St. John of Jerusalem from the
Emperor Paul, Grand Master of the Knights. England owed her much and
acknowledged nothing. The Queen of Naples acted with more generosity:
she put into the hands of Lady Hamilton, on parting from her
subsequently at Vienna, a conveyance of 1,000l. per annum; but the
latter magnanimously destroyed the deed, remarking that ‘England was
just, and to her faithful servants generous, and that she should feel
it unbecoming to her own beloved and magnanimous Sovereign to accept of
meed or reward from any other hand.’
But the same year is also marked by an occurrence the very mention of
which seems to obscure the brightness of Nelson’s name and to fling an
additional lurid hue round that of the wife of a British Minister. We
say seems; for in truth there is more of seeming than of reality in it,
and yet all is not seeming and there is something real. We allude, of
course, to the case of Admiral Prince Carracciolo. According to some
he was murdered by Nelson at the instigation of Lady Hamilton, who
was so fiercely Royalist that, if we may believe partial writers, the
blood of a Jacobin was to her of marvellous sweet savour. Divested of
exaggeration the story of old Carracciolo is simply this—He was a
rich, valiant, and aged seaman, and warmly attached to Royalty until
the triumph of Republicanism endangered those who had a distaste for
Commonwealths. When the Neapolitan royal family fled from Naples to
Sicily their hitherto faithful old servant followed them thither:
when the heads of the party who had proclaimed a Republic at Naples
threatened to confiscate the property of absentees, Carracciolo
returned to protect his own. In thinking over-much of himself he
forgot fealty to his Sovereign, and in a brief period he became as hot
a Republican as ever he had been an eager Royalist. He took up arms
against his King, opposed his restoration, and fired upon his flag.
After the principal body of rebels had capitulated to the force in arms
to give the King his own again, he was captured in open rebellion,
taken on board the Foudroyant, Lord Nelson’s own ship, and there
given up to be tried by a court-martial. Nelson, as chief of the united
Sicilian and English squadrons, ordered this court-martial to be held:
it was formed exclusively of Sicilian officers, but it was held on
board the English admiral’s ship. The trial did not exactly exhibit a
specimen of Jedburgh justice, by which a man is hung first and tried
afterwards, but there was a spirit manifested that was very much akin
to it. The president of the court, Count Thurn, was a personal enemy
though an old shipmate of Carracciolo. The case for the prosecution
was soon gone through: the facts were clear, patent, and undeniable;
but the brave and misguided old seaman made a most gallant, fearless,
and almost irresistible defence. Probably, the worst enemy of the crown
of Naples was the King himself: he was worthless, selfish, weak, vain,
and pompous. Carracciolo asserted that he had not deserted the royal
cause, but that in fact the King himself had betrayed it: when there
was no longer a royalty to defend that was worth the keeping, then
alone had he joined the Republicans. Thus far the defence was, perhaps,
founded on truth. It was not less true when Carracciolo alluded to his
property and the risk he ran of rendering his posterity beggars if he
had not taken office under the Republican flag; but this was a sort of
truth that was even less valid as an apology for rebellion than the
former. The court unanimously found him guilty and sentenced him to
be hung by the neck at the yard-arm of his own flag-ship. ‘Hereafter’
(said the undaunted old man with some emotion)—‘hereafter, when you
shall be called to your great account, you will weep for this unjust
sentence in tears of blood. I take shame to myself for asking for any
favour from such men; but, if possible, I wish to be shot as becomes
my rank, and not hung up like a felon and a dog.’ ‘It is inadmissible’
(was the curt and savage reply of the court), ‘and the court is hereby
dissolved.’ What followed is ever to be deplored. Dr. Pettigrew
struggles ably and manfully to defend Nelson from all blame, but he
struggles unsuccessfully. The facts are these—even by Dr. Pettigrew’s
admission. The sentence was no sooner made known than Nelson issued
an order for the immediate execution. The guilty man was to be hung
from six o’clock till sunset, ‘when you will have his body cut down
and thrown into the sea.’ So run the words to which the name of Nelson
is affixed. Lieutenant Parkinson, at the request of the doomed man,
interceded with the admiral; but to the prayer of Carracciolo, that he
might die the death of a man and not that of a dog, Nelson refused to
interfere, and harshly bade the poor lieutenant to go and attend to his
duty. The result was that Carracciolo was ignominiously run up to the
yard-arm, not of his own flag-ship, but to that of Lord Nelson. The
English admiral not only refused the mercy that he unquestionably might
have granted, but he, in some sort, became the executioner: he not only
insisted that the sentence of hanging should be carried into effect,
but he lent a gallows for the purpose.
The sentence was just, and the unfortunate old warrior merited death;
but justice would have been satisfied had the great criminal been
allowed the melancholy privilege of falling as he might have done
in battle. At all events, the yard-arm of a British ship ought not
to have been lent for the purpose of hanging a foreigner who had
betrayed his trust to a foreign king. In thus much does blame appear
attributable to Nelson. That any is due to Lady Hamilton, or that
Nelson was in the least degree influenced by her on this occasion,
we disbelieve, simply for the reason that such an assertion is
unsusceptible of proof.
But the Foudroyant was the scene of other disgraces. We come to
the mention of them with reluctance, and will narrate them with all
possible brevity. In 1800, Sir William Hamilton was superseded as
British Minister at Naples: he and Lady Hamilton, with the Queen
of Naples, were on board Nelson’s ship. Nelson himself was now a
Neapolitan duke. The whole party were about to leave the Mediterranean,
and, with the exception of the Queen, whose destination was Vienna, to
return to England by land through Germany. It was during the passage
from Palermo to Malta that the intimacy took place which resulted
in the birth of that little Horatia who was long thought to be the
daughter of the Queen of Naples, but whom Dr. Pettigrew, under Nelson’s
own hand, proves to be the child of Lady Hamilton. That Nelson was the
child’s father no one ever doubted. The strange party—husband, wife,
and friend—reached London in November, 1800. Lady Nelson was not
among those who stood first to greet the arrival of the hero or who
at meeting greeted him with any warmth of feeling. She had, possibly,
heard through her son, Captain Nisbet, of the too friendly terms which
existed between her husband and the wife of another. His home was, in
consequence, an unhappy one, and he left it to proceed on an excursion
with Sir William and his lady. This excursion was an ovation which
reached its highest point at Fonthill. Here the celebrities in art,
rather than the noble by birth, were assembled to meet the illustrious
party: here Banti, the Pasta of her day, joined her voice with the
ex-ambassadress; and here West looked on and smiled.
In the gallery of the Abbey, after the repast, the company
assembled, and Lady Hamilton enchanted them with one of her
remarkable personations—that of Agrippina bearing the ashes of
Germanicus in a golden urn, and as presenting herself before the
Roman people with the design of exciting them to revenge the death
of her husband, who, after having been declared joint Emperor
by Tiberius, fell a victim to his envy, and is supposed to have
been poisoned by his order at the head of the forces which he
was leading against the rebellious Arminians ... Lady Hamilton
displayed with truth and energy every gesture, attitude, and
expression of countenance, which could be conceived in Agrippina
herself, best calculated to have roused the passions of the Romans
in behalf of their favourite general. The action of her head,
of her hands and arms, in the various positions of the urn, in
her manner of presenting it to the Romans, or of raising it up
to the gods in the act of supplication, was most classically
graceful. Every change of dress, principally of the head, to suit
the different situations in which she successively presented
herself, was performed instantaneously with the most perfect
ease, and without retiring or scarcely turning aside a moment
from the spectators. In the last scene of this beautiful piece of
pantomime, she appeared with a young lady of the company who was
to personate a daughter. Her action in this part was so perfectly
just and natural, and so pathetically addressed to the spectators
as to draw tears from several of the company.
When the character of the Roman dress is remembered, it is difficult
to believe that the representative of Agrippina was in the condition
noticed by Dr. Pettigrew.
The final separation between Nelson and his wife took place in the
January of 1801. The last scene between the latter is thus described by
a yet living witness, Mr. Haslewood:—
In the winter of 1800-1, 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 afterwards. I believe that Lord Nelson took
a formal leave of her ladyship before joining the fleet under Sir
Hyde Parker.
Dr. Pettigrew cites this letter of Mr. Haslewood to show that the
separation was unavoidable on Lord Nelson’s part: it appears to us
to have been inevitable and necessary. Perhaps the strangest part of
this incident is that Nelson’s family closely attached themselves
to Lady Hamilton. We must make exception, however, of the still
stranger incident—namely, the birth of Lady Hamilton’s daughter at
her residence in Piccadilly, the absence of all attempt to confer the
honours of paternity on Sir William, and the consequent mystification.
The birth took place about the last day of January 1801. The child was
conveyed to a nurse about a week or ten days afterwards, and was not
the home companion of its guilty parents until 1803, after the death
of Sir William Hamilton. Nelson’s daughter was recently alive, and was
formerly married to Captain Ward, late of the 81st regiment.
Before the death of Sir William Hamilton, Lord Nelson had made his
house their common residence. At the death of the former, he, with
something of an affected decency, quitted it for private lodgings. Sir
William left his widow totally unprovided for. He thought, as Nelson
thought, that the Government would not hesitate to make her an ample
provision for her services. In the meantime, waiting for an event that
was never to occur, Lord Nelson purchased Merton. It is yet the object
of many a sailor’s pilgrimage, and is about ten minutes’ walk from the
Wimbledon station. Here he offered the deserted widow and the mother of
his child a refuge—nay, more, a home. It was such to her; for there
she enjoyed the homage and respect not only of every member of Nelson’s
family, but also of the great and good of the exterior world. Never was
woman placed in so anomalous a condition, in which the anomaly was so
carefully concealed from herself and unheeded by the world.
It should have had the realities of the virtue of which it bore so well
the semblance. That it had not was, perhaps, one of the causes why
it endured so brief a space. It is most touching to read the letters
of Nelson, cited by Dr. Pettigrew, and written to his child’s mother
at home. The heavy responsibilities connected with Trafalgar, the
anxieties coming thick and fast, the duties he had to fulfil—none of
these things rendered him forgetful of his treasure. For the safety of
one little life his heart beat as only a parent’s heart can beat;
and while meditating the array of battle, in which his own life was
to cloud the splendour of the victory, he found leisure to send home
detailed instructions how a substantial netting should be raised in
the grounds of Merton to preserve little Horatia from falling into a
pond ambitiously called the Nile. There wanted but one thing to give
holiness to Nelson’s character as a father.
To this, as to all his worldly glory, and to all the felicity that had
hitherto rested upon Merton, a sudden termination was given by the
fatal ball which struck him, when his glory was greatest, on the deck
of the Victory, at Trafalgar. The last request of such a man, made
in such an hour, and amid such a triumph, purchased by him with his
heart’s blood—the dying request of such a man ought to have been held
sacred by his country. For five years Lady Hamilton struggled on at
Merton: she made application to every source, but she applied in vain.
The recompense justly due to her for services rendered was withheld or
denied under the most shabby and futile pretences. The worst of all,
perhaps, was the pretence, or the plea, of the length of time that had
expired since the service itself was rendered!
In a codicil annexed to his will, and made by Nelson as he was about to
enter into action at Trafalgar, the Admiral, with a strong feeling that
death was near him, asked two favours of his King and Country in whose
defence he was about to offer up his own life—one was, protection
and provision for Lady Hamilton, whose late husband was the King’s
foster-brother; the other, goodwill for his ‘adopted daughter.’ He
solemnly bequeathed both to his sovereign and his fellow-countrymen.
When the will was proved, this codicil was held back by the Rev.
William Nelson, although he and his family had been partaking of Lady
Hamilton’s hospitality for months. Indeed, during six years, she was
a second mother to his children, to whom he recommended Lady Hamilton
as an example and enjoined obedience to her as an instructress. ‘The
Earl (says Dr. Pettigrew—for the reverend gentleman was created an
earl) fearful that Lady Hamilton should be provided for in the sum
Parliament was expected to grant to uphold the hero’s name and family,
kept the codicil in his pocket until the day 120,000l. was voted
for that purpose. On that day he dined with Lady Hamilton in Clarges
Street, and, hearing at table what had been done, he brought forward
the codicil, and, throwing it to Lady Hamilton, coarsely said she might
now do with it as she pleased. She had it registered the next day at
Doctors’ Commons, where it is now to be seen.’
With insufficient means to live in her old dignity at Merton, and with
little knowledge of how to make the best of those means, accustomed to
find others her stewards and unused to provide for hours of necessity,
she at length found herself compelled to make an assignment of the
home which Nelson had established for her and their child. She removed
to Richmond, and, subsequently, had lodgings in Bond Street. Pursued
by creditors, without her child for whom she had no home—and for
whom such protection as she could give was not that which a child
most needed—she led a miserable life, which was hardly rendered more
miserable by her incarceration, in 1813, in the King’s Bench. She
passed ten months in this captivity, and was only relieved at last
by the humanity of Alderman Smith. With freedom came no measure of
happiness: utterly destitute, and abandoned by those who in the days of
her prosperity professed to be her slaves, she fled the country that
would not aid her, and sought succour in a foreign land. She found
shelter, and nothing more, in Calais, in a miserable house, kindly lent
her, however, by a Monsieur de Rheims. That it was only shelter, and
nothing else, may be inferred from the following account handed to Dr.
Pettigrew by the lady who enacts in it so graceful a part:—
Mrs. Hunter was in the habit of ordering meat daily at a butcher’s
for a little dog, and on one of these occasions was met by
Monsieur de Rheims, who followed her exclaiming, ‘Ah, Madam!—ah,
Madam! I know you to be good to the English. There is a lady here
who would be glad of the worst bit of meat you provide for your
dog.’ When questioned as to who the lady was, and promising that
she should not want for anything, he declined telling, saying
that she was too proud to see anyone, and that besides he had
promised her secrecy. Mrs. Hunter begged him to provide her with
everything she required, &c., as if coming from himself, and she
would pay for it. This he did for some time, until she became very
ill, when he pressed her to see the lady who had been so kind to
her; and, upon hearing that her benefactress was not a person of
title, she consented, saw her, thanked her, and blessed her.
Shortly after this her infirmities increased, and ultimately she died
at Calais of water on the chest, on January 15, 1815. Dr. Pettigrew
gives no credence to the report of an anonymous foreign writer that she
had been converted to the Romish faith, and had received the sacrament
from a Romish priest as long before as during her confinement in the
King’s Bench. That she died, as the same anonymous author reported, in
the bosom of the Catholic Church, and received its sacraments on her
death-bed, can be as little confirmed. The Romish Church would have
buried a convert with willing ceremony: as it was, the method of the
sad solemnity was thus ordered for one who, even in death, remained, as
described by Mrs. Hunter, exceedingly beautiful:—
Mrs. Hunter was anxious to have her interred according to English
custom, for which, however, she was only laughed at; and poor
Emma was put into a deal-box without any inscription. All that
this good lady states that she was permitted to do was to make a
kind of pall out of her black silk petticoat stitched on a white
curtain. Not an English Protestant clergyman was to be found in
all Calais or its vicinity; and, so distressed was this lady to
find some one to read the burial service over her remains, that
she went to an Irish half-pay officer in the Rue du Havre, whose
wife was a well-informed Irish lady. He was absent at the time;
but, being sent for, most kindly went and read the service over
the body. Lady Hamilton was buried in a piece of ground in a spot
just outside the town, formerly called the gardens of the Duchess
of Kingston, which had been consecrated and was used as a public
cemetery till 1816. The ground, which had neither wall nor fence
to protect it, was some years since converted into a timber-yard,
and no traces of the graves now remain. Mrs. Hunter wished to have
placed a head or foot-stone, but was refused. She, therefore,
placed a piece of wood in the shape, as she describes it to me,
of a battledore, handle downwards, on which was inscribed ‘Emma
Hamilton, England’s friend.’ This was speedily removed—another
placed and also removed; and the good lady at length threatened
to be shot by the sentinel if she persisted in those offices of
charity. A small tombstone was, however, afterwards placed there,
and was existing in 1833.
To the latter assertion we may remark that no tombstone was existing
there in the month of August of the latter year. We searched the field
very narrowly for the purpose, and found but one record of the decease
of an English sojourner. The grave itself was pointed out to us by a
Calaisian, but its locality was only traditionary. About nine pounds’
worth of effects, twelve shillings in money, a few clothes, and some
duplicates of pawned plate were all that was left by the companion and
friend of queens. Little as it was, the Reverend Earl Nelson hastened
to Calais to claim it. He expected more, and in his cupidity wished to
take the pledged trinkets without paying the necessary expenses for
getting them out of pawn; he would not even discharge the few debts
incurred by her death. These were discharged by Mr. Cadogan, to whom
Horatia was entrusted (Mrs. Matcham, Nelson’s sister, receiving her
after Lady Hamilton’s decease), and to whom, as to Alderman Smith, the
forlorn creature was indebted for much aid ere death placed her beyond
the need of requiring it.
This tale bears with it its own moral: retribution followed offence:
the commission of sin reaped its usual reward; the wanderer from
virtue was visited with terrible affliction; and the penalty awaited
not its commencement till the knell of the offender had summoned
her to judgment. Thus much man knows, but with thus much he has not
condescended to rest satisfied; and the sons of the seducers have been
eager to cast stones at her whom their fathers enticed to sin. In the
remembrance of her faults they make no account of her services, of her
suffering, or of her sorrows; they have no idea that, if there was
guilt, there might have been reconciliation, and that the dark season
of her long last agony might have been passed in
Owning her weakness,
Her evil behaviour,
And leaving with meekness,
Her sins to her Saviour.
No: man who bore part in the offence constituted himself the judge of
this poor daughter of frailty, and she met with such mercy at his hands
as man is accustomed to give.
Do not let it be supposed that we are advocates or even apologists in
this case: our only anxiety is that, in the sacrifice of one, impunity
may not be gained by, perhaps, greater offenders. Let not the man who
flung her beauty and her virtue into ruin be allowed to escape. Her
sins were of man’s making: if these are to be remembered, let his share
in them form part of the example we are taught to avoid. By man she
was ruined in body and perilled in soul. Throughout the course of her
life she does not appear to have met with one who acted by her in a
spirit of Christian charity and anxiety: she was born with qualities
that should have led her heavenward: she was early pushed from the
path thither tending; nor amid all her royal, her noble, and alas!
her clerical companions, was there one who persuaded her that she was
erring—nay, but the contrary. The whole correspondence, now for the
first time divulged in these volumes, shows the wickedness of men
who could seduce to sin—their guilt in maintaining such terms with
her who had fallen as to make her feel assured that she had neither
incurred sin nor merited disgrace—and their baseness in making her in
her helplessness feel with double weight the penalty of a crime which
they had in the days of her greatness held to be none. Let us, indeed,
learn wisdom from a tale, the heroine of which does not afford the
sole example that is to be avoided; but be it also ours to remember
her services rather than her sins. The latter, with those of the first
seducer who made of her very charity a means to destroy her for ever,
may be left to Him who will render an unerring sentence when seducer
and victim are in presence together at the tribunal of truth. At all
events, let not the hardest blows of humanity fall on the weakest
offender. She would have been better but for man—that she was not much
worse was for no lack of energy on his part to make her so.
Who made the heart, ’tis He alone
Decidedly can try us:
He knows each chord, its various tone—
Each spring, its various bias.
Then at the balance let’s be mute,
We never can adjust it.
What’s done we partly can compute,
But know not what’s resisted.
[2] Graham first appeared in London in 1782. He was a graduate
of Edinburgh, wrote in a bombastic style, and possessed a great fluency
of elocution. He opened in Pall Mall a mansion which he called the
‘Temple of Health.’ The front was ornamented with an enormous gilt
sun, a statue of Hygeia, &c. The rooms were superbly furnished, and
the decorations, mirrors, &c., gave to the whole the appearance of an
enchanted palace. Single admission to his lectures on health and the
birth of children cost two guineas—a sum readily given. The Goddess
of Health usually delivered a supplementary lecture when the doctor
concluded. When two guinea auditors were exhausted, his two gigantic
porters, decked in gorgeous liveries, deluged the town with bills
stating that the lectures would be delivered at one guinea each. The
descending scale ultimately reached half-a-crown, and at last he
exhibited the Temple of Health itself at one shilling per head. Its
chief attraction was a ‘celestial bed,’ with rich hangings and glass
legs. The quack promised such results from merely sleeping on this
enchanted couch that married persons of high rank and respectability
were known to have given one hundred pounds for the accommodation.
Persons more foolish still and as highly exalted were found who gave
him one thousand pounds for a supply of his ‘elixir of life.’ He
then, when dupes were not grown scarce, but required variety in the
means of imposition, took to the practice and public exhibition of
earth-bathing. He and his goddess stood an hour each day immersed to
the chin in earth, above which their heads appeared, dressed in the
extravagant fashion of the day. In this position he delivered a lecture
on the salubrity of the practice at sums for single admissions which
commenced at a guinea and ended at a shilling. When all London had
heard and seen him he made a provincial tour; but, in spite of his
elixir of life, he died at the early age of fifty-two; and, in spite
of the facility with which he gained money, he died in poverty. The
famous Mrs. Macaulay married his brother, and Dr. Arnold, of Leicester,
the author of an able treatise on insanity, married his sister. In the
profession of the most impudent quackery Dr. Graham has never been
equalled, either for impudence or the success which attended it.
