Chapter VII: Front Matter (7)

Poor Tom! As late I wander’d by the Rhine,
I saw its banks in Winter’s mantle clad,
Gaunt, grim, and naked stood each shiv’ring vine--
It was a sight to make the soul feel sad.
‘How many a heart,’ I said, ‘is now made warm
By the bright produce of the joyous tree,
Here left by man to struggle with the storm!’
I sigh’d, Tom; went my way; and thought of thee!

_HORATIO NELSON AND EMMA HAMILTON._

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 13,000_l._ 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:--