Read Memoirs of Emma, lady Hamilton, the friend of Lord Nelson and the court of Naples; for Free Online Page A

that hateful past will haunt her. It shall be buried with the winter; " I will have it so," as she was to write of another matter. And is it not
    " Spring-time, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing hey ding a-ding a-ding"?
    Edgware Row a hundred and twenty-three years ago was the reverse of what it looks to-day. Its site, now a network of slums, was then a country prospect. It fronted the green sward of a common, abutting on the inclosure of a quaint old church, in a vault of

    which, when the crowning blow fell, Lady Hamilton was to lay the remains of her devoted mother. That church had for many years been associated with artists, singers, and musicians, British and foreign. Here in March, 1733, the apprentice Hogarth had wedded Jane Thornhill, his master's daughter. Here lay buried Matthew Dubourg, the court violinist; and Emma could still read his epitaph :—
    " Tho' sweet as Orpheus them couldst bring Soft pleadings from the trembling string, Unmoved the King of Terror stands Nor owns the magic of thy hands."
    Here, too, lay buried George Barret, " an eminent painter and worthy man." Here later were to lie Lolli, the violinist; the artists Schiavonetti and Sandby; Nol-lekens and Banks the sculptors; Alexander Geddes the scholar; Merlin the mechanic; Caleb Whiteford the wine-merchant wit; and his great patron, John Henry Petty, Marquis of Lansdowne, who descends to history as the Earl of Shelburne. Here once resided the charitable Denis Chirac, jeweller to Queen Anne. Here, too, were voluntary schools and the lying-in hospital. The canal, meandering as far as Bolingbroke's Hayes in one direction, and Lady Sarah Child's Norwood in the other, was not finished till 1801, when Lady Hamilton may have witnessed its opening ceremony.
    Greville, still saddled with his town abode, at once economised. The Edgware Row establishment was modest in both senses of the word. He brought reputable friends to the house,and a few neighbouringladies seem to have called. The household expenses did not exceed some £150 a year. Emma's own yearly allowance was only about £50, and she lived well within it. Her mother was a clever manager, whose services the thrifty prodigal appreciated. The existing household

    accounts in Emma's handwriting only start in 1784, but from them some idea may be formed of what they were in the two years preceding. They belong to thei Hamilton papers inherited by Greville in 1803, and they were evidently deemed worthy of preservation both by nephew and uncle.
    It is clear from these accounts that all was now " retrenchment and reform "; that all was not plenty, is equally apparent. But Emma was more than satisfied with her lot. Had not her knight-errant (or erring) dropped from heaven? From the first she regarded him as a superior being, and by 1784 she came to love him with intense tenderness; indeed she idealised him as much as others were afterwards to idealise her.
    All was not yet, however, wholly peace. Her character was far from being ideal, quite apart from the circumstances which, by comparison, she viewed as almost conjugal. Her petulant temper remained un-quelled long after her tamer undertook to " break it in," and there were already occasional " scenes" against her own interest. Yet how soon and warmheartedly she repented may be gathered from her letters two years onwards, when she was sea-bathing at Parkgate: " So, my dearest Greville," pleads one of them, " don't think on my past follies, think on my good, little as it has been." And, before, " Oh! Greville, when I think on your goodness, your tender kindness, my heart is so full of gratitude that I want words to express it. But I have one happiness in view, which I am determined to practice, and that is eveness of temper and steadin[e]ss of mind. For endead I have thought so much of your amable goodness when you have been tried to the utmost, that I will, endead I will manege myself, and try to be like Greville. Endead I can never be like him.