strenuous, but unsuccessful resistance in Parliament, and before the Judges of the land, to the measures of an arbitrary court, first took arms, assembling the levies of the Associated Counties of Buckingham and Oxford in 1642. Within a few paces of this spot, whilst fighting in defence of the free monarchy and liberties of England, he was mortally wounded, June 18th, 1643. On the 200th year from that day this stone was raised to do honour to his memory." Among the subscribers are the Duke of Bedford, Lords Sudeley, Leigh, J. Russell, Sir Francis Burdett, Mr. R. Otway-Cave, Mr. C. Tennyson D'Eyncourt, the Hon. F. Twisleton, Lord Chief Justice Denman, and the Rev. R. D. Hampden, D.D., at that time Rector of Ewelme and Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, and afterwards Bishop of Hereford, a member of the patriot's family, though not actually a descendant of his loins. On the farther side is a notice to the effect that the monument was repaired in 1863 by Mr. Hobart-Cameron, the owner of the estate of Hampden, and by another descendant of the patriot in the female line, Sir Harry E. Austen of Shalford in Surrey.

EDWARD WALFORD.

497

LADY HAMILTON AND LORD NELSON.

MR.

R. JEAFFRESON proves in his own person that "luck" and labour are closely allied. Whether he patiently grubs among the mighty mass of Middlesex County Records, and finds his reward in time-worn defaced documents that tell all the story of Ben Jonson's duel and his trial for manslaughter, together with other important unexpected revelations; or hunts up old letters and papers. relating to that puzzling mixture of good-heartedness, vanity, frank self-indulgence, ready sympathy, strange power of personal fascination and moral obliquity, the notorious Lady Hamilton, the result is the same. He opens, as it were, a series of peepholes into the past, through which we see old familiar faces and figures in full light and relief-no more dimmed by their own breath and that of those too close to them--and, if occasionally we may feel that he is apt to dilate a little too much (even for his own sake, it may be) on minor points, we can readily forgive him. Discoverers have a good right to be garrulous, if they are not too self-celebrating, whether they announce a new comet, or the return of an old one; or tell of the existence, in some remote island of the melancholy main or in the centre of an unexplored continent, of a race whose presence had been but dimly guessed at ; or only by unwearied researches light upon and interpret documents that enable us to piece together and make coherent the stories of lives that had heretofore seemed nebulous or contradictory, or disclose motives that, like magnets, draw the separate scraps and filings from amid the dust and dirt into order and regularity around them. Certainly, in spite of the immense mass of writings that had gathered round Lord Nelson in his relations to the remarkable woman who exercised such an influence for good or evil upon his life and memory, it has been left for Mr. Jeaffreson to set before us a coherent whole, in which indomitable perseverance, keen analysis, and severe impartiality play their part. He extenuates naught nor sets down aught in malice. If he would fain sustain for Nelson in all essentials the fame of a high-minded, stainless English gentleman, he will not VOL. CCLXIII. NO. 1883.

M M

do this by reviling the woman he loved, but will also show that there were many noble traits in her, inextricably associated with others not so noble ; and while showing due concern for old-fashioned domestic English morality, will speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so far as he can see it.

In his anxiety to do this, it seems to us that here and there his impartiality overdoes itself, and like ambition, falls on the other side. But in these days of easy writing, hurried reading and one-sided judgment, this is surely a fault that leans to virtue's side. At all events, the character of such a woman as Lady Hamilton is only to be understood, if we may not say appreciated, by a careful regard to the peculiar circumstances in which, in her earlier life more especially, she was placed; and whatever opinion may be formed of her morally, it is hardly possible for anyone on learning these not to be struck with wonder at what she did, the position she achieved, the influence she exercised, and the services she was capable of rendering at a crisis in her country's history. The girl who in her fourteenth year-after but a poor apology for education at a country school— was cast forth upon the world as a nursemaid in an indifferently equipped middle-class family; had a spell of the same slavery in London; next served in a dealer's shop; from that passed into companionship to a lady; then lapsed into mistress-ship, passing from one hand to another, and finally rose to be Lady Hamilton and the bosom-friend of the King and Queen of Naples, as well as of Nelson, was no ordinary person. But the surprise is only intensified when we are in possession of the fullest details as now set forth by Mr. Jeaffreson; and in some degree to supply the place of these volumes to those who may not have the opportunity of perusing them, or may be disinclined for the labour, we shall try to epitomise them here as effectively as we can.

Amy Lion or Lyon was born of poor parents on May 12, 1765, at Great Neston in Cheshire. Her father died shortly after her birth, and her mother then removed to her native district in Flintshire, living in the now famous parish of Hawarden. Amy here either received something a degree better than the ordinary education of her class or to a small extent profited better by it than most do, for she could write fairly though she did not spell well, an accomplishment which she never completely mastered, in spite of careful

Lady Hamilton and Lord Nelson. An Historical Biography based on letters and other documents in the possession of Alfred Morrison, Esq., of Font hill, Wiltshire. By John Cordy Jeaffreson, author of The Real Lord Byron. In 2 vols. Hurst & Blackett.

teaching. When yet a mere child under fourteen, she entered as a nurse-girl in the household of a Mr. Thomas of Hawarden. Probably she did not remain more than six months there, when, in the autumn of 1778, she came up to London, under her mother's wing. She lived for a while as nursemaid in the family of Dr. Budd, one of the physicians of Bartholomew's Hospital. Mr. Jeaffreson tells us, that as yet the charms which told so directly afterwards had not come into development, and probably, had it been otherwise, there would have been less likelihood that Mr. Pettigrew is right when he says that she then engaged herself to a dealer in St. James's Market. Probably she had as part of her duty to aid in serving in the shop; and we are told that after a short time there she won the approval of one of the customers, "a lady of position," who was delighted with her looks, air, and manner, and offered her a better position as a kind of lady-companion. "The former," says Mr. Jeaffreson, "may have engaged Emily (for she was fond of changing her name, from Amy to Emily, and from Emily to Emma, as later from Lyons to Hart) in hope that so charming a waitress would draw new customers to his shop. The latter may have hired the girl from St. James's Market in order to render her drawing-room more attractive to fashionable idlers." It is said that her removal from this position was caused through a liaison brought about by her presenting to a naval captain a petition for some old Flintshire friend who had been seized by the press-gang and torn from wife, family, and friends Through this access of benevolence or of excessive zeal and selfassurance she secured the man's freedom but lost her own virtue; the captain having fallen desperately in love with her, and then deserted her on going to sea, when she was about to give birth to a child. Whatever truth there may be in the story, a child was born, and Emma lost her place. She was then befriended by the Hon. Charles Greville, son of the Second Earl of Warwick, who provided for the child, which was sent to her mother at Hawarden. She then fell into the hands of a certain Sir Henry Fetherstonhaugh, of Up Park, Sussex, who, Dr. Doran says, was nearly "ruined by the extravagant profusion into which he plunged for her sake," but it is only too clear that Sir Henry was a dissolute roué, one of those men who do not plunge into ruinous extravagance for anybody's sake, but only for their own pleasure. Charles Greville was a friend of his, and no doubt was kind to Emily by money-gifts and otherwise. She lost Sir Henry's favour before very long, and was sent home to Hawarden with just enough money to carry her there, and the prospect of being once again a mother. She was, however, in

London again before the year had passed, and it is probable that she now either began or renewed her tableaux vivants performance at Dr. Graham's Temple of Health; at all events, her connection with Graham at some time during these years may be taken as established. Before very long she passed into the protection of Mr. Greville, who, if his intimacy with her, during her life with Sir Henry Fetherstonhaugh, or before it, did not pass beyond the bounds of mere friendly intimacy, was, it must be inferred, privy to lapses on her part, which made him slow either to press Sir Henry to provide for the child, or to advise her to do so.

Mr. Greville, it is clear, entered on his relationship with her in all openness, and with precise, business-like agreement. He established her in a small house in Edgware Row, with her mother for housekeeper and factotum, the children being otherwise disposed of at Hawarden. But, in justice to him, it must be said that he had some idea of acting a fair, if not a generous, part towards her. He was anxious to improve her mind, and to develop such gifts as she possessed. He aimed at improving her manners and her education, and provided instruction for her in such matters as he could not attend to himself. The picture Mr. Jeaffreson gives of the life in Edgware Row is far from being unattractive.

In spite of the untoward circumstances in which she had been placed in those early years Mr. Jeaffreson can still favourably appraise her character.

It is much to say, to the credit of a girl of her humble extraction, that she was singularly truthful- -so truthful, indeed, that she might be fairly described as incapable of falsehood. Quick to sympathise with the distresses of others, the emotional girl was quick to empty her pocket of its last penny, for the alleviation of wretchedness falling casually under her view. . . . Had she been wanting in natural delicacy and whiteness of soul, had there been a taint of uncleanness and spontaneous impurity in her moral nature, the quality would not have failed to reveal it. self in the frank, communicative, unconsidered, hasty, ill-spelt and ill-written letters, which she was in the habit of scribbling to the men with whom she lived in the closest confidence, containing much that no woman of high education could have written, and but few passages which do not reveal the slenderness of her scholastic attainments. . . . For the most part, her earlier letters may be described as the outpourings of a vain, simple, unrefined, egotistic young woman, whose inordinate vanity alone saved her from being in every mental and moral respect, an altogether commonplace young woman. . . . Only once in all the many incautious letters of her pen, which have come under my perusal, does she use any word that a man of good taste would shrink from reading aloud to a company of gentle

women.

She improved in her knowledge of English under Mr. Greville's care, and had masters in singing and music. She was introduced to Romney, the famous painter, who came to admire and love her, and