2nJ S. X. Nov. 3. 'GO.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



343 



own, that he " is not aware of any appropriate 

 reading of these words as a song." 



A third solo setting of tliese words has been 

 done by Sir H. Bishop, to be sung by Adriana 

 in the Comedy of Errors. 



There are -two settings of these words in the 

 duett form. One of them Is by Mr. W. Jackson 

 (of Exeter), and the other is contained in a book 

 of Thirteen Canzonets for two voices, composed by 

 T. Tremuin (about 178G). Besides a setting of 

 these words as a glee, of which I can now only 

 say that I saw it many years ago, long before I 

 made notes, I can particularise two others. One 

 of these is by the Hon. Augustus Barry, and is 

 a glee for three voices. The other, for four voices, 

 is by Sig'. Giordani (about 1780). This compo- 

 sition Is headed by an announcement that it Is to 

 be had also "adapted for one voice, with the 

 Harpsichord Accomp'." 



To the settings of "Who is Sylvia?" (^Two 

 Gentlemen of Verona) mentioned in my first 

 paper, must now be added two more. One is a 

 glee by Mr. B,. J. Stevens, Avhich I have not seen 

 myself, but It is mentioned by Mr. Linley. The 

 next is a second pasticcio glee by Sir H. Bishop, 

 compounded from Morley and Bavenscroft, and 

 sung in Twelfth Night. Alfked RorrE. 



Somers Town. 



EMMA, LADY HAMILTON. 



As some mention has been made In " N. & Q.'' 

 of Lady Hamilton (P' S. I. 36. ; 2"^ S. ii. 316.), 

 and of the cruel and disgraceful treatment she 

 met with at the hands of the English Nation, and 

 of the Rev. Earl Nelson in particular. It may be 

 well to follow it up with some additional informa- 

 tion. 



In 1815, Immediately after the death of Lady 

 H., an infamous book professing to contain her 

 Memoirs appeared, but It is utterly unworthy of 

 perusal or credence.* In the Times of August 

 22, 1849, appeared a striking article on "Lord 

 Nelson and Lady Hamilton" (I believe from the 

 pen of the late ]\Ir. Philips) ; it was reprinted by 

 Murray in the Essays from ''■The Times" First 

 Series, Lond., 1851. In Blackwood's Magazine 

 for April, 1860, thei'e is an excellent and well- 

 informed article on " Lady Hamilton." I should 

 be glad to hear of any other papers of merit which 

 have appeared on Lady II. In other periodicals. 



Her life reads more like fiction than fact. She 

 was born on the 26th of April, 1764, at Preston 

 in Lancashire. Her father was Henry Lyons, a 

 labourer In that place ; her mother was Mary 

 Kidd of Hawai-den In Flintshire. The former 

 dying while she was a young child, the mother 



* Brentoa's Naval History seems equally malignant 

 and mondacious as these Memoirs in its treatment of 

 Lady H. 



removed with her to Hawarden, and lived with 

 her relatives the Kidds. These relatives were 

 colliers. If I mistake not; and as she grew up, 

 Emma Lyons, or Emma Kidd, as she was com- 

 monly called, used to accompany her mother in 

 carrying coal about in donkey panniers. While 

 yet a very young girl she was engaged as nursery- 

 maid in the family of Mr. Thomas, the surgeon of 

 Hawarden, whose wife was sister of the well- 

 known Alderman Boydell, and who resided in the 

 house occupied now and for many years past by 

 the curate. She left this place about the year 

 1780, when she was only sixteen, for a similar 

 situation in London, in the house of Dr. Budcl, 

 who then resided in Chatham Place, Blackfriars. 

 From Dr. Budd's house, Emma Lyons passed Into 

 the service of a tradesman in St. James's Market. 

 Here her remarkable beauty and fascination at- 

 tracted the attention of some lady of fashion 

 (whose name, as well as that of the tradesman 

 above-mentioned, seems unknown), who received 

 her into her house as a kind of humble companion. 

 Her subsequent history is well known ; her con- 

 nexion with Captain (afterwards Admiral) Payne, 

 then with Sir Harry Featherstonehaugh, then 

 with the Hon. C. F. Greville, then with Sir W. 

 Hamilton, and last, with Lord Nelson. On the 

 6th of September, 1791, Emma Lyons, or Harte., 

 as she was then called, became Lady Hamilton ; 

 the marriage took place at Marylebone Church-. 

 In her signature In the Parish Register, she changes 

 the name Emma to Amy, and signs herself " Amy 

 Lyons." Her fate Is one of the saddest and most 

 touching on record. The most generous and un- 

 selfish of women, after the death of her husband 

 and Lord Nelson, met with the basest ingratitude 

 and tl:e most heartless cruelty. In her distress 

 and anguish, she fled with her daughter Horatia 

 to Calais in the year 1813. In eighteen months 

 more the strange and eventful life of Emma Ha- 

 milton was over. She died — actually of starva- 

 tion — on the 15th of January, 1815, in the house 

 now No. 1 1. Rue FrauQaise, aged fifty-one. The ex- 

 cellent Mrs. Hunter of Brighton, who soothed the 

 latter end of Emma Hamilton, but knew her too 

 late to be of much use, describes her as " exceed- 

 ingly beautiful even in death." 



" Emma Hamilton sleeps in what was once the plea- 

 sure-garden of a woman almost equally famous for her 

 personal charms and her strange adventures — the beau- 

 tiful Elizabeth ChudWigh, better known as Duchess of 

 Kingston. It was consecrated, and used as a cemetery 

 until 181G. It was afterwards converted into a timber- 

 yard, and no trace remains of the grave of her whom 

 Nelson, with his dying voice, bequeathed to the gratitude 

 of his country !"* 



Lady Hamilton, I believe, left bPhlnd her four 

 children : three by Mr. Greville, and one by Lord 

 Nelson. Is It known what became of them ? The 



* Blackwood, p. 429. 



