HAMILTON'. 



623 



must not be confounded with Hamilton of Gilbert- 

 field in Lanarkshire, the friend and correspondent of 

 Allan Ramsay, and the modernizer of Blind Harry's 

 poem of Wallace. 



HAMILTON, Sir WILLIAM, K. B., was born in 

 Scotland, in 1730. His mother having been nurse to 

 George III., that prince, before his accession to the 

 throne, extended his patronage to young Hamilton, 

 and made him his equerry. In 1764, he received the 

 appointment of ambassador to the court of Naples, 

 where he resided thirty-six years, returning to Eng- 

 land in 1800. A considerable part of this term being 

 a season of political repose, he devoted his leisure to 

 science, making observations on Vesuvius, ./Etna, and 

 other volcanic mountains of the Mediterranean ; and 

 the result of his researches is detailed in the Philoso- 

 phical Transactions, and in his Campi Phlegrcei, or 

 Observations on the Volcanoes of the Two Sicilies 

 (2 vols. folio). His communications to the royal so- 

 ciety were also republished, with notes, in 1772 (8vo). 

 He drew up an account of the discoveries made in 

 Pompeii, printed in the fourth volume of the Archee- 

 tlogia, and collected a cabinet of antiquities, of which 

 an account was published by D'Hancarville. The 

 French revolution gave rise to a treaty of alliance 

 between his Britannic majesty and the king of the 

 Two Sicilies, which was signed by Sir William Ha- 

 vnilton, July 12, 1793. By this treaty, the Neapoli- 

 tans engaged to furnish 6000 troops, four ships of the 

 line, &c., for war against France in the Mediter- 

 ranean ; but Ferdinand IV. made peace with the 

 French republic in 1796, without having taken any 

 active part in the contest. On this occasion, and in 

 the subsequent events of 1798 and 1799, when the 

 court emigrated to Sicily, Sir William appears to 

 have acted but a secondary part as a political agent, 

 and he was recalled not long after. He died in Lon- 

 don, April 6, 1803. After his death, his collection 

 of antique vases was purchased by parliament for the 

 British museum. 



HAMILTON, LADY (before her marriage, Emma 

 Lyon or Harte). According to the memoirs which 

 appeared under her name in 1815, her mother was a 

 poor servant woman, who, with her child in her 

 nrms, wandered back, in the year 1761, from the 

 county of Chester, to her home in Wales. Her me- 

 moirs say, that she went into service as a children's 

 maid at the age of thirteen. At sixteen, she went 

 to London, and served a shop-keeper, and soon after 

 became chambermaid to a lady of rank. The leisure 

 which she here enjoyed, she devoted to novel read- 

 ing. She soon acquired a taste for the drama. She 

 studied the attitudes and motions of the actors, and 

 exercised herself in representing by attitudes and ges- 

 tures the different passions. She thus laid the foun- 

 dation of her extraordinary skill in pantomimic re- 

 presentations. Her attention to these studies caused 

 her to lose her place, and she became a maid servant 

 in a tavern, frequented by actors, musicians, painters, 

 &c. According to her own memoirs, she retained her 

 virtue in the midst of this scene of licentiousness, and 

 the subsequent sacrifice of it she represents as an act 

 of generosity. A countryman and relation of hers 

 had been pressed upon the Thames. To obtain his 

 release, she hastened to the captain ; she pleased 

 him, and her request was granted. The captain load- 

 ed her with presents, and she had her natural capa- 

 city improved by instruction. She then found a new ad- 

 mirer, who, with the consent of her former lover, took 

 her to his country seat. But at the close of the summer, 

 disgusted by her extravagance,and induced by domes- 

 tic considerations, he dismissed her. Again thrown 

 helpless upon the world, she wandered through the 

 streets of London, in the lowest stage of degradation. 

 She then met with a quack doctor, who made her Ids 



! goddess Hygeia, and exhibited her as such, wrapped 

 in a light veil. Painters, sculptors, and others, paid 

 their tribute of admiration at the shrine of this new 

 goddess, and among them the celebrated painter 

 Romney, who fell in love with her. With him she 

 practised all the reserve of modesty and virtue. But 

 she ensnared Charles Greville, of the family of War- 

 wick, who had three children by her, and was on the 

 point of marrying her, when he was suddenly dis- 

 graced, in 1789, and deprived of all his offices. Un- 

 able to support her any longer, he sent her to 

 Naples, where his uncle, Sir William Hamilton, was 

 ambassador. Sir William was so charmed with her 

 that he made an agreement with Greville, to pay his 

 debts, on condition that he would give up his mis- 

 tress. She now behaved with more decorum ; she 

 supplied, as far as possible, all the deficiencies in her 

 education, and soon became remarkable for her social 

 talents. Artists of all kinds, who had access to Sir 

 William Hamilton's house, began to pay their court 

 to her, and she displayed before them her skill in at- 

 titudes. A piece of cloth was all she needed to ap- 

 pear as a daughter of Levi, as a Roman matron, or 

 as an Helen or an Aspasia. It was she who invented 

 the seducing shawl dance. Hamilton, who became 

 each day more and more enamoured of her beauty, at 

 last determined to many her ; and their nuptials were 

 celebrated in London, in 1791. Soon after his return 

 to Naples, he presented her at court, and she soon 

 took an active part in the festivals of the ^ueen; 

 She was the only witness of the secret suppers df the 

 queen and Acton, and often slept in the chamber of 

 her royal friend. This favour, and her haughtiness, 

 displeased the ladies of the court, who could not con- 

 ceal their jealousy ; some of them were, on that ac- 

 count, treated as criminals of state. At that time 

 began her acquaintance with Nelson, who soon 

 became intimate with the ambassador and his wife. 

 Through them the British government received infor- 

 mation, that the king of Spain had determined to 

 declare war. After the victory of Aboukir, Nelson 

 was received in Naples with extravagant rejoicings. 

 Lady Hamilton was the heroine of the crowd, to 

 whom Nelson appeared as a liberating deity. Several 

 months passed hi festivities, until the advance of the 

 French obliged the royal family, in December, 1798, 

 to escape, with Nelsort's assistance, to Sicily. Some 

 months after, Italy was delivered by the victories of 

 the Austrians and the Russians, and Nelson's fleet 

 returned to the bay of Naples. Lady Hamilton ac- 

 companied the slave of her charms ; and it is assert-' 

 ed, that the violent measures then used, contrary to 

 the capitulation, were partly intended as acts of ven- 

 geance upon her personal enemies. When the court 

 returned to Naples, in 1800, things were replaced 

 upon their former footing, and remained so till the 

 British cabinet recalled Sir William Hamilton. Nel- 

 son resigned his command at the same time, and ap- 

 peared in London with the lady and the ambassador. 

 But the intimacy between Nelson and lady Hamil- 

 ton here attracted general disapprobation. She was 

 delivered of a daughter, which bore the name of 

 Nelson. Soon after, Sir William died, and his widow 

 retired to Merton place, a country seat which Nelson 

 had bought for her. Abandoned to herself after his 

 death, in 1805, she again gave herself up to her cor- 

 rupt inclinations, and was soon reduced to poverty. 

 Limited to a small pension, she left England, took 

 her daughter with her, and hired a house in the coun- 

 try, near Calais, where she died, in 1815. Lady 

 Hamilton was without education, but full of art. To 

 her beauty, and her skill in heightening its effect by 

 the voluptuous attitudes of the dancing girl, she 

 owed her fame and her good fortune. In violation 

 of all sensibility and decency, she sold or published 



