Free Nelson's Lady Hamilton by Esther Meynell

in, I frightened him with a Majesty and Juno look that I receved him with. Then he says that whent of on being more acquainted, and I enchanted him by my politeness and the

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    maner in which I did the honors, and then I made him allmost cry with Handels; and with the comick he could not contain himself, for he says he never saw the tragick and comick muse blended so happily together."
    Emma certainly did not mind " the butter spread too thick ! "
    In the late summer of 1787 she commenced writing again to Charles Greville, keeping a sort of journal-letter for his benefit which gives a vivacious account of her doings for about four months. She allows herself the luxury of a few reproaches at the beginning, but it should be remembered that the generous creature never said or did anything that could injure the nephew's prospects with his uncle, though it was fully in her power to have done so had she cherished a taste for revenge.
    "Altho' you never think me worth writing to," she says, " yet I cannot so easily forget you, and whenever I have had any particular pleasure, I feil as tho' I was not right tell I had communicated it to my dearest Greville. For you will ever be dear to me, and tho' we cannot be together, lett ous corespond as freinds. I have a happiness in hearing from you, and a comfort in communicating my little storeys to you, because I flatter myself that you still love the name of that Emma, that was once very dear to you."
    After this little outburst, she tells him of her

    visits and her singing, and how she draws pictures of Vesuvius—all with a charming simplicity and friendliness that Greville certainly did not deserve. Then she goes on—
    " We was last night up Vesuvus [if she could draw the mountain she couldn't spell its name!] at twelve a clock, and in my life I never saw so fine a sight. The lava runs about five mile down from the top; for the mountain is not burst, as ignorant people say it is. But, when we got to the Hermitage, there was the finest fountain of liquid fire falling down a great precipice, and as it run down it sett fire to the trees and brushwood, so that the mountain looked like one entire mountain of fire. We saw the lava surround the poor hermit's house, and take possession of the chapel, notwithstanding it was covered with pictures of Saints and other religios preservitaves against the fury of nature. For me, I was enraptured. I could have staid all night there, and I have never been in charity with the moon since, for it looked so pale and sickly; and the red-hot lava served to light up the moon, for the light of the moon was nothing to the lava. We met the Prince Royal on the mountain. But his foolish tuters onely took him up a little whay, and did not lett him stay 3 minuets; so, when we asked him how he liked it, he said, * Bella ma poca roba,' when, if they had took him five hundred yards higher, he would have seen the noblest, sublimest
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    sight in the world. But, poor creatures, the[y] were frightened out of their sences, and glad to make a hasty retreat.—O, I shall kill my selfe with laughing! Their has been a prince paying us a visit. He is sixty years of age, one of the first families, and as all ways lived at Naples, and when I told him I had been to Caprea, he asked me if I went there by land. Only think, what ignorance! I staired at him and asked him who was his tutor."
    It was very delightful to this daughter of a village blacksmith to be able to " stair " at princes and ask them who was responsible for their amazing ignorance! It was delightful, also, to be entertained as the guest of honour on board a Dutch man-of-war. She describes everything for Greville's benefit in the same lengthy letter—
    " There was the Comodore, and the Captain and four more of the first officers waited to conduct ous to the ship. The 2 ships was dress'd out so fine in all the collowrs; the men all put in order; a band of musick and all