England's Mistress_ The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton - Kate Williams [85]
By late 1790, all London was gossiping about the imminent arrival of the ambassador and his mistress. The Town and Country Magazine gave Emma and William starring roles in its scandal column, "Tete á Tete," as "The Consular Artist and the Venus de Mediéis." According to the article, Emma was a shrewd and beautiful artist's model with expensive tastes and Sir William was a buffoon, prone to making risque jokes that offended his guests. "Industry, without much taste or genius, has gradually conducted him to the top of the ladder," and he was conspicuous proof that "success is not always the result of great talents."
Although Sir William, the journalist declared, "may not be able to execute, he is said to be a competentjudge of the performances of others." In other words, he was neither an artist nor a sexual partner, able only to watch the acts of others (ajoke about his interest in penile cults). He had refused to marry because, the article continued, "the term wife was offensive to his ear, as it implied the natural consequences which would probably ensue—the immoderate increase of his expenses." He was obsessed by statues, and so his idea of a compliment, according to the article, was "Madam if you were mine, I would put you into one of my best frames." He saw Emma at a lubricious "exhibition, at which he is more than an indifferent spectator"—a quip about the Temple of Health. She "was in the last year of her teens and seemed to have been cast in perfection's mould." "Seized with a kind of infatuation, he presented her with one of his best catalogues and begged he might be permitted to attend her and explain to her the embellishments of his gallery. The fair one granted his petition, and May and January formed a temporary alliance." Emma was "not insensible of the honour conferred on her by a man of consular dignity," the article went on, and their mutual happiness was enhanced when she performed her Attitudes:
A tender intimacy commenced; and when our hero chooses a relaxation from severer duties, he pays his devoirs to our beautiful young heroine. But in these agreeable rencontres, nothing impure or impassioned is admitted: as an artist, he admires the figure of the lady, not as a lover; as an artist his adoration is enthusiastic, as a lover his sentiments are too refined to relish sensualities. His fair advocate is however, infinitely serviceable to him in his professional line. She is the standard of female perfection, a comparison is therefore made between her limbs and those of the ideal females which his ministers delineate for him on canvas.3
Sir William ignored the barbs of the gossip magazines. "No Princess cou'd do the honours of her Palace with more care and dignity than she does those of my house," he decided. Since he had given up expecting a promotion to Paris or Madrid, he was more tempted to marriage. He would have had an uphill struggle introducing Emma to French or Spanish society, but the Neapolitans loved her and would accept her as his wife.
Emma shared Sir William's interests in music, sailing, and travel and his fascination with the Neapolitan court, and they had realistic expectations of each other. She knew she had to keep cheerful and could not make emotional demands on him. Tolerant of her noisy restlessness, he ignored her tendencies to take on too much, to interfere, and to hog the limelight. Although he knew her history, he knew that if she had been a respectable young lady, he never would have met her, and she would not have the same energy and willingness to please. He was also grateful to her: she had been faithful to him in Naples despite offers from elevated men, and she had been good-natured and uncomplaining about his frequent absences to visit the court or hunt.