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For fear thy Deity, a comely She,

Should one day ramble in a frolic mood—

For since the Idols of a youthful King,

So very volatile indeed, take wing;

If his to wicked wanderings can incline,

Lord! who would answer, poor old Knight, for thine?

Yet should thy Grecian Goddess fly thy fame,

I think we should catch her in Hedge-Lane.

One of Sir William's friends had complained that Emma used to be a common streetwalker in Hedge Lane (an alleyway off Drury Lane); this wag implied she would take up the job again if she grew weary of her husband.

The Times weighed in more supportively, reporting that Lady Hamilton had departed, leaving "six portraits behind her which are done by Romney Two of these are for the Prince of Wales, in which she is drawn in her most elegant attitudes."15 In October, the paper published "To Lady Hamilton" by H.F. (perhaps a sly joke about her affair with Sir Harry Featherstonhaugh). The poet produced a eulogistic version of what was by now a hackneyed description of the relationship: Emma was a beauteous statue, desired by the impotent Sir William as an aesthetic object. The word Aether is a coy reference to the Temple of Health.

What time the surest Dame of Athens came,

To give the Artist's eye of the mould of grace,

The matchless texture of the harmonious frame

The perfect features and the beauteous face

One brilliant eye-ball shot a beam of fire

Another languished blue as Aether's light

Here Dignity and Heaven his touch Inspire

There dimpling laughing Beauty charms his sight.

In the poem, the Artist (Sir William) sees Emma and is thrilled by "a form by early majesty inform'd/O'er which the hand of Grace had passed from you!"

His eye had caught thy fascinating smile

Thy seraph eye and features touch'd by Heaven

Th'enamour'd Gods had left their thrones awhile

And deathless honours to thy name been given

The poem concluded generously with "sweet Stranger, Praise shall mark thy way." In England, she was not so much the object of praise as of gossipy insinuation and sartorial imitation. Alerted by the Times and gossip columns, people flocked to see her portraits. Prints sold wildly, and more and more women adopted her signature look of a loose, draped white muslin dress and Grecian-style pumps. Emma's marriage and her busy schedule of shows of Attitudes in London and Bath had ensured she was headline news.

William's first wife had brought him a huge dowry and a life of ease. Emma, as the Town and Country Magazine had suggested, only increased his expenses. But she made him happy, which Catherine had been unable to do. Sir William would have found a genteel virgin tediously dependent. He soon recommended to Emma that she "harden" her "good and tender heart," admitting that, as for his own, "I will allow it to be rather tough." Emma knew she had a tricky job ahead of her, in both public and in private. As John Dickenson reported to his wife, Emma told him she knew that the "eyes of many people were upon her" and she promised that "gratitude, inclination, & every consideration wd compel her to do everything in her power to please him & She was certain she'd do it."16

CHAPTER 25

A Difficult Part to Act

Am I Emma Hamilton? It seems impossible,” Emma marveled as she journeyed to Naples. “Surely no person was ever so happy as I am.” The new Lady Hamilton arrived in Paris in September 1791. Like all visitors to the city, she and Sir William hoped to see the revolution at first hand. Emma also had a plan: she wanted to meet Queen Marie-Antoinette.

Only a year before, Romney and his friends had reveled in Paris, deciding it the most splendid place in Europe, but since then much blood had been shed. Sir William and Emma took rooms in the expensive and very central Hotel de l'Université, where Lord Palmerston, William's old friend, was also staying. He secured them seats at the Assembly on September 14, when the king was forced to accept the constitution, which classed him as a constitutional monarch and his