her out when within a few months of a second child, which was stillborn.  The first was handed over to her grandmother to take care of.  Charles Greville, the second son of the Earl of Warwick, then took her to live with him.  She had intimate relations with him while she was still Featherstonehaugh’s mistress, and he believed the child about to be born was his.  At this time Amy Lyon changed her name to Emily Hart.  Greville went to work on business lines.  He struck a bargain that all her previous lovers were to be dropped, and under this compact she lived with him in a respectable manner for nearly four years.  He gave her some education, but she seems to have had natural genius, and her beauty was undisputed.

Emily Hart sat to Romney,[2] the artist, and it is said that twenty-three portraits were painted, though some writers have placed the number at over forty.  “Marinda,” “Sibyl,” and the “Spinstress” were amongst them.  The pictures bring high prices; one, I think called “Sensibility,” brought, in 1890, over L3,000.  Notwithstanding her lowly birth (which has no right to stop any one’s path to greatness) and lack of chastity, she had something uncommon about her that was irresistibly attractive.  Sir William Hamilton, Greville’s uncle, returned to England some time in 1784 from Naples, where he was the British Minister.  It was said that he was in quest of a second wife, the first having died some two years before.  Greville did not take kindly to the idea of Sir William marrying again, because he was his heir.  He thought instead that, being in financial trouble himself, he would try to plant Emma on his uncle, not with the object of marriage, but of her becoming his mistress.  Sir William was captivated with the girl, which made it easy for the shameless nephew to persuade his uncle to take her off his hands.  Emma, however, was in love with Greville, and there were indications of revolt when the astute lady discovered that serious negotiations were proceeding for her transference from nephew to uncle.  It took twelve months to arrive at a settlement.

There does not appear to have been a signed agreement, but there certainly was a tacit understanding that Sir William was to assist Greville out of his difficulties, in return for which Emma was to join him at Naples, ostensibly as a visitor.  She writes imploringly to Greville to answer her letters, but never an answer came, and in utter despair she tells him at last that she will not become his uncle’s concubine, and threatens to make Hamilton marry her.  This poor wretched woman was human, after all, and indeed she gave convincing proofs of many high qualities in after-years, but in the passion of her love for the dissolute scamp who bartered her away she pleaded for that touch of human compassion that never came.  She knew that her reprobate lover was fearful lest she should induce his uncle to marry her, and she may have had an instinctive feeling that it was part of the contract that she was to be warded off if any attempt of the kind were made likely to endanger his prospects of becoming Hamilton’s heir.  His indifference made her venomously malignant, and she sent him a last stab that would at least give him a troubled mind, even though it should not cause him to recall her; she would then pursue her revenge by ignoring him.