wife, and never spoke to-day but to applaud her.  Miss Cornelia Knight seems the decided flatterer of the two, and never opens her mouth but to show forth their praise; and Mrs. Cadogan, Lady Hamilton’s mother, is—­what one might expect.  After dinner we had several songs in honour of Lord Nelson, written by Miss Knight, and sung by Lady Hamilton.[12] She puffs the incense full in his face; but he receives it with pleasure, and snuffs it up very cordially.”  Lord Minto, whose friendship for Nelson was of proof, wrote eighteen months after this to his wife:  “She goes on cramming Nelson with trowelfuls of flattery, which he goes on taking as quietly as a child does pap."[13]

“Lady Hamilton,” wrote Mrs. St. George on succeeding days, “paid me those kinds of compliments which prove she thinks mere exterior alone of any consequence ...  She loads me with all marks of friendship at first sight, which I always think more extraordinary than love of the same kind, pays me many compliments both when I am absent and present, and said many fine things about my accompanying her at sight.  Still she does not gain upon me ...  Mr. Elliot says, ’She will captivate the Prince of Wales, whose mind is as vulgar as her own, and play a great part in England,’”—­a remark which showed shrewd judgment of character, as Nelson afterwards found to his intense disturbance.  At Vienna the whole party had been presented at Court, but at Dresden the Electress refused to receive Lady Hamilton, on account of her former dissolute life.  “She wished to go to Court,” says Mrs. St. George, “on which a pretext was made to avoid receiving company last Sunday, and I understand there will be no Court while she stays.”  Nelson felt resentment at this exclusion, though powerless, of course, to express it; but he declined an invitation to a private house which had not been extended to her.  This incident naturally raised the question, what prospect there was of the lady being accepted at the Court of her own sovereign.  “She talked to me a great deal of her doubts whether the Queen would receive her, adding, ’I care little about it.  I had much rather she would settle half Sir William’s pension on me,’”—­a remark which showed more philosophy than self-esteem.

A week’s visit in Dresden ended by the party taking boats for Hamburg, which they reached on the 21st of October, the journey being prolonged by stopping every night.  They there remained ten days, of which no very noteworthy incidents have been recorded, although the general interest of all classes of people in the renowned warrior, of whom they had heard so much, continued to be manifested, sometimes in quaint and touching expression.  On the 31st of October they embarked on board the mail-packet for England, and after a stormy passage landed at Yarmouth on the 6th of November, 1800.  Two years and eight months had passed since Nelson sailed from Spithead, on a cruise destined to have so marked an influence on