Her expression is strongly marked, variable, and interesting; her
movements in common life ungraceful, her voice loud, yet not
disagreeable." This female critic seems to have been overburdened with
the weight of Emma's defects, mental and physical! Elliot says: "Her
person is nothing short of monstrous for its enormity, and is growing
every day. Her face is beautiful." The latter view tones down the
apparent desire not to say too much in her favour.

We are persuaded, in fact, that the foregoing views of Lady Hamilton's
personal appearance are not correct. They give the impression that the
opinions of her critics are based on the woman's lowly origin, and
that they assume that because she was the offspring of poor parents
she ought to be described as a fat hoyden with the manners of the
kitchen. The people who knew her intimately do not make her out to be
a stout, unwholesome, East-End Palestiner. The sister of Marie
Antoinette, be it remembered, was her close companion, and many
English ladies living in Naples and visiting there were scarcely
likely to associate with a person who could not display better looks
and manners than those set forth. Nelson, the Prince of Wales, and her
many other men admirers, were hardly likely to tumble over each other
in competition for her smiles and favours if "her dress was
frightful," "her waist between her shoulders," "her hair dirty," "her
feet hideous," "her bones large," "her complexion coarse," and "her
person monstrous for its enormity, growing every day."

We are inclined to place little dependence on the accuracy of people
who seem to have described her according to their moods or perhaps
according to the manner of her admirers towards themselves. That she
was clever and attractive there can be no doubt, and it is equally
certain that she won for herself the mortal enmity of many ladies who