latter being in her way a character as well known as Nelson himself,
the affair necessarily became more than usually a matter of comment,
especially as the scene now provided for London gossipers was a
re-presentation of that so long enacted at Palermo, and notorious
throughout Europe; but it was received with little toleration. "Most
of my friends," wrote Miss Knight, "were urgent with me to drop the
acquaintance, but, circumstanced as I had been, I feared the charge of
ingratitude, though greatly embarrassed as to what to do, for things
became very unpleasant." Had it been a new development, it would have
presented little difficulty; but as she had quietly lived many months
in the minister's house under the same conditions, only in the more
congenial atmosphere of Palermo, it was not easy now to join in the
disapproval shown by much of London society.

Lady Hamilton, of course, could not have any social acceptance, but
even towards Nelson himself, in all his glory, a marked coldness was
shown in significant quarters. "The Lady of the Admiralty," wrote he
to his friend Davison, "never had any just cause for being cool to
me;" an allusion probably to Lady Spencer, the wife of the First Lord.
Coldness from her must have been the more marked, for after the Nile
she had written him a wildly enthusiastic letter, recognizing with
gratitude the distinction conferred upon her husband's administration
by the lustre of that battle. "Either as a public or private man," he
continued, "I wish nothing undone which I have done,"--a remark
entirely ambiguous and misleading as regards his actual relations to
Lady Hamilton. He told Collingwood, at this same time, that he had not
been well received by the King. "He gave me an account of his
reception at Court," his old comrade writes, "which was not very
flattering, after having been the adoration of that of Naples. His
Majesty merely asked him if he had recovered his health; and then,