"I have two pictures to paint of her for the Prince of Wales. She says she must see you before she leaves England, which will be in the beginning of September. She asked me if you would not write my life. I told her you had begun it; then, she said, she hoped you would have much to say of her in the life, as she prided herself upon being my model.
"I dedicate my time to this charming lady; there is a prospect of her leaving town with Sir William, for two or three weeks. They are very much hurried at present, as everything is going on for their speedy marriage, and all the world following her, and talking of her, so that if she has not more good sense than vanity, her brain must be turned. The pictures I have begun of Joan of Arc, a Magdalen, and a Bacchante for the Prince of Wales; and another I am to begin as a companion to the Bacchante. I am also to paint her as Constance for the Shakespeare Gallery."
Twenty-three pictures of Emma Lyon painted by Romney are now in existence. England at that time was experiencing a tidal wave of genius, and Romney and his beautiful model rode in on the crest of the wave, with Sir Joshua, the Herschels, Edmund Burke, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Doctor Johnson, Goldsmith, Horace Walpole and various others of equal note caught in amber, all of them, by the busy Boswell.
Besides those who did things worth while, there were others who buzzed, dallied, and simply seemed and thought they lived. Among this class who were famous for doing nothing was Beau Nash, the pride of the pump-room. Next in note, but more moderately colored, was Sir Charles Greville, man of polite education, a typical courtier, with a leaning toward music and the arts, which gave his character a flavor of culture that the others did not possess.
The fair Emma was giving the Romney studio a trifle more fame than the domestic peace of the portrait-painter demanded, and when Sir Charles Greville, sitting for his portrait, became acquainted with the beautiful model, Romney saw his opportunity to escape the inevitable crash. So Sir Charles, the man of culture, the patron of the picturesque, the devotee of beauty, undertook the further education of Emma as an ethnological experiment.
He employed a competent teacher to give her lessons in voice culture, to the end that she should neither screech nor purr. Sir Charles himself read to her from the poets and she committed to memory Pope's "Essay on Man," and a whole speech by Robert Walpole, which she recited at a banquet at Strawberry Hill, to the immense surprise, not to mention delight, of Horace Walpole.
Sir Charles also hired a costumer by the month to study the physiological landscape and prepare raiment of extremely rich, but somber, hues, so that the divine lady would outclass in both modesty and aplomb the fairest daughters of Albion.
About this time, Emma became known as "Lady Harte," it being discovered that Burke's Peerage contained information that the Hartes were kinsmen of the Earl of Halifax, and also that the Hartes had moved to America. The testimony of contemporary expert porchers seems to show that Sir Charles Greville spent upwards of five thousand pounds a year upon the education of his ward. This was continued for several years, when a reversal in the income of Sir Charles made retrenchment desirable, if not absolutely necessary. And as good fortune would have it, about this time Sir William Hamilton, British Envoy to the Neapolitan Court, was home on a little visit.
He was introduced to Lady Harte by his nephew, Sir Charles Greville, and at once perceived and appreciated the wonderful natural as well as acquired gifts of the lady.