"On the top or summit of the dome, are placed, in the most loving attitudes, two exquisite figures, representing the marriage of Cupid and Psyche, with a fine figure of Hymen behind, and over them, with his torch flaming with electrical fire in one hand and, with the other, supporting a celestial crown, sparkling, likewise, with the effulgent fire over a pair of real living turtle-doves, who, on a little bed of roses, coo and bill under the super-animating impulses of the genial fire! The other elegant groups of figures which sport on the top of the dome—the Cupids, the Loves, and the Graces!—besides festoons of the freshest and most beautiful flowers, have each of them musical instruments in their hands, which by the exquisite and most expensive mechanism, are made to breathe forth sounds corresponding with the appearance of the several instruments,—flutes, guitars, violins, clarionets, trumpets, horns, oboes, kettle-drums, &c. On the posts or pillars, too, which support the grand dome are groups of figures, musical instruments, organ-pipes, &c., which, in sweet concert with the other instruments, at the commencement of the tender dalliance of the happy pair, breathe forth celestial sounds! lulling them in visions of elysian joys! opening new sources of pleasure, and "untwisting all the chains which tie the hidden soul of harmony!" At the head of the bed, in the full centre front, appears, sparkling with electrical fire, through a glory of burnished and effulgent gold, the great, first, ever-operating commandment, Be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth! under this is a most elegant and sweet-toned organ, in the front of which is a fine landscape of moving figures on the earth, birds flying, swans, &c., gliding on the waters, a fine procession, too, is seen, village nymphs strewing flowers before priests, brides, bridegrooms, and their attendants, who, all entering into the temple of Hymen, disappear from the delightful eye. The painting and embellishment of this front are most masterly, and reflect the highest honour on the artists by whom they were executed; and the whole view is terminated with fountains, waterfalls, shepherds, shepherdesses, and other peasants, as pastoral sports and rural employment, and by a little church, the dial of which points out truly and distinctly the hour.
"In the celestial bed no feather bed is employed; sometimes mattresses filled with sweet new wheat or cut straw, with the grain in the ears, and mingled with balm, rose leaves, lavender flowers, and oriental spices, and, at other times, springy hair mattresses are used. Neither will you find upon the celestial bed linen sheets; our sheets are of the richest and softest silk or satin; of various colours suited to the complexion of the lady who is to repose on them. Pale green, for example, rose colour, sky blue, black, white, purple, azure, mazarin blue, &c., and they are sweetly perfumed in the oriental manner, with otto and odour of roses, jessamine, tuberose, rich gums, fragrant balsams, oriental spices, &c.,; in short, everything is done to assist the ethereal, magnetic, musical and electric influences, and to make the lady look as lovely as possible in the eyes of her husband and he, in hers. But to return, in order that I might have for the important purposes, the strongest and most springy hair, I procured, at a vast expense, the tails of English stallions, which when twisted, baked and then untwisted and properly prepared, is elastic to the highest degree.
"But the chief elastic principle of my celestial bed is produced by artificial loadstones. About fifteen hundred pounds' weight of artificial and compound magnets are so disposed and arranged as to be continually pouring forth in an ever-flowing circle inconceivable and irrestibly powerful tides of the magnetic effluxion, which is well known to have a very strong affinity with the electric fire.
"Such is a slight and inadequate sketch of the grand celestial bed, which, being thus completely insulated,—highly saturated with the most genial floods or electrical fire!—fully impregnated moreover, with the balmy vivifying effluvia of restorative balsamic medicines and of soft, fragrant, oriental gums, balsams and quintescence, and pervaded at the same times with full springing tides of the invigorating influences of music and magnets both real and artificial, gives such elastic vigour to the nerves, on the one hand, of the male, and on the other, such retentive firmness to the female; and, moreover, all the faculties of the soul being so fully expanded, and so highly illuminated, that it is impossible, in the nature of things, but that strong, beautiful, brilliant, nay, double-distilled children, if I may use the expression, must infallibly be begotten."
A digression may, perhaps, be here pardonable, in order to give some notice of the latter and last days of the beautiful, highly accomplished and fascinating woman mentioned above.
She had been presented to Nelson by her husband, who had previously told her that he was about to introduce her to a little thread-paper of a man, who could not boast of being very handsome, but who would become, some day, one of the greatest men that England ever produced. After the battle of the Nile he again visited Naples, and was now little better than a perfect wreck. At Calvi, in 1794, he had lost an eye. At Teneriffe his right arm was shattered and amputated close to the shoulder. At the battle of the Nile he was severely wounded in the head. Incessant anxiety and watchfulness for his country's honour and welfare had blanched his brow, and shattered the "little thread-paper of a man" at the outset, till, on his return in triumph to his mistress, he seemed to be on the verge of an early grave.
Yet she proved herself a true woman, if an erring one, in her reception of the man she loved, and unhesitatingly and unequivocally forsook her all, to attend upon and worship him.
Not far from Merton turnpike stood the house of Nelson and his mistress. It was left with all its liabilities to Lady Hamilton, but she was obliged to take a hasty departure, and, harassed by creditors, in sickness of heart and without funds, the unhappy woman escaped to Calais.
Now for the sad, sad finale. From the portal of a house, as cheerless and dreary as can be imagined, in the month of January, with a black silk petticoat stretched on a white curtain thrown over her coffin for a pall, and an half-day Irish dragoon to act as chaplain over the grave, which was in a timber-yard, were the remains of Nelson's much-adored friend removed to their final resting place, under the escort of a sergent de ville.
She died without the common necessaries of life, and was buried at the expense of the town, notwithstanding Nelson's last words, "Blackwood, take care of my poor Lady Hamilton!"