"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!_"