Sir William’s services as an ambassador were rendered with zeal and with credit, as opportunity offered. But the opportunity, in his earlier period, was comparatively rare. It was, perhaps, despite the proverb, not altogether a happy thing for Naples that its annals were tiresome. The rust of inactivity showed itself there, as so often elsewhere, to be much more fatal than the exhaustion of strife. Certainly, to the ambassador, it was a personal misfortune that, when the affairs of Naples became really momentous to Englishmen, the vigour and the will of earlier days were then departing from the man whose energies were at length to be put to the test in the proper sphere of his profession. Meanwhile, and in his prime, he had but—from time to time—to make routine memorials as to matters of individual wrong; to heal breaches between one Bourbon and another; and to secure the neutrality of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies during the war which grew out of the struggle in America. Such matters made no great inroad upon the pursuits of the naturalist and the antiquarian. Labour on the mountains, in the excavations, and in the study, had been, now for many years, relieved by congenial friendships. There had been an improvement in the tone of Neapolitan Society since HAMILTON’S first appearance. And all that was best in Naples had gathered round him. To English travellers his hospitalities were splendid and unremitting. But in 1782 the circle lost its mistress. Seven years before, Sir William and Lady HAMILTON had been bereaved of a daughter—their only child. In 1783 occurred the dreadful earthquake in Calabria, the greatest calamity of the century save that at Lisbon. Among the scientific correspondents in England with whom Sir William HAMILTON kept up an intercourse was Sir Joseph BANKS, then the President of the Royal Society. To him was sent the fullest account that was attainable of the sad event of 1783. It had chanced that just before the news reached Naples, Sir Joseph had written to HAMILTON about some experiments and discoveries on the composition and transmutation of water. He had said, jestingly: ‘In future we philosophers shall rejoice when an eruption, which may swallow up a few towns, affords subsistence for as many nations of animals and vegetables.’ This letter HAMILTON was about to answer when he received the intelligence from Calabria.