You might be veering the right way, Mark.
I’m pretty certain all Nelson’s letters to Lady Hamilton were signed ‘Horatio Nelson’ until 16 Oct (or November) 1798, when he began signing himself simply ‘Nelson':
Quote:
My dear Madam,
I honour and respect you and my dear friend Sir William Hamilton, And believe me ever Your faithful and affectionate
Nelson.
Naples, October 16th, 1798.
I know – it doesn’t seem possible that news of his Peerage could have travelled so fast from England – but there it is!? Wishful thinking perhaps? Or a misdated letter by Nelson? Nicolas does note (underneath the letter), that Nelson had the news of his Peerage on 17 November. Obviously Nicolas doubted the date and was leaning towards a mistake.
Emma annotated the letter as follows:
Quote:
‘The first letter written by our gallant and immortal Nelson, after his dignity to the peerage.’
The similarity to 'Ever yours faithfully' in the Johnson's Lives inscription is notable too.
As far as I can tell from a quick Google, Johnson’s Lives (of the Poets) was published in 3 volumes between 1779 and 1781. Afraid I haven’t had time to check out later editions yet. But a look through Emma’s auctioned items from 1813 - ‘A Catalogue of the Elegant Household Furniture… The Property of a Lady of Dinstinction’ brings up the following interesting item in the books section:
Quote:
Page 12, Lot 161: Johnson’s Life, 3 vols.
There’s also a Johnson’s Dictionary bundled together with ‘A Common Prayer’ (book?) - Lot 138.
The troublesome thing is that there were numerous similarly titled publications around at the time:
The most famous - Boswell’s ‘The Life of Samuel Johnson LLD’ was published in 2 vols in 1791, 3 vols in 1793 and in different permutations ever since. It’s better known as ‘Boswell’s Life of Johnson,’ which appears on the spines of most editions (including the first.)
There are also other authors' lives of Johnson from the period we’re looking at. Nothing specifically titled ‘Johnson’s Life’ though.
Then there are pre-1798 editions of ‘Johnson’s Life of Swift… Dryden… Pope… Milton’ etc.
Johnson’s lives, Johnson’s life, Life of Johnson… sadly, James Abbott’s auction catalogue is as unhelpful as it is brief.
But it’s an interesting entry wrt this item.
Lot 138 for ‘A Common Prayer’ (book?) is also of interest – as this may be the copy of a book that Nelson definitely did give to Emma on 19 May 1799.