"Poor Nelly" was no proficient in pen-craft, for she could only sign with the initials—E. G.
Until the publication of Mrs. Jameson's "Beauties," there existed a popular fallacy, that every one of Sir Peter Lely's portraits, represented a woman of tainted reputation; this was any thing but true; however poisonous a malaria may be, there are always some who escape its influence, and the pure and high-souled Lady Ossory, and the noble Countess de Grammont would adorn even a court such as our own; we wish that Evelyn or Pepys had recorded how those ladies treated "Nell," for they must have met her during their attendance on the outraged Queen, and hardly less insulted Duchess of York; they must have encountered her at Whitehall, and noted her dimpled cheeks, and small bright laughing eyes; and contrasted her unaffected child-like bearing, with the boisterous arrogance of the Duchess of Cleveland, and the cat-like cunning of the French courtezan, (the Duchess of Portsmouth,) who could not with all her arts detach the sovereign from poor Nell, whose genuine wit, generosity of mind, as well as purer life, and careless buoyant humor, were reliefs to the caprices and eternal French cabals,—which troubled his unenergetic nature, in the gorgeous salon of the most extravagant of his favorites. From such women as Madame de Grammont and Lady Ossory the untitled actress could have met no offence; for women of high virtue are merciful; women who affect it, are not.
Another View of the Manor House.
We could fancy Nell's silver laugh, passing along those damp walls of Sandford Manor House; we could imagine her leaning from that window, conversing with, and rallying, her royal "lover," who stands beneath, amid the flowers, once so bright and abundant, where only weeds and stinging thistles were to be seen this winter-time. As for him, wisdom came not with years; "consideration" never whipped the offending Adam out of him—in his character there was no "nettle," but there was no "strawberry." What does he reply to her merrie rallying as she dallies with her looking-glass? He leans his white and jewelled hand upon his hip, and, with a faded smile, listens to her mingled love and reproof. She talks of the old soldiers, and wonders why the builders pause in the erection of the Hospital, for lack of cash, when certain ladies sport new diamonds, and glitter in fair coaches; and he tells her he will take her, if she likes, from where she is, and give her the palace by the water-side, in exchange for her sweet words and sweeter smiles. She will none of this, but answers she would rather content her in the humblest house in his dominions, so that the soldiers who fought his battles should be worthily lodged in their old age. He repeats to her the last bit of Sedley, and diverts her with news of a new play, for well he knows those who once lived by the buskin love the buskin still:8 and she listens, and is pleased, but returns to her first theme; and, provoked at last by an indifference she cannot understand, she becomes bitter, and then Charles laughs at "little pig-eyed Nelly." "Ah, Nell, Nell!" he says, stroking, at the same time, the fair tresses that grace the head of a pretty boy, her son, "you are like the fruit that will come of yonder trees, a rough and bitter outside, but a sweet and pleasant soul within."
We composed our thoughts, or rather we aroused from those waking dreams in which all indulge sometimes—more or less. The house contains fourteen rooms—and must have been pleasant, long ago, as a retreat where poor Nell could bring her titled children—whom she doubtless loved with all the enthusiasm of her ardent nature. We crossed the garden, but could find no trace of the pond in which tradition reports Madam Ellen's mother to have been drowned. Not long ago, a very old woman resided in Chelsea, whose grandmother, it was said, was Nell's stage-dresser; this was before old Ranelagh was built over, and when the site of Eaton Square was intersected by damp pathways and nursery-gardens. We entered the meadows at the back, to see how the house looked from thence, which greatly delighted the rat-catcher's terriers.
Modern "improvement" long spared this locality. When we knew and loved it first, we could see the Thames from our windows in one direction, and Kensington Gardens in another. But old houses, standing within their own park-like inclosures, and old trees and green fields, are nearly all gone.9 We used to have the nightingales in the elm-avenue leading to Hereford Lodge, but the only nightingale we had last spring was one who came from the far north. Many hereafter will do pilgrimage to her shrine with a far deeper feeling of respect, than, with all our charity, we can bestow upon Sandford Manor House.
If the women of England could forget this period of our history, which, as Mrs. Jameson truly and beautifully observes, "saw them degraded from objects of adoration to servants of pleasure, and gave the first blow to that chivalrous feeling with which their sex had hitherto been regarded, by levelling the distinction between the unblemished matron and her 'who was the ready spoil of opportunity'"—if this were possible, it might be well, like Claire, when she threw the pall over the perishing features of Julie, to exclaim—
"Maudite soit l'indigne main qui jamais soulevera ce voile,"
but so it is not; and it becomes our duty to look on Charles, and those who were corrupted by his example and his influence, as plague-spots upon the fair brow of our beloved country. We should learn to speak of him, not as distinguished for "gallantry," but as the monarch who reduced those he insulted by his love below the level of the poor Georgian slave, who knows no higher destiny than to glitter for a few short moons as the star of the harem. But if some of the women of that court were deeply degraded—if the termagant and imperious Castlemaine; the lovely and intriguing Denham; the coquettish, cold, and cunning Richmond; the innately-dissipated and unrestrainable Southesk; the equivocal Middleton; the rapacious, prodigal, and insinuating Querouaille,—are rendered infamous in our national history—let us not confound the innocent with the guilty. We can point out to our daughters, for admiration and example, the patient, affectionate, and enduring Lady Northumberland, the beloved sister of Lady Rachel Russel; the beautiful Miss Hamilton; the peerless Lady Ossory; the matchless Jennings;—women passing through the ordeal of the Whitehall court, at such a time, with unstained repute, may be well believed to have possessed innate virtue and true feminine dignity.
We have not classed Nell Gwynne among the court profligates; nor can we so describe her. She was most unfortunate, but not innately vicious; we may say so without danger to others. Neither the circumstances of her life or death hold out temptations to follow her example. She endured vexation and contumely enough, during the most brilliant period of her life, to embitter even a less sensitive spirit than hers. The deep and earnest love she bore the worthless king, must have been a sore scourge to her own heart. The very piety of her nature, overcome as it was by circumstances, and the lack of those virtues which, slow of growth, only attained strength during the last seven years of her life, and were not deemed unworthy the Christian forbearance and even commendation of Doctor Tennison,10 whose funeral sermon preached in memory of the poor orange-girl, proves that she must have suffered much from the reproofs of conscience, even when her sin to all appearance most revelled in its "glory." The canker eat into the rose—soiled and marred its perfectness—chipped and wasted its beauty—but could not destroy its perfume!
That there must have been great good, and great fascination, in Nell Gwynne, is proved by the kind of memory in which her name is enshrined. While we say "Poor Nell!" we shake our heads—the sigh and the smile mingle together—we regret and pity her. We wonder she was so good—we sorrow at the impurity,—not so much of the beset actress, as of her position. We know that, though fallen, she was not depraved. She was not avaricious, nor intriguing, nor ill-tempered, nor unjust. Her regard for literature (though she could hardly sign her own name) proved the up-looking of her better nature; and her charity was unbounded. Shall we—reared and instructed in all righteous ways—shall we show less charity to the memory of one who in her latter days rose out of the slough into which circumstance—not vice—had plunged her? Shall we be less charitable than the bishop who honored her memory and his own character by recording her benevolence, her penitence, her exemplary end? The good bishop's testimony renders it needless that we "point a moral." There was "joy in heaven" over