The story of Nell Gwyn (6 page)

* Pepys, July 14, 1667. 42

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our literature), that Garrick, in his endeavour to supplant the usual performance of the London Cuckolds on the 9th of November (Lord Mayor's day), was reduced to play first to a noisy, and next to an empty house.

Whilst Buckhurst and Nelly kept "merry house' at Epsom in the months of July and August 1667) it w^as not altogether merry in England elsewhere. The Plague of 1665 had been followed by the Fire of 1666, and both Plague and Fire in 1667 by the national shame of a Dutch fleet insulting us in the Thames, burning some of our finest ships in the Medway at Chatham, and by the undeserved disgrace inflicted by the King and his imperious mistress, Castlemaine, on the great Lord Clarendon. Wise and good men, too, were departing from among us. Cowley finished the life of an elegant and amiable recluse at Chertsey in Surrey, and Jeremy Taylor that of a saint at Lisnegarry in Ireland. England, too, in the same year, had lost the loyal Marquess of Worcester and the virtuous Earl of Southampton, neither of whom could she well spare at such a period ; on the other hand, the country was receiving a noble addition to her literature by the publication of Paradise Lost; but this few at the time cared to read, as the work of ^''that Milton who wrote for the regicides,"*— '■'■that Paradise Lost of Milton's which some are pleased to call a poem," - or chose to understand,

' Evelyn's Diary, June 2, 1686.

=" Thomas Rymer's The Tragedies of the last age consider'd . . . Ina Letter to Fleetwood Shepheard [1678], p. 143.

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from the seriousness of the subject, or the grandeur of its treatment.

At the Court, where undisguised Hbertinism was still triumphant, the burning of the city began to be talked of as an old story, like that of the burning of Troy, and the disgrace at Chatham as something to be obliterated by the disgrace of the Lord Chancellor. Indeed, there was no feeling of fear, or any sentiment of deserved dishonour, maintained at Court. On the very day on which the Great Seal was taken from Clarendon, and his ruin effected, the Countess of Castlemaine, one of the leading instruments of his fall, was admiring the rope-dancing of Jacob Hall, and laughing at the drolls and odd animals exhibited to the citizens at Bartholomew Fair!

Nelly, after a month's absence, returned to London in August 1667, and resumed some of her old parts at the theatre in Drury Lane, playing Bellario in Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster; Panthea, in A King and No King of the same authors ; Cydaria, in The Indian Emperor of Dryden and his brother-in-law ; Samira, in Sir Robert Howard's Surprisalj Flora, in Florals Vagaries, a comedy attributed to Rhodes ; and M\r\6i3i,m All Mistaken, or the Mad Couple, of the Hon. James Howard. Of her performance in some of these parts Pepys again is our only informant. How graphic are his entries!—

"22 Aug. 1667.—After dinner with my lord Brounckerand his mistress to the King's playhouse, and there saw The Indian Emperor, where 1 find Nell come again, which I am

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glad of; but was most infinitely displeased with her being put to act the Emperor's daughter, which is a great and serious part, which she do most basely. The rest of the play, though pretty good, was not well acted by most of them, methought; so that I took no great content in it.

"26 Aug. 1667.—I wallted to the King's playhouse, there to meet Sir W. Pen, and saw The Surprisal, a very mean play I thought, or else it was because I was out of humour, and but very little company in the house. But there Sir W. Pen and I had a great deal of discourse with [Orange] Moll, who tells us that Nell is already left by my lord Buckhurst, and that he makes sport of her, and swears she hath had all she could get of him ; and Hart, her great admirer, now hates her ; and that she is very poor, and hath lost my Lady Castlemaine, who was her great friend also ; but she is come to the house, but is neglected by them all.

"5 Oct. 1667.—To the King's house, and there, going in, met with Knepp, and she took us up into the tireing rooms ; and to the women's shift, where Nell was dressing herself [as Flora], and was all unready, and is very pretty, prettier than I thought. And so walked all up and down the house above, and then below into the scene-room, and there sat down, and she gave us fruit; and here I read the questions to Knepp, while she answered me, through all her part of Floras Figarys, which was acted to-day. But, Lord ! to see how they were both painted would make a man mad, and did make me loath them ; and what base company of men comes among them, and how lewdly they talk! and how poor the men are in clothes, and yet what a show they make on the stage by candle-hght, is very observable. But to see how Nell cursed, for having so few people in the pit, was pretty; the other house carrying away all the people at the new play, and is said now-a-days to have generally most company, as being better players.

"II Nov. 1667.—^To the King's playhouse, and there saw The Indian Emperor, a good play, but not so good as people cry it up, I think, though, above all things, Nell's ill-speaking of a great part made me mad.

"26 Dec. 1667.—With my wife to the King's playhouse, and there saw The Surprisal, which did not please me to-day, the actors not pleasing me, and especially Nell's acting of a serious part, which she spoils.

"28 Dec. 1667.—To the King's house, and there saw The Mad Couple, which is but an ordinary play; but only Nell's and Hart's mad parts are most excellently done, but

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especially hers, wliicli makes it a miracle to me to think how if. she do any serious part, as, the other day, just like a fool or changling; and in a mad part do beyond all imitation almost."

That Nell hated "serious parts," in which, as Pepys assures us, she was poor, we have her own testimony, in an epilogue which she spoke a few months later to the tragedy of the Duke of Lerma :

I know you in your hearts

Hate serious plays—as I hate serious parts.

And again in the epilogue to Tyrantiick Love:

Idle Out of my calling in a tragedy.

The truth is (as I see reason to believe), such parts were thrust upon her by Hart, her old admirer, who hated her for preferring Lord Buckhurst to himself. But this feeling was soon overcome, and Nell, as Mirida in the comedy of All Mistake)!, added to her well-earned reputation as an actress, obeying the advice of Mrs. Barry, " Make yourself mistress of your part, and leave the figure and action to nature." ^

All Mistaken, or the Mad Couple, a play commended by some, says Langbaine, " as an excellent comedy," has little merit of its own to recommend it to the reader. The whole success of the performance must have rested on Hart and Nelly. Philidor (Hart) is a mad, or, as we should now call him, a madcap, kinsman of an Italian duke, and Mirida (Nelly) is a madcap young lady of the same

1 Curll's Stage, p. 62. 46

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eccentric school. Philidor is troubled with clamorous importunities for marriage from six young ladies whom he has betrayed, and for money from those nurses by whom his children have been taken; and Mirida is persecuted with the importunate addresses, at the same time, of a very lean and of a very fat lover. Some of the pleasantries to which the madcap couple resort are of a coarse and practical character. Philidor tricks his be siegers, and Mirida replies to her importunate lovers that she will marry the lean one when he is fatter, and the fat one when he is leaner. The arts which the suitors have recourse to are somewhat tedious, and certainly not over decent. Yet it is easy to see that the play would tell with the audience to whom it was addressed, for many of the situations are humorous in the extreme. In one of the scenes Philidor and Mirida are bound back to back by the six ladies, Philidor losing his money and his hat, and Mirida consoling herself by the entry of a fiddler.

[Enter Fiddler.'] Mirida. —A fiddle, nay then I am made again ; I'd have a dance if I had nothing but my smock on. Fiddler, strike up and play my jig, call'd " I care not a pin for any man." i

1 Nell was famous for dancing jigs. The Duke of Buckingham, in his Epilogue to The Chances [an alteration from Beaumont and Fletcher, performed at the theatre in Dorset Garden in 1682], laughs at poets who mistook the praise given to Nelly's jig for the praise bestowed on their own performances :—

'' Besides the author dreads the strut and mien Of new prais'd poets, having often seen Some of his fellows, who have \Nrit before, 47

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Fiddler. —Indeed I can't stay. I am going to play to some gentlemen.

Mirida. —Nay, thou shalt stay but a little.

Fiddler. —Give me half-a-crown then.

Mirida. —I have no money about me ; but here, take my hankercher. [Dance and Exit.

In another part Mirida manages a sham funeral for Philidor, to which the six young ladies are invited to hear the will of the deceased.

Mirida. — Poor young man, he was killed yesterday by a duel.

" Item. I give to Mrs. Mary for a reason that she knows, 500/. Item. 500/. to Mrs. Margaret for a reason she knows. Item. 500/. to Mrs. Sarah lor a reason she knows. Item. 500/. to Mrs. Martha for a reason she knows. Item. 500/. to Mrs. Alice for a reason she knows. Item. 500/. to Mrs. Elinor for a reason she knows, and so to all the rest. Item. To my nurses I leave each of them 20/. a year apiece for their lives, besides their arrears due to them for nursing. These sums of money and legacies I leave to be raised and paid out of my manor of Constantinople, in which the Great Turk is now tenant for Hfe." [Laughs aside."] If they should hear how their legacies are to be paid, how they'd fall a-drumming on his coffin !

There is more of this ; but it is time to turn to that incident from which the play derived its popularity, its satire on a recent event at the Duke's Theatre.

The Rivals, a play altered by Davenant from The Two Noble A'/«j-;«if« of Beaumont and Fletcher, or rather of Fletcher alone, was brought upon the stage about 1664, but would not appear to have

When Nel has danc'd her Jig, steal to the door, Hear the pit clap, and with conceit of that. Swell, and believe themselves the Lord knows what." Works, ed. 1715, pt. ii. p. 150.

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met with any great success till 1667, when the part of Celania was represented by little Miss Davis, who danced a jig in the play and then sang a song in it, both of which found their way direct to the heart of the merry monarch. The jig was probably some fresh French importation, or nothing more than a rustic measure, with a few foreign innovations. The song has reached us, and has much ballad beauty to recommend it.

My lodging"it is en the cold ground,

And very hard is my fare, But that which troubles me most is

The unkindness of my dear. Yet still I cry, O turn, love,

And I prythee, love, turn to me. For thou art the man that I long for,

And alack what remedy !

I'll crown thee with a garland of straw, then,

And I'll marry thee with a rush ring, My frozen hopes shall thaw then,

And merrily we will sing. O turn to me, my dear love,

And prythee, love, turn to me. For thou art the man that alone canst

Procure my liberty.

But if thou wilt harden thy heart still.

And be deaf to my pitiful moan, Then I must endure the smart still,

And tumble in straw alone. Yet still I cry, O turn, love.

And I prythee, love, turn to ms, For thou art the man that alone art

The cause of my misery.i

1 The stage direction is—"That done she lies down and falls asleep." [The music of the ballad will be found in Hawkins's Hist, of Music, iv. 525.]

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The success of the song is related by the prompter at the theatre in his curious Uttle volume, called Roscius AngUcantis. " All the women's parts," says Downes, " were admirably acted, but what pleased most was the part of Celania, a shepherdess, mad for love, and her song of ' My lodging is on the cold ground,' which she performed," he adds, " so charmingly that not long after it raised her from her bed on the cold ground to a bed royal." ^

I might be excused for referring, at this period of Nelly's life, to the ribald personalities common to the stage in the reign of Charles II., but I am unwilling to stop the stream of my narrative by delaying to relate the personal reference made by NeU^ in the play of All Mistaken, to the song and the incident at the Duke's House, which raised little Miss Davis to a "bed royal." The scene in All Mistaken which doubtless gave the greatest delight to the audience at Drury Lane was that in the last act, where Pinguisier, the fat lover, sobs his complaints into the ear of the madcap Mirida.

Mirida.—'Dea.r love, come sit thee in my lap, and let me know if I can enclose thy world of fat and love within tbese arms. See, I cannot nigh compass my desires by a mile.

Pinguisier. —How is my fat a riv'al to my joys! sure I shall weep it all away. [Cries.