DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51519#0188
1132
NELL GWYNN.
poverty should overtake her; and resolved to quit her apartments,
and to try and introduce herself at the theatre by dressing’ herself
in the garb of an orange-girl.
Her plan, it seems, answered better than might have been
expected. No sooner had she appeared in the pit and behind the
scenes with her oranges, than the eyes of the actors, and the
young wits and men of fashion who frequented the theatres, were
fixed upon her, all anxious to know the story and birth of the
handsome orange-girl. Betterton, who soon knew her in her
disguise, seemed astonished at her resolution, and began to form
great expectations from one, whose propensity to the stage was so
violent as to induce her to appear in so low a character for the
sake of acquiring' instruction.
An actor prevailed upon her to quit her profession of orange-
selling’, and offered to share his salary with her; and she accepted
his proposal, and lived with him in easy tranquillity, for some time.
She afterwards left him, and lived with her former acquaintance,
the lawyer.
According to the story we are now following, Nell passed
through several hands before she attracted the attention of the
King'; but the history of all her intrigues has no claim to a place
in our pages. Suffice it to say, that one of her possessors is said
to have been the notorious Rochester; and that when kept by him
she is said to have made her first attempt to patronise the poet,
Dryden, who, as a writer, was the object of Rochester’s peculiar
jealousy. “ She had heard one day at the play, that Dryden was
in distress, on account of a tragedy he had offered to the stage
being, from some capricious consideration of the Lord Chamberlain,
rejected. She mentioned this circumstance to Rochester, and
begged him to interpose his interest to have the objection removed,
and the play brought upon the stage; but in this suit she was
unsuccessful. So far from complying with it, he stirred himself to
have Dryden discarded at court, and recommended an obscure in-
NELL GWYNN.
poverty should overtake her; and resolved to quit her apartments,
and to try and introduce herself at the theatre by dressing’ herself
in the garb of an orange-girl.
Her plan, it seems, answered better than might have been
expected. No sooner had she appeared in the pit and behind the
scenes with her oranges, than the eyes of the actors, and the
young wits and men of fashion who frequented the theatres, were
fixed upon her, all anxious to know the story and birth of the
handsome orange-girl. Betterton, who soon knew her in her
disguise, seemed astonished at her resolution, and began to form
great expectations from one, whose propensity to the stage was so
violent as to induce her to appear in so low a character for the
sake of acquiring' instruction.
An actor prevailed upon her to quit her profession of orange-
selling’, and offered to share his salary with her; and she accepted
his proposal, and lived with him in easy tranquillity, for some time.
She afterwards left him, and lived with her former acquaintance,
the lawyer.
According to the story we are now following, Nell passed
through several hands before she attracted the attention of the
King'; but the history of all her intrigues has no claim to a place
in our pages. Suffice it to say, that one of her possessors is said
to have been the notorious Rochester; and that when kept by him
she is said to have made her first attempt to patronise the poet,
Dryden, who, as a writer, was the object of Rochester’s peculiar
jealousy. “ She had heard one day at the play, that Dryden was
in distress, on account of a tragedy he had offered to the stage
being, from some capricious consideration of the Lord Chamberlain,
rejected. She mentioned this circumstance to Rochester, and
begged him to interpose his interest to have the objection removed,
and the play brought upon the stage; but in this suit she was
unsuccessful. So far from complying with it, he stirred himself to
have Dryden discarded at court, and recommended an obscure in-