BLIT THIS IL fine person of the VOLTf vow I Thomas 2 Oier, Est. With her frame Over ses 17 & C Furt serieg a house and iind at Eling and was alfresing Limself to the data the enjoyment of all things when he fandt en rent in pedet ty

the FreLD Y Asthma and St. 06.

asi usins riking down so fast

treactor al writing became Letke to him.

But if the lat od scler er åld not wield a sword be could direct one: and to his secretunes, the after-pictter for all parties, lark Ferguson, and de anti-prelatic Shields, in whom Presty terians still rejice as the author of the → Hind let loose," Owen dictated more works than we can find space to name. He engaged too, hotly as he had been in his early life opposed to episcopacy, in a project to unite all Protestants in one firm union against Popery; and he finally crowned the work of his life by the production of his “ Meditations on the Glory of Christ." The first proof-sheet was placed in his hand on the day he died. "I shall see that glory now," he said, "in another manner," and straightway he turned to the struggle that awaited him in the valley of the shadow of death.. When Anthony Wood says of him that "he did very unwillingly lay down his head to die," he simply means, not that Owen was unwilling to surrender life, but that life seemed unwilling to depart from a bodily fortress of strength gigantic Bat death vanquished after terrible assault, endured with a submissive courage that desired but did not dread the end; and Owen went to his rest on the memorable day of St. Bartholomew, the 24th of August, 1683.

To his dis PRIS CEV 1 mrinach fun to his remains, ang. vitt mot siste thur he himsed. WALJE HIVE SUN ziane, sl that 11 S ¥y turey suzute de noNGOLJOMBEN,

Över resendod. Farindor. ir few things but in TRACK LIN, SIDQmix. Tha WE podes be sind, thaologiesde ap DONOLA Their socio 270 is angas to us were the authors. Ir. Eseindor's works EKS? 1% 35 t; x tzthe " & majestic demesne where set is it union With Mia and the womantic glød stadis allacc t to the wolstenpoi

There are long alloys tiringod ན་ཀྱི་གྲུ་ཡོན་བཅུ།ཉིgo< % $? & statud unless the way, and there are BO KY $Toonts, to rest in with desight, but perhe quotations are seatterel Abrak a. in a rare profusion markel by is rare a taste. In company with Owen we traverse sterner scenes throuch which he assumes at once to be the guide, and the only one worthy of confidence. Hiciding to the assumption, we proceed. Fil add valley, glen and bare craigssida sparkling river and stormy sea, laughing sun, gorgeous twilight, contusing mists, we pass through all, hurried on by a guide, who is now with us, the next moment pushing us forward, and anon dragging us up some giddy height. There is much delight and some d'e appointment. We go steadily on top a while through a world of sublime mysteries rendered intelligible by the most accomplished of sages, when, suddenly, and just as we are most needs ing his wisdom, we find ourselves alone and helpless in the midst of a quag mire, while the sage himself is far dies tant above us, scaling the high rocks as if he would take heaven by violence, and forgetful, for the time, of those whom he has abandoned to cold, darkness, and uncertainty.

Such were the two men; and that they are again brought before us m their respective works will be a mattor of congratulation to all interested in the two divines, their times, or the solemn questions which each treated with a diverse yet a solemn dignity.

J. D.

A PIOUS and learned divine, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, preached the funeral sermon of Nell Gwyn; and the house on the park side of Pall Mall in which she is known to have lived, though altered in its outward appearance since her time, now shelters the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. What so good a man as Archbishop Tenison did not think an unfit subject for a sermon, will not be thought, I trust, an unfit subject for a series of papers; for the life which was spent remissly may yet convey a moral, like that of Jane Shore, which the wise and virtuous Sir Thomas More has told so touchingly in his History of King Richard III.

The English people have always

entertained a peculiar liking for Nell Gwyn. There is a fascination about her name which belongs to no other woman of her particular class and condition. Thousands are attracted by it, they know not why, and do not stay to inquire. It is the popular impression that, with all her failings, she was a woman with a generous open English heart; that when raised from poverty and the lowest origin to affluence, she reserved her wealth for others rather than herself; and that the influence which she possessed was often well exercised and never abused. Contrasted with others of a far superior rank in life and tried by far fewer temptations, there is much that marks and removes her from the common herd. The many have no sympathy,

nor should they have any, for Barbara Palmer, Louise de Querouelle, or Erengard de Schulenberg; but for Nell Gwyn, "pretty witty Nell," there is a tolerant and kindly regard, which the following pages are designed to illustrate and may perhaps serve in some measure to extend.

The Coal Yard in Drury Lane, a low alley, the last on the east or city side of the lane, and still known by that name, was, it is said, the place of Nell Gwyn's birth. They show, how ever, in Pipe Lane, in the parish of St. John, in the city of Hereford, a small house of brick and timber, now little better than a hovel, in which she is reputed to have been born. That

the Coal Yard was the place of her birth was stated in print as early as 1721, and was copied by Oldys, a curious inquirer into literary and dramatic matters, in the account of her life which he wrote for Curll.* The Hereford tradition too is of some standing, though there is little I am afraid to support a belief very generally entertained that Nelly was born there. But the city of the Cider country does not want even Nell Gwyn to add to its theatrical reputation; in the same cathedral city, which claims to be the birth-place of the best known English actress, was born, seventy years later, David Garrick, the greatest and best known actor we have yet had.

The horoscope of the nativity of Nell Gwyn, the work perhaps of Lilly, is still to be seen among Ashmole's papers in the Museum at Oxford. She was born, it states, on the second of February, 1650, so that she was but seven-and-thirty at the time of her death. The horoscope, of which I have had a fac-simile made, shows what stars were supposed to be in the ascendant at the time; and such of my readers who do not disdain a study which engaged the attention and ruled not un

D.M.

frequently the actions of vigorousminded men, like Lord Chancellor Shaftesbury and the poet Dryden, may find more meaning in the state of the heavenly bodies at her birth than I have as yet succeeded in detecting.

Of the early history of Nell little is known, and that little with no great degree of certainty. Still less is known of the rank in life of her father and mother; her father, it is said, was a fruiterer in Covent Garden. She speaks in her will of her "kinsman

ward. But there were other advantages equally new, and of still greater importance, without the aid of which the name of Eleanor Gwyn would in all likelihood never have been known. From the earliest period of the stage in England till the theatres were silenced at the outbreak of the Civil War female characters had invariably been played by men, and during the same brilliant period of our dramatic history there is but one instance of a sovereign witnessing a performance at a public theatre: Henrietta Maria was present once, and once only, at the theatre in the Blackfriars. The plays of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson,

Which so did take Eliza and our James, were invariably seen by those sovereigns, as afterwards indeed by Charles I., in the halls, banqueting houses, and cockpits attached to their palaces. With the Restoration came women on the stage, and the King and Queen, the Dukes of York and Buckingham, the chief courtiers, and the maids of honour, were among the constant frequenters of the public theatres.

Great interest was used at the Restoration for the erection of new theatres in London, but the King, acting it is thought on the advice of Clarendon, who wished to stem at all points the flood of idle gaiety and dissipation, would not allow of more than twothe King's Theatre, under the control of Thomas Killigrew, and the Duke's Theatre (so called in compliment to his brother, the Duke of York), under the direction of Sir William Davenant. Better men for the purpose could not have been chosen. Killigrew was one of the grooms of the bed-chamber to the King, a wellknown wit at court and a dramatist himself; and Davenant, who filled the office of Poet Laureate in the household of the King, as he had done before to his father, King Charles I., had been a successful writer for the stage, while Ben Jonson and Massinger were still alive. The two brothers patronised both houses with equal earnestness, and the two patentees vied with each other in catering successfully for the public amusement.

The King's Theatre (the stage on which Nell Gwyn performed), or "The Theatre" as it was commonly called, GENT. MAG. VOL. XXXV.

stood in Drury Lane, on the site of the present building, and was the first theatre, as the present is the fourth, erected on the site. It was small, with few pretensions to architectural beauty, and was first opened on the 8th of April, 1663, when Nell was a girl of thirteen. The chief entrance was in Little Russell Street, not as now in Brydges Street. The stage was lighted with wax candles, on brass censers or cressets. The pit lay open to the weather for the sake of light, but was subsequently covered in with a glazed cupola, which however only imperfectly protected the audience, so that in stormy weather the house was thrown into disorder, and the people in the pit were fain to rise.

The Duke's Theatre, commonly called "The Opera," from the nature of its performances, stood at the back of what is now the Royal College of Surgeons, in Portugal-row, on the south side of Lincoln's-inn-fields. It was originally a tennis-court, and, like its rival, was run up hurriedly to meet the wants of the age. The interior arrangements and accommodation were much the same as at Killigrew's house.

The company of actors at the King's Theatre included at the first opening of the house Theophilus Bird, Charles Hart, Michael Mohun, John Lacy, Nicholas Burt, William Cartwright, William Wintershall, Walter Clun, Robert Shatterell, and Edward Kynaston among the chief male performers; and Mrs. Corey, Mrs. Ann Marshall, Mrs. Rebecca Marshall, Mrs. Eastland, Mrs. Weaver, Mrs. Uphill, Mrs. Knep, and Mrs. Hughes among the female performers. Joe Haines the low comedian, and Cardell Goodman the lover of the Duchess of Cleveland, were subsequent accessions to the stock of actors, as Mrs. Boutell and Mrs. Ellen Gwyn were to the company of actresses.

Bird belonged to the former race of actors, and did not long survive the Restoration. Hart and Clun had been bred up as boys at the Blackfriars to act women's parts. Hart, who had served as a captain in the King's troops, rose to the summit of his profession, but Clun was unfortunately killed while his reputation was still on the increase. Mohun had played at the Cockpit Theatre before the Civil Wars, F