On the corner of the little turning which leads to this house there stands a tavern called “The Nell Gwynne;” this, at the extreme western end of the parish, is matched by another of the same name on its easternmost edge; and between these two public-houses we may track many other footprints of this fair lady, “with whom, for all her frailties, the English people can never be angry,” as Peter Cunningham well says. She has left her trace on Chelsea, as she left it in her time on the light-minded monarch: both shown even yet in Chelsea Hospital, according to that tradition and popular belief which credit her with its founding. To this day the old pensioners worship her as their patron saint! It is true that Louis XIV. had probably given the notion to the English King by his foundation a few years before of the _Invalides_ as a retreat for French veterans; it is true that as early as 1666 Evelyn had sent to Pepys, as Clerk of the Admiralty, a scheme for an Infirmary for Disabled English Sailors. In his diary, January 27, 1681–82, Evelyn says: “This evening Sir Stephen Fox acquainted me again with his Majesty’s resolution of proceeding in the erection of a Royal Hospital for emerited soldiers;” and it is a matter of record that Sir Stephen Fox, first Paymaster-General of the Forces, was the potent factor in the founding. This may well be, but it is at least plausible, and certainly pleasant, to believe that this good-hearted woman, by a judicious and timely movement, brought about a sudden solution of the question, which had been only in suspension in the King’s mind. The general destitution of the discharged soldiers after the Restoration had become a scandal to the King and to the country. In olden times such men had found bread and ale and a night’s rest in monastic houses; but all this had been done away with by the Dissolution. Now, the poor old fellows, who have known nothing all their lives but wars and camps, wander about, lame, hungry, helpless, in these dismal times of peace. Even when able to work, there is no work for them. Old John Hill, serving in the ranks all his life, and now turned adrift to carry the weight of eighty-two years, succeeds after long suing in being appointed to the poor post of beadsman at Gloucester, only to find that the King had just given it to another old soldier, and had forgotten it. So it was all over the kingdom. Nell Gwynne, seeing daily these warriors hobbling about,—the younger ones wounded for her lover at Dunbar and Worcester, the elder ones for her lover’s father at Naseby and Marston Moor,—was touched by the sight: she had been poor herself, yet strangely enough in her prosperity she was always prone to pity poverty. They say that one day, a shabby soldier just escaped from Tangiers—probably an impostor—begged at her carriage door; and she drove home, and urged the King to do something for these disabled servants of the State. And they say, too, that the shifty