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,[J] 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 one sinner that repented. Who but One can judge the heart? Let charity hold up her warning finger, often, when we "think evil:" and consideration, "like an angel" come, when harsh judgment dooms an "erring sister." Above all, let us adopt the sentiment of the poet (and our pilgrimage to Sandford Manor House will not be in vain): "If thy neighbor should sin, old Christoval said, Never, never, unmerciful be! For remember it is by the mercy of God, Thou art not as wicked as he!"[K] FOOTNOTES: