Goodman was another of the favoured many. He was one of the Alexanders of his time, but does not appear to have been a great actor. He was a dashing impudent fellow, who boasted of his having taken "an airing" on the road to recruit his purse. He was expelled from Cambridge for cutting and defacing the portrait of the Duke of Monmouth, Chancellor of the University, but not loyal enough to his father to please Goodman. James II. pardoned the loyal highwayman, which Goodman (in Cibber's hearing) said "was doing him so particular an honour, that no man could wonder if his acknowledgement had carried him a little further than ordinary into the interest of that prince. But as he had lately been out of luck in backing his old master, he had now no way to get home the life he was out, upon his account, but by being under the same obligations to King William."[254] The meaning of this is understood to be, that Goodman offered to assassinate William, in consequence of his having had a pardon from James; but the plot not succeeding, he turned king's evidence against James, in order to secure a pardon from William. This "pretty fellow" was latterly so easy in his circumstances, owing, it is supposed, to the delicate Cleveland, that he used to say he would never act Alexander the Great, but when he was certain that "his duchess" would be in the boxes to see him. The stage in that day was certainly not behind-hand with the court; and as it had less conventional respectability in the eyes of the world, its private character was never so low. But we must do justice and not confound even the disreputable. Poor Nell Gwynn, in a quarrel with one of the Marshalls, who reproached her with being the mistress of Lord Buckhurst, said she was mistress but of one man at a time, though she had been brought up in a bad house "to fill strong waters to the gentlemen;" whereas her rebuker, though a clergyman's daughter, was the mistress of three. This celebrated actress, who was as excellent in certain giddy parts of comedy as she was inferior in tragedy, was small of person, but very pretty, with a good-humoured face, and eyes that winked when she laughed. She is the ancestress of the ducal family of St. Albans, who are thought to have retained more of the look and complexion of Charles II. than any other of his descendants. Beauclerc, Johnson's friend, was like him; and the black complexion is still in vigour. The King recommended her to his brother with his last breath, begging him "not to let poor Nelly starve." Burnet says she was introduced to the King by Buckingham, to supplant the Duchess of Cleveland; but others tell us, he first noticed her in consequence of a hat of the circumference of a coach-wheel, in which Dryden made her deliver a prologue, as a set-off to an enormous hat of Pistol's at the other house, and which convulsed the spectators with laughter. If Nelly retained a habit of swearing, which was probably