and promise to offend her no more so, and that indeed she hath nearly hectored him out of his wits." Such incidents were not confined to the knowledge of the court circles, but percolated all classes of society, and not only furnished the newsmongers with racy scandal, but set in a whirl the light heads of many foolish women who without such incitement from court example might have remained models of virtue. Another of the king's favorites--and indeed one who was, unlike the disagreeable countess, a favorite as well with the English people, and whose name has not yet lost its popularity--was Nell Gwynn. Pretty, witty, and open-hearted, her face an index of the simplicity and purity of character which the unfortunate circumstances of her birth and bringing-up denied her, a veritable gem of womankind lost amid the flotsam and jetsam of a coarse age, she is to be regarded less as a sinner than as one sinned against, although she herself, perhaps, seldom paused to reflect upon the moral value of her actions. "How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame Which, like the canker in a fragrant rose, Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name." It will not do to judge too harshly the character of one whose whole conduct showed how essentially guileless and gentle, as well as generous, were her instincts by the rigorous standards which, however severe, are none too exacting to be held up for women as representing the only possible assurance of security for the status which they have attained; but it is in no spirit of apology for her wrong courses that all who undertake to discuss the life of Nell Gwynn are irresistibly drawn to a recital of her virtues rather than to a reprobation of her faults. The poor orange girl, who, according to some authorities, first saw the light of day in a miserable coalyard garret in Drury Lane, and whose tutelage was the vulgarity of the London streets, and her training a barroom where she entertained the patrons by the sweetness of her voice, courtesan though she became in the court of Charles II., yet numbered among her descendants Lord James Beauclerk, Bishop of Hereford, who died in 1782. Nor was she associated with religion merely in this remote way, for she herself, as patroness of Chelsea Hospital, and promoter of many charities and the dispenser of private benefactions, may reasonably claim consideration. In her own behalf as a woman instinct with all the virtues saving one only,--the one she had never had an opportunity to possess. The effect of Nell Gwynn's presence at court upon the minds of the populace was in some respects more insidious than that of the professional courtesan Castlemaine, for, by the pleasing philosophy of her winsome nature, the vices of the court became transmuted into pure gold in the estimation of the young women who were affected by her as their ideal.