to have lived at Chelsea, by others at Bagnigge Wells; Highgate, and Walworth, and Filberts, near Windsor, are added to the list of reputed localities. A staring inscription in the Strand in London instructs the curious passenger that a house at the upper end of a narrow court was "formerly the dairy of Nell Gwyn." I have been willing to believe in one and all of these conjectural residences, but, after a long and careful inquiry, I am obliged to reject them all. Her early life was spent in Drury Lane and Lincoln's Inn Fields; her latter life in Pall Mall, and in Burford House in the town of Windsor.[1] The rate-books of the parish of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields record her residence in Pall Mall from 1670 to her death, and the site of her house in Windsor may be established, were other evidence wanting, by the large engraving after Knyff.
We have seen from Cibber that Nelly was fond of having concerts at her house, and that she never failed in urging the claims of those who played and sung to the favourable consideration of the King and the Duke of York. She had her basset-table, too, and in one night is said to have lost to the once
- ↑ "The Prince of Wales is lodged [at Windsor] in the Princess of Denmark's house, which was Mrs. Ellen Gwyn's." Letter, Aug. 14, 1688, Ellis Corresp. ii. 118.
