writers of her age;[1] her paying the debt of a worthy clergyman whom, as she was going through the city, she saw bailiffs hurrying to prison; or her present to Pat O'Bryan, so characteristically related in the following quotation:—
"Afterwards Pat O'Bryan, scorning to rob on foot, he would become an absolute highway-man, by robbing on horseback. The first prey he met was Nell Gwyn; and stopping her coach on the road to Winchester, quoth he, 'Madam, I am, by my salvashion, a fery good shentleman, and near relation to his Majesty's Grash the Duke of Ormond; but being in want of money, and knowing you to be a sharitable w I hope you will give me shomething after I've took all you have away.' Honest Nell, seeing the simplicity of the fellow, and laughing heartily at his bull, gave him ten guineas, with which Teague rid away, without doing any further damage."[2]
Anecdotes of this sort, though perhaps only coloured with truth, are not to be made light of by biographers. They show the general appreciation at the time of the individuals to whom they relate. There is not a story told of Nelly in the commonest chap book or jest book, published while her memory was yet fresh among the children to whose fathers and mothers she was known, but what evinces either harmless humour or a sympathising heart. No wonder, then, that there is still an odd fascination about her name, and that
