THE
STORY OF NELL GWYN.
CHAPTER I.
Introduction—Birth and birth-place—Horoscope of her nativity—Condition in life of her father—Her account of her early days—Becomes an orange-girl at the theatre—Effects of the Restoration—Revival of the stage—Two theatres allowed—Scenery and dresses—Principal actors and actresses—Duties and importance of the orange-girls.
Dr. Thomas Tenison, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, preached the funeral sermon of Nell Gwyn. What so good a man did not think an unfit subject for a sermon, will not be thought, I trust, an unfit subject for a book; for the life that was spent remissly may yet convey a moral, like that of Jane Shore, which the wise and virtuous Sir Thomas More has told so touchingly in his History of King Richard III.