Page:The Story of Nell Gwyn.djvu/105

Rh to delight in heavy conversation; and, whatever his favourites of state might be, yet those of his affection were men of wit."

He was an admirable teller of a story, and loved to talk over the incidents of his life to every new face that came about him. His stay in Scotland, his escape from Worcester, and the share he had in the war of Paris, in carrying messages from the one side to the other, were his common topics. He went over these in a very graceful manner, but so often and so copiously, says Burnet, that all those who had been long accustomed to them were soon weary, and usually withdrew, so that he often began them in a full audience, and before he had done, there were not above four or five left about him. But this general unwillingness to listen is contradicted by Sheffield, who observes that many of his ministers, not out of flattery, but for the pleasure of hearing it, affected an ignorance of what they had heard him relate ten times before, treating a story of his telling as a good comedy that bears being seen often, if well acted. This love of talking made him, it is said, fond of strangers who hearkened to his stories and went away as in a rapture at such uncommon condescension in a king; while the sameness in telling