Page:The Story of Nell Gwyn.djvu/45

Rh of females. This very readiness was her recommendation to Killigrew, to say nothing of her beauty or the merry laugh, which is said in after life to have pervaded her face till her eyes were almost indivisible. As we owe our first introduction to Nelly to the Clerk of the Acts, so to him are we indebted for the earliest notice yet discovered of her appearance on the stage. Her part was that of the principal female character in a comedy (The English Monsieur) by the Hon. James Howard, a son of the Earl of Berkshire, the brother-in-law of Dryden, and brother of Philip, an officer in the King's Guards, and of Robert and Edward Howard, both also writers for the stage. But these, as we shall see hereafter, were not the only connexions with the stage of the Berkshire Howards. There is not much story in the English Monsieur, much force of character, or any particular vivacity in the dialogue. It is, however, very easy to see that the situations must have told with the audience for whom they were intended, and that the part of Lady Wealthy was one particularly adapted to the genius of Nell Gwyn; a part, in all probability written expressly for her. Lady Wealthy is a rich widow, with perfect knowledge of the importance of wealth and beauty, a good heart,