Page:The Story of Nell Gwyn.djvu/50

34 2nd of February, 1666–7. The King and the Duke of York were both present:—so too were both Mr. and Mrs. Pepys, who had heard the play mightily commended for the regularity of its story, and what Mr. Pepys is pleased to call "the strain and wit." The chief parts (its author tells us) were performed to a height of great excellence, both serious and comic; and it was well received. The King objected, indeed, to the management of the last scene, where Celadon and Florimel (Hart and Nelly) are treating too lightly of their marriage in the presence of the Queen. But Pepys would not appear to have seen any defect of this description. "The truth is," he says, "there is a comical part done by Nell, which is Florimel, that I never can hope ever to see the like done again by man or woman So great performance of a comical part was never I believe in the world before as Nell do this, both as a mad girl, then most and best of all when she comes in like a young gallant, and hath the motion and carriage of a spark the most that ever I saw any man have. It makes me, I confess, admire her." Nor did the worthy critic change his opinion. He calls it, after his second visit, an "excellent play, and so done by Nell her merry part as cannot be better done in