Page:The Story of Nell Gwyn.djvu/72

56 hated her for preferring Lord Buckhurst to himself. But this feeling was soon overcome, and Nell, as Mirida in the comedy of "All Mistaken," added to her well-earned reputation as an actress, obeying the advice of Mrs. Barry, "Make yourself mistress of your part, and leave the figure and action to nature."

"All Mistaken, or the Mad Couple," a play commended by some, says Langbaine, "as an excellent comedy," has little merit of its own to recommend it to the reader. The whole success of the performance must have rested on Hart and Nelly. Philidor (Hart) is a mad, or as we should now call him a madcap, kinsman of an Italian duke, and Mirida (Nelly) is a madcap young lady of the same eccentric school. Philidor is troubled with clamorous importunities for marriage from six young ladies whom he has betrayed, and for money from those nurses by whom his children have been taken; and Mirida is persecuted with the importunate addresses, at the same time, of a very lean and of a very fat lover. Some of the pleasantries to which the madcap couple resort are of a coarse and practical character. Philidor tricks his besiegers, and Mirida replies to her importunate lovers that she will marry the lean