The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851

Jack Tier, or the Florida Reef, appeared in 1848, and is one of the best of the sea stories. The chief character is a woman, deserted by a half smuggler, half buccaneer, whom she joins in the disguise of a sailor, and accompanies undiscovered during a cruise. In vividness of painting and dramatic interest it has rank with the Red Rover and The Pilot.

The Sea Lions, or the Lost Sealers, was published in 1849. It deals to some extent in metaphysics, and its characters are for the most part of humble conditions. It has more of domestic life than any of the other nautical pieces.

In the spring of 1850 came out The Ways of the Hour, the last of this long series of more than thirty novels, and like the Littlepage MSS. it was devoted to the illustration of social and political evils, having for its main subject the constitution and office of juries. In other works Mr. Cooper appears as a conservative; in this as a destructive. The book is ingenious and able, but has not been very successful.

In 1850 Mr. Cooper came out for the first time as a dramatic writer, in a comedy performed at Burton's theatre in New-York. A want of practice in writing for the stage prevented a perfect adaptation of his piece for this purpose, but it was conceded to be remarkable for wit and satirical humor. He has now in press a work illustrative of the social history and condition of New-York, which will be published during the summer by Mr. Putnam, who from time to time is giving to the public the previous works of Mr. Cooper, with his final revisions, and such notes and introductions as are necessary for the new generation of readers. The Leather Stocking Tales, constituting one of the great works to be ranked hereafter with the chief masterpieces of prose fiction in the literature of the world, are among the volumes now printed.

It cannot be denied that Mr. Cooper is personally unpopular, and the fact is suggestive of one of the chief evils in our social condition. In a previous number of this magazine we have asserted the ability and eminently honorable character of a large class of American journals. The spirit of another class, also in many instances conducted with ability, is altogether bad and base; jealous, detracting, suspicious, "delighting to deprave;" betraying a familiarity with low standards in mind and morals, and a consciousness habituated to interested views and sordid motives; degrading every thing that wears the appearance of greatness, sometimes by plain denial and insolent contempt, and sometimes by wretched innuendo and mingled lie and sophistry; effectually dissipating all the romance of character, and all the enthusiasm of life; hating dignity, having no sympathies with goodness, insensible to the very existence of honor as a spring of human conduct; treating patriotism and disinterestedness with an elaborate sneer, and receiving the suggestions of duty with a horse-laugh. There is a difference not easily to be mistaken between the lessening of men which is occasioned by the loftiness of the platform whence the observation is made, and that which is produced by the malignant envy of the observer; between the gloomy judicial ferocity of a Pope or a Tacitus, and the villain levity which revels in the contemplation of imputed faults, or that fiendishness of feeling which gloats and howls over the ruins of reputations which itself has stabbed.

For a few years after Mr. Cooper's return from Europe, he was repeatedly urged by his friends to put a stop to the libels of newspapers by an appeal to the law; but he declined. He perhaps supposed that the common sense of the people would sooner or later discover and right the wrong that was done to him by those who, without the slightest justification, invaded the sacredest privacies of his life for subjects of public observation. He finally decided, at the end of five years after his return, to appeal to the tribunals, in every case in which any thing not by himself submitted to public criticism, in his works, should be offensively treated, within the limits of the state of New-York. Some twenty suits were brought by him, and his course was amply vindicated by unanimous verdicts in his behalf. But the very conduct to which the press had compelled him was made a cause of ungenerous prejudices. He has never objected to the widest latitude or extremest severity in criticisms of his writings, but simply contended that the author should be let alone. With him, individually, the public had nothing to do. In the case of a public officer, slanders may be lived down, but a literary man, in his retirement, has no such means of vindication; his only appeal is to the laws, and if they afford no protection in such cases, the name of law is contemptible.

I enter here upon no discussion of the character of the late Commander Slidell Mackenzie, but observe simply that no one can read Mr. Cooper's volume upon the battle of Lake Erie and retain a very profound respect for that person's sagacity or sincerity. The proprietors of the copyright of Mr. Cooper's abridged Naval History offered it, without his knowledge, to John C. Spencer, then Secretary of the State of New-York, for the school libraries of which that officer had the selection. Mr. Spencer replied with peculiar brevity that he would have nothing to do with such a partisan performance, but soon after directed the purchase of Commander Mackenzie's Life of Commodore Perry, which was entirely and avowedly partisan, while Mr. Cooper's book was rigidly impartial. Commander Mackenzie returned the favor by hanging the Secretary's son. A circumstance connected with this event illustrates what we have said of obtaining justice from the newspapers. A month before Commander Mackenzie's return to New-York in the Somers, Mr. Cooper sent to me, for publication in a magazine of which I was editor, an examination of certain statements in the Life of Perry; but after it was in type, hearing of the terrible mistake which Mackenzie had made, he chose to suffer a continuation of injustice rather than strike a fallen enemy, and so directed the suppression of his criticism. Nevertheless, as the statements in the Life of Perry very materially affected his own reputation, in the following year, when the natural excitement against Mackenzie had nearly subsided, he gave his answer to the press, and was immediately accused in a "leading journal of the country" of having in its preparation devoted himself, from the date of that person's misfortune, to his injury. The reader supposes, of course, that the slander was contradicted as generally as it had been circulated, and that justice was done to the forbearance and delicacy with which Mr. Cooper had acted in the matter; but to this day, neither the journal in which he was assailed, nor one in a hundred of those which repeated the falsehood, has stated these facts. Here is another instance: The late William L. Stone agreed with Mr. Cooper to submit a certain matter of libel for amicable arbitration, agreeing, in the event of a decision against him, to pay Mr. Cooper two hundred dollars toward the expenses he must incur in attending to it. The affair attracted much attention. Before an ordinary court Mr. Cooper should have received ten thousand dollars; but he accepted the verdict agreed upon, the referees deciding without hesitation that he had been grossly wronged by the publication of which he had complained. After the death of Mr. Stone one of the principal papers of the city stated that his widow was poor, and had appealed to Mr. Cooper's generosity for the remission of a fine, which could be of no importance to a gentleman of his liberal fortune, but had been answered with a rude refusal. The statement was entirely and in all respects false, and it was indignantly contradicted upon the authority of President Wayland, the brother of Mrs. Stone; but the editors who gave it currency have never retracted it, and it yet swells the tide of miserable defamation which makes up the bad reputations of so many of the purest of men. Numerous other instances might be quoted to show not only the injustice with which Mr. Cooper has been treated, but the addiction of the press to libel, and its unwillingness to atone for wrongs it has itself inflicted.

It used to be the custom of the North American Review to speak of Mr. Cooper's works as "translated into French," as if thus giving the highest existing evidence of their popularity, while there was not a language in Europe into which they did not all, after the publication of The Red Rover appear almost as soon as they were printed in London. He has been the chosen companion of the prince and the peasant, on the borders of the Volga, the Danube, and the Guadalquivir; by the Indus and the Ganges, the Paraguay and the Amazon; where the name even of Washington was never spoken, and our country is known only as the home of Cooper. The world has living no other writer whose fame is so universal.

Mr. Cooper has the faculty of giving to his pictures an astonishing reality. They are not mere transcripts of nature, though as such they would possess extraordinary merit, but actual creations, embodying the very spirit of intelligent and genial experience and observation. His Indians, notwithstanding all that has been written to the contrary, are no more inferior in fidelity than they are in poetical interest to those of his most successful imitators or rivals. His hunters and trappers have the same vividness and freshness, and in the whole realm of fiction there is nothing more actual, harmonious, and sustained. They evince not only the first order of inventive power, but a profoundly philosophical study of the influences of situation upon human character. He treads the deck with the conscious pride of home and dominion: the aspects of the sea and sky, the terrors of the tornado, the excitement of the chase, the tumult of battle, fire, and wreck, are presented by him with a freedom and breadth of outline, a glow and strength of coloring and contrast, and a distinctness and truth of general and particular conception, that place him far in advance of all the other artists who have attempted with pen or pencil to paint the ocean. The same vigorous originality is stamped upon his nautical characters. The sailors of Smollett are as different in every respect as those of Eugene Sue and Marryat are inferior. He goes on board his ship with his own creations, disdaining all society and assistance but that with which he is thus surrounded. Long Tom Coffin, Tom Tiller, Trysail, Bob Yarn, the boisterous Nightingale, the mutinous Nighthead, the fierce but honest Boltrope, and others who crowd upon our memories, as familiar as if we had ourselves been afloat with them, attest the triumph of this self-reliance. And when, as if to rebuke the charge of envy that he owed his successes to the novelty of his scenes and persons, he entered upon fields which for centuries had been illustrated by the first geniuses of Europe, his abounding power and inspiration were vindicated by that series of political novels ending with The Bravo, which have the same supremacy in their class that is held by The Pilot and The Red Rover among stories of the sea. It has been urged that his leading characters are essentially alike, having no difference but that which results from situation. But this opinion will not bear investigation. It evidently arose from the habit of clothing his heroes alike with an intense individuality, which under all circumstances sustains the sympathy they at first awaken, without the aid of those accessories to which artists of less power are compelled to resort. Very few authors have added more than one original and striking character to the world of imagination; none has added more than Cooper; and his are all as distinct and actual as the personages that stalk before us on the stage of history.

To be American, without falling into Americanism, is the true task that is set before the native artist in literature, the accomplishment of which awaits the reward of the best approval in these times, and the promise of an enduring name. Some of our authors, fascinated very excusably with the faultless models of another age, have declined this condition, and have given us Spectators and Tattlers with false dates, and developed a style of composition of which the very merits imply an anachronism in the proportion of excellence. Others have understood the result to be attained better than the means of arriving at it. They have not considered the difference between those peculiarities in our society, manners, tempers, and tastes, which are genuine and characteristic, and those which are merely defects and errors upon the English system; they have acquired the force and gayety of liberty, but not the dignity of independence, and are only provincial, when they hoped to be national. Mr. Cooper has been more happy than any other writer in reconciling these repugnant qualities, and displaying the features, character, and tone of a great rational style in letters, which, original and unimitative, is yet in harmony with the ancient models.

NELL GWYNNE

The above picture is from Sir Peter Lely's portrait, copied in the Memoirs of Grammont. Nell Gwynne has been the heroine of a dozen books, in the last ten years, and a very interesting work respecting her life and times is now being published in The Gentleman's Magazine. We copy the following article, with its illustrations, from the Art Journal, in which it appears as one of Mrs. S. C. Hall's "Pilgrimages to English Shrines."

There may be some who will object to the application of so honored a term to the dwelling of an actress of lost repute; but surely that may be a "shrine" where consideration can be taught—where mercy is to be learned—and—that which is "greater" than even faith and hope—charity!

However agreeable may be the present, and we have no reason to complain of it in any way, there is inexhaustible delight in reverting to the past. We do not mean living over again our own days; for though, if we could "pick and choose," there are sundry portions of our lives we might desire to repeat, yet, beginning from the beginning, taking the bad and the good "straight on," there can be few, men or women, who would willingly pass again through the whole of a gone-by career. And this, properly considered, is one of our greatest blessings; stifling much of vain regret, and teaching us to "look forward" to the future. We have always had, if we may so call it, a domestic rambling propensity; a desire to see "dwellings," not so much for their pictorial as their, so to say, personal celebrity: and sometimes, as on our visit to Barley Wood, this longing comes upon us at the wrong season, when a cheerful fire at "home" would be a meet companion. It is now six years ago—six years, last month—that, pacing along Pall Mall, we paused, and turned to the left hand corner of St. James's Square, full of painful and un-English memories of the Asiatic court of the second Charles; the sovereign who had endured adversity without discovering that "sweet are its uses;" who had "suffered tribulation" without "learning mercy"—the king who makes us doubt if, as a people, we have any claim to what is called "national character"—for the change that came over England, within a few brief years, from gloomy fanaticism to reckless license, is one of the marvels that give to history the aspect of romance. We had been walking round Whitehall,[2 - The appearance of Whitehall from the Thames in the reign of Charles II. may be seen in our woodcut. The beautiful Banqueting-house of Inigo Jones was crowded among a heterogeneous mass of ugly buildings connected with the exigencies of the court. Beside the houses, to the spectator's left, was a large garden extending to the river, with fountains and parterres. A small garden also projected into the river in front of the buildings; and here Charles used to view the civic processions of the Lord Mayor, who on the day of his taking the oaths at Westminster, generally gratified the sovereign and other sight-seers with a pageant on the Thames, in some degree adulatory of the monarch. The king resided here so constantly, that the most striking pictures of his private manners are recorded to have happened at Whitehall, and for which the graphic pages of Pepys, Evelyn, and De Grammont may be consulted. Whitehall, indeed, has obtained its chief interest from its connection with the Stuarts. The Banqueting-house, erected by James I., in front of which his unfortunate son was executed; the residence of Cromwell here in a quietude, strangely contrasted with the voluptuousness of the Restoration; the flight of James II., and his queen's escape with her infant son by the water-gate, shown in our cut, closes the history of the Stuart family in this country of sovereigns; and the history also of the palace; for, on the 10th April, 1691, the greater part was burnt by a fire, which was succeeded by another in 1698, which destroyed nearly every building but the Banqueting-house, and Whitehall ceased to be the residence of royalty.] recalling the change that had swept away nearly all relics of the past in that quarter, and strolled so far out of our home-ward path to look at the house in Pall Mall (recently removed from its place) which tradition says was the dwelling of Nell Gwynne, besides her apartment at Whitehall, to which she was entitled by virtue of her office as lady of the bed-chamber to a most outraged queen. One of our friends remembers supping in the back room on the ground-floor of that very house, the said room being called "the Mirror Chamber," because the walls were panelled with looking-glass[3 - Nell's "town-house" was in Pall Mall. Pennant says, "it was the first good one on the left hand of St. James's Square, as we enter from Pall Mall. The back room on the second floor was (within memory) entirely of looking-glass, as was said to have been the ceiling. Over the chimney was her picture, and that of her sister was in a third room." At this house she died in 1691, and was pompously interred in the parish of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, leaving that parish a handsome sum yearly, that every Thursday evening there should be six men employed for the space of one hour in ringing, for which they were to have a roasted shoulder of mutton and ten shillings for beer.]. There are others who affirm that Nelly lodged at the opposite side of Pall Mall, because Evelyn gossips of her leaning from her window, "talking to the king," who was lounging in St. James's Park, thereby wounding the propriety of many, who think vice only vice when it becomes notorious. Evelyn was always sadly perplexed by his faithful and high devotion to Charles, the king, and his abhorrence of the vices of Charles, the man; while Pepys jogged on, sometimes in the royal seraglio, sometimes at church, sometimes with my Lady Castlemaine, sometimes with "Knip" at the "king's house," seeing, admiring, and repeating—his morality held in abeyance; and yet always, even to the kissing of "Mistress Nelly," "a sweet pretty soul," companioned by his wife. If Pepys was a curiosity, what must Madame Pepys have been![4 - Pepys was Secretary to the Admiralty, and it was he who published, from the king's dictation, the minute and interesting account of his escape from the Battle of Worcester, and adventures a Boscobel, and in the "Royal Oak." He kept a very minute and amusing diary, in which he neglected not to enter the most trivial matters, even the purchase of a new wig, or a new riband for his wife. This very littleness of detail has made his Memoirs the most extraordinary picture we possess of the times. He appears to have been a coarse but shrewd man, and fully alive to the faults of his master.] What must the "court set" of those days have been, when we are absolutely refreshed by turning from them to the uneducated but frank-hearted and generous woman,—tainted as she is to all history by the worse than imperfections arising out of her position, yet redeemed in a degree, by virtues, which, in that profligate court, were entirely her own!

WHITEHALL.

The scene in St. James's Park to which Evelyn refers, was an index to the age[5 - Previous to the restoration of Charles II., the park of St. James's appears to have attracted little attention, and to have been left to the guidance of nature alone. Charles seems to have had Versailles in view when he laid it out from Le Notre's design. A long straight canal was formed in its centre from a square pond which existed at its foot near the Horse Guards. Rows of elm and lime trees were planted on each side of it, an aviary was formed in that place still called the "Bird Cage Walk;" and in the large space between this walk and the canal, and nearest the Abbey, an extensive decoy for wild fowl was constructed, popularly termed "Duck Island," and of which the famous St. Evremond was appointed a salaried governor. Charles, who was exceedingly fond of walking, and who tired out many a courtier who tried to keep up with his quick pace, was continually seen here amusing himself with the birds, playing with the dogs, or feeding the ducks. On the opposite side of the canal, three broad walks were constructed and shaded with trees, one for coaches, the other for walking, and the central one for the game of "Pall Mall," an athletic exercise of which the king and the gentlemen of the day were fond. The game consisted in driving a ball through a ring at the extremity of the walk, which had a narrow border of wood on each side of it to keep the ball within bounds. The floor of this portion of the park was made of mixed earth, covered with sea-sand and powdered shells as at Versailles. The park was much secluded, except on this side, which was that only accessible to the public in general. There, Spring Gardens, with its bowling-greens and gaming-tables, seduced the idle and dissipated, until the Mulberry Garden (which stood on the site of Carlton Gardens) put forth its attractions; and which, as Evelyn says, became "the only place of refreshment about the town for persons of the best quality to be exceedingly cheated at." The plays of the period abound with intrigue and adventure carried on at both places. The Mall ceased to be the resort of royalty at the death of Charles, but it continued to be the fashionable promenade until the close of the last century.].

Blessed as we are in the knowledge that nowhere in England are the domestic virtues better cultivated or more truly flourishing than in our own pure and high-souled court, we are almost inclined to treat as a mythological fable, the history of Whitehall during the reign of Charles the Second. No one trait of the father's better nature redeems that of the son. His life was indeed

"a sad epicure's dream,"

and worse. He was not worthy even of the earnest devotion which the poor orange-girl, of all his favorites, alone manifested to the last.

Poor Nell! the sympathy which every right-thinking woman feels it a Christian duty to give to her and her class, far from extenuating vice, is only a call upon the virtuous to be more virtuous, and to the pure to be more pure. No one would plunge into crime, merely for the sake of being redeemed therefrom; no one take the sin, who looked first at the shame, hideous and enduring as it must be—however overshadowed by the broad wings of mercy; the burn of the brand can never be effaced, however skilfully healed. And when the wit, the loveliness, the generosity, the fidelity of "Madame Ellen," when the memory of the well-spent evening of her checkered life, and the allowance we make for the early impressions of a young creature, called upon to sing her first songs in a tavern, and sell oranges in the depraved and depraving saloon of "the King's House;"—when all these aids are exerted to excite our sympathy, we only accord the sentiment of pity to "poor Nell Gwynne!"

While looking at the house said to have been inhabited by this "femme d'esprit par la grace de Dieu!" we vowed a pilgrimage to Sandford Manor House, at Sandy End, Fulham,—to the dwelling where there is no doubt she spent many summer months. Near as it is to our own, we were doubtful of the way, and determined to inquire of our opposite neighbor, who keeps the old Brompton tollbar.

"Sandford Manor House," repeated he, "I never heard tell of such a place in these parts. Whereabouts is it?"

"Exactly what we want to know. It is a very old dilapidated house, by the side of a little stream that runs into the Thames somewhere by Old Chelsea. I think you must have heard of it. It was once inhabited by the famous Nell Gwynne." I might almost as well have talked Hebrew to our neighbor, who seemed born to lay in wait for market-carts, and pounce upon them for toll.

SANDFORD MANOR HOUSE.

"Old house! Nell Gwynne!" he again repeated, and something like an expression of life and interest moved his features while he added—"It's the Nell Gwynne public-house you're after, I'm thinking; that was in Chelsea; but whether it's there now or not, is more than I can tell."

"No, no," we answered, perhaps, sharply, "it is the house she lived in we want to see—Sandford Manor House."

"Perhaps it's the madhouse," he suggested. We walked on. "Please," said a little rosy-faced boy, "if you want to find out any thing about old houses, Hill, the rat-catcher, knows them all, as he hunts up the rats and sparrows about; and you have only to go down Thistle Grove, into the Fulham road—straight on. His is a low house, ma'am—his name in the window—you can't pass it, for the birds and white mice."

And is there no one left, we thought, to tell where the witty, light-hearted, true-hearted Nelly lived—she who was the friend of Dryden and Lee, the favorite of Lord Buckhurst, the rival of the Duchess of Cleveland, the protector of the soldiers of England—the one unselfish friend of the selfish Charles? Is there no one in a district that once echoed with the praise of her charities—no one to tell where she resided, but Hill, the old rat-catcher? We proceeded through the prettily-built, but gangrened-looking, cottages located in Thistle Grove, once called Brompton Heath, (or Marsh, we forget which,) until the sounds of traffic reminded us that we were in the Fulham road. Presently the sharp voice of a starling, just above us, attracted our attention.

"Poor Tom!" said the bird—"Tom!—poor Tom!"

The old rat-catcher invited us to enter. He is a man of powerful frame, with a massive head, fringed round with an abundance of gray hair, with deep well-set eyes, and a quiet smile. Two sharp, bitter-looking, wiry-haired terriers began smelling, casting their sly eyes upwards, to see if we feared them or were friendly to their advances, and, after a moment or two, seemed sufficiently satisfied with the scrutiny to warrant their wagging their short stumpy tails in rude welcome. The room was hung round with cages of the songbirds of England—some content with their captivity, others restless, and passing to and fro in front of the wires, eager for escape. Strong inclosures, containing both rats and ferrets, were ranged along the sides of the small room; the latter, long, yellow, pink-eyed, and pink-nosed creatures, lithe as a willow wand, courting notice; while the rats, on the contrary, moved their whiskers in defiance, and, with bright, black, determined eyes, sat lumped up in the distant corners of their dens, ready 'to die game,' if die they must. Gay-colored finches, the gold and the green, graced the window in little brown bob cages; while mice of all colors, from the burnt sienna-colored dormouse, who was more than half asleep within the skin of an apple which it had scooped out, to the matronly white mouse, who was sitting composedly amid a progeny of thirteen young ones, attracted groups of little gazers, every now and then dispersed by the larger terrier, who ran out amongst them, snarling and threatening, but doing them no harm. "Come in, old chap; that will do, old fellow," said his master, adding, "I would not keep a dog that would hurt any thing but a varmint."

"Oh, oh! Nell's old house," he replied to our inquiries; "Nell Gwynne's house at Sandy End, where runs the little river they deepened into a canal—the stream I mean that divides Chelsea from Fulham—Sandford Manor House! Ay, that I do, and I'd match it against any house in the county for rats!—terrible place—I lost two ferrets there, this time two years, and one of them was found t'other side of the canal; it must have been a pleasant place in those days, when the king was making his private road through the Chelsea fields, and the stream was as clear as a thrush's eye, and birds of all sorts were so tamed by Madame Ellen, that they'd come when she'd call them. Ah, a pretty woman might catch a king, but it's only a kind one that could tame the wild birds of the air; I know that; I'll show you the way with pleasure." "Poor Tom," sung out the starling. "Your bird is calling you," we observed, after he had told his wife not to let the jay pick "the splints" off his broken leg, and we were leaving the door. "It's not me he's calling," answered the old man, with a heavy sigh. "Now that's a bit of nature, ma'am. A bird, I'm thinking, remembers longer than a Christian does. Poor Tom's wife is married again, but the starling still calls for its master. It's hard to say, what they do or do not know; the bird often wrings my heart; but for all that, I could not part with him." At any other time we would have asked him the reason, but just then we were thinking more of Nell Gwynne than of our guide. We walked on, until we came to the "World's End." "It is nothing but a common public-house now," observed our companion, who had not spoken again, except to his dog: "but I remember when it was more than that; and, moreover, in Nell's time, it was a place of great resort for noblemen and fine ladies—a royal tea-garden, they say—filled with the best of good company; they liked the country and the open air in those days." We continued silent, until at last our guide called "Stop!" so suddenly, as to make us start. "Do you see that bank just under the arch of the bridge we stand on? The hardest day's work I ever had was digging an old rat out of that bank. This is Sandy End; and that house opposite is Sandford Manor House[6 - The house at Sandy End has been altered within the last few years. The characteristic gables of the roof, which so well marked its age, and display the taste of the period when it was constructed, are removed, and the house is so much modernized as to lose the greater part of its interest, and at first sight induce a doubt of its antiquity. The extensive gardens still remain, and some very old houses beside it, with a characteristic old wall bounding the King's road, inclosing some venerable walnut trees. Three years ago, a pretty view of these old houses, with Nell's in the back-ground, might have been obtained from the adjacent bridge over the brook: but now a large public house, "the Nell Gwynne," obstructs the view, a row of small "Nell Gwynne cottages" effectually block the path, and the primitive character of the scene has passed away for ever.]."

There was nothing in the sight of those green, grim walls to excite any feeling of romance. Yet positively our heart beat more rapidly than usual for a minute or two—"a way it has" when we are at all interested. We turned down a lane seamed with ruts, by the side of a paling black with gas tar. We passed two or three exceedingly old houses, and one in particular with three windows in front. It was evident that the paling had been run across the garden, which must have been very extensive. After waiting a few minutes for permission from the master of the gas-works, to whom the Manor House belonged, to enter, an elderly man of respectable appearance opened the gate, and told us he resided there, and that the servant would show us all over the house. The rat-catcher commenced poking his stick into the various mounds of earth wherever there was the appearance of a hole, and his dogs became at once busy and animated. There was but one of the three walnut trees said to have been planted by royal hands, remaining, and that stood gnarled, and thick, and stunted, close to the present entrance—bent it was, like a thing whose pleasantest days are gone, and which cares not how soon it may be gathered into the garner. A circular plot of thick green grass was directly opposite the hall door, and in its centre grew a young golden holly, some of the turf being cleared away from round its root. This was encircled by a fair gravel walk, leading to the house, which was entered through a rustic porch, covered with ivy; very old and rampant it was, and its deep heavy foliage, so densely green, had a pall-like look, as it rustled and sighed in the sharp keen air. It was flanked by two cypress trees, well-shaped and well-grown. Dank ivy and deep cypress where the living Nell would have twined roses and passion-flowers! You see the old door-way when under the porch; it is of no particular order, but massive and pointed,—the hall is like the usual entrance to old-fashioned country-houses, panelled with oak. The staircase is very remarkable, as Mr. Fairholt's sketch will show; broad twisted iron rods, of great thickness, springing from the oak square pillars which flank the turnings, and assisting to support the flight above. The room on the right is large, the ceiling low, the windows deep set in the thick walls. A very gentle looking little maid was nursing a pretty white cat by the fire; her young fresh face and bright smile were like sunbeams in a tomb; what did she there? We could fancy old withered crones in such a dwelling, rather than a fair tender child, and yet she looked so happy, and so full of joy! The opposite room had been fitted up as a kitchen, and was clean and cold. We paced up the stairs so often trodden by Nell's small feet, when they descended briskly to meet the lounging heavy footfalls of her royal master, whom she loved for himself, and careless of her own future, as she was of her own person, cared more for the honor of the indolent Charles, than ever he cared for his own! In nature, in feeling, in all honors save the one, how superior was the poor orange-girl to her rivals; they envied and slandered each other, disdaining no article to fix the fancy of the king, who desired nothing more than that they should all live peaceably together, and was not able to comprehend why they did not agree when he endeavored to please them; they copied each other—but Nell resembled only herself. Instead of going like the generality of her sex from bad to worse, the more her opportunities of evil increased, the better she became. The ladies of the court swore, drank, and gambled; it was the fashion to be coarse and vicious, and the more coarse they were, the better they pleased the English Sultan; and if the poor orange-girl endeavored to keep her lover by what bound him to others,—where's the wonder? Her manners had their full taste of the time; but we look in vain elsewhere for the generous bravery, the kind thoughts, the disinterested acts, which have retained her in our memories. "Poor Nell!" we said aloud, "poor, poor Nell!" "Please, if you will only go on, I will show you her bed-room and dressing-room, them's little more than closets; but this was her bed-room, and that, the madam's dressing-room," said the servant, a little impatient of delay. Both rooms were furnished, but cold and gloomy; the floor of what the girl called her dressing-room was chippy and worm-eaten. "And there," persisted the servant, "in that corner just by, if not in that little cupboard, the money was found." "What money?" "The money the madam, or some one about her, forgot, fifteen thousand good pounds, I am told; and a gentleman came here once, who told me he had some of the coins that were discovered there." "That must be a mistake," we said. "Oh, there's no knowing. Why should the gentleman tell a story?" We saw the girl was determined we should believe her, contrary both to our knowledge and reason, so we made no further observation, while she muttered that she would "just go and put her own room straight a bit." We were left alone in Nell's dressing-chamber! She never bestowed much time upon her toilet; and Burnet, who was particularly hard upon her at all times, says that, after her "elevation," she continued "to hang on her clothes with the same slovenly negligence;" and, truly, Sir Peter Lely, would make it appear that all the "ladies" of the court, however rich the materials that composed their dresses, and well assorted the colors, "hung" them full carelessly over their persons; nay, it would be difficult to imagine how they could stand up without their dresses falling off; they certainly have a most uncomfortable look[7 - In the History of Costume in England, by the author of these notes, it has been remarked that the freedom and looseness, as well as ease and elegance of female costume at this period is to be attributed to the taste of Sir Peter Lely, rather than to that exhibited by the Beauties of Charles's court. "It was to his taste, as it was to that of a later artist, Sir Joshua Reynolds, that we are indebted for the freedom which characterized their treatment of the rigid and somewhat ungraceful costumes before them." Walpole, in his "Anecdotes of Painting," says, "Lely supplied the want of taste with clinquant; his nymphs trail fringes, and embroidery, through meadows and purling streams. Vandyke's habits are those of the times; Lely's, a sort of fantastic night-gown fastened with a single pin." Lely's ladies are not unfrequently en masque, and are habited in the conventional dresses adopted for goddesses in the court of Versailles.]. However she dressed, she certainly succeeded in winning, and even keeping, the fancy (for we may doubt if he had any affection for the ministers of his vices) of Charles until the end. And although Burnet was marvellously angry that at such a time the thought of such a "creature" should find its way into the mind when it was about to lay aside the draperies of royalty for the realities of eternity—yet the only little passage in the life of the voluptuary that ever touched us was, his entreaty to his brother James, "Not to let poor Nelly starve!" We closed our eyes in reverie, and endeavored to picture the "beauties" upon whom the licentious king conferred a shameful immortality. Unfortunately the most powerful female influence in the Cabinet has generally been exercised by worthless women; an argument, if one were needed, to prove that a woman is little tempted to interfere with State affairs if her mind is untainted, and directed to the source of woman's legitimate power.

STAIRCASE, SANDFORD MANOR HOUSE.

How loathsome was the King's subjection to the abandoned vixen, my Lady Castlemaine! And yet how powerful must have been her beauty! Can we not, in fancy, see her now,—stepping out of her carriage at Bartholomew Fair, whither she had gone to view the rare puppet-show of "Patient Grizzle," hissed when recognized by the honest mob; yet upon turning the light of her radiant and beautiful face towards them, they exchange their jibes and curses for admiration and hurras.

"Poor Nelly" was no proficient in pen-craft, for she could only sign with the initials—E. G.

Until the publication of Mrs. Jameson's "Beauties," there existed a popular fallacy, that every one of Sir Peter Lely's portraits, represented a woman of tainted reputation; this was any thing but true; however poisonous a malaria may be, there are always some who escape its influence, and the pure and high-souled Lady Ossory, and the noble Countess de Grammont would adorn even a court such as our own; we wish that Evelyn or Pepys had recorded how those ladies treated "Nell," for they must have met her during their attendance on the outraged Queen, and hardly less insulted Duchess of York; they must have encountered her at Whitehall, and noted her dimpled cheeks, and small bright laughing eyes; and contrasted her unaffected child-like bearing, with the boisterous arrogance of the Duchess of Cleveland, and the cat-like cunning of the French courtezan, (the Duchess of Portsmouth,) who could not with all her arts detach the sovereign from poor Nell, whose genuine wit, generosity of mind, as well as purer life, and careless buoyant humor, were reliefs to the caprices and eternal French cabals,—which troubled his unenergetic nature, in the gorgeous salon of the most extravagant of his favorites. From such women as Madame de Grammont and Lady Ossory the untitled actress could have met no offence; for women of high virtue are merciful; women who affect it, are not.

Another View of the Manor House.

We could fancy Nell's silver laugh, passing along those damp walls of Sandford Manor House; we could imagine her leaning from that window, conversing with, and rallying, her royal "lover," who stands beneath, amid the flowers, once so bright and abundant, where only weeds and stinging thistles were to be seen this winter-time. As for him, wisdom came not with years; "consideration" never whipped the offending Adam out of him—in his character there was no "nettle," but there was no "strawberry." What does he reply to her merrie rallying as she dallies with her looking-glass? He leans his white and jewelled hand upon his hip, and, with a faded smile, listens to her mingled love and reproof. She talks of the old soldiers, and wonders why the builders pause in the erection of the Hospital, for lack of cash, when certain ladies sport new diamonds, and glitter in fair coaches; and he tells her he will take her, if she likes, from where she is, and give her the palace by the water-side, in exchange for her sweet words and sweeter smiles. She will none of this, but answers she would rather content her in the humblest house in his dominions, so that the soldiers who fought his battles should be worthily lodged in their old age. He repeats to her the last bit of Sedley, and diverts her with news of a new play, for well he knows those who once lived by the buskin love the buskin still:[8 - Nell appears to have first fixed the attention of the King by appearing at the King's Theatre in an Epilogue written for her by Dryden; who, taking a pique at the rival theatre, when Nokes, the famous comedian, had appeared in a hat of large proportions, which mightily delighted the silly and volatile frequenters of the place, brought forward Nell in a hat as large as a coach-wheel, which gave her short figure so grotesque an air, that the very actors laughed outright and the whole theatre was in convulsions of merriment. His Majesty was nearly suffocated by the excess of his delight; and the naïve manner of the actress, her wit, archness, and beauty, received additional zest by the extravagance of "the broad-brimmed hat and waist-belt" in which Dryden had attired her, and which fixed her permanently in the memory of "the merry Monarch."] and she listens, and is pleased, but returns to her first theme; and, provoked at last by an indifference she cannot understand, she becomes bitter, and then Charles laughs at "little pig-eyed Nelly." "Ah, Nell, Nell!" he says, stroking, at the same time, the fair tresses that grace the head of a pretty boy, her son, "you are like the fruit that will come of yonder trees, a rough and bitter outside, but a sweet and pleasant soul within."

We composed our thoughts, or rather we aroused from those waking dreams in which all indulge sometimes—more or less. The house contains fourteen rooms—and must have been pleasant, long ago, as a retreat where poor Nell could bring her titled children—whom she doubtless loved with all the enthusiasm of her ardent nature. We crossed the garden, but could find no trace of the pond in which tradition reports Madam Ellen's mother to have been drowned. Not long ago, a very old woman resided in Chelsea, whose grandmother, it was said, was Nell's stage-dresser; this was before old Ranelagh was built over, and when the site of Eaton Square was intersected by damp pathways and nursery-gardens. We entered the meadows at the back, to see how the house looked from thence, which greatly delighted the rat-catcher's terriers.

Modern "improvement" long spared this locality. When we knew and loved it first, we could see the Thames from our windows in one direction, and Kensington Gardens in another. But old houses, standing within their own park-like inclosures, and old trees and green fields, are nearly all gone.[9 - "Improvement" has extended far beyond Old Brompton. The little wooden house of the old rat-catcher has been swept away, and he is obliged to locate himself and his live stock in some back lane, where none but his friends can find him; and as he is disastrously poor, their number is very limited.] We used to have the nightingales in the elm-avenue leading to Hereford Lodge, but the only nightingale we had last spring was one who came from the far north. Many hereafter will do pilgrimage to her shrine with a far deeper feeling of respect, than, with all our charity, we can bestow upon Sandford Manor House.

If the women of England could forget this period of our history, which, as Mrs. Jameson truly and beautifully observes, "saw them degraded from objects of adoration to servants of pleasure, and gave the first blow to that chivalrous feeling with which their sex had hitherto been regarded, by levelling the distinction between the unblemished matron and her 'who was the ready spoil of opportunity'"—if this were possible, it might be well, like Claire, when she threw the pall over the perishing features of Julie, to exclaim—

"Maudite soit l'indigne main qui jamais soulevera ce voile,"

but so it is not; and it becomes our duty to look on Charles, and those who were corrupted by his example and his influence, as plague-spots upon the fair brow of our beloved country. We should learn to speak of him, not as distinguished for "gallantry," but as the monarch who reduced those he insulted by his love below the level of the poor Georgian slave, who knows no higher destiny than to glitter for a few short moons as the star of the harem. But if some of the women of that court were deeply degraded—if the termagant and imperious Castlemaine; the lovely and intriguing Denham; the coquettish, cold, and cunning Richmond; the innately-dissipated and unrestrainable Southesk; the equivocal Middleton; the rapacious, prodigal, and insinuating Querouaille,—are rendered infamous in our national history—let us not confound the innocent with the guilty. We can point out to our daughters, for admiration and example, the patient, affectionate, and enduring Lady Northumberland, the beloved sister of Lady Rachel Russel; the beautiful Miss Hamilton; the peerless Lady Ossory; the matchless Jennings;—women passing through the ordeal of the Whitehall court, at such a time, with unstained repute, may be well believed to have possessed innate virtue and true feminine dignity.

We have not classed Nell Gwynne among the court profligates; nor can we so describe her. She was most unfortunate, but not innately vicious; we may say so without danger to others. Neither the circumstances of her life or death hold out temptations to follow her example. She endured vexation and contumely enough, during the most brilliant period of her life, to embitter even a less sensitive spirit than hers. The deep and earnest love she bore the worthless king, must have been a sore scourge to her own heart. The very piety of her nature, overcome as it was by circumstances, and the lack of those virtues which, slow of growth, only attained strength during the last seven years of her life, and were not deemed unworthy the Christian forbearance and even commendation of Doctor Tennison,[10 - Then vicar of St. Martin's, and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. In that sermon he enlarged upon her benevolent qualities, her sincere penitence, and exemplary end. When, says Mrs. Jameson, this was afterwards mentioned to Queen Mary, in the hope that it would injure him in her estimation, and be a bar to his preferment, "And what then?" answered she, hastily. "I have heard as much; it is a sign that the poor unfortunate woman died penitent; for, if I can read a man's heart through his looks, had she not made a pious and Christian end, the Doctor would never have been induced to speak well of her."] whose funeral sermon preached in memory of the poor orange-girl, proves that she must have suffered much from the reproofs of conscience, even when her sin to all appearance most revelled in its "glory." The canker eat into the rose—soiled and marred its perfectness—chipped and wasted its beauty—but could not destroy its perfume!

That there must have been great good, and great fascination, in Nell Gwynne, is proved by the kind of memory in which her name is enshrined. While we say "Poor Nell!" we shake our heads—the sigh and the smile mingle together—we regret and pity her. We wonder she was so good—we sorrow at the impurity,—not so much of the beset actress, as of her position. We know that, though fallen, she was not depraved. She was not avaricious, nor intriguing, nor ill-tempered, nor unjust. Her regard for literature (though she could hardly sign her own name) proved the up-looking of her better nature; and her charity was unbounded. Shall we—reared and instructed in all righteous ways—shall we show less charity to the memory of one who in her latter days rose out of the slough into which circumstance—not vice—had plunged her? Shall we be less charitable than the bishop who honored her memory and his own character by recording her benevolence, her penitence, her exemplary end? The good bishop's testimony renders it needless that we "point a moral." There was "joy in heaven" over one sinner that repented. Who but One can judge the heart? Let charity hold up her warning finger, often, when we "think evil:" and consideration, "like an angel" come, when harsh judgment dooms an "erring sister." Above all, let us adopt the sentiment of the poet (and our pilgrimage to Sandford Manor House will not be in vain):

"If thy neighbor should sin, old Christoval said,
Never, never, unmerciful be!
For remember it is by the mercy of God,
Thou art not as wicked as he!"[11 - We have much yet to do for a class whom it is a shame to name, and that much must be done by women—by women, themselves sans tache, sans reproche. It is not enough that we repeat our Saviour's words, "Go and sin no more:" we must give the sinner a refuge to go to. Asylums calculated to receive such ought to be more sufficiently provided in England. One lady, as eminent for her rare mental powers as for her charity and great wealth, is now trying an experiment that does her infinite honor; she has set a noble example to others who are rich and ought to be considerate; safe in her high character, her self-respect, and her virgin purity, she has provided shelter for many "erring sisters,"—in mercy beguiling"by gentle ways the wanderer back."Of all her numerous charities, this is the truest and best; like the fair Sabrina she has heard and answered the prayers of those who seek protection from the most terrible of all dangers—"Listen! for dear honor's sakeListen—and save!"]

MARY WOLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY

The daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wolstonecraft, and wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley, died at the age of fifty-three, in Chester Square, Pimlico, London, on the first day of February. What woman had ever before relations so illustrious! Daughter of Godwin and wife of Shelley! These few words unfold a remarkable history, unparalleled, and unapproached in romantic dignity. In the dedication to her of the noble poem of The Revolt of Islam, Shelley says:

"They say that thou wert lovely from thy birth,