THE FIRST ENGLISH ACTRESS.

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Mrs. Hughes, and the Marshalls. Pepys notes the 3rd of January, 1661, as the first time he ever saw women upon the stage, it was in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Beggar's Bush;" this must have been in the Vere Street Theatre. Killigrew stole a march upon Davenant, and introduced female performers first. MRS. KNIPP is a name familiar to all readers of Pepys' Diary; the old gossip dilates with great unction upon her loveliness and talents, and her excellent singing of his song "Beauty Retire." Killigrew told him: "Knipp is like to make the best actor that ever came upon the stage; she understanding so well, that they are going to give her £30 a year more." ANNE and "BECK " MARSHALL were the daughters of Stephen Marshall, a noted Presbyterian. Pepys speaks of Beck's fine acting in Massinger's" Virgin Martyr." Both sisters were very beautiful women; Anne was the finer actress.

Of all Eve's frail daughters none have been regarded with more tenderness than NELL GWYNNE. A house is shown at Hereford as her birthplace; but the scene of that event, which took place in 1650, was more probably the Coal Yard, Drury Lane, a thoroughfare still existing. Her early life was degraded enough, as a certain passage in Pepys proves. When little more than a child she sold oranges in the pit of the theatre, and her ready wit and powers of fascination rendered her a great favourite with the gallants of the playhouse, a crowd of whom

would usually be gathered about her. By and bye Hart, thinking her attractions might be turned to good account upon the stage, took her as a pupil, and instructed her in acting. She made her first appearance at Drury Lane, in "Indian Emperor," being then

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1665, in Dryden's

about fifteen years

of age. It is in that year Pepys first mentions her as pretty, witty Nell, at the King's House." In 1666 he writes, "Knipp took us all in (to a box at the theatre) and brought to us Nelly a most pretty woman, who acted the great part, Celia, to-day (in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Humorous Lieutenant") very fine, and did it very well. I kissed her and so did my wife; and a mighty pretty soul she is." In the next year he sees her play in Dryden's "Maiden Queen," and falls into great raptures. "There is a comical part done by Nell, which is Florimal, that I never can hope ever to see the like done again by The King and the Duke of York But so great a performance of a 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 like a young gallant, and hath the motions and carriage of a spark the most that ever I saw any man have. It makes me, I confess, admire her." In person she was below the middle height, with very small feet; she was not beautiful, her eyes being very small and they became almost invisible when she laughed, but the vivacity

man or woman.

were at the play. comical part was

In

of her features made amends for other shortcomings. She was never a great actress; but was airy, fantastic, sprightly, sang and danced, and was admirably adapted for the lighter parts. She left the stage for a time in 1667, and was seen by Pepys in company with Lord Buckhurst at Epsom. "Poor girl," he says, " I pity her. But more the loss of her at the King's house." In the same year he notes her return. "With my Lord Brouncher and his mistress to the King's playhouse, and there saw The Indian Emperour,' where I find Nell come again, which I am glad of; but was most infinitely displeased with her being put to act the Emperour's daughter, which is a great and serious part, which she does most basely." Nelly could never play tragedy. another entry, made soon after, he tells us that Nell had been left by Lord Buckhurst, and that he was making sport of her, and swearing she had had all she could get of him; and “ Hart, her great admirer, now hates her, and that she is very poor, and hath lost my Lady Castlemaine, who was her great friend also; but she is come to the playhouse, but is neglected by them all." According to Curll, it was in speaking the Epilogue to Dryden's "Tyrannic Love" (1669), that she first captivated the King; and so strong was the impression she made upon. him, that when the curtain fell, he went behind the scenes and carried her off there and then. It is one of Dryden's wittiest efforts, and so appropriate

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to the speaker, that I transcribe the personal lines. As Valeria, she had stabbed herself at the end of the play, and the stage-keeper was about to carry her off, when up she sprang with

"Hold! are you mad?

You d―d confounded dog!

I am to rise, and speak the epilogue."

Then, to the audience:

"I come, kind gentlemen, strange news to tell ye,
I am the ghost of poor, departed Nelly.
Sweet ladies, be not frighted, I'll be civil,
I'm what I was, a little, harmless devil.

"To tell you true, I walk because I die
Out of my calling in a tragedy.

Oh poet, d――d dull poet, who could prove
So senseless to make Nelly die of love!

"As for my epitaph, when I am gone,

I'll trust no poet, but will write my own:
'Here Nelly lies, although she liv'd a slattern,
Yet died a princess, acting in St. Catherin'.'

In the prologue to another of Dryden's plays, "Almanzor and Almahide," she appeared in a straw hat, as large round as a cart-wheel, which almost entirely hid her. It was in ridicule of a piece at the other house. This seems to have been her last appearance upon the stage. Her wit and talent for mimicry, which were exercised upon every person of the court, pleased the King hugely; she held her empire over him to the last, and was

NELL AND THE CHAM OF TARTARY.

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never unfaithful to him, not even after his death. There is a capital story told of her and Mademoiselle Querouaille (the Duchess of Portsmouth). This lady pretended that she was related to all the great families of France, and never omitted to put on mourning at the demise of any member of the French aristocracy. Once, about the same time, a French prince and the Cham of Tartary died. Mademoiselle Querouaille donned her mourning as usual, and, on this occasion, so did Nelly. She was asked for whom she had put on black. "For the Cham of Tartary," she answered. "What relation was he

to you?" was the laughing question. "The same that the prince was to Mademoiselle Querouaille," she retorted. She died in 1687, being only thirtyeight years of age. All her life she had been most charitable; of all the King's mistresses she had been the only popular one; the mob never attacked her as they did the others, and her name was usually, if not always, excepted from the lampoons and invectives so freely cast upon the others.

The King took a mistress from the Duke's house under circumstances very similar to those just related-Mary or " MOLL" DAVIES, who was supposed to have been a natural daughter of the Earl of Berkshire. She was more celebrated as a dancer than as an actress. "Little Miss Davies," writes Pepys (1666), "did dance a jigg after the end of the play, and there telling the next day's play: so