sins, and seeking forgiveness from his Maker. His dying request, made to his brother and successor, concluded with “Let not poor Nelly starve." While her grief was still fresh, the "gold stuff" grew scarcer than ever; and if not actually arrested for debt in the spring of 1685, she was certainly outlawed for the non-payment of certain bills, for which some of her tradesmen, since the death of the King, had become very clamorous. Her resources were now slender enough. But, the new King had not forgotten the dying request of his only brother, "Let not poor Nelly starve;" and the secret service expenses of King James show a payment to Richard Graham, Esq., of 7291. 2s. 3d., "to be by him paid over to the several tradesmen, creditors of Mrs. Ellen Gwynne, in satisfaction of their debts for which the said Ellen stood outlawed." In the same year, the King relieved Nelly by two additional payments of 500l. each; and two years after, made a settlement of property upon her, and "after her death, upon the Duke of St. Alban's and his issue male, with the reversion in the Crown."

Nelly now fell sick. Her friend, Dr. Tenison, Vicar of St. Martin's, in which parish Pall Mall is situated, attended her. She made her will, and signed it E. G. only: she could not sign her name. She died of apoplexy in November 1687, in her 38th year, but the exact day is unknown; she is said to have died piously and penitently. Her father is said to have died in a prison at Oxford; and she left 207. yearly for the releasing of poor debtors out of prison, every Christmas-day.*

* In a Report on the Poultry Compter, in 1811, it is mentioned that

On the night of the 17th November 1687, Nelly was buried, according to her own request, in the church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. The expenses of her funeral, 3751., were advanced from the next quarter's allowance of 1,500l. a year, which King James had settled upon her. Dr. Tenison too complied with her request, and preached her funeral sermon.

King James continued the mother's pension to her son, and gave him the colonelcy of a regiment of horse: he distinguished himself at the siege of Belgrade, became in after-life a Knight of the Garter, and died father of eight sons, by his wife, the highborn and wealthy heiress, Lady Diana de Vere, a beauty in the Kneller collection at Hampton Court. The title still exists-and has been in our time conspicuously before the public from the vast wealth of the late Harriet, Duchess of St. Alban's, widow of Coutts, the banker, but originally known, and favourably too, upon the comic boards. "Not unlike, in many respects, were Eleanor Gwynne and Harriet Mellor. The fathers of both were in the army, and both never knew what it was to have a father. Both rose by the stage-both had wealthy admirers-and both were charitable and generous." (Cunningham.)

There are many portraits of Nell Gwynne, yet very few genuine the only picture in the Royal collection is a too grave and thoughtful picture at Hampton Court. The Duke of Buccleuch has a miniature head by Cooper, of which it is said the Exchequer papers record the price paid to the painter. The most curious engraved portrait of her is that after Gascar, engraved

the prisoners received sixty-five penny loaves every eight weeks, the gift of Eleanor Gwynne.

abroad-it is thought by Masson--in which she wears a laced chemise, lying on a bed of roses, from which her two children, as Cupids, are withdrawing the curtains— King Charles II. in the distance: she wears as well the famous Rupert necklace of pearls. The Burney impression of this print, in the British Museum, cost 397. 18s. Among the relics of Nelly are a warmingpan, with the motto, "Fear God, and serve the King;" and a looking-glass, of elegant form, and carved figure frame, said to have belonged to her.

Douglas Jerrold wrote a well-constructed comedy of Nell Gwynne, or the Prologue, attempting to show "some glimpses of the silver lining of a character, to whose influence over an unprincipled voluptuary we owe a national asylum for veteran soldiers, and whose brightness shines with the most amiable lustre in many actions of her life, and in the last disposal of her worldly effects."

FRANCIS BACON IN GRAY'S INN.

BACON'S attachment to gardens and to rural affairs, one almost fancies is shown even in the speech which he made before the nobility, when, first taking his seat in the High Court of Chancery, he hoped “that the brambles that grow about justice might be rooted out;" adding that "fresh justice was the sweetest." At Gorhambury you see the old fish-ponds which were Bacon's favourite haunt; though the summer-house which he built in the orchard (answering to the diæta or summer-room of the younger Pliny, at his beloved Laurentium) has long disappeared, and the mansion

itself has shared the same fate. His Essay "Of Gardens," written in 1625, gives us "particulars for the climate of London," where he loved to practise the tasteful art. Gray's Inn gardens were laid out under his direction, as attested in the following entries:

"In the 40 Eliz., at a pension of the bench, 'the summe of 77. 15s. 4d. laid out for planting elm trees' in these gardens, was allowed to Mr. Bacon (afterwards Lord Verulam and Lord Chancellor). On the 14th November, in the following year, there was an order made for a supply of more young elms; and it was ordered that a new rayle and quickset hedges' should be set upon the upper long walk, at the discretion of Mr. Bacon and Mr. Wilbraham; the cost of which, as appeared by Bacon's account, allowed 20th April, 42 Eliz., was 607. 6s. 8d. Mr. Bacon erected a summerhouse on a small mount on the terrace, in which, if may be allowed the conjecture, it is probable he frequently mused upon the subjects of those great works which have rendered his name immortal."- Pearce's Inns of Court.'

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To this day here is a Catalpa tree, raised from one planted by Bacon, slips of which are much coveted. The walks were in high fashion in Charles II.'s time; we read of Pepys and his wife, after church, walking "to Gray's Inne, to observe fashions of the ladies, because of my wife's making some clothes."

Bacon is traditionally said to have lived in the large house facing Gray's Inn garden-gates, where Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, frequently sent him homebrewed beer from his house in Holborn. Basil Montagu, however, fixes Bacon's abode on the site of No. 1 Gray's Inn Square, first floor; the house was burnt

February 17th, 1679, with sixty other chambers (Historian's Guide, 3rd edit. 1688), which demolishes Lord Campbell's speculative statement, that Bacon's chambers "remain in the same state as when he occupied them, and are still visited by those who worship his memory.' (Lives of the Lord Chancellors, vol. ii. p. 274.) Mr. Montagu, who died in 1852, possessed a glass and silver-handled fork, with a shifting silver spoon-bowl, which once belonged to Lord Bacon, whose crest, a boar, modelled in gold, surmounts the fork-handle.

LORD CRAVEN AND THE QUEEN OF BOHEMIA.

WILLIAM Lord Craven, the hero of Creutznach, by his romantic attachment to Elizabeth, the titular Queen of Bohemia, has inseparably associated their names in history. According to the old Yorkshire tradition, Craven's father, Lord Mayor in 1611, was born of such poor parents that they sent him, when a boy, by a common carrier to London, where he became a mercer in Leadenhall Street, and grew rich. His son, the soldier of fortune, distinguished himself under Gustavus Adolphus; and at the storming of Creutznach in 1632, his determined bravery led to the fortress being taken after two hours' conflict, in which all the English officers were wounded. Craven then attached himself to the King and Queen of Bohemia. She was the daughter of James I., and, with the reluctant consent of her parents (particularly of her mother, who used to twit her with the title of Goody Palsgrave), was married to Frederick, the Elector Palatine, for whom the Protestant interest in Germany erected Bohemia into