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And poor Nell Gwynn , " bred up to serve strong waters to the gentlemen , " ( as she humblysaid of her early tavern life , ) what a corner has not real
virtue in its heart to store her memory in , for the vindication of natural goodness , and the rebuke of the uncharitable ? She was the only one of Charles ' s mistresses whose claim of fidelity
towards him one can have any faith in . We saw not long ago in some book ( we unaffectedly forget what ) , a charge made against that prince , of uttering , as the last sentence on his
death-bed , the words , " Don ' t let poor Nelly starve . " They were adduced as a triumphant proof of his irreligion and profligacy , and of his being wicked to the last . Why , they were the most Christian words he is ever
known to have spoken . They showed , that with all the selfishness induced by his own evil breeding , he could muster up heart enough , in the very agonies of death , and at what might be thought the most fearful of hazards , to think of a
fellow-creature with genuine sympathy , and that , too , in the humblest of his circle . But he recognised in her a truly loving nature , —the only one , most likely , he had ever met with .
It is a curious set-off against the supposed inferiority of the St Albans' descent from Charles the Second , to those of the Richmonds and others , that the chances of Nelly ' s constancy are greater than can be reckoned upon with the finer ladies , who fancied themselves qualified to
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despise her . She thought so herself ; and so will every one who knows their histories . The Lenoxes and Fitzroys ( and Beauclercs too ) have since got royal blood enough in their
veins through other channels , as far as any such channels can be depended on : and indeed the swarthy complexion of Charles ( derived from the Medici family ) is still pointed at as distinguishing his descendants in more than one branch ,
though we believe the Beauclercs have it most visibly . Charles Fox had it through his mother ( a Lenox ); butTopham Beauclerc , Dr Johnson ' s friend , resembled his Stuart ancestor , if we are not mistaken , in
features and shape as well as hue ( to say nothing of morals ); and happening to reside in the neighbourhood of the present Duke of St Albans at the time of his marriage , the village barber , who had been sent for
to shave him , told us , that the ducal feet , which he had chanced to see in slippers , were as darkskinned as the face , —a mighty anecdote , which we must be excused for relating , in consideration of our zeal for the
better part of poor Nelly ' s fame . There was a singular ancestral fitness in the marriage of the Duke of St Albans with Harriet Mellon . Even the
aristocracy must have beheld it with something of a jocose satisfaction , in the midst of their dislike . The public unequivocally enjoyed it Moralists were perplexed ; especially
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Duchess of St Albans , # c . 15 ft
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 1, 1837, page 155, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1835/page/11/
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