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William Wycherley was born in 1640. He was the son of a Shropshire gentleman of
old family, and of what was then accounted a good estate: The properly was
estimated at six hundred a year, a fortune which, among the fortunes at that
time, probably ranked as a fortune of two thousand a year would rank in our
days.
William was an infant when the civil war broke out; and, while he was still in
his rudiments, a Presbyterian hierarchy and a republican government were
established on the ruins of the ancient Church and throne. Old Mr. Wycherley was
attached to the royal cause, and was not disposed to entrust the education of
his heir to the solemn Puritans who now ruled the universities and public
schools. Accordingly the young gentleman was sent at fifteen to France. He
resided some time in the neighborhood of the Duke of Montausier, chief of one of
the noblest families of Touraine. The Duke's wife, a daughter of the house of
Rambouillet, was a finished specimen of those talents and accomplishments for
which her race was celebrated. The young foreigner was introduced to the
splendid circle which surrounded the Duchess, and there he appears to have
learned some good and some evil. In a few years he returned to his country a
fine gentleman and a Papist. His conversion, it may safely be affirmed, was the
effect not of any strong impression on his understanding, or feelings, but
partly of intercourse with an agreeable society in which the Church of Rome was
the fashion, and partly of that aversion to Calvinistic austerities which was
then almost universal among young Englishmen of parts and spirit, and which, at
one time, seemed likely to make one half of them Catholics, and the other half
Atheists.
But the Restoration came. The universities were again in loyal hands; and there
was reason to hope that there would be again a national Church fit for a
gentleman. Wycherley became a member of Queen's College, Oxford, and abjured the
errors of the Church of Rome. The somewhat equivocal glory of turning, for a
short time, a good-for-nothing Papist into a good-for-nothing Protestant is
ascribed to Bishop Barlow.
Wycherley left Oxford without taking a degree, and entered at the Temple, where
he lived gaily for some years, observing the humors of the town, enjoying its
pleasures, and picking up just as much law as was necessary to make the
character of a pettifogging attorney or of a litigious client entertaining in a
comedy.
From an early age he had been in the habit of amusing himself by writing. Some
wretched lines of his on the Restoration are still extant. Had he devoted
himself to the making of verses, he would have been nearly as far below Tate and
Blackmore as Tate and Blackmore are below Dryden. His only chance for renown
would have been that he might have occupied a niche in a satire, between
Flecknoe and Settle. There was, however, another kind of composition in which
his talents and acquirements qualified him to succeed; and to that he
judiciously betook himself.
In his old age he used to say that he wrote Love in a Wood at nineteen, the
Gentleman Dancing-Master at twenty-one, the Plain Dealer at twenty-five, and the
Country Wife at one or two and thirty. We are incredulous, we own, as to the
truth of this story. Nothing that we know of Wycherley leads us to think him
incapable of sacrificing truth to vanity. And his memory in the decline of his
life played him such strange tricks that we might question the correctness of
his assertion without throwing any imputation on his veracity. It is certain
that none of his plays was acted till 1672, when he gave Love in a Wood to the
public. It seems improbable that he should resolve, on so important an occasion
as that of a first appearance before the world, to run his chance with a feeble
piece, written before his talents were ripe, before his style was formed, before
he had looked abroad into the world; and this when he had actually in his desk
two highly-finished plays, the fruit of his matured powers. When we look
minutely at the pieces themselves, we find in every part of them reason to
suspect the accuracy of Wycherley's statement. In the first scene of Love in a
Wood, to go no further, we find many passages which he could not have written
when he was nineteen. There is an allusion to gentlemen's periwigs, which first
came into fashion in 1663; an allusion to guineas, which were first struck in
1663; an allusion to the vests which Charles ordered to be worn at Court in
1666; an allusion to the fire of 1666; and several political allusions which
must be assigned to times later than the year of the Restoration, to times when
the Government and the city were opposed to each other, and when the
Presbyterian ministers had been driven from the parish churches to the
conventicles. But it is needless to dwell on particular expressions. The whole
air and spirit of the piece belong to a period subsequent to that mentioned by
Wycherley. As to the Plain Dealer, which is said to have been written when he
was twenty-five, it contains one scene unquestionably written after 1675,
several which are later than 1668, and scarcely a line which can have been
composed before the end of 1666.
Whatever may have been the age at which Wycherley composed his plays, it is
certain that he did not bring them before the public till he was upwards of
thirty. In 1672, Love in a Wood was acted with more success than it deserved,
and this event produced a great change in the fortunes of the author. The
Duchess of Cleveland cast her eyes upon him, and was pleased with his
appearance. This abandoned woman, not content with her complaisant husband and
her royal keeper, lavished her fondness on a crowd of paramours of all ranks,
from dukes to rope-dancers. In the time of the commonwealth she commenced her
career of gallantry, and terminated it under Anne, by marrying, when a
great-grandmother, that worthless fop, Beau Fielding. It is not strange that she
should have regarded Wycherley with favor. His figure was commanding, his
countenance strikingly handsome, his look and deportment full of grace and
dignity. He had, as Pope said long after, "the true nobleman look," the look
which seems to indicate superiority, and a not unbecoming consciousness of
superiority. His hair indeed, as he says in one of his poems, was prematurely
grey. But in that age of periwigs this misfortune was of little importance. The
Duchess admired him, and proceeded to make love to him, after the fashion of the
coarse-minded and shameless circle to which she belonged. In the Ring, when the
crowd of beauties and fine gentlemen was thickest, she put her head out of her
coach-window, and bawled to him, "Sir, you are a rascal; you are a villain";
and, if she is not belied, she added another phrase of abuse which we will not
quote, but of which we may say that it might most justly have been applied to
her own children. Wycherley called on her Grace the next day, and with great
humility begged to know in what way he had been so unfortunate as to disoblige
her. Thus began an intimacy from which the poet probably expected wealth and
honors. Nor were such expectations unreasonable. A handsome young fellow about
the Court, known by the name of Jack Churchill, was, about the same time, so
lucky as to become the object of a short-lived fancy of the Duchess. She had
presented him with five thousand pounds, the price, in all probability, of some
title or pardon. The prudent youth had lent the money on high interest and on
landed security; and this judicious investment was the beginning of the most
splendid private fortune in Europe. Wycherley was not so lucky. The partiality
with which the great lady regarded him was indeed the talk of the whole town;
and sixty years later old men who remembered those days told Voltaire that she
often stole from the Court to her lover's chambers in the Temple, disguised like
a country girl, with a straw hat on her head, pattens on her feet, and a basket
in her hand. The poet was indeed too happy and proud to be discreet. He
dedicated to the Duchess the play which had led to their acquaintance, and in
the dedication expressed himself in terms which could not but confirm the
reports which had gone abroad. But at Whitehall such an affair was regarded in
no serious light. The lady was not afraid to bring Wycherley to Court, and to
introduce him to a splendid society, with which, as far as appears, he had never
before mixed. The easy King, who allowed to his mistresses the same liberty
which he claimed for himself, was pleased with the conversation and manners of
his new rival. So high did Wycherley stand in the royal favor that once, when he
was confined by a fever to his lodgings in Bow Street, Charles, who, with all
his faults, was certainly a man of social and affable disposition, called on
him, sat by his bed, advised him to try change of air, and gave him a handsome
sum of money to defray the expense of the journey. Buckingham, then Master of
the Horse, and one of that infamous ministry known by the name of the Cabal, had
been one of the Duchess's innumerable paramours. He at first showed some
symptoms of jealousy, but he soon, after his fashion, veered round from anger to
fondness, and gave Wycherley a commission in his own regiment and a place in the
royal household.
It would be unjust to Wycherley's memory not to mention here the only good
action, as far as we know, of his whole life. He is said to have made great
exertions to obtain the patronage of Buckingham for the illustrious author of
Hudibras, who was now sinking into an obscure grave, neglected by a nation proud
of his genius, and by a Court which he had served too well. His Grace consented
to see poor Butler; and an appointment was made. But unhappily two pretty women
passed by; the volatile Duke ran after them; the opportunity was lost, and could
never be regained.
The second Dutch war, the most disgraceful war in the whole history of England,
was now raging. It was not in that age considered as by any means necessary that
a naval officer should receive a professional education. Young men of rank, who
were hardly able to keep their feet in a breeze, served on board the King's
ships, sometimes with commissions, and sometimes as volunteers. Mulgrave,
Dorset, Rochester, and many others, left the playhouses in the Mall for hammocks
and salt pork, and, ignorant as they were of the rudiments of naval service,
showed, at least, on the day of battle, the courage which is seldom wanting in
an English gentleman. All good judges of maritime affairs complained that, under
this system, the ships were grossly mismanaged, and that the tarpaulins
contracted the vices, without acquiring the graces, of the Court. But on this
subject, as on every other where the interests or whims of favorites were
concerned, the Government of Charles was deaf to all remonstrances. Wycherley
did not choose to be out of the fashion. He embarked, was present at a battle,
and celebrated it, on his return, in a copy of verses too bad for the bellman.1
About the same time, he brought on the stage his second piece, the Gentleman
Dancing-Master. The biographers say nothing, as far as we remember, about the
fate of this play. There is, however, reason to believe that, though certainly
far superior to Love in a Wood, it was not equally successful. It was first
tried at the west end of the town, and, as the poet confessed, "would scarce do
there." It was then performed in Salisbury Court, but, as it should seem, with
no better event. For, in the prologue to the Country Wife, Wycherley described
himself as "the late so baffled scribbler."
In 1675, the Country Wife was performed with brilliant success, which, in a
literary point of view, was not wholly unmerited. For, though one of the most
profligate and heartless of human compositions, it is the elaborate production
of a mind, not indeed rich, original, or imaginative, but ingenious, observant,
quick to seize hints, and patient of the toil of polishing.
The Plain Dealer, equally immoral and equally well written, appeared in 1677. At
first this piece pleased the people less than the critics; but after a time its
unquestionable merits and the zealous support of Lord Dorset, whose influence in
literary and fashionable society was unbounded, established it in the public
favor.
The fortune of Wycherley was now in the zenith, and began to decline. A long
life was still before him. But it was destined to be filled with nothing but
shame and wretchedness, domestic dissensions, literary failures, and pecuniary
embarrassments.
The King, who was looking about for an accomplished man to conduct the education
of his natural son, the young Duke of Richmond, at length fixed on Wycherley.
The poet, exulting in his good luck, went down to amuse himself at Tunbridge
Wells, looked into a bookseller's shop on the Pantiles, and, to his great
delight, heard a handsome woman ask for the Plain Dealer, which had just been
published. He made acquaintance with the lady, who proved to be the Countess of
Drogheda, a gay young widow, with an ample jointure. She was charmed with his
person and his wit, and, after a short flirtation, agreed to become his wife.
Wycherley seems to have been apprehensive that this connection might not suit
well with the King's plans respecting the Duke of Richmond. He accordingly
prevailed on the lady to consent to a private marriage. All came out. Charles
thought the conduct of Wycherley both disrespectful and disingenuous. Other
causes probably assisted to alienate the sovereign from the subject who had
lately been so highly favored. Buckingham was now in opposition, and had been
committed to the Tower; not, as Mr. Leigh Hunt supposes, on a charge of treason,
but by an order of the House of Lords for some expressions which he had used in
debate. Wycherley wrote some bad lines in praise of his imprisoned patron,
which, if they came to the knowledge of the King, would certainly have made his
majesty very angry. The favor of the Court was completely withdrawn from the
poet. An amiable woman with a large fortune might indeed have been an ample
compensation for the loss. But Lady Drogheda was ill-tempered, imperious, and
extravagantly jealous. She had herself been a maid of honor at Whitehall. She
well knew in what estimation conjugal fidelity was held among the fine gentlemen
there, and watched her town husband as assiduously as Mr. Pinchwife watched his
country wife. The unfortunate wit was, indeed, allowed to meet his friends at a
tavern opposite to his own house. But on such occasions the windows were always
open, in order that her Ladyship, who was posted on the other side of the
street, might be satisfied that no woman was of the party.
The death of Lady Drogheda released the poet from this distress; but a series of
disasters, in rapid succession, broke down his health, his spirits, and his
fortune. His wife meant to leave him a good property, and left him only a
lawsuit. His father could not or would not assist him. Wycherley was at length
thrown into the Fleet, and languished there during seven years, utterly
forgotten, as it should seem, by the gay and lively circle of which he had been
a distinguished ornament. In the extremity of his distress he implored the
publisher who had been enriched by the sale of his works, to lend him twenty
pounds, and was refused. His comedies, however, still kept possession of the
stage, and drew great audiences, which troubled themselves little about the
situation of the author. At length James the Second, who had now succeeded to
the throne, happened to go to the theatre on an evening when the Plain Dealer
was acted. He was pleased by the performance, and touched by the fate of the
writer, whom he probably remembered as one of the gayest and handsomest of his
brother's courtiers. The King determined to pay Wycherley's debts, and to settle
on the unfortunate poet a pension of two hundred pounds a year. This munificence
on the part of a prince who was little in the habit of rewarding literary merit,
and whose whole soul was devoted to the interests of his Church, raises in us a
surmise which Mr. Leigh Hunt will, we fear, pronounce very uncharitable. We
cannot help suspecting that it was at this time that Wycherley returned to the
communion of the Church of Rome. That he did return to the communion of the
Church of Rome is certain. The date of his reconversion, as far as we know, has
never been mentioned by any biographer. We believe that, if we place it at this
time, we do no injustice to the character either of Wycherley or James.
Not long after, old Mr. Wycherley died; and his son, now past the middle of
life, came to the family estate. Still, however, he was not at his ease. His
embarrassments were great: his property was strictly tied up; and he was on very
bad terms with the heir-at-law. He appears to have led, during a long course of
years, that most wretched life, the life of a vicious old boy about town.
Expensive tastes with little money, and licentious appetites with declining
vigor, were the just penance for his early irregularities. A severe illness had
produced a singular effect on his intellect. His memory played him pranks
stranger than almost any that are to be found in the history of that strange
faculty. It seemed to be at once preternaturally strong and preternaturally
weak. If a book was read to him before he went to bed, he would wake the next
morning with his mind full of the thoughts and expressions which he had heard
over night; and he would write them down, without in the least suspecting that
they were not his own. In his verses the same ideas, and even the same words,
came over and over again several times in a short composition. His fine person
bore the marks of age, sickness, and sorrow; and he mourned for his departed
beauty with an effeminate regret. He could not look without a sigh at the
portrait which Lely had painted of him when he was only twenty-eight, and often
murmured, Quantum mutatus ab illo. He was still nervously anxious about his
literary reputation, and, not content with the fame which he still possessed as
a dramatist, was determined to be renowned as a satirist and an amatory poet. In
1704, after twenty-seven years of silence, he again appeared as an author. He
put forth a large folio of miscellaneous verses, which, we believe, has never
been reprinted. Some of these pieces had probably circulated through the town in
manuscript. For, before the volume appeared, the critics at the coffee-houses
very confidently predicted that it would be utterly worthless, and were in
consequence bitterly reviled by the poet in an ill-written, foolish, and
egotistical preface. The book amply vindicated the most unfavorable prophecies
that had been hazarded. The style and versification are beneath criticism; the
morals are those of Rochester. For Rochester, indeed, there was some excuse.
When his offences against decorum were committed, he was a very young man,
misled by a prevailing fashion. Wycherley was sixty-four. He had long outlived
the times when libertinism was regarded as essential to the character of a wit
and a gentleman. Most of the rising poets, Addison, for example, John Philips
and Rowe, were studious of decency. We can hardly conceive any thing more
miserable than the figure which the ribald old man makes in the midst of so many
sober and well-conducted youths.
In the very year in which this bulky volume of obscene doggerel was published,
Wycherley formed an acquaintance of a very singular kind. A little, pale,
crooked, sickly, bright-eyed urchin, just turned of sixteen, had written some
copies of verses in which discerning judges could detect the promise of future
eminence. There was, indeed, as yet nothing very striking or original in the
conceptions of the young poet. But he was already skilled in the art of metrical
composition. His diction and his music were not those of the great old masters;
but that which his ablest contemporaries were laboring to do, he already did
best. His style was not richly poetical; but it was always neat, compact, and
pointed. His verse wanted variety of pause, of swell, and of cadence, but never
grated harshly on the ear, or disappointed it by a feeble close. The youth was
already free of the company of wits, and was greatly elated at being introduced
to the author of the Plain Dealer and the Country Wife.
It is curious to trace the history of the intercourse which took place between
Wycherley and Pope, between the representative of the age that was going out,
and the representative of the age that was coming in, between the friend of
Rochester and Buckingham, and the friend of Lyttelton and Mansfield. At first
the boy was enchanted by the kindness and condescension of so eminent a writer,
haunted his door, and followed him about like a spaniel from coffee-house to
coffee-house. Letters full of affection, humility, and fulsome flattery were
interchanged between the friends, But the first ardor of affection could not
last. Pope, though at no time scrupulously delicate in his writings or
fastidious as to the morals of his associates, was shocked by the indecency of a
rake who, at seventy, was still the representative of the monstrous profligacy
of the Restoration. As the youth grew older, as his mind expanded and his fame
rose, he appreciated both himself and Wycherley more correctly. He felt a just
contempt for the old gentleman's verses, and was at no great pains to conceal
his opinion. Wycherley, on the other hand, though blinded by self-love to the
imperfections of what he called his poetry, could not but see that there was an
immense difference between his young companion's rhymes and his own. He was
divided between two feelings. He wished to have the assistance of so skilful a
hand to polish his lines; and yet he shrank from the humiliation of being
beholden for literary assistance to a lad who might have been his grandson. Pope
was willing to give assistance, but was by no means disposed to give assistance
and flattery too. He took the trouble to retouch whole reams of feeble stumbling
verses, and inserted many vigorous lines which the least skilful reader will
distinguish in an instant. But he thought that by these services he acquired a
right to express himself in terms which would not, under ordinary circumstances,
become one who was addressing a man of four times his age. In one letter he
tells Wycherley that "the worst pieces are such as, to render them very good,
would require almost the entire new writing of them." In another, he gives the
following account of his corrections: "Though the whole be as short again as at
first, there is not one thought omitted but what is a repetition of something in
your first volume, or in this very paper; and the versification throughout is, I
believe, such as nobody can be shocked at. The repeated permission you gave me
of dealing freely with you, will, I hope, excuse what I have done; for, if I had
not spared you when I thought severity would do you a kindness, I have not
mangled you where I thought there was no absolute need of amputation." Wycherley
continued to return thanks for all this hacking and hewing, which was, indeed,
of inestimable service to his compositions. But at last his thanks began to
sound very like reproaches. In private, he is said to have described Pope as a
person who could not cut out a suit, but who had some skill in turning old
coats. In his letters to Pope, while he acknowledged that the versification of
the poems had been greatly improved, he spoke of the whole art of versification
with scorn, and sneered at those who preferred sound to sense. Pope revenged
himself for this outbreak of spleen by return of post. He had in his hands a
volume of Wycherley's rhymes, and he wrote to say that this volume was so full
of faults that he could not correct it without completely defacing the
manuscript. "I am," he said, "equally afraid of sparing you, and of offending
you by too impudent a correction." This was more than flesh and blood could
bear. Wycherley reclaimed his papers, in a letter in which resentment shows
itself plainly through the thin disguise of civility. Pope, glad to be rid of a
troublesome and inglorious task, sent back the deposit, and, by way of a parting
courtesy, advised the old man to turn his poetry into prose, and assured him
that the public would like his thoughts much better without his versification,
Thus ended this memorable correspondence.
Wycherley lived some years after the termination of the strange friendship which
we have described. The last scene of his life was, perhaps, the most scandalous.
Ten days before his death, at seventy-five, he married a young girl, merely in
order to injure his nephew, an act which proves that neither years, nor
adversity, nor what he called his philosophy, nor either of the religions which
he had at different times professed, had taught him the rudiments of morality.
He died in December 1715, and lies in the vault under the church of St. Paul in
Covent Garden.
His bride soon after married a Captain Shrimpton, who thus became possessed of a
large collection of manuscripts. These were sold to a bookseller. They were so
full of erasures and interlineations that no printer could decipher them. It was
necessary to call in the aid of a professed critic; and Theobald, the editor of
Shakespeare, and the hero of the first Dunciad, was employed to ascertain the
true reading. In this way a volume of miscellanies in verse and prose was got up
for the market. The collection derives all its value from the traces of Pope's
hand, which are everywhere discernible.
Of the moral character of Wycherley it can hardly be necessary for us to say
more. His fame as a writer rests wholly on his comedies, and chiefly on the last
two. Even as a comic writer, he was neither of the best school, nor highest in
his school. He was in truth a worse Congreve. His chief merit, like Congreve's,
lies in the style of his dialogue, but the wit which lights up the Plain Dealer
and the Country Wife is pale and flickering, when compared with the gorgeous
blaze which dazzles us almost to blindness in Love for Love and the Way of the
World. Like Congreve, and, indeed, even more than Congreve, Wycherley is ready
to sacrifice dramatic propriety to the liveliness of his dialogue. The poet
speaks out of the mouths of all his dunces and coxcombs, and makes them describe
themselves with a good sense and acuteness which puts them on a level with the
wits and heroes. We will give two instances, the first which occur to us, from
the Country Wife. There are in the world fools who find the society of old
friends insipid, and who are always running after new companions. Such a
character is a fair subject for comedy. But nothing can be more absurd than to
introduce a man of this sort saying to his comrade, "I can deny you nothing: for
though I have known thee a great while, never go if I do not love thee as well
as a new acquaintance." That town-wits, again, have always been rather a
heartless class, is true. But none of them, we will answer for it, ever said to
a young lady to whom he was making love, "We wits rail and make love often, but
to show our parts: as we have no affections, so we have no malice."
Wycherley's plays are said to have been the produce of long and patient labor.
The epithet of "slow" was early given to him by Rochester, and was frequently
repeated. In truth his mind, unless we are greatly mistaken, was naturally a
very meager soil, and was forced only by great labor and outlay to bear fruit
which, after all, was not of the highest flavor. He has scarcely more claim to
originality than Terence. It is not too much to say that there is hardly
anything of the least value in his plays of which the hint is not to be found
elsewhere. The best scenes in the Gentleman Dancing-Master were suggested by
Calderon's Maestro de Danzar, not by any means one of the happiest comedies of
the great Castilian poet. The Country Wife is borrowed from the Ecole des Maris
and the Ecole des Femmes. The groundwork of the Plain Dealer is taken from the
Misanthrope of Moliere. One whole scene is almost translated from the Critique
de l'Ecole des Femmes. Fidelia is Shakespeare's Viola stolen, and marred in the
stealing; and the Widow Blackacre, beyond comparison Wycherley's best comic
character, is the Countess in Racine's Plaideurs, talking the jargon of English
instead of that of French chicane.
The only thing original about Wycherley, the only thing which he could furnish
from his own mind in inexhaustible abundance, was profligacy. It is curious to
observe how everything that he touched, however pure and noble, took in an
instant the color of his own mind. Compare the Ecole des Femmes with the Country
Wife. Agnes is a simple and amiable girl, whose heart is indeed full of love,
but of love sanctioned by honor, morality, and religion. Her natural talents are
great. They have been hidden, and, as it might appear, destroyed by an education
elaborately bad. But they are called forth into full energy by a virtuous
passion. Her lover, while he adores her beauty, is too honest a man to abuse the
confiding tenderness of a creature so charming and inexperienced. Wycherley
takes this plot into his hands; and forthwith this sweet and graceful courtship
becomes a licentious intrigue of the lowest and least sentimental kind, between
an impudent London rake and the idiot wife of a country squire. We will not go
into details. In truth, Wycherley's indecency is protected against the critics
as a skunk is protected against the hunters. It is safe, because it is too
filthy to handle and too noisome even to approach.
It is the same with the Plain Dealer. How careful has Shakespeare been in
Twelfth Night to preserve the dignity and delicacy of Viola under her disguise!
Even when wearing a page's doublet and hose, she is never mixed up with any
transaction which the most fastidious mind could regard as leaving a stain on
her. She is employed by the Duke on an embassy of love to Olivia, but on an
embassy of the most honorable kind. Wycherley borrows Viola; and Viola forthwith
becomes a pandar of the basest sort. But the character of Manly is the best
illustration of our meaning. Moliere exhibited in his misanthrope a pure and
noble mind, which had been sorely vexed by the sight of perfidy and malevolence,
disguised under the forms of politeness. As every extreme naturally generates
its contrary, Alceste adopts a standard of good and evil directly opposed to
that of the society which surrounds him. Courtesy seems to him a vice; and those
stern virtues which are neglected by the fops and coquettes of Paris become too
exclusively the objects of his veneration. He is often to blame; he is often
ridiculous; but he is always a good man; and the feeling which he inspires is
regret that a person so estimable should be so unamiable. Wycherley borrowed
Alceste, and turned him,--we quote the words of so lenient a critic as Mr. Leigh
Hunt,--into "a ferocious sensualist, who believed himself as great a rascal as
he thought everybody else." The surliness of Moliere's hero is copied and
caricatured. But the most nauseous libertinism and the most dastardly fraud are
substituted for the purity and integrity of the original. And, to make the whole
complete, Wycherley does not seem to have been aware that he was not drawing the
portrait of an eminently honest man. So depraved was his moral taste that, while
he firmly believed that he was producing a picture of virtue too exalted for the
commerce of this world, he was really delineating the greatest rascal that is to
be found, even in his own writings.
We pass a very severe censure on Wycherley, when we say that it is a relief to
turn from him to Congreve. Congreve's writings, indeed, are by no means pure;
nor was he, as far as we are able to judge, a warm-hearted or high-minded man.
Yet, in coming to him, we feel that the worst is over, that we are one remove
further from the Restoration, that we are past the Nadir of national taste and
morality.
1 Mr. Leigh Hunt supposes that the battle at which Wycherley
was present was that which the Duke of York gained over Opdam, in 1665. We
believe that it was one of the battles between Rupert and De Ruyter, in 1673.
The point is of no importance; and there cannot be said to be much evidence
either way. We offer, however, to Mr. Leigh Hunt's consideration three
arguments, of no great weight certainly, yet such as ought, we think, to prevail
in the absence of better. First, it is not very likely that a young Templar,
quite unknown in the world,--and Wycherley was such in 1665,--should have
quitted his chambers to go to sea. On the other hand, it would be in the regular
course of things, that, when a courtier and an equerry, he should offer his
services. Secondly, his verses appear to have been written after a drawn battle,
like those of 1673, and not after a complete victory, like that of 1665.
Thirdly, in the epilogue to the Gentleman Dancing-Master, written in 1673, he
says that "all gentlemen must pack to sea"; an expression which makes it
probable that he did not himself mean to stay behind.
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