Part 1

[THE PLAYS OF] WILLIAM WYCHERLEY

_EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES_

BY W. C. WARD

UNEXPURGATED EDITION

LONDON T.FISHER UNWIN PATERNOSTER SQUARE

1893

[Illustration: _William Wycherley. From the Picture by Sir Peter Lely._]

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION.

WILLIAM WYCHERLEY, [by Thomas Babington Macaulay].

LOVE IN A WOOD; OR, ST. JAMES'S PARK.

THE GENTLEMAN DANCING-MASTER.

THE COUNTRY WIFE.

THE PLAIN DEALER.

NOTES.

As long as men are false and women vain, Whilst gold continues to be virtue's bane, In pointed satire WYCHERLEY shall reign. EVELYN.

_INTRODUCTION._

William Wycherley was, before Congreve arose to surpass him, the most eminent master of that artificial school of Comedy which commenced with the restoration of Charles II., and which may be said to have perished, in a blaze as of a funeral pyre, with Sheridan. Abandoning the beaten paths of English drama, the writers of this school found, in the various intrigue of the Spanish theatre, in the verbal vivacity and piquant satire of the French, a new basis for their productions. Their works, as a class, have been designated the Comedy of Manners, a title which aptly distinguishes them from the Comedy of Human Life, set forth by Shakespeare. It is a title, nevertheless, of limited applicability. The manners portrayed in these comedies, if drawn from the life, illustrate but one side of human character, and that side the most superficial. To divert by wit and ingenuity being the writer's aim, all allusion to the deeper motives of humanity was rejected as impertinent, or admitted only as an occasional contrast to the prevailing tone. Thus the artificiality of the characters is the consequence rather of incompleteness than of untruth; they are, as it were, but half characters; the dialogue is no longer, as with Shakespeare, the means of their development, but the purpose of their creation.

Living in an age of loose manners and corrupt morals, the result, as has often been pointed out, of the unnatural state of repression which accompanied the Puritan supremacy, Wycherley cannot be acquitted of the vices of his time, nor can it be contended that it was altogether with the object of lashing these vices that he decked them out with all the allurements of brilliant dialogue and diverting situations. Yet I venture to assert that, in spite of their licentiousness, these comedies possess claims to recognition not lightly to be ignored. Nay, more: that their very indecency, although the most open, is certainly not the most pernicious form of immorality known to us in literature. For as the harm of licentious allusions consists in their appeal to the basest passions of human nature, so the appeal is stronger as the impression of human passion is deeper. But these _simulacra_, these puppet semblances of humanity, which Wycherley and his contemporaries summon upon the stage for our diversion, what human passion can we discover in these to which we should be in danger of unworthily responding? As we read the plays no sense of reality disturbs us. Transfer the language they employ, the actions they perform, to the characters in a play of Shakespeare's, a novel of Richardson's, and our resentment and detestation are instantly awakened. But the _dramatis personæ_ of Wycherley or of Congreve are not, as the characters of Shakespeare and Richardson, men and women whom we feel to be as real and living as those with whom we daily associate. They merely simulate humanity so far as is requisite for the proper enactment of their parts. And herein lies the test: a Cordelia, an Iago, a Clarissa, a Lovelace, are, to our feelings, real creatures of flesh and blood, whom we love or hate, as the case may be. The characters of Wycherley and Congreve, on the contrary, we neither love nor detest; we are interested not in what they are, but only in what they say and do. They have no further existence for us than as they act and speak on the stage before our eyes; touch them, and, like ghosts in Elysium, they turn to empty air in our grasp.

Another counter-influence to the unwholesomeness of these comedies is the current of mirth which runs through them, more or less, from end to end. For laughter may be reckoned in some sort an antidote to sensuality, at least to sensuality in its vilest and most insinuating mood. "There is no passion," as Sterne says, "so serious as lust;" and we may safely conclude that when laughter is provoked, the wit of expression or the ludicrousness of situation is more active to our apprehension than the license of sentiment.

It is sometimes urged against the comedies of this school that Virtue, in them, is brought on the stage only to be derided. But this charge is manifestly unjust. Virtue, indeed, is an unfrequent guest in this house of mirth; she finds a refuge in the house of mourning hard by, in the tragedies of the times. Yet if she chance to cross the unwonted threshold, it is not to be laughed out of countenance, but more often to be entertained as an honoured guest. Take, for instance, the character of Christina, in Wycherley's _Love in a Wood_, or even that of Alithea, in _The Country Wife_; the sentiments of honour and purity that are set on their lips, or expressed in their actions, are evidently intended to excite our esteem and admiration. Nay, it may even be affirmed that if, among these shadowy creatures, there be any that affect us, beyond the others, with some sense of an approach to living reality, it is precisely the virtuous characters from whom such an impression is derived. It is true, on the other hand, that the sin of adultery, so common to the dramatic plots of this period, is treated not only without severity, but as a pleasant jest. To the husbands, in general, small mercy is shown. Yet what husbands are these--these Pinchwifes, Fondlewifes, _et hoc genus omne_? It is less the sanctity of marriage that is attacked, or held up to ridicule, in their persons, than their own vices, their jealousy, tyranny, or folly. And, after all, it is by no means in the crime itself, but in the ingenuity of intrigue, that we are expected to find diversion; and the utter absence of genuine passion on the part of these stage criminals renders any appeal to passion in ourselves out of the question.

It is not with any intention of excusing the license which abounds in Wycherley's comedies that I have ventured to offer these few considerations in their behalf. I contend only that their laughing outrages upon decency, are infinitely less harmful, because more superficial, than the sentimental lewdness which, arising from a deeper depravity, instils a more subtle venom; that, condemn it as we needs must, we may yet stop short of attaching to the immorality of the dramatists of the Restoration such consequence as to debar ourselves, for its sake, from enjoying to the full the admirable wit and ingenuity which constitute the chief merit of their performances.

Wycherley produced but four comedies, which, however, contain almost all of intrinsic value that remains from his pen. Besides these, he himself published but one volume, a folio of _Miscellany-Poems_, which appeared in 1704, when the author was sixty-four years of age. Of these pieces nothing favourable can be affirmed even by the friendliest critic. They form a strange _olla podrida_ of so-called philosophy and obscenity; they are dull without weight, or lewd without wit; or if even here and there a good thought occur, the ore is scarcely of such value as to be worth the pains of separating from the dross. The book suggests a curious picture of the veteran dramatist, ever and anon laying aside his favourite Rochefoucauld or Montaigne to chuckle feebly over the reminiscence of some smutty story of his youthful days. The versification is, as Macaulay says, beneath criticism; Wycherley had no spark of poetry in his whole composition. In fine, we may apply to this volume, without qualification, Dryden's remarks upon poor Elkanah Settle; "His style is boisterous and rough-hewn; his rhyme incorrigibly lewd, and his numbers perpetually harsh and ill-sounding." Yet there is one thing which redeems the volume from utter contempt, as a testimony, not, indeed, to the author's talent, but to the constancy and disinterestedness of his temper. I refer to the brave verses addressed to his friend the Duke of Buckingham, on the occasion of that versatile nobleman's disgrace and imprisonment in the Tower. The key note is struck in the opening lines:

"Your late Disgrace is but the Court's Disgrace, As its false accusation but your Praise."

These lines, it may be remarked, are intended as a rhymed couplet, and may serve as one instance out of many of the "incorrigible lewdness" of Wycherley's rhyme; but, paltry as the verses may be, the feeling which prompted them was surely deserving of respect.

The pieces in prose and verse, which, "having the misfortune to fall into the hands of a mercenary, were published in 1728, in 8vo, under the title of _The Posthumous Works of William Wycherley Esq._," are on the whole superior to the _Miscellany-Poems_, yet, excepting perhaps some of the prose aphorisms which constitute the first part of the collection, little or nothing is to be found, even here, worth resuscitating. Such facility or occasional elegance as the verses possess must be wholly ascribed to the corrections of Pope; but Pope himself failed in the impracticable attempt to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Some few of the best pieces, as the lines on _Solitude_, might possibly pass muster as the worst in a better volume, while the epistle to Dryden (who had invited Wycherley's collaboration in the construction of a comedy--an honour which the younger author gratefully and modestly declined) is interesting personally, and the strain of elaborate compliment, to which, after the fashion of the day, Wycherley treated his correspondents, is here, for once, not wholly misapplied. The _Maxims_, however, contain better stuff than the verses, and fully justify Pope's repeated hints to the author that "the greater part" of his pieces "would make a much better figure as single maxims and reflections in prose, after the manner of your favourite Rochefoucauld, than in verse."[1] Although, for the most part, as trite as moral aphorisms usually are, they are not without here and there a touch of wit, of terseness, or even of wisdom. Here, for instance, is a pretty simile:--"False friends, like the shadow upon a dial, are ever present to the sunshine of our fortunes, and as soon gone when we begin to be under a cloud." Here, again, is a touch of characteristic satire:--"Old men give young men good counsel, not being able longer to give them bad examples."[2] And for a specimen of his wisdom take the following:--"The silence of a wise man is more wrong to mankind than the slanderer's speech."

I have now noticed all that has appeared in print of Wycherley's authorship beyond his letters to Pope (which possess at least the merit of occasioning Pope's letters to Wycherley), and a few letters of earlier date, published by Dennis,[3] which contain, however, nothing of more consequence than a string of extravagant and affected encomiums upon his correspondent. Something remains to be said on the subject of our author's personal character, which I shall endeavour to set in a juster light than that in which it is presented by Macaulay, whose vivid scrutiny, like a strong torch-light, brings out the worse parts into sharp relief, while it leaves the better in dense obscurity. It is not to be doubted that Wycherley participated in the fashionable follies and vices of the age in which he lived. His early intrigue with the Duchess of Cleveland was notorious. The license of his own writings is a standing witness against him, and the indecency of some of the verses which he published in his old age proves that his mind reverted to the scenes of his youth with feelings other than those of a repentant sinner. Yet in accepting the evidence of Wycherley's writings we should beware of over-rating its importance. Dryden's character is well known as that of a modest and excellent man; yet Dryden occasionally produced passages abundantly obscene. Libertinism was the fashion of the age, and although the fashion had somewhat changed when Wycherley published his _Miscellany-Poems_, we can feel little surprise that the productions of an aged and infirm man should be redolent rather of the days when he was crowned with honours and sated with success, than of those later years of ill-health and obscurity. In this man's composition the clay was assuredly mingled with pure metal. Nothing in the testimony of his contemporaries is so striking as the tone of affection and esteem which they continually assume in speaking of him. Dryden writes to John Dennis that he has laid aside his intention of commenting upon some friend's purpose of marriage; "for, having had the Honour to see my Dear Friend Wycherley's Letter to him on that occasion, I find nothing to be added or amended. But as well as I love Mr. Wycherley, I confess I love myself so well, that I will not shew how much I am inferior to him in Wit and Judgment, by undertaking anything after him."[4] And Dryden's regard was gratefully and cordially reciprocated. In his first letter to Wycherley Pope refers to the high satisfaction which he experienced in hearing the old dramatist, at their very first meeting, "doing justice to his dead friend, Mr. Dryden." Wycherley's own epistle, in verse, to the great poet I have already mentioned; it is filled with expressions, sincere if exaggerated, of regard and admiration; and long after Dryden's death, in an essay[5] which appeared not until its author had, himself, been years in his grave, Wycherley writes of "my once good friend, Mr. Dryden, whose Memory will be honour'd when I have no Remembrance."

His attachment to his friends, indeed, appears to have been a prominent characteristic of his disposition. Major Pack, in a short memoir prefixed to the _Posthumous Works_, declares that "he was as impatient to hear his Friend calumniated, as some other people would be to find themselves defamed. I have more than once," he adds, "been a witness of that honourable Tenderness in his Temper."

His friendship with Pope is one of the best known incidents in his life. It commenced in 1704, when Wycherley was sixty-four and Pope but sixteen years of age, and, although at times interrupted, terminated only with the death of the former in 1715. Their correspondence displays on both sides the marks of sincere regard. Wycherley's generous appreciation the young genius repaid with gratitude and affection, which, however, in the moments even of its warmest ardour, never degenerated into servility. The last published letter between them is dated May 2, 1710. It was succeeded by a period of prolonged estrangement. During the preceding year a silence of unusual duration on the part of Wycherley had aroused the anxiety of Pope, who alludes to it, in his correspondence with their common friend Cromwell, in terms of heart-felt concern. Wycherley had been dangerously ill, and Cromwell had acquainted Pope with the news of his recovery.

"You have delivered me," he replies, under date of Oct. 19, 1709, "from more anxiety than he imagines me capable of on his account, as I am convinced by his long silence. However the love of some things rewards itself, as of Virtue, and of Mr. Wycherley. I am surprised at the danger you tell me he has been in, and must agree with you that our nation would have lost in him as much wit and probity, as would have remained (for aught I know) in the rest of it. My concern for his friendship will excuse me (since I know you honour him so much, and since you know I love him above all men) if I vent a part of my uneasiness to you, and tell you that there has not been wanting one to insinuate malicious untruths of me to Mr. Wycherley, which, I fear, may have had some effect upon him."

The correspondence was renewed, with all the old kindness, in the following spring, but was soon again to be interrupted. Pope had, for some years, been engaged upon the occasional correction and emendation of Wycherley's worse than mediocre verses, and the unsparing honesty with which he discharged this delicate office, however creditable to his character, could not but be at times unpalatable to the author now seventy years of age, and rendered peevish by ill-health and loss of memory. His last published letter to Pope betrays some natural indignation at the wholesale slaughter which the young poet was making of his halting lines, although, with the politeness of an old courtier, he thanks him for his freedom, which he "shall always acknowledge with all sort of gratitude." It is probable, also, that some enemy of Pope had again possessed the old man's ear with slanders, to which his shattered memory would render him the more accessible, and Wycherley again broke off the correspondence, leaving his friend to wonder how he had displeased him, as knowing himself "guilty of no offence but of doing sincerely just what he bid me."

Pope's references to Wycherley, during this new estrangement, show him to have been deeply hurt. They indicate, however, more of sorrow than of resentment, and his delight was unfeigned when, in the autumn of 1711, his friend was once more reconciled to him, and once more wrote to him and spoke of him in terms of the warmest affection. Cromwell, from whose correspondence with Pope we derive our information regarding this second reconciliation narrates the following pleasant incident.

"Mr. Wycherley came to town on Sunday last, and, kindly surprised me with a visit on Monday morning. We dined and drank together; and I saying, 'To our loves,' he replied, 'It is Mr. Pope's health.'" On these terms we leave them. Their correspondence of this date has not been made public, nor do we know if malice or misunderstanding again destroyed the concord thus happily re-established. Pope's letters to Cromwell, moreover, cease about this time, and those which he addressed to others contain no further mention of Wycherley, until in January 1716, he describes to Mr. Blount the closing scene of the life of "that eminent comic poet, and our friend."

In after years, speaking of Wycherley, Pope said: "We were pretty well together to the last: only his memory was so totally bad, that he did not remember a kindness done to him, even from minute to minute. He was peevish, too, latterly; so that sometimes we were out a little, and sometimes in. He never did an unjust thing to me in his whole life; and I went to see him on his death-bed."[6]

One more of his contemporaries I propose to bring forward as a witness to our author's character. George Granville, Baron Lansdowne, to the ordinary qualifications of an accomplished gentleman added some pretensions, not altogether contemptible, to the rank of a minor poet. He was the author of a vast number of elegantly written verses (usually addressed to "Mira"), of a tragedy (_Heroic Love_) commended by Dryden, and of an amusing comedy (_Once a Lover and always a Lover_) of the school of Wycherley and Congreve. In the second volume of his collected works is to be found an epistle in which he remarks, with some minuteness, upon the character and disposition of his friend Wycherley.

This letter is not dated, but, from internal evidence, must have been written about the year 1705 or 1706. Lansdowne sets out with declaring that his partiality to Wycherley as a friend might render what he says of him suspected, "if his Merit was not so well and so publickly established as to set him above Flattery. To do him barely Justice," he continues, "is an Undertaking beyond my Skill." Further he writes: "As pointed and severe as he is in his Writings, in his Temper he has all the Softness of the tenderest Disposition; gentle and inoffensive to every Man in his particular Character; he only attacks Vice as a publick Enemy, compassionating the Wound he is under a Necessity to probe." Yet, "in my Friend every Syllable, every Thought is masculine;" and it was, questionless, from this particularity that he acquired the sobriquet (alluding, at the same time, to _The Plain Dealer_) of _Manly_ Wycherley. Of our Plain Dealer as a poet Lansdowne candidly confesses--"It is certain he is no Master of Numbers; but a Diamond is not less a Diamond for not being polish'd." And then, addressing his correspondent: "Congreve," he writes, "is your familiar Acquaintance, you may judge of Wycherley by him: they have the same manly way of Thinking and Writing, the same Candour, Modesty, Humanity, and Integrity of Manners: It is impossible not to love them for their own Sakes, abstracted from the Merit of their Works." In conclusion Lansdowne invites his correspondent to his lodging, to meet Wycherley, as well as "a young Poet, newly inspired," whose "Name is Pope," who "is not above seventeen or eighteen years of age, and promises Miracles," and whom Wycherley and Walsh "have taken under their Wing."

The foregoing testimonies are, I venture to think, sufficiently explicit. Johnson, indeed, supposes Wycherley to have been "esteemed without virtue, and caressed without good-humour," but a statement so obviously self-contradictory deserves no consideration. One thing is clear: that Wycherley was both beloved and honoured by men whose temper and capacity give irrefragable authority to their judgment, and that judgment, based, as it was upon personal and intimate acquaintance, it were presumption to dispute.

The present text is that of the first editions, which I have carefully collated with, and occasionally corrected by, the text of the edition of 1713 (the last published during the author's life), and that of Leigh Hunt's edition of 1849. I have usually followed the punctuation of Leigh Hunt, who was the first to punctuate the plays accurately.

WM. C. WARD.

_WILLIAM WYCHERLEY._[7]

William Wycherley was born in 1640. He was the son of a Shropshire gentleman of old family,[8] and of what was then accounted a good estate. The property was estimated at £600 a year, a fortune which, among the fortunes at that time, probably ranked as a fortune of £2,000 a year would rank in our days.