The four plays of William Wycherley: A study in the development of a dramatist 9783111632520, 9789027930811

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STUDIES IN ENGLISH

LITERATURE

Volume LXXXIII

THE FOUR PLAYS OF WILLIAM WYCHERLEY A Study in the Development of a Dramatist

by W. R. CHADWICK University of Waterloo, Ontario

1975 MOUTON THE HAGUE · PARIS

© Copyright 1975 in The Netherlands. Mouton & Co. Ν.V., Publishers, The Hague. No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers.

ISBN 90 279 3081 3

Printed in The Netherlands by ZND, 's-Hertogenbosch.

FOR NANCY

PREFACE

Modern scholarship sometimes suffers from the horse and cart syndrome. This occurs when a more or less rickety theory is nailed together, a mulish work of art is forced between its shafts, and the whole is then forced to back, creaking and shuddering, down the road of interpretation. In this book I hope to avoid this danger, from which Wycherley studies have not been exempt, by starting from the premise that in the theatre theatricality is a primary requirement, and that a play is good or bad to the extent that it succeeds or fails on the stage. The purpose of this book, then, is to look at Wycherley's plays as stage pieces, to suggest what sort of plays they are and why they took the form they did, and finally to trace and account for the development of Wycherley's thought and dramatic technique. The last of these aims is perhaps the most important, and it is for this reason that the book has been subtitled: A Study in the Development of a Dramatist. There are, of course, many acknowledgements that need to be made to many people, not only the obvious ones to family, friends, students, colleagues, librarians and secretaries, but also the less obvious ones - to those unknown to me, to those whose help has been indirect and to those whose help I have forgotten. Debts that specifically need to be mentioned are to the University of Waterloo for a grant to make the publication of this book possible, to Professor James Sutherland who steered it through its dissertation stage, and to P. F. Vernon who asked some healthily astringent questions about it. Finally I would like to thank Professor George Falle who began it all in more senses than one. University of Waterloo

W . R . CHADWICK

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

7

List of Main Abbreviations

10

Biographical Table

11

I. Love in a Wood: The First Step Π. The Gentleman Dancing-Master: A New D i r e c t i o n . . . Π1. The Country Wife IV. The Plain-Dealer: A Problem Play V. Conclusion

13 47 83 132 181

Appendix

194

Bibliography of Wycherley Studies

197

The photograph on page 193 is by courtesy of the Courtauld Institute of Art. The original, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, is at Knole Park in Kent.

LIST OF MAIN ABBREVIATIONS

Congreve, Comedies Dennis, Critical Works Dryden, Essays Dryden, Poems Etherege, Dramatic The London Stage

Rochester, Poems Shadwell, Works Wycherley, Works

Works

Comedies by William Congreve, ed. by Bonamy Dobrée (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1949). The Critical Works of John Dennis, ed. by E. N. Hooker (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1939-1943), 2 vols. Essays of John Dryden, ed. by W. P. Ker (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900), 2 vols. The Poems of John Dryden, ed. by James Kinsley (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), 4 vols. The Dramatic Works of Sir George Etherege, ed. by H. F. B. Brett-Smith (Oxford: Blackwell, 1927), 2 vols. Part 1,1660-1700, ed. by William van Lennep, of The London Stage, 1660-1800: A Calendar of Plays, Entertainments and Afterpieces, Together with Casts, Box-Receipts and Contemporary Comment (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1965). Poems by John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, ed. by Vivian de Sola Pinto (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1953). The Complete Works of Thomas Shadwell, ed. by Montague Summers (London: Fortune Press, 1927), 5 vols. The Complete Works of William Wycherley, ed. by Montague Summers (London: Nonesuch Press, 1924), 4 vols.

BIOGRAPHICAL TABLE

There are many gaps in our knowledge of Wycherley's life. It is still not absolutely certain, for instance, when and where he was born, when his plays were first performed, or when he married the Countess of Drogheda. The following is a summary of the important events of his life. May 28th, 1641 (?) Born, either at Basing House, Hampshire, or Clive Hall, Shropshire. 1655 Sent out of Commonwealth Britain to continue his studies in Angoulême. Became a Roman Catholic. 1659-1660 Returned to England. Reconverted to Protestantism at Queen's College, Oxford. Went on to the Inner Temple in the same year. 1664-1665 May have gone on a diplomatic mission to Spain in the train of Sir Richard Fanshawe. 1669 Hero and Leander published anonymously. 1671 Love in a Wood. 1672 The Gentleman Dancing-Master. 1675 The Country Wife. 1676 The Plain-Dealer. 1678-1679 Fell ill. Sent by Charles II to Montpellier for a rest cure. On his return appointed tutor to the young Duke of Richmond, Charles' son by Louise de Keroualle, at £1500 p.a. Married the Countess of Drogheda, and as a result lost the king's favour and the tutorship. 1681 His wife died. During his short marriage and in the years immediately after it he got deeper and deeper into debt.

12 1685 1686

1688

1697 1704 1715

1

BIOGRAPHICAL TABLE

Imprisoned in the Fleet for debts amounting to about fisoo.1 Released in the Spring after receiving financial help from James II. He also seems to have been promised a small pension from the royal purse. The pension terminated. Wycherley spent the rest of his life living quietly but with honour in London and in Shropshire. His father died. Miscellany Poems. The friendship with Pope begins. Married Elizabeth Jackson 2 and eleven days later, on December 31st, died, apparently in the Roman Catholic faith. Buried in St. Paul's, Covent Garden.

It has been generally thought that Wycherley was in prison for from four to six years. However, see my article in Notes and Queries (January, 1971), 30-34. 2 The bizarre and pathetic story of how Wycherley was gulled into this deathbed marriage is told by H. P. Vincent in Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, 15 (1933), 219-242.

I

LOVE IN A WOOD:1 THE FIRST STEP

1

It is reasonable to suppose that when Wycherley first thought seriously about writing a play he began by passing in review the various comedie traditions that might serve him as a model. He would have been fully aware, for instance, of the possibilities of a Jonsonian humours comedy. Shadwell had been championing the merits of this dramatist in terms not much this side idolatry for some time,2 and Dryden had been almost as complimentary in An Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668) where he had called him "a careful and learned observer of the dramatic laws" and "the most learned and judicious writer which any theatre ever had". 3 A more practical consideration was the continuing success of Jonson's plays on the Restoration stage.4 Even more popular than Jonson, however, were Beaumont and Fletcher. Until about 1682, "two of 1 The play was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in 1671. The exact date is not known. After the first edition in 1672 it was reprinted in 1693, 1694 and 1711. In his account of the theatrical history of the play, Montague Summers states that "the reissue of a play by the publishers argues a revival in the theatre" (Wycherley, Works, Vol. I, p. 68). The London Stage, Part 2, 1700-1729, ed. by Emmett L. Avery, does not record a performance for 1711. It was, however, shown twice in 1718, on August 15th and 19th. It has not been revived since. 2 See the Prefaces to The Sullen Lovers (1668) and The Royal Shepherdess (1669). 3 Dryden, Essays, Vol. I, pp. 79 and 81. 4 According to J. H. Wilson, The Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Restoration Drama, pp. 144-146, The Alchemist was revived five times between 1660 and 1670, Bartholomew Fair ten times, The Silent Woman nine times and Volpone twice.

14

LOVE IN A WOOD: THE FIRST STEP

Beaumont and Fletcher's plays were acted to every one of Shakespeare's. Of the seventy-two plays performed by the King's Company during the period between 1660 and 1662, twenty-six derive from the Beaumont and Fletcher canon." 5 As a man interested in the theatre, Wycherley would have been aware of the frequency with which the romantic tragi-comedies of the collaborators were being performed and also, no doubt, of the extent to which contemporary dramatists borrowed from them for their own plays. 6 Then again, it had become clear over the past few seasons that a new mode of comedy had become popular. This mode, pioneered before the Commonwealth by such men as Shirley, Davenant, Killigrew and, once again, Fletcher in such a play as The Wild Goose Chase (1621) (and before them by Shakespeare), was characterized by its witty dialogue between sexually emancipated ladies and gentlemen. It should be added that in 1670, Restoration wit comedy, as it is thought of today, was still in a process of evolution. Nevertheless, the general tendency of such plays was quite clear; certainly clear enough for Shadwell to inveigh against "Playes which have been wrote of late" in which there is "bawdy, and profaneness, which they call brisk writing" between "a Swearing, Drinking, Whoring, Ruffian" and "an impudent ill-bred tomrig." 7 Wycherley must also have been sensible of this trend in wit comedy and there is no sign that he had Shadwell's aversion to employing it. Another possibility that would have recommended itself to Wycherley was an adaptation from the Spanish theatre. As a Spanish linguist it would have been simple for him to borrow some capa y espada drama with its mistaken identities, disguises and intrigues and 'english' it. Furthermore, he would certainly have known that a few years earlier the king himself had suggested to 5

W. W. Appleton, Beaumont and Fletcher: A Critical Study, p. 100. See Wilson, Influence, 43-117. The Appendix shows how the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher were divided between the two theatre companies and also gives a statistical survey of the frequency with which their plays were staged between 1660 and 1720. The impressive The London Stage, 1660-1800 (11 vols.) contains, of course, the most detailed information about all matters pertaining to repertory during the Restoration and the eighteenth century. 7 Preface to The Sullen Lovers in Shadwell, Works, Vol. I, p. 11. 6

15

LOVE IN A WOOD: THE FIRST STEP

Sir Samuel Tuke that he make something of Calderón's

8

Los

empeños de seis horas and that the result, The Adventures of Five

Hours (1663), was highly acclaimed and ran uninterrupted for two weeks at its first showing.9 Popular esteem and, more important, royal taste, would have been a strong inducement to the fledgling playwright to attempt something in the Spanish manner. Nor does this exhaust the traditions of comedy popular on the Restoration stage at the time. Although the influence of Henrietta Maria had faded, there were still enough ladies at court (the Duchess of Cleveland, perhaps, excepted) who delighted in the intricate debates of platonic love. At the other end of the scale, a large percentage of the pit and the upper gallery seemed to prefer thumps, chamberpots and other farcical elements as their main theatrical fare. Clearly, it would not have been an easy matter to make a choice from amongst these multifarious models.10 There was, however, one further possible alternative, an alternative, furthermore, that had the merit of pre-empting the problem of choosing. This was to combine all the contemporary strains of comedy mentioned above and to write a mixed play. There are several reasons - social, economic, artistic and psychological - why such a decision might have recommended itself to Wycherley. In the first place it would allow him to experiment in the various modes of comedy. If he were unsure of where his métier lay he would be able to try them all and, depending upon the result of the acid test of production, discover his true comic bent. Secondly, as a novice playwright he had not schooled himself to the necessity of elimination. Wycherley never really learnt this virtue, and one can therefore guess that when he came to his first play the temptation to use all the promising characters, scenes and bits of dialogue

8

Montague Summers in his Introduction to The Adventures of Five Hours, xxvi-xxviii, suggests that the play was more probably written by Coella y Ochoa. 9 Summers, Introduction, xxviii-xxx. 10 I do not wish to suggest in the foregoing analysis of the different comic traditions that Wycherley would have found cut and dried examples of each model. Far from it. Comic dramatists were usually eclectic about how they elicited laughter. What I have described are the dominant strains that can be discerned in any given play.

16

LOVE IN A WOOD: THE FIRST STEP

with which his mind was probably stored was very strong. Mixed theatre is very much the theatre of the apprentice playwright. More important than these two rather hypothetical reasons, though, was Wycherley's natural desire to write something that would 'take' with all sections of the theatre public. Much has been written about the homogeneity of the Restoration audience and there is no doubt that in comparison with an Elizabethan audience it was composed more exclusively of the monied and social upper classes. But even within these narrower limits a considerable cross section of the population, representing an even more considerable cross section of theatrical tastes, patronized the two playhouses. Country gentry up to experience 'the innocent liberties of the town', 'cits' who sometimes had to watch themselves being ridiculed, serious critics and men of letters, brawling gallants and the serving men of the gentry, all were regular theatre-goers. As for those who were in, or moved on the fringes of, the court, it is certain that they did not speak with one voice. Not every play would have appealed equally to Samuel Pepys, the Earl of Rochester and Katherine Philips. 11 Catholicity in the audience, then, suggested (erroneously) that there should be catholicity in the play. As The English Theophrastus mockingly puts it: After all, one of the boldest Attempts of Human Wit, is to write a taking Comedy: For, how many different sorts of People, how many various Palates must a Poet please, to gain a general Applause? He must have a Plot and Design, Coherence and Unity of Action, Time and Place, for the Criticks, Polite Language for the Boxes, Repartee, Humour and Double Entendres for the Pit; and to the Shame of our Theatres, a mixture of Farce for the Galleries.12 The underlying principle was that what was lost on the galleries could be made up on the pit, and it was probably a principle Wycherley felt he could not afford to disregard. Another inducement to writing a mixed comedy may have been 11

The London Stage, pp. clxii-clxxi. Abel Boyer, The English Theophrastus (1702), p. 4, reprinted in The Augustan Reprint Society, Series One: Essays on Wit, 3 (1947). 12

LOVE IN A WOOD: THE FIRST STEP

17

the fact that Sir Charles Sedley and George Etherege, both members of the inner circle of Court Wits, had written their first plays in this mode. Sedley's The Mulberry Garden (1668) does not appear to have been a success. Pepys states that the house was "infinitely full. But the play, when it come, though there was, here and there, a pretty saying, and that not very many neither, yet the whole of the play had nothing extraordinary in it, at all, neither of language or design." 1 3 On the other hand, Etherege's earlier Love in a Tub (1664) "got the Company more Reputation and profit than any preceding Comedy; the Company taking in a Months time at it 1000 £ " . 1 4 It is true that in his next play She Wou'd If She Coud (1668), Etherege attempted a slightly different sort of comedy, but it seems to have failed initially for one reason or another. 1 5 Yet however one assesses the remarks of Downes and Pepys, the point to be made is that two of the men to whose friendship Wycherley, as a young Restoration gallant, aspired, had put the seal of aristocratic approval on mixed comedy by writing in this manner themselves. Finally, for a man who must have taken part in many discussions on dramatic theory over a bottle of wine, there was the question of critical sanctions, or lack of them, for mixed theatre - whether this term be applied to a mixture of tragedy and comedy, the heroic and the comic, different sorts of comedy, or any of the other combinations that could be put upon the stage. At the risk of over simplification, 16 one can say that majority opinion during the Restoration seems to have been that although the mixing of modes was not entirely respectable (neo-classically

13

The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. by H. B. Wheatley (May 18th, 1668). Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, facsimile of 1st edition, ed. by Montague Summers, p. 25. 16 Pepys, again the rigorous critic ("but, Lord! how full was the house, and how silly the play", ed. cit., February 6th, 1668), censures the "design" and the "end". He also mentions that Etherege blamed the actors for its poor reception. On this last point see also Shadwell's Preface to The Humorist (1671), and Dennis, Critical Works, Vol. I, p. 289. Downes, ed. cit., p. 29, says, "It took well, but inferior to Love in a Tub." 16 Sarup Singh has some relevant material in The Theory of Drama in the Restoration Period, pp. 139-159. 14

18

LOVE IN A WOOD: THE FIRST STEP

speaking), yet public taste demanded it, and it was the public that ultimately paid the piper. Dryden frequently wrote about this problem, and his pronouncements, taken together, illustrate in their inconsistency the dilemma of a man who was both critic and playwright, both theorist and practitioner. His dualism emerges most interestingly in one of his last reflections on "variety", as he called it, where he appears to veer from apparent approval to apparent contempt within the space of a few lines: Yet even this variety is a fault which I should often practise, if I were to write again; because 'tis agreeable to the English Genius. We love variety more than any other Nation; and so long as the Audience will not be pleas'd without it, the Poet is oblig'd to humour them. On condition they were cur'd of this publick Vice, I cou'd be contented to change my Method, and gladly give them a more reasonable Pleasure.17 One incontestable point in this many-faceted statement of Dryden's, and perhaps the most important one, is that the English "Genius" has always loved variety; in English theatre there has never been much feeling of embarrassment about juxtaposing the blanket tossing of a sheep thief with sublime lyrics to the Christ child, or the slippery wit of a fat rogue with the highest affairs of state. The Restoration was not aware that there may have been a coherence to the Mediaeval and Elizabethan Weltanschauung, but lacking in its own culture, that somehow allowed such diverse elements to coalesce. As far as a playwright like Wycherley was concerned, the tradition of mixed theatre was a long and successful one, and this far outweighed the objections of stricter contemporary critics. Certainly if the comic and the serious could be allowed to run on parallel Unes in the same play, then so could different strains of the comic. These, then, are some of the possible reasons that helped Wycherley to decide to write a Jonsonian-Fletcherian-Shirleyan-platonicintrigue-wit-farce comedy. That the resultant mélange is not an aesthetic success is obvious. What is important for this study is to watch the young dramatist at work; to notice how he attempts to 17

Epistle Dedicatory to Love Triumphant (1694), in Dryden, The Dramatic Works, ed. by Montague Summers, Vol. VI, p. 405.

LOVE IN A WOOD: THE FIRST STEP

19

synthesize the diverse elements that he has elected to use, and where he succeeds and where he fails; to mark the incipient signs of his comic strengths and weaknesses; finally, to start the process of distillation which might, at the end of this study, discover some hint of Wycherley's Geist.

2 Before analysing what Wycherley was trying to construct in Love in a Wood, it is necessary to say one further word about mixed comedy during the Restoration. Although the genre was, as has been said, something of a poor relation in the theatre, a vague body of theory concerning its practice had grown up. Or, rather, existing classical theories had been made less rigid in order to accommodate it. In An Essay of Dramatic Poesy, after Lisideius had taken the part of the purist and categorically condemned all plays that "in two hours and a half ... run through all the fits of Bedlam", 18 Neander advances the key apologia for mixed theatre: The Unity of Action is sufficiently preserved, if all imperfect actions of the play are conducing to the main design; but when those petty intrigues of a play are so ill ordered, that they have no coherence with the other, I must grant that Lisideius has reason to tax that want of due connexion; for co-ordination in a play is as dangerous and unnatural as in a state. In the mean time he must acknowledge, our variety, if well ordered, will afford a greater pleasure to the audience.19 Admittedly, many Restoration dramatists did not attempt to make their "imperfect actions" conduce to the "main design". It is, after all, much simpler to allow plots to co-exist rather than interact. For example, the story lines of Etherege's Love in a Tub and Sedley's The Mulberry Garden, the two plays with which Love in a Wood can most fairly be compared, are only minimally integrated, while Dryden himself is even more guilty of unconnected plots in Marriage à la Mode (1672) and The Spanish Fryar (1680). Wycherley, is Dryden, Essays, Vol. I, p. 58. « Dryden, Essays, Vol. I, p. 71.

20

LOVE INA WOOD: THE FIRST STEP

however, made every effort to achieve a "well ordered variety" in his first play. Love in a Wood; or, St. James's Park has three plots, or three distinct worlds of action. The high plot is concerned with the amorous tribulations of Christina and Valentine, characters who stem from the tradition of heroic romance. Valentine has seriously wounded Clerimont in a duel of honour over Christina and has had to flee to France. Christina, left alone in London, vows "to see the face of no man" (II,ii) until he returns. However, in a scene of brilliant ironies (II,ii) shefindsthat she has become, quite innocently, the object of the affections of Ranger, a young rake. In Act II, scene iv, the audience discovers that Valentine has returned secretly from the continent and is lodging with his friend Vincent, but on his first night home Ranger also comes to Vincent's rooms in order to boast of his new 'mistress'. Needless to say Valentine, whose only real flaw is jealousy, is convinced of Christina's infidelity. Through a further series of errors, coincidences and misfired plans enacted in Vincent's rooms (IV,v) the confusion is considerably heightened, but in a final series of errors, coincidences and misfired plans enacted at night in St. James's Park (V,v) the tangled strands are found to be as illusory as the magician's knot. 20 The middle plot of the play is concerned with the three young gallants, Ranger, Vincent and Dapperwit. Here we are in the world of wit comedy where the main occupations are wenching or drinking or, more generally, both. Typically, the first scene on this level is set in "The French House" (l,ii); the first three topics of conversation are, in order, (a) wine, (b) wit, and (c) women. The main action revolves around Ranger whose attempts to avoid his mistress, Lydia, in the interests of greater sexual variety, provide the connective link with the high plot. Thus, while beating the park for "fresh game" in Act II, scene i, he thinks that he catches sight of her. As she is supposed to be in her lodgings waiting for a visit from him, he follows her in order to satisfy his curiosity. Lydia takes 20 The source for this part of the play (including those threads of the RangerLydia story that interweave with it) is Calderón's Mañanas de abril y mayo. See J. U. Rundle, "Wycherley and Calderón: A Source for Love in a Wood", ΡML A, 64 (1949), 701-707.

LOVE IN A WOOD: THE FIRST STEP

21

refuge in Christina's house and when Ranger refuses to be denied entry she thrusts her innocent hostess forward to make excuses for her and hides. The resulting confusion has already been outlined. Vincent as a mutual friend of both Valentine's and Ranger's provides another link between the two worlds. Dapperwit, on the other hand, provides a link with the low plot. In the first place he is a would-be-wit rather than a true wit (although Wycherley does not develop the difference convincingly) and his function in the play is somewhat amorphous. Although he rollicks with the other two gallants, is allowed to converse wittily with Lydia, takes Ranger with him to visit his whore, and offers minimal assistance to Ranger in his courtship of Christina, his true place is with the low characters of the play. It is from them that we first hear his name and it is with them that he is punished at the denouement. The low plot, which is Jonsonian in inspiration, contains an assortment of bawds, whores, gulls, lechers and petty crooks. There is more than one thread of action here, but perhaps the pivotal character, at the outset anyway, is Mrs. Joyner, whose name indicates her profession. In the opening scene of the play we learn that she is attempting to find a husband for the nymphomaniac Lady Flippant, a luscious young girl for the Puritan miser, Gripe, and is helping Sir Simon Addleplot against his rival, Dapperwit, in the conquest of Gripe's daughter, Martha. These story lines are quite cleverly interwoven through the play and, in the final scenes, culminate in the inevitable misalliances that a comedie poetic justice requires. From these attenuated synopses of the various plots of the play it is possible to see how Wycherley began his attempt to mould the varied materials with which he had chosen to work into some sort of monolithic shape. Thus, from the point of view of pure plot, he partially fused the world of rake and tomrig with the platonic ethos of Christina and Valentine and, working in the other direction, provided links between the middle and the low plots primarily through the agency of Dapperwit and, less naturally, by means of Lady Flippant who is not only Gripe's sister, but also Lydia's confidante and an acquaintance of Christina's. The penalty he paid for this attempted synthesis, indeed, the penalty he had to pay owing to the very nature of the undertaking, was, as will be seen,

22

LOVE IN A WOOD: THE FIRST STEP

inconsistent characterization and an illogical weighting of roles. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to add that in spite of Dapperwit and Lady Flippant there is no real point of contact between the high and low plots. Here the actors "keep their distances, as if they were Mountagues and Capulets, and do not begin an acquaintance till the last scene of the fifth act". 2 1 A second unifying device was in the realm of language. Traditionally, love and honour debates were written in verse; certainly both Love in a Tub and The Mulberry Garden use couplets for their platonics. Wycherley, significantly, eschewed the couplet and, except for the tags that terminate scenes and acts, wrote his whole play in prose. The unkind critic might suggest that this was because he knew himself to be incapable of handling the poetry, but this is unlikely to be true of the man who published Miscellany Poems thirty-five years later. The decision to use prose was basically dictated by the requirements of the plot. Having elected to combine the world of wit with that of heroic romance he could either make Ranger, for instance, deliver himself of rhymed sentiments (which would have violated the requirements of decorum), or alternate Ranger's prose with Christina's verse (which would have sounded absurd), or reduce everyone to prose. This choice was eminently sensible. Indeed, il is horrible to imagine what might have occurred if Wycherley had followed in the footsteps of Etherege and Sedley, both better poets than he, in this matter. As it is, where Etherege wrote such undistinguished lines as: 0 Heav'n! must my afflictions have no end! 1 scap'd my Foe, to perish by my Friend. What strange disaster can produce this grief! Is Graciana dead? Speak, speak; be brief.22 (Love in a Tub, Act III, scene vi, II. 33-36) Wycherley could escape with Ihe more natural:

21 22

Dryden, Essays, Vol. I, p. 57. Etherege, Dramatic Works, Vol. I, p. 41.

LOVE IN A WOOD: THE FIRST STEP

23

Oh he is gone! Mr. Vincent follow him; he were yet more severe to me, in indangering his life, then in his censures of me; you know the power of his Enemies is great, as their malice; just Heaven preserve him from them, and me from this ill, or unlucky man.23 (Act IV, scene v) In such terms Christina can at least converse with Ranger without an hiatus of sensibilities becoming too apparent. A third method by which Wycherley hoped to improve the coherence of his play lies in the way that he arranged the scenes. Regardless of the degree of synthesis achieved in certain plot lines and in language, Love in a Wood was still a play with several threads of action and these would undoubtedly strain the retentive powers of an audience unless they were intelligently deployed. To pass from compassion to mirth is, as Neander argues, 24 entirely natural for the emotions, but to skip from story to story is too confusing for the mind. Wycherley begins his play by introducing most of the characters of the low plot. In his second and third scenes (I,ii;II,i) he changes to the world of the wits but eases the transition by an entirely natural inclusion of characters from the low plot. In the next three scenes (II,ii,iii,iv) he sets the high plot in motion, but again a superficial continuity is maintained because, of course, Ranger, Lydia, Vincent, Dapperwit and even Lady Flippant appear in these scenes. This gradual escalation from low to high plot through Act I and Act II is early proof of a high degree of expertise in the mechanics of plotting. From Act III onwards the plots diverge more and Wycherley's only recourse was to reduce the oscillation between different actions to a minimum by presenting blocks of scenes with a common focus of interest. Thus, all except the last scene of Act III is set at Crossbite's house and is concerned with the attempted seduction of her daughter, Lucy; the first two scenes of Act IV are in Gripe's house; the next three scenes continue

23

This and all subsequent quotations from Wycherley's works are taken from the four volume edition by Montague Summers. The typography is modernized and the names of the speakers are written out in full. The act and scene divisions are as in the Mermaid edition of the plays. 24 Dryden, Essays, Vol. I, pp. 69-70.

24

LOVE IN A WOOD: THE FIRST STEP

the high plot, and so on. There was no better solution to a difficult problem. Then there was the coherence that could be achieved by having regard to the unities of time and place. Generally speaking, it was agreed by all but the purist that the unity of place was not violated as long as the action occurred within "the compass of the same town or city", 25 but even this degree of latitude did not satisfy some dramatists who preferred to free their plays (and particularly the Love and Honour plots) from the trammels of the finite by setting them in a sort of scenic limbo. Wycherley, however, understood how background could be used as a unifying device and was therefore at great pains to give all parts of Love in a Wood a recognizably London flavour. Thus the park is not just any park, but St. James's Park, and the play's intrigues are worked out here and in the streets and houses nearby. Throughout the play, the characters are constantly referring to such contemporary landmarks as the Exchange, the New Spring Garden, Lamb's Conduit, Covent Garden and so on. Most important of all, Christina and Valentine are made to act out their fautes d'amours against this background; in fact Wycherley is remarkably specific about this. Christina's sisters may live in a cloudcuckooland of pastoral romance; she lives in the Mall exactly five doors down from Vincent, and she and Valentine enact their recognition scene just across the road in St. James's Park. Equal care can be seen in Wycherley's handling of the time scheme. The play covers, as Dryden had suggested for comedy, 26 between twenty-four and thirty hours and for most of that time the audience is kept fully informed as to the precise hour of the action. In the first scene we are told, "'tis now nine" (at night); internal evidence indicates that scene ii takes place at about ten-thirty or eleven, and the next at about midnight. In Act II, scene ii, we discover "'tis past one", so that the final two scenes of this Act take place at about one-thirty. Act III begins the new day. Its opening words are, "Good Morrow, Gossip." "Good Morrow; but why up 25 26

Dryden, Essays, Vol. I, p. 57. Dryden, Essays, Vol. I, p. 130.

LOVE IN A WOOD: THE FIRST STEP

25

so early, good Gossip?" Ensuing scenes continue normal daytime occupations (for example, morning visits [III,ii] and trips to the playhouse [IV,ii]), until by Act IV, scene iii "it wants not half an hour of eight", and the play ends later that night. It is clear that Wycherley planned not only the geography but also the chronology of his first play in some detail. Integration of some of the plot lines; consistent use of prose; intelligent arrangement of scenes; adherence to the unities of time and place: these are some of the techniques that Wycherley used in his attempt to tie together the parts of his mixed comedy. Added to all these, and informing all parts of the action, is the play's thematic unity. The title of the play with its various literal and figurative meanings and associations appropriately summarizes its theme. Some of the action takes place, literally, "in a wood", that is, in St. James's Park, but in a figurative sense "in a wood" also means "in a difficulty, trouble, or perplexity; at a loss" (OED) which is the situation of almost all of the characters of the play at one time or another. Nor, I think, is it straining after the significant to suggest that Wycherley may also have had in mind an older meaning of the word "wood", that is, 'mad'; certainly his play can be said to be about 'love in a frenzy'. 27 Closely associated with the idea of being 'in a wood' is that of being 'in the dark', and indeed on both the literal and figurative levels the idea of darkness prevails in the play. On the literal level, for instance, one notices that fifteen of the twenty-one scenes take place at night, and it is also interesting that most of the characters welcome the gloom of night because it appears to smooth away defects and veil vice. During the extended eulogy to Night that begins Act II, Dapperwit sums up the sentiments expressed by himself, Ranger and Vincent with the Falstaffian boast, "Something 'twas, we Men of virtue always lov'd the night". In the same scene, Lady Flippant quotes the old proverb, "Joan's as good as my Lady in the dark, certainly." Gripe does not mind walking with his 27

This meaning of "wood", although archaic, would have been known to Wycherley; according to the OED it was in use up until the nineteenth century.

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piggesnye, Lucy, at night, "because in the dark, or as it were the dark, there is no envy, nor scandal" (V,ii), and Addleplot, less happily, admits that "a Lady will no more shew her modesty in the dark, then a Spaniard his courage" (V,iii). Christina, too, is aware that there are no colours at night. When countering Ranger's unwelcome attentions she says, "Then it seems you mistook me for another, and the night is your excuse, which blots out all distinctions" (II,ii), while Valentine only changes her terminology to make the jealous accusation, "It seems she goes out in the night, when the Sun is absent, and faces are not distinguish'd" (II,iv). The irony for those characters who are grateful to the night for hiding them is that if none can "count the pimples on ones face" as Vincent elegantly phrases it (II,i), if man cannot be told from man or woman from woman, then this will lead to errors of recognition. Hence most of the amorous contretemps of the play. The more important irony, however, is that the characters do not realize that the real 'wood' of the play exists in their own minds and souls; it is because of their own spiritual darkness or blindness of perception that they stumble along the high ways and low ways of love. Night only conceals the superficial distinctions of man, his complexion, his shape, his dress; it changes human nature not a whit. Flippant's ruttishness, Gripe's lasciviousness, Dapperwit's narcissism, Addleplot's dullness, Ranger's inconstancy and Valentine's jealousy; these are the real reasons why the various lusts and loves are 'in a wood'. The preceding analysis might lead one to suppose that Wycherley had written a good play after all. In fact Love in a Wood is no better than its short life on the stage indicates. Some of Wycherley's efforts to bring unity to his comedy, such as his use of prose and his handling of background and the time scheme were, as has been pointed out, careful, sensible and successful; others were only careful and sensible. Here the operative expressions were "attempted t o " or "tried to" with their implications of failure. For instance, the arrangement of the scenes, intelligent as far as it went, could never really compensate for the basic lack of connection between many of the plots. Consequently, although there is a certain amount of interweaving of stories, the major elements move along

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27

by instalments. To take an extreme example, Christina's first appearance is in Act II, scene ii, her second is in Act IV, scene iv. This does not mean that Love in a Wood is a confusing play as some of its critics have maintained; 28 it is just as easy to follow as, for instance, The Way of the World or some of Aphra Behn's extraordinary mazes. It does mean that it is disjointed, and as Perromat correctly observes, "l'impression qu'une pièce ainsi décousue laisse dans l'esprit du spectateur est incertaine et généralement défavorable". 2 9 Similarly one is constantly aware that the characters of the play live in separate worlds despite Wycherley's serious attempt to blur the boundaries. The essential flaw here, indeed the essential flaw in most mixed plays of the period, is that PEOPLE OF THE SAME SOCIETY A N D THE SAME CLASS are motivated by quite different sets of values which they express in different styles. Ranger and Valentine are not just men who hold opposite ideas on sex, one believing in inconstancy in love, the other in constancy; they are dramatic types who stem from quite separate theatrical traditions. The former is supposed to be the witty rake of a realistic comedy and the latter a more ethereal figure out of some sort of romantic drama. The hiatus is made clearer if it is remembered that Ranger and Valentine are, properly speaking, the heroes of their respective worlds so that any rivalry between them is made as awkward as trying to bring two magnetic positives together. 30 Wycherley understood these problems but in attempting to solve them he fell into other dramaturgical errors. For instance, he violated the integrity of his characters. Vincent provides the most 28

Harley Granville-Barker in On Dramatic Method, pp. 120-121, says that "the play's stagecraft is summed up" by one of the stage directions: "They all go off in a huddle, hastily" (V, v), and adds, "How could an audience both be clever enough to understand the story and stupid enough to be interested by it when they did." Montague Summers replies bitterly to this attack in his Introduction to The Restoration Theatre, xvii-xviii, and calls it "disingenuous, trivial and altogether unfair". 29 C. Perromat, William Wycherley: Sa vie - son oeuvre, p. 137. 30 In the Spanish source Valentine and Ranger occupy the same stylistic world. See Rundle, "Wycherley and Calderón". It is when Wycherley gives them their English colourings of romantic hero and wit hero that the problem of consistency arises.

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interesting example of this. He is first presented in the company of Ranger and Dapperwit in the French house (I,ii), and then enjoying "midnight coursing in the Park" (II,i). During these two scenes a clear and consistent personality is projected. On the whole he is the least amusing of the three wits; his conversation is quite unimaginative and his behaviour is sometimes coarse, but his really distinguishing characteristic, the trait that any actor would catch hold of for the basis of an interpretation, is his love of drinking, a love of drinking that is clearly in excess of the fashionable toping required of the man of wit. In Act I, scene ii, he belligerently picks an argument with Dapperwit because the latter prefers frothy chatter to "the honest Burgundy". In the next scene he praises the new fashion of rambling at night in St. James's Park not only because it enables a man to "reel himself sober", but also because in the dark, "a man may carry a Bottle under his Arm, instead of his Hat", and later says that his boyhood ambition was to be a drawer. When he quarrels with Dapperwit again he complains, "Why do's he always rail against my friends then, and my best friend a Beer-glass?" Later, when the ladies appear, he shows a lack of social delicacy. "Dam me, Ladies" is the best introduction he can manage and Dapperwit has to restrain him with "Hold, a Pox you are too rough." Next he lays hold of Lady Flippant and Dapperwit again schools him with, "Use her gently, and speak soft things to her." Clearly Wycherley is here creating the conventional portrait of the roaring boy who sows his fermenting oats by the fistful. However, in Act II, scene iv, a transformation occurs. From this point onwards Vincent's role is exclusively that of adviser to Valentine. His language becomes elevated in style and sententious in content. Strangest of all, like a man who has taken the oath, he does not make a single further reference to alcohol. The reason for this unhappy metamorphosis has already been referred to. Wycherley wished to integrate the different worlds of the play and when he found he needed someone to play Horatio to Valentine's Hamlet he hoped that he would be able to achieve both aims at the same time by elevating Vincent from the middle world of the wits. The intention was praiseworthy, but the result unsatisfactory. Ranger and Dapperwit, although more consistently drawn, are

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also victims of the fragmented nature of the play - and, perhaps, one should add, of the young Wycherley's uncertainty about the nature and function of the rake in wit comedy. Dapperwit's ambiguity has already been mentioned. One reason for this ambiguity is that in half his scenes he is matched with such crass fools as Sir Simon Addleplot and his wit naturally appears in the ascendant, while in the other half he moves in the company of Ranger and Lydia and is supposed to function as the 'perfect ass'. But even in the middle plot there seems to be a dichotomy in his intelligence and therefore in the response he evokes. Sometimes the audience has no trouble seeing him as "the Noisie, Mischievous Screech-Owl, the wou'd-be Wit", to use one of Wycherley's own phrases, 31 but equally often (certainly more often than that stumbling on a few "Humorous Things" that Congreve allows the Fool 3 2 ) his remarks are as apt and imaginative as those of anyone else in the play. One such occasion occurs in Act II, scene i, when Dapperwit runs through the "degrees of wits" for the delectation of Lydia. This is poor theatre on several counts. It is an obviously contrived bravura passage inserted for the purpose of satirizing fops, lawyers, courtiers and critics. It holds up the movement of an otherwise flowing scene. It suddenly reduces Lydia, who until then had shown all the vivacity of a Restoration gay girl, to the dull role of the "straight man". Most important of all for the present discussion, it presents Dapperwit as Wycherley's spokesman rather than as an object of satiric amusement. The mature Wycherley would never have allowed Sparkish, Dapperwit's descendant, such liberties. 33 Much the same sort of criticism can be levelled at Ranger. Because he appears in only about half the scenes he can hardly be expected to dominate the sex play as the rakes of later Restoration theatre do. Nor does it help his image that when he is dragged into the low plot (ΙΠ,ϋ) it is merely as a passive spectator. He has, of 31

Preface to Miscellany Poems, in: Wycherley, Works, Vol. Ill, p. 11. "Concerning Humour in Comedy", in: Congreve, Comedies, p. 2. 33 Again it is partly a matter of translation. Rundle, "Wycherley and Calderón", 706-707 describes how Dapperwit is clothed half as Spanish gentleman and half as English fool. His article concludes, "probably there is no other Restoration play that assimilates Spanish material so poorly as does Love iti a Wood". 32

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course, some of the attributes of the typical hero of wit comedy, such as love of repartee, devotion to sexual variety and a contempt for ideals, particularly the ideal of marriage (for most of the play), but his total personality is lacking in one essential. He does not have that aura of easy confidence, of elegant detachment that a Dorimant or a Rhodophil have. In comparison with them Ranger is almost frenetic, dashing here and there in search of fresh affairs (never successful be it noted) and generally living up to his name. But the surest sign that Wycherley had failed to crystallize his concept of the rake hero is Ranger's final reformation. Most rakes in Restoration comedy pay lip service to Virtue in the fifth act. This is not so much because "all men of Wit Reclaim; and only Coxcombs preserve to the end of Debauchery" as one of Shadwell's characters avows, 34 but because in Act V of the drama, the situation being what it is and the lady being who she is, reclamation is a pis aller. Nor, usually, are there economic or emotional grounds for believing that the retraction will be permanent - were there to be a sixth act it would show The Relapse. Ranger's reformation, however, is heartfelt as its form and tone indicate. In the first place it is uttered as a soliloquy, and the dramatic convention governing soliloquies is that they express the speaker's real thoughts. Secondly, it employs the heightened style of sincere passion. Thirdly, the reasons for the retraction are not those of sexual or financial necessity, but dawning wisdom: Lydia, triumph, I now am thine again; of Intrigues, honourable or dishonourable, and all sorts of rambling, I take my leave; when we are giddy, 'tis time to stand still: why shou'd we be so fond of the by-paths of Love? where we are still way-lay'd with Surprizes, Trapans, Dangers, and Murdering dis-appointments. (Act IV, scene v) A strange speech indeed, and one that indicates that Ranger is undergoing a transformation similar to Vincent's. When we next see Ranger (V,v) he is wandering through St. James's Park sighing, "Lydia, Lydia - poor Lydia!" for all the world like a heartsick swain. Subsequently he has a totally unexpected moral regression 34

Lord Bellamy in Bury Fair. See Shadwell, Works, Vol. IV, p. 309.

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31

when he suddenly makes a sexual assault on the lady he takes to be Christina (by now Wycherley has abandoned all attempts at consistency in favour of cheap theatrical effects), but after some embarrassment he speaks the final couplet of the play: The end of Marriage, now is liberty. And two are bound - to set each other free. Which is as good an expression of the ideal of Christian marriage as one is likely to find in Restoration comedy. Holland calls it a "cynical couplet" 3 5 and Lynch "flippant raillery". 36 Both judgements are incorrect because they are based upon preconceptions about what the ideal rake OUGHT to think and say rather than upon what this particular, weakly defined rake actually does feel and say. The middle world of Love in a Wood, the world of the wits, is indisputably the weakest part of the play. There are a number of related reasons for this weakness. The most important of these are, as I have suggested, the patchwork quality of the play, Wycherley's inexperience, and his attempt to interweave his plots mainly by manipulating (and thereby distorting) the functions of the three wits. Perhaps, too, the historical factor that the type of the witty rake-hero was still in the process of evolution had some bearing on Wycherley's inability to give precise definition to his own wits at this time. This failure is mitigated, however, when it is remembered that what is vaguely intended in the Ranger-Vincent-Dapperwit grouping in Love in a Wood is triumphantly concluded in the Horner-Harcourt-Sparkish grouping in The Country Wife. It is unlikely that Wycherley would have been able to create these characters and their interrelationship with such splendid assurance in the later play if he had not first experimented, however ineffectively, in his first play.

3 This study of Love in a Wood can best be rounded off by looking at 35 36

Norman Holland, The First Modern Comedies, p. 44. Kathleen M. Lynch, The Social Mode of Restoration Comedy, p. 165.

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three of its scenes in more detail with the object of illustrating, in operation as it were, some of the points that have already been made and also of catching up some other aspects of Wycherley's early art that have not yet been touched on. The measure of a dramatist's ability can usually be seen in the way that he begins his play. In particular, the audience expects to see the germination of the important action or actions of the drama and to be given an introduction to the main characters so that its powers of concentration and anticipation can be marshalled in the right areas. Lady Flippant: Not a Husband to be had for mony. Come, come, I might have been a better House-Wife for my self (as the World goes now,) if I had dealt for an Heir with his Guardian, Uncle, or Mother-in-Law; and you are no better than a Chouse, a Cheat. With these lines one can assume that the first night audience at this new play by a new author settled back happily into its seats. Not only was the material going to be comfortably familiar, but it also looked as though it was going to be conveyed with vigour and, if the lugubrious allusion to the mother-in-law was any criterion, with a bonus of surprising wit. The opening exchange is between Lady Flippant and her marriage broker, Mrs. Joyner, and, as can be seen from the first speech, the former is accusing the latter of inefficiency and worse. Through the course of their dialogue four important pieces of data emerge. First, it is clear that Mrs. Joyner has no trouble handling her client; she turns her attack, delicately counter-attacks by indicating the flaws in her amatory techniques, and finally re-establishes confidence by arranging a rendez-vous with Sir Simon Addleplot. Second, although Lady Flippant has advertised herself about town as a rich widow, she believes that the best way to attract "the busie gaping frye"is to appear to abhor matrimony. Not surprisingly her paradoxical methods have brought no results. The irony of the situation, and this would be brought out in performance, is not so much that prospective suitors really believe that she finds marriage distasteful, but rather that she herself, although she does not realize it, has all the attractions of a vulture. Thirdly, although her prime reason for

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marriage is the usual economic one her manner of expressing it beautifully reveals her libidinous nature. As she says, mixing gross obstetrical metaphors with sheer animalism, "I have but three Months to reckon, e're I lye down with my Port and Equipage; and must be delivered of a Woman, a Foot-man and a Coach-man. For my Coach must down, unless I can get Sir Simon to draw with me." The physical is always close to the surface with Lady Flippant. Finally, the audience notices that a certain Mr. Dapperwit is mentioned as a man who might spoil her planned liaison with Sir Simon Addleplot. This tête-à-tête is terminated by the entrance of Lady Flippant's "counter fashion Brother" Alderman Gripe, his daughter, Martha, and Sir Simon Addleplot who is disguised as a clerk in order to be close to his prey, Martha. Here Wycherley employs the well-worn comic device of having one character overhear himself being abused by another, in this case the brother by the sister. Mrs. Joyner, of course, becomes aware of Gripe's presence almost at once and starts to praise him. This begins the middle portion of the scene in which through some forty speeches Joyner and Gripe form a mutual admiration society and in trying to match each other's encomiums reach glorious heights of hyperbolic absurdity. Fujimura says that "though this passage is not good dramaturgy because it is out of keeping with their characters, it makes perfectly clear Wycherley's intention of exposing their preciseness". 37 In fact this passage is good theatre not only because it would act well on the stage, but also because the words and reactions of both characters are exactly revealing of their respective natures. Gripe's biblical phraseology with its unpleasant sexual overtones shows him to be the sensual, hypocritical Dissenter of popular belief, while Mrs. Joyner (as Fujimura fails to realize) replies in kind because she is the sly manipulator who wishes to consolidate Gripe's favourable opinion of her. Her praise is conscious irony: Gripe: You are a Nursing Mother to the Saints; Through you they gather together; Through you they fructify and encrease; and through you The Child cries from out of the Hand-Basket. 37

T. H. Fujimura, The Restoration Comedy of Wit, p. 132.

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Mrs. Joyner: Through you Virgins are marryed, or provided For as well; through you the Reprobate's Wife Is made a Saint; and through you the Widow is not Disconsolate, nor misses her Husband. F r o m this point their attempts to outpraise each other reach a climax of stichomythic similitudes until, like lovers, their strength is exhausted: Gripe: Your Servant, your servant, sweet Mrs. Joyner, You have stopt my mouth. Mrs. Joyner: Your Servant, your Servant, sweet Alderman, I have nothing to say. A n d here, I think, one imagines a pause as they gaze at each other breathless with adoration, until Jonas, who has been following their absurd conversation backwards and forwards with a blank stare, breaks the spell with the delightfully anti-climactic, " T h e half Pullet will be cold, Sir." It should be noted that in this middle part of the scene Mr. Dapperwit is again mentioned, this time by Gripe, who, it appears, is frightened for his daughter's safety. He has locked her u p to preserve her from Dapperwit, but in an aside Martha informs the audience that she will foil her father's plans. The final third of the first scene, Gripe and Martha having departed, is between Mrs. Joyner and Sir Simon Addleplot. As his name indicates, Sir Simon is the witless knight of Restoration comedy, proud of his ability to conduct an intrigue, but inevitably gulled and insulted by all the other characters in the play. Mrs. Joyner addresses him with the same sardonic irony veiled in sycophancy that she employed with Lady Flippant and Gripe: Sir Simon: ... I shall burst, faith and troth to see what Fools you and I make of these People. Mrs. Joyner: I will not rob you of any of the credit, I am but a feeble Instrument, you are an Engeneer. A n d later, Mrs. Joyner: No, no, to be thought a Man of parts, you shou'd always keep Company with a Man of less wit than your self.

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Sir Simon: That's the hardest thing in the World for me to do, faith and troth. Mrs. Joyner: What, to find a man of less wit than your self? Pardon my Raillery, Sir Simon. Their main topic of discussion is Addleplot's amatory machinations for which reason he has disguised himself as a clerk in order to be near Gripe's daughter, Martha, or if she "be coy", then Gripe's sister, Lady Flippant. Once again Dapperwit is invoked in the conversation; in this case he appears to be an ally whose practices are a trifle too sharp for Addleplot's comfort. The scene ends with Addleplot promising to treat Lady Flippant at the French House, but not before he has assured Mrs. Joyner with typical Restoration coarseness, "You have your twenty Guineys in your pocket for helping me into my Service, and if I get into Mrs. Martha's Quarters, you have a hundred more, if into the Widows, fifty." An analysis of the scene makes it clear that it is built up in three nearly separate movements. First of all there is a conversation between Mrs. Joyner and Lady Flippant, then, when Flippant leaves, between Mrs. Joyner and Gripe, and finally, when Gripe leaves, between Mrs. Joyner and Sir Simon Addleplot. Obviously the scene is both linear and mechanical; the episodes do not build on each other and there is no increase of the comic rhythm as the scene progresses. On the other hand it is a purely expository scene and as such it achieves its aims in a workmanlike manner. The intrigues of the low plot are set in motion firmly and with a good deal of humour so that by the end of the scene the sexual dreams of most of the characters have been made particular or been hinted at and the possibility of several comic contretemps have been foreshadowed. The various characters and their relationships with each other are sketched in with equal clarity. Admittedly there is nothing particularly delicate about these portraits of the hypocrite, the gull or the procuress, but delicacy is not required by the humour's tradition in which Wycherley is here working. By means of small verbal quirks such as Mrs. Joyner's "in truly" or Addleplot's "faith and troth", and by the use of style and sentiment exactly suited to the speaker,

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Wycherley has given his actors excellent materials with which to create some very lively stereotypes. The main flaws of the scene only become apparent as the play progresses. The central figure in the first scene is undoubtedly Mrs. Joyner and one of its pleasures is watching the ways in which this chameleon-like procuress adapts herself to the demands and personalities of her clients. She is in the tradition of the tricky slave and, on the assumption that the first scene of a play does not centralize a character without good reason, the audience subconsciously alerts itself to watch for her further intrigues. In this case it is disappointed. Well over a third of her speeches are concentrated in this one scene; subsequently she tends to fade out of the picture, saying little and doing less as the play progresses, and the audience is forced to make an annoying re-adjustment to its focus of interest. This, of course, is an excellent example of what happens when an inexperienced dramatist tries to fit too much into a mixed play. Inevitably the characters jostle each other for the centre of the stage and, lacking any overall, unifying concept that would normally dictate degrees of importance, the playwright finds himself ruled by a sort of chaotic opportunism. Whichever character happens to be waiting in the wings is allowed to play the scene although in the following scene he may find himself carrying a spear. Not only Mrs. Joyner, but also Dapperwit, Ranger, and Lady Flippant are victims of this anarchic weighting of roles that helps to give the play its lack of equilibrium. Dapperwit's ambiguity has already been noted, but it is interesting to see the confusion beginning in the first scene. He is mentioned in each of the three movements of the scene and each time with apprehension or dislike. However, as this distaste is expressed by the fools and knaves of the play the natural reaction of the audience is to be favourably disposed towards him in absentia despite the satire implied by his name. Further, Martha, whose character is at this point an unknown quantity, hopes that he will rescue her from her repressive father - a rescue that is traditionally the role of the comic hero. All this is, as has been pointed out, quite misleading, and is certainly no preparation for the harsh punishment he finally receives: marriage to a penniless and pregnant hoyden.

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37

Act I, scene ii, is set in the French House and introduces the three rakes. Their characters have already been discussed in sufficient detail, but nothing has yet been said about the quality of their dialogue which is, after all, the essence of wit comedy. These are the opening lines of the scene: Dapperwit: Pray, Mr. Ranger, let's have no drinking to night. Vincent: Pray, Mr. Ranger, let's have no Dapperwit to night. Ranger: Nay, nay, Vincent. Vincent: A Pox, I hate his impertinent Chat more than he does the honest Burgundy. Dapperwit: But why shou'd you force Wine upon us? we are not all of your gusto. Vincent: But why should you force your chaw'd Jests, your damn'd ends of your mouldy Lampoones, and last years Sonnets upon us, we are not all of your gusto? Dapperwit: The Wine makes me sick, let me perish! Vincent: Thy Rhymes make me spew. Ranger: At Repartee already ... This is so obviously on a level with what one might hear in a school playground that one's first reaction is to wonder about Wycherley's standard of wit. A closer analysis reveals, however, that only Vincent and Dapperwit participate in the argument, and that Ranger's final, heavily sarcastic, comment is also Wycherley's comment on the quality of the dialogue. In other words the passage is satiric, and it achieves its effect by reproducing the language that one imagines might actually have been heard in a tavern where gallants aspired to be wits. But if it is true that this conversation cannot be taken as a typical example of Wycherley's wit dialogue, it is also true that even when Ranger himself takes the stage one looks in vain for the sparkling verbal exchanges that are regarded as one of the happiest features of

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Restoration comedy. The most brilliant of these passages in the comedy of the period are generally between the hero and heroine, but it is noticeable that in Love in a Wood Ranger and Lydia only match wits with each other once. This is at the end of Act III when, through some eight speeches, Ranger tries to find out whether Lydia was at the park on the previous night without admitting that he was, while Lydia, who KNOWS he was at the park, tries to get him to admit it without admitting that she was. This is an amusingly subtle game of bluff and counter-bluff in which the main rules are to appear innocent and indifferent and, by the use of verbal and tonal camouflage, to avoid telling an outright lie. Ranger: Indeed, Cousin, besides my business, another cause, I did not wait on you, was, my apprehension, you were gone to the Park, notwithstanding your promise to the contrary. Lydia: Therefore, you went to the Park, to visit me there, notwithstanding your promise to the contrary. Ranger: Who, I at the Park? when I had promis'd to wait upon you at your lodging; but were you at the Park, Madam? Lydia: Who, I at the Park? when I had promis'd to wait for you at home; I was no more at the Park then you were; were you at the Park? Ranger: The Park had been a dismal desart to me, notwithstanding all the good company in't; if I had wanted yours. Although there is no "coruscating on thin ice" here as there is when Mirabell and Millamant take the stage, the exchange has its dramatic excellence. The basic situation is comic, the psychology is accurate and even the bare style with its simplistic device of having one character echo the phraseology of the other (cf. the argument between Dapperwit and Vincent already quoted) is effective because it is recognizably the way people often talk in such situations. The quality of Wycherley's language will be taken up again in Chapter Three, b u t it is already possible to come to the tentative conclusion that Wycherley does not appear to have written (perhaps he was unable to do so) the polished, elegant prose that characterizes the

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best work of Etherege and Congreve; instead he took the ordinary language of men and used it vigorously. Directly after Dapperwit and Vincent have exposed their antagonism for each other, Wycherley begins to uncover the reverse side of Dapperwit's character. Vincent is called out of the room and Dapperwit immediately begins to insult him: "He is obliged to the Bottle, for all the Wit and Courage he has." When Vincent returns, Ranger is summoned away and Dapperwit proceeds to insult Ranger: "He is a mere Buffoon, a Jack-pudding let me perish." The exits and entries of Vincent and Ranger have little organic motivation, and Dapperwit's unexpected disloyalty towards Ranger is not in any way consistent with their friendship through the rest of the play. In the next part of the scene the audience learns of Ranger's relation to Lydia, that, unfortunately for her, he loves rambling, and that he believes that "Women are poor credulous Creatures, easily deceived". Then Sir Simon Addleplot enters, and his dullness is further illustrated. He introduces Lady Flippant; and the scene, which up to this point has moved along at a rather halting pace, livens up considerably. She first tries to exercise her decayed sexual charms on Dapperwit but receives nothing but verbal brutalities in return. Next she turns her attentions towards Ranger in a pathetic attempt to strike up a liaison, but does not realize that he is merely toying with her, and finally, when they insist on escaping, flutters around in a vain attempt to get them to stay. Critical opinion is divided on Lady Flippant. Fujimura calls her, "the most original and entertaining character in the play"; 3 8 others would probably agree with Congreve that: Those Characters which are meant to be ridicul'd in most of our Comedies, are of Fools so gross, that in my humble Opinion, they shou'd rather disturb than divert the well-natur'd and reflecting Part of an Audience; they are rather Objects of Charity than Contempt; and instead of moving our Mirth, they ought very often to excite our Compassion.39 38 39

Fujimura, Restoration Comedy, 128. Dedication to The Way of the World in Congreve, Comedies, pp. 336-337.

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Congreve seems to be implying here that the purpose of comedy is to arouse mirth, and that the presentation of "gross fools" is a mistake because they disturb rather than divert. Such a theory is perfectly suitable for pure comedy, but it will not do for the satiric comedy of such dramatists as Ben Jonson and his sons - of whom Wycherley must be accounted one on the strength of Lady Flippant and other characters in the low plot. It is, however, difficult to define precisely the satiric effect of Lady Flippant's portrait. At times her undoubted vitality and her amusing conversation are diverting enough; at other times the comedy seems to disappear and the unhealthiness of her character becomes apparent. Perhaps it would be truest to say that the laughter she provokes is uneasy laughter. Certainly one can state that with her (and also with Gripe) Wycherley made his earliest venture into a realm of mordant satire that he was to explore further in the later plays. Thus in terms of single characters, Lady Flippant herself appears again, more polished but no less lethal, as Lady Fidget in The Country Wife. Act II, scene ii, begins the high plot. Scholars have been largely apathetic towards the Christina-Valentine story. Mostly they ignore its presence, thereby implying agreement with Dobrée that "Its introduction is unconvincing, its figures shadowy". 40 This criticism is not entirely fair. Indeed, Wycherley displays his calibre as a dramatist as much in the scenes of the high plot as anywhere else in the play. The success of these scenes lies not only in the handling of the plot, or the use of prose, or a familiar background, but also in the way Wycherley allows a delicate humour to play about the idealism of romantic love. This has the effect of humanizing the extravagant world of Christina and Valentine without destroying it. For example, where Etherege in Love in a Tub gives Aurelia a maid who is as soulful as her mistress and can match her couplet for couplet, Wycherley equips Christina with a pert girl called Isabel whose practicality comically modifies her lady's idealism. It is, we notice, into her mouth that Christina's extreme resolutions are put when Christina asks her what the people of the town are saying about her: 40

Bonamy Dobrée, Restoration Comedy, p. 83.

LOVE IN A WOOD:

THE FIRST STEP

41

Isabel: They say then, since Mr. Valentine's flying into France, you are grown mad, have put your self into Mourning, live in a dark room, where you'l see no body, nor take any rest day or night, but rave and talk to your self perpetually. Christina: Now what else? Isabel: But the surest sign of your madness is, they say, because you are desperately resolv'd (in case my Lord Clerimont should dye of his wounds) to Transport you self and Fortune into France, to Mr. Valentine, a man that has not a groat to return you in Exchange. Christina: All this hitherto, is true; now to the rest. Isabel: Indeed Madam, I have no more to tell you, I was sorry, I'm sure, to hear so much of any Lady of mine. Thus is the romantic idealism of the mistress qualified by the realistic disapproval of the maid. Closely following upon this exchange the peace of Christina's sanctuary is destroyed by the breezy intrusion of Lady Flippant and Lydia. It is difficult to imagine two characters more antithetical than Lady Flippant and Christina, and their confrontation helps, by comparison, to illuminate their respective roles. Lydia, of course, is seeking refuge from the pursuing Ranger, but Christina refuses to impersonate her as she requests because she has resolved "to see the face of no man". However, her cloistral sentiment comes to nothing because all in a moment Ranger enters, Lydia rather unkindly presents her with a fait accompli by disappearing behind the door and she is left facing a man. To cap it all, she is horrified and bewildered to find herself an object of the affections of an importunate rake and, as an ironic consequence, unwittingly made to upset the lady she was meant to protect. Thus is heroic love delightfully sucked into the comic vortex. The comedy of the scene is crystallized in an incident that should be one of the highlights of the play. This is the entrance of Lady Flippant and her opening words, "Hail, Faithful Shepherdess". Norman Holland in a pretentious analysis of the play brings some heavy critical artillery to bear on this piece of light comedy:

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LO VE IN A WOOD: THE FIRST STEP

Christina (her name is, of course, significant) represents a very specific ideal, one that transcends the conflict between appearance and nature ... Lady Flippant's epithet for her, "faithful Shepherdess", and her maid's accusations of "madness" give her an air of pastoral unreality. But her serious attempt to keep herself above the comical cross-currents of society fails when Lydia and Lady Flippant burst in on her from a real park (not a pastoral one). She herself is forced, finally, to go out into the darkness to bring about the final enlightenment.41 N o t only does this piece of criticism misinterpret the ethos of the scene, it also shows a strange inability to imagine how the incident might have appeared on the stage. First of all, there is no doubt that the words are completely ludicrous in Lady Flippant's mouth. This comic contrast between speaker and words spoken is exactly paralleled in The Way of the World where Lady Wishfort talks of feeding "harmless Sheep by Groves and Purling Streams" (V,iv). This leads to the second point which is that the words, as spoken, constitute a parody of the pastoral platonics that were popularized by D'Urfé's Astrée (1607-1627), became a vogue in the court of Charles I's queen and had a revival during the Restoration. 4 2 Thirdly, there is light satire directed at Christina herself because she is a part of the same tradition. Finally, there is comic irony in the words because they foreshadow Christina's future problems when her faithfulness is called in question. As for imagining how the incident might have appeared on stage, one visualizes Pepys's " m e r r y j a d e " , 4 3 Mary Knepp, sweeping in from a proscenium door, taking up some heroic pose and booming her "Hail" through several vocal registers. It is worth emphasizing once again that although Christina's world is subjected to a strong breath of humour in this scene, it is by no means laughed out of court. On the contrary, the comic airing 41

Holland, First Modern Comedies, 42. Even more ingenious is the way that Rose A. Zimbardo works out her thesis that "Love in a Wood is a pastoral romance" ( fVycherley's Drama, p. 33). 42 Lynch, Social Mode, 43-45; 107-136. No doubt a satirical allusion was also intended to Fletcher's The Faithful Shepherdess which was performed several times by the King's Company and also once by aristocratic young ladies at St. James's. See The London Stage, pp. 66, 147, 157, 169. 43 Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. cit., January 24th, 1667.

LOVE IN A WOOD: THE FIRST STEP

43

helps to turn Christina into a more believable figure and as a result the audience is prepared to accord her more sympathy than her sisters, Aurelia, Graciana, or Althea. That Wycherley was able to maintain this balance between the comic and the ideal is the measure of his achievement in this and the subsequent scenes of the high plot. The scene has one minor flaw. After her brilliant entrance, Lady Flippant has two further speeches and then (from the moment that Ranger is announced) she ceases to perform any function whatsoever. That a woman so verbose and vivacious should remain silently in the background while matters of love are being discussed in the foreground is psychologically unreal and dramatically weak. Perhaps one is meant to assume that when Lydia conceals herself at one of the proscenium doors Lady Flippant goes with her and exits completely and then returns when Lydia resumes the stage though there is no stage direction or verbal indication to suggest this. Whatever the explanation, what is clear is that Wycherley was attempting a delicate comic effect in the wooing of Christina by Ranger and an intrusion by Lady Flippant with her loud cynicisms might have made the humour of the situation too broad. In other words, the scene moves into a different comic key and, as so often happens in Love in a Wood, a formerly important character becomes redundant.

4 Love in a Wood is an interesting play both because it is so clearly a play of its time and because it is a record of Wycherley's earliest promise as a playwright. 1 have suggested that when Wycherley wrote it he hoped to ensure its success by appealing to as broad a range of tastes as possible. If this is correct, then Love in a Wood with its Spanish plot, its Jonsonian humours, its romantic lovers and its exchanges of wit is a microcosm of the fashions in comedy in the early years of the Restoration. But what makes it particularly a play of 1671 rather than of 1661 or 1681 is the quality of its wit comedy. Before 1670 the art of defining character by means of the calibre of the wit was in its infancy. By 1675, however, the Truewit,

44

LOVE IN A WOOD: THE FIRST STEP

the Witless and the Witwoud, to use Fujimura's classifications,44 had quite clearly emerged as the most distinctive types in Restoration wit comedy. Had Wycherley been a genius he might have anticipated this trend in wit characterization and been the first to crystallize these three classic types in one play. The truth is that in 1670 Wycherley not only lacked experience, but also was moving with rather than ahead of his time. It is mainly for these reasons that his wit characters exhibit the lack of definition of these transition years: Vincent is mainly a Truewit but also a Witless; Dapperwit is mainly a Witwoud but sometimes a Truewit; Ranger starts as a Truewit and ends as a romantic lover. Love in a Wood is also interesting as the forerunner of The Country Wife. Of Wycherley's four comedies, it is these two that resemble each other most closely and it is no exaggeration to claim that much of the success of the latter is the result of experience gained from the former. In both plays a number of love chases are followed through concurrently; in both the action moves swiftly through the streets, lodgings, parks and squares of London; each play presents a grouping of three wits, awkwardly in the earlier play, firmly in the later; where Love in a Wood presents Lady Flippant, hypocritical and unchased, The Country Wife shows her more delicately libidinous sister, Lady Fidget. Wycherley also has a predilection for certain types of scene. Peculiarly his own are those scenes set in some public place in London in which the successive entries, exits and re-entries of the principals are set against the background of the commerce and recreation of the busy world. Act II, scene i, and much of Act V of Love in a Wood present this comedy of life in little, as does the longest scene of The Country Wife, Act III, scene ii, set in the New Exchange (cf. also Act III of The Plain-Dealer in Westminster Hall). In the earlier play the scenes are realistic and lively enough, but the various comings and goings are disjointed like an inexpertly told joke. The New Exchange scene has rhythm in its movement, works up to a climax and is superlative comedy. It would take too long to list all the motifs that are common to 44

Fujimura, Restoration Comedy, 3-38.

LOVE IN A WOOD: THE FIRST STEP

45

both plays, that are, indeed, common to all comedy. However, one device should be mentioned for which Wycherley is justly famous and which he first tried out in Love in a Wood. This is what might be called the epic double entendre in which some key word is repeated so insistently that it becomes invested with an extra-literal significance. In Act III, scene ii, Dapperwit tries to persuade Lucy to remain his whore: Dapperwit: Can you have the heart to say, you will ... never more pass away an Afternoon with me again, in the Green Garret? in - do not forget the Green Garret. Lucy: I wish I had never seen the Green Garret; Demm the Green Garret. Dapperwit: Demm the Green Garret, you are strangely alter'd. Lucy: 'Tis you are alter'd. Dapperwit: You have refus'd Colby's Mulberry Garden, and the Frenchhouses, for the Green Garret; and a little something in the Green Garret, pleas'd you more than the best Treat the other places cou'd yield; and can you of a sudden quit the Green Garret? Wycherley perfected the device in The Country Wife with "china". Perhaps the most important conclusion to be drawn from this analysis of Love in a Wood is that Wycherley was no carefree dilettante throwing off effortless dramatic squibs, the traditional pose of the gentleman writer, but, rather, a serious playwright who was thoroughly conversant with the conventions, theories and fashions that prevailed in the theatre of his day. With the benefit of hindsight it is possible to say that Wycherley made an error of judgement when he decided to write a mixed play containing so many actions and so many characters. What is impressive is the way he set about wrestling with the problems that this enormous variety set him and the degree to which he succeeded in solving them. But the final proof of his seriousness as a dramatist may well be that he followed Love in a Wood with The Gentleman DancingMaster. Although his first play was acclaimed by the fashionable world, Wycherley himself must have realized that it was not a satisfactory comedy. One can perceive where and how he struggled

46

LOVE IN A WOOD: THE FIRST STEP

to fit its parts together (which in itself argues that he was trying to write a unified play) and presumably he knew that he had failed in this undertaking. He probably also realized that his major error lay in his choice of such diverse materials and that he would, therefore, be well advised to make the design of his next comedy more elementary. This, however, is moving into the realm of conjecture; and yet whatever the truth of the matter there is no doubt that The Gentleman Dancing-Master is as spare and simple as Love in a Wood is varied and complex.

II

THE GENTLEMAN DANCING-MASTER:1 A NEW DIRECTION

1

The most striking differences between Wycherley's first two plays are structural. Where Love in a Wood moves on three more or less distinct levels, The Gentleman Dancing-Master moves on one. In Love in a Wood there are five or six intrigues; in The Gentleman Dancing-Master there is one plot (the capture and taming of Gerrard by Hippolita in the face of a father, an aunt and a prospective husband), and three other 'conflicts' (the subjugation of M. de Paris by the two prostitutes, Flirt and Flounce; the cultural warfare between M. de Paris and Don Diego; and the clash of wills between Don Diego and Mrs. Caution). In Love in a Wood there are twenty-one scenes which are acted out in some ten different settings; in The Gentleman Dancing-Master there are six scenes and two settings (Act I, scene ii, is in the French House; the rest of the comedy takes place in Don Diego's house). In the first play there are eleven major characters, in the second play only five. 1 A performance of The Gentleman Dancing-Master is recorded for Tuesday, 6th February, 1672, at the newly built Dorset Garden Theatre. This may have been one of the dates of its first run. See The London Stage. John Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, p. 32, says: "The third new Play Acted there [the Dorset Garden theatre] was the Gentleman Dancing-Master, Wrote by Mr. Witcherly, it lasted but 6 Days, being like't but indifferently, it was laid by to make Room for other new ones." Editions in 1693 and 1702 suggest that there may have been revivals in these years. The play has been rather better received in the present century with performances at the Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich, 1924; the Regent Theatre, London, 1925; the Festival Theatre, Cambridge, c. 1930; and the Vanbrugh Theatre, London, 1960.

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I have suggested that this movement in the direction of simplicity, and the consequent improvement in dramatic unity and coherence that The Gentleman Dancing-Master undoubtedly exhibits in comparison with Love in a Wood was a conscious undertaking on Wycherley's part; that, in other words, Wycherley realized that his first play was too crowded with characters and incidents, was too formless, and that he therefore set out to correct this in his second play. The implication here is that Wycherley was a dramatist of some awareness who was highly serious about improving his art. On the other hand it is possible to argue that The Gentleman Dancing-Master is no more than a farcical squib, and that its simplicity is due to the poverty of its conception and the vacancy of its purpose. This would presumably be the position of those critics who find the play a "very poor piece".2 These two attitudes, stated in less extreme terms, are not, in fact, exclusive of each other; both need to be explored more fully. In this case, it is best to start with contemporary theatrical history which will give a possible insight into the sort of play Wycherley felt he was writing, and the comedie effect he was trying to produce. Wycherley's first play was produced by the King's Company at the Theatre Royal in Bridges Street. Towards the end of 1671 and at the beginning of 1672 two events occurred that had an adverse effect on this troupe's ability to compete successfully with its rivals, the Duke's Company. In November 1671, the Duke's Company opened their new theatre at Dorset Garden, "the most magnificent public theatre ever constructed in England before 1671".3 On January 25th, 1672, the Theatre Royal was devastated by a fire that "burned down half the building and all the stock of scenery and costumes". 4 A month later the King's Company managed to limp into production again at the Duke's Company's old playhouse at Lincoln's Inn Fields. There seems to be general agreement about how these incidents affected Wycherley, whose second play was, at the time, ready for 2 3 4

D. R. M. Wilkinson, The Comedy of Habit, p. 66. Leslie Hotson, The Commonwealth and Restoration Stage, p. 233. Hotson, Commonwealth, 253.

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production. As Summers has it, "The Theatre Royal, Bridges Street, having been burned down in January, 1672, and Killigrew's company being hardly housed at Lincoln's Inn Fields, Wycherley was forced to carry his second comedy The Gentleman DancingMaster to Dorset Garden." 5 He elaborates on this elsewhere: "It was not to be expected that in such difficult circumstances they could undertake a new production, they must depend on their stock fare for at least several months to come, and so Wycherley, seeing at best a very distant prospect of The Gentleman Dancing-Master being given by this company, handed over his script to Dorset Garden." 6 This linking of these two events, the fire and the production of The Gentleman Dancing-M aster at the Dorset Garden theatre, seems to me to be quite suspect. Having lost its entire wardrobe and stock of sets, the King's Company would surely have been particularly interested in plays that would be easy to mount and inexpensive to produce: if they had some extra allure for the theatre-going public so much the better. In the circumstances it is hard to think of a play better suited to Killigrew's needs than The Gentleman Dancing-Master. Not only would it have meant the première of a comedy by an already successful gentleman writer but, equally important, it would have cost little to stage - the cast was a small one, and the overheads for the contemporary costumes and the two commonplace settings would have been negligible. One can only conclude that the King's Company would have been delighted to stage The Gentleman Dancing-Master, and that Wycherley forsook them for Dorset Garden not because of the fire, but in spite of it. 5

Montague Summers, The Playhouse of Pepys, p. 314. Wycherley, Works, Vol. I, p. 39. See also Willard Connely, Brawny Wycherley pp. 86-87; and P. F. Vernon, William Wycherley, p. 9. In his introduction to The Gentleman Dancing-Master in the Mermaid edition of Wycherley's plays, W. C. Ward suggests that the play was probably first performed by the Duke's Company at their old playhouse at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1671. He bases this theory on the rather vague, opening lines of the Prologue: 6

Our Author 0ike us) finding 'twould scarce do, At t'other end o'th' Town, is come to you; And since 'tis his last Tryal, has that Wit To throw himself on a substantial Pit.

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A NEW DIRECTION

I would suggest that a major reason for this abandonment was the presence in the Duke's Company of James Nokes, the most famous low comedian of the day. Although The Gentleman Dancing-Master is the only one of Wycherley's four plays for which there is no cast list in the early editions, it is universally agreed that James Nokes created the part of M. de Paris, and Edward Angel, Don Diego. The passage in Act III where M. de Paris calls Nokes and Angel English fools obviously becomes more humorous if one imagines Nokes being called a fool by M. de Paris played by Nokes, or Nokes saying that Nokes is a better fool than Angel. More simply conclusive, however, is Nokes's status in the Duke's Company; as their leading exponent of broad comedy, he would undoubtedly have created the major comic role in the play. Nokes was famous for many parts ranging from Sir Martin Mar-all to the Nurse in Otway's Caius Marius. But it is interesting for the present study to notice that in 1671 he was particularly celebrated for his impersonation of the French fop. Downes's description of the performances given at Dover to celebrate the arrival of the Duchess of Orleans is well known: The French Court wearing then Excessive short Lac'd Coats; some Scarlet, some Blew, with Broad wast Belts; Mr. Nokes having at that time one shorter than the French Fashion, to Act Sir Arthur Addle in; the Duke of Monmouth gave Mr. Nokes his Sword and Belt from his Side, and Buckled it on himself, on purpose to Ape the French: that Mr. Nokes lookt more like a Drest up Ape, than a Sir Arthur: Which upon his first Entrance on the Stage, put the King and Court to an Excessive Laughter: at which the French look'd very Shaggrin, to see themselves Ap'd by such a Buffoon as Sir Arthur.7 Such stories as this about Nokes, plus frequent references to him in the Prologues and Epilogues of the day, and Colley Cibber's warm appreciation of his art as a farceur in his Apology, have led one stage historian to state that, "There was no actor whom the City so rejoiced in as Nokes; there was none whom the Court more delight-

7

Downes,

Roscius Anglicanus,

29.

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A NEW DIRECTION

51

8

ed to honour", and a modern critic to conclude that, "The most accomplished clown of all, perhaps the greatest in the century ... was James Nokes, who began his career early in the period as a partner and foil to Angel." 9 There are, then, sufficient grounds for conjecturing that Wycherley in fact offered The Gentleman Dancing-Master to the Dorset Garden theatre because it contained major parts remarkably suited to the talents of the leading comedy team of the time. It is even possible that Wycherley tailored his play for these two comedians, or even wrote it for them. If the record is accurate, he would not have been the first or the last playwright to do so. 10 This, too, would account for the size of M. de Paris's role; it is over thirty speeches longer than Hippolita's part which is the next biggest in the play. 11 Quite clearly it is the 'star' role in The Gentleman Dancing-Master. If Wycherley wrote his second play with Nokes and Angel in mind, or gave it to the Dorset Garden theatre because they were members of the Duke's Company, then this implies an interesting declaration of intent as regards the type of play Wycherley wrote. But even if the circumstantial evidence presented to support this view that the two farceurs influenced the history of The Gentleman Dancing-Master is not accepted as convincing, enough critics have referred to the play as farce to warrant a discussion of this genre in terms of Restoration attitudes, modern attitudes and, most important of all, what appears to have been Wycherley's attitude in relation to his own play.

8

Dr. Doran, Annals of the English Stage, Vol. I, p. 77. Leo Hughes, A Century of English Farce, p. 157. 10 Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, 38, says that Dryden adapted the part of Sir Martin Mar-all "purposely for the mouth of Mr. Nokes". Thomas Betterton in The History of the English Stage (1741), p. 32, states, "Mr. Dryden wrote Gomez in the Spanish Fryar in Compliment to Mr. Nokes". In his Dedication to Cuckolds-Haven (1685) Tate says his play flopped because, "the principal Part (on which the Diversion depended) was, by Accident, disappointed of Mr. Nokes's Performance, for whom it was design'd, and only proper". 11 Don Diego's part is the same length as Gerrard's. 9

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A NEW DIRECTION

2 With three or four interesting though predictable exceptions,12 the writers and critics of the Restoration considered farce to be the lowest form of dramatic art. Dryden, who claimed that he did not rate comedy very highly anyway, is outspoken in his denunciation of farce in the Preface to An Evening's Love (1671): "That I detest those farces, which are now the most frequent entertainments of the stage, I am sure I have reason on my side." 13 The "reason" to which Dryden ultimately appeals in this Preface, is the reason embodied in the classical rules of drama. From this point of view, farce undoubtedly stands convicted; it does not deal with "natural actions and characters", but in "forced humours, and unnatural events"; it entertains "with what is monstrous and chimerical"; it produces laughter in those who cannot "judge of men and manners"; and it works "on the fancy only". 14 Dryden might also have added that pure farce (as it was practised in his own day) pays no respect to the architectural qualities of the well-wrought play, and that the only unity it cares for is the unity of laughter. Most of Dryden's contemporaries15 would have concurred with his conclusion that farce is a base form of dramatic literature written for the titillation of base palates. If they were also comic dramatists and as honest as Dryden, they would also have admitted that they employed farce in their own plays. And no doubt they would have excused themselves for this lack of consistency by censuring popular taste, just as Dryden did: "I confess I have given too much to the people in it [An Evening's Love], and am ashamed for them as well as for myself, that I have pleased them at so cheap a rate." 16 It is also important to notice that Dryden, ever a true son of 12 Notably Aphra Behn, Ravenscroft and Tate. See Sarup Singh, Theory, 273-279. 13 Dryden, Essays, Vol. I, p. 135. 14 Essays, Vol. I, p. 136. 15 It is worth noticing that defences of farce increase in number towards the end of the century. 18 Dryden, Essays, Vol. I, p. 137.

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Montaigne, does hesitantly suggest, in the midst of his dismissal of farce, that it might have certain merits: Something there may be in the oddness of it, because on the stage it is the common effect of things unexpected to surprise us into delight: and that is to be ascribed to the strange appetite, as I may call it, of the fancy; which, like that of a longing woman, often runs into the most extravagant desires; and is better satisfied sometimes with loam, or with the rinds of trees, than with the wholesome nourishment of life.17 The tone of this passage is obviously sceptical, and it is fascinating to watch the rhetoric of the simile in the second half gradually leading Dryden back to the more traditional attitude of disapproval. Nevertheless, the possible merits of farce that are advanced here are just those that are presented with more whole-hearted approval by Ravenscroft and Aphra Behn later in the century. Only once does Dryden condone farce and then it is for financial rather than aesthetic reasons. In his poem "To Mr. Southern; on his Comedy called, The Wives Excuse" (1692) he says: Some very foolish Influence rules the Pit, Not always kind to Sence, or just to Wit. And whilst it lasts, let Buffonry succeed, To make us laugh; for never was more need. Farce, in it self, is of a nasty scent; But the gain smells not of the Excrement.18 The season of 1691-1692 was a bad one for the United Company. Poor receipts, court cases, and friction between individual members of the troupe, all contributed to a general malaise that would have affected playwrights as much as anyone connected with the theatre. 19 In such circumstances Dryden is prepared to countenance farce. He still denounces the taste of theatre audiences; he still does not believe that farce constitutes dramatic art; but, he seems to say, if buffoonery can make us laugh and swell the takings (and perhaps the former was dependent upon the latter for the dramatist), then it can just be justified.

17 18 19

Essays, Vol. I, p. 136. Dryden, Poems, Vol. II, p. 580. See The London Stage, p. 397.

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There are obvious dangers to attaching too much significance to the epigraph of a piece of literature; however, in the case of The Gentleman Dancing-Master the epigraph, considered in relation to its context, does offer a clue to Wycherley's opinion of farce and his attitude towards his play. Wycherley went for his epigraph to Horace's Satires, I,x: Non satis est risu diducere rictum Auditoris: et est quaedam tamen hie quoque virtus. Horace begins by defending his opinion of the satirist, Lucilius. He says that although Lucilius "rubbed the city down with much salt", 2 0 he did not organize his materials with sufficient care. Horace continues, "Yet, while granting this virtue [the harsh satire], I would not also allow him every other; for on those terms I should also have to admire the mimes of Laberius as pretty poems." (Here the Loeb edition has the following footnote: "Mimes were dramatic scenes from low life, largely farcical and grotesque in character.") Then comes the quotation Wycherley used for The Gentleman Dancing-Master: "Hence it is not enough to make your hearer grin with laughter - though even in that there is some merit." 2 1 Wycherley's epigraph, then, is taken from a passage in which Horace is arguing that it is possible to praise the effectiveness of a piece of literature even while criticizing its form or its style. As an illustration of this principle he points out that farce does not have much literary worth even though it makes people laugh - yet even in that there is some merit. If one takes all this into consideration and places beside it the fact that the considerable amount of clowning in The Gentleman Dancing-Master was interpreted by the two leading farceurs of the day, then I think that the epigraph can 20 The translation of the tenth satire is taken from the Loeb Classical Library edition of Horace, Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica (trans, by H. R. Fairclough), pp. 112-123. 21 Interestingly enough it is this satire that is the model for Rochester's "An Allusion to Horace". His Lucilius is, of course, Dryden. His version of Wycherley's epigraph runs: Though ev'n that Talent, merits in some sort, That can divert the Rabble, and the Court.

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be seen as a sort of indirect apology on Wycherley's part for the lowness of much of his comedy, an admission, perhaps, that there is too great an appeal to the fancy and not enough to the judgement. 2 2 There is a danger, of course, of trying to make too much out of such slender evidence, but one can say that Wycherley's overall attitude towards farce seems to have been much the same as Dryden's; indeed, it would be surprising if he had NOT shared the opinions of his fellow dramatist and admiring friend about the merits, demerits and unfortunate popularity of farce. All that one misses in the epigraph is Dryden's perennial indictment of the taste of theatre audiences, but Wycherley supplies this deficiency in the Prologue: For you to senseless Plays have still been kind, Nay, where no sense was, you a Jest wou'd find.

Up to this point it has been presupposed that The Gentleman Dancing-Master is, as most critics assume, best described as being largely a farce. In fact Wycherley might have preferred to give his play the minimally more respectable title of "low comedy". Thus Langbaine says of Crowne's The Country Wit (1675), "This Comedy is of that Kind which the French call Basse Comedie, or Low Comedy, one degree remov'd from Farce", 2 3 while Crowne himself says of his play, "Those who do not like low Comedy, will not be pleased with this, because a great part of it consists of Comedy, almost sunk into Farce." 2 4 According to Dennis's critical criteria, the essential difference between farce and low comedy is a structural one. In his Advertisement to the Reader for A Plot And No Plot (1697) he says: The following Play was at first design'd a Farce: But when I consider'd that the design of it, was both just and important, as well as it is entirely new, I alter'd my intention, and resolv'd to make it a low Comedy, which 22

Wycherley makes similar points more aggressively in the Prologue and the Epilogue where he seems to be blaming the tastelessness of the cits for 'senseless Plays'. This is special pleading, however, because he presumably did not know, when he wrote the play, that the 'Houzaas' would be away at sea. 23 Langbaine, An Account of the English Dramatick Poets (1691), p. 94. 24 Dedication to The Countrey Wit, 2nd ed. (1693).

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it now is, and perhaps the most regular of all our Low Comedies. The Action is one and intire, the incidents parts of that Action, and naturally or probably produce one another; and the very last is the genuine result of the first." Nahum Tate says much the same thing in his Dedication to Cuckolds-Haven (1685) when he wonders whether "the Plot be not too regular for Farce". The theory that is being put forward by these writers is that farce is a dramatic entertainment in which humorous incidents are strung together with little regard for a plot nexus. In practice, however, almost every farce has some form of story line, and because even the best constructed play can employ "forced humours and unnatural events" (She Stoops to Conquer, for instance) the dividing line between farce and low comedy must remain hazy. Today, 'burlesque' might be a more precise term for those parts of The Gentleman Dancing-Master that are generally called farce. 26 In his excellent study of farce during the Restoration and the eighteenth century, Leo Hughes points out that although farce and burlesque have much in common, they also have essential differences: Both genres make use of the extravagant, the exaggerated, even the grotesque. Like farce, burlesque is fond of exploiting the physical; like farce it employs some of the same devices: disguise, repetition, noisy horseplay. Yet if we consider the burlesque writer's intent we see how far apart the two forms are ... The first essential of burlesque is imitation·, the second is ridicule. That is, the burlesque writer is aiming at something he dislikes. By comparing that something with something else ... which is grotesquely ridiculous he hopes to condemn it, even to annihilate it.27 The accuracy of these observations and their applicability to the absurd Franco/Hispanophilia that constitutes the broadest comedy in The Gentleman Dancing-Master is clear. Unfortunately for the 25

Dennis, Critical Works, Vol. I, p. 145. Even as late as the middle of the eighteenth century, 'burlesque' was a term applied primarily to non-dramatic rather than dramatic literature. See Leo Hughes, Century, 11-12. But Sparkish in Act III, scene ii, of The Country Wife complains about burlesque on the stage. 27 Hughes, Century, 119. 26

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student who is hoping for an ironclad definition of the play, Hughes adds a rider that equally demands assent: Burlesque does in some stages approach much nearer farce, particularly when the point of critical comparison has been worn out or lost. That is, when an audience is no longer concerned over the issues raised or no longer able to recognize what the issues are, the two forms may in practice coalesce.28 It is a moot point whether, especially today, the grotesquerie of M. de Paris's antics would not neutralize the satirical purpose of the portrait, which in turn means that 'farce' or 'burlesque' remain adequate terms to describe the sartorial comedy of The Gentleman Dancing-Master, but that the play as a whole would probably have been termed a low comedy - and there are also grounds for suggesting that the play has a sufficiently serious purpose to lift it out of this category as well. But, before turning to an analysis of the text of the play, something must be said about the problem of assessing the merits of farce. Modern studies of farce, mime and the commedia dell'arte, and serious analyses in intelligent film journals, and elsewhere, of the art of such clowns as Chaplin and the Marx Brothers, are clear indications that the broader forms of comedy enjoy a more respectable status in the twentieth century than they did in the seventeenth. There is, however, still a danger that the farcical elements in a play such as The Gentleman Dancing-Master will be judged by the wrong standards. It is for this reason that certain criticisms of Wycherley's play (that, for instance, it is crude, flimsy, uninventive, repetitious and generally, according to Dobrée, lacking in literary merit) 29 must be questioned if they are occasioned primarily by the play's farce. Repetition, for instance, far from being a fault, is one of the staple motifs of farce: At its most elementary level and under conditions where at least some improvisation is possible the device consists of the mere repetition of a gesture, a movement, an episode which has earned a laugh. By some 28 29

Hughes, Century, 120. Dobrée, Restoration Comedy, 83.

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principle which may roughly approximate a law of human reaction the response grows in intensity with each successive repetition.30 One can apply all this to the slow sartorial domination of M. de Paris by Don Diego which continues through two or three acts and which, when read, appears drawn out and dull. This leads to the more important point that farce is not a literary art at all, but a visual one; its best effects are produced by facial contortions, physical posturing, ludicrous costumes and the like, none of which are really evident in the bare text. And because "the theatre of farce is the theatre of the human body", 3 1 it becomes vitally important to try to visualize how the action might appear on stage, or, in the case of The Gentleman Dancing-Master, to carry Colley Cibber's description of Nokes into a reading of the play: He scarcely ever made his first entrance in a play, but he was received with an involuntary applause, not of hands only ... but by a general laughter, which the very sight of him provoked, and nature could not resist; yet the louder the laugh, the graver was his look upon it; and, surely, the ridiculous solemnity of his features was enough to have set a whole bench of bishops into a titter ... In the ludicrous distresses, which, by the laws of comedy, folly is often involved in, he sunk into such a mixture of piteous pusillanimity, and a consternation so ruefully ridiculous and inconsolable, that when he had shaken you to a fatigue of laughter, it became a moot point whether you ought not to have pitied him.32 Thus M. de Paris as he is gradually forced to relinquish his French graces, clothes and oaths. The point has been emphasized because the accented dialogue and the interminable jarnis and votos are rather tiresome in the reading, and this may have a harmful effect when it comes to judging the play. But there is, anyway, more to The Gentleman Dancing-Master than M. de Paris and his garniture·, and it is to the play as a whole that we must now turn.

30

Hughes, Century, 33. Eric Bentley, The Life of the Drama, p. 252. Colley Cibber, An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber, ed. by E. Bellchambers (1822), p. 148.

31 32

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3 A complete synopsis of Wycherley's second play demonstrates the simplicity of its conception. Within three days Hippolita is to be married oif to M. de Paris, her foolishly Francophile cousin. N o t unnaturally she objects to this match and decides to find a better husband for herself. However, her quest is made difficult by the restrictions imposed on her by her aunt, Mrs. Caution, and her father, Don Diego, a man infected with an excessive admiration for the dress and attitudes of Spain. Hippolita circumvents these obstructions to her freedom by tricking M. de Paris into sending her "the fine Gentleman they talk of so much in T o w n " (J,i). This man is Gerrard. Their first meeting, in Act II, is interrupted by the entrance of Don Diego and Mrs. Caution whose surprise and rage at seeing a young man in the house is considerable. With great presence of mind, Hippolita passes Gerrard off as her dancingmaster, sent to her by M. de Paris in order that she may learn the social graces necessary for married life. This ruse succeeds, not so much because it is ingenious, but because of the friction that exists between Don Diego and Mrs. Caution; their mutual animosity enables Gerrard to sustain the role of dancing-master through the rest of the play. Nevertheless, Gerrard's attempts to elope with Hippolita are constantly thwarted, either by her hesitation or by the inopportune intrusions of her father and aunt. Eventually, after Hippolita has satisfied herself as to Gerrard's good faith, they are married. M. de Paris, who has supported the dancing-master stratagem throughout in the belief that he is fooling his rival as well as his aunt and uncle, finally finds himself involved in a contract to "keep" a prostitute with whom he had stupidly compromised himself in Act I, scene ii. His Gallomania, especially when it comes into conflict with Don Diego's Spanish predilections, is a bonus amusement that runs through the whole play. A s can be seen, the action of The Gentleman Dancing-Master is extremely traditional; it is also so uncomplicated that it will be an easy matter to tease apart its three or four threads, analyse them separately and relate them to each other. The superficial obstacles to a marriage between Hippolita and

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Gerrard are obvious. First of all there is the opposition, standard to so much comedy, of age (Don Diego and Mrs. Caution) to the amorous hopes of youth (Hippolita and Gerrard). Giving substance to this opposition there are also certain sociological barriers to be surmounted, such as the idea of the 'arranged' marriage, and, for the woman, limited opportunities for social intercourse. Hippolita has to overcome all these obstructions to the exercise of her freedom before she can attain her ends, but she also has to contend with more than just external restraints. At its most interesting, The Gentleman Dancing-Master is an analysis of the eternal, though ultimately hopeless, desire to discover firm guarantees of compatibility and permanence in the hazardous institution of marriage. The comprehensiveness, the intensity and, within the bounds of comedy, the seriousness of Hippolita's search for stability in wedlock is the play's main claim to singularity in the canon of Restoration comedy. 33 The opening lines of the play make it clear that Wycherley understood the value of giving relevant data to his audiences vigorously and promptly: Hippolita: To confine a Woman just in her rambling Age! take away her liberty at the very time she shou'd use it! O barbarous Aunt! O unnatural Father; to shut up a poor Girl at fourteen, and hinder her budding; all things are ripen'd by the Sun; to shut up a poor Girl at fourteen! Not only do these lines broadly indicate Hippolita's predicament, they also tell us a great deal about Hippolita herself - her age, for instance, which is, significantly, mentioned twice. There is, of course, humour to be derived from having a mere girl claim the "rambling" privileges of the lady, but it is possible that Wycherley intended a great deal more than this when he decided to make his heroine so youthful. 33 Because this quest is more important to the woman, the more dependent and, therefore, the more insecure member of the marriage partnership, it is not surprising that Hippolita, rather than Gerrard, is the play's protagonist. It is also interesting that the only critic to have emphasized the importance of this aspect of the play is a woman. See Anne Righter, "William Wycherley", in: Restoration Theatre (= Stratford-Upon-Avon Studies, 6), 73-77.

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At fourteen, Hippolita can be said to be 'natural' in the sense that she has not had too much time to absorb certain artificial attitudes that are endemic to her society. It is even tempting to apply to her some such Romantic phrase as 'child of Nature'; after all, in her opening speech she uses a veiled simile in which she likens herself to things that are ripened by the sun. Equally relevant in this context is her name with its reference to the mythological Queen of the Amazons. For these reasons it is possible to see Hippolita as an archetype of the eternal Female whose drive to manipulate and dominate others in order to achieve the security she desires is common to her sex. To put it another way, she is a typical Shavian heroine. Wycherley does not have a Preface to expound the arcanum of the Life Force, but for all that, Hippolita and Anne Whitefield are sisters under the skin. 1 do not, however, wish to press these speculations if for no other reason than that comedy seems unhappy in the rarefied atmosphere of higher criticism, where ingenuity often obscures good judgement. There is, too, more to be said about Hippolita's age as it bears on a practical understanding of the play. Any performance of The Gentleman Dancing-Master, whether actual or imagined, that represents Hippolita as another Harriet or Gatty, does less than justice to Wycherley's intentions. Fourteen, as the psychologists would say, is an interesting age. At fourteen a girl can not only possess the maturity of a woman, she will also retain certain of the attitudes and mannerisms of girlhood and display, as well, an entirely natural inclination to imitate the modes of fashionable society. In Hippolita's case it is her maturity that is most obvious, but this should not conceal those other facets of her character that turn her into more than the conventional Restoration miss. In her opening speech, for instance, her desire to "ramble" indicates that she has already acquired, presumably at her Hackney school, the terminology and predilections of a fashionable lady. At the same time, the hyperbole she uses to express herself is the hyperbole of the young. A little later she makes it equally clear that although she is prepared to don the mask of modish cynicism, she is not prepared to

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take the game seriously. Prue, her maid, is urging her to marry M. de Paris in fashionably unidealistic terms: Prue: ... Methinks he's a pretty apish kind of Gentleman, like other Gentlemen, and handsom enough to lye with in the dark, when Husbands take their priviledges, and for the day-times you may take the priviledge of a Wife. Hippolita: Excellent Governess, you do understand the World, I see. Prue: Then you shou'd be guided by me. Hippolita: Art thou in earnest then, damn'd Jade? The sudden volte-face serves notice early that Hippolita, despite her youth, can distinguish between artifice and truth. I have dwelt on Hippolita at some length at the outset because it is important to understand her complexity before seeing her involved in the conflicts of the play. As elemental woman she drives towards future marital security; as a lady she banters in terms suitable to the contemporary mode; and as a girl she exhibits a simplicity and bluntness that somehow add to her vulnerability. Above all, she is a human being who possesses an abundance of native wit and judgement. It is an interesting portrait. 3 4 The play's opening conversation is between Hippolita and Prue, "a plump and pleasing person" whose past experience in sexual matters gives comic point to her soulful complaint about her present enforced idleness. Where Hippolita is dissatisfied with her lack of autonomy and vows to resist social and family pressures, Prue counsels her to make a pleasure of necessity. In the process she gives the audience more information about Hippolita's predicament. Prue: Does not your Father come on purpose out of Spain to marry you to him [M. de Paris]? Can you release your self from your Aunt or Father any other way? Have you a mind to be shut up as long as you live? 34

The enormous variety of conclusions to which different critics can come is always interesting. C. Perromat ( Wycherley, 179) calls Hippolita "un peu pâle"; even more curious is Bonamy Dobrée's assertion (Restoration Comedy, 85) that Wycherley had an underlying hatred for Hippolita.

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A few speeches later she employs another series of questions to indicate in more detail the formidable barriers that prevent Hippolita from finding an alternative husband: Prue: What if you did know any man, if you had an opportunity; cou'd you have confidence to speak to a man first? But if you cou'd, how cou'd you come to him, or he to you? nay, how cou'd you send to him? for though you cou'd write, which your Father in his Spanish prudence wou'd never permit you to learn, who shou'd carry the Letter? but we need not be concern'd for that, since we know not to whom to send it. It is good dramaturgy to present the comic hero with immense problems (as these certainly are) and then to show his ingenuity in overcoming them. In this case, Prue's speech signals the entrance of M. de Paris, and Hippolita puts her first stratagem into operation. It is, of course, a standard comic ploy to have the fool help his rival to his mistress. In this instance, Wycherley goes a step further, for the mistress must first of all get the fool to create a rival for himself before leading him to her. M. de Paris is such an egregious idiot that there is never any question but that Hippolita's ruse will succeed. Nor does the enormous disparity of intelligence between these two characters necessarily destroy the comic tension; it is an odd fact of theatre psychology that when an audience is watching a play it anaesthetizes its powers of anticipation, suspends its ability to foresee, and happily reduces what should be certainties to mere possibilities. In such circumstances, the more outrageous the stratagem the better: Hippolita: But don't you know the brave Gentleman they talk of so much in Town? M. de Paris: Who? Monsieur Gerrard? Hippolita: What kind of man is that Mr. Gerrard? and then I'le tell you. It is all very obvious, but no less amusing for that. Just before M. de Paris departs to work his own destruction, Mrs. Caution enters on a line that is beautifully characteristic: "What's all this gigling here?" With just such a remark has humourless authority ever attempted to wither conspiratorial children into silence. Hippolita, however, is only partly a child and,

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far from being cowed, she faces her aunt sometimes with outspoken rudeness, as in the following exchange: Mrs. Caution: I wish the French Levity of this Young man may agree with your Father's Spanish Gravity. Hippolita: Just as your crabbed old age and my youth agree. and sometimes with malicious cunning, as when she trails a red herring of erotic thoughts and dreams before her, and thereby tricks her into revealing the hypocrisy of her moral vigilance: Hippolita: No, I have done no ill, but I have paid it with thinking. Mrs. Caution: O that's no hurt; to think is no hurt; the ancient, grave, and godly cannot help thoughts. But although Mrs. Caution is a bloodhound of sex, sniffing out intrigue and innuendo with a devotion that inevitably reflects back on herself, she is not dull. Her suspicious nature and her understanding of the motivations of youth make her a formidable opponent; indeed, it is only the blindness of those about her that prevents her from thwarting Hippolita's intrigue. In the circumstances, her comparison of herself to Cassandra is valid even though it is, typically, couched in terms that are pompous and sexually suggestive: "Well go to, the Troth-telling Trojan Gentlewoman of old was ne'er believ'd till the Town was taken, rumag'd, and ransak'd" (IV,i). It is worth noticing that the first scene of The Gentleman DancingMaster is structurally similar to the first scene of Love in a Wood in that both are basically composed of three movements. In Love in a Wood, Mrs. Joyner converses first of all with Lady Flippant then, when she leaves, with Gripe and, when he leaves, with Addleplot. In The Gentleman Dancing-Master, Hippolita converses first with Prue, then with M. de Paris and finally, when he leaves, with Mrs. Caution. Within this framework, however, the second play shows a marked improvement in two important respects. Mrs. Joyner, the controlling figure in the first scene of Love in a Wood, subsequently turns out to be a peripheral character; Hippolita, on the other hand, remains the focus of interest throughout

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The Gentleman Dancing-Master, so that her centrality in the first scene is dramatically sound. Secondly, where the rhythm of the first scene of Love in a Wood is flat, there is some increase in dramatic tension through the three parts of the first scene of the later play. To begin with Hippolita merely has to refute the opinions of her maid; with M. de Paris, admittedly an inferior opponent, she begins to put her risky plan into action; but when she comes into conflict with her aunt, it is clear that she is up against a person whose scepticism makes her a dangerous adversary. These advances in dramatic technique are small but significant. Gerrard and Hippolita first meet in Act II. At the outset it is obvious that for Gerrard the affair is no more than an amusing escapade, one, moreover, that will make demands on his audacity and wit, and, if he is fortunate, conclude in a sexual conquest suitable for tavern gossip. The prospect is one that no healthy, young gallant could resist. His first impression of Hippolita raises his hopes considerably; not only is she handsome (as he mentions five times), she also appears to be innocent (as he mentions another five times). There could not be a more perfect combination for the consummation devoutly to be wished: Gerrard: O dear Miss, if I am like your Shock-dog, let it be in his Priviledges. Hippolita: Why, I'd have you know he does not lye with me. Gerrard: 'Twas well guess'd, Miss, for one so innocent. When she introduces the information that she is an heiress worth twelve hundred pounds a year, the intrigue takes on a new dimension for Gerrard. Beauty alone is one thing, but beauty allied to money allows him to contemplate a more permanent arrangement (although not necessarily one that is more emotionally serious), and so he agrees to abduct her - at which point her aunt and father enter. The essential frivolity of Gerrard's attitude presents Hippolita with a problem beside which the obstructions of parent and guardian are trivial. However, it becomes apparent in their first interview that she is perfectly capable of taming the wildest rake. She begins by treating him with hauteur, but soon switches to the

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defencelessness of "a home-bred-simple Girl". Then she becomes reproachful, arch, bashful and disturbingly direct in quick succession. I n an aside she gives the impression that all this is a result of "the mask of simplicity and innocency", but on occasion the purely unaffected seems to peep through. F o r instance, she concludes a speech censuring Gerrard's confidence with the magnificently irrelevant, "But pray who shall pay for the glass you have b r o k e n ? " - a line that would be most effective if spoken with unfeigned concern. Or, a little later, when she raps Gerrard's hint that he would like to emulate her poodle she says: No, I always kick him off from the Bed, and never will let him come near it; for of late indeed (I do not know what's the reason,) I don't much care for my Shock-dog, nor my Babies. The second part of this speech could, it is true, be spoken coquettishly like the first part, but the effect would, surely, be more eloquent if there is a sudden switch to a tone of real wistfulness as though the reason for this recent alteration of interests is not clearly perceived. Hippolita, then, displays a variety which, although not infinite, will suffice for fourteen years old. Significantly, it is her immaturity that initially causes her to succumb to the overall excitement of this first meeting with Gerrard. To propose an immediate elopement and, worse, to disclose that she is an heiress, are obviously tactical errors when it comes to assessing Gerrard's real feelings, and she has to spend the next three acts retrenching her position. Ironically, the intrusion of D o n Diego and Mrs. Caution at this point gives her time for reflection, so that when they are alone together once more at the end of the act, Gerrard discovers that his mistress has become a lot less precipitate: Hippolita: What, then you think I would have gone with you? Gerrard: Yes, and will go with me yet, I hope, courage Miss, we have yet an opportunity, and the Gallery-window is yet open. Hippolita: No, no, if I went, I would go for good and all... besides, now I think on't, you are a Stranger to me. I know not where you live, nor whither you might carry me.

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But although time is short, something may be discovered by means of a series of gradated tests.35 As Gerrard has agreed to demean himself by becoming a dancing-master, he can undergo the further humiliation of learning his part: Hippolita: A Dancing-School, in half an hour, will furnish you with terms of the Art. Besides, Love (as I have heard say) supplies his Scholars with all sorts of capacities they have need of in spight of Nature, but what has Love to do with you?

Thus the act ends for Hippolita on a note of uncertainty, an uncertainty that informs both the Song she calls for: Since we poor slavish Women know Our men we cannot pick and choose, To him we like, why say we no? And both our time and Lover lose.

and her concluding couplet: Though all we gain be but new slavery; We leave our Fathers, and to Husbands fly. In Act III, the lovers are given less opportunity to converse than in Act II. For the most part their discussion is the familiar banter of wooer and wooed, and it is noticeable that while Hippolita continues to affect a maidenly simplicity, Gerrard continues to be fooled into believing her a "pretty innocent". Nor, indeed, does he seem at one point to be far from the mark, for at the end of their conversation her sheer girlish delight once again betrays her into an unwary enthusiasm: 36

Anne Righter recognizes the use of the 'love test' motif in this play and traces its origins back to the mediaeval courts of love. She goes on to say that the love trial is especially noticeable in Restoration comedy because it "is obsessed with the idea that passion is ephemeral, that love cannot last" (Wycherley", 76-77). I would suggest that this obsession is the monopoly of no one age, and, further, that most comedies of the Restoration period accept the premise but do not explore it.

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Hippolita: A Coach and Six, a Coach and Six, do you say? nay then I see you are resolv'd to carry me away; for a Coach and Six, though there were not a man but the Coachman with it, wou'd carry away any young Girl of my Age in England, a Coach and Six. Gerrard: Then you will be sure to be ready to go with me. Hippolita: What young Woman of the Town cou'd ever say no to a Coach and Six, unless it were going into the Country: a Coach and Six, 'tis not in the power of fourteen year olds to resist it. Gerrard: You will be sure to be ready? Hippolita: You are sure 'tis a Coach and Six? Gerrard: I warrant you, Miss. Hippolita: I warrant you then they'll carry us merrily away: a Coach and Six? The elopement is set for between eight and nine o'clock that night, but the intervening hours provide ample time for further, entirely natural indecision. When Gerrard arrives that evening (Act IV), with rooms booked and carriage waiting, he finds that Hippolita has again retreated f r o m her resolution. No doubt he considers her behaviour to be the result of sheer perversity, but it is not that; neither is it primarily a part of the love test. Hippolita is, quite simply, overwhelmed by the seriousness of the step she is contemplating and so once more takes refuge in procrastination. Procrastination, however, by definition wastes time, and time is what she has little of, so that her quandary is made all the more difficult. On this occasion her emotional conflict is revealed in the quality of her dialogue; sometimes she manages a touch of badinage, but more frequently (and it is the only time in the play) her questions and answers are strangely monosyllabic, contradictory and muted: Gerrard: ... come away, my Dearest. Hippolita: Whither?

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Gerrard: Nay sure, we have lost too much time already: Is that a proper Question now? If you wou'd know, come along, for I have all ready. Hippolita: But I am not ready. Gerrard: Truly, Miss, we shall have your father come in upon us, and prevent us agen, as he did in the morning. Hippolita: 'Twas well for me he did; for, on my Conscience if he had not come in, I had gone clear away with you when I was in the humour. Gerrard: Come, Dearest, you wou'd frighten me as if you were not yet in the same humour. Come, come away, the Coach and Six is ready. Hippolita: 'Tis too late to take the Air, and I am not ready. Gerrard: You were ready in the morning. Hippolita: I, so I was. Gerrard: Come, come, Miss, indeed the Jest begins to be none. Hippolita: What, I warrant you think me in Jest then?

Gerrard: For Heaven's sake, Miss, lose no more time thus, your Father will come in upon us, as he did Hippolita: Let him, if he will. Gerrard: He'll hinder our design. Hippolita: No, he will not, for mine is to stay here now. Gerrard: Are you in earnest? Hippolita: You'll find it so. Gerrard: How! why you confess'd but now you wou'd have gone with me in the morning. Hippolita: I was in the humour then.

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Gerrard: And I hope you are in the same still, you cannot change so soon. Hippolita: Why, is it not a whole day ago? Gerrard: What, are you not a day in the same humour? Hippolita: Lord! that you who know the Town (they say) shou'd think any Woman could be a whole day together in an humour, ha, ha, ha. Gerrard: Hey! this begins to be pleasant: What, won't you go with me then after all? Hippolita: No indeed, Sir, I desire to be excus'd. Gerrard: Then you have abus'd me all this while? Hippolita: It may be so. In an attempt to resolve the perplexity evidenced by this dialogue, Hippolita presents Gerrard with a second and more conventional test, couched in terms of heavy irony: Hippolita: ... and that you may not resent it, for once I'le be ingenuous and disabuse you; I am no Heiress, as I told you, to twelve hundred pound a year. I was only a lying Jade then, now will you part with me willingly I doubt not. But Gerrard passes this examination, for he is not willing to part with her; indeed, his exasperation is such that he attempts to abduct her forcibly and is only prevented from doing so by the entrance of D o n Diego and Mrs. Caution. Mortified, furious, and with apparently no prospect now of ever winning his mistress, Gerrard is on the verge of discovering the whole hoax. It is at this point that Hippolita sets in motion the final and most difficult trial of his love. First, in a series of asides, she urges him to continue the masquerade: " F o r this once be more obedient to my desires than your passion." He angrily complies. Then, just before he leaves, she pretends indifference again: " I ' d have you to know for my part, I care not whether you come or no; there are other Dancing-masters to be had, it is my Fathers request to you", and then whispers to him that if he should return the next

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day he is to bring some of his friends disguised as musicians. Gerrard later discloses that he thought she made this request so that she could continue to humiliate him. The nature of this ultimate test thus becomes clear: it is to see whether he will risk almost certain public ridicule (and for the true wit there is n o fate more terrible), on the slim chance that she will yet be kind. By his appearance the next morning (Act V), Gerrard furnishes Hippolita with as much evidence of the sincerity of his feelings as she can possibly expect. As it happens, yet more proof is forthcoming, for not only does she witness Gerrard's jealous rage with M. de Paris whom he believes to be his successful rival, but also M. de Paris himself, imbecilic to the end, unwittingly continues to urge Gerrard's cause: M. de Paris: No, 'tis you have hurt your Master, Cousin, in the very heart Cousin, and therefore he wou'd hurt me; for Love is a disease makes people as malicious as the Plague does. Hippolita can ask no more, and she does not: Hippolita: ... Well, Master, since I find you are quarrelsom and melancholy, and wou'd have taken me away without a Portion, three infallible signs of a true Lover, faith there's my hand now in earnest, to lead me a Dance as long as I live. The respect and even deference with which Gerrard now treats Hippolita is the surest sign of her triumph: Hippolita: Hold, Sir, let us have a good understanding betwixt one another at first, that we may be long Friends; I differ from you in the point, for a Husbands jealousie, which cunning men wou'd pass upon their Wives for a Complement, is the worst can be made 'em, for indeed it is a Complement to their Beauty, but an affront to their Honour. Gerrard: But Madam Hippolita: So that upon the whole matter I conclude, jealousie in a Gallant is humble true Love, and the height of respect, and only an undervaluing of himself to overvalue her; but in a Husband 'tis arrant sawciness, cowardise, and ill breeding, and not to be suffer'd. Gerrard: I stand corrected, gracious Miss.

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A comparison of this passage with a similar one in Act II dramatically illustrates their changed relationship. For the first time he addresses her as " M a d a m " ; and instead of the "sweet Miss" whose seduction was going to be an easy matter, she is now a "gracious Miss" before whom he is ready to stand corrected. But it would be a mistake, I think to see this as a one-sided match. What Hippolita has managed to win through the play is not only Gerrard's love and esteem, but also her rights as an individual. For the rest, to use her own metaphor, it is he who is to lead the dance. In other words, one can perceive that once again Wycherley is proposing a concept of marriage which is based on interdependence and mutual respect. Just as in Love in a Wood, the marriage of the lovers in this play should issue not in double slavery, but in double freedom. To quote the concluding couplet of the first play again, The end of Marriage, now is liberty, And two are bound - to set each other free. By some such paradox have the saner poets ever described the married state: Thus hath she take hir servant and hir lord, Servant in love, and lord in manage. Thanne was he bothe in lordeshipe and servage. Servage? nay, but in lordshipe above, Sith he hath bothe his lady and his love. (The Franklin's Tale, H.792-796) 1 have suggested that the main plot of The Gentleman DancingMaster is a serious attempt, perhaps unique in Restoration comedy, 3 6 to analyse in some depth female motivations and behaviour when faced with the uncertain business of marriage. As such it is most important to notice that Wycherley does not end his play on a note of careless euphoria, but gives Mrs. Caution the last word on the nuptials: Mrs. Caution: Nay, Young-man, you have danc'd a fair Dance for your self, royally, and now you may go jig it together till you are both weary; and though you were so eager to have him, Mrs. Minx, you'll soon have your belly-full of him, let me tell you, Mistress. 36

Cf. J. H. Smith, The Gay Couple in Restoration Comedy, p. 80.

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This speech is more than a reminder that after the romance come the overdrafts and the bawling babies; it is also a sort of witch's warning at the marriage feast, a warning that no matter what precautions are taken and what calculations are made, the unpredictability of human nature can still cause holy wedlock to sink, sadly, into holy deadlock. Wycherley's presentation of the Hippolita-Gerrard plot is thoughtful and, on the whole, successful; it is not, however, without its faults. Its most obvious defect is Hippolita's enormous superiority in her dealings with Gerrard. Not only does she possess clear advantages in the realms of wit and judgement, but at every moment of crisis it is noticeable that it is he who is invariably nonplussed, and she who exhibits the necessary presence of mind: it is she who hastily invents the fiction of the dancing-lessons; it is she who gets her father to leave the room when she discovers that Gerrard cannot dance; and it is she who tells him to break the violin strings so that his inability to play the instrument will not be revealed. The result is that Gerrard is, indeed, often made to look like a "dull, dull, man of the town" rather than the witty, brave, fine gentleman of sense and understanding whom the audience is led to expect from M. de Paris's remarks in Act I, scene i. There is really no solution to this constant 'upstaging' to which Gerrard is subjected and which is, ultimately, essential to the play - although the discrepancy is lessened if due weight is given to Hippolita's youth and the reality of her predicament as outlined in the foregoing analysis. For the rest, the onus is on the actor playing Gerrard to create as attractive a personality as he can, and to make sure that he seizes the few opportunities for forceful action that he is given. It is also evident that certain flaws that were conspicuous in Love in a Wood make their appearance once again in The Gentleman Dancing-Master. These flaws can be generally placed under the headings of prolixity, repetition and the emphasis of the obvious. In fact all three faults are closely connected, one often entailing the other, so that there is no necessity for excessive illustration. An example of Wycherley's repetitious use of a comic motif occurs in Act II when Hippolita tries to get Gerrard to abduct her by pretending to be frightened that he will do so. In Act IV Prue tries

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exactly the same ruse in order to get M. de Paris to pay her a night visit. The ingenious critic might suggest that this is a case of 'significant parallelism', but it is much more likely that Wycherley enjoyed the rather obvious irony of the ploy and so used it twice, forgetting, as a humorist, that a joke is not as good the second time round, and also that it suggests a lack of comic invention. It should, perhaps, be added that the continual interruptions of the sham dancing lessons by Don Diego and Mrs. Caution are also repetitious. In this case, however, the repetition has some validity because as the play progresses each intrusion builds on the one before by increasing the comic tension. But it is Wycherley's passion for accenting the evident that the modern reader finds most annoying. An example occurs in Act III when Don Diego questions his daughter's dancing-master about his hopes of marrying one of his pupils:

Don Diego: What! you do not steal her, according to the laudable Custom of some of your Brother-Dancing-masters? Gerrard: No, no, Sir, steal her, Sir, steal her, you are pleas'd to be merry, Sir, ha, ha, ha - I cannot but laugh at that question. [aside. Don Diego: No, Sir, methinks you are pleas'd to be merry; but you say the Father does not consent. Gerrard: Not yet, Sir; but 'twill be no matter whether he does or no. Don Diego: Was she one of your Scholars? if she were, 'tis a hundred to ten but you steal her. Gerrard: I shall not be able to hold laughing. [aside, laughs. Don Diego: Nay, nay, I find by your laughing you steal her, she was your Scholar, was she not? Gerrard: Yes, Sir, she was the first I ever had, and may be the last too; for she has a Fortune (if I can get her) will keep me from teaching to dance any more.

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Don Diego: So, so, then she is your Scholar still it seems, and she has a good Portion, I am glad on't, nay, I knew you stole her. Gerrard: My laughing may give him suspicions, yet I cannot hold. [aside. N o doubt a modern audience would feel that, given an actor who knew his job, it would not need, or even want, to be told repeatedly that Gerrard found the situation amusing. But then Wycherley was not writing for a modern audience, and it is only fair to acknowledge that he probably knew the extent to which he had to underscore his jokes for a dull or inattentive pit. The play's second comic conflict is that between Don Diego and M. de Paris. As this is also the burlesque part of the play, some aspects of which have already been discussed, it need not detain us long. Mrs. Caution prepares us in Act I for the contretemps between these two clowns when she says that she hopes "the French Levity of this Young man may agree with your Father's Spanish Gravity". In Act III "these two Contraries", as Hippolita calls them, confront each other for the first time and the result is instant antipathy: Don Diego: You are a rash young Man, and while you weare Pantalloons, you are beneath my passion, voto - Auh - they make thee look and waddle (with all those gew-gaw Ribbons) like a great old Fat, slovenly Water-dog. M. de Paris: And your Spanish Hose, and your Nose in the Air, make you look like a great grisled-long-Irish-Grey-hound, reaching a Crust off from a high Shelf, ha, ha, ha. In this cultural battle M. de Paris, as the suitor of D o n Diego's daughter, is at a disadvantage and so through Acts III and IV he is gradually forced to relinquish the oaths, dress and mannerisms of France in favour of those of Spain. In the most general terms, D o n Diego and M. de Paris are satirized because they are creatures of excess, because they have repudiated the ideal of moderation towards which all rational human beings should strive. Their particular crime is that they have rejected their own culture for another. The satire, then, takes its impetus f r o m chauvinism; it rests, as Rose Zimbardo points out, " u p o n the

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affirmation of everything English and the ridicule of everything foreign". 3 7 There might be a slight exaggeration here, but certainly xenophobic satire is (all too) common throughout the history of English literature, and never more so than during the Restoration when the love-hate relationship with the continent, and especially France, was as complex as it had ever been. Again and again in the plays and poems of the age the French, the Spanish, and the Dutch 3 8 are held up to ridicule. Lines from Butler's Hudibras (1663), for example, might almost be a blueprint for the two clowns in Wycherley's play: With solemn march and stately pace, But far more grave and solemn face: Grave as the Emperor of Pegu, Or Spanish potentate Don Diego (I,ii, 153-156) And as the French we conquer'd once Now give us Laws for Pantaloons, The length of Breeches, and the gathers Port-cannons, Perriwigs, and Feathers.39 (I,iii,923-926) But in fact all such satire of foreigners tended to work the tired veins of accent, cowardice and general stupidity, as well as dress and posture. One of the diseased examples of humanity Rochester depicts in his Tunbridge-Wells (1674) is, A tall stiff Fool, that walk'd in spanish Guise, The Buckram Puppet never stir'd his Eyes, But grave as Owlet look'd, as Woodcock wise.40 (11,37-39) The plays of the period are filled with comical Frenchmen such as Dufoy in Etherege's Love in a Tub (1664), Raggou in Lacy's 37

Rose A. Zimbardo, Wycherley's Drama, p. 48. The Dutch come in for their share of abuse in Act I, scene ii, of The Gentleman Dancing-Master. 39 Hudibras (in Cambridge English Classics Series), ed. A. R. Waller, pp. 32 and 83. 40 Rochester, Poems, 88. 38

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The Old Troop (1668) and La Roch in Shadwell's Bury Fair (1689), or Gallomaniacs like Frenchlove in James Howard's The English Mounsieur (1666), Melantha in Dryden's Marriage a la Mode (1672) and Sir Fopling Flutter in Etherege's The Man of Mode (1676). The type was sufficiently familiar in the English theatre for Francois Brunei to comment in his Voyage en Angleterre (1676): "L'on joue Les francois dans la plus part des Comedies qui sont faittes pour se mocquer de nos moeurs." 41 It is true that even today we retain the old, hackneyed concepts about national characteristics, but it is equally true that in the age of the Common Market and Internationalism comic, 'stage' portraits of the Frenchman or the Spaniard are not so aggressively chauvanistic as in earlier days. To some extent, then, the burlesque elements of The Gentleman Dancing-Master have lost their force; what remains valid is the pure farce of absurd movements, ludicrous gestures, and preposterous costumes. Whereas this section of The Gentleman Dancing-Master exists on a level of its own in the sense that it does not touch the lovers' intrigue at all, the conflict between Mrs. Caution and Don Diego is an organic part of the main plot. It is also superlative comedy. The root cause of the discord between these two immensely diverting individuals is that they are both totally opinionated. They fall over each other in their attempts to prove themselves right at the other's expense, but only succeed in leaving Gerrard and Hippolita a clear path to the altar. In Act II they question Gerrard about his credentials, yet their rivalry is such that he is freed from the embarrassment of answering them: Don Diego: Mine's a shrewd question. Mrs. Caution: Mine's as shrewd as yours. Don Diego: Nay then we shall have it, come, answer me, where's your Lodging? come, come Sir. Mrs. Caution: A shrewd question indeed, at the Surgeons Arms, I warrant in - for 'tis Spring-time, you know. 41

Quoted in Montague Summers, Restoration Theatre, 63.

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Don Diego: Must you make lyes for him? Mrs. Caution: But come, Sir, what's your Name? answer me to that, come. Don Diego: His Name, why, tis an easie matter to tell you a false Name, I hope. Mrs. Caution: So, must you teach him to cheat us? Like children, their personal animosity deflects them from their real purpose. But the most fun comes when they witness the pseudodancing lessons. On these occasions, the complexity of the comic tensions is delightful, with Hippolita brilliantly and calmly sustaining her role of dancing pupil, Gerrard desperately attempting to teach an art about which he knows practically nothing, D o n Diego supervising the performance, in the pompous belief that he is something of an expert, and encouraging it in ironically sexual terms, and Mrs. Caution fluttering furiously about, at odds with everyone, and spying lechery in every word and movement: Don Diego: ... Come, come, about with her.

Mrs. Caution: Nay de' see how he squeezes her hand, Brother, O the lewd Villain! Don Diego: Come, move, I say, and mind her not. Gerrard: One, two, three, four, and turn round. Mrs. Caution: De' see again he took her by the bare Arm. Don Diego: Come, move on, she's mad. Gerrard: One, two, and a Coupee. Don Diego: Come, one, two turn out your Toes. Mrs. Caution: There, there, he pinch'd her by the Thigh, will you suffer it?

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Gerrard: One, two, three, and fall back. Don Diego: Fall back, fall back, back, some of you are forward enough to fall back. Gerrard: Back, Madam. Doti Diego: Fall back when he bids you, Hussie. Mrs. Caution: How! how! fall back, fall back, marry, but she shall not fall back when he bids her. Don Diego: I say she shall, Huswife, come. D o n Diego is a superb example of Bergson's mechanical human being who exhibits an absolute intellectual and spiritual inelasticity to external events. And it is one of Wycherley's happiest strokes in this play to carry D o n Diego's rigidity into the denouement where, unable to face the thought that anyone could possibly deceive him, he outrageously claims that he "understood the whole Plot" and was only pretending ignorance in order to deceive everyone else. The comedy of unyielding pride could not be taken much further. The play's fourth thread of action concerns M. de Paris and the two whores, Flirt and Flounce. Presumably the thematic purpose of their scenes is to contrast the wholesome, and even romantic, love of Hippolita with love at its most sordid and mercenary - a contrast, be it noted, that is also an integral part of Love in a Wood. However, Wycherley defeats his purpose by failing to integrate the Flirt and Flounce episodes with the rest of the play; they appear in Act I, scene ii, and towards the end of Act V, but for the rest of the play they are forgotten. Perromat's criticism is certainly justified when, in referring to their last appearance, he comments that although the satire is keen enough, "Cette scene est tout à fait hors de situation au cinquième acte." 4 2 It is a n unfortunate lapse because Act V works up to an admirable climax from Hippolita's final acceptance of Gerrard, through the secret marriage, to the battle to protect the lovers - and then all of a sudden there are three 42

Perromat, Wycherley, 182.

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pages of dialogue exclusively between M. de Paris and Flirt about a contract for "keeping", leaving the rest of the characters in a theatrical vacuum. It is quite possible that just as M. de Paris's role was probably inflated in order, as I have suggested, to make the most of the talents of Nokes, so one reason for the inclusion of the largely extraneous Flirt and Flounce material was to provide parts for two of the actresses in the Duke's Company. This conjecture would apply more particularly to Flirt, whose role is twice as long as Flounce's and who is also assigned the Epilogue. Whatever the reason, this part of the action slightly impairs the dramatic unity of the play and considerably weakens the denouement.

4 Interestingly enough, just as posterity has reversed the judgement of Wycherley's contemporaries about his first play, so it seems to have done the same for his second. Love in a Wood, apparently accorded a reasonable reception when it was first presented, disappeared from the theatrical scene after 1718 and is not likely to reappear. The Gentleman Dancing-Master, on the other hand, does not seem to have been well received either on the stage or as literature, and yet it has already received at least four separate productions in the present century. 43 There are not all that number of Restoration comedies that can claim as much. But even though Wycherley's second play was less well received than his first (and it is always wise to remember that absolute trust should not be placed in the evaluations that have come down to us), there are, even so, unmistakable signs that, as with Love in a Wood, Wycherley did not write The Gentleman Dancing-Master in order to satisfy the whims of a gentlemanly aesthete but, rather, to turn out a commercial success. The jingoism, which Englishmen have always found irresistible, the large chunks of farce, for which there was a growing appetite, and the starring roles for the two most popular clowns of the day, were ingredients nicely calculated to appeal to 43

See footnotes on pp. 13 and 47 for details of performances.

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current tastes. In all this Wycherley's judgement was probably perfectly sound, and it is therefore difficult to account for the play's failure, if failure there was. The most likely reason is that History, in the shape of the Third Dutch War, was unkind enough to intervene with the result that the best part of his audience forsook the pit for the gaieties of warfare. 44 There is no doubt that The Gentleman Dancing-Master is a better play than Love in a Wood. Although it does have its episodic irrelevancies, such as the Flirt and Flounce digressions, or Prue's attempted seduction of M. de Paris, and a layer of farce unconnected with the main action, it nevertheless gives an impression of dramatic unity that is entirely lacking in the amalgam of comic styles of which Love in a Woodie composed. The Gentleman Dancing-Master's great advantage lies, of course, in the simplicity of the idea on which it is based; indeed, the commonest criticism of the play is that it does not really contain enough material to fill out five acts. I have suggested that the farce is less monotonous than it appears in the text because print is an alien medium for a genre that relies so much on visual presentation. More important, I have tried to show that Hippolita's vacillations in the main plot, far from being "desperate expedients" to "keep the action going for five acts", 4 5 constitute a fascinating analysis of the eternal problems that a young girl has to contend with when she is faced with the most important decision of her life. At the same time, it must be admitted that there are occasions when Wycherley did resort to padding, to 44

In both his Prologue and his Epilogue Wycherley makes it clear that the war had taken its toll of the audience that he presumably had in mind when he was composing the play. In these two pieces, designed to make the best of a suddenly disadvantageous situation, he appeals solely to the cits and the Lombard Street men: You good men o' th' Exchange, on whom alone We must depend, when Sparks to Sea are gone; you are Fit to make love, while our Houzaas make War; And since all Gentlemen must pack to Sea, Our Gallants and our Judges you must be. 45 Clifford Leech, "Restoration Comedy: The Earlier Phase", Essays Criticism, I (1951), 179.

in

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irony too laboured for enjoyment, and to undramatic repetition and unfortunately the play does not have that brilliant stylistic gloss that can so often mask these defects. A modern director would be justified in bringing the play back to the stage today; he would also be justified in making certain judicious cuts in order to tighten up the action. Love in a Wood, undisciplined though it is, has great variety of character and setting. It is the bustling comedy of a whole society. The Gentleman Dancing-Master, more carefully organized, is conceived on a smaller scale. It is a family comedy. Wycherley's next step was to combine the scope of his first work with the control of his second and to produce his comic masterpiece.

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1 A s with Love in a Wood and The Gentleman Dancing-Master, so posterity has disagreed with the opinion of Wycherley's contemporaries about ihe relative merits of The Country Wife and The Plain-Dealer. To his friends, and others with literary interests, the dramatist was familiarly referred to as "Manly Witcherly" 2 or "the Plain Dealer", 3 but from 1714, the year of his death, the number of revivals of The Country Wife greatly exceeded those of The Plain-Dealer.4 Today, few would disagree with the statement that The Country Wife is one of the two or three outstanding comedies written between 1660 and 1700. 1

The Country Wife was first performed in 1675 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Tuesday, January 12th was probably its première. The London Stage records further performances on Friday, January 15th, 1675, and May 16th, 1676. Subsequent editions of the play were printed in 1683, 1688 and 1695; this suggests that there were performances in these years. It was shown 152 times between 1700 and November 7th, 1753, the date of its last appearance in its original form in the eighteenth century. See Emmett L. Avery, "The Country Wife in the Eighteenth Century", Research Studies of the State College of Washington, 10 (1942), 141-172. It has been revived many times in the present century. 2 "To my Dear Friend Mr. Congreve, On His Comedy, Call'd The DoubleDealer", in: Dryden, Poems, Vol. II, p. 852. 3 For example, Jeremy Collier, A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1st ed., 1698), p. 4. 4 From 1715/1716 to 1749/1750, The Country Wife was performed 143 times and The Plain-Dealer 57 times. See Emmett L. Avery's "The Reputation of Wycherley's Comedies as Stage Plays in the Eighteenth Century", Research Studies of the State College of Washington, 12 (1944), 131-154.

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Because of its fame (or notoriety) The Country Wife has received more than its fair share of the abuse that has been levelled at Restoration comedy through the centuries. From Collier to Macaulay the attack was mainly directed at the play's sexual immorality; in the present century, however, the ground has changed and it is now Wycherley's artistic immorality that is assailed 5 - and assailed, interestingly enough, with a severity equal to that of the earlier zealots. Collier, for instance, is comparatively gentle with Wycherley, but D. R. M. Wilkinson concludes his denunciation of The Country Wife as follows: Wycherley's vision seems indeed to have been limited by and to the 'courtly culture' of his audiences. ... He is, as it were, confident about too little; confident perhaps that he can share assumptions and please by exploiting them, rather than that he can give expression to and persuade others to feel the validity of his own well-grounded convictions. One might almost in this connection see Horner's exploiting of impotence as a reflection of Wycherley's artistic ambition. There seems at any rate to be no way of denying his dramatic impotence - or his incapacity for creative persuasiveness.9

In a sense such evaluations as this need no detailed rebuttal. The fact that The Country Wife is so frequently performed is answer enough. But even starting from the assumption that The Country Wife is a good comedy, one must still ask why it is a good comedy, what it is about, and even what sort of a comedy it is. In the process it will be possible to answer the most serious criticisms of the play: that it is the product of a courtly culture and thereby suffers from in-breeding; that it displays a spaniel-like desire to compliment the assumptions of this class, a desire that is contemptible in the light of the author's own contrary convictions; that all aspects of the play are dreadfully unoriginal; that the wit exists for itself alone and is not made an integral part of the meaning of the play; that, to

5 See L. C. Knights, "Restoration Comedy: The Reality and the Myth", in: Explorations (Peregrine Books, 1964), 139-159. Also John Wain, "Restoration Comedy and its Modern Critics", Essays in Criticism, 6 (1956), 367-385. β

Wilkinson, Comedy of Habit, 144.

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conclude with L. C. Knights' well known imitation of Hobbes, it is "trivial, gross and dull". 7

2 The problem of a satisfactory approach to The Country Wife is not easy to solve. Because it is such a good play, so frequently either misunderstood or undervalued, it would seem to require a more comprehensive treatment than the first two plays received. I propose to deal first with the plot, next with the characters, then with the dialogue, and finally, in an attempt to resurrect the play from the murder that this dissection will entail, with its substance, its meaning, and the overall effect that Wycherley intended to produce. The Country Wife contains three well-defined plots - a sound compromise between the multitudinous actions of Love in a Wood and the single intrigue of The Gentleman Dancing-Master. In one plot Horner feigns impotence and thereby manages to couple with Lady Fidget, Mrs. Squeamish and Mrs. Dainty Fidget without arousing the suspicions of Sir Jaspar Fidget or Lady Squeamish. The second plot concerns the awakening of the country wife, Margery Pinchwife, to social pleasures, and her desire (which is stimulated by her husband's jealousy) to be emancipated in Horner's bedroom. Although Horner is central to both these plots it is worth noticing that his role is subtly different in each. In the first he is an active figure; he goes out and captures the butterflies for his collection. In the second, in which his pretended impotence plays no part, he is a more passive figure; to change the metaphor slightly, he is a candle that attracts a foolish moth. In the third plot, Harcourt, Horner's friend, woos Alithea, Pinchwife's sister, away from her future husband, Sparkish, the traditional fop of Restoration comedy. As can be seen from this synopsis, each of the three plots

7 Knights, "Restoration Comedy", 159. Knights is actually referring to Restoration comedy as a whole, but there is no indication that he would want to exempt The Country Wife from his strictures.

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touches the others at some point. The way in which Wycherley manipulates these inter-relationships indicates the extent to which he had mastered the techniques of plotting. Act I, set in Horner's lodgings, opens with a conversation between Horner and Quack, a doctor, who has been employed by Horner to spread the story that he is impotent and as a result has become a misogynist. Quack is baffled by this strange ploy, and Horner only tells him that it is a "new unpractic'd trick" to facilitate his approach to women. Sir Jaspar Fidget and his wife and sister enter. Sir Jaspar, a pompous, business baronet, has come to satisfy himself of the truth of the reports he has heard about Horner's condition, and he is delighted to find him as surly and abusive towards the ladies as he could wish. Having whispered to his wife that Horner is a "mere Eunuch" he tells Horner that he is now always welcome at his house, and so departs, alone, for a business engagement. Lady Fidget, however, is so incensed at being left with "a filthy Man" that she flings out emitting indignant "fohs" before Horner can take advantage of the situation. It appears at this point as though Quack is right when he says, "I think, I, or you your self rather, have done your business with the Women", but now Horner explains to him the advantages he expects from his stratagem. In the first place, husbands will no longer be fearful for the safety of their wives, and will open their doors to him as Sir Jaspar has just done. Secondly, he will quickly be able to discover which ladies will accommodate him on the principle that, as he says, "She that shews an aversion to me loves the sport, as those Women that are gone, whom I warrant to be right." Finally, he sees that as a eunuch he will be able to guarantee the reputation of 'ladies of honour', which is all they really care about. Quack wishes him luck and leaves. Next Harcourt and Dorilant enter. These two young gallants are Horner's friends, and it is important to notice that although they, too, believe that he is impotent this does not affect their relationship in any way; for them, "good fellowship and friendship" are not impaired by physical disabilities - in contrast to Sir Jaspar and his women for whom the quality of human associations rests on superficial considerations. After a brief discussion of the merits of love

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and wine (cf. Love in a Wood, I,ii; JI,i), Sparkish is announced and the three gallants launch into an attack on "those nauseous offerers at wit" and "all that force Nature". 8 Sparkish then enters, rallies Horner upon his physical disability with what he considers to be superb humour, and tries to arrange a dinner engagement. The three wits merely laugh at him and thrust him out. Finally Pinchwife enters and he now becomes the object of the mockery of the three wits. Pinchwife is a superannuated rake of forty-nine who has come up from the country for a law suit and also because, as he delicately puts it, "1 must give Sparkish to morrow five thousand pound to lye with my Sister". He has married a bucolic girl because he believes that her ignorance and the sheltered existence she leads will ensure her devotion. It is these assumptions that Horner and his friends attack with some gusto, while Pinchwife tries to suppress his mortification. His anger, fed by fear and jealousy, is made complete when he discovers that they know that his wife is in town and also that she is attractive. This discussion about Margery at the end of Act I arouses interest in the eponymous heroine, and thus serves as a neat introduction to the opening of Act II where she first appears. The Act finishes with a nice example of dramatic antithesis: in contrast to Sparkish's vain efforts to get the wits to dine with him, the wits attempt, in jest, to get Pinchwife to dine with them. These parallel incidents herald the obvious differences between Sparkish and Pinchwife which are developed in Act II. A comparison of Act I of The Country Wife with the first acts of the earlier two plays shows Wycherley applying the principles learnt 8 Again one is reminded of a passage in Love in a Wood, namely Dapperwit's description of false wits in Act I, scene ii. I suggested in Chapter One that this passage is poor theatre for several reasons (p. 29); in The Country Wife the same theme is handled with much greater skill. For instance, the dialogue is spoken by three characters, rather than one, thereby increasing the variety and vivacity of the passage; the sentiments expressed are appropriate to Horner, Harcourt and Dorilant whereas they were inappropriate to Dapperwit; most important of all, the passage in The Country Wife, unlike that in the earlier play, is entirely relevant to the dramatic context because it heralds the entrance of Sparkish. This is a nice example of the considerable advance that Wycherley had made as a playwright since composing his first play.

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in The Gentleman Dancing-Master to vastly more complex materials - such as he had handled, unsuccessfully, in Love in a Wood. First of all, Horner is made the pivotal figure in the scene and is thereby established as the principal character in the play. Secondly, in the course of a relatively short act, nine characters are brought on to the stage, leaving only two more to be introduced in the following act. Furthermore, the motivations for the various entrances and exits are, with one exception, established quite simply and naturally: Quack is there at Horner's request; Sir Jaspar comes in order to satisfy his curiosity and because he wishes to bait a man he had once feared, and he brings his wife and sister in order to test Horner's misogyny; Harcourt and Dorilant are there out of friendship; and Sparkish puts in an appearance for reasons similar to Sir Jaspar's. The one exception is Pinchwife who is given no motive whatsoever for visiting Horner and, indeed, might more logically have been expected to give his rooms a wide berth. He is there for no other reason than that Wycherley needed him on stage. Inseparable from the handling of the characters is the handling of the action. In Act I the impotence plot is the most comprehensively introduced, but a good foundation is also laid for the intrigue concerning the Pinchwife's, and even the Harcourt-AlitheaSparkish triangle is slightly prepared for when Pinchwife cynically mentions the imminent marriage between his sister and Sparkish, and also when Harcourt indicates his preference for love when he argues against Horner and Dorilant in favour of "effeminate pleasures". In this swift, economical introduction of material one notices a considerable improvement over Love in a Wood, where characters and plots are introduced as late as Act III. Equally impressive is the way Wycherley controls the rhythm of the act. Generally speaking, what he has done is to alternate dramatic with non-dramatic episodes; a diagram of the movement of the act would show an undulating line rising at the end. Thus the opening conversation between Horner and Quack, which is largely composed of exposition and epigram, is pitched in a low key, but the entrance of Sir Jaspar Fidget and his entourage produces a conflict of personalities which raises the tempo of the scene. When they leave the tension disappears and the three wits

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indulge in a display of clever repartee. Then Sparkish enters and once again the rhythm picks up and, when Pinchwife replaces Sparkish as antagonist, increases to the end of the act. The difference between these last two episodes is subtle and important. Although both Sparkish and Pinchwife are butts for the humour of the three wits, the tone of the humour is not the same in each case. This is because Sparkish, the traditional 'silly ass', is satirized with an amused contempt that does not even preclude a touch of affection. Pinchwife is a darker figure altogether; the pain and meanness that are implied by his name are clearly carried over into his character and his beliefs. The result is that Act I concludes on a slightly sombre note. Act II, set in Pinchwife's house, starts off with a conversation between the only two characters who have not yet been introduced, Margery Pinchwife and her sister-in-law, Alithea. In this short exchange Wycherley contrasts the pastoral simplicity of the former with the cosmopolitan attitudes of the latter, and also manages to show those impulses at work in Margery that lead directly to her intrigue with Horner. The most important of these is her vague dissatisfaction with her lot; she is restless, a little unhappy, and she cannot understand why her husband keeps her on such a tight rein (the horse metaphor is one that Alithea herself uses). She is also attracted quite openly and innocently to handsome men. The play that she was allowed to see did not impress her, but the actors were a different matter; they were "the goodlyest properest Men". A t this point Margery does not really articulate these instincts, but they are nevertheless the basis for her future rebellion. Pinchwife then enters, and the first words that he exchanges with Margery summarize the sorry relationship that exists between them: Mrs. Pinchwife: O my dear, dear Bud, welcome home; why dost thou look so fropish, who has nanger'd thee? Pinchwife: You're a Fool. [Mrs. Pinchwife goes aside, & cries. Margery's affectionate welcome is expressed in rather fatuous terms, but it in no way merits Pinchwife's unkind rejection. Pinchwife then turns on Alithea and upbraids her, unfairly, for telling his wife

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about the delights of the town. Next he turns back to Margery, interrogates her about her feelings for the "Player-men", and lectures her on the evils of town life. In the process he inadvertently arouses her interest in these forbidden pleasures and even, in his zeal, lets slip the information, which Margery finds absolutely enthralling, that "one of the lewdest Fellows in Town" is attracted to her. This witless introduction of Horner, in absentia, to Margery ironically prefigures Act V, scene ii where Pinchwife translates his blunder into physical terms by presenting his disguised wife to Horner. By now it is clear that Pinchwife is so completely the victim of his chastity-belt mentality that he is incapable of comprehending the sound psychology of Margery's statement, "When you forbid me, you make me as 'twere desire it", or of being alive to his sister's ironic warning, "The honour of your Family shall sooner suffer in your Wife there, than in me, though I take the innocent liberty of the Town." As Pinchwife thrusts his wife into an inner room in order to keep her from company, Sparkish hales Harcourt in to meet Alithea, his future wife. The juxtaposition of these two actions once again pinpoints the contrast between Pinchwife and Sparkish, the one governed by excessive jealousy, the other by extreme permissiveness. Harcourt falls in love with Alithea as soon as he enters, and he spends the rest of the scene eagerly obeying Sparkish's demand that he become better acquainted with her, courting her directly when alone, and by means of double entendres when Sparkish is listening. Alithea, however, rejects all his advances because she is not prepared to accept the protestations of a member of "the Society of the Wits" as she puts it, because the business arrangements connected with her marriage have gone too far, because Sparkish trusts her, and, generally, because she feels her reputation will suffer if she changes her mind at the last moment. She does, however, indicate at one point that she is not indifferent to Harcourt, and would in fact be happy if Sparkish had some of his attributes. As she says, "I am so far from hating him, that I wish my Gallant had his person and understanding: - Nay, if my honour - . " Just after Sparkish sweeps Harcourt and Alithea off to see the new play (as intent as ever on his own destruction - "I'll leave

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Harcourt with you in the Box to entertain you"), Lady Fidget, Mrs. Dainty Fidget and Mrs. Squeamish enter in order to conduct Mrs. Pinchwife to the new play. Again one notices Wycherley effecting a neat transition from one conversation to the next by using a common theme, in this case the invitation to the play. Pinchwife tries to reject the offer of the collegiate ladies, but finds that he is no match for their imperious self-assurance: Lady Fidget: Your Servant, Sir, where is your Lady? we are come to wait upon her to the new Play. Pinchwife: ... She has lock'd the door, and is gone abroad. Lady Fidget: No, you have lock'd the door, and she's within. Pinchwife terminates the unequal combat by leaving the room. The conversation that now ensues between the three ladies is one of the most superb pieces of sustained irony that Wycherley ever wrote. It is not so much that it is amusing to watch logic made the hapless servant of deranged morality; rather it is the fun of savouring the splendid pose of outraged innocence and resolute modesty that the ladies affect as they turn virtue inside out: Lady Fidget: Damn'd Rascals, that we shou'd be only wrong'd by'em; to report a Man has had a Person, when he has not had a Person, is the greatest wrong in the whole World, that can be done to a Person. Mrs. Squeamish: Well, 'tis an errant shame, Noble Persons shou'd be so wrong'd, and neglected. Lady Fidget: But still 'tis an erranter shame for a Noble Person, to neglect her own honour, and defame her own Noble Person, with little inconsiderable Fellows, foh! Mrs. Dainty: I suppose the crime against our honour, is the same with a Man of quality, as with another. Lady Fidget: How! no sure, the Man of quality is likest one's Husband, and therefore the fault shou'd be the less. Mrs. Dainty: But then the pleasure shou'd be the less. Lady Fidget: Fye, fye, fye, for shame Sister, whither shall we ramble? be continent in your discourse, or I shall hate you.

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Finally Sir Jaspar enters with Horner and Dorilant. His purpose is to arrange for Horner to take the ladies to the play (once again the play theme supplies a motive for the action and thereby effects a cross reference to earlier episodes in the act), but initially his efforts meet with little success. Horner dons the misogynist's mask and begins to compare women to mangey spaniels, and Lady Fidget retaliates with as crude a piece of invective as one is likely to hear from a lady of quality: "Brute! stinking mortify'd rotten French Weather." This gives Sir Jaspar the opportunity to practise those powers of persuasion that he has no doubt acquired in his Whitehall committees. First he takes his wife on one side, and then Horner, and by dint of much mollifying and wheedling proudly brings them together. 9 It is at this point that Horner discloses to Lady Fidget that he is a perfect, perfect man, and so the act ends with everyone content. Although Act I and Act II are essentially concerned with exposition, they are nicely varied in their approach. One way of defining the difference between them is to call Act I masculine and Act II feminine. For example, where Act I opens with a conversation between Horner and Quack, Act II begins with a conversation between Alithea and Margery. Paralleling the discourse of the three wits in Act I is the discourse of the three ladies in Act II. In Act I the female characters only participate in one conversation; in Act II they are prominent in all of them. By the end of Act II, then, all the characters have been fully introduced, and the three neatly interlaced plots have begun to move towards the epitasis, to use Dryden's Aristotelian terminology. 10 At this point a word must be said about the pattern of contrasts and parallels that are woven into the threads of action, and in combination with them form the warp and weft of the play's fabric. The most obvious of these contrasts, and one that has already been noted, is that between Pinchwife and Sparkish, but here an extra dimension is added by Sir Jaspar Fidget who exhibits both 9 It would be tedious to keep on drawing attention to examples of irony in The Country Wife; almost every speech, action and situation seems to be ironical in one way or another. 10 Dryden, Essays, Vol. I, p. 45.

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the jealousy of the former as well as the permissiveness of the latter. Similar comparisons can be made between the female characters. Both Alithea and Lady Fidget are sophisticated town ladies and both are placed in situations that bear on their personal integrity. Both refer to their reputations and to their honour, sometimes in an almost identical manner. Alithea tails off an aside about Harcourt with the words, "Nay if my honour - " , and Lady Fidget sighs, just before her husband enters, "But still my dear, dear Honour - " . Then there is Margery whose provincialism contrasts sharply with the sophistication of both these ladies, but who can also be said to be, in her simple way, as honest as Alithea on the one hand and as appreciative of handsome men as Lady Fidget on the other. More significant than these individual comparisons, however, are those between the various couples of the play: Pinchwife and Margery: Sparkish and Alithea; Sir Jaspar and Lady Fidget. It is interesting to notice how Wycherley places these various examples of the man-woman relationship side by side so that by means of continuous contrasts their respective absurdities are made more apparent. Thus in the first part of Act II Pinchwife is seen fearfully imposing limitations on his wife's liberty. Sparkish takes the contrary course, in the middle of the act, when he invites Harcourt to be free with Alithea. At the end of the act, Sir Jaspar Fidget, the sum of the first two, first of all refuses to allow Dorilant to escort his ladies to the play and then, in the belief that he is insuring himself against cuckoldom, urges Horner to accept this charge. Throughout The Country Wife Wycherley skilfully alternates and interweaves these different versions of homo amans and in so doing defines the theme of his play while making its structure more compact and coherent. Act III, scene i, a very short scene, is set in Pinchwife's house. Alithea has just returned from seeing the play that she and several of the other characters were planning to attend in Act II. 1 1 This i l Wycherley has taken as much care to work out his time scheme in The Country Wife as in his previous two plays. Act I takes place between 11 a.m. and noon (on a Wednesday to be precise). In Act II it is early afternoon, that is, shortly before the play which would have started at about 3 p.m. In Act ΠΙ,

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scene is similar to the opening of Act II in that Alithea and Margery are first of all discovered discussing the latter as "a poor lonely, sullen Bird in a Cage", and then, when Pinchwife enters, he and Alithea continue to blame each other for causing Margery's discontent. Once again Pinchwife stupidly whets his wife's appetite for the pleasures of the town, and Margery herself is as candid as before about her desire to see "the Playermen" in general and the gallant who has shown an interest in her in particular. The difference between the two scenes lies in Margery's increasing restlessness as she becomes more aware of the bars that surround her. Earlier she had longed to return to her "Place-house"; now she says "Pish" to the country, and insists on being taken to the Exchange. Pinchwife finally agrees to take her out, but decides to conceal her in her younger brother's clothes. A mere face mask, he feels, would not be sufficient protection because, as he says, "If we shou'd meet with Horner, he wou'd be sure to take acquaintance with us, must wish her joy, kiss her, talk to her, leer upon her, and the Devil and all" - and so ironically foreshadows the climax of the next scene, while indirectly making the point that in the hands of fools a complete disguise is worse than a partial one. In Act III, scene ii, Wycherley switches from the private rooms of Horner and Pinchwife to a place of public commerce. The New Exchange was a long building on the south side of the Strand. It consisted of "a basement, in which were cellars; the ground floor, level with the street, a public walk; and an upper storey, in which were stalls or shops occupied by milliners and sempstresses, and other trades that supply dresses. The building did not attain any great success till after the Restoration, when it became quite a fashionable resort." 12 It is most important to keep this environ-

scene i the play has recently finished so that it is about 7 p.m., and Act III, scene ii follows closely on Act III, scene i. Act IV, scene i takes place on Thursday morning a little before noon. The exact time of the rest of the scenes of Act IV and V is slightly more vague, but it is clear that they progress through Thursday afternoon, and conclude in the evening. 12 E. Walford, Old and New London, Vol. I, p. 104. It is possible that Wycherley depicted the Royal Exchange in this scene and not, as is usually thought, the New Exchange. The matter is complicated because both buildings were ar-

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ment in the mind's eye when reading Act III not only for the realism it supplies, but also because the bustle and banter swirling (not too distractingly) about the bookstalls, lace shops, fruit vendors and prostitutes, complements the business of love that is the pursuit of the gallants and ladies who occupy the foreground. This scene can, indeed, be seen as a microcosm of the Restoration world, a world in which for some, as is stated more than once in the play, the business of life is pleasure, and for others the pleasure of life is business. In the New Exchange Wycherley shows both philosophies in operation to good effect. It would be too confusing to chronicle all the comings and goings of Act ΙΠ, scene ii, in detail. The action is mainly concerned with Harcourt's pursuit of Alithea, and with the failure of Pinchwife's attempt to protect Margery from Horner by dressing her in the clothes of a young gentleman, but right at the end of the scene Sir Jaspar Fidget appears briefly in order to summon Horner to visit his wife. The scene opens with a discussion between the three wits and they are shortly joined by Sparkish who delivers a series of ex cathedra pronouncements about the arts, and in so doing continues to illustrate his affectation and his complete lack of taste. Conversations such as this (cf. the similar passages in Act I) were de rigueur for the Restoration comic dramatist because their audiences expected them and presumably savoured them with relish. They have, however, drawn stern objections from those modern critics who are out of sympathy with the genre. D. R. M. Wilkinson, for example, says that such stretches of dialogue are no more than empty exhibitions, are mere spectacles that exist for the purpose of demonstrating the painfully obvious superiority of wits and inferiority of fops. 1 3 I do not hold any particular brief for these chitecturally similar, and were used for much the same social and business purposes - the Royal Exchange, of course, being considerably more 'official'. More confusing is the fact that the Royal Exchange, having been destroyed in the Great Fire, was rebuilt and completed in 1670, so that it was a 'new' Exchange too, but in a more real sense than the other which was constructed in 1609. I would have thought that a visitor to London would have visited the 'new' Royal Exchange with its more exciting cosmopolitan atmosphere and its grander and more varied shops. 13 Wilkinson, Comedy of Habit, 140-142.

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verbal exchanges, which a modern director would no doubt want taken at a fast pace, but at the same time I think it would be wrong to say that they have little dramatic point just because they are felt to be too traditional in their content and too evident in their intent. In the first place they are texturally important in that the flow of the repartee mirrors the glossy surface of civilized talk that was cultivated as an ideal by Restoration society. In the second place these exchanges of wit provide a background for the play, in the sense of intellectual colouring, that is every bit as significant as the wings and shutters. In the scene under discussion, for instance, the conversation ranges from theatre audiences and trends in comic drama, to fashionable poetry and aesthetic theory in relation to painting. By means of these topics, which are introduced, be it noted, perfectly naturally because the speakers have just returned from the theatre, another dimension is added to the picture of Restoration life that the play recreates. In the middle of the scene Harcourt continues to try to persuade Alithea to change her mind, but with no apparent success. Her penultimate word to him is in reply to his request that she at least listen to his reasons why she should not marry "that wretch my Rival": Alithea: He only, not you, since my honour is engag'd so far to him, can give me a reason, why I shou'd not marry him; but if he be true, and what I think him to me, I must be so to him; your Servant, Sir. Obviously Alithea has by now no illusions about the foolishness of the man she is about to marry, but as far as she knows he is still "true" and can therefore claim her allegiance. Meanwhile, Pinchwife and Margery have crossed the stage two or three times, have been sighted by Horner, stalked by him and at last cornered. Then ensues the torture of Pinchwife (" 'Sdeath"; "the Divel"; " I am upon a wrack"; " O Heavens! what do! suffer"; "Ten thousand ulcers gnaw away their lips") as he is forced to stand impotently by and watch his wife's disguise proving all too effective. This culminates in Horner's temporary abduction of Margery, Pinchwife's frantic efforts to find them, and their eventual reappearance exhaling an air of innocence that is as unfeigned on Margery's part

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as it is feigned on Horner's. It is, finally, worth noticing the rhythm of this scene. It begins quietly with a static interchange of wit, becomes more dramatic when Harcourt makes love to Alithea in front of Sparkish, and works up to a climax with a whirl of movement as Horner, Margery and Pinchwife enter, exit and reenter in their wild pursuit. In the first three acts there are four changes of scene; in the last two there are eight. This increased division into scenes marks the growing complications of the intrigues, yet it should be added that although each scene is now largely devoted to one of the three plots, Wycherley still frequently manages to introduce one or even both of the other two plots, however briefly, so that the impression of a closely knit play is retained. Act IV, scene i, is set in Alithea's room in Pinchwife's house. It is now Thursday morning and Lucy is preparing Alithea for her wedding while urging her to reconsider before it is too late. Here Alithea states unequivocally that she loves Harcourt even though her scruples will not allow her to act upon her feelings. This conversation, dealing as it does with the place of love and honour in marriage, bears strongly upon the main theme of the play. Generally speaking, Lucy argues for the primacy of love and Alithea for the primacy of honour, but it should not be assumed that the audience is supposed to applaud the former and condemn the latter. Rather it is as though the topic is being disputed by a Falstaff and a Quixote, and that the truth lies somewhere in between. With the entrance of Sparkish and his "Canonical Gentleman", the disguised Harcourt, the scene turns into farce. For the third time in the play Alithea tries to tell Sparkish that he is being abused but to no avail, and so she sets off for what she knows will be a mock wedding, obviously on the verge of complete disenchantment despite her ideals. Act IV, scene ii, advances the Pinchwife plot. It begins at the end of a long interrogation to which Pinchwife has been subjecting Margery about what occurred between herself and Horner at the Exchange on the previous evening: Pinchwife: Come tell me, I say. Mrs. Pinchwife: Lord, han't I told it an hundred times over.

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But she recites it once again and with such naïveté that it is clear that she is as ingenuous as ever. Pinchwife, however, is not satisfied. "Damn'd love", he says, "Well - 1 must strangle that little Monster, whilest I can deal with him." The biting irony of this remark lies, of course, in the fact that he is about to strangle what little love Margery had for himself and not her love for Homer. And so with the help of brutal threats he forces her to write a letter, that he dictates, to Horner. She, however, driven by desperation and instinct, breathlessly writes a letter of her own while he is out of the room, manages to exchange it for the first letter, and thus sees her husband carry her love to Horner. With the letter on its way, attention is naturally directed to Horner's lodgings where the next scene takes place. Act IV, scene iii is, without question, the most famous scene in Restoration comedy; it is a scene that vies with The Miller's Tale as an erotic attraction for the questing student. Wycherley's china, however, occupies only a small section of the scene, and it does not have very much bearing upon the scene's function in the framework of the play as a whole. (And the questing student would almost certainly find it disappointing as erotica.) When the scene opens Horner is giving Quack, who seems to be a sort of chorus figure, a progress report on his exploits as a eunuch. Quack is astonished at the speed of his success, and perhaps a little sceptical, but when Lady Fidget appears Horner places him behind a screen and gives him a practical demonstration of the "particular privileges" that he now enjoys with "women of reputation". Lady Fidget, with the superb moral effrontery that is her hallmark, still talks only of her honour as she prepares to commit adultery, but just as she is embracing Horner, Sir Jaspar enters. Lady Fidget overcomes the awkwardness of this situation with the absurdly inadequate remark that she is trying to discover how ticklish Horner is; she even invites her husband to join in. However, she is still determined to get what she came for, and so begins the china scene. Wycherley had already experimented with the extended double entendre in Love in a Wood.14 The device is handled more success" See Chapter I, p. 45.

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fully in this play for several reasons. In the first place there is a certain amount of wry humour to be derived from the use of such an innocent domestic commodity as china as a vehicle for obscenity. Then, too, the sexual innuendo is sustained with more variety over a longer period of time in The Country Wife. It begins with Sir Jaspar's unwittingly coarse warning, "Wife, my Lady Fidget, Wife, he is coming into you the back way" (it is a nice touch to make the dense Sir Jaspar participate in the lascivious word play), continues through the rivalry of the two ladies for Horner's 'china', and ends with Horner's promise to Mrs. Squeamish that she shall have a "Rol-waggon" 15 the next time. Finally, the context in which all this sexual punning takes place is essentially dramatic. That is, the purpose of the puns is to deceive Sir Jaspar and old Lady Squeamish, both of whom listen to the conversation with complete incomprehension; but the deception goes even further, for Lady Fidget herself does not realize that Horner realizes that Mrs. Squeamish realizes that china is not china. This complex duplicity can be said to symbolize the deception that runs through the whole play. When Pinchwife enters, Lady Fidget and Mrs. Squeamish pretend to be overcome with respectability and rush out, followed by Sir Jaspar and old Lady Squeamish. Pinchwife sarcastically pretends that the letter he gives to Horner from his wife is a love letter - as of course it is. He warns Horner to stay away from his wife and departs. A few moments later he is hauled back by Sparkish, now a soi-disant husband, who is scattering about invitations to his wedding dinner. An important point emerges in this section. Horner shows real concern that Harcourt has, as he believes, failed to capture Alithea, and Pinchwife takes particular notice of this concern. Thus Wycherley prepares for Pinchwife's acceptance in Act V of his wife's story that Alithea is in love with Horner. At the end of the scene Horner promises to come to Sparkish's dinner if Sparkish will arrange for Margery to be there. In this scene Wycherley again manages to bring his three plots together, and to illustrate his point that when husbands are foolish their wives are 15

For the phallic significance of the roll-wagon see the relevant footnote in The Complete Plays of William Wycherley, ed. by Gerald Weales.

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lost. So, one after another, he shows Sir Jaspar complacently holding the door while his wife is swived, Pinchwife, motivated by a mad fear of cuckoldom, bringing his wife's love letter to his rival, and Sparkish, quite hopelessly optimistic, unaware that he does not even have a wife. In Act IV, scene iv, Margery is discovered writing another letter to Horner while giving expression to the distaste that she now feels for her husband. Her sense of alienation, expressed in the blunt and unsophisticated language of the country girl that she still is ("When I think of my Husband, I tremble, and am in a cold sweat, and have inclinations to vomit") is the inevitable result of the brutal treatment that Pinchwife has been meting out to her. This brutality is well illustrated when he creeps up on her as she writes her letter, snatches it from her, reads it and then in a paroxysm of rage draws his sword to kill her. With a sure sense of comic relief (for the scene is taking a distinctly ugly turn) Wycherley brings Sparkish in at this moment with an asinine vulgarity: "What, drawn upon your Wife? you shou'd never do that, but at night in the dark, when you can't hurt her." He has come with his invitation to the wedding feast, but he fails Horner because Pinchwife will not allow Margery to go. Once more she is locked away like the bird to which she compared herself in Act III, scene i. There is a time lapse between Act IV and Act V presumably equivalent to the duration of Sparkish's wedding dinner. When Act V, scene i, opens Pinchwife is again with his wife, coaxing her, with his hand on his sword, to complete the last sentence of the letter that he had surprised her writing in the previous scene. Margery, however, has had time to consult with Lucy, who has her origins in the tricky slave of classical comedy, and from whom she has got the idea of signing the incriminating letter, "your slighted Alithea". Pinchwife is, as he says, "stunn'd", but he is inclined to believe the fraud because of the concern he observed in Horner in Act IV, scene iii, when Horner was told of Alithea's marriage. Through the remainder of the scene Margery is kept running in and out, ostensibly bearing messages from an ashamed Alithea, but in reality that she may get advice from Lucy as to what she should do and say as her predicament gets more complicated. She finally manages to

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accomplish a two-in-one stratagem, and for the last time Pinchwife locks the door, but on a wife that is not there, and triumphantly leads Margery, disguised as Alithea, to Horner's lodgings. In Act V, scene ii, the play begins to build up towards its climax. Once again there is a prefatory conversation between Horner and his familiar spirit, Quack, in the course of which the former admits that he has been thwarted in his attempt on Margery. At this point, and as if to emphasize the static role that Horner plays in the affair, Pinchwife leads in his disguised wife, wishes Horner well of her and departs. This is, indeed, the logical culmination to the blunders that Pinchwife brings upon himself through the play. The first is when he blurts out that Horner fancies his wife in Act II; the second is when he disguises her as a boy in Act III, and then has to watch while Horner kisses her; the third is when he carries his wife's love letter to Horner in Act IV; and the fourth is when he conveys her to Horner in person in the present act. The progression that Wycherley has worked out here is cleverly graded. At the end of the scene Sir Jaspar enters in order to warn Horner that "the virtuous gang" will soon be visiting him in masquerade - "they would come to no mans Ball but yours" - so that Horner has only just got time, as he tells Quack, to enjoy his private feast. Act V, scene iii, is a short scene in the Piazza of Covent Garden. Pinchwife is discovered smugly telling Sparkish that he has just led Alithea to Horner and that he is on his way to fetch a parson for them. Sparkish then encounters Alithea and, ignoring her puzzlement, upbraids her as spitefully as he knows how: Sparkish: ... I never had any passion for you, 'till now, for now I hate you; 'tis true, I might have married your portion, as other men of parts of the Town do sometimes, and so, your Servant, and to shew my unconcernedness, I'le come to your wedding, and resign you with as much joy, as I would a stale wench to a new Cully, nay, with as much joy as I would after the first night, if I had been married to you, there's for you, and so your Servant, Servant. This denouement is perhaps the weakest part of the play in that Sparkish's decent into jealousy, and Alithea's readiness to cancel her betrothal on this score are a little pat. It is, however, only a question of degree, because the behaviour of both has to some

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extent been prepared for in earlier scenes. It is, too, the 'moral' of the relationship that is important, pointing as it does to one of the conclusions of the play. Alithea expresses it as follows: Alithea: ... And now I wish, that if there be any overwise woman of the Town, who like me would marry a Fool, for fortune, liberty, or title; first, that her husband may love Play, and be a Cully to all the Town, but her, and suffer none but fortune to be mistress of his purse; then if for liberty, that he may send her into the Country, under conduct of some housewifely mother-in-law; and if for title, may the World give 'em none but that of Cuckold. With Margery safely tucked away in Horner's bedroom, the three ladies on their way to his rooms for a masquerade, and Alithea and Sparkish understandably curious about the course of recent events there, attention is firmly focussed on Horner's lodgings where the three threads of action are about to converge for the last time. Horner, it appears, is in danger of suffering from an embarrassment of riches, for as the scene opens the ladies have just arrived and he has not had time to smuggle Margery away. Instead he shuts her into an inner room - which seems to be poor Margery's fate no matter which man she is with. The ladies immediately begin to imbibe wine in order that they may "speak the truth" and after a bitter song from Lady Fidget they do indeed drop their masks of respectability and tell Horner what he already knows - that their reputations are a deceit, their virtue a cheat and their modesty mere dissimulation. Lady Fidget, however, is carried away by this orgy of confession, and discloses that Horner is her true gallant, and this in turn prompts Mrs. Squeamish and Mrs. Dainty Fidget to make identical claims. Surprisingly, they take these disclosures with relative indifference; as Lady Fidget says, "Well, Harry Common, I hope you can be true to three." In production this section of the scene should surely be given a rather dark colouring, for what it in fact shows is three bibulous women in the process of a physical debauch disclosing, without even the comedy of affectation to lighten their performance, the depth of their moral depravity. As so often in this play one glimpses behind the superficial amusement the disturbing leer of the satyr. For the next little while the exits and entrances follow each other

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with the rapidity of an Aldwych farce. Sir Jaspar and old Lady Squeamish enter on the track of the "virtuous gang", but Horner immediately has to send them all into an inner room because others are on their way up. He just has time for another brief word with Margery, and to hear her claim that he is now her husband, before he has to hide her again so that he can receive Pinchwife, Alithea, Harcourt and Sparkish. This group has come in order to have the mystery of Alithea's supposed liaison with Horner cleared up, so that Horner is put in the awkward position of wronging either Alithea or Margery. He chooses to implicate Alithea. This, though, gives Harcourt the opportunity to affirm his trust in her honour, and in so doing to show that he is as little prone to jealousy as Sparkish once appeared to be. Margery now creeps in again, and until the final curtain the major conflict is between her simple, direct and honest approach to the situation, and the desperate attempts of the rest to maintain a status quo based on deception. Pinchwife, of course, is furious when he sees her, and he draws on both her and Horner. Sir Jaspar and his entourage enter, and Sir Jaspar is convinced by Pinchwife that Horner is not really a eunuch. Lucy then tries to cover up by saying that Margery did not really come to Horner out of love, but Margery immediately blurts out that she loves Horner with all her soul. They try to silence her, and then the indispensible Quack enters and reaffirms that Horner is indeed a eunuch. Once again Margery thrusts forward and indignantly denies that Horner is impotent, "for", as she says, "to my certain knowledge - " , but she is quickly bustled into the background before she can do more damage. And so she finally realizes that she must keep her "musty Husband" after all, and in her last speech she is induced to pronounce the lie that is required of her. Thus truth is effectively muzzled and the play ends with a dance of cuckolds. This climax to The Country Wife is magnificent in its cynicism. Where the traditional comedy metes out punishments and rewards in due proportions, or perhaps concludes with reconciliations and a sense of harmony often symbolized by marriage celebrations, The Country Wife firmly resolves almost nothing. Horner keeps his disguise and his easy access to the ladies' beds; the ladies keep their

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false honour; Sir Jaspar remains pompously happy in his ignorance; Sparkish has as high an opinion of himself as ever; Margery returns to a husband she has learnt to detest; and Pinchwife, like January in The Merchant's Tale, drowns his jealousy in conscious selfdeception: For my own sake fain I wou'd, all believe. Cuckolds like Lovers, shou'd themselves deceive. The one ray of light is, of course, supplied by Harcourt and Alithea who, it is assumed, will soon enter upon a marriage that has a good chance of success. But for the rest there is no change; the knaves are confirmed in their knavery, and the fools in their foolishness. The Country Wife is the best constructed of Wycherley's four plays. 16 The way the plots are interlaced, the constant cross comparisons between the various groups of characters, the manner in which each scene leads naturally into the one that follows, the handling of the rhythm of individual scenes, the clarity of the time scheme, and the oscillation of the action between Horner's and Pinchwife's lodgings, are all sure indications that Wycherley was in complete control of his medium, that, in other words, he had precisely defined the scope of his work, and now knew how to give his ideas dramatic expression. This technical expertise could not, of course, have been acquired without the experience gained from Love in a Wood and The Gentleman Dancing-Master, and the very fact that Wycherley so obviously learnt from these two earlier 16 Judged by the highest standards (or even by Dryden's own requirements for the "well-contrived play" as discussed at various points in Of Dramatic Poesy) there are several minor flaws in the play. It is unlikely, for instance, that Pinchwife would not have heard of Horner's impotence before Act V. It is also strange that after Sparkish had been rejected by the three wits in Act I he should turn up in Act II, which takes place a short time later, in the company of Harcourt. Similarly, Horner's entrance with Sir Jaspar Fidget in the same act is surprising, as is Dorilant's unexplained departure to find Pinchwife. There is no motivation for any of these incidents apart from Wycherley's need to have certain people on or off stage at certain times. The only defense of these discrepancies is first that it is extremely doubtful whether any audience (or reader) would notice them, secondly that the overall direction of the play is never confused by them, and thirdly that it is permissible for this type of frequently farcical comedy to take certain liberties with probability.

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experiments supports the point that, far from being the "scribbler" that he humorously (and conventionally) called himself, he must have taken his art seriously. Perhaps the surest indication of Wycherley's progress is the total absence of irrelevant material in The Country Wife. In Love in a Wood there are many loose ends and disconnected incidents; even The Gentleman Dancing-M aster, for all its simplicity, is not without episodes divorced from the main action. But The Country Wife does not have a single irrelevancy; every scene, every passage, and every character contributes to the total picture that is being built up. Even the traditional song, so often in the plays of the period a nondramatic interlude in the middle of a scene, is given a sour twist and is sung by Lady Fidget clasping a bottle of wine: Why should our damn'd Tyrants oblige us to live On the pittance of Pleasure which they only give? It bears directly on the play's theme as does the equally traditional dance which in The Country Wife becomes a "dance of cuckolds" and is Wycherley's final, cynical summary of the play's action. It is this control, this concentration on a single, serious purpose, this masterful handling of complex materials, that makes The Country Wife technically superior to Wycherley's other comedies and, indeed, to most Restoration comedies.

3 The characters in The Country Wife can be divided into those about whom there is no argument (the Fidgets, Sparkish and Harcourt), and those about whom there is some difference of opinion (Alithea, the Pinchwifes and, of course, Horner). Sir Jaspar Fidget is Wycherley's portrait of a new brand of business entrepreneur. The Restoration was an age that witnessed not only a resurgence in the arts but also the beginnings of a hectic capitalism. For the first time large numbers of men saw the chance of achieving real wealth. "Like a pack suddenly released from their kennel, the hounds of business snuffled after false scents and bayed

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up blind alleys as eagerly as they followed true game." 1 7 It was an exciting prospect this lottery of riches, and the only stakes required were a little money, a little ingenuity, a little courage, and perhaps a little dishonesty. Besides the more traditional men of business there were the projectors with their schemes for steam pumps, burglar alarms and machine guns, and there were the monopolists into whose company any reader of Pepys is quickly introduced, the Woods and Warrens, Battens and Petts, vying for monopolies in timber or rope or victuals. Indeed, Pepys himself is a perfect example of the thoroughly materialistic and acquisitive Restoration man - his relative integrity and professional dedication notwithstanding. It is to this world in which, like today, an eye for the main chance is essential and the accumulation of wealth a virtue, that Sir Jaspar Fidget belongs. He is the sort of man who is always sorry that he cannot stay owing to some pressing business engagement. "Business", he says, "must be preferr'd always before Love and Ceremony with the wise" (I,i), and later he apologizes for being unable to go to the play because he has "business at Whitehal" (II,i), the place where those hoping for patronage were most likely to find influential men, like the Navy Secretary, who might, with the help perhaps of an innocent gift, help them to corner some market or other. Sir Jaspar's passion for business is not prominently satirized in The Country Wife, but it most definitely supplies the background to and establishes the cause of the non-relationship he has with his wife. Their marriage is one of indifference, yet Sir Jaspar, a ceremonious, complacent man who clearly prides himself on his ability to manipulate others, is aware that the façade of respectability must be maintained for social reasons if for no other. He is consequently consumed by the fear, common to all husbands in Restoration comedy, of being made a cuckold. It is for this reason that he has supplied Lady Fidget with "two old civil Gentlemen (with stinking breaths too)" in order to give her the illusion of male companionship; it is also for this reason that he will not allow Dorilant to be her escort, had kept her away from Horner in 17

John Carswell, The South Sea Bubble, p. 11.

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earlier days, but is assiduous in his efforts to make Horner another of her gentlemen ushers now that he is, supposedly, impotent. The Fidget marriage, then, is without substance. Almost certainly contracted as a commercial enterprise, it has foundered on materialism, and Lady Fidget has every right to feel neglected. It might appear from the last sentence that 'understanding' is being sought for Lady Fidget. Wycherley, however, is no psychologist of the modern school but a Restoration dramatist, and although he clearly wishes his audience to be aware of Lady Flippant's marital situation, he does not appear to be seriously presenting this as a mitigating factor. Quite simply, it is hypocrisy that he charges her with, "that heinous and worst of Womens Crimes" as he described it in the Epistle Dedicatory to The PlainDealer. She knows as well as the Marquis of Halifax that a lady's main assets are virtue attended by prudence, but she is at such pains to clothe herself in righteousness that her very efforts become ridiculous. 'Honour' is her favourite word; it is so often in her mouth that, to use Horner's caustic tag, "she has none elsewhere" (11,i). She also exhibits the prudishness that is so often in comedy a camouflage for lechery. Sir Jaspar starts to tell her the "naked truth" but is immediately reprimanded: "Fy, Sir Jaspar! do not use that word naked - " (II,i). Horner uses the word 'impotent' and this fetches the pious rebuke: "Nay, fie, let us not be smooty" (IV,iii). A man enters the room: " O Lord, here's a Man, Sir Jaspar, my Mask, my Mask" (IV,iii). Horner, of course, has no illusions about this extravagant modesty. As he says, "your Women of Honour, as you call 'em, are only chary of their reputations, not their Persons, and 'tis scandal they wou'd avoid, not M e n " (I,i), and Lady Fidget herself, when she drunkenly throws her mask over her head in Act V, scene iv, makes the same disclosure: "Our Reputation, Lord! Why should you not think, that we women make use of our Reputation, as you men of yours, only to deceive the world with less suspicion; our Virtue is like the State-man's Religion, the Quaker's Word, the Gamester's Oath, and the Great Man's Honour, but to cheat those that trust us." At bottom this disease of marital deception and dishonesty is the result of a social system in which marriage is treated like a takeover bid, in which sexual inequality

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and double standards are the norm, and where most women can complain, as Lady Fidget does, that "wives are so neglected" (II,i). But this brings the paragraph back to where it started and the need to emphasize again that although Wycherley most certainly condemns the system, in Lady Fidget's case it is made her explanation, not her excuse. In Sparkish are concentrated all the usual traits of the Restoration fop. His major desire in life is to be thought a man of wit and understanding, a gentleman of breeding and elegance. His major fault is not so much that, like all his comic brothers, he lacks the necessary mental and social attributes to sustain his role but (and this is the infallible sign of the fop) that he insists on drawing attention to his non-existent "parts". The social whirl is as important to Sparkish as it is to his modern counterpart, the gossip columnist of the society paper who spends his life peering, notebook in hand, into the royal enclosure at Ascot. What he does not realize is that tittering with the ladies, passing on naughty gossip, making a nuisance of himself in the wits' row on a first night, and attempting to fraternize with the nobility at Whitehall, make him absurd in the eyes of the true wits. And yet he must keep on trying. Thus, in order to prove he is no country bumpkin he parades his lack of jealousy, an inelegant emotion, not realizing that ostentation in any form is ridiculous; and so he loses his mistress. It is interesting to watch the evolution of Wycherley's fops. Like Dapperwit, Sparkish is a coward; when he thinks that Harcourt has insulted his intelligence he considers drawing on him but only because the odds are in his favour (11,i). Like Dapperwit, too, he has no stomach for drink, and also like him he proudly draws attention to what he feels are his bon mots. Like M. de Paris he appreciates "a Suit with a French trimming to't" (I,i), and at one point he affects the word "éclaircissement" when talking about love (Ill.ii). But whereas Wycherley was uncertain of his point of view when he created Dapperwit, he makes Sparkish an entirely consistent character throughout, and where M. de Paris is a gross caricature in the farcical manner, Sparkish is toned down and is an altogether more realistic inhabitant of the Restoration scene. And here a further word might be added about Wycherley's psychological

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realism. At the end of the play, whereas the usual clown of Restoration comedy (Sir Fopling for instance) is allowed to float away as fatuously innocuous as ever, Wycherley fleetingly discloses a streak of meanness beneath Sparkish's veneer of cultured bonhomie. This is when he thinks that Alithea has jilted him and so tries to wound her with spiteful insults (V,iii), and also, later, when he discovers that Lucy is the real author of his misfortune and calls her an "eternal Rotten-tooth" (V,iv) - on stage a certain 'laugh line' but also one that, with its associations of decay and pain, and in conjunction with the earlier outburst at Alithea, momentarily shows Sparkish in a less harmless light. Alithea is one of the more consistently misunderstood characters in The Country Wife. Most critics agree that she is as close to the normal concept of a heroine as there is in the play, but many of them add a qualification such as that "she has been stupid to accept a coxcomb like Sparkish", 18 or that she suffers from "romantic blindness", 19 or that "she must learn not to substitute a mere appearance (Sparkish's lack ofjealousy) for inner nature (Harcourt's merits)". 20 All these criticisms ignore the prevailing attitude towards marriage in the seventeenth century. The Marquis of Halifax, an enlightened man and a kindly father, prefaces his remarks on husbands in his somehow rather sad Advice to a Daughter with the following: It is one of the Disadvantages belonging to your Sex, that young Women are seldom permitted to make their own Choice; their Friends Care and Experience are thought safer Guides to them, than their own Fancies; and their Modesty often forbiddeth them to refuse when their Parents recommend, though their inward Consent may not entirely go along with it. In this case there remaineth nothing for them to do, but to endeavour to make that easie which falleth to their Lot, and by a wise use of every thing they may dislike in a Husband, turn that by degrees to be very supportable, which, if neglected, might in time beget an Aversion.21 18

John Wilcox, The Β elation of Molière to Restoration Comedy, p. 92. Anne Righter, "Wycherley", 77. 20 Norman Holland, First Modem Comedies, 78. 21 The Complete Works of George Savile, First Marquess of Halifax, ed. by W. Raleigh, pp. 7-8. 19

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A failure to recognize this prevailing bias as the background to Alithea's engagement to Sparkish makes her character incomprehensible and obscures Wycherley's intention of exposing the evils of contemporary marriage customs. This, then, is the reason why D. R. M. Wilkinson is wrong when he states that "loyalty to Sparkish is quite improbable from a lady of quality, or at least from a lady of any percipience - both by Restoration and by twentieth century standards". 2 2 She is certainly a lady of quality, as was George Savile's daughter, and she is equally a lady of percipience; she knows the town, she "rambles", she goes to plays, she visits Whitehall - and she has few illusions about Sparkish's intelligence. When she first meets Harcourt in Act II she sighs over the fact that Sparkish does not have his "person and understanding". Yet in the circumstances there is little she can do about it. Pinch wife is quite clearly her guardian; it is he who has control of her dowry of five thousand pounds, and it is he who has presumably undertaken the elaborate financial negotiations that always preceded marriages until relatively recent times. As far as she can see, Sparkish will allow her to continue to enjoy the freedom of the town, and so, because of his apparent trust and the formal contract that has been drawn up, she is determined to honour her side of the bargain. As for love, she simply echoes the sentiments of the Marquis of Halifax and hopes that it will develop after marriage (IV,i). In other words, her stand is the stand that any sensible, honourable woman of her time and class would take. And this is precisely Wycherley's point, for it is the sickness of the whole marital system, a sickness that infects not only the bad but also the good, that is the main thesis of The Country Wife. There is one further point that relates to the criticism that Alithea should have reacted more quickly to Harcourt's charms. As I have already noted, she recognizes his external merits right away, but even so it is inconceivable that she should have broken off her marriage at the eleventh hour merely because an importunate rake urges her to. Alithea is, after all, perfectly familiar with "the Society of Wits, and Raillieurs" as she calls them (II,i), and she 22

Wilkinson, Comedy of Habit, 135.

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knows that they have smooth tongues, cynical ideas, and would probably make bad husbands (IV,i). Nor, indeed, does her classification of Harcourt seem particularly inaccurate in the light of some of his sentiments: "No, Mistresses are like Books; if you pore upon them too much, they doze you, and make you unfit for Company; but if us'd discreetly, you are the fitter for conversation by 'em" (I,i); "Foh, Wine and Women good apart, together as nauseous as Sack and Sugar" (III,ii), and so on. As far as Alithea or anyone else can tell she is wiser to remain true to Sparkish. It is up to Harcourt to demonstrate that he has been truly smitten, which he eventually does by showing Alithea just how stupid Sparkish is, by contriving to postpone the wedding ceremony and, finally, by affirming his faith in her honour when all the evidence points in the opposite direction. A more valid criticism of the Harcourt-Alithea scenes is that they are rather insipid in comparison with the rest of the play. One reason for this is that Alithea is overshadowed theatrically by Lady Fidget and Margery (as Harcourt is by Horner), first because her role is a defensive one, and secondly because she is a victim of the familiar law that when good and evil are brought together the good will appear dull and uninteresting - as Milton discovered in Paradise Lost. Then, too, Wycherley was not capable of giving Alithea and Harcourt the brilliant verbal exchanges on which the fame of the Restoration hero and heroine so often rests. Millamant, for instance, is really no more interesting as a person than Alithea; it is the superb way in which she expresses her gaiety, her affectations, her fastidiousness and so on that makes her the most famous Restoration heroine. The Alithea-Sparkish-Harcourt episodes are not without their amusing moments though, and they are of absolute thematic importance within the total scheme of the play. Margery Pinchwife is the third of the victimized women in The Country Wife. Her most important characteristic is her simplicity. She is so simple that Wycherley would have us believe that she is as incapable of comprehending jealousy (II,i) as the Houyhnhnms lies. Pinchwife married her because she was "silly and innocent" (I,i) and on this basis he seems to have made an excellent choice.

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In her first scene (II,i) the humour partly stems from her naive assumption that bucolic customs are the same as town customs (Alithea: (aside) "A walking, hah, ha; Lord, a Country Gentlewomans pleasure is the drudgery of a foot-post; and she requires as much airing as her Husbands Horses."), and on her completely free and open assertion to her husband that she thinks "the Player Men" are "finer Folks" than he is, and that she would love to hear more of the gallant who praised her. And all the time she is good natured and eager to please. To this point all critics are, 1 think, agreed, but then a serious misconception frequently creeps in. P. F. Vernon, for example, says that Margery "develops all the brilliant cunning of a sophisticated townswoman", 2 3 and Rose Zimbardo echoes him when she states that "she develops guile, and she feigns innocence to disguise her passion from Pinchwife". 24 T. H. Fujimura is more enthusiastic: "Mrs. Margery Pinchwife ... is a splendid female animal, amoral, clever, sensual, who follows her natural instincts and rushes willingly into the arms of Horner" 2 5 - which is a fine description of some Italian film starlet, but it does not somehow quite describe Margery. (Wilcox's criticism that she is "naturally vile" 26 can be safely ignored.) There are two reasons why these three most recent critics of The Country Wife invest Margery with "cunning" or "guile", and both result from a misinterpretation of the text. The first is that Margery manages to switch the letters behind Pinchwife's back in Act IV, scene ii. A proper reading of this passage reveals that Margery accomplishes her coup more by luck than by good judgement. Everything she does is on the spur of the moment and, as in the best farce, she seems to avoid disaster by some flustered action performed at the last second. The bewilderment of her soliloquy as she works up to her plan is a clear indication of her state of mind:

23

Vernon, William Wycherley, 25. Zimbardo, Wycherley's Drama, 158. 25 Fujimura, introd. to The Country Wife (in Regents Restoration Drama Series), xii-xiii. 26 Wilcox, Relation, 92. 24

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I won't, so I won't, send poor Mr. Horner such a Letter - but then my Husband - But oh - what if I writ at bottom, my Husband made me write it - Ay, but then my Husband wou'd see't - Can one have no shift, ah, a London woman wou'd have had a hundred presently; stay - what if I shou'd write a Letter, and wrap it up like this, and write upon't too; ay, but then my Husband wou'd see't - I don't know what to do - But yet yvads I'll try, so I will. "Cunning" implies premeditated planning and there is nothing of that sort here. Secondly, there is the ruse involving Margery's second letter and the whole stratagem of being taken to Horner disguised as Alithea. Although Wycherley does not point this very clearly, he does nevertheless indicate that it is Lucy who is the mastermind behind these schemes. In Act V, scene i, Margery escapes from her husband's interrogation because, as she says in an aside, " I have just got time to know of Lucy her Maid, who first set me on work, what lye I shall tell next, for I am e'ne at my wits end", and Lucy herself says in Act V, scene iv, " N o w cou'd I speak, if I durst, and solve the Riddle, who am the Author of it." The truth is that Margery is as simple and disarming at the end of the play as she is at the beginning. She has, of course, had experiences that have induced her to change her reactions to certain aspects of her existence, but in the realms of wit and sophistication she remains essentially a child of nature. In the final act she is certain that she has solved the business of divorce (if she knows what that means) when she happily announces to Horner, "you shall be my Husband now"; and it is Horner's ultimate description of her that is the most accurate one: "Dear Ideot". I have devoted a good deal of space to this argument because of the importance of assessing the attitude that Wycherley intended his audience to have towards Margery. If she is "cunning" then it means that she is able to look after herself to some extent and this in turn lessens the sympathy that need be felt lor her. If, on the other hand, she is, as I hope I have demonstrated, consistently naive and artless (and therefore innocent) then the audience must feel compassion for her. This compassion is a significant ingredient of the final response that The Country Wife should evoke. G. G. Falle has

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noted that there is pathos in Margery's situation, 27 but he does not quite pinpoint wherein the pathos lies. There is no need to say very much about the ugliness of her life with Pinchwife. The "caged bird" simile sums up part of it, and the distressing little postscript of her letter to Horner the rest: "Let him [Pinchwife] not see this, lest he should come home, and pinch me, or kill my Squirrel" (IV,iii). But at the beginning of the play Margery is, in her simple way, reasonably content with her lot: "I hate London; our Place-house in the Country is worth a thousand of't, wou'd I were there again"; "You are my own Dear Bud, and I know you, I hate a Stranger" (II,i). By the end of the play, however, she has come to look on her husband as a man who, as she says, "I loath, nauseate, and detest" (IV,iv), and she has had a glimpse of a way of life that appears to her to be more attractive than the one she had known. (This does not mean that she has become less simple, or that she has learnt anything in any deep sense.) It is in the light of these newly acquired urges that her final doom of a return to the country with her bestial husband and, more important, without now the protection that her simple acceptance of her lot once gave her, becomes a fate almost too appalling to contemplate. This, of course, is to imagine beyond the final curtain so the prospect can be quickly shut out. And yet the thought is there. 1 do not think that it has been sufficiently realized that as much of the action takes place at Pinchwife's lodgings as at Horner's, and that in fact Pinchwife's role is the same length as Horner's. If such quantitative judgements are of significance then it means that Pinchwife and what might be called the Pinchwife influence are more important to The Country Wife than is usually appreciated. Satire can evoke a limitless range of responses from the frothiest amusement to the bitterest disgust, and the satirized figures in The Country Wife represent a fair cross section of this range. Sparkish, I have suggested, is an amusingly vacuous creature, the Fidgets are a compound of the ludicrous and the contemptible, while Margery elicits (most of the time) an affectionate laugh. 27

G. G. Falle (ed.), Three Restoration Comedies (in College Classics in English), p. 9.

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Pinchwife, on the other hand, like Volpone or Gulliver at the end of his travels, is one of those characters who inhabits the shadowy netherworld of comedy. There is little that is 'funny' about Pinchwife himself; every facet of his character provokes disgust. Jealousy is his besetting vice and it so consumes him that when Horner tells him "thou art mad, M a n " (IV,iii) the literal and figurative meanings merge. Pinchwife married because, he explains, " I cou'd never keep a Whore to my self" (I,i), and he chose a silly country girl because she would not be expensive, would not mind his age, and would not have the wit to make him a cuckold. The quality of this sorry marriage founded on lust and mistrust is seen in the exchange, already quoted, when husband and wife first meet (II,i): Mrs. Pinchwife: O my dear, dear Bud, welcome home; why dost thou look so fropish, who has nanger'd thee? Pinchwife: You're a Fool. [Mrs. Pinchwife goes aside, & cries. In Pinchwife's diseased world, love is evil and women ("these dowbak'd, senseless, indocile animals" [IV,iv]) mere beasts of burden: "Love, 'twas he gave Women first their craft, their art of deluding; out of natures hands they came plain, open, silly, and fit for slaves, as she and Heaven intended 'em; but damn'd Love Well - I must strangle that little Monster, whilest I can deal with him" (IV,ii). As this quotation indicates, there is a streak of physical brutality in Pinchwife. His very name, and the suggestion, already referred to, that he is not above killing his wife's pets, indicate the meanness of his small cruelties, but he often becomes more horrifyingly violent. When Margery baulks at the letter he dictates to her in Act IV, scene ii, he says, "Write as I bid you, or I will write Whore with this Penknife in your Face", and later, "Once more write as I'd have you, and question it not, or I will spoil thy writing with this, I will stab out those eyes that cause my mischief". In Act IV, scene iv, he draws his sword to murder her, and he also draws on Horner in the final scene. His language, too, is filled with images of physical pain, of disease and decay: "Ten thousand ulcers gnaw away their lips"; "ten thousand plagues go with 'em!" (III,ii);

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"an eternal canker seize it, for a dog"; "No, tormenting Fiend" (IV,ii); "I'le make an end of you thus, and all my plagues together" (IV,iv); " a Country-murrain to me" (V,iv). Although The Country Wife is a comedy it is fair to call Pinchwife an evil man. Indeed, all his ideas and actions are so infamous, and his language is so murderous, that he is at times close to the villain of melodrama. Yet he is not that, for he and his baleful universe of "doleful shades, where peace and rest can never dwell" perform too serious a function in the play. They provide the play with its darker colouring, its sinister background before which the more noticeable sparks of comedy dance merrily enough. And it is by means of this gloomier resonance that the intensity of Wycherley's moral commitment to his theme can be most clearly perceived. Harry Horner must be one of the most notorious characters in Restoration comedy; he is also the subject of considerable confusion for the majority of critics. On the one hand it is acknowledged that Wycherley intended him to be the play's witty rake-hero, but on the other his cynical sexual exploits offend against moral propriety, and he is condemned with a vigour that is presumably in proportion to the outrage that the critic feels. This basic confusion of attitude can be seen in Anne Righter's essay 28 where she begins by calling Horner (along with Dorilant, Harcourt and Alithea) one of the "truewits as opposed to the fools", a little later refers to him as a "renegade from the centre" of the truewits, and concludes by calling him a "monomaniac" whose "grotesque, one-sided and excessive" behaviour "scarcely accords with the truewits' standard of natural elegance and decorum". But Righter is relatively restrained in her condemnation. Bonamy Dobrée calls Horner a "grim, nightmare figure";29 F. W. Bateson says he is a "Grotesque or mere mechanism"; 30 and Rose Zimbardo asserts that he is "a hypocrite, not a natural man, and certainly not a hero". 3 1 And yet he is still the truewit. 28

Righter, "Wycherley", 77-79. Dobrée, Restoration Comedy, 94. 30 F. W. Bateson, "Second Thoughts: II. L. C. Knights and Restoration Comedy", Essays in Criticism, 7 (1957), 66. 31 Zimbardo, Wycherley's Drama, 155. 29

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There is no good reason to suppose that Wycherley intended Horner to be a particularly unsympathetic character. It is true that he is devoted to the principle that sex is fun, that it is pleasurable to sleep with as many attractive women as possible, but there are not many members of a modern audience, any more than there would have been many members of a Restoration audience, who would disagree with him. On the other hand, to call him a monomaniac, a hypocrite, and so on, on account of his sexual escapades is to employ terms that somehow do not seem pertinent to a discussion of comic characterization. Comedy, after all, only presents that segment of an individual's nature that is required by the conventions of the genre, and to indulge in psychological analyses on this basis is inappropriate. The point can be made in other ways. If Horner is a monomaniac then so are all other heroes of sex comedies; it is their function to be monomaniacs, and therefore the use of such a heavily critical term in this context is unapt. A similar argument applies to the charge of hypocrisy. Certainly Horner is a hypocrite. So are Mirabell and Dorimant. So is Hamlet. Used in this way the term soon becomes meaningless. It is as dangerous to take comedy into the pulpit as it is to place it on the analyst's couch. Connected with these criticisms is the charge that Horner is not only deceitful towards the corrupt figures of the play, but also towards his friends. Thus Anne Righter calls him "a solitary", a man who "stands completely alone in the play". 3 2 This, again, is too dark for the case. Horner keeps his secret to himself because he knows it is wise to be circumspect in these matters. One imagines that when his ploy has run its course Harcourt and Dorilant will laugh delightedly with him over the success of his ingenuity. Such a conjecture is, of course, outside the bounds of the play, but it serves to set the relationship between the three wits into a proper perspective. They are quite clearly friends in the best sense, and it is their collective attitudes and values that Wycherley uses as a sane commentary upon the diseased society that surrounds them. This raises the question of Horner's cynicism and the extent to which it can be said to express Wycherley's attitude towards the 32

Righter, "Wycherley", 78.

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mores of Restoration society. It would appear at first sight as though Horner's contempt for his fellow man is profound and far reaching. His first words, the opening words of the play, are cynical ("A Quack is as fit for a Pimp, as a Midwife for a Bawd; they are still but in their way, both helpers of Nature"), and it is cynicism that informs his attitude towards Lady Fidget and the virtuous gang, Sir Jaspar, Sparkish and Pinchwife (but not, I think, Margery). At the same time it should be noted that Horner makes no attempt to approach Alithea, the only truly honourable woman in the play, and also that, as George Falle points out, 3 3 he shows genuine concern when he hears that Harcourt has apparently lost his mistress (lV,iii). (His betrayal of Alithea in the final scene cannot be adduced against him. He is faced with a perfect moral dilemma, in that he has to incriminate either his own mistress or Harcourt's, and there is therefore no question of apportioning blame.) His presumed respect for Alithea, then, his hopes for Harcourt's future happiness, his continued friendship with Dorilant and Harcourt, and above all his distaste for the way of life represented by the play's fools all suggest that Horner is not in fact without his ideals. It is true that little enough is seen of Horner the man of honour, but this is for the obvious reason that most of his time is spent in the company of the Pinchwifes and Fidgets against whom contempt and exploitation are understandable, though negative, methods of defence. To complicate matters even further, it must be remembered that through most of the play Horner is acting a part, that of the impotent misogynist, and therefore expresses opinions that he might not necessarily hold in propria persona. Taking these qualifying factors into consideration I think it would be fair to say that Horner is as cynical as Harcourt ("a Man drinks often with a Fool, as he tosses with a Marker, only to keep his hand in Ure"), and as Dorilant ("1 wou'd no more Sup with Women, unless I cou'd lye with 'em, than Sup with a rich Coxcomb, unless I cou'd cheat him."), and, probably, as his creator. Although one of the aims of the preceding argument has been to suggest that Horner is not really as villainous as he has sometimes 33

Falle, Three Restoration Comedies, 8.

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been called, it would be a mistake to leave the impression that he is a shining example of the honnête homme. The final judgement on Horner should, I think, be that he is neither admirable or reprehensible - or perhaps it would be truer to say that he is both and they cancel each other out. His opinion of the depraved characters of the play can certainly be applauded as can his exposure of them and the comic audacity with which this is undertaken; at the same time, the nullity of his behaviour is a little disturbing, and his selfsatisfaction could be considered to be disagreeable. One can certainly find room in this catholic approach to Horner for Kathleen Lynch's theory that he is himself the butt of a certain amount of satire. 34 Perhaps the most productive way of looking at Horner and his function in the play is to see him as a picaresque hero. 35 Like the picaro he is untroubled by conventional morality, and he spends his time exploiting the fools with whom he comes in contact. But the real point of the comparison is that in the picaresque novel the satire is focussed not so much on the picaro himself as on the corrupt world through which he moves. This, it seems to me, is the situation in The Country Wife exactly. It is almost irrelevant to argue that Horner, the satirical instrument, the man by whom a depraved society is held up to ridicule, is 'good' or 'bad'. He quite simply is. Not to recognize this is to run the risk of deflecting attention from Wycherley's major attack on the sham of the prevailing attitudes towards love and marriage, and his exposure of the dishonesty, artificiality and misery they entail.

4 Not much has been said in the previous two chapters about 34

Lynch, Social Mode, 168-171. This suggestion was not originally intended as historical criticism, but merely as a useful comparison. However, in the light of Wycherley's undoubted familiarity with Spanish literature, as is proved by the fact that his first two plays have Spanish sources (he may also have gone on a diplomatic mission to Spain; see W. Connely, Brawny Wycherley, pp. 45-48), the possibility that Wycherley was consciously writing within the picaresque tradition when he created Horner is not too farfetched. 35

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Wycherley's language. If The Country Wife marks the summit of his achievement as a dramatist then it is in this play that his ability to write dialogue can best be seen. The subject divides itself naturally into two parts. First there is the conversation of the grotesques, such as Sir Jaspar Fidget, Sparkish and thePinchwifes, and secondly there is the wit dialogue of Horner and his friends. The aim of the language in each case is significantly different. In the first instance such elements as tone, speech rhythms and verbal idiosyncrasies are calculated to assist in the definition of character. The purpose of the humorous repartee, however, is not to define character but to indulge in that "chace of wit" that Dryden called "the greatest pleasure of the audience". 36 Because this was a shared ideal, the topics of conversation, the tone of the dialogue and even the style varied little between one play and another and between one dramatist and another. Yet there is, even so, some difference between the wit of Etherege or Congreve, and it is this difference that is to be explored in this section. It was already clear in Love in a Wood that Wycherley possessed the ability to suit his dialogue to his humour's characters (see pp. 33-34 above). By the time he came to write The Country Wife he had perfected this skill to the extent that it is possible to identify a speaker by his style alone, even assuming that the content did not provide an aid to recognition: My Coach breaking just now before your door, Sir, I look upon as an occasional reprimand to me, Sir, for not kissing your hands, Sir since your coming out of France, Sir; and so my disaster, Sir, has been my good fortune, Sir; and this is my Wife, and Sister, Sir (I,i).

Sir Jaspar Fidget's pomposity is nicely characterized by these clipped phrases and the frequent interjections of the too ceremonious "sir". Horner calls him "this formal Fool" just before he enters, and it is his formality with its concomitants of prudence and preciseness that inform his words and actions: "Nor can I stay longer; 'tis - let me see, a quarter and a half quarter of a minute past eleven; the Council will be sate, I must away" (I,i). Where Sir 36

Dryden's Essays, Vol. I, p. 72.

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Jaspar's language is that of the practical business man, Sparkish affects an airier mode of expression suitable to one who aspires, unsuccessfully, to the title of wit. His conversation is that of the outsider who hopes to ingratiate himself with the group by using what he mistakenly thinks are fashionable familiarities, or perhaps chummy crudities that are distressing not because they are crudities but because they are so obviously designed to prove that he is a member of the group: Sparkish: No - then mark, mark, now, said I to the fourth, did you never see Mr. Horner; he lodges in Russel-street, and he's a sign of a Man, you know, since he came out of France, heh, hah, he. Horner: But the Devil take me, if thine be the sign of a jest. Sparkish: With that they all fell a laughing, till they bepiss'd themselves? what, but it do's not move you, methinks? well, I see one had as good go to Law without a witness, as break a jest without a laughter on ones side. - Come, come Sparks, but where do we dine, I have left at Whitehal an Earl to dine with you (I,i). The artificiality of Sparkish's style is in contrast to the artlessness of Margery's. Her largely monosyllabic vocabulary, her provincialisms and her affectionate baby talk ("fropish", "nangered", " b u d " and "yvads"), her childlike bluntness, and above all the simplicity of her syntax, are all perfectly expressive of her country background and her natural ingenuousness. Her second letter to Horner illustrates her style nicely: Dear, Sweet Mr. Horner - so - my Husband wou'd have me send you a base, rude, unmannerly Letter - but I won't - so - and wou'd have me forbid you loving me - but I won't - so - and wou'd have me say to you, I hate you poor Mr. Horner - but I won't tell a lye for him - there - for I'm sure if you and I were in the Countrey at Cards together, - so - I cou'd not help treading on your Toe under the Table - so - or rubbing knees with you, and staring in your face, 'till you saw me - very well and then looking down, and blushing for an hour together - so - but I must make haste before my Husband comes and now he has taught me to write Letters: You shall have longer ones from me, who am Dear, dear, poor dear Mr. Horner, your most Humble Friend, and Servant to command 'till death, Margery Pinchwife.

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Pinchwife is less obviously individualized by the style than by the content of his conversation. If he has a particular characteristic then it is in the realm of exclamation. Such expletives as "Hell and damnation!", "How the Divel!", "Monstrous!" and so on, usually uttered as asides, are liberally sprinkled through his conversation. But these expressions of an inner fury help to colour the rest of his speech, so that even when he attempts the affected utterance of the wit (and one remembers that he was once a rake) the tone is louring and twisted: Horner: ... That grave circumspection in marrying a Country Wife, is like refusing a deceitful pamper'd Smithfield Jade, to go and be cheated by a Friend in the Country. Pinchwife: A Pox on him and his Simile. [Aside. At least we are a little surer of the breed there, know what her keeping has been, whether soyl'd or unsound. Horner first employs the horse simile but with enough artistry to leave the elements of the comparison fairly far apart. Pinchwife, from his "Pox" oath onwards, manages to make the comparison much more explicit and to reduce the conversation to a more unpleasant level of sexuality. Wycherley's ability to write excellent dialogue for his humour's characters must be accounted one of his major achievements as a dramatist; whether he is as successful with his passages at wit is not so certain. There is a tendency to take Congreve's dramatic prose as the touchstone of stylistic perfection in Restoration comedy, and a purely abstract comparison of the two dramatists on this basis does Wycherley little credit. There are, indeed, very few occasions when one can match passages from The Country Wife and The Way of the World, but perhaps one such is Lady Flippant's, "To report a Man has had a Person, when he has not had a Person, is the greatest wrong in the whole World, that can be done to a Person" (II,i), which has somewhat the same qualities as Millamant's, "Why, one makes Lovers as fast as one pleases, and they live as long as one pleases, and they die as soon as one pleases: And then if one pleases one makes more" (II,iv); yet even here the

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comparison is all in Congreve's favour. Beside the richness of Millamant's statement and the superb modulations of her phraseology, Lady Flippant's utterance seems plain. Sometimes, too, Wycherley is able to turn as exquisite a simile as any dramatist of the period. In Act I, Dorilant's contribution to a discussion on mistresses is, "A Mistress shou'd be like a little Country Retreat near the Town, not to dwell in constantly, but only for a night and away; to taste the Town the better when a Man returns." This, however, cannot be called Wycherley's normal voice simply because such passages as this occur very infrequently. One has to begin, then, by dissenting from Montague Summers' opinion that Wycherley's wit is "sparkling". 37 One way of perceiving the individuality of Wycherley's wit dialogue is to compare an extended passage from The Country Wife with one from another play written at roughly the same time by a man whose social standing was akin to Wycherley's. The comparison becomes even more instructive if the speakers, the situation and the subject matter of both passages are similar. In Act I, scene i, of Etherege's The Man of Mode (1676), the three wits, Dorimant, Medley and Bellair are discussing Sir Fopling Flutter: Medley: There is a great Critick I hear in these matters lately arriv'd piping hot from Paris. Bellair: Sir Fopling Flutter, you mean. Medley: The same. Bellair: He thinks himself the Pattern of modern Gallantry. Dorimant: He is indeed the pattern of modern Foppery. Medley: He was Yesterday at the Play, with a pair of Gloves up to his Elbows, and a Periwig more exactly Curl'd then a Ladies head newly dress'd for a Ball. Bellair: What a pretty lisp he has! Dorimant: Ho! that he affects in imitation of the people of Quality of France. 37

Montague Summers, The Playhouse of Pepys, p. 315.

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Medley: His head stands for the most part on one side, and his looks are more languishing than a Ladys when she loll's at stretch in her Coach, or leans her head carelessly against the side of a Box i'the Playhouse. Dorimant: He is a person indeed of great acquir'd Follies. Medley: He is like many others, beholding to his Education for making him so eminent a Coxcomb; many a Fool had been lost to the World, had their indulgent Parents wisely bestow'd neither Learning nor good breeding on 'em. Bellair: He has been, as the sparkish word is, Brisk upon the Ladies already; he was yesterday at my Aunt Townley's, and gave Mrs. Loveit a Catalogue of his good Qualities, under the Character of a Compleat Gentleman, who according to Sir Fopling, ought to dress well, Dance well, Fence well, have a genius for Love Letters, an agreeable voice for a Chamber, be very Amorous, something discreet, but not over Constant. Medley: Pretty ingredients to make an accomplisht Person. 38 In Act I of The Country Wife, Horner, Harcourt and Dorilant prepare for the entrance of Sparkish: Boy: Mr. Sparkish is below, Sir. Harcourt: What, my dear Friend! a Rogue that is fond of me, only I think, for abusing him. Dorilant: No, he can no more think the Men laugh at him, than that Women jilt him, his opinion of himself is so good. Horner: Well, there's another pleasure by drinking, I thought not of, I shall lose his acquaintance, because he cannot drink; and you know 'tis a very hard thing to be rid of him, for he's one of those nauseous offerers at wit, who like the worst Fidlers run themselves into all Companies.

Harcourt: No, the Rogue will not let us enjoy one another, but ravishes 38

Etherege, Dramatic Works, Vol. II, pp. 200-201.

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our conversation, though he signifies no more to't than Sir Martin Mar-all's gaping, and auker'd thrumming upon the Lute, does to his Man's Voice, and Musick. Dorilant: And to pass for a Wit in Town, shews himself a Fool every night to us, that are guilty of the plot. Horner: Such Wits as he, are, to a Company of reasonable Men, like Rooks to the Gamesters, who only fill a room at the Table, but are so far from contributing to the play, that they only serve to spoil the fancy of those that do. Dorilant: Nay, they are us'd like Rooks too, snub'd, check'd, and abus'd; yet the Rogues will hang on. Horner: A pox on 'em, and all that force Nature, and wou'd be still what she forbids 'em; Affectation is her greatest Monster. The similarities between these two passages are sufficiently striking (and they constitute, no doubt, one example of the "miserable limited set of attitudes" that L. C. Knights decries in his essay on Restoration comedy), 39 but at the same time they illustrate significant differences in the satiric methods of the two playwrights. The most immediately obvious difference is in the realm of diction. The vocabulary that Wycherley employs in his attack on fops is abrasive, coarse and blunt. A list of key words from the above passage would include "rogue", "abuse", "nauseous", "gaping", "rook", "snubbed" and "monster", and it is, in fact, words such as these that give Wycherley's dramatic prose the rough texture that is one of the hallmarks of his style. Etherege, on the other hand, although he has as much contempt for the would-be wit as Wycherley is an elegant satirist and his delicacy shows in his language. "Fool" and "coxcomb" are about as near as he comes to Wycherley's more belligerent language. "How easy", says Dryden, "is it to call rogue and villain, and that wittily! But how hard to make a man appear a fool, a blockhead, or a knave, without using any of those opprobrious terms! To spare the grossness of the names, and to do the thing yet more severely, is to draw a full face, and to make the nose and

39

Knights, "Restoration Comedy", 145. But see Bernard Harris, "The Dialect of those Fanatic Times", in: Restoration Theatre, 11-40.

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cheeks stand out, and yet not to employ any depth of shadowing." 40 On the strength of this quotation Dryden would have preferred Etherege's satiric method to Wycherley's. In passing it is interesting to notice that there is also a difference in the intention of the satire that may partly account for the greater force of Wycherley's style. Etherege's three wits describe Sir Fopling in such a way that they conjure up the image of a real individual. In the course of their detraction they mention his gloves, his periwig, a vocal mannerism, his posture, his expression and his opinions. Doubtless Sir Fopling shared these affectations with others of his type, but he comes through, nevertheless, as a true original. Wycherley, on the other hand, allows Horner and his friends to give Sparkish no such distinguishing features. The audience, it is true, learn that he is an easy butt for insults and that he has an inflated opinion of himself, but these characteristics are the lowest common denominator of the fop. Indeed, the introductory phrases of many of the statements ("he's one of those"; "one that"; "such Wits as he") indicate that it is the species as much as the individual that is the object of Wycherley's satire. It is noticeable, too, that in the course of his description Wycherley employs no less than five similes (Etherege only has one) and these re-inforce even further the impression of Sparkish as a generalized figure. The climax of the passage is, not surprisingly, the formulation of a general law that summarizes all that has gone before: "A Pox on 'em, and all that force Nature, and wou'd be still what she forbids 'em: Affectation is her greatest Monster." Wycherley undoubtedly had a tendency to generalize (cf. the Miscellany Poems), and it is possible that he felt that the broadness of his satiric attack demanded the most vigorous weapons. Finally, there is no doubt that Etherege had an eye for the descriptive phrase and an ear for the rhythm of a sentence that Wycherley simply did not possess. To describe Sir Fopling as having come from Paris "piping hot" is delightfully apt, as is his picture of the Restoration lady as she "loll's at stretch in her Coach". Indeed, the whole sentence in which this last phrase is embedded is 40

Dryden, Essays, Vol. II, pp. 92-93.

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an excellent example of prose raised into poetry. In its alliteration, its choice of words, its long vowel sounds and rhythmic mixture of iambs and anapests it perfectly depicts the laconic élégante taking her ease: "His looks are more languishing than a Ladys when she loll's at stretch in her Coach, or leans her head carelessly against the side of a Box i'the Playhouse." Not only does it seem effortless, but it is immediately comprehensible. One can rarely claim as much for Wycherley. All too often it seems as though he just fails to reach those effects after which he is striving; a phrase will lack the vividness that it is so obviously intended to have, or a long sentence will just miss the necessary balance and cohesiveness, and fritter away into dullness. 41 Certainly no actor would thank him for such a phrase as "those nauseous offerers at wit", while the following speech with its succession of subordinate clauses and unremarkable words is in danger of rambling: "Such Wits as he, are, to a Company of reasonable Men, like Rooks to the Gamesters, who only fill a room at the Table, but are so far from contributing to the play, that they only serve to spoil the fancy of those that do." Rochester calls Etherege "refin'd", but says that Wycherley "earnes hard what e're he gains", 42 and whether or not this was in fact the case it is certainly the impression that the two dramatists leave. However, abstracting examples of style in this way is not entirely fair if no reference is made to the suitability of the language to the character of the work from which it is taken. Exquisitely phrased jokes about cucumber sandwiches and birth in a handbag are all very well for a frothier comedy of manners, but The Country Wife needed a heavier elegance. For this reason one can say that although Wycherley is unable to compete with Etherege, much less with Congreve, in the arena of pure style, his muscular prose, even though it so often gives the impression of having been wrestled into 41

It is possible, I think, to argue from Wycherley's prose to his poetry. Both the heroic couplet and the prose of wit have certain requirements in common such as succinctness, neat phrasing and the appearance of naturalness. These prerequisites are of much greater importance for the couplet, and it is therefore not surprising to find that Wycherley was totally unsuccessful with this verse form. 42 Rochester, Poems, 96.

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shape (or perhaps BECAUSE it gives this impression), is peculiarly suited to the rough satiric character of The Country Wife.

5 The Country Wife is technically as good as any play in the Restoration canon. The characters are clearly conceived and firmly drawn, the three plots are coherent and cleverly worked out both in themselves and in relation to each other, the sequence and rhythm of the scenes are handled with great assurance, and the language is nicely suited both to the play's characters and to its tone. There is more, however, to The Country Wife than this. If there were not then the popular conception of it as a very good sex comedy would be justified, as would the judgement of those critics who see it as little more than a "bright and glorious farce". 4 3 There is, of course, a great deal of farcical material in the play, such as Horner's basic deception, Harcourt's creation of a sibling priest, Margery's impersonation of Alithea, and so on, but these are the play's ornaments rather than its body. Eric Bentley suggests that a really worthwhile play presents a vision of life, and to the idea of vision the idea of w i s d o m naturally adheres. T o share this vision and this w i s d o m ... is n o t t o receive information or counsel but rather to have a " m o m e n t o u s experience". The momentousness is to be defined partly in emotional terms: according to the play in question there accrues joy, elation, exaltation, ecstasy, or whatever. But an essential part o f our conviction that such an experience is momentous derives from what we take to be the import o f the play. 4 4

This may sound rather pretentious when applied to a Restoration comedy, but the truth is that The Country Wife has been classified 43

Allardyce Nicoli, A History of Restoration Drama, 1660-1700, p. 226. Sir Edmund Gosse in his Introduction to Restoration Plays (Everyman ed.), says that Wycherley's diagnosis of vice is "scandalously farcical" (p. xii). John Palmer in The Comedy of Manners calls The Country Wife "the most perfect farce in English dramatic literature" (p. 22). 44 Bentley, Life of Drama, 146-147.

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as 'light' or 'irresponsible' for too long, and it therefore does no harm to redress the balance somewhat. The theme of The Country Wife is, as P. F. Vernon says, "the failure of contemporary marriage arrangements"; 4 5 the play's vision is of a society that is on the verge of disintegrating because of the unhealthiness of these arrangements. The commercialization and the consequent dehumanization of marriage infected most levels of society in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. On the one hand one finds the Marquis of Halifax explaining the situation to his daughter apparently without much enthusiasm, while further down the scale there is Moll Flanders coming to the realization that "marriages were ... the consequences of politic schemes for forming interests, carrying on business, and that love had no share, or but very little, in the matter". 4 6 In his important essay on the relation of marriage customs to Restoration comedy, P. F. Vernon points out that the heroic plays and prose romances of the time celebrated the ideal concept of marriage as a union based on free choice, and that this view was supported by Protestant theology. Unfortunately, the cash principle was so deeply ingrained in the fabric of society (as Pepys's Diary makes clear) that pious hopes remained just that. Vernon goes on: Naturally the increasingly sordid nature of marriage arrangements in real life conflicted violently with this ideal conception of the meaning of marriage. Following in the wake of disillusionment came contempt. Far from revering the marriage ceremony, intelligent men came to look upon it as a mere commercial transaction. It was better not to attach one's finer feelings to it. 47

Here, then, is the background for the satire in The Country Wife. It is a play that sets out to attack a society that accepted marital contracts based on interest rather than love, and it shows the deception, hypocrisy, indifference and cruelty that flow from such 45

Vernon, Treatment of Marriage, 25. Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders (The Works of Daniel Defoe, Vol. VII, introd. G. H. Maynadier), Part I, p. 87. 47 P. F. Vernon, "Marriage of Convenience and the Moral Code of Restoration Comedy", Essays in Criticism, 12 (1962), 370-387. 46

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contracts. Its method is to explore three case histories of couples involved in this world of the arranged marriage. First of all there is Alithea, a basically sensible girl who senses that she is about to embark on an egregious mismatch, but who attempts to justify it because the pressure of contemporary attitudes leaves her no choice. Another couple, the Fidgets (and they are not without their modern counterparts), have an almost perfect non-marriage. Business is Sir Jaspar's only real interest and his wife reacts to his neglect of her in the time-honoured fashion. The desire to keep up appearances is the only aim they have in common, but there is nothing underneath the appearances. The third couple, the Pinchwifes, are the subject of the darkest satire, partly because one of the partners is a true innocent. This is a marriage that issued from Pinchwife's jealousy and lust, and Pinchwife attempts to maintain it by physical violence, by threatening to disfigure his wife's face, and by killing her pets. Through this sorry world dances Horner, a living judgement on its morals. There is no need to judge Horner. If Pinchwifes and Sir Jaspars and Sparkishes are the premise on which society is founded, then Homers are the inescapable conclusion, and it is the premise that is the object of the satire in The Country Wife. In fact the play is a mixture of the farcical and the satirical, of the light and the dark, but the final chord that must be struck in performance, the overall impression that an audience should carry away with it, should be one of bitterness and cynicism. After all, the play ends with a dance of cuckolds rather than the conventional marriage dance, with futility rather than fruition. That cuckolds should dance at the end of a comedy is irony at its most derisive. The marriage theme lies at the heart of Wycherley's first three plays. In Love in a Wood the romantic love of Christina and Valentine and the wilder love of Lydia and Ranger are set against the mechanical lust of Gripe, Lady Flippant, Sir Simon Addleplot and the rest of the characters of the low plot. In The Gentleman DancingMaster Hippolita's battle, against convention, to create her own marriage founded on affection holds the centre of the stage. In The Country Wife, the triumphant sum of the first two both technically and thematically, the courtship of the true lovers, Alithea and

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Harcourt, is relegated to the upper left hand corner as it were, and the main action depicts three examples of love at its most tasteless. All three plays are clearly and consistently concerned with the need for love, integrity and free choice in marriage, a theme that Wycherley treats with increasing seriousness. Indeed, it is difficult to see how John Wain can claim that "Wycherley ... never achieved clarity on any basic moral issue". 48 It is equally difficult to understand in what meaningful sense Wycherley was pandering to a courtly culture as D. R. M. Wilkinson states.49 And L. C. Knights can only maintain his epigram if he considers the problem of achieving happiness in wedlock trivial; certainly Restoration and modern audiences have not found the question as it is treated in The Country Wife either gross or dull.

48

Wain, "Restoration Comedy", 382. » Wilkinson, Comedy of Habit, 144.

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This play is ... an ungainly monster, sprawling all over society. Now it consists of an act in the Law Courts, an act only accidentally connected with the play; now of the grim scenes of Olivia's rape and Vernish's duplicity; now of the Widow Blackacre, a 'humour' if ever there was one; now of passages that are pure comedy of manners. And finally there is Fidelia masquerading as a man so as to follow the man she loves. How is criticism to approach this play? (Bonamy Dobrée, Restoration Comedy, p. 88.)

1 Despite one or t w o inaccuracies in the statement itself, the final question is well asked, the more so because Dobrée does not exhaust the problems with which the critic or director of this play has to contend. On the one hand there are such minor puzzles as the date of the composition of The Plain-Dealer in relation to the 1

The Plain-Dealer was first performed by the King's Company at Drury Lane. Its première was probably Monday, December 11th, 1676. See The London Stage. Performances in the seventeenth century are also on record for December 13th, 1676; before Charles II at Oxford on March 21st, 1681; November 1st, 1683; before James II at Whitehall on December 14th, 1685; June 2nd, 1698. Editions of the play in 1677 (bis), 1678,1681,1686,1691,1694 and 1700 suggest that there were many other performances of the play. In the eighteenth century it was acted 66 times, the date of its last recorded performance being January 24th, 1743. Altered versions of the play appeared later in the century. See Emmett L. Avery, "The Plain-Dealer in the Eighteenth Century", Research Studies of the State College of Washington, 11 (1943), 234-256. The original play was performed at the Scala Theatre on November 15th, 1925.

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other three plays, or the extent to which it can be said to contain autobiographical references. On the other is the major difficulty of assessing accurately the moral standpoint from which the play is written. This last issue has proved a highly contentious one; indeed, one of the most striking features of the criticism of The Plain-Dealer to date is the differences of opinion that it has provoked. For instance, it is unlikely that any other character in Restoration comedy has been interpreted as variously as Manly. Some commentators call him "the standard of honest virtue", 2 or "an outstanding pillar of virtue"; 3 others refer to him as very nearly a madman, 4 or as a hypocrite, a hollow man. 5 Nor is Manly the only character subjected to such extremes of interpretation. Does Wycherley intend Freeman to be some sort of "happy mean"? 6 Is he an honnête hommeV Or is there, in fact, "something a little sordid" about him? 8 Even Fidelia, who is generally thought to represent unsullied virtue, is said by one ingenious critic to be characterized by her surname Grey. 9 In the light of these comments it is not surprising that overall opinions of the play range from Harley Granville-Barker's withering contempt 1 0 to Rose Zimbardo's belief that it is "a more finished, more artistically complex work than The Country Wife" There is a story that Restoration audiences did not at first know how to receive The Plain-Dealer, but that they eventually followed

2

K. M. P. Burton, Restoration Literature, p. 73. Frank Harper Moore, The Nobler Pleasure: Dryden's Comedy in Theory and Practice, p. 146. See also G. B. Churchill, "The Originality of William Wycherley", in: Schelling Anniversary Papers, 65-85; Henry Ten Eyck Perry, The Comic Spirit in Restoration Drama, pp. 49-50; John Wilcox, Relation, 100-101. 4 Lynch, Social Mode, 172-173. 5 Zimbardo, Wycherley's Drama, 138-144. 6 Alexander H. Chorney, "Wycherley's Manly Reinterpreted", in: Essays Critical and Historical Dedicated to Lily B. Campbell, 168-169. 7 Zimbardo, Wycherley's Drama, 128. Also Thomas H. Fujimura, The Restoration Comedy of Wit, pp. 147-150; Kathleen M . Lynch, Social Mode, 172. 8 K. M. Rogers, "Fatal Inconsistency: Wycherley and The Plain-Dealer", ELH, 28 (1961), 148-162. 9 Holland, First Modern Comedies, 101. 10 Granville-Barker, "Wycherley and Dryden", 117-157. 11 Zimbardo, Wycherley's Drama, 147. 3

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an aristocratic lead and applauded it. 1 2 One can begin by sympathizing with their dilemma. What, then, as Dobrée says, is the best way to analyse this large and enigmatic play? Unfortunately it does not readily lend itself to a division into its component parts of plot, character and 'meaning' because each is too closely interwoven with the others; as the plot progresses so the characters, and particularly Manly, develop, or, rather, are seen in different lights, and as the character perspective changes so the satiric import of the play varies. Ideally all these facets of the play should be discussed together and I therefore propose to describe, as far as it is feasible to do so, how an audience might reasonably be expected to react to its story, its characters and its ideas as an imagined performance unfolds. It will also be necessary to stop at the end of each act or each scene in order to draw attention to certain less immediately apparent aspects of the play's construction, including what seem to be its defects and its virtues.

2

Before raising the curtain on this analysis of The Plain-Dealer it will be useful to give a brief synopsis of the plot, and also to make a preliminary comment on Manly based on the way he is described in the list of dramatis personae. Wycherley describes his protagonist as "of an honest, surly, nice humour". The first adjective suggests that one should admire Manly. The second qualifies that admiration. The third is ambiguous. Of the many possible seventeenth century meanings of "nice" in the OED, the most appropriate seem to be, "difficult to please", "strict in matters of reputation or conduct", "scrupulous" and "sensitive". The word also has slightly pejorative overtones, in that it hints at excess, so that it can be said to qualify Manly's honesty a little further. However, one also learns in this description of Manly that he acts "out of Honour, not Interest", which tips the balance back again in the direction of admiration. 12

Dennis, Critical Works, Vol. II, p. 277.

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It is obvious at the outset, then, that Manly was not conceived as a simple character, that his opinions and actions will not evoke a consistent response from an audience, and that it will probably be incorrect to see him as either finally a paragon of virtue or a madman. Unlike Love in a Wood which has many plots, The Gentleman Dancing-Master which has one, and The Country Wife which has three, there are two threads of action in The Plain-Dealer. In the first, Manly, a sea captain who lives by absolute moral standards, has just returned to London after an abortive attempt to quit the civilized world that disgusts him so much. He shortly discovers that Olivia, the lady who was to have followed him to the Indies with that part of his fortune that he had entrusted to her care, is in reality as corrupt as the society from which he is fleeing. She has also, in his absence, appropriated his money and married someone else. Manly, however, still finds that he is attracted to her and so he employs his young midshipman to woo her for him. This is Fidelia, a girl who, out of admiration for Manly's virtue, has disguised herself as a man and followed him to sea. Olivia still spurns Manly and instead develops a lust for the disguised Fidelia. Manly is furious and decides to revenge himself by dishonouring Olivia in public, and this he accomplishes with Fidelia's help in the final scene. At the same time he discovers that Vernish, the man he considered to be his one true friend, the man in whose keeping he had left Olivia before leaving the country, is the man to whom she is married. Also in this final scene Manly discovers Fidelia's true identity, and, recognizing her devotion, he transfers his affections to her. Subsidiary characters in this plot are Novel and Lord Plausible, two parasitic members of Olivia's social set, and her honest cousin, Eliza. The second plot concerns Freeman's attempts to marry the rich, old, litigious Widow Blackacre in order that he may settle his debts and live comfortably. He attempts to defeat his rival, Major Oldfox, first of all by seducing the Widow's foolish child, Jerry, away from her and becoming his guardian. She counters by declaring Jerry a bastard, so that Freeman has to resort to the Widow's own weapon, the law, to trap her. He eventually catches her planning to commit

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perjury and thereby manages to force her to pay his debts and settle an annuity on him. The links between these two plots, like the plots themselves, are both simple and adequate. Freeman is both the Widow's wooer and Manly's lieutenant and constant companion. The Widow herself spends much of the first three acts trying to get Manly to be a witness for her in one of her innumerable law suits; she is also a kinswoman of Manly's mistress, Olivia. There is, too, the no less cohesive factor that all the characters seem to move in vaguely the same social circle and are thus acquainted with each other. Clearly Wycherley set himself no very great problems in the matter of working out and interweaving the two plots of The Plain-Dealer and yet, significantly, this play is longer than any of the other three comedies by almost the length of an act. This in itself suggests that Wycherley's last play contains some sort of additional material. The nature of this extra dimension is made clear by the opening scene of the play. Whether or not Wycherley wrote The Plain-Dealer before or after The Country Wife, he was an experienced enough dramatist to know that the way a play begins is as important as the way it ends. It is therefore worth remarking that this is the only one of Wycherley's comedies in which the opening exchange has no bearing whatsoever on the progress of the action. Manly and Lord Plausible, who occupy the stage when the curtain rises, have very little to do with each other in the play and in the course of their argument they give no factual information relating to either of the plots. The subject of their dispute is the insincerity of human behaviour in polite society, and one can, I think, assume that Wycherley placed it in this strategic position for two reasons. First, he wanted to establish his satiric theme - the dishonesty that is endemic in all human dealings - by starting his play with an illustration of one important aspect of it. Second, he was prepared to show that although this theme may be, and indeed is, extremely pertinent to his two story lines, it will also exist independently of them. Presumably he intended to direct his satiric attack over a wider front. It is also important to notice that Wycherley opens his debate on honesty with a great deal of vigour by setting his plain-dealer to

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argue the case n o t with a reasonable man in the m a n n e r of his source, 1 3 or even with Freeman (in fact these two re-argue the matter a little later), but with an affected f o p who is antithetical to Manly in every way: Manly: Tell not me (my good Lord Plausible) of your Decorums, supercilious Forms, and slavish Ceremonies; your little Tricks, which you the Spaniels of the World do daily over and over, for, and to one another; not out of love or duty, but your servile fear. Lord Plausible: Nay, i'faith, i'faith, you are too passionate, and I must humbly beg your pardon and leave to tell you, they are the Arts and Rules, the prudent of the World walk by. The aural and visual elements of, on the one side, a rough voiced, plainly dressed seaman and on the other a mellifluous gentleman dressed à la mode, complete the stark contrast t h a t Wycherley is playing for in this scene, a contrast, it should be added, that he is so intent on h a m m e r i n g h o m e that he comes close to impairing the psychological truth of his characters: Manly: ... Now I speak ill of most men, because they deserve it; I that can do a rude thing, rather than an unjust thing. Lord Plausible: Well, tell not me, my dear Friend, what people deserve, I ne'r mind that; I, like an Author in a Dedication, never speak well of a man for his sake, but my own. ... Manly: Very well; but I, that am an unmannerly Sea-fellow, if I ever speak well of People, (which is very seldom indeed) it should be sure to be behind their backs. ... It remains to say that on the stage as in real life an argument presented with such force requires that the onlooker take sides. On this occasion Wycherley has weighted the balance and left no d o u b t as to which side should be taken. So foolish is Manly's opponent - " A Ceremonious, Supple, C o m m e n d i n g C o x c o m b " as Wycherley describes him in the dramatis personae - that the rudest 13

See Le Misanthrope, Act I, scene i. All quotations from this play are from the Classiques Larousse edition.

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of Manly's sallies can be applauded. They appeal to that militantly righteous side of human nature that longs to pierce, to hurt, to destroy utterly such obvious aberrations as complacency and insincerity. In such circumstances even callow witticisms are acceptable: Lord Plausible: Why, seriously with your pardon, my dear Friend Manly: With your pardon, my no Friend. ... When Manly pushes Lord Plausible out of the room, his two sailors take the stage and discuss, with nautical honesty, their unlucky voyage, their captain, and his plan to emigrate to the Indies. At this point it will not be amiss to gather together the important biographical data about Manly rather than draw attention to it bit by bit as it occurs through the play. In the first place it is evident that Manly is no anonymous tar in the great metropolis. In a conversation between Freeman and himself in Act V, scene ii, one learns that his relations are "Men of great Fortune, and Honour", and that he knows "half the Town", and this is certainly supported by the manner in which fops, lords, and men of business pay him unwelcome visits whether in his rooms or at Westminster Hall. With such influential backing it is no surprise that he is master of his ship, and from the way his sailors talk about him and from the fact that he commanded the whole of the ill-fated Indies convoy (I,i), it is clear that he is not a "fair-weather Captain", but a seasoned and successful professional. Finally, Manly is, or rather was, a person of some substance; adding the amount that the sailors say he lost with his ship to that which he left with Olivia, his gross assets before the voyage amounted to between ten and twelve thousand pounds. In all this an instructive comparison can be made with Manly's French source, Alceste. (Throughout this chapter Le Misanthrope will act as a very useful touchstone by which to gauge Wycherley's intentions in The Plain-Dealer.) Manly and Alceste occupy roughly the same position in relation to their societies, but whereas Le Misanthrope is the record of the progressive disillusionment of Alceste not only in love, but also in the realms of justice and truth, so that he finally decides to leave society,

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Et chercher sur la terre un endroit écarté Où d'être homme d'honneur on ait la liberté (V,iv,1805-1806), The Plain-Dealer begins with Manly, a m a n f o r t u n a t e in love (as he thinks), reasonably wealthy, apparently respected, and, as far as one can tell suffering f r o m n o reverses in his public life, ALREADY HAVING ATTEMPTED, unsuccessfully, t o reach Alceste's " e n d r o i t écarté". This raises interesting thoughts a b o u t the respective motives of Manly a n d Alceste. T h e exact relation of Manly to his sailors needs to be defined very delicately because it will clearly influence the developing attitude of the audience. It is not true to say that they see him as " a n outcast 'bully tar', a savage motivated by cruel r a g e " . 1 4 They obviously have a good deal of respect for his fist as well as his courage, but in judging the harshness of the former it is necessary to keep in mind the n o r m a l brutality of Restoration sea life. F r o m the way they talk a b o u t him, f r o m their "Forecastle jests" with him, and f r o m the continuation of their service to him, one should conclude that their respect is tinged with admiration and, perhaps, even affection. They do, however, have reservations: 1st Sailor: Ay, your brisk dealers in Honour, alwayes make quick returns with their Ship to the Dock, and their Men to the Hospitals. ... 2nd Sailor: Well, I forgive him sinking my own poor Truck, if he wou'd but have given me time and leave to have sav'd black Kate of Wapping's small Venture. The point is neatly m a d e that an absolute morality, admirable in itself, m a y in practice have repercussions t h a t are n o t absolutely moral. A little later, when one of the sailors is talking a b o u t why Manly is going to the Indies he says, " h e h a d a mind t o go live a n d bask himself on the sunny side of the G l o b e " . There is something a little derisive a b o u t this, and once again it has the effect of questioning, however fleetingly, Manly's motives for escaping f r o m a civilization he thinks is immoral. I a m not suggesting, of course, that a n 14

Zimbardo, Wycherley's Drama, 81. There is a suspicion that Zimbardo may not have construed the meaning of "bully" correctly.

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audience will reverse its original opinion of Manly because of the opinions of his sailors. On the contrary, the effect of their conversation is, on the whole, to confirm the original estimate of Manly as a man of considerable integrity. What Wycherley has done is to force his audience to move from its original position of easy assent to Manly's plain dealing (with Lord Plausible) to one in which the moral complexities involved in such a stand begin to appear, and, therefore, to make a simple response to Manly more difficult. The dialogue is continued when Manly re-enters with his lieutenant, Freeman. The argument that now takes place (specifically on friendship) is not very different from the one between Manly and Lord Plausible that began the play. There, however, the theory and practice went together; Manly not only insisted that a man should be honest in his opinion of another, but gave effect to his words by abusing Lord Plausible verbally and physically. Here, the discussion remains largely theoretical. Also, because Manly has another, more charming, advocate of compliance with the age, the audience's perspective can be expected to change once more. The degree of re-assessment, however, will depend upon the amount of sympathy that Freeman's views attract. This conversation between Manly and Freeman has its source in the opening scene of Le Misanthrope where Philinte, Freeman's original, urges Alceste to be less intractable with his fellow human beings. Philinte is a man of moderation and it is quite clear that his intelligent humanity is a reflection of Molière's own social philosophy: Lorsqu'un homme vous vient embrasser avec joie, Il faut bien le payer de la même monnoie. (I,i,37-38) Mais quand on est du monde, il faut bien que l'on rende Quelques dehors civils que l'usage demande. (I,i,65-66) Mon Dieu, des moeurs du temps mettons-nous moins en peine, Et faisons un peu grâce à la nature humaine; Ne l'examinons point dans la grande rigueur, Et voyons ses défauts avec quelque douceur. (I,i,145-148)

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After Philinte's reasons for remaining on good terms with those he meets, Freeman's come as an icy shock: Freeman: Hah, hah, hah - What, you observ'd me, I warrant, in the Galleries at Whitehall, doing the business of the place! Pshaw, Courtprofessions, like Court-promises, go for nothing, man! but, Faith, cou'd you think I was a Friend to all those I hugg'd, kiss'd, flatter'd, bow'd to? Hah, ha Manly: You told 'em so, and swore it too; I heard you. Freeman: Ay, but when their backs were turn'd, did I not tell you they were Rogues, Villains, Rascals whom I despised, and hated? Manly: Very fine! But what reason had I to believe you spoke your heart to me, since you profess'd deceiving so many. Freeman: Why, don't you know, good Captain, that telling truth is a quality as prejudicial to a man that wou'd thrive in the World, as square Play to a Cheat, or true Love to a whore!

Wycherley has changed Philinte's charitable understanding of human frailty into a cheerful cynicism that cannot be said to be more laudable than Manly's rough disdain. In fact both men are basically contemptuous of the world, but whereas Manly refuses to compromise with it, Freeman does so in the hopes of personal gain. In other words Wycherley continues to weight his argument in Manly's favour. Molière discloses the absurdity of Alceste's position by setting him to dispute with the eminently reasonable Philinte; 15 Wycherley allows his audience to retain its sympathy for Manly, even though certain of his attitudes can now be seen to be unnecessarily intractable, because Freeman's philosophy is clearly not a satisfactory alternative. Indeed, an audience might be forgiven for feeling slightly puzzled at this point. In satire it is essential to try to discover as soon as possible where the satiric norm lies, and this usually means ascertaining which character speaks for the 15

It is worth noting that Alceste's misanthropy is more extreme than Manly's. His "je hais tous les hommes" (I,i,118) is, as Philinte tells him, comic; Manly's "I speak ill of most men, because they deserve it" is satiric. It is the classic, Swiftian attitude.

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author. Both Manly and Freeman certainly have their attractive sides, but neither can be given whole-hearted approval or be seen to embody Wycherley's ideal. It is not even certain what this ideal might be. When Fidelia, the transvestite heroine, enters to Manly and Freeman the argument takes a more personal turn. Fidelia, when questioned, is emphatic about her love for and devotion to Manly who, in return, attacks her cowardice during the voyage just finished, calls her "a Maudlin Flatterer" and tells her to leave him. In this little scene the first serious readjustment of attitude towards Manly has to be made. The alchemy of the theatre is such that an audience would immediately realize not only that Fidelia is a girl, but also that she is, as her name suggests, virtuous. That Manly is quite incapable of discerning, not her sex, but her fidelity indicates that there is a serious flaw in his plain dealing; his pessimism has made him so suspicious of all human motives that he cannot see true goodness when it is before his eyes. This theme of Manly's moral blindness is one that Wycherley returns to several times in the play. It is enough to say here that for the first time in the act Manly loses the audience's sympathy. All critics have noted that Fidelia seems to have strayed into Restoration London from Illyria or Arcadia, that, in other words, her dramatic origins lie in pastoral or heroic romance. I would only add the practical point that in an actual performance Fidelia would not stand out so noticeably as she does in the study simply because she would be SEEN to move through and therefore be a part of, the realistic Restoration world that the play depicts.16 There is, nevertheless, a perceptible change in the tone of the act when Fidelia enters, a change that can be traced to the intensifying of personal feeling through the use of exclamation, hyperbole, protestation and the emotional employment of such concepts as love, hope, fear, misery, death, and so on: 18

It is also true that a contemporary Restoration audience would have been even less aware of the discrepancy because they were accustomed to seeing different modes combined in one play. At the same time one cannot help feeling that, for Wycherley, this marks a regression to the methods he used in Love in a Wood.

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Fidelia: Parting, Sir! O let me not hear that dismal word. Manly: If my words frighten thee, be gone the sooner; for to be plain with thee, Cowardice and I cannot dwell together. Fidelia: And Cruelty and Courage never dwell together sure, Sir. Do not turn me off to shame and misery; for I am helpless and friendless. Manly: Friendless! there are half a score Friends for thee then; (Offers her Gold) I leave my self no more: they'll help thee a little. Be gone, go, I must be cruel to thee (if thou call'st it so) out of pity. Fidelia: If you wou'd be cruelly pitiful, Sir, let it be with your Sword, and not Gold. (Exit.) This outburst considerably raises the emotional temperature of the act; Wycherley's antidote is to introduce the Widow Blackacre and her son, Jerry. This pair are as successful a comic couple as Wycherley ever created. The Widow, as Manly and Freeman describe her before she enters, is a "Litigious She-Petty-fogger" who "is usually cloth'd and dagled like a Bawd in disguise". Her mind runs on nothing but law suits and she has no scruples about the way she wins them. 1 7 Tagging along behind this harridan of Westminster Hall is her large son, a vacuous calf who is quite incapable of absorbing the legal niceties that his fond mother tries to drum into him. He yearns, like Kastril in The Alchemist, to be a town lad, and at the end of the play he is happy enough to win the right of entry into the garret in which his mother's maids sleep. Goldsmith may have made better use of a similar pair a century later but he did not improve on their comic conception. The Widow has come to serve Manly with a subpoena because she wants him as a chief witness in one of her cases. Manly tries to get some news of Olivia from her, but all he hears is an involved rigmarole about Ayle, Pere and Fitz which is eventually too much 17

It is thought that Wycherley used the Widow to satirize his father, and from what is known of Daniel Wycherley this certainly seems possible. One hopes that he did not recognize the similarity. One should not, perhaps, continue these family resemblances to Jerry and suggest that Wycherley was perpetrating a Chaucerian joke; it is, however, quite probable that he drew on personal experience when he had the Widow say to her son, "There are young Students of the Law enough spoil'd already by Playes" (III,i).

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for him. He flings the subpoena away and leaves. Freeman, however, remains in order to begin wooing the Widow because, as he says, "she has Fifteen hundred pounds a Year Jointure". The problem of Wycherley's attitude towards Freeman is even more puzzling than his attitude towards Manly. I have already questioned whether Freeman's light-hearted cynicism is intended as a real alternative to Manly's misanthropy; his pursuit of the Widow Blackacre for her money confuses the issue even further. If a study of the first three plays has shown anything it is that Wycherley consistently championed the principle that marriage should be founded on mutual esteem, that it should not be reduced to a mercenary bargain, and yet here one finds an apparent rake-hero, young, handsome, quick-witted and friendly, trying to achieve a sort of January-May liaison in reverse. Even when the Restoration hero is at his most predatory he retains a certain amount of discrimination as regards feminine attractions - but then Freeman does not appear to be sexually motivated at all. Money is his summum bonum. It would be possible to propose several theories to account for this; at this stage in the analysis, however, it is better only to draw attention to the problem, not to attempt to answer it. After the Widow has brusquely brushed aside Freeman's first approach to her and left with Jerry, Fidelia re-enters and implores Freeman to intercede with Manly on her behalf. The main purpose of their conversation is to add a few more background details about Manly's plans for going to the Indies, his financial position and his relationship with Olivia. As, ironically, Fidelia says, "He fancies her, I suppose, the onely Woman of Truth and Sincerity in the World." Freeman promises to speak for her and goes to find Manly, while Fidelia, before she herself leaves, delivers an eighteen line soliloquy in blank verse in which she laments her love for Manly and tells how she had aspired to win him: And, when I'd had him from his fair Olivia, And this bright World of artful Beauties here, Might then have hop'd, he wou'd have look'd on me Amongst the sooty Indians; and I cou'd To choose there live his Wife, where Wives are forc'd To live no longer, when their Husbands die.

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The poetic form and romantic content of this speech seems to be Wycherley's open avowal that those scenes in which Fidelia is involved are to be of a different order than the rest of the play. This was an interesting decision on Wycherley's part because, as I hope I have shown in the first three chapters, he was a dramatist who appreciated the need for homogeneity of effect in his comedies. One can only reiterate the question as to whether one would in fact be as conscious in practice as one is in theory of such transitions from the realistic to the romantic. Finally Manly and Freeman re-enter, and Manly eulogizes Olivia as a creature of beauty, honesty and devotion. An audience would almost certainly find itself reacting against the extravagance of this praise, and when Manly blandly states he has "left her the value of five or six thousand Pounds" in order that she may better keep her promise to follow him abroad, but that he can "never doubt her truth and constancy" the audience's skepticism is voiced by Freeman when he says, "It seems you do, since you are fain to bribe it with Money." This last conversation of Act I increases one's suspicions about Manly's percipience and arouses a certain amount of dubiety about his paragon of virtue - and, indeed, about his bosom friend whom he has mentioned two or three times as the man into whose keeping he had entrusted Olivia. In this way Wycherley stimulates curiosity about, and fixes attention upon, Olivia and the start of Act II. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this first act is the manner in which its satiric perspective becomes progressively more complex. From a deceptive opening scene in which the issues are made to appear clear-cut, Wycherley gradually raises doubts about what his attitude towards Manly really is. Further, although he introduces other characters by whom Manly's sullenness can be judged, they do not themselves seem to constitute a moral norm for the play's satire. Thus one senses that Manly's bitter attacks on the hypocrisy of the age are to be applauded, but one wonders whether this misanthropy, in a sense commendable, may not also distort Manly's vision so that he is sometimes unable to distinguish between the true and the false. One cannot but see Freeman as a charming man, the very antithesis of Manly, but it is impossible to suppose that

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Wycherley approved of his cynical approach to marriage (even remembering the perennial plight of the younger brother in the system of primogeniture) and, indeed, to human relationships in general. Fidelia certainly seems to be a creature of sweetness and light, but how relevant is her idealism to the London society depicted in the play? These are some of the questions that Act I seems to pose and they result in a series of appraisals and re-appraisals that keep the audience slightly off balance. As regards the structure of Act I, Wycherley had to contend with much the same problems of rhythm and exposition that faced him in the opening act of The Country Wife. Here, however, the execution is not as assured as in the earlier play. In the middle of the act, just after Fidelia has been rejected by Manly, one of the sailors enters to say that he has turned away a Mr. Novel and a Major Oldfox. Manly and Freeman comment briefly on these two "Coxcombs" who "keep each other company", and then the act continues with the entrance of the Widow Blackacre and Jerry. Wycherley's purpose here is perfectly clear: he wished to bring as many of his characters into the play as soon as possible, by name if not in person. However, the introduction of a character by name followed by a thumbnail sketch arouses interest in him and conventionally heralds his entrance onto the stage. This is particularly true of minor figures in whom interest cannot be sustained for any length of time, yet in this case neither Novel nor Oldfox appear in Act I. It is as though their names are dropped into the conversation, slightly mauled, and then forgotten until Act II when the former makes an early and the latter a late appearance. Furthermore, Novel and Oldfox are not "coupled always together"; the only time they meet is in Act V, scene ii. In other words this short exchange of four speeches is not only a little aimless, it is actually misleading. Admittedly this is only a very minor example of weak plotting, but I mention it because in some way it seems symptomatic of a certain negligence in the construction of The Plain-Dealer. The rhythm of the act is another case in point. Superficially Wycherley has injected as much variety into the movement of the opening act of The Plain-Dealer as he did into the opening act of The Country Wife. However, in The Country Wife Wycherley changes the tempo

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of the act by mixing witty dialogue with exposition, and exposition with conflicts between characters who inhabit THE SAME COMIC WORLD. In The Plain-Dealer he achieves variety partly by juxtaposing DIFFERENT COMIC GENRES. Quack, Horner, the Fidgets, Sparkish, and so on are recognizably denizens of a single society governed by a single set of comic laws. There is not the same artistic cohesion between the manners of Lord Plausible, the realism of the sailors, the satiric outbursts of Manly, the comic charade of the Blackacres and the romantic passion of Fidelia. However, as has already been emphasized, this effect of a dramatic collage that is so noticeable in an intellectual analysis would recede in the process of an actual performance. Act II, set in Olivia's lodgings, introduces Manly's "miracle of a woman" talking to her cousin, Eliza. At the end of Act I Manly says that one of the reasons he loves Olivia is because, "She is all truth, and hates the lying, masking, daubing World, as I do", and Wycherley cleverly makes her first few speeches agree with Manly's statement: Olivia: Ah Cousin what a World 'tis we live in! I am so weary of it. and, Olivia: O hideous! you cannot be in earnest sure, when you say you like the filthy World. Such expressions as "hideous" and "filthy" are uncomfortably reminiscent of Lady Fidget, but nevertheless Olivia does at the start seem a proper companion for Manly in the Indies. It is only by degrees that the audience comes to see the extent to which she is saturated with cant. She is vain of her appearance and extravagant in her dress, although she pretends to be indifferent about such matters; she is coarse in her habits (her second stage direction is eloquent in its brevity - "Spits") even though she affects breeding; she feigns contempt for all the pleasures of the court, for visits from young men and for railing, and yet when Novel, whom she ridiculously pretends she does not know, comes to visit her, she shows that she is adept at flattery, and that she is so fond of "detraction" that

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she gives Novel no chance to be malicious about their acquaintances, much to his annoyance. This passage of character assassinations that begins in a spiteful duet between Novel and Olivia, and continues as a duet when Lord Plausible joins them, eventually leads into the famous critique of The Country Wife. Only Eliza, who has remained aloof from the malicious gossip, and Olivia participate in this critique. Like her sisters in the other three plays, Lydia, Hippolita and Alithea, Eliza represents Wycherley's ideal of the civilized woman. Hippolita can be taken as their spokesman when she says in Act I, scene i, of The Gentleman Dancing-Master, "'tis a pleasant-well-bred-complacent-free-frolick-good-natur'd-pretty-Age", and they all attract sympathy for themselves and their gregariousness by being ladies of wit and judgement. Apart from her disingenuousness about Horner's name (which can anyway be read as conscious irony), Eliza argues for Wycherley in her defense of The Country Wife·, Olivia is the Eternal Censor: Olivia: O fie, fie, fie, wou'd you put me to the blush anew? Call all the blood into my face again? But to satisfie you then, first the clandestine obscenity in the very name of Horner. Eliza: Truly, 'tis so hidden, I cannot find it out, I confess. Olivia: O horrid! does it not give you the rank conception, or image of a Goat, or Town-Bull, or a Satyr? nay, what is yet a filthier image than all the rest, that of an Eunuch? Eliza: What then? I can think of a Goat, a Bull, or a Satyr, without any hurt. Olivia: I, but, Cousin, one cannot stop there. Eliza: I can, Cousin. A recent satire on modern censorship was based on just this insinuation that the censor is himself motivated by prurience. Olivia's hypocritical horror becomes more and more absurd as the argument progresses, and when she reveals that she has broken all

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her china and that she always scratches out the nudities of pictures, Eliza can listen to no more and leaves. Although Manly does not appear until later, the first half of Act II has the effect of complicating even further one's reactions to his uncompromising honesty. In the first place, the discussion between Olivia and Eliza that begins the act is a distaff equivalent of the conversations between Manly and Freeman in Act I. As one critic has pointed out, 1 8 there are even similarities in thought and style between the outbursts of Olivia and Manly: Olivia: ... I cou'd not laugh at a Quibble, tho' it were a fat Privy Counsellor's; nor praise a Lord's ill Verses, tho' I were my self the Subject; nor an old Lady's young looks, tho' I were her Woman; nor sit to a vain young Simile-maker, tho' he flatter'd me; in short, I cou'd not glore upon a man when he comes into a Room, and laugh at him when he goes out; I cannot rail at the absent, to flatter the standers by. This.can be compared with one of Manly's outbursts in the previous act: Manly: I wou'd justle a proud, strutting, over-looking Coxcomb, at the head of his Sycophants, rather than put out my tongue at him, when he were past me; wou'd frown in the arrogant, big, dull face of an overgrown Knave of business, rather than vent my spleen against him, when his back were turn'd; wou'd give fauning Slaves the Lye, whilst they embrace or commend me; Cowards, whilst they brag; call a Rascal by no other Title, though his Father had left him a Duke's; laugh at Fools aloud, before their Mistresses: And must desire people to leave me, when their visits grow at last as troublesom, as they were at first impertinent. It does not, of course, follow that because Olivia's plain dealing turns out to be feigned, Manly's must be considered equally false; in the final analysis actions speak louder than words. It does, however, mean that Olivia's parody of Manly's virtue calls the original into question, and suggests that the whole plain dealing syndrome should be examined more critically. One wonders, for instance, whether Freeman and Eliza are not more worthy of the title of plain-dealer than Manly himself. Secondly, and more 18

Zimbardo, Wycherley's Drama, 139.

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important, the audience's worst suspicions about Manly's ability to discern good from bad, an ability without which his integrity is almost useless, are sadly realized. His creature of beauty, virtue and perfect conduct is a slut, and such an obvious slut that it is difficult to see how he could have been so blind. Finally, there is the figure of Eliza who can be safely said to represent for Wycherley a practical feminine ideal. As I have suggested, this is clear not only from the reasonableness of her opinions but also from her similarity to the heroines in the earlier plays. But if Wycherley presents Eliza as an intelligent, civilized woman, if he more or less agrees with her, as I think he does, when she echoes Hippolita and says of "the World", " I can find no fault with it, but that we cannot alwayes live in't; for I can never be weary of it", then where does this leave Manly's critical awareness of a world so corrupt that he wishes to leave it forever? As the play progresses it becomes more and more a question of peering through a satiric glass darkly. The comedy in the first part of Act II is light, obvious and, indeed, sometimes farcical. Apart from Eliza, who is allowed a few astute observations, the dialogue is appropriate to the broadly conceived characters of Novel and Lord Plausible, and even Olivia with her ridiculous prevarications and her foolish revelations of insincerity comes to look like what she calls her maid, a "Buffle-headed stupid Creature". A few examples will illustrate the quality of the humour in this part of the act: Olivia: Dressing! Fie, fie, 'tis my aversion. But, come hither, you Dowdy; methinks you might have open'd this Toure better: O hideous! I cannot suffer it! d'ye see how't sits? Eliza: Well enough, Cousin, if Dressing be your aversion. Olivia: 'Tis so: and for variety of rich Cloaths, they are more my aversion. Lettice: Ay, 'tis because your Ladyship wears 'em too long; for indeed a Gown, like a Gallant, grows one's aversion, by having too much of it. Olivia: Insatiable Creature! I'll be sworn I have had this not above three days, Cousin, and within this month have made some six more. Eliza: Then your aversion to 'em is not altogether so great. And a little later,

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Olivia: Talk, not of me sure; for what Men do I converse with? what Visits do I admit? Enter Boy. Boy: Here's the Gentleman to wait upon you, Madam. Even that most venerable of comic ploys is used when Lord Plausible enters: Novel: No, he visit you! Dam him, cringing, grinning, Rogue; if I should see him coming up to you, I wou'd make bold to kick him down again. Ha! Enter my Lord Plausible. My dear Lord, your most humble Servant. Shortly after Eliza has made her exit, Manly enters with Freeman, to whom he is going to introduce the mistress of whom he is so fond, and Fidelia. They enter unobserved and Manly is astounded to find Olivia closeted with two "fluttering Parrots of the Town". His surprise, however, turns to rage when he discovers that he himself is the subject of their derisive gossip, and that Olivia is not looking forward to being "pester'd again with his boistrous Sea-Love", that she abhors the smell of his "Tarpaulin Brandenburgh" and has no desire to listen to his "vollies of Brandy sighs". Manly immediately discovers himself and a royal row ensues. He begins by attacking Novel and Plausible, but Olivia vigorously takes their part, much to their delight, and their hyena-like applause punctuates each of her scornful sallies. Eventually Manly unceremoniously thrusts them out of the room. Here, once again, the audience's sympathies are firmly with Manly, mainly because his antagonists are so despicable. At the same time there remains the realization that he is only the victim of his own blindness, and also that some of Olivia's abuse is not ill-founded. For instance, in a passage paraphrased from Le Misanthrope (II,iv,677-680) she says: Olivia: ... I go on then to your humor. Is there any thing more agreeable, then the pretty sullenness of that? then the greatness of your courage? which most of all appears in your spirit of contradiction, for you dare give all Mankind the Lye; and your opinion is your onely Mistress, for you renounce that too, when it becomes another Mans.

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With the two fops out of the way Manly and Olivia concentrate their vituperation on each other, and Freeman and Fidelia try to assist their captain by demanding that Olivia return the jewels Manly left with her. Olivia refuses (having registered her approval of Fidelia - "an agreeable young fellow this") because, as she calmly says, she has given them to her husband. This piece of information is the final indignity. Manly is now ready to "out-rail a bilk'd Whore, or a kick'd Coward". He curses Olivia as comprehensively as the Cardinal of Rheims did his jackdaw, but ironically it is her answering curse, just before she leaves, that proves the more potent: "May the Curse of loving me still, fall upon your proud hard heart." Manly, indeed, has already made it clear in an aside that he still considers her a "perfect Woman", that, although like Antony in similar circumstances he would "outroar the hornéd herd", his love has only been wounded, not destroyed. At this point the Widow Blackacre is announced and Manly departs both to avoid her and to lick his wounds. Freeman, however, remains in order to continue his bizarre courtship of the Widow, but he now discovers that he has a rival in Major Oldfox, described in the dramatis personae as "an old impertinent Fop, given to Scribling". The competition of these two contrasted characters for the favours of a middle-aged female bag of legal nonsense who is indignant that anyone should try to place her under "Covert Baron" again is splendid comedy. Finding that she is herself the case in dispute, she turns herself into judge and jury and delivers a summation on both plaintiffs that is comprehensive, coarse and trenchant. Someone has said that if Wycherley had been an Elizabethan he would have written greater plays because he so often displays that pleasure in the sheer energy of language, in what L. C. Knights calls "idiomatic vigour", 1 9 that one associates with the drama of the earlier rather than the later part of the seventeenth century. The Widow's rebuke of Major Oldfox is the supreme example of Wycherley's ability in this field of writing:

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Knights, "Restoration Comedy", 140.

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First, I say, for you, Major, my walking Hospital of an ancient Foundation, thou Bag of Mummy, that woud'st fall asunder, if 'twere not for thy Cerecloaths .... Thou wither'd hobling, distorted Cripple .... Thou senseless, impertinent, quibling, driveling, feeble, paralytick, impotent, fumbling, frigid Nicompoop . . . . Wou'dst thou make a Caudlemaker, a Nurse of me? Can't you be Bed-rid without a Bed-fellow? Won't your Swan-skins, Furrs, Flannels, and the scorch'd Trencher keep you warm there? Wou'd you have me your Scotch Warming-pan, with a pox to you? Such invective is worthy of the Boar's Head tavern. It is also worth noticing that just as there is much truth in her opinion of Major Oldfox, so her judgement of Freeman is not by any means inaccurate: Widow: I mean, you wou'd have me keep you; that you might turn Keeper; for poor Widows are only us'd like Bauds by you; you go to church with us, but to get other Women to lie with. In fine, you are a cheating, chousing Spendthrift: And having sold your own Annuity, wou'd waste my Jointure. On more than one occasion in this play one wonders whether Manly is the only character who can claim the title of Plain-Dealer. Having finished her tirade the Widow leaves with her lumpen son, but Freeman and Major Oldfox vow to continue the pursuit. The second act is quite clearly composed of three movements. In the simplest terms it consists of two blocks of comedy on either side of a passionate lovers' quarrel. The first third of the act can be called comedy of manners in that the humour stems from the exposure of the affectations and artificialities of people of fashion, and the majority of this section is taken up with the malicious gossip of Olivia, Novel and Lord Plausible about their acquaintances. The immediate source for this passage is, once again, Le Misanthrope (II,iv,569-650), and it can be argued that Wycherley makes too much of what he found in the original thereby almost destroying the balance of the scene; where Molière has eight portraits, Wycherley uses three times the space for fourteen portraits. There is no doubt that Wycherley enjoyed writing this part of the play (which in itself has ironical implications), but I think there are three reasons why, in performance, it would not appear too drawn out. The first is that the flow of the portraits is interrupted at one point by the entrance of Lord Plausible, himself one of the subjects.

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The second is that the majority of the victims are maligned in short, pithy sketches so that an impression of speed is achieved. Thirdly, and this is one of the rare occasions when Wycherley improved on Molière, whereas in Le Misanthrope Acaste and Clitandre merely serve up acquaintances for Célimène to libel, in The Plain-Dealer Novel constantly tries to "rail" on his own account but cannot get Olivia to allow him this "Christian liberty"; to the comedy of the caricatures is added the comedy of the frustrated caricaturist. In the centre of the act the tone changes completely. Although the presence of Novel and Lord Plausible helps to smooth the transition, the change from laughter to heightened emotion, from a scene of inconsequential raillery to one of intense jealousy, scorn and anger is marked. The spirit of comedy is reasserted however with the entrance of the Widow Blackacre, and on this note the act ends. It is a measure of the seriousness of the main plot that the wooing of the Widow Blackacre by her two suitors can best be described as comic relief. It is also interesting that there are certain similarities between this sub-plot and the main plot. In both there is a woman of questionable virtue pursued by more than one man, in both a passage of vituperation follows an attempted courtship, in both cash is a motivating factor. Wycherley takes the parallel even further later in the play. In Act III of The Plain-Dealer as in Act III, scene ii, of The Country Wife the action moves from a private to a public setting. If Wycherley meant to choose a building that could be said to symbolize English civilization he could not have done better than select Westminster Hall. Bounded on one side by Westminster Abbey and on the other by Parliament House, it had witnessed the triumphs and tragedies of both the great and the small for centuries. In Wycherley's own lifetime it had seen Charles I's trial and Charles II's Restoration banquet. When The Plain-Dealer was first performed it was still crowned with Cromwell's skull. It consisted of one enormous room 228 feet long, 66 feet broad, and 90 feet high, and its spacious roof was supported not by pillars but by elaborately carved, oak buttresses. In ordinary times the four courts of Chancery, Common Pleas, the Queen's Bench and the Exchequer were

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situated in its four corners, but "a large part of the inside also was occupied by the stalls of sempstresses, milliners, law stationers, and second-hand booksellers, and even publishers". 20 As at the New Exchange, then, the original purpose of the building had already been coarsened by the intrusion of less dignified occupations, and it is probable that Wycherley's jaundiced picture of Westminster Hall in Act III stems as much from his sense of the contrast between its past grandeurs and present prostitution as from his distaste for the shortcomings of justice. This certainly seems to be the implication of Manly's second speech in the Act where he comments on a lost ideal: "This, the Reverend of the Law wou'd have thought the Palace or Residence of Justice; but, if it be, she lives here with the State of a Turkish Emperor, rarely seen." 21 It is in the midst of this hurly-burly of judges, lawyers, litigants, officers, tradesmen and shoppers that Manly and Freeman are discovered discoursing unfavourably on the whole state of Justice. Manly has consented to obey the Widow's subpoena and he soon sends Freeman to find her so that he can speed his departure from such an unpleasant place. When Freeman has left on this errand Manly has a short soliloquy in which he shows that he is still obsessed by Olivia, and also that he is ashamed of this obsession. He is interrupted in his discontent by Fidelia who has come to plead with him once again to allow her to continue to serve him. To begin with she receives nothing but insults, but Manly suddenly conceives the plan of using "her" to intercede with Olivia on his behalf. Fidelia protests vigorously, but Manly is fiercely adamant and so departs. As Fidelia laments in blank verse: For his Love, must I then betray my own? Were ever Love or Chance, till now, severe? Or shifting Woman pos'd with such a task? To which the facetious answer is "yes", for such dilemmas are almost a sine qua non for the sort of romantic drama of which this is an example. 20

Walford, Old and New London, Vol. V, p. 542. And one remembers, ironically, that Wycherley's own experiences with the law were shortly to become more unhappily intimate. 21

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Manly's behaviour in this scene needs to be examined a little more closely. Because he tells Fidelia that he wants her to "Pimp" for him, because he talks of vengeance for the way Olivia has treated him, because he says, "I will lie with her out of revenge", it might be assumed that his much vaunted integrity has been replaced by sordid passion. This does not do justice to Manly's state of mind at this point in the play. When a man contemplates an action of which he is ashamed because he feels that he is betraying his principles, a common reaction is to indulge in a form of mental flagellation by making the deed sound more ignoble than it really is. This, I think, is the way Manly's performance in this scene should be interpreted, and it shows that Wycherley had a considerable understanding of the workings of the human mind. In fact, despite the gross way in which he chooses to describe his scheme, it is clear that Manly still loves Olivia and only wishes her to alter her feelings for him. But perhaps "love" is too vague a word for the case; it would be more accurate to say "infatuation", and one might add that it is certainly not inconsistent that a man of Manly's temperament should be so afflicted. As Alceste says, "la raison n'est pas ce qui règle l'amour" (I,i,248) and both literature and history furnish too many examples to make it possible to contradict him. Another interesting point, suspected earlier, emerges clearly in this scene. Although most critics have noticed that Fidelia is a strangely romantic figure to find in a realistic comedy such as The Plain-Dealer, it has not been sufficiently realized that Manly also on occasion enters the same world. This is particularly true, of course, of those scenes in which he appears with Fidelia and where his kinship with the romantic or tragic hero is most obvious, and a question that therefore needs to be asked is whether Manly the satiric realist appears comfortable wearing the cloak of the romantic lover. From the point of view of personality there is not that much change of emphasis as he moves from expressions of public execration to those of private feeling; in both cases there is emotional intensity, hyperbolic language and exaggerated idealism. In Act I, while moralizing on friendship for Freeman's benefit he says, "a true heart admits but of one friendship, as of one love"; in Act III

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he says he will die if he cannot have Olivia. There is no inconsistency of temperament here. The real change seems to be one of style, and it is this that makes us see Manly as more divided than he should be. For instance, in the scene under discussion Wycherley emphasizes his affinity with the romantic tradition by giving him a nine line soliloquy in blank verse that is replete with all the introspection and self-doubt that are the stock-in-trade of the tortured lover: How hard it is to be an Hypocrite! At least to me, who am but newly so. I thought it once a kind of Knavery, Nay, Cowardice, to hide ones faults; but now The common frailty, Love, becomes my shame. And so on. Such a passage as this can be said to fill out Manly's character, but it is still a little strange coming from a weather-beaten sea-dog. In the subsequent conversation with Fidelia he is often as rough-tongued as ever - "Dam your dearness!" he says to her at one point - but there are also many references to those staples of heroic passion, honour, revenge, love and death: Manly: Go flatter, lie, kneel, promise, any thing to get her for me: I cannot live unless I have her. Didst thou not say thou wou'dst do any thing, to save my life? And she said you had a persuading Face. Fidelia: But, did not you say, Sir, your honour was dearer to you, than your life? And wou'd you have me contribute to the loss of that, and carry love from you, to the most infamous, most false, and Manly: And most beautiful! [Sighs aside. There are even those passages where, for the modern reader at least, the emotional reach exceeds the grasp: Fidelia: You scorn'd her last night. Manly: I know not what I did last night; I dissembled last night. Fidelia: Heavens! As in Act II, Wycherley effects a change of pace by following the highly charged scene between Manly and Fidelia with one which is

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dominated by the bustling figure of the Widow Blackacre. The Widow has entered with a gaggle of lawyers whom she proceeds to direct to the different Courts in the Hall, there to argue her dubious cases. Their names signify the character of their varied forensic skills; Serjeant Plodden, for instance, says "one thing over and over again", Quaint promises to "enervate the sinews of their Argument with the oyl of my Eloquence", and so on through Blunder, Petulant and Buttongown, Splitcause, Quillit and Quirk. This passage is a straightforward satire on the behaviour of lawyers, and it does not advance the action of either of the play's plots. When the lawyers have been dispatched, Major Oldfox enters and draws the Widow over to his bookseller's in the hopes that he can insinuate himself into her affections by impressing her with his "scribbling". Predictably she only has eyes for law books, but Jerry shows an immediate interest in ballads, romances and plays, an interest that is quickly squashed by his mother. 22 At this point the Widow catches sight of more business passing over the stage and, leaving her bags with Jerry, she rushes off. Now Freeman enters, greets Jerry and throws a little insult at Major Oldfox. Oldfox decides to out-manoeuvre his younger rival by following the Widow in order to keep her away from him, but this proves a tactical error for, left alone with Jerry, Freeman conceives the stratagem of seducing him away from his fond parent by filling his head with stories of the high life he could and indeed should be leading. As he says, "Steal away the Calf, and the Cow will follow you." The plan works to perfection, for Freeman uncovers a vein of restiveness in Jerry that is easy to work. He gives him two guineas as an earnest of riches to come and in great delight Jerry rushes off , followed by Freeman, to a toy stall. The Widow and Manly now re-enter, the latter spitting contempt for the rogues and coxcombs he has had to put up with in the Hall. Then Jerry returns with some absurd baubles that make animal noises and these he proceeds to demonstrate enthusiastically in his mother's face. Needless to say she is angry with him, but her anger 22 One remembers the similar scene in Act III, scene ii, of The Country Wife where Margery also tries to make purchases at a bookstall in the New Exchange.

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turns to fury when she discovers that he has lost her legal bags, actually purloined by Freeman, and she and Jerry dash off to look for them. Jerry shortly runs back in some alarm and asks Freeman to protect him from his mother, so Freeman sends him off with his sailors. The Widow then returns (all this while she has been doggedly followed by the impotent Oldfox), but now she is looking for both her "writings" and her "minor". She accurately accuses Freeman of being at the root of her troubles, pleads with Manly to "stay but a making Water while" and hurries off once more to continue her search. The last quarter of the act is taken up with a set piece of satire that again advances neither of the plots. After he has told Freeman how he has already drawn on himself "three Quarrels and two Law-suits", Manly is approached, one after another, by Novel, Oldfox, a lawyer and an alderman. Each one is full of protestations of friendship which, when tested, turn out to be hollow. Novel excuses himself when invited to assist in a duel, Oldfox, more obscurely, retreats at the mention of "Martinet", the lawyer scurries off when asked to help a pauper, and the alderman slides away when the question of "City security" is brought up. All this leads to Manly's speech which more than any other can be said to summarize the play's satiric theme: Manly: You see now what the mighty friendship of the World is; what all Ceremony, Embraces, and plentiful Professions come to: you are no more to believe a professing Friend, than a threatening Enemy; and as no Man hurts you, that tells you he'll do you a mischief; no Man, you see, is your Servant who sayes he is so. Nor does Freeman disagree with him; he only replies that it is more pleasant to laugh at knaves than kick them. And so the act ends with a discussion on where they should eat. Although Manly now has no money he refuses to compromise his principles by begging a meal, but returns to his lodgings hungry and penniless. I have already drawn certain parallels between Act III of The Plain-Dealer and Act III, scene ii, of The Country Wife (the public setting; the little scene at the bookstall), but it would be instructive to make one further comparison. In both acts there is a section in which one character rushes frantically on and off the stage in a

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desperate quest. In the earlier play it is Pinchwife searching for an errant wife and in the present one it is the Widow Blackacre looking for her bags and her son. However, in The Country Wife this flurry of action comes at the end of the scene and thereby brings it to an effective climax; in The Plain-Dealer it comes in the middle of the act and is followed by the obviously contrived, and to some extent irrelevant, four-part satire on friendship and an undramatic conversation between Freeman and Manly on where to eat. The effect here is of an anti-climax. The inferiority of the construction of the later play in relation to the earlier is characterized by this example. Whereas the wooing of the Widow by Freeman occupies about one third of Act III, the main plot is advanced very little in Westminster Hall. The rest of the act consists of attacks on justice and friendship that are independent of either plot. It is not difficult to discern why Wycherley gave Act III the setting and the form he did. It may be that he wished to make use of material familiar to him from his training at the Inner Temple, and it may be that he wished to poke fun at his litigious father, but more important than either of these hypothetical motivations was his intention of widening the satiric scope of the play. The law, after all, is concerned with the discovery of truth in human dealings on a formal level, and just as in the rest of the play Wycherley illustrates the emptiness, the meanness and the covetousness that dominate personal relationships, so in this act, set in Westminster Hall, the seat of English justice, he shows that the same dishonesty, the same mercenary instincts are at work. This act, then, depicting as it does the formal, public and even sacred dealings of society, completes Wycherley's satiric indictment of man's relationship with man. But if this was in fact Wycherley's intention, one must still question the execution, whether, for instance, the satiric set pieces should not have been incorporated into the framework of the plots, whether they do not seriously interrupt the flow of the action, whether they are not too drawn out and too contrived, whether, indeed, considering the frequent occasions throughout the play where false friendship is satirized both dramatically and non-dramatically, the four, repetitive illustrations of this vice at the end of the act are not only

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poorly contrived (why should Oldfox suddenly stop following the Widow in order to return and pay his respects to Manly?) but also entirely gratuitous. It remains to bring up to date the analysis of what might reasonably be expected to be an audience's response to Fidelia, Freeman and Manly in Act III. There would not, I think, be much change of attitude towards the first two. Fidelia, forced to be an emissary in her own worst interests, becomes perhaps an even more sympathetic figure, while Freeman remains both attractive and disturbing. His friendship with Manly and even his picaresque manipulation of the Blackacres show him in an agreeable and amusing light; it is his ultimate goal that still seems squalid. For instance, the following conversation that he has with Manly while the Widow and Jerry are searching for their bags is surely not intended to excite applause: Manly: ... But canst thou in earnest marry this Harpy, this Volume of shrivel'ed blur'd Parchments and Law, this Attornies Desk. Freeman: Ay, ay, I'll marry, and live honestly: that is, give my Creditors, not her, due Benevolence, pay my debts.

Manly: Ay, but he that marries a Widow, for her Money, will find himself as much mistaken, as the Widow that marries a young Fellow for due Benevolence, as you call it. Freeman: Why, d'ye think I shan't deserve Wages? I'll drudge faithfully. It is in Act III that Manly emerges most clearly as Wycherley's satiric spokesman. There is, of course, the early scene with Fidelia in which he is shown to be besotted when it comes to his personal affairs, but for the rest of the act it is he who is the main scourge of the perversions of Westminster Hall, perversions that Wycherley illustrates on the stage in order to force the audience to side with Manly. The other point to be made about Manly in this act is considerably more complicated. I have argued that there is nothing inconsistent in Manly's personality as it is manifested in his public role as satirist and his private role as lover. There are, however,

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occasions when he does not seem to be consistent in his morality. For instance, when he tells Freeman about the quarrels that he has brought upon himself he says that one was "for giving more sincere advice to a ... young Fellow ... not to marry a Wench that he lov'd, and I had lay'n with". In the ordinary way one would not think of condemning Restoration whoring, but the whole point of Manly's character is surely that he rejects prevailing standards and is even prepared to leave the country because of them. One wonders, therefore, whether that absolute honesty and integrity that attracted Fidelia's devotion do not stretch to sleeping with wenches - or whether, perhaps, this is an unfortunate attempt on Wycherley's part to humanize his hero. Similarly there is Manly's attitude to Freeman's pursuit of the Widow Blackacre. (The whole relationship between Manly and Freeman, "a Compiler with the Age", which remains constant and basically friendly is something of a problem.) It is true that he is incredulous that Freeman should sell himself to such a creature, but he never shows the savage contempt for such behaviour that one might reasonably expect from him. There is, of course, the question of interpretation, but at one point he actually seems to connive at Freeman's campaign: "If thou wou'dst have the Money, rather get to be her Trustee, than her Husband." Both these admittedly minor discrepancies can be 'explained' in more than one way. Rose Zimbardo would take them as proof of her theory that Manly is himself a hypocrite whose corruption becomes plainer as the play progresses. 23 An actor might interpret them as the bitter or sardonic outbursts of a man already distracted by personal problems. A more reasonable explanation is to say that the fault is Wycherley's rather than Manly's, that here as elsewhere through the play a certain artistic carelessness has caused Wycherley to subordinate the consistency of a character to the exigencies of plot, or even to a bon mot. Act IV, scene ii, takes place back in Manly's lodgings where Fidelia has come to report on her mission to Olivia. The main interest of this scene lies in following the complexity of Manly's psychological 23

Zimbardo, Wycherley's Drama, 138-143.

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and emotional reactions as he interrogates Fidelia about the way she was received. The irony of the scene lies in their different interpretations of what constitutes success. When Fidelia says that she has prevailed as she could wish, Manly assumes that Olivia has changed her mind towards him. Even when Fidelia drives home to him the brutal truth, that Olivia considers him a brute, a ruffian, a monster, a coward, and so on, he still refuses to accept the obvious: Manly: ... O - I understand you now. At first she appear'd in rage, and disdain, the truest sign of a coming Woman: but at last, you prevail'd it seems: did you not? Fidelia: Yes, Sir. What Fidelia means, of course, is that she has herself become the object of Olivia's lascivious attentions, and when Manly realizes this he almost becomes deranged. In the most forceful speech that Wycherley ever wrote to express personal feeling, a speech, incidentally, that seems to be closer to the twisted passions of Jacobean melodrama than to any other possible influence, Manly gives vent to the mixture of emotions that compose his misery; it is only unfortunate that such a speech should be followed by Wycherley's worst descent into bathos: Manly: But she was false to me before, she told me so her self, and yet I cou'd not quite believe it; but she was, so that her second falseness is a favor to me, not an injury, in revenging me upon the Man that wrong'd me first of her Love. Her Love! - a Whores, a Witches Love! - But, what, did she not kiss well, Sir? I'm sure I thought her Lips but must not think of 'em more - but yet they are such I cou'd still kiss - grow to - and then tear off with my teeth, grind 'em into mammocks, and spit 'em into her Cuckolds face. Fidelia: Poor Man, how uneasie is he! The final irony in this scene is that Manly even becomes jealous of Fidelia. In the course of her vehement denials that she encouraged Olivia's lechery, Fidelia mentions that she only managed to get away by promising to return "within this hour, as soon as it shou'd be dark",

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and now Manly conceives the plan of forcing Fidelia to keep this assignation with himself in attendance so that he can "act Love" while she talks it. It would be too facile to conclude from this that Manly has sunk into the stews of a perverted lust; such a judgement does not do justice to the complexity of his mental state. There is lust there, certainly, but there is also a genuinely disappointed love. There is, as well, anger and jealousy, and there is also the embarrassment of the cuckold and even a continuing desire to doubt Olivia's perfidy. Above all there is that sense of self-disgust that was evident in Act III; now, however, it is more intensely felt: Manly: Damn'd, Damn'd Woman, that cou'd be so false and infamous! And damn'd, damn'd heart of mine, that cannot yet be false, tho' so infamous! What easie, tame, suffering, trampled thing does that little God of talking Cowards make of us! When Freeman enters Manly manages to conceal his fine frenzy in a generalized discussion on the fickleness of women and Fortune, and he is shortly given the excuse to leave the stage altogether when a sailor announces the Widow Blackacre and Major Oldfox. Freeman also departs in order to fetch Jerry, the means by which he hopes to snare his coy mistress. Oldfox is delighted to find the room empty when they enter and he immediately endeavours to charm the Widow again with his writings but with as little success as at the bookstall in Westminster Hall, for he is still unable to pierce the legal fog that enshrouds her mind. The unequal battle goes on until Freeman re-enters with Jerry dressed "in an old gaudy Suit, and red Breeches" and convinced that as the prettiest beau in town he is on the verge of enjoying heady pleasures. For this reason he has put himself under Freeman's guardianship which is precisely the way the latter hopes to get some of the Blackacre estate when his silly ward comes of age. The Widow, however, is willing to bring shame on herself to avert this catastrophe and so she outmanoeuvres Freeman by declaring Jerry a bastard and so departs, leaving a chagrined Freeman to find out what the law is relating to bastards. In Act IV, scene i, then, Wycherley once more manages to parallel his two plots quite neatly. Just as in the first part of the scene Manly finds that his use ol Fidelia as a pawn in his attempt to

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win back Olivia has come to nothing, so Freeman discovers that making Jerry a hostage for the Widow's jointure will not work out as he planned. In both cases, however, the protagonists are determined to continue to prosecute their dubious intrigues. Act IV, scene ii, set in Olivia's lodgings, opens with an argument between Novel and Lord Plausible in which both claim to be the object of Olivia's affections. Having run through their respective qualifications, they offer each other, as final proof, the letters they have just received from Olivia, only to discover that they are identical. They then set off for Whitehall in order to discover which of them is mistaken. Although Wycherley has adapted this fragment of comedy quite cleverly from two scenes in Le Misanthrope (III,i; V,iv) it must also be said that it is an example of his dramaturgy at its weakest. Not only is there no real preparation for this rivalry that suddenly appears in Act IV, but, even more surprising, when Novel and Lord Plausible meet again in Act V, scene ii, they make no further reference to the affair. It is as though it had never occurred. Presumably Wycherley could not resist the humour of the situation, but it is so obviously contrived and so feebly fitted into the framework of the play that one wishes he had done so. When Olivia enters she sends her boy away with the candle and prepares to receive her "lover". The first person to arrive, however, is her husband, Vernish, Manly's "Bosom, and onely Friend". Olivia, thinking he is Fidelia, throws herself at him but soon discovers her mistake and is irked that she has, as she says, "been throwing away so many kind Kisses on my Husband". She skilfully extricates herself from the compromising position in which she has placed herself and also manages to send Vernish off to make the money they have purloined from Manly more secure. Fidelia and Manly then enter and the former accomplishes the tricky feat of both avoiding Olivia's licentious embraces and getting her to abuse Manly so that he can witness her treachery. When she goes into the bedroom Manly follows her, but returns in a minute or two having decided that he needs witnesses in order to expose her. He leaves after ordering Fidelia to make another appointment. Olivia then comes out to renew her attack, but Fidelia pleads "the Falling sickness", arranges to return the next evening, and so manages to

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escape. Unfortunately she runs into Vernish on the stairs, comes running back and, when Olivia hides, avoids death at the hands of an angry husband by declaring her sex. Vernish's answer to this is to rape her, but he is prevented at the last moment by a business call so he locks her into another room for his future enjoyment. In allegorical terms, never was Faith so sorely beset by Lust, Fear, and the spirit of Revenge. On the face of it Act IV, scene ii, is one of those scenes of mistaken identities in darkened bedrooms that such farceurs as Aphra Behn enjoyed writing, and indeed the farcical elements of the chase are clear enough. At the same time there is a certain dark power to the scene, the effect of which is to qualify that essential ingredient of laughter that allows an audience to distance itself from the implications of immorality. Wycherley achieves this result by infusing real feeling into the action, and thereby makes sure that the real viciousness of Olivia, Vernish and, to some extent, of Manly is not glossed over. Greed (the power of money crops up three times in the scene), debauchery, and, perhaps most odious of all, the comprehensive treachery of Olivia towards Manly and Vernish, and of Vernish towards his friend and wife, give this episode played out in a gloomy room an extremely dark colouring. As for Manly, although he cannot escape censure in this scene it is important to be precise about where he fails. When he is fully satisfied as to the obscenity of the woman he had hoped to marry, and is presumably consumed by the emotional fury described earlier, his behaviour is quite reprehensible. He talks of revenging himself on Olivia's honour, but it is certain that there is an element of thwarted lust in his desire for vengeance, just as it is certain that when Fidelia remonstrates with him she is passing Wycherley's judgement on the impurity of his motives:

Fidelia: But are you sure 'tis Revenge, that makes you do this? how can it be? Manly: Whist. Fidelia: 'Tis a strange Revenge indeed.

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Act V, scene i, takes place the following day. 2 4 Set in Eliza's lodgings, it begins with a conversation between Olivia and her cousin that is reminiscent of the opening of Act II. Olivia has sought sanctuary with Eliza because she has assumed that her husband caught her with a man on the previous night, and she is frightened of what he will do and, more important, what "the malicious World" will say. In this scene it is Eliza's turn to play the plain dealer as she tells Olivia that the world cannot think any worse of her than it already does. " O wicked World!", "Base World", "Abominable World" and so on are Olivia's hypocritically indignant rejoinders to these revelations, and it is amusing to notice that she is still repeating those same expostulations against the "filthy World" that she uttered when she first appeared on the stage and when an audience might have supposed that her disgust arose from the same moral zeal as Manly's. Now, however, there are no delusions about her infamy, and in this way Wycherley underlines once again the perennial problem of distinguishing the saint from the sinner when both act in the name of morality. Act V, scene i, however, does not reproduce the louring atmosphere of the previous scene; rather it reverts to the more farcical form of comedy that prevailed at the start of Act II. When Vernish enters and Olivia finds that he has taken for a woman what she has taken for a man she quickly exchanges apprehension for acrimony and accuses him of infidelity. Further, when Vernish has left to have, as he says, "a fit of laughter, at Manly" in the Cock tavern, and Eliza sardonically congratulates her on the way she turned the tables on her husband, she has the gall to pretend that she does not know what Eliza is talking about even though she had admitted her guilt to her not five minutes earlier. As Eliza says, "Fy, this fooling is so insipid, 'tis offensive", and yet it is so brazenly offensive that it has something of the comic impudence of Falstaff's account of the great battle of Gad's Hill. Although Act V, scene ii, contains some good theatre it is one of 24

The time scheme of The Plain-Dealer covers some three days. Acts I and II take place on the first day; Act ΠΙ in the morning and Act IV through the late afternoon and evening of the second day; and the four scenes of Act V through the afternoon and evening of the third day.

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the more unsatisfactory scenes in The Plain-Dealer because it seems to be composed of shreds and patches of material, and it frequently shows evidence of carelessness and contrivance. Set in the Cock tavern, it opens with a short exchange in which Manly orders the reluctant Fidelia to go and confirm her meeting with Olivia for that night. (Towards the end of the act Fidelia returns for one speech in which she says that the assignation is fixed for "betwixt seven and eight exactly".) Next Freeman enters and the conversation turns to the problem of borrowing money and from there to a discourse on the hollowness of friendship. This is all déjà vu, but there are three reasons why Wycherley may be excused for inserting it here. In the first place it adds a few stray biographical facts about Manly. Secondly, it reasserts Manly in his role of satirist, a role that had become largely neglected in his scenes of personal involvement with Olivia. Most important of all there is magnificent irony when Wycherley follows this diatribe on the ingratitude of friends with the entrance of Vernish whom Manly welcomes with, "How! Nay, here is a Friend indeed; and he that has him in his arms can know no wants." The underlying irony of the ensuing conversation in which Manly's blindness is only exceeded by Vernish's treachery, is given an added twist when Manly says he slept with Olivia the previous evening so that Vernish who had come to laugh at the man he cuckolded finds the tables turned and himself forced to stifle his anger. When he leaves he pretends he will try to recover some of Manly's money for him, but it is clear that he is only interested in taxing Olivia with this latest evidence of her infidelity. Meanwhile Freeman, Novel, Lord Plausible, Jerry (who is given nothing to say) and Major Oldfox have invaded the room and an argument ensues mainly between Manly and Novel on what constitutes wit and then, as Wycherley at last briefly fulfils the brief promise from Act I, between Novel and Major Oldfox. The dispute between Novel and Manly which centres on Manly's question, "is Railing Satyr, Novel?" has occasioned some dangerous speculation. 25 There is no doubt that this passage reflects on the value and purpose of Manly's own "railing", that it has the effect of 25

See Zimbardo, Wycherley's Drama, 141.

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inviting the audience to continue to question the play's satiric perspective, but I think it would be a mistake to conclude that Wycherley intends the railing of Manly and Novel to be equated, and to say that the one is as corrupt and barren as the other. With Novel it is "always talking, roaring, or making a noise", mere meaningless chatter; Manly may also roar and make a noise, but it is absolutely certain that he most frequently does so with his creator's approval. When Manly puts the fops out of the room on Vernish's reentrance 26 the ironies of the previous encounter are redoubled. Not only does Manly continue, unknowingly, to fill Vernish's mind with uncertainties about whether or not Olivia has been unfaithful, he also forces Vernish to listen to himself called "blind Coxcomb" and "snivelling G u l l " and, most amusing of all, he even causes him to worry about his ability to tell a woman by the feel of her breasts. A s Vernish says in a soliloquy at the end of the scene, " I am distracted more with doubt, than jealousie". Needless to say these are double-edged ironies, for it is Manly who is really fooled by Fidelia's sex, and "blind C o x c o m b " is a term he could well apply to himself. Vernish also learns of Manly's intention of visiting Olivia that night and having made his own plans accordingly he departs. Manly, who had momentarily left the stage, returns with Freeman and gives him his instructions to come to Olivia's rooms with the rest of the cast just before eight. As can be seen, Act V, scene ii, is filled with incident, but on the whole it is incident that lacks order. Apart from the repeated use of already well-worked satirical material, the rather pointless fulfilment of an obligation to bring Oldfox and Novel together, and the questionable handling of exits and entrances that goes further than Vernish's lightning visit to Olivia in the middle of the act, there are other minor failings that individually are of small account but

28 Is it pedantic to point out that Vernish has gone f r o m the tavern to Olivia's house, had his brawl with her and returned to the tavern in the space of about four and a half minutes of playing time? It can, of course, be claimed that this foreshortening of the time scheme is a stylization, but elsewhere Wycherley appears to be more realistic about such matters - as neo-classical theory demanded.

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cumulatively give the impression of negligent work. It is a pity, for instance, that, although he is on stage for some time, Jerry Blackacre is given nothing to say. In a way his very silence points up the division that exists between the comic worlds of the play. Then, too, there is Vernish's description of the way Olivia received his accusation of infidelity ("she denies it so calmly; and with that honest, modest assurance, it can't be true"), which not only sounds an unlikely reaction for Olivia but actually contradicts Vernish's earlier account of the way she abused Manly. Finally there is the chronology of the scene which is illogical even assuming an unnecessary foreshortening. At the start it is "almost six", a few minutes later it is "half an hour to six" and by the end it is "above a quarter past seven". The overwhelming impression is that Wycherley never blotted a line here and should have blotted a thousand. Act V, scene iii, concludes the sub-plot of The Plain-Dealer. Set in another room of the Cock tavern, it begins with a convivial little meeting between the Widow Blackacre and two of her professional perjurers. In general this passage continues the legal satire of Act III, but in particular it presses home the attack on the Widow, for whereas she was previously shown to be little more than a litigious busybody, she is now revealed as a criminal. Even so she remains a humorous figure, as prone as ever to giving her rationalizations a sexual flavour: Widow: Well, these, and many other shifts, poor Widows are put to sometimes; for every body wou'd be riding a Widow, as they say, and breaking into her Jointure: they think marrying a Widow an easie business, like leaping the Hedge, where another has gone over before; A Widow is a meer gap, a gap with them. She is a good example of a professional woman who has not quite managed to sublimate her natural instincts. When Major Oldfox enters she dispatches her two knights of the post, but immediately finds that the pathetic old soldier is going to make his third, and last, desperate attempt to acquaint her with his "parts" by tying her to a chair and gagging her. This farcical incident, made more ludicrous by the Widow's certainty that she is about to be raped, is interrupted by Freeman, Jerry, and officers of the law. The Widow now finds

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that son and suitor have brought a "Choak-Bayle" action against her, and also that her knights of the post have been arrested and her forgeries discovered. It is the law, then, that is finally the Widow's undoing for she finds that the only way she can escape arrest is to grant Jerry his freedom and to give Freeman an annuity without making him her husband. If one is to accept the time scheme that Wycherley set himself in Act V, then it is improbable that either Major Oldfox, who was involved in an argument with Novel and Lord Plausible a few minutes earlier, or Freeman, who had just received urgent instructions from Manly to organize an expedition to Olivia's rooms, would have had time to extricate themselves from their previous engagements and mount their respective operations on the Widow. In other words, from the point of view of a strict ordering of events Act V, scene iii, is squeezed a little uncomfortably between those on either side of it. A detail of continuity such as this would not normally be worth criticizing were it not for the comparison that it invites with the beautifully organized plot of The Country Wife. Here, as so often in The Plain-Dealer, one is conscious of an element of makeshift. Act V, scene iv, is set once again in Olivia's lodgings, that temple of Venus where Olivia is preparing, with "sykes hoote as fyr" to entertain her bashful lover. As in Act IV, scene ii, Manly and Fidelia enter in the dark and immediately Olivia begins her lascivious assault on Fidelia, who retreats around the furniture, while Manly quietly grinds his teeth. Shortly, however, Vernish is heard trying to force the locked door and Olivia rushes to fetch her jewels, which she hands over to Manly in the dark, prior to eiïecting an escape. Vernish forces his way in, is overcome by Manly, and at this point Freeman enters with Lord Plausible, Novel, the Widow Blackacre, and Jerry. By the light of their torches Olivia discovers that she is embracing Manly by mistake and in public, and also that she has returned his jewels to him; Manly discovers that the man who has cheated him with Olivia is his "Bosom Friend", and that his "little Volunteer" is a woman. Thus Manly finally exchanges a false mistress and friend for a true mistress and friend. This last scene of the play contains many examples of some of the

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basic ambiguities of tone, character and satiric idea that make The Plain-Dealer so difficult to interpret. It must be immediately added, of course, that such ambiguities are not necessarily to be condemned. The complex and even the irrational can be an important part of a play's significance, as modern theatre makes clear; the important question is whether such ambiguities are theatrically viable. Such a question concerns the style of the first part of the scene which seems to have all the brooding intensity of an evil romance. Olivia apostrophizes the candle ("go thou out too, thou next interrupter of love"), and darkness ("kind darkness, that frees us Lovers from scandal and bashfulness"), and she addresses Fidelia in such passionate terms as, "Come, come, my Soul, come", and so on. It is only gradually that one comes to realize that Wycherley may have intended the whole passage to be a parody: Olivia: ... Come, my dear punctual Lover, there is not such another in the World; thou hast Beauty and Youth to please a Wife; Address and Wit, to amuse and fool a Husband; nay, thou hast all things to be wish'd in a Lover, but your Fits. This nice example of anti-climax is followed by the broad, comic irony of Olivia's resolve "to be led away, to Heavens of joys" even though her husband "were at the door, and the bloody Ruffian Manly here in the room". Above all there is latent humour in the whole situation in which Olivia gropes about the room murmuring "Come, where are you?" to Fidelia who is dodging away from her in the dark. In other words a director, as so often with Wycherley, has the task of trying to create a meaningful balance between the laughter of the surface situation and disgust for the underlying viciousness. Manly's character also remains a little enigmatic. As Κ. M. Rogers has pointed out, 27 Manly appears to be completely vindicated at the conclusion of the play; his revenge is successful, he retrieves his money, his fortune is increased by Fidelia, and he is assured of the devoted love of a faithful woman. And yet there is every indication that he is still misanthropic, opinionated and self27

Rogers, "Fatal Inconsistency", 155.

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centred - although all of these characteristics may have become modified. He does not, for instance, admit that he was foolishly blind as regards Olivia and Vernish. Instead he transfers his affections to Fidelia and Freeman with unnatural speed. This might indicate that he is as precipitant in his behaviour as he ever was; it may equally mean that Wycherley needed to end the play quickly. A certain egomania is also in evidence when he excuses himself to Fidelia for the way he has been treating her: "the sense of my rough, hard, and ill usage of you, (tho' chiefly your own fault) gives me more pain now 'tis over, than you had, when you suffer'd it." True he jocularly talks about being "Friends with the World", but a moment before he has also stated that this same world is "odious to me"; and although he now admits that he can imagine the existence of " G o o d natur'd Friends, who are not Prostitutes", the play ends with his warning, Yet, for my sake, let no one e're confide In Tears, or Oaths, in Love or Friend untry'd. Freeman presents even more of a problem, for he too is rewarded at the end of the play. This raises the question of whether his mercenary and totally cynical pursuit of the Widow is reprehensible, or whether it should be viewed as no more than a picaresque escapade. If the latter then the humour involved would tend to exclude a strictly moral judgement of Freeman; if the former then one wonders whether Wycherley agreed with Dryden's theory that poetic justice is not necessary in comedy. 2 8 Freeman also functions, of course, as Manly's loyal comrade, and for this one might well expect him to be rewarded. This, however, poses the further question as to whether Freeman the cynical fortune hunter is entirely consistent with the Freeman who stands by his captain even when his fortunes are at a low ebb. The final impression that the play leaves then is somewhat complex for beneath the surface appearance of harmony there are several discordant strains. Although the unpleasant characters are exposed they remain incorrigible; Vernish leaves "doggedly", 28

Dryden, Essays, Vol. I, pp. 142-143.

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Olivia still threatens revenge, the Widow Blackacre is as full of legal schemes as ever, and the last action of Lord Plausible and Novel, a fitting visual image, is to scrabble on the floor for money. If there is no change here, there is also, as we have seen, no more than a modest qualification of Manly's attitude towards the "ill World". Not surprisingly there are no feasts or dances to celebrate the small and ambiguous victories of such a society.

3 The major conclusion of the foregoing analysis is that The PlainDealer is a difficult play to understand, first of all because Wycherley has depicted a world in which human behaviour is occasionally as inconsistent as it is in the real world, and secondly because the moral issues of this puzzling but believable world are made even more confusing by careless writing. This conclusion is itsell hard to explain, but basically it involves differentiating between what might be called coherent ambiguity and incoherent ambiguity. One difficulty here is that it is very easy to call any deviation from consistent behaviour 'human'; another is that a false assessment of a character can be arrived at if full weight is given to certain of his statements and actions that are in fact the result of weak dramaturgy. The problem, then, is to distinguish between what is 'human' and what is weak dramaturgy, and the only way that this can be done with any degree of certainty is to try to ascertain what Wycherley's overall intentions were, and then to disregard or reserve judgement on what seem to be deviations from these intentions. It is, perhaps, also necessary to add that another obstacle to a correct understanding of The Plain-Dealer is the tendency to interpret it in terms of the standard values of what is referred to as 'Restoration comedy' or in terms of the prevailing ideas of Restoration society, rather than in the light of Wycherley's own attitudes as they can be perceived in this play and in his other work. Any summary of the meaning of The Plain-Dealer should begin with Manly himself, the dominant figure of the play and the key to its satiric vision. Perromat, indeed, hardly exaggerates when he says,

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"c'est principalement dans le développement des caractères, ou plutôt dans le développement du caractère du héros principal, que réside tout l'intérêt de la dernière pièce de Wycherley". 29 At the start of this chapter I drew attention to the antithetical attitudes of different critics towards Manly, some speaking of him as a creature totally debased and others as a paragon of virtue. It is undoubtedly the latter opinion that comes closer to describing Wycherley's purpose when he created Manly. There are several reasons for coming to this conclusion, two of which have already been touched on. Taken separately these reasons are not particularly decisive, but together they provide convincing proof that Wycherley intended Manly to be, on balance, a sympathetic character. In the first place there is the conclusion of the play in which Manly emerges triumphant. If this does not indicate that his virtue is being rewarded then it must mean either that Wycherley was being enormously cynical in the matter of poetic justice, or else that his conception of Manly suddenly and quite illogically changed in the last few minutes of the play. Neither of these two propositions is, in the circumstances, likely. Secondly there is the theme of Fidelia's devotion to Manly throughout the play, a devotion that stems, as she says to him in her last speech, from her careful and admiring observation of his actions. All critics, with the possible exception of Norman Holland, 30 agree that Fidelia is an idealized figure, and one therefore has to conclude either that her appreciation of Manly is basically sound, or else that the crowning irony of the play is that she is totally deceived by the object of her fidelity - or else, again, that Wycherley's moral scheme in The Plain-Dealer is in a terrible state of chaos. Equally pertinent is the argument about whether Wycherley was proud to accept the soubriquet "Manly" from his contemporaries, whether, that is, he accepted that Manly expressed a part of his own nature, or whether he considered it an inverted compliment after the fashion of the later "Yahoos of Twickenham". Here the evidence suggests that the first supposition is the correct one: 29 30

Perromat, Wycherley, 287. Holland, First Modern Comedies, 101.

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But why shou'd Modest, Rare, and Friendless Wit, expect Friends in the World, where Fools are the greatest Party? And the Proud, Politick, or Great, are most shie of Wit, since it is commonly too Familiar with its Betters, and is the greatest spy in, and upon Courts, where Proud, Guilty Men, wou'd least be known what most of 'em (in truth) are; where they, whose Crimes are their State-Secret, hate Wits, because they are Discoverers; where the Proud and Ambitious think, they never have enough of Wealth or Honor; but no Man, at least, ever doubts that he has not enough of Wit. This piece of pure Manly is taken from the Preface to the Miscellany Poems (1704), where Wycherley can be said to be writing more or less in propria persona. He signs this lengthy diatribe "the PlainDealer". Most important of all, however, is the need to judge Manly in relation to his theatrical environment rather than to argue that because Restoration society valued moderation and decorum his anti-social plain dealing was intended to be ridiculous. 31 The society that Wycherley chose to present in The Plain-Dealer is thoroughly unhealthy, and there are very few points of light to relieve the gloom of not Manly's, but Wycherley's vision. This indeed is one of the really important differences between The Plain-Dealer and Le Misanthrope. In the French play Philinte and Eliante are clearly Molière's version of rational, social human beings and their continuing dialogue with Alceste exposes the absurdity of his extremism. Wycherley supplies no such corrective for Manly, presumably because his pessimism was deeper than Molière's. Fidelia is too other-worldly to be a norm for practical human behaviour, while Freeman, his carefree friendship apart, is too cynical. Like Horner, he represents a negative approach to a corrupt civilization. It is only Eliza who continues the tradition of the sensible, well-adjusted human being established by Hippolita and Alithea, but her role is so peripheral that it hardly makes an impression on the overall morality of the play. For the rest, Manly's society is composed of a treacherous friend, a lascivious woman, an ancient fop, a pseudo-wit, a sycophantic lord, and a host of 31

See for instance Alexander H. Chorney, "Wycherley's Manly Reinterpreted", 161-169.

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litigious, mercenary parasites. These constitute the world of The Plain-Dealer, and it is against this world that Manly fulminates so vigorously, and with his creator's approval. Perplexity about Manly begins when one goes on to state that even though he is basically a sympathetic figure he also has some unpleasant flaws in his character. There is, however, no paradox other than the human paradox here. In a passage in The Cankered Muse Alvin Kernan summarizes the principal traits of the satirist in literature as follows: The main features of the satirist's character are now clear, and we can attempt to construct a composite picture without taking note of every minor "confusion". The satirist is above all harsh, honest, frank, and filled with indignation at the sight of the evil world where the fools and villains prosper by masquerading as virtuous men. This same honest man happens also to be the heroic scourge of vice capable of rising to the heights of the elevated style. Furthermore, although he is the inveterate foe of vice, he himself has dark twists in his character: he is sadistic and enjoys his rough work; he is filled with envy of those same fools he despises and castigates; he has a taste for the sensational and delights in exposing those sins of which he is himself guilty; he is a sick man, his nature unbalanced by melancholy, whose perspective of the world is distorted by his malady. The satyr personality is complex, but it is by no means unbelievable. In fact, with all its tensions and confusions it is far more lifelike, more vital, than a completely logical and balanced character would be in the context of satire.82 This description of the satirist is remarkable not only because it is, in its general outline, so apposite to Manly, but also because it relates him to his literary tradition. Where Manly differs from the generalized portrait is in the gravity of his sickness. He cannot be said to be envious of those he despises, and his attitude towards the society that Wycherley depicts in the play is largely justified. Where his "dark twists" become most evident is when he is working out his revenge on Olivia. In these scenes he does, indeed, hover on the brink of infamy, and Fidelia's distressed pleas to him to consider his honour express an audience's reaction to his conduct. In the end, however, Wycherley allows him a revenge that does not 32

Alvin Kernan, The Cankered Muse, pp. 116-117.

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disgrace him. Manly is, then, a mulish champion of virtue, a glory, a jest and a riddle, and as such he is an entirely believable character. Indeed, the part of Manly is so powerfully and so interestingly written that it is true to say that The Plain-Dealer is a unique play for the Restoration period largely because of him. But even though the general outline of Manly's character is clear, there are certain occasions when his portrait becomes unhappily smudged. A minor example is when Manly talks about having slept with a wench (Act III), a boast which, though it may be neatly phrased, sounds strange coming from the mouth of a moral absolutist. More serious, however, is the way Manly is made to appear so egregiously foolish in his relationship with Olivia. One wonders how he could possibly have mistaken her for a woman of virtue in the first place (the broadness of the Olivia caricature does nothing to alleviate the problem), and as a result there may be an unfortunate tendency to suspect that Manly is a figure of fun after all. But, as I hope I have shown, this cannot have been Wycherley's final intention; this aspect of Manly's behaviour marks another fault in the play's conception. Lastly there is Manly's whole relationship with Freeman whose cupidity he largely ignores even though he chastises the greed of the rest of the human race. The trouble here, of course, is that Freeman is a comic figure in the amoral wooing of the Widow Blackacre, but when he is with Manly he is in a world where morality is taken seriously. This, however, leads on to the further problem of the "confusion continuelle des genres et des tons" 3 3 that most critics consider to be one of the flaws of The Plain-Dealer. Although it is a point about which it would be wrong to be dogmatic, I have suggested that the mere juxtaposition of different genres in a play would not be as noticeable on the stage as in the study. Whether or not this is true, the consequences of such a juxtaposition, particularly as it affects consistent characterization, can be unfortunate. It is probable, for instance, that Wycherley's original scheme for the play is the reason why Freeman is not a really sharply defined figure. On the one hand he wanted a picar33

Perromat, Wycherley, 194.

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esque rogue for his low plot, and on the other he needed a loyal friend for his moral hero, and so he combined the two roles with a not entirely satisfactory result. But even supposing actor, director and audience are able to rationalize this dichotomy within Freeman himself, it has unhappy repercussions for Manly. Thus the issue referred to in the previous paragraph can be restated as follows: the plot requires that Manly and Freeman remain on friendly terms, Manly therefore has to tolerate Freeman's tasteless selfseeking, and this in turn makes Manly appear to be something of a hypocrite - which was not Wycherley's intention. Olivia is another character who has to live in divided and distinguished worlds. In her scenes of melodramatic intrigue she is an intelligent and cunning creature, all lust and passionate intensity: in her scenes of comedy of manners she is harmlessly malicious and even rather stupid. 3 4 Similarly, the style and content of Fidelia's conversation is sometimes out of tune with the prevailing tone of the play. For instance, when she says to Manly, "your Merit is unspeakable" (Act I) the exaggeration, which in a romantic drama would be acceptable, is ridiculous because untrue, and it makes one wonder about just how percipient Fidelia is. In the final analysis, then, The Plain-Dealer must be accounted a disappointing play, the more so because it is possible to see what it might have been, what, indeed, Wycherley intended it to be. Had he spent more time fashioning it and shaping it, cutting away excess material and moulding its parts, it might have been a great play. As it is, the flaws in its conception, flaws that have serious repercussions for the characterization, its structural errors (such as the erratic time scheme in Act V, scene ii, the pointless episode in which Novel and Lord Plausible receive letters from Olivia, and the promise of a friendship between Novel and Oldfox that scarcely materializes), and its repetitious use of satirical material that is often not absorbed into the action of the play, all combine to mar the finished product. It is, perhaps, futile to try to account for this relative lack of polish in comparison with The Country Wife, but a possible reason might be that by the time Wycherley came to write 84

Cf. Κ. M. Rogers, "Fatal Inconsistency", 157.

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The Plain-Dealer the passion to attack the evils of society, the satiric impulse, had become so strong that it overbalanced that rational, ordering faculty that is so important to the creative process, and particularly that part of it concerned with the shape of a work of art. And yet one can still conclude on a note of praise. It is surely a matter of some surprise that even though The Plain-Dealer has serious faults it can still legitimately be called one of the most stimulating and disturbing plays of the Restoration period. One reason for this is that it possesses in abundance that quality that really distinguishes Wycherley as a playwright - dramatic power. It is this quality that receives its ultimate expression in The PlainDealer and allows one to say that when the play is done it is the vigour of such characters as Manly and the Widow Blackacre, and the burly energy of the language that remain in the mind. The other, and complementary, reason why it is a disconcerting play is because of the pessimism, scope and underlying consistency of its satire. The Plain-Dealer is Wycherley's gloomiest statement on the society in which he lived, a society in which he felt hypocrisy, injustice and faithlessness were rife, and his sad conclusion seems to be that these vices can only be outfaced by cynicism, misanthropy and, perhaps, a frail idealism. For more than one reason an appropriate subtitle for The Plain-Dealer might be "Wycherley's Farewell": Tir'd with the noysom Follies of the Age, And weary of my Part, I quit the Stage.

CONCLUSION

Although Wycherley was to live for nearly forty years after he brought out The Plain-Dealer, he did not write another play. His career as a playwright, then, shorter even than those of Etherege and Congreve, covers a mere five or six years. Wycherley's desertion of the stage after such a relatively short space of time is a little puzzling especially when one considers that it might have been a source of income for him in the lean years ahead. It is, of course, impossible to say precisely why Wycherley stopped writing plays in 1676, but no doubt he did so for a mixture of motives. It may be that, like Congreve, he considered himself a "Gentleman Writer" (Rochester's phrase for him 1 ) and therefore above turning an avocation into a profession - although from what one can see of Wycherley in his plays such a social affectation seems unlikely. It may be that his dramatic powers were falling off, or, quite simply, that he was losing interest in the stage; certainly the analysis of The Plain-Dealer supports some such view as this. It may be that he felt that he had nothing more to say. And it may be that the concatenation of events (illness, marriage, debts and, finally, imprisonment) slowly forced creativity to be laid aside until it was too late. It was, anyway, too late when Dryden suggested that they collaborate on a play. Wycherley's reply was "An Epistle to Mr. Dryden", a poem of turgid praise in rhyming couplets (but interesting as the closest Wycherley came to a statement of dramatic theory) which concludes:

1

Rochester, Poems, 105.

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CONCLUSION

Who writes with you, in hopes his Fame to raise, Aspires (at best) to eminent Disgrace. So when bright Phoebus's purer Rays conspire, To mix with Smoak, and dull Material Fire; The Fire, that shone with mod'rate Light before, O'ercome by too much Lustre, shines no more.2 But no matter how humbly Wycherley might protest that his was only a "mod'rate Light", his contemporaries persisted in considering him one of the best dramatists of the age. They also agreed that what particularly distinguished him as a dramatist were his wit and his satire. Dennis uses the phrase "the Wit and Satire of Wycherley" 3 more than once when he writes about his friend, while Dryden only adds a defining quality when he talks of "the Satire, Wit and Strength of Manly Witcherly". 4 It is not immediately apparent what Dennis and Dryden intended when they used 'wit' in this context, and the doubt is increased when one considers that, as the term is used today (e.g., "That quality of speech or writing which consists in the apt association of thought and expression, calculated to surprise and delight by its unexpectedness ... later always with reference to the utterance of brilliant or sparkling things in an amusing way", OED), one would sooner apply it to such writers of comedy as Etherege, Congreve, Sheridan or Wilde than to Wycherley. In the seventeenth century, however, the word does not seem to have had a very precise meaning. Fujimura distinguishes "three very broad conceptions of wit" in the Restoration period: "(1) wit as comprehending both fancy and judgement; (2) wit as judgement; and (3) wit as fancy", 5 and after discussing these conceptions he concludes: Wit is a very comprehensive and ambiguous term, and it is sometimes contradictory in its implications: as judgement, it implies restraint, good taste, common sense, and naturalness; as fancy, on the other hand, it implies whatever is novel and striking and remote. The conception of wit 2 3 4 5

Wycherley, Works, Vol. IV, p. 69. Dennis, Critical Works, Vol. II, p. 122. Dryden, Poems, Vol. II, p. 852. Fujimura, Restoration Comedy, 18.

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as judgement emphasizes the neo-classical side of wit comedy. The conception of wit as fancy emphasizes the whimsical, novel, and striking qualities of the comedy which we generally designate by the term witty·, on this side, wit comedy is anti-classical and reveals its kinship with metaphysical poetry." 1 would suggest that when Wycherley's contemporaries praised his 'wit' they were referring primarily (I would not say exclusively) to his judgement; to his ability to control his dramatic action, to interweave his plots and regulate the movement of a scene; to his capacity for creating believable characters who act, think, and speak in a manner consistent with their personalities; to his common sense in relation to the moral and social problems with which the plays are concerned; to those aspects of his art, in other words, that can be said to be the result of considered thought. It is certainly this meaning of the word 'wit' that Collier employs when he protests, more in sorrow than in anger, about Wycherley's immorality: I'm sorry the Author should stoop his Wit thus Low, and use his Understanding so unkindly. Some People appear Coarse, and Slovenly out of Poverty: They can't well go to the Charge of Sense. They are Offensive like Beggars for want of Necessaries. But this is none of the Plain Dealer's case. He can afford his Muse a better Dress when he pleases.7 And later he says, "I must own the Poet to be an Author of good Sense". 8 From such a potentially antagonistic critic this amounts to exceptional praise. Although Wycherley can be praised for his wit as "good Sense", it is less easy to praise him for his wit as fancy. Needless to say there is more than one occasion when he employed doubles entendres or turned similes that can be called 'witty', but on the whole it is fair to say that he did not possess sufficient originality to surprise with new and delightful thoughts, or the stylistic flair to express such thoughts in a striking manner. This, however, did not prevent him from attempting to be witty, and as a result it is, unfortunately, 6 7 8

Fujimura, Restoration Comedy, 38. Collier, Short View, 3-4. Collier, Short View, 173-174.

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sometimes possible to sense the effort he put into the composition of some unoriginal simile or forced paradox. Interestingly enough, it is just this distinction between judgement and wittiness that Spence and Pope make on the only occasion that they criticize Wycherley's comedies: "In spite of his good sense, I could never read his plays with true pleasure, from the general stiffness of his style" [Spence commented]. "Ay, that was occasioned by his being always studying for antitheses." 9 That Wycherley was ill-equipped to express ingenious or novel thoughts with ease becomes absolutely clear when one turns to his poetry: As he who ne're took Cudgel up before, Vext at Foul Play, begin's thick skull to scoure, In Poets Lists, and layes about him round, From sense of Friends Wrongs, clumsey strength has found. So has my just rage sharpen'd by [s/c] blunt Quill: Forgive (Great Sir) defending you so ill; He alwayes has best Heart, who shews least Skill. My End is not at all to shew my Art, In Lying Verse, but here my-Your true Heart, Which from the Left-Right-Side can never part. The Side Oppress'd, is still to me, the Right: Who Loves, asks not what Quarrel Friend does Fight. Who Draws on Your Side, nere can be i'th'Wrong. Poets still fight the Rabble, and the Throng. Mall'd Poets, like bang'd Braves o'th'ground, despise The Knock-down-Crowds, who will not let 'em Rise. The Honest, tho' the Weak side, has the Ods; Poets, and Heroes, are help'd by the Gods. 10 Arguing from these not untypical lines to his plays, one can say that Wycherley was simply deficient in whatever faculty it is that produces wittiness. His métier was, rather, the blunt word in the 9 Joseph Spence, Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters of Books and Men, ed. by James M. Osborn, Vol. I, p. 39. 10 From "Epistle to the Duke" (1683), in Wycherley, Works, Vol. II, p. 274. It is worth mentioning that this poem shows that Wycherley was no Laodicean in politics. Even allowing for a certain amount of self-interest, it is clear that Wycherley was vigorously opposed to the Whigs and their Exclusion Bill, and that his views on monarchy agreed with those of Hobbes, perhaps even of Sir Robert Filmer.

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direct statement, a mode of expression that is exactly suited to the tone and character of the plays, and with them accounts for the "Strength of Manly Witcherly". But as Congreve's well known couplet, Since the Plain-Dealer's Scenes of Manly Rage, Not one has dar'd to lash this Crying Age,11 and the equally famous triplet, As long as Men are false, and Women vain, Whilst Gold continues to be Virtues bane, In pointed Satyr Wycherley shall Reign,12 make clear, Wycherley's contemporaries saluted him, above all, as an astringent satirist - perhaps because he is more consistently and forcefully satirical in his plays than any of his fellow playwrights. This claim, however, may appear to be somewhat extravagant, and it therefore needs to be substantiated. It will be useful to begin with a brief definition of terms. Generally speaking one can say that although both comedy and satire deal with the aberrations of mankind, the former sees them as foibles and follies, and treats them with indulgent laughter, at its best with understanding, while the latter tends to see them as vicious, and treats them with a derisive laughter that aims at reformation. In the comic court of social behaviour the writer of comedy sits in the spectators' gallery and records, with amusement, what he sees; the satirist is the counsel for the prosecution and, depending upon his own nature, he pursues his case with savage indignation or graceful ridicule. But although it is easy to separate comedy from satire in theory, in practice the division between the two is often more difficult to distinguish. This is particularly true of comic drama because it almost invariably contains episodes or character studies that can be called satirical. Here, therefore, the criterion must be whether it is possible to detect an underlying moral purpose that gives point to 11

Congreve, Comedies, 217. Attributed to Evelyn by Langbaine in An Account of the English Dramatick Poets (London, 1691), p. 515. 12

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CONCLUSION

the story as a whole, or whether the humour exists largely for itself alone. Thus Aphra Behn's plays, in spite of the touches of satire that can usually be claimed for any piece of humorous theatre, can be called 'comedies' because, as she says with refreshing iconoclasm in "An Epistle to the Reader" of The Dutch Lover (1673), ... as I take it Comedie was never meant, either for a converting or a conforming Ordinance: In short, I think a Play the best divertisement that wise men have: but I do also think them nothing so who do discourse as formalie about the rules of it, as if 'twere the grand affair of human life. This being my opinion of Plays, I studied only to make this as entertaining as I could ... 13 With a playwright like Shadwell, on the other hand, the case is more difficult. For instance, in a play such as Bury Fair (1689) there are several portraits that are obviously satirical, such as the précieuses Fantasts, the fop Trim, Oldwit, and so on, while in the earlier The Humorists (1671), "intended a Satyr against Vice and Folly" 1 4 Crazy, Drybob and Brisk dominate the play to the extent that plot is subordinated to humour's characterization. But it is here, I think, that one comes close to defining the essential difference between the majority of Restoration comedies and Wycherley's last two plays. In the former the satire is often separated from the story; in The Country Wife and The Plain-Dealer the satiric impulse is a part of the creative drive and informs the whole play. This, presumably, is what Dennis meant when he perceptively remarked that Wycherley is "almost the only Man alive who has made Comedy instructive in its Fable; almost all the rest, being contented to instruct by their Characters". 15 It is on this basis that one can 13

The Works of Aphra Behn, ed. by Montague Summers, Vol. I, p. 223. Shadwell, Works, Vol. I, p. 181. 15 Dennis, Critical Works, Vol. I, p. 157. Comedies that can usefully be compared with Wycherley's two plays are Dryden's The Kind Keeper (1678) and Otway's The Soldier's Fortune (1680). In the dedication, Dryden calls his play "an honest Satyre against our crying sin of Keeping" (Dryden, The Dramatic Works, ed. by Montague Summers, Vol. IV, p. 271). A performance of this play could cast a different light on it, but when it is read one gets the impression that Dryden is enjoying himself with the "crying sin", not attacking it. Perhaps this is because there is no character in the play who embodies a positive moral attitude towards the vice in question. 14

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argue that Wycherley is the most complete satiric dramatist of his period. The vices that Wycherley satirized in various characters in his plays are the perennial targets of the satirist, and Wycherley continued to attack them in the later poems. In "To the Universal Friend", for instance, Lord Plausible is pilloried once more: At once, a Common Foe, as Common Friend, You seem, since Friendship, you to all pretend;18 while in "A Song: To a Lewd Woman of Affected Modesty, who had yet the Art of Blushing" Lady Fidget walks again: Your Modesty grows Impudence, By which, you for a Maid wou'd pass; So that to Virtue, your Pretence Makes your feign'd Honour your Disgrace.17 Gripe and Sir Jaspar Fidget reappear in "Upon the Idleness of Business. (A Satyr.) To one, who said, A Man show'd his Sense, Spirit, Industry, and Parts, by his Love of Bus'ness": Your Man of Bus'ness, is your idlest Ass, Doing most, what he least can bring to pass.18 "Upon the Injustice of the Law: A Satyr" 1 9 and "To my Lord Chancellour Boyle, at once Chancellour and Primate of Ireland: Written when the Author had a Suit depending before Him" 2 0 are concerned with legal malpractices such as are satirized in Act III of The Plain-Dealer. A number of poems about witless fops and loud critics show that Wycherley remained contemptuous of Dapperwit, M. de Paris, Sparkish and Novel. But it is the sad status of marriage in the Restoration period that is, as P. F. Vernon says, "the main butt of Wycherley's satire", 21 16

Wycherley, Works, Vol. IV, i ' Wycherley, Works, Vol. Ill, » Wycherley, Works, Vol. Ill, ι» Wycherley, Works, Vol. Ill, 20 Wycherley, Works, Vol. Ill, 21 Vernon, William Wycherley,

p. 36. p. 258. p. 103. pp. 131-136. pp. 195-197. 14.

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CONCLUSION

and it is mainly in relation to this dominant theme that the other vices of avarice, hypocrisy, jealousy, witlessness, and so on, are seen. That the four plays constitute a completely serious attack on the sordidness of love, a sordidness that was mainly caused by the debasement of the institution of marriage into a business contract, has already been discussed. 22 What has not, perhaps, been noticed is that Wycherley's attitude towards these matters underwent a significant development through the four plays, from relative optimism to a pessimism that seems gradually to have embraced most facets of the society in which he lived. The final expression of this pessimism is to be found in the poems. Love in a Wood, for all its confusion of tone, plot and character, strikes a balance between a positive and a negative approach to marriage. On the one hand, Gripe and Lucy, Dapperwit and Martha, and Lady Flippant and Sir Simon Addleplot entertain matrimony for sexual or financial reasons; for them marriage is a punishment. On the other hand there are the liaisons between Ranger and Lydia, and Valentine and Christina which, although the basis for them is not greatly explored, illustrate a happier conclusion to human courtship. In the family comedy of The Gentleman Dancing-Master the serious emphasis is on Hippolita's attempts to shape her own matrimonial destiny. I have suggested that this play is unique in the canon of Restoration comedy, and a comparison of Hippolita with, for instance, Millamant, or Harriet in The Man of Mode (1676), explains why. The two later heroines are totally assured ladies of the town who seem to be in complete control of the manner in which they sweep their sophisticated ways into marriage. Hippolita is a semi-assured girl of fourteen, and the pressures and tensions with which she has to contend before she achieves her desire are explored with what one imagines to be a great deal of realism. The Gentleman Dancing-Master is, finally, an optimistic play. With The Country Wife Wycherley turns once again to a broader picture of contemporary society, but in this comedy his attitude towards marriage is more depressing. The positive marriage, that between Alithea and Harcourt, is now pushed 22

See pp. 109-110 and 128-131 above. Also Vernon, Wycherley, 12-18.

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into the background, and the action mainly centres upon three unhealthy examples of matrimony and courtship, which, in conjunction with the cynicism of Horner, and the play's equally cynical conclusion, are evidence of Wycherley's increasing pessimism. Wycherley's final comedy 23 is also his darkest comedy, mainly because it goes beyond an indictment of marriage to an indictment of society as a whole. But although The Plain-Dealer leaves an overall impression of bitterness, one must add that it is a confused bitterness. This confusion is personified by two characters, Eliza and Manly, and a divided Wycherley speaks through both. Eliza, who has much in common with Wycherley's previous heroines, is an affirmation of healthy sociability; Manly, in spite of his excesses, expresses Wycherley's anger with the hypocrisy of the age. Eliza's role, however, is a very small one; it is Manly's rage that sets the tone of The Plain-Dealer. The poems complete the story of Wycherley's satiric development. In the "Postscript" to "The Preface" of the Miscellany Poems (1704) Wycherley says that most of the poems "were Written Nine or Ten Years since", 24 that is, in the 1690's. Between the last play (1676) and the majority of these poems, then, Wycherley actually underwent some of those experiences that he had only written about, sourly enough, in the comedies: marriage, debts, litigation and imprisonment. It may also be relevant that, as a Tory, he would have witnessed in these years (1676-1690) such inimical events as the Popish Plot, the Exclusion Bill, the Monmouth rebellion and the Revolution of 1688. These personal and political episodes must have strengthened Wycherley's pessimism, and it is therefore not surprising to find extreme views expressed in the poems. For instance, he now seems to reject marriage completely: You Slaves! are now set Free, but on the Score, Of growing much more Slaves, than e'er before; Go freely thus, into more Slavery, Call'd Wedlock, for your infidelity; For Want of Faith, in one another, you, 23 24

The problem of dating The Plain-Dealer is discussed in the Appendix. Wycherley, Works, Vol. Ill, p. 14.

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Bond-Slaves for Life, thus one to t'other grow; By your Church-Bondage, that of Marriage, since Death only can be your Deliverance.25 Wycherley's alternative to marriage is free love, that is, love outside the church, and unsullied by any financial considerations. Even allowing for a certain 'joke' element in the poems that urge this sort of relationship, one can say that Wycherley's attitude towards marriage has changed considerably since Love in a Wood. On a more philosophical level one cannot help noticing the number of poems that urge the pleasures of solitude, the emptiness of ambition, the brutality of man, and the acceptance of death. No doubt these poems were written partly as witty exercises in handling conventional poetic themes, and it would therefore be uncritical to argue too strongly from them. Indeed, the fact that they are interspersed with lyrics that celebrate whoring and drinking is a sufficient check on any desire to do so - there is, after all, not much contemptus mundi about "To a Lady, who wore Drawers in an III Hour". But the pessimism of the last plays, followed by personal misfortune and public folly, suggests that a good deal of sincerity went into the poems of misanthropy and Stoicism such as "Upon Life, and Death; and the Vain Love, or Fear of them", 2 6 which concludes by paraphrasing Rochester's "A Satyr against Mankind", or "Upon the Impertinence of Knowledge, the Unreasonableness of Reason, and the Brutality of Humanity; proving the Animal Life the most Reasonable Life, since the most Natural, and most Innocent", which shows Wycherley to have been one of the forerunners of Swift: Why shou'd Man's vain Pretence to Reason be, From Beast, his just Distinction? whom still we, More Guilty, and less Human, for it see; Who, for his Knowledge, and Humanity, Lives, deals with his own Kind, more Brutally, As for his Reason, more Unreasonably.27 25 28 27

Wycherley, Works, Vol. IV, p. 53. Wycherley, Works, Vol. ΙΠ, pp. 198-200. Wycherley, Works, Vol. ΠΙ, pp. 149-154.

CONCLUSION

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After spending so much time in the company of Wycherley, there is a temptation to exaggerate his merits as a playwright. For this reason it is necessary to avoid repeating the encomiums of partisan critics such as Dryden and Dennis. Instead one can turn to Rochester, who, although he was on friendly terms with Wycherley, does not seem to have been the sort of man who allowed friendship to influence criticism. It is his assessment of Wycherley's standing relative to the other comic dramatists of the period that remains the most balanced one, and that can also be fairly said to summarize most of the important conclusions of this study: But Wicherly, earnes hard what e're he gains, He wants no judgment, nor he spares no pains; He frequently excells, and at the least, Makes fewer faults, than any of the best.28

28

Rochester, Poems, 76.

APPENDIX

The problem of whether Wycherley's plays were performed in the same order in which they were written begins with an entry in Spence's Anecdotes: The chronology of Wycherley's plays I am well acquainted with, for he has told it me, over and over. Love in a Wood he wrote when he was but nineteen, the Gentleman Dancing-Master at twenty-one, the Plain Dealer at twenty-five, and the Country Wife at one or two and thirty.1

In assessing the accuracy of this statement it must be remembered that Pope made it some twenty years after Wycherley's death and, further, that whatever Wycherley may have said to Pope on this matter, he was an old man whose memory was frequently very faulty. This is not to suggest that the statement should be dismissed out of hand; only that it may be, in part, unreliable. This is, indeed, demonstrably the case. Montague Summers has shown that Love in a Wood was almost certainly not written in 1659 or 1660, that is, just after Wycherley returned from the Continent.2 He draws attention to the allusions to the Great Fire of 1666, and to fashions in dress ("Perukes and Vests") that came into vogue well after the Restoration. He comments that "the whole spirit and action of the play is post-Restoration", and concludes reasonably enough that "there was no reason why Wycherley should have kept his comedy hidden away in his desk, and every reason on the other hand why he should not". 1

Joseph Spence, Anecdotes, Vol. I, p. 34. Introduction to Wycherley's Works, Vol. I, pp. 16-17. See also the article on Wycherley by C. A. Aitken in the DNB, 63, 195. 2

194

APPENDIX

It is, of course, possible that Wycherley began making notes for his plays when he was nineteen, but one can say that in every meaningful sense Love in a Wood was written shortly before it was produced. 3 Similar arguments can be applied to The Gentleman Dancing-Master,4 That The Country Wife was written when Wycherley was thirty-two is closer to the mark, but if The Plain-Dealer was written when he was twenty-five then it would have pre-dated Le Misanthrope (1666). This is an engaging thought, but not one that can be taken seriously. The dates of the plays as reported by Spence are, therefore, inaccurate; it is not so easy, however, to dismiss the ORDER in which he states they were written. If Wycherley did write The Plain-Dealer before The Country Wife then of course he added to it after the production of The Country Wife. The critique of The Country Wife in Act II of The Plain-Dealer makes this clear. There are, however, other grounds for supposing that The Plain-Dealer may have been the earlier composition. The analysis of the play in Chapter IV shows that it is a mixed comedy, in that it blends material that stems from the humour's tradition, the manner's tradition and the romantic tradition. In this sense The Plain-Dealer can be said to be closer in technique to Love in a Wood, and one can add that it would have been surprising if Wycherley had reverted to this comic genre after producing a homogeneous comedy in The Country Wife. Similarly, the structural deficiencies of The PlainDealer are a little puzzling in the light of the accomplished construction of The Country Wife.5 On the other hand I have argued in the Conclusion that the tone and scope of the satire in The PlainDealer appears to lead on from the attitudes revealed by the satire of The Country Wife. All this evidence can be seen not to conflict if it is assumed that 3 Rundle, "Wycherley and Calderón", 701, states that "Wycherley undoubtedly used the 1664 edition" of Mañanas de abril y mayo when writing Love in a Wood. 4 See for instance the historical material in Chapter II (pp. 48-51) of this study. 6 A remark of Pope's as reported by Spence (Anecdotes, Vol. I, p. 37) may be relevant here: "Lord Rochester's character of Wycherley is quite wrong. He was far from being slow in general, and in particular, wrote the Plain Dealer in three weeks."

APPENDIX

195

Wycherley did, in fact, write much of The Plain-Dealer before The Country Wife, withheld it from production for some reason or other, and then substantially reworked it after the success of his third play. In this way Spence is vindicated, the mixing of comic genres is made more understandable, the fact that the satire is broader and darker than that of The Country Wife is accounted for, and, because it would have been a case of putting new wine into old bottles, some of the flaws in the play's construction become more comprehensible.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

NOTE: It is hoped that this bibliography will be a useful research tool for future students of Wycherley. It records, of course, all the works cited in the text, but it also contains detailed information about individual and collected editions of the plays and, perhaps most important of all, it lists everything that has been written about Wycherley in English up to about 1970 - with the exception (for reasons of manageability) of surveys or histories of English literature which consider the playwright in one or two pages or paragraphs.

WYCHERLEY'S WORKS

(a) The Plays This section is based on the CBEL. The dates of editions that have not been double-checked elsewhere are placed in brackets. Love in a Wood, / OR, / St James's Park. / A / COMEDY, / As it is Acted at the Theatre Royal, by his / Majesties Servants. / Written by Mr WYCHERLEY. / - Excludit sanos heliconepoetas / Democritus; - Horat. / LONDON, / Printed by J.M. for H. Herringman, at the Sign of the Blew / Anchor, in the LowerWalk of the New Exchange. 1672. Subsequent editions: 1693, 1694 (two), (1711). THE / GENTLEMAN / Dancing-Master. / A / COMEDY, / Acted at the DUKE'S THEATRE. / By Mr. Wycherley. / Horat. - Non satis est risu diducere rictum / Auditoris: & est quaedam tamen hie quoq; virtus. / LONDON, / Printed by J.M. for Henry Herringman and Thomas Dring at the Sign of the / Blew Anchor in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange, and at the Sign / of the White Lyon in Fleetstreet near Chancery-lane end. 1673. Subsequent editions: 1693, 1702. THE / Country-Wife, / A / COMEDY, / Acted at the / THEATRE ROYAL. / Written by Mr. Wycherley. / Indignor quicquam reprehendí, non quia crasse /

198

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Compositum illepidéve putetur, sed quia nuper: / Nec veniam Antiquis, sed honorem & proemia poseí. / Horat. / LONDON, / Printed for Thomas Dring, at the Harrow, at the / Corner of Chancery-Lane in Fleet-street. 1675. Subsequent editions: 1683, 1688, 1695 (two). Edited by Ursula Todd-Naylor. Smith College Studies in Modern Languages, 12 (1929), Nos. 1-3. A de luxe edition. Decorated by Steven Spurrier (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1934). Edited by Steven H. Rubin (San Francisco: Chandler Pub. Co., 1961). Edited by Thomas H. Fujimura. Regents Restoration Drama Series (London: Edward Arnold, 1965). The play also appears in most modern anthologies of representative Restoration comedies. THE / PLAIN-DEALER. / A / COMEDY. / As it is Acted at the / Theatre Royal. / Written by Mr WYCHERLEY. / HORAT. / - Ridiculum acre / Fortius & melius magnas plerumque fecat res. / Licensed Jan. 9. 1676. / ROGER L'ESTRANGE. / LONDON, / Printed by T.N. for James Magnes and Rich. Bentley / in Russel-street in Covent-garden near the Piazza's. / M. DC. LXXVII. Subsequent editions: 1677 (three), 1681, 1686, 1691, 1694, 1700, (1709). Another edition is bound with other Restoration plays in an untitled collection. Its individual title-page, bearing no publisher's name or place of publication, is dated 1710. The same edition, bound with another unnamed collection of plays, carries the same information on its title-page. A new edition is bound with the same collection as in the previous entry. It is titled, A Collection of the Best English Plays, Chosen out of All the Best Authors, Vol. 8 (London: Printed for the Company of Booksellers, 1711). Edited by Alexandre Beljame and Harold S. Symmes for Representative English Comedies, Vol. 4 (New York: MacMillan, 1936). Edited by Leo Hughes. Regents Restoration Drama Series (London: Edward Arnold, 1967). Editions of the plays continued to appear in the eighteenth century, but these seem to have been for inclusion in collections of Wycherley's plays. Each of these volumes has a title-page, and each individual play within the volume a title-page. The publishers, and sometimes the dates, vary within each volume. The Works of the Ingenious Mr. William Wycherley, Collected into One Volume, Containing Plain-Dealer, Country-Wife, Gentleman-Dancing-master, Love in a Wood (London: Benjamin Tooke, 1713). (Each play has a separate titlepage giving the publisher as Richard Wellington, and the date as 1712.) Plays Written by Mr. William Wycherley. In Two Volumes. Containing The Plain Dealer, The Country Wife, Gentleman Dancing-Master, Love in a Wood (London: B. Tooke, M. Wellington, 1720). (Each play has a separate titlepage. The date on each is 1720 and only Wellington's name appears.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

199

Plays Written by Mr. William Wycherley. Containing The Plain Dealer, The Country Wife, Gentleman Dancing Master, Love in a Wood (London: B. Motte, J. Poulson and R. J. and B. Wellington, 1731). (Each play has a separate title-page bearing one or more of the names of the publishers. Each has the date 1731.) Another edition was published from Dublin, 1733. Plays Written by Mr. Wm Wycherley. Containing The Country Wife. The PlainDealer. Gentleman Dancing-Master. Love in a Wood (London: B. Motte, W. Feales, R. Wellington, J. Brindley, C. Corbett, and B. Wellington, 1735). (Each play has a separate title-page giving more information about the publishers and the date as 1735.) Another volume has much the same publishing consortium as in the previous entry. The date on the title-page of The Country Wife is 1736. The date on the title-pages of the other three plays is 1735. The Dramatic Works of William Wicherly, Esq; Containing Love in a Wood; Or, St. James's Park. The Gentleman Dancing-Master. The Plain Dealer. The Country Wife (London: Messieurs Hawes, Clarke and Collins; T. Longman, T. Loundes and C. Corbett, n.d.). (The individual title-pages carry various combinations of the publishers' names. The dates run from 1751 to 1768.) New collected editions of the plays were published in the nineteenth and present centuries. The Dramatic Works of Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar. With Biographical and Critical Notices by Leigh Hunt (London, 1840,1849, 1851). William Wycherley. Edited by W. C. Ward. Mermaid Series (London: Vizetelly, 1888, etc.). The Country Wife and The Plain Dealer. Edited by George B. Churchill. BellesLettres Series (Boston: D. C. Heath, 1924). The Complete Plays of William Wycherley, Edited by Gerald Weales. Anchor Books (New York: Doubleday, 1966).

(b) Other

Writings

Hero and Leander, in Burlesque (London, 1669). Published anonymously. Epistles to the King and Duke (London, 1682). Published anonymously. "Prologue" to Catharine Trotter's Agnes de Castro (London, 1696).

200

BIBLIOGRAPHY

"The Answer" to "A Letter from Mr. Shadwell to Mr. Wicherly", in: Poems on Affairs of State: From Oliver Cromwell, to this Present Time. Written by the Greatest Wits of the Age, Viz., Lord Rochester ... Mr. Wicherly ..., Part III (London, 1698). Miscellany Poems: As Satyrs, Epistles, Love-Verses, Songs, Sonnets, etc. (London, 1704, reissued 1706). The Folly of Industry (1704). Reissued in 1705 as The Idleness of Business: A Satyr. (This stems from private information and has not been checked.) There is an entry for The Idleness of Business in the Term Catalogues for Trinity, 1705 - that is, before the Miscellany Poems, Michaelmas, 1705 - and another entry for Hilary, 1706. On His Grace the Duke of Marlborough (London, 1707). Published anonymously. "To My Friend, Mr. Pope, on his Pastorals", in: Poetical Miscellanies: The Sixth Part Containing a Collection of Original Poems, with Several New Translations (London: Jacob Tonson, 1709). "An Epistle to Mr. Dryden From Mr. Wycherley, occasion'd by his proposal to write a Comedy together", in: Poems on Several Occasions: by His Grace the Duke of Buckingham, Mr. Wycherly ... and Other Eminent Hands (London: Bernard Lintot, 1717). The Posthumous Works of William Wycherley Esq., in Prose and Verse. Edited by Lewis Theobald (London, 1728). The Posthumous Works of William Wycherley Esq., in Prose and Verse. Edited by Alexander Pope (London, 1729). Two main sources of Wycherley's correspondence are: Letters Upon Several Occasions: Written By and Between Mr. Dryden, Mr. Wycherley, Mr. —, Mr. Congreve, and Mr. Dennis. Published by Mr. Dennis (London, 1696). Letters of Mr. Pope and Several Eminent Persons (London, 1735). Wycherley's letters continue to be discovered from time to time. See, for instance, The Times Literary Supplement (April 18th, 1935). There is only one collected edition of Wycherley's works. The Complete Works of William Wycherley. 4 vols. Edited by Montague Summers (London: Nonesuch Press, 1924). (It should be added that Summers is sometimes textually inaccurate. A student dealing only with the plays would be well advised to use the Anchor edition edited by Gerald Weales.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

201

PRIMARY SOURCES Behn, Aphra, The Works of Aphra Behn, 6 vols., ed. by Montague Summers (London: William Heinemann, 1915). Betterton, Thomas, The History of the English Stage, from the Restauration to the Present Time (London, 1741). [Boyer, Abel], The English Theophrastus: or, the Manners of the Age, reprinted in The Augustan Reprint Society, Series One: Essays on Wit, 3 (1947). Butler, Samuel, Hudibras, Written in the Time of the Late Wars, ed. by A. R. Waller (in Cambridge English Classics) (Cambridge: University Press, 1905). Cibber, Colley, An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber, ed. by Edmund Bellchambers (London, 1822). Collier, Jeremy, A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage: Together with the Sense of Antiquity upon This Argument (London, 1698). Congreve, William, Comedies by William Congreve, ed. by Bonamy Dobrée (London: Oxford University Press, 1949). The Continental Model: Selected French Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century, in English Translation, ed. by Scott Elledge and Donald Schier (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1960). Crowne, John, The Dramatic Works of John Crowne, 4 vols., ed. by James Maidment and W. H. Logan (Edinburgh: William Paterson, 1873-1874). —, The Countrey Wit (London, 1675; 2nd ed., 1693). Dennis, John, The Critical Works of John Dennis, 2 vols., ed. by E. N. Hooker (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1939-1943). Downes, John, Roscius Anglicanus, facsimile of 1st ed., ed. by Montague Summers (London: Fortune Press, [1928]). Dryden, John, Dryden, The Dramatic Works, 6 vols., ed. by Montague Summers (London: Nonesuch Press, 1931-1932). —, Essays of John Dryden, 2 vols., ed. by W. P. Ker (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900). —, The Poems of John Dryden, 4 vols., ed. by James Kinsley (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958). Etherege, Sir George, The Dramatic Works of Sir George Etherege, 2 vols., ed. by H. F. B. Brett-Smith (Oxford: Blackwell, 1927). —, The Letterbook of Sir George Etherege, ed. by Sybil Rosenfeld (Oxford: University Press, 1928). —, The Poems of Sir George Etherege, ed. by James Thorpe (Princeton: University Press, 1963). Evelyn, John, The Diary of John Evelyn, 6 vols., ed. by E. S. de Beer (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955). Horatius Flaccus [Horace], Horace, Satires, Epistles, and Ars Poetica, translated by H. Rushton Fairclough (in Loeb Classical Library) (London: Heinemann, 1926). Langbaine, Gerard, An Account of the English Dramatick Poets (London, 1691). Lee, Nathaniel, The Works of Nathaniel Lee, 2 vols., ed. by Thomas B. Stroup and Arthur L. Cooke (New Brunswick, New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, 1954).

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Molière, Oeuvres complètes (in Pléiade), Vol. 1 ed. by Maurice Rat; Vol. 2 ed. by Georges Couton (Paris: Gallimard, 1957/1971). Otway, Thomas, The Works of Thomas Otway, Plays, Poems, and Love-Letters, 2 vols., ed. by J. C. Ghosh (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932). Pepys, Samuel, The Diary of Samuel Pepys, 10 vols., ed. by Henry B. Wheatley (London: George Bell and Sons, 1893-1899). Savile, George, Marquess of Halifax, The Complete Works of George Savile, First Marquess of Halifax, ed. by Walter Raleigh (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912). Sedley, Sir Charles, The Poetical and Dramatic Works of Sir Charles Sedley, 2 vols., ed. by V. de Sola Pinto (London: Constable, 1928). Shadwell, Thomas, The Complete Works of Thomas Shadwell, 5 vols., ed. by Montague Summers (London: Fortune Press, 1927). Southerne, Thomas, The Works of Mr. Thomas Southerne, 2 vols. (London, 1721). Spence, Joseph, Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters of Books and Men, Collected from Conversation, 2 vols., ed. by James M. Osborn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966). Tate, Nahum, Cuckolds-Haven: or, An Alderman No Conjurer (London, 1685). Ten English Farces, ed. by Leo Hughes and A. H. Scouten (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1948). Three Restoration Comedies (in College Classics in English), ed. by G. G. Falle (Toronto: MacMillan of Canada, 1964). Tuke, Sir Samuel, The Adventures of Five Hours, ed. by B. Van Thai, Introduction by Montague Summers (London: Robert Holden, [1927]). Wilmot, John, Earl of Rochester, Collected Works of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, ed. by John Hayward (London: Nonesuch Press, 1926). —, Poems by John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, ed. by Vivian de Sola Pinto (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1953). Wilson, John, The Dramatic Works of John Wilson, ed. by James Maidment and W. H. Logan (Edinburgh: William Paterson, 1874).

SECONDARY SOURCES (a)

Books

Appleton, William W., Beaumont and Fletcher, a Critical Study (London: Allen and Un win, 1956). Bean, Cecily M., Molière and Wycherley: A Comparative Study of Some Aspects of Their Work (M.A. Thesis, University of London, 1950). Beljame, Alexandre, Men of Letters and the English Public in the Eighteenth Century, 1660-1744, Dryden, Addison, Pope, translated by E. O. Lorimer, ed. by Bonamy Dobrée (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1948). Bentley, Eric, The Life of the Drama (New York: Atheneum, 1964). Boswell, Eleanore, The Restoration Court Stage (1660-1702), with a Particular Account of the Production of Calisto (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1932).

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203

Bredvold, Louis I., The Intellectual Milieu of John Dryden: Studies in Some Aspects of Seventeenth-Century Thought (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1956). Burton, Κ. M. P., Restoration Literature (in Hutchinson University Library) (London: Hutchinson, 1958). Carswell, John, The South Sea Bubble (London: Cresset Press, 1960). Connely, Willard, Brawny Wycherley: First Master in English Modern Comedy (London: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1930). Dobrée, Bonamy, Restoration Comedy, 1660-1720 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924). Doran, Dr., Annals of the English Stage, from Thomas Betterton to Edmund Kean, 3 vols., edited and revised by Robert W. Lowe (London: John C. Nimmo, 1888). Fujimura, Thomas H., The Restoration Comedy of Wit (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1952). [Gildon, Charles], Memoirs Of the Life of William Wycherley, Esq; With a Character of his Writings. By the Right Honourable George, Lord Lansdowne. To which are added, Some Familiar Letters, Written by Mr. Wycherley, and a True Copy of his Last Will and Testament (London, 1718). Harris, Brice, Charles Sackville, Sixth Earl of Dorset: Patron and Poet of the Restoration (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1940). Holland, Norman N., The First Modern Comedies: The Significance of Etherege, Wycherley and Congreve (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959). Hotson, Leslie, The Commonwealth and Restoration Stage (New York: Russell and Russell, 1962). Hughes, Leo, A Century of English Farce (London: Oxford University Press, 1956). Kernan, Alvin, The Cankered Muse: Satire of the English Renaissance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959). Krutch, Joseph Wood, Comedy and Conscience after the Restoration (New York: Columbia University Press, 1949). Loftis, John C., Comedy and Society from Congreve to Fielding (Stanford: University Press, 1959). The London Stage, 1660-1800, ed. by William van Lennep (Part One, 1660-1700); Emmett L. Avery (Part Two, 1700-1729, 2 vols.); Arthur H. Scouten (Part Three, 1729-1747, 2 vols.); George Winchester Stone, Jr. (Part Four, 17471776, 3 vols.); C. Beecher Hogan (Part Five, 1776-1800) (Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1965-). Lynch, Kathleen M., The Social Mode of Restoration Comedy (New York: MacMillan, 1926). Miles, Dudley H., The Influence of Molière on Restoration Comedy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1910). Moore, F. H., The Nobler Pleasure; Dryden's Comedy in Theory and Practice (Chapel Hill: North Carolina University Press, 1963). Nicoli, Allardyce, Restoration Drama, 1660-1700, Vol. 1 of Λ History of English Drama, 1660-1900 (Cambridge: University Press, 1965). Palmer, John, The Comedy of Manners (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1913). Perromat, Charles, William Wycherley: Sa vie - Son oeuvre (Paris. 1921).

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Perry, H. T. E., The Comic Spirit in Restoration Drama: Studies in the Comedy of Etherege, Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh and Farquhar (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1925). Pinto, Vivian de Sola, Rochester, Portrait of a Restoration Poet (London: John Lane the Bodley Head, 1935). —, Sir Charles Sedley, 1639-1701, A Study in the Life and Literature of the Restoration (London: Constable, 1927). Rosenfeld, Sybil, Strolling Players and Drama in the Provinces, 1660-1765 (Cambridge: University Press, 1939). Singh, Sarup, The Theory of Drama in the Restoration Period (Calcutta: Orient Longmans, 1963). Smith, J. H., The Gay Couple in Restoration Comedy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1948). Summers, Montague, The Playhouse of Pepys (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1935). —, The Restoration Theatre (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1934). Underwood, Dale, Etherege and the Seventeenth-Century Comedy of Manners (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957). Vernon, P. F., The Treatment of Marriage in the Drama, 1660-1700 (M. A. Thesis, University of London, 1959). —, William Wycherley (= Bibliographical Series of Supplements to 'British Book News' on Writers and Their Work, 179) (London: Longmans, Green, 1965). Walford, E., and G. W. Thornbury, Old and New London, 6 vols. (London: Casell, 1872). Wilcox, J., The Relation of Molière to Restoration Comedy (New York : Columbia University Press, 1938). Wilkinson, D. R. M., The Comedy of Habit: An Essay on the Use of Courtesy Literature in a Study of Restoration Comic Drama (Leiden: University Press, 1964). Wilson, John H., The Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Restoration Drama (Columbus, Ohio: State University Press, 1928). —, The Court Wits of the Restoration: An Introduction (Princeton: University Press, 1948). Zimbardo, Rose Α., Wycherley's Drama: A Link in the Development of English Satire (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1965).

SECONDARY SOURCES (b)

Articles

List of Abbreviations for ELH MLN MLR

A Journal of English Literary History Modern Language Notes Modern Language Review

Periodicals

BIBLIOGRAPHY MP N&O PMLA PQ SP TLS

205

Modern Philology Notes and Queries Publications of the Modern Language Association of America Philological Quarterly Studies in Philology Times Literary Supplement

Allen, Robert J., "Two Wycherley Letters", TLS (April 18th, 1935). Anderton, H. Ince, "The Date of Wycherley's Birth", TLS (March 17th, 1932). Anonymous, "The Country Wife: No Place to Hide", N&Q, 5 (1958), 250-251. Auffret, J., "Wycherley et ses Maîtres les Moralistes", Études Anglaises, 15 (1962), 375-388. —, "The Man of Mode and The Plain Dealer: Common Origin and Parallels", Études Anglaises, 19 (1966), 209-222. Avery, Emmett L., "The Country Wife in the Eighteenth Century", Research Studies of the State College of Washington, 10 (1942), 141-172. —, "The Plain Dealer in the Eighteenth Century", Research Studies of the State College of Washington, 11 (1943), 234-256. —, "The Reputation of Wycherley's Comedies as Stage Plays in the Eighteenth Century", Research Studies of the State College of Washington, 12 (1944), 131-154. —, "A Tentative Calendar of Daily Theatrical Performances, 1660-1700", Research Studies of the State College of Washington, 13 (1945), 225-283. Bateson, F. W., "Second Thoughts: II. L. C.Rnights and Restoration Comedy", Essays in Criticism, 7 (1957), 66. Berkeley, David S., "The Penitent Rake in Restoration Comedy", MP, 49 (1952), 223-233. —, "The Art of 'Whining' Love", SP, 52 (1955), 478-496. Berman, Ronald, "The Ethic of The Country Wife", Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 9 (1967), 47-55. Biggins, D., "Source Notes for Dryden, Wycherley and Otway", N&Q, 3 (1956), 298-301. Blakeslee, Richard C., "Wycherley's Use of the Aside", Western Speech, 28 (1964), 212-217. Boswell, Eleanore, "Wycherley and the Countess of Drogheda", TLS (November 28 th, 1929). —, "William Wycherley", MLR, 26 (1931), 345. Bowman, John S., "Dance, Chant and Mask in the Plays of Wycherley", Drama Survey, 3 (1963), 181-205. Cecil, C. D., "Libertine and Précieux Elements in Restoration Comedy", Essays in Criticism, 9 (1959), 239-253. Chadwick, W. R., "William Wycherley: The Seven Lean Years", N&Q, (January 1971), 30-34. Chorney, Alexander H., "Wycherley's Manly Reinterpreted", in: Essays Critical and Historical Dedicated to Lily B. Campbell (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1950), 161-169. Churchill, G. B., "The Originality of William Wycherley", in: Schelling Anniversary Papers (New York: Century, 1923), 64-85. —, "The Relation of Dryden's State of Innocence to Milton's Paradise Lost and

206

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Wycherley's Plain Dealer: An Inquiry into Dates", MP, 4 (1906), 381-388. Craik, T. W., "Some Aspects of Satire in Wycherley's Plays", English Studies, 41 (1960), 168-179. Dearing, Vinton Α., "Pope, Theobald and Wycherley's Posthumous Works", PMLA, 68 (1953), 223-236. Dennis, John, "Some Remarkable Passages of the Life of Mr. Wycherley", in: A New Collection of Miscellanies in Prose and Verse by Richardson Pack (London, 1725). Donaldson, Ian, "Tables Turned: The Plain Dealer", Essays in Criticism, 17 (1967), 304-321. Dormán, Peter J., "Wycherley's Adaptation of Le Misanthrope", Restoration and Eighteenth Century Theatre Research, 8 (1969), 54-59. Fletcher, W. G. D„ "The Date of Wycherley's Birth", TLS (March 10th, 1932). Friedson, A. M., "Wycherley and Molière: Satirical Point of View in The Plain Dealer", MP, 64 (1967), 189-197. Granville-Barker, Harley, "Wycherley and Dryden", in: On Dramatic Method (New York: Hill and Wang [Dramabook], 1962). Hargest, W. Α., "Wycherley and the Countess of Drogheda", TLS (November 21st, 1929). Harris, Bernard, "The Dialect of Those Fanatic Times", in: Restoration Theatre (= Siratford-upon-Avon Studies, 6), ed. by John Russell Brown and Bernard Harris (London: Edward Arnold, 1965). Hart, Jeffery P., "T. S. Eliot: His Use of Wycherley and Pope", N&Q, 4 (1957), 389-390. Hazlitt, William, "On Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar", in: Lectures on the English Comic Writers, vol. 6 of The Complete Works of William Hazlitt, 21 vols., ed. by R. P. Howe, after the edition of A. R. Waller and Arnold Glover (London: J. M. Dent, 1930-1934). Hughes, Leo, "Attitudes of Some Restoration Dramatists Toward Farce", PQ, 19 (1940), 268-287. Jones, H. Mumford, "Wycherley, Montaigne, Tertullian and Mr. Summers", MLN, 47 (1932), 244-245. Knights, L. C., "Restoration Comedy: The Reality and the Myth", in: Explorations: Essays in Criticism Mainly on the Literature of the Seventeenth Century (London: Chatto and Windus, 1951). Kreutz, I., "Three Collector's Items", Educational Theatre Journal, 14 (1962), 141-147. Lamb, Charles, "On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century", in: Elia and the Last Essays of Elia, vol. 2 of The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, 7 vols., ed. by E. V. Lucas (London: Methuen, 1903-1905). Leech, Clifford, "Restoration Comedy: The Earlier Phase", Essays in Criticism, 1 (1951), 165-184. Macaulay, Τ. B., "Comic Dramatists of the Restoration", a review of Leigh Hunt's The Dramatic Works of Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar, The Edinburgh Review, 72 (1841), 490-528. Mavor, Ivan, "Wycherley and St. Paul's School", N&Q (November 9th, 1935). McDonald, Charles O., "Restoration Comedy as Drama of Satire: An Investigation into Seventeenth Century Aesthetics", SP, 61 (1964), 522-544.

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