The second Dutch war, the most About the same time, he brought disgraceful war in the whole history of on the stage his second piece, the England, was now raging. It was not Gentleman Dancing-Master. The bioin that age considered as by any means graphers say nothing, as far as we renecessary that a naval officer should member, about the fate of this play. receive a professional education. There is, however, reason to believe Young men of rank, who were hardly that, though certainly far superior to able to keep their feet in a breeze, Love in a Wood, it was not equally served on board the King's ships, successful. It was first tried at the sometimes with commissions, and west end of the town, and, as the poet sometimes as volunteers. Mulgrave, confessed, "would scarce do there." Dorset, Rochester, and many others, It was then performed in Salisbury left the playhouses and the Mall for Court, but, as it should seem, with no hammocks and salt pork, and, ignorant better event. For, in the prologue as they were of the rudiments of naval to the Country Wife, Wycherley deservice, showed, at least, on the day of scribed himself as "the late so baffled battle, the courage which is seldom scribbler." wanting in an English gentleman. In 1675, the Country Wife was perAll good judges of maritime affairs formed with brilliant success, which, complained that, under this system, in a literary point of view, was not the ships were grossly mismanaged, wholly unmerited. For, though one and that the tarpaulins contracted the vices, without acquiring the graces, of the court. But on this subject, as on every other where the interests or whims of favourites were concerned, the government of Charles was deaf to all remonstrances. Wycherley did not choose to be out of the fashion. He embarked, was present at a battle, and celebrated it, on his return, in a copy of verses too bad for the bellman.* * Mr. Leigh Hunt supposes that the battle at which Wycherley was present was that which the Duke of York gained over Opdam, in 1665. We believe that it was one of the battles between Rupert and De Ruy ter, in 1673. The point is of no importance; and there cannot be said to be much evidence either way. We offer, however, to Mr. Leigh Hunt's consideration three arguments, of no great weight certainly, yet such as ought, we think, to prevail in the absence of better. First, it is not very likely that a young Templar, quite unknown in the world,and Wycherley was such in 1665,- should have quitted his chambers to go to sea. On the other hand, it would be in the regular course of things, that, when a courtier and an equerry, he should offer his services. Secondly, his verses appear to have been written after a drawn battle, like those of 1673, and not after a complete victory, like that of 1665. Thirdly, in the epilogue to the Gentleman Dancing-Master, written in 1673, says that "all gentlemen must pack to an expression which makes it probable that he did not himself mean to stay behind. he sea; of the most profligate and heartless of human compositions, it is the elaborate production of a mind, not indeed rich, original, or imaginative, but ingenious, observant, quick to seize hints, and patient of the toil of polishing. The Plain Dealer, equally immoral and equally well written, appeared in 1677. At first this piece pleased the people less than the critics; but after a time its unquestionable merits and the zealous support of Lord Dorset, whose influence in literary and fashionblished it in the public favour. able society was unbounded, esta The fortune of Wycherley was now in the zenith, and began to decline. A long life was still before him. But it was destined to be filled with nothing but shame and wretchedness, domestic dissensions, literary failures, and pecuniary embarrassments. The King, who was looking about for an accomplished man to conduct the education of his natural son, the young Duke of Richmond, at length fixed on Wycherley. The poet, exulting in his good luck, went down to amuse himself at Tunbridge Wells, looked into a bookseller's shop on the Pantiles, and, to his great delight, heard a handsome woman ask for the Plain Dealer, which had just been published. He made acquaintance with the lady, who proved to be the Countess of Drogheda, a gay young widow, with and languished there during seven years, utterly forgotten, as it should seem, by the gay and lively circle of which he had been a distinguished ornament. In the extremity of his distress he implored the publisher who had been enriched by the sale of his works, to lend him twenty pounds, and was refused. His comedies, however, still kept possession of the stage, and drew great audiences, which troubled themselves little about the situation of the author. At length James the Second, who had now succeeded to the throne, happened to go to the theatre on an evening when the Plain Dealer was acted. He was pleased by the performance, and touched by the fate of the writer, whom he probably remembered as one of the gayest and handsomest of his brother's courtiers. The King determined to pay Wycherley's debts, and to settle on the unfortunate poet a pension of two hundred pounds a year. This munificence on the part of a prince who was little in the habit of rewarding literary merit, and whose whole soul was devoted to the interests of his church, raises in us a surmise which Mr. Leigh Hunt will, we fear, pronounce very uncharitable. We cannot help suspecting that it was at this time that Wycherley returned to the communion of the Church of Rome. That he did return to the communion of the Church of Rome is certain. The date of his reconversion, as far as we know, has never been mentioned by any biographer. We believe that, if we place it at this time, we do no injustice to the character either of Wycherley or James. Not long after, old Mr. Wycherley died; and his son, now past the middle of life, came to the family estate. Still, however, he was not at his ease. His embarrassments were great: his The death of Lady Drogheda re- property was strictly tied up; and he leased the poet from this distress; but was on very bad terms with the heira series of disasters, in rapid succes-at-law. He appears to have led, during sion, broke down his health, his spirits, a long course of years, that most and his fortune. His wife meant to wretched life, the life of a vicious old leave him a good property, and left him only a lawsuit. His father could not or would not assist him. Wycherley was at length thrown into the Fleet, VOL. II. boy about town. Expensive tastes with little money, and licentious appetites with declining vigour, were the just penance for his early irregularities. A M John any thing more miserable than the figure which the ribald old man makes in the midst of so many sober and well-conducted youths. severe illness had produced a singular | poets, Addison, for example, effect on his intellect. His memory Philips, and Rowe, were studious of played him pranks stranger than almost decency. We can hardly conceive any that are to be found in the history of that strange faculty. It seemed to be at once preternaturally strong and preternaturally weak. If a book was read to him before he went to bed, he In the very year in which this bulky would wake the next morning with his volume of obscene doggerel was pubmind full of the thoughts and expres- lished, Wycherley formed an acquaintsions which he had heard over night; ance of a very singular kind. A little, and he would write them down, with- pale, crooked, sickly, bright-eyed urout in the least suspecting that they chin, just turned of sixteen, had written were not his own. In his verses the some copies of verses in which dissame ideas, and even the same words, cerning judges could detect the procame over and over again several times mise of future eminence. There was, in a short composition. His fine per- indeed, as yet nothing very striking or son bore the marks of age, sickness, original in the conceptions of the and sorrow; and he mourned for his young poet. But he was already skilled departed beauty with an effeminate re- in the art of metrical composition. gret. He could not look without a His diction and his music were not sigh at the portrait which Lely had those of the great old masters; but painted of him when he was only that which his ablest contemporaries twenty-eight, and often murmured, were labouring to do, he already did Quantum mutatus ab illo. He was still best. His style was not richly poetical; nervously anxious about his literary reputation, and, not content with the fame which he still possessed as a dramatist, was determined to be renowned as a satirist and an amatory poet. In 1704, after twenty-seven years of silence, he again appeared as an author. He put forth a large folio of miscellaneous verses, which, we believe, has never been reprinted. Some of these It is curious to trace the history of pieces had probably circulated through the intercourse which took place bethe town in manuscript. For, before tween Wycherley and Pope, between the volume appeared, the critics at the the representative of the age that was coffee-houses very confidently predicted going out, and the representative of that it would be utterly worthless, and the age that was coming in, between were in consequence bitterly reviled by the friend of Rochester and Buckingthe poet in an ill-written, foolish, and ham, and the friend of Lyttelton and egotistical preface. The book amply Mansfield. At first the boy was envindicated the most unfavourable pro- chanted by the kindness and condephecies that had been hazarded. The scension of so eminent a writer, haunted style and versification are beneath cri- his door, and followed him about like ticism; the morals are those of Ro- a spaniel from coffee-house to coffeechester. For Rochester, indeed, there house. Letters full of affection, huwas some excuse. When his offences mility, and fulsome flattery were inagainst decorum were committed, he terchanged between the friends. But was a very young man, misled by a prevailing fashion. Wycherley was sixty-four. He had long outlived the times when libertinism was regarded as essential to the character of a wit and a gentleman. Most of the rising but it was always neat, compact, and pointed. His verse wanted variety of pause, of swell, and of cadence, but never grated harshly on the ear, or disappointed it by a feeble close. The youth was already free of the company of wits, and was greatly elated at being introduced to the author of the Plain Dealer and the Country Wife. the first ardour of affection could not last. Pope, though at no time scrupulously delicate in his writings or fastidious as to the morals of his associates, was shocked by the indecency of a rake who, at seventy, was still the representative of the monstrous profli- | In private, he is said to have described gacy of the Restoration. As the youth Pope as a person who could not cut grew older, as his mind expanded and out a suit, but who had some skill in his fame rose, he appreciated both him- turning old coats. In his letters to self and Wycherley more correctly. Pope, while he acknowledged that the He felt a just contempt for the old versification of the poems had been gentleman's verses, and was at no great greatly improved, he spoke of the whole pains to conceal his opinion. Wycher-art of versification with scorn, and ley, on the other hand, though blinded sneered at those who preferred sound by self-love to the imperfections of to sense. Pope revenged himself for what he called his poetry, could not this outbreak of spleen by return of but see that there was an immense dif- post. He had in his hands a volume ference between his young companion's of Wycherley's rhymes, and he wrote rhymes and his own. He was divided to say that this volume was so full of between two feelings. He wished to faults that he could not correct it withhave the assistance of so skilful a hand out completely defacing the manuto polish his lines; and yet he shrank script. "I am,” he said, “equally afraid from the humiliation of being beholden of sparing you, and of offending you for literary assistance to a lad who by too impudent a correction." This might have been his grandson. Pope was more than flesh and blood could was willing to give assistance, but was bear. Wycherley reclaimed his papers, by no means disposed to give assistance in a letter in which resentment shows and flattery too. He took the trouble itself plainly through the thin disto retouch whole reams of feeble stum-guise of civility. Pope, glad to be bling verses, and inserted many vigor- rid of a troublesome and inglorious ous lines which the least skilful reader will distinguish in an instant. But he thought that by these services he acquired a right to express himself in terms which would not, under ordinary circumstances, become one who was addressing a man of four times his age. In one letter he tells Wycherley that "the worst pieces are such as, to render them very good, would require almost the entire new writing of them." In another, he gives the following account of his corrections: "Though the whole be as short again as at first, there is not one thought omitted but what is a repetition of something in your first volume, or in this very paper; and the versification throughout is, I believe, such as nobody can be shocked at. The repeated permission you give me of dealing freely with you, will, I hope, excuse what I have done; for, if I have not spared you when I thought severity would do you a kindness, I have not mangled you where I thought there was no absolute need of amputation." Wycherley continued to return thanks for all this hacking and hewing, which was, indeed, of inestimable service to his compositions. But at last his thanks began to sound very like reproaches. task, sent back the deposit, and, by way of a parting courtesy, advised the old man to turn his poetry into prose, and assured him that the public would like thoughts much better without his versification. Thus ended this memorable correspondence. Wycherley lived some years after the termination of the strange friendship which we have described. The last scene of his life was, perhaps, the most scandalous. Ten days before his death, at seventy-five, he married a young girl, merely in order to injure his nephew, an act which proves that neither years, nor adversity, nor what he called his philosophy, nor either of the religions which he had at different times professed, had taught him the rudiments of morality. He died in December, 1715, and lies in the vault under the church of St. Paul in CoventGarden. His bride soon after married a Captain Shrimpton, who thus became possessed of a large collection of manuscripts. These were sold to a bookseller. They were so full of erasures and interlineations that no printer could decipher them. It was necessary to call in the aid of a professed critic; and Theobald, the editor of Shakspeare, | early given to him by Rochester, and and the hero of the first Dunciad, was was frequently repeated. In truth his employed to ascertain the true reading. mind, unless we are greatly mistaken, In this way a volume of miscellanies in was naturally a very meagre soil, and verse and prose was got up for the was forced only by great labour and market. The collection derives all its outlay to bear fruit which, after all, value from the traces of Pope's hand, was not of the highest flavour. He which are every where discernible. has scarcely more claim to originality than Terence. It is not too much to say that there is hardly any thing of the least value in his plays of which the hint is not to be found elsewhere. The best scenes in the Gentleman Dancing-Master were suggested by Calderon's Maestro de Danzar, not by any means one of the happiest comedies of the great Castilian poet. The Country Wife is borrowed from the E'cole des Maris and the E'cole des Femmes. The groundwork of the Plain Dealer is taken from the Misanthrope of Molière. One whole scene is almost translated from the Critique de l'E'cole des Femmes. Fidelia is Shakspeare's Viola stolen, and marred in the stealing; and the Widow Blackacre, beyond comparison Wycherley's best comic character, is the Countess in Racine's Plaideurs, talking the jargon of English instead of that of French chicane. Of the moral character of Wycherley it can hardly be necessary for us to say more. His fame as a writer rests wholly on his comedies, and chiefly on the last two. Even as a comic writer, he was neither of the best school, nor highest in his school. He was in truth a worse Congreve. His chief merit, like Congreve's, lies in the style of his dialogue. But the wit which lights up the Plain Dealer and the Country Wife is pale and flickering, when compared with the gorgeous blaze which dazzles us almost to blindness in Love for Love and the Way of the World. Like Congreve, and, indeed, even more than Congreve, Wycherley is ready to sacrifice dramatic propriety to the liveliness of his dialogue. The poet speaks out of the mouths of all his dunces and coxcombs, and makes them describe themselves with a good sense and acuteness which puts them on a level with the wits and heroes. We will give two instances, the first which occur to us, from the Country Wife. There are in the world fools who find the society of old friends insipid, and who are always running after new companions. Such a character is a fair subject for comedy. But nothing can be more absurd than to introduce a man of this sort saying to his comrade, "I can deny you nothing: for though I have known thee a great while, never go if I do not love thee as well as a new acquaintance." That town-wits, again, have always been rather a heartless class, is true. But none of them, we will answer for it, ever said to a young lady to whom he was making love, "We wits rail and make love often, but to show our parts: as we have no affections, so we have no malice." Wycherley's plays are said to have been the produce of long and patient labour. The epithet of "slow" was The only thing original about Wycherley, the only thing which he could furnish from his own mind in inexhaustible abundance, was profligacy. It is curious to observe how every thing that he touched, however pure and noble, took in an instant the colour of his own mind. Compare the E'cole des Femmes with the Country Wife. Agnes is a simple and amiable girl, whose heart is indeed full of love, but of love sanctioned by honour, morality, and religion. Her natural talents are great. They have been hidden, and, as it might appear, destroyed by an education elaborately bad. But they are called forth into full energy by a virtuous passion. Her lover, while he adores her beauty, is too honest a man to abuse the confiding tenderness of a creature so charming and inexperienced. Wycherley takes this plot into his hands; and forthwith this sweet and graceful courtship becomes a licentious intrigue of the lowest and least sentimental kind, between an impudent London rake and |
