Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 63.djvu/219

 WYCHERLEY, WILLIAM (1640?–1716), dramatist, was born about 1640 at Clive, Shropshire, where the family had settled at least as early as 1410. Wycherley's grandfather, Daniel (d. 1659), married Margery, daughter of William Wolfe; and their son Daniel (born about 1617) married, on 20 Feb. 1640, at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, Bethia, daughter of William Shrimpton of St. Andrew's, Holborn (Gent. Mag. 1850, ii. 336). She died in May 1700, aged 82 (, London Marriage Licences, p. 1462). Daniel Wycherley, the dramatist's father, was a teller to the exchequer, was admitted to the Inner Temple 25 Nov. 1658, and was afterwards steward to, fifth marquis of Winchester [q. v.] Contemporaries said that he appropriated money to his own use; he was able to buy the manors of Wem and Loppington, but was afterwards involved in lawsuits (Lords' Journals, xiii. 692, 703, 707, 714, xv. 104, 127, 138, 143, 150), and was obliged to convey the two manors to Judge Jeffreys (Shropshire Archæological and Natural History Society Transactions, 2nd ser. ii. 335–40, 356–7). In 1659 and 1660 there was litigation between the Marquis of Winchester and Daniel Wycherley on the one side, and Lord St. John, the marquis's heir, on the other. Wycherley said that in 1651, when the marquis's estates had been sequestered for the part he had taken in the civil war, he, at the importunity of the family, took over the management of their affairs, gave up his previous employment, and borrowed over 30,000l. to repurchase the estate. For his services he was made chief steward for life; but in 1662 a bill was presented to parliament to make void his patent and grant, and he petitioned that his interests might be protected (Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. pp. 94, 100, 161, 172; Lords' Journals, xi. 531). Daniel Wycherley died on 5 May 1697, and was buried at Clive on 7 May. Besides William, he had three sons—George (b. 1651), of Queen's College, Oxford, rector of Wem 1672, who died in the Fleet prison, and was buried on 3 Jan. 1689; John, who died in 1691, leaving two sons; and Henry (b. 1662) (, Alumni Oxon.)—and two daughters: Elizabeth, who died insane; and Frances. There are views of Clive Hall and Chapel in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ for 1811 (ii. 505) and 1812 (i. 609).

When about fifteen William Wycherley was sent to the west of France (Saintonge or the Angoumois). There, living on the banks of the Charente, he was, we are told, admitted to the conversation of the most accomplished ladies of the court of France, particularly Madame de Montausier, formerly Mademoiselle de Rambouillet, celebrated by Voltaire in his ‘Letters’, Original Letters, i. 213; , Anecdotes, 1858, p. 13). This lady was wont to call him ‘the little Huguenot.’ Shortly before the restoration of Charles II Wycherley became a gentleman commoner of Queen's College, Oxford, where he lived in the provost's lodgings, and was entered in the public library as ‘philosophiæ studiosus’ in July 1660 (, Athenæ Oxon. iv. 527). He left the university, however, without matriculating or having his name entered on the college books, having been reconciled by Dr. Barlow to the protestant religion, which he had abandoned when abroad. He had already been admitted a member of the Inner Temple on 10 Nov. 1659 (, Inns of Court Registers); but the fashionable and literary circles in London were more attractive to him than the study of the law, and, if we may believe his own account, two of his plays were written by 1661. He told Pope ‘over and over’ that he wrote ‘Love in a Wood’ 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 (, Anecdotes, p. 121). Macaulay has pointed out various passages which must have been written long after the dates here suggested, because they refer to events of later years; but it may of course be replied that no doubt the dramatist, on bringing forward a manuscript which had long been in his drawer, would revise it and add touches with reference to recent events. The main ground for doubting Wycherley's account is that the plays, even the earliest of them, at least in the form in which we have them, seem to be the work of a mature man, and not of a youth of nineteen or twenty-one. Moreover, if these plays had been written by 1660 or 1661, they would readily have been accepted at the theatre, and ten or twelve years would not have elapsed before they were acted. Wycherley's vanity seems to have led him in his old age to exaggerate the powers of his youth; and, speaking in the days when Vanbrugh and Farquhar were producing their best work, he may have been anxious to assert his claim as founder of a new school of comedy, and have antedated his own pieces from fear of claims of priority being advanced on behalf of Etherege or Dryden, several of whose plays were acted before any of Wycherley's. Verses entitled ‘Hero and Leander in Burlesque,’ published anonymously in quarto in 1669, are attributed to Wycherley; there is a copy in the Bodleian Library.