Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 63.djvu/222

 is nowhere more obvious than when we compare the picture of Fidelia, the girl who loves Manly and follows him to sea in man's clothes, with Shakespeare's Viola in ‘Twelfth Night.’ Fidelia, with whom we are expected to be in sympathy, aids Manly in his revolting plot against Olivia. But much may be forgiven on account of the underplot of the litigious widow Blackacre, and her son Jerry, a raw squire. They are the forerunners of Goldsmith's Mrs. Hardcastle and Tony Lumpkin, and of Steele's Humphry Gubbin, and the scenes in which they appear enabled Wycherley to make use of such knowledge of the law as he had picked up at the Temple, and supply a much-needed lighter element to the play. Wycherley's indebtedness to the litigious countess in Racine's ‘Les Plaideurs’ is very slight. One of ‘honest Manly's’ remarks in act i., ‘I weigh the man, not his title; 'tis not the king's stamp can make the metal better or heavier,’ must have been in Burns's mind when he wrote

(Notes and Queries, 4th ser. xii. 25, 5th ser. ii. 31, 158). Congreve (Prologue to Love for Love, 1695) said that

An adaptation of the ‘Plain Dealer’ by Bickerstaffe, in which the plot was not materially altered, was produced at Drury Lane in 1765, and an edition with alterations by J. P. Kemble appeared in 1796.

On 28 Feb. 1674 Wycherley received a commission as ‘captain of that company whereof George, duke of Buckingham, was captain before the regiment under his command was disbanded;’ but he resigned the commission a week afterwards (, English Army Lists, i. 170). We know nothing more of Wycherley's life until the winter of 1678, when, as already stated, he suffered from fever, and was sent to Montpelier for change of air, with a present of 500l. from the king to meet his expenses. He returned to London in the late spring of 1679, when Charles II told him that he had a son (the Duke of Richmond) whom he desired to be educated like the son of a king, and that he could make choice of no man so proper to be his governor as Wycherley. The remuneration was to be 1,500l. a year, with a pension when his office ceased; but those plans were never carried out, for not long afterwards Wycherley went to Tunbridge Wells, and while in company with his friend, Robert Fairbeard, of Gray's Inn, he met a young and rich widow, the Countess of Drogheda, who was asking at the bookseller's for the play ‘The Plain Dealer.’ Fairbeard said, ‘Madam, there he is for you,’ pushing forward his friend; and after an exchange of compliments about plain dealing, Fairbeard said, ‘Madam, you and the Plain Dealer seem designed by Heaven for each other;’ and after assiduous courting in Tunbridge Wells and Hatton Garden the lady agreed to marry Wycherley (, Original Letters, i. 221–3). Lætitia Isabella, daughter of, first earl of Radnor [q. v.], had married, in 1669, Charles Moore, second earl of Drogheda, and the meeting with Wycherley must have been subsequent to June 1679, when the earl died. Klette (Wycherley's Leben und dramatische Werke, pp. 12, 13) argues that Dennis probably gave 1678 by mistake instead of 1679 as the date of Wycherley's illness; if so, the marriage was in 1680, after Wycherley's return to England. The marriage was secret, but before long it became known at court, where it was looked upon as an affront to the king and a contempt of his offers; and when Wycherley, fearing the royal displeasure, avoided the court, his conduct was construed into ingratitude. In 1683 he published anonymously, in quarto, ‘Poetical Epistles to the King and Duke.’

The Countess of Drogheda proved to be a very jealous wife, and could not bear to have her husband out of her sight; and we are told that when Wycherley went from their lodgings in Bow Street to meet his friends at the Cock Tavern, which was on the opposite side, he was obliged to leave the windows open, in order that his wife might see that there was no woman in the company (, Original Letters, i. 224). The countess settled all her estate upon Wycherley, but his title was disputed after her death (which took place probably in 1681), and law expenses and other debts caused him to be thrown into prison. His father would not support him, and the publisher of the ‘Plain Dealer,’ from whom he tried to borrow 20l., refused to lend him anything. Wycherley remained thus in distress for seven years, until James II, pleased at a performance of the ‘Plain Dealer,’ at which he had been persuaded to be present by Colonel Brett, gave orders for the payment of the author's debts, and added a pension of 200l. a year while he remained in England. Wycherley was, however, ashamed to give the Earl of Mulgrave, whom the king sent to demand it, a full account of his debts, and he therefore remained in difficulties for some months longer, when his father paid the