I am surprised that the judicious and ingenious Mr.de Muralt,who has published some letters on the English and French nations,should have confined himself;in treating of comedy,merely to censure Shadwell the comic writer.This author was had in pretty great contempt in Mr.de Muralt's time,and was not the poet of the polite part of the nation.His dramatic pieces,which pleased some time in acting,were despised by all persons of taste,and might be compared to many plays which I have seen in France,that drew crowds to the play-house,at the same time that they were intolerable to read;and of which it might be said,that the whole city of Paris exploded them,and yet all flocked to see them represented on the stage.
Methinks Mr.de Muralt should have mentioned an excellent comic writer (living when he was in England),I mean Mr.Wycherley,who was a long time known publicly to be happy in the good graces of the most celebrated mistress of King Charles II.This gentleman,who passed his life among persons of the highest distinction,was perfectly well acquainted with their lives and their follies,and painted them with the strongest pencil,and in the truest colours.
He has drawn a misanthrope or man-hater,in imitation of that of Moliere.All Wycherley's strokes are stronger and bolder than those of our misanthrope,but then they are less delicate,and the rules of decorum are not so well observed in this play.The English writer has corrected the only defect that is in Moliere's comedy,the thinness of the plot,which also is so disposed that the characters in it do not enough raise our concern.The English comedy affects us,and the contrivance of the plot is very ingenious,but at the same time it is too bold for the French manners.The fable is this:-A captain of a man-of-war,who is very brave,open-hearted,and inflamed with a spirit of contempt for all mankind,has a prudent,sincere friend,whom he yet is suspicious of;and a mistress that loves him with the utmost excess of passion.
The captain so far from returning her love,will not even condescend to look upon her,but confides entirely in a false friend,who is the most worthless wretch living.At the same time he has given his heart to a creature,who is the greatest coquette and the most perfidious of her ***,and he is so credulous as to be confident she is a Penelope,and his false friend a Cato.He embarks on board his ship in order to go and fight the Dutch,having left all his money,his jewels,and everything he had in the world to this virtuous creature,whom at the same time he recommends to the care of his supposed faithful friend.Nevertheless the real man of honour,whom he suspects so unaccountably,goes on board the ship with him,and the mistress,on whom he would not bestow so much as one glance,disguises herself in the habit of a page,and is with him the whole voyage,without his once knowing that she is of a *** different from that she attempts to pass for,which,by the way,is not over natural.
The captain having blown up his own ship in an engagement,returns to England abandoned and undone,accompanied by his page and his friend,without knowing the friendship of the one or the tender passion of the other.Immediately he goes to the jewel among women,who he expected had preserved her fidelity to him and the treasure he had left in her hands.He meets with her indeed,but married to the honest knave in whom he had reposed so much confidence,and finds she had acted as treacherously with regard to the casket he had entrusted her with.The captain can scarce think it possible that a woman of virtue and honour can act so vile a part;but to convince him still more of the reality of it,this very worthy lady falls in love with the little page,and will force him to her embraces.But as it is requisite justice should be done,and that in a dramatic piece virtue ought to be rewarded and vice punished,it is at last found that the captain takes his page's place,and lies with his faithless mistress,cuckolds his treacherous friend,thrusts his sword through his body,recovers his casket,and marries his page.You will observe that this play is also larded with a petulant,litigious old woman (a relation of the captain),who is the most comical character that was ever brought upon the stage.
Wycherley has also copied from Moliere another play,of as singular and bold a cast,which is a kind of Ecole des Femmes,or,School for Married Women.
