THE COUNTRY WIFE. William Wycherly
Indignor quidquam reprehendi, non quia crasse
Compositum illepideve putetur, sed quia nuper:
Nec veniam antiquis, sed honorem et præmia posci Horat.
The Country Wife was written, according to its author's own statement, about the year 1671 or 1672. Its
production upon the stage was subsequent to that of The Gentleman Dancing-Master, to which allusion is
made in the prologue, and antecedent to that of the earlier-written Plain Dealer, in the second act of which
the author inserted some critical observations upon The Country Wife. The first performance of The Plain
Dealer, as will afterwards appear, admits not of a later date than that of March, or the very beginning of
April, 1674; it follows then that The Country Wife was brought forward some time between the early spring
of 1672 and that of 1674. It was acted by the King's Company, established during these two years at the
theatre in Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, and was published in the year 1675.
If we can overlook the immorality which, in this play, is more offensive and pronounced than in any of
Wycherley's other dramas, we shall find in The Country Wife a brilliantly written and skilfully constructed
comedy, superior to either of the preceding dramas from the same pen, and surpassed, among comedies of
the Restoration, only by its author's own masterpiece, The Plain Dealer. The plot of The Country Wife is
partly based upon two comedies by Molière—L'Ecole des Femmes and L'Ecole des Maris. From the former
of[Pg 245] these Wycherley derived his conception of the jealous man who keeps under close restraint a
young and ignorant woman, with the vain hope of thereby securing her fidelity to him. Agnes's innocent
confessions to Arnolphe of her lover's stratagems and her own esteem for him find a counterpart in the
Country Wife's frankness on a similar occasion, but beyond these points of coincidence there is little
resemblance between the two plays. From L'Ecole des Maris, again, Wycherley has borrowed one or two
incidents: the imprisoned girl's device of making her would-be husband (in the English play, her actual
husband) the bearer of a letter to her gallant, and the trick by which Isabella causes her tyrant, under the
impression that she is another woman, to consign her with his own hands to his rival.
Steele has published, in the Tatler of April 16, 1709, a very just criticism upon this play, which, as it cannot
fail to interest the reader, I venture to subjoin.
"Will's Coffee-house, April 14.
"This evening the Comedy, called The Country Wife, was acted in Drury Lane, for the benefit of Mrs.
Bignell. The part which gives name to the Play was performed by herself. Through the whole action she
made a very pretty figure, and exactly entered into the nature of the part. Her husband, in the Drama, is
represented to be one of those debauchees who run through the vices of the town, and believe, when they
think fit, they can marry and settle at their ease. His own knowledge of the iniquity of the age makes him
choose a wife wholly ignorant of it, and place his security in her want of skill to abuse him. The Poet, on
many occasions, where the propriety of the character will admit of it, insinuates that there is no defence
against vice but the contempt of it: and has, in the natural ideas of an untainted innocent, shown the gradual
steps to ruin and destruction which persons of condition run into, without the help of a good education to
form their conduct. The torment of a jealous coxcomb, which arises from his own false maxims, and the
aggravation of his pain by the very words in which he sees her innocence, makes a very pleasant and
instructive satire. The character of Horner, and the design of it, is a good representation of the age in which
that Comedy was written:[Pg 246] at which time love and wenching were the business of life, and the
gallant manner of pursuing women was the best recommendation at Court. To this only it is to be imputed
that a Gentleman of Mr. Wycherley's character and sense condescends to represent the insults done to the
honour of the bed without just reproof; but to have drawn a man of probity with regard to such
considerations had been a monster, and a Poet had at that time discovered his want of knowing the manners
of the Court he lived in, by a virtuous character in his fine gentleman, as he would show his ignorance by
drawing a vicious one to please the present audience."