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THE TREATMENT OF WOMEN IN THE RESTORATION COMEDY

OF MANNERS

THESIS

Presented to the Graduate Council of the

North Texas State College in Partial

Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

.By

Dorothy Sala Brock, B. A.

Denton, Texas

Augus t, 1956
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter Page

I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

II.* THE TRUEWITS . . .0.0.0 . 0.*. . 0.0. 0 .0.0 . 15

III. THE WITWOUIDSWD..... ..... .. . 71

The Fop
The Country Girl
The Antiquated Belle
The Scorned Mistress
The Old Man's Darling
The Rake

IV. THE EXCLUDED ... .. ...... ........ 128

The Maid
The Prostitute
The Duenna
The Bawd

V. CONCLUSION .0.0. .0. . . .9. . . . .

0. .a. 0. 153
0.
B1BLIOGRA.PHY 5

Iii
 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

With the return of Charles II to the throne of England

in 1660 came the reopening of the London theaters after

eighteen years of Puritan enforced closure. Although the

first plays produced were those written before the Great

Rebellion or those written by such men as Killigrew and

Davenant, who continued in prewar traditions, within a short

time new plays by fresh talent appeared. The popular trage-

dies and heroic verse plays were almost uniformly uncreative,

but the comedies ushered in an excitingly new phase of

English drama--the comedy of manners. Borrowing to a cer-

tain extent from French, Spanish, and earlier British

authors, the comedies, peculiar to the England of the

Restoration, represented a revolution rather than a develop-

ment.

Beginning with Sir George Etheregets first play, Love

in a Tub, the new dramatic type was a social play in the

absolute sense of the word. Although a few critics 2

staunchly support LambIs saccharine idea that the society

1 JohnPalmer, The Comedy of Manners (London, 1913),

p. 65.
2 Ibid.,
p. 294.,and Elmer Edgar Stoll, From Shakespeare
to Joyce (Garden City, New York, 1944), p. .6T

1
 2

represented was a "Utopia of gallantry," a fairyland which

never existed, 3 and Archer expresses the opinion that if

these comedies represent a true society "the British nation

would never have emerged from such a morass of levity, cyni-

cism, corruption, and disease /-enereal7, 4 most contemporary

observers and modern scholars agree that the works were

written for, by, and about the beau monde of Restoration

London, one of the most sophisticated and least decorous

groups England has ever produced. Since comedy stems from

a critical impulse, these plays derived humor from satirizing

the follies and foibles of the day.

Wit was the first prerequisite to the beau monde of

Restoration comedy. If one had true wit, all else followed.

Ruthless, even cruel, the society acknowledged only two

categories of human beings--those who lived up to the

standards, and those who failed. The first received the

accolade due to taste and brilliance; the second, the agony

3Charles Lamb, "On the Artificial Comedy of the Last

Century," Essays of Elia (London, 1908), p. 168.

William Archer, The Old Drama and the New (Boston,

1923), p. 176.
5H. F. B. Brett-Smith, "Introduction," The Dramatic
Works of Sir George Etherege, edited by g. F. B . Brtb-Smith
(Oxford, 1927), I, xxiii.
6
For instance, see William Ashton, T of English
Drama (New York, 1940), p. 358; Joseph Krutch, Comedy and
Conscience After the Restoration (New York, 1949), p. 192;
Allardyce Nicoll, The Theory of Drama (London, 1931), p.
222.
 3

of exploitation and derision. There were no half measures.

To be partially witty was as impossible as to be partially

virginal.7 Of course, no one was obliged to participate

in the social whirl, but if one chose to compete, he had

to accept the rules, concentrate on skillful execution, and

be prepared for the consequences should he fail. There was no

conflict between good and evil; the triumph was always one

of the keen over the stupid.

Preoccupation with wit reduced most plays of the period

to a tour de force of clever language. Plot, character,

emotion were all sacrificed to skillful conversation of

which sex was easily the favorite topic. Even when discuss-

ing a subject far removed from sexual implications, the play-

wrights habitually chose metaphors and expressions which

8
suggested the subject obviously uppermost in their minds.

Since wit is dependent on surprise and paradox for its

effect, the treatment of sex was naturally an assault

against social mores. Revolting against both the Platonic

modes prevalent before the Great Rebellion and the puritan-

ism of the Commonwealth, nothing was too sacred for the

sharp-tongued ridiculers; conventional morality became a

target rather than an example. Idealism was scorned;

emotions, mocked; chastity, doubted; constancy, ridiculed;

marriage, avoided.
7 Harold
R. Walley, The Book of the Play, An Introduc-
tion to Drama (New York, 9 O7p.T2l~
8 Krutch, Comedy and Conscience, p. 85.
 14

Frankly cynical, the Restoration attitude toward the

relationship between the sexes has- led many scholars to

scourge the comedies as "nauseous, and abominable beyond

anything else in literature," or "such an offense as human

nature cannot long endure,"1 0 or a "disgrace to the English

11 Even those who champion
language and national character.

the plays as truly creative, deserving and occupying a per-

manent place in English literature, confess them suited to

an unsqueamish audience. 1 2

At any rate, although the plays may be risque, they are

not really licentious. The consensus of critical opinion

seems to agree that the immoral sentiments are too intellec-

tually expressed and the sexual intrigues too coldly con-

trived to arouse passion. 3 Far from being pornographic,

sex, here, serves simply as a springboard for wit.

9William Archer, The Old Drama, p. 122.

1 Louis I. Bredvold, "Literature of the Restoration and
Eighteenth Century," A History of English Literature, edited
by Hardin Craig (New York, 19507 p.396.
1 1 Thomas
B. Macaulay, "Leigh Hunt," Critical, Historical,
and Miscellaneous Essays and Poems (Chicago, 1887), II, 504.
12 For example, see Nicoll, British Drama, An Historical
Survey from the Beginning to the Present Time (New York,
1933), p. 25";~and Benjamin Ifor Evans, _A Short History of
Engli shDrama (London, 1950), p. 84.

examples, consult Walter E. Houghton, Jr., "Lamb's

1 3 For
Criticism of Restoration Comedy," ELH, X (March, 1943), 70;
W. C. Ward, "ntroduction," William Wycherley, edited by
W. C. ard, Mermaid Series (London, 1893), p. ix.
 Women played a unique part in the development of

Restoration comedy. For the first time actresses appeared

on the British stages. Before the closing of the theaters

in 1642 the idea of women on the stage was grotesque and

shocking, but continental tastes returning with Charles II

demanded the adoption of the practice in England.1 Al-

though at first there was some moral ob jection,15 the

actresses were quickly accepted by the majority. Naturally,

with real women on the stage more and better female parts

were demanded and produced, and a new emphasis on sex was

added. Eaton believes that even if the court of the Merry

Monarch had not been licentiously corrupt, the plays of

this period would still have placed a strong emphasis on

sex simply because of the addition of actresses.16 Since

the popularity of the stars had a great influence on the

popularity of the play, playwrights often wrote or expanded

parts, or at least added a prologue or epilogue, especially

for some beautiful lady. Congreve's tailoring of female

characters for the talents of Anne Bracegirdle1 7 and

14Henry Wysham Lanier, The First English Actresses,

from the Initial Appearance of Women on the Stage in 1660
until 1700 (New York, 1930), p. 22.
15Bartlett Burleigh James, Women of England, Vol. IX
of Woman in All Ages and in All Countries, 10 vols.
(Philadelphia, 1905), p. 298.
1 6 Walter Pritchard Eaton, The Drama in English (New
York, 1930), p. 159.
1 7 John C. Hodges, William Congreve the Man (New York,
1941), P. 50.
 6

Farquhar t s attention to Anne Oldfieldts specialitiesl were

perhaps the most famous examples of the influence actresses

had on the works of authors.

The old standing tradition of representing women char-

acters in the dress of men was revived. Well established

during the Elizabethan period, it took on a new aspect in the

Restoration because now real females trod the boards in

breeches. 1 9 Both audiences and actresses gave their avid ap-

probation, and playwrights were not reluctant to write in

such parts. Growing in popularity as the chastening of im-

morality became more and more severe, the device helped com-

pensate for the loss of "luscious dialogue," cut out, but

craved. 20 When the play itself could furnish no disguise,

prologues and epilogues featuring a saucy actress in mas-

culine apparel were frequently added. Silk clad feminine

legs were advertised as assiduously as the play itself.

Women, thus, were somewhat responsible for initiating

Restoration comedy of manners, but were even more important

in bringing that species to an end with Farquhar and the

seventeenth century. Regardless of who was the real

founder of the new weeping domestic moralities--Cibber,21

18prederick Tupper and James W. Tupper, Representative

English Drama from Dryden to Sheridan, rev. ed. (New York,
1934)s Po 335,
Harold Wilson, The Influence of Beaumont and
1 9 John

Fletcher on Restoration d (Columbus, Ohio, 1928), p. 82.

2 0 Allardyce Nicoll, A History of Early Eighteenth
1
Century Drama, 1700-1770 TCambridge, 1925), p. 46.
2 1 Adolphus William Ward, A History of English Dramatic
Literature to the Death of QueenAhne(London,71b9, . 5
 7

DtUrfey, 2 2 Southerne,2 3 or Shadwell2 --the fact remains that

the substitution of saccharine sentimentality for cynical

satire was largely due to complaints and boycotting by

women. Although Jeremy Collier t s attack on the morality of

the plays is widely credited with radically changing the

tone of comedy, his tract, published in 1698, was much too

late to be thought of as initiating the change.25 The

ladies had already registered their displeasure.

For the first decade and a half of the Restoration,

women found little fault with the theater; they, too, en-

joyed the first gay reaction against prewar Platonic modes

and Commonwealth puritanism. Then as more and more stress

was laid on female faults and foibles,26 as marriage became

a matter of ridicule to be avoided if possible or con-

descendingly accepted if necessary,2 7 as gallants remained

Lynch, "Thomas D t Urfey's Contributions to

2 2 Kathleen
Sentimental Comedy," Philo icl Quartel, IX (July,
1930), 249.
B. Stroup, "The Princess of Cleve and Senti-
2 3 Thomas
mental Cormedy," Review of English Studies, XI (April, 1935),
201.
24Montague
Summers, "Introduction," The Complete Works
of Thomas Shadwell, edited by Montague Summers (London, 1927),
I, cciv.
25John Harrington Smith, "Shadwell, the Ladies, and the
Change in Comedy," Modern Philology, XLVI (August, 1948), 31.
26
For examples see The Plain Dealer, Wycherley; The
Double Dealer, Congreve; The Feignd Courtezans, Behn.
2 7 For instances, see The Rover, Behn; The City Heiress,
Behn; The Kind Keeper, Dryden.
 8

rakish and unmarried at the plays end28 (it was one thing
for a man to philander, but quite another for him to go

free), they began to find fault.

Wycherley's The Co Wife (1675) was one of the first

to incur serious criticism by the ladies. Well aware that

his play was off limits to the female of reputation, the

author had Olivia, a character in his next play, express

horror at women seen at The Country Wife after the first

performance.29 The Plain Dealer was also regarded with dis-

pleasure, and in revenge Wycherley, not a man to bow to

pressure, dedicated it to Mother Bennett, a celebrated pro-

curess. Not as courageous, Ravenscroft was so daunted by

the organized boycotting of his The London Cuckolds that he

cut his next play to suit the taste of his irate feminine

critics.30

Obviously, more playwrights followed Ravenscroftt s

example than Wycherley's, for from 1675 until the end of

the century prologues, epilogues, and remarks within the

plays themselves frequently alluded to the pressure put

28 For illustration, see The Cou Wife, Wycherley,

and Friendship in Fashion, Otway.
2 9 The County Wife, II, ii, 127. All references to
this play are to William Wycherley, The Complete Works of
William ycherley, edited by Montague Summers (Soho, 192)T,
Vol. U. During the course of this paper three numbers
together will stand for act, scene, and page respectively.
3 0 John
Harrington Smith, The Gay Couple in Restoration
Comedy (Cambridge, Mass., 19488T7p. 132.
 9

upon the writers by women. Commenting on The She-Gallants,

by Granville, Downes opined in The Roscius Anglicanus that

although the play was witty and well-acted, it offended

"'the Ears of some Ladies who set up for Chastity and made

its Exit." 3 1 Southerne's dedication to Sir Anthony Love

explained that a scene was omitted rather than he should

run "the venture of offending the women, not that there is

one indecent expression in it; but the over-fine folk might

run it into a design I never had in my head." Prologues

to Shadwells The Squire of Alsatia, 3 3 Dryden's Love Tri-

umphant,34 and Farquhar's The Constant Couple5 all promised

no bawdy or double-entendre in their plays.

Even the greatest of Restoration playwrights, Congreve,

did not escape the ladies' wrath. Mrs. Fondlewife in The

Old Bachelor was not seriously criticized, perhaps because

she was a commoner, but Lady Froth and Lady Plyant in The

Double Dealer incurred a good deal of female complaint.36

31John Downes, Roscius Anglicanus (London, 1928), p. 45.

3 2 Thomas
Southerne, Sir Antho Love, cited in John
Wendell Dodds, Thomas Southerne, Dramatist, Yale Studies in
English, LXXXI (London, 1933), p. 68.

Thomas Shadwell, The Complete Works of Thomas Shadwell,

33
edited by Montague Summers (London, 1927), IV,2
3 4 John Dryden, The Dramatic Works off John
(London, 1735), 11, 13.
5George Farquhar, The Dramatic Works of Geor e Farquhar,
edited by Alexander CharlesiEwald (London, ~b92),I,-12
3 6Smith, "Shadwell," p. 31.
 10

Dryden wrote to a friend that the women were displeased

with the work because it "exposed their Bitchery too much,U37

and the author suggested this displeasure as an explanation

of the play's poor success) 8 Trying to appease the crpers,

in his dedication to The Double Dealer Congreve wrote:

But there is one thing at which I am more concerned

than all the false criticisms that are made upon me;
and that is, some of the ladies are offended. I am
heartily sorry for it, for I declare I would rather
disoblige all the critics in the world than one of
the fair sex. 3 9

By the turn of the century the note of exculpation had

disappeared, not because the ladies had ceased to exert

pressure, but because they had won their fight.40 Obviously,

there was no real moral purpose in the first changes toward

sentimental drama. The first four acts were still designed

for the coarse palates,while the last act was warped by a

sudden revulsion of character or a swift change in the con-

duct of the plot to suit the more refined tastes.4l However,

within a few years both characters and plot were completely

sentimentalized to the approbation of the ladies and the

ruin of the English comedy of manners.

3 7 Hodges,
William Congreve, p. 47.
38 Palmer, Comedy of Manners, p. 156.
3 9william Congreve, "To the Right Honourable Charles
Montague," The Comedies of %Illiam Congreve, edited by
Norman Marshall(London, 1941), p.122.
40Smith, Gal Couple, p. 135.

English Dramas, p.
20. 4lTupper and Tupper, Representative
 11

More important to this paper is the treatment of women

within the comedy of manners, for as a whole, they represent

the best these plays have to offer. The five major comic

authors of the day--Sir George Etherege, William Wycherley,

William Congreve, Sir John Vanbrugh, George Farquhar--

lavished particular attention on their female characters,

as did most of the other playwrights. Certainly, the most

outstanding stage personality in this period, and perhaps

in English comedy as a whole, is Millamant, heroine of

Congrevets The Way of the World.42

Furthermore, the characteristics of the real and

stage society--the basis of admittance to it, the flaws

considered most stupid by it, the division of classes in

and out of it--are illustrated in the portrayal of women.

Far from being put on a pedestal, the Restoration woman

socially and intellectually was the equal of the male and

had to compete, as he, on the basis of wit. Jealousy

and hypocrisy were considered the two worst faults; however,

women had their own third sin--licentiousness, for despite

opinion to the contrary, morally the double standard was

still in effect.

2MalcolmElwin, The Playgoerts Handbook to Restora-

tion Drama (London, 19-2'87, p. 179.
 12

A genuine Restoration comedy of manners features a

very specialized picture of the ideal woman, the truewit. 4 3

Meeting her gallant as an antagonist, she treats love as a

duel rather than a duet. "To place beside the ideal Wit

any equally witty and graceful woman, who could meet him on

his own ground and with his own weapon, . . . and at once

conquer him and yield to him" 44 is the aim. Verbally, she

may be as free as he from conventional restraints and as

contemptuous as he of those who comply to them. In deed she

remains physically virtuous. Additionally, she is young,

wealthy, high born, scornful toward fools, and addicted to

London society.

Only the heroine among the women makes the grade as a

member of the beau monde. Attempting the citadel, other

female characters, through foolishness, ignorance, old age,

or promiscuity, are excluded and, as witwoulds, have to

bear the ridicule of the beau monde. A third group of

women make no attempt to join the social whirl; they are

usually stock characters or comic portrayals of the lower

classes.

William Congreve, "To the Right Honourable Ralph,

Earl of Montague," Comedies of pCongreve,p.
314, uses the
terms Truewit and Witwoud to differentiate between those
wits who do make the beau monde and those would be wits
who fail. In this paper the terms will be spelled truewit
and witwoulde.

4V. de Sola Pinto, Sir Charles Sedley 639-1701;

a Study in the Life of the Restoration (London, 1927), p.
259.
 13

When women force a reform of comedy, it is in the

treatment of their own sex that the changes are first made.

Sense is substituted for wit; the absurd becomes the abomi-

nable. Although Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar were all

writing during the period in which sentimentalism was first

becoming popular, none of them succumbed to this mawkish

style. Congrevets plays represent, of course, the most out-

standing examples of the elegant comedy peculiar to the

Restoration period, and, certainly, Vanbrughts plays incline

toward this style. Primarily aiming for popularity and

profits, Farquhar, as a transition playwright, endowed his

principal characters with more seriousness than the others,

but still his work definitely provokes laughter rather than

tears.

The five major comic playwrights of the Restoration

completed twenty-one original comedies:

Sir George Etherege--The Comical Revenge or Love in a

'ub; She Would If She Could; and The Man of Mode

or Sir F Flutter.

William Wycherley--Love in a Wood, The Gentleman

Dancing-Master; The Country Wife; The Plain

Dealer.

William Congreve-- The Old Bachelor; _The Double Dealer;

Love for Love; and The Way of the World.

Sir John Vanbrugh--The Relapse; The Provokt d Wife;

The Confederacy.
 114

George Farquhar--Love and a Bottle; The Constant Couple

or A Trip to the Jubilee; Sir Ha Wildair; The

Inconstant or The Wa to in Hirm; The Twin Rivals;

The Recruitin Officer; The Beaux Stratem.

Not all of these plays were popular during their time, and

not all of them seem really good plays now. However, these

twenty-one contain the best of the species and are representa-

tive of the Restoration comedy of manners as a whole. Ac-

cordingly, these will be the principal plays studied in this

paper.
 CHAPTER II

THE TRUENITS

The typical Restoration heroine is always an antagonist

in a love duel; since wit rules the game, she can never ad-

mit any seriousness of emotion to her gallant. Scorning

conventional restrictions, the fashionable gentleman ex-

hibits an insatiable appetite for variety, not a surprising

attitude for the male, who likes to believe that he is not

by nature monogamous and that only the factitious constric-

tions of society can prevail upon him to remain fitfully

true to one woman. The fashionable lady must profess the

same sentiments in order to maintain her social and intellec-

tual equality.

Many scholars seem to feel that because of her raillery

the clever young woman actually does not take love seriously

or place any restrictions on her physical pleasures.

Thorndike belittles Restoration romances as "the gay flirta-

tions of impertinent coxcombs and coquettes," and Wilson

scorns such love as "a transient thing to be employed for

Jean Elisabeth Gagen, The New Woman, Her Emergence in

English Drama 1606-7O (New York, 1954),t p. 141.
2 Ashley Horace Thorndike, English Comed (New York,
1929), p. 28 7.
 16

amusement only.03 More violently disdainful, Macaulay, hor-

rified, calls the love of the gay couple an "appetite of

beasts, t" while Beljame says that there are no such things as

steadfast maidens in the plays of the period.5 Concurring

with these opinions, the characters in the plays express

similar ideas. To Scandal in Love for Love (Congreve) the

only virtuous women are those too afraid to be otherwise, 6

and Wycherley t s Monsieur de Paris (The Gentleman Dancing-

Master) is sure that women were made on purpose to fool men. 7

Since nothing can change woman's fickleness, according to

Farewell, a gallant in Sir Courtly Nice (Crowne), he advises

men to take their ladies quickly because if they "delay but

half an hour, they'll fthe ladies7 be in love with someone

else."8

Despite these opinions, the beau monde of the Restora-

tion is as insistent as any other on female chastity. Pre-

tenders to wit may give in to love and lust without marriage,

3 John Harold Wilson, The Influence of Beaumont, p. 61.

1 Macaulay, "Leigh Hunt, p. 5O4.
5Alexandre Beljame, Men of Letters and the English Public
in the. Eighteenth Cen , 1660- , Dryden~Addison, Pope,
translated by E. 0. Lorimer (London, 1948),p. 9. T

6 Lovefor Love, II, iv, 266. All references to this

play are to Congreve, Comedies.
7 The
Gentleman Dancing-Master, V, i, 217. All references
to this play are to Wycherley, Complete Works, Vol. I.
8 SiCour tly Nice, II, 1, 273. All references to this
play are to John Crowne, The Dramatic Works of John Crowne,
edited by James Maidment and W. H. Logan, Dramatists of the
Restoration (London, 1873), Vol. III.
9 Smith, _Gay p. 76.
 17

but the heroine realizes that such behavior is foolish, since

it leads to scorn and contempt. As Hermes in The Twin Rivals

(Farquhar) points out, the greatest provocation to a slight

is to treat a man too well,'1 and Richmore in the same play

says contemptuously of his genteel mistress, "Do you think

a lady that gave me so much trouble before possession shall

ever give me any after it?" 1 Consequently, the heroine is

always virginal and resolutely constant to her gallant,

even though to her knowledge he may not be true and even

though she does not admit her own fidelity. If unmarried,

the heroine may pretend an inclination toward another or

several others in order to taunt or test her true love; if

a scorned wife, she may actually have an affection for some-

one other than her husband, but she virtuously suppresses

her passion.

Consequently, the heroine is in deadly earnest about

both love and marriage, for that is the only way she can

have the man she wants. Realizing that her destiny is

marriage, the ingenious girl attempts by her wits to bewitch

a man she can love. To accomplish her purpose, she must not

only play but also be hard to get since a rake marries only

1 0 The
Twin Rivals, III, iii, 70. All references to
this pl~ayare toTarquhar, Dramatic Works, Vol. II.
11
Ibid., I, ii, 24.
 18

when his passion demands possession and possession is im-

possible any other way.

At the same time the belle is intelligent enough to

know that in capturing her man, she herself is captured, and

she is not sure the reward is worth the sacrifice. The

Restoration woman has a large amount of freedom before she

comes under the domination of a husband, and the beautiful,

witty, wealthy, young woman, who has her pick of escorts and

suitors, pleasures and diversions, values her liberty as

much as the gallant does his. Once married,she may become

practically imprisoned by a jealous, domineering mate or

practically ignored by the typically inconstant rake. She

may be trading a pleasurable courtship for an overbearing

or uncaring husband.

Marriage being such a great gamble, the belle naturally

avoids it as long as possible. When it appears that she can-

not do without it, she frequently takes steps in a proviso

scene to try to avoid enslavement or desertion. Both hero

and heroine recognize in wedlock a curtailment of liberty,

but traditionally, the wife is the servile partner. As a

result, the covenant is more important to her than to him

because it represents her revolt against the conventional

mores of female inferiority.1 2 Although found in Elizabethan

comedies, the proviso scenes of the Restoration are unique in

1 2 Gagen, The New Woman, p. 147.

 19

that here for the first time the lovers make an agreement

in which the independence of each is safeguarded with legal

precision. 13 More than a formal love contract, the proviso

is actually an elaborate contest of wit with each partner

taking care to concede no more than the other. Certain condi-

tions are always included: one, jealousy is not tolerated;

two, freedom of speech and action is guaranteed; three, in-

constancy is repaid in kind; four, terms of Platonic servi-

tude or marital affection are banned. In spite of her demands

for equality, the heroine will not repay inconstancy in kind;

instead, she hopes by the threat of cuckoldry to keep her

husband true.

Because according to the mores of Restoration society

no one past his youth can be a part of the beau monde, the
typical Restoration heroine debuts early and departs abruptly.

Beauty and wit can capture a man for the girl in her teens;

a fortune may prevail until she reaches thirty; past that

age she must positively give up the game or become an object

of ridicule. It is somewhat difficult in the present age of

glamorous grandmothers to realize that the twentieth birthday

threw the Restoration woman into the shadows of old age.

1 3 Kathleen
Martha Lynch, The Social Mode of Restoration
Comedy (New York,.1926), p. 84.
14Elizabeth Mignon, Crabbed Age and Youth, the Old Men
and Women in the Restoration Comedy of Manners (Durham,
North Carolina, 1947),Tp77,
 20

As a consequence of the supreme importance of youth,

such heroines as Hippolita in The Gentleman Dancing-Master

(Wycherley) feel capable of shifting for themselves at four-

teen years of age.15 In The Rover (Behn) an old bawd, want-

ing to represent the most desirable age, goes "dressed like a

Girl of Fifteen. 11 At sixteen Corinna in The Confederac

(Vanbrugh) considers that she has been ready for marriage for

three years,1 but to Raines and Bevel in Epsom Wells (Shad-

well) "A handsome Wench of 17 were no ill bargain."18 Some

late blooms of eighteen are very desirable, such as Christina

in Love and a Bottle (Farquhar), but Laura in The English

Friar (Crowne) is already patronized by her fifteen year old

sister because she is "full 20."19 As Florimel in The Maiden

Qe (Dryden) says, a lady should slip "out of the World

with the first Wrinkle, and the Reputation of five and

twenty."j20

15 The Gentleman Dancing-Master, TI, i, 175.

Rover, Part II, II, i, 145. All references to this
1 6 The
play ar~to Aphre Behn, The Works of A Behn, edited by
Montague Sunmers (London, I9WTTVoI. 1.
1 7 The
Confederacy, II, i, 30. All references to this
play are to Sir John Vanbrugh, _The Complete Works of Sir
John Vanbrugh, edited by Bonay (Bloomsbury,
BDobr~e England,
1927), Vol. i1.
18 Epsom Wells, I, i, 117. All references to this play
are to Shadwell,7Complete Works, Vol. II.
1 9 Mignon, Crabbed Age, p. 27.
Maiden Queen, III, i, 47. All references to this
20 The
play are to Dryden, Dramatic Works, Vol. II.
 21

Youth has absolutely no sympathy for the aged during the

Restoration; in consequence the heroine always mocks the old

for their outmoded ideas and decayed looks. Contemptuous of

attempts by the elderly to join society, the gay ingenue

is rebellious against mature authority. Although conventional

tradition allowed the parent or guardian to arrange marriages,

the witty young lady revolts against such an arbitrary dis-

posal of her liberty. Speaking for the emancipated woman,

Hillaria in The Careless Lovers (Ravenscroft) refuses to

marry anyone her uncle selects and adds:

But uncle, it is not now as it was in your young

dayes, Women then were poor sneaking sheepish Creatures.
But in this Age, we know our own strength, and have
wit enough to make use of our Talents. If I meet with
a Husband makes mi 1 Heart ake, Itilmake his Head ake,
I'll warrent him.

In The Younger Brother (Behn) Olivia flatly calls an arranged

21 Most
marriage "Prostitution in the leudest Manner.o

heroines do not theorize, however; they simply act, marry-

ing whomever they please and defeating any parental attempts

at control.

On occasion in her efforts to capture a recalcitrant

gallant, the heroine finds it expedient to don male attire.

t
Flamboyantly daring, she may court and win her inconstant s

present romantic interest, thereby sending him back to his

21Edward Ravenscroft, The Careless Lovers, Act III,

p. 25, cited in Gagen, The New Woman, pp. 123-24.
2 2 The
Younge Brother. All references to this play
are to Behn, Works, Vol. IV.
 22

earlier love, 23 or like one determined less, she may disguise

herself in order to steal her lovers clothes, which, of

course, effectively ends his new affair.2 4 Many a wandering

rake is brought back to the fold as a result of a duel with

his disguised belle;25 apparently, her willingness to fight

is such an exciting proof of her real worth that he can no

longer resist her. For the same reason, serving in the army

is sometimes an effective lure for the dissembler.26 Perhaps

the girl has no proof of her beauts infidelities, but simply

wants to test his faithfulness. Dressed as a rake, she may

accompany him on his rounds of the city,2 7 or dressed as a

messenger, she may take him a note supposedly from some other

lady to see whether he will respond.28 To escape a forced

marriage, a lady may pretend to be male, 29 or she may think

the best method of finding her ideal mate is to meet him as

a fellow gentleman. 30 Later Restoration heroines usually

2 3 For example, see The Maiden Queen, Dryden, and The

Recruti Officer, Farquhar,
24She Would and She Would No, Cibber.
25For example, see The Dutch Lovers, Behn, and The Woman
Captain, Shadwell.
26 For example, Humours of the Army, Shadwell, and The
Recru Officer, Farquhar.
2 7 For
example, Sir Harry Wildair, Farquhar, and The
Feignd Curtezans, Behn.
28 For example, The Mulberry Garden, Sedley.

2 9 For example, The Younger Brother, Behn.

3 0 For example, The Feigntd Curtezans., Behn.
 23

masquerade as pages who serve their men with valor and

loyalty until their true sex is revealed and their true love

rewarded.3

Infrequently, the heroine may disguise herself as some

other woman. A smutty playwright may allow his leading

ladies to pretend to be prostitutes in order to select their

own mates. 3 2 In The City Heiress (Behn) Charlot masquerades

as a country girl so that she can spy on the gallant Wilding;

Leanthe in Love and a Bottle (Farquhar) pretends to be

Christina, and as a result, gains the rake Roebuck in

marriage.

In the early comedies of manners there was occasionally

a heroine borrowed from the heroic verse plays. Grave

rather than gay, she is almost the complete antithesis of

the typical Restoration heroine. Uninteresting because

they are usually either plot devices or expediencies for

expressing lofty sentiments, these grave heroines are all

virtuous in deed and word. Really an intrusion of secondary

importance,33 the grave lady is completely uncharacteristic

of the style and feeling of the comedy of manners.

3 1 For
example, The Plain Dealer, Wycherley; The Incon-
stant, Farquhar; The Amorous Prince, Behn; and Bu Fair,
Shadwell.
3 2 For
examples, see Leona in Sir Courtly Nice, Crowne,
and Marcella and Cornelia in The Feigned Curtezans, Behn.
33 Smith, The a, , p. 117.
 2h.

In Love in a Tub Etherege features two grave heroines

along with a gay one. Graciana and Aurelia, modest and

sedate, are actually a part of a heroic plot and serve only

as vehicles to spout in verse lofty yet tender sentiments

concerning honor, love, duty, and virtue. Instead of trying

to hide her love, Graciana freely and flowerly admits it;

however, she is prepared to sacrifice her happiness when

she believes honor demands it. Aurelia loves secretly, not

because she is coquettish, but because she is modestly re-

served and the man of her choice loves another. When there

seems a chance that he cares, she, begging pardon of the

female sex for her forwardness,3 throws herself into his

arms. Uninteresting in personality, these two are contrasted

with the sparkling Widow Rich, their aunt, who is the first

or at least one of the first gay heroines.35

Completely out of harmony with fashionable society,

Emilia, in Etherege's The Man of Mode, belongs to the honor-

able world of the past. 3 6 Her earnest modesty and tender

34 Love in a Tub, V, i, 63. All references to this play

are to Sir George~Etherege, The Dramatic Works of Sir George
Etherege, edited by H. F. B.~Trett-Smith (Oxfrd, 1927T,
Vol. I.
5Wilson, Influence of Beaumont, p. 95 points out that
there is some disPute as to whether the Widow Rich (Etherege,
The Nan of Mode) or Constance (Dryden, The Wild Gallant)
is the first gay heroine. He of course thinks she is a
descendant of characters by Beaumont and Fletcher.
36 Thomas H. Fujimura, Restoration Comedy of Wit
(Princeton, 1952), p. 113.
pity prompt Lady Townley, the social leader, to chide, "You
Emilia." 7 Openly, she admits
are a little too delicate,

her sincere love for young Bellair; there is no question of

a duel. Though she lacks affectations, she also lacks fire

and spirit. Actually, however, her personality is very

faintly sketched and completely overshadowed by that of

Harriet.

Wycherleyts two grave heroines, Christina in Love in a

Wood and Fidelia in The Plain Dealer, are the weakest char-

acters in their respective plays. Serving as mere expedients

of the plot, neither one emerges as multidimensional.

Christina is the epitome of faithful, suffering womanhood.

When her lover must flee the country after a duel, she goes

into mourning to await his return. Through a series of

mishaps, the gallant, secretly returned to England, suspects

her virtue. Quite unlike the typical Restoration heroine

who regards jealousy and mistrust as two heinous sins,

Christina servilely seeks her lover out and, despite the

mortification of her modesty and pride, explains the ex-

tenuating circumstances as she pleads her love.

Compared frequently to Viola,3 8 Fidelia is regarded by

many Victorian scholars as a tender and beautifully gracious

3 7Man
of Mode, III, ii, 229. All references to this
play are to Etherege, Dramatic Works, Vol. II.

3 8 For example, see Ernest Bernbaum, The Drama of Sensi-

bility, a Sketch of the History of the English Sentimental
omedy and Domestic Tragedy, Q1690-~70 (Boston, 1915), p. 66;
and George H. Nettleton, English Drama of the Restoration
and Eihteenth Century (162-179) (New York, 191T), p. 2.
 26

and pure girl, whose modest propriety and pathetic loyalty

bring unabashed tears to the eyes of all observers. 3 9 Modern
critics are not as touched; instead, they find her the

weakest character in the play,40 a "romantic intruder on a

very unromantic scene,t141 who is "incongruous to the play,,42

because of her unreality.4 3 Certainly, her devotion, border-

ing on idolatry, for the coarse and carnal Manly is rather

unbelievable, but then none of her portrayal is realistic.

Not a woman, Fidelia is rather a plot device illustrating

selfless (and perhaps, unintentionally, indiscriminating)

love, faith, and duty.

The Widow Rich in Etherege's initial work, Love in a
Tub, is usually credited with being the first typical

Restoration heroine. Of course, her marital status puts

her under a definite handicap since the widow during this

period is the target for the broadest jests, all featuring

her desire and need for remarriage. 4 4 Wealthy, young, and
beautiful, Widow Rich urgently attempts to conceal her love;

39Montague Summers, "Introduction," The Complete

Works
of William Wycherley (London, 1924), I, 50.

40Elwin, The Playgoer's Handbook, p. 82.

4 lLynch,
Social Mode, p. 173.
42Louis Kronenberger, The Thread of Laughter, Chapters
on the English Stage Drama from Jonson to Maugham (New York,
19 37 p. 73.
4 3Bonamy
Dobrde, Restoration Comedy (Oxford, 1924),
p. 87.
44 Brett-Smiith, Eherege, ,lxxiv.
 27

she is never really convincing as a love antagonist, for she

has all too obviously settled her future on the rakish Sir

Frederick Folly. Realizing the warmth and generosity of her

affections, the gallant dupes her into admitting her true

feelings several times during the play. For example, he

pretends he is dead, and she weeps; 45 he sends word he is in

jail, and she donates money to bail him out. 46

Fujimura decrees her too lacking in perspicacity and

47
malice for a truewit; not only does she exhibit her true

feelings toward her lover, but she also shows compassion for

the foolish Dufoy. On the other hand, Brett-Smith finds in

her a formidable sparring partner for Sir Frederick. 4 8

Although gulled into betraying herself by her actions, the

widow never verbally admits his power. Derisively mocking

his attempts to talk of love, she jeers, "What pitiful

rhyming fellow's that? he speaks as if he were prompted by

Fidlers."49 When he begs kisses as a necessary food for his

infant love, she advises, "Hold, hold, Sir; if it be so fro-

ward, put it out to Nurse; I am not so fond of it as you

imagine; . .. t50

45Love in a Tub, IV, vii, 60.

6Ibid., V, 11, 68.

47Fujimura, Restoration Comedy, p. 68.

48Brett-Smith, Etherege, I, lxxiv.

49Love in a Tub, III, ii, 31.
51bid*., III, ii, 33.
 28

Perhaps the most precocious of all comedy heroines of

this period is Wycherley t s Hippolita in The Gentleman Dancing-

Master. At the age of fourteen she feels fully capable of

assuming an active part in either the fashionable world or

in a love affair. Furious at being strictly cloistered, she

rages in her frustration: "To confine a Woman just in her

rambling Agel take away her liberty at the very time she

should use it! 0 barbarous Auntl 0 unnatural Father; to

shut up a poor Girl at fourteen, and hinder her budding....r51

A very sophisticated young woman, she is well aware that

times have changed since her guardianst youth. "Women

formerly . . . never knew how to make use of their time till

it was past, but let it not be said so of a young Woman of

this Age; . . . courage, I say; Hippolita, thou art full

fourteen years old, shift for thy selfs52 she soliloquizes.

Despite her sequestered life, Hippolita still has the

characteristic foibles of the typical city-bred female.

Eagerly she embraces all the good and bad points of the

period and commonsensically advises: ". . . by what Ifve

heard ttis a pleasant-well-bred-complasant-free-frolic-

good-naturtd-pretty Age; and if you do not like it, leave

it to us that do." 5 3 Disdaining the country, she tells

Gerrard, her suitor, that men too often carry their wives

5lThe Gentleman ening-Master, I, i, 157.

2Tbid., II, i, l7 .s31bid., I, i, 163.

 29

away intoo Yorkshire, Wales, or Cornwall, which is as bad

as to Barbadoes, and rather than be served so, . . . she7

would be a Pri s I ner in Lond on s ti11, "54When he

promises her a coach and six if she'll elope with him, she

pertly answers, "What young Woman of the Town could ever

say no to a Coach and Six, unless it were going in to the

Country. . .. e55
Fools merit no sympathy from this gay youngster; far

from pitying her cousin for his foolishness and his unfor-

tunate love for herself, she makes him the primary means

of her marrying another and laughs at his stupidity. Rich,

she recognizes the power of money. To secure Gerrard's
interest she tells him she is an heiress; noticing his new

appraisal of her, she asides, "0 money powerful money

how the ugly, old, crooked, straight, handsom, young Women

are beholding to theeitt56 Even though she has made the

first advances toward Gerrard, she never lets him know of

her real interest, but whimsically leads him on and then

spurns his advances. At last when she has finally settled

on him, she insists on an agreement between them calling for

mutual trust and equality and an absolute absence of

jealousy.57

54Ibid., II, i, 183. 55_bi d.., IIi, 1, 196.

56Ibid., 11, i, 177. 57Ibid., V, i, 220.

 30

Naturally, Hippolita scorns, mocks, and rebels against

the restraint of her father and aunt. Taunting her aunt for
her age and teasing her father for his Spanish affectations,

she carries on an unsanctioned affair under their very noses,

cleverly pitting them against one another in order to hide

her own intrigue. Her modern attitude toward marriage is

that each person should be allowed to choose a partner for

himself. ". . . I will no more take my Father's choice

in a Husband, than I would in a Gown or a Suit of

Knots . . . ,58she tells her maid. And when she triumphs

over the oldsters and attains her father's blessing, she

advises all parents in the last couplet:

When Children marry, Parents should

Since Love claims more Obedience far than they. 59
obey,

Fujimura believes Hippolita the most original character

in The Gentleman Dancing-Master and the most misunderstood

of all Wycherley's creations60 because while most critics

seem to feel she is merely lasciviously after a man to

satisfy her sexual desires, he sees her as a clever young

girl interested only in a man of true wit.61 One critic says,

"Hippolita wants a man (she doesn't care much who), 62 and

Dobree opines that Wycherley really has an underlying hatred

for Hippolita because she "has the desires natural to the

58 Ibid., I, 1, 158. 5 9 Ibid., V, i, 231.

6 0 Fujimura, Restoration Comedy p. 133.
6 1 Ibid., p. 181. 6 2Ibid., p. 133.
 31

animal."63 In reality, despite her enforced seclusion,

Hippolita is not desperate to escape in order to indulge

her lubricity; she desires freedom in order to join the

social whirl. Obviously, she will not marry just any man,

or she would have accepted her father's choice, the fop

Monsieur de Paris. If he did not please her, she could

always follow her maids advice and take her pleasures else-

where,6 4 but the very thought enrages the heroine. "Wou'dst

thou have me marry a Foolt an Idiot?65 she screams. And

there is no question of her merely taking a lover without a

husband. Instead, Hippolita is interested only in a husband

with wit, one whom she can love and respect. Of Gerrard,
whom she hopes will satisfy her qualifications, she says,

i* . . if he has wit he will come, and if he has none he

wou t d not be welcome.U66 Later, after she has met him, she

is afraid she may have to discard him because although he

loves her, he may be dull. 6 7 Apparently aware that his

creation might find disfavor in some quarters, Wycherley

gives her a tongue-in-cheek speech about her own actions:

I am thinking if some little, filching, inquisitive

Poet should get my story, and represent it on the
Stage; what those Ladies, who are never precise but

6 3 Dobr4e,
Restoration Comedy, p. 85.
6 The Gentleman Dancing-Master, I, i, 158.

65Ibid., 66bid.,9I,1,7164.
671bid., II, ,is176.
 32

at a Play, would say of me now, that I were a confident,

coming Piece, I warrant, and they would damn the poor
Poet for libelling the Sex; but sure though I give my
self and fortune away frankly, without consent of my
Friends, my confidence is less than theirs, who stand
off only for separate maintenance.68

Vanbrugh includes only one truly gay heroine in his

original plays, Bellinda in The Provok t d Wife. Typically

young, beautiful, wealthy, and witty, she is also character-

istically unsympathetic, even malicious, toward fools. When

the foppish Lady Fanciful exhibits obvious jealousy of Heart-

free, Bellinda deliberately becomes kinder toward the gallant,

taunting and teasing the affected egotist until she grows

almost distracted by frustrated rage. 69

Frankly admitting her interest in and desire for men

when she converses with her aunt Lady Brute, she, of course,

denies any such feelings when with her gallant Heartfree.

"One other Compliment with that serious Face, and I hate you

for ever after,tN70 she scorns his romantic cant. Admittedly

a coquette, she believes her flirting wrong, but cannot give

it up because she is "fully convincId, no Man has half that

pleasure in possessing a Mistress, as a Woman has in jilting

a Gallant. . .*"7l

Professing a very open-minded attitude toward her aunt's

unhappy marriage, Bellinda advises her to accept a gallant;

6 8 Ibid., V, i, 221.
69 The
Provoktd Wife, III, i, 140-41. All references to
this play are to Vanbrugh, Complete Works, Vol. 1.
7 0 Ibid., IV, iv, 162. 7 1 Ibid., I, i, 119.
 33

7 2 she decides;
4. . . the sooner you capitulate, the bettert

however, she herself never considere: taking a lover. Because

"Women must have Frolicks, . . . whatever they cost tem," 7 3

the two ladies in vizards secretly meet their beaux,and in the

succeeding series of comical misadventures, Sir John Brute is

led to believe that his lady has followed her niece's advice.

Ostensibly to save Lady Brute's reputation Bellinda decides

to marry the penniless Heartfree. She offhandedly admits

to her aunt that she loves him, but she commonsensically

knows that if she, too, had no fortune, she would not wed him:

I can't say, I would live with him in a Cell upon Love

and Bread and Butter, but I had rather have the Man I
love, and a Middle State of Life, than that Gentleman
in the Chair there /Jrunken Sir John~, and twice your
Ladyship's Splendour. . . . Yet I must own to you,
some little Struggling I still have, with this teazing
Ambition of ours. For Pride, yqu know, is as Natural
to a Woman, as Itis to a Saint.u

Finding Bellinda gay in the best traditional sense, Smith

credits the negligence with which she makes the match with

much of the charm of the love duel.75

Two of Wycherley's heroines, Lydia in Love in a Wood

and Alithea in The Country Wife, are far from the usual witty

lady of Restoration comedy, yet they clearly are meant to be

of that type. Like Widow Rich, Lydia is too obviously in

love with her gallant to hide her feeling, but whereas the

widow at least manages to match her suitor in clever verbal

7 2 Ibid., 7 3 1bid., IV, iv, 161.

II, iii, 150.
74 Ibid., V, ii, 169. 75smith, Gay Couple, p. 174.
 34

love duels, Lydia's feigned indifference is occasionally

sarcastic but never really witty7 6 Well aware of her passion

and desire for marriage, Ranger, Lydia's love, treats her

quite scurvily, lying to her, breaking dates, and chasing

other women. Although humiliated by his treatment and

mortified by her own actions, Lydia cannot help furtively

spying on him and jealously trying to break up his other af-

fairs. Of course, she realizes that her behavior merits

ridicule and that she cannot win him in marriage if she shows

herself too eager. Unable to stop her machinations, she at

least has the presence of mind to hide them from her beau.

Since Ranger really loves her, they finally make a match.

Characteristically he declares the purpose of matrimony is

freedom; like the typical heroine she agrees, but her com-

pliance is evidently only lip-service.

Described in the play as having wit, Alithea's dialogue

gives no evidence of this fact. 7 7 Like the typical heroine,

she takes her delight in "the innocent liberty of the Town,"78

and shudders at the thought of the country. On the other

hand, she is going to marry a fool simply because she is

contracted to him; many gay ladies rebel against authority

simply because it is authority,and none would accept a fool

7 6 Fujimura, Restoration Comedy, p. 130.

77Ibid., p. 144.
78 The Country fe, II, i, 23.
if they could help it, regardless of the reasons. Rather

illogically, she berates Sparkish throughout the play because

he is too stupid to be jealous when his friend Harcourt woos

her; however, the minute he is really jealous, she feels

justified in jilting him to marry the gallant of her choice.

Nevertheless, finding her both honest and reasonable, Dobrle

calls her the one congenial character Wycherley ever drew.7 9

Lacking the joyful high spirits of the usual Restoration

heroine, but possessing more common sense and sensibility,

Congreve's Cynthia in The Double Dealer is perhaps in the same

class with Lydia and Alithea; she is not truly typical, but

still belongs to the gay heroine species. Gosse believed

her a gracious maiden used to preserve the wild satire so

that Bracegirdle might have a pure, impassioned part to

play.8 0 Instead of laughing at fools, she tolerates them;

analyzing her feelings, she soliloquizes rather sententiously:

'Tis not so hard to conterfeit joy in the depth
of affliction, as to dissemble mirth in company
of fools--Why should I call tem fools? the
world thinks better of tem; for these have
quality and education, wit and fine conversation
are received and admired by the world--if not,
they like and admire themselves.--And why is not that
true wisdom, for Itis happiness? and for aught
I know, we have misapplied the name all this
while, and mistaken the thing: since

79 Dobr4e, Restoration Comedy, p. 95.

8
Edmund Gosse, Life of William Congreve, Great Writers
Series (London, 1924), p.4
 36

If happiness in self-content is placed, 81

The wise are wretched, and fools only blessed.

No truly witty woman would have had such strange misgivings.

Occasionally, however, she does flash forth with the brilliance

of the really witty female: ". . . but Itis but reasonable

that since I consent to like a man without the vile considera-

tion of money, he should give me a very evident demonstration

of his wit . . ., 82she decrees.

There is no true love duel in the comedy, for Cynthia

and Mellefont are already agreed and ready for the altar

when the play begins. Both are too level-headed and too

romantically in love to indulge in fanciful wit or repartee.

However, the thoughtful young woman still has her misgivings

which, far from the usual fears of Restoration heroines,

betray inner disillusionment and deep seriousness about

life.83 Typically, however, she is never quite willing to

give up her individuality in marriage; she suggests, "'Tis

an odd game we tre going to play at, what think you of draw-

ing stakes, and giving over in time?t 8 4

The use of two gay heroines forming a team in order to

discuss their views upon society and to capture two equally

8IThe Double Dealer, III, iii, 169. All references to

this plaiy are to Congreve, Comedies of Congreve.
8 2 Ibid., IV, 1, 170.
8 31i-jimura, Restoration Comedy, p. 171.
8 4The Double Dealer, II, i, 141
.
 37

gay gallants is a frequent device in Restoration comedy. In

the works of the five major dramatists, Etherege's She Would

if She Could and Congrevets The Old Bachelor use such a duet;

Farquhar's The Inconstant and The Twin Rivals also feature a

duo-heroine arrangement, but these couples cannot be considered

strictly gay. Many of the secondary playwrights also feature

two witty feminine leads; for example, Shadwell's Epsom Wells,

The Lancasshire Witches, The Virtuoso, and Sedley's Mulberr

Garden. Occasionally the girls are so evenly matched in

beauty, wealth, and wit that when their preferences do not

coincide with those of the men, each gallant gladly switches

8
his interest to the girl who likes him better; 5 usually,

however, one of the young women is wittier and wilder than

the other.

Despite minority opinion that Gatty and Ariana,

Etherege's beautiful, young, wealthy, and witty heroines of

86
She Would If She Cou'd, are perfectly evenly matched,

Gatty proves herself cleverer, more daring, and more

typically the gay heroine than her sister. In fact, upon

arriving in town, Ariana actually bemoans the loss of the

country; "Why, would it not make any one mad to hear

thee . . . ? speak but one grave word more, and it shall

be my daily Prayers thou may'st have a jealous Husband, and

85See Shadwell's The Virtuoso.

8 6 Kronenberger, Thread of Laughter, p. j46.

 38

then youlle have enough of it I warrant you," 8 Getty

threatens the other for her sedateness. She herself is

ecstatic at being in town again so that she can partake

freely of the city pleasures. When Ariana chides Gatty for

singing a wanton song, the candid heroine scoffs at such

reticence: "I hate to dissemble when I need not. . .1.

Toward love 4riana is inclined to remember the vanishing

romantic Platonic modes, but Gatty deplores such idealism,

and mocks:

Now art thou for a melancholy Madrigal, composed by

some amorous Coxcomb, who swears in all Companies
he loves his Mistress so well, that he would not
do her the injury, were she willing to grant him
the favour, and it may be is Sot enough to b lieve
he would oblige her in keeping his Oath too. 9

Still "Sly-girl and Mad-cap t 90 as their uncle calls

them, both qualify as gay heroines, pert but not impudent,

full-blooded and confident in their future.9 Gayly good-

natured, they are amused at their aunts ill success in love

since they are more than able to hold their own in the court-

ship game. When they seek adventure by masking themselves

for a frolic in Mulberry Garden, they immediately attract

87She Would If She Could, I, ii, 102. All references

to this play are to Etherege, Dramatic Works, Vol. II.

8 9 Ibid., IT, ii, 115.

Ibid., V, i, 170.
90 Ibid., I, ii, 103.

9 1 Fujimura, Restoration Comedy, p. 101.

 39

two gallants handsome and witty enough to interest them.

Each girl has sworn to be a tyrant toward men because they

ttcannot plague I'em enough when . . . theg7 have it in . .

.
ftheiI7 power for those priviledges which custom has allow'd

'em above . . . fwomen7."9 2 Naturally both understand that,

though equal in all else, the double standard still applies

in love affairs. Ariana explains to a gallant: ". .

.
for I know you would think it as great a Scandal to be thought

to have an inclination for Marriage, as we should to be be-

lieved willing to take our freedom without it." 9 3

Mocking the men in a sprightly way, which shows their

mettle rather than their malice, they win the first round

easily by proving the men false to their oaths of constancy,

and the second major point is theirs, too, when their suitors

believe them capable of writing the notes the old huntress

Cockwood, who desires one or both of the men for herself,

forged in their names. Since the girls are interested only

in marriage as a conclusion to their affairs, Ariana tells

the men, "'Tis to as little purpose to treat with us of any

thing under that, as it is for those kind Ladies, that have

obliged you with a valuable consideration, to challenge the

9 2 She Would If She Could, I., ii, 103.

931bid., V, i, 173.
9 4 Fujimura, Restoration y p. 101.
 40

performance of your promise.,95 Forcing Courtall and Freeman

to sue on their terms, the heroines maintain their superiority

to the end, and recognizing marriage as a terrific gamble,

they refuse to accept the gallants immediately. Instead,

they agree to use them as "servants" during a probationary

period before they decide bn a more permanent arrangement.

Congrevets Araminta and Belinda in The Old Bachelor are

neither one as typical or as charmingly appealing as Ariana

and Gatty. In this duo Belinda easily outranks her partner

in wit, gaiety, and wildness. Described quite accurately

as "too proud, too inconstant, too affected, and too witty

and too handsome, 96 Belinda comes very close to being a

fop; quite vain and egotistical, she spends excessive time

on her appearance and seeks revenge on Heartfree because he

affronted her squirrel. Only her charm and real wit save

her. Much more malicious and cutting in her speech than

Gatty, Belinda ridicules and scorns everything in extravagant

hyperboles. Naturally detesting the country, she cruelly

satirizes a rustic family she meets in a store; Lynch believes

her happiest moments are spent poking fun at ill-mannered

people.9 7 However, despite the fact that she derives all

95She Would If She Coutd, V, i, 74.

9 6 The Old Bachelor, I, i, 47. All references to this

play are to ~ongreve, comedies of Congreve.
9 7 Lynch, Social Mode, p. 196.
 41

of the
her pleasures from the beau monde, her observations
fashionable city life are just as biting.

Professing to loathe "that filthy, awkward, two-legged

creature, man!"9 she exclaims, "This love is the devil, and

sure to be in love is to be possessed,"99 Nevertheless,

Belinda is pursued by the gallant Bellmour, who pretends as

much interest in her fortune as in her person. Although she

feigns disgust at his suit, she takes every opportunity to

be with him, and the resulting love duels are high-spirited,

evenly matched intellectual contests from which neither

emerges victor. Casually, in the last act, the gallant and

the girl accept each other without loss of individuality.

Much less colorful and much more practical than Belinda,

Araminta is so thoughtful in her approach to life that she

borders on being a serious heroine. However, although she

has judgment rather than fanciful wit,, Araminta can still

love
qualify as a gay heroine because of her attitude toward
and marriage.100 Admitting her love of Vainlove to Belinda,

she nevertheless conceals it from her suitor. In fact, when

he becomes too emotional during a discussion, she interrupts,

"Nay, come, I find we are growing serious, and then we are

in great danger of being dull."

101 Undoubtedly part of the

98 The Old Bachelor, II, 11, 60.

99Ibi d.

1 0 0 Fujimura, Restoration p. 169.

1 0 1 The Old Bachelor, II, 11, 64.

 42

restraint, even disdain, she consistently exhibits is due

to her insight into Vainlovels chief foible: he despises a

conquest once it is made. When Belinda and Bellmour agree

to wed, they urge their friends to join them. Even though

Vainlove is enthusiastic, Araminta, realizing that her

suitor's inconstant disposition makes a very unstable basis

for marriage, refuses, countering with the suggestion that

they wait to profit from the experiences of the other couple.

The three best examples of the typical Restoration

heroine are Harriet in Etheregets The Man of Mode; Angelica

in Congreve's Love for Love and Millamant in Congrevets

The a of the World. Calling her duels with the gallant

Doriment Etherege's chief contribution to drama, Brett-

Smith credits Harriet with enough heart to make her lovable

and enough head to win respect.1 0 2 Fujimura gives her his

highest accolade when he ranks her a truewit with real

perspicacity and self-control.1 0 3 Doriment's description

seems to sum up both her person and personality, "Wild,

witty, lovesome, beautiful and young--"10l

Unpretentious and spontaneous, Harrietts dialogue is

free of labored similitudes. As a truly typical heroine

should, she loves wit and is a good judge of it. Of Dorimant

she perceives: "Hets agreeable and pleasant I must own, but

1 0 2 Brett-Smith, Etherege, I,,lxxix.

1 0 3 Fujimura, Restoration Comedy, p. 110.
lo4Man of Mode, III, ,iii244. All references to
this play~are~to Etherege, Dramatic Works, Vol. II.
 43

he does so much affect being so, he displeases me."105 See.

ing the follies of the world, she has wit enough to dissemble

with it and judgment enough to behave sensibly. 1 0 6

Because she displays no sympathy for those who fail in

their attempts to be truewits, Kronenberger believes her wit

shows more malice than mettle. 1 0 7 She condemns an aging

bellets use of cosmetics: "That Women should set up for

beauty as much in spite of nature, as some men have done for

Witj"j 8 Although, naturally, she is elated at her conquest

of Dorimant, her advice to Mrs. Loveit, his cast-off mistress,

seems unnecessarily sharp. "Mr. Doriment has been your God

Almighty long enough, 'tis time to think of another,ttl 9

she coolly counsels the unfortunate lady. Her raillery does

not spare her own mother, whom she mocks for her pretensions

to charm and fear of modern gallants.

On the other hand, Fujimura attributes her apparent spite

to a desire to cover her true feelings.110 As a typical

Restoration heroine, she does dissemble very cleverly her

genuine emotions for Dorimant. When he remarks on her change

1051bid., III, 111, 234.

10 6 Fujimura, Restoration Comedy, p .112.

107 Kronenberger, Thread of La p. 52.

108Man of Mode, III, i, 219.

1 0 9 Ibid., V, ii, 286.

1 1 0 Fujimura, Restoration Comedy, p. 112.
 44

of countenance at their first real meeting, she asides, ti

feel as great a change within but he shall never know it."

Unintentionally, she betrays her feelings to others; young

Bellair tells Dorimant, "Why, she's never well but when shets

talking of you, but then she finds all the faults in you she

can. She laughs at all who commend you, but then she speaks

ill of all who do not." 1 2 However, to Dorimant she is

coolly impersonal; the deeper she becomes attached to him,

the more malicious she seems, and in this way she maintains

superiority over the most capitivating and irresistible rake

of the whole period. When he begins to speak of an affair,

she says to Bellair, "S. . . let us walk, 'tis time to leave

him, men grow dull when they begin to be particular.ill 3

Later, he becomes more serious, and she, more caustic as she

mocks him when he tries to talk of love:

If it be on that Idle subject, I will put on my serious

look, turn my head carelessly from you, drop my lip,
let my Eyelids fall and hang half o're my Eyes--Thus--
while you buz a speech of an hour long in my , and
I answer never a word I why do you not begin?1 4

Rather angrily Dorimant answers, "That the company may take

notice how passionately I make advances of Love ! and how

disdainfully you receive 'em.,115 Nonchalantly Harriet

replies, "When your Love's grown strong enough to make you

l 1 1 Man of Mode, III, 235.

,iii
112 Ibid .,IV, ii, 263. '1 3 Ibid., III, iii, 236.

1141bid., IV,:1, 249. 1151bid., IV, 1, 249-50.

bear being laughed at, I'll give you leave to trouble me with

it. Till when pray forbear, Sir."ll6 Dorimant's final sub-

jection brings a rash flood of promises; he will renounce

friendship, wine, women and will even live in the country.

Calmly cool in her victory, she interrupts, "Though I wish you

devout, I would not have you turn Fanatick." 1 1 7

Typically rebellious against both living in the country

and allowing her mother to choose her husband, Harriet feigns

docile acceptance of her parents marital scheme in order to

get to London. Actually, she would agree to anything if city

life were the reward, for she is so in love with London that

she can "scarce indure the Country in Landscapes and in

Hangings." 118 Once there, however, she demands of her maid,

"Shall I be paid down by a covetous Parent for a purchase?

.
no, I'le lay my self out all in love."? 1 1 9 When her mother

realizes that she has been duped and that her rebellious

daughter will marry no, one but Dorimant, they start at once

for the country. Swearing she will marry no one but Dorimant,

Harriet also shrewdly promises never to marry against her

mothers will, for she knows dissembled acceptance will soon

win her parent over. Although Harriet obviously wants

Dorimant to visit her, her witty description of her country

existence is half a warning; he will find "a great rambling

ll 6 Ibid., IV, i, 250. 11 7 1bid., V, ii, 278-79.

llIbid., III, i, 222. 1 1 9Ibid., III, i, 221.
 46

lone house, that looks as it were not inhabited, the family's

so small; there youtle find my Mother, an old lame Aunt, and

my self, Sir, perched up on Chairs at a distance in a large

parlour; sitting moping like three or four Melancholy Birds

in a spacious vollary.tl20
Wilsonts condemnation of Harrietts having no regard for

virtue or convention121 seems quite unjustified. Throughout

the play both the heroine and the other characters make it

quite clear that she will not yield her favors short of

marriage. As young Bellair tells Dorimant, "You had not

best think of Mrs. Harriet too much, without Church security

there t s no taking up there." 1 2 2 Unsympathetically harsh,

her treatment of Mrs. Loveit certainly illustrates her dis-

dain for those who surrender without the proper ceremonies,

and the very fact that a rake like Dorimant wants to marry

her is proof enough that she is interested in nothing less.

Distrustful but not scornful of marriage, Harriet,like all

Restoration heroines, fears it may not be worth the sacrifice;

still there is no thought of doing without it.

Ranked among the truewits by Fujimura,1 2 3 Angelica is

judged captivatingly engaging by Kronenbergerl24 and one of

120 bd
Ibid., V, ii, 287.
12 1 Wilson, Influence of Beaumont, p. 101.
122
Man of Mode, IV, 11, 263.
1 2 3 Fujimura, Restoration Comedy, p. 180.
4KronenbergerThread of Laughter, p.
130.
 47

the most delightful of all comedy heroines by Gosse, who

lauds her as reigning "easily first among the creations not

only of Congreve, but of post-Restoration comedy down to

Goldsmith." 1 2 5 Certainly she is wittier and subtler than

her lover Valentine. Refusing, as a typical Restoration

heroine should, to admit love, she is determined to test

secretly Valentine's sincerity and devotion before losing

her liberty. Living in a house where she daily sees an ill-

matched uncle and wife, she wants to avoid a similar mistake,

and besides she realizes that the chase is often better than

the fulfillment: Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of

life. Security is an insipid thing and the overtaking and

possessing of a wish, discovers the folly of the chase., 127

Sharp-tongued at times, Angelica, like Harriet, uses her

apparent maliciousness to cover her true feelings.

Constantly attempting through pleading or tricks to gain

an acknowledgement of her love, Valentine is unsatisfied

with his uncertain state. "You know her temper; she never

gave me any great reason for hope or despairtl28 he tells

a friend. When he accuses her of fickleness, she logically

says, "You can't accuse me of inconstancy; I never told you

125Gosse, Life of Congreve, p. 64.

12 6 Fujimura, Restoration Comedy, p. 180.

1 27 Love for Love, IV, iii, 291.

12 8 Ibid., I, 11, 222.
that I loved you." 29And then she negligently adds when

he asks her if she does care, "I never had concern enough to

ask myself the questionsl 0 Feigning madness because of her

coldness, Valentine hopes to trick her into a confession of

love, but she sees through his ruse and vows, "1. . . if I
don't play trick for trick, may I never taste the pleasure

of revenge."l 3 1 She almost makes his plea of insanity come

true when she pretends to think he really is mad, frustratingly

refusing to believe him when he tries to be honest. 1 32

Rather boisterous in her wit, she at times is earthy

and even frankly sexual in her speech. For example, she

teases her uncle about his unfaithful wife in double-entendre

alluding to his love of astrology: ". . . if you wontt lend

me your coach, Ill take a hackney, or a chair, and leave

you to erect a scheme, and find who's in conjunction with

your wife. . . . Uncle, I'm afraid you are not lord of the

ascendant, hal hai halul3 3 Later when Sir Sampson,

Valentine's old father, whom she is pretending to marry,

says, "Odsbud, let us find children, and I'll find an

estate l" she replies suggestively, "Will you? well, do you
find the estate, and leave the other to me,.134 Still her

frankness is not coarse or hard, but merely an example of her

freedom and sharp-tongued wit.

129 Ifbid., III, i, 249. 1 3 01bido.,
III, i, 249.
1 3 1 Ibid., 1 32 1bid.,
IV, i, 272. IV, iii, 289-99.
1 3 3 1bid., II, i, 232-33. 13 4Ibid., V, i, 295.
 49

Probably no heroine in comedy has received as many

kudos as Congreve's Millamant in The Wax of the orld. As

Downer aptly remarks, few critics have been able to resist

her.135 "Nothing so delicious has ever been depicted on the

stage. . . She is the most refined product of the cultural

civilization,"136 lauds Elwin, and Evans rates her as "perhaps

the most brilliant woman in English comedy. "137 Agreeing,

Noyes calls her "the most charming figure in the English

imaginative literature of the Restoration period.ull38 No

lover of this age, Archer still finds her not only unique

in Congreve but in the world, "the one great creation of

this whole literature. . . . She is the one thing of beauty

in a realm of repulsiveness. l39 Complimenting Congreve,

Meredith finds her manner of portrayal a work of genius;1hO

Dobr4el and Nettleton find her brilliant characterization

135Alan S. Downer, The British Drama, A Handbook and

l 7Y. 214.
Brief Chronicle (Ne w York.,9
13 6 Elwin, Playgoer's Handbook, p. 177.

1 3 7 Evans, Short History, p. 94.

138George Rapall Noyes, "William Congreve: The W of
the World," n and His Contemporaries, Vol. IV of
reiresentative Enjsh Comedies, 4 vols. (New York,
1903-30), p. 547
1 3 9Archer, The Old Drama, p. 86.
14 0 George Meredith, An Essay on Comedy and the Uses of
the Comic Spirit, edited by Lane Cooper (New~ohk, 918),
pp. 101-102.
14lBonamy Dobr6e, "Introduction," Comedies by William
Congreve, The World's Classics, edited by Bonamy Dobree,
Mermaid Series (London, 1925), P. xvii.
 50

Congrevets greatest triumph.142 Although Kronenberger

believes her endowed with an air too perfect for real life,

he also finds that a particular virtue of the characterization

is that her actual behavior and motivations are realistic

and convincing143

Millamant is captivating rather than loveable, and though

it is easy to find fault with her, it is almost impossible to

resist her. Certainly she is affected, coquettish, selfish,

vain; without wealth and beauty she cannot exist. Yet she

and her admirers seem to glory in her weaknesses as much as

her strong points. As Mirabell says: . . . I like her-with

all her faults; nay, like her for her faults. Her follies

are so natural, or so artful, that they become her; and those

affectations which in another woman would be odious, serve

but to make her more agreeable."l 4 4 Pleasure is her occupa-

tion; whim, her law. Egotistically but truthfully she avows,

"I please myself. . . .145 As she elegantly, fancifully

moves from scene to scene "full sail, with her fan spread

and her streamers out, and a shoal of fools for ten-

ders . . . ,"1 6 she is always the focal point of attraction.

Quite spoiled by constantly occupying the center stage, she

1l42Nettleton, English Drama, p. 130.

14 3 Kronenberger, Thread of Laughter, p. 141.
l4The HaX of the World, I, ii, 325. All references to
this play are to Congreve, Comedies ofConeye.
14 51bid., II, ii, 347. 146i-bid., I,, ii, 344.
feigns disdain for many of the fashionable pleasures she

loves. For example, she cries she's pestered with letters--

110 gy, letters--I had letters--I am persecuted with letters--

I hate letters--Nobody knows how to write letters, and yet

one has tem, one does not know why. They serve to pin up
one's hair." l4 7 She is more honest when she declares, "I

nauseate walking; 'tis a country diversion; I loathe the

country and everything that relates to itale8

Although deeply in love with Mirabell, the delightful

dissembler characteristically does not intend to show it,

for that would mean a loss of part or all of the control she

exercises over the gallant. "One's cruelty is one's power,"i149

she knows. Enjoying Mirabellts discomfort in his suspense,

she badinages, "Well, I won't have you, Mirabell--I'm re-

solved--" then tauntingly adds, "Hal hat hat what would you
give, that you could help loving me?tl50 Her alert sense of
humor gives her perception enough to pick out the weak spots

in his self-conceit. For example, when he declares beauty

is the lover's gift to his lady, she exclaims incredulously

at his rather fatuous vanity: "Beauty the lover's giftt--

Lord, what is a lover, that it can give? Why one makes
lovers as fast as one pleases, and they live as long as one

pleases, and they die as soon as one pleases; and then if

Ibid., I1, ii, 345. 1481bid.,IV., i, 372.

14 9 Ibid., II, ii, 346. 1501bid., II, ii, 348.
one pleases, one makes more.l5l Mocking him for his serious

face, she teases, "Well, after all, there is something very

moving in a lovesick face. Ha! hat. ha!--Well, I wontt laugh,

dontt be peevish--Heigho! now I'll be melancholy. . .

.
Well, Mirabell if ever you will win me woo me now.--Nay if

you are so tedious, fare you well. . . ."52Leaving, she

gayly flings back, ". . think of me,,153 as if he could
forget.

Canby's critique that Millamant is a libertine, virtuous

only through "contempt for lovers and a nice fastidious-

ness seems untrue, as does Thorndike's labeling her a

Diana whose courtship is unmarked by one moment's real hesi-

tation or by one real palpitation of the heart.155 A coquette

but no profligate, Millamantts scorn of Mirabell is feigned

to cover the very real, but alarming, love she has for him.

Clearly superior to her suitor now, she is virtuous because

any other course would be foolish; her nicety springs from

the knowledge that for her--clever, beautiful, wealthy,

sought after, and decidedly her own mistress--marriage will

mean a great sacrifice, whichshe is not sure the pleasures

of the match will compensate.

151ibid., I, ii, 346-47.1521bi.I, 1,is,348.

153Ibid., II, ii, 349.
154 Thomas Canby, "Congreve as a Romanticist," PMLA,
XXXI (1916), 16.
15
' Thorndike, English Comedy, Po 324.
 Millamant is, after all, not choosing a man to marry;

she is choosing whether to marry at all. When it becomes

plain that in spite of the inherent dangers, she must have

him, she still tries to keep her favored position. "It'll

fly, and be followed to the last moment . . . I'll be
solicited to the very last, nay, and afterwards,156she

resolutely declares. "Ah, I'll never marry, unless I am

first made sure of my will and pleasure,t157 she insists,
exacting a formal proviso, which is one of the high spots

of the comedy of manners. Stipulating for herself all the

prerogatives that are hers before she dwindles into a wife,

Millamant bans both reprimands and instruction and asserts

that she will not be taken for granted. When the terms
have been accepted, she sighs with simulated disgust,

i* . . well, you ridiculous thing you, I'll have you--I

won't be kissed, nor I won't be thanked--. * "158 However,

her self-control wavers for a moment after his departure,

and she confesses: "Well, if Mirabell should not make a

good husband, I am a lost thing,--for I find I love him

violently.J59

Typified by whimsy, Millamant's wit is not so biting

as that of some earlier heroines. With somewhat increased

15 6 The Up of the World, 1V, i, 374.

157bid., Iv, i,, i, 378.

1591bid., Iv, i, 378.
sensibilities she tolerates as well as laughs at fools.

Rebellious against her silly, antiquated guardian's wedding

plans for her, Millamant agrees to but does not engage in

Mirabell's plan to humiliate the old belle into allowing

their match. Her aversion to ignorance is quite obvious;

the airy disdain with which she treats the boorish Sir

Wilfull, when he enters a room in which she is reciting

Suckling's poetryis highly amusing:

Mill. Natural, easy Suckling.

Sir Wil. Anon? SucklingZ no such suckling

neither cousin, nor stripling: I thank Heaven, I'm
no minor.

Mill. Ah, rustick, ruder than GothicI 160

Only in her sly raillery of the other women who love

Mirabell does real malice show in Millamant's character.

"Dear Fainall, entertain Sir Wilfull--thou hast philosophy

to undergo a fool, thou art married and hast patience,ul 6 1

she says to Mirabell's former mistress. Charged by the

jealousy-ridden Marwood with having Mirabell for a lover,

the witty heroine does not spare her rival. Pretending

great horror at his constancy, she swears shed command him

to show more gallantry if she had any power over him. "But
I despair to prevail; and so let him follow his own way.

HaJ hat hat pardon me, dear creature, I must laugh, hat

16 0 1bid.,
IV, i, 373. ON" .,IV,
od i, 372.
hat hat though I grant you ttis a little barbarous, hal hat

hapt1 6 2 Furiously, Marwood says she detests Mirabell, and

the charming mocker cries, ". . . why so do I--and yet the

creature loves me, hat hat hat how can one forbear laughing

to think of it.--" 1 6 3 When Marwood directly, but veiledly,

threatens disaster to that love, Millamant rather than

answering personally has an insidious song sung:

'Tis not to wound a wanton boy

Or amorous youth, that gives the joy;
But Itis the glory to have pierced a swain,
For whom inferior beauties sighed in vain.

Then I alone the conquest prize,

When I insult a rival's eyes:
If there's delight in love, 'tis when I see
That heart, which others bleed for, bleed for me. 164

During the latter Restoration, pressure from the moralists

gradually forced a change in the character of the heroine.

She became a woman of emotion rather than intellect, of sense

rather than wit, and accordingly, the plays became senti-

mental domestic moralities rather than sophisticated comedies

of manners. No longer a shadowy interloper, the grave

heroine had come into her own, revered for the qualities

which seemed ridiculous to the gay lady. Whereas the gay

heroine denies love and sentiment, the serious heroine

revels in it. The gay one finds in marriage a curtailment

of her individuality and delays it as long as possible, but

the serious one feels marriage the fulfillment of her dreams,

16 2 Ibid., III, iii, 360. 1 6 31bid,

1641bid., III, iii, 361.

and only external objects can defer the wedding. Accepting,

even delighting in the age in which she lives, the gay heroine

is frank and witty; contrarily, censuring the world as it is,

the serious heroine is modest and sensible. Abhorring the

fools the woman of sense pities, the gay heroine scornfully

rebels against the old, whom the serious heroine deferentially

respects.

The character of the scorned wife is responsible for

some of the first traces of sentimentality in the comedies

of this period. Actually, the heroines of these plays are

very fortunate that their dramas usually end with their be-

trothal or wedding vows, for as a result, they seldom suffer

the fate of the disdained wife. In the few examples, mostly

written after 1690, in which the heroine is married in the

play, almost without exception she is mistreated. Agreeing

with Courtall (She Would If She Could, Etherege) that "a

Wife's a dish, of which if a man once surfeit, he shall

have a better stomach to all others ever after,165 a husband

may be untrue; or agreeing with Sir John (The Provokt Wife,

Vanbrugh) that love is a cloying dish "when Matrimony's the

Sauce to it,"166 he may be unkind.

The abused wife has only three courses of action: boldly

take a lover, meekly accept her treatment, or optimistically

endeavor to reform her husband. As already pointed out, the

165she Would If She Cou'd, III, iii, 137.

1 6 6 The Provok'd Wife, I, i, 115.
first solution is impossible for the typical heroine. Other
women may be promiscuous, but she must remain physically

virtuous regardless of her verbal or mental deviations. The

second plan, too galling to be endured by the typically

high-spirited Restoration heroine, obviously requires a per-

sonality change in the leading female. Since the character-

istic attitude of the period proclaims reform of a husband

an impossibility, the third resolution is affected only in a

play in which the ending at least is sentimentalized.

Perhaps the first reforming wife in Restoration comedy

is Olivia, D'Urfey's title character in. The Virtuous Wife. 1 6 7

Dressing as a man, she steals her husband's newest mistress,

and pretending to take a lover, she arouses her husband's

jealousy. Although, superficially, these seem to be tricks

of the gay heroine, Olivia lets it be known that she con-
siders her plight too grave for laughter, and the recon-
ciliation scene is misty with tears. In Cibberts Love's

Last Shift, often called the first real sentimental comedy,

Amanda tricks her husband back into line by posing as a new

mistress. Her tender and emotional soliloquies on mistreated

virtue and the mawkish final scene dissolve in tears the comic

aspects of the plot.

The sentimentalized woman who unhappily but meekly sub-

mits to her fate as the rejected wife is more common than the

1 6 7 Lynch, "Thomas D'Urfey," p.

250.
reforming mate. Married to an unfaithful, unappreciative

coward, Mrs. Friendall in Southerne's The Wives Excuse sums

up her fate: "Every woman carries her cross in this world,

a husband happens to be mine, and I must bear it, as well I

168
can." In Estcourt's The Fair Exa Lucia is married

against her wishes to a cruel husband, but she steadfastly

refuses to corrupt her chastity even though she laments the

loss of the gallant she has loved since before her marriage.

Perhaps the most fortunate of all scorned wives is Lady Easy,

Cibber's heroine in The Careless Husband. Heroically and

silently accepting all of her spouse's infidelities, she is

so loving and merciful that when she finds him asleep with

her maid, she solicitously covers his bare head so that he

will not catch cold. Overcome by her goodness, her husband

remorsefully begs forgiveness which she compassionately

grants, as they both weep.

Vanbrughts attitude toward wifely reformation of husbands

is easily detected in his first play, The Relapse, a sequel

to Cibber's Love's Last Shift. In the newer work, the hus-

band, whom Amanda has reduced to penitential tears in Cibber's

play, immediately regresses to his old habits as soon as the

opportunity is available. Perhaps because the cast is taken

directly from the earlier play, Amanda remains virtuous.

Chastity is not easy for her, however, especially after she

1 6 8 Thomas Southerne, The Wives Excuse, V, iii, cited in

Dodds, Thomas Southerne, pTTE7.
has definite proof of her husbands new misdemeanors. The
attractive, persistent gallant Worthy is so persuasive and

her honor is so precariously balanced that on the night of

the first performance Vanbrugh himself said, "I confess I

once gave Amanda up for gone.,1 6 9

Both Vanbrugh and Farquhar in their best plays portray

a scorned wife, but here their treatment is lighthearted

rather than lachrymose. Lady Brute in The Provoktd Wife

(Vanbrugh) and Mrs. Sullen in The Beaux Stratagem (Farquhar)

are both married to sots who deny their wives even the common

courtesies. Since both women possess beauty, wit, and breed-

ing, they merit, and realize they merit, a better life than
that which they have.

Not a typical heroine, Lady Brute deliberately marries

without love for the wealth and position Sir John can give

her; she intends to be a good wife. Confident in her own

charm and her suitors fierce passion, she believes herself

capable of satisfying both his desire for love and her desire

for luxury. Her plan overlooks the Restoration belief that

man is naturally inconstant. Sir John soon tires of his wife

and resents his fetters. Nauseatingly coarse, he lives up

to his name in his efforts to make his wife miserable. Some

critics believe that the lady deserves her treatment because

1 6 9 Joseph Walter Cove, Sheridan, His Life and His

Theatre (New York, 1948), p -7.
 60

she arred fr mney 170

she married for money;17however, since she did not mis-
lead Sir John about her feelings and since she has tried to

make a pleasant life for them both, this judgment does not

seem equitable.

At any rate she is scornfully and degradingly abused.

Too spirited to accept her fate meekly, she is also too

practical to believe in reforming her husband, especially

since she not only holds no charms for him but positively

disgusts him now. A handsome, witty gallant offers her an

attractive solution to her dilemma at every opportunity.

For two years she has virtuously dissembled so well that he

believes her cold toward him. Privately, however, she loves

him, and her frequent soliloquies are usually clever attempts

to rationalize an affair. "Lord what fine notions of Virtue

do we Women take up upon the Credit of old foolish Philos-

ophers. Virtue's its own reward, Virtue t s this, Virtue's

that--Virtue's an Ass, and a Gallant's worth forty on't," 17

she earnestly endeavors to convince herself. Nevertheless,

despite the near capitulations and the near discoveries,

she remains physically faithful at the plays end. Inten-

tionally, Vanbrugh leaves the question of how long she will

remain so unresolved.

17 0 Bernbaum, The Drama of Sensibility, p. 78.

1 7 1 The Provok'd Wife, I, i, 117.
 61

Whereas Lady Brute willingly married for wealth, Mrs.

Sullen was forced by her relatives to wed for the same

reason, although a typical Restoration heroine would have

rebelled against such coercion. Her husband, an uncouth,

taciturn country squire, spends his time carousing with his
bucolic neighbors. Boorishly insensitive to the agonizing

boredom of his city-bred wife, he frankly has no interest in

anything about her but her dowry. To pique his interest

through jealousy, Mrs. Sullen ostensibly begins an intrigue

with a French officer; the affair serves only to make him

more contemptuous and saturnine. Forced into wedding a man

with whom she has no common interests, denied even the

sparsest luxuries or the diversions of city life, Mrs.

Sullen, perhaps, is more mistreated than Lady Brute.

As in the case of her predecessor, an appealing solution

in the form of a wittily gay and handsome gallant presents

itself. Although a natural affinity draws her to the young

man, she determines to maintain her virtue; however, when

events conspire to place him in her bedroom alone at night,

only the turbulence of a robber attack saves her chastity.

Unlike Lady Brute, Mrs. Sullen does not leave her life status

quo. Instead, with a very modern attitude and a very face-

tious manner, she and her husband agree to the provisos of

their separation on the grounds of incompatibility.

Influenced by his time, Farquhar included no typical

gay heroine in his plays; on the other hand, his leading lady
 62

is not as a rule the typical woman of sense either. Most

often she is somewhere between the two types, virtuous with-

out cant, witty without smut; she is frankly bent on marriage

and will accept only the rake of her choice. Disliking

maudlin sentimentality as much as she does risque cleverness,
Farquharts heroine usually exhibits a new naturalness and

unaffected charm.

Constance in The Twin Rivals is unusual because she is

almost the perfect woman of sense. Scorning the fashionable

whirl of city life, she would like to live quietly with the

man of her choice, Hermes. Like all serious heroines she

disapproves of coquettishness and admits her love, but still

she must maintain her modesty. When Hermes appears alive

after she is already in deep mourning for his death, she

cries aside: "Now passion, powerful passion, would bear me

like a whirlwind to his arms1--But my sex has bounds.--t1 7 2

Aloud she merely says, "'Tis wondrous, sirV,3 73 Hermes'

flowery cant of virtuous love and heavenly purity thrills

Constance to the soul, whereas a gay heroine would undoubtedly

laugh hysterically if a gallant said to her: "Here let me

worship that perfection whose virtue might attract the

listening angels, and make 'em smile to see such purity, so

like themselves in human shapeV"l74

1 7 2 The Twin Rivals, III, iii, 66-7.

173bid.,nIT, iii, 67. 174Ibid., III, iii, 66.
 63

On the other hand, Bisarre in The Inconstant is almost

a gay heroine, although she is meant to be humorous rather

than ideal. Overhearing Duretete rail against women and

marriage, she determines to plague him for his rashness.

First, she will not talk at all, then she quotes Platonic

philosophies; and finally, she pretends to be a romping,

boisterous hoyden. In each instance it is exactly what the

awkward gallant least expects. When to get even he forces

her to rail against herself, she finishes the tirade by

assigning all the faults to him and adds to his shame by

disclosing a closet full of eavesdropping, giggling females.

She plainly sets forth her intentions to be a coquette:

. . . I would make a fool of any fellow in France.

Well, I must confess, I do love a little coquetting
with all my heart; my business should be to break
gold with my lover one hour, and crack my promise
the next; he should find me one day with a prayer-
book in my hand, and with a play-book another. He
should have my consent to buy the wedding-ring 1
and the next moment would I laugh in his face. 75

When Oriana chides her for her interest in such a silent,

unpolished fellow as Duretete, she sagaciously says:

had not I better have a lover like him, that I can

make an ass, than a lover like yours, to make a fool of

me.176

175The Inconstant, 1, i, 347. All references to this

play are to Farquhar, Dramatic Works, Vol. I.
1 7 6 Ibid., IV, ii, 383.
 64

Obviously, these are not the sentiments of a gay heroine

who demands an equal partner for the duel of love; however,

her cavalier treatment of the gallant is certainly in the

earlier vein. Like a typically gay couple, the two deny that

they marry for love, but vow they'll wed to plague one

another.

Lucinda in Farquharts first play, Love and a Bottle,

is a combination of the serious and the gay. Like the early

Restoration heroine, she is really in love with Lovewell

but does not intend that he should know it. On the other
hand, she is desperately jealous, and after seeing her beau

with another woman, she decides, out of spite, to marry the

next one who asks her. Fond of humor, no matter how raw, she
is still so virtuous that the rake Roebuck is awed into cold-

ness. Although beautiful, young, and wealthy, she really

lacks the verbal wit she is reputed to have; however, this

is probably Farquhar's fault rather than Lucinda's.

Pursuing rather than dueling, Farquhar's heroines are

frequently in earnest and open pursuit of a man who prefers

his life as a rake. Leanthe in Love and a Bottle is very

reminiscent of Wycherley's Fidelia. In love with the rake

Roebuck, she disguises as a page and follows him to London;

while he is physically attracted to her, he ignores her be-

cause she is virtuous. When he decides to marry another for

money, Leanthe masquerades as his bride to be, then marries

and beds him before revealing her true identity. Apologetically,

she pleads: ". . . I beg you to pardon the effect of violent
passion, which has driven me into some impudent actions: but

none such as may blot the honour of my virtue or family."4 7 7

A good sport, Roebuck is so delighted by her love-making that

he does not really complain of the fraud.

Leanthe has virtue rather than wit and a headlong deter-

mination to win a man rather than skill in the courtship game.

Unlike a gay heroine she does not demand the right to be as

wicked as her beau; instead, she intends to make him as good

as she is.

In The Inconstant Oriana has even more trouble capturing

her man. She pretends to wed an old Spaniard, she enters a

nunnery, and she feigns madness; but her gallant manages to

see through every trick. At last determined to be near him

at all costs, she disguises as a page to serve as a companion

for his travels. While in this guise, she saves his life

when his wandering eye has handed him into the possession of

the whore and murderess Lamorce. Apparently, this brush with

death brings him to his senses, and he at last decides to

take the faithful girl for his wife.

Treated much more humorously than Leanthe, Oriana has

every reason to expect Mirabell to marry her, for they have

been contracted before his journey abroad. However, travel

has widened his interest in women, and upon his return home

1 7 7 Love
and a Bottle, V, iii, 111. All references to
this play are to Farquhar, Dramatic Works, Vol. I.
 66

he refuses the faithful, determined girl. One amusing scene

is a parody on the typical proviso in which each tells the

other what bad marriage partners they will make--he, if

forced to marry against his will, and she, if he marries and
refuses to perform his marital duties. Here, she vows she
will do all the things the typical Restoration heroine does,

but it is obvious that her words are empty, but humorous,

threats.

As some critic has justly remarked, Farquhar allowed

his audiences to have their spice cake and eat it, too,

when he arranged for the gallant Sir Harry Wildair to be

misled into thinking the tenderly sedate Angelica a whore

in The Constant Co He could talk bawdily, and the girl

could remain modest and unbesmirched. Another weakly drawn

serious heroine, Angelica serves only to suffer Sir Harry's

indelicacies and at last, still virtuous, to agree to marry

the apologetic knight.

A wronged wife in the sequel, Sir Harry ildair, she

becomes a pursuing heroine; however, she stalks her man

gravely rather than gayly. Bent on redeeming her husband's

love and stilling a rival's malicious gossip, she succeeds

in both purposes after being reported dead, disguising as

Sir Harry's younger brother, and pretending to be a ghost.

Even though Sir Harry has not actually been unfaithful, he

is in the mood to be when Angelica starts her machinations.

Naturally, in the final scene he proclaims her the perfect

wife with whom he is well satisfied.

 67

Besides Mrs. Sullen, Farquharts two best heroines are

Dorinda in The Beauxt Stratagem and Silvia in The Recruiting

Officer. Both are sensible if not really serious. Dorinda

is neither a typical heroine nor a typical country girl, al-

though she is a -rural maiden who has one of the two chief

female parts in the play. She has none of the coarse las-

civiousness and outspoken language of the typical country

girl, nor none of the love of fashionable life and biting

satire of the typical heroine, nor none of the rebellion

against authority of either. Instead, she adds common

sense and refinement to her beauty and wealth and is a woman

of charming naturalness whose lack of sophistication is

touching rather than ridiculous.

Aimwell, the destitute, fortune-hunting London gallant,

is the first really attractive and polished man she has ever

met, and she promptly falls in love with him. Realizing

her inexperience, she hesitates even about conversing with

him because she is "but a young gunner" and is "afraid to

shoot, for fear the piece should recoil. * t17 8 However,

when the sophisticated Londoner praises her wit and beauty

and proposes marriage, the maiden is frankly but modestly

delighted. Mrs. Sullen, her sister-in-law, chides her for

her open pleasure, but Dorinda will not dissemble. "Why,

my ten thousand pounds may lie brooding here this seven years,

17 8 The
Beauxt Strat .,IV, i, 306. All references to
this play are to Farquhar, Dramatic Works, Vol. II.
 68

and hatch nothing at last but some ill-natured clown like

yours" she cries. Certainly there is no love duel nor
fear for freedom, but Dorinda has the Restoration heroine's

very frank approach to the physical side of marriage; "I

dont find anything unnatural in that thought,"18o she

remarks.

Sentimentalized in the last scene, she floweredly

professes pride in Aimwell's honesty when his love prompts

him to disclose his mercenary scheme to marry her fortune.

"Once I was proud, sir, of your wealth and title, but now

am prouder that you want it: now I can show my love was
justly levelled, and had no aim but love," 1 181 she proclaims.

When she subsequently learns that the wealthy titled brother

he has been impersonating has died, making Aimwell in reality

all he claimed to be, she nobly rejects his suit, just in

case, now that money is no longer a consideration, he may

prefer another. Of course, he does not, and a match is

made. Certainly, no country girl ever behaved with such

decorum, nor heroine with such sensibility before.

Perhaps the most outstanding of all masquerading, pur-

suing heroines is Farquhar's Silvia in Th Recrui n

Officer. Apparently, she is the author's ideal of what a

women should be .182 Certainly, he allows the hero, Captain

1 7 9 1bid.,
IV, i, 318.18(Ibid., IV, i, 317.
l8 lIbid., V, v, 343.
18 2Willard Connely, The Younger Geor e Farquhar,
The
Restoration Drama at Twilight (London,9O), p. 251.
 69

Plume, to praise her lavishly: "I admire her frank, generous

disposition. Therets something in that girl more than woman,
her sex is but a foil to her. The ingratitude, dissimulation,

envy, pride, avarice, and vanity of her sister females, do

but set off the contraries in her.111 3

More generous toward fools and rivals than the typical

heroine, she privately cares for Plumets deserted mistress

and illegitimate child. Furthermore, she is contented with

life in her country town. Unaffected, honest, and healthy,

she is disgusted with female foibles and pretensions. "In

short, Melinda, I think a petticoat is a mighty simple

thing, and I am heartily tired of my sex,1S4 she tells a

friend.

Though tired of her sex, she still is of it, and she

desires Plume for a husband; he desires her for a mistress.

Plume sums up their early romance rather coarsely, but ac-

curately: "'Tis true. Silvia and I had once agreed to go

to bed together . . . but she would have the wedding before

consummation, and I was for consummation before the wedding.

She was a pert, obstinate fool, and would lose her maiden-

head her own way, so she may keep it for Plume.185

Her father is opposed to her marrying the soldier

because she is his sole heir; therefore, like an earlier

18 3The Recruiting Officer, I, i, 132. All references

to this play are to Farquhar, Dramatic Works, Vol. II.
184Ibid., I, i, 136. 185Ibid., I, i, 131-32.
 70

heroine, she defIies her parent and disarms her lover by

posing as a young rake and joining Plumets regiment. While

disguised she neatly takes care of a rival by wooing and

winning her from the captain. When her identity is finally

revealed, Plume agrees to take her; and her father agrees

to let him.
 CHAPTER III

THE WITWOULDS

Practically every female character in the comedy of

manners struggles to make the inner circle of the beau monde

of Restoration society, even though only the heroine is suc-

cessful. Predestined to disappointment, the frustrated as-
pirants fail principally because of their foolishness (the

fop), their ignorance (the country girl), their age (the

antiquated belle), or their promiscuity (the mistress, the

old man's darling, and the lady rake).

Although the heroine may hesitate to give up her free-
dom in love and marriage, nearly all other women in the plays

want a man, preferably a husband, more than anything else in

the world. Consequently, trick marriages are quite common.

Characterized by disguises, impersonations, false witnesses,

forgeries, these services are really quite unrealistic. If

the parson is genuine, the bonds hold despite fraud. It is
not the innocent who escape, as Stoll contends,1 but the

witty. Usually, fops and fools regardless of innocence are

firmly caught.

1 ElmerEdgar Stoll, "The tReal Society' in Restoration

Comedy; Hymeneal Pretenses," Modern Lanffage Notes, LVIII
(March, 1943), 178.

71
 72

The masked marriage is the most frequent trick. In such

a wedding a maid or loose woman, masked, passes for the

heroine and espouses a fool silly enough to aspire to a

truewit. 2 A mask is not always necessary; sometimes pretend-

ing to have a fortune gulls an unwise person into matri-

mony.3 Usually it is the male who is fooled, but once in a

while a pretentious lady is brought down by the wedding. 4

False parsons save a few from bad marriages;5 however, young

girls whom men try to deceive with false parsons are usually

clever enough to arrange for a genuine priest. 6 Villains

are often forced rather than tricked into marriage in order

to avoid jail or other punishment.7

The Fop
One of the greatest sources of comedy in the plays of

the Restoration stage is the fop, a silly, conceited pre-

tender to wit or beauty. As Colley Cibber describes the

female fop, "Her language, dress, motion, manners, soul, and

2 Forexamples, see The Humourists, Shadwell; The Old

Bachelor, Congreve; The Virtuoso, Shadwell.
3 Forinstances, see Love in a Tub, Etherege; The True
Widow, Shadwell; The Mulberry Garden,~Sedley.
4For examples, see Love for Love, Congreve, and The
False Count, Behn.
5 For examples, see Love in a Bottle, Farquhar; The Old
Bachelor, Congreve; The Country Wife, Wycherley.
6 The Town Fop, by Behn, is one example.
7 Forinstance, see The Twin Rivals, Farquhar; The Miser,
Shadwell; Love in a Tub,Etherege.
 73
body are in a continual hurry to be something more than is

necessary to be admirable." 8 Actually, her absurdities

generally proceed from an extreme vanity of her own beauty,

wisdom, or wealth, which causes her to become foolish in

almost every respect. In the plays of this period Vanbrughts

Lady Fanciful in The Provok'd Wife, Congreve's Lady Froth in

The Double Dealer, and Farquhar's Melinda in The Recru n

Officer are among the most important portrayals of this

farcical type.

Drawn with facility and strength, Lady Fanciful is one

of the most effective characters in English comedy. 9 She is

probably the greatest of all the female fops whose chief

weakness is a vanity of their own beauty. Her pride is so

great that she fears "The very Looking-Glass . . . flatters
me, it makes me look so very engaging."1 0 Incredulously she
asks her maid, 13ut is it possible my Eyes can be so languish-

ing--and so very full of Fire?" 1 Comparing herself to every

woman she meets, Lady Fanciful thinks the whole female popu-

lation suffers by contrast. Indeed, her vanity is so un-

limited that she writes poetry to herself in which she

ecstatically proclaims her beauty so magnificent that only

the gods are fit to praise it. 1 2

8
Colley Cibber, An Apology for His Life (London, 19114),
p. 90.
9Palmer, Comedy of_ Manners, p. 23.
1 0 The Provokt d Wife, I, 11, 120.
"1 Ibid. 1 2 Ibid., II, ii, 132.
 74

Busily flattering herself all the time, she naturally

expects praise from everyone else. Her first words on the

stage form the characteristic question, "How do I look this

Morning?J1 3 When one of her women answers honestly that she

does not look her best, the maid is banished from the room

for lying Mademoiselle, the French servant, is more ex-

pedient; she flamboyantly seconds and tops her ladyshipts

self-commendations and receives a new garment for each

eulogy.
Actually, Lady Fanciful's illusions are not completely

flatulent. Heartfree, a gallant who feels that nature has

given her "Beauty to a Miracle" and a "Shape without a fault,"

which her vanity and artifice have spoiled, tries to encourage

her to give up her affectations. He promises that she will

be considered the most beautiful woman in town if she follows

his advice. Since she is convinced she already has that

reputation, Lady Fanciful scorns his counsel as impertinent

and absurd.

Considering her exaggerated approval of her physical

appearance, it is easy to see why she imagines that all

mankind is violently in love with her. As her neighbor

Lady Brute sagaciously says, "She concludes all Men her
Captives; and whatever Course they take, it serves to con-

firm her in that opinion.11 14 Substantiating Lady Brute's

- t
1 3 Ibid.,
I, 11, 120. 14
I-Ibidov Ip ii, 11go
 75

opinion, the female fop remarks, ". . . i0tis an unutterable

pleasure to be adored by all the Men, and envytd by all the

Women-Yet I'll swear I'm concerned at the Torture I give

tem. Lard, why was I formed to make the whole Creation

uneasy?"15 Still, she judges herself to be so discriminating

that if the whole merit of mankind were invested in one man,

she would not condescend even to notice him.16

Through his audacity in ,censuring her, the bachelor

Heartfree captures the attention and perhaps the affection

of Lady Fanciful, who determines to humble and refine him.

However, her affectations make her ludicrous to him, and he

devotes himself to Bellinda, Lady Brute's niece. Wounded
pride and unrequited love make Lady Fanciful's jealousy as

extreme as her vanity. She disparages Bellinda, spies on

Lady Brute, encourages her maid to plot with the Brutes'

servant against her rival, writes poison pen letters, and

at last stoops to disguising herself as Heartfreets castoff

wife. Even in this ignominious disguise she cannot help

boasting of her beauty. When the extent of her folly is at

last revealed, she refuses to admit her mistakes or resign

one foible; instead, she leaves the stage as she entered it--

a foolishly affected and astonishingly vain female fop.

Whereas Lady Fanciful's folly arises from an exaggerated

sense of her own beauty, Lady Froth is ridiculous because of

her pretensions to wisdom, wit, and learning. A great

15 Ibid.,
I, ii, 122. 16Ibids
.I, ii, 121.
 76

favorite with the scholars of Restoration drama, she is

judged the most fanciful and amusing character in this

play by one and one of the best and most complex characters
Congreve ever created by another.1 8 The triumph in her
characterization seems to lie in the fact that she is an ex-

tremely silly woman who is portrayed in such a fashion that

she becomes positively attractive. 19

A real bluestocking, she ostentatiously exhibits her

bits of learning on every occasion, striving always to use

multisyllabled words. In conversation with Cynthia, a young

bride-to-be, she uses the words phosphorus and hemisphere, 2 0

then asks, "Do you understand those two hard words? if you
don't, I'll explain tem to you . . . being derived from the

Greek, I thought you might have escaped the etymology." 2 1

French expressions affectedly dot her speech; one has bel

air or lc ks brilliant.

Considering creative writing a prerequisite to good

breeding, intelligence, and romance, she incredulously ex-

claims to Cynthia, who disclaims any literary achievements:

not writer bless mel how can Mellefont believe you

love him?" She herself writes "songs, elegies, satires,

1 7 Fujimura,
Restoration , p. 75
18 Gosse, Life of Congreve,
p. 43.
1 9 Lynch, Social Mode, p. 208.
20 The Double Dealer, I, i, 141.
21Ibid. 2 2 Ibid.
 77

encomiums, panegyricks, lampoons, plays, or heroic poems," 2 3

and is, at present, engaged in writing a heroic poem to her

coachman. Her vanity in her own learning expands to include

her daughter, hopefully named Sappho, who at nine months "has

a world of wit, and can sing a tune already."2 4

A romanticist as well as a pedant, Lady Froth rhapsodizes

publicly over her love affair with her husband, Since rail-
ing at marriage is the style of the period and since her
husband is a great fool, this incident is particularly
amusing: "'My Lord, I have been telling Cynthia how much

I have been in love with you, I swear I have; IPm not

ashamed to own it now. Ah, it makes my heart leapt I vow,

I sigh when I think on't. . * .25 Now he must re-enact
scenes from their courtship while she trills her approval
and forces compliments about his style from all the spectators.

Notwithstanding her affection for her marriage, Lady

Froth becomes enamored of Hr. Brisk, as great a fool as her

husband. They are drawn together by their mutual pretensions

to knowledge, but Congreve leaves no doubt that their "as-

tronomical observations" include a study more carnal than

the planets*26

23 Ibid., IT, i, 140. 24Ibid., III, iii, 168.

25bi., L1, io141.

26Gosse, Life of_ Congreve, p. 43.
 78

Vanity as a result of new-found wealth marks Melinda as

a fop. Previously, Worthy has offered to settle five hundred

pounds a year on her as his mistress. On the verge of ac-

ceptance, she has unexpectedly inherited twenty.thousand

pounds. As a result, she has not only refused Worthy's offer

but has also immediately become an affected female coxcomb.

From the pinnacle of her new-found wealth, she can afford

melancholia, overly delicate sensibilities, a passion for

poetry, and coquettishness.

As the play opens, Worthy's now honorable suit of

marriage is met with scornful and skittish refusal. A very

haughty woman of means, Melinda resents any mention of her

near loss of conventionality;- in fact, she spitefully con-

trives to banish her friend Silvia to the country because of

her insinuation about the former affair with Worthy.

In reality the wealthy fop sincerely loves Worthy, but

has decided to "coquette it with every fellow she sees,"2 7

as a punishment for his not wanting to marry her when she

was poor. Furious at his neglect of two days, a procedure

he has undertaken to force her to show her love, she vents

her anger on her maid, boxes a suitor's ears, tears her fans,

and at last cannot resist seeking out her lover. Her anger

reveals her concern, but still refusing to admit that it is

2 7 The Recruitin; Officer, I, i, 132.

 79
Worthy himself she cares about, she cries, "One may like the

love and despise the lover, I hope. . 28

Unlike most female fops in Restoration drama who never

relent in their ridiculous fancies, Melinda reforms in the

end; doubtlessly her repentance was influenced by the grow-

ing taste for sentimental regenerations. Regretting her

malicious actions against Silvia, she determines to free her

and seek her forgiveness; and relenting toward Worthy, she

decides the score may be even now:

* . . you have been barbarous to me, I have been

cruel to you; put that and that together, and let
one balance the other. Now if you will begin upon
a new score . . . and behave yourself handsomely . .P
her ts my hand. I'll use you as a gentleman should
be.

Many other authors of the period found the pretentious

woman a subject for humor in their plays. Dryden was par-

ticularly successful in the creation of Melantha in Marriage

a-la- Mode, an exquisite piece of pure comic wit. 3 0 Described

by Cibber as a "finished impertinent . . . , the most com-
plete system of female foppery that could possibly be crowded

into the tortured form of a fine lady," 3 1 Melantha is beauti-

ful, young, rich, and ridiculous, especially for her preten-

sions to intellect, which like those of many fops of the

period, are based on an ostentatious love of French

28Ibid., III, Ii, 169. 2 9 Ibid.,

V, i ii, 212.
3 0 Summers, jjchley, p. 45.
>Cibber, Apolqgy, p. 90.
 80

mannerisms and' use of French words. Rendering her conversation

elegant with studied postures and hastily memorized French

terms, she demands that her maid supply her with a new list

of words every day and is horrified if she brings only fourteen

or fifteen new ones. If her servant uses any unusual French

expressions during the toilette, Melantha purchases them with

a farandine gown or a new point gorget. Unlike most fops who

do not reform, Melantha with her beauty and fortune attracts

a man who successfully woos her "en Francais" with "abundance

of noise and no sense.t31a

Shadwell's Mrs. Fantast in Ep Wells is also a wittily

drawn Francophile. Along with her mother, old Lady Fantast,

she bewails the "want of the French tongue"3 2 in England and

apologizes for not having been born French. 3 3 Anything from

France appeals to her, and because of her foppish lack of dis-
crimination, she is completely misled by a barber masquerading

as a French count. Even his professional interest in hair and

wigs does not arouse her suspicions of a humbler origin, and

when her sensible sister disparages him, Mrs. Fantast cries,

10 madam, madamt. I beseech you, betray not your ill-breeding.

A French count a coxcombt Mon Dieul0 Not as original as

Melantha in her choice of words, she is sometimes just as

amusing; for example, she tells a suitor, "That thought's
very recherchee."5

31aMarriage a-la-Mode, V, i, 276. All references to

this play are to Dryden, Dramatic Works, Vol. III.
2p ells, II, , 376. 3 3 Ibid.,
II, i, 393.
34Ibid., II, 1, 385. 351bid., II, i, 384.
 81

The Country Girl

To the beau monde of Restoration England, life centered

in London, collapsed in the country. In fact, banishment to

a rural existence was the real "bete noire"l of the city. Poor

transportation facilities left the widely scattered rustic

estates completely isolated from the fashionable world; con-

sequently, anyone from the country, regardless of sex, age,

or ancestry, was bound to be an ignoramus, fit only to be

laughed at for his lack of breeding and knowledge.

The bucolic fool is a frequent character in the comedies

of the period, and it is interesting to observe that the

country girl seems to faresomewhat better at the hands of

the playwrights than her male counterpart. For while he is

customarily so tricked and cheated by city sharpers that by

the play's end he is more than ready to return to his pastoral

quiet,3 6 she is usually well on her way toward learning the

mores of city life as she leaves the stage. Still the rustic

lass is never accepted as a part of society during the comedy;

want of breeding and perhaps want of brains deprive her of wit

and judgment, absolutely essential qualities for a woman of

the beau monde.

Perhaps because her background is enough to make her

humorous, the rural maid usually has the advantages of

riches, youth, and beauty. Strictly cloistered by her

36For examples, see Love in a Tub, Etherege; Sir Patient

Fancy, Behn; The Old Bachelor, Congreve; and Love and a
Bottle, Farquhar.
 82

guardians, she is physically innocent, but through ignorance

and lack of opportunity rather than through virtue and lack

of inclination. Once she arrives in town, she soon proves

herself as lascivious and greedy as any city woman by eagerly

seeking a husband, a gallant, or both,as well as a coach, ex-

pensive clothing, and all the other fashionable pleasures.

Insatiably curious, innately cunning, and naively outspoken,

she cannot hide her desires nor be kept from attaining them.

The three best examples of this rowdy type are Margery

Pinchwife in Wycherleyts The Country Wife; Prue in Congreve's

Love for Love; and Hoyden in Vanbrughts The Relapse. While

these lasses are individuals, they still exemplify the typical

country girl characteristics. However, it is noteworthy that

although all are licentious, each succeeding creation becomes

less a libertine in satisfying her sexual appetites. Margery

frankly commits adultery; Prue is willing to be seduced before

marriage, but her affair is interrupted; Hoyden does not

even consider love without marriage, yet she is definitely

eager for her wedding. Because of the disapproval of the

ladies toward extramarital sex experience on the stage, it

was becoming very unpopular in the last decade of the seven-

teenth century for any woman, regardless of her willingness,

to be ravished during a play. Still it would be incorrect to

think that either Prue or Hoyden is really reformed; society

stymies them, but their frank lustiness leaves no doubt that,

like Etherege's famous play title, they would if they could.

 83

Margery Pinchwife, the first outstanding rural maid, is

married to a jealous old coxcomb who chooses a young, in-

experienced country girl so that, as the rake Horner says,

he can keep a whore to himself. 37 Hoping to insure her ig-
norance, Pinchwife keeps Margery locked in her room, where

his constant warnings of city temptations whet her curiosity

about things she never knew existed before. She tells

Alithea, her sister-in-law, "Nay, I confess I was quiet

enough, till my Husband told me, what pure lives the London

Ladies live. . . ." Obstinately determined to enjoy as

many of the fashionable pleasures as possible, she is so

successful that linchwife's reason for marrying her becomes

invalid.

Described by critics of Restoration drama as "in-

stinctively wicked,""3 9 tnturallyvile,,,40 and "unconsciously

naughty,,Lt Margery is typical of comedy country women in her

natural penchant toward carnal gratification. Since her

37 The Country Wife, I, i, 20.

38
Ibid., III, i, 35.
3 9 Harold
N. Hillebrand, "Review of the Todd-Naylor
Edition of The Country Wife by Wycherley," Journal of Enslish
and German Philology, XXXI (October, 1932)7,C0.
40John Wilcox, The Relation of Moliere to Restoration
Comedy (New York, 1935, p. 91.
H4lerbert Elsworth Cory, "William Wycherley: The
Country
Wife," Dryden and His Contemporaries, Vol. IV in Representa-
tive English Comedies, edited by Charles Mill Gayley, 4 vols.
FTe York, 1903-36).,p. 264.
 84

husband is incapable of satisfying her desires, she eagerly

seizes every opportunity to learn and to practice the ways

of adultery. Her starved senses thoroughly aroused, she is

ready for any handsome male--butler, actor, farmer, rake.

She fixes her attention on Horner because he is available,

and once her lust is centered, her libido will not let her

rest until she has attained him.

Apparently Margery is one of the least intelligent of the

Restoration country women. No one, whether the scholars of

drama or the characters in the play, seems to have a very

high opinion of the country wifets mental abilities. Called

systematicallyy and sustainedly stupid" by one critic,42 she

is scornfully dismissed as the "idiot wife of a country

squire" by another. 4 3 Her husband and lover frequently refer

to her simplicity and also label her an "idiot," whether

their moods are loving or angry. Her ignorance is amply

illustrated; for example, she densely believes a casual

compliment to indicate true feeling and takes a just as

casual affair to be a lasting love. Furthermore, she is

completely dependent on Lucy, the maid, for the plot which

cuckolds her husband. Realizing her own inadequacies, she

quavers when her schemes are detected by Pinchwife: "I

have just got time to know of Lucy . . . who first set me

on work, what lye I shall tell next, for I am e'ne at my

4ElwinThe Playgoerts Handbook, p. 76.

43Palmer, The Comedy of Manners, quotes Macaulay, p. 23.

wits end--"'W She does not even have sense enough to keep
quiet about her desires, before or after she has given herself
to Horner. Nodd-Taylor is very much in the minority when she

describes largery as a kind of Mulberry Garden Desdemona, the

flower of truth and honesty, 4 5 for it is not her integrity, but

the fact that she "is not even a novice in casuistryi46 which
makes her foolishly blurt out her true thoughts. In fact, it
is only because of the combined pressures of Hornerts seraglio,
his friends, and Lucy that Margery reluctantly agrees to save
her marriage. However, for all her nescience, she blunders
through as well as the experienced city wives. Her desires
are satisfied, her husband is ignorant of it, and her honor,

while privately spoiled, is publicly unspotted.

A reflection of Margery Pinchwife,0 4 Prue is Congrevet s
contribution to the beautiful young rustic, eager to exchange

her country innocence for city experience. Certainly she is

as untutored in the ways of society as her predecessor; how-
ever, though unlearned, she does not seem stupid. The demure
cunning with which she learns her lessons and the abandoned

wantonness with which she tries to put them into practice

are in the finest spirit of comedy.)8

44 The Country Wife, V, i, 72.

4 5 Hillebrand, "Review of Todd-Naylor Edition," p. 606.
4 6 William Hazlitt, "On Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh,
and Farquhar," Lectures on English Comic Writers, Vol. III
of The Collected Works of William Hzlitt (London, 1903),
p. 76
k7bid., p. 77.
48Alexander Charles Ewald, editor, 4illiam Congreve,
Mermaid Series (New York, 1949), p. 195.
 86

Mr. Tattle, her teacher, is a foolish fop whose pseudo

grace and wit strike the naive country miss as the height

of elegance. When he asks her if he may make love to her,

she quickly acquiesces. Appalled at such unabashed frankness,

her would-be lover instructs her in the fashionable way of

making love: she must always say no when she means yes.,

always verbally withdraw while she physically yields. De-

lightedly she cries, "O Lord, I swear this is purely I like

it better than our old-fashioned country way of speaking

one's mind." 4 9 Thus she quickly masters the lessons, and

when he asks if she will show him to her bedchamber, she

replies, "No, indeed, won't I, but I shall run there and

hide myself from you behind the curtains.5O Suggesting his

all too obvious intentions, he gets the correct answer from

her: ". . . then I'll be more angry, and more complying."61

As he follows her, he approvingly sighs, "Oh, my dear apt

scholarL#52 However, the lesson is not completed, for they

are interrupted by Pruets nurse.

Naturally, the pupil cannot abide the rough seaman

designed for her husband, after such charming instruction

from the perfume-drenched Mr. Tattle. When her tutor seems

uninterested in marriage, Prue reverts to her bucolic manners

and demands that her father force the fop to wed, but

4 9Love for Love, II, 247.

,ii

50Ibia_., li, 1i, 248. 51 bi.q2Iid,

 87

Mr, Tattle, aspiring to higher things, unequivocally rejects

her. Somewhat daunted, Prue is undefeated. Insisting on

marriage at once, she protests as her father ushers her out

to be locked up again:

What, and must I not have eter a husband then?

Mhat, must I go to bed to nurse again, and be a
child as long as she's an old woman? Indeed but
I won't; for now my mind is set upop a man, I will
have a man some way or other. . . . '3
Hoyden is the last great interpretation of the typical

Restoration country girl. More comically cloistered than

her predecessors, she is locked in her room the minute a

male approaches the family estate, and her father and all

the servants arm themselves with guns, clubs, pitchforks,

and scythes to protect her innocence. Proud of his meticulous

care, her father gloats, "Ah poor Girl, she'll be scared out
of her Wits on her Wedding Night; for, honestly speaking,

she does not know a Man from a Woman, but by his Beard, and
his Britches."54 Belying his words, Hoyden, as frankly

outspoken as Margery and Prue, rails against her father's

oversolicitousness of her virtue:

Itts well 1 have a Husband a coming, or, Icod, I'd

marry the Baker, I would so. No body can knock at
the Gate, but presently I must be lockt up; and here's
the young Greyhound Bitch can run loose about the
House all the day long, she can; 'tis very well.2

53bia., V, il, 300.

54
The Relapse, II, v, 60. All references to this play
.

are to Vanbrugh, Comple te Works, Vol. I

.

55Ibid., III, v, 59.

 88

Taine says she has the spirit of a goat;5 6 certainly, she

can hardly wait for her nuptials. When told she must delay
the ceremony for a week, she is horrified: "A week,--why,
I shall be an old Woman by that time."57

Although eager for fulfillment of her sensual desires,

she is indifferent as to who satisfies them, for just as

important as her lust is her avidity for the life of a London

lady. Consequently, as long as a man can place her in the

midst of elegant urban life, she will take him. Explaining

her attitude to her governess, she says of one of her suitors:

Love him? Why do you think I love him, Nurse?

Icod, I would not care if he were hanged, so I
were but once Married to him--No--that which pleases
me, is to think what work I'll make when I get to
London; for when I am a Wife and a Lady both
Nurse, Icod, I'll flaunt it with the best of 'em.58

It is primarily to attain the frivolities of the city

that she becomes a bigamist. Secretly married to Squire

Fashion, who pretends to be his brother Lord Foppington in

order to gain the rich heiress, she decides to conceal her

first nuptials, marry the real peer, and become a titled

lady. Even though she finds the young squire much more

attractive physically (". . . he'd have made a Husband worth

two of this I have") 9 she still prefers the wealth and pomp

5 6 Hippolyte Adolphe Taine, Histo of English Liters-

ture, translated by H. Van Laun (Philadelphia,15979), II, 200.
57Te Relapse, IV, i, 62. 58_Ibid., IV, i, 61.
591bid., V, v, 93.
 89

which go with Lord Foppington ("If I leave my Lord, 1 must

leave my Lady too; and when I rattle about the Streets in

my Coach, they'll only say, there goes Mistress--mistress--

60
kistress what?") She renounces her second marriage only

when she learns that the two hundred pounds promised for pin

money is to cover all expenses, not just pins; then she de-

cides to purchase her first husband a knightship and live as

lavishly as possible on her own fortune.

Farquharts two inexperienced country girls are somewhat

atypical, First of all, they are from the lower classes and

have no wealth. Rose, a pretty young farm girl in The Re-

cruitin Officer, is quite lusty in her desire for love and

marriage, but unlike most Restoration country maidens, she

does not yearn for London. Instead, her ambition is merely

to be a captains lady in a velvet saddle upon a white horse.

Although she converses almost entirely in double-entendres,

it is almost impossible to decide whether she is naively

innocent or mischievously naughty. At any rate, she is still

physically virtuous at the end of the play--perhaps more from

want of opportunity than from moral conviction.

In The Beaux'Stratagem Farquhar portrays the delightful

Cherry Boniface, daughter of a rural innkeeper. Unlike the

usual country parent, Cherry's father urges her to make love

to Archer, a disguised gallant, in order to acquire knowledge

of his money. Although she admittedly loves him, if she

60 Ibid., V, v, 94.
 90

yields her final favors, Farquhar never says so. He does

feature her in one of the most charming of all lesson scenes

in which she recites the witty catechism of love taught her

by Archer, 6 1 Not typically ignorant ofthe fashionable

world, she reads plays, keeps a monkey, suffers with "vapours,

and speaks with real wit. She is, in fact, so obviously not

a country bumpkin that Archer suspects she must be of better

ancestry than Boniface can afford.

The Antiquated Belle

Conflict between youth and age is traditional, but sel-

dom on the stage has it become as vicious as during the

Restoration.62 Neither reverence nor mercy is shown to

those past their youth. For the woman this means that at

about twenty her day is over,63 and at thirty she is old. 6 4

1f she accepts her limitations, she will be ignored; if she

attempts to overcome them, she will be ridiculed.

In her study of the treatment of the aged in Restoration
drama, Elizabeth Mignon gave two main reasons for the cruelly
contemptuous attitude toward the old. First, Charles IIts
return to the throne brought a revolt from and derision of

the constricting morality of puritanism; naturally, the

elderly were associated with the past and its discarded be-
liefs. Second, the rigid social structure of the period which

6 1 The Beauxt Stratagem, II, ili, 269-71.

6 2Mignon, Crabbed Aqe, PP. 3-4.
63p. 21. 6 4 Ibid.,
p. 29.
 91

made wit and charm essential for acceptance into the beau

monde excluded all who had passed their prime. Age itself

prevented one from being freshly beautiful, aptly witty,

and modernly up to date on society's latest fads and

foibles.65 Thus, the old must stumble and fall behind,

perennial witwoulds.

Most painstakingly developed and amusingly drawn of

the old women are the superannuated belles, those ladies

past rambling age who cannot give up the sport. The more

they try to camouflage or compensate their decayed charms,

the more they are mocked and mortified. Eagerly proclaiming

their vanishing or nonexistent charms, they pursue gallants

who frequently already prefer their daughters or wards. Al-

though amicably available for any affair, the old belles

feign a great disgust for sexual gratification and hypo-

critically profess honor dearer than life. Since they are

usually widows, there is nothing morally wrong with their

desire to marry, but socially the idea of the deteriorated

female seeking a brisk young gallant was contemptible to the

Restoration beau monde. No old woman in the plays of this

period succeeds in either wedding or bedding except through

money or trickery. As a consequence, she is usually

maliciously revengeful.

65jbid.., pp. 4-5.

 92

One of the first and one of the best portraits of the

amorous old woman is Lady Cockwood, the "she" in Etherege's

She Wou'd IfShe Coutd. Although practically every scholar

of the Restoration period discusses her, there is disagreement

as to what primarily motivates Lady Cockwood. Naturally,

Mignon finds age the key to her characterization.66 To Gosse,

however, she is "a female Tartuffe, a woman of loud religious

pretensions who demands respect and devotion for her piety,

and who is really engaged all the time in vain prosecution

of a disgraceful intrigue." 6 Wilcox vehemently dismisses

this opinion as being "long since refuted by repeatedly

observed evidence" and claims that her only hypocrisy con-

sists in her countrified efforts to fool her husband and to

maintain the externals of social decency.68 To him,69 as

well as to Brett-Smith, she is simply a lascivious woman

who pursues gallants because they will not pursue her; 7 0

thus, her motivation lies in the reversal of the hunter and

the quarry roles. Also disagreeing with Gosse, Elwin finds

her too human for a Tartuffe, although he does believe that

she has added an eleventh commandment-- "thou shalt not be

661bid., p. 39.
6 7 EdmundGosse, "Sir George Etherege," Seventeenth Cen-
tury Studies, A Contribution to the Histor of English Poetry
(London, 1893), p. 243.
68
Wilcox, The Relation of Moli're, p. 18.
69 Ibid., p. 78.
7 0 Brett-Smith, Etherege I, lxxvi.
 93

found out"--which governs all her behaviour. 1 Taking a

different approach, Lynch believes her "a woman of social

pretensions whose attempts at illicit romance are wrecked

by the pressure of a social standard she lacks the intelli-

gence to comprehend." 72 Fujimura finds her, instead, a

naturalistic study of a sensual woman unhappily married to

a man who shuns his marital duties.7 3 Kronenberger agrees

that she is driven by sexual desires but finds her vanity

and malicious spite are also strong motivating forces.7 4

Certainly her age is against her. She is referred to in

the play as an "old Rook," 75 an "old devil," 7 6 and an "old

Haggard, "7 among other derogatory labels. She has definitely

reached the age beyond which no Restoration woman may parti-

cipate in the love game without appearing ludicrous. Courtall

finds her "the very spirit of impertinence, so foolishly fond
and troublesom, that no man above sixteen is able to endure

her.
There is no denying she is a notorious hypocrite, for

while she is unscrupulously seeking an intrigue, she is

7 1 Elwin,
Playgoers Handbook, p. 65.
7 2 Lynch,
Social Mode, p. 154.
73 Fujimura,
Restoration CPP 95-96.
74 Kronenberger, Thread of La p@. 46.
75She Woud If She Coutd, 1I, i, 104.
76 Ibid.,
IV, ii, l3. 77 Ibid.,
III, 1, 122.
78 Ibid., I, i, 98.
 94

fervidly declaring herself the soul of honor, Her husband,

however, is probably the only one taken in by her frequent

avowals of strictest conventional morality. Calculating

on his abject shame in mistreating the woman he considers

his fond, virtuous wife when he goes on a spree, she covertly

encourages his lapses so that she can do as she pleases during

his periods of penance. One of the best scenes in the play

finds her engaged in a surreptitious meeting in a public

restaurant to which, she learns, her husband has come for

the same purpose as she. Furious at the interruption and

fearful of discovery, she is, nevertheless, fervently bent

on upbraiding her husbands perfidy. Although she has quite

a struggle with her mixed emotions, she at last determines to

blame her husband before he can censure her.

Even before her maid, who frequently must take an active

part in arranging clandestine meetings, Lady Cockwood keeps

up her pretensions to honor. Following an interview with the

gallant Courtall which she has sought, she berates Mrs.

Sentry for leaving her alone with a man:

L. Cock. What a strange thing is this will you
never take warning, but still be leaving me alone in
these suspicious occasions?

Sent. I was but in the next room, Madam.

L. Cock. What may Mr. Courtall think of my
innocent intentions? I protest if you serve me so
again, I shall be strangely angry: you should have
more regard to your Lady's Honour. 7 9

7 9 Ibid.,
II, 1ii, 113.
Mrs. Sentry is not fooled, however, for she realizes that if
she stays in the room, her lady "will not speak kindly . .

.
a week after."80 Trying to impress everyone with her in-

nocence, Lady Cockwood feigns great reluctance in going to

a public eating house: "Dear, how I trembled I never was

in one of these houses before. 8l Again Sentry, for one, is

not impressed; she says aside: "This is a Bait . . . ; she

has been in most of the Eating-Houses about Town to my

knowledge."82 It is indeed this virtuous cant which en-

ables Courtall to elude her passionate advances, for he

pretends so great a concern for her honor that he will not

touch her. Appreciative of the respectful solicitude, but

nonetheless eager for the lewd deed, she suggests, "Methinks

you are too scrupulous, heroick Sir."13

Although she is not really very particular as to who

satisfies her lust, she is furious when she realizes Courtall

has more interest in her niece than in herself: "How am I

filled with indignation To find my person and my passion

both despised, and what is more, so much precious time fooled

away in fruitless expectation: . . .4 Like all amorous

old huntresses, she finds her desires stronger than any

shame and undeterred by rebuffs; immediately she begins a

8 0 Ibid. 8 1Ibid., ITI, iii, 129. 2Ibid.

83Ibid., III, 1, 124. 84Ibid.,iv, 1, 145.
 96

new intrigue. Still, she maliciously tries to ruin Courtall's

love affair with her niece and his friendship with her hus-

band by maligning his character.

The fifth act brings ignominious defeat to Lady Cockwood.

Her dear honor is safe, but her equally dear passion is un-

satisfied. Certainly Fortune was never before so unkind to

the Ambition of a Lady, 85 she mourns. Resolving to retire

to the country, she probably will take Courtall t s advice to

"entertain an able Chaplain," 8 6 for she remains as obdurate

as ever in her sexual desires.8 7

Unlike Lady Cockwood, Lady Woodvil in Etheregets Man of

Mode does not seriously strive to enter into the charmed

circle of youth; instead, she looks back to the "good old

days." As the gallant Medley says,. she is "a great admirer

of the Forms and Civility of the last Age." 8 8 Constantly

berating the present modes as uncouth and vulgar, she de-

clares, ". . . it was not so when I was a young Woman."8 9

Perhaps her condemnations are somewhat justified, for "An

antiquated beauty may be allowed to be out of humour at the

freedoms of the present," 9 0 a rake remarks.

However, she refuses to admit that youth is necessary

to charm and beauty, thereby insinuating that she still

85Ibid., V, i, 178. 8 61bid.

8 7Fujimura,
Restoration 4yp. 98.
8 8 Man of Mode, I, i, 193.
8Ibid.,ITI, i, 223. 9 0 Ibid.,
I, i, 193.
 97

possesses both qualities. In the following excerpt Dorimant,

a gallant posing as Mr. Courtage, a lover of the past as his

name implies, mocks her delusions of glamorous age:

Dor. They pretend to be great Criticks in Beauty,

by their talk you would think they lik'd no face, and
yet can doat on an ill one, if it belong to a Landress
or a Taylors daughter: they cry a Woman's past her
prime at 20, decayed at four and 20, old and unsuffer-
able at 30.

L. Wood. Unsufferable at 301 That they are in

the wrong, Mr. Courtage, at five and 30, there are
living proofs enough to convince tem.

Dor. Ay, Madam) there's Mrs. Setlooks, Mrs.

Droplip, and my Lady LowdL shew me among all our
opening Buds, a face that promises so much Beauty
as the remains of theirs.

L. Wood. The depraved appetite of this Vicious

Age tast's nothing but green Fruit, and loaths it
when 'tis kindly ripened.

Dor. Else so many deserving Women, Madam, would

not be so untimely neglected. 9 1

Even worse than her delusions of ripened charm and

beauty is the fact that she has not given up the pursuit of

romance. Although she does not appear to have the burning

sexual urge Kronenberger discerns, 9 2 she certainly does try

to captivate Dorimant, still disguised as Mr. Courtage.

Harriet describes scornfully her mother's attempts to be

alluring. "See, seet her head tottering, her Eyes staring,

and her under-lip trembling--" 9 3 Although she is already

9 1 Ibid., IV, i, 245-46.

9 2 Kronenberger, Thread of Laughter, p. 145.

93Man of Mode, IV, i, 255.

 98

tired, Lady Woodvil cries, "One Dance morel I cannot refuse

you, Mr. Courtage.9F94 To just what point her rebudding

sexual drive would have carried her is uncertain, for

Dorimant's true identity is revealed at their next meeting.

As usual, age is defeated. Lady Woodvil's utmost care

to keep her daughter from the wicked men of the period, es-

pecially Dorimant, whom she believes to be the worst, has

utterly failed, and she, of course, appears ridiculous for

her attempts at romance with the man she most hates and

fears. Ignobly beaten, she is not revengeful as most old

belles, but determines to run back to the woods where she

belongs and since she cannot avoid it to let youth have its

own way.

Perhaps the most desperate of all the old huntresses

is Wycherley's Lady Flippant in Love in a Wood. A widow,

she is frantically searching for a husband while pretending

an aversion to matrimony. She explains her actions by say-

ing, "I cannot deny, but I always rail against Marriage

Which is the Widows way to it certainly.,'95 However, no one

is either fooled or attracted by her subterfuge. Since her

fortune is gone, her need is particularly urgent; conse-

quently, she has stooped to engaging a bawd to match her

with Sir Addlepot, an awkward knight reputed to have money.

941bid ., IV, i, 246.

95Love in a Wood, I, i, 74. All references to this

play are to Wycherley, Complete Works, Vol. I.
 99

Desperate as her need for marriage is, her desire for

sexual satisfaction seems even more frenzied. Of course,

she is just as hypocritical about her lusts as she is her

pursuit of a husband; for example, disparaging Lydia, her

young friend, for wanting to walk in the park, she deliber-

ately loses the girl because she thinks she will have a

better chance of being accosted if she is alone. Nymphomani-

acal, the widow hates anything which interferes with the

gratification of her carnality. When the gallants she has

flirted with in the park do not follow her, she cries in

vexation: ". . . a PoxI the lazie Rogues come not, or they

are Drunk and cannot run; Oh drink, abominable drinkI instead

of inflaming Love, it quenches it. . . Curse on all Wine,

even Rhenish-Wine and Sugar--"9 Her avid desire reaches

hilarious peaks when she literally chases a gallant around

the room still protesting her aversion to sex and when she

seduces her brother's clerk because she nearsightedly does

not recognize him as Sir Addlepot in disguise.

Like Lady Cockwood, Lady Flippant is too old to seek

out amours without appearing laughable. Although she claims

97 other members of the cast
her "Person's in good repair,

do not seem to agree with her. Sir Addlepot describes her

as "bow-leggId, hopper-hipped, and betwixt Pomatum and

96 Ibid., 9 7 Ibid., I, i, 73.

II, ii, 116.
 100

Spanish Red, has a Complexion like a Holland Cheese, and no

more Teeth left, than such as give a Haust-gaust to her

breath. . . .9 Unable to face the truth about herself even

after overhearing this verbal picture, Lady Flippant rational-

izes: "Oh Rascall he has heard some body else say all this

of me. . * *"99 Attempts to remedy her defects merely point

up her senility: ". . . my eyes are none of the best, since

I have ustd the last new eye wash of Mercury water. . .,100
she confesses. Still she does capture her knight, although

the victory is a hollow one. Both are fortune hunters, who

do not have good hunting.

Although Kronenberger finds Lady Flippantt s furious

passion appalling rather than amusing, 01 to Fujimura she

102
is the most original and humorous character in the play.

Certainly, she is even bolder and franker in her speech than

most other women of her type, yet she is also witty and

satirical. Astonished when asked if she did not love her

first husband, she remonstrates: "Fye . . . do you think

me so ill bred, as to love a Husband." 1 0 3 Not as fine an

over-ell. creation as her predecessor Cockwood or her suc-

cessor Wishfort (The Way of the World, Congreve), Lady

Flippant is still enjoyable, especially since most of her

9 9 Ibid.
98Ibid., Ii, i, 91.
10'Ibid.,
0 IV, ii, 122.
1 0 1 Kronenberger, Thread of Laughter, p. 58.
1 0 2 Fujimura, Restoration Comedy, p. 128.
1 0 3 Love in a Wood, III, ii, 116.
 101

speeches furnish both the pleasure of her wit and the

author's ironic exposure of her insincerity.104

Probably the best known of this species is Congrevets

Lady Wishfort in The Way of the World; the critics, however,

are divided concerning the merits of her characterization.

Mignon calls her the "greatest of all superannuated belles,itlQ5

and Elwin, seeing her as the central figure in the play,

finds her "a delightfully diverting comic creation.fl10 6 On

the other hand, Fujimura feels that "Congreve himself did

not regard her too highly, because she is not sufficiently

natural, and ingredients of her character are too apparent,n 1 0 7

and Dobrde claims she is almost an abstract satire.108 The

09
nineteenth century scholars Dobr4e1 and Street find her a

pathetic figure, approaching tragedy,110 and Ward, a writer

of the same period, concludes that she is too offensive for

comedy. However, most modern critics believe her to be a

comic character for whom only Victorian sentimentalists

112
could weep.

10 4 Fujimura, Restoration Comedy, p. 128.

105mignon, Crabbed A ge, p. 121.
1 0 6 Elwin, Playgoer's Handbook, p. 176.
1 0 7 Fujimura, Restoration Comedy, p. 194.
l0 8 DobreRestoration Comedy, p. 147. 1 0 91bid.

1 1 0 Mignon, Crabbed A-e, p. 121.

1 1 1 Ward, History of English Dramatic Literature, p. 475.
1 1 2 Mignon, Crabbed Age, p. 121.
 102

No matter what the period, most scholars agree that her

language is a magnificent achievement. Meredith's judgment

is often quoted:

Her flow of boudoir Billingsgate is unmatched for the

vigour and pointedness of the tongue. It spins along
with a final ring, like the voice of Nature in a
Fury, and is indeed the racy eloquence of the educated
fishwife.1l3

A "vocabulary of vituperation both rich and rare .. . , very

piquant without being disgusting" is Tupper's opinionl1 4

and Lynch discerns a "shrewd cutting irony and keen sense of

humor" which extends even to the knowledge of her own decay-

ing charms.115 It is her novel malapropisms which most im-

press Fujimura, who believes she is "better and wittier than

Mrs. Malaprop, because her mistakes are not nonsensical but

have an ingredient of sense in them.k,16

At fifty-five Lady Wishfort has deteriorated past re-

demption in her physical appearance, but she resolutely tries

to repair the damage with paint and wine. Her decay is

vividly pointed out by the other characters; for example,

Waitwell, a valet disguised as a knight, calls her "the

antidote to desire. tll7 When asked if he does not recognize

113Meredith, An Essay o n Comedy, p. 101.

ll 4 Tupper and Tupper, Representative English Dramas,

p. 299.
115Lynch, Social Mode, p. 211.
116
Fujimura, Restoration Comedy, p. 195.
11 7 The
Way of the World, IV, ii, 385.
 103

his own mistress, a footman replies, "Why, truly, . . . I

cannot safely swear to her face in a morning, before she is

dressed. Tis like I may give a shrewd guess at her by

this time." 11 8 Even Lady Wishfort is at times conscious of

her defects. When Foible suggests that she has frowned too

rashly, for there are "some cracks discernible in the white

varnish," the lady screams, "Cracks, sayest thou?--why, I am

errantly flayed--I look like an old peeled wall."119

Still, though her equipment may not be in the best re-

pair, she is not going to give up the game of love and mar-

riage. Before she ever appears on the stage, the audience

is informed that "my lady will do anything to get a hus-

band" 1 20 and that "the good lady would marry anything that

resembled a man.l 2 1 Confirming these opinions, her first

122
speech to "Sir Rowland" suggests a wedding.
Actually she cannot really comprehend that all her

charms are gone. Grotesquely assuming that she is still

alluring, she plans her actions with "Sir Rowland":

. . . a little scorn is alluring . . . but tenderness

becomes me best--a sort of dyingness--you see that
picture has a sort of a--ha, Foiblel a swimmingness
in the eye--yes Ill look so--my niece affects it;
but she wants features. 1 2 3

Later, she even works out a complete strategy for the first
meeting, finally choosing to give "his heart the first

1 1 8I1bid., III, 111, 363. 1 19 Ibid., III, i, 355.

1 2 0 Ibid., II, li, 344. 1 2 1 Ibid.
1 2 2 Ibid., IV, ii, 383. 1 2 31bid., III, i, 355.
 104

impression" from a couch where she will be leaning upon one

elbow with a foot dangling off the side. 0, nothing is

more alluring than a levee from a couch, in some con-

fusion . . . ," she decides.12 4

Desperately deluding herself as much as possible, she

tries to minimize her age by declaring her nephew really too

125
young to marry, although he is forty. Her illusions of

charm become so magnified that she expatiates Mirabellts

pretended courtship126 of her into "the hours that he has

died away at my feet, the tears that he has shed, the oaths

that he has sworn, the palpitations, . . . the trances and

the tremblings, the ardours and the ecstacies, the kneel-

ings, . . . the heart-heavings. . . .1*27

Something of a hypocrite, Lady Wishfort superficially

protests adherence to conventions and proclaims Ia mortal

terror at the apprehension of offending against decorums.11l2 8

Censuring both plays and playhouses, she stocks her reading

shelves with puritanical literature, but good red wine in

ample proportions sits alongside. Her cabal nights are a

subterfuge to rail at men while she is really on the prowl

for a husband. When her schemes have gone awry, she begs

Marwood to retire to the country to become a shepherdess

124bid., Iv, 1,9371. 1251bid., III, 11,4358.

Mignon, Crabbed Age, p. 126.
127Theay of the World, V, ii, 384.

128Ibid., 112, ,356.

 105

with her, 1 2 9 but only four pages later she refuses to promise
not to wed on the grounds that marriage may prove necessary

to her health.1 3 0 Thus she leaves no doubt as to the eager-

ness of her physical desires--her name alone would discover

her lust, but still she disclaims any 'sinister appetite,

or indigestion of widowhood; nor . . . lethargy of con-

tinence--.4131

A dictatorial, irritable, garrulous old harridan in her

boudoir, she is domineering, dignified, and baroquely polite

in her drawing room. Her servants are so abused that they

rarely stay more than 0 week; on the other hand, her home

is the center of activities for her social circle. She

wavers from acute realism ("Smellst he would poison a

tallow-chandler and his familyt") 1 3 2 to decorous nicety

(I have an affair of moment that invades me with some pre"

cipitation. . . .",)133 in the space of seconds, And her

rages are awe-inspiring. The servants hide; family and

friends duck.

Of course, none of Lady Wishfortts plans work out. She

not only is unable to revenge herself upon Mirabell, but she

is also forced to give him Millamant and a dowry, thereby

making the gallant the happiest of men. However, the most

calamitous misfortune is that she does not acquire a husband.

1291b ,sV, ip 391, 130Ibid . ,45,

1 3 1 Ibid., IV, i, 384. 1 3 2 Ibid., IV, 11, 382.
1 3 31bid.,
IV, ii, 383.
 106

A humiliated old woman, she recognizes her failing strength:

"As I am a person, I can hold out no longer,--I have wasted

my spirits so to-day already, that I am ready to sink under

the fatigue. . . ."t134 Nevertheless, there is no indication

that she has given up her "superannuated frippery." Tomorrow

will find her painting, drinking, screaming, flattering,

and searching secretly but diligently for a man. The next

"Sir Rowland" definitely stands a chance.

The amorous old huntress is featured by many other

Restoration playwrights.135 Particularly fond of the type,

Shadwell portrays such examples as Lady Loveyouth in The

Humourists, Lady Gimcrack in The Virtuoso, Belliza in The

Amourous B Lady Naggott in The Scourers, and others.136

In each of the plays named here the old woman desires the

same man as her daughter or ward, but, of course, is finally

humiliated for her audacious desires. Lady Fantast in Bury

Fair is perhaps his best creation of this sort. Although not

actively engaged in pursuit during the play, she leaves no

doubt that she has not given up the game of romance; like-

wise, her husband leaves no doubt that she is unfit for the

sport since her charms have long since decayed. "You would

134Ibid., V3, 11, 404.

135For examples, see Dryden's Limberham; Crownets Sir

Courtly Nice; and Cibberts The Refusal.
1 36Examples include Lady Shacklewood in The Lancashire
Witches and Lady Cheatly in The True Widow.
 107

by art appear a beauty and are by nature a mere mummyu1 37

he condemns. A Francophile and pr ieuse, she is both proud

of her wit and breeding and apologetic for not having been

born French.13 3

Aphra Behn drew two ludicrous old huntresses in Lady

Knowell (Sir Patient Fancy) and Lady Youthly (The Younger

Brother). Verbally denying love, Lady Knowell, an old

pedant, maligns her own daughter in an effort to capture the

gallant Leander. In one of the most amusing scenes in the

play, Lady Knowell and Leander make a perverted prbviso,

which, far from being a cynical match of wits, simply dis-

integrates into complete approval by the lady of all his

desires, including unrestrained, unprotested postmarital

dissipation and infidelity.1 3 9

Unable to accept the truth about her extreme age, Lady

Youthly deludes herself into thinking she is actually de-

sired by a gallant young enough to be her grandson. Constant

references are made to her decayed appearance; she is called
an "Old Cathedral"t1h and "Old Queen Gwiniver without her
ruff on."ih Someone wonders how she escaped the flood14 2

137Bury Fair, III, i, 382. All references to this play

are to Shadwell, Copete Works, Vol. IV.
138Ibid., II, i, 393.
1 3 9 sir
Patient sangy,
V, i, 94. All references to this
play are to Behn, Works, Vol. IV.
140The Younger Brother, III, i, 360.
141Ibid., TV, iii, 380. 1 4 2lbid., I, 11, 338.
 108

and another describes her as old as timeel43 Yet she en-

thusiastically cries when the young man's father pushes him

toward her: "Well, well, Ill defer your Joys no longer,

this Night shall make you happy, . .. 4

As the heroine becomes sentimentalized, so does the old
woman; both become women of "sense." The oldster gives up

vanity and gains dignity; she admits her age and acquires

respect. Finally, she foregoes chasing men and, therefore,

is no longer humiliated. Congreve is the last of the five

major playwrights to portray a laughable old woman of quality;

in fact, Vanbrugh includes no old ladies at all in his

original plays. Although Farquhar does produce Mandrake, she

is despicable rather than ludicrous, and it is her profession

and character rather than her age that are abhorrent. His
other ancient women, Lady Darling, The Constant Couple, and
Lady Bountiful, The Beauxi Stratagem, are more typical of the

change in characterization, for by the early eighteenth

century the rebelled-against oldster of the Restoration, who

is ridiculed for her follies and scorned for her infirmities,

is metamorphosed into a revered sage, whose wishes are

honored and whose judgment is respected.

Although Mignon terms Lady Bountiful the first good old

woman, 145Lady Darling is certainly not at all wicked; she

is, however, somewhat deficient in judgment. Sir Harry

14 3Ibid., IV, iii, 381. 144Ibid., TV, iii, 382.

V45Mignon, Crabbed Age, p. 73.

 109

Wildair, a wealthy knight, has been informed that Lady Darling

is a bawd and her daughter Angelica, a whore; he treats them

accordingly. Blinded by her hopes of a brilliant match for

her child, the old woman accepts his ill-usage and encourages

Angelica to be amicable . When her daughter complains of the

knights lack of respect, she remonstrates, "I'm afraid,

you mistake Sir Harry's gaiety for dishonour.,1 4 6 Even

though her age and lack of discernment are treated humor-

ously, the lady is not a figure of ridicule. Making no ef-

fort to be young or alluring, she helps rather than hinders

the lovers.

Despite the fact that her medicinal recipes make her

a target for laughter, Lady Bountiful is still a sympathetic
character. Before she appears on the stage, she is described

by a villager as "one of the best of women, "lJ47 and she is

given credit for curing "more people in and about Lichfield

within ten years than the doctors have killed in twenty." 1l 8

As much as her daughter-in-law hates her husband, she still

respects the amateur physician, whom she calls "the good old

gent lewoman."1 4 9

Like Lady Darling, she lacks judgment. When Aimwell, a

London gallant, pretends to have a fit in order to gain

146The Constant Couple, IV, i,207. All references to

this play are to Farquhar, Dramatic Works, Vol. I.
147The Beaux' Stratage, I, i, 246.

I18bi d. 149I bid . ,II, A 29

 110

access to her house and daughter, she unwittingly assists him

in his purpose by encouraging the girl to be tender toward

the mock patient. Although not clever enough to see through

the gallant's ruse, she is never scorned as stupid or bucolic.

Pretending neither youth nor glamor, she usually acts with

common sense so that the total effect of her characterization

is one of kindness and affability made amusing, but not

ludicrous, by a touch of rustic backwardness.

The Scorned Mistress

Antiquated belles, to their regret, are scorned before

consummation; mistresses, equally regretful, are scorned

afterward. Neatly summed up in Etherege's song is the plight

of the Restoration woman who gives herself before marriage:

And Jenne was all my Joy,

She had my Heart at her will;
But I left her and her toy
When once I had got my fill.. 1

No matter how great her quality or how sincere her love, she

is destined to be cast off as soon as her gallant finds

another lady or simply tires of the one he has. Typically,

the male agrees with the rakish Horner, who opines, "And
next to the pleasure of making a New Mistress, is that of

being rid of an old One."151

Naturally this woman, who is unable to control her

passion and deny her gallant, is regarded as foolish in

150Etherege, Love in a Tub, II, 111, 26.

151wycherley, The Country 1Nife,
I, i, 14.
Restoration comedies, for she is predestined to be the loser

in her romantic adventure. Of course, she can never hope to

marry her beau now that he has already had all he wishes from

her; having made her favors cheap, she must expect them to

be soon discarded. To object to being cast off is considered

unreasonable, for the rake's philosophy is well known: love

is transitory and constancy, impossible. Consequently, the

overfond mistress who would keep a man when he is ready to

be rid of her is an object of ridicule to be dispatched

rlgorouslr but wittily by her lover. At the same time, a

woman of breeding does not take such treatment lightly and

frequently bears full witness to the old saw concerning

hell's fury and scorned woman. Motivated by wounded pride,

jealousy, and unsatisfied erotic passion, the rejected lady

frequently tries to impair her false lover's present schemes

in order to revenge her treatment and perhaps to recapture

his love.
Etherege portrays two such women in The Pan of Mode.

Both possess beauty and breeding; both love and lose Dorimant,

who finally proposes marriage to a girl who will not yield

without it. However, unlike most scorned women, neither

attempts to avenge herself; ignorance of the identity of

Dorimant's new amorata rather than charity probably prompts

this restraint. Mrs. Loveit, the gallant's first love in

the play, completely abandons herself to the romance. Though
her love is true and passionate, Dorimant grows weary and
 112

seeks a fresh intrigue. No mawkish sentimentalist whining

about her lost virtue, Loveit is chagrined because she fer-

vently loves a man who does not care for her. She is aware
of the helplessness of her situation and struggles valiantly

against her emotions.

Loveit is rejected in favor of her best friend Belinda,

who possessively insists that Dorimant sever all ties to his

old mistress. Concealing her passion from the world, the

double dealer is in a position to see and appreciate her

predecessors fate, After the gallant's cruelly witty con-

clusion of his affair with Loveit, Belinda says:

H'as given me the proof which I desired of his love,

But ttis proof of his ill nature too;
I wish I had not seen him use her so.
I sigh to think that Dorimant may be
One day as faithless and unkind to me.l52

Forewarned by both general and specific data, she still does

not take advantage of her knowledge. Needless to say, she,
too, is discarded as her flighty lover transfers his affec-
tions elsewhere. Somewhat more fortunate than Loveit,

Belinda's illicit affair remains a secret, which although

painful seems at last to have taught her something. She
penitently begs aside in the final act: "Let me but escape
this time, Ill never venture more.ol,53
In Silvia (The Old Bachelor) Congreve has drawn his
interpretation of the well-bred but castoff woman. Ignored

152Nan of Mode, II, ii, 218.

13Ibid., V, is 274.
 113

by Vainlove, her ex-gallant, for some time, she even takes

another lover in her desperate attempts to forget him. She

is so unsuccessful that her new friend admits she pretends

he is Vainlove during their more erotic moments. Since she

wants her first lover back at any price, she vigorously

pursues him while obsequiously pleading her love and forgive-

ness for his ill treatment; all of her tactics serve only
to make her more despicable to Vainlove, who is bored once
a conquest is completed. At last hoping to win him back, she

vengefully attempts to ruin his new affair. Although her

maneuver Is an obstacle in the plot, it is, of course,

ultimately unsuccessful, Unreconciled but practical, Silvia

marries another.

More violent in her persistent though scorned pursuit

is Lady Touchwood in Congrevets The Double Dealer. Although

usually the scorned woman is considered amusing because of

her lack of judgment, no one, scholars or other characters

in the play, seems to think Lady Touchwood is funny.

Fujimura declares her unredeemed by any gaiety or wit and

more disturbing than diverting,154 and Hazlitt discerns in

her "measured tones" the characteristics of a tragic queen.155

Because her "hot blood and cold fury" appear more like

154Fujimura, Restoration Comedy, p. 172.

155Hazitt, 'On Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and

Farquhar," p. 72.
 114

Elizabethan than like Restoration theater, Kronenberger thinks

she seems cast in the wrong play.156 Mellefont, her husband's

heir and the object of her formidable passion, rather than

being amused as most gallants are, is appalled, "for hell is

not, more busy than her brain, nor contains more devils than

that imaginationso.0157

As her name implies, Lady Touchwood is completely decayed

morally. Insatiable, her lascivious desires are repugnant

to Mellefont, but his repudiation of them serves only to make

her more tenacious in her efforts to satisfy her lust and

more fiercely bent on revenge. When the gallant of her

choice refuses her, she nefariously becomes the mistress of

her husband's servant Maskwell, for whom she cares nothing;

he is merely an instrument by whom she hopes to have a child,

thereby disinheriting Mellefont. Her other schemes to injure

the heir are as iniquitous and more successful as she ruins

his marriage plans, his reputation, and his chances for in-
heriting his uncle's estate.

Although called a typical scorned woman,158 there is

one unusual aspect to Lady Touchwood's plight. She is ad-

mittedly handsome, yet Mellefont scorns her before any

ecstasies are enjoyed. Heretofore, while a manly gallant

might reject an old, ugly, or extremely foolish woman, he

156Kronenberger, Thread of La p. 123.

157The Double Dealer, I, i, 131.
158Fujimura, Restoration Comedy, p. 172.
 115

never turned down a night's pleasure with an attractive

partner no matter how much he might be in love with someone

else. 1 59 More violent because never satisfied, Lady Touch-

wood's malignant passion is a furious mixture of both love

and hate. "Oh Mellefontt I burn. . . . Despair strikes me.

Yet my soul knows I hate him too: let him but once be mine,
and next immediate ruin seize him." 1 6 0 Just as she is more
wicked and more rashly impetuous than the usual scorned

woman, her punishment is more severe. She never gains the

man she desires; her true character is exposed to the world;

and her husband irrevocably casts her off.

Congreve portrays three rejected women in The Way of

the World: Lady ishfort, an old woman, and Marwood and

Fainall, both young and beautiful. The latter character is

unique. Thinking herself pregnant with Mirabell's child,

the attractive widow has married another. Still enamored of

her gallant, she nevertheless has wit enough to perceive his
new passion for her cousin fillamant and pride enough not to

press her unwanted suit. No longer desired as a paramour,

she determines to remain a friend, and tactfully concealing

her love, she becomes Mirabell's chief conspirator and as-

sistant in his new affair. She is also scorned by her

159por examples, see Man of Mode, Etherege; Wells,

Shadwell; Sir Patient Fancy, Behn; The Old Bachelor,
Congreve.

16 0 The Double Dealer, I, 111, 139.

 116

husband, who loves his mistress Marwood, but she could not

care less.

Diametrically opposed, Marwood suffers the same lack of

interest which racks Lady Touchwood, and she too is malig-

nantly intent upon despoiling all the plans of the neglectful

gallant. She considers her plight much worse than Fainallts.

"But say what you will, 'tis better to be left, than never

to have been loved,"170 she reasons. Feigning contempt for

men, her cankerous jealousy and ferocious desire are too

obvious to be concealed. The snickers of others and the

indifference of Mirabell feed her malevolence until she will

stoop to any spiteful act to destroy the man she loves.

Humiliatingly exposed in the last act, Marwood leaves the

stage still defiantly bent on revenge.

The Old Man's Darling

More successful in her attempts at sexual gratification,

the old man's darling (the youthful wife married to a fool-

ish old man) is typically a happy adulteress in the comedy

of manners. In fact, the elderly husband seems introduced

into the plays in order to wear horns dexterously placed

on his forehead by a young, beautiful, pleasure-loving

spouse, who has married him for money and fools him for love.
Natural hypocrites, the cheating wives usually manage to de-

ceive their husbands throughout the play; in fact, they are

170Th e y oof the World, II, i,336.

 117

frequently so adroit in their pretenses and the husband so

imbecilic in his ancient passion that he is happily convinced

she really cares while she happily cares where she will.

Portrayed in a decidedly comic spirit, the wives behavior

is not condoned except in the works of Aphra Behnx, who

glorifies the inconstant into a sympathetic, mistreated

heroine, rather than a fickle, lying clown. 1 7 1

Each of Congreve t s first three plays includes such a

woman in its cast. Laetitia in The Old Bachelor is the most

impudently lascivious. When the gallant she summons on the

absence of her husband sends another in his place, she ac-

cepts the substitute, unblushingly grateful for his discre-

tion and his youthful vigor. Justifiably jealous and

suspicious, the old husband reasons with himself: ". .. ,why

art thee distrustful of the wife of thy bosom?--because she
is young and vigourous, and I am old and impotent. Then,
why didst thee marry, Isaac?--because she was beautiful and

tempting, and because I was obstinate and doting; . 172

His weakness for her survives even the strongest proofs of

her dishonesty until at last, taking the weeping baggage

into his arms, he comforts, "Here, here, I do believe thee.--

I won't believe my own eyes."17 3

171For examples, see Lady Desbro in The Roundheads,

Lucia in Sir Patient Fancy; and Leticia in The Lucky Chance.
1 7 2 The Old Bachelor, IV, i, 81.

1731bid., IV, vi, 100.

 Old Foresight, the astrologer in Love for Love, has no

specific incident about which to accuse his wife, for she is

much too clever to be caught in her infidelities. Coolly

impersonal in her affairs, she flatly denies them even to

her love partners. "This I have heard of before, but never

believed. I have been told she had that admirable quality

of forgetting to a man's face in the morning that she had

laid with him all night, and denying that she had done favors

with more impudence than she could grant temA"74 one of her
lovers murmurs increduously when she snubs him the morning

after a passionate night. Only once does she show herself

anything but circumspect. Chiding her sister for frequent-

ing a disreputable public establishment, she offers a gold

bodkin as proof of the guilt; naturally, she betrays her own

visit as a consequence.175 However discreet she may be, no

one is really fooled, and several characters twit the old

husband about his perfidious wife. Foresight, still fond,
rationalizes: "she is young and sanguine, has a wanton hazel

eye, and was born under Gemini, which may incline her to

society. . .. 76

Congreve's best portrait of this type i Lady Plyant in

The Double Dealer. Married to Sir Paul, an uxorious old

fool, she takes her pleasures elsewhere, beguiling him tnto

174 Love for Love, IV, 111, 279.

1751bid., 11, ii, 243- 1761bid., 11, i, 235.

 119

thinking her "so nice . . . that . . . she would ZCnot7 touch

a man for the world;--at least not above once a year." 1 7 7

Ruling her husband completely, she lambasts him when he

tentatively disputes her word: "Gad's my life, the man's

distracted Why, how nowl . . . cantt I govern you? what
did I marry you for? Am I not to be absolute and uncon-

trollable ?1

When the gallant Mellefont describes her as "handsome,

and knows it, . . . very silly, and thinks she has

sense, . . ." .79 he is quite accurate He might have added

that she pretends great honor, but actually has very little.

Careless, Mellefont t s friend, lays siege to her, but he is

somewhat bewildered by her pious lingo: "I can't get an

answer from her that does not begin with her honour, or her

virtue, her religion, or some such cant."10 Yet she yields.

Initiating an amour with Mellefont, whom she believes is

marrying her stepdaughter to be near herself, Lady Plyant

denies she can succumb while she encourages him to try her.

I know Love is powerful, and nobody can help his pas-

sion: 'tis not your fault, nor I swear it is not
mine.--How can I help it, if I have charms? and
how can you help it if you are made a captive? I
swear it is a pity it should be a fault.--But my
honour,--well, but your honour too--but the sin:--
well, but the necessity . . . . Well you must
consider of your crime; and strive as much as you
can be against it,--strive, b sure--but don't be
melancholic, don't despair.l11

17 7 The' Double
Dealer, III, 111, 163.
178Ibid., II, i, 145. 179Ibid., I, i, 132.
180Ibid., III, 11, 159. 18'Ibid.., , i, 149.
 120

Like Fondlewife, Sir Paul ignores positive proof of his

wife's infidelity. Using a typical trick, she shifts the

accusations and the blame around until he apologizes to hert

"Holdl stay&. . . I'll confess all," he cries.1 8 2

Vanbrugh's The Confederac contains a pair of gorgeous

young wives who abhor their old husbands and long for witty

young gallants, although during the play they settle for

wealthy, old ones. Really a satire on the faults of the

nobility, the two are married to rich merchants, but they

try to ape the ways of the quality. Clarissa, the more

fully portrayed, protests when her maid objects to her spend-

ing money when she lacks nothing, "How aukward an Objection

now is that . . . Quality always distinguishes itself;

and therefore, as the Mechanick People buy things, because

they have occasion for tem, you see Women of Rank always

buy things because they have not occasion for tem.,tl 8 3

The old saleslady Mrs. Amlet complains, ". . . shets but a

Scrivener's Wife; but she lives as well, and pays as ill,

as the stateliest Countess of 'em all." Chaffing against

the restriction of her life, the young social climber mourns,

"Why, I dare abuse no body; I'm afraid to affront People,

tho' I don't like their faces; or to ruin their Reputations,

tho' they pique me to it, by taking ever so much Pains to

preserve tem: I dare not raise a Lie of a Pan, tho' he

182Ibid., IV, iii, 181.

18 3The Confederacy, II, i, 27.
 121

neglects to make love to me; nor report a Woman to be a

Fool, thot she's handsomer than I am. In short, I dare not

so much as bid my Footman kick the People out of Doors, tho'

they come to ask me for what I owe tem.1l84

Clarissa discovers that her husband's in love with her

friend Araminta, who finds that her husband is enamoured of

Clarissa.1 8 5 Gleefully, the two jointly scheme to fleece as

lovers the old men who are niggardly as husbands. Since the
men are ancient they receive only a grudging kiss for their

cash; doubtless had they been younger, they would have re-

ceived a more equitable return for their investment.

The Rake
The ideal male of Restoration drama is that charming,

witty, elegant seducer, the rake. Because of the double

standard, there can be no real female counterpart to this

character. Fine ladies may be roue'es, but whereas men are

honored for such accomplishments, women must pretend to be

conventionally honorable in order to remain socially accept-

able. As a result a male profligate may be charming, but the

female is unpleasantly hypocritical.

Perhaps the most finished portrait of the feminine rake

is Lady Fidgit in Wycherley's The Country Wife. She matches

the notorious Horner vice for vice--she drinks, talks filth,

sleeps with whomever she pleases, and takes great pleasure in

184 Ibid., I, i, 14. 1 8 51bid.,

I, ii, 19.
 122

all her deeds. Every bit as clever and adroit as Horner,

she is also as selfish and egocentric as he, with no more

affection for a lover than for her husband.

However, Lady Fidgit wants to be accepted into society

and realizes that she must pretend to conform to conventions.

One of the greatest libertines in private, she is one of the

greatest prudes in public. As Homer says, ". . . your

Virtue is your greatest affectation, Madam.1186 Precisely,

she claims Horner's "very name obscenity, 187 scolds her

husband for being crude when he says "naked truth," and

checks a trifling freedom of speech with "Nay, fie, let us

not be smooty. ."189 Her constant cry is for her "dear

honour." Even as she is going into the bedroom with her

lover, she meretriciously cries, ". . . you must promise

to have a care of my dear Honour." 1 9 0

Just as important as her reputation is the satisfaction

of her sensual desires. Anxiously, she inquires of Homer,

after he discloses that his posing as an eunuch is a ruse

to give him free access to women, ". . . but, indeed, Sir,

as perfectly, perfectly, the same Man as before . .

.

Sir, as perfectly, perfectly, Sir." 1 9 1 Assured that he is,

l&6 The Country Wife, I, i, 13.

1 8 7bid., II, i, 34. 1S&Ibid., II, i, 30.

189Ibid., IV, iii, 60. 1 90 Ibid.

1 9 1Ibid.,
II, 1, 33.
 123

"Nay, then as one may say, you may do your worst, dear, dear,

Si rv192 she invites.

The drinking scene in Act V is the real exposure of her

rakishness, for here she indulges herself openly in all the

vices she's been keeping secret. Downing a bottle of wine,

she laughs bawdily at her own and her friends suggestive

remarks, and admits her infidelities with Horner. "Our

Reputation, LordP" she exclaims to Horner, "Why should you

not think, that we women make use of our Reputation, as you

men of yours, only to deceive the world with less sus-

picion . . . .1193 Aptly, Kronenberger sums up her char-

acter: "As one may smile and smile and be a villain, so

Lady Fidgit can shudder and shudder and be a slut.1"194

Wycherley draws several other females of this type.

In The Country Wife Mrs. Squeamish and Mrs. Fidgit serve

mainly as emphasis to Lady Fidgitts perfidy, but while only

lightly drawn, seem as skilled in protecting their honor

while losing their virtue as their friend. Martha Gripe in

Love in a Wood is as addicted to but not as skilled in de-

bauchery as the threesome above. Saucy and shameless, she

impudently affects innocence, although she is really Dapper-

wit's mistress and is pregnant with his child.

1 9 21bid., IT, i, 34. 1 9 31bid., V, iv, 80.

194 Kronenberger, The Thread of Laughter, p. 66.
 124

A "ludicrously malignant study in female depravity,ul95

Olivia in Wycherley's The Plain Dealer is a lying hypocrite,

a treacherous scandalmonger, a mercenary sadist, and a

lascivious adulteress. Pretending to hate worldly frivoli-

ties, she indulges in them all. For example, although she

protests a hatred of clothes, she has a huge wardrobe; al-

though she claims a disgust for matrimony, she is secretly

married; although she pretends an aversion to lovers, she is

assiduously seeking one. An insatiable gossip, she derides

all her friends to all her acquaintances and vice versa.

Preying on men, she strips them of fortune and dignity.

For example, she accepts Manleyts estate, then marries his

best friend, mocks his credulity, and gloats over his

financial straits which she could but will not relieve.

Secretly encouraging both Novel and Plausible with the im-

plication that she will wed each, she accepts their jewels

and money, although she is already married. Summers equates

her character with that of a horse leech, crying always,

"Give, give.196

Flamboyantly physical, the villainess attracts men and

is attracted in turn. Precisely pretending an aversion to

sex, she really has a furious sensual appetite which she

boldly attempts to satisfy. While her husband goes down

1 95Palmer, The OldComed, p . 136.

196 Summers, Wycherley, p. 51.
 125

the stairs, her lovers come up, and she hopes that like

buckets in a well the two never meet. Obviously, Olivia

is too depraved to be a counterpart of the male rake. In-
stead she is so disgusting that her cruel, even crude come-

uppance is unmourned by playwright, fellow characters, or

audience.

Wearing out both her fortune and her reputation in pur-

suit of her pleasures, Mrs. Frail in Congreve's Love for Love

is ready to retire as a roude. She seeks now to contract a

marriage before her indiscretions, poverty, and age make that

impossible. Had she been a male rake, her efforts would

probably have awarded her a handsome person and property, but

she gains only a penniless fool whom she thinks is an heir

and who thinks her an heiress.

Since Berinthia in The Relipse (Vanbrugh) is a widow,

she is immediately pegged by Restoration comedy as a man

lover, an accurate label in this case. Vanbrugh describes

her as ". . . Beautiful in her person, Gay in her Temper,

Coquet in her Behaviour, and Warm in her Desires."1 9 7 Having

all the characteristics of a rake, she is completely un-

principled in the satisfaction of her lechery. City life

provides her pleasure, and now that she is a widow of means

and free to carry on her intrigues, she is perfectly happy

1 9 7 Sir
John Vanbrugh, 'A Short Vindication of The Relapse
and The Provok t d Wife.,' "Cmplete Works, 1, 212.
 126

in her debauchery and scornful of those who tie themselves

down to conventional morality. "But if you'll consult the

Widows of this Town, they'll tell you you should never take
a Lease of a House you can hire for a Quarter's Warning,1l9S

she tells Amanda Loveless, the friend and relative with whom

she is staying. More than satisfied with her "delicious

widowhood," she makes no pretense of having cared for her

husband, and she actually cares no more for Loveless; it is

the thought of seducing the husband while living as a member

of the family which is exciting to her. No sense of loyalty

is considered; instead, she helps Worthy in his attempts to

debauch her hostess.

Lady Lurewell, a captivating adventuress who charms

every man she meets, then tricks, deludes, and cheats him,
falls just short of being a lady rake, for she is unscrupu-

lous only up to a point. Debauched at fifteen, she has sworn

eternal vengeance on all men: "I hate all that don't love

me, and slight all 'that do. Would his whole deluding sex

admire me, thus would I slight them all."' 9 9 Consequently,

she entertains men not through lubricity, but through

maliciousness, and she remains aloof from all sexual ad-

ventures, although her spleenful rage against men is il-

lustrated in many cruelly ingenious plots against them.

In some respects Lurewell seems the scorned woman, but since

19 8 The Relapse, II, i, 46.

1 9 9 The Constant Couple, I, ii, 142.
 127

her gallivanting, deserting lover turns up years later,

still true, and since her revenge is general rather than

specific, she cannot really fall into that category.

Ln the sequel Sir Harry Wildair, Lurewell, married now

to Colonel Standard, has not reformed. In fact, she seems

more than ever like a rake. So used to coquetry that

she cannot give up the sport, she is very close to becoming

promiscuous even though revenge is no longer of consequence.

Her ire, once directed against men, now seems aimed at vir-

tuous women, and she is delighted to think Angelica, Sir

Harryts wife, unfaithful. ". . . Itm glad on tt. I hate to

have any woman more virtuous than myself." 2 0 0 In one of the

most hilarious scenes in the play, she vindictively c lum-

niates Angelica, but Sir Harry stops his ears as she almost

dies in her frustrated attempts to ruin his good opinion of

the wife he now thinks dead.

200
Sir Harry Wildair, III, i, 274. All references to
this play are to Farquhar, Dramatic Works Vol. 1.
 CHAPTER IV

THE EXCLUDED

Barred from both the truewits and the witwoulds are

a few character types whose common parentage, occupations,

or recognition of the restrictions their old age places

upon them excludes them from society t s struggle. The maid,

the prostitute, the duenna, and the bawd are the most out-

standing of those who do not even try for admittance into

the higher echelon of the beau monde. However, like the

other women of the Restoration society, their primary con-

cerns are sex, love, and marriage, and as mentioned before,

the maid and the whore account for a good many of the trick

or forced marriages.

The Maid

The portrayal of the female serving woman is the most

finished and typical of al character typesexcluded from

the truewits or the witwoulds. In spite of her lack of

social pretensions she is not a subservient menial with a

walk-on part. Speaking with the wit of her betters, she

1 JohnStrong Perry Tatlock and R. G. Martin, Repre-

sentative English Plays, from the Miracle Plays to Pinero
(New York, 1935),_p. O0 2
.

128
 129

is at least the lady's confidante and advocate, and frequently

she originates as well as champions the plans for her mis-

tress's intrigues. Courier, prevaricator, conspirator, in-

former, bawd, she can and will perform any office assigned

her; consequently, the plot often hinges on her machinations.

Naturally cynical, she is contemptuous of all conventions

but loyalty. However, although she is nearly always faithful

to her mistress, the maid is still opportunistic, and, thus,

not above serving more than one master at a time if the pay

is good and she feels that her actions will not really harm

her lady. She is lusty as well as mercenary and usually finds

a way to satisfy her sensual appetite without undue concern

about marriage. However, because she is both clever and

shrewd, the serving woman sometimes manages to acquire a

husband from among the fops and fools left over at the

play's end.
Although the "Big Five" usually manage to make their
characters individuals, rather than mere types, most of the

maids in their comedies conform to the general characteristics

outlined above. Naturally ore or more trait may be em-
phasized more than others, but there does not seem to be

very much change in the general portrayal of serving women

over the period covered in this paper. Apparently, the
morality demanded for most female stage characters in the

latter part of the 'Restoration did not apply to maids, who

remained as unconventional in their morals as ever through

Farquharts time.
 130

One of the most instrumental in her plot is Lucy,

Alithea's maid in Wycherley's The CountrZ Wife. She master-

minds both the country squire Pinchwife's cuckolding and

Alithea's marriage to Harcourt, a man of wit and judgment.

Encouraging Margery Pinchwife's yearnings for Horner, a

rakish whoremonger, she supervises every move toward the

fulfillment of the country wife's desires. When Mrs. Pinch-

wife's plot is nearly discovered by her husband, she runs to

Lucy, who skillfully rescues her from her predicament. In

the final scene, when everything seems discovered, the clever

maid saves all by meekly accepting the blame and adroitly

lying so that everyone's reputation, if not his honor, is

spared.
Really wittier than her mistress, 2 Lucy is also typically

skeptical and cynical; she calls honor "a disease in the

head,t 3 and scorns a parson's "Canonical smirk" and "filthy,

clammy palm."4 No doubt she is vastly amused at her ironical

scheme which tricks Mr. Pinchwife into delivering his own

wife to her lover, for she believes that a woman ought to

marry a fool so that she can enjoy all pleasures undetected.5

However, realizing that Alithea is idealistic about marriage,

she cannot bear to see her wed Sparkish, a foppish pretender

to wit: "Lord, Madam, what should you do with a fool to your

2 Fujimura,
Restorationom , p. 144.
3 The Country Wife, IV, i, 51.
4 Ibid.., IV, i, 53. 51bid., II, i, 42.
 131

Husband, you intend to be honest, dontt you?#t she exclaims.

Her natural cunning enables her to turn Mrs. Pinchwife t s use

of Alithea t s name in the affair with Horner into a test of

Sparkish's jealousy and trust. Of course, his real unworthi-

ness is disclosed when he believes the worst about his fiancee.

Thus, Lucy triumphantly manages Alithea's betrothal to the

man she really loves.

Although all Restoration maids are frankly wanton, Prue

in Wycherley's The Gentlemen Dancing-Master and Pindar in

Farquharts Love and a Bottle are perhaps the most belliger-

ently lascivious. Prue is desperately discontented with the

cloistered life she must live with her mistress Hippolita.

"Have you a mind to be shut up as long as you live? For my

part . . . I cannot live so, . . ." she declares. Hippolita

is impressed with her vehemence and sagely judges, "Hold,

hold--your resentment is as much greater than mine as your

experience has been greater, . . ." Later, when she is

placed to guard the door behind which Hippolita and her

lover Gerrard make their plans to elope, Prue bewails the

sad fate of all chambermaids:

0 the unfortunate condition of us poor Chamber-maids,

who have all the parking and caring, the watching and
sitting up, the trouble and danger of our Mistresses

6Ibid ., IV., i, 51i

7The Gentleman Dancing-Master., I., i, 158.

8Ibid., I, i, 157.
 132

Intriguesl whilst they go away with all the pleasure;

and if they get their Man in a corner, ttis well
enough, they ne tre think of the poor watchful Chamber-
maid, who sits knocking her heels in the cold, for
want of better exercise in some melancholy Lobby or
Entry, when she could imploy her time every whit as
well as her Mi "tress for all her Quality, if she were
but put to tt.

The only male allowed in the secluded household is

Monsieur de Paris, the man Hippolita is contracted to marry

but intriguing to discard. Even though he is a foolish

Francophile whom she dislikes, he is the only male available,

and Prue's lust forces her to attempt him. She pinches him,

tickles him, tells him her door is always unlocked at night--

all to no avail, and when she hints she walks in her sleep,

he promises to keep his door securely bolted, Still her

restless libido admits no defeat; she simply resolves that

she will be more frank at the next opportunity.1 0

Although Hippolita conceives the idea which allows

Gerrard in the house, Prue naturally encourages her designs.

Privy to all Hippolitats dreams and desires, the maid ac-

tually feels her mistress would do better to marry the fool

Monsieur de Paris because with him a woman could find her

own pleasures without fear of discovery. 11 Even so she

favors the deception of the old guardians. ". ... a Woman

may soon be too old, but is never too young to shift for her

self, l2 she counsels her fourteen year old charge.

9 Ibid., IV, i, 203. 10Ibid., IV, i, 205.

lljbid., 1, 1, 158. 12Ibid., 1, i, 161.

 133

As lascivious as Prue, Pindar, Lucinda's maid in

Farquharts Love and a Bottle, is attracted by her mistress's

new page, who is in reality the maiden Leanthe. Apparently

convinced that Ilying alone is very dangerous,"13 the servant

uses all her wiles to arouse "his" amorous desires. At last

she actually picks up the disguised maiden, intending to

carry her into the bedroom,but Lucinda interrupts the venture.

More hypocritical than Prue, Pindar pleads innocence and

later, when her deceit is discovered, entreats, "I hope your

ladyship entertains no ill opinion of my virtue."t1 However,

she has by no means given up her passion for the page and

in the last act proposes marriage, which Leanthe accepts as

a part of her plan to gain the man she loves. Pindar is

delighted. "Oh, my little green gooseberry, my teeth waters

at yetu1 5 she gloats.

Quite loyal to her mistress, the maid is proud of the

confidence Lucinda has in her and swears, ' . . I can keep

a secret . . . and the greater the secrets are, I love

tem the better.h16 Nevertheless, being a typical Restoration

servant, she can be bribed. She encourages Lovewell's suit

partly because she knows he loves and is loved by Lucinda,

but also because she has "had above twenty pieces from him
since his courtship began.t"1 7

1 3 Love and a Bottle, I, i, 12.

14 Ibid., IV, i, 74. 151bid., V, i, 103.
1 6 Ibid., 17
I, i, 16. Ibid., I, i, 13.
 134

A real French charmer, Mademoiselle, chambermaid to

Lady Fanciful in Vanbrugh's The Provok'd Wife, is another

pleasure-loving confidante. Frankly, she admits that she

always sacrifices reason to nature because "my nature make

me merry, my reason make me mad,"18 and honor to pleasure

because honor is inconvenient and "quand quelque chose

m'incommode moy--je m'en defais, Vite." 1 9 Romantically in-

clined toward Razor, a valet, she is not above using his

passion for her to win him to Lady Fancifults plot against

Belinda, a rival for Heartfree's love. When she has inflamed

him with flirting and teasing, she pretends to question his

love until he promises to help; fixing his allegiance, she

contracts: "If dou fail me--I never see dee more--If dou

obey me--Je m'abondonne a toy."2 0

Although Mademoiselle is very loyal to her mistress's

plots, like many other maids of this period, she is not

above selfishly taking advantage of her lady's foibles.

Complying with Lady Fancifults desire for flattery, the

serving woman strains her imagination to produce extravagant

tributes to her employers beauty. Her compliments are too

florid for anyone but her foolish lady to credit, yet as

Mademoiselle knows, the fop believes and rewards each hyper-

bole. Gloves, nightgowns, and other expensive trifles amply

repay each bon mot.

18The Provok'd Wife, I, 11, 124.

19 Ibid., I, 2 0 Ibid.,
i, 123. V, iii, 174.
 135

Much more cold-blooded in her desire for money, Mrs.

Parley in Farquhar's The Constant C and its sequel

Sir Harry Wildair is offended by the very thought of poverty.

?Faugh, the nauseous fellow. he stinks of poverty already," 2 1

she says of Colonel Standard, who has been discharged from

service. She quickly lets him know that he can "send no

more messages . . . unless . . . /he7 can pay the post-

22
age." Really quite cynical, she pertly informs him of her

guiding principles when he begs her to be honorable toward him:

. . . it shows as ridiculous and haughty for us to
imitate our betters in their honour as in their
finery; leave honour to nobility that can support
it; we poor folks, colonel, have no pretense to It;
and truly, I think, sir, that your honour should be
cashiered with your leading-staff. 2 3

In Sir Harry Wildair, after the Colonel has married

Lurewell, Parley admits she makes approximately one hundred

pounds a year from visiting gallants. Insinuating his ruin

if he does not become more liberal, she gives him sage

advice: 1. . . stinginess to servants makes more cuckolds

than ill-nature to wives."24 Parley refuses to be intimi-

dated by the Colonelts rage at these facts and brazenly

cries when he threatens to have Lurewell fire her:

she won't turn me away, she shan't turn me away,

nor she can't turn me away. Sir, I say she dare not turn

2 1 The Constant Couple, I, ii, 143.

2 2 Ibid., 23 Ibid.
I, 11, 146.

24Sir Harry Wildair, I, i, 249.

 136

me away . . . Because I'm the mistress, not she . . . I

know all her secrets . . . ."25 However, the secrets are

soon sold for double the sum she receives for keeping quiet.

Lucy, Melindats maid in The Recruiting Officer, by

Farquhar, also knows how to get around her mistress. Her

mercenary wheedlings have gained her a promise of five hundred

pounds on her employer's wedding day. Possessing more in-

sight than Lady Fanciful, Melinda recognizes the mercenary

strain in her servant. "And pray was it a ring, or buckle,

or pendants, or knots? or in what shape was the almighty

gold transformed that has bribed you so much . . . ?"26 she

asks when Lucy continuously praises one of her lady's

suitors.

The lust of Restoration serving women also runs rampant

in Lucy. Openly horrified at the thought of life without

love, she expostulates, "Die a maidl come into the world

for nothing Dear, madam, if you should believe . .1.

/this could happen/, it might come to pass, for the bare

thought on 't might kill one in four-and-twenty hours."27

In an aside she confesses that such a fate is already an

impossibility for her. Ingeniously planning to satisfy

both her lasciviousness and her desire for marriage, she

acquires Melinda's signature and attaches it to a letter to

251bid.
2 6 The Recruitin Officer, III, ip, 168.
2 7 Ibid., IV, ii, 187.
 137

Captain Brazen, one of her mistress's suitors. The note

promises a masked marriage, and Brazen, thinking it from

Melinda, eagerly keeps the appointment. Unfortunately, a

jealous gallant hears of the captain's plans and challenges

him to a duel. To avoid the fight, Lucy discovers her plot;

consequently her marriage attempt is foiled.

Silvia's Lucy in Congreve's The Old Bachelor is more

successful in her attempt to marry. One of the most loyal

of Restoration waiting women, Lucy helps her lady, who is

the castoff mistress of both Vainlove and Bellmour, to en-

snare the old bachelor Heartfree. When Bellmour discovers

the wedding plans, he insists on saving his friend, but the

wily servant refuses to give up the scheme until promised

that both she and Silvia will be wed that night. In this

manner the masked maid and mistress espouse two fools, each

of whom thinks he has gained the heiress Araminta.

Describing picturesquely the trust Sylvia has in her

serving woman, another character says, ". . . she is the

very sluice to her lady's secrets . . . . Her confidence

is wisely placed, for Lucy, as is often the case in plays of

this period, is much more clever than her employer. Although

Silvia still loves and pursues Vainlove, she does not under-

stand him at all. Lucy, on the other hand, discerns at once

that Vainlove hates being chased, and using this insight,

2 8 The Old Bachelor, V, 11, 103.

 138

she plots to break up his new romance by making his resent

love seem overeager. Thus, it is Lucy, not Silvia, who con-

trives the note which for a time alienates Vainlove and

Araminta. It is she who persuades Silvia to appear innocent

and naive and marry Heartfree while she can; it is she who

at last arranges the dual wedding.

Several other maids in Restoration comedy are as suc-

cessful with their disguises as Lucy. Betty in Shadwell's

The Virtuoso and Bridget in his The Humourists both marry

fools who think them heiresses masked. Although Peg in

Shadwell's .Bry Fair does not get a husband, she does acquire

a large cash settlement. In Etherege t s Love in a Tub, Jenny

does not have to trick a man into wedlock because a rake

forces a rogue to marry her or go to jail, and Susan in

The LanceshI Witches, by Shadwell, acquires a husband

through the use of a love potion. There are many other

examples of maids who trick or force their men into marriage

in the plays of this period. 29

Perhaps the two least characteristic maids in the

comedies of this period are Mrs. Sentry in Etherege's She

Would If She Could and Foible in Congrevets The Way of the

World. They are both typically clever and instrumental in

the plot; however, neither one is outstanding for her

2 9 For example, see the Widow Brightstone's maid in The

Mulber Garden, Sedley, and Isabella in The Amorous Prince,
Behn.
 139

pecuniary or sensual lusts. Whereas Mrs. Sentry is loyal

but mildly disapproving of her mistress's intrigues, Foible

has actually transferred her allegiance to another.

Although she is not completely happy about the intrigues

of Lady Cockwood, her employer, Mrs. Sentry faithfully carries

messages, arranges meetings, hides lovers, and lies pro-

digiously in order to further her lady's lovelife and save

her lady's reputation. Reporting to Courtall, the newest

flame, that the Cockwoods have returned to London, she swears

her mistress knows nothing of her visit, in spite of the

fact that Courtall is too familiar with the lady to be fooled.

Even after she has been forced to hide in the gallant's wood

bin to escape detection by Sir Oliver, Lady Cockwood's hus-

band, she loyally affirms as she crawls out that her first

concern was to her lady's honor. Of course, Mrs. Sentry is

aware that while her lady makes stupendous claims to honor,

she actually has very little. When Lady Cockwood scolds

her for leaving the room during Courtall's visit, she

shrewdly analyzes aside:

If I say in the room, she will not speak kindly to

me in a week after; and if I go out, she always
chides me thus: this is a strange infirmity she has,
but I must bear with it; for on my conscience, custom
has made it so natural, she cannot help it.3

In the last act both Courtall and Freeman, another

gallant, are received by Lady Cockwood at an inappropriate

3 0 She Wou'd If She Cou'd, II, ii, 113.

hour. Only Mrs. Sentry's quick wit saves her mistress.

Hiding one gentleman in the closet and the other under the

table, she is even astute enough to run out of the room with

the candle when Sir Oliver comes dangerously close to seeing

one of them. At last she accepts all the blame for the

presence of the two young men.

Only now, as she assumes the role of villainess, does

any of the typical venality appear. Telling Sir Oliver that

a bribe of ten guineas is responsible for her guilt, she

whispers to her mistress that the truth may still be dis-

covered if the knight asks to see the gold. Naturally, Lady

Cockwood promises to supply the money if Sir Oliver becomes

inquisitive. "I shall take care to put him upon It; 'tis fit,

that I who have bore all the blame, should have some reason-

able reward for 't," 3l she righteously asides.

While no insinuation of lust is made about Mrs. Sentry,

Foible is newly and secretly married when The W of the

World starts. Still Foible utters no immodest remark, al-

though Waitwell, her husband, occasionally makes a sly im-

plication about the physical side of their marriage.

The wedding was hastened by Mirabell, a gallant who

has pretended to love Lady Wishfort, Foible's mistress,

in order to be near her niece Millamant, his real idol.

Discovered and despised, he now plans to trick the old lady

31Ibid., V, i, 177.
 141

into a false marriage with his valet, Waitwell, disguised

as Sir Rowland. By this means the young lover hopes to

blackmail the ancient coquette into approving his marriage

to her niece; of course, to carry out such a scheme he needs

the cooperation of Foible and the assurance that Waitwell

will not be tempted by a fortune to marry Lady Wishfort. The

nuptials of the two servants satisfy both requirements.

]irabell is fortunate to have Foible as an ally, for

she is one of the cleverest of Restoration waiting women,

32
having as Nettleton says, the wit of her betters. When

Marwood, who loves the plotting gallant who does not even

know she exists, directs her malice against the scheme, the

maid's pretty head is kept busy making excuses. The scorned

woman's report that Foible was seen with Mirabell is used

as a boost to the plan when the adroit servant says she was

berating him for calling Lady Wishfort a "superannuated

.
old frippery." 3 3 This shrewd thrust is well calculated to

turn the lady's wrath from her maid to her ex-pseudo suitor.

When Marwood's note revealing the entire project arrives

while Waitwell is courting the lady, Foible's wit again

projects a near disaster into a real advantage as she ur-

gently instructs her husband to say the letter is in

Mirabell's hand. Her cleverness is not just the product

32 Nettleton, English Drama, p. 130.

33TheWa of the World, III, i, 354.

 142

of fear, for she has been so adeptly diplomatic that she is

the only one of her mistress's servants who has been employed

longer than a week.

Like Mrs. Sentry, Foible is not as mercenary as most

comedy maids of the period. Although Mirabell has promised

a farm to the couple for their help, she brushes aside his

replldging of it with the declaration that she trusts his

honor. Furthermore, she is able at last to inform against

Marwood because she will not be bribed to keep quiet.

The Prostitute

Ladies of the oldest profession are certainly not a type

peculiar to the Restoration, and usually their portrayal

is not outstanding. In fact, in most instances they are used

as mere plot devices to bring true lovers together, to ex-

pose a fool's stupidity, or to chastise a witwould by a

trick or forced marriage. Only five of the plays by the

five major dramatists include prostitutes in their casts:

Love in a Tub, Etherege (2); Love in a Wood Wycherley (1);

The Gentleman Danci;-Master, Wycherley (2); Love and a

Bottle, Farquhar (1); and. The Inconstant, Farquhar (1).

Etherege's and Farquharts light women are faintly drawn

characters used only to further the plot. In Love in a Tub

both harlots gain a husband at the play's end, not through

love, but through subterfuge and coercion; their marriages

serve to punish a rogue and to hoax a country bumpkin.

 143

Lamorce in The Inconstant emerges only as a beautiful woman,

community property for four murderous thieves, who gulls

wealthy men to her rooms so that the desperados can rob and

kill them. Saving the gallant from the gangsters, the heroine

wins her lover in marriage. More humorously depicted, Mrs.

Trudge in Love and a Bottle bears a child by Roebuck, one of

the rakish heroes, and follows him across the country begging

him to marry her. "Oh, the indefatigable whore . .

.
her lover cries when he sees her in London. Actually, Mrs.

Trudge is simply an instrument to make the heroine jealous

and to point up a country fool's stupidity.

Much more detailed, Wycherleyls portrayals are both

satirical and amusing. Lucy in his first play is a beautiful,

pert young girl just starting her career as a prostitute; her

mother serves as a shrewd manager and procurer for her evi-

dently talented young daughter. Although rather fond of

Mr. Dapperwit, who has been paying her bills, the saucy

wench must drop him when a better opportunity in the form

of an old but rich city merchant comes along. With the help

of her mother and a friend, the young trollop, impudently

affecting innocence, falsely accuses the doddering fool of

ravishing her and extracts five hundred pounds from him to

keep the scandal quiet. Later, because he wants to revenge

himself on his daughter for marrying without his consent,

and because he believes a wife cheaper than a mistress,
the old tradesman decides to marry Lucy, who with the

3 3 aLove and a Bottle, I, i, 21.

 144

help of her mother will no doubt be more expensive than

he expects.

In The Gentleman Dancing-Master Wycherley draws Flounce

and Flirt, two original and highly risible sluts. A satire

on the brazenness of loose women, they shamelessly chase men

and force their favors upon them. The restaurants, their

favorite hunting grounds, dare not lock them out because

they'll only break open the doors. In fact, "there's hardly

a young Man in Town dares be known of his Lodging for

'ems34 and gallants do not fear the police as much as the

"Houza-Women." Managing to capture Monsieur de Paris, a

foolish Frenchified fop, Flirt demands that they draw up

articles and settlements of the terms of her keeping. When

he protests this is as bad as marriage, she says it is

different in one major aspect--"t . . . we Mistresses suffer

no Cohabitation."35 In the proviso she demands separate

maintenance in case of separation, separate houses, coach

and bed apart, handsome footmen, privacy, freedom from

jealousy and restraint, and a thousand pounds a year.36

However, the most entertaining and well-drawn of all

Restoration whores is Sedley's Bellamira in the play of the

same name. One of the wittiest women in Restoration comedy,

she is actually a free-lance whore who only allows Keepwell

to pay her main bills while she, keeping him in utter

34 The Gentleman Dacn-Master, I, ii, 167.

351bid., V, i, 229. 36Ibid.,-V, i, 229-30.
 145

ignorance, loves and hires out wherever she pleases. So

completely is he under her domination that when she asks him

to go to the country for two days so that she can entertain

another, he agrees. Patterned after the Duchess of Cleveland,

most beautiful and dissolute harlot of Charles II's court, 3 7

Bellamira outlines the philosophy of the kept woman: "1

will make the Presents he an unattractive suitor7 gives

me, . . . Baits to Catch others with: fine Cloaths and rich

Furniture, are great Provocatives to those that don't pay

for lem, . .
.

The Duenna

Occasionally in Restoration drama, the old woman, rather

than hunting a man for herself, serves as a duenna to pre-

vent a younger woman from getting a mate. Lugubriously

mourning the moral slackness of the present age while

eulogizing the past, the old chaperone does not attempt

the beau monde, but is, nevertheless, ridiculed and despised

for her suspicions and her age. Mrs. Caution, Hippolita's

aunt, in Wycherley's The Gentleman Dancing-Master, belongs

in this category. Her job is to see that her niece remains

innocent until she is married to her foppish cousin Monsieur
de Paris. Justifiably suspicious of Gerrard, Hippolita's
lover disguised as a dancing master, the aged guard is merely

3 7 Pinto, Sir Charles Sedley, p. 271.

38 Bellamira, I, 111, 22. All references to this play are
to Sir Charles Sedley, The Poetical and Dramatical Works of
Sir Charles Sedley, edited by V. de Sola Pinto (London,
1928), Vol. II.
 146

called "a censorious wicked Woman," 39 "DamId Jade," 0 and

'crabbed old age" 4 l for her attention to duty. Even her

brother, whose wishes she is trying to carry out, scorns

her advice. Consequently, the young couple outwits the old

one very easily. Naturally, Mrs. Caution regards the past

as a much better age than the present; as a result, many of

her conversations begin, "When I was a maid . . . ." At the

same time she tries to minimize her years by claiming that

a girl should not come into a woman's estate until she is

thirty or thirty-five. 2 Hippolita merely laughs at her

aunt's presumptions; she finds the present age delightful

and doubts that her aunt can even remember her youth.

A widow, Mrs. Caution retains fond memories of her

carnal pleasures, but typically, she hypocritically decries

sex as filthy. Ranting constantly about modesty and virtue,

her bombast serves only to suggest lewd ideas. Her double-

entendre concerning her niece and the "dancing master" belie

any purity of mind. When Hippolita says she will be a good

student, Mrs. Caution ejaculates, "As kind as ever your

Mother was to your Father, I warrant." At the discovery

of the marriage of the young lovers, she rails:

Nay, Young-man, you have danced a fair Dance for

your self royally, and now you may go jig it together

39 TheGentlema ncing-Master, III, i, 195.

40Ibid. 4Ibid., I, i, 162.
4 2Ibid., I, i, 164. 4 3Ibid.,IV,
i, 207.
 147

till you are both weary; and thou you were so eager
to have him, Mrs. Minx, you'll soon havA4 your belly-
full of him, let me tell you, Mistress. 4

The best and most amusing exposure of her real lubricity is

the scene in which she condones voluptuous dreams, waking or

sleeping, as long as the actual deed remains fantasy rather

than reality.45

Old Lady Squeamish in Wycherley's The C Wife is

also a duenna, but she is very faintly drawn in the play.

Trying to control and protect her granddaughter, the ancient

and distrustful noblewoman is treated with indifference and

scorn by the younger members of the cast. Whereas Mrs.

Caution sees through Gerrard's ruse but is unable to foil

his intrigue, Old Lady Squeamish does not pierce the rake

Hornerts masquerade, but, instead, unwittingly helps him

seduce her charge.

One of the most original and amusing of all old women

in Restoration drama is Widow Blackacre, who serves as

guardian for her son in Wycherley's The Plain Dealer. In

fact, scholarly opinion ranks her among the best of all

comedy portrayals. Voltaire finds her the most comical

character ever on the English stage, 46 and Elwin, going

even further, rates her and her son Jerry two of the best
comic characters ever created in the world of drama.4 7 Even

44 Ibid., V, i,231. KEbid., 1, i, 162-63.

4 6 Harley
Granville-Barker, On Dramatic Method, quotes
Voltaire (London, 1931), p. 28.
4 7Elwin, Playgoer's Handbook, p. 80.
 148

though most other critics are not so laudatory, they do

concur that she is both wittily conceived and well drawn.

Although probably about fifty, 4 8 Widow Blackacre, like

the typical elderly woman, denies any insinuation of her

being old. Deeply insulted when Major Oldfox, one of her

suitors, judges they are about the same age, she angrily

retorts, "Howls that? You unmannerly person, Iid have you

to know, I was born but in Ann' undec. Caroli prim ."t 4 9

In an effort to preserve both her youth and full government

of all the Blackacre property, she refuses to let her son

come of age, although he notices that men who were two

years younger than he in school are now grown men before

him.50
Strangely enough, considering that she is both an old

woman and a widow, she is not at all interested in sex or

marriage; her vice is litigation. In fact, the legal pro-

fession is a monomania with her; every action of her life is

ruled by it. Quite garrulous, she prattles endlessly about

her innumerable suits and can immediately twist any conversa-

tion around to some legal technicality. Her favorite enter-

tainment is attending a trial; her usual business investment,

buying the defense of a case.

4 8 Mignon, Crabbed Age, p. 56.

49The Plain Dealer, 11, i, 137.

50
Ibid., III, i, 148.
 149

pursued by two men, Oldfox and the young gallant Free-

man, who wishes to marry her for her money, the Widow Black-

acre refuses their offers and vituperates them both, the

former for his old age and ill health and the latter for

his youthful rakishness and fortune-hunting. "I will no

more hearken again to your foolish love motions, than to

offers of Arbitration, 16 she informs Freeman; later, to

both suitors she asserts, "Well then, to make an end of

this foolish Wooing, for nothing interrupts business

more . . *,52 In defense of her opposition to wedlock,

she argues that marriage would deny her of the right to sue

in her own name. "Matrimony to a Woman is worse than Ex-

communication, in depriving her of the benefit of the Law:

and I woutd rather be deprived of my life,"53 she contends.

Freeman, trying to force the widow to marry him, seduces

her son from his black lawyer's gown with a pair of red

breeches and fancy living; consequently, Jerry chooses the

gallant as his guardian. Rather than sacrifice any part of

the estate or the power to administer it in court, Widow

Blackacre sacrifices her reputation and swears that her

child was born out of wedlock. When Oldwit remonstrates

against her taking such drastic action, she avows: "Hang

Reputation, Sir, am not I a Widow? . . . Wonder not at it,

Major, tis often the poor prest Widows case, to give up her

511bid., 11, i, 139. 52Ibid., II, i, 137.

53Iid., V, i, 191.
honour to save her Jointure . . 54 At last, however,

Freeman discovers her engaged in an illegal action and

threatens either marriage or jail. Both courses are so

despicable to her that she finally counters with a promptly

accepted offer to pay his debts and to give him a yearly

allowance of four hundred pounds.

The Bawd

Another variation of the aged woman character type is

the elderly bawd. Like the duenna she realizes her limita-

tions and has given up attempting affairs for herself; how-

ever, she zealously arranges the intrigues of others. An

exponent of sexual gratification regardless of marriage or

even love, she, nevertheless, proclaims honor her dearest

possession. Apparently, she thinks of herself not as an

accomplice to lewd women or the corrupter of innocent ones,

but rather as the pure instrument which brings happiness to

her fellow human beings--for a price, of course. Whether

from the upper or the lower strata of society, she may be

found as a guest in the best Restoration comedy homes, a

custom seemingly adopted from Spanish intrigue comedy; at

any rate, the usually unsavory creature figures most frequently

in the bustling busy plots characteristic of that type of

play. Aphra Behn includes bawds in several of her works,55

and Shadwell and Buckingham each portray one or more

54Ibid., IV, i, 166.

55For example, see The Rover I and II, The Dutch
Lovers, The Town The Lu Chance.
bawds.56 However, only Wycherley and Farquhar of the five

major dramatists include such an individual in their produc-

tions.

In his Love in a Wood Wycherley features two precise old

bawds, Mrs. Joyner and Mrs. Crossbite; completely immoral,

the two licentious ancients nevertheless vigorously and

continuously proclaim their virtue and honor. Hired by the

lecherous old city merchant Gripe to procure Lucy Crossbite,

the wily Mrs. Joyner easily makes a deal with the girl's

shrewd mother, ho is more than willing to sell her daughter's

services. When Gripe proves niggardly, the aged schemers

accuse him of rape and threaten exposure unless he pays

a five hundred pound settlement. Under the pretence of

helping him get his money's worth, Mrs. Joyner, spuriously

protesting her complete innocence in the blackmail plot,

arranges another meeting where she and Mrs. Crossbite con-

vince the miser to marry Lucy. Their most telling argument

is the fact that keeping a wife is cheaper than keeping a

mistress, but with such an expedient mother-in-law and

deceptive friend, this contention seems highly questionable.

Farquharts Mrs. Mandrake (The Twin Rivals) exceeds by

far Wycherleyts old bawds in her proclivity to do evil.

Viciously ingenious, she takes real pride in her nefarious-

ness, A midwife as well as a bawd, she is acquainted with

5 6 For instance, consult The True Widow, Shadwell; and

The Chances, Buckingham.
 152

all the better families, serving them in either or both

respects. Benjamin, the epitome of flagitiousness, naturally

turns to her to assist him in corrupting his brother's

mistress and stealing his brother's estate because "she's

famous for understanding the right side of a woman, and the

wrong side of the law."57 Promising to help him attain both

desires, she boastfully concludes: "Well, certainly there is

not a woman in the world so willing to oblige mankind as

myself and really I have been so ever since the age of

twelve . . . . I have delivered as many women of great

bellies, and helped as many to tem, as any person in

England . . . 58

Innately hypocritical, she pretends to perform her

iniquitous tasks for the sake of friendship; however, al-

though she will never take payment for procuring, she will

accept an exorbitant gift of money with which to buy "teeth

powder." Feigning a mere social interest in liquor, she

scorns drinking from glasses because they are "too big";

instead, she gulps great draughts from the bottle. Evidently,

debasing young women is one of her greatest pleasures and

most frequent tasks; nevertheless, she claims a tender af-

fection for her victims and insists that once the girls have

been corrupted, their seducers must fuirnish them with a

husband of some sort.

57The Twin Rivals, I, 1, 21.

58 Ibid., 1, 11, 22.
 CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

Reflecting the real beau monde of Restoration London,

the treatment of women in the comedy of manners was the best

and most unusual characteristic of this dramatic type. With

the first gay reaction against the past, the independent

ladies demanded complete equality with men; intellectually,

they gained that equality. To the gay belles, no less than

to the beaux, wit was the passport to society. The truewit

had everything; the witwould was social refuse, marked for

that worst of all punishment--ridicule.

Although they did not verbally admit it, the ladies were

not actually prepared to accept, nor were men prepared to

grant, a single standard in morals. As a result, the position

of women was somewhat paradoxical. While the male practiced

the inconstancy he preached, the ideal woman railed against

conventional mores, but was careful to abide strictly by

them. Discerning how much of her clever conversation should

remain just talk and how much could safely be put into action

was a specialized part of womants wit. For her licentious-

ness was a failing; the morally free woman might be accepted

into the drawing room or invited to the ball, but she was

still the butt of scornful laughter.

 A few types such as the serving woman, the prostitute,

the duenna, and the bawd were excluded because of parentage,

occupation, or acknowledgment of the limitations of old age

from attempting admittance to the beau monde; however, most

female characters struggled but failed to attain a place in

the higher echelon. Even though the fop's foolishly exag-

gerated sense of her own worth, the rural lass's countrified

ignorance of the ways of the world, the antiquated belle's

senile attempts to compete with youth were the principal

causes for their rejection, these women usually added the

sin of lasciviously chasing a gallant to their other faults.

Physical freedom before marriage by the mistress, after

marriage by the old man's darling, and at any time by the

lady rake also doomed a woman to the limbo of the witwould.

Only the heroine among the women was a truewit, for

she alone had true intelligence and deep understanding of

the social structure. Always young, wealthy, beautiful,

and witty, she adored London, abhorred the country, scorned

fools, and valued her freedom. An antagonistic duelist in

the love game, she proclaimed sexual freedom, but never

practiced it. Her raillery was an attempt to bewitch a

rake who never cared for a conquest unless it was difficult

and never married unless possession was impossible without

it. Although realizing that marriage was her destiny, she

also understood that she might lose her liberty in matrimony;

thus, she avoided wedlock as long as possible and before

capitulating insisted on a proviso to guarantee her post-

marital rights.

When the ladies of London began their clamorous demand

for reform of the comedy of manners, the female truewits

and witwoulds were the first to change. Gradually, the fop

gave up her conceits by the end of the play; the country

girl became sweetly natural rather than bucolically stupid;

the superannuated vamp renounced her frenzied pretensions of

glamour and assumed a position of respect and dignity.

Promiscuous women by degrees came to be regarded as evil

rather than ridiculous, or unfortunately misguided rather

than humorously profligate. Always pure in deed, the

heroine now began to be just as circumspect in her language,

and her desire for marriage became more pronounced until

finally, rather than demanding the right to individuality

and freedom, she longed to lose herself in love and

matrimony. Gaiety slowly gave way to sensibility, and

wit was eroded by sense.

However, despite a growing taste for sentimentality,

particularly during the last decade of the seventeenth

century, throughout the Restoration comedy of manners the

treatment of women illustrated an equality with men never

before attained, a frankness of speech never since attempted,

and an intellectual brilliance never before or since sur-

passed on the English stage. 'Wit ruled society, and women

 156

succeeded or failed in their efforts to be truewits according

to their ability to comprehend and follow the somewhat am-

biguous but very rigid rules which governed the conduct of

the beau monde.
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