ng. In
this way a volume of miscellanies in verse and prose was got up for the
market. The collection derives all its value from the traces of Pope's
hand, which are everywhere discernible.

Of the moral character of Wycherley it can hardly be necessary for us to
say more. His fame as a writer rests wholly on his comedies, and chiefly
on the last two. Even as a comic writer, he was neither of the best
school, nor highest in his school. He was in truth a worse Congreve. His
chief merit, like Congreve's, lies in the style of his dialogue. But the
wit which lights up the Plain Dealer and the Country Wife is pale and
flickering, when compared with the gorgeous blaze which dazzles us
almost to blindness in Love for Love and the Way of the World. Like
Congreve, and, indeed, even more than Congreve, Wycherley is ready to
sacrifice dramatic propriety to the liveliness of his dialogue. The poet
speaks out of the mouths of all his dunces and coxcombs, and makes them
describe themselves with a good sense and acuteness which puts them on a
level with the wits and heroes. We will give two instances, the first
which occur to us, from the Country Wife. There are in the world fools
who find the society of old friends insipid, and who are always running
after new companions. Such a character is a fair subject for comedy. But
nothing can be more absurd than to introduce a man of this sort saying
to his comrade, "I can deny you nothing: for though I have known thee a
great while, never go if I do not love thee as well as a new
acquaintance." That town wits, again, have always been rather a
heartless class, is true. But none of them, we will answer for it, ever
said to a young lady to whom he was making love, "We wits rail and make
love often, but to show our parts: as we have no affections, so we have
no malice."

Wycherley's plays are said to have been the produce of long and patient
labor. The epithet of "slow" was early given to him by Rochester, and
was frequently repeated. In truth his mind, unless we are greatly
mistaken, was naturally a very meagre soil, and was forced only by great
labor and outlay to bear fruit which, after all, was not of the highest
flavor. He has scarcely more claim to originality than Terence. It is
not too much to say that there is hardly anything of the least value in
his plays of which the hint is not to be found elsewhere. The best
scenes in the Gentleman Dancing-Master were suggested by Calderon's
Maes