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——Excludit sanos Helicone poetas

Democritus.[23]—Horat.

Wycherley informed Pope that he wrote his first comedy. Love in a Wood, at the age of nineteen—i.e. in the year 1659–60. If this statement be accurate, the play must have undergone very considerable alterations previous to its production on the stage; for not only do we discover in it occasional allusions to events of later years, but the whole piece displays an intimate acquaintance with life in the metropolis scarcely commensurate with the opportunities of a youth who, from the age of fifteen, when he was sent into France, to that of twenty, when he became a student at Oxford, can have passed but a few weeks, at the most, in London. From the Biographia Britannica we learn that Wycherley returned from France shortly before the Restoration; from Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses that he became a fellow commoner of Queen's College, Oxford, also "a little before the Restoration of Charles II., but wore not a gown, only lived in the provost's lodgings," and "was entered in the public library (the Bodleian) under the title of philosophiæ studiosus in July, 1660." In the Fasti Oxonienses, however, the following entry occurs under the year 1660: "In the month of July this year Will. Wicherley became sojourner in Oxon for the sake of the public library." We are at liberty, therefore, to conclude that between the date of his return to England and the following July, part, at least, of our author's time may have been spent in London, where he may possibly have composed the first draught of his comedy, and where, at all events, his quick observation would furnish him with material sufficient for a first draught.

The year 1672 has been universally determined as that of the first performance of Love in a Wood; I believe, nevertheless, incorrectly. We are as certain as we can be, in the absence of direct evidence, that Wycherley's second play, The Gentleman Dancing-Master, was first brought upon the stage in 1671.[24] Now there is little doubt that The Gentleman Dancing-Master had been preceded by Love in a Wood, for not only do the authorities generally concur in assigning an earlier date to the production of the latter play, but Wycherley, in dedicating it to the Duchess of Cleveland, refers pointedly to himself as a "new author." Further in the dedication we find that her Grace had honoured the poet by going to see his comedy twice together, during Lent, and had been pleased, thereupon, to command from him a copy of the play, with which he takes occasion to offer the dedicatory epistle. These were not the days of long runs, even for the most successful dramas, nor are we likely to err in assuming that the Duchess was present at an early performance of the piece which she distinguished with her favour; or that Wycherley prefixed her title to a comedy newly brought upon the stage, rather than to one which had already been for some time the property of the public, and which had been revived, as must then have been the case, before the Duchess had seen it. Note, also, that the dedication is addressed to the Duchess of Cleveland by that title. In Lent, 1670, Barbara Palmer was Countess of Castlemaine: she was created Duchess of Cleveland on the 3rd of August in the same year. Considering then that the piece was certainly performed during Lent, that it cannot have been produced later than 1671, and that the Duchess to whom it was inscribed enjoyed not that title until the autumn of 1670, we may conclude, with tolerable security, that the first performance of Love in a Wood took place some time during the spring of 1671.

Genest indeed, supposes it to have been brought out by the King's Company after their removal to the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields.[25] Their own house in Drury Lane having been destroyed by fire in January, 1672, they opened, on the 26th of February following, the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, which had been untenanted since the migration of the Duke's Company to Dorset Gardens in the preceding November, with a representation of Beaumont and Fletcher's Wit without Money. This was succeeded, in order, by Arviragus and Philicia and Dryden's Marriage à la Mode, after which, Genest thinks, Love in a Wood was produced. But, on this supposition, the first performance of Love in a Wood must have taken place later than that of The Gentleman Dancing-Master, and in that case it seems hardly probable that Wycherley should describe himself as a new author in the dedication to the former play. Moreover, the prologue to Wycherley's third comedy, The Country Wife, contains a distinct allusion to the recent ill-fortune of The Gentleman Dancing-Master, which we can scarcely suppose the author would have thus referred to, had a successful play of his been produced in the interval, and that by the same company which brought forward The Country Wife. In fact, the only argument which I can conceive it possible to adduce in support of Genest must be based upon a conjecture that not only The Gentleman Dancing-Master, but Love in a Wood also, had failed to win the favour of the public, and that it is the latter play to which allusion is intended in the prologue to The Country Wife. That The Gentleman Dancing-Master proved a failure is certain; that Love in a Wood succeeded, we have no direct evidence, but of circumstantial sufficient, I think, to prove the point. The general assumption in its favour we may pass; but the whole tone of the dedication, though it afford us no information, in so many words, as to the fate of the piece, forbids us to believe that it can have been indited by the "baffled scribbler" of a condemned comedy. Indeed, had the piece thus failed, it is quite inconceivable that Wycherley would have had the temerity to offer it to the Duchess; he would rather have sent it into the world silently, and without the flourish of a dedication, as was actually the case with The Gentleman Dancing-Master. Dennis, moreover, declares expressly that Love in a Wood brought its author acquainted with the wits of the Court, and we may question whether the reputation of an unprosperous playwright would have proved the surest passport to their intimacy.

The reasons for rejecting the date of 1672 thus recounted, there remains but to notice one inconsiderable particular, which, could we allow it consequence, would tend to determine the production of Love in a Wood at a yet earlier date than that to which I have assigned it. In a conversation with the Duchess, immediately after her visit to his play, Wycherley, as reported by Dennis, continually addresses her Grace by the title of "your Ladyship." I doubt not, however, that this is a mere slip on the part of Dennis, nor can we easily imagine that Wycherley deferred, until the autumn, the presentation of his play to a lady who had "commanded" it of him, with such distinguishing marks of favour, in the preceding spring.

Love in a Wood, then, was produced by the King's company, during the spring of 1671, at the Theatre Royal, in Drury Lane. Some of the first actors of the day took part in the performances. Hart, who in tragedy yielded the palm to Betterton alone, appeared as Ranger, Mohun as Dapperwit; Lacy the comedian, soon afterwards "creator" of Bayes, as Alderman Gripe; and Kinaston, who in his youth, before women trod the boards, had been famous in female parts, now, changing sides, enacted the jealous lover, Valentine. The rôle of Lady Flippant was taken by an actress well known to us from the pages of Pepys—his favourite Mrs. Knipp, "a merry jade!"

Upon the whole this play must be owned inferior to Wycherley's other dramas. It is excelled in unity of action by The Gentleman Dancing-Master, in richness of humour by The Country Wife, in strength of satire by The Plain Dealer. Nevertheless, it is a highly diverting, witty comedy, and strikingly superior to most of the new plays which, since the Restoration, had preceded it upon the stage. Some critics would have us believe that Wycherley derived the suggestion of this play from Sir Charles Sedley's comedy of The Mulberry Garden. It is difficult to understand upon what grounds this assertion is based. In the first place, although The Mulberry Garden was produced on the stage in 1668, nearly three years earlier than Love in a Wood, it is exceedingly doubtful if it were earlier written. Indeed, if Wycherley may be credited as to the year in which his own play was composed, the question of priority is easily settled, for The Mulberry Garden cannot have been written until after the Restoration, as its dénouement turns upon the proclamation of the King by General Monk. Moreover, it is hardly possible that Wycherley should have known anything of Sedley's play before its public representation, as he seems not to have been acquainted with Sedley himself until after the production of his own drama, so that our acceptance of the theory that he borrowed from Sedley the hint of Love in a Wood would involve the unwarrantable conclusion that he also, in conversation with Pope, antedated its composition by at least eight years. But further, the only considerable point of resemblance between the two plays appears to be that while in Wycherley's part of the action takes place in St. James's Park, in Sedley's one of the scenes is laid in the Mulberry Garden, which was certainly very near to St. James's Park, being, in fact, situated at its western extremity. If the reader choose to consider this remarkable coincidence sufficient to justify a charge of plagiarism against Wycherley, I have nothing more to urge in his defence.

Love in a Wood was registered at Stationers' Hall on the 6th of October, 1671, and was published in the following year.