Note 19 — [THE PLAYS OF] WILLIAM WYCHERLEY

Our information respecting the closing scene of Wycherley's life is too scanty for the formation of a definite judgment. We are, however, under no necessity of believing the circumstances which attended it to have been in any way scandalous. Pope's letter, on this occasion, to Mr. Blount is here subjoined.

"Jan. 21, 1715-16.

"I know of nothing that will be so interesting to you at present, as some circumstances of the last act of that eminent comic poet, and our friend, Wycherley. He had often told me, as I doubt not he did all his acquaintance, that he would marry as soon as his life was despaired of. Accordingly, a few days before his death, he underwent the ceremony: and joined together those two sacraments, which, wise men say, should be the last we receive: for, if you observe, matrimony is placed after extreme unction in our catechism, as a kind of hint of the order of time in which they are to be taken. The old man then lay down, satisfied in the conscience of having by this one act paid his just debts, obliged a woman, who, he was told, had merit, and shown an heroic resentment of the ill-usage of his next heir. Some hundred pounds, which he had with the lady, discharged those debts: a jointure of four hundred a year made her a recompense; and the nephew he left to comfort himself as well as he could, with the miserable remains of a mortgaged estate. I saw our friend twice after this was done, less peevish in his sickness than he used to be in his health; neither much afraid of dying, nor (which in him had been more likely) much ashamed of marrying. The evening before he expired, he called his young wife to the bedside, and earnestly entreated her not to deny him one request, the last he should make. Upon her assurances of consenting to it, he told her, 'My dear, it is only this, that you will never marry an old man again.' I cannot help remarking, that sickness, which often destroys both wit and wisdom, yet seldom has power to remove that talent which we call humour. Mr. Wycherley shewed his, even in this last compliment; though I think his request a little hard, for why should he bar her from doubling her jointure on the same easy terms.

"So trivial as these circumstances are, I should not be displeased myself to know such trifles, when they concern or characterise any eminent person. The wisest and wittiest of men are seldom wiser or wittier than others in these sober moments. At least, our friend ended much in the character he had lived in: and Horace's rule for a play may as well be applied to him as a play-wright:

'——Servetur ad imum Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet.'

"I am, &c."

It is stated that the lady's name was Jackson, and that she brought Wycherley a fortune of £1,500. The following additional particulars are given, on the authority of Pope, in Spence's Anecdotes, "Wycherley's nephew, on whom his estate was entailed (but with power to settle a widow's jointure) would not consent to his selling any part of it; which he wanted much to do, to pay his debts, about a thousand pounds. He had therefore long resolved to marry, in order to make a settlement from the estate, to pay off his debts with his wife's fortune, and 'to plague his damned nephew,' as he used to express it.... After all, the woman he did marry proved a cheat; was a cast mistress of the person who recommended her to him; and was supplied by him with money for her wedding clothes." This last assertion is hardly to be reconciled with the assumption that Wycherley paid his debts with his wife's fortune. From an allusion to his nephew's "ill-carriage" to him, in a letter to Pope, dated Aug. 11, 1709, we gather that the quarrel between them was of old standing; of its origin we are completely ignorant.—Ed.