His best scenes are those of cross purposes, mutual exposure, or the contrast of natural with acquired cunning; those, in short, in which reflection and design have much more to do than animal spirits. His style is pure and unaffected, and clearness and force are his characteristics, in preference to what is either engaging or laughable We can easily believe him to have been a "slow" writer; not from dullness, but from care and consideration. -HUNT, LEIGH, 1840, ed., The Dramatic Works of Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar.

Wycherley's plays are said to have been the produce of long and patient labour. 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 meager soil, and was forced only by great labour and outlay to bear fruit, which, after all, was not of the highest flavour. 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 Maestro de Danzar, not by any means one of the happiest comedies of the great Castilian poet. The "Country Wife" is borrowed from the Ecole des Maris and the Ecole des Femmes. The groundwork of the "Plain Dealer" is taken from the Misanthrope of Molière. One whole scene is almost translated from the Critique de l'Ecole des Femmes; Fidelia is Shakspeare's Viola stolen, and marred in the stealing; and the Widow Blackacre, beyond comparison Wycherley's best comic character, is the Countess in Racine's Plaideurs, talking the jargon of English instead of that of French chicane. MACAULAY, THOMAS BABINGTON, 1841, Comic Dramatists of the Restoration, Edinburgh Review; Critical and Miscellaneous Essays.

Wycherley, the coarsest writer who has polluted the stage. His style is laboured, and troublesome to read. His tone is virulent and bitter. He frequently forces his comedy in order to get at spiteful satire. Effort and animosity mark all that he says or puts into the mouths of others. ... We find in him no poetry of expression, no glimpse of the ideal, no

system of morality which could console. raise, or purify men. If Wycherley borrows a character anywhere, it is only to do it violence, or degrade it to the level of his own characters. If he imitates the Agnes of Molière, as he does in the "Country Wife," he marries her in order to profane marriage, deprives her of honour, still more of shame, still more of grace, and changes her artless tenderness into shameless instincts and scandalous confessions. If he takes Shakspeare's Viola, as in the "Plain Dealer," it is to drag her through the vileness of infamy, amidst brutalities and surprises. If he translates the part of Célimène, he wipes out at one stroke the manners of a great lady, the woman's delicacy, the tact of the lady of the house, the politeness, the refined air, the superiority of wit and knowledge of the world, in order to substitute the impudence and cheats of a foulmouthed courtesan. If he invents an almost innocent girl, Hippolita, he begins by putting into her mouth words that will not bear transcribing. Whatever he does. or says, whether he copies or originates, blames or praises, his stage is a defamation of mankind, which repels even when it attracts, and which sickens one while it corrupts. A certain gift hovers over all

namely, vigour which is never absent in England, and gives a peculiar character to their virtues as to their vices. -TAINE, H. A., 1871, History of English Literature, tr. Van Laun, vol. I, bk. iii, ch. i, pp. 480, 481, 483.

Wycherley, the first dramatist of the time, remains the most brutal among all writers for the stage; and nothing gives so damning an expression of his day as the fact that he found actors to repeat his words and audiences to applaud him. In men such as Wycherley Milton found types for the Belial of his great poem, "than whom a spirit more lewd fell not from Heaven, or more gross to love vice for itself." He piques himself on the frankness and "plain dealing" which painted the world as he saw it, a world of brawls and assignations, of orgies at Vauxhall and fights with the watch, of lies and double entendres, of knaves and dupes, of men who sold their daughters and women who cheated their husbands. But the cynicism of Wycherley was no greater than that of the men about him.

and in mere love of what was vile, in contempt of virtue and disbelief in purity and honesty, the King himself stood ahead of any of his subjects.-GREEN, JOHN RICHARD, 1874, A Short History of the English People, ch. ix, sec. i.

His merits lie in the vigour with which his characters are drawn, the clearness with which they stand out from one another, and the naturalness with which he both constructs his plots and chooses his language. As for his plots, they are rarely original, and in the main based upon Molière; but Wycherley neither borrows without reflexion, nor combines without care. The wit of his dialogue is less sparkling and spontaneous than that of Congreve's or of Vanbrugh's; he is, as Leigh Hunt says, somewhat heavy as well as brawny in his step, and he lacks in general the gaiety of spirit which is the most charming phase of comic humour. On the other hand, he excels in satire of an intenser kind; his sarcasms are as keen as they are cruel; and the cynicism of his wit cannot prevent us from acknowledging its power. But while he ruthlessly uncloaks the vices of his age, his own moral tone is affected by their influence to as deplorable a degree as is that of the most light-hearted and unthinking of the dramatists contemporary with him. WARD, ADOLPHUS WILLIAM, 1875-99, A History of English Dramatic Literature, vol. III, p. 462.

Wycherley has this merit, that he was first in the field of our best school of comedy-writers. He virtually began the school of the Restoration comic dramatists,

the so-called comedy of manners. True it is that had Molière not written comedies Wycherley would not have written as he did, and it must be admitted that Sir George Etheredge wrote plays as unconventionally natural so far as dialogue is concerned as Wycherley's; but Etheredge's comedies are altogether beneath notice as literature, while Wycherley is, and ever will be, a true English classic. If he transferred to our stage whole scenes from Molière, he did them into strong, nervous English, racy with mother wit. CRAWFURD, OSWALD, 1883, ed., English Comic Dramatists, p. 66.

Whatever the cause, he was lost to the stage at thirty, and his occasional poetical productions, the most important of which have been already noticed, were far from qualifying him to sit in the seat of Dryden. He enjoyed, nevertheless, supremacy of another kind. Regarded as an extinct volcano, he gave umbrage to no rivals; his urbane and undemonstrative temper kept him out of literary feuds; all agreed to adore so benign and inoffensive a deity, and the general respect of the lettered world fitly culminated in Pope's dedication of his "Homer" to him, the most splendid literary tribute the age could bestow.-GARNETT, RICHARD, 1895, The Age of Dryden, p. 126.

In Wycherley's plays the immorality is more realistic, and therefore more harmful, than in other Restoration dramas; but his vigour and clearness of delineation are his greatest merits.-AITKEN, G. A., 1900, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. LXIII, p. 201.

Dr. South holds out still; but he cannot be immortal.-HALIFAX, EARL OF, 1709, Letter to Jonathan Swift, Oct. 6.

Robert South stands hardly in the first rank, but he has never been surpassed, and not often imitated, in his own style as a preacher. He was a stout defender of orthodoxy, and a very hard hitter of his opponents. Men admired him, as they have admired some modern preachers, for the sharp things he said; but they admired him more for his irrepressible and inimitable humour. A sermon of South's is a

perpetual succession of jocularities; and the churches in which he preached resounded with the laughter of the congregations. But his ridicule was always directed against pretence, or falseness, or self-assertion, or pride-never against anything high or noble. He was an earnest, self-denying ecclesiastic, and entirely without aims for his own advancement.

He remained content with preferment which was considered slight in comparison to his genius, and died a poor man, having spent his income on good works. -HUTTON, WILLIAM HOLDEN, 1895, Social England, ed. Traill, vol. IV, p. 418.

On the whole perhaps the greatest preacher of his age.-GARNETT, RICHARD, 1895, The Age of Dryden, p. 223.

South, a man of strong prejudices and warm attachments, was never a selfseeker, and, when he changed his attitude, followed what appeared to be the dictates of common sense. His use of humour in the pulpit suggested to Tillotson a want

of seriousness in his character. Yet no preacher was more direct in his dealing with the vices of the age, no court preacher more homely in his appeals. His humour has a native breadth and freshness. Like Fuller's pleasant turns, it always illuminates his subject; but, unlike Fuller's conceits, it does not cloy. Baxter says that South was "a fluent, extemporate speaker," yet tells a story of his breaking down, which shows that in early life his sermons were learnt by heart. Kennett tells of his attention to delivery, and how he "worked up his body" as he approached his points. Wood's harsh judgment on South is said to have been inspired by a jest with which South received Wood's mention of a bodily ailment from which he suffered.-GORDON, ALEXANDER, 1898, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. LIII, p. 276.

SERMONS

South had great qualifications for that popularity which attends the pulpit; and diffuse, not learned, not formal in arguhis manner was at that time original. Not ment like Barrow, with a more natural structure of sentences; a more pointed,

though by no means a more fair and satisclear and English, free from all pedantry, factory, turn of reasoning; with a style but abounding with those colloquial novelties of idiom, which, though now become II. affected; sparing no personal or temvulgar and offensive, the age of Charles porary sarcasm, but, if he seems for a moment to tread on the verge of buffoonery, recovering himself by some stroke of vigorous sense and language,--such was the witty Dr. South, whom the courtiers delighted to hear. His sermons want all that is called unction, and sometimes even earnestness, which is owing, in a great measure, to a perpetual tone of gibing at rebels and fanatics; but there is a masculine spirit about them, which combined. with their peculiar characteristics, would naturally fill the churches where he might be heard.-HALLAM, HENRY, 1837-39,

Introduction to the Literature of Europe, pt. iv, ch. ii, par. 56.

Of all the English preachers, South seems to us to furnish, in point of style, the truest specimens of the most effective species of pulpit eloquence. We are speaking, it must be remembered, simply of his style: we offer no opinion on the degree of truth or error in the system of doctrines he embraced; and for his unchristian bitterness and often unseemly wit, would be the last to offer any apology. But his robust intellect his shrewd common sense-his vehement feelings-and a fancy ever more distinguished by force than by elegance, admirably qualified him for a powerful public speaker. His style is accordingly marked by all the characteristics which might naturally be expected from the possession of such qualities. It is everywhere direct, condensed, pungent. His sermons are well worthy of frequent and diligent perusal by every young preacher.-ROGERS, HENRY, 1840, The British Pulpit, Edinburgh Review, vol. 72, p. 82.

No explorer of the thorny tracts of theology can ever forget his exhilaration of spirit on first reading the sermons of Dr. South, the shrewdest, sharpest, bitterest, and wittiest of English divines. His character, formed by a curious interpenetration of strong prejudices and great powers, and colored by the circumstances of his age and position, is one of the most peculiar in English literature, and, as displayed in his works, repays the most assiduous study. In some points he reminds us of Sydney Smith, though distinguished from him by many striking individualities, and utterly opposed to him in political sentiment and principle. He is a grand specimen of the old Tory; and he enforced his Toryism with a courage, heartiness, and wealth of intellectual resources, to which the warmest radical could hardly refuse admiration and respect.-WHIPPLE, EDWIN P., 1846, Essays and Reviews, vol. II, p. 74.

The English language affords no higher specimen of its richness and strength than is to be found in this beautiful discourse.

Every student for the Pulpit or the Bar should read this eloquent Sermon. -MONTAGU, BASIL, 1860, ed. Adam in Paradise, Preface.

I have been re-reading South's sermons,

and like the handsome way he has of taking everything for granted while he seems to be arguing its probability. But you can hear as good at St. Paul's—I was going to say.-LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL, 1890, Letters, ed. Norton, Dec. 18, vol. II, p. 428.

Robert South stands midway between the older and the newer generation. He preached good sense and good morals with masculine force, but he was not a reconciler, rather he was an unflinching combatant, and a too truculent victor; among his gifts the grace of charity can hardly be reckoned; he sets forth his gospel of good morals with great intellectual clearness and energy, but rarely with what we understand by unction. . . . South's preaching was not dry or cold; through the vigour and perspicacity of his intellect, aided by the power of a strong rhetoric, he rises at times to a kind of rational enthusiasm.-DOWDEN, EDWARD, 1900, Puritan and Anglican, pp. 325, 326.

GENERAL

South's sentences are gems, hard and shining: Voltaire's look like them, but are only French paste.-HARE, A. W. AND J. C., 1827-48, Guesses at Truth, First Series.

Thro' listening palaces did rhymeless South Pour sparkling waters from his golden mouth.

-LANDOR, WALTER SAVAGE, 1846, Satirists.

As a writer, Dr. South is conspicuous for good practical sense, for a deep insight into human character, for liveliness of imagination, and exuberant invention, and for a wit that knew not always the limit of propriety. In perspicuity, copiousness, and force of expression, he has few superiors among English writers.CLEVELAND, CHARLES D., 1848, A Compendium of English Literature, p. 363.

Nor can the ingenuity, the subtlety, the brilliancy of South, though too exuberant in point, and drawing away the attention. from the subject to the epigrammatic diction, be regarded otherwise than as proofs of the highest order of intellect.BROUGHAM, HENRY LORD, 1856, Contributions to Edinburgh Review, vol. 1, p. 128.

South astonishes us by his wit, while he instructs us with his wisdom.-PORTER, NOAH, 1870, Books and Reading, p. 20.

He who was called the wittiest of ecclesiastics, Robert South, as different from Barrow in his character and life as in his works and his mind; armed for war, an impassioned royalist, a partisan of divine right and passive obedience, an acrimonious controversialist, a defamer of the dissenters, a foe to the Act of Toleration, who never refused to use in his enmities the licence of an insult or a foul word. His style is anecdotic, striking, abrupt, with change of tone, forcible and clownish gestures, with every species of originality, vehemence, and boldness. He sneers in the pulpit, he rails, he plays the mimic and comedian. He paints his characters as if he had them before his eyes. The audience will recognise the originals again in the streets; they could put the names to the portraits.-TAINE, H. A., 1871, History of English Literature, tr. Van Laun, vol. II, bk. iii, ch. iii, pp. 65, 66.

A quick and powerful intellect, soliderudition, a superlative command of homely racy English, and wit of unsurpassed brilliancy, make a combination that, in a literary point of view, places the possessor at least on a level with Taylor and Bar

No person who is wont to slake his intellectual thirst at "the wells of English undefiled," will soon forget the tingling delight, the exhilaration of mind and spirit, with which he first read the sermons of Robert South, the shrewdest, most caustic, most firey, and, with the exception of Thomas Fuller, the wittiest of the old English divines. Among the giants of English theology he stands alone..

He was a kind of Tory Sydney Smith, yet lacking the genial, sunny disposition, and the humor, of that divine wit and witty divine; and in reading his works, it is difficult to say which is most to be admired, the thorough grasp and exhaustive treatment of the subject, the masterly arrangement of the thoughts, or the vitality, energy and freshness of expression, which have given his sermons a higher place in

the library of the scholar than even in that of the theologian or the pulpit orator.

.. South's writings are a storehouse of vehement expression, such as can be. found in no other English writer. He had at his command the whole vocabulary of abuse, satire, and scorn, and, when his ire was aroused, he was never niggard of the treasures of his indignant rhetoric. Against everything, especially, which militated with the doctrines or ceremonies of the English church, he hurled his anathemas and shot his sarcasms. Radical editors should study his writings day and night; nowhere else (except in Milton) will they find such biting words and stinging phrases with which to denounce wicked men, wicked institutions, and wicked practices. The intensity of thought and feeling which burns through his writings has hardly any parallel in English literature. It has been compared to the unwearied fire of the epic poet. There are times when he seems to wrestle with his subject, as if he would grind it into powder; and when he seems to say all that he does say to us, only that we may conjecture how much more he could say if he were able to wreak his thoughts upon expression. It has been truly said that many sentences in his works appear torn from his brain by main strength, expressing not only the thought he intended to convey, but a kind of impatient rage that it did not come with less labor. With all his command of language, he seems often to struggle with it in order to wrestle from it words enough for his wealth of thought.-MATHEWS, WILLIAM, 1877, Hours With Men and Books, pp. 58, 71.

His style is voluble and nervous; he runs while he talks, and without pausing he snatches, now from one side and now from the other, missiles, ornaments, objects of every description, all of which find their proper places in his motley discourse. He never hesitates to invite virulence, buffoonery, or even downright hateful faslehood to adorn his attacks upon a brother divine, and, as Stillingfleet said, waits in figurative lanes and argumentative narrow passages ready to bespatter his opponents with dirt amid fits. of roguish laughter. There is something impish about Dr. South.-GOSSE, EDMUND, 1888, A History of Eighteenth Century Literature, p. 100.