William Wycherley (c.1640–1716) was an English playwright. His Restoration comedies, such as The Country Wife (1675) and The Plain Dealer (1676,) are characterized by their critical examination of sexual morality and marriage conventions.
Born in Clive, near Shrewsbury, Wycherley was sent to France as a youth, became a Roman Catholic, left Queen’s College, Oxford, without a degree, and entered the Middle Temple. His Love in a Wood; or, St. James’s Park, a brisk comedy based on English dramatist Charles Sedley’s Mulberry Garden, was acted and well-received in 1671. The Duke of Buckingham gave him a commission in a regiment, Charles II made him a present of £500, and he served for a short time in the fleet.
Wycherley’s The Gentleman Dancing-master (1672,) a clever farcical comedy of intrigue, was followed by The Country Wife (1675,) Wycherley’s coarsest but strongest play, and The Plain Dealer (1677,) both based on plays by Molière. A little after 1679, Wycherley married the young widowed Countess of Drogheda. She died a few years later, leaving him all her fortune, an estate that involved him in a lawsuit whereby he was reduced to poverty and cast into the Fleet prison for some years. Having seen a representation of The Plain Dealer, King James II paid his debts and gave him a pension of £200 a year.
At 64, Wycherley made the acquaintance of poet Alexander Pope, then a youth of 16, to whom he entrusted the revision of a number of his verses. Pope helped revise Wycherley’s poems.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by William Wycherley
I weigh the man, not his title; ’tis not the king’s stamp can make the metal better.
—William Wycherley
Topics: Class
A mistress should be like a little country retreat near the town, not to dwell in constantly, but only for a night and away.
—William Wycherley
Your women of honor, as you call em, are only chary of their reputations, not their persons; and ‘Tis scandal that they would avoid, not men.
—William Wycherley
Topics: Reputation
He’s a fool that marries, but he’s a greater that does not marry a fool; what is wit in a wife good for, but to make a man a cuckold?
—William Wycherley
Topics: Wives, Marriage
I have heard people eat most heartily of another man’s meat, that is, what they do not pay for.
—William Wycherley
Good fellowship and friendship are lasting, rational and manly pleasures.
—William Wycherley
Topics: Friends and Friendship
Women of quality are so civil, you can hardly distinguish love from good breeding.
—William Wycherley
Topics: Women
Have as much good nature as good sense since they generally are companions.
—William Wycherley
Topics: Goodness
Marrying to increase love is like gaming to become rich; alas, you only lose what little stock you had before.
—William Wycherley
Topics: Marriage
Mistresses are like books; if you pore upon them too much, they doze you and make you unfit for company; but if used discreetly, you are the fitter for conversation by em.
—William Wycherley
Topics: Love, Lovers
Your virtue is your greatest affectation.
—William Wycherley
Topics: Affectation
Hunger, revenge, to sleep are petty foes, But only death the jealous eyes can close.
—William Wycherley
Thy books should, like thy friends, not many be, yet such wherein men may thy judgment see.
—William Wycherley
Topics: Books, Reading
Money makes up in a measure all other wants in men.
—William Wycherley
Topics: Money
Women serve but to keep a man from better company.
—William Wycherley
Topics: Men & Women, Men, Women
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