Another peculiarity in the comedies of the age of the Restoration was their extraordinary indelicacy. The writers seemed to emulate each other in presenting upon the stage scenes and language which no modest ear or pure mind could support. In the earlier period coarseness in conversation was characteristic of an unpolished age--the language put in the mouths of the actors, as remarked before, smelt of the tavern; but under Charles II. the tone of fashionable society, as represented on the stage, is modelled upon that of the brothel. Even the veiled allusion is no longer resorted to, broad and direct language is substituted in its place. This open profligacy of the stage reached its greatest height between the years 1670 and 1680. The staple material of this comedy may be considered to be the commission of adultery, which is presented as one of the principal ornaments in the character of the well-bred gentleman, varied with the seducing of other men's mistresses, for the keeping of mistresses appears as the rule of social life. The "Country Wife," one of Wycherley's comedies, which is supposed to have been brought on the stage perhaps as early as 1672, is a mass of gross indecency from beginning to end. It involves two principal plots, that of a voluptuary who feigns himself incapable of love and insensible to the other sex, in order to pursue his intrigues with greater liberty; and that of a citizen who takes to his wife a silly and innocent country girl, whose ignorance he believes will be a protection to her virtue, but the very means he takes to prevent her, lead to her fall. The "Parson's Wedding," by Thomas Killigrew, first acted in 1673, is equally licentious. The same at least may be said of Dryden's "Limberham, or the Kind Keeper," first performed in 1678, which, according to the author's own statement, was prohibited on account of its freeness, but more probably because the character of Limberham was believed to be intended for a personal satire on the unpopular earl of Lauderdale. Its plot is simple enough; it is the story of a debauched old gentleman, named Aldo, whose son, after a rather long absence on the Continent, returns to England, and assumes the name of Woodall, in order to enjoy freely the pleasures of London life before he makes himself known to his friends. He takes a lodging in a house occupied by some loose women, and there meets with his father, but, as the latter does not recognise his son, they become friends, and live together licentiously so long, that when the son at length discovers himself, the old man is obliged to overlook his vices. Otway's comedy of "Friendship in Fashion," performed the same year, was not a whit more moral. But all these are far outdone by Ravenscroft's comedy of "The London Cuckolds," first brought out in 1682, which, nevertheless, continued to be acted until late in the last century. It is a clever comedy, full of action, and consisting of a great number