D'Urfey, while of its moral degradation the "divine Astraea," the "unspeakable" Mrs Aphra Behn, has an indefeasible title to be considered the most faithful representative. T. Shadwell, fated, like the tragic poet Elkanah Settle, to be chiefly remembered as a victim of Dryden's satire, deserves more honourable mention. Like J. Wilson, whose plays seem to class him with the pre-Restoration dramatists, Shadwell had caught something not only of the art, but also of the spirit, of Ben Jonson; but in most of his works he was, like the rest of his earlier contemporaries, and like the brilliant group which succeeded them, content to take his moral tone from the reckless society for which, or in deference to the tastes of which, he wrote.[226] The absence of a moral sense, which, together with a grossness of expression often defying exaggeration, characterizes English comic dramatists from the days of Dryden to those of Congreve, is the main cause of their failure to satisfy the demands which are legitimately to be made upon their art. They essayed to draw character as well as to paint manners, but they rarely proved equal to the former and higher task; and, while choosing the means which most readily commended their plays to the favour of their immediate public, they achieved but little as interpreters of those essential distinctions which their art is capable of illustrating.[227] Within these limits, though occasionally passing beyond them, and always with the same deference to the immoral tone which seemed to have become an indispensable adjunct of the comic style, even the greatest comic authors of this age moved. W. Wycherley was a comic dramatist of real power, who drew his characters with vigour and distinctness, and constructed his plots and chose his language with natural ease. He lacks gaiety of spirit, and his wit is of a cynical turn. But, while he ruthlessly uncloaks the vices of his age, his own moral tone is affected by their influence in as marked a degree as that of the most light-hearted of his contemporaries.[228] The most brilliant of these was indisputably W. Congreve, who is not only one of the very wittiest of English writers, but equally excels in the graceful ease of his dialogue, and draws his characters and constructs his plots with the same masterly skill. His chief fault as a dramatist is one of excess--the brilliancy of the dialogue, whoever be the speaker, overpowers the distinction between the "humours" of his personages. Though he is less brutal in expression than "manly" Wycherley, and less coarse than the lively Sir J. Vanbrugh, licentiousness in him as in them corrupts the spirit of his comic art; but of his best though not most successful play[229] it must be allowed that the issue of the main plot is on the side of virtue. G. Farquhar, whose morality is on a par with that of the other members of this group, is inferior to them in brilliancy; but as pictures of manners in a wider sphere of life than