The main plot consists of a series of complications caused by the efforts of Longeville to unmask Leonora’s unfaithfulness to Lovemore, to whom she is engaged. She convinces Lovemore that Longeville’s efforts are the result of a plot, the purpose of which is to alienate Lovemore and Leonora so that Longeville may have her to himself; and there then follows one complication after another, until the characters are at last gathered together and Leonora is made to confess her duplicity. The situation on which the main action is based is original and highly dramatic, but in order to maintain the intrigue Cibber has had to use incidents which are marked by improbability and dramatic blindness to such an extent that the action becomes wearisome. Cibber seems to be groping for something different from the conventional Restoration intrigue. His conception is worthy of more success than he attained, but he lacked the dramatic skill and experience to carry it out. Some of the character drawing is good. Longeville and Lovemore are rather decent young men, but are no doubt too sentimental for success on the stage at this time. The Rakishes are overdrawn and farcical. The women, with the exception of Leonora, are lacking in the spontaneity and wit demanded of seventeenth and early eighteenth century heroines, and like the men are possibly too sentimental. Leonora is the intriguer and is the best drawn and most important personage in the play. Her downfall is the result of her own character and conduct, and in the disapproval of her character and actions Cibber has repeated, to some extent, views he expressed in his first play. The vulgar sub-plot which deals with Old Rakish and Young Rakish, when separated from _Woman’s Wit_ and acted in 1707 as _The School Boy_, was a greater success than the original play. With the exception of the change in the names of some of the personages, minor alterations of the dialogue, the omission of parts of the incidents, and the addition of such incidents as are necessary to make it stand by itself, the play is verbatim as it appeared when a part of _Woman’s Wit_. From the point of view of the reformation of the stage it must be confessed that _Woman’s Wit_ was not of great importance. The moral tone of the main action is high; at least virtue is rewarded and vice disgraced, and there are no amours carried on. But the sub-action, which was later transformed into _The School Boy_, is entirely opposed to both good taste and good morals, and after a series of low comedy scenes, ends with the promise of Young Rakish to Master Johnny that he will take Johnny to the playhouse, where the latter may satisfy his disappointment in the failure to marry his mother’s woman. Although notable progress in the morality of the drama had been made, as we have seen, the fact that this sub-action was successfully presented by itself shows that the taste of the theatre-going public was not yet entirely regenerate.