There are many amusing passages in the _Lying Lover_, and young Bookwit is very entertaining in the earlier acts, especially in his boastful account to the ladies of his imaginary campaigns:--"There's an intimate of mine, a general officer, who has often said, 'Tom, if thou would'st but stick to any one application, thou might'st be anything.' 'Tis my misfortune, madam, to have a mind too extensive." In the second act there is a pleasant account of "the pretty merchants and their dealers" at the New Exchange, where Bookwit was bewildered by the darts and glances against which he was not impregnable; and in the third act, Penelope and Victoria, who are both fascinated by the young liar, be-patch and be-powder each other in the hope of making their rival ugly, while they profess--like their maids--to be on the closest terms of friendship. In the fourth act, after the duel, the constable remarks, "Sir, what were you running so fast for? There's a man killed in the garden, and you're a fine gentleman, and it must be you--for good honest people only beat one another." And there is an admirable scene in Newgate, where Bookwit is received with respect by highwaymen and others because he is supposed to have killed a man. An alchemist--"the ignorant will needs call it coining"--who is about to be hung, says, "Yet let me tell you, sir, because by secret sympathy I'm yours, I must acquaint you, if you can obtain the favour of an opportunity and a crucible, I can show projection--directly Sol, sir, Sol, sir, more bright than that high luminary the Latins called so--wealth shall be yours; we'll turn every bar about us into golden ingots.--Sir, can you lend me half-a-crown?" It is only in the last act that art is sacrificed to the moral purpose that Steele had in his view. The ladies repent of their mutual plottings; and Bookwit, who believes that he has killed his opponent, looks forward to death, and makes many solemn speeches, printed in blank verse, which will to a great extent account for the failure of the piece. Bookwit's father is broken-hearted; and a friend heroically declares that it was he, and not Bookwit, who killed Lovemore; whereupon Lovemore says, "I can hold out no longer," and brings matters to a happy ending by explaining that he had in reality been only slightly wounded. Hazlitt's words respecting Steele's plays are truer of the _Lying Lover_ than of the rest: "It is almost a misnomer to call them comedies; they are rather homilies in dialogues." But even in this piece there is, as we have seen, nothing that can properly be called homily except at the close. Ward has described the play more accurately, as "the first instance of sentimental comedy proper. It is attempted to produce an effect, not by making vice and folly ridiculous, but by moving compassion."