Of Mrs. Centlivre's nineteen plays, three at least are still well known, the "Busy Body," the "Wonder," and "A Bold Stroke for a Wife." When she offered the first to the players--it was her ninth play--the actors unanimously denounced it. Wilks, who had hitherto been unaccustomed to the want of straining after wit, the common sense, the unforced sprightliness, the homely nature, for which this piece is distinguished--declared that not only would it be "damned," but that the author of it could hardly expect to avoid a similar destiny;[69] and yet its triumph was undoubted, though cumulative. Hitherto the authoress had written a tragi-comedy or two, the comic scenes in which alone gave evidence of strength, but not always of delicacy. She had, in others, stolen wholesale from Molière, and the old English dramatists. She produced a continuation to the "Busy Body" in "Marplot," but we do not care for it; and it is not till her fourteenth piece, the "Wonder," appeared in 1714, that she again challenges admiration. This, too, is an adaptation; but it is superior to the "Wrangling Lovers," from which it is partly taken, and which had no such hero as the Don Felix of Wilks. The "Bold Stroke for a Wife" was first played in 1718, when the Tory public had forgiven the author for her satires against them, and the theatrical public her fresh adaptations of old scenes and stories. The "Bold Stroke for a Wife" is entirely her own, and has had a wonderful succession of Colonel Feignwells, from C. Bullock down to Mr. Braham! This piece, however, was but moderately successful; but it has such vivacity, fun, and quiet humour in it, that it has outlived many a one that began with greater triumph, and in "the real Simon Pure," first acted by Griffin, it has given a proverb to the English language. One other piece, the "Artifice," a five-act farce, played in 1722, concludes the list of plays from the pen of this industrious and gifted woman. Mrs. Centlivre had unobtrusive humour, sayings full of significance rather than wit, wholesome fun in her comic, and earnestness in her serious, characters. Mrs. Centlivre, in _her_ pictures of life, attracts the spectator. There may be, now and then, something, as in Dutch pictures, which had been as well away; but this apart, all the rest is true, and pleasant, and hearty; the grouping perfect, the colour faithful, and enduring too--despite the cruel sneer of Pope, who, in the _Life of Curll_, sarcastically alludes to her as "the cook's wife in Buckingham Court," in which vicinity to Spring Gardens, Mrs. Centlivre died in 1723. Such were the characteristics of the principal authors who led, followed, trained, or flattered the public taste of the last half of the seventeenth century, and a few of them of the first part of the century which succeeded. Before we pass onward to the stage of the eighteenth century, let us cast a glance back, and look at the quality of the audiences for whom these poets catered. FOOTNOTES: