The scene in the second act, between Olivia, her cousin, and the two "pretty fellows," Novel and Plausible, was suggested by a dialogue between Célimène and her admirers, in the second act of _Le Misanthrope_, but the detail is almost entirely Wycherley's own, and is enlivened with such diverting antitheses and such brilliant fancy that, perhaps, few scenes more masterly are to be found in the entire range of English comedy from the time of the Restoration downwards. In this scene occurs the critique upon _The Country Wife_, of which the hint was taken from Molière's _Critique de l'Ecole des Femmes_. It is here introduced with great felicity, and the contrast between the affected prudery of the vicious Olivia and the simple candour of the truly modest Eliza is both just and edifying. Again, the discovery by Novel and Plausible of the duplicity of Olivia, by means of an exchange of letters, is borrowed from the _dénouement_ of _Le Misanthrope_; but the scene in which it occurs owes little to Molière beyond the incident; and the humorous device of making each letter, _mutato nomine_, the exact counterpart of the other, belongs to Wycherley alone. One or two more particular coincidences between _The Plain Dealer_ and _Le Misanthrope_ will be pointed out in the notes. The admirably conceived character of the Widow Blackacre has been described as a copy of that of the Countess in Racine's comedy, _Les Plaideurs_, surely, in the first instance, by one of those critics with whom "most authors steal their works, or buy." There is a litigious old woman in _Les Plaideurs_, there is a litigious old woman in _The Plain Dealer_; and here the likeness begins and ends.[90] Voltaire calls the Widow Blackacre "the most comical character that was ever brought upon the stage." Lastly, although Fidelia is imitated from Shakespeare's Viola, and although the imitation is immeasurably and at all points inferior to the original, it must be admitted, nevertheless, that she fills her place in the play with perfect propriety, and is even drawn with some not inconsiderable degree of sweetness and pathos. TO MY LADY B----.[91] Madam,--