I have now noticed all that has appeared in print of Wycherley's authorship beyond his letters to Pope (which possess at least the merit of occasioning Pope's letters to Wycherley), and a few letters of earlier date, published by Dennis,[3] which contain, however, nothing of more consequence than a string of extravagant and affected encomiums upon his correspondent. Something remains to be said on the subject of our author's personal character, which I shall endeavour to set in a juster light than that in which it is presented by Macaulay, whose vivid scrutiny, like a strong torch-light, brings out the worse parts into sharp relief, while it leaves the better in dense obscurity. It is not to be doubted that Wycherley participated in the fashionable follies and vices of the age in which he lived. His early intrigue with the Duchess of Cleveland was notorious. The license of his own writings is a standing witness against him, and the indecency of some of the verses which he published in his old age proves that his mind reverted to the scenes of his youth with feelings other than those of a repentant sinner. Yet in accepting the evidence of Wycherley's writings we should beware of over-rating its importance. Dryden's character is well known as that of a modest and excellent man; yet Dryden occasionally produced passages abundantly obscene. Libertinism was the fashion of the age, and although the fashion had somewhat changed when Wycherley published his _Miscellany-Poems_, we can feel little surprise that the productions of an aged and infirm man should be redolent rather of the days when he was crowned with honours and sated with success, than of those later years of ill-health and obscurity. In this man's composition the clay was assuredly mingled with pure metal. Nothing in the testimony of his contemporaries is so striking as the tone of affection and esteem which they continually assume in speaking of him. Dryden writes to John Dennis that he has laid aside his intention of commenting upon some friend's purpose of marriage; "for, having had the Honour to see my Dear Friend Wycherley's Letter to him on that occasion, I find nothing to be added or amended. But as well as I love Mr. Wycherley, I confess I love myself so well, that I will not shew how much I am inferior to him in Wit and Judgment, by undertaking anything after him."[4] And Dryden's regard was gratefully and cordially reciprocated. In his first letter to Wycherley Pope refers to the high satisfaction which he experienced in hearing the old dramatist, at their very first meeting, "doing justice to his dead friend, Mr. Dryden." Wycherley's own epistle, in verse, to the great poet I have already mentioned; it is filled with expressions, sincere if exaggerated, of regard and admiration; and long after Dryden's death, in an essay[5] which appeared not until its author had, himself, been years in his grave, Wycherley writes of "my once good friend, Mr.