Compare Plautus's Roman matron and Molière's honest Frenchwoman with this expansive female (Louis XIV and Mme. de Montespan were not very decent either. See "Mémoires de Saint-Simon.")--Tr.]
[Footnote 265: Himself a Huguenot, who had become a Roman Catholic, and the husband of Julie d'Angennes, for whom the French poets composed the celebrated "Guirlande."--Tr.]
[Footnote 266: "The Dramatic Works of Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar," ed. Leigh Hunt, 1840. Dedication of "Love in a Wood" to her Grace the Duchess of Cleveland.]
[Footnote 268: "The Country Wife," V. 4.]
[Footnote 269: Read the epilogue, and see what words and details authors dared then to put in the mouths of actresses.]
[Footnote 270: "That spark, who has his fruitless designs upon the bed-ridden rich widow, down to the sucking heiress in her... clout.--Love in a Wood," I. 2.
Mrs. Flippant: "Though I had married the fool, I thought to have reserved the wit as well as other ladies."--Ibid.
Dapperwit: "I will contest with no rival, not with my old rival your coachman."--Ibid.
"She has a complexion like a Holland cheese, and no more teeth left, than such as give a haut goût to her breath."--Ibid. II. 1.]
[Footnote 273: The letter of Agnes, in Molière's "L'École des Femmes," III. 4, begins thus: "Je veux vous écrire, et je suis bien en peine par où je m'y prendrai. J'ai des pensées que je désirerais que vous sussiez; mais je ne sais comment faire pour vous les dire, et je me défie de mes paroles," etc. Observe how Wycherley translates it: "Dear, sweet Mr. Horner, my husband would have me send you a base, rude, unmannerly letter; but I won't--and would have me forbid you loving me; but I won't--and would have me say to you, I hate you, poor Mr. Horner; but I won't tell a lie for him--for I'm sure if you and I were in the country at cards together, I could not help treading on your toe under the table, or rubbing knees with you, and staring in your face, till you saw me, and then looking down, and blushing for an hour together," etc.--"Country Wife," IV. 2.]
[Footnote 274: In the "Gentleman Dancing-Master."]
[Footnote 275: "The Plain Dealer," II. 1.]
[Footnote 276: "The Plain Dealer," IV. 2.]
[Footnote 278: "The Plain Dealer," V. 1.]