Wycherley's first play, ‘Love in a Wood, or St. James's Park,’ was published in 1672, or the end of 1671, with a dedication to the Duchess of Cleveland. It was registered at Stationers' Hall on 6 Oct. 1671, and in the dedication Wycherley speaks of himself as ‘a new author’ who had never before written a dedication. He says that the duchess saw the play on two consecutive days in Lent; and assuming, as we may fairly do, that she was present at early performances, and remembering that the play ran only a few nights at the most, it seems fairly certain that ‘Love in a Wood’ was first acted in the early spring of 1671. Genest (Some Account of the English Stage, i. 134) thought that the first performance was by the king's company after their removal to Lincoln's Inn Fields at the end of February 1672, owing to the Theatre Royal having been burnt down in January. But in that case, as Mr. W. C. Ward remarks in his edition of Wycherley's plays, the first performance must have taken place later than that of the ‘Gentleman Dancing-master,’ whereas Wycherley calls himself a ‘new’ author in the dedication to ‘Love in a Wood.’ Moreover, the date of registration of the play is in itself clear evidence that it was acted before October 1671. No doubt the piece was printed towards the end of that year, with the date (in accordance with a common practice) of the following year on the title-page; it is certain that it was not published until some time after it was acted.
‘Love in a Wood’ was a successful comedy, and Dennis says it brought its author acquaintance with the wits of the court. The principal parts were taken by Hart (Ranger), Mohun (Dapperwit), Lacy (Alderman Gripe), Kinaston (Valentine), and Mrs. Knipp (Lady Flippant). The play contains many witty scenes, but is marred by its indecency and is wanting in unity; the hypocritical Alderman Gripe, and his sister, Lady Flippant, the widow who is anxious to find a husband while she declaims against matrimony, are the most important of the characters. Certain supposed resemblances in the piece to Sedley's ‘Mulberry Garden’ are discussed at length in Dr. Klette's ‘Wycherley's Leben und dramatische Werke,’ 1883. The production of this comedy secured for Wycherley the intimacy of the king's mistress, the Duchess of Cleveland. Passing Wycherley in her coach in Pall Mall, the duchess addressed to him a coarse remark in allusion to one of the songs in the play; and Wycherley, seizing the opportunity, asked her to come to the next performance; and, ‘in short, she was that night in the first row of the king's box in Drury Lane, and Mr. Wycherley in the pit under her, where he entertained her during the whole play’ (Dennis, Original Letters, 1721, i. 216–17; cf. the account given by Spence, Anecdotes, p. 13). For a long time, says Voltaire (Letters concerning the English Nation), Wycherley was ‘known to be happy in the good graces’ of the duchess; and there is a story, which seems to rest on no good ground, and is obviously improbable, that she often stole from the court to her lover's chambers in the Temple, disguised like a country girl. The intrigue seems to have caused no annoyance to Charles II, for in 1678 (or 1679), when Wycherley was ill of a fever in his lodgings in Bow Street—at the widow Hilton's, on the west side (Wheatley, London Past and Present, i. 229)—the king visited him, advised him to take change of air, and paid the expenses of the journey. George Villiers, second duke of Buckingham, one of the duchess's lovers, was at first jealous, but, through the mediation of the Earl of Rochester and Sir Charles Sedley, he became a friend, and in 1672 gave Wycherley a commission as lieutenant in his own regiment of foot (Dalton, English Army Lists, i. 120), and as master of the horse made him one of his equerries.
Wycherley's second play, ‘The Gentleman Dancing-master,’ was published in 1673. Genest (i. 136), following Downes (Roscius Anglicanus, 1708, p. 32), says that the first performance was by the duke's company at their new theatre in Dorset Gardens, near Salisbury Court, probably in December 1671 or January 1672; it ‘lasted but six days, being liked but indifferently.’ In a ‘prologue to the city’ Wycherley says the piece ‘would scarce do at t'other end o' th' town.’ Mr. W. C. Ward argues plausibly that there had probably been an earlier performance, in 1671, by the same company at their old theatre in Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. This theory accords with the words already quoted from the prologue, where Wycherley also says that the performance at Dorset Gardens in the city was ‘his last trial.’ These words, however, are capable of more than one interpretation, and the statement of Downes, the prompter, that the play was a new piece when produced at Dorset Gardens is not lightly to be set aside. The epilogue, written for the performance in Dorset Gardens, refers to ‘packing to sea,’ in allusion to the pending war with the Dutch, which was formally declared in March 1672. The ‘Gentleman Dancing-master’ is a light comedy of intrigue, concerned chiefly with the schemes of a
