Mr Malone mentions his having seen a Ms. copy of this play, found by Lord Bolingbroke among the sweepings of Pope’s study, in which there occur several indecent passages, not to be found in the printed copy.  These, doubtless, constituted the castrations, which, in obedience to the public voice, our author expunged from his play, after its condemnation.  It is difficult to guess what could be the nature of the indecencies struck out, when we consider those which the poet deemed himself at liberty to retain.

The reader will probably easily excuse any remarks upon this comedy.  It is not absolutely without humour, but is so disgustingly coarse, as entirely to destroy that merit.  Langbaine, with his usual anxiety of research, traces back a few of the incidents to the novels of Cinthio Giraldi, and to those of some forgotten French authors.

Plays, even of this nature, being worth preservation, as containing genuine traces of the manners of the age in which they appear, I cannot but remark the promiscuous intercourse, which, in this comedy and others, is represented as taking place betwixt women of character, and those who made no pretensions to it.  Bellamira in Sir Charles Sedley’s play, and Mrs Tricksy in the following pages, are admitted into company with the modest female characters, without the least hint of exception or impropriety.  Such were actually the manners of Charles the II.d’s time, where we find the mistresses of the king, and his brothers, familiar in the highest circles.  It appears, from the evidence in the case of the duchess of Norfolk for adultery, that Nell Gwyn was living with her Grace in familiar habits; her society, doubtless, paving the way for the intrigue, by which the unfortunate lady lost her rank and reputation[2].  It is always symptomatic of a total decay of morals, where female reputation neither confers dignity, nor excites pride, in its possessor; but is consistent with her mingling in the society of the libertine and the profligate.

Some of Dryden’s libellers draw an invidious comparison betwixt his own private life and this satire; and exhort him to

  Be to vices, which he practised, kind.

But of the injustice of this charge on Dryden’s character, we have spoken fully elsewhere.  Undoubtedly he had the licence of this, and his other dramatic writings, in his mind, when he wrote the following verses; where the impurity of the stage is traced to its radical source, the debauchery of the court: 

  Then courts of kings were held in high renown,
  Ere made the common brothels of the town. 
  There virgins honourable vows received,
  But chaste, as maids in monasteries, lived. 
  The king himself, to nuptial rites a slave,
  No bad example to his poets gave;
  And they, not bad, but in a vicious age,
  Had not, to please the prince, debauched the stage.
                                   Wife of Bath’s Tale.