Event Comment: The
United Company. This performance is on the
L. C. list, 5@147, p. 68. See also
Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 350. This play was also reprinted in 1686.
Memoirs of the Life of William Wycherley, Esq; With a Character of his Writings [by
George, Lord Lansdowne, but part possibly by
Charles Gildon (1718)], pp. 7-8: [After the death of
Wycherley's wife, he was committed to
Newgate for debt.] From hence he remov'd himself by a Habeas Corpus to the
Fleet, where he continued seven Years in a close Imprisonment, almost forgot by his old Friends, till in the Reign of King
James the Second, some of them bespeaking the
Plain-Dealer, got the
King to the Play, who declaring his App
robation of the Poet's Performance, they improv'd his liking so far as to get him to deliver him from his long Confinement. But here the Modesty of the Man did him a considerable Prejudice, for instead of giving in a full List of his Debts, he only mention'd those, the discharge of which wou'd set him at Liberty, which was done with this additional Bounty, that the same King allow'd him Two hundred Pounds a Years as long as he Reign'd; and this was the reason that made Mr Wycherley always a
Jacobite
Performances
Mainpiece Title: The Plain Dealer