His own attitude, which he held from the first of his career as a dramatist, may be illustrated what he says in the Apology:[65]
“Yet such Plays (entirely my own) were not wanting at least, in what our most admired Writers seem’d to neglect, and without which, I cannot allow the most taking Play, to be intrinsically good, or to be a Work, upon which a Man of Sense and Probity should value himself: I mean when they do not, as well prodesse, as delectare, give Profit with Delight! The Utile Dolci was, of old, equally the Point; and has always been my Aim, however wide of the Mark, I may have shot my Arrow. It has often given me Amazement, that our best Authors of that time, could think the Wit, and Spirit of their Scenes, could be an Excuse for making the Looseness of them publick. The many Instances of their Talents so abused, are too glaring, to need a closer Comment, and are sometimes too gross to be recited. If then to have avoided this Imputation, or rather to have had the Interest, and Honour of Virtue always in view, can give Merit to a Play; I am contented that my Readers should think such Merit, the All, that mine have to boast of.—Libertines of mere Wit, and Pleasure, may laugh at these grave Laws, that would limit a lively Genius: But every sensible honest Man, conscious of their Truth, and Use, will give these Ralliers Smile for Smile, and shew a due Contempt for their Merriment.”
Davies tells us:[66]
“So well did Cibber, though a professed libertine through life, understand the dignity of virtue, that no comic author has drawn more delightful and striking pictures of it. Mrs. Porter, on reading a part, in which Cibber had painted virtue in the strongest and most lively colors, asked him how it came to pass, that a man, who could draw such admirable portraits of goodness, should yet live as if he were a stranger to it?—‘Madam,’ said Colley, ‘the one is absolutely necessary, the other is not.’”
Possibly this inconsistency in personal conduct and public confession explains why comedies which aimed to teach lessons of virtue were sentimental and did not ring true. The men who wrote them wrote from the head and not from the heart, influenced by a growing public demand and without real sincerity or conviction.
5. Characteristics of Restoration Comedy.
Restoration comedy up to about 1696, while it was essentially a native development, was influenced both in technique and in content by the drama to which the court had been accustomed in its exile in France. The Jonsonian comedy was developing both in the period immediately preceding the Commonwealth and during the Restoration into the same sort of thing that we have here, and Shadwell, poet laureate and especial favorite of Queen Mary, definitely took the work of Jonson as his model. The Jonsonian satire had thrown emphasis on fundamental traits of human nature, but in this later type satire is centered on manners, dress, the non-essential elements of life, though the characters continue to be embodiments of single traits. Molière, whose earliest effective follower in England was Etherege, taught the English writers of the comedy of manners to aim at polish, refinement of style and dialogue, and his influence confirmed the tendency of English comedy to follow the unities as they were then understood. Restoration comedy, then, is native Jonsonian comedy, influenced by the comedy of Molière.[67] The chief literary sources of its plots are the comedies of Beaumont and Fletcher, of Molière, of Corneille, and Spanish comedies and novels.
Though the late Elizabethans had been gross in word, there had always been in their work a tendency to punish vice and reward virtue, or at least to make vice ridiculous. But in the Restoration this grossness becomes grossness of word, character, and idea, and it is not the violator of virtue that is made ridiculous, but his victim. The Elizabethan gaiety, spontaneity, healthy overflow of spirits, become a cynicism which is absurd in its artificiality and deliberate pose. The Jonsonian reaction from earlier Elizabethan romanticism continues its advance toward realism.
The Restoration dramatist lacks the power to construct effective plots. He is able to handle his separate incidents with skill, but when it comes to sustaining an action through five acts, he fails. His chief fault lies in too great intricacy, excessive elaboration, and complexity, which are due to his endeavor to tell too many stories. In the construction of his plays he commonly takes two, and sometimes three, plays from Molière, or Beaumont and Fletcher, to form one play of his own. Hence there is in the handling of the plot a lack of unity. Furthermore, in his extreme elaboration of single situations, which one must admit have qualities to make them lively and interesting on the stage, the dramatist fails in the great essential quality of probability; if one regards the unity of time, he makes his stories impossible. Lack of sequence is caused by the constant interruption of conversation, which is brilliant and entertaining in itself, but has nothing to do with the story.
The dramatist tends to the elaboration of stock themes, dealing with the pursuit of illicit pleasure, assignations, and love intrigues. The typical story might be stated as follows: a young man is entangled with one or more women, a widow, the wife of an elderly or foolish husband, or a mistress whom he is keeping or who is keeping him, and while he is carrying on these intrigues he falls in love with the virtuous young woman he eventually wins. Sometimes his mistresses object to his marrying some one else, sometimes they do not, and in the latter case the opposing force is centered in a rapacious guardian or some other complicating person or circumstance. There are usually many minor love affairs, sometimes legitimate, sometimes not, and usually so complicated that it is difficult to keep the various threads separate. Collier did no injustice when he said that “the stage poets make their principal persons vicious and reward them at the end of the play.”