THE SQUIRE AMONG HIS NEIGHBOURS. 179 



veil should not be raised in order tliat we may view 

 the past as it really was. 



The fact is, the Squire found the atmosphere 

 of the times congenial to his temperament. A very 

 popular Shropshire rake and play writer, Wycherley, 

 had done much to lower the tone of morality by 

 representing peccadilloes, not as something which 

 the violence of passion may excuse, but as accom- 

 plishments worthy of gentlemen, — his '* Country 

 Wife " and " Plain Dealer '' being examples. Con- 

 greve followed in his wake, with his "Old Bachelor," 

 which may be judged by its apothegm : — 



" What rugged ways attend the noon of life ; 

 Our sun deCiines, and with what anxious strife, 

 What pain, we tug that galling load — a wife ! " 



A fair estimato of the looseness of the time may 

 be formed from another representation : — 



" The miracle to-day is, that we find 

 A lover (rue, not that a woman's kind ; " 



and from the fact that even Pope, in his " Epistle 

 to a Lady," out of his mature experience could 

 write — 



" Mfn some to husiness, some to pleasure take, 

 But every woman is at heart a rake." 



