Elizabeth InchbaldREMARKS [on A Bold Stroke for a Wife].¹
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Susannah Centlivre, the writer of this play, says of it, in her Dedication to the Duke of Wharton:— All that I have to assert in favour of this piece is, that the plot is entirely new, and the incidents wholly owing to my own invention; not borrowed from our own, or translated from the works of any foreign poet; so that they have at least the charm of novelty to recommend them.²

It would at present be more honourable to the authoress, that a reader should believe she had inconsiderately adopted the scenes of another, in the following play, than invented them herself. Still, in that supposition, much blame would attach to her taste and morality for the choice she had made in the adoption.³

It is deeply to be lamented, that, at the time the most ingenious and witty of the English dramatists lived, there was no restraint, as at this period, upon the immorality of the stage. Plays would have come down to the present age, under such restrictions, less brilliant in humour and repartee, with fewer eulogiums from the admirers of wit; but with fewer reproaches from the wise and the good, upon the evil tendency of the dramatic art.

The happy effect of the moral dramas of this æra, in impressing those persons with just sentiments who attend no other place of instruction but a theatre, has not yet erased from the mind of the prejudiced former ill consequences, from former plays.b 2[Page 4]

Mrs. Centlivre, as a woman, falls more particularly under censure than her cotemporary writers:—though her temptations, to please the degraded taste of the public, were certainly more vehement than those of the authors, who wrote at that time; for they were men whose fortunes were not wholly dependent on their mental exertions; yet, the virtue of fortitude is expected from a female, when delicacy is the object which tries it; and the authoress of this comedy should have laid down her pen, and taken, in exchange, the meanest implement of labour, rather than have imitated the licentious example given her by the renowned poets of those days.

That Mrs. Centlivre was unfortunate from her birth, an orphan in her tender years, and a friendless wanderer at that age when most she required protection,⁴ has been already related in the sketch of her life affixed to her comedy of the "Busy Body:" the difficulties under which she had to struggle for subsistence, may plead some excuse to the indulgent, for her having in this one production, out of those which now keep a place upon the stage, applied to that disgraceful support of her Muse, to which her own sex of those times did not blush to attend as auditors. Nor can her offence be treated with excessive rigour in reference to the present time by those, who consider, that this very play of "A bold Stroke for a Wife," is now frequently performed to an elegant, yet applauding audience.

The authoress has displayed high dramatic talents in the conception and execution of the various characters and incidents with which this play abounds.[Page 5] Herein the genius of Mrs. Centlivre consisted—the dialogue of her dramas might be given by a common writer, but her fable and events are proofs of a very extraordinary capacity.

But, in this comedy, however fertile her imagination has been in forming a multiplicity of occurrences, and diversifying the whole exhibition by variety of character, probability is so often violated, that the effect, though powerful, is that of farce, and not genuine comedy.

To admire Mrs. Centlivre as her talents deserve, it is necessary to read, or to see, her "Wonder, or a Woman keeps a Secret."

The following comedy was brought upon the stage in 1717, when the authoress was in her thirty-eighth year.⁵ She enjoyed at that time the intimacy and friendship of Farquhar, Rowe, Steele, and other men of letters, to whom her conversation was highly delightful; as it is said, she had more wit and repartee in herself, than she ever gave to her dramatic characters.

Congreve, who lived in her time, in an exception among the literary men who courted her acquaintance; for he had the humility to be jealous of the favour with which her works were received by the public.⁶

The "Bold Stroke for a Wife" is the drama on which the well known prediction of Wilkes, the celebrated comedian, was delivered, upon his hearing it read previous to its rehearsal. As the first part of that prediction failed,—so is it ardently to be hoped, did the last.⁷

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