WILLIAM WYCHERLEY

WILLIAM WYCHERLEY (1640-1715), dramatist, born in Shropshire, of good birth, and resided for a time in Paris, being admitted to the circle of the Précieuses, but returned to England at the Restoration, and became a figure at the court; his plays were marked with the coarseness of the time, and his best were "The Country Wife" (1675) and the "Plain Dealer" (1677); married the Countess of Drogheda for her fortune, a legacy which cost him only lawsuits and imprisonment for debt; succeeded to his paternal estate when he was an old man; married again, and died immediately after.