All nature’s charms in Sunderland appear,
  Bright as her eyes, and as her reason clear;
  Yet still their force, to men not safely known,
  Seems undiscover’d to herself alone.

  MADAMOISELLE SPANHEIME.

  Admir’d in Germany, ador’d in France,
  Your charms to brighter glory, here advance;
  The stubborn Britons own your beauty’s claim,
  And with their native toasts enroll your name.

[Footnote 1:  Collins’s Peerage.  See Article Hallifax.]

* * * * *

William wycherley, Esq;

This Gentleman was son of Daniel Wycherley, of Cleve in Shropshire, Esq; and was born (says Wood) in the year 1640.

When he was about fifteen years of age, he was sent to France, in the western parts of which he resided upon the banks of the Charante; where he was often admitted to the conversation of the most accomplished ladies of the court of France, particularly madam de Montaufieur, celebrated by mons.  Voiture in his letters[1].

A little before the restoration of Charles the IId, he became a gentleman commoner of queen’s college in Oxford, and lived in the provost’s lodgings; and was entered in the public library, under the title of philosophiae studiosus, in July 1660.  He quitted the university without being matriculated, having, according to the Oxford antiquary, been reconciled to the protestant religion, which he had renounced during his travels, probably by the person of those gay ladies, with whom he conversed in France.  This circumstance shews how dangerous it is to engage in a debate with a female antagonist, especially, if that antagonist joins beauty with understanding.

Mr. Wycherley afterwards entered himself in the Middle-Temple; but making his first appearance in town, in a reign when wit and gaiety were the favourite distinctions, he relinguished the study of the law, and engaged in pursuits more agreeable to his own genius, and the gallant spirit of the times.

Upon writing his first Play, entitled Love in a Wood, or St. James’s Park; and acted at the Theatre-royal, in 1672, he became acquainted with several of the most celebrated wits, both of the court and town; and likewise with the duchess of Cleveland.  Mr. Dennis, in his Letters quoted above, has given a particular relation of the beginning of his acquaintance with this celebrated beauty of the times, which is singular enough.—­One day Mr. Wycherley riding in his chariot through St. James’s Park, he was met by the duchess, whose chariot jostled with his, upon which she looked out of her chariot, and spoke very audibly, “You Wycherley, you are a son of a whore,” and then burst into a fit of laughter.  Mr. Wycherley at first was very much surprized at this, but he soon recovered himself enough to recollect, that it was spoke in allusion to the latter end of a Song in his Love in a Wood;

  When parents are slaves,
  Their brats cannot be any other;
  Great wits, and great braves,
  Have always a punk for their mother.