The leading characters of Restoration comedy, from Etherege to Vanbrugh, are consciously and almost professionally wits.

The subject is a large one, and has never been fully handled, but readers may be referred to the present editor's Dryden, pp. 18-20; and still more to an essay on Sir George Etherege by Mr. E.W. Gosse in the Cornhill Magazine for March 1881.ED.