The Lady of Pleasure
Lady of Pleasure, The,a comedy by J. Shirley , acted 1635 , printed 1637 .
In the central plot Lady Bornwell is cured of her desire to live a life of thoughtless pleasure, partly by the discovery of the worthlessness of her foppish suitors and partly by her husband's pretence that he too means to live extravagantly. The play's scenes of fashionable conversation, the contrast between the manners of the true gentleman and lady of the sub-plot and the affected main-plot characters, and the rapid transformation of the scholarly bashfulness of Lady Bornwell's nephew Frederick into town debauchery, are a cross between Jonson 's comedy of humours and Restoration comedy of manners ; the moral tone of the ending, in which Lady Bornwell decides to return to the country, contrasts with the largely amoral tone of much that has gone before.
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