Love for Love
by William Congreve

More successful in its day than The Way of the World, which is now

accounted Congreve's best play, Love for Love (1695) is a comical farce

manifesting the verbal polish and the theatrical wit that audiences so

enjoy in Congreve.

Valentine, Sir Sampson's dissolute eldest son, finds

himself at a standstill; the only way out of his financial difficulties

is to give in to his father's pressure to renounce his right of

inheritance.

While this suggestion immediately increases the chances of

his bluff younger brother Ben on the marriage mart, Valentine's own

chances with his beloved Angelica would proportionally decrease.

To

avoid having to sign the renunciation Valentine puts on an 'antic

disposition' and pretends to be mad.

Angelica, seeing through him,

provokes him back into sanity by pretending to agree to marry his

father.

Valentine recovers, the lovers reunite, and Ben, too, has

meanwhile found the girl of his heart