# Mr. Horner — The Country Wife character guide

> Mr. Horner in The Country Wife by William Wycherley.

**Role:** major

**Also known as:** Horner, Harry Horner, Harry

**First appearance:** 0005-act-i

## Snapshot

A town rake who spreads word he is impotent so that husbands will hand him their wives, and who treats the whole of London as a game he has rigged.

## Who they are

Horner announces a convenient medical misfortune and watches the town's husbands relax around him, inviting him into their houses and leaving him alone with their wives. He is candid with his friend the Quack about the scheme: an impotent man may kiss virgins before their parents and visit a lady's chamber as early as her husband. His pleasure is less in any single conquest than in the stratagem itself, which makes him the engine every other character's marriage must reckon with.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_country_wife_se/characters/master_horner
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_country_wife_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_country_wife_se/characters