ETHERIAL, ETHERIDGE (Sir George), a celebrated wit and comic genius in the reigns of Charles II. and James II., descended from an ancient family in Oxfordshire, and born in 1636. He travelled in his youth; and, not being able to confine himself to the study of the law, devoted himself to the gayer accomplishments. His first dramatic performance, the Comical Revenge, or Love in a Tub, appeared in 1664, and introduced him to the leading wits of the time: in 1668, he produced a comedy called She would if she could; and, in 1676, he published his last comedy, called the Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter; which is perhaps the most elegant comedy, and contains more of the real manners of high life than any one the English stage was ever adorned with. This piece he dedicated to the beautiful duchess of York, in whose service he then was; and who had so high a regard for him, that when, on the accession of James II. she came to be queen, she procured his being sent ambassador first to Hamburg, and afterwards to Ratibon, where he continued till after his majesty quitted the kingdom. Our author being addicted to certain gay extravagances, had greatly impaired his fortune; to repair which, he paid his addresses to a rich widow; but she, being an ambitious woman, had determined not to condescend to a marriage with any man who could not bestow a title upon her; on which account he was obliged to purchase a knighthood. None of the writers have exactly fixed the period of Sir George's death, though all seem to place it not long after the Revolution. Some say, that on this event he followed his master king James into France, and died there; but the authors of the Biographia Britannica mention a report, that he came to an untimely death by an unlucky accident at Ratibon; for that after having treated some company with a liberal entertainment at his house there, where he had taken his glass too freely, and being, through his great complacency, too forward in waiting on his guests at their departure, flushed as he was, he tumbled down stairs and broke his neck, and so fell a martyr to mirth and jollity. As to Sir George's literary character, he certainly was born a poet, and seems to have been possessed of a genius whose vivacity needed no cultivation: for we have no proofs of his having been a scholar. His works, however, have not escaped censure on account of that licentiousness which in general runs through them, which renders them dangerous to young unguarded minds; and the more so, for the lively and genuine wit with which it is gilded over, and which has therefore justly banished them from the purity of the present stage.