GEORGE, a comic dramatist of the school of Wycherley and Congreve, was a native of Ireland, the son of a clergyman in Londonderry, and born in the year 1678. He early rose into distinction, and his brief successful career was closed before he was thirty. In his sixteenth year he was entered at Trinity College, Dublin; in his seventeenth he was an actor on the Dublin stage; in his eighteenth he had quitted the theatrical profession and was in London; and in his twentieth year his first play, Love and a Bottle, was brought out with applause at Drury Lane. His connection with the stage as an actor was suddenly terminated in consequence of an accident. While performing in Dryden's Indian Emperor, he had omitted to exchange his sword for a foil, and in a fencing scene seriously wounded a brother actor. The latter recovered, but the young and sensitive author of the misfortune resolved to leave the stage for ever. In less than nine years Farquhar had produced seven popular comedies,—his Love and a Bottle; The Constant Couple, or a Trip to the Jubilee; Sir Harry Wildair, a sequel to The Constant Couple; The Inconstant, or the Way to Win Him; The Twin Rivals; The Recruiting Officer; and The Beaux Stratagem. He also published (1702) a volume of Miscellanies, consisting of short poems, letters, and essays, with a Discourse upon Comedy, in which he defends the English disregard of the dramatic unities. The poems and letters are in that style of affected licentious gallantry and smartness which was then thought witty and fashionable. They have no redeeming feature. The letters are said to have been addressed to Mrs Oldfield, the celebrated actress whom Pope, in his imitation of the second satire of the first book of Horace, happily characterizes, as—

Engaging Oldfield: who, with grace and ease, Could join the arts to ruin and to please.

The stage at this time was but slightly purified from the grossness and immorality that had overflowed the theatres like a spring-tide flood at the period of the Restoration; and neither the lives nor the writings of dramatic authors or performers will bear a close scrutiny. Farquhar is less designedly and elaborately immoral than Wycherley or Congreve, yet there are few of his scenes that do not require pruning or excision. Love intrigues then formed the chief business of the comic drama; and in the management of them, the homely domestic virtues that are the happiness and cement of society were totally disregarded, or made the subject of ridicule. Seriousness was synonymous with hypocrisy, and the gaeties of a town life were held up as the end and aim of existence. It is true that the world of comedy was an artificial world,—never, perhaps, regarded as real, or as a pattern of morals or manners; but the effect of such representations was to lower and corrupt the national taste and principles, while the fact that no pursuit was so profitable to an author as writing for the stage was also injurious to our imaginative literature. Considering the standard of taste and morals at the time Farquhar wrote, and for half a century afterwards, of which the Suffolk Correspondence, Lord Hervey's Memoirs of the Court, and other works, afford ample evidence, we need not wonder at the success of his plays. His plots are skilfully conducted and evolved, his situations well chosen, and his dialogue full of life and spirit. Goldsmith preferred Farquhar to Congreve, while Pope considered him a mere farce writer. The truth lies between the two. Congreve was the more polished and consummate artist,—his wit is brilliant and cutting as a diamond. Farquhar is easy, natural, and lively,—overflowing as it were with animal spirits and robust health. In the delineation of character he is eminently happy. His Sergeant Kite, Scrub, Archer, and Boniface, are distinct, pronounced characters, that still charm from their freshness and originality; while the incidents with which they are mixed up—the unexpected encounters, artifices, and disguises—are irresistibly comic and effective on the stage. The personal history of Farquhar is that of a careless dissipated "man upon town." He received from the Earl of Orrery a commission as lieutenant in his lordship's regiment, and is said to have given proof of conduct and courage as a soldier. In what service he was employed is not stated, but he could not have had any arduous military duty. The stage, not the tented field, was his scene of action. He appears, however, to have been in Holland in 1700, as one of his letters is dated from the Brill and another from Leyden. He took pains to conciliate patrons by flattering dedications prefixed to his plays, and he attempted to better his fortunes by marriage. Some lady, we are told, conceived a violent passion for him, and circulated a report that she had a large fortune. Farquhar fell into the snare, he married the lady, and found out too late his mistake; but he had the magnanimity, it is said, to pardon a deception that must have appeared a compliment to his genius. There was, however, something to forgive on his own part for snatching so readily at the gilded bait, contrary to all the rules of love and the drama. He was always in difficulties. He was forced to sell his commission; and after finishing his last and best play, The Beaux Stratagem, in six weeks, while death was impending over him, he left his two children to the care of Wilks the actor. "Dear Bob," he said in a farewell epistle, "I have not anything to leave thee to perpetuate my memory, but two helpless girls; look upon them sometimes, and think of him that was to the last moment of his life thine, George Farquhar." Wilks did not forget the melancholy request, but he probably had little to give. One daughter became a servant, and the other married a "low tradesman," while the mother lived and died in the utmost poverty. Thus the life of Farquhar, spent as a jest, became in the end a sad and instructive reality. He died in London, and the parish register of St Martin's-in-the-Fields obscurely records his burial in this fashion,—"23 May, 1707. George Falkner."