FARQUHAR

(fair’kar), George, Trish playwright, was born jn London derry in 1677, and died in 1707. He was for a short time at Trinity College, Dubith, but was, according to one account, sent down for making a profane though clever joke on the miracle of walking on the sea. He became an actor, but left the stage after inadvertently injuring a fellow-actor, owing to his forgetting to substitute a stages word for the genuine article. He produced his first comedy, Love and a Bottle, in 1698. Ibis a lively and amusing comedy, and was well received. The Constant Couple (1699) was also succe ful, as was its sequel Sir Harry Wildair. His other best-known plays are The Recruiting Officer (1706), and his masterpiece The Beaux’ Stratagem (1707), written when he knew that death was fast approaching him. Farquhar was in dire poverty most of his life; he had a commi ion in the army for a while, but gave it up owing to some false hopes of promotion held out by the Duke of Ormond. He increased his embarra ments by narrying in 1703 a pennile woman who had fallen in love with his appearance, and pretended to be an heire . Although he lived and died in great distre , his gaiety never flagged; and The Beaux’ Stratagem is one of the mest mirthfal comedies of the time. Farquhar was a great playwright, and not much of a literary man. i comedies are all good acting comedies. He had been an actor himself, and so was much more closely in touch with the stage than the aristocratic Congreve. Farquhar stands above his contemporaries by reason of his realism. He did not go to other dramatists for his characters, but went straight Indeed, in several cases his pave seem to have been in part autoiographical; the bard was the hero to life. of the story. the with cynical 380 His His plots are well constructed, especially his later ones. His characters are most of them genial rogues, and while he is no Puritan his morality compares very favourably indecency of his FARRAR contemporaries. His influence upon Fielding, and therefore upon the rise and development of the English novel, was great, as he introduced a return to real models, and eschewed artificiality. Personally Farquhar was @ most loveable man, and he appears to have lived and died a very gallant gentleman.