The Beaux-Stratagem

The Beaux-Stratagem, by George
Farquhar

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Title: The Beaux-Stratagem
Author: George Farquhar
Release Date: May 5, 2007 [EBook #21334]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Produced by David Widger

THE BEAUX-STRATAGEM
By George Farquhar
'He was a delightful writer, and one to whom I should sooner recur for

relaxation and entertainment and without after-cloying and disgust,
than any of the school of which he may be said to have been the last
The Beaux-Stratagem reads quite as well as it acts: it has life,
movement, wit, humour, sweet nature and sweet temper from
beginning to end.' CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE

PREFACE
The Author. 'It is surprising,' says Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, 'how much
English Comedy owes to Irishmen.' Nearly fifty years ago Calcraft
enumerated eighty-seven Irish dramatists in a by no means exhaustive
list, including Congreve, Southerne, Steele, Kelly, Macklin, and
Farquhar--the really Irish representative amongst the dramatists of the
Restoration, the true prototype of Goldsmith and Sheridan. Thoroughly
Irish by birth and education, Captain George Farquhar (1677-1707) had
delighted the town with a succession of bright, rattling comedies--Love
and a Bottle (1698), The Constant Couple (1699), Sir Harry Wildair
(1701), The Inconstant (1702), The Twin Rivals (1702), The Recruiting
Officer (1706). In an unlucky moment, when hard pressed by his debts,
he sold out of the army on the strength of a promise by the Duke of
Ormond to gain him some preferment, which never came. In his misery
and poverty, with a wife and two helpless girls to support, Farquhar
was not forsaken by his one true friend, Robert Wilks. Seeking out the
dramatist in his wretched garret in St Martin's Lane, the actor advised
him no longer to trust to great men's promises, but to look only to his
pen for support, and urged him to write another play. 'Write!' said
Farquhar, starting from his chair; 'is it possible that a man can write
with common-sense who is heartless and has not a shilling in his
pockets?' 'Come, come, George,' said Wilks, 'banish melancholy, draw
up your drama, and bring your sketch with you to-morrow, for I expect
you to dine with me. But as an empty purse may cramp your genius, I
desire you to accept my mite; here is twenty guineas.' Farquhar set to
work, and brought the plot of his play to Wilks the next day; the later
approved the design, and urged him to proceed without delay. Mostly
written in bed, the whole was begun, finished, and acted within six
weeks. The author designed to dedicate it to Lord Cadogan, but his

lordship, for reasons unknown, declined the honour; he gave the
dramatist a handsome present, however. Thus was The
Beaux-Stratagem written. Farquhar is said to have felt the approaches
of death ere he finished the second act. On the night of the first
performance Wilks came to tell him of his great success, but mentioned
that Mrs. Oldfield wished that he could have thought of some more
legitimate divorce in order to secure the honour of Mrs. Sullen. 'Oh,'
said Farquhar, 'I will, if she pleases, solve that immediately, by getting
a real divorce; marrying her myself, and giving her my bond that she
shall be a widow in less than a fortnight' Subsequent events practically
fulfilled this prediction, for Farquhar died during the run of the play: on
the day of his extra benefit, Tuesday, 29th April 1707, the plaudits of
the audience resounding in his ears, the destitute, broken-hearted
dramatist passed to that bourne where stratagems avail not any longer.
Criticism of The Beaux-Stratagem. Each play that Farquhar produced
was an improvement on its predecessors, and all critics have been
unanimous in pronouncing The Beaux-Stratagem his best, both in the
study and on the stage, of which it retained possession much the
longest. Except The Recruiting Officer and The Inconstant, revived at
Covent Garden in 1825, and also by Daly in America in 1885, non of
Farquhar's other plays has been put on the stage for upwards of a
century. Hallam says: 'Never has Congreve equalled The
Beaux-Stratagem in vivacity, in originality of contrivance, or in clear
and rapid development of intrigue'; and Hazlitt considers it 'sprightly
lively, bustling, and full of point and interest: the assumed disguise of
Archer and Aimwell is a perpetual amusement to the mind.' The
action--which commences, remarkably briskly, in the evening and ends
about midnight the next day--never flags for an